Category: News

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 39 Stories.

1 Iraq attacks kill 30, provincial governor wounded

by Bassim al-Anbari, AFP

Wed Dec 30, 7:48 am ET

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

This Sunday’s Edition is being brought to you, one more time, by TMC. Hopefully ek hornbeck has survived the Holiday in Stars Hollow and will return to the news to its regular format. It was fun. 😉

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – There is no initial evidence that the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a U.S. passenger jet was involved in a larger plot, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday.

But al Qaeda involvement is a “subject of investigation” in Friday’s incident, U.S. homeland security chief Janet Napolitano said after U.S. authorities on Saturday charged Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, with attempting to blow up the plane by setting alight an explosive device attached to his body.

The suspect, who was being treated for burns at a Michigan hospital, was overpowered by passengers and crew on the Northwest Airlines plane from Amsterdam on Christmas Day with almost 300 people on board.

“Well, right now we have no indication that it is part of anything larger. But obviously the investigation continues. And we have instituted more screening and what we call mitigation measures at airports,” U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

Asked whether al Qaeda was involved in the incident, Napolitano told ABC’s “This Week” program, “That is now the subject of investigation, and it would be inappropriate for me to say and inappropriate to speculate. So we will let the FBI and the criminal justice system now do their work.”

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

1 Suicide attack at Pakistan Shiite procession kills 30

by Hasan Mansoor, AFP

Mon Dec 28, 11:43 am ET

Wed Dec 23, 1:22 pm ET

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Arsonists set fire early on Wednesday to a giant straw statue of the Swedish Yule goat, a forerunner to Santa Claus in Sweden, defying security measures for a third year in a row.

Police in Gavle, north of Stockholm, said an unknown number of attackers had torched the goat in the early morning hours, leaving a blackened skeleton standing in the town square.

“It’s a tradition to burn it down,” Lofberg said. “It’s happened an untold number of times since the 1960s … it’s been burned down more years than it’s survived.”

Burning the goat has been a popular, and illegal, tradition in Gavle since the 1960s when an advertising executive first came up with the idea to endow the city with a giant replica of the goat, a Christmas decoration common in many Swedish homes.

There were no witnesses, but a bottle of lighter fluid was found near the goat’s frame, which stood about 12 meters tall at the apex of its horns, police told Reuters.

OK, Dear Hearts, take it away. Feel free to add anything wierd, odd or just plain too stupid to be believed. This is a Weird Open Thread

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

This Saturday’s Edition is being brought to you by TMC, so ek hornbeck can sleep late on his GrandDad’s red leather couch at his family’s Lake House for the Holiday. Buhdy, E.K., NPK, Mishima, OTB & All you DharmaDarlings, Happy Holiday to you and your families.

PATONG, Thailand (Reuters) – Thousands of candles lit up Thailand’s Patong beach, thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marched and people held vigils as Asia marked the fifth anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami on Saturday.

Hundreds of lanterns floated into the sky at Patong in one of many events across the region in memory of one of history’s worst natural disasters when towering waves crashed ashore with little warning, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries.

“We came here to remember those who died,” said Sainamphueng Kachan, 32, who lost 20 friends in the tsunami and was among the tourists, mourners and tsunami survivors gathered in bustling Patong to light candles dug into holes in the beach.

In Indonesia’s Banda Aceh, about 100 people took part in a prayer ceremony close to a fishing boat that landed on the rooftop of a two-storey house after being swept miles inland.

Indonesia was the worst hit with more than 166,000 dead and missing. Massive reconstruction aid in Banda Aceh has rebuilt a new city on top of the ruins but survivors are only now putting memories of the disaster behind them.

I have a personal interest is the anniversary of this disaster since I spent 5 months there.

Just when things are looking about as down for me as they can get, I find the bottom dropping out again.  I am currently registered with Cuyahoga Community College for the spring semester, reliant on what financial aid I can get to pay for classes and transportation, as well as food when money allows.  I can’t get a job.  Often,I must raid the student food bank just to have enough to eat for the week.

This past semester I learned that my financial aid would be cut off because I had reached the maximum number of course credit hours (93), and would have to file an appeal for further financial assistance.  I did that, got the paperwork months ago, got it filled out, but was told repeatedly by the financial aid office to wait until December, when grades were due to be posted.  So I handed the paperwork in on December 8th, when I was told to, and was informed that it would be two weeks for the process to be completed.

I found out yesterday that the process may take another two weeks or more, partly because of the holidays and partly because FAFSA has decided to take its sweet time.  I have until January 6th to make payment arrangements with the campus business office so I can remain registered for courses.  If I am not approved, or if I haven’t made payment arrangements by the 6th, I will be dropped from my courses and will receive no money from FAFSA.  Payment arrangements must be made with a deposit up front.

This isn’t simply a matter of wanting to remain in school to finish up the required courses to earn my degree.  It’s quite literally a matter of survival.  Because I can’t get a job (no one will hire me), financial aid is all I have to live on.  Without it, I have no money for food, no money to pay for my telephone and Internet connection – I need at least a phone line for prospective employers to get a hold of me, no money for transportation, to say nothing of money for classes and textbooks.  Everything depends on the dubious mercy of FAFSA getting around to reviewing my appeal some time after the first of the year.

So I am typing this entry now, at a public library terminal, reduced to begging you for money, food, and any job postings on Cleveland, Ohio’s west side.  Bear in mind that the only transportation I now have is my own two feet after the 31st of this month, so it has to be within a reasonable walking distance from where I live.

I am willing to provide my full name and mailing address for those of you able to donate money, food, or both.  PayPal locked me out, and I have no other online means of accepting donations.  You can reach me by e-mail here: [email protected]

I’m in a pretty dire situation, so anyone able to help out please do so.  I’m not too proud to beg, not after more than two straight years of unemployment and existing each and every day under the threat of homelessness and starvation.

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

1 Iran clashes after Montazeri funeral

by Hiedeh Farmani, AFP

Mon Dec 21, 10:30 am ET

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

This Sunday’s Edition is being brought to you by TMC, so ek hornbeck can bake cookies.

The Top News Story



East Coast hammered by severe winter storm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A weekend nor’easter buried much of the U.S. East Coast on Saturday and Sunday, disrupting public transport and air travel and hampering holiday shoppers on the last weekend before Christmas.

Up to 22 inches of snow was expected by Saturday night in the Baltimore-Washington area, more than any snowstorm to hit the region since February 2003, as the storm system moved north into New York and New England.

With snow falling at a rate of two inches an hour, most flights were canceled at the three major Washington-area airports before two of them, Reagan and BWI, were closed until Sunday morning. Delays and cancellations also hit Philadelphia’s international airport.

The driving snowstorm did not stop U.S. senators from convening and Democrats secured the pivotal 60th vote of holdout Senator Ben Nelson needed to ensure passage of the healthcare overhaul bill by Christmas.

But the storm could take a big bite out of retail sales on one of the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty declared a snow emergency and asked District of Columbia residents to keep off the streets as the U.S. capital faced what one TV station dubbed “The Shopper Stopper Storm.”

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

Now with everything except Time U.S. News.  53 Stories.

1 Climate deal passed amid condemnation, disappointment

by Richard Ingham, AFP

2 hrs 57 mins ago

Another piece of bullshit fail from Obama.

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

1 Thieves steal infamous Auschwitz death camp sign

AFP

1 hr 57 mins ago

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

1 Forests offer first hope out of climate deadlock

by Richard Ingham, AFP

40 mins ago

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

37 Top Stories!

1 Eyes of the world are on you, UN chief tells climate summit

by Chris Otton, AFP

1 hr 14 mins ago