Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
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1 Candidates to press Petraeus on Iraq war
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago
WASHINGTON – When Army Gen. David Petraeus delivers his assessment of the Iraq war next week, the next commander in chief will weigh in as well.
Republican Sen. John McCain will get a chance to argue that last year’s U.S. troop buildup has been a success and withdrawal would be a mistake. Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama will have an opportunity to ask why the United States is still fighting more than five years after the invasion.
All three presidential contenders serve on Senate panels that will hear and question the top U.S. military commander in Iraq when he testifies Tuesday. McCain and Clinton serve on the Armed Services Committee; Obama is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. |
2 Zimbabwe opposition reluctant on runoff
By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer
51 minutes ago
HARARE, Zimbabwe – Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai called Saturday on President Robert Mugabe to step down and accused the country’s longtime ruler of plotting a campaign of violence to bolster his chances of winning an expected runoff.
Amid increasing signs of a government crackdown, armed police barred opposition officials from filing a suit demanding the publication of the results from the March 29 presidential election. The opposition promised to try again Sunday.
“Mugabe must accept that the country needs to move forward. He cannot hold the country to ransom. He is the problem not the solution,” said Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change. |
3 Bush, Putin begin farewell talks
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
39 minutes ago
SOCHI, Russia – President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin opened suspenseful farewell talks Saturday as the White House dropped hopes they would resolve differences on U.S. missile defense plans, one of the most contentious issues in a long list of security disputes.
They opened their meeting with a warm handshake and smiles at Putin’s heavily wooded retreat on the Black Sea. Putin took Bush to the second floor of his guesthouse to show off a tabletop display of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will be held here. “This is your yacht,” he joked to Bush, pointing at a 3-inch white ship on a blue patch representing the water. Bush chuckled.
In a speech in Croatia before arriving, Bush raised a sensitive point by praising the spread of Western-style democracy across Eastern Europe to Russia’s borders. It is matter of considerable concern to the Kremlin as it watches the rapidly growing NATO military alliance push against its door. |
4 Bush sees NATO future for Macedonia and all Balkans
By Matt Spetalnick and Igor Ilic, Reuters
Sat Apr 5, 6:22 AM ET
ZAGREB (Reuters) – President George W. Bush reassured Macedonia on Saturday that the United States believed it should join NATO as soon as possible.
The Macedonians walked out of this week’s NATO summit when Greece blocked their invitation because of a long-running dispute over the country’s name, which is that of Greece’s northern province, birthplace of Greek hero Alexander the Great.
In a speech in Croatia, which was invited on Thursday to join the Western military alliance with Albania, Bush said he hoped Macedonia would join NATO, along with former Yugoslav republics Bosnia, Montenegro and perhaps Serbia. |
5 France uses Olympics to pressure China on Tibet
by Karl Malakunas, AFP
29 minutes ago
BEIJING (AFP) – France stepped up the pressure on China Saturday over its handling of the Tibet crisis with an apparent warning that President Nicolas Sarkozy may boycott the Olympic opening following fresh violence.
The warning, delivered by one of Sarkozy’s ministers in the Le Monde newspaper, came as International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said he saw “no momentum” for a boycott of the summer Games.
Sarkozy will only attend the opening ceremony if China opens dialogue with exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and frees political prisoners, French Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade was quoted saying. |
6 G8 countries weigh up aid promises
by Kyoko Hasegawa, AFP
Sat Apr 5, 8:32 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) – The Group of Eight industrialised nations on Saturday agreed to send a “strong message” to back growth in poor countries, and cautioned themselves to meet donation pledges, officials said.
G8 development officials began a two-day ministerial meeting here on how to ease suffering in Africa and other impoverished states as well as bolster their efforts in foreign development aid.
They also held a meeting with their counterparts from fast growing economies such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa. |
7 Behind the Senate deal on housing relief
By Gail Russell Chaddock, The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Apr 4, 4:00 AM ET
Washington – It took the Federal Reserve just 96 hours to react to the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns. It’s that rescue on Wall Street that’s driving momentum on Capitol Hill for quick relief for the housing crisis on Main Street.
Senators got an earful from constituents over a two-week break, especially the disconnect between the Fed’s $29 billion plan to facilitate the sale of Bear Stearns and the lack of meaningful relief for financially stressed homeowners. Within hours of a return to Washington, Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle put a stalled housing relief bill on the fast track, dropping cherished positions to do so.
The $15 billion housing package includes billions in tax breaks for home builders, block grants and tax breaks for the purchase of foreclosed properties, and $100 million in counseling for homeowners facing foreclosure. |
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8 Deadly ape heart disease puzzles zoos
By TODD LEWAN, AP National Writer
38 minutes ago
Mopie looked the picture of ape fitness: His shoulders were broad and imposing, his silver-haired back sculpted and muscular, his biceps bulging as wide as a wrestler’s thighs when he scratched his head.
He had a healthy appetite (he’d put away 7 pounds of food daily) and Mopie was no couch gorilla, either: He’d nimbly scale the mesh of his enclosures at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., playfully chase the younger gorillas, and perch himself high in an outdoor maple, as if to show the world he was the king of the Great Ape House.
“The unique thing about Mopie was how extremely handsome he was,” says Lisa Stevens, curator of primates and giant pandas at the National Zoo, and whenever the silverback sat, proudly, in the exhibit’s trees, “it just added to his impressiveness.” |
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9 Ballmer sets deadline for Yahoo to accept deal
Reuters
17 minutes ago
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) has three weeks to accept Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT.O) $31 per share cash-and-stock offer or Microsoft will mount a proxy battle to win investor support for the takeover, Microsoft said on Saturday.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a letter dated April 5 and addressed to Yahoo’s board of directors that “now is the time” to negotiate final terms of a deal, one which would mark the biggest takeover yet in the high-tech industry.
“If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors,” Ballmer wrote. |
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10 Huge job losses set off recession alarms
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
2 hours, 56 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – It’s no longer a question of recession or not. Now it’s how deep and how long. Workers’ pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months.
For the third month in a row total U.S. employment rolls shrank – often a telltale sign that the economy has jolted dangerously into reverse.
At the same time, the jobless rate rose three-tenths of a percentage point, a sharp increase usually associated with times of deep economic stress. |
11 Nepal prepares for end of monarchy
by MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 42 minutes ago
KATMANDU, Nepal – It was a surprising sight in a land grown accustomed to surprises: the king at the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz, driving himself and his queen through the crowded streets of Katmandu.
“He was in the front seat! In traffic!” said Krishna Chetri, a 56-year-old shop owner.
“Where’s the majesty?” he asked. “This is something I never would have believed.”
In this Himalayan land, the Shah dynasty of kings reputed to be reincarnated Hindu gods is being pushed to possible extinction by the fallout from a decade-long communist rebellion and King Gyanendra’s own autocratic ways. |
12 Russia has first post-Soviet baby boom
By DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 45 minutes ago
MOSCOW – When they decided to have their first child, Alexander Gorlov and Laila Simanova discovered that something new was afoot in post-Soviet Russia: a baby boom.
Simanova, 31, now five months pregnant, said she was surprised by how many of her friends were becoming pregnant as well. When she signed up with the Pre-Natal Medical Center in Moscow, she found it swamped with expectant mothers.
“The doctors said when they opened two years ago, we could have played football in the halls,” she said. “Now there are queues. When you call you can’t get through. The line is always busy.” |
13 European unions protest over pay
By Brian Love and Manca Ulcar, Reuters
2 hours, 1 minute ago
LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Slovenia’s capital on Saturday to denounce low pay and corporate greed across Europe as politicians and central bankers called for wage restraint to combat inflation.
At a time of surging food and energy prices worldwide, the European Trade Union Confederation organized what it described as a show of anger and determination to improve on the “poverty wages” of more than 30 million workers across the continent.
“This is a protest against the situation in the whole of Europe,” said Reinhard Dombre, head of Germany’s trade union federation. He was one of a crowd that police estimated at 10,000 and organizers at 35,000. |
14 Tibet vows trouble-free Olympic torch relay
By Lucy Hornby, Reuters
Sat Apr 5, 10:27 AM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) – Tibet’s Communist Party chief promised a trouble-free Olympic torch relay through the region, even as security forces struggled to stamp out violence in a nearby ethnic Tibetan area.
Just 125 days before the Olympic Games begin in Beijing, the evening news featured Tibetans saying they were pleased with China’s development policies.
State-run television also ran a long programme on the life of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom China accuses of “splittist” activities. |
15 Ecuador says CIA controls part of its intelligence
By Alonso Soto, Reuters
11 minutes ago
QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuador’s leftist president on Saturday accused the CIA of controlling many of his country’s spy agencies and said it had shared Ecuadorean intelligence with U.S. ally Colombia during last month’s regional crisis.
“Many of our intelligence agencies have been taken over by the CIA,” Rafael Correa said during his weekly radio show. “Through the CIA, information found here was passed to Colombia to improve their position” in the dispute.
Ecuador broke off diplomatic ties with Bogota after Colombian forces attacked a rebel camp inside Ecuadorean territory, killing a top guerrilla leader and more than 20 other people. |
16 In a Calmer Baghdad, Maliki Caves
By ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER/BAGHDAD, Time Magazine
2 hours, 18 minutes ago
…
But, even on a quiet Friday, Maliki may again be buckling to Mahdi Army pressure. The Prime Minister called for a halt on military raids against militants in Basra and other areas of southern Iraq and in the Mahdi Army strongholds of Baghdad, effectively ending – for the time being – the largest Iraqi government military offensive to date. “All pursuits and raids in all areas will be stopped. Those who take up arms will face the law,” Maliki said in a statement. |
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17 Pope will find diverse church in US
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer
2 hours, 37 minutes ago
NEW YORK – In his visit this month to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI will find an American flock wrestling with what it means to be Roman Catholic.
The younger generation considers religion important, but doesn’t equate faith with going to church. Many lay people want a greater say in how their parishes operate, yet today’s seminarians hope to restore the traditional role and authority of priests.
Catholic colleges and universities are trying to balance their religious identity with free expression, catching grief from liberals and conservatives in the process. |
18 Old canals concern federal water bosses
By SCOTT SONNER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 59 minutes ago
FERNLEY, Nev. – The failure of an earthen embankment on a century-old irrigation canal that flooded this growing town has federal water managers concerned about the safety of nearly 8,000 miles of similar aging canals across the West.
The January breach of the Truckee Canal flooded nearly 600 homes, making Fernley a state and federal disaster area.
“As a result of this we are taking a look at our canals with a little more scrutiny,” said Jeffrey McCracken, regional spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation in Sacramento. |
19 Blackwater contract in Iraq renewed for one year
AFP
Fri Apr 4, 8:44 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US State Department said Friday it is extending its diplomat protection contract for private security firm Blackwater USA, despite the incident last September in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
“I have requested and received approval to have Task Order 6, which Blackwater has to provide personal protective services in Baghdad, renewed for one year,” said Gregory Starr at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
Blackwater is the most controversial of several private security firms tasked with protecting high-profile US officials and foreign dignitaries visiting Iraq. |
20 Democrats slam ‘Bush-McCain’ economics after jobs report
by Stephen Collinson, AFP
Fri Apr 4, 12:53 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pounced on the worst job loss figures in five years Friday to skewer John McCain over Republican policies they blame for deepening the economic mire.
But the presumptive Republican nominee quickly hit back, warning Democratic “anti-growth” policies would thwart job creation, calling for lower taxes, streamlined regulation and a drive to open markets overseas for US goods.
The figures, showing US firms cut a suprisingly high 80,000 jobs in March, ignited a new phase in the frenetic three-way battle over the feared recession and a housing crisis, a dominant issue, seven months before November elections. |
21 A War Machine for the Whole Family
By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON, Time Magazine
Fri Apr 4, 10:40 AM ET
The nation’s top military officer told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that the U.S. military isn’t planning on sending additional troops to Iraq to deal with the recent surge in violence. While Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, didn’t say as much, the reality is that there aren’t any more U.S. troops to send to Iraq, or anywhere else. Partly to ensure that an overstretched military doesn’t break, Mullen pleased troops in North Carolina on Monday when he told them that the Pentagon soon may begin replacing its Cold War-era assignments to South Korea – one-year tours without family – with three-year deployments with families. |
22 The Episcopal Property War
By DAVID VAN BIEMA, Time Magazine
2 hours, 24 minutes ago
In the slow-motion civil war of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., one very worldly question has arisen: who owns the real estate? If a congregation chooses to leave the U.S. Episcopal organization, do they have to vacate the property and the physical church building they have been occupying? That high-stakes question will surely take many more legal battles to resolve, but the first round has been won by the secessionists, in a high-profile fight involving a famous old church. |
23 Seeing America Through Muslim Eyes
By SHIREEN KHAN, Time Magazine
2 hours, 24 minutes ago
It was evening rush hour in New York City. 42nd St. was packed, and I was hoping I would make the bus. His voice came out of the crowd.
“Take that rag off!”
Huh?
In my four months of working in New York, that was a first. Actually, that was a first in the seven years since I started wearing a hijab. A lot of people turned to look at me as he shouted those words. I don’t know exactly what I was feeling – some mixture of anger and embarrassment – but I knew I wanted to stop and explain to this man the significance of what he dismissed as a “rag.” He didn’t understand the one thing I cherished most, the thing that I took so much care in making sure I did right – my religion. |
24 Wall Street undergoes big mood change
By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer
Sat Apr 5, 6:13 AM ET
NEW YORK – With the start of a new quarter, Wall Street seems to have found something it badly needed: a major shift in sentiment.
Stocks punished during months of sharp losses were scooped up this past week as big investors like hedge funds returned to the market. And there’s a sense that individual investors – who yanked their money from the stock market out of fear – might be on the verge of a comeback as well.
Certainly, worries about the economy and further calamities striking the world’s investment banks haven’t evaporated. What has changed is the way investors are looking at the market – simply, that stocks are more likely to go up than continue their precipitous declines – and that allowed the stocks to hold on to most of their gains this past week. After the Dow Jones industrials rose 391 points on Tuesday alone, the stock market’s best-known indicator ended the week up 393 points. |
Idiots.
25 Samsung chief questioned for 11 hours
By KELLY OLSEN, AP Business Writer
Sat Apr 5, 6:24 AM ET
SEOUL, South Korea – Special prosecutors probing claims of corruption at Samsung Group took their investigation to the very top, quizzing its chairman in a lengthy interrogation over allegations the conglomerate paid bribes and engaged in other illegalities.
Lee Kun-hee, who has run South Korea’s biggest industrial group for two decades, emerged early Saturday after nearly 11 hours spent in the office of the independent counsel examining the claims raised last year by a former Samsung lawyer.
Surrounded by a throng of waiting reporters, the 66-year-old tycoon appeared to backtrack from the strong denials he made Friday afternoon upon arrival for questioning, when he said he had nothing to do with either directing the setting up of a slush fund or ordering the payment of bribes. |
26 Market supplied with enough oil, OPEC official says
Reuters
58 minutes ago
TEHRAN (Reuters) – The oil market is supplied with enough crude and OPEC is not under pressure to raise output, the group’s secretary-general was quoted as saying on Saturday during a visit to Iran.
“Oil supply to the market is enough and high oil prices are not due to a shortage of crude but rather it is because of the decrease in the dollar’s value, shortage of refinery capacity and some political tensions in the world,” OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri was quoted as saying by Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
His views were in line with those often voiced by officials in Iran, the second-largest producer in the 13-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. |
27 Australian PM sees progress in push for world trade deal
AFP
1 hour, 32 minutes ago
LONDON (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Saturday there had been “real movement” in recent weeks in long-stalled efforts to reach a new global trade deal.
Rudd, on the latest stop of a European tour, was speaking at a summit of centre-left international leaders near London also attended by World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy and EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.
“What has been encouraging in terms of our discussions with Pascal Lamy and the EU trade representative is the extent to which there has been real movement in recent days,” Rudd told journalists. |
28 Japan’s major banks to suffer sharp profit fall: report
AFP
1 hour, 49 minutes ago
TOKYO (AFP) – Combined net profit at Japan’s six major banks is estimated to have dropped more than 40 percent for the year to March 2008, weighed down by losses related to US subprime mortgages, a daily said Saturday.
The six banks are Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., Resona Holdings Inc., Chuo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. and Sumitomo Trust and Banking Co.
The Nikkei business daily forecast that their aggregate group net profit fell to about 1.5 trillion yen (14.8 billion dollars) for the year ended on Monday from 2.8 trillion yen a year earlier. |
Science to come…
29 Sex and financial risk linked in brain
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Sat Apr 5, 4:22 AM ET
WASHINGTON – A new brain-scan study may help explain what’s going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles – sex. When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported.
The arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken.
“You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same brain area,” said Camelia Kuhnen, a Northwestern University finance professor who conducted the study with a Stanford University psychologist. |
30 Mojave tortoises moved for Army training
AP
Fri Apr 4, 5:51 PM ET
FORT IRWIN, Calif. – Scientists have begun moving the Mojave Desert’s flagship species, the desert tortoise, to make room for tank training at the Army’s Fort Irwin despite protests by some conservationists.
The controversial project, billed as the largest desert tortoise move in California history, involves transferring 770 endangered reptiles from Army land to a dozen public plots overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Fort Irwin has sought to expand its 643,000-acre training site into tortoise territory for two decades. The Army said it needs an extra 131,000 acres to accommodate faster tanks and longer-range weapons used each month to train some 4,000 troops. |
31 Dead birds washing up at Great Salt Lake
By DAN BISCHOFF, Associated Press Writer
Fri Apr 4, 5:55 PM ET
SALT LAKE CITY – Thousands of dead birds are washing up on the Great Salt Lake shore. “We’ve received a lot of calls – everybody’s worried about avian influenza,” said Leslie McFarlane, wildlife-disease coordinator at the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
But the dead birds are free of bird flu.
Avian cholera killed more than 15,000 birds on the lake last fall, most of them eared grebes, a duck-like bird. The common bacteria can quickly spread through a bird population, McFarlane said. |
32 New evidence of earliest North Americans
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Fri Apr 4, 5:57 PM ET
WASHINGTON – New evidence shows humans lived in North America more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than had previously been known. Discovered in a cave in Oregon, fossil feces yielded DNA indicating these early residents were related to people living in Siberia and East Asia, according to a report in Thursday’s online edition of the journal Science.
“This is the first time we have been able to get dates that are undeniably human, and they are 1,000 years before Clovis,” said Dennis L. Jenkins, a University of Oregon archaeologist, referring to the Clovis culture, well known for its unique spear-points that have been studied previously.
Humans are widely believed to have arrived in North America from Asia over a land-bridge between Alaska and Siberia during a warmer period. A variety of dates has been proposed and some are in dispute. |
33 NASA vision not getting funded, experts find
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters
Thu Apr 3, 5:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An ambitious vision to take people to the moon and Mars may fall apart before it even gets off the ground because of uncertain planning and inadequate funding, several experts said on Thursday.
A congressional report said NASA’s replacement for the space shuttle, the Constellation Program, is in jeopardy, and members of Congress as well as at least one former astronaut agreed at a hearing on the issue.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office said the Constellation program, scheduled to begin by 2015, is troubled by engineering, funding and mechanical issues. |
34 Tough road lies ahead for global climate deal
by Shaun Tandon, AFP
Sat Apr 5, 1:44 PM ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – There have been numerous disagreements during a week of intense climate change talks in Bangkok but there is one point all sides agree on — a long, tough road lies ahead.
The five-day negotiations stretched past midnight on Friday before reaching a deal aimed solely at setting up more talks, the eventual goal to draft by the end of next year the most far-reaching treaty yet to battle global warming.
Rich and poor nations were at loggerheads, with developing countries especially suspicious of a Japanese-led proposal on industry standards and demanding greater aid to help them cope with the ravages of climate change. |
35 Germany drops plan for auto biofuel
AFP
Fri Apr 4, 9:05 AM ET
BERLIN (AFP) – Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Friday that Germany would scrap plans to develop auto biofuels because they were not appropriate for millions of vehicles.
“We will not do it,” Gabriel told the television channel ARD.
The VDIK association of foreign automakers said that around 3.3 million vehicles were unable to use the mix of ethanol and traditional petrol that Berlin sought to impose. |
36 Spacecraft Eyes Venus for Active Volcanoes
Space.com Staff
Fri Apr 4, 5:16 PM ET
Venus may harbor active volcanoes that produce the high amounts of sulfur dioxide in its atmosphere.
Scientists debate whether the sulfur dioxide detected by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express comes from recent volcanic eruptions, or simply lingers on from eruptions that happened as far back as 10 million years ago.
“Volcanoes are a key part of a climate system,” said Fred Taylor, a Venus Express scientist from Oxford University. |
37 Students to Take Command of Saturn Probe
SPACE.com Staff
Fri Apr 4, 4:02 PM ET
NASA will turn control of the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn over to students for a day in a contest aimed at boosting interest in science among today’s youth.
An essay contest for students in grades 5 through 12 will determine which of three science targets Cassini will photograph on June 10, the space agency announced late Thursday. Cassini scientists regularly debate exactly which images of Saturn’s many moons and rings will produce the most science results, a task they are turning over to elementary and high school students for the “Cassini Scientist-for-a-Day” competition, NASA officials said.
“It’s a really fun way for kids to learn about Saturn and what the mission is doing,” said Rachel Zimmerman-Brachman, an education and public outreach specialist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. “Students have to do their own research to write their essay. That way, they learn how to ask questions about the solar system and what we still need to understand. |
38 New Anti-Evolution Film Stirs Controversy
Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer
Fri Apr 4, 1:40 PM ET
NEW YORK – A handful of journalists filed into a small theater at the Park Avenue Screening Room here last night to see a preview for “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” The 90-minute documentary-style flick features Ben Stein, a comedian, lawyer, actor and former speechwriter. It is a movie about the so-called debate between supporters of “intelligent design” and Charles Darwin’s scientific theory of evolution.
Filmmakers proclaim in press materials that Stein “discovers an elitist scientific establishment that has traded in its skepticism for dogma” during the course of the movie through interviews with scientists and anti-evolution advocates.
Some scientists, however, are outraged about the conduct of the filmmaker during production and screening and the film’s effort to tie Darwin’s ideas to Hitler. One prominent scientist who is in the movie has since called it shoddy and sinister. |