CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II has expressed admiration for people who showed courage during a "difficult year" of heavy flooding in Australian towns and a devastating earthquake in New Zealand's second largest city.
The 85-year-old British monarch was speaking Friday at a reception at Parliament House in the capital, Canberra, during her 16th visit to Australia …
Dieters, doctors and investors get their first extensive look at the first of a trio of new weight loss drugs this week. The hope is that the new drugs can succeed where many others have failed: delivering significant weight loss without risky side effects.
With U.S. obesity rates nearing 35 percent of the adult population, expectations are high for the first new prescription drug therapies to emerge in more than a decade. Even a modestly effective drug has blockbuster potential.
None of the three medicines represents a breakthrough in research. Drugmakers have made little headway in understanding and treating the causes of overeating. Two of the drugs …
BY JANICE MONTI-BELKAOUI AND AHMED RIAHI-BELKAOUI
Quorum Books, 88 Post Rd. W, Westport, CT 06881 192 pp. $65
This publication explores the concept of fairness, and its place in the practice of accounting. The conventional nature of the concept of fairness, the authors contend, is fairness in presentation, connoting an …
U.S. President George W. Bush rejected proposed Democratic changes to his prized AIDS relief program, issuing a challenge Sunday to Congress to "stop the squabbling" and renew it.
Tanzanian leader Jakaya Kikwete made an impassioned appeal for the same thing, saying thousands in his country would orphan their children if U.S. lawmakers do not act.
There is broad support in the Democratic-controlled Congress for the anti-AIDS spending that has become the largest-ever international health initiative devoted to one disease, so there is not much danger of failing to continue it.
But with the program expiring this year, a political and …
Peru's judicial system says the Supreme Court has ratified a 25-year prison sentence for ex-President Alberto Fujimori.
The sentence was imposed in April for the death squad killing of 25 people and the kidnappings of a businessman and journalist during Fujimori's presidency from 1990 to 2000.
The courts published the …
Some people throw pennies at them, others carry a sharpinstrument to scrape them as they move into the crosswalk. But mostof us simply stand on the curb and burn. The object of all this fury- cars whose drivers treat red lights as if they were stop signs.
I was hit by a cab (yes, that's like saying you were bitten by adog). On the Near North Side, have cabbies considered adopting themotto, "We never yield"?
During the same week, on the Far North Side, a friend was wingedby a driver who couldn't tell his left hand from his right. Thisgraduate of a driver's ed correspondence school turned left on a redlight into a two-way street leaving my friend on the ground …
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The October al-Qaida video shows a light-skinned man handing out food to families displaced by famine in Somalia. But the masked man is not Somali, or even African — he's a Wisconsin native who grew up in San Diego.
A handful of young Muslims from the U.S. are taking high-visibility propaganda and operational roles inside an al-Qaida-linked insurgent force in Somalia known as al-Shabab. While most are from Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the nation, al-Shabab members include a Californian and an Alabaman with no ancestral ties to Somalia.
"They are being deployed in roles that appear to be shrewdly calculated to raise al-Shabab's …
Clothing maker and retailer Liz Claiborne Inc. is working to improve its performance with help from turnaround firm Alvarez & Marsal.
The company said Thursday that it has hired the turnaround firm on a short-term basis to review its operations with the goal of improving its cash flow in the U.S. and Europe.
Liz Claiborne revamped its business several years ago, cutting brands to focus on its more powerful labels, like Juicy Couture and Lucky Brands Jeans. More recently, it relaunched its namesake brand under the design direction of Isaac Mizrahi, whose first collection for Liz Claiborne hit stores this past spring.
The company also has cut …
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A cholera outbreak that already has left 250 people dead and more than 3,000 sickened is at the doorstep of an enormous potential breeding ground: the squalid camps in Port-au-Prince where 1.3 million earthquake survivors live. Health authorities and aid workers are scrambling to keep the tragedies from merging and the deaths from multiplying.
Five cholera patients have been reported in Haiti's capital, heightening worries that the disease could reach the sprawling tent slums where abysmal hygiene, poor sanitation, and widespread poverty could rapidly spread it. But government officials said Sunday that all five apparently got cholera outside …
Trainer Dale Romans raved all week about how much his colt, Paddy O'Prado, seemed to enjoy training in the mud.
The slop at Churchill Downs proved to be no problem during Saturday's Kentucky Derby. The distance, however, was another matter.
Rather than take an early lead as is his typical style, the colt surged from the middle of the pack before running out of steam in the 1 1/4-mile Derby.
"He ran so big for us," Romans said. "I thought we were going to win. I'm very proud of him. He just ran super. You couldn't ask for any more from the horse."
Jockey Kent Desormeaux blamed the finish on early traffic, preventing him …
Welcome to Heart Beat, a new column in the Sunday Sun-Times thatwill focus on readers' questions regarding heart fitness and disease.What can you expect to gain from this column? My goal is to presentstraightforward explanations of current practices and controversiesin the field of heart health. Your questions will provide thespringboard for discussion.
Most people have been touched in some way by matters of theheart - either in their own lives or in those of family or friends.Unfortunately, many who have entered the medical system remainconfused about the nature of their condition. Similarly, a widerange of procedures are available to evaluate and treat heartproblems, …
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia's state news agency says a young man has died in a tribal clash in the depressed central mining town of Metlaoui
TAP agency cited an unidentified hospital official as saying Hamza Sadraoui died Monday of a shotgun wound in clashes between rival groups that have rocked the town for two nights. The melee continued on Monday, with youths throwing rocks.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Hicham Meddeb, said a curfew has been declared in Metlaoui and is to take effect between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. local time. Security forces also have been reinforced.
Metloaui and neighboring cities have been the scene of unrest on several occasions since an uprising that forced strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power on Jan. 14.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO
At El Museo del Barrio, encased in a small vitrine amid newspaper clippings and ephemera crowned by a monitor screening early video projects (including the autoerotic New York, New York!, 1979, and the self-consciously narcissistic Autorretrato num�ro 3 [Self Portrait Number 3], 1979) was a letter written by Ron Clark in support of Felix GonzalezTorres's grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dated April 2.0, 1983, it is unabashed in its enthusiasm for its subject, who had recently participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Gonzalez-Torres, Clark avows, is an "ideal student," "exceptionally intelligent." "Felix has the ability to skillfully employ his knowledge of critical and theoretical concepts and methods in the analysis of artistic practice and of the historical processes and social institutions within which art is made and experience[d]."
Small and visually unremarkable, the missive betrays the archivaleven didactic-impulse that was at work in "Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Early Impressions." Admitting his primary debt to other practices, as in the case of a 1978 performance at the University of Puerto Rico where the artist and Jos� Ferez Mesa clothed a dead tree in forty yards of white fabric � la Christo, the show constructed the Gonzalez-Torres before the "Gonzalez-Torres" of Group Material affiliation or Guggenheim solo retrospection. It thereby deftly recontextualized the artist's work in relation to his formative education, and, more importantly, perhaps, in this institutional context, his Caribbean origins. Juxtaposing familiar subsequent projects (replenishable poster stacks, plastic-sleeved jigsaw puzzles, and Photostat linguistic portraits) with newly exhumed documents, correspondence, press, a r�sum�, and early works previously unseen outside Puerto Rico, this show's three loose groupings-along the axes of writing and documentation; the mediumistic imperatives of photography and video; and the metaphor of the beach-reclaimed a native son.
Lest this curatorial recuperation seem too determined or uncomplicatedly adulatory, the works themselves actively resist nostalgia and are often explicit in their commentaries on estrangement and displacement. The video 10 horas, 10 anos, 10 madres (10 hours, 10 years, io mothers), 1979, is revelatory in this regard, as it cruelly renders Gonzalez-Torres's evacuation from Cuba (AT THE AGE OF TEN YOU ARE A PACKAGE SENT TO SPAIN). For a January 1981 performance, Rust, Dreams on an Ice Bed, Gonzalez-Torres, assuming the role of tourist, slathered himself in sunscreen and languished on a bed of melting ice, laying bare the contradictions of a tropical paradise marked by "rampant unemployment, massive emigration, high crime rate, and political unrest." "Come and enjoy / come and forget," he cooed, "rust from the ocean mist melting away as ice / as history."
Striking here is how operationally sublimated Gonzalez-Torres's own didacticism became, especially in light of where he began. To be sure, he retained a sense of "history" and was loath to abandon an iconography of absence, but he increasingly rendered activism elegiac and abstract, so that, for example, the fraught island becomes Untitled (Sand), 1993-94, a lyrically empty series of photogravures of indexical impressions, footprint traces in grainy contours of sand. Circulating in otherwise dispassionate cultural sites and evading censorship during the late-'80s culture wars, Gonzalez-Torres's later works infiltrated hostile spaces like a virus, as he once appropriately put it. The prescient critique explicit in the early works never really went away; it just grew up. Given our present climate of rampant imperialism where propaganda can pass as journalism, his voice would have resonated, and this show makes one realize how it is missed. As a handwritten scrawl on apromotional photo from Rust spelled out: DARLING, WISH YOU WERE HERE.
-Suzanne Hudson
[Sidebar]
Felix Gonzalez-Terres, Untltled (I Love NY). 1991, photographic print on jigsaw puzzle in plastic bag, 10 x 13".
Rescued hostage Ingrid Betancourt may be in France, but her voice has been booming over Colombia's jungles calling on rebels to turn themselves in.
Three short messages recorded by Betancourt have been broadcast in the past few days from loudspeakers attached to helicopters flying over the jungles where the former hostage was held before she and 14 others were rescued in a bloodless deception.
Three Americans were among the rescued hostages.
In stentorian voice, Betancourt tells the leftist rebels that if they turn themselves in their lives will be respected and they'll get back their honor, their family and their liberty.
Two choppers broadcasting the pleas flew Tuesday.
Defense officials say the messages were the French-Colombian Betancourt's idea.
DETROIT - Workers at three more United Auto Workers locals have rejected a tentative contract agreement between the union and Chrysler LLC, casting doubt on whether the deal will be ratified.
Members at locals in Missouri, Ohio and Delaware voted against the deal Friday and Saturday even as union leaders from Detroit spent the later part of the week lobbying for yes votes.
The contract failed Saturday at Local 110 in Fenton, Mo., one of Chrysler's largest, with 2,781 hourly workers at the South Assembly Plant. The vote was surprising because the plant makes Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Caravan minivans, which are brand new for 2008 and expected to be top sellers, providing job security for several years.
A recording at the Local 110 union hall said Saturday that 66 percent of skilled trades workers voted against the contract, while 79 percent of non-skilled workers opposed it. It didn't give the number of workers that voted.
Although final totals from the 45,000 workers voting on the pact won't be made known until next week, the size and locations of the locals voting no are not good signs for leaders in Detroit, said Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in labor issues.
"The early results are abysmal," Shaiken said. "Members have sent a message of considerable unrest."
Dissident union members have used the Internet to voice opposition to the pact, and the UAW's national Chrysler negotiating chairman, Bill Parker, president of a local in suburban Detroit's Sterling Heights, has come out against it.
If the contract is rejected by UAW members, it would be the first time in at least two decades that has happened, Shaiken said.
The agreement was reached Oct. 10 after a six-hour strike, the same day the union announced that General Motors Corp. workers had approved a similar contract. If Chrysler workers vote it down, negotiators must go back to the bargaining table.
The UAW said negotiators were able to fend off the company's demand for wage cuts of $1.01 per hour and cost-of-living adjustment delays, according to a booklet summarizing the deal. They also saved about 1,500 jobs at the Toledo, Ohio, machining plant, which was slated to close.
But 14 of 21 factories listed in the booklet have no future products to make after the current product life cycle or the life of the new contract. Seven were to get future products.
The deal also includes a lower-tier wage scale for newly hired "noncore" employees who do not build vehicles or manufacture parts. The lower tier starts around $14 per hour but does not affect the pay of current workers doing noncore jobs. It also gives workers a $3,000 signing bonuses and lump sum payments of 3 or 4 percent in the remaining years.
Like the GM deal, the union won a moratorium on plant closing and outsourcing. The outsourcing ban on noncore work will keep 8,000 jobs, the booklet said.
Richard McDonaugh Jr., president of Local 1183 at Chrysler's Newark, Del., assembly plant, said Saturday that the contract failed at his local by a vote a 54 percent to 46 percent. The local represents 1,100 hourly UAW members.
McDonaugh, who favors the contract, said the vote was better than expected because the Newark plant is slated to be closed by the company. He was appalled at locals voting down the agreement at plants with future product guarantees and accused dissidents of spreading misinformation.
Many "noncore" workers at his plant thought their pay would be cut in half to around $14 per hour under the new contract, but McDonaugh said that isn't true.
"The language states, no current seniority worker will be assigned entry-level wages even if they are classified in non-core jobs," McDonaugh said. "They will be on the fork trucks, handling the material and working in the tool stores until they retire, quit or die," he said.
Parker wrote an undated "minority report" letter that urged the union's Chrysler Council to reject the agreement and return to the bargaining table.
The council, made up of presidents and other local officials from across the country, approved the deal on a voice vote Monday at a meeting in Detroit.
Parker's letter says the deal's lower tier wage scale for some entry-level employees would create divisions within the union. It also says the Chrysler deal fell short of one that General Motors Corp. workers agreed to this month, including a failure to guarantee vehicle commitments to many plants beyond current products.
Messages were left with UAW spokesman Roger Kerson in Detroit.
Another local, 122, which represents 1,515 workers at the Twinsburg, Ohio, stamping plant, voted against the contract, local president Charles Spencer told the Detroit Free Press. He said 53 percent of the votes were against the deal.
On Friday, Local 961 in Detroit rejected the contract 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent, said Ed May, local president. The local, which did not make vote totals available, represents 1,380 hourly UAW members.
Other locals were still voting Saturday, and results were not available.
The Chrysler contract suffered its first major defeat Thursday, when a local representing 2,100 workers in suburban St. Louis rejected the pact. Union officials said workers at that truck plant in Fenton also were bothered by the contract's creation of core and noncore workers.
But not everyone opposes the deal. Workers at a Chrysler engine plant in Kenosha, Wis., voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve the agreement. The UAW local in Kenosha represents about 800 workers.
The Detroit Free Press reported Saturday that workers at the Trenton engine plant also approved the deal, as did Local 1435, which represents workers at the Toledo, Ohio, machining plant.
---
Associated Press writer David Runk contributed to this report.
A lawyer says that a former student who led street protests against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has left the Vatican mission where he received political asylum last year.
Alonso Medina Roa says that his client Nixon Moreno left the Vatican mission on Sunday evening.
Moreno entered the mission on March 13, 2007, after prosecutors accused him of attempted rape during anti-Chavez protests.
The Vatican granted Moreno asylum, but Venezuela's government refused to grant him safe passage so he could leave the country.
Moreno has denied any wrongdoing, saying the accusations against him are politically motivated.
Medina Roa said on Monday that he does not know where Moreno is.
LONDON - The U.S. dollar ended mixed Monday against other major currencies in European trading.
The U.S. financial markets were closed for the Labor Day holiday.
The euro was quoted at $1.3621, down from $1.3624 late Friday in New York. But the British pound rose to $2.0173 from $2.0165.
Other dollar rates compared with late rates Friday included 115.80 Japanese yen, down from 115.81; 1.2085 Swiss francs, up from 1.2079, and 1.0532 Canadian dollars, down from 1.0550.
Gold traded in London at $671.45 bid per troy ounce, down from $672.40 late Friday. In Zurich, gold traded at $669.90 bid per troy ounce, down from $670.80.
Gold rose $5.40 in Hong Kong to $673.65.
Silver traded in London at $12.08, up from $11.97.
Washington State pitcher James Wise started both of his team's games Sunday at the Fayetteville Regional.
Wise was knocked out after 2 2-3 innings in the Cougars' 9-6 win over Kansas State. He'd thrown only 76 pitches, so Washington State sent him to the mound again against Arkansas.
He threw three innings in that game, allowing two hits and a run with two walks and three strikeouts.
Pitching on no rest is fairly common in a double-elimination regional such as this one. On Saturday night, Adam Conley started for Washington State after earning a save the previous night.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Eight men with alleged links to leading senior al-Qaida terrorists were arrested in the heart of Denmark on Tuesday, the country's intelligence service said, claiming to have thwarted a bomb plot.
The pre-dawn raids sent jitters through a country that stirred Muslim anger and deadly protests last year after a newspaper printed 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
"This could indicate that (al-Qaida) now is able to pick up the phone and order a terror act in Denmark," said Hans Joergen Bonnichsen, who retired as operative head of the PET intelligence service in 2006.
However, Jakob Scharf, head of the PET, said the foiled terror plot was not connected to either the uproar over the prophet cartoons or Denmark's involvement in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
The suspects - six Danish citizens and two foreigners with residence permits - had been under surveillance for some time when they were arrested.
"With the arrests, we have prevented a terror attack," Scharf told reporters in Copenhagen. He did not identify the target.
The suspects, aged 19 to 29, were not identified but Scharf described them as "militant Islamists with connections to leading al-Qaida persons."
All eight were arrested without incident in raids on 11 locations in and around Copenhagen, including the Ishoej suburb and the Noerrebro district of the capital, authorities said.
The suspects are of Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish origin, Scharf told reporters. He said Danish investigators had worked with "several foreign cooperation partners" before making the arrests.
Two of the suspects, both 21, were arraigned in court later Tuesday on preliminary charges of acquiring material to make one or more bombs for terror attacks in Denmark or abroad.
They sat quietly with their arms crossed listening to the preliminary charges before reporters were ordered out of the courtroom.
The court ordered both held in custody for 27 days - the first 13 days in solitary confinement - while investigators continue to the probe. It was not immediately clear when the six others would be arraigned.
Scharf declined to say whether more people were being sought.
The TV2 News channel reported that a 19-year-old electrician was arrested in Ishoej, while a taxi driver in his early 20s was arrested in Noerrebro. TV footage shot from a helicopter showed bomb squads and forensics agents at those locations.
In Ishoej, anti-terror police broke down the door of the apartment where a Turkish family was living, Karina Elbaek, who lives on the floor below, told The Associated Press.
"They were ordinary neighbors, really friendly, helpful and extroverted," Elbaek said of the family.
Sadie al-Fatlawi, who lives on the floor above the cab driver in Noerrebro, said police ordered him and other neighbors to leave the building during the raid.
"When we came down to the police van they said that they suspected that there were some explosives in the property, or something that could burn very violently," al-Fatlawi told the AP.
The taxi driver was of Pakistani origin and had recently moved into the building, al-Fatlawi said.
Danish public radio DR identified a third suspect as a man of Afghan origin who had grown a beard and wore traditional Afghan clothing. He lived with parents and his two sisters in Avedoere, another suburb south of the capital, DR said, citing neighbors.
It is the third time Danish police have cracked down on suspected terrorist networks since 2005.
A separate trial of four men suspected of planning to blow up a target in Denmark or elsewhere in Europe is to begin in Copenhagen on Wednesday.
In February, a court sentenced Abdul Basit Abu Lifa, a Danish citizen of Palestinian descent, to seven years in prison for his involvement in a Bosnia-linked plot to blow up a target in Europe. Three other defendants were acquitted, although one is awaiting a retrial.
Terrorists have not hit Denmark in more than two decades, but the July 2005 bombings in London stirred fears that the Scandinavian country could be targeted for its participation in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
Those fears grew after a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, triggering fiery protests in Muslim countries in early 2006. Many Muslims considered the drawings blasphemous.
In June, Denmark pulled out its 460-member army contingent from Iraq and replaced it with a small air force squad.
Brad Paisley's "Online" video received four Country Music Television awards nominations, and Sugarland received three for their video "Stay."
Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift and Trace Adkins also received three nominations apiece. The fan-voted nominations were announced Thursday by the Viacom Inc.-owned network.
Paisley's "Online" is up for video of the year, male video of the year, comedy video and supporting character for actor Jason Alexander, who plays a nerdy character who fantasizes about being Paisley.
Sugarland's "Stay" is competing for video of the year, duo video and tearjerker video. They're also nominated for their performance of "Stay" during last year's show.
Director Shaun Silva picked up four nominations as well: One for video director of the year and three for his work on video of the year candidates "Stay," "Don't Blink" by Chesney and "Take Me There" by Rascal Flatts.
Miley Cyrus and father Billy Ray host the ceremony at Nashville's Belmont University on April 14.
Fans can vote online at CMT through April 11 to determine the night's winners.
The final nominees for video of the year, the top category, will be announced at the beginning of the show with voting continuing during the broadcast.
___
On the Net:
The chief of automaker Renault advised President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday that its popular new generation Clio will be built in both France and Turkey, but that its site outside Paris is to become the European platform for its electric car.
Sarkozy voiced concern Wednesday that Renault was considering deserting France for Turkey to produce the Clio 4, to be launched in 2013, and summoned Renault president Carlos Ghosn to a weekend meeting.
The French president complained about infusions of state funds to carmakers who then produce abroad, saying large companies like to think they "no longer have a nationality."
The French state has a 15 percent stake in Renault.
Sarkozy's office said that Ghosn assured the president during the meeting that production of the current Clio 3 model will continue at Flins, outside Paris, along with "part of the production of the Clio 4." He said the electric car, Zoe, would begin production there in 2012.
"Renault is a French company, a socially responsible citizen .... This is one reason why we decided to produce (the electric car) in the Flins plant," Ghosn was quoted as saying in a statement from Renault. However, he added there would be "double sourcing in Bursa, Turkey" for production of the Clio 4. Renault has a plant in Bursa. Renault has said that the cost of making a car in Turkey is euro1,400 ($2,000) cheaper than France.
"The future of the Flins plant is guaranteed," Ghosn said in the statement.
Employees at the huge Flins plant east of Paris have spoken bitterly about the future of Flins should Renault produce the Clio 4 in Turkey. The issue takes on special importance ahead of March regional elections, which have become the focal point for all politicians, Sarkozy included.
Sarkozy's statement said that Renault intends to make the Flins site a "huge European platform for the electric vehicle." That corresponds with France's plan to provide loan support for production of electric cars, and the presidential statement said that Sarkozy "fully supports" Renault's strategy in this regard.
An experienced crew of astronauts boarded space shuttle Atlantis on Friday for its final journey, a delivery trip to the International Space Station that will provide fresh batteries and extra room.
Atlantis was slated to blast off at 2:20 p.m. Everything was going well in the countdown, and the weather was looking favorable. Forecasters were sticking with their 70 percent odds of good weather. Clouds were the lone concern.
More than 40,000 guests _ the biggest launch-day crowd in years _ descended on the Kennedy Space Center and the roads leading into it, all of them eager to witness Atlantis' last launch.
"Hock, you look good in that seat," Mission Control told commander Kenneth Ham as he strapped in.
"Thanks for checking in, brother," Ham replied to the astronaut who conducted the voice check from Mission Control in Houston.
The six astronauts _ all men _ waved and shook their fists as they headed to the launch pad at midmorning.
They were fortified by a substantial breakfast: medium-rare steaks and french fries for three of them, a cheeseburger for another and sandwiches for the remaining two. As a joke, they donned blue and black smoking jackets, white shirts and black bow ties _ probably the most formal attire ever worn by astronauts on launch day, even if it was just for a quick photo.
The 12-day mission is the last one for Atlantis, the fourth in NASA's line of space shuttles. Only two flights remain after this one, by Discovery and Endeavour. NASA plans to end the 30-year program by the end of this year.
Atlantis rocketed into orbit for the first time in 1985. This will be its 32nd trip and the 132nd shuttle flight overall.
The shuttle is loaded with fresh batteries and a Russian-built compartment for the space station.
The 20-foot-long module is crammed with food, laptop computers and other U.S. supplies, part of the deal worked out between the two countries' space agencies. There's so much gear inside that the space station crew will wait until Atlantis leaves before unpacking everything.
Ham and his crew will install the compartment on the space station, and carry out three spacewalks to replace six old batteries and hook up an antenna and other spare parts.
Spectators for the launch included late-night TV host David Letterman, who toured the space center Thursday.
Dozens of Russians also were on hand, as well as about 150 Twittering guests who lined the road as the astronauts were driven to the pad. This is the second time NASA has opened Kennedy's media complex to so-called tweeters on launch day. A NASA spokeswoman said it's a way to spread the message and get the public excited about space exploration, as the shuttle program winds down.
President Barack Obama wants NASA to focus on getting astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and into orbit around Mars by 2035. He canceled the previous administration's Constellation program, considered a continuation of the 1960s Apollo moon program.
The space station, meanwhile, will keep operating until at least 2020. Under the Obama plan, NASA astronauts will keep hitching rides aboard Russian Soyuz rockets until U.S. private enterprise can develop spacecraft to safely get humans into orbit.
As for Atlantis, it will be prepped for a possible rescue mission for the very last shuttle flight, once it returns from the space station. Its ultimate destination will be a museum somewhere in America. The resting spot has yet to be chosen.
___
On the Net:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. securities regulators say their first annual review of the nation's credit rating agencies finds the companies aren't doing enough to protect their own financial integrity.
The Securities and Exchange Commission report released Friday was mandated by the sweeping financial industry reforms passed last year.
Regulators examined 10 credit rating agencies, including the three largest: Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch.
The report didn't specifically identify which of the credit rating agencies suffered the most troubling weaknesses.
But it chastised the 10 agencies for a series of problems, including inadequate controls over employee conflicts of interest. Regulators also found the companies sometimes didn't even follow their own procedures.
Some examples cited in the report:
— The agencies had inadequate policies to prevent conflicts that arose when analysts and agency employees own stock in companies they rated.
— Two of the three big agencies didn't have specific policies to prevent such conflicts when a company they rated held a substantial stake in their agency.
— One of the bigger agencies failed to follow its own formulas for rating some asset-backed securities.
— One of the smaller agencies delayed informing investors about changes in its formulas for rating some asset-backed securities.
The three big agencies have been blamed for helping fuel the 2008 financial crisis by giving high ratings to risky mortgage securities, a type of asset-backed security. Those investments later soured when the housing market went bust.
S&P recently reported that the SEC is considering taking civil action against it for its rating of a 2007 mortgage debt offering. Such action could be just the first shot in a legal assault against the major credit rating agencies.
The SEC staff conducted its examination from December 2009 through August 2010. The SEC hasn't determined if any of the findings represent a significant breach of regulations, but the report left that possibility open for future action.
Despite improvements made by some since a previous examination in 2008, there are still problems at all of them, including failures in some cases to follow their own policies, the report said.
Critics say the agencies have a built-in conflict of interest because they are paid by the same companies they rate.
S&P spokesman Ed Sweeney said the company was pleased that the SEC "recognizes the improvements we have undertaken over the last few years."
S&P has invested more than $200 million since 2009 to strengthen its controls and compliance and is committed to making additional improvements, Sweeney said in a statement.
A spokesman for Moody's, Tony Mirenda, said the company "welcomes the SEC's constructive recommendations to our industry."
Fitch Ratings, in a statement, said "Each firm must be judged on its own merits. We are pleased that the SEC report reflects no material deficiencies at Fitch, and any concerns that do pertain to Fitch are being swiftly addressed."
Investors are again looking to Washington for clues about the market.
Stock futures are mixed but showing only modest moves Thursday as investors await testimony from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the White House's proposed overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system.
Major European markets were steady after a slide in Japan.
Geithner is expected to appear before Senate and House committees to discuss the proposals outlined by President Barack Obama on Wednesday. The plan would give new powers to the Federal Reserve to oversee the entire financial system and would also create a consumer protection agency to guard against credit and other abuses.
Investors have kept close watch on developments in Washington since the financial crisis intensified in the fall and the government stepped in to help steady markets.
A report on weekly unemployment claims could also help direct trading. Economists predict that new jobless claims changed little last week, but that the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits set a 20th straight record.
The Labor Department's tally of new jobless claims is expected to slip by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 600,000, according to a survey of Wall Street economists by Thomson Reuters. The report is due at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 12, or 0.1 percent, to 8,425. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 0.20, or less than 0.1 percent, to 905.50, while Nasdaq 100 index futures fell 1.50, or 0.1 percent, to 1,452.00.
Stocks mostly fell Wednesday and are down sharply for the week, with the S&P 500 index registering a loss of 3.8 percent this week. After modest gains last week and the slide this week, traders are worried that a three-month rally that pushed stocks up 40 percent had gone too far.
Investors are now eager for any news that could re-ignite that market's climb or signal how long it might take the economy to recover from the recession that began in December 2007.
Traders this week are also watching for volatility ahead of Friday's quarterly "quadruple witching" day, which marks the simultaneous expiration of a number of different options contracts. Stocks are more likely to push higher during the expirations but trading is often heavy and fractious.
Bond prices slipped, pushing up the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note to 3.71 percent from 3.69 percent late Wednesday.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Light, sweet crude rose 53 cents to $70.50 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Investors will be looking to Geithner's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee at 9:30 a.m. and the House Financial Services Committee at 1 p.m. for more insight into how the biggest changes to financial regulation since the 1930s might unfold. House Republicans, for example, said Obama's plan would hurt the market by imposing unnecessary regulation.
After the opening bell, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve is expected to report on regional manufacturing conditions.
Meanwhile, a private sector group's forecast of economic activity is expected to have risen for a second straight month in May.
The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators likely rose 0.9 percent last month, according to analysts. A 1 percent gain in April was the biggest in more than three years. The index hadn't risen in seven months.
The reports are due at 10 a.m.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 1.4 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.6 percent, Germany's DAX index slipped 0.1 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 0.4 percent.
Former world champion gymnast Daiane dos Santos has tested positive for the drug Furosemide during an non-competition doping control.
The International Gymnastics Federation says on its Web site that Santos, the floor exercise world champion in 2003, had knee surgery this year and could have been given the drug by mistake. She tested positive in July.
Furosemide, a weight-loss drug, can be used as a masking agent for other banned substances.
Calls to Brazil's national gymnastics federation and Santos' home club were not immediately returned.
Santos, who faces a two-year ban, has until Nov. 13 to present a defense to the federation.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Message to the Taliban: Forget July 2011, the date that President Barack Obama set to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The more important date is 2014 when the international coalition hopes Afghan soldiers and policemen will be ready to take the lead in securing the nation.
That date will be the focus of discussions later this month at a NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, the third and largest international meeting on Afghanistan this year.
Heads of state and other officials there will talk about how to assess security and other conditions so that government security forces can begin to take control of some of Afghanistan's 34 provinces next spring, allowing international forces to go home or move to other parts of the country.
"NATO emissaries are still bargaining over exactly how many troops will remain after departure day and for what purposes," says Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Details aside, the devastating truth is that U.S. forces will be fighting in Afghanistan for at least four more years."
The 2014 target date isn't new. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in his November 2009 inauguration speech that he wanted Afghans to take responsibility for security across the country in four years. But that was all but forgotten the next month when Obama announced he was dispatching 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, but hoped to start a gradual pullout in July 2011 — if conditions are deemed secure enough.
Obama has said he was not forecasting a mass exodus of American forces next summer, but that's what many Afghans, Americans and others around the world believed. U.S. and NATO officials have been working for months to right what they insist was a misinterpretation of Obama's remarks.
"We're not going anywhere," U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said Thursday in Kabul. "In fact, the better date to think about is the end of 2014."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said earlier this week that he hoped the Taliban is under the impression that July 2011 is the end date for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. "It's not and they're going to be very surprised come August, September, October and November when most American forces are still there and still coming after them," Gates said.
Gates once said that he hoped a few of Afghanistan's 398 districts could be transferred to Afghan security forces this year, but NATO officials now say the transition process won't begin in earnest until next spring — or perhaps the summer.
At a ceremony this week marking the one-year anniversary of the NATO training mission, Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said his nation's security forces should be well on their way toward relieving NATO forces of the burden of ground fighting next year.
"This year we led some operations," he said. "Next year we hope that we will be able to lead more operations and take the responsibility for the physical security in more districts and provinces."
He ended his passionate address with the word "Giddy-up."
Before a province can be handed over, Afghan and NATO officials will have to decide if Afghan forces can handle the security and if the local government is strong enough to manage provincial affairs. Other concerns include the need to address any unresolved issues, such as tribal disputes, that could flare up and create instability.
Those questions must be answered for each district by a board comprising Afghan, NATO and other officials, a coalition official said on condition of anonymity to explain the assessment strategy. The transition to Afghan control could take months to years to complete, depending on the readiness of each area, he said.
Two-thirds of all enemy-initiated attacks, for instance, occur in three provinces — Kandahar and Helmand in the south and Kunar in the northeast, so those areas will likely be the last to be handed over, the official said. Ten Afghan districts account for 50 percent of all the violence, he said.
Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative, told reporters at a recent briefing that work was being done to try to get several provinces ready to begin transition in the spring. "I don't want to give you a number yet. We won't announce any number in Lisbon. The announcement will come from the Afghans in the spring," he said.
The Nov. 19-21 summit comes just a month before Obama's year-end review of the U.S. war strategy and NATO officials are hoping that the leaders of troop-contributing nations will leave Lisbon confident that progress is being made.
Sedwill said 2011 would be the start but the key date was the 2014 deadline for Afghans to have the lead for security throughout the country.
"We would expect by then to have none or at least very few international forces out on the streets in combat operational roles," he said.
NATO officials insist that decisions on transition be based on actual conditions on the ground, not the political calendars in the capitals of troop-contributing nations. The coalition official said top NATO officials have already beaten back pressure from some nations that want to see transition start first in areas where their troops are based. France, for example, has expressed hope that Surobi district of Kabul province where French troops are deployed will be transferred to Afghan control next year. Italy has said it wants to hand over Herat province in western Afghanistan within the next 12 months.
AC Milan takes a seven-game unbeaten streak into its meeting with surprise Serie A co-leader Napoli on Sunday.
After dropping its opening two games, Milan has won six and drawn one, leaving the Rossoneri only one point behind Napoli and Udinese.
"Our goal is to get to first place, and we've got a great chance on Sunday," Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti said following a 2-1 win over Siena on Wednesday.
Milan finished fifth last season for its worst finish in seven years, and the Rossoneri were fourth in 2006-07, when they carried a penalty from the Italian match-fixing scandal.
"It's been a while since we've started the season as well as this," said Kaka, who scored a penalty for the winner against Siena.
Filippo Inzaghi opened the scoring and earned the penalty that Kaka converted.
Ronaldinho sat out against Siena to nurse a bruise but should be back against Napoli, which got a hat trick from Argentina forward German Denis in a 3-0 rout of Reggina on Wednesday.
"Let's hope we can maintain this form," Napoli coach Edy Reja said. "Milan has an extraordinary attack, but if we can hold their forwards in check we can make things difficult for them."
Napoli purchased the 1.87-meter (6-foot-2) Denis from Independiente for 6.3 million euros after last season to complement the club's two other talented forwards _ Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik.
Lavezzi, also an Argentine, utilizes his physical strength to specialize in ball possession, while the Slovak Hamsik is quicker and more talented with the ball.
Udinese, which hosts Genoa on Sunday, also has a seven-game unbeaten streak.
Udinese and Napoli lead with 20 points. Milan is next with 19 and Inter is fourth with 18 following two successive scoreless draws.
"We'll win again soon. And we'll get back into first," Inter coach Jose Mourinho said after Wednesday's 0-0 draw at Fiorentina. "We're not scoring but we're still an offensive squad. We haven't allowed a goal in four games."
Inter visits last-place Reggina on Saturday.
Forwards Adriano and Julio Ricardo Cruz were dropped from the roster for the Fiorentina game, and rarely used Hernan Crespo came on and impressed in the final 28 minutes.
"He responded positively, and that's what I expect from players on the bench," Mourinho said.
Also Saturday, improving Juventus hosts struggling AS Roma.
Pavel Nedved scored twice in a 2-1 win over Bologna on Wednesday for Juve's second straight win after going a month without a victory.
Roma's game with Sampdoria was suspended due to heavy rain, and the Giallorossi haven't won in more than a month.
Fiorentina, fifth with 17 points, visits regional rival Siena and is still without the league's scoring leader Alberto Gilardino, who was suspended for two games for scoring with his hand against Palermo last weekend.
Also Sunday, it's: Atalanta vs. Lecce; Cagliari vs. Bologna; Lazio vs. Catania; Palermo vs. Chievo Verona; and Sampdoria vs. Torino.
Veterinarian Thomas Gill will speak on canine vaccinations and other dog health topics at the next meeting of the Cayuga County 4-H Dog Club.
The club is to meet at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 24 at the 4-H Education Center, 248 Grant Ave., Auburn. Gill's talk will be preceded by a business meeting at 7 p.m.
For more information, call 255-1183.
VETERINARIAN TO SPEAK AT 4-H DOG CLUB MEETING.(Local)Veterinarian Thomas Gill will speak on canine vaccinations and other dog health topics at the next meeting of the Cayuga County 4-H Dog Club.
The club is to meet at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 24 at the 4-H Education Center, 248 Grant Ave., Auburn. Gill's talk will be preceded by a business meeting at 7 p.m.
For more information, call 255-1183.
SALLY ALL-STARS
J.R. House has been named the starting catcher for the NorthernDivision in the Class A South Atlantic League All-Star game. Theformer record-setting Nitro High School quarterback will be behindthe plate on June 20 when the Northern Division plays the SouthernDivision in Charleston, S.C.
House, a fifth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates and currentHickory Crawdad, is leading the Sally League in batting (.344) andis second in home runs (12), RBI (47) and slugging percentrage(.624). He is third in extra base hits (27) and tied for fourth inon-base percentage (.414).
Also named to the Northern Division team were two Alley Cats -pitcher Ryan …
Byline: Stacy Kaper
WASHINGTON - The drive to give the government the power to unwind systemically important nonbanks gained more momentum Tuesday after Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested offering such authority to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
In response to questions from lawmakers at a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Bernanke said a proposed systemic risk regulator did not need to be the same agency that has resolution powers. "The FDIC or some other body could be in charge of resolution and deal with those specific issues."
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank is working with the Obama administration to pass a bill that would give the government resolution powers.
The Fed and the Treasury Department have each submitted legislative proposals to Frank's office to establish authority similar to what the FDIC currently has over failing banks and thrifts for systemically important firms and bank holding companies.
…
BALLSTON SPA -- The following people have filed ``doing business as'' forms with the Saratoga County Clerk's Office:
Louise Dearstyne as Broadway Louise of Saratoga at 455 Broadway, Saratoga Springs. Matthew Waterfield as Vroom Productions at 221 Caroline St., Saratoga Springs. Barry Boshkoff as Cromwell Emergency Vehicles at 1617 Route 9, Clifton Park. Richard Sanzen as Pharmaceutical Formulation Scientist at 33 Madison Ave., Saratoga Springs. Thomas Hack as Hometown Auto at 18 Leonard St., Gansevoort. Leon Nielsen as Lee's Good Used Furniture at 62 Broad St., Waterford. …
Byline: Mark A. Hofmann
A piece of paper I recently received at a Metro station raises an intriguing question-is promoting a patriotic duty? More precisely, is personal risk management a public as well as personal obligation?
This is not a question raised by most of the pieces of paper thrust at me at Metro stations. Being handed unwanted handbills is part of the experience of riding the Washington area's subway system.
The slips of paper generally come from:
* Particularly noxious political fringe groups.
* Supporters of hopelessly utopian causes.
* Adherents of diverse religions known and unknown.
* Pizza places, ethnic …
Campaign Promises vs. Real World Responsibilities
President-elect George W. Bush's public record indicates arms control is in for a very rough time during his tenure. He has stated that he will withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty unless Russia agrees to amend it to accommodate his vision of a robust national missile defense with international capabilities and that he opposes ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). He has even questioned the value of negotiated treaties to reduce the world's nuclear arsenals. He and his advisers, however, will soon discover that, while espousal of a world unfettered by arms control in the heat of an election …
AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2002 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD
Air traffic is expected to be disrupted today (27 November) due to a late autumn storm across the northeastern US.
According to weather forecasts, the storm is likely to bring between three and six inches of snow, hitting the region on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Snowfall has already …
Scientists discuss in 'The global regulator CodY regulates toxin gene expression in Bacillus anthracis and is required for full virulence' new findings in life sciences. "In gram-positive bacteria, CodY is an important regulator of genes whose expression changes upon nutrient limitation and acts as a repressor of virulence gene expression in some pathogenic species. Here, we report the role of CodY in Bacillus anthracis, the etiologic agent of anthrax," scientists in France report (see also Life Sciences).
"Disruption of codY completely abolished virulence in a toxinogenic, noncapsulated strain, indicating that the activity of CodY is required for full virulence of B. …
Byline: William Claiborne
Washington Post
JERUSALEM - Israel's Cabinet, in a move that appeared to be designed to defuse a major political controversy surrounding the chief of the secret security service, named a new attorney general Sunday to replace Yitzhak Zamir.
Zamir, who had pressed for a police investigation of charges that the security head attempted to cover up the 1984 beating deaths of two captured Arab hijackers, had said in February that he wanted to resign but would remain in the job until a successor was named.
After hearing a report by Prime Minister Shimon Peres on the allegations against Avraham Shalom, chief of the Shin Bet, the secret security service, the Cabinet named a Tel Aviv judge, Yosef …
Byline: WINIFRED YU Staff writer
GUILDERLAND The Guilderland Board of Education was greeted with relative calm at its public hearing on a proposed budget Tuesday night, with only about 35 people in attendance.
The board has proposed a $45.5 million budget that will raise taxes 2.7 percent in town.
With the exception of a handful of critics who say the Guilderland Central School District should have imposed no tax increase, the community has been relatively silent on this year's budget. In the last two years, crowds jammed the public hearing and lined up to protest double-digit increases. And in both years, initial budgets were rejected. …
2004 FEB 10 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Fat cells, commonly blamed for a number of diseases, also may aid in the body's defense against illnesses such as diabetes and cancer, according to Purdue University researchers.
Rather than contributing to disease, fat cells, or adipocytes, normally function as part of the immune system and help control lipid accumulation, so they actually may benefit human health, said Michael Spurlock, animal sciences professor.
"Adipocytes can be functional and beneficial without creating obesity," Spurlock said. "The key is that we want plenty of adipocytes to meet whatever immunological and endocrinological needs they fulfill, …
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Fast-growing Gulf carrier Etihad Airways says it is buying 10 more of Boeing's new 787-9 planes, making it the largest customer for that version of the aircraft.
Etihad said on Monday it is also ordering two Boeing 777 cargo planes.
The Gulf carrier and Chicago-based Boeing say the deal is worth a …
IN a repeat of last season's final, holders and leaders TeifiBoating Club romped to a 4-0 win against Clwb Rygbi in round two ofthe 7's KO Cup in the Cardigan & District Pool League.
It has set up a mouthwatering semi-final encounter with in-formLamb A, who enjoyed a 4-2 win against house rivals Lamb B. Results:Lamb A 4 Lamb B 2; Clwb Rygbi 0 Teifi Boating Club 4; Schooners B 1Saith Seren 4; Gobaith 4 Hope & Anchor 0. In …
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Chrysler Corp. plans to showcase one of the industry's first all-plastic cars as its fuel-efficient vehicle of the future.
The company would like to use the design of its Composite Concept Vehicle to develop a car that meets the standards for an ideal low-emissions vehicle.
That car, a family sedan based on the Dodge Intrepid platform, would have plastic body panels with only limited metal underneath.
Under the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, carmakers have agreed to create a …
Byline: Associated Press
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Cammarata, a firefighter who died in the World Trade Center collapse, will be inducted into the Little League Hall of Excellence.
Both Giuliani and Cammarata played Little League as children. Steve Keener, president of Little League Inc., said Cammarata would be the first person posthumously inducted into the Hall of Excellence, in South Williamsport, Pa.
``That is a great honor,'' Cammarata's older brother, Joe Cammarata, said. ``It's the American pastime, baseball, and especially Little League, because people love it so much, and my …
THE CLOSET IS A PERPETUAL issue for Americans: Some can't seem to find enough space for their clothes, skis, and camping gear. Cincinnati-based Schulte Corp. has a solution for those caught in a closet conundrum: A Web-based design tool that allows consumers and builders to customize their space in "six easy mouse cricks."
Imaging the right closet is a stumbling block for most people, says Steve McCamley, Schulte's marketing vice president. "Let's face it, there are a lot of options to consider, and each system can be a sizable investment for any consumer," he says.
With the company's design tool, however, the process is simple, the manufacturer says. Users …
PARIS (AP) — The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that France did not violate George Soros' rights when convicting him of insider trading, defeating a years-long effort by the billionaire financier to clear his name.
Though Soros has faced criticism for other investment decisions before and since, the French conviction over trades in 1988 left a particular stain on the Hungarian-born businessman and philanthropist's five-decade career.
He was fined €2.2 million in 2002, or $2.92 million at current rates, for purchasing shares in French bank Societe Generale in 1988, days after being informed about a planned takeover bid for the bank.
That was the amount he …
Fire on the Beach by David Wright and David Zoby Scribner/Lisa Drew Books, Jut), 2001, $26.00, ISBN 0-684-87304-4
In 1871, Congress instituted the LSS, the Life-Saving Service. The LSS, a precursor of the Coast Guard, was created to respond to ships that wrecked off the Atlantic coast. The service was decommissioned in 1915, but in 1881 it boasted 189 stations. Station 17 of Pea Island, NC was one, but was unique. It had the only all-African American crew in the history of the LSS.
Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers by authors David Wright and David Zoby tells how Station 17 garnered its …
Byline: Craig Brandon Staff writer
It may be the furnace of the future, a machine that not only heats your house but generates enough electricity that it actually can make your electric meter run backwards.
Or it could simply be an ingenious gadget that will never be manufactured.
It's on display this week at the Altamont Fair, where you can take a look at it and talk to its inventor, Frank Wicks of Schenectady.
The U.S. Department of Energy calls it the "WEFUS" - prounounced WEE-fus - an acronym for the Wicks' Efficient Fuel Utilization System.
Wicks thinks it could be part of the answer to the world's energy and pollution problems. The Department of …
A limit on the amount of trash that can be discharged into the Los Angeles River has been upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court rejected a challenge filed by 22 cities in Los Angeles County to a limit established by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.
The federal Clean Water Act requires regulatory agencies to establish TMDLs (total maximum daily loads) for pollutants in "impaired" water bodies. In 1997, environmental groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not establishing TMDLs for the Los Angeles region. The lawsuit resulted in a consent decree in which the EPA agreed to set TMDLs for all significant sources …
"The American President" debuts 8-10 p.m. today on WTTW-Channel11. The 10-part series (with two hourlong episodes shown each night)continues Monday-Thursday at 8 p.m.
Experience or ability?
In selecting a president of the United States, that's often thequestion. There is no easy answer. It is virtually impossible topredict if a contender has what it takes to run the country.
Some of our brightest and more highly qualified presidents havebeen failures. A few lightly regarded politicians have providedsurprising leadership. As John F. Kennedy once observed, "There is noschool for presidents."
Those are some of the lessons explored in "The …
Byline: ANDREW BUCHANAN Associated Press
CHICAGO -- Motorola Inc. reported a first quarter loss Tuesday that was wider than analysts' already lowered expectations, citing slumping sales. It was the cellphone and chip maker's first quarterly operating loss in 16 years.
In the quarter ended March 31, Motorola lost $533 million, or 24 cents per share, compared with profits of $448 million, or 20 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Excluding one-time items, the …
