2003 Miscellany News Archive

MISCELLANY NEWS ARCHIVE 2003 ARCHIVES
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20031231
- - "New restrictions ban ill cattle in food supply." ... "The Agriculture Department dramatically upgraded the country's defenses against mad cow disease Tuesday, banning meat from all so-called downer cows and promising to create a nationwide animal tracking system, steps long advocated by critics." ... "These are ``very aggressive actions,'' Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Tuesday, one week after the first case of mad cow disease surfaced on U.S. soil in a Washington state Holstein slaughtered on Dec. 9." -AP via -StarTribune.com
20031230
"FedEx to expand with $2.4bn Kinko's deal." ... "FedEx is to acquire Kinko's, the print services chain, for $2.4bn in an effort to expand both its US package delivery business and its ability to serve as a "one-stop" shop for corporate customers." ... "The acquisition, expected to close in the first quarter of 2004, takes FedEx into a new line of business beyond shipping packages and supply chain management. Kinko's, 75 per cent-owned by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the New York-based private equity firm, is best known for offering photocopying and printing services at 1,200 stores." -By Betty Liu -FT.com
- "FDA Expected to Ban Herbal Weight-Loss Treatment Ephedra." ... "After years of debate, federal health officials are expected today to announce they will act to remove the herbal weight-loss treatment Ephedra from the marketplace, the first time the Food and Drug Administration has moved to ban a dietary supplement, Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported." ... "Ephedra, once widely taken to enhance athletic performance and as a weight- loss aid, has been linked to heart problems and strokes and was fingered in the death earlier this year of 23-year-old Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler." -Contributions by Sarah Lueck, Anna Wilde Mathews and Stefan Fatsis -WSJ.com -DJ via -Quicken.com
- - "Prison terms for female offenders now common in U.S.." ... "Nowhere has there been more attention focused on that trend than in Oklahoma, where the incarceration rate for women is more than double the national average. The Legislature set up a task force this year to learn why. Nationally, from 1993 through 2002, while overall crime was falling, the number of women arrested rose 14.1 percent, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. In the same period, the number of men arrested fell 5.9 percent." ... "Some individual crimes show even more striking disparities. While the number of men arrested on charges of aggravated assault fell 12.3 percent in the decade, the number of women arrested on the same charge rose 24.9 percent. Drug arrests rose 34.5 percent a year for men in this period, 50 percent for women. And the number of women arrested on embezzlement charges increased 80.5 percent, actually surpassing the number of men arrested on the same charges, the only crime for which that is true." -By Fox Butterfield -NYTimes via -IHT.com
- - - - "US expands air marshal plan abroad: Foreign flights must comply if request issued." ... "The Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday that it will require all foreign air carriers to place an armed guard on any flight over United States airspace if counterterrorism officials ask them to do so." ... "The move, described as an "emergency" rules change that is effective immediately, reflects growing concern that the Al Qaeda terrorist network may try to exploit foreign carriers as a gap in US air security by hijacking their planes and flying them into populated areas or high-risk industrial sites." -By Charlie Savage -Boston/Globe
20031229
- "The Growing Web." ... "When the Pew Internet and American Life Project began chronicling the online medium in March 2000, 52 million Americans logged onto the Internet each day. By this past August, that figure had swelled 27 percent, to 66 million." -By Lisa Napoli -NYTimes via -Google-News
- - "Electronic voting firm acknowledges hacker break-in." ... "A Bellevue, Wash., company developing security technology for electronic voting suffered an embarrassing hacker break-in that executives think was tied to the rancorous debate over the safety of casting ballots online." ... "VoteHere confirmed Monday that U.S. authorities are investigating a break-in of its computers months ago, when someone roamed its internal computer network. The intruder accessed internal documents and may have copied sensitive software blueprints that the company planned eventually to disclose publicly." -By Ted Bridis -AP via -USATODAY
"Sick cow's meat may have gone to 8 states." ... "Meat from a Holstein sick with mad cow disease could have reached retail markets in eight states and one territory, but poses no health risk, Agriculture Department officials said yesterday." ... "Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an Agriculture Department veterinarian, said investigators have determined that some of the meat from the diseased dairy cow slaughtered Dec. 9 in Washington state could have gone to Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, and Guam. Earlier, officials had said most of the meat went to Washington and Oregon, with lesser amounts to California and Nevada, for distribution to consumers." -By Emily Gersema -AP via -Boston/Globe
20031223
- "U.S. Reports First Case of Mad Cow Disease." ... "The first U.S. case of the deadly mad cow disease, which devastated parts of the European agriculture industry in the 1990s, was found in a sick animal in Washington state, the Bush administration said on Tuesday." ... ""A single Holstein cow from Washington state was tested as presumptive positive for BSE or what is widely known as mad cow disease," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said at a news conference." (1, 2) -By Randy Fabi and Richard Cowan-Reuters
- - Christmas News - "Where Christmas trees will stay up until April: One Army town's bittersweet celebration." ... "The past nine months have been difficult for families of soldiers at Fort Carson, an Army post south of Colorado Springs. About 11,000 troops were deployed from Fort Carson to Iraq in April. Most aren't expected to return until spring." ... "In many homes, Christmas trees will stay up through the spring, with packages underneath for returning soldiers and their stockings full and dangling from mantles." -By Jeremy Meyer -CSMonitor
- - Anthrax News - "Judge Halts Military's Required Anthrax Shots." ... "A federal district judge ruled Monday that the Defense Department could not compel members of the armed forces to be vaccinated against anthrax without their consent." ... "The judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits Pentagon officials from "inoculating service members without their consent."" ... "The judge found that the vaccine in question, intended to protect military personnel against the potentially deadly effects of inhaled anthrax, was "an investigational drug," being used for an unapproved purpose." -By Robert Pear with contributions by Thom Shanker -NYTimes via -Google-News
20031222
- - "Last Lord of the Rings film sets a box office record." ... "The final instalment of the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy sold $246m worth of tickets worldwide between Wednesday and yesterday, the highest total takings over the first five days of any motion picture." ... "The strong box office performance of The Return of the King provides a welcome boost for Time Warner, the media conglomerate that owns New Line Cinema, the film's distributor, and raises hopes that it could become only the second film after Titanic to gross more than $1bn during its run." -By Simon London -FT.com
- - "'Rings' Shows Trend Toward Global Premieres." ... "From Singapore to Stockholm to New York to Mexico City, fans lined up this weekend to see the final cinematic episode of the J. R. R. Tolkien trilogy, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," part of a growing global moviegoing phenomenon." ... "By opening in 28 countries in its first five days, "The Return of the King," made by New Line Cinema, raked in $246 million — an astonishing sum, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars — from fans eager to revisit the world of hobbits and orcs." -By Sharon Waxman -NYTimes via -Google-News
20031221
- - - Time Magazine's Person of the Year: 2003: "The American Soldier: They swept across Iraq and conquered it in 21 days. They stand guard on streets pot-holed with skepticism and rancor. They caught Saddam Hussein. They are the face of America, its might and good will, in a region unused to democracy. The U.S. G.I. is TIME's Person of the Year" ... "" -By Nancy Gibbs -Vol. 162 No. 26 20031229-20040105 -TIME.com
20031219
"US Checking to See if Flu Season Worse Than Usual." ... "U.S. health officials said on Friday they are investigating whether this year's flu epidemic, which struck earlier than usual and has killed dozens of children, is any worse than in previous years." ... "With influenza reported in all 50 states and widespread in 36, the virus has now reached its usual annual epidemic levels, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference." (1, 2) -By Maggie Fox -Reuters
- - Brazil - "UN wants access to Brazil atomic enrichment plant." ... "The U.N. nuclear watchdog is negotiating with the Brazilian government to ensure that a new uranium enrichment facility due to begin operating next year is properly safeguarded, the agency said on Friday. Several Western diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Brazil was not considered a problem state and there were no concerns that it was developing nuclear weapons." ... "Brazil, which has the world's six-largest uranium reserves and the most sophisticated nuclear programme in Latin America, has said the new plant will begin enriching uranium next year to produce fuel for its atomic power plants." -By Louis Charbonneau -Reuters -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk
- - - - Microsoft News - "Microsoft faces new antitrust battle." ... "A new front in the Microsoft antitrust wars was opened on Thursday as rival software maker RealNetworks accused the company of illegally trying to monopolise the market for digital media software and said it would seek damages of more than $1bn." -By Richard Waters and Scott Morrison -FT.com
20031218
- - "France to Ban Religious Symbols from Schools." ... "French President Jacques Chirac has voiced support for a law which would ban the wearing of Muslim headscarves, Christian crosses and other religious symbols in public schools." ... "Chirac's announcement came in response to a report published last week by a government commission, which proposed the ban of religious symbols in the country's state-run schools. "In all conscience, I consider that the wearing of dress or symbols which conspicuously show religious affiliation should be banned in schools," Chirac said." ... "The decision comes after months of debate on the role of religion in French society and the difficulties the nation has encountered in the integration of its five million-strong Muslim population." -DW-World.de/english
20031217
- - - Christmas News - "Christmas boxes bring Afghan mob scene." ... "Attempts by Canadians to hand out almost 2,000 Christmas gift boxes to impoverished Afghan children Wednesday turned into a melee as some of their parents beat back the young people trying to reach the presents and soldiers had to stop them." ... "A Canadian Forces truck was quickly surrounded by hundreds of children as it arrived at a hillside camp in Kabul, where internally displaced people (IDPs, as they are known by the military) live destitute lives in makeshift housing." -GlobeAndMail
- - - Consumer News - "Calpers files lawsuit against NYSE." ... "The largest U.S. public pension fund is taking the unprecedented step of suing the New York Stock Exchange, alleging the embattled exchange condoned fraudulent practices by specialist trading firms that cost investors at least $155-million (U.S.)." ... "The California Public Employees Retirement System (Calpers), which has assets of $148-billion (U.S.), filed the suit in U.S. court yesterday, and is asking other investors to join it in a class action." -By Shawn McCarthy -GlobeAndMail
- - "Groups Around the Nation Re-enact the Wright Brothers' First Flight." ... "One hundred years ago, a telegram arrived in Dayton, Ohio, at the home of the Rev. Milton Wright." ... ""Success four flights thursday [sic] morning all against twenty one mile wind," it began. "longest 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas." It was signed with the misspelled name of Orville Wright." ... "It makes history's first airplane flight sound almost easy — as if the Wright Flyer had leapt into the air. But in fact, the Wrights crept forward. The first flight was only 120 feet, and the plane broke several struts when it landed." -By Ned Potter -ABCNEWS.com
- - - - - - - "EU Agrees to Share Airline Passenger Data." ... "The European Union has agreed to share information about its airline passengers with the United States, in a deal announced yesterday that ends year-long negotiations over a new U.S. law intended to fight terrorism." ... "International airlines will turn over data about their U.S.-bound passengers, such as a traveler's name, e-mail address, telephone number and credit card number to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection unit." -By Sara Kehaulani Goo -WashingtonPost
- - "US Airways pilots union wants CEO, CFO out." ... "Pilots union leaders at US Airways on Tuesday called for the removal of airline CEO David Siegel and Chief Financial Officer Neal Cohen. Management's "failed business strategies," not high labor costs, are behind the airline's continued losses since emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, union leaders charged." -By Daniel Reed -USATODAY
20031216
- - Consumer News - "It's not called 'Can' Spam for nothing." ... "After six years of wrangling over legislative ways to stop spam, Congress was still faced with a fundamental choice: Give consumers control over the growing flood of unwanted spam e-mail that fills their in-boxes, or give in to the powerful advertising and marketing industries who want to be the ones filling consumer in-boxes." ... "In the end, consumers lost." ... "The Can-Spam Act, signed into law Tuesday, is being touted as relief for the millions of consumers beset with unwanted e-mail. But careful readers will notice that the law is not called the "Can't-Spam" Act. There's a good reason: The law is little more than an instructional guide for how to keep pumping out millions of e-mails per hour while avoiding legal liability." -By Ray Everett-Church -CNET/News
- - ELECTION 2004 - "Court to enter fray over energy-policy task force: Supreme Court will hear case alleging that industry leaders played a key role that must be disclosed." ... "The US Supreme Court delivered a victory to the White House Monday by agreeing to enter the long-running dispute over whether Vice President Dick Cheney must publicly disclose details about the Bush administration's energy policy task force." ... "The Supreme Court's decision to take up the case is important for both political and constitutional reasons. Even if a majority of justices rule against the White House, the Supreme Court action could help the administration keep the task force information under wraps for several more months and perhaps until after the 2004 election, analysts say." -By Warren Richey -CSMonitor
20031215
- - - - Execution News - "Analysis: Putting Saddam on trial: The Iraqi Governing Council intends to put Saddam Hussein on trial by an Iraqi court." ... "It is determined to resist calls for an international tribunal. Saddam Hussein could face the death penalty. It has been suspended by the occupation authorities but could be reinstated by an Iraqi government." ... "That in itself would be controversial. Britain, as a coalition partner, objects to execution on principle. But Iraqis may want it." ... "The British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that Iraqis would "express a strong preference" for a trial in Iraq. International law, he said, also called for a domestic trial in such cases if possible." ... "The United States is firmly behind the Iraqi desire to try Saddam Hussein themselves" -By Paul Reynolds -BBC/News
20031214
- - "Car bomb at police station in Iraq kills at least 17, police say." ... "A suspected suicide attacker detonated a car bomb outside an Iraqi police station Sunday near Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 others, hours before the announcement of Saddam Hussein's capture, the U.S. military said." ... "The car bombing in Khaldiyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, killed police officers, city workers and civilian bystanders, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jeff Swisher said." -By Sameer N. Yacoub -AP via -SFGate.com
20031212
- "Canada to Charge Music Royalties on MP3s." ... "The cost of an MP3 player will increase in Canada after the government's copyright agency decided Friday to charge a tax of up to $19 per unit to reimburse singers and songwriters." ... "The new levy on MP3s will use a sliding scale depending on memory size: $1.50 for units with up to 1 gigabyte, $11.25 for 1 to 10 gigabytes, and $19 for devices of more than 10 gigabytes. Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod player, for example, comes with 10, 20 or 40 gigabytes." -By Colin McClellan -AP via -WashingtonPost>TechNews
20031211
- - STEM CELL NEWS - GENETICS - "Sperm from stem cells fertilize egg: Lab-grown reproductive cells could lead to fertility treatments." ... "Mouse sperm grown from stem cells have successfully fertilized eggs. Laboratory-grown human sperm could follow." ... "The achievement follows the production of fertile eggs from stem cells earlier this year. It could lead to alternative ways to help infertile couples conceive by in vitro fertilization. Such cells could, for instance, help parents who have genetic defects to give birth to normal children." -By Helen R. Pilcher -Nature.com
- - "Annan rules out swift UN redeployment in Iraq." ... "Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday that he had ruled out a swift renewal of a substantial UN presence in Iraq because of the danger there." ... ""I cannot compromise the security of our international and national staff," he said in a 26-page report to the Security Council that found the UN to be "a high-value, high-impact target for terrorist activity in Iraq for the foreseeable future."" -By Warren Hoge -NYTimes via -Google-News -IHT.com
20031210
- "Religious upsurge brings culture clash to college campuses." ... "It's a rainy Thursday night, a few days before finals, and Northwestern University's campus is deserted. But students can hear the raucous music emanating from one old stone building long before they step inside." ... "Religion on campus - particularly evangelical groups like this one - is thriving these days, but it doesn't always find an easy home in the intellectual, secular world of higher education. For instance, Campus Crusade for Christ, which sponsors the Thursday gatherings, has butted heads with the administration here over a questionnaire on religious interest that the group gives to freshmen. Other schools are dropping the college chaplaincy, seeing it as an outdated tradition." -By Amanda Paulson -CSMonitor
- - - "Man has been changing climate for 8,000 years: Agriculture may have released huge amounts of greenhouse gases into atmosphere." ... "Humans began altering the climate 8,000 years ago, long before the industrial revolution, claims a leading climate scientist¹." ... "Massive clearance and irrigation for agriculture released huge amounts greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, says William Ruddiman of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville." ... "By the time the industrial revolution got under way, we had already raised the global temperature by an average of 0.8ºC and by as much as 2 ºC at high latitudes, proposes - enough to deflect an impending ice age. Today's winters would be as much as 7 degrees cooler at high latitudes if it were not for the pre-industrial input of greenhouse gases, he says." -By Betsy Mason -Nature.com
- - - - - - - "Pentagon Bars Three Nations From Iraq Bids." ... "The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying it was acting to protect "the essential security interests of the United States."" ... "The directive, issued Friday by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, represents the most substantive retaliation to date by the Bush administration against American allies who opposed its decision to go to war in Iraq." ... "Under the guidelines, only companies from the United States, Iraq and 61 countries designated "coalition partners" will be allowed to bid on the contracts. France, Germany and Russia are not on the list." (1, 2) -By Douglas Jehl -NYTimes via -Google-News
- - Water - "High Court Rules For Va. Over Md. In Water Dispute: Potomac Battle Dates Back Centuries." ... "The Supreme Court yesterday settled a centuries-old dispute over control of the Potomac River in favor of Virginia, ruling that Maryland has no right to regulate the commonwealth's withdrawals of drinking water from the river." ... "By a vote of 7 to 2, the justices essentially affirmed what a court-appointed special master had already decided: that although an 1877 arbitration decision affirmed Maryland's sovereignty over the entire riverbed, it also preserved Virginia's rights to extend water-intake pipes into the middle of the stream -- and Virginia had not forfeited those rights by submitting to some Maryland regulation in recent years." (1, 2) -By Charles Lane and Maria Glod with contributions by Craig Whitlock -WashingtonPost
20031209
- - "Inspired by a Movie, Brothers Win a National Science Contest." ... "In the 1999 movie "October Sky," the teenage sons of coal mine workers in rural West Virginia build rockets and improbably wind up winning a national science contest." ... "That movie inspired two brothers from Connecticut, the sons of a nuclear engineer and a special education teacher, who took top honors as a team in this year's Siemens Westinghouse Math, Science and Technology competition." -By David M. Herszenhorn -NYTimes via-Google-News
20031208
- - - "Bush Whacked Online: Search Engine Trick Lists President as ‘Miserable Failure’" ... "Type in "miserable failure" on the Google Web site and the first Web link most likely to show up will take you directly to the official online biography for the current occupant of the Oval Office. (The trick will also sometimes work on Yahoo! and other search engines.)" ... ""This is not a political statement from Google, but rather a reflection of a recent Web phenomenon," says a spokesman for Google in Mountain View, Calif. "In this case, a select group of Web masters used the words [miserable failure] to describe and link to George Bush's Web site."" ... "In other words: the president has just been the latest victim of a "Google bomb," a crafty but simple manipulation of how the well-known online search engine works." (1, 2, 3)) -By Paul Eng -ABCNEWS.com

Google Search:
<"miserable failure">
- - "Justices sympathetic to execution appeal: Criticize prosecutors in 1980 Texas trial." ... "Even conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch death penalty supporter, couldn't help the lawyer for the state of Texas on Monday to defend the conduct of prosecutors during a 1980 capital murder trial." ... "In the end, it appeared to be a very good day for Delma Banks Jr., one of the country's longest-serving death row inmates and whose execution the high court halted with 10 minutes to spare earlier this year." ... "The justices will decide Banks' case by next summer." -By Patty Reinhart -HoustonChronicle.com
- - - "More women aspiring to be doctors." ... "For the first time ever, women outnumbered men among people applying to U.S. medical schools for this fall -- a milestone in the slow but steady increase in the number of aspiring female doctors." ... "Women have yet to surpass the number of men actually entering medical school. Nationwide this fall, women were closer than ever to making up the majority of new students, constituting 49.7 percent of the entering class of more than 16,500." -AP via -CNN
- - "No Exams Required: Pharmacist Nailed for Online Drug Sales." ... "Francine Haight will never forget the day she found her son Ryan, a high school senior, lifeless, in his bed." ... "It turned out that some of the drugs that killed the La Mesa, Calif., teen on Feb. 12, 2001 came from nationpharmacy.com, a Norman, Okla.-based Internet drug store owned by pharmacist Clayton Fuchs, who also ran other similar Web sites." ... "In October, a federal jury convicted Fuchs, 33, on six felony offenses including conspiracy to dispense a controlled substance, operating a continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering. Prosecuted under the Drug Kingpin Statute, he faces 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 11." (1, 2, 3) -By Greg Hunter -ABCNEWS.com
- - - - - - - "North Korea guarantee may pave way to accord." ... "The Bush administration has agreed with South Korea and Japan to a broadly worded set of principles to end North Korea's nuclear program, calling for a ``coordinated'' set of steps in which five nations would offer North Korea a security guarantee as it begins a verifiable disassembly of its nuclear facilities, according to Bush administration and Asian officials." ... "The statement is being sent to China's leaders today, the officials said, in hopes that Beijing will pass them on this week to Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader. But officials said that North Korea may judge the offer far too vague, in part because it sets no timetable for energy or economic aid to the country, and because it would require inspections of suspect facilities that have never before been opened." -By David Sanger -NYTimes via -RegisterGuard
20031207
- - - "Dirty Bomb Warheads Disappear: Stocks of Soviet-Era Arms For Sale on Black Market." ... "In the ethnic conflicts that surrounded the collapse of the Soviet Union, fighters in several countries seized upon an unlikely new weapon: a small, thin rocket known as the Alazan. Originally built for weather experiments, the Alazan rockets were packed with explosives and lobbed into cities. Military records show that at least 38 Alazan warheads were modified to carry radioactive material, effectively creating the world's first surface-to-surface dirty bomb." ... "The radioactive warheads are not known to have been used. But now, according to experts and officials, they have disappeared." ... "The last known repository was here, in a tiny separatist enclave known as Transdniester, which broke away from Moldova 12 years ago. The Transdniester Moldovan Republic is a sliver of land no bigger than Rhode Island located along Moldova's eastern border with Ukraine. Its government is recognized by no other nation. But its weapons stocks -- new, used and modified -- have attracted the attention of black-market arms dealers worldwide. And they're for sale, according to U.S. and Moldovan officials and weapons experts." (1, 2, 3) -By Joby Warrick -WashingtonPost
-Search Google:
<Moldova -[News]>
-CIA - The World Factbook -- Moldova
- - - - - "Iraq delays hand Cheney firm $1bn: ·Key contract decisions postponed again. ·Blair drawn into row over lack of 'level playing fields'." ... "Halliburton, the engineering group formerly run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, has been given $1 billion worth of reconstruction work in Iraq by the US government without having to compete for it, thanks to repeated delays in opening up a key contract to competition." ... "The cost-plus contract means the amount spent by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which is running the work, is open-ended, rather than being fixed at the outset, because the scope of the damage was unknown. The USACE described the contract as a 'bridge to competition', but original plans to award the work competitively in August have repeatedly slipped. So far, $1.7bn has been made available to Halliburton for the work." -By Oliver Morgan -Observer.co.uk via -Guardian.co.uk
20031206
- - - - - "Arizonans to visit Cuba base: McCain, Flake to inspect Guantanamo." ... "Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake will make separate visits next week to the U.S. detention center where suspected terrorists are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." ... "The trips by the two Republican lawmakers from Arizona come as the government, under increasing domestic and international pressure, moves toward releasing 100 or more prisoners and putting others on trial in military courts after as long as two years." -By Billy House and Jon Kamman -azcentral.com
"White House is hoping to renew space intrigue: Manned lunar and Mars trips envisioned." ... "The Bush administration is developing a new strategy for the U.S. space program that would send American astronauts back to the moon for the first time in more than 30 years, according to administration and congressional officials who said the plan also included a manned mission to Mars." ... "A lunar mission - possibly establishing a permanent base there - is the focus of high-level White House discussions on how to reinvigorate the space program following the space shuttle Columbia accident this year, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity." -By Bryan Bender -Boston/Globe via -IHT.com
- - - "Spy Satellites Used to Look for Damage on Space Station." ... "NASA has enlisted U.S. spy satellites and taken other measures to inspect the exterior of the international space station for signs of any damage that might explain a strange metallic crunching noise that was heard by the two astronauts on board in the middle of the night of Nov. 26." ... NASA has also shifted steering control of the orbiting laboratory to Russian-built thrusters while engineers study a new problem in the ailing U.S.-built gyroscope system, spaceflight officials said yesterday." -By Kathy Sawyer -WashingtonPost
- "Suicide bomber on Russian train kills 42." ... "A suspected suicide attacker set off a bomb that ripped through a crowded commuter train near the rebellious region of Chechnya in southern Russia yesterday, killing at least 42 people and injuring 170." ... "President Vladimir Putin immediately called the attack an attempt to destabilize the country before tomorrow's parliamentary elections." ... "Authorities said a man set off an explosive device packed with screws, bolts, and wire on a morning rush hour train jammed with students as it traveled through the spa town of Yessentuki on the way to nearby schools and universities." -By David Filipov -Boston/Globe
20031205
- - - "Bush Names Baker Envoy on Iraqi Debt: President Bush Names Ex-Secretary of State James A. Baker III Envoy on Addressing Iraq Debt." ... "President Bush on Friday called on a longtime family troubleshooter, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, to oversee the job of getting Iraq out from under its crushing $125 billion debt." ... "As the president's personal envoy on the issue, Baker will tackle a major problem in the rebuilding of Iraq. Iraq's debt carries annual servicing charges of $7 billion to $8 billion." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20031204
"Study Links Drinking, Brain Tissue Loss: Low to Moderate Drinking May Cause People to Lose Brain Tissue, Study Says." ... "Low to moderate drinking may cause a loss of brain tissue in middle-age people, a study found." ... "The researchers also found that such alcohol consumption does not lower the risk of a stroke contradicting findings from previous studies." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- - - - - "Guantanamo Bay Detainee Is First to Be Given a Lawyer: Move Is Sign That Australian Alleged Al Qaeda Fighter May Be Tried by Tribunal." ... "An Australian detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba last night became the first prisoner there to be given a lawyer, a strong indication that he is on track to be the first alleged al Qaeda fighter in detention to go before a military tribunal, according to informed sources." ... "But a source said Muslim adventurer and former cowboy David Hicks may never be tried before one of the special military courts because the U.S. government is working on a plea bargain with him. He has been accused of associating with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups." -By John Mintz -WashingtonPost
20031203
- - - - "Bush Is Urged to Maintain Import Tariffs for Steel." ... "President Bush got a taste of the treacherous nature of trade politics on Tuesday, hearing last-ditch pleas from some of his own supporters not to proceed with plans to lift tariffs protecting the steel industry from international competition." ... "What was supposed to be a quick trip here, to a town once proudly known as Steel City, turned instead into a series of low-key but high-stakes confrontations over the prospect that Mr. Bush will soon announce a decision to cut off the tariffs, potentially hurting steel makers, their employees and suppliers in Pennsylvania and other industrial states like West Virginia and Ohio that are closely divided politically." -By Richard W. Stevenson contributions by Elizabeth Becker -NYTimes via -Google-News
20031202
- - - "Pentagon freezes Boeing contract: The US military has put an $18bn deal to buy Boeing tanker aircraft on hold." ... "The Defence Department said the deal would be frozen pending an inquiry into Boeing's links with a former Pentagon procurement official." ... "The official, Darleen Druyun, discussed a possible job with Boeing before she had disqualified herself from government service." ... "Ms Druyun was involved in the Pentagon's decision to award the tanker contract to Boeing." -BBC/News
- - "Google stops accepting ads from unlicensed pharmacies." ... "Google Inc. has stopped accepting advertisements from unlicensed pharmacies, joining other popular sites that have bowed to pressure to limit access to the drugs, such as Vicodin." ... "The crackdown on unlicensed pharmacies comes as regulators and Congress intensify their focus on third parties - Web sites, credit companies and shipping companies - that make it easier for illicit operators to sell potentially dangerous drugs." -By Michael Liedtke -AP via -Miami/Herald
20031201
- - "China Releases 3 Internet Writers, but Convicts 1 Other." ... "China released three Internet essayists who were detained a year ago for criticizing the government, including a college student in Beijing whose arrest on subversion charges had attracted international attention, a human rights group based in Hong Kong reported Sunday." -By Philip P. Pan -WashingtonPost
- - "Boeing CEO Condit resigns From Staff and wire reports." ... "Boeing (BA) Chairman and CEO Phil Condit resigned unexpectedly only days after the huge aerospace manufacturer fired two other Boeing officials for an alleged ethics breach." ... "The departure of Condit, 62, follows last week's firing of Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears for discussing job possibilities with Darleen Druyun while Druyun was still working as a top Air Force procurement official and was helping Boeing win support for a major Air Force contract." -USATODAY
- - - Free-Speech - "Texas court to rule: Can fiction be libel?" ... "Shortly after a Texas county judge had 13-year-old Christopher Beamon jailed for five days for writing a Halloween essay about the shooting of a teacher, the Dallas Observer parodied the news item with a fictional account of its own." ... "In a satirical piece, the same judge, Darlene Whitten, was portrayed jailing a 6-year-old girl for writing a book report on Maurice Sendak's children's classic "Where The Wild Things Are," said to contain "cannibalism, fanaticism, and disorderly conduct."" -By John C. Ryan -CSMonitor
20031130
- - - - "Web sites vanish so fast scientific papers just can't keep up: Disappearing links cause consternation -- it's not academic." ... "In research described in the journal Science last month, the team [dermatologist Robert Dellavalle and his co-workers] looked at footnotes from scientific articles in three major journals -- the New England Journal of Medicine, Science and Nature -- at three months, 15 months and 27 months after publication. The prevalence of inactive Internet references grew during those intervals from 3.8 percent to 10 percent to 13 percent." ... ""I think of it like the library burning in Alexandria," Dellavalle said, referring to the 48 B.C. sacking of the ancient world's greatest repository of knowledge. "We've had all these hundreds of years of stuff available by interlibrary loan, but now things just a few years old are disappearing right under our noses really quickly."" -By Rick Weiss-WashingtonPost via -SFGate.com
- - - - "Officer charged with Guantanamo security breach." ... "Col. Jackie Duane Farr is the fourth man assigned to intelligence operations at Guantanamo Bay accused of mishandling classified information." ... "Until recently, Farr was director of the intelligence collection operation in the so-called Joint Interrogations Group, said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, a Guantanamo spokeswoman. The group has teams of interrogators and analysts who weekly question about half of the 660 prisoners being held at Camp Delta, a sprawling prison camp for captives taken in Afghanistan in the War on Terror." -By Carol Rosenberg-Miami/Herald
- - - "Battle lines are drawn in Chrysler's 'takeover' case." ... "When Kirk Kerkorian (pictured) steps into the witness box on Monday or Tuesday, the billionaire casino magnate will make an extraordinary claim: Daimler-Benz, Germany's oldest carmaker, tricked him into selling his stake in Chrysler, one of the biggest names in US automobile making, on the cheap." ... "He is seeking $1.2bn in damages, with a possibility of $3bn in punitive damages." -By James Mackintosh -FT.com
20031129
- - "Editorial: Big spenders/Bush & Co. remortgage nation." ... "Someone recently called President Bush "the mother of all big spenders." It wasn't Howard Dean or any of the other Democratic presidential candidates. It wasn't a Democratic member of Congress. It was fiscal analysts for the conservative-libertarian Cato Institute." ... "Right now the total accumulated federal debt stands at $6.9 trillion. Over the next decade, Bush's policies, if not adjusted by either raising taxes or cutting spending, or both, will almost double that debt. Goldman Sachs, a prominent Wall Street" -StarTribune
- - "USS Cole Heads Out for Overseas Deployment: USS Cole Heads Out for First Overseas Deployment Since 2000 Terrorist Bombing in Yemen Port." ... "The USS Cole and its crew of 340 pulled out of port Saturday for the destroyer's first overseas deployment since it was bombed by terrorists three years ago in Yemen's port of Aden." ... "A crowd of about 100 family members watched as the ship left the Naval Station Norfolk [Virgina] at 12:55 p.m." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20031127
- - "Bullet-riddled body that of missing exec in Colombia." ... "A bullet-riddled body found outside Bogota was positively identified Tuesday as 55-year-old Chikao Muramatsu, kidnapped in February 2001 and held by leftist guerrillas." ... "Muramatsu served as vice president of Yazaki-Ciemel Ltd., a joint venture of auto parts maker Yazaki Corp., based in Tokyo's Minato Ward." -By Satoshi Izumi -Asahi Shimbun>English
20031126
- - "Iran Faces Censure for Nuclear Cover-Ups: Iran Faces Censure for Past Nuclear Cover-Ups Under Draft Resolution at U.N. Atomic Energy Meeting." ... "Iran faces censure for past nuclear cover-ups but escapes a direct threat of sanctions under a draft resolution to be presented at a U.N. atomic energy meeting." ... "A session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors is set Wednesday to approve the draft, which papers over the dispute between the United States and France, Germany and Britain." -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20031124
- - "House Approves Antispam Bill: First nationwide antispam law expected by year's end." ... "Lawmakers are one step closer to enacting the first nationwide antispam law. The House of Representatives on Saturday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would fine spammers who violate restrictions on unsolicited commercial e-mail." ... "The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act was approved by a vote of 392-5. The move follows the U.S. Senate's approval of its version of the CAN-SPAM Act in October with a 97-0 vote." -By Rita Chang and Laura Rohde -IDG.net via -PCWorld.com
- - "Many Iraqis see little to celebrate as Ramadan ends." ... "For the first time in most of their lives, Iraqis celebrated the start of Eid al-Fitr on Monday without Saddam Hussein and under a U.S. occupation that some say is little better than the ousted dictator's rule." -By Joseph Logan -Reuters via -MSNBC
20031123
- - "Two American soldiers pummeled by Iraqi teens; third killed in bombing." ... "Iraqi teenagers dragged two bloodied U.S. soldiers from a wrecked vehicle [in Mosul] and pummeled them with concrete blocks Sunday, witnesses said, describing the killings as a burst of savagery in a city once safe for Americans." ... "Another soldier was killed by a bomb and a U.S.-allied police chief was assassinated." ... "The U.S.-led coalition also said it grounded commercial flights after the military confirmed that a missile struck a DHL cargo plane that landed Saturday at Baghdad International Airport with its wing aflame." -By Mariam Fam -AP via -Boston/Globe
20031121
- - - - - - - - "Al Qaeda’s terror style spreading: Analysts see a form of franchising at work around globe." ... "Leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network have franchised their organization’s brand of synchronized, devastating violence to homegrown terrorist groups across the world, posing a formidable new challenge to counterterrorism forces, according to intelligence analysts and experts in the United States, Europe and the Arab world." ... "The recent attacks in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya and Iraq show that the smaller organizations, most of whose leaders were trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, have fanned out, imbued with radical ideology and the means to create or revitalize local terrorist groups. They also are expanding the horizons of groups that had focused on regional issues." -By Douglas Farah and Peter Finn with contributio