The local authorities in Wilmington have been battling "Ophelia" all day to keep the electric turned on. They have been doing really well. The down times are intermittent and short.
Rooster "Crowing"
"Okeydoke"
History
1321 Dante Alighieri, Italian poet, prose writer, moral philosopher, and political theorist, author of La Divina commedia (The Divine Comedy), dies in Ravenna, Italy, at the age of 56.
1789 James P. Beckwourth, Indian Chief, army scout, and wagon train leader, is born.
1752 Britain shifts from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which has been in use through much of Europe since 1582. The change requires the calendar to make a one-time leap from September 2 to September 14.
1814 Inspired by the defense of Baltimore's Fort McHenry during a British attack in the War of 1812, lawyer Francis Scott Key writes the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner."
1921 Constance Baker Motley, first Black woman appointed federal judge, is born and raised in New Haven, CT. She will be elected Manhattan Borough president, the highest elective office had by a Black woman in a major city
1939 After many years of experimentation, Russian-born aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky flies his first successful helicopter, the VS-300.
1940 Congress passes the Selective Service Act which allows Blacks to be drafted and receive equal training for military service.
1940 Founded in 1939, North Carolina College Law School opens with seven students as North Carolina's second Black law school.
1982 Princess Grace of Monaco, formerly American film actor Grace Kelly, dies of injuries she received in an automobile accident the previous day.
Missing in Action
1965 TAYLOR NEIL BROOKS RANGELEY ME
1966 STODDARD CLARENCE W. JR CORPUS CHRISTI TX "CACCF/ATLANTA,IDAHO"
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Judge: School pledge is unconstitutional
By DAVID KRAVETS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday in a case brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words "under God" was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Pledge%20of%20Allegiance
Pa. screening schoolchildren for obesity
By MARTHA RAFFAELE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- As they wait for their children's first report cards to come home this year, elementary-school parents across Pennsylvania also can expect to get a separate report on a key indicator of their children's health.
For the first time, the state Health Department is requiring school nurses to compute students' body-mass index - or height-to-weight ratio - during annual growth screenings of children in kindergarten through fourth grade.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=FIT%20Weighing%20Schoolchildren
Trial under way in second Vioxx case
By JOHN CURRAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- A product liability case blaming a man's heart attack on the painkiller Vioxx started Wednesday, with his lawyer telling jurors the drug's maker put profits over safety. Manufacturer Merck & Co. asserted there were other causes for the heart attack.
Chris Seeger, lead attorney for 60-year-old Idaho postal worker Frederick "Mike" Humeston, said Humeston was a healthy, active Vietnam veteran who enjoyed hiking when he was stricken two months after his doctor prescribed Vioxx to relieve pain from a war injury.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1500&slug=Vioxx%20Litigation
Gates on Apple, Google -- and Microsoft's future
By TODD BISHOP
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
LOS ANGELES -- Microsoft Corp. is grappling with "a lot of smart competitors," including Google and Apple, who are ahead of the Redmond company in some key markets, Bill Gates acknowledges.
But the Microsoft chairman on Tuesday said his company remains the overall industry leader, and he compared the current rivalries to legendary ones with Lotus, Novell and WordPerfect -- situations in which the Redmond company ultimately overcame steep odds to prevail.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/240541_gates14ww.html
WWII soldier's last letter makes it home
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
POOLE, Neb. -- It took more than 60 years, but the final letter of a soldier killed in World War II finally made it home.
Gary Mathis bought a box of old newspapers at a yard sale in Kansas, and discovered the letter inside a newspaper from 1915. The letter's envelope has military post office markings dated March 6, 1944.
It was addressed to W.J. Krotz of nearby Poole, about 120 miles west of Lincoln.
Mathis placed an announcement and picture of the letter in the Ravenna News, hoping someone might know the family.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Soldier%27s%20Last%20Letter
Militants kill Afghans carrying voter IDs
By DANIEL COONEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SHOMALI PLAINS, Afghanistan -- Militants killed seven Afghans carrying voter ID cards, while hundreds of rockets and other weapons were found Wednesday buried in the desert near Kabul, raising fears of attacks on the capital with landmark elections just days away.
NATO-led peacekeepers discovered the weapons in two caches hidden in a stony gully on the Shomali Plains, about 18 miles north of Kabul.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Afghanistan
Afghan elections gives refugees hope
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Up a dank stairway lit only by a shaft of sunlight poking through a hole in the roof is the single room where Mohammad Khan has lived with his wife and eight children since they returned from Pakistan nearly four years ago.
The conditions are depressing. But Khan and other denizens of the foul-smelling ruins of a communist-era Russian cultural center see a faint hope for a way out of their limbo as Afghanistan prepares for its first legislative elections after a quarter-century of war.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Afghan%20Returned%20Refugees
U.S. said to maintain role in Afghanistan
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BERLIN -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pledged Wednesday that U.S. military forces "will continue to play a strong role" in Afghanistan even after NATO allies expand their peacekeeping operation across the country next year.
At the conclusion of a two-day NATO meeting, Rumsfeld took reporters' questions about the American presence there but stoutly avoided getting into any specifics about force levels.
"U.S. forces will of course continue to play a strong role," he said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=NATO%20Rumsfeld
Gunmen kill Shiite Muslim in Pakistan
By NASEER KAKAR
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
QUETTA, Pakistan -- Gunmen on a motorcycle murdered a minority Shiite Muslim in this southwestern city Wednesday before fleeing, violence that police said was apparently part of a wave of sectarian killings blamed on Sunni militants.
The slain man, Ijaz Hussain, an employee at Pakistan Railways, was going to work when assailants opened fire on him, said Pervez Zahoor of Quetta police.
"It seems to be an act of religious terrorism, but we are still investigating," he told The Associated Press. Sectarian killings are common in many parts of Pakistan, often attributed to outlawed Sunni extremist groups.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Pakistan%20Sectarian%20Violence
Pakistan questions suspects on al-Qaida
By MUNIR AHMAD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani counterterrorism experts are questioning 21 suspects captured at an al-Qaida hide-out for clues about remnants of the terror network and the Taliban, an intelligence official said Wednesday.
The suspects - who intelligence official said include Afghans - were captured this week during the biggest-ever military operation in North Waziristan, a strategic tribal region in North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Pakistan%20Militant%20Hunt
Radioactive waste on track to be moved
By JENNIFER TALHELM
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Almost 12 million tons of radioactive waste will be moved from the banks of the Colorado River, the source of drinking water for more than 25 million people across the West, the government said Wednesday,
Energy Department officials on Wednesday cleared the way for a plan that was announced this year.
The 94-foot high pile of uranium mining waste is near Moab, Utah, and 750 feet from the river. The department now will work on the specifics of moving the waste to a site at Crescent Junction, more than 30 miles northwest.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1155&slug=Radioactive%20Waste
House GOP derails Democratic inquiries
By LIZ SIDOTI
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans derailed Democratic attempts on Wednesday to force the Bush administration to surrender documents on prewar intelligence and the disclosure of the identity of a CIA operative.
Democrats have introduced several "resolutions of inquiry" to compel President Bush and members of his Cabinet to release all information relating to communications with British officials before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the Valerie Plame case.
The White House has taken heat since the disclosure this year of the "Downing Street memos," British documents that suggest the Bush administration had made up its mind by 2002 to invade Iraq. Administration officials also have been interviewed by a special prosecutor in his quest to determine who leaked Plame's covert identity to reporters.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Congress%20Inquiries
Senate kills bid for Katrina commission
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., call for creation of an independent commission to investigate the response to Hurricane Katrinia during a news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans on Wednesday scuttled an attempt by Sen. Hillary Clinton to establish an independent, bipartisan panel patterned after the 9/11 Commission to investigate what went wrong with federal, state and local governments' response to Hurricane Katrina.
The New York Democrat's bid to establish the panel - which would have also made recommendations on how to improve the government's disaster response apparatus - failed to win the two-thirds majority needed to overcome procedural hurdles. Clinton got only 44 votes, all from Democrats and independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Fifty-four Republicans all voted no.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1155&slug=Katrina%20Washington>
Jews, Muslims to seek tribunals in Canada
By BETH DUFF-BROWN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TORONTO -- Jews and Muslims in Ontario pledged Wednesday to fight for faith-based tribunals to settle family disputes after its premier stunned their communities by announcing he would ban all religious arbitration in Canada's largest province.
Ontario appeared well on its way to becoming the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of Sharia, an ancient set of Islamic rules, to settle some Muslim family disputes.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apcanada_story.asp?category=1101&slug=Canada%20Sharia%20Dispute
The News from Israel is getting bizarre. It's about the Palestinians and Gaza and the violence. These articles at least deal with issues I can relate to. Whoever thought the Palestinians would be so savage after moving into Gaza.
Jerusalem Post
Vast amounts of arms cross into Gaza
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH AND JPOST STAFF
"We know that in the past two days vast amounts of ammunition, weapons and fugitives entered Gaza. We fear that some of the weapons will make their way to the West Bank", a senior security official told the Jerusalem Post.
While Israel has no imminent plans to take action, the security establishment is monitoring the situation at the southern border very closely, the official said. "Right now we are biding our time, the coming days will tell," he said.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126578009090>
After gunfire, Abbas doesn't show up
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday issued a stiff warning to various armed militias responsible for the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in PA-ruled territories.
Abbas, who was unable to attend a rally on Wednesday to celebrate the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip because of the presence of scores of militiamen, said the PA was running out of patience in the wake of increased chaos.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126664381688>
Israelis, Palestinians to meet in European camp
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
STRASBOURG, France
A youth camp organized by the Council of Europe next week will bring together Israelis and Palestinians, as well as ethnic Albanians and Serbs from Kosovo.
About 40 people age 16 to 20 will participate in the camp near the city of Freiburg on the German-French border Sept. 18-24.
The participants come from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank, as well as the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, which is divided between a Serb-dominated north and an ethnic Albanian south.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126664380367
'Mandela's rabbi' to be buried in Jerusalem today
By SAM SER AND AP
South Africa's former chief rabbi Cyril Harris has died in the South African coastal resort of Hermanus, near Cape Town, of cancer, just days short of his 69th birthday. Harris's body was flown to Israel on Wednesday and was to be buried on Jerusalem's Har Hamenuhot on Thursday morning.
Harris, who became a close friend of former South African president Nelson Mandela, was credited with aiding the reconciliation process in South Africa during the transition from apartheid to a free democracy.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126664382321
Rattling the Cage: Being Bibi - in the Sharon era
By LARRY DERFNER
What's happened to Binyamin Netanyahu? He used to be considered the most brilliant politician Israel had ever seen, a magician, the guy who couldn't be beaten. Now?
He's become the biggest blunderer in Israeli politics. He's not just a loser, he's a spectacular one.
All he's going to do for the next year is get beaten – by Ariel Sharon. It's understood now that his surprise resignation as finance minister a month ago, followed by his challenge to Sharon for chairmanship of Likud and leadership of the country, was a colossal mistake.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126664382013
All Africa
Building Human Capacity Key to Africa's Future, Says AAI President
allAfrica.com
INTERVIEW
September 14, 2005
Posted to the web September 14, 2005
New York
Since its founding in 1953, the Africa-America Institute (formerly the African-American Institute) has developed and administered programs to educate and train Africans and to promote dialogue and understanding between the United States and Africa. In this first of a two-part discussion, AAI's president, Mora McLean, talked to AllAfrica's Tami Hultman about her organization's purpose, its past and its future.
AAI is now the oldest Africa-oriented private institution in the United States. We both know that perpetuating Africa-related work is a constant struggle. Why have you survived for more than half a century?
http://allafrica.com/stories/200509140428.html
High Oil Prices Hit Poorest Hardest
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
September 14, 2005
Posted to the web September 14, 2005
Lagos
As thousands of angry Nigerians took to the streets on Thursday to protest against 30 percent hikes in fuel price, across West Africa some of the world's poorest also were feeling the pinch, struggling to cope with the record-breaking cost of crude and its knock-on effect on basic goods.
Chanting slogans and waving banners, noisy protestors poured onto the grounds of the Lagos Governor's office denouncing fuel hikes decided 26 August by President Olusegun Obasanjo's government.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200509140585.html
Sudan: Darfur Risks Descending Into Anarchy - Observers
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
September 14, 2005
Posted to the web September 14, 2005
Nairobi
Darfur risks sliding into a perpetual state of lawlessness even as the Sudanese government and the main rebel groups in the war-torn region discuss the possibility of peacefully resolving the conflict there, observers have warned.
Banditry and continuous attacks by armed groups on humanitarian workers, Arab nomads and villages in Darfur have increased significantly over the past weeks and threaten to destabilise the fragile ceasefire in the volatile western Sudanese region.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200509140011.html
Sudan: Darfur Risks Descending Into Anarchy - Observers
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
September 14, 2005
Posted to the web September 14, 2005
Nairobi
Darfur risks sliding into a perpetual state of lawlessness even as the Sudanese government and the main rebel groups in the war-torn region discuss the possibility of peacefully resolving the conflict there, observers have warned.
Banditry and continuous attacks by armed groups on humanitarian workers, Arab nomads and villages in Darfur have increased significantly over the past weeks and threaten to destabilise the fragile ceasefire in the volatile western Sudanese region.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200509140011.html
Africa Can Move Faster on MDGs, Says Report
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa)
PRESS RELEASE
September 13, 2005
Posted to the web September 13, 2005
A new report on the Millennium Development Goals published by the Economic Commission for Africa says that despite widespread pessimism, some African countries are on course to meet key Goals and that with the right policies, many more could meet the target date of 2015.
The report says countries such as Ghana, Botswana, Uganda and Burkina Faso are likely to achieve Goal One of halving poverty by the deadline. Many more countries remain far behind, but the report argues that their governments can be successful at reducing extreme poverty if they use the MDGs as a tool in shaping their development policies.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200509130687.html
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