The Jeruslem Post
Arab states to push Mideast peace plan
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Arab foreign ministers met Wednesday to promote a plan to revive the deadlocked Middle East peace process amid widespread Arab fears the recent war in Lebanon helped boost the influence of Iran and the militants it supports.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the 22-nation body will discuss a plan to request a ministerial meeting by the UN Security Council to advance efforts to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict, through direct talks among Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians.
Bahrain's foreign minister, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, who chaired Wednesday's meeting in Cairo, said in an opening speech that "a credible and real effort" is needed to put the peace process back on track.
But it's unclear what - if anything - the UN is prepared to do. And reaction from Israel and the United States also so far has been tepid.
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Olmert, Blair to meet for talks on Middle East situation
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP
JERUSALEM
A meeting between the Israeli and British prime ministers was scheduled to take place in Jerusalem on Saturday, officials said.
The meeting was set to begin the evening of a planned mass demonstration in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, in which citizens, politicians and religious leaders were to call on the government to set up a state inquiry commission to examine whether officials mishandled the war in Lebanon.
Israel's fragile truce with Hizbullah, resuming peace talks with the Palestinians and the Iranian nuclear program will be the key topics for discussion at the meeting between Israeli and British premiers Ehud Olmert and Tony Blair.
"The prime ministers will speak about Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran and the Palestinians," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Olmert.
In London, Blair's spokesman said the British leader will focus on the aftermath of the Lebanon fighting and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but will not deliver any detailed proposals.
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Syria okays EU presence on border
By JPOST STAFF AND AP
Italian Premier Romano Prodi said Saturday that Syria's President Bashar Assad has agreed "in principle" to a deployment of unarmed EU monitors on its border to help stem the flow of weapons into Lebanon.
Russia to probe Hizbullah weapons Prodi said in a statement that he had spoken with Assad several times over the last few days. "I reminded President Assad that the European Union has significant experience in training programs for frontier guards, and that the idea of an EU mission of assistance on the border between Syria and Lebanon would be an excellent signal of cooperation between Syria and Europe," Prodi said. "President Assad gave me his accord in principle." An indication of agreement from Assad was considered significant, after he said last month in a TV interview that he would consider the deployment of international troops along the Lebanon-Syria border to be a hostile move toward his country.
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IDF releases five Lebanese detainees
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP
BEIRUT, Lebanon
IDF soldiers released five Lebanese men from custody on Saturday morning after detaining them overnight.
It was initially reported that the five men were armed, however, according to Israel Radio, the men were unarmed but had approached the soldiers on patrol there in a suspicious manner.
The five were detained in Ayta a-Shaab, a village near the border that saw heavy fighting between Hizbullah and the IDF during the 34-day war in Lebanon.
The IDF said Friday that soldiers stopped a group of men who were moving toward the Israeli border and questioned them.
Israeli forces are in the process of withdrawing from areas they seized in the south during the Lebanon war, and Lebanese soldiers and UN peacekeepers are taking their place under the terms of a UN-brokered cease-fire that began Aug. 14.
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Work on Busheir reactor to continue
By JPOST STAFF AND AP
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday denied reports that Russia would stop construction on the nuclear reactor in Busheir if Iran were to expel UN IAEA nuclear inspectors, Israel Radio reported.
Head of Russia's atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said in Moscow that the Busheir reactor would be operational within a year, and that in another six or seven months Russia would begin shipping nuclear fuel to Iran.
US Affairs: Defusing the bomb Meanwhile, Lavrov also called on Friday for an investigation to determine whether Israel used cluster bombs in its offensive in Lebanon, Russian news agencies reported. Lavrov's call for a probe came on the heels of a visit to the Middle East, where he faced Israeli charges that Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas used Russian arms supplied by Syria in their war with Israel, and appeared aimed at least in part to counter criticism over the issue. "In the interests of everybody and in the interests of turning this page for good, it is necessary to conduct such an investigation, to establish the facts and not to leave any disagreements," ITAR-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying.
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Abbas willing to meet with Olmert
By JPOST STAFF
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he was willing to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and would not set any conditions for any such meeting.
Abbas said that efforts were continuing to be made towards the release of kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit in exchange for the release of Palestinian security prisoners currently incarcerated in Israel, and Abbas hoped that many Palestinians would be freed as part of an exchange agreement, Israel Radio reported.
On Tuesday, Abbas told the Al-Khaleej newspaper that negotiations over the release of Shalit have not been fruitful until now. His announcement came against a backdrop of conflicting reports in the Arab media about an imminent prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestinians.
Abbas was quoted by the paper as saying that Shalit would be transferred to Egypt and held there until Israel fulfilled its part of the bargain.
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Haniyeh: Hamas gov't won't step down
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh declared on Friday that his embattled Hamas-led government had no intention of stepping down, despite a sweeping civil service strike and an economic crisis that a top UN official said has brought the Gaza Strip to a "point of near meltdown."
Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian Authority in March has provoked crushing international sanctions that have rendered the government unable to pay its 165,000 employees for the past six months.
In the widest sign of growing displeasure with Hamas, tens of thousands of teachers, health workers and other government employees launched an open-ended strike last Saturday. The work stoppage, organized in large part by the rival Fatah movement, has threatened to bring down the government.
"The government is not going to resign," Haniyeh told 2,000 worshippers at a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. "We have no thoughts of resignation or dismantling the (Palestinian) Authority."
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'If the Torah isn't for everyone, it isn't for anyone'
By HAVIV RETTIG
Rabbi Michael Melchior wears many hats. He serves as chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, head of the Knesset caucuses for Arab-Israeli cooperation and the environment, head of the left-wing religious Meimad party, chief rabbi of Norway and rabbi of a congregation in the southern part of Jerusalem.
He is the honorary head of several non-profit organizations, participates in inter-religious dialogue that lands him in places such as Qatar and Alexandria and has initiated a chain of schools in which religious and secular children study together. For the start of the school year, Rabbi Melchior spoke to The Jerusalem Post about education in Israel, the religious-secular divide and peacemaking.
The hottest social issue right now seems to be the 2007 budget. It has been said that even though the budget presented this week (and quickly withdrawn and amended following public outrage) was merely the Finance Ministry's opening position in the negotiations, the post-war cut to released soldiers' benefits and the hike in student tuition showed a psychological disconnect from the national mood. How do you see the budget presented this week?
I truly don't understand it. Everything is ad hoc. There hasn't been a single serious discussion of what we want to do. Everything in politics is done for tomorrow's headline.
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Not making the grade
By PEGGY CIDOR
In the late Sixties, Zalman Aranne, the education minister from the Mapai Party, initiated a broad-based reform of the educational system.
"Integration," he called it. By bringing children from different backgrounds into the same schools, the minister predicted, he could accelerate Israel's melting-pot ideal and cut down the gaps between the haves and have nots in Israeli society.
Eli Haim, a retired principal of a Jerusalem school, remembers those days.
"It began in 1967, after the waves of new immigrants, after the reparations from Germany, after the terrible recession of 1964-1966. Prosperity had begun, especially in the large cities. There was a real concern that the egalitarian ethos wouldn't survive."
"Aranne, who was a true defender of socialist and egalitarian ideals, believed there was a need to bring children together - whether they were immigrants or veterans, rich or poor," Haim continues. "We didn't have 'special' schools back then, everybody studied the same [government-mandated] programs and all the kids wore uniforms."
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Asbury Park Press
Illness a legacy of 9/11
Thousands who helped at WTC have health problems
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/8/06
BY TODD B. BATES
ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER
The Rev. Denise P. Mantell spent hundreds of volunteer hours helping people at or near the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
This year, she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
She thinks "there's probably . . . a very good possibility" that the cancer is linked to her exposure, said Mantell, a Matawan resident and rector of Trinity Episcopal Church there.
Sarah R. Atlas, a volunteer dog handler with New Jersey Task Force One, an urban search and rescue team based at Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station, spent 10 days at or near ground zero immediately after the disaster.
Since then, Atlas, who lives in Camden County, has developed numerous health problems, including chronic nasal and sinus problems and a sleeping disorder.
"What's happened, happened," said Atlas, a 50-year-old emergency medical technician. "If, God forbid, I get something else down the road," medical people will identify it quickly.
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed, vast amounts of dust, smoke and gases were released into the air, and fires at ground zero burned for more than three months, emitting even more contaminants, according to studies.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080398
He did his job, and died; family ineligible for aid
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/8/06
BY SHANNON MULLEN
STAFF WRITER
It was their firefighter son, not their telephone worker son, whom Angelo and Frances DeBiase were most anxious about on Sept. 11.
Gary DeBiase, assigned to Ladder 109 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was among the first responders to the World Trade Center site that day, arriving not long after the towers collapsed, killing more than 300 of his fellow firefighters. Working under extremely hazardous conditions, he stuck with the painstaking recovery effort through the end of the year — a life-changing experience he will never forget.
His brother, Mark, a resident of Jackson, had a role in the recovery effort, too, albeit a fleeting one. A cell tower technician for AT&T Wireless, he was called in to set up emergency communication equipment at ground zero on Sept. 12. He spent a total of 16 hours there, then moved on to do the same job at Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill, where Trade Center debris was being dumped and sifted for remains and forensic evidence.
By week's end, Mark had returned to his regular duties. As time went on, he scarcely gave his recovery work a second thought, even after alarms were raised about a growing number of ground zero responders developing respiratory illnesses and other health problems believed to be caused by toxic dust and fumes at the trade center site.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080399
U.S. promises more aid for those made ill by ground zero duties
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/8/06
BY JOHN MACHACEK
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON — The federal government promised Thursday to play a bigger role in dealing with the growing number of Sept. 11 rescue and recovery workers made sick by toxic dust at ground zero.
Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt announced that $75 million approved last year by Congress for medical treatment would be released by October. He also said top officials at his agency would begin working on a plan for treating and monitoring all affected workers.
But in a meeting with New York lawmakers and two ailing workers, Leavitt said the federal government could not bear all the burden for treating illnesses that are more widespread than previously thought. A study released Tuesday by Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City found that nearly 70 percent of 10,000 workers tested by the hospital had become sick.
"If the $75 million proves to be inadequate, the federal government will be part of a coordinated effort (with state and local governments) to solve whatever the balance of the problem there is," Leavitt told reporters later.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080394
N.J.'s business-friendly strategy aims at job growth
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/8/06
BY JONATHAN TAMARI
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON — Gov. Corzine promised a more coordinated and focused approach to building New Jersey's economy Thursday, outlining a plan he hopes will spark job growth and reverse perceptions about the state's supposed hostility toward business.
In what business leaders called a marked change from previous administrations, the plan relies on heavy personal involvement from the governor, who vowed to become New Jersey's "marketer in chief" in order to attract investments.
"This plan puts economic development at the top of my administration's agenda," Corzine said as he outlined his strategy in Newark at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
The proposal includes two funds to boost investments in high-technology fields and help small business and minority-owned ventures, especially in cities such as Camden and Newark, although the administration has only a fraction of the money it hopes to offer.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080397
Mistake in zoning map stirs debate
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/8/06
BY JOHN VANDIVER
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
LAKEWOOD — Property owners in a largely undeveloped southwest section of the township learned recently that they can build much more on their land than was allowed just a few years ago.
Thus, the phone calls from property owners — some angry, some sensing an opportunity to cash in — have been pouring in all week to the office of Township Committeeman Charles Cunliffe.
"It's been nonstop," said Cunliffe.
But it's also all a big mistake, he said Thursday.
When the Township Committee voted about a year ago to approve a new zoning map, there was a mix-up, Cunliffe said.
The area off Cross Street near the Jackson boundary, a more rural part of town, had been zoned to require 2-acre building lots. The new zoning reduced the minimum lot size to 1 acre. The result: Land value there has more than doubled, Cunliffe said.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080396
Senate: Saddam saw al-Qaida as threat
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/DANIEL BEREHULAK
U.S. Video
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting assertions President Bush has used to build support for the war in Iraq. The report also newly faults intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion.
Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.
As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."
Democrats contended that the administration continues to use faulty intelligence, including assertions of a link between Saddam's government and the recently killed al-Zarqawi, to justify the war in Iraq.
They also said, in remarks attached to Friday's Senate Intelligence Committee document, that former CIA Director George Tenet had modified his position on the terrorist link at the request of administration policymakers.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_REPORT?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Mistake in zoning map stirs debate
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/8/06
BY JOHN VANDIVER
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
LAKEWOOD — Property owners in a largely undeveloped southwest section of the township learned recently that they can build much more on their land than was allowed just a few years ago.
Thus, the phone calls from property owners — some angry, some sensing an opportunity to cash in — have been pouring in all week to the office of Township Committeeman Charles Cunliffe.
"It's been nonstop," said Cunliffe.
But it's also all a big mistake, he said Thursday.
When the Township Committee voted about a year ago to approve a new zoning map, there was a mix-up, Cunliffe said.
The area off Cross Street near the Jackson boundary, a more rural part of town, had been zoned to require 2-acre building lots. The new zoning reduced the minimum lot size to 1 acre. The result: Land value there has more than doubled, Cunliffe said.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS/609080396>
HP chair: Board members want her to stay
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Business Writer
AP Photo/PAUL SAKUMA
Technology Video
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairwoman Patricia Dunn said Friday that several of her fellow board members want her to remain on the job despite a criminal investigation into her efforts to plug a media leak.
Dunn's crusade spawned a ruse to obtain the personal phone records of company directors and at least nine reporters. It put HP's board at the center of an imbroglio that threatens to distract the Palo Alto-based company as it tries to build on a recent run of success in the personal computer and other high-tech markets.
"I serve at the pleasure of the board," Dunn told The Associated Press in an interview. "I totally trust their judgment. If they think it would be better for me to step aside, I would do that. But a number of directors have urged me to hang in there."
Incensed by several media stories that quoted unnamed people about information shared during HP board meetings, Dunn authorized an investigation earlier this year to determine if any of the company's directors were talking out of turn.
The inquiry convinced HP that George Keyworth II had been providing reporters with confidential company information. The company is punishing him by preventing him from running for re-election to the board.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HEWLETT_PACKARD_DIRECTORS?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
NASA to try 5th launch attempt Saturday
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo
AP VIDEO
NASA Scrubs Atlantis Launch
Science Video
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- For the fourth time in two weeks, NASA nixed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, this time for a faulty fuel tank sensor - the same glitch that has thwarted two other missions.
A fifth liftoff attempt will be made at 11:15 a.m. EDT Saturday to get the spacecraft headed on a mission to resume construction of the international space station.
On Friday the six astronauts were already strapped in with the hatch closed when the space agency called off the launch with just 45 minutes to go. Although the fuel sensor had malfunctioned hours earlier, NASA wanted to keep discussing the problem before scrubbing the flight.
But they knew the odds for a liftoff weren't good. The agency has a new rule requiring a stand-down of 24 hours when one of the hydrogen tank's four engine cutoff sensors doesn't work properly; such a delay would allow engineers to gather more data on the problem.
"We had a lot of discussion. ... We follow the rules," launch director Mike Leinbach radioed Atlantis' crew, notifying them about the scrub. "Ought to feel good that we did that."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SPACE_SHUTTLE?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Police close in on fugitive on FBI list
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
AP VIDEO
Manhunt Intensifies for Armed Fugitive
U.S. Video
CARROLL, N.Y. (AP) -- Authorities hunting for one of the nation's most wanted men claimed to have murder suspect Ralph "Bucky" Phillips surrounded in the woods near the Pennsylvania line Friday after opening fire on him and putting dogs on his trail.
Police said they did not know whether Phillips was wounded in the shooting, and there was no sign of blood at the scene.
But state police Superintendent Wayne Bennett said officials believed they had the escaped convict trapped in an area near Carroll, about 65 miles south of Buffalo. Authorities used helicopters, roadblocks and dogs to try to close the noose.
"We believe we have him contained," Bennett said, but added, "I won't say that I'm completely convinced that this is going to come to the conclusion we want."
A 44-year-old career thief who broke out of a Buffalo-area jail in April, he is suspected of killing a state trooper and wounding two others. Phillips, who has threatened "suicide by cop" and once promised to "splatter pig meat all over Chautauqua County," is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TROOPER_SHOT?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Atomic clocks are getting more precise
By MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer
Science Video
NEW YORK (AP) -- Some physicists are creating a revolution in the arcane world of ultra-precise clocks. And among them is a researcher who has trouble getting anywhere on time.
"I do tend to be a little bit late," said Jim Bergquist, 58. "Quite a bit late."
Of course, the time he focuses on professionally is far removed from the world of dinner dates and planes to catch.
Bergquist, who is with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., works with extremely accurate devices that rely on the behavior of atoms to measure time. In fact, he is working on what could be the world's most accurate such timepiece.
In Bergquist's world, a 10-billionth of a second is just too long a time between ticks of a clock. And it really makes a difference that a clock in mile-high Denver ticks faster than another at sea level. (Time itself passes more quickly when gravity is reduced.)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VERY_ACCURATE_CLOCK?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Police: Man robs bank to be 'supported'
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Police said Gaetan Roy had just lost his job, so he came up with a plan: Rob a bank, hang around, then get taken to jail to be "supported."
Roy has been charged with robbing a St. Mary's Bank. Police said he walked into the bank Friday and handed a note to the teller that said: "This is a robbery. Put all the cash into the plastic bag. No hassles, no problems."
Roy left the bank with about $1,300. When officers arrived, they found Roy in a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot next to the bank, drinking an iced coffee. Police said he had the note and cash stuffed in his pockets.
"It appears he didn't make any furtive gestures," Sgt. Lloyd Doughty said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EAGER_BANK_ROBBER?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Cell phones found inside four prisoners
AP Photo/CENTROS PENALES
AP VIDEO
You Won't Believe Where Inmates Hid Phones
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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- Cell phones, complete with a charger and data chips, were found in the body cavities of four inmates at a maximum-security prison, and they had used the phones to direct criminal activities on the street, officials said Wednesday.
The discovery was made Tuesday at the prison in Zacatecoluca, in central El Salvador, after suspicious officials took X-rays of the inmates, federal corrections chief Jaime Villanova said.
The names of the prisoners, all members of the dangerous Mara Salvatrucha gang, were not released in order to avoid jeopardizing an ongoing investigation that began a month ago, he said.
Capt. Juan Ramon Arevalo, director of the Zacatras prison, said the gang members had introduced the cell phones, wrapped in plastic bags, into their bodies through their anuses. The phones were relatively small - about as long as an adult forefinger.
Authorities also found nine cell phone chips, each slightly larger than a fingernail, and one charger.
"Each one had a cellular with a number of chips," Arevalo said, adding that one also had hidden a charger in his anal cavity.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INTESTINAL_PHONES?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Wie misses another men's tournament cut
AP Photo/OLIVIER MAIRE
News Video
CRANS-SUR-SIERRE, Switzerland (AP) -- Michelle Wie didn't just fail to make the cut in her latest men's tournament. She finished dead last. Wie struggled to an 8-over 79 Friday at the European Masters, missing the cut at a men's event for the ninth time in 10 attempts.
The 16-year-old from Hawaii, who shot a 78 in Thursday's first round, finished at 15-over 157 - last of the 152 players who completed 36 holes. She was 22 shots off the lead shared by Andrew McLardy (65), Bradley Dredge (67) and Marcel Siem (67).
"I'm still in shock," Wie said. "I didn't know what sport I was playing out there. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed again. I really just couldn't get anything going."
After bogeys on her first two holes Friday, Wie took double-bogey 7s on successive par-5s. Starting her round at the 10th, she hit her third shot into the middle of the lake at the 598-yard 14th.
Then Wie drove out of bounds at the 15th.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GLF_EUROPEAN_MASTERS?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Man's gun fires in Wal-Mart bathroom
HUDSON, N.H. (AP) -- A Nashua man faces a felony reckless conduct charge after his gun discharged in a Wal-Mart bathroom, striking the ceiling and scaring an employee in the next stall.
Charles Masterson, 36, said he pointed his gun toward the ceiling because he had been taught that was the safest thing to do when it wasn't being used.
The precaution backfired when the gun discharged Tuesday night while Masterson was in the bathroom.
Police charged him for putting the teenage employee in danger. Masterson's 13-year-old son also was in the bathroom.
Masterson was jailed overnight, but released on personal recognizance Wednesday after his arraignment in Nashua District Court.
Masterson said he had been carrying the Glock 9mm pistol in his waistband.
The Wal-Mart employee, Adam Carew, 17, of Dracut, Mass., told police he was in the handicapped accessible stall when he heard the gunshot. Carew said he ran out and saw Masterson's son covering his ears.
Carew told police Masterson walked out of his stall, put the gun in his pants and just walked right out of the bathroom like nothing happened.
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Wal-Mart employees called police.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BATHROOM_GUNFIRE?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Police close in on fugitive on FBI list
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
AP VIDEO
Manhunt Intensifies for Armed Fugitive
U.S. Video
CARROLL, N.Y. (AP) -- Authorities hunting for one of the nation's most wanted men claimed to have murder suspect Ralph "Bucky" Phillips surrounded in the woods near the Pennsylvania line Friday after opening fire on him and putting dogs on his trail.
Police said they did not know whether Phillips was wounded in the shooting, and there was no sign of blood at the scene.
But state police Superintendent Wayne Bennett said officials believed they had the escaped convict trapped in an area near Carroll, about 65 miles south of Buffalo. Authorities used helicopters, roadblocks and dogs to try to close the noose.
"We believe we have him contained," Bennett said, but added, "I won't say that I'm completely convinced that this is going to come to the conclusion we want."
A 44-year-old career thief who broke out of a Buffalo-area jail in April, he is suspected of killing a state trooper and wounding two others. Phillips, who has threatened "suicide by cop" and once promised to "splatter pig meat all over Chautauqua County," is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TROOPER_SHOT?SITE=NJASB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Coffee, tea or your choice of 20 movies?
Airlines are installing additional screens and offering more movies to attract customers for their longer, more lucrative flights.
BY Jeff Kearns / The Dallas Morning News
Airlines offer more movie choices
As program manager for in-flight entertainment at American Airlines, Robert D'Avignon faced a difficult choice this summer with the action thriller Mission: Impossible III.
Book a blockbuster or risk upsetting passengers?
''We tend to be a bit more conservative,'' said D'Avignon, who decided against playing the film on overhead screens because it contained too much violence.
Nevertheless, the carrier deemed an edited version of the Tom Cruise film acceptable for viewing on its personal, in-seat screens.
More and more, airline officials are balancing their concerns about offending customers with orthodox taste in movies against the desire to please passengers by offering a greater selection of films.
It's all part of a major shift in how airlines think about the $1.75 billion-a-year industry for in-flight entertainment.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7784
Rock the Vote
http://www.rockthevote.com/2006-voter-registration-deadlines.php
Camp Democracy
On September 5th, we launched a non-partisan camp for peace, democracy, and the restoration of the rule of law. Camp Casey moved from Crawford, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to create a larger camp focused not only on ending the war but also on righting injustices here at home and on holding accountable the Bush Administration and Congress. Here's the schedule of what's happening each day from now till September 21st. Here are free rooms and rides. If you can send a bus and need help paying for it, ask us. If you need help filling it, post it on the board. In Spanish: Campamento de la Democracia.
http://www.campdemocracy.org/
Hill promises to change health care system, war
Democrat vows to bring troops home with honor
By Chris Freiberg / Indiana Daily Student
Baron Hill, Democratic candidate for the 9th Congressional District, addressed the IU College Democrats Wednesday and promised change if re-elected to Congress.
Hill is facing Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-9th, for the third time in what is expected to be another close race. In 2002, Hill won the seat by fewer than 500 votes. In 2004, Sodrel won the seat by fewer than 1,500 votes.
Libertarian candidate Eric Schansberg is also running.
Hill held the seat from 1998 until 2004 defeat.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 200 in Jordan Hall, Hill touched on a variety of topics, including health care reform, the war in Iraq and ethics.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/the06fix/index.php?id=168
Florida Primary Showing Bodes Ill for Harris
Against three political unknowns, the onetime GOP star gets 49% of the vote in Senate bid.
By Carol J. Williams / Los Angeles Times
MIAMI — Rep. Katherine Harris, the controversial one-time Republican hero, collected less than half the party's vote Tuesday in winning her Senate primary race against three political unknowns, foreshadowing a tough November face-off with Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.
Harris' 49% showing reflected her growing unpopularity within the party after a campaign replete with gaffes and questions about her integrity. Nelson, who had no primary challenger, leads in opinion polls by 40 percentage points and has amassed a $16-million war chest — twice the amount of Harris' contributions.
In the hotly contested race to replace Gov. Jeb Bush, the costliest in Florida history, moderate Republican Charlie Crist ran away with the primary with 64% of the vote over 33% for challenger and religious-right choice Tom Gallagher.
In the Democratic contest, Rep. Jim Davis outpolled state Sen. Rod Smith 47% to 41%, despite an eleventh-hour spending blitz by the state's powerful sugar lobby on behalf of the underdog.
The four men seeking to succeed Bush in the governor's mansion spent more than $30 million, on top of lavish outlays for attack ads by soft-money supporters.
Crist's decisive victory suggests that Florida Republicans have moved toward the political center, as Gallagher cast himself as the more conservative choice, campaigning on his staunch opposition to abortion, legalized gay unions, stem cell research and stricter gun controls.
But Florida voters rate those issues of less importance than education, immigration and the economy, and Gallagher's attempts to label Crist a closet liberal apparently failed to sway them.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/the06fix/index.php?id=167
GOP relying on terror card to save party in November
By Thomas M. DeFrank / New York Daily News
WASHINGTON — President Bush and the Republicans expect a stinging defeat in November, but they're betting the terror card saves them from an electoral debacle.
"The security issue trumps everything," a senior Bush official said last week. "That's why even though they're really mad at us, in the end they're going to give us another two years."
Nevertheless, many other senior Bush loyalists privately believe anti-Iraq and anti-Bush sentiment will cost the Republicans the House nine weeks from today, a doomsday scenario that would cripple Bush for his final two years in office.
"We'll lose the House," one of the party's most prominent officials flatly predicted, "and the president will be dead in the water for two years."
Even a perennially optimistic senior Bush strategist conceded, "I'm pretty worried about it. The House is not looking good."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/the06fix/index.php?id=166
Vanishing Act
Friend arrested for false reporting in disappearance of Lance Hering
By Christine Reid / Daily Camera
The friend of a Boulder Marine reported missing after a hiking accident last week confessed to authorities that they concocted the story so the soldier could get out of returning to duty.
Lance Hering, a 21-year-old lance corporal, went missing Aug. 30. His friend, Steve Powers, told authorities he and Hering went for a hike after dark in Eldorado Canyon State Park and Hering fell, struck his head and lost consciousness.
When he regained consciousness four hours later, Powers said, he went to get help and returned with rescuers to find Hering gone.
Powers, 20, of Boulder, admitted to Boulder County Sheriff's Office deputies late Wednesday night that the story was a ruse concocted weeks ago.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7811
Update on Attempts to Locate Missing Person Lance Hering - 09/08/06
This media release provides supplemental information regarding the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office on-going investigation into the staged disappearance of 21 year-old Lance Hering, of Boulder. Previous media releases detailing the incident may be found on the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office web-site at www.bouldersheriff.org
The Sheriff’s Office is seeking the issuance of a warrant for Mr. Hering’s arrest on a charge of False Reporting to Authorities, a misdemeanor. Steve Powers, Mr. Hering’s alleged co-conspirator in the incident, was arrested Wednesday evening on the same charge and booked and released at the Boulder County Jail. False Reporting to Authorities (CRS 18-8-111) is a Class 3 Misdemeanor and carries penalties upon conviction ranging from a minimum fine of $50.00 to a maximum of six months in Jail and/or a $750.00 fine. The Sheriff’s Office will also seek restitution for the as-yet undetermined costs of conducting a five-day air and ground search for Mr. Hering as a condition of any verdict or plea agreement.
http://www.co.boulder.co.us/sheriff/hering.htm
"I think the public is looking at anyone who goes AWOL as cowards and it goes much deeper than that."
Family Says AWOL Soldier's Decision 'Went Deeper'
Tough Question: What Makes Someone Desert The Military?
Alan Gionet / CBS4
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. The family of a soldier from Colorado said the issue of service members going AWOL is much more complicated than many people make it seem.
CBS4 asked the tough question: What makes someone desert the military?
"I think the public is looking at anyone who goes AWOL as cowards and it goes much deeper than that," Rebecca Barker said.
Barker is the mother of Mark Wilkerson. Wilkerson is a young Specialist from Colorado Springs who had actually talked his family into letting him join the Army.
Then he decided he wanted out after his unit was told they'd be going back to Iraq a second time.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7814
"I can't talk him out of it. I've tried."
Deserter defies mom in return to U.S.
Iraqi war vet faces court martial, jail, in bid to speak out against Bush
Mother `can't talk him out of it' but understands need to `heal himself'
By Phinjo Gombu / Toronto Star
Darrell Anderson, a U.S. Army deserter who fought in Iraq and sought refugee status in Toronto, has decided to return home and face a possible court-martial — against his mother's wishes.
Anita Anderson said her son, whose life has been pretty "messed up" by his Iraqi experience, believes he has to speak out against President George W. Bush in the United States, even if it means a trial or going to jail.
"He feels this is something he has to do," she told the Star yesterday. "I can't talk him out of it. I've tried."
Anderson said her 24-year-old son, who is married to a Canadian citizen and suffers from post-traumatic stress, is also returning because he feels it's the only way he can "heal himself up."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7815
Senate panel releases Iraq intel report
By Jim Abrams / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Democrats said the report undercuts President Bush's justification for going to war.
The declassified document being released Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.
It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."
Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaida. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7818
Links to Iraq Intelligence Phase II Reports
http://intelligence.senate.gov/
Panel Set to Release Just Part of Report On Run-Up to War
Full Disclosure May Come Post-Election
By Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post
A long-awaited Senate analysis comparing the Bush administration's public statements about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private remains mired in partisan recrimination and will not be released before the November elections, key senators said yesterday.
Instead, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will vote today to declassify two less controversial chapters of the panel's report, on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, for release as early as Friday. One chapter has concluded that Iraqi exiles in the Iraqi National Congress, who were subsidized by the U.S. government, tried to influence the views of intelligence officers analyzing Hussein's efforts to create weapons of mass destruction.
"It is clear to me, at least, that the INC information provided to the Department of Defense was misleading, that the government spent unnecessary amounts of money supporting that group, and all of that helped create bogus reasons to go to war," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the intelligence committee.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7805
Top Military Lawyers Dislike Tribunal Plan
Bush's proposal to allow withholding evidence from suspects would preclude 'a full and fair hearing,' they say. GOP leaders work on a deal.
By Richard Simon / Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's proposal for bringing suspected terrorists to trial drew criticism from top military lawyers Thursday as congressional Republicans worked to bridge differences within their own ranks over the proposal.
A group of influential GOP senators who have been critical of the administration's proposal worked through the day to try to come up with a compromise. Republican leaders — looking to highlight their party's efforts in fighting terrorism in advance of the November midterm elections — are pushing for a vote on new rules for military commissions by the end of the month.
President Bush exhorted Congress on Wednesday to adopt his plan for holding trials for terrorism suspects, including the most notorious prisoners in U.S. custody. The Supreme Court in June struck down the administration's previous tribunal system.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7816
Iraq defends Arab TV channel ban
By Ibon Villelabeitia / Reuters
BAGHDAD - Iraq's government on Friday defended its decision to close the Baghdad bureau of Al Arabiya television for "sectarian" reporting, despite criticism from media bodies which called the ban an assault on press freedom.
"If al Qaeda wanted reporters to work for it, it could do no better than the reporters for Arabiya," Yasseen Majeed, media advisor to Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said, a day after cabinet voted to close the channel's Baghdad bureau for a month, accusing it of promoting Sunni Muslim insurgent violence.
Arabiya, a pan-Arab satellite network watched by millions in Iraq, rejected the charges. Spokesman Nasser al-Sarami said its reporters adhered to objective reporting. He said Iraq had not informed the channel which story had prompted the ban.
"We have been trying to contact the Iraqi government on their reason ... but our calls have not been answered," he said at the station's headquarters in the Gulf emirate of Dubai.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7820
Local War Vets Take Fight Against Government Over DU Exposure To Court
By Dean Meminger / NY1
They fought for their country in Iraq, and now they are fighting their government over an illness that they say can be directly linked to their service. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.
A group of New York Iraq war veterans are in a battle against their own military and government, and they are hoping the Federal courts will come to their rescue.
On Wednesday a judge held a hearing to determine if the nine veterans have the right to sue because they were exposed to depleted uranium from U.S. military weapons and equipment while in Iraq.
"This is not only for us, but for every soldier that is serving in Iraq right now that has a family. This affects everyone," said veteran Agustin Matos.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7812
War turns southern women away from GOP
By Shannon McCaffrey / Associated Press
MACON, Ga. - President Bush's once-solid relationship with Southern women is on the rocks. "I think history will show him to be the worst president since Ulysses S. Grant," said Barbara Knight, a self-described Republican since birth and the mother of three. "He's been an embarrassment." In the heart of Dixie, comparisons to Grant, a symbol of the Union, is the worst sort of insult, especially from a Macon woman who voted for Bush in 2000 but turned away in 2004.
In recent years, Southern women have been some of Bush's biggest fans, defying the traditional gender gap in which women have preferred Democrats to Republicans. Bush secured a second term due in large part to support from 54 percent of Southern female voters while women nationally favored Democrat John Kerry, 51-48 percent.
"In 2004, you saw an utter collapse of the gender gap in the South," said Karen Kaufmann, a professor of government at the University of Maryland who has studied women's voting patterns. White Southern women liked Bush because "he spoke their religion and he spoke their values."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7802
Republican Rift Over Wiretapping Widens
Party at Odds on Surveillance Legislation
By Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post
Deepening Republican divisions over the future of President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program may jeopardize GOP leaders' hopes of making terrorism surveillance legislation a centerpiece of their final legislative push this month.
House and Senate Republican leaders plan to focus congressional attention almost exclusively on national security, hoping to draw clear distinctions between Republicans and Democrats ahead of the November elections. Topping the to-do list is passing legislation officially sanctioning the National Security Agency's secret wiretapping of suspected terrorist communications. The eavesdropping has been carried out without warrants since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A federal judge in Detroit recently ruled the program illegal.
Republican leaders have planned to produce legislation by month's end that would give the administration as much latitude as possible to continue the program. But that effort may be splintering. The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider as many as four contradictory bills on the issue tomorrow and could approve all of them. That would leave it to Senate leaders and the White House to sort out how to proceed.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7797
Senate rejects limits on cluster bombs
By Andrew Taylor / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Senate on Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules.
On a 70-30 vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill to block use of the deadly munitions near populated areas. The vote came after the State Department announced last month that it is investigating whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.
Unexploded cluster bombs — anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area — litter homes, gardens and highways in south Lebanon after Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah militants.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have long sought to keep cluster bombs from being used near concentrated areas of civilians. They say that as many as 40 percent of the munitions fail to detonate on impact — they can still can explode later — leaving innocent civilians and children vulnerable to injury or death long after hostilities have ceased.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=7798
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