Korean Catholics take part in a mass prayer demanding a full-scale renegotiation of the US beef import deal at the Seoul City Hall Plaza July 1, 2008. Thousands of Catholics and anti-US beef protesters, who fear infection of the mad cow disease, held the mass prayer. [Agencies]
S.Korean workers strike, priests join protests against US beef (click here)
SEOUL (AFP) — Tens of thousands of South Koreans staged work stoppages Wednesday in protest at US beef imports as President Lee Myung-Bak's government struggled with an economic downturn.
The militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) said 136,000 people were staging partial strikes from Wednesday,a dding that these included 44,000 at the largest automaker Hyundai Motor and 29,000 at its affiliate Kia Motors.
The labour ministry said 90,000 workers nationwide were taking part....
June 8, 2008
Battle Creek, Nebraska
Photographer states :: (Flooding) 7 miles south half mile west (hwy 121) from Battle Creek, Nebraska
The Lincoln Journal Star
Beef recall expands into Nebraska
By staff and wire reports
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 12:26:43 pm CDT
The Kroger Co. has expanded its voluntary recall of some ground beef products beyond stores in Michigan and parts of Ohio to include stores in 20 states, including Nebraska.
Kroger owns Baker’s, Food 4 Less and Dillon stores in Nebraska.
Meat obtained by Kroger from Omaha-based Nebraska Beef Ltd. has been linked to an outbreak of E. coli in Michigan and Ohio.
Nebraska Beef has recalled nearly 532,000 pounds of ground beef.
Kroger said Wednesday that as a precaution it had removed from stores all ground beef supplied by Nebraska Beef.
The Cincinnati-based grocery company initiated the recall June 25 for some of its stores.
The government classified the health risk as "high," for anyone consuming the suspect meat, but none of it reached local retailers, according to a spokesman for Nebraska Beef.
http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/business/doc486ba0f670a10058804518.txt
Rescuers' search for missing Lincoln woman 'intense'
BY STEVE LYNN / Vail (Colo.) Daily
Thursday, Jul 03, 2008 - 12:36:37 am CDT
BEAVER CREEK, Colo. — Mary Brake’s 9-year-old daughter gave Lt. Dave Becker a note, thanking him for looking for her mother in raging Beaver Creek.
That was June 23, the day authorities suspended their search for the 55-year-old Lincoln real estate agent who disappeared after she fell off a horse while crossing Beaver Creek on the evening of June 20.
Brake, her husband her and daughter were headed to Beano’s Cabin, an upscale restaurant on Beaver Creek Mountain accessible only by horseback, sleigh, tractor-pulled wagon or shuttle.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/03/news/local/doc486bf98eb7d02837398648.txt
Omaha city crews working to clean up from storm
By The Associated Press
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 09:32:51 am CDT
OMAHA— Omaha city crews are working their way through the city to help neighborhoods clear out massive amounts of storm debris.
Mayor Mike Fahey’s office says 100 public works trucks hit the streets this week to pick up debris along curbs in neighborhoods hit hardest by last Friday’s severe storm.
The city also is hiring private companies to help. Cleanup is expected to take several weeks.
Tree debris can be placed along the curb for collection by city crews, and residents are urged neatly cut and stack downed trees and limbs.
No trash, lumber, fence materials, and the like will be picked up by crews picking up tree debris. Debris other than from trees can be hauled to the county landfill or placed in trash containers.
http://journalstar.com/news/nebraska/doc486b9097bddbd725481616.txt
Bad levees part of big infrastructure problem
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 12:35:44 am CDT
The June floods once again delivered the message: America’s infrastructure is antiquated and inadequate.
As floodwaters moved from rain-drenched Iowa down through the Mississippi basin, occasionally replenished by another downpour, levee after levee was overpowered, despite desperate efforts to shore them up.
Lincoln was lucky this time.
As s story in last week’s Journal Star reported, levees along Salt Creek are high enough only to protect against a 50-year flood. And they might not even offer that protection because they were formed of soil containing a high level of calcium, which dissolves in water.
The inadequacy of the levees is just one in a long list of problems with the nation’s infrastructure, symbolized by events like the collapse of a bridge last summer in Minneapolis and an underground steam pipe explosion that blew a crater in a New York City street last summer and burned two people.
http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/02/opinion/editorial/doc486a9adf93373671369178.txt
Nebraska troops to help fight fires in California
By The Associated Press
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 12:21:37 pm CDT
Nebraska National Guard soldiers are going to help fight wildfires in California.
Gov. Dave Heineman said the guard is also sending two helicopters to assist with water drops in northern California, where dozens of wildfires are burning.
Fifteen soldiers from an aviation battalion were scheduled to leave for California on Wednesday afternoon by truck.
Others will fly a helicopter from Grand Island, and another helicopter from Lincoln. Both helicopters are equipped with water buckets.
Heineman said California requested the help. He recalled how other states helped Nebraska in 2006 when homes and cities in the north central and western parts of the state were threatened by fires.
http://www.journalstar.com/news/nebraska/doc486bb8245f7ce812680177.txt
UnitedHealth cuts 4,000 jobs and 2008 outlook
By The Associated Press
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 12:21:36 pm CDT
MINNEAPOLIS — UnitedHealth Group Inc. will cut at least 4,000 jobs, or 5 percent of its workforce, in a restructuring and warned Wednesday that a weaker environment and higher costs will cut into profits this year.
UnitedHealth has the second largest share of health insurance in Nebraska, behind Blue Cross Blue Shield, and employs 200 people in Nebraska. It was not clear how many of those people would be losing their jobs.
The company also said it will pay $895 million to settle lawsuits over stock options backdating, and will pay $17 million into a fund in an agreement to resolve a suit related to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Investors welcomed a broad review of how the company operates, its capital expenditures and its costs, seeing Wednesday’s announcements as perhaps the end of a long rough patch for UnitedHealth.
http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/business/doc486bb60313ed0403604267.txt
Man dies after fall from Wal-Mart roof
By the Lincoln Journal Star
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 09:59:10 am CDT
An Aurora, Colo., man has died a day after falling 25 feet from the roof of a Wal-Mart under construction on North 84th Street.
Delfonso Bahana, 40, fell from a ladder about 9:45 a.m. Monday, Officer Katie Flood said. Initially, he was conscious, alert and talking, complaining of back pain.
But Flood said the fall led to internal injuries. Doctors discovered his spleen and liver had been cut and he had internal bleeding.
http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/local/doc486b96caa833d052400972.txt
Do you support Obama's faith-based initiative?
Reaching out to religious voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy —support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.
Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services.
"The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama was to say, according to a prepared text of his remarks obtained by The Associated Press. "We need all hands on deck."
Obama's support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions could invite a protest from those in his own party who view such faith requirements as discrimination.
http://journalstar.com/blog/soundoff.php?title=do_you_support_obama_s_faith_based_initi&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=
Diller woman dies after being found unresponsive
Tuesday, Jul 01, 2008 - 09:35:21 am CDT
Daily Sun staff
A Diller woman died Saturday after she was found unresponsive at her home.
Melissa Weers, 28, was pronounced dead at Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center Saturday morning after she was found unresponsive at her home at 12477 W. Sage Road, according to the Gage County Sheriff’s Office.
http://www.beatricedailysun.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/local/doc486a3fe7dc8e7076131964.txt?orss=1
Boil order lifted for much of Beatrice
By Daily Sun staff
Tuesday, Jul 01, 2008 - 09:35:20 am CDT
A boil order was lifted for most Beatrice water customers Monday afternoon after water samples came back negative, Water Superintendent Steve Kelley said.
However, customers within the area of Elk Street to the Big Blue River between First and 19th streets are asked to continue to boil water, Kelley said. The area has to be retested after one of the 100 samples came back positive.
He said five samples from the area would need to be taken Monday and five more would need to be taken Tuesday. The earliest the boil order for that area could be lifted would be Wednesday, he said.
Beatrice customers served by the north water tower were placed under a boil order Friday evening after a water main break occurred near the north pump house at Fourth and Grant streets.
http://www.beatricedailysun.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/local/doc48693ad856c51538702234.txt
Pentagon's top investigator resigning
By RICHARD LARDNER
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 11:45:17 am CDT
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's inspector general is resigning after just over a year in the job to take a teaching position at George Mason University and the top investigator at the Labor Department has been picked to fill the post.
The Defense Department announced the changes Wednesday. It comes as defense spending has skyrocketed but personnel shortfalls in the IG's office have strained its ability to probe allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in military programs.
Claude Kicklighter, who took over as Pentagon inspector general in April 2007, will be replaced by Gordon S. Heddell, who has been the Labor Department's inspector general since January 2001.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/02/ap/washington/d91lqf1o0.txt
Palestinian goes on rampage in Jerusalem; 3 killed
By STEVEN GUTKIN
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 11:45:06 am CDT
JERUSALEM - A Palestinian man plowed an enormous construction vehicle into cars, buses and pedestrians on a busy street Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding at least 45 before he was shot dead by security officers.
Israeli police referred to the man as a "terrorist" acting on his own. He repeatedly smashed vehicle after vehicle with the huge shovel on his machine, throwing cars into the air and overturning a bus.
The first major attack in Jerusalem since March wreaked havoc in the heart of downtown. Hundreds of people fled in panic through the streets as medics treated the wounded.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2008/07/02/ap/international/d91lq7ng0.txt
LFR: Fire at Naval Reserve building suspicious
By the Lincoln Journal Star
Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008 - 08:23:33 pm CDT
A caller Wednesday reported seeing children running from the vacant Naval Reserve building at 1625 N. 10th St. and smoke coming from the middle of three Quonset huts on the property.
Deputy Chief Bruce Sellon said Lincoln Fire and Rescue responded to the 4:37 p.m. dispatch, and had the fire in the ceiling tiles and insulation doused by 4:55. An investigator is calling the fire, which caused $1,500 damage, suspicious, but hasn't determined the cause. Sellon said the vacant building has previously had trouble with kids breaking into it.
http://www.journalstar.com/news/local/doc486c29c155542866449849.txt
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