Morning Papers - continued ...

The New York Times


The tapes show that many callers were not told to leave, but to stay put, the standard advice for high-rise fires.

In Operators' Voices, Echoes of Calls for Help
By JIM DWYER
The city released partial recordings today of about 130 telephone calls made to 911 after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, stripped of the voices of the people inside the World Trade Center but still evocative of their invisible struggles for life.
Only the 911 operators and fire department dispatchers can be heard on the recordings, their words mapping the calamity in rough, faint echoes of the men and women in the towers who had called them for help.
They describe crowded islands of fleeting survival, on floors far from the crash and even on those that were directly hit: Hallways are blocked on 104. Send help to 84. It is hard to breathe on 97.
Be calm, the operators implore. God is there. Sit tight.
The recordings, contained on 11 compact discs, also document a broken link in the chain of emergency communications.
The voices captured on those discs track the callers as they are passed by telephone from one agency to another, moving through a confederacy of municipal fiefdoms — police, fire, ambulance — but almost never receiving vital instructions to get out of the buildings.
No more than 2 of the 130 callers were told to leave, the tapes reveal, even though unequivocal orders to evacuate the trade center had been given by fire chiefs and police commanders moments after the first plane struck. The city had no procedure for field commanders to share information with the 911 system, a flaw identified by the 9/11 Commission that city officials say has since been fixed.
The tapes show that many callers were not told to leave, but to stay put, the standard advice for high-rise fires. In the north tower, all three of the building's stairways were destroyed at the 92nd floor. But in the south tower, where one stairway remained passable, the recordings include references to perhaps a few hundred people huddled in offices, unaware of the order to leave.
The calls released today bring to life the fatal frustration and confusion experienced by one unidentified man in the complex's south tower, who called at 9:08 a.m., shortly after the second plane struck the building. For the next 11 minutes, as his call was bounced from police operators to fire dispatchers and back again, the 911 system vindicated its reputation as a rickety, dangerous contraption, one that the administration of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani tried to overhaul with little success, and one that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg hopes to improve by spending close to $1 billion.
The voice of the man, who was calling from the offices of Keefe Bruyette on the 88th floor of that building, was removed from the recording by the city. From the operator's responses, it appears that he wanted to leave.
"You cannot — you have to wait until somebody comes there," she tells the man.
The police operator urged him to put wet towels or rags under the door, and said she would connect him to the Fire Department.
As she tried to transfer his call, the phone rang and rang — 15 times, before the police operator gave up and tried a fire department dispatch office in another borough. Eventually, a dispatcher picked up, and he asked the man to repeat the same information that he had provided moments earlier to the police operator. (The police and fire departments had separate computer dispatching systems that were unable to share basic information like the location of an emergency.)
After that, the fire dispatcher hung up, and the man on the 88th floor apparently persisted in asking the police operator — who had stayed on the line — about leaving.
"But I can't tell you to do that, sir," the operator said, who then decided to transfer his call back to the Fire Department. "Let me connect you again. O.K.? Because I really do not want to tell you to do that. I can't tell you to move."
A fire dispatcher picked up and asked — for the third time in the call — for the location of the man on the 88th floor. The dispatcher's instructions were relayed by the police operator.
"O.K.," she said. "I need you to stay in the office. Don't go into the hallway. They're coming upstairs. They are coming. They're trying to get upstairs to you."
Like many other operators that morning, she was invoking advice from a policy known as "defend in place" — meaning that only people just at or above a fire should move, an approach that had long been enshrined in skyscrapers in New York and elsewhere.
At Keefe Bruyette, 67 people died, many of whom had gathered in conference rooms and offices on the 88th and 89th floors. Some tried to reach the roof, a futile trek that the 9/11 Commission said might have been avoided if the city's 911 operators had known that the police had ruled out helicopter rescues — another piece of information that had not been shared with them — and that an evacuation order had been issued.
The calls were released today in response to a Freedom of Information request made by The New York Times on Jan. 25, 2002, for public records concerning the events of Sept. 11. The city refused to release most of them on the grounds that they were needed to prosecute a man accused of complicity in the attacks, or contained opinions that were not subject to disclosure, or were so intensely personal that their release would be an invasion of privacy. The Times sued in state court, and nine family members of people killed in the attacks joined the case.
Judge Richard Braun of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled in early 2003 that the vast majority of the records were public, but said that the city could remove the words of the 911 callers on privacy grounds. Over the next two years, the core of his ruling was affirmed by the appellate division and the New York State Court of Appeals.
That led to the release of the calls today. City officials said that 130 calls were made to 911 from inside the buildings. Of that group, officials were able to identify 27 people and notified their next of kin this week that they could listen to the complete call.
While that might seem like a small number of calls given that approximately 15,000 people were at the trade center that morning, officials said that many of those who got through to 911 were with large groups of people.
One of these groups was on the 105th floor of the south tower, a spot where scores of people had congregated after trying to reach the roof. Among them was Kevin Cosgrove, who worked on the 100th floor, and who had told his family that he had gone down stairs before turning back. He called 911, and said he was in an office overlooking the World Financial Center, across West Street, records show. He said he needed help, and was having difficulty breathing.
One of the recordings — city officials have refused to say who made the call — involved a man on the 105th floor who suggested desperate measures to improve the air.
"Oh, my God," said the dispatcher. "You can't breathe at all?"
The caller's words were deleted.
"O.K.," said the dispatcher. "Listen, when you — listen, please do not break the window. When you break the window — " here, the caller interrupted.
"Don't break the window because there's so much smoke outside," the dispatcher said. "If you break a window, you guys won't be able to breathe; . O.K.? So if there are any other doorways that you can open where you don't see the smoke."
The dispatcher tried to soothe the man, finally saying, "O.K. Listen, calm yourself down. We've got everybody outside. O.K.?"
The man spoke and the dispatcher assured him help was on the way.
"We are," the dispatcher said. "We're trying to get up there, sir. Like you said, the stairs are collapsed. O.K.? Everybody wet the towels and lie on the floor. O.K.? Put the wet towels over your head and lie down; O.K.? I know it's hard to breathe. I know it is."
People on the highest floors in both towers suffered acutely from the smoke and heat, even though they were many floors distant from the entry points of the planes that had crashed into the buildings. In the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower, between 25 and 50 people found refuge in a conference room on the 104th floor. One man, Andrew Rosenblum, reached his wife in Long Island, and gave her the names and home phone numbers of colleagues who were with him. As he recited the information, she relayed it to neighbors. Mr. Rosenblum also called a friend and said that the group had used computer terminals to smash windows for fresh air.
Such drastic actions appeared to have been discouraged by the operator. Another Cantor Fitzgerald employee on the 104th floor was Richard Caggiano, who called 911 at 8:53, seven minutes after the plane hit the north tower.
"Don't do that, sir," the operator said. "Don't do that. There's help on the way, sir. Hold on."
Mr. Caggiano's words, which were not made public, prompted a question from the operator.
"Are y'all in a particular room?" she asked. "How many?"
She listened, then said, "25 or 30 in a back room. O.K. They're on the way. They're already there. You can't hear the sirens?"
Just before the south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m., a spurt of calls reached the 911 operators. One of these was from Shimmy Biegeleisen, who worked for Fiduciary Trust in the south tower on computer systems. He was on the 97th floor where, by chance, an emergency drill had been scheduled for that day. Mr. Biegeleisen called his home in Brooklyn, spoke with his wife and prayed with a friend, Jack Edelman, who remembered hearing him say: "Of David. A Psalm. The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world and those that live in it."
At 9:52, he called 911. The building had seven more minutes before it would collapse. Mr. Biegeleisen would spend those minutes telling first the police operator, then the fire dispatcher, that he was on the 97th floor with six people, that the smoke had gotten heavy.
The police operator tried to encourage Mr. Biegeleisen.
"Heavy smoke. O.K. Sir, please try to keep calm. We'll send somebody up there immediately. Hold on. Stay on the line. I'm contacting E.M.S. Hold on. I'm connecting you to the ambulance service now."
As his call was transferred to the ambulance service, once again, the information about the smoke and the 97th floor was sought and delivered.
"Sir, any smoke over there?" asked the ambulance dispatcher. "O.K. the best thing to do is to keep — keep down on the ground. All right? O.K.?"
The ambulance dispatcher hung up, but the original operator stayed on the line with Mr. Biegeleisen. She could be heard speaking briefly with someone else in the room, and then turned her attention back to him
"We'll disengage. O.K.?" the operator asked. "There were notifications made. We made the notifications. If there's any further, you let us know. You can call back."
Seconds later, the building collapsed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/nyregion/31cnd-tapes.html?hp&ex=1143867600&en=7974754cad2d453e&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Ground Zero Still in Limbo as Talks Fail
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Gov. George E. Pataki's last-ditch effort to strike a deal with the developer Larry A. Silverstein to speed up the rebuilding at ground zero crashed yesterday, when he was unable to convince New Jersey or City Hall officials that it made financial sense.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and representatives of Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey vowed to work with Mr. Pataki to put together a new framework for rebuilding at the World Trade Center site, one that would be likely to diminish Mr. Silverstein's role.
The seemingly irreparable breakdown, coming after months of negotiations and with construction expected to start within days, is clearly a personal and political disappointment for the governor.
Over the last three years, Mr. Pataki tied his legacy, his reputation and perhaps his presidential ambitions to construction of the Freedom Tower and the restoration of the city's skyline after the devastating attack on Sept. 11.
After a furious series of meetings this week, the Pataki administration and Mr. Silverstein were inching back toward an agreement much like one that had been on the table when talks reached a dramatic late-night impasse on March 14.
But Mr. Pataki's solution was coming under increasing fire in public from Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Corzine. They said it would have enriched the developer at public expense, while putting the project itself in jeopardy.
Mr. Pataki had hoped to present his proposal yesterday to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site. His framework would have relieved Mr. Silverstein of financial responsibility for building the $2 billion Freedom Tower, the tallest, most symbolic and most troubled of the five towers planned for the 16-acre site. But the developer would have retained the right to build three towers on the most valuable parcels on Church Street.
At the end of a 90-minute meeting yesterday morning at the authority's Park Avenue office, it was clear to the Pataki administration that neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Governor Corzine, who shares control of the authority with Mr. Pataki, were willing to go along.
So, the New York governor's office was forced to notify authority commissioners that ground zero was off the agenda.
"Governor Pataki is insisting on moving forward," said Charles A. Gargano, the state's chief economic development official and vice chairman of the Port Authority. "Our goal is to come to a framework agreement, to work out the structure to address many of these issues."
In public, officials from New York, New Jersey and City Hall were careful to avoid criticizing one another yesterday. Indeed, Mayor Bloomberg even said that Mr. Pataki had done a good job under difficult circumstances.
But state officials who were granted anonymity so that they could speak with fewer political constraints defended the deal they had nearly signed with Mr. Silverstein. They said that it would have ensured the completion of all the buildings at ground zero at a quicker pace, while imposing strict deadlines on the developer.
Further, they said, they had forced Mr. Silverstein to make concessions on his rent, the allocation of insurance proceeds and his share of infrastructure costs.
Among the public officials, tension was clearly just below the surface yesterday. Mr. Gargano said that the framework the state had erected for a deal was still on the table. Yet city officials and Anthony R. Coscia, the authority's chairman and a New Jersey appointee, suggested that it was time to start over on an arrangement that all sides could embrace.
If the turn of events was a blow to Mr. Pataki, it also hurt Mr. Silverstein, who leased the World Trade Center six weeks before it was destroyed. The developer has repeatedly vowed to start work on the Freedom Tower next month. But he may not want to start spending tens of millions of dollars without fully knowing what his role will be in the future when it comes to rebuilding the entire complex.
Yesterday, Mr. Silverstein said that he had negotiated in good faith with Governor Pataki, making significant progress on all the critical issues, including rent and the allocation of $2.9 billion in insurance proceeds. Mr. Silverstein, who has been alternately applauded and vilified for his role, rejected any suggestion that he was at fault and blamed government ineptitude.
"We now find that the process has apparently gotten bogged down inside the Port Authority, which is as frustrating to me as I'm sure it is to New Yorkers," Mr. Silverstein said in a statement. "We hope that the different leaders and branches of government will quickly come together so we can move past the uncertainty and get on with what is our paramount obligation — rebuilding the World Trade Center."
But Mr. Coscia put the onus on Mr. Silverstein and brushed aside talk of a rift with Governor Pataki. He said the city and both states would now work together on a unified proposal to offer Mr. Silverstein.
"The issues we find with the Silverstein proposal are equally of concern to New York, New Jersey, Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg," Mr. Coscia said. "My expectation is that there is a growing unanimity of opinion among two governors and the mayor, and that is likely to enhance the chance of having an agreement."
The collapse of the talks is not the only trouble at ground zero. Work has begun on the Sept. 11 memorial, but that project is already over budget and fund-raising has been sluggish. There was a nasty public battle over a planned cultural center and continuing doubts about the economic viability of the Freedom Tower, which is widely considered to be too big, in the wrong place and nearly impossible to lease to corporate tenants, who view it as an obvious terrorist target.
Some downtown executives and community leaders are also worried that the continuing uncertainty at ground zero will undermine the fragile recovery in Lower Manhattan. Although the office vacancy rate downtown is relatively high, they are hoping that rising rents and a tight Midtown market will once again make Lower Manhattan an attractive alternative.
"The business community is eager for a resolution at ground zero so Lower Manhattan can continue it's momentum toward a full recovery," said Eric Deutsch, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York.
The latest crisis was prompted, in part, by the scheduled April groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower. Although Mr. Silverstein continues to insist that he has the money and the desire to do the job, state and city officials and authority executives have grown increasingly concerned that he could run out of money, default on his lease and walk away with tens of millions in profit after completing only two towers.
To be fair, Governor Pataki championed the skyscraper as a symbol of New York's resilience and insisted that it be built first, over Mr. Silverstein's objections. The developer and government officials subsequently reached agreements in 2003 and 2004 on what would be built and when.
Last December, Mr. Coscia of the Port Authority suggested that Mr. Silverstein surrender a major part of the World Trade Center site as a way of addressing the financial problems.
Mayor Bloomberg, who had been largely focused on the redevelopment of the Far West Side in 2004 and 2005, became increasingly focused on Lower Manhattan, backing Mr. Coscia.
The developer refused, not wanting to relinquish what he said were the most valuable parcels.
The Pataki administration then began weeks of negotiations with Mr. Silverstein that left Mr. Coscia and Mayor Bloomberg without seats at the bargaining table. Even after the impasse on March 14, Silverstein executives complained that they were making concessions to Mr. Pataki's negotiators, while reading in the newspapers about new demands by City Hall or New Jersey.
Mr. Coscia said yesterday that two fundamentally different interests were in play.
"Silverstein Properties is pursuing their business interests to further the profitability of this effort," he said, "and we have a responsibility to protect the public's interest."
Sewell Chan and Glenn Collins contributed reporting for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/nyregion/31rebuild.html?pagewanted=print


At Sept. 11 Trial, Tale of Missteps and Management
By SCOTT SHANE and NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, March 30 — Three weeks of testimony and dozens of documents released in the sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui have offered an eerie parallel view of two organizations, Al Qaeda and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and how they pursued their missions before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Al Qaeda, according to a newly revealed account from the chief plotter, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took its time in choosing targets — attack the White House or perhaps a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania? Organizers sized up and selected operatives, teaching them how to apply for a visa and how to cut a throat, a skill they practiced on sheep and camels. Despite the mistakes of careless subordinates and an erratic boss, Osama bin Laden, Mr. Mohammed tried to keep the plot on course.
Mr. Mohammed, a Pakistani-born, American-trained engineer, "thought simplicity was the key to success," says the summary of his interrogation by the Central Intelligence Agency. It is all the more chilling for the banal managerial skills it ascribes to the man who devised the simultaneous air attacks.
If Mr. Mohammed's guiding principle was simplicity, the United States government relied on sprawling bureaucracies at feuding agencies to look for myriad potential threats. The C.I.A. had lots of information on two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, but the F.B.I. did not know the men had settled in San Diego, where Mr. Mohammed had instructed them to "spend time visiting museums and amusement parks" so they could masquerade as tourists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/us/nationalspecial3/31plot.html


Preventable Disease Blinds Poor in Third World
By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: March 31, 2006
ALEMBER, Ethiopia — Mare Alehegn lay back nervously on the metal operating table, her heart visibly pounding beneath her sackcloth dress, and clenched her fists as the paramedic sliced into her eyelid. Repeated infections had scarred the undersides of her eyelids, causing them to contract and forcing her lashes in on her eyes. For years, each blink felt like thorns raking her eyeballs. She had plucked the hairs with crude tweezers, but the stubble grew back sharper still.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/world/africa/31blind.html?hp&ex=1143867600&en=52c33a8daed4b843&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Delphi Asks Bankruptcy Court to Void Union Deals
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Published: March 31, 2006
DETROIT, March 31 — Delphi, the nation's biggest auto-parts maker, followed through on a months-old threat today and asked a bankruptcy court judge for permission to throw out its labor agreements and impose sharply lower wages and benefits.
It also said it plans to close or sell most of its plants in the United States, and cut its worldwide salaried staff. Together, the moves will eliminate 28,500 jobs.
In addition, Delphi asked the bankruptcy court to reject some of its contracts with General Motors, its biggest customer, which would allow Delphi to renegotiate the prices G.M. pays for parts. It said it would keep only eight of its American plants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/business/31cnd-delphi.html?hp&ex=1143867600&en=0ec4fa333ed9e67a&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Digital Divide Closing as Blacks Turn to Internet
By MICHEL MARRIOTT
Published: March 31, 2006
African-Americans are steadily gaining access to and ease with the Internet, signaling a remarkable closing of the "digital divide" that many experts had worried would be a crippling disadvantage in achieving success.
Robert Spencer for The New York Times
Marlon Orozco, left, a mentor at a Boston program that introduces computer technology to young people with limited access to it.
Civil rights leaders, educators and national policy makers warned for years that the Internet was bypassing blacks and some Hispanics as whites and Asian-Americans were rapidly increasing their use of it.
But the falling price of laptops, more computers in public schools and libraries and the newest generation of cellphones and hand-held devices that connect to the Internet have all contributed to closing the divide, Internet experts say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/us/31divide.html?hp&ex=1143867600&en=1f2932d1bfa86422&ei=5094&partner=homepage


New Strain on Duke's Ties With Durham
By RICK LYMAN
DURHAM, N.C., March 30 — Francis Conlin says that he is a pretty sound sleeper, but that his wife is often jarred awake by the raucous noise spilling from one of the frequent and teeming student parties in their neighborhood beside the East Campus of Duke University.
"Screaming at the top of their lungs at 2 in the morning, urinating on lawns, throwing beer cans around, driving fast, that sort of stuff," said Mr. Conlin, a mechanical engineer. "Really, the last two years or so, these guys have been a pain in the neck."
Mr. Conlin's home is just across the alley from a rented house where some members of Duke's lacrosse team lived. In that house, on March 13, a black student from nearby North Carolina Central University was raped, beaten and called racist names, she says, by three white men during a team party at which she was hired to strip.
The incident, straddling at once the quintessential social flashpoints of race, class and gender, has led community and university leaders to fear that the progress they have made in recent years in improving their relationship will be swept away in the storm.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/us/31durham.html


Levee Plans Fall Short of FEMA Standards
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
New Orleans's levees do not meet the standards that the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires for its flood protection program, federal officials said yesterday — and they added that the problem would take as much as $6 billion to fix.
FEMA has long based its flood planning on whether an area is protected against a flood that might have a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year, also known as a 100-year flood. Without that certification, the agency's flood maps have to treat the entire levee system as if it were not there at all, which means that people hoping to build in the affected areas might have to rebuild their homes at elevations of 15 or even 30 feet above sea level in order to meet new federal building standards.
But since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the agency has toughened its 100-year standard, based on new information about land subsidence and the increasing severity and frequency of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. There is also new data about weak soils in the area and the failure of some of the city's floodwalls.
As a result, the levees that the Army Corps of Engineers is now building will not meet the new FEMA standard. Donald Powell, the federal coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, said Thursday that the Corps now believes it cannot meet that standard without spending additional billions to upgrade the flood protection system still further.
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana expressed outrage over what she called a monumental miscalculation and said it was shocking to learn that $6 billion more might be needed for the hurricane protection system.
"This means that, just two months before hurricane season, the Corps of Engineers informs us they cannot ensure even the minimum safety of Southeastern Louisiana," Ms. Blanco said in a statement. "This is totally unacceptable."
But Mr. Powell said in a news briefing yesterday that the $2 billion that the Army Corps of Engineers is currently spending and the $1.4 billion in additional funds it has requested will make the system stronger and better than it has ever been. Asked if he would feel comfortable living in the area despite the government's inability to certify the levees, he responded, "after the Corps completes its work, yes."
Mr. Powell called the difference "a regulatory issue, not necessarily a safety issue." When the current work on the levees is complete, he said, there might be flooding from a storm like Hurricane Katrina, but the levee system would not fail catastrophically again.
Although people can rebuild without the federal flood maps today, many homeowners may well decide that the risks of rebuilding are too great. The Louisiana Recovery Authority has said that its plan to provide grants to those who rebuild will favor those who meet FEMA requirements.
Mr. Powell said that to start the process of getting the new flood maps, the federal government only needs to state that it does intend to meet the certification standard — a process that it can undertake for the entire system at the full $6 billion, or pick and choose projects to cut costs.
The flood advisory documents, which will begin the process of creating final flood maps, could emerge within days, Mr. Powell said. It will take up to 18 months to complete the maps.
In the briefing, Mr. Powell said that rebuilding the city could take 25 years — a sentiment shared by many disaster recovery experts. He added, however, "It could be much shorter than that, depending on how they plan their future. I'm going to be doing everything I can to make this as short as possible."
Matt McBride, a member of the community group in Broadmoor, a New Orleans neighborhood that was inundated during Hurricane Katrina, said many city residents would be disappointed by the levee announcement. While many people in his neighborhood were committed to rebuilding, he said, "It's just one more headache on top of the hundreds that we're dealing with."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/us/nationalspecial/31levees.html


Rice Concedes 'Tactical Errors' in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:25 p.m. ET
BLACKBURN, England (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conceded Friday that the United States probably has made thousands of ''tactical errors'' in Iraq and elsewhere, but said it will be judged by its larger aims of peace and democracy in the Middle East.
The U.S. diplomat met loud anti-war protests in the streets and skeptical questions about U.S. involvement in Iraq at a foreign policy salon Friday, including one about whether Washington had learned from its ''mistakes over the past three years.''
Rice replied that leaders would be ''brain-dead'' if they did not absorb the lessons of their times.
''I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure,'' Rice told an audience gathered by the British foreign policy think tank Chatham House. ''But when you look back in history, what will be judged will be, did you make the right strategic decisions.''
She said she remains firmly convinced that it was the right strategic decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq three years ago, and that it required an invasion to do it.


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Rice.html


Retired F.B.I. Agent Is Accused of Role in Killings
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
When R. Lindley DeVecchio, a 65-year-old retired F.B.I. supervisor, stood up in a courtroom in Brooklyn yesterday to face charges that he had helped his prized Mafia informant commit four murders, the tension was clear.
On one side of the gallery, filling roughly two-thirds of the blond wood benches, were nearly four dozen mostly gray-haired men in dark-colored suits. Retired F.B.I. agents who had once been Mr. DeVecchio's colleagues, they were now his supporters. Most sat stiffly upright and spoke little.
In front of them, at the prosecution table in the well of the courtroom, sat two somber senior prosecutors from the office of the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes. Mr. Hynes, after a 13-month investigation, had hours earlier announced the indictment of Mr. DeVecchio on charges that he had helped his informant commit four mob murders in the 1980's and early 1990's, accepting weekly payoffs totaling more than $66,000.
Also in the gallery were several more prosecutors and investigators who had worked on the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/nyregion/31agent.html


Fewer Marshes + More Man-made Ponds = Increased Wetlands
By FELICITY BARRINGER
WASHINGTON, March 30 — In the bog of the federal regulatory code, a wetland is defined as a marshy area of saturated soils and plants whose roots spend part of their lives immersed in water. In the Interior Department's periodic national surveys, a wetland is defined, more or less, as wet.
Traditional tidal, coastal and upland marshes count, but so do golf course water hazards and other man-made ponds whose surface is less than 20 acres.
And so, even at a time of continued marsh depletion, pond inflation permitted Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to announce proudly on Thursday the first net increase in wetlands since the Fish and Wildlife Service started measuring them in 1954. Wetlands acreage, measured largely by aerial surveys, totaled 107.7 million acres at the end of 2004, up by 191,800 acres from 1998.
The two cabinet secretaries hailed the apparent reversal in the long trend of wetland losses. "I'm pleased to complete my term as secretary of interior by announcing some good news, said Ms. Norton, who will step down from her job Friday.
A net total of 523,500 acres of swamps and tidal marshes had been lost, but the Fish and Wildlife Service measured gains of 715,300 acres of shallow-water wetlands, or ponds. According to the report's author, Tom Dahl, those can be 20 to 30 feet deep.
Almost two years ago, President Bush, under attack by environmental groups for loosening controls on development in wetlands, announced that one of his goals was to increase net wetland acreage.
For decades in the early and mid-20th century, draining and filling of wetlands by developers was widely accepted. But, as scientists and public officials recognized the importance of wetlands as nurseries for waterfowl, filters of pollution and barriers against storms, Congress passed protective laws.
One multimillion-dollar project redirected parts of the Kissimmee River in central Florida out of the narrow 30-foot-deep channel constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers and allowed it once again to dampen the surrounding landscape. Another successful wetlands-restoration project in southwestern Indiana is undoing the work farmers did decades ago to drain their land.
These projects helped hold down the net loss of marshland in Thursday's report. But the net gain noted in the report was fueled by an increase in pond acreage, which includes things like ornamental ponds in new developments and mine reclamation ponds.
For instance, the mining of sand and clay for the construction of two major highways in South Carolina, Routes 22 and 31, left the Myrtle Beach area dotted with large, deep ponds that qualify as wetlands in the Interior Department's survey but do not provide the wildlife habitat or perform the filtering functions of tidal marshes or cypress swamps.
"For Route 22, there was nine million cubic yards of fill material needed," said Boyd Holt, a regional hydrogeologist for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. "There were probably 30 or 40 ponds as a result of that activity since 1998."
At Thursday's news conference, federal officials said that the report measures the quantity — not the quality — of wetlands. Julie Sibbing, the leading wetlands expert at the National Wildlife Federation, called the mining-site ponds "wet deserts."
"The most stunning thing about this report," she said, "is that we're losing diverse natural wetlands in this country and the administration tells us it's O.K. because we've increased the number of ponds."
The report, which covers 1998 to 2004, does not include the loss of 64,000 acres of coastal wetlands from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/washington/31wetlands.html?pagewanted=print


The Arab News

It Is Anarchy, Not Freedom That Is on the March in Iraq
Hassan Tahsin, hassan_tahsin@hotmail.com

The third anniversary of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq witnessed thousands of people protesting around the world (in 200 cities) demanding the foreign forces leave Iraq.
In Britain, authorities tightened security in areas surrounding the Parliament building and the government headquarters in London. Anti-WMD groups, “Stop the War” alliance and the British Muslim Society participated in anti-war demonstrations calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
In Sydney, Australia, protesters emphasized the need for foreign troops to leave Iraq. They carried signs and banners that described the American president as the first terrorist in the world. Some posters depicted Bush as Dracula, the vampire.
Australians described US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a war criminal and murderer. They said innocent Iraqis’ blood is on her hands.
People in Tokyo and other Japanese cities carried signs that said “End the Occupation”. A member of Peace Movement in Japan described the war in Iraq as illegal and against international law.
Protesters were active in South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan and a number of Asian and Arabic countries.
There were anti-war marches in Istanbul, Rome, Milan, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Athens, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, in addition to Ottawa and Toronto in Canada and San Paulo in Brazil.
In America people are becoming restive, especially after they found out that they have lost 2300 US solders and the number of those injured and maimed runs into thousands. Canadian movie director Paul Haggis whose Crash won the Academy Award for the best film protested the American presence in Iraq. Many famous actors echoed his views in different parts of the world and many American politicians too voiced opposition to the war. Washington, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco saw anti-war marches.
In spite of widespread opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq, US President Bush justified his actions saying, “The war on Iraq was the right thing to do. We gave Iraqis their freedom and helped them develop a democratic system. We are going to beat terrorism in Iraq, finish the mission and provide security and safety to our country.”
Continuing his political charade, President Bush said, “America and the world have become much safer after Saddam has been ousted. He was a terrorist supporter and he is being judged for his crimes now. 25 million Iraqis are enjoying their freedom now.”
The truth is totally different from what Bush is saying. Iraq is on the verge of a civil war that would tear the country apart. Some Iraqis may become very rich because of oil money and collaboration with Washington. But the majority of Iraqis will suffer and that after all is what Washington really wants and that’s why it invaded Iraq.
Everyone knows that Saddam Hussein was a dictator; yet the Iraqi people accepted him for long years.
Someone had to support the US president, and who better than British Prime Minister Tony Blair? Blair declared his backing by saying, “I prayed to God and asked His help in terms of joining Washington in its invasion of Iraq. God is the one who will judge Bush for his decision.” This silly statement has made Blair a butt of joke not only in Britain but throughout the world.
Thousands of people have been killed in Iraq, anarchy reigns there; in fact Iraq is about to implode.
According to a latest survey, 68 percent of the Americans consider their president’s handling of the Iraqi war a failure. About 30 percent think there is a big chance for a civil war to break out in Iraq. 60 percent of the Americans are skeptical of Americans winning the war.
This is the miserable reality of Iraq now.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=80017&d=31&m=3&y=2006


Turkey Calls for Nuclear-Free Middle East
Maha Akeel, Arab News
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu at the joint press conference in Jeddah on Thursday. (AN photo by Marwan Al-Johani)
JEDDAH, 31 March 2006 — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) here yesterday and discussed with its Secretary-General, Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, regional developments and concerns. At the press conference that followed the meeting, Ihsanoglu, a Turkish native, commended Turkey for its support to the organization and discussed agreements and future plans.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=80024&d=31&m=3&y=2006


Hamas Blasts West’s Funding Threats
Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News
Palestinians and international activists scuffle with Israeli border police during a demonstration to mark the Land Day on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Rafat on Thursday. The Land Day commemorates riots on March 30, 1976. (AP)
GAZA CITY, 31 March 2006 — The new Hamas Cabinet faced a fusillade of broadside of threats from the West even as ministers took over the reins of power in Palestine. The first day in office for the Hamas ministers was marred by Western boycott announcements, but the party was defiant as they accused the West of failing to respect democracy yesterday.
The Middle East quartet said that the West would slash its funding if the Hamas-led government does not change its policy with regard to Israel. The Middle East quartet issued a statement, “That future assistance to any new government would be reviewed by donors against that government’s commitment” to nonviolence, recognizing Israel and accepting previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=80040&d=31&m=3&y=2006



Wanted Fatah Chief in Lebanon Cleared After Surrender
Hadi Tawil, Arab News
BEIRUT, 31 March 2006 — Fatah’s chief in Lebanon, a fugitive since he was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999, surrendered yesterday to a Lebanese military tribunal that swiftly quashed his conviction, a judicial source said.
Sultan Abul Aynain was exonerated of charges that he formed “armed groups” and carried out “terrorist acts,” and was released following the court session in Beirut.
The move came days after Abul Aynain pledged his Fatah faction would round up weapons from refugee camps amid growing calls for militias in the country to be disbanded.
Abul Aynain surrendered to authorities at the military tribunal in Beirut after traveling from the refugee camp of Rashidiyeh in southern Lebanon, where he had been holed up since the death sentence was issued in 1999.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=80031&d=31&m=3&y=2006


Youth Lured by Misguided Zeal: Ahmad
Arab News
AL-GHAT, 31 March 2006 — Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmad lamented the fact that some of the youth are turning to terror are misguided and fighting Almighty Allah and his Messenger. Prince Ahmad was speaking to the press after attending a function to honor the winners of the Prince Khaled ibn Ahmad Al-Sudairi for academic excellence yesterday in Al-Ghat region.
Prince Ahmad’s comments came after Saudi security forces arrested 40 suspected terrorists in three different operations around the Kingdom in the past two weeks.
He said that those arrested were a group of individuals, but not all were fully aware of the grievous harm they commit by turning to crime. Some of them are lured by misguided zeal. “It is sad that some of our youth who turn to this misguided and devilish direction. They do not realize they are fighting against Almighty Allah and His Messenger who ordered us to protect lives and property.”

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=80041&d=31&m=3&y=2006


Olmert Plan: The Endgame or Step Toward a Larger Resolution?
Michael Rothfeld, Newsday
NETANYA, Israel, 27 March 2006 — When the latest suicide bomber blew himself up on a quiet December morning at the entrance to the crowded shopping mall, Ella Atlan hurried through the chaos to escape. Later, after the windows had been repaired and the blood scrubbed off the wall, she went back to work.
It had become a grim routine. Five months earlier, the Israeli woman had returned to selling jewelry at the mall near the border with the occupied West Bank after a bomber blew himself up in the same spot. Another bomber attacked there in 2001.
Now Atlan, 34, who is raising four young children in a country where the prospect of a peace deal seems dim, takes some hope in an Israeli plan to unilaterally give most of the West Bank to the Palestinians, four decades after the country captured the territory in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=79825&d=27&m=3&y=2006&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion


Google Earth Raises Privacy, Security Issues
Essam Al-Ghalib, Arab News
JEDDAH, 27 March 2006 — When a permit was issued allowing motor-powered passenger gliders to fly during Jeddah’s annual summer festival, it came with strict instructions as to where flying was permitted. Only two places were designated — the Corniche with flights over the waters of the Red Sea and further inland, over the desert. At no point, were the gliders to fly over inhabited parts of the city.
“That’s so we don’t fly over people’s homes and palaces. This culture closely guards its privacy. Many would be unsettled by the thought of uninvited eyes prying from above,” the expatriate pilot of one of the craft told Arab News two summers ago.
Last summer, when Google launched Google Earth, concern grew over how much it allowed anyone with an Internet connection to view and download satellite and aerial images of the Earth from above for free. Providing detailed aerial views of such landmarks as the Pyramids of Giza, the Eiffel Tower, and Disneyland, to name but a few, Google Earth was not the first to offer this service that has some governments concerned. For providing detailed aerial image maps of government buildings, military installations and other facilities, national security officials of at least three governments have complained to Google.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=79805&d=27&m=3&y=2006


US Has Second Thoughts on Inviting Pakistani Senator
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 27 March 2006 — Ouch! The US State Department and the White House once again have shown they disagree on foreign policy.
The problem this time is Pakistan.
After extending an invitation to a leading Pakistani senator, the United States changed its mind and revoked the visa of the lawmaker from Balochistan province who happens to be a known critic of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The move has set off charges that the action came at the request of the Pakistani government.
Sanaullah Baloch, a strident critic of Musharraf’s handling of the conflict in Balochistan where the Pakistani Army is battling local tribes, was invited by the State Department last year to attend a program on government accountability scheduled for today and issued a visa.
American officials in Islamabad recently told Baloch, who was scheduled to arrive this weekend, that his invitation had been canceled and his visa revoked because of a “recent withdrawal in funding” which had forced the program to be scaled back, according to The Washington Post.
The State Department has since then changed its tune, and spokeswoman Nancy Beck said last week the problem was not funding but that some new information received by the department after issuing the visa for Baloch that “led us to believe he was not eligible for a visa”.
South Asia experts said the decision could be due to Baloch’s criticism of Musharraf’s Balochistan policy. “What is truly outrageous about his situation is this was a US government-sponsored trip. Since when do we let other countries decide on whom we should invite to our country?” Michael McFaul of the Hoover Institution in Washington, told reporters.
In a telephone interview, Baloch told The Washington Post that Balochistan, the largest province in Pakistan, was being exploited for its natural resources, even though the region was starved of development funds.
The province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is strategically important to oil-shipping lanes, is being undermined, said Baloch, by the Pakistani government’s leverage of Islamists in the liberal-minded region. Baloch said the government did not respect human rights in the region and added that about 600 people had been killed there in recent months.
Local tribes in Balochistan demand greater autonomy and a share in the region’s resources.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=79819&d=27&m=3&y=2006


National Panel Set Up to Combat Blindness
M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan & Mohammed Rasooldeen, Arab News
RIYADH, 27 March 2006 — A National Committee for Prevention of Blindness (NCPB) was formed yesterday at Saudi Ophthalmology 2006, an annual international symposium organized by the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in cooperation with the Saudi Ophthalmological Society (SOS). Prince Abdul Aziz ibn Ahmed, regional chairman of the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and president of SOS, signed the agreement with Dr. Hamad Al-Manie, minister of health, for the formation of the NCPB.
More than 1,500 local participants with 15 guest lecturers from the United States, Australia, Japan, Turkey and Switzerland were present during the signing ceremony.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=79820&d=27&m=3&y=2006


Editorial: Election Preview
27 March 2006
Pundits have long stopped speculating about the outcome of tomorrow’s elections in Israel. Polls have consistently shown the new Kadima party far ahead of its rivals. They predict Kadima will win slightly less than one-third of the 120 seats in Parliament, or about double that of standard-bearers Labor and Likud, traditionally Israel’s largest parties who have suddenly become also-rans.
Thus, in an election campaign bereft of contest, the main threat to Kadima’s winning a landslide is neither Labor nor Likud but apathy — the fear that thousands of Israelis will stay home tomorrow because they see the result as a done deal.
Such indifference is odd in a season that has witnessed seismic changes, whether being the emergence and surprising popularity of Kadima, or the stroke that incapacitated Ariel Sharon, or Hamas sweeping to victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections. All of these combined should have galvanized the Israeli public to go out and vote one way or the other. Instead, neither the issues nor the candidates — Kadima party leader and acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, ex-union boss Amir Peretz of the Labour Party and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud — have caused much of a ripple.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=79811&d=27&m=3&y=200


Bush Losing All Credibility Over Iraqi Developments
James M. Klurfeld, Newsday
Too little, too late. President Bush is going to the American people to bolster his plummeting credibility because the war in Iraq is going badly. He’s even admitting the original war plans weren’t so great and that it won’t be on his watch that troops can be withdrawn. Out of desperation, he’s trying candor or a limited version of it. It’s not enough.
There is one thing Bush has thus far refused to do, and it’s crucial: Fire the people who made the key decisions about whether and how to fight this war. I’m talking about Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Along with Vice President Dick Cheney, they brought on this foreign policy disaster. Cheney ought to get the boot, too, but he was elected with Bush.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=79826&d=27&m=3&y=2006&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion


All-Too-Familiar Tune: Ringtones in Mosques
Mahmoud Ahmad, Arab News

JEDDAH, 27 March 2006 — As Dhuhr prayer commences, the imam calls the devoted to stand in line and fill any gaps between them. The mosque is a near-perfect atmosphere for peaceful, quiet self-reflection and piety. Suddenly the ambience of the holy place is shattered by the hip-hop beats of Los Angeles rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg. The worshippers turn their head to look at the offender. Tsk-tsk. Once again somebody didn’t turn off his cell phone!
“There is no hope for them,” says Khaled Muhammad, imam of a mosque in Jeddah’s Al-Rawdah neighborhood. “I warn them time and time again against bringing mobile phones inside mosques. If these people were meeting with their company boss they would turn off their phones. Why is it when they’re meeting with God they don’t extend the same courtesy?”
Khaled Muhammad told Arab News that he has given up on trying to curb the sounds of pop music that pop up during prayer, choosing simply to ignore the annoyance and hope that fights don’t break out.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=79806&d=27&m=3&y=2006


UAE Working on a Law to Allow Unions
K.T. Abdurabb, Arab News
DUBAI, 31 March 2006 — United Arab Emirates Labor Minister Ali ibn Abdullah Al-Kaabi said yesterday that the country was working on a law to allow trade unions.
“We are working on a law to allow laborers to form unions and legalize collective bargaining. The proposed labor law guaranteeing the right to strike and worker representation through their organizations will be put before the Cabinet by summer,” said Al-Kaabi.
“We are going to have one union, with separate representatives for the construction, fishing, agriculture and other industries.”
He said the UAE was in negotiations with the International Labor Organization over changes to the current labor laws.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=80027&d=31&m=3&y=2006


Lawrence of Arabia: 70 Years Later
Abeer Mishkhas Special to Review
T. E. Lawrence and Lowell Thomas, tinted photograph.
ON the 70th anniversary of T. E. Lawrence’s death, the Imperial War Museum in London is holding an exhibition of photographs that follows the life of the man and the legend. Walking into the exhibition one is greeted by a model of Lawrence in Arab dress. Above it on the wall is written: “All men dream: But not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.” The quote puts the visitor in the mood for the rest of the exhibition.
It begins with Lawrence’s childhood and a picture of him and his brother, then his school uniform, a lock of his hair and a letter from his father. Lawrence went to school in Oxford where his family settled while he pursued different interests such as brass rubbing and archeology.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=21&section=0&article=79989&d=31&m=3&y=2006


IOWA

"The Messenger" of Fort Dodge


High winds rattle area
80 mph winds damage area buildings
By BILL SHEA Messenger staff writer

A powerful storm packing wind gusts of up to 80 mph damaged some buildings and temporarily flooded streets in the Fort Dodge area Thursday evening.
The damage was apparently caused only by strong winds and not tornadoes, according to Mark Russell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Des Moines.
Russell said there was widespread wind damage throughout northern Iowa.
In Webster County, damaged buildings were found between Fort Dodge and Vincent, said Tony Jorgensen, the county’s emergency management coordinator.
Damaged buildings and scattered debris were located along 170th and 190th streets.
Gerald Ascherl’s machine shed was completely destroyed at his home at 2744 190th Street. Several other outbuildings were also damaged. Ascherl noted that there was slight damage to his home and that neither he nor any livestock were injured.
“I’m pretty sure it was a tornado,” said Ascherl. “I heard a loud roar and then it quit. It only lasted about 20 maybe 30 seconds and then it was over.”
In Fort Dodge, the intersection of Third Avenue South and 10th Street and a portion of South 25th Street near Crossroads Mall were flooded. Both locations are known to flood during heavy rains.
Russell said the storms that passed through the county at about 6 p.m. were ‘‘very good producers of strong winds.’’ He said the storms’ wind gusts were in the range of 60 mph to 80 mph.

http://www.messengernews.net/top_stories_full.asp?3941


"Gazette"

GOP targets Vilsack travels
Published: 03/31/2006 12:58 PM
Updated: 03/31/2006 12:58 PM
By: Associated Press - Associated Press
DES MOINES, IA - Iowa Republicans are taking Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack to task for his out-of-state travels to test the political waters for "his unannounced bid for the presidency."
Iowa GOP executive director Cullen Sheehan noted that Vilsack is leaving Iowa to "court Florida Democrats" this weekend when he should be focused on unresolved priorities hanging over Iowa's 2006 legislative session.
"As we head into the closing weeks of the Iowa legislative session, Governor Vilsack should be focused on getting things done for Iowans, not running for president," Sheehan said.
"It's unfortunate that Vilsack is choosing to travel to Florida instead of staying in Iowa to finish up important legislative business like cutting taxes on senior pensions," Sheehan added. "That important legislation would keep more of our seniors in this state, rather than flocking to Florida with Gov. Vilsack."
A GOP proposal to phase out Iowa's tax on pension and retirement income is part of the wide-scale budget discussions under way as top policymakers attempt to craft a fiscal 2007 spending plan for state government.
Vilsack plans to participate in Monday's resumption of budget negotiations

http://www.gazetteonline.com/2006/03/31/Home/republicansvilsacktravel.htm



"The Quad City Times"

Kidnap victims multiply in Iraq
By The Associated Press Comments(0)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The most likely kidnap victims in Iraq increasingly are Iraqis, with an average of 10 to 20 taken hostage every day for nearly three years, a U.S. official in Baghdad said Thursday.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton said freedom comes at a heavy price, with ransoms averaging between $20,000 and $30,000.
“It’s huge,” she said. “There are a lot more Iraqis being held hostage in Iraq now than most people are aware of.”
The puzzle is how Iraqis come up with such large ransom payments in a country where unemployment is estimated between 28 and 40 percent and the average monthly wage is about $100. Equally unclear is who the kidnappers are — they have grown increasingly bold and now are striking in broad daylight.

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/31/news/local/doc442cccafc54be012540315.txt


Next storm season looms
By Tory Brecht Comments(2)
Leaving New Orleans on Thursday, Lynn Pruitt of Muscatine, Iowa, was bombarded with visual reminders that the work he is doing truly matters.
Clumps of tree limbs left on roofs where floodwaters tossed them and piles of discarded furniture on street corners where homeowners still are in the throw-away, rather than rebuild, stage add urgency to a looming June 1 deadline for getting the city’s flood and hurricane defenses back to pre-Katrina levels.
Pruitt and 21 other employees of Muscatine-based Stanley Consultants have been in Louisiana since September, helping organize the massive levee and floodwall rebuilding effort.
“Driving around there today, in some areas I hadn’t been before, you could see the results of the flooding,” he said. “The debris washed up, you could see where the high-water mark was up on the roofs of the houses still with sticks and debris up on them. It’s kind of ominous.”
Stanley Consultants engineers are serving as project managers on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $770 million Task Force Guardian project to restore about 170 miles of levees and floodwalls. The work entails coordinating the 59 separate contractors selected to do construction work, tracking and reporting the restoration effort for the public and elected officials, and monitoring the rebuilding effort’s progress and quality, said Craig Johnson, who is overseeing the Stanley effort in Louisiana.

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/31/news/local/doc442ccc02a4dac736743255.txt



A fun way to fight juvenile diabetes
By Laurie Lomba, Moline Comments(0)
Juvenile Diabetes Association, Inc. (JDA), a local non-profit group of parent volunteers in cooperation with Skate City will host our annual “Rolling for a Cure” on Tuesday, April 4. We are so excited that everyone’s favorite mascots, Mo and Ima Mallard, will trade in their ice skates for an evening with us of roller skating fun!
JDA meets monthly to support families of children with Type I (juvenile)
diabetes. Our mission is to promote education and awareness for our community, support research and annually unite members for the common goal of raising funds to send local children to Camp Hertko Hollow in Boone, Iowa. At camp, kids enjoy the fun of day-to-day camp experiences and bond with others facing the same challenges in life. They learn to become more independent and knowledgeable in their own diabetes care. In the meantime, parents may actually relax, because the staff at camp is comprised of doctors, nurses, dieticians, diabetic educators and many volunteers
dedicated to their safety.

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/31/opinion/letters/doc442cbc7463ed7217725818.txt



Would Mexico be so kind to immigrants?
By Larry Bickmann, LeClaire Comments(11)
Picture this: I immigrate to another country illegally and thus start my existence in that country by breaking their laws. Then I refuse to speak or learn the local
language or to get my own medical insurance and thereby expect the legal citizens to pay for any and all medical bills I may incur.
I want to drive but can’t afford the insurance, so if I total your car, I’ll just run and leave you in a ditch. All my kids will get free schooling and raise classroom sizes to the breaking point of teachers’ abilities to teach constructively. Don’t forget the free social services I expect, especially food stamps for life and continued welfare.
Now since rents are high, I’ll have to live with 10 to 15 of my family members in a three-bedroom house,
raising the population and thereby increasing the need for a larger police force for crimes committed by myself and family members.

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/31/opinion/letters/doc442cbce75e09d042131197.txt



You can support the troops and not the war
By Mike Sersig, Davenport Comments(16)
The war in Iraq is the
stupidest conflict our country has ever engaged in! It’s a total farce that’s even worse than our involvement in Vietnam.
Having said that though, I wholeheartedly support our troops over there. I support them by wanting them home in one piece!
Mike Sersig
Davenport

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/31/opinion/letters/doc442cbd3457075054913960.txt



Texas company claims to clone top horses
By Times wire services Comments(1)
Purcell, Okla.
A company that offers horse owners exact duplicates of their animals says it has successfully cloned two top-earning horses.
ViaGen Inc. announced Thursday that two mares had delivered clones of top cutting horses, which are trained to help separate individual animals from cattle herds.
The foals, born at a ranch near Purcell, were doing well, according to the Austin, Texas-based company.
The first cloned horse was born in 2003 in Italy. In 2005, Texas A&M University created the first cloned horse in the United States.
Elaine Hall of Weatherford, Texas, owns one of the horses that was cloned and said the foal is the image of its mother.
“I can already see so many similarities from the original horse, a certain look about the eyes,” she said.
A laboratory at the University of California-Davis has confirmed that one of the clones and its offspring share the same genetics.

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/03/31/news/nation_world/doc442cc6de8bc00235903332.txt

continued …

March 27, 2006.

Cologne, Germany.

March 26, 2006.

Madison, California.

March 26, 2006.

White Sulpher Springs, Montana.

March 29, 2006.

Atlanta, Georgia.

This photographer woke to very dense fog outside her window.

What is fog? Hot and cold air mixing.

March 29, 2006.
Conroe, Texas.

Photographer states :: We had a line of severe thunderstorms come through yesterday and this was the sky on the gust front.

March 30, 2006.
Lincoln, Nebraska.

Photographer states :: Severe storms poured into nebraska and the lincoln area today. Photo shows the towers building has part of a storm that just past thru the lincoln area

March 29, 2006. Carrollton, Texas

Photographer states :: VORTEX ! Saw this above me on my morning walk...scary!

Seattle Post Intelligencer

Storms spawn tornadoes throughout Midwest

By STEVE BRISENDINEASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

A line of thunderstorms packing heavy rain, hail and high wind generated tornadoes as it moved through several Midwestern states, leaving at least three people injured.

The storms dropped golfball-sized hail, destroyed homes, knocked down power lines and tipped over trailers in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, authorities said late Thursday.

The destruction was apparently heaviest in Kansas, where Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declared a state of emergency in Montgomery County in the southeastern part of the state.

In central Kansas, a small tornado touched down near the town of Hutchinson, where officials said lightning or downed power lines may have sparked prairie fires that forced the evacuation of several homes. Winds overturned a semitrailer and damaged structures in the northeastern part of the state.

One person was injured in a home when a tornado touched down in the community of Havana, said Joy Moser, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Division of Emergency Management. The tornado then traveled northeast, overturning mobile homes at Elk City Lake before slamming into the community of Le Hunt.

In a rural area 10 miles north of Independence, five homes were destroyed and several mobile homes were tipped over, Sebelius said in a news release. One man was airlifted to a hospital in Joplin, Mo., the release said.

The weather service said another person was hurt when a car blew over in Marion County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol said winds contributed to injury accidents in McPherson and Sumner counties. In one of them, a driver overcorrected while trying to avoid a tractor-trailer that was being blown over, troopers said.

In Nebraska, two semis were blown off Interstate 80 west of Grand Island, said Deb Collins of the Nebraska State Patrol office in Lincoln.

A tornado that touched down near Papillion blew off sections of the Papillion Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, officials said. Several out buildings were blown over on a farm south of Papillion.

About 8,500 Omaha Public Power District customers lost power, officials said. Power was restored to most customers within a few hours.

In Iowa, tornadoes were reported near Creston in the southwestern part of the state and near DeSoto in central Iowa, said Craig Cogil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Johnston. He said the thunderstorms brought winds reaching up to 80 mph.

In the Ames area, Cogil said one mobile home was destroyed by high winds and two others were blown or tipped from their foundation.

UNISYS Water Vapor satellite - Hemispheric view - click on for 12 hour loop

March 31, 2006.

Water Vapor Satellite of the Northern Hemisphere.

A series of vortices are best seen in this water vapor view as they are pulled across the globe by a huge vortex in the North Atlantic sending heat to the Arctic Ocean. ]

UNISYS Water Vapor satellite GOES West click on for 12 hour loop

March 31, 2006.
0815.

Water Vapor Satellite GOES West.

The three vortices moving across the Northern and Western Hemisphere is seen best here and in 'dimension' to realize the huge scope of this system. This is all part of ONE system that is moving heat from the equator to the north ice ocean.

UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite GOES East - click on

March 31, 2006.
0815z

Water vapor satellite GOES East shows clearly the air mass of the Northern Hemisphere being 'pulled' around the globe by the vortex of the Northern Cap as the heat moves over the Arctic Ocean ice.

The Caribbean Sea hasn't been the best behaved the past three days either.

March 30, 2006.
Lawrence, Kansas.

Caption :: Karen Pendleton, co-owner of Pendleton�s Country Market, watches one of Thursday's storms pass.

March 30, 2006.
Lawrence, Kansas.

Caption:: Karen Pendleton, co-owner of Pendleton�s Country Market, watches one of Thursday's storms pass as Dusty Kisslinger, left, and Shawn Franklin, both Pendleton�s employees, prepare for the store�s reopening on Saturday.

No Joke in Kansas. March came in like a Lion and is going out the same way.

Lawrence, Kansas was spared more destruction yesterday with turbulence that stretched across most Mid-Western states, but they weren't on March 12, 2006.

Businesses, residents picking up pieces after microburst

By Eric Weslander

Friday, March 31, 2006

It may not be pretty, but a Lawrence-area business hit hard by the microburst storm earlier this month is about to reopen.

Pendleton’s Country Market, which suffered about $250,000 in damage in the storm, will open its doors to the public again at 8 a.m. Saturday. Visitors should expect to see pieces of tin strewn around the fields and buildings with damage.

“The place will be very disorganized, but we’d love to see anybody who wants to come out,” co-owner Karen Pendleton said. “Just being here standing will be a celebration. ... We’ve got to do this for our mental health as much as anything.”

She said there should be spinach available for picking, as long as it’s not damaged by hail before then.

The reopening is one sign that wounds from the March 12 storm are starting to heal. Another is that a well-known former Lawrence resident who was severely hurt that day has been released from the hospital and is at home recuperating.

Ted McFarlane, former director of Douglas County Ambulance Service, was cleaning up debris at his rental property in the 1200 block of Kentucky Street after the storm. A teenage driver swerved to avoid another vehicle, rear-ended a parked car and pushed it into McFarlane, causing his legs to be caught between the rear-ended car and his own parked car.

“I heard the crash and then before I could even respond I felt the car come into my legs,” he said by telephone Thursday.

McFarlane broke the two bones below the knee in each leg and was flown by air ambulance to Overland Park Regional Medical Center. Doctors eventually put a plate in each leg, with 13 screws in one and eight in the other. He got out of the hospital about a week ago, but doctors believe it will be about six months before he is able to be back to full activity, he said.

McFarlane, 58, retired from Douglas County in 2001 to become head of Johnson County Med-Act EMS service. He said one comforting fact about the accident was that he had worked with many of the emergency responders who helped him.

“I’m just real glad that they’ve continued their emphasis on taking care of the trauma patients in the community,” he said.

Other storm-related notes:

• The city’s special curbside pickup of storm-related debris has ended, but people can still put debris into bundles for curbside pickup on normal trash-collection days. Bundles can’t be longer than 4 feet or weigh more than 60 pounds.

• City forestry crews still are doing some tree trimming and clean up of fallen branches in Edgewood Park, Centennial Park, Holcom Park, Oak Hill Cemetery and in places where damaged trees overhang the street.

“It will take a substantial amount of time for them to make all of those repairs,” city spokeswoman Lisa Patterson said.

• An apartment building at Berkeley Flats complex near 11th and Indiana streets is still empty after being ordered evacuated by the city several days after the storm. Tim Pinnick, inspections supervisor for the city, said he has not yet received a permit application needed for the building to reopen.

• The remains of a nearly destroyed building at 720 E. Ninth St. are scheduled to be demolished either this morning or early next week. The building, owned by Harris Construction, had been used as an annex for Sun Creations, a screen-printing company.

March 30, 2006.

Cyclone Glenda hits Australia. Stronger than Larry.

Fluoride Pollution from water runoff in Florida's water.

The teeth of Florida's children as a result of fluoride pollution.

The high levels of fluoride also pose health risk for children.

Morning Papers - continued ...

Michael Moore Today

http://www.michaelmoore.com/


Facts Were Being Fixed

Strategy included blue paint, assassination

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says
By Don Van Natta Jr. / New York Times
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6327

...in a recent White House News Conference...

Helen. After that brilliant performance at the Grid Iron, I am -- (laughter.

Q You're going to be sorry. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, let me take it back. (Laughter.)

Q I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?

THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise -- in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- is that -- I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --

Q Everything --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please.

Q -- everything I've heard --

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.
Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq -- hold on for a second --

Q They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained --

Q I'm talking about Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.
I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences --

Q -- go to war --

THE PRESIDENT: -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.

THE UNITED NATIONS INSPECTORS WERE NEVER 'THROWN OUT OF IRAQ.' GEORGE WALKER BUSH ACTED PRE-MATURELY BEFORE the United Nations Security Council voted regarding the findings of the UN Inspectors and against the legislature of the United States House and Senate which clearly stated invasion of Iraq was a last resort. Once the invasion was launched there was no turning back. Bush knew he would not be impeached because the Republicans had a clear majority in the House and the Senate could not act independently to impeach.

Saddam didn't have comprehensive records of his weapon history for the United Naitons. But the United Nations inspectors were finding absolutely NOTHING in the way of a trace of evidence of biolgoical, chemical or nuclear weapons. There was no reason for comprensive records that might have reflected errors anyway. WOULD YOU TRUST the records of Saddam Hussein OR the findings of UN Inspectors receiving payment from a neutral country? All the demands for Iraq's Records of WMD was the only 'pickable' point. Yesterday in a speech George Walker Bush stated the reason for the increasing civil war was Saddam Hussein's prior regime.

Bush Blames Saddam for Current Sectarian Division in Iraq

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-29-voa57.cfm

Previous to his diversion from his own failures he stated the Iraqi people would receive the invasion with open arms and welcoming applause. Who in the USA knew those statements and expectations were "W"rong all along. NOW, he expects the Ameican public to be fools again, as if this is a new revelation?

Bush is a criminal both domestically and internationally.

Q Thank you, sir. Secretary Rumsfeld -- (laughter.)

Q Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome. (Laughter.) I didn't really regret it. I kind of semi-regretted it. (Laughter.)

Q -- have a debate.

THE PRESIDENT: That's right. Anyway, your performance at the Grid Iron was just brilliant -- unlike Holland's, was a little weak, but -- (laughter.)
Sorry.

Q Secretary Rumsfeld has said that if civil war should break out in Iraq, he's hopeful that Iraqi forces can handle it. If they can't, sir, are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the first step is to make sure a civil war doesn't break out.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060321-4.html


Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US
The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/


Four influential Latino peace activists will lead a 241 mile quest for peace!
Citizens for Pablo
Main Contacts:
Pablo Paredes (619) 857-4947
pablopare@gmail.com
Victor Paredes (917) 864-9179
vicparedes@msn.com
On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 241 mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.
Latinos represent nearly 15% of the US population, 11% of the US military and an estimated 20% of the fallen service members in the first months of the invasion of Iraq. The Latino population is a growing force in the US and their voice must be an active part of the more than 60% of US citizens that oppose the war in Iraq. That’s why on March 12th, 4 Latinos of different ages, nationalities and hometowns will come together to lead the Latino community in a loud and definitive call for an end to the war in Iraq. Because of their unique experiences with this war; Fernando, Pablo, Camilo and Aidan are dedicated to working to end the bloodshed in Iraq.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=5919


On March 12, 2006 Fernando Suarez del Solar, Pablo Paredes, Camilo Mejia and Aidan Delgado will lead a coalition of the willing across a 240+ mile quest for peace that aims at raising Latino voice of opposition to the War in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana, Mexico all the way to The Mission district of San Francisco making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241 mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq.

http://www.swiftsmartveterans.com/


'If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?'
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith joined them
Guardian
At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched US citizens being washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor."
A black reporter from a Fox TV news affiliate, visibly stunned, whispers: "Wow! That guy's pretty opinionated." Clearly such talk, even three years after the Iraq invasion, is still rare. This, after all, is the Deep South and this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq.
The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the highest levels of the US military.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6354


New York: Grandmothers Against the War
NYC Anti-War Organization Holds Weekly Vigils
Grandmothers Against the War Vigil in Front of Rockefeller Center (left to right: Judith Cartisano, lawyer; Joan Wile, founder; Margaret Taylor, retired judge; Joan Slomanson, writer; unknown 5th vigiler)
Grandmothers Against the War, founded in November 2003, holds a peace vigil every Wednesday in front of Rockefeller Center. The highly publicized group has been demanding an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Grandmothers Against the War also participates regularly in other anti-war activities and performs its original song material for Theatres Against the War.
Please contact Joan Wile to become involved:
E-Mail:
joan.wile@grandmothersagainstthewar.org

http://www.grandmothersforpeace.org/directory/chapters/us-ny-new.york.city/


GUARANTEE YOU, Barbara Bush is not a member !

Freeway Bloggers Impeachment Project

http://www.freewayblogger.com/impeachment_project2.htm


During the most demanding presidential moments in USA history, Bush was alerted to the attacks of 911 by Andy Card while he sat the front of a classroom reading "My Pet Goat." We all know the result of that.

Bush names Bolten chief of staff
Long-time aide replaces Card in White House shakeup
By Jeffry Bartash / MarketWatch
WASHINGTON - President Bush named long-time aide Joshua Bolten as his new chief of staff on Tuesday in the first major White House shakeup since Bush was re-elected.
Some Republicans have urged the president to bring in fresh blood after a series of political missteps that have weakened the White House and sent Bush's poll numbers to new lows.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6338


U.S. must act for Agent Orange victims, veterans say
By Ho Binh Minh / Reuters
HANOI - Vietnam War veterans and social activists from several countries demanded on Wednesday that Washington take responsibility for victims of the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military.
The call for U.S. action came at the end of a two-day conference in Hanoi where deformed children were shown as dramatic evidence of the effects of 20 million gallons of herbicides, including Agent Orange, poured on the country.
"We demand that the United States government be held responsible for making contributions to overcoming the consequences of toxic chemicals," the closing statement said.
Last March, a federal court dismissed a suit on behalf of millions of Vietnamese who charged the United States committed war crimes by its use of Agent Orange, which contains dioxin, to deny communist troops ground cover.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6360

THE REPUBLICANS have no comprehensive policy other than Bush's 'Guest Worker Program.' They never consider the issue with any brevity. On the other hand the Democrats in the Senate Judicary Committee have a five year plan that includes the anticipation of 1.5 million new citizens. Hello?


G.O.P. Risking Hispanic Votes on Immigration
By David D. Kirkpatrick / New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 29 — The battle among Republicans over immigration policy and border security is threatening to undercut a decade-long effort by President Bush and his party to court Hispanic voters, just as both parties are gearing up for the 2006 elections.
"I believe the Republican Party has hurt itself already," said the Rev. Luis Cortes, a Philadelphia pastor close to President Bush and the leader of a national organization of Hispanic Protestant clergy members, saying he delivered that message to the president last week in a meeting at the White House.
To underscore the contested allegiance of Hispanic voters, Mr. Cortes said, he also took a delegation of Hispanic ministers to meet with the leaders of both parties last week, including what he called a productive discussion with Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=6361


Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Feinstein Measure Establishing a Pilot Earned Adjustment Program for
Agriculture Workers
March 27, 2006
Print version
Washington, DC – The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved an amendment sponsored byU.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)that would establish apilot earned adjustment program for agriculture workers.
“The thrust of this proposal is to create a legalized workforce for the agriculture industry,” Senator Feinstein said. “This is a pilot earned adjustment program. It would sunset after 5 years. It’s a workable program. It will provide the agriculture industry with a legal workforce and offer agriculture workers a path to citizenship. So I’m hopeful that this proposal will receive broad, bipartisan support.”
Following is a summary of the bill.

Pilot program to allow certain undocumented agricultural workers to legalize their immigration status in the United States and to modify the current H2A program.

The first step requires that undocumented agricultural workers apply for a “blue card” if they can demonstrate that they have worked in American agriculture for at least 150 work days within the previoustwo years before 12/31/05.

The second step requires that after a “blue card” holder can demonstrate that they have worked in American agriculture for an additional 150 work days per year for 3 years, or 100 work days per year for 5 years, they will then be eligible for a green card.

Employment will be verified through employer issued itemized statements, pay stubs, W-2 forms, employer letters, contracts or agreements, employer sponsored health care, time cards or payment of taxes.

This program will becapped at 1.5 million blue cards in fiveyears (without a per year cap) and sunset after five years.

Individuals may participate in employment other than agriculture so long as the worker satisfies the 100 or 150 workdays each year.

Blue card holders (including spouses and children) will be allowed to travel in and out of the United States.

Spouses of blue card workers will be eligible to apply for their own work permit and their employment will not be limited to agricultural employment.

Aliens participating in the program will be required to pay a fine of $500, show that they are current on their taxes, and that they have not been convicted of any crime that involves bodily injury, the threat of serious bodily injury, or harm to property in excess of $500.

The Department of Homeland Security will determine the adequate application fee necessary to offset the costs of this pilot program.

To avoid backlogs, aliens who receive a green card under this program will be exempt from the overall numerical limitations on visas (i.e., 675,000 visas) and the country numerical limitations for Mexico, India, China and the Philippines.

H2A modifications shall be those contained in the AgJOBS bill and shall include a study to determine an appropriate cap.

http://feinstein.senate.gov/06releases/r-agworker327.htm

Senator Feinstein's Website

http://feinstein.senate.gov/

She also co-authored an emergency measure regarding levees in California. Mr. Pombo is a Republican that needs reform and obviously with Senator Feinstein mentoring efforts might get it. He regularly attacks protection laws such as The Endangered Species Act. It is a personal vendetta for him. We are hoping he never returns to the House with elections pending. Senator Feinstein was smart to be involved in a plan that could have implicated devastation to the environment as well as protections for levees.

Feinstein, Pombo Request Coordinated
Emergency Response & Evacuation Plan for Bay Delta
March 29, 2006
Print version
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) sent a letter to government officials today requesting the design of a comprehensive, coordinated emergency response and evacuation plan to implement should disaster ever strike California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta. The Bay Delta levees are among the nation's most vital levees, protecting and providing water for 23 million Californians.
"The Bay Delta needs to be prepared with an emergency response and evacuation plan should a major levee breach imperil hundreds of thousands of people," Senator Feinstein said. "The lesson of Katrina has to be that we recognize potential threats to the lives of our citizens before they happen, and move aggressively to have a full plan in place to prevent panic and fatalities."
"We are doing everything humanly possible to identify and repair the weaknesses facing the Bay Delta levees," Chairman Pombo said. "However, an emergency response and evacuation plan must be put in place in case the unthinkable happens. We can not and will not let the devastation that occurred in New Orleans come to pass in the Bay Delta."
Chairman Pombo and Senator Feinstein directed their concerns and request of an emergency response and communications plan to Homeland Security Director, Michael Chertoff; Acting Director of FEMA, R. David Paulison; and the Director of California Office of Emergency Preparedness, Henry Renteria. The letter requests plans, capabilities, and preparations be made including: pre-positioning of materials during heavy rains, rapid response of government contractors and emergency personnel, immediate closure of levee breaks and coordinated evacuation routes for mass exodus.

http://feinstein.senate.gov/06releases/r-evacuation.htm


Send Me Your Health Care Horror Stories... an appeal from Michael Moore
Friends,
How would you like to be in my next movie? I know you've probably heard I'm making a documentary about the health care industry (but the HMOs don't know this, so don't tell them — they think I'm making a romantic comedy).
If you've followed my work over the years, you know that I keep a pretty low profile while I'm making my movies. I don't give interviews, I don't go on TV and I don't defrost my refrigerator. I do keep my website updated on a daily basis (there's been something like 4,000,000 visitors just this week alone) and the rest of the time I'm... well, I can't tell you what I'm doing, but you can pretty much guess. It gets harder and harder sneaking into corporate headquarters, but I've found that just dying my hair black and wearing a skort really helps.
Back to my invitation to be in my movie. Have you ever found yourself getting ready to file for bankruptcy because you can't pay your kid's hospital bill, and then you say to yourself, "Boy, I sure would like to be in Michael Moore's health care movie!"?
Or, after being turned down for the third time by your HMO for an operation they should be paying for, do you ever think to yourself, "Now THIS travesty should be in that 'Sicko' movie!"?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=193

NO LONG TERM PRESENCE IN IRAQ. The USA cannot afford to 'sponsor' Iraq forever. The clash between cultures in a profoundly Fundamental Islamic Region will cause more problems than it can possibly prevent. We need to leave Iraq to the Iraqis.

BBC

Iraq bases spur questions over US plans
By Becky Branford
BBC News
The US is spending millions of dollars upgrading a select few air bases
The Pentagon has requested hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funds for military construction in Iraq, fanning the debate about US long-term intentions there.
The money will add to an existing bill of $1.3bn for military construction in the Middle East and South Asia - primarily Iraq and Afghanistan - in the last five years.
Much of the 2006 emergency funding is earmarked for beefing up security and facilities at just a handful of large airbases in Iraq.
This has prompted some to wonder whether the US has plans to maintain a permanent military presence - something the government has repeatedly denied.
But those concerned include the US House Appropriations Committee, which has demanded a "master plan" for base construction from the Pentagon before the money can be spent.
In a 13 March report accompanying the emergency spending legislation, it said the money was "of a magnitude normally associated with permanent bases".
A week later, after top US General John Abizaid refused to rule out a long-term presence, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the bill stating its opposition to permanent bases.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4834032.stm


NO MORE CONTAMINATED HALLIBURTON GARBAGE. The Iraqi people should be so lucky. Then USA generals ponder the reasons for attacks on military instillations. They should share their clean water and they might not be attacked.

Stars and Stripes

Six bases in Iraq to produce their own drinking water
Benefits include reducing truck travel over dangerous roadways
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, March 30, 2006
Jeff Schogol / S&S
Bottles speed by at the water plant at Camp Anaconda, which produces water for the camp and surrounding bases. Six major U.S. bases in Iraq are expected to be producing their own drinking water by summer, military officials said.
CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq — Six major U.S. bases in Iraq are expected to be producing their own drinking water by summer, cutting an estimated 20,000 trips by trucks from Iraq’s dangerous roads each year, according to the managers of the water distribution plant at Camp Anaconda.
Camp Anaconda is the first base to produce its own drinking water, with Camp Victory expected to produce its own water in April, followed in short order by camps Speicher, TQ, Q’-West and Al Asad, managers said.
The move is not intended to turn Camp Anaconda into a permanent base, said Maj. Michael Clancy, engineer for the 3rd Corps Support Command at Anaconda. The unit is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, and is the Army’s only forward-deployed corps support command.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=36119


The Australian

Glenda 'bigger than Larry'
March 30, 2006
THE cyclone bearing down on northern Western Australia is bigger than the storm that flattened Darwin in 1974 and about as powerful as the cyclone that devastated north Queensland last week.
Cyclone Glenda was today lashing the Pilbara coastline with destructive gales, as its eye threatens to cross the coast this evening just west of Karratha and Dampier, about 1540 km north of Perth.
Wind gusts of up to 280km/h had been recorded near the centre of category four Glenda, which could grow stronger before it crosses the coast, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Bruce Buckley said.
"It could intensify just a touch, and it could briefly reach category five, but it is more likely to cross the coast as a category four," Mr Buckley said.
Glenda is the third, and the biggest, cyclone to impact the Pilbara region this season, and is on a par with category five Larry which created disaster areas across north Queensland last week.
"The difference is minuscule. We've got Glenda as a very high category four and analysis shows Larry was a very high four or low category five when it crossed, so they are definitely in the same ballpark," he said.
"Glenda is probably a slightly larger cyclone in terms of the physical size of it."
Glenda is also bigger than cyclone Tracy which flattened Darwin in 1974.
"Tracy was an extremely small system, Glenda is a much larger system, affecting a much greater area, and it is a stronger cyclone than Tracy was as well."
Glenda was the sixth cyclone of the WA cyclone season, which runs between November and April.
It is among the strongest ever to hit WA, as powerful as Bobby and Orson, he said.
Category four cyclone Bobby passed near Onslow in 1995, damaging homes and causing widespread flooding.
Category five Orson passed near Dampier in 1989, causing widespread structural damage at Pannawonica.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18653994%255E12377,00.html



Olmert claims mandate for pullout
Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent
March 30, 2006
THE surge to power of the fledgling Kadima party has set Israel on course towards the most dramatic shift in its 58-year history, the pullout of up to 60,000 Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank.
Kadima leader and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be sworn in as the Jewish state's 12th prime minister after the party he inherited from fallen leader Ariel Sharon in January picked up 28 seats in the new parliament.
The result fell short of Kadima's expectations, but gives it enough of a bloc to take a dominant role in the coalition that forms the next government.
Immediately after exit-poll figures were released, Mr Olmert claimed he had won a mandate to deliver on his key platform, the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank that would allow Israel to draw its final borders without consulting the Palestinians.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18649723%255E601,00.html



Chinese leader backs uranium sales to India
Rowan Callick, China correspondent
March 30, 2006
CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao has given conditional backing for India's acquisition of uranium for the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
"India is a friendly neighbour of China, which approves India's co-operating with other countries in nuclear power generation," Mr Wen told The Australian in an exclusive interview on the eve of his arrival in Australia on Saturday.
Australia is to send a delegation to New Delhi and Washington to seek out details of a nuclear technology-sharing agreement struck by US President George W.Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh three weeks ago which could pave the way for the eventual sale of uranium by Australia and other US allies to the subcontinental nuclear power.
Australia, with 40 per cent of the world's uranium reserves, is a potential leading partner in supplying uranium to India, as it will be to China when Mr Wen signs two ground-breaking agreements next week.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18650271%255E601,00.html



Baghdad signals end to trading impasse
Cath Hart
March 30, 2006
BAGHDAD has asked to buy 500,000 tonnes of Australian wheat from the newly formed consortium Wheat Australia, signalling an end to a trade impasse created by the AWB scandal.
Wheat Australia confirmed yesterday that the Iraq Grains Board had signed a contract but said the terms were still being considered by the consortium.
Wheat Australia, a consortium of the east coast's GrainCorp, Western Australia's Co-operative Bulk Handling and ABB, the former Australian Barley Board, was formed earlier this month after Baghdad banned imports of wheat from AWB until the Cole inquiry finishes.
After almost three weeks of negotiations Iraq Grains Board spokesman Khalil Assi told the Dow Jones news service significant progress had been made toward restoring wheat trade with Australia.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18650300%255E601,00.html


Revelations and betrayal
The contents of the Gospel of Judas promise to tantalise, reports religious affairs writer Jill Rowbotham
March 30, 2006
REVILED and despised Judas - history's least favourite disciple - could be on the verge of a moral makeover. Far-fetched? Sure, but with the release of the English version of an antique document called the Gospel of Judas imminent, its publisher, the National Geographic Society, is tantalisingly tight-lipped, so anything is possible.
All that secrecy will end next week when there will be a press conference in Washington to reveal all. Not about the gospel but about the society's plans for its roll-out. Only one thing is clear already: the society's television channel is airing promotional material about a documentary to be shown across the world on April 9.
It is a fair bet the society's magazine will be full of it and there will be at least one book, given the only profit out of the deal will be from those sources: the papyrus document will eventually be returned to Egypt, where it was discovered in about 1980. It is a third or fourth century Coptic-language copy of the Greek original version of the gospel written about AD 150.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18646661%255E28737,00.html>



Crowds hamper police after shootings
March 30, 2006
TWO people were arrested last night at the site of a fatal double-shooting after hundreds of neighbours flooded the street.
Two young men were gunned down on Blaxcell Street, in Granville, western Sydney, about 11.15pm (AEDT) yesterday.
One man died where he fell while the second was taken with several gunshot wounds to Westmead Hospital where he died a few hours later.
Their identities are yet to be released but both men were believed to be in their 20s, police said.
Granville police Inspector Gary Sims today said a crowd of about 200 people emerged on the street soon after the shooting, hampering police efforts to investigate.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652699%255E1702,00.html



US Army relaxes tattoo rules
From correspondents in Washington
March 30, 2006
THE US Army, which missed its recruiting goal last year, has relaxed its bans on certain types of tattoos in a bid to attract new soldiers who otherwise would have been barred from serving.
The Army will now allow new recruits and all its current soldiers to have tattoos on their hands and back of their necks as long as they are not "extremist, indecent, sexist or racist", Army officials said today.
The Army said it continues to prohibit tattoos anywhere on the head, face or throat area.
But it will allow women recruits and soldiers to sport "permanent makeup" in the form of indelible eye-liner, eyebrows and lip makeup.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652377%255E1702,00.html



US bans Hamas contact
From correspondents in Washington
March 30, 2006
THE United States has ordered its diplomats and contractors to cut off contacts with Palestinian ministries after a Hamas-led government was sworn in, the State Department said today.
A directive, distributed to diplomats and other officials in the region by email, instructed them with immediate effect not to have contacts with Hamas-appointed government ministers or those who work for them, whether they are members of the Islamic militant group or not, officials said.
Hamas is formally committed to the destruction of Israel and is classed by the US government as a terrorist organisation. It won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.
"We will not have contact with members of Hamas, no matter what title they may have," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652261%255E1702,00.html



Australia demands Iraq shooting probe
March 30, 2006
AUSTRALIA will insist on a prompt and appropriate investigation by Iraqi authorities into the shooting death of an Australian resident in Baghdad.
University of Baghdad Professor Kays Juma, 72, was killed by security guards who opened fire when the professor's vehicle got too close to a convoy of 4WDs ferrying private contractors, The Herald Sun reported today.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) confirmed only that an Iraqi man with Australian residency had been shot and killed on Saturday after an incident at a checkpoint in Baghdad. His identity was not revealed.
"The Australian embassy in Baghdad is seeking advice on who is responsible for conducting an investigation into the incident and will register our strong interest with the relevant authorities to ensure the matter is investigated appropriately and promptly," a DFAT spokesman said.
The spokesman said initial speculation that the security guard who fired the fatal shots was Australian were incorrect.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652257%255E1702,00.html



Storm brews over Britney sculpture
From correspondents in New York
March 30, 2006
A LIFE-SIZE nude sculpture of US pop singer Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug has attracted angry mail from both sides of the US abortion debate, ahead of its exhibit in New York next month.
The sculpture by artist Daniel Edwards, titled Monument to Pro-Life, will be shown at the Capla Kesting Fine Art Gallery in Brooklyn starting April 7.
"We've received hate mail. There's nothing we haven't got on this, and it continues," gallery owner Lincoln Capla said.
While pro-choice advocates have condemned the sculpture's anti-abortion message, the anti-abortion lobby has expressed some disquiet over the graphic nature of the work.
What the gallery termed an "idealised depiction" of Spears giving birth shows the pop star kneeling on her hands and knees, with widened hips and a posterior view that reveals the crowning of the baby's head.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18652236%255E1702,00.html



Barry Rubin: Election seals triumph of Sharon's strategy
Kadima's mould-breaking victory is a consequence of the party's success in projecting pragmatism as the best option for Israel in dealing with the Palestinians
March 30, 2006
ACTING Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon's political heir, has won a strong mandate in Israel's election. The Labour Party, under populist Amir Peretz, has made a respectable second-place finish and will be his coalition partner. But this is not just another election. It is a revolution in Israeli politics, the most important change in the country's strategic and party system in 30 years.
To figure out Israel's election, or even to comprehend Israel, you have to understand my friends Gilad and Asher. On the surface, it would be hard to find two more different Israelis. Yet both of them voted for Kadima, and that is the key to that party's meaning and the reasons for its victory.
Gilad is a former chef and now reasonably successful real estate broker who is not particularly interested in politics despite his background. His father was an important left-wing politician and he grew up on a kibbutz, one of the co-operative farming communities that are a mainstay of the Israeli Left. Gilad's small and militantly secular family was part of the European-origin (Ashkenazic) elite, though they never had much money.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18646469%255E7583,00.html



Terrorist desperate to die as a martyr
March 30, 2006
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia: In a last-minute twist to the Zacarias Moussaoui case, prosecutors have revealed the al-Qa'ida conspirator last month offered to testify against himself in his own death penalty trial as he did not want to rot in jail.
The bombshell is the firmest evidence yet that the only man charged in the US in connection with the 9/11 attacks hopes for martyrdom through execution.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema set today for closing arguments on whether Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty. The jury must decide whether the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent will be executed or imprisoned for life.
The jurors heard yesterday that on the eve of his death penalty trial last month, Moussaoui met with prosecutors and offered to testify for them in exchange for better jail conditions. The al-Qa'ida operative withdrew the offer when he realised he had the right to testify on his own behalf.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18649818%255E2703,00.html



Warlord Taylor caught in Nigeria
March 30, 2006
ABUJA: Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who vanished in Nigeria after authorities reluctantly agreed to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal, has been arrested trying to cross into Cameroon.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a visit to the US, last night ordered Taylor's "immediate repatriation" to Liberia.
Information Minister Frank Nweke said Taylor was captured by security forces in the northeastern border town of Gamboru, nearly 1000km from the villa in southern Calabar state from which he disappeared on Monday night.
That was three days after Nigeria, which had granted asylum to the fast-talking, US-educated economist under a 2003 agreement that helped end Liberia's 14-year civil war, reluctantly bowed to pressure to surrender Taylor to face justice before a UN-backed Sierra Leone tribunal.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18649822%255E2703,00.html



The Times Picayune

Teachers earn bonuses for student performance
By Barri Bronston
East Jefferson bureau
Some Jefferson Parish public school teachers are almost $3,000 richer, an award for raising student achievement as part of an experimental program linking their pay to academic performance.
At most schools, teacher salaries are linked in their union contract to their longevity and their level of college education. But in the fall of 2004, the Louisiana Teacher Advancement Program began at Hazel Park/Hilda Knoff Elementary School in River Ridge and Frederick Douglass Elementary in Gretna, offering faculty bonuses based on their students’ scores on standardized tests, the entire school’s scores and peer reviews. Successful teachers received their pay-outs this month.
Both schools improved their student performance during the two-year trial, and indeed both exceeded the growth of the Jefferson school system as a whole, suggesting the program works. Hazel Park, however, fared substantially better than Douglass, said Joan Gremillion, Jefferson’s director of curriculum, instruction and professional learning.
“We had hoped for better results, but we are pleased with the experiment and will continue to support it at Hazel Park,” she said. Douglass has been closed since Hurricane Katrina and is scheduled to be turned into an adult education center later this year.
Hazel Park’s School Performance Score climbed from 93.2 in the spring of 2004 to 96.3 in the spring of 2005, on a scale topping out at a theoretical 250. The score is based on a formula recognizing the Iowa and LEAP standardized tests, attendance rates and dropout rates.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html



Federal report says Charity, University hospitals too badly damaged to repair
By Bruce Alpert
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — Charity and University hospitals in New Orleans were so badly damaged by the flooding from Hurricane Katrina — and in such poor condition before the storm — that spending money on repairs doesn’t make sense, a federal government report released this week concludes.
The finding by the Government Accountability Office would seem to bolster Louisiana State University’s contention that the Charity facility, the flagship of the state’s public hospital system run by the university, should be rebuilt from the ground up.
“Since the facilities were severely damaged and were already outdated, proceeding with federal funding for repairs may be wasting tens of millions of dollars,” the March 28 report says.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html



Bills fail to change voting rules for New Orleans election
3/29/2006, 5:38 p.m. CT
By DOUG SIMPSON
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson went to the state Capitol on Wednesday with his campaign to make it easier for displaced New Orleans residents to vote in the April 22 mayor's race, but he got no help from a Senate committee.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-24/114367585162590.xml&storylist=louisiana



Three N.O. police officers indicted by grand jury
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Two fired New Orleans police officers and one current officer were indicted Wednesday in the videotaped beating of a retired teacher in the French Quarter last fall.
The Oct. 8 beating of Robert Davis, 64, was caught on video by an Associated Press Television News crew covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The three officers were charged with battery and other offenses.
Davis spent more than an hour testifying about the beating, which left him lying on the street, hands cuffed and blood flowing from his head and face. Afterward, he told reporters that he still has headaches and back problems and even had to interrupt his testimony to take medicine.
The retired elementary school teacher said he was "a private citizen here on business returning to my home. There was no need for what happened."
Davis said he had returned to the storm-struck city to check on his property and was looking for a place to buy cigarettes in the French Quarter when police grabbed him.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breaking/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_localbreakingnews/archives/2006_03_29.html



FBI investigating St. Bernard contracts
By Karen Turni Bazile
St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau
The FBI has launched a multi-faceted investigation into post-Hurricane Katrina spending in St. Bernard Parish, examining public contracts including a $370 million debris pick up deal that parish officials granted without bids five days after the storm and gave again to the same firm later last year despite receiving lower offers, according to interviews with competitors and a parish official who have been questioned by federal agents.
Agents are also probing into parish spending on temporary trailers, employee overtime, and a no-bid contract for removal of hazardous waste and sewage, the interviews indicate.
Contractor Lamont “Whip” Murphy, whose Murphy Construction Inc. was one of 11 firms that unsuccessfully sought the debris contract, said the FBI questioned him and a business partner a few weeks ago, seeking details on the way the debris contract was awarded.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html



Tuition-free Catholic school to close
By Steve Ritea
Staff writer
Bishop Perry Catholic Middle School, the tuition-free campus serving primarily low-income African-American students, will permanently close July 21, officials announced Wednesday, saying 70 percent of its financial backers have disappeared since Hurricane Katrina.
School president Ken Ducote said the school's board arrived at the difficult decision after being faced with the stark reality that trying to stay open would be too much of a financial risk.
While the school received several one-time grants since the storm, "when you have to apply for grants just to stay open, then you run the risk of having to close midyear if those grants don't come through," Ducote said.
The school expected to have a shortfall of at least $150,000 next year. Ducote said most of the donors the school counted on to finance its $600,000 a year operating budget have left town since the storm

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html



New Orleans City Park asking for state help to keep park open
3/29/2006, 10:09 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — New Orleans' hurricane ravaged City Park is asking state lawmakers for a short-term bailout — a $2.4 million infusion of cash — or park officials say they will have to close the largest urban park in Louisiana by September.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-24/114364918062780.xml&storylist=louisiana



State's car removal contract also raises question
By James Varney
Staff writer
The featured local company in a proposed $62 million state contract to remove abandoned cars from southern Louisiana lists a flood-ruined 9th Ward address as its headquarters and has a disconnected phone, according to public documents and a cursory investigation by a state senator.
The Department of Environmental Quality contract remains unsigned after negotiations between it and TruSource Facility Services of Georgia and L&L Steel Builders Inc. of 1939 Desire Street in New Orleans, state officials said. It is that contract that the City of New Orleans requested to join this week, following days of questions about its decision to not sell tens of thousands of hurricane-wrecked vehicles to crushers but instead pay a company $23 million to clear the cityscape of the blight.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html



N.O. seeks inclusion in state car-removal contract - sort of
By James Varney
Staff writer
In a letter sent Tuesday to Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality, the city of New Orleans asked to be included in a state contract for the removal of flood-wrecked cars and boats.
At first blush, the letter from Chief Administrative Officer Brenda Hatfield appears to resolve a controversy that has bedeviled City Hall for more than a week, as questions swirled around the decision by Mayor Ray Nagin last year to award the vehicle removal contract to the highest bidder.
But in the second paragraph, Hatfield wrote the city would continue to use its own tow trucks and a privately contracted company to deal with cars left abandoned and waterlogged after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. What’s more, Hatfield expressed some doubt as to whether the state contract she was asking to join would even work.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html



Former Lutcher police chief sentenced for crack distribution
The former police chief of Lutcher who pleaded guilty last year to distribution of crack cocaine has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison, authorities said.
Corey Pittman, 30, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan on Wednesday to 92 months. After his release he'll be under federal supervision for three years.
Pittman pleaded guilty in December to three counts of distribution of 56.1 grams of crack cocaine. Pittman, at the time the elected police chief of Lutcher, was caught in a sting by federal agents and the St. James Parish Sheriff's Office. On three occasions, agents said, he sold crack to an undercover agent, authorities said.
Pittman formally resigned from his post in February.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_29.html


Nature

Something nasty in the water?
Fluoride leaching from rocks is turning kids' teeth brown.
Emma Marris
High levels of fluoride over many years doesn't exactly lead to sparkling white teeth.
Credit NAS
The maximum allowable limit of fluoride in US drinking water is too high, according to a report from the National Academies' research unit this week.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently enforces a limit of 4 milligrams of fluoride per litre of water, and advises a lower limit of 2 mg/l for children younger than nine years for aesthetic reasons.
But the Academy report says that these rules don't seem to be good enough. Children are drinking water in areas where fluoride is at about 4 mg/l, and some 10% of them have an ugly condition known as severe enamel fluorosis, where teeth are mottled brown and pitted. Most on the panel agreed that this affliction, which is found around the world, goes beyond the aesthetic and can be considered an "adverse health effect".
The 450-page report also noted that there are some conflicting data on whether or not high levels of fluoride can be correlated with bone cancers.
The EPA, which commissioned the Academy study, says it will now get down to the business of re-evaluating its maximum limit. At the moment, says report co-author Charles Poole, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the United States's maximum limits are higher than that of many other countries.
Not about fluoridation
The report only looked into high levels of fluoride, well above the 0.7-1.2 mg/l amount that is intentionally added to water in some communities to help prevent cavities. This practice, known as fluoridation, has long been a subject of controversy. The higher limits of 2-4 mg/l are usually only reached in areas where fluoride naturally leaks out from surrounding rocks into the water or where it is an industrial pollutant.
"We thought about calling our report 'Not About Fluoridation' and stamping NAF as a little acronym on every page," jokes Poole.
Some vocal groups claim the risk to teeth and bones outweigh the benefits of fluoridation. This is contrasted by the majority of scientific opinion, says John Stamm, a dentist and epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina. "Fluoridation is overwhelmingly supported by the dental profession and public health agencies," he says.

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060320/full/060320-9.html

continued …