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(01/11/08 2:17am)
For years, jets taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport have performed an act of mercy as they roar south.\nMoments after leaving the ground, the planes bank left, out over an industrial port district, and away from the residential streets of Elizabeth, N.J., the working-class city that sits right up against the busy airport.\nManeuvers like this are a common method of sparing citizens from the window-ratting noise of jets passing overhead.\nBut now such practices are being dropped in some places in the Northeast as part of a federal plan to ease record flight delays. And some neighborhoods that fear they will be subjected to more noise are fighting back in court.\nOn Dec. 19, the Federal Aviation Administration began its first overhaul in decades of the jet routes that crisscross the country’s most congested airspace – a 31,000-square-mile area around New York and Philadelphia.\nThe corridor has been criticized for years as one of the worst problem spots in the nation’s beleaguered air traffic system. Most of the paths were laid out in the 1960s. Some date from the earliest days of air travel, and airlines have been complaining for years that they are horribly outdated.\nOver the next five years, the FAA will be rolling out new routes it believes can cut flight delays by as much as 20 percent. Some aviation experts say improvements are essential; nearly three-quarters of all flight delays nationally are caused by backups in New York and Philadelphia.\nBut a closer look at the revamped flight routes shows that the changes will lead to more noise for tens of thousands of people, many of whom are already subject to the whine of jet engines because of their proximity to airports.\nIn Elizabeth, N.J., the changes will mean that some planes will fly straight over the center of the city.\n“The FAA plan will do more harm to the city of Elizabeth than any terrorist incident,” said Mayor Chris Bollwage.\n“We live next to the airport, so we have to take some noise,” he said. But the FAA plan, he added, stretches fairness. “There are places in town where you can touch the tires.”\nAt least 12 lawsuits have been filed so far in an attempt to stop the plan. \nSo far, the complaints haven’t stopped the FAA. Last month, the agency began phasing in new traffic patterns at the Newark and Philadelphia airports that allow departing planes to fan out in several directions as they climb, rather than stick to a single path.\nFAA officials say the airspace redesign will actually lead to a reduction in noise for a majority of people, largely because the changes will allow planes to fly at higher altitudes.\nBut sound-modeling data released by the agency reveals that the gains and losses will not be spread evenly. Loud neighborhoods will, on average, be getting louder, while the biggest improvements will be in places that aren’t that noisy to begin with.\nAccording to the FAA, an additional 30,600 people will find themselves living in neighborhoods where the average daily aircraft noise level is 60 to 65 decibels – \nconsidered the high edge of tolerable for a residential area.\nNoise at that level is far from earsplitting; experts say it is less than residents might experience if they lived next to a busy road. But it is loud enough that people have to raise their voices as a plane passes overhead.\nThe number of people living in areas where the average decibel level is between 55 and 60 will rise by 79,813.\nThe big losers will be a few communities near Newark and Philadelphia that already hear a good deal of airplane traffic because of their proximity to the airports. There will also be a slight to moderate increase in noise in parts of Morris and Sussex counties in northern New Jersey.\nThe big winners are people who live a little farther away, and now hear a medium amount of noise.\n“It’s a quality-of-life issue,” said Rudy Marconi, a spokesman for the Alliance for Sensible Airspace Planning and a selectman in Ridgefield, Conn., 40 miles northeast of LaGuardia. “Will I get used to it? Probably. But should I have to get used to it?”
(01/11/08 2:16am)
SAN JOSE DE GUAVIARE, Colombia – Colombian rebels freed two women held hostage for more than five years, handing them over Thursday to Venezuelan officials who flew them toward Caracas where a triumphant President Hugo Chavez awaited.\nChavez said he spoke by telephone with the two women, Clara Rojas, an aide to former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, and former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez.\nThe Red Cross, which was involved in the handover, confirmed that rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had turned over the women. It said the mission was headed to the Venezuelan border town of Santo Domingo before flying the women to waiting relatives in Caracas.\nIt was the most important hostage release in the Colombian conflict since 2001, when the FARC freed some 300 soldiers and police officers. Chavez said he hopes the mission opens the way for the release of more hostages.\n“Venezuela will continue opening the way for peace in Colombia. We are ready, and in contact with the FARC, and we hope the Colombian government understands. I’m sure they will understand,” Chavez said. “The world wants peace for Colombia.”\nRojas was kidnapped in February 2002 while campaigning with Betancourt in a FARC-dominated region of southern Colombia. Gonzalez was abducted by the FARC in September 2001 near the city of Neiva.\nColombian President Alvaro Uribe authorized Venezuela to lead the rescue mission despite a bitter clash with Chavez over his involvement in Colombia’s half-century-old guerrilla conflict.\nIn November, Uribe abruptly ended efforts by Chavez to broker a swap of 46 high-profile hostages – including Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors – for hundreds of jailed rebels. He accused Chavez of unauthorized direct contacts with Colombia’s military.\nBut relatives of the hostages urged Chavez to continue, and the FARC, which deeply distrusts Uribe, rewarded his efforts by offering to release the two women and Rojas’s 3-year-old son, Emmanuel – \nwho was fathered in captivity by one of her guerrilla captors.\nThat fell through: The FARC accused Colombia’s U.S.-backed military of sabotaging the handoff with operations in the area, while Uribe’s government said the guerrillas backed out of the deal because they didn’t have the child hostage.\nChavez immediately sided with the guerrillas, calling Uribe a “puppet” and “lapdog” of Washington. DNA tests later proved the rebels did not have Emmanuel, who has been in a Bogota foster home for more than two years.\nStill, Uribe’s government bent to domestic and international pressure to open its airspace for the new Venezuelan rescue mission and suspend military operations in a Vermont-sized slice of jungle in southeastern Guaviare state, a FARC stronghold.\nColombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said his troops held their fire as they saw the Venezuelan helicopters land just over a mile from where they were stationed, adding that troops would wait until sundown before resuming operations.\n“The minimum we can do is offer all sides the tranquility that we’re going to respect all the ground rules,” he said.\nThe Bush administration, which has had tense relations with the leftist Chavez, welcomed the hostages’ release and reiterated its call for the FARC to release all of its captives.\n“We’re pleased that the Colombian government has authorized the Venezuelan government to send aircraft to Colombia marked with International Red Cross logos and carrying an international commission to recover the hostages,” said State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos. “We call on the FARC to release all hostages that it holds and we continue to support President Uribe’s efforts to that end.”
(01/11/08 2:15am)
The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday.\nThe move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces.\nPentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion – together totaling more than 3,000 forces to southern Afghanistan for a “one-time, seven-month deployment.”\nGates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday.\n“He will take it and consider it thoroughly before approving it,” Morrell said. “I just want to get people away from the idea that this is going to be imminently approved by the secretary.”\nHe said Gates “has some more thinking to do on this matter because it’s a serious allocation of forces.”\nMorrell added that Gates’ thinking on the issue has “progressed a bit” over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight.\n“The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load,” the spokesman said.\nMorrell said the move, first reported Wednesday by ABC News, was aimed at beating back “another Taliban offensive” that is expected this spring — as has occurred in previous years.\nWhen Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces.\nLast year was the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The number of attacks has surged, including roadside bombings and suicide assaults.\nCurrently, there are about 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 14,000 with the NATO-led coalition. The other 13,000 U.S. troops are training the Afghan forces and hunting al-Qaida terrorists.
(01/11/08 2:14am)
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the White House Thursday in a timely slap at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as well as his own vice presidential running mate. Quoting a black American hero in endorsing the man who hopes to be the first black president, Kerry told a cheering crowd, “Martin Luther King said the time is always right to do what is right.” Now is the time, Kerry said, to declare “that Barack Obama can be, will be and should be the next president of the United States.”
(01/11/08 2:13am)
President Bush, summing up meetings with both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, said Thursday that a peace accord will require “painful political concessions” by each. Resolving the status of Jerusalem will be hard, he said, and he called for the end of the “occupation” of Arab land by the Israeli military.\n“Now is the time to make difficult choices,” Bush said after a first-ever visit to the Palestinian territories, which followed separate meetings with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem the day before.\nBush is in the Mideast for eight days, trying to bolster his goal of achieving a long-elusive peace agreement by the end of his presidency in a year. Speaking at his hotel in Jerusalem, he said again that he thinks that is possible.\n“I am committed to doing all I can to achieve it,” Bush said. Within minutes, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley said the president would return to the Middle East “at least once and maybe more” over the next year. He wouldn’t elaborate on possible destinations, but another White House official said Bush is likely to attend Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations in May.\nBush gave his most detailed summation yet of what a final peace should include. His report included U.S. expectations for the resolution of some of the hardest issues in the violent conflict, one of the world’s longest-running and most intractable. He used tough language intended to put both sides on notice that he sees no reason they cannot get down to serious business, “starting right now.”\nIn his set of U.S. bottom lines were security for Israel, a “contiguous” state for the Palestinians and the expectation that final borders will be negotiated to accommodate territorial changes since Israel’s formation. He also suggested international compensation for Palestinians and their descendants who claim a right to return to land they held before Israel’s formation.\nHe made a point of using a loaded term — occupation — to describe Israeli control over land that would eventually form the bulk of an independent Palestinian state. That he did so in Jerusalem underscored that he is trying not to seem partial to Israel.\nOn borders, Bush said any peace agreement “will require mutually agreed adjustments” to the lines drawn for Israel in the late 1940s. He was referring primarily to Israeli neighborhoods on disputed lands that Israel would keep when an independent Palestinian state is formed.\nHe undercut that message somewhat by saying it may not be possible to resolve this year the current, violent split in Palestinian leadership — vital to a deal establishing an independent state. The militant group Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June, meaning the Palestinian people — and the land that could eventually form an independent Palestine — are split between governance by Hamas there and by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-led government in the West Bank. The president is not stopping in Gaza.\nBush had harsh criticism for Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Hamas, he said, was elected to help improve the lot of Palestinians, but “has delivered nothing but misery.”\n“The question is whether or not hard issues can be resolved and the vision emerges, so that the choice is clear amongst the Palestinians,” Bush said at Abbas’ side at his government’s headquarters in Ramallah. “The choice being, ‘Do you want this state? Or do you want the status quo? Do you want a future based upon a democratic state? Or do you want the same old stuff?’”\n“We want a state, of course,” Abbas said in English.\nHamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called Bush’s comments a “declaration of war.”\n“Bush’s visit and remarks today have indicated that his visit came to support the occupation and has brought nothing to the Palestinian people but evil,” the Hamas spokesman said.\nBush has named Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to monitor steps that both sides are making on the peace process, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. That, too, was met with approval by Palestinian officials. “It’s one of the positive signs of the visit,” said Mohammed Mustafa, economic adviser to Abbas.\nWith his presidency over a year from now, Bush said he knows “I’ve got 12 months.”
(01/09/08 5:35am)
DAWSONVILLE, Ga. – Just hours before authorities launched another search for the body of a missing hiker, a drifter accused of kidnapping the woman told them where to look, investigators said.\nGary Michael Hilton, 61, had been charged Saturday with kidnapping with intent of bodily injury. He appeared on Monday before a judge who denied his request for bail.\nHours later, he led investigators to a spot in a wooded area in north Georgia where they found the body of Meredith Emerson, said John Cagle, special agent in charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Field Division in Cleveland, Ga.\nThe 24-year-old woman had been missing since New Year’s Day. Hilton was the last person seen with Emerson on the hiking trail and had tried to use her credit card, according to his arrest warrant.\nThree bloody fleece tops and a bloodstained piece of a car’s seat belt were found in a trash bin outside a convenience store where Hilton had used a pay phone, the warrant stated. He had tried to vacuum and wash portions of his 2001 Chevrolet Astro van, which was missing a rear seat belt, according to the document.\nAuthorities declined Monday night to say whether Hilton would face murder charges.\nLocal residents had reported seeing Hilton’s van in the woods where the body was found. A search of the area had been planned, miles from where Emerson was last seen, before Hilton told authorities where to look, Cagle said.\nAuthorities would not describe how Emerson had died.\nPeggy Bailey, a spokeswoman for Emerson’s family, told Atlanta television station WAGA that the family was taking the news of her body being found “as you would expect.” But the family was relieved to now know what had happened to Emerson, Baily said.\n“This is what we wanted,” she said. “We wanted finality to help us move on.”\nUnion County Sheriff Scott Stephens said Hilton was a drifter who was well-known in the area, and was often seen with his dog, Dandy, and a police-style baton.\nAuthorities also said they are exploring a possible link between the disappearance of Emerson and the presumed killing of a couple from North Carolina in October.\nBureau director Vernon Keenan said there could be a connection between the Emerson death and the case of John and Irene Bryant, a couple in their 80s who disappeared in October while hiking in the western North Carolina mountains.\nGeorgia officials met with North Carolina authorities Monday to discuss the case, bureau spokesman John Bankhead said.\n“It’s up to North Carolina now to assess the situation,” he said.\nThe body of Irene Bryant, 84, was found covered with leaves in November. John Bryant, 80, is still missing, and authorities said he may have been kidnapped so he would provide the couple’s bank account security number.\nSomeone used the Bryants’ ATM card in the days following their disappearance, investigators said. The ATM transaction took place in Ducktown, Tenn., about 50 miles from the area of the Georgia investigation.
(01/09/08 5:35am)
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that a confrontation between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf over the weekend was “something normal” and was resolved. It suggested the Iranian boats had not recognized the U.S. vessels.\nThe Pentagon said that in the incident early Sunday, five small Iranian boats repeatedly “charged” U.S. warships in the Gulf’s Hormuz Strait and dropped boxes in the water. The boats warned the U.S. ships that they would set up “explosions,” a U.S. Defense Department official said.\nThe U.S. vessels were on the verge of opening fire when the Iranian boats fled, the official said, calling the incident “the most serious provocation of its sort” in the Gulf. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.\nBut Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini played down the incident, suggesting it was an issue of mistaken identity. He did not comment on the U.S. claims of the Iranian boats’ actions.\n“That is something normal that takes place every now and then for each party, and (the problem) is settled after identification of the two parties,” he told the state news agency IRNA.\nThe incident was “similar to past ones” that were resolved “once the two sides recognized each other.”\nU.S. Navy and Iranian officials have said in the past that vessels from the two rival nations frequently come into contact in the waters of the narrow, heavily trafficked gulf. They often communicate by radio to avoid incidents.\nBut the latest incident was the first time U.S. officials have spoken of such a direct threat from Iranian boats.\nThe incident occurred at about 5 a.m. local time Sunday as Navy cruiser USS Port Royal, destroyer USS Hopper and frigate USS Ingraham were on their way into the Persian Gulf and passing through the strait – a major oil shipping route.\nFive small boats began charging the U.S. ships, dropping boxes in the water in front of the ships and forcing the U.S. ships to take evasive maneuvers, the Pentagon official said.\nThere were no injuries but the official said there could have been because the Iranian boats turned away “literally at the very moment that U.S. forces were preparing to open fire” in self defense.
(01/09/08 5:34am)
The president of the Maldives was saved from assassination Tuesday when a boy scout grabbed the knife of an attacker who had jumped out of a crowd greeting the leader, an official said. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was not hurt, but his shirt was ripped when the attacker tried to stab him before the boy and security guards intervened during the event on the island of Horafushi, said government spokesman Mohammad Shareef.
(01/08/08 3:51pm)
A double suicide attack outside a Baghdad agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines killed at least 12 people on Monday, including the Sunni leader of a U.S.-backed group fighting al-Qaida, officials and witnesses said.\nA police officer said as many as 14 people died in the twin bombings that killed Riyadh al-Samarrai. The attack came a little more than a week after an audiotape of Osama bin Laden was released in which he called for renewed attacks on the mostly Sunni-armed groups.\nOne of al-Samarrai’s guards, who saw the attack, said the suicide bomber walked up to the former police colonel and embraced him before detonating his explosives.\nThe U.S. military in a statement blamed the double bombing on al-Qaida in Iraq. It was the deadliest in a series of attacks across the capital that left at least 19 dead.\nIn the initial bombing, a suicide attacker blew himself up at the entrance to the Sunni Endowment office in Baghdad’s northern Azamiyah district, said Brig. Qassim al-Moussawi. As people rushed to evacuate the wounded, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives yards away, he said.\nAl-Samarrai’s death was confirmed by a witness who is an employee of the Sunni Endowment, a member of the armed group who gave his name only as Abu Omar, and by an Iraqi army official.\nThe U.S.-backed groups – predominantly Sunni Arab fighters who turned against al-Qaida and are known as “awakening councils” – have been credited with helping reduce violence across Iraq. But they are increasingly becoming targets, with several recent bombings striking their offices and checkpoints. Monday’s blast occurred near one of their offices.\nThe Azamiyah area had been a stronghold of Sunni insurgents since 2003 as well as a safe haven for al-Qaida in Iraq militants. Local insurgents, however, rose against al-Qaida last year and joined the U.S. military in the fight against the terror network.\nThe switch of allegiance by insurgents in Azamiyah was one of the most significant in a series of similar moves across Baghdad’s Sunni neighborhoods. Azamiyah is home to Iraq’s most revered Sunni shrine, the mosque of Imam Abu Hanifa, and many in the area served as officers in Saddam Husssein’s army and security agencies, giving an edge to the insurgency there.\nReports on the number of casualties in the bombings varied.\nCmdr. Scott Rye, a U.S. military spokesman, said 12 people were killed in the attack and that 28 were wounded. Earlier, al-Moussawi said six people were killed and 26 wounded.\nBut an official at Azamiyah’s al-Noaman hospital and an army official said seven people had been killed, and that 28 had been wounded. The police officer who said 14 had been killed said some casualties had also been taken to another hospital.\nThe witnesses and most Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals or because they were not officially authorized to speak to media.
(01/08/08 3:51pm)
Her voice quavering, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton struggled Monday to avoid a highly damaging second straight defeat in the Democratic presidential race. \n“You’re the wave, and I’m riding it,” Sen. Barack Obama, the new Democratic front-runner, told several hundred voters who cheered him in 40-degree weather after being turned away from an indoor rally filled to capacity.\nObama has been drawing large, boisterous crowds since he won the Iowa caucuses last week, and a spate of pre-primary polls showed him powering to a lead in New Hampshire as well.\nClinton runs second in the surveys, with former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina third, and the former first lady and her aides seemed to be bracing for another setback.\nAt one stop, she appeared to struggle with her emotions when asked how she copes with the grind of the campaign – but her words still had bite. “Some of us are ready and some of us are not,” she said in remarks aimed at Obama, less than four years removed from the Illinois Legislature.\nObama won his Iowa victory on a promise of bringing change to Washington, trumping Clinton’s stress on experience. She has struggled to find her footing in the days since, at the same time insisting she is in the race to stay.\nSen. Clinton’s aides have urged her to show more passion and emotion – including laughter – to give voters a sense of her warmer side.\nBy coincidence or not, she did so as she set out on a final day in New Hampshire.
(01/08/08 3:49pm)
Iranian boats harassed and provoked three American Navy ships Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to explode the vessels, U.S. officials said Monday. In the most serious such incident in years, U.S. forces were on the verge of firing when the boats – believed to be from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s navy – turned and moved away, a Pentagon official said.\nKenya’s president invited his chief rival to his official residence Monday to discuss how to end the country’s election standoff, just hours after the opposition called off nationwide rallies amid fears of new bloodshed. The signs of softening by both sides came after three days of talks with the top U.S. diplomat for Africa.
(01/07/08 4:02am)
A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck filled with sand struck a police station north of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a week of bombings that have killed nearly 80 people. The truck was allowed through the main gate of the complex in Beiji, the site of Iraq’s largest refinery, after the driver told the guards he was delivering the sand to a construction site inside. The driver detonated his payload when two policemen approached him as he tried to enter a parking lot, police said. The blast, which damaged nearby homes and sent shards of glass flying through the air, killed eight people and wounded 16, police said.
(12/10/07 2:37am)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – \nNASA on Sunday delayed the launch of space shuttle Atlantis until January after a gauge in the fuel tank failed for the second time in four days.\nWith only a few days remaining in the launch window for the shuttle’s mission to the international space station, senior managers decided to stand down until next month in hopes of better understanding the perplexing and persistent fuel gauge problem.\nThe trouble with the fuel gauge resurfaced just before sunrise Sunday, about an hour after the launch team began filling Atlantis’ big external tank for an afternoon liftoff.\nShuttle managers had said they would halt the countdown and call everything off if any of the four hydrogen fuel gauges acted up. Three failed during Thursday’s launch attempt; no one knows why.\nLaunch director Doug Lyons said Sunday’s failure was similar to what happened before, except only one gauge malfunctioned this time.\n“This could all be good news because it may give us some data points that we did not have as to what may be behind this problem,” said NASA spokesman George Diller.\n“So essentially our launch attempt this morning has turned into a tanking test,” he added.\nNASA had until Thursday to launch Atlantis with the European Space Agency’s space station laboratory, Columbus. After that, unfavorable sun angles and computer concerns would make it impossible for the shuttle to fly to the international space station until January.\nOfficials previously have said Jan. 2 would be the earliest try.\nDespite objections from some engineers, NASA tightened up its launch rules for Sunday’s attempt in hopes of getting Atlantis off the ground by the week’s end.\nNot only did all four of Atlantis’ fuel gauges have to work on Sunday – until now, only three good gauges were required – a new instrumentation system for monitoring these gauges also had to check out. NASA also shrank its launch window from five minutes to a single minute for added safety.\nThe troublesome gauges, called engine cutoff sensors, are part of a backup system to prevent the shuttle’s main engines from shutting down too late and running without fuel, a potentially catastrophic situation. They have been a source of sporadic trouble ever since flights resumed in 2005 following the Columbia tragedy.\nTwo groups of NASA engineers recommended that the flight be postponed and the fuel gauge system tested, to figure out what might be going on. But they did not oppose a Sunday launch attempt when it came time for the final vote.\nShuttle commander Stephen Frick was deeply involved with the decisions that were made, officials said.\nBoth the astronauts and flight controllers would have an added burden if multiple fuel sensors were to fail once the shuttle lifted off and a leak or some other serious trouble cropped up during the 8½-minute climb to orbit. They would have to override the system, and hobble to orbit or make an emergency landing.\nFrick and his six crewmates – \none of them French, another German – are set to deliver and install the $2 billion Columbus laboratory at the space station. It will be the second lab added to the orbiting outpost and Europe’s entree to daily, round-the-clock scientific operations with astronauts in space.\nIt was another frustrating delay for the European Space Agency, which has been waiting for years for Columbus to fly. NASA space station design problems in the 1980s and early 1990s slowed everything down, then Russian troubles and, most recently, the 2003 Columbia tragedy stalled the project.\nAssociated Press writer Brian Skoloff contributed to this report.
(12/10/07 2:35am)
ARVADA, Colo. – A gunman walked into a training center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday and opened fire, killing two of the center’s staff members and wounding two others.\nNo arrests had been made by late morning.\nThe shooting happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said. About 45 people were evacuated from the dormitory in this Denver suburb and moved to an undisclosed location.\nA man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded, Medina said.\nAll four victims were staff members, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesman with Youth With a Mission.\nBrady White, who attends Faith Bible Chapel, where the center is located, said he spoke to some students there, who were unhurt but called the experience “terrifying.”\n“They’re just wonderful people,” White said of the center’s students. “Their mission is to know God and to make him known.”\nPolice identified the victims as Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 23. Youth With a Mission said Johnson was from Minnesota and Crouse was from Alaska. Their hometowns weren’t immediately available.\nCheril Morrison, wife of chapel pastor George Morrison, said Crouse had just hung up Christmas lights at his home and Johnson was “an amazingly beautiful person.”\nOne of the injured men was hospitalized in critical condition and the other was in stable condition, police said. Both are in their 20s.\nWitnesses told police that the gunman was a 20-year-old white male, wearing a dark jacket and skull cap, who left on foot. He might have glasses or a beard.\n“There’s no blueprint for this – \nwe’re just going to be honest and pray for one another, cry with one another,” center director Peter Warren told KUSA-TV. “Who knows what was going on in this young man’s life.”\nPolice with several dogs searched the area through the night, and residents of nearby homes were notified by reverse 911 to be on the lookout. Medina said residents were asked to look out their windows to see the snow had been disturbed during the night. About four inches of snow had fallen in the area in the past day.\nMimi Martin, who lives near the center, said she received the warning call at about 9 a.m. advising neighbors to keep their doors and windows locked.\n“Why would anybody want to hurt those kids?” Martin said. “I just pray for their families.”\nPeople bundled up against freezing cold attended Sunday services at the sanctuary, about 300 yards from the dormitory on the campus of the Faith Bible Chapel. Police kept tight security on the chapel grounds.\n“We never doubted that we would have a service,” said Cheril Morrison. “We felt like our church faithful all needed to be together.”\nDarv Smith, director of a Youth With a Mission center in Boulder, Colo., said people ranging from their late teens to their 70s undergo a 12-week discipleship course that prepares them to be missionaries.\nHe said the center trains about 300 people a year.\nFilidis said staffers are usually former missionaries themselves and that the “mercy ministries” performed by trainees include orphanage work. He said he didn’t know where the group being trained in Arvada was going to be sent.\nYouth With a Mission was started in 1960 and now has 1,100 locations with 16,000 full-time staff, Smith said. The Arvada center was founded in 1984.
(11/08/07 5:00am)
The people have spoken. The best bartender in Bloomington is IU senior Elke Morgan, bartender extraordinaire at Kilroy's Bar and Grill.\n"She's a hard worker," fellow Kilroy's bartender and IU senior Meera Jogani said. "She keeps pushing herself to be better in everything she does."\nElke, whose hobbies include baby-sitting and scrap booking, works about 20 hours a week at Kilroy's. \nHer Tuesday shifts begin at midnight.\nTuesdays are big nights at Kilroy's. Its famous $2 Tuesdays drink specials give IU students a sound economic reason to hit the bars on an otherwise arbitrary school night. With Elke behind the bar, patrons get their drinks in no time. Juggling a dozen customers at once, Elke buzzes around like a bee, taking orders, pouring drinks, collecting tabs and tossing the occasional yellow birthday shirt into the sea of customers. \nWork is play for Elke, who is known to break into a little dance when things get too stressful. But tonight, Elke is all business, doing what she does better than anyone in Bloomington. Tomorrow, though, is Halloween, and Elke has the night off. Sitting in a booth at Kilroy's on the afternoon of Halloween, Elke plays the part of patron. Over a couple rounds of drinks, Elke reflects on bartending, lame pick-up lines and reality television.
(11/07/07 5:00am)
The Line \nCan we move it up? 'Cause I was staying away from the half-inch.
(11/01/07 4:00am)
o one in the music world is more unpredictable than Neil Young. That's why his sequel to the scrapped 1977 Chrome Dreams almost comes as no surprise, being from a guy with a pretty strange track record. \nWhile Chrome Dreams had its classic tracks such as "Powderfinger" and "Like A Hurricane" spread through several different releases, Chrome Dreams II is a hodgepodge of outtakes and B-sides from old Neil Young albums and new songs. It turns out Chrome Dreams II comes through as a nice collection of the multifaceted Mr. Young. \nThe album opens with a newly recorded version of an outtake from 1985's country-tinged Old Ways, "Beautiful Bluebird," which comes off as simply wistful, with its banjo and harmonica. Then there is "Boxcar," where Neil embodies a vagabond over a great minor-key banjo groove. \nThe album's centerpiece, the 18-minute "Ordinary People," was a long-lost and much-desired B-side on 1988's This Note's for You. It's full of blasting horns and slashing guitar and serves up 20 verses worth of classic Neil, almost making the album worthwhile on its own. "Dirty Old Man" is not its only single, but it is the sort of grunt rock Neil hasn't showcased in years. "No Hidden Path" is 14 minutes of sledging garage rock, sounding like a lost track from Rust Never Sleeps. Finally, "The Way" is backed by a children's choir and works well as a catchy and rather innocent ending. \nHowever, Chrome Dreams II has its shortcomings. "Ever After" is stale and lazy country, and "Shining Light" has Neil bordering on cheesy adult contemporary, as his more sentimental work has lost its appeal with age. "The Believer" has Neil attempting Motown style but coming up short. But even with its filler, Chrome Dreams II is the best Neil Young album since 1989's Freedom and is a nice return to his grab-bag albums of old. While it does not sound like Chrome Dreams or live up to those classic tracks, it is full of Neil's many signature sounds and is truly a return to form for the rock legend.
(11/01/07 4:00am)
Earl Brooks is a model citizen. He's a successful entrepreneur, has a beautiful family and can rarely be seen without his trademark bow tie and tortoise-shell glasses. He was even voted Portland Chamber of Commerce's Man of Year. Yet Brooks has a vice, a secret obsession: He's addicted to killing. And after a two-year hiatus, he needs another fix. \nDriving this addiction is his sinister alter ego Marshall, played brilliantly by William Hurt. Creepy and pale, Marshall is the devil on Brooks' shoulder who whispers manipulative, blood-lusty thoughts into his ear. Brooks, played by Kevin Costner, fights with Marshall and even attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to curb his appetite. He stands up and admits that he has an addiction, but the others fail to catch on that last night he wasn't hitting the bottle but whacking two people.\nDespite having an insatiable fetish for killing people, Brooks remains calm and aloof throughout the movie. Costner does a good job of portraying the emotionless Brooks, coldly delivering his slightly mechanical lines. We only see twinges of attachment as Marshall forces him to burn the evidence of an attack, with Brooks whimpering as he tosses the photos of his latest victims into the flames. \nComedian Dane Cook more or less holds his own as a witness who holds Brooks over an unusual and unpredictable barrel. This was the first time I'd seen Cook outside his stand-up routines. It was a little hard to take him seriously because I kept thinking about him yelling at the Kool-Aid Man to fix the wall he'd punched through before Dad gets home from work. But if perfecting the pouty face means you've made the crossover to acting, this man deserves an Oscar. \nDemi Moore's character, a feisty detective, doesn't deliver much more than corny one-liners and girl power. \nThe features are nothing special. The commentary by director Bruce Evans and his co-producer Raynold Gideon is a lot of rambling, as they give us more production back stories than juicy motives and bits of trivia. The deleted scenes only prove they were deleted for good reason. \nThe film is dark, nodding to film noir. Yet gratuitous nudity and scenes of slasher-worthy gore underestimate the audience's ability to read between the lines. The story line has several unexpected twists, with the entire plot being fresh and original. Overall, the movie is well-done and entertaining but fails to leave a lasting impression.
(11/01/07 1:08am)
A powerful bomb ripped through a bus in central Russia Wednesday morning, killing eight people and wounding at least 53 in what one official called a terror attack. Investigators were trying to determine whether the explosive device was carried by a passenger or had been planted somewhere on the bus in the city of Togliatti, according to Russian news agencies. Yuri Rozhin, the head of a local branch of Russia’s Federal Security Service, said the bomb could have been detonated by a suicide attacker, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.\nFloodwaters and mudslides spawned by Tropical Storm Noel killed at least 48 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, officials said Wednesday, raising the death toll as the storm regained force over water and curved toward Florida and the Bahamas. Hardest-hit by the sluggish storm were the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, where thousands fled their homes and others sought refuge on rooftops. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm’s center had emerged over the Atlantic and was regaining force after slogging across Cuba.
(11/01/07 1:07am)
WASHINGTON – Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on executions, the American Bar Association says.\nProblems cited in a report released Sunday by the lawyers’ organization include:\n• Spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence, which has been used to exonerate more than 200 inmates;\n• Misidentification by eyewitnesses;\n• False confessions from defendants; and\n• Persistent racial disparities that make death sentences more likely when victims are white.\nThe report is a compilation of separate reviews done over the past three years about how the death penalty operates in eight states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.\nTeams that studied the systems in Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania did not call for a halt to executions in those states. But the ABA said every state with the death penalty should review its execution procedures before putting anyone else to death.\n“After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed,” said Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. “The death penalty system is rife with irregularity.”\nThe ABA, which takes no position on capital punishment, did not study lethal injection procedures that are under challenge across the nation. The procedures will be reviewed by the Supreme Court early next year in a case from Kentucky.\nState and federal courts have effectively stopped most executions pending a high court decision.