And some TDS/TCR Chat.
Tonight's repeats are from 5/6/08 (Fareed Zakaria, TiaRachel thread here) and 5/5/08 (Guests Rain, Carl Hiaasen, TiaRachel thread here).
Of course there are other things on the hypnotoad tonight-
The Hypnotoad.
Take a look-
PBS- Charlie Rose (Jeff Zucker, Kurt Anderson) | A&E- Gene Simmons Family Jewels |
ABC Family- 700 Club | AMC- Broken Trail |
Animal- Raw Nature | Cartoon- Family Guy, Family Guy |
CNBC- Mad Money | CNN- America Votes 2008: Kentucky & Oregon |
truTV- Forensic Files, Forensic Files | Discovery- Deadliest Catch |
Disney- Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Hannah Montana | E!- E! News, Chelsea Lately |
ESPN- Sports Center | ESPNC- Classic Rodeo 1994: Colorado Springs |
ESPN2- WNBA Basketball:Sacramento at Seattle | Good Eats (The Muffin Man), Unwrapped |
Faux Noise- America's Election HQ | FX- Phone Booth |
Golf- Top 10, Golf Central | History- Modern Marvels |
HGTV- My House Is Worth What?, Hidden Potential | Lifetime- Will & Grace, Will & Grace |
MSNBC- Special Coverage of the Kentucky & Oregon Primaries | MTV- Shot at Love With Tila Tequila |
National Geographic- Naked Earth | Nickelodeon- Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, Fresh Prince Of Bel Air |
Vs.- WEC WrekCage | Oxygen- Bad Girls Club, Bad Girls Club |
Sci Fi- Abominable | Speed- Pinks, Pass Time |
Spike- UFC 84 Countdown | Style- How Do I Look? |
TBS- Sex And The City, Sex And The City | TCM- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance |
TLC- DATELINE: Real Life Mysteries | TNT- The Closer |
Travel- Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations | TV Land- M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H |
USA- Monk | VH1- Young, Rich and Out of Control |
Truly horrible. As in so bad I don't know what I'll be watching tonight. Fareed Zakaria is usually just as wrong as his buddy Tom "Unit" Friedman so I doubt that will rivet my attention. I've watched enough bad news today, none of it fit to mention, and there are no good movies tonight.
Deadliest Catch has kind of a compelling storyline. End of the season and they're not finding much except jellyfish, the crews are making mistakes and some Captains may not be back next season.
I suppose I'll go Good Eats. I don't want long format anyway because I'll want to be back for Stephen's dance off with Rain.
Hear now the news.
From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Bush apologizes over US soldier's Quran shooting
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
6 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - President Bush has apologized to Iraq's prime minister for an American sniper's shooting of a Quran, and the Iraqi government called on U.S. military commanders to educate their soldiers to respect local religious beliefs.
Bush's spokeswoman said Tuesday that the president apologized during a videoconference Monday with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who told the president that the shooting of Islam's holy book had disappointed and angered both the Iraqi people and their leaders.
"He apologized for that in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "We are concerned about the reaction. We wanted them to know that the president knew that this was wrong." |
2 NYPD seeks discipline for 7 officers in killing of groom
By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer
8 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Seven police officers were hit with disciplinary charges Tuesday in the 50-shot slaying of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day — a case that has sparked protests and raised questions about police firepower.
If found guilty at an internal trial, the officers — including three shooters acquitted last month at a criminal trial and their supervisor — could be fired. A union official said Tuesday that they would fight the allegations.
Police officials described the move as procedural, citing administrative guidelines requiring them to bring charges against officers within 18 months of the incident. |
3 Critics: Polar bear plan must fight global warming
By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 6 minutes ago
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Conservation groups returned to court to challenge Bush administration efforts to help save the polar bear, saying federal officials' refusal to include steps against global warming violates the Endangered Species Act.
In court documents filed late Friday, the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups asked a federal judge to reject Interior Department actions that were announced last week.
Polar bears are threatened with extinction in many areas because of the melting of their sea ice habitat. The groups say greenhouse gas emissions have led to rapid melting in the Arctic.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, facing a court deadline because of the groups' earlier lawsuit, had announced Wednesday that polar bears would be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. |
4 Stocks stumble on record oil, inflation worries
By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer
1 hour, 15 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Wall Street stumbled Tuesday after oil prices spiked to a new record above $129 a barrel and a government report raised investors' concerns about the impact of inflation on consumer spending. The Dow Jones industrials fell nearly 200 points.
Crude jumped after OPEC's president was quoted as saying his organization won't raise its output before its next meeting in September. That sent a barrel of light, sweet crude to a trading high of $129.60 before it finished just above $129 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department's producer price report indicated higher energy and food prices might be seeping into other parts of the economy — compounding investors' concerns raised by higher oil. The department said wholesale inflation edged up by 0.2 percent in April following a 1.1 percent jump in March, but outside of food and energy, prices rose by a faster 0.4 percent — double what analysts expected. |
5 NFL owners vote to opt out of labor agreement
By DAVE GOLDBERG, AP Football Writer
32 minutes ago
ATLANTA - NFL owners voted unanimously Tuesday to end their labor agreement with the players' union in 2011. The league and union, however, insisted the next three seasons won't be interrupted by a contract dispute and both sides are working toward a new deal.
"We have guaranteed three more years of NFL football," commissioner Roger Goodell said after the owners used the opt-out clause built into the agreement signed more than two years ago. "We are not in dire straits. We've never said that. But the agreement isn't working, and we're looking to get a more fair an equitable deal."
The decision by the owners was anticipated, although not this early. The 2006 agreement allowed either side to negate the contract by Nov. 8. Godell said the owners acted early "to get talks rolling." |
6 Senate loads up war funding bill with other things
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 20, 3:22 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The Senate Tuesday kicked off debate on legislation to add a grab bag of domestic programs to President Bush's war request, including work permits for immigrant farm labor and heating subsidies for the poor. The White House renewed its veto threat.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., brought up the add-ons in an unusual move designed to win their adoption — over opposition from the White House and GOP conservatives — before turning to companion legislation providing $165 billion to conduct military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring.
The bill before the Senate would add more than $28 billion to Bush's budget request for this year and next, with almost $50 billion more for a big expansion of veterans benefits under the GI Bill from 2010-2018. |
7 More schools to face law's consequences
By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, AP Education Writer
Tue May 20, 6:26 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Pink slips for principals and teachers. School-funded tutoring for poor kids. Schools are increasingly looking at those kind of consequences for failing to raise math and reading scores.
The federal No Child Left Behind law says that by the 2013-14 school year all students must pass state tests in these subjects.
About half of the states have steady annual goals for increasing the percentage of students passing, or working at their proper grade level. But the other half set the bar very low early on, and starting about now expect big annual achievement gains, according to a report being released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy. |
8 China says over 70,000 dead or missing from quake
By Lucy Hornby, Reuters
Tue May 20, 10:51 AM ET
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - China raised the number of dead or missing from a devastating earthquake to more than 70,000 on Tuesday, as rescuers found more survivors eight days after the huge tremor hit.
A government statement said the number killed had now topped 40,000, and state news agency Xinhua reported that a further 32,000 were missing.
Authorities had previously said they expected the final death toll to exceed 50,000. More than 247,000 were injured. |
9 Efforts to close Guantanamo at standstill: Gates
By Andrew Gray, Reuters
Tue May 20, 2:53 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Efforts to explore ways of closing the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay have reached a standstill due to legal and practical problems, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
"The brutally frank answer is that we're stuck and we're stuck in several ways," Gates told a U.S. Senate hearing when asked about his desire to shut down the detention site for terrorism suspects at a U.S. naval base in Cuba.
Human rights groups and many governments, including allies of the United States, have called on the Bush administration to close the prison, saying it violates international legal standards and harms America's standing in the world. |
10 House passes bill to sue OPEC over oil prices
By Tom Doggett, Reuters
Tue May 20, 2:27 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.
The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.
The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.
The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation. |
11 Myanmar mourns dead as U.N. reports aid progress
By Aung Hla Tun, Reuters
Tue May 20, 3:31 PM ET
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta has given the World Food Program permission to use helicopters to send aid to cyclone survivors, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as flags flew at half-staff across the country to mourn the dead.
The first day of a three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic prodding of the reclusive generals to allow more international aid after Cyclone Nargis hit in early May, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.
The junta in the former Burma has allowed relief flights to deliver supplies to Yangon, the largest city, but had balked at aerial access to the southwestern Irrawaddy Delta, where an estimated 2.4 million people were left destitute. |
12 Gates questions notion of useful U.S.-Iran talks
By David Morgan, Reuters
Tue May 20, 3:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday questioned whether the United States could have productive talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without first stepping up pressure on Tehran.
Gates, who a week ago spoke publicly in support of enhanced U.S.-Iranian engagement, said Washington may have had an opportunity to open useful discussions with Iran in 2003 and 2004 while the country was governed by the less hard-line Mohammad Khatami.
"But what we have now is a resurgence of the original hard-line views of the Islamic revolutionaries," Gates said in response to lawmaker questions at a Senate defense appropriations hearing. |
13 Iceland tops list of peaceful nations, U.S. 97th
By Sue Pleming, Reuters
Tue May 20, 3:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The "Global Peace Index," compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.
The United States slipped from 96th last year, but was still ahead of foe Iran which ranked 105th. It, however, lagged Belarus, Cuba, South Korea, Chile, Libya and others which were listed as more peaceful.
Iraq, which the United States invaded in 2003, leading to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, ranked lowest on the index. Afghanistan, another country invaded by the United States this decade, was also in the bottom five, along with Sudan, Somalia and Israel. |
14 Miracle rescues in China quake as death toll tops 40,000
by Ian Timberlake, AFP
Tue May 20, 1:58 PM ET
CHENGDU, China (AFP) - A woman who survived on rainwater and a man fed via a straw were Tuesday pulled out of the rubble eight days after China's earthquake but hopes faded for others as the death toll topped 40,000.
Amid fears of new aftershocks among a traumatised population, Beijing put out a fresh urgent appeal for tents as foreign medical teams began to arrive in southwestern Sichuan province.
Despite the overwhelming odds against finding any more survivors under the rubble, rescue workers Tuesday saved a 60-year-old woman, Wang Youqun, nearly 200 hours after the earthquake, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. |
15 Oil price hits record above 129 dollars
AFP
Tue May 20, 3:46 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - Oil soared to a record above 129 dollars a barrel Tuesday as worries about US tensions with Iran heightened speculative fever in a market driven by concerns about tight global supplies and strong demand.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, traded as high as 129.60 dollars before pulling back slightly to close at 129.02 dollars a barrel, up 2.02 dollars on Monday's close.
London's Brent crude contract for July leapt 2.78 dollars to settle at 127.84 dollars a barrel after briefly hitting a new all-time high of 128.07 dollars. |
16 The new Gulf: Safe enough?
By Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue May 20, 4:00 AM ET
Bay St. Louis, Miss. - Crews with trucks and bulldozers are laying pipe and asphalt along Main Street of this Gulf Coast town, as customers at the Mockingbird Cafe, seemingly oblivious to the din, sip cappuccinos. Traffic now clogs inland Route 90 on most mornings, and the local building inspector has recently complained of being "swamped" with work.
Well into the third year since hurricane Katrina leveled nearly all the shoreline mansions and tore beachfront shops to pieces, Bay St. Louis is, for all intents and purposes, a boom town, along with much of surrounding Hancock County.
"The country is [about] in recession, but we're not seeing anything like that here – quite the opposite," says Jeffrey Reed, city council president. |
17 Iraq's antiquities garner international attention
By Howard LaFranchi The Christian Science Monitor
Mon May 19, 5:00 AM ET
Baghdad and Chicago - Across southern Iraq, large stretches of terrain resemble a moonscape, the earth pocked by dozens of untidy craters.
The man-made holes have been dug as part of the looting of Mesopotamia's archaeological sites that experts say is robbing Iraq of its ancient heritage.
The looting not only funds unscrupulous dealers of artifacts, but also elements of the Iraqi insurgency. Experts say it has dwarfed the high-profile looting of Iraq's National Museum shortly after the US took Baghdad in 2003. |
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended |
18 Fewer children go to war, but problem lingers
By Peter Apps, Reuters
Tue May 20, 12:07 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - The number of children forced to fight wars around the world has fallen but a hardcore of governments, rebels and armed groups are resisting pressure to stop using underage soldiers, a report said on Tuesday.
The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers said the number of conflicts in which children were forced to fight totaled 17 in 2007, down from 27 in its last report in 2004.
The coalition said firm figures were impossible to produce but it was clear there were tens of thousands of child soldiers. |
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Viewed |
19 Survey: Passengers call airline service 'dismal'
By DAVE CARPENTER, AP Business Writer
Tue May 20, 2:10 PM ET
CHICAGO - Passengers are more dissatisfied with airlines' customer service than they have been in years at a time when carriers are charging more and more for tickets and services.
An annual survey being released Tuesday by the University of Michigan found customers giving airlines the worst grades since 2001, with the industry's overall scores dropping for the third straight year.
United Airlines and US Airways Group Inc., which are in talks to potentially combine into a single carrier, finished next-to-last and last, respectively, in the university's American Customer Satisfaction Index. |
20 Missing matter found in deep space
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters
Tue May 20, 3:17 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers have found some matter that had been missing in deep space and say it is strung along web-like filaments that form the backbone of the universe.
The ethereal strands of hydrogen and oxygen atoms could account for up to half the matter that scientists knew must be there but simply could not see, the researchers reported on Tuesday.
Scientists have long known there is far more matter in the universe than can be accounted for by visible galaxies and stars. Not only is there invisible baryonic matter -- the protons and neutrons that make up atoms -- but there also is an even larger amount of invisible "dark" matter. |
From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Emailed |
21 $175 burger: you want gold with that?
By Daniel Trotta, Reuters
Tue May 20, 2:26 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Its creators admit it is the ultimate in decadence: a $175 hamburger.
The Wall Street Burger Shoppe just raised its price from $150 to assure its designation as the costliest burger in the city as determined by Pocket Change, an online newsletter about the most expensive things in New York.
"Wall Street has good days and bad days. We wanted to have the everyday burger (for $4) ... and then something special if you really have a good day on Wall Street," said co-owner Heather Tierney. |
22 Court: Paper money discriminates against the blind
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
39 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Close your eyes, reach into your wallet and try to distinguish between a $1 bill and a $5 bill. Impossible? It's also discriminatory, a federal appeals court says.
Since all paper money feels pretty much the same, the government is denying blind people meaningful access to the currency, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday. The decision could force the Treasury Department to make bills of different sizes or print them with raised markings or other distinguishing features.
The American Council of the Blind sued for such changes, but the government has been fighting the case for about six years. |
23 Growing danger of coup in Zimbabwe: think tank
By Barry Moody, Reuters
1 hour, 12 minutes ago
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - There is a growing danger of a coup by military hardliners in Zimbabwe to prevent opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from toppling President Robert Mugabe, a leading think tank said on Wednesday.
The International Crisis Group called for African mediation leading to a national unity government led by Tsvangirai as the best way to resolve a crisis caused by disputed elections on March 29, saying Western diplomacy would have a limited impact.
It said continued rule by Mugabe, who has led the southern African country since independence from Britain in 1980, would be "catastrophic," for a nation already suffering inflation of 165,000 percent and 80 percent unemployment. |
24 Explosion rocks Ethiopian capital, three dead: police
By Barry Malone and Tsegaye Tadesse, Reuters
Tue May 20, 4:05 PM ET
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - An explosion on a minibus shook central Addis Ababa on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding nine, Ethiopian police said.
All the dead and wounded were on the bus, police said.
"Three people were killed and nine seriously injured by an explosion from a device planted by suspected terrorists inside a minibus taxi," said Addis Ababa police spokesman Densash Hailu.
The blast on a road between the Hilton hotel and the foreign ministry was the latest in a string of explosions in Addis Ababa that Ethiopia has blamed on extremists backed by its neighbor and rival Eritrea. |
25 13,000 displaced by SAfrica mobs as Mbeki urges calm
by Fran Blandy, AFP
Tue May 20, 4:09 PM ET
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A wave of violence against foreigners in South Africa has forced 13,000 people to flee their homes, the UN said Tuesday, as President Thabo Mbeki pleaded for an end to a "shameful" show of xenophobia.
As calls grew for the army to be sent in to quell the worst unrest since the end of apartheid, the scale of the damage was becoming apparent, both to the victims and the so-called Rainbow Nation's new reputation for racial tolerance.
As police revealed the number of arrests had now risen to around 300, the United Nations' International Organisation for Migration gave the first figures on the numbers who have been displaced. |
26 Bush ends 5-day Middle East trip with little progress
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy Newspapers
Sun May 18, 3:01 PM ET
SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt_Wrapping up a five-day tour of the Middle East , President Bush on Sunday told his Arab allies that expanding democratic reforms and isolating the "spoilers"— Iran and Syria — were crucial steps to a secure and prosperous future for the region.
Bush spoke at the opening of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East in this Red Sea resort town, where 1,500 policymakers have gathered. More lecture than rallying cry, Bush's speech stuck to familiar themes: Iran's nuclear program, more civil liberties, a bigger role for Arab women, free trade, and progress on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of the year.
Bush, however, heads home to Washington with few, if any, concrete gains on his largely ceremonial tour, his second trip to the Middle East in four months. He failed to win Saudi help with rising oil prices and didn't make any breakthroughs on groundwork for a Palestinian state. |
27 The Burmese Rulers' Paranoid Home
By HANNAH BEECH, Time Magazine
Tue May 20, 9:30 AM ET
"There aren't any," says the hotelier, with an embarrassed laugh when asked about the best tourist attractions in Burma's new capital. That's no surprise, really: Naypyidaw - the name translates as "Abode of Kings" - was built from scratch just three years ago, on 1,800 square miles of land carved out of scrubland on the orders of the ruling junta. Naypyidaw doesn't even exist in the Lonely Planet's latest Burma travel guide; there's not much tourist charm in a dusty bunker town that is little more than the wish-fulfillment of paranoid generals. |
28 Burma's Woes: A Threat to the Junta
By ANDREW MARSHALL, Time Magazine
1 hour, 32 minutes ago
I spent a week reporting from remote towns in the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta before the Burmese junta began its crackdown. Foreign aid workers, diplomats and undercover journalists were expelled from the disaster area or barred entry at police or military checkpoints. Beyond those checkpoints, Burmese were suffering and dying - 2.4 million people urgently need help, says the United Nations. But the junta's restrictions made it almost impossible for outsiders to witness it. |
29 Lebanon Braces for Failure of Talks
By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS/BEIRUT, Time Magazine
Tue May 20, 12:20 PM ET
Almost as soon as Lebanon's leaders boarded planes for Qatar on Friday for talks to resolve their most dangerous political showdownn since the end of the civil war, the Lebanese took a collective sigh of relief. Not because anyone thinks that peace is about to break out, but because Lebanon is arguably safer as long as most of the top men are out of town. "Don't come back until you've reached an agreement," read signs carried by disabled civil society protesters rallying in wheelchairs along the airport road. |
30 Anti-Immigrant Terror in South Africa
By MEGAN LINDOW/ALEXANDRIA WITH ALEX PERRY/CAPE TOWN, Time Magazine
34 minutes ago
Ten days of mob attacks on immigrants in townships around Johannesburg showed no signs of abating Tuesday, as the death toll reached 23 and South Africa's government faced growing calls to deploy its army. The attacks have mostly targeted impoverished migrants from neighboring African countries living (some legally, some illegally) in shantytowns around the business capital of Africa's wealthiest country. Every night since Saturday May 11, crowds of South African men, some brandishing guns, have rampaged through areas dominated by refugees, warning the foreigners to leave the country, burning huts, raping women, and beating and killing men. The victims say their attackers accuse them of taking jobs away from South Africans, in a country where the national unemployment rate is estimated at around 40%, and is much higher in many townships. |
From Yahoo News U.S. News |
31 Senate panel passes housing rescue plan
By Patrick Rucker, Reuters
1 hour, 21 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee approved legislation on Tuesday that could save a half million homeowners from foreclosure and help stabilize the nation's rattled housing market.
Under the plan, lenders who agree to erase a large share of the original loan amount could win a government guarantee on future mortgage payments. The bill would also create a stronger regulator for mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Both the Senate bill and a similar plan passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month would create a fund under the Federal Housing Administration to allow distressed homeowners to refinance into government-guaranteed loans. |
32 Court strikes down state ban on abortion method
Reuters
1 hour, 19 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a Virginia law banning an abortion procedure was unconstitutional because it infringed on a woman's right to end her pregnancy.
The 2-1 decision by the appeals court based in Richmond, Virginia, was a victory for abortion rights advocates who had challenged the 2003 law that bans what it terms "partial birth infanticide."
The U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld a federal law, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, saying it prohibited only a clearly defined method. It marked the first time the court has ever upheld a nationwide ban on a specific abortion procedure. |
33 W. House ignored FBI concerns on prisoner abuse: probe
By Randall Mikkelsen, Reuters
35 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Bush administration security officials ignored FBI concerns over abusive treatment of terrorism suspects, which one agent called "borderline torture," a four-year Justice Department probe found.
The FBI clashed with the Pentagon and CIA over interrogation techniques including snarling dogs, sexual provocation and forced nudity, said the 370-page report, released on Tuesday by the Justice Department's inspector general.
Critics say such techniques inflicted on terrorism suspects captured after the September 11 attacks amounted to torture. The report covers late 2001 to the end of 2004. |
34 Retail gasoline demand sluggish on high prices
Reuters
Tue May 20, 2:02 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retail gasoline demand inched up slightly from the previous week, even as longer-term measures showed an overall weakening in demand, MasterCard Advisors said on Tuesday.
"We usually see uptick on a week-to-week basis this time of year. The compelling thing right now is that the uptick is so small," said Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard Advisors.
The rise in demand during the spring months leading up to the traditional start of the U.S. summer driving season on Memorial Day is typically much more substantial, but record gasoline prices have kept demand levels low, McNamara said. |
35 US carbon dioxide emissions up 1.6 percent in 2007
AFP
Tue May 20, 11:53 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels increased 1.6 percent in 2007, a preliminary government estimate showed Tuesday.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said emissions rose to 5,984 million metric tonnes last year from 5,888 million in 2006.
The agency said factors that drove the emissions increase included weather conditions that increased the demand for heating and cooling services and "a higher carbon intensity of electricity supply," according to an agency statement. |
36 Bush and McCain's Awkward Embrace
By RAMESH PONNURU, Time Magazine
Tue May 20, 12:30 PM ET
The Democratic strategy for beating John McCain is pretty simple. Its principal element: Tie McCain to President Bush, no matter how hard he struggles to break free.
Last week illustrated the maneuvering over Bush. McCain started the week with a speech on global warming, where he broke with the president. By the week's end, though, McCain had been drawn into a fight over Mideast policy between Barack Obama and the White House, with McCain taking Bush's side. Obama knows that voters do not yet trust him on foreign policy. But he also knows that they are even more wary of what Democrats call "a third Bush term." |
37 Congress mulls trade safety for service sector workers
By Doug Palmer, Reuters
Tue May 20, 2:30 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation to help win approval of three free trade deals pending in Congress could qualify millions of U.S. service industry workers, in jobs ranging from low-level data entry clerks to high-paid financial analysts, for government aid if their jobs move overseas.
For decades, only manufacturing workers have been eligible for job retraining and extended unemployment benefits under the federal trade adjustment assistance program.
Democrats want to extend the program to the huge services sector, making it "key to everything on the trade front. I can't see the free trade agreements moving through Congress until something on TAA is done," said Greg Mastel, a senior adviser at the Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld law firm. |
38 In Miami, McCain attacks Obama on Cuba
By Steve Holland, Reuters
1 hour, 59 minutes ago
MIAMI (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain criticized Democratic front-runner Barack Obama on Tuesday for saying he was willing to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and accused him of wanting to weaken the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
Seeking to rally Florida's influential Cuban-American vote behind him, McCain vowed to maintain a strict economic embargo on Cuba until its communist government releases political prisoners, grants basic freedoms and schedules internationally monitored elections.
McCain's visit to Miami was all about appealing to Cuban-Americans, from his stop for coffee at a Little Havana cafe to his visit to a memorial for Cubans killed fighting the communist government. |
39 Target, Saks expect weak sales climate for year
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer
Tue May 20, 4:29 PM ET
NEW YORK - For U.S. retailers, the phrase "challenging environment" has become a shared refrain for one of the toughest quarters in decades. And merchants expect the climate to remain rough for the rest of the year as higher gas and food costs as well as slumping home prices weigh on shoppers.
Discount retailer Target Corp. reported Tuesday that first-quarter earnings fell 8 percent on weaker-than-expected sales, particularly of non-necessities like lawn furniture. Meanwhile, Saks Inc., the operator of luxury chain Saks Fifth Avenue, posted a 66 percent profit compared with first-quarter results hobbled by onetime charges a year ago, but said that heavy discounting hurt profit margins.
Shares of Target slipped 63 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $54.29, though results beat Wall Street estimates. Saks' shares tumbled 93 cents, or 6.6 percent, to $13.20 as results missed analysts' projections. Saks also forecast that operating profit margins will remain relatively unchanged from 2007. |
40 EU plans farm sector shake-up in face of record food prices
by Leigh Thomas, AFP
Tue May 20, 11:25 AM ET
BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission urged on Tuesday a shake-up of Europe's farm sector to ramp up production in the face of soaring food prices, with Britain and France braced for battle over hand-outs to farmers.
With food prices rocketing worldwide on tight supplies, the European Union's executive arm wants to encourage farmers to produce more after years of trying to rein in chronic overproduction.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told reporters in Strasbourg that the package "aims to remove restrictions on farmers to allow them to respond to the market. |
41 Britain agrees deal on rights for temporary workers
AFP
Tue May 20, 5:08 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Britain announced an agreement on equal rights for agency -- temporary -- workers Tuesday, in a move welcomed in Brussels as boosting the chances of reaching a Europe-wide accord.
Britain has been blocking a European Union directive on agency workers but Business Secretary John Hutton said the government now agreed that such workers would receive equal rights to full employees after 12 weeks.
"This is the right deal for Britain. Today's agreement achieves our twin objectives of flexibility for British employers and fairness for workers," he said, adding that it would boost rights for over a million agency workers. |
42 US wants to quiz more BAE staff in corruption probe: company
AFP
Tue May 20, 5:00 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The United States is seeking to question more employees of BAE Systems after already quizzing two senior executives in a corruption probe, Britain's largest defence firm said Tuesday.
"The company confirms that last week the (US Department of Justice) issued a number of additional subpoenas in the US to employees of BAE Systems plc and (its US subsidiary) BAE Systems Inc as part of its ongoing investigation," it said in a statement.
"The company has been and continues to be in discussion with the DoJ concerning the subpoenas served in the course of its investigation." |
43 UK lawmakers approve embryo research
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 19, 7:07 PM ET
LONDON - British lawmakers voted Monday to approve controversial plans to allow the use of animal-human embryos for research. The proposed laws, the first major review of embryo science in Britain for almost 20 years, have provoked stormy debate — pitting Prime Minister Gordon Brown and scientists against religious leaders, anti-abortion campaigners and a large number of lawmakers.
Brown has said he believes scientists seeking to use mixed animal-human embryos for stem cell research into diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's are on a moral mission to improve — and save — millions of lives.
The process involves injecting an empty cow or rabbit egg with human DNA. A burst of electricity is then used to trick the egg into dividing regularly, so that it becomes a very early embryo, from which stem cells can be extracted. |
44 Millions of tiny starfish inhabit undersea volcano
By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 19, 7:07 PM ET
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Marine scientists surveying a large undersea mountain chain were amazed to find millions of tiny starfish swirling their arms to capture food in the undersea current.
An expedition by 19 scientists, including five from Australia, studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts. They are part of a string of underwater volcanoes — dormant for millions of years — that stretches 875 miles from south of New Zealand toward Antarctica.
The scientists also investigated the world's biggest ocean current — the Antarctic Circumpolar Current — amid expectations they would find evidence of climate change in the Southern Ocean. |
45 Robot digger set to land Sunday at Martian pole
By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer
Mon May 19, 7:07 PM ET
LOS ANGELES - Like a miner prospecting for gold, NASA hopes its latest robot to Mars hits pay dirt when it lands Sunday near the red planet's north pole to conduct a 90-day digging mission. The three-legged Phoenix Mars lander fitted with a backhoe arm is zeroing in on the unexplored arctic region where a reservoir of ice is believed to lie beneath the Martian surface.
Phoenix lacks the tools to detect signs of alien life — either now or in the past. However, it will study whether the ice ever melted and look for traces of organic compounds in the permafrost to determine if life could have emerged at the site.
Before this robotic geologist can excavate the soil, it must first survive a nail-biting plunge through the Martian atmosphere. Despite the rousing success of NASA's twin Mars rovers, which landed in 2004, more than half of the world's attempts to land on the planet have failed. |
46 First dinosaur tracks found in Arabian Peninsula
By Michael Kahn, Reuters
41 minutes ago
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered the tracks of a herd of 11 long-necked sauropods walking along a coastal mudflat in what is now the Republic of Yemen, the first discovery of dinosaur footprints on the Arabian peninsula.
Sauropods, the largest land animals in earth's history, walked on four stout legs and ate plants.
"The nice thing is we finally filled in a bit of a blank spot in the dinosaur map," said Anne Schulp, a palaeontologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, who worked on the study. |
47 Giant kangaroo gives clues on climate
Reuters
Tue May 20, 8:43 AM ET
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Scientists in Australia hope a giant cardboard image of a kangaroo, photographed from space on Tuesday, will help them better understand how the earth reflects sunlight and give them new clues about global warming.
Similar images are due to be photographed from space at sites in the United States, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Israel, Wales and Singapore as part of the experiment, involving science centres and the American space agency NASA.
The 32-metre (105 feet) tall kangaroo, an Australian national symbol, was placed in the southern city of Melbourne, and was photographed by satellite in parkland to measure the Albedo effect, or the amount of sunlight reflected by the earth. |
48 Extinct Australian Tiger gene functions in mouse
Reuters
Tue May 20, 12:22 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - For the first time DNA from an extinct species, Australia's marsupial Tasmanian Tiger, has been used to induce a functional response in a living organism, a mouse embryo, Australian and American scientists said on Tuesday.
The scientists extracted DNA from a 100-year-old Tasmanian Tiger or thylacine, which had been preserved in ethanol in a museum, and injected it into a mouse embryo where it was "expressed" or produced in cartilage.
The results, published in the international scientific journal PLoS ONE, show that the thylacine Col2A1 gene had a similar function in developing cartilage and bone development as the Col2A1 gene in the mouse, said the scientists from the University of Melbourne and the University of Texas. |
49 Greenpeace calls for deforestation fund
AFP
Tue May 20, 10:24 AM ET
BONN (AFP) - Greenpeace urged industrialised nations Tuesday to set up an international fund to fight deforestation but warned it would require at least 30 billion dollars a year to work.
The plan would see rich nations give poorer ones money to preserve their natural forests instead of felling trees to create farmland, Greenpeace's Roman Czebiniac told an 11-day UN conference on biodiversity in Bonn.
He said the fund would need 20 to 27 billion euros (31 to 47 billion dollars) a year to halt the rapid destruction of forests, but billed it as the only plan on the table "to protect both biodiversity and the climate." |
50 Some biofuel crops could become invasive species: experts
AFP
Tue May 20, 11:46 AM ET
BONN (AFP) - Countries thinking of joining the rush for biofuels run the risk of planting invasive plant species that could wreak environmental and economic havoc, biologists warned on Tuesday.
In a report issued on the sidelines of a major UN conference on biodiversity, an alliance of four expert groups urged governments to select low-risk species of crops for biofuels and impose new controls to manage invasive plants.
"The dangers that invasive species pose to the world couldn't be more serious," said Sarah Simons, executive director of the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP). |
51 House Bill Would Authorize Additional Shuttle Flights
Becky Iannotta, Space News Staff Writer
Mon May 19, 6:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON — House lawmakers have introduced legislation authorizing three additional space shuttle flights before the fleet's scheduled 2010 retirement, including the launch of a science probe removed from the manifest after the 2003 Columbia accident.
The proposed NASA Authorization Act of 2008 designates $150 million for a space shuttle flight to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station in 2010.
Two other flights that NASA already has budgeted for and placed on its manifest as contingencies while awaiting White House approval would become part of the official manifest under the bill introduced last week by Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), chairman of the House Science and Technology space and aeronautics subcommittee, ranking minority member Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), and Reps. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.). |