Record crowd for Solstice sunrise
A record crowd of about 36,500 revellers has welcomed the dawn of the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge.
The number of people attending the event caused roads in the area to become gridlocked in the hours leading up to sunrise at 0458 BST.
Druid ceremonies took place alongside music and Morris dancing, however overcast skies obscured the sun. |
Meteor Blade's Green Diary Rescue and Open Thread
Wide support for government health plan: poll
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans strongly support fundamental changes to the healthcare system and a move to create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published on Saturday.
The poll came amid mounting opposition to plans by the Obama administration and its allies in the Democratic-controlled Congress to push through the most sweeping restructuring of the U.S. healthcare system since the end of World War Two.
2 GIs die in attack on U.S. base in Afghanistan
(AP)KABUL - A rare rocket attack on the main U.S. base in Afghanistan early Sunday killed two U.S. troops and wounded six other Americans, including two civilians, officials said.
Bagram Air Base, which lies 25 miles northeast of Kabul, is surrounded by high mountains and long stretches of desert from which militants could fire rockets. But such attacks, particularly lethal ones, are relatively rare.
Obama: U.S. ready for possible N.Korea missile launch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States military is prepared for the possibility that North Korea may attempt to launch a missile toward Hawaii, President Barack Obama said in remarks released on Sunday.
"This administration -- and our military -- is fully prepared for any contingencies," Obama said in an interview with CBS television when asked about reported North Korean intentions to fire a missile toward Hawaii on or about July 4.
U.S. Destroyer Shadows North Korean Ship
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL — A North Korean cargo ship shadowed by a United States Navy destroyer was reportedly steaming toward Myanmar on Sunday, posing what could be the first test of how far the United States and its allies will go under a new United Nations resolution to stop the North’s military shipments.
The United States began tracking the 2,000-ton freighter Kang Nam after it left Nampo, a port near Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday. Pentagon officials have said they suspect the ship of carrying prohibited materials, but have declined to say where it may be headed.
Agents say DEA is forcing them illegally to work in Afghanistan
By Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration ramps up the Drug Enforcement Administration's presence in Afghanistan, some special-agent pilots contend that they're being illegally forced to go to a combat zone, while others who've volunteered say they're not being properly equipped.
In interviews with McClatchy, more than a dozen DEA agents describe a badly managed system in which some pilots have been sent to Afghanistan under duress or as punishment for bucking their superiors.
3.3 earthquake rattles San Bernardino
Los Angeles Times 8:03 AM | June 21, 2009
A 3.3 earthquake rattled parts of the Inland Empire this morning, but there were no reports of damage of injuries.
The temblor struck around 7:30 a.m. Sunday in San Bernardino, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit about 10 miles underground.
Palin spars with critics over ethics complaints
msnbc.com
(AP)ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says her political enemies are abusing state law with a flurry of frivolous ethics complaints against her, putting her more than $500,000 in legal debt.
What are investors waiting for? Consumers.
By MARK WILLIAMS, AP Energy Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio – After rising nearly every day for the past two months and climbing 67 percent so far this year, it looks like gasoline prices may be ready to take a break.
Gas prices were up for a 54th straight day Sunday, by 0.1 cents, to a new national average of $2.693 a gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
NY Times journalist escapes Taliban captivity: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A New York Times reporter has escaped from his Taliban captors after being held for seven months in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the newspaper reported on its website on Saturday.
David Rohde, together with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, were abducted on November 10 outside Kabul.
Budget crisis forces deep cuts at Calif. schools
By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer
RICHMOND, Calif. – California's historic budget crisis threatens to devastate a public education system that was once considered a national model but now ranks near the bottom in school funding and academic achievement.
Deep budget cuts are forcing California school districts to lay off thousands of teachers, expand class sizes, close schools, eliminate bus service, cancel summer school programs, and possibly shorten the academic year.
Schwarzenegger jet makes "steep" emergency landing
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's jet made a "quick, steep, but safe" emergency landing in Los Angeles on Friday after the pilot reported smoke coming from the cockpit's instrument panel, his office said.
Although there was no visible fire, the pilot diverted the jet to the Van Nuys airport 10 minutes before he was due to land at Santa Monica, near the former actor's home, spokesman Aaron McLear said in a statement. Fire crews met the jet on the runway.
Steve Jobs received liver transplant: report
By Gabriel Madway
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant operation about two months ago and is expected to return to work by the end of June, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor seen as the driving force behind development of the iPod, iPhone and other category-defining products from Apple's famed innovation machine, went on medical leave in January for an undisclosed condition.
Ground zero in timber wars shows signs of peace
By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer
TAKILMA, Ore. – On a steep slope of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, a crew of young men with chain saws and hardhats worked their way through an old neglected clearcut, cutting brush and young trees and piling the remains to be burned later.
Freshly trained and closely supervised, the crew took care to leave behind volunteer sproutings of dogwood, madrone and huckleberry as well as the sugar pine and Douglas fir planted here 20 years ago. The pattern is designed to grow into a healthy forest less vulnerable to wildfire and better for fish and wildlife, rather than just turn out timber.
U.S. regulators close two more small banks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bank regulators closed two small banks on Friday, bringing total bank failures to 39 this year as the recession and delinquent loans erode the health of financial institutions.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said Cooperative Bank of Wilmington, North Carolina had $970 million in assets and $774 million in deposits. The failure is expected to cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund an estimated $217 million.
NTSB finds water on rails at Ill. derailment site
(AP)ROCKFORD, Ill. – There was high water along the northern Illinois rail line where a freight train derailed, setting off a fiery explosion and killing one person, federal authorities said Sunday.
It's unclear what the exact water levels were during Friday's crash and what role if any water played in the accident, said Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Parts of northern Illinois may have gotten as much as 4 inches of rain Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, 40 to 50 miles east of Rockford, measured 3.6 inches, a record for the date.
Greener diet reduces dairy cows' methane burps
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer
By LISA RATHKE, Associated Press Writer
COVENTRY, Vt. – Vermont dairy farmers Tim Maikshilo and Kristen Dellert, mindful of shrinking their carbon footprint, have changed their cows' diet to reduce the amount of gas the animals burp — dairy cows' contribution to global warming.
Coventry Valley Farm is one of 15 Vermont farms working with Stonyfield Farm Inc., whose yogurt is made with their organic milk, to reduce the cows' intestinal methane by feeding them flaxseed, alfalfa, and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids. The gas cows belch is the dairy industry's biggest greenhouse gas contributor, research shows, most of it emitted from the front and not the back end of the cow.
AP: Conn. officials were warned about attack chimp
By LISA RATHKE, Associated Press Writer
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Connecticut officials were repeatedly warned about the dangers posed by a chimpanzee who later mauled and blinded a woman and were urged — more than three years before the attack — to take action, but failed to do so, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
The 200-pound chimpanzee named Travis attacked Charla Nash of Stamford in February, ripping off her hands, nose, lips and eyelids. She has been hospitalized for months at the Cleveland Clinic, where her condition late last week was listed as stable.
NY man denies he dressed as dead mother in scam
(AFP)NEW YORK – A man accused of dressing up as his dead mother to collect her Social Security and rent subsidies is blaming the crime on an impersonator.
Thomas Parkin tells the New York Post in a jailhouse interview that he wasn't the person captured on security cameras dressed in a wig and his mom's clothing.
Couple floats into zero gravity nuptials
By Phelan M. Ebenhack
ABOARD G-FORCE ONE (Reuters) – The bride wore white and earrings resembling tiny planets, the groom a tuxedo and cuff links shaped like spacecraft, and the wedding party attended in blue jump suits.
New York City couple Erin Finnegan and Noah Fulmor floated into matrimony on Saturday thousands of feet (meters) above the Gulf of Mexico in what organizers said was the world's first weightless wedding held in zero gravity conditions.
Great white sharks hunt just like Hannibal Lecter
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON – Great white sharks have some things in common with human serial killers, a new study says: They don't attack at random, but stalk specific victims, lurking out of sight.
The sharks hang back and observe from a not-too-close, not-too-far base, hunt strategically, and learn from previous attempts, according to a study being published online Monday in the Journal of Zoology. Researchers used a serial killer profiling method to figure out just how the fearsome ocean predator hunts, something that's been hard to observe beneath the surface.
Honeybees overcome negative buzz, win White House welcome
By Robert Hotakainen | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Official Washington is all abuzz over honeybees.
At the White House, two types of parasite-resistant honeybees developed by U.S. scientists will be delivered to the first family's new garden next month.
On Capitol Hill, California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer wants Congress to spend $20 million to research colony collapse disorder, which has caused big losses for the nation's beekeepers in recent years
Vermont village schoolhouse closes after 208 years
The Buffalo News
By LISA RATHKE
HANCOCK, Vt. - The aged maple floorboards are scuffed and creaky, worn thin and smooth by thousands of youngsters over the years in the Hancock Village School. Banks of tall windows, a dozen panes over a dozen panes each, flood a pair of classrooms with sunlight.
A 19th-century image of Abraham Lincoln hangs on a back wall in one classroom where studies began in 1801, 60 years before he took office.
*articles time stamped where possible due to steady stream of events today
Defiant, Iran's Mousavi urges more protests
By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl – Sun Jun 21, 6:45 pm ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi urged supporters to continue protests over the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a direct challenge to the Islamic Republic's leadership.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.
Mousavi made a veiled appeal to the security forces to show restraint in handling demonstrations -- a move likely to be viewed with deep suspicion by a conservative leadership that has vowed to use force wherever necessary to quell opposition.
Streets of Tehran left empty as protesters wait in vain for sign
Robert Tait and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 June 2009 23.29 BST
A deadly crackdown on opposition demonstrators appeared tonight to have punctured the most serious protest movement in Iran since the 1979 revolution, as an eerie quiet settled on Tehran and the regime turned its attention to more familiar enemies overseas.
Protesters who have shaken the authorities by venting anger en masse at the "stolen" elections that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office spoke of a hiatus, even a despair, settling on the movement after yesterday'sSaturday's clashes killed at least 10 and wounded scores more. State television blamed the casualties on clashes between police and "terrorist groups".
Iran death toll mounts as leaders take aim at West
By Jay Deshmukh – Sun Jun 21, 4:18 pm ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – At least 10 people were killed in the latest unrest to shake Tehran, state television said on Sunday as Iranian leaders took aim at Western "meddling" in the post-election tumult that has triggered the worst crisis since the Islamic revolution.
The opposition stepped up its challenge to the country's Islamic rulers, with defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi firing off unprecedented criticism of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after a day of deadly violence in Tehran.
Iran demonstrations: 'I grab a brick and throw. I never thought I'd do it'
Mark Tran The Guardian, Monday 22 June 2009
With the foreign media forbidden to cover the demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities, some of the most dramatic pictures have come from the humble mobile phone. The footage – grainy and jerky – is the visual counterpart to the tweets, emails and messages on social networking sites that have helped to convey a measure of the turmoil in Iran, the most serious unrest in the country since the 1979 revolution.
One disturbing clip shows a woman, apparently called Neda, lying in a pool of blood [WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS VERY GRAPHIC SCENES]. Many Iranians have drawn the attention of the world's media to the footage, available on YouTube, to highlight the brutality of the regime towards its own people.
4 members of Iranian cleric's family are freed
Los Angeles Times
By Borzou Daragahi and Jeffrey Fleishman
Reporting from Cairo and Tehran -- Iran's state-owned Press TV said four of the five family members of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani have been released after being detained Saturday night, though his eldest daughter, Faezeh, was not among those freed.
Iran death toll mounts as leaders take aim at West
By Jay Deshmukh
TEHRAN (AFP) – At least 10 people were killed in the latest unrest to shake Tehran, state television said on Sunday as Iranian leaders took aim at Western "meddling" in the post-election tumult that has triggered the worst crisis since the Islamic revolution.
The opposition stepped up its challenge to the country's Islamic rulers, with defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi firing off unprecedented criticism of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after a day of deadly violence in Tehran.
As protests continue in Iran, so do rallies in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Times - By Phil Willon
As many of their friends and relatives clashed with security forces in Iran, hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in front of the Federal Building in Westwood to join the protests over allegations of voter fraud in the June 12 Iranian presidential election.
Holding signs that read "Stop the Killing" and pictures of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dressed as a Nazi, the protesters lined Wilshire Boulevard shouting slogans in English and Persian and were greeted by a chorus of horns from supportive motorists.
Iran Updates: Live-Blogging The Uprising
10:49 PM ET -- Mousavi's words on tape. This video, uploaded on YouTube today, purports to be of Mousavi's appearance at Saturday's rally. It seems more likely to be from an event earlier in the week, but either way, it is among the first post-election videos I've spotted where his words can be heard.
A Farsi-speaking reader tried to help translate but it was tough: "The crowd's chanting makes it so hard to pick out what he is saying. I can pick up a few word here and there, but not his full sentences. The gist is that he is among the martyrs... -- then the crowd chants. The crowd chanting is clear, but not Mousavi's speech." Let me know if you're able to pick up more.
http://vigilantejournalist.com/...
11:15 PM ET -- CNN: "Her name was Neda." I'm late getting to this but CNN really should be commended for producing the report below. Even tonight, as we near midnight on a Sunday, CNN's Don Lemon is still anchoring live news and commentary on Iran. Very impressive.
Taliban deny role in US reporter kidnapping
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghanistan's Taliban militant group on Sunday denied any involvement in the kidnapping of a New York Times reporter who has escaped to freedom after seven months in captivity.
David Rohde and a local reporter, who were abducted outside of Kabul along with their driver, "just walked over the wall of the compound" where they were being held captive in Pakistan's remote North Waziristan region, Rohde's wife Kristen Mulvihill told the Times after speaking with her husband.
Iraqis hunt for relatives in rubble of deadly truck bombing
By Marwan Ibrahim
TAZA, Iraq (AFP) – Residents of the town hit by Iraq's bloodiest attack in 16 months searched for their loved ones on Sunday after a massive truck bombing killed 72 people and destroyed dozens of houses.
Saturday's attack in the predominantly Shiite Turkmen town of Taza Kharmatu, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, was the latest bloody bombing in the runup to the planned pullout of US troops from Iraqi towns and cities.
Britain names dead hostages in Iraq
LONDON (AFP) – Britain identified the bodies Sunday of two bodyguards who were among five men held hostage in Iraq for two years, and called for the immediate release of the remaining captives.
The remains were "highly likely" to be those of Jason Swindlehurst, 38, from Skelmersdale in northwest England, and Jason Creswell, 39, from Glasgow, in Scotland, the British Foreign Office said.
Pakistani aircraft hit militants near Afghan border
By Hafiz Wazir
WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery on Sunday as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud.
Security forces have secured much of the scenic Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in the past six weeks and the military plans to extend its offensive to al Qaeda ally Mehsud, holed up in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border.
Israel's Barak sees chance for peace progress
By Cynthia Johnston
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday he saw a chance to advance peace talks with Palestinians and that a policy speech by Israel's premier, dismissed by Egypt as flawed, was a major step forward.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed -- with tough conditions -- the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state in a policy speech a week ago, but Cairo said the proposal fell short of the Palestinian state Arabs seek.
Tibetan Monks Tell Tale of Escape From China
DHARAMSALA, India — Lobsang Gyatso and his fellow Tibetan monks had been biding their time, walking around the main square of the monastery nestled in the barren hills of northwestern China. Now the moment had arrived.
As a group of 20 foreign and Chinese journalists climbed out of minivans, Lobsang and the other monks unfurled banners they had wrapped inside the folds of their crimson robes and held aloft the banned flag of Tibet.
Dubai development may be down, but it's not out
Los Angeles Times
By Christopher Hawthorne, Architecture Critic
Reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- If a city can be spectacularly quiet, this waterfront city-state has certainly qualified in recent months. Hundreds of abandoned construction cranes languish above Dubai's gated communities and beach-side developments and, most dramatically, up and down Sheikh Zayed Road, its high-rise spine. According to a recent estimate in the Middle East Economic Digest, projects worth a staggering $335 billion in the United Arab Emirates -- of which Dubai, with a population of about 2 million, is the largest member -- are stalled or have been canceled outright.
Dalai Lama says favors democratic leadership
By Abhishek Madhukar
DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) – The Dalai Lama has encouraged Tibetans in exile to embrace the democratic system of electing a leader, saying it was essential to keep step with the larger world and to ensure the continuity of their government.
In a video clip shown to hundreds of monks, nuns and lay people in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala late on Saturday, the 73-year-old also said it was no longer essential to thrust spiritual and political leadership on one person.
As Arms Meeting Looms, Russia Offers Carrot of Sharp Cuts
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Published: June 20, 2009
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Saturday that Russia was prepared to carry out significant reductions in its nuclear arsenal as part of its continuing arms control negotiations with the United States, which are to culminate here in a summit meeting with President Obama next month.
Greenland will boost cooperation with US: leader
NUUK, Greenland (AFP) – Greenland aims to expand its relations with the United States, its prime minister said Sunday as the island welcomed a new era of self-rule after 300 years under Danish authority.
Kuupik Kleist said longstanding relations with Washington, which has an air base on the territory in Thule, may have been problematic at times but an agreement signed in 2004 settled these issues.
Ancient Holy Land quarry uncovered, team says
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls.
The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said.
Secret of the swamps: Colombia's cocaine submarines
Sibylla Brodzinsky in Colombia
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 June 2009 22.15 BST
Slicing through milky green waters, a Colombian navy patrol wove through the maze of mangroves in the remote Sanquianga national park on the Pacific coast, following a tip.
After eight days, the search paid off. Hidden deep within the boa-infested swampland, the patrol came upon a 60ft hull propped up on a scaffold under a tin-roofed hangar. This was no ordinary shipyard, and it was no ordinary vessel.