Free Internet Press Newsletter - Tuesday August 14 2007 - (813)

Tuesday August 14 2007 edition
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Lawsuits May Shed Light On U.S. Spy Program 2007-08-14 03:05:31 In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco, California, was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T  technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings. What occurred in the room is now at the center of a pivotal legal battle in a federal appeals court over the Bush administration's controversial spying program, including the monitoring that came to be publicly known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). Wednesday, a three-judge panel will hear arguments on whether the case, which may provide the clearest indication yet of how the spying program has worked, can go forward. So far, evidence in the case suggests a massive effort by the NSA to tap into the backbone of the Internet to retrieve millions of e-mails and other communications, which the government could sift and analyze for suspicious patterns or other signs of terrorist activity, according to court records, plaintiffs' attorneys and technology experts. Read The Full Story Editorial: Mr. Rove Gets Out Of Town 2007-08-14 03:04:57 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Tuesday, August 14, 2007. Karl Rove, the architect of so much that has gone so wrong with the Bush administration, announced yesterday that he is leaving the White House to spend more time with his family. What he didn’t say is that by getting out of town he is also hoping to avoid spending any time at all with Congressional investigators. Congress should not oblige. The American public needs to understand the full story of how this White House - with Mr. Rove pulling many of the strings - has spent the last six and a half years improperly and dangerously politicizing the federal government. Mr. Rove is already defying one Congressional subpoena to testify about the United States attorneys scandal. He should be made to respond to that one, and should also be subpoenaed to explain his role in several other cases of crass politicization. President Bush took a risk when he put someone so focused on politics as blood sport at the center of his White House. Once he did, he had an obligation to ensure that Mr. Rove understood that his job was to promote the interests of the American people - not solely the Republican Party. Instead, Mr. Rove used his position and power to relentlessly pursue his declared goal of a permanent Republican majority. Read The Full Story 22 Killed, 46 Missing In Bridge Collapse In China 2007-08-14 03:04:31 A bridge being built as a tourist attraction in central China collapsed, killing at least 22 people and leaving 46 missing, China Central Television reported Tuesday. The official Xinhua News Agency said 64 people were rescued, including 22 who were injured when the 1,049-foot bridge spanning the Tuo River in Hunan province collapsed Monday. The cause of the collapse is under investigation, it said. The 140-foot-high bridge in Hunan's Fenghuang County had four decorative stone arches and was scheduled to open at the end of this month, Xinhua reported. It collapsed as workers were removing scaffolding from its facade, it said. CCTV showed bulldozers plowing through the rubble, overturning chunks of stone and concrete mixed in a tangle of steel reinforcement bars. Read The Full Story Goldman Sachs And Investors Put $3 Billion Into Hedge Funds 2007-08-13 21:54:48 Goldman Sachs and a group of investors are injecting $3 billion of capital into one of its flailing hedge funds that lost about 30 percent of its value last week. The bank’s decision is an indication of the severity of last week’s dramatic market movements as well as the potential for significant losses in the volatile hedge fund sector. The Goldman fund, Global Equity Opportunities, was worth a little less than $5 billion slightly more than a week ago. After the market’s wild roller coaster ride last week, which affected a wide swath of quantitative or computer-generated trading models, its assets fell to $3.6 billion. Now, with about $2 billion from Goldman Sachs and an additional $1 billion from C.V. Starr & Company, the investor Eli Broad and others, the fund will have more than $6 billion. Read The Full Story Commentary: The Editorials Urge Us To Cut Emissions, But The Ads Tell A Very Different Story 2007-08-13 21:54:21 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by Professor George Monbiot and appears in the Guardian newspaper's edition for Tuesday, August 14, 2007. Newspaper exhortations on climate change sit uncomfortably alongside promotions for budget flights and oil companies. I am sorry to be crude, but however else I try to say it, the phrase "lying bastards" comes to mind. In March, I claimed that the [British] government was fudging its figures on cutting carbon emissions and that it was due to miss its targets for renewable energy. It denied the charges, claimed its cuts were "correctly quantified" and suggested I had got my facts wrong. Monday, the Guardian published a secret briefing by civil servants admitting that the government's programs are way off track and urging ministers to try to amend them not with new investments but through "statistical interpretations of the target". While no expense is spared in expanding motorways, airports and thermal power stations, every possible tactic is used to frustrate the program for installing renewable power. The reason is not hard to fathom: big business has invested massively in constructing old technologies and wants to maximize its returns before switching to the new ones. It also demands the hyper-mobility which enables its executives and its goods and services to go anywhere at any time. But I write all this with the blush of the hypocrite, for I have been forced to concede that, I too, am complicit in the strategies of corporate power. A few weeks ago I was challenged by the editors of a website called Medialens over advertisements carried by the Guardian. Does not part of my living ultimately come from the companies I campaign against? Why don't I discuss this contradiction in my column? Read The Full Story Iranian President Ahmadinejad Fires Ministers To Deflect Blame For Policy Failure 2007-08-13 21:53:47 Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has sacked his oil and industry ministers in an apparent attempt to tighten his grip on power while deflecting blame for failed economic policies. In a major cabinet shakeup, Ahmadinejad announced he had "accepted the resignations" of Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh and Alireza Tahmasbi. Despite the diplomatic wording, there appeared little doubt Monday that the two men had been forced out, to be replaced by interim ministers until permanent successors are appointed. Their departures follow widespread criticism of the president for presiding over an economic landscape of rising inflation and high unemployment, in contrast to his pre-election promises to alleviate poverty and generate prosperity. Vaziri-Hamaneh, the oil minister, may have been a victim of June's introduction of petrol rationing, although he is not believed to have been responsible. The decision triggered widespread unrest and the destruction of dozens of filling stations by protesters. Read The Full Story Russian On Trial For 43 Murders - Boasted Of Killing 63 People 2007-08-13 21:53:12 Along the leafy lanes of Moscow's Bitsevsky Park, Alexander Pichushkin was a familiar figure. The 33-year-old supermarket worker played chess under the trees and even invited his opponents for a drink afterwards. Monday Pichushkin was in court accused of murdering 49 people and attempting to kill three more, a tally which would make him one of Russia's most deadly killers. According to the prosecution, Pichushkin lured his victims, who were mostly elderly men, to a quiet part of the park. He then attacked them from behind with a hammer. He invariably suggested a glass of vodka next to the grave of his beloved dog before killing them, the prosecution alleges. "He dreamed of surpassing Chikatilo and going down in history," said Moscow prosecutor Yury Syomin, referring to Andrei Chikatilo, Russia's most notorious serial killer, who was convicted in 1992 of killing and eating 52 people. Read The Full Story Libya In Breach Of Nuclear Promise 2007-08-13 12:54:06 Libya is sitting on a stockpile of almost 200 barrels of uranium despite agreeing in 2003 to dismantle its nuclear program. The revelation that Libya has not yet complied with the international agreement to get rid of its supply of uranium will be a particular blow to the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, after his recent move to deepen ties with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. It is also an embarrassment to France's first lady, Cecilia Sarkozy, who went to Libya last month to help negotiate the release of six Bulgarian and Palestinian medical staff accused of infecting children with HIV. Within days of that visit, France signed a memorandum with Libya involving the possible construction of a nuclear reactor for civilian purposes. Read The Full Story Quebec Inuit To Sign Historic Self-Governance Agreement 2007-08-13 12:53:41 A giant swath of mineral-rich land covering one-third of Quebec is on track to become a self-governing region for the province's 10,000 Inuit. To be called the Regional Government of Nunavik, it will have its own elected assembly representing Quebec's 14 remote Inuit communities and a public service responsible for services normally delivered by provinces, such as education and health. The Globe and Mail has obtained a copy of the agreement-in-principle between the Inuit, Quebec and Ottawa, which was initialled by the three sides last week, meaning it should be ready for a formal signing ceremony within weeks. A final agreement would then follow and the Inuit hope the new government will be in place by 2009. The Nunavik government would be unlike any other resolved aboriginal land claim in Canada, both because of the region's massive size and because the system of government so closely resembles the British-inspired parliamentary systems found in Ottawa and provincial capitals. Read The Full Story Bush Advisor Karl Rove To Resign At End Of Month 2007-08-13 11:47:26 Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush's two national campaigns and his most prominent adviser through 6-1/2 tumultuous years in the White House, will resign at month's end and leave politics, a White House spokeswoman said this morning. Bush plans to make a statement with Rove on the South Lawn this morning before the president departs for his ranch near Crawford, Texas. Rove, who holds the titles of deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, has been talking about finding the right time to depart for a year, colleagues said, and decided he had to either leave now or remain through the end of the presidency. "Obviously it's a big loss to us," White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said this morning. "He's a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant mind. He will be greatly missed. But we know he wouldn't be going if he wasn't sure this was the right time to be giving more to his family, his wife Darby and their son. He will continue to be one of the president's greatest friends." Rove, 56, who escaped indictment in the CIA leak case, has been under scrutiny by the new Democratic Congress for his role in the firings of U.S. attorneys and in a series of political briefings provided to various agencies across government. Citing executive privilege, he defied a subpoena and refused to show up for a congressional hearing just two weeks ago on the allegedly improper use by White House aides of Republican National Committee email accounts. Fellow Bush advisers have said they believe the congressional probes have been aimed in part at driving Rove out. Read The Full Story Anti-Mafia Police Uncover Arms To Iraq Plot 2007-08-13 02:37:57 U.S. kept in dark over 105,000 rifles deal. Revelation highlight Baghdad weapons chaos. U.S. loss of control over the flood of weapons into Iraq was highlighted again Sunday when it emerged that Italian anti-Mafia investigators had uncovered an alleged shipment of 105,000 rifles of which the American high command was unaware. The Italian team, in an investigation codenamed Operation Parabellum, stopped the £20 million ($40 million) sale and have made four arrests. The consignment appears to have been ordered by the Iraqi interior ministry. The U.S. high command in Baghdad admitted that it had no knowledge of any such order, even though the ministry is supposed to inform the Americans before making any arms purchases. Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Williams, of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, which is responsible for training the Iraqi security army and policy, said: "Iraqi officials did not make MNSTC-I aware that they were making purchases." Read The Full Story Editorial: Wrong Way Out Of Iraq 2007-08-13 02:37:28 Intellpuke: The following editorial appears in the New York Times edition for Sunday, August 12, 2007. As Americans argue about how to bring the troops home from Iraq, British forces are already partway out the door. Four years ago, there were some 30,000 British ground troops in southern Iraq. By the end of this summer, there will be 5,000. None will be based in urban areas. Those who remain will instead be quartered at an airbase outside Basra. Rather than trying to calm Iraq’s civil war, their main mission will be training Iraqis to take over security responsibilities, while doing limited counterinsurgency operations. That closely follows the script some Americans now advocate for American forces in Iraq: reduce the numbers - and urban exposure - but still maintain a significant presence for the next several years. It’s a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal without acknowledging that the mission has failed. If anyone outside the White House truly believes this can work - that the United States can simply stay in Iraq in reduced numbers, while ignoring the civil war and expecting Iraqi forces to impose order - the British experience demonstrates otherwise. There simply aren’t reliable, effective and impartial Iraqi forces ready to keep the cities safe, nor are they likely to exist any time soon. And insurgents are not going to stop attacking Americans just because the Americans announce that they’re out of the fight. Read The Full Story Fundraising's Murky Corners - Candidates See Little Of Millions Collected Linda Chavez's Family 2007-08-13 02:36:58 Linda Chavez rose to prominence in the 1980s as a tart-tongued Reagan administration official and candidate for the Senate, eventually becoming a well-known Latina voice on social issues and President Bush's choice to lead the Labor Department. With her conservative celebrity came book deals, a syndicated column, regular appearances on the Fox News Channel - and a striking but little-known success at political fundraising. In the years since she was forced to pull her nomination as Bush's labor secretary after admitting payments to an illegal immigrant, Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the "fight to save unborn lives," a vigorous struggle against "big labor bosses" and a crippling of "liberal politics in the country." That's not where the bulk of the money wound up being spent, however. Of the $24.5 million raised by the PACs from January 2003 to December 2006, $242,000 - or 1 percent - was passed on to politicians, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal election reports. The PACs spent even less - $151,236 - on independent political activity, such as mailing pamphlets. Read The Full Story Britain's Cover-Up Plan On Energy Targets To Reduce Global Warming 2007-08-13 02:36:03 British government officials have secretly briefed ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new European Union renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring - and have suggested that they find ways of wriggling out of it. In contrast to the government's claims to be leading the world on climate change, officials within the former Department of Trade and Industry have admitted that under current policies Britain would miss the E.U.'s 2020 target of 20% energy from renewables by a long way. And their suggestion that "statistical interpretations of the target" be used rather than new ways to reach it has infuriated environmentalists. An internal briefing paper for ministers, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, reveals that officials at the department, now the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR), think the best the U.K. could hope for is 9% of energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro by 2020. It says the U.K. "has achieved little so far on renewables" and that getting to 9%, from the current level of about 2%, would be "challenging". The paper was produced in the early summer, around the time the government published its energy white paper. Read The Full Story U.S. Tumbles Down World Ratings List For Life Expectancy 2007-08-13 02:35:10 A combination of expensive health insurance and an ever-increasing rate of obesity appear to be behind a startling fall by the U.S. in the world rankings of life expectancy. Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, America has dropped from 11th to 42nd place in 20 years, according to official U.S. figures. Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said: "Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries." The lack of health care available to many Americans - 45 million have no health insurance - is set to be one of the biggest issues in next year's presidential election campaign. The Democratic contenders all promise universal health care. Read The Full Story	NASA: Shuttle Edeavour's Tiles Perforated, But Repair Poses Dangers 2007-08-14 03:05:11 NASA officials said Monday night that they believe the gouge in the bottom of the space shuttle Endeavour is not severe enough to keep the spaceship from returning safely to Earth, but they want more time to consider whether the slightly damaged heat shield needs to be repaired in orbit. Working from detailed photographs of the 3 1/2 -inch-by-2-inch indent on Endeavour's thermal tiles, NASA officials will create similarly damaged tiles to discover whether they can withstand the heat of reentry. A repair decision is expected by Wednesday, but deputy shuttle program manager John Shannon said in Houston, Texas, that the prognosis remains good. "This is not a catastrophic loss-of-orbiter case at all," he said. "This is a case where you want to do the prudent thing for the vehicle." Read The Full Story Reporters Ordered To Name Sources In Anthrax Suit 2007-08-14 03:04:45 Five reporters must reveal their government sources for stories they wrote about Steven J. Hatfill and investigators' suspicions that the former Army scientist was behind the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, a federal judge ruled Monday. The decision from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is yet another blow to the news industry as it seeks to shield anonymous sources who provide critical information - especially on the secret inner workings of government. "The names of the sources are central to Dr. Hatfill's case," Walton wrote in a 31-page opinion. The ruling is a victory for Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert who has argued in a civil suit that the government violated his privacy rights and ruined his chances at a job by unfairly leaking information about the probe. He has not been charged in the attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others, and he has denied wrongdoing. Read The Full Story Heavy Rains Leave Hundreds Dead, Missing In North Korea 2007-08-14 03:04:18 Heavy rains spawned flooding that left ''hundreds'' dead or missing in North Korea and destroyed more than 30,000 homes, the country's state media reported Tuesday. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said preliminary information revealed massive casualties after the storms that began last week, but gave no specific figures. It said the rain also flooded tens of thousands of acres of farmland in the impoverished country that suffers from regular food shortages. ''The heavy rain destroyed at least 800 public buildings, over 540 bridges, 70 sections of railroads and at least 1,100 vehicles, pumps and electric motors,'' said KCNA. Hardest hit appeared to be Kangwon province, where KCNA said there were ''huge casualties'' and that homes for more than 20,000 families were partly or completely destroyed. The effects also reached to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. Read The Full Story Environmentalists Urge British Prime Minister To Overhaul U.K. Energy Policy 2007-08-13 21:54:33 British environmental groups and the renewable energy industry Monday urged Prime Minister Gordon Brown to overhaul government energy policy if Britain is to have any hope of meeting its European Union targets to combat climate change. Groups including Greenpeace, the Renewable Energy Association, Friends of the Earth and the New Economics Foundation reacted angrily to revelations in the Guardian that government officials had secretly acknowledged that the U.K. would struggle to meet the E.U. target of 20% renewables by 2020 and had suggested it be reinterpreted to make it easier to achieve. The groups wrote to the prime minister saying it would be "unfortunate if the leadership shown by the U.K. in getting these European targets adopted in March were now eroded by a serious lack of ambition in our domestic policy. Read The Full Story Ancient Urban Sprawl Surrounded Angkor Wat 2007-08-13 21:54:04 The famous medieval temple at Angkor Wat in Cambodia was once surrounded by a giant urban sprawl of settlements, according to a new map of the area published by an international team of archaeologists. The experts spent years studying Nasa images of the Angkor region and checking possible sightings on the ground, and found enough ruins to conclude that the site was the largest settlement in the pre-industrial world. Carpeted with vegetation and obscured by low-lying cloud, the ruins spill over 400 square miles around the distinctive temple, and are linked by a complex irrigation system. Article continues The findings could pose a problem for conservation experts, as the historical remains spread beyond the designated World Heritage site around the temple. Read The Full Story 27 People Injured In St. Petersburg, Russia, Train Explosion 2007-08-13 21:53:25 At least 20 people were injured Monday night when an explosion derailed a high-speed train travelling between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The engine driver reported hearing a loud bang from beneath the train shortly before the accident. An emergency official said at least 27 people were injured, three critically. It was not clear Monday night whether the blast was a terrorist attack. But rescue workers discovered a 1.5 meter-deep crater under the train's ninth carriage, Interfax reported. The derailment was at 9:45 p.m. local time, close to the city of Novgorod, some 300 miles north of Moscow. Read The Full Story Easing Economic Concerns Boost Oil, Gas Futures 2007-08-13 12:54:19 Energy futures rose Monday, buoyed by easing concerns about the economy and scattered reports of refinery outages over the weekend. Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose $1.64 to $73.11 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange,  and September gasoline jumped 4.22 cents to $1.997 a gallon. In London, September Brent crude rose $1.42 to $71.81 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. Energy investors were keeping one eye on stocks, which rose in early trading on news that central banks are taking steps to increase liquidity and help economies avoid fallout from the worsening subprime mortgage-related credit crunch, said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Illinois. Read The Full Story Battles Raging Again In Remotest Pakistan 2007-08-13 12:53:56 Rearmed militants are spreading through tribal areas in North Waziristan, often seizing the offensive. As Pakistani forces press ahead with their most concerted campaign in years against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the dry, jagged hills of Pakistan's tribal belt, the insurgents have moved to establish new footholds in remote corners of the Texas-sized region along the border with Afghanistan. The Islamic militants are seeking to spread their influence in areas previously untouched by fighting and are in some cases facilitating new alliances between outside groups and local insurgents, say observers and officials. The insurgents are also increasingly employing heavy weapons and have made several brazen frontal attacks on army outposts that differed significantly from hit-and-run guerrilla-style skirmishes of the recent past. "They've become better organized, more disciplined and more capable of mounting big attacks," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, an analyst based here in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, which abuts the tribal belt. Read The Full Story Taliban Release 2 South Korean Women Hostages 2007-08-13 12:53:22 Two women who were among 23 South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban in mid-July were freed today and turned over to South Korean officials, said the Seoul government. The release is the the first major breakthrough in the monthlong hostage case. The two woman, identified as Kim Ji Na, 32, and Kim Kyong Ja, 37, wept as they got out of a gray Toyota Corolla driven by an Afghan elder and into two waiting Red Cross sport-utility vehicles, the Associated Press reported. They said nothing to reporters at the scene, who were notified about the planned handoff by a Taliban spokesman. Cho Hee Yong, a spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry, said the two women were given medical checkups afterward. Kim Ji Na, a digital animation artist, and Kim Kyong Ja, a computer software worker, were part of a group of 23 South Korean church volunteers in Afghanistan whose bus was hijacked on July 19 on the road between Kabul and Kandahar. Read The Full Story Global Stock Markets Steady 2007-08-13 11:47:14 Global stock markets steadied today, with the Dow Jones industrial average moving higher and the European Central Bank saying that demand for cash among banks seemed to be "normalizing" after a jittery few days. The Dow was up nearly 70 points after the first hour and a half of trading, while the Nasdaq composite index and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 also enjoyed early gains. The first of a series of economic reports due this week, meanwhile, showed stronger than expected consumer spending in July. With central banks still monitoring markets closely and injecting cash when necessary, the Federal Reserve this week will also receive fresh information on inflation, industrial production and housing starts as it mulls whether last week's sharp selloff of stocks and unease in world credit markets warrant a cut in U.S. target interest rates. For now, the storm has at least eased. Asian markets were mostly higher overnight, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rising about one-half of a percent. In Europe, where the suspension of trading in two French investment funds last week touched off a global stock rout, the London FTSE 100 had added more than two-and-a-half percent at midday. Exchanges in France and Germany were posting similar healthy gains. Read The Full Story Commentary: Military Families Live In Dread, While The Rest Of America Is Busy Shopping 2007-08-13 02:37:42 Intellpuke: The following commentary was written by journalist Gary Younge and appears in the Guardian newspaper's edition for Monday, August 13, 2007. This is well worth the read. Mom, I had another friend die today from a massive ied [improvised explosive device] and many more wounded with shattered bones and scrapes. We used to be in the same platoon. 1st platoon and the same squad when I first arrived at fort hood for a good 7 months or so. He was 17 then and barely a day over 19 now that he has passed away. It's tearing me up so badly inside. I just can't stand it. I can't get rid of the feeling that I probably won't make it home from this war. I have this horrible feeling that his fate will soon become my own. I don't want to die here Mom. Don't tell Erin bc I know it will devastate her. But if somehow I don't make it, I want you Mom and Dad and all the family and especially Erin to know I love you all so so much and appreciate everything you all have done for me in the thick and thin. The most important thing I want you all to do, is to use all of your connections to do everything in your will to use my death as a tool with the media to end this pointless war. Contact Michael Moore or whomever it may be to get the word out about how disgusted with our government I am about forcing us to come here to wait for death to claim us. I want it to end. How many more friends, sons, daughters, mothers, and dads must die here before they say it's enough? And if you don't die, the worst part you have to live with is the guilt of surviving. Surviving this war and not dying like your buddies to your left and to your right in combat. I love you all so so much. love, Zach Wednesday August 8 2007, Baghdad 'Death," said Donald Rumsfeld, the former United States defence secretary, "has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." Read The Full Story Inspection Finds Debris Penetrated Endeavour's Heat-Resistant Tiles 2007-08-13 02:37:10 A close-up laser inspection by astronauts on the space shuttle Endeavour revealed on Sunday that a three-and-a-half-inch gouge penetrates all the way through thermal tiles on the shuttle’s belly, and left NASA officials urgently calculating whether a spacewalk for repairs is needed. A chunk of insulating foam ricocheted off a fuel tank and smacked the shuttle during liftoff last week, carving out the gouge. The unevenly shaped gouge, which straddles two side-by-side heat shield tiles and the corner of a third, is 3.5 inches long and just over 2 inches wide. The inspection on Sunday showed that the damage went through the one-inch-thick thermal tiles, exposing the felt material sandwiched between the tiles and the shuttle’s aluminum frame. Mission managers expect to decide Monday or Tuesday whether to send astronauts out to patch the gouge. Engineers are trying to determine whether the marred area can withstand the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry at the flight’s end. Heating tests will be conducted on similarly damaged samples. Read The Full Story Upkeep Of Security Devices A Financial Burden On U.S. Cities 2007-08-13 02:36:24 In 2003, the FBI used a $25 million grant to give bomb squads across the nation state-of-the-art computer kits, enabling them to instantly share information about suspected explosives, including weapons of mass destruction. Four years later, half of the Washington area's squads can't communicate via the $12,000 kits, meant to be taken to the scene of potential catastrophes, because they didn't pick up the monthly wireless bills and maintenance costs initially paid by the FBI. Other squads across the country also have given up using them. "They worked, and it was a good idea - until the subscription ran out," said Mike Love, who oversees the bomb squad in Montgomery County'sfire department. At the local level, he said, "there is not budget money for it." Read The Full Story 9th Body Found At Minneapolis Bridge Site 2007-08-13 02:35:35 Divers found another body in the Mississippi River on Sunday, 11 days after a highway bridge collapsed into the fast-flowing water, raising the official death toll to nine. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office identified the body as 20-year-old Richard Chit of St. Anthony. His mother, 50-year-old Vera Peck of Bloomington, is still missing. The other three people known to be missing are Christine Sacorafas, 45, of White Bear Lake; Greg Jolstad, 45, of Mora; and Scott Sathers, 29, of Maple Grove. As divers resumed their search Sunday, a crane working removed a school bus and other vehicles from one end of the ruined span. Read The Full Story Tommy Thompson Drops Presidential Bid 2007-08-13 02:34:46 Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll. "I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign. "I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America." The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing. Read The Full Story
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