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U.S. keeps pressure on Abbas after Netanyahu visit

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s low-profile White House visit, widely portrayed as frosty, in fact broke the ice in his relations with President Barack Obama, a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday.

And since the meeting on Monday, Washington has been keeping the pressure on Palestinians to resume peace talks without an Israeli settlement freeze first.

Netanyahu, who has withstood U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction, was ushered into the Oval Office after nightfall for a session at which, contrary to normal practice with a visiting Israeli leader, reporters were not allowed in.

Back home in Israel, newspapers seized on the low-profile White House visit as a snub, a sign of strained relations between Obama and Netanyahu, who had rejected his calls for a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

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Lack of health care killed 2,266 US veterans last year: study

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

The number of US veterans who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance was 14 times higher than the US military death toll in Afghanistan that year, according to a new study.

The analysis produced by two Harvard medical researchers estimates that 2,266 US military veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health coverage and had reduced access to medical care.

That figure is more than 14 times higher than the 155 US troop deaths in Afghanistan in 2008, the study says.

Released as the United States commemorates fallen soldiers on Veterans Day, the study warns that even health care provided by the Veterans Health Administration (VA) leaves many veterans without coverage.

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Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

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US imam wanted in Yemen over al-Qaida suspicions

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

A radical American imam who communicated with the Fort Hood shooting suspect and called him a hero was once arrested in Yemen on suspicion of giving religious approval to militants to conduct kidnappings. Yemeni authorities are now hunting for Anwar al-Awlaki to determine whether he has al-Qaida ties.

Al-Awlaki, who has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims around the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq, disappeared in Yemen eight months ago, according to his father. Yemeni security officials say they believe he is hiding in a region of the mountainous nation that has become a refuge for Islamic militants.

After his arrest in 2006, investigators were unable to prove any links to al-Qaida, and he was released in late 2007, according to two Yemeni counterterrorism officials and an Interior Ministry official. They spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

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Why the Berlin Wall Came Down: Reagan’s Role, Diplomacy

Monday, November 9th, 2009

The fall of the Berlin wall caught the world by surprise. For months, East Germany’s beleaguered communist rulers had tried in vain to silence a growing opposition movement and stem the tide of people pouring out of the country. On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, an East German official held a press conference to announce new government travel policies but inadvertently announced that crossings to the West would be opened “without delay.” Within hours, thousands of East Berliners began lining up at checkpoints near the Wall. At first the border guards tried to check passports, but they quickly realized it was futile. The masses surged through. Many of them ran. Crowds of West Berliners waited on the other side, hugging strangers and popping champagne. The scenes were stunning. By the fall of 1989 cracks in the communist bloc had started to emerge. But few people imagined the Berlin Wall would disappear anytime soon.

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Rains hitting Gulf Coast ahead of tropical storm

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Squalls ahead of a rare late-season tropical storm blew in heavy rain late Monday to parts of the Gulf Coast where residents hunkered down at home and in shelters anticipating high winds and flooding.

Ida had slowed as it approached the coast. It was about 100 miles (165 km) south-southwest of Mobile and expected to make land early Tuesday before turning east. Tropical storm warnings were out across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, where governors declared states of emergency.

In Gulf Shores along the coast, some streets were flooded and the city was under a 10 p.m. curfew, and Allen Hastings, general manager of The Original Oyster House, was closing his restaurant even earlier. During Hurricane Ivan in 2004, the restaurant flooded despite being elevated about 6 feet.

But Hastings, like many along the Gulf Coast, didn’t anticipate Ida to be as bad, and knew it has been a quiet Atlantic tropical season until now.

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Carrey’s ‘Christmas Carol’ wraps up $31M weekend

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Jim Carrey’s Scrooge collected holiday donations from movie fans with his new take on “A Christmas Carol,” which took in $31 million to open as the weekend’s top movie.

The Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic knocked the King of Pop out of the No. 1 spot as “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” slipped to second place with $14 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Sony’s “This Is It,” presenting rehearsal performances Jackson shot before his death last June, raised its domestic total to $57.9 million. Worldwide, “This Is It” has taken in $186.5 million.

Featuring Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and also as the three holiday ghosts that show Scrooge the error of his miserly ways, “A Christmas Carol” came in on the low end of Disney’s expectations for opening weekend.

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Karzai vows to keep corrupt officials out of govt

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

The embattled Afghan president pledged Sunday that there would be no place for corrupt officials in his new administration — a demand made by Washington and its international partners as they ponder sending more troops to confront the Taliban and shore up his government.

Also Sunday, NATO reported three more coalition soldiers — one American and two Britons — died in combat with the Taliban in western and southern areas. The latest losses pushed Britain’s combat death toll in the eight-year Afghan war to 201.

NATO forces said they were still searching for two American paratroopers who disappeared Wednesday while trying to recover airdropped supplies that had fallen into a river. Afghan police said the two Americans were swept away by the current and may have drowned.

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Jobless: 10 percent is tougher than it used to be

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

It hurts more to be unemployed now than the last time the jobless rate hit 10 percent.

Americans have more than triple the debt they had in 1982, and less than half the savings. They spend 10 weeks longer off the job. And a bigger share of them have no health insurance, leaving them one medical emergency away from financial ruin.

For these reasons, the unemployed are more vulnerable today to foreclosure and bankruptcy than they were a generation ago.

Donald Schenk knows. He’s been without work both times. It’s worse now, he says.

Back in the early 1980s, when Schenk lost his job at a phone company, he was able to find several temporary jobs — including one testing pinball machines — to make ends meet until he landed full-time work nearly two years later.

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High court to look at life in prison for juveniles

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.

Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away.

They didn’t kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison.

Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.

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