A.Unless you live in an apartment right above a police station,you aren't "too old" to be afraid of being alone at night.
Let your parents know how you feel. Together, try to work outsome kind of solution to ease your fears - perhaps periodic telephonecalls to or from them, an alarm system, a dog (be willing to take …
HOUSTON - Roger Clemens waved to Houston's fans for the final time this season. Then, the rest of the Astros gave the sellout crowd even more to cheer about on Sunday night.
Clemens struck out six in five innings and Aubrey Huff hit a three-run homer in the seventh as the Astros beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-3 to complete a four-game sweep.
"It was a great deal of fun," Clemens said. "I wish we could take these last four crowds we've had here with us on the road."
Clemens got a no-decision in his 689th career start. He left before the Cardinals batted in the sixth inning, with the Astros leading 3-1. The Houston infield gathered around the Rocket before manager …
| BC-GLF--Senior British Open Scores,0999 |
| %headline(Senior British Open Scores%) |
| %endtag(%) |
| SUNNINGDALE, England (AP) _ Scores Saturday after completion of second round from the Senior British Open, a $2 million European Seniors/Champions Tour event on the 6,616-yard (6,048-meter) par-70 Old Course at Sunningdale (a-amateur): |
| Second Round |
| Note: 18 golfers finished the second round on Saturday |
| Fred Funk, United States 64-65_129 |
| Sam Torrance, Scotland 67-65_132 |
| Loren Roberts, United States … |
WASHINGTON Raw chickens and turkeys that are frozen hard cannotbe labeled "fresh" under an Agriculture Department rule announcedtoday.
Under the new rule, which takes effect in a year, poultry canbe labeled as fresh only if it has never been chilled below 26degrees, instead of 0 degrees as now allowed.
The change had been sought by consumer groups and Californiapoultry producers.
"Consumers do not equate the term `fresh' with a product thathas ever been chilled until it is hard to the touch," the departmentsaid in announcing the new labeling requirements.
Although water freezes at 32 degrees, various salts, otherminerals and substances keep …
The commonwealth collected $4 billion in tax revenue in March, which was $10.5 million, or 0.3 percent, less than anticipated, the state Department of Revenue said.
Pennsylvania received $894.9 million from personal income taxes, which was $52.7 million above estimate, and $621.3 million from sales taxes, which was $26.5 …
The United States said Saturday it will not disengage from Asia despite political and strategic commitments elsewhere, as China told the region it is not a military threat to anyone.
The declarations were made at a high-profile conference, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, of defense ministers and military officials from 26 Asia-Pacific countries. Organizers say the annual meeting provides an opportunity for friends, foes and uneasy neighbors to meet and thrash out issues in private.
But there is some blunt talk as well, usually by the United States.
In his opening speech, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates slammed Myanmar's junta, saying …
THIS WEEK'S ARGUMENT: That it's the little things that make lifeentertaining.
I'm always telling you to lower your expectations. That way,you're more likely to be pleasantly surprised. When it comes toentertainment, bigger isn't always better. You don't need a musicalextravaganza. You just need to be easily amused. Fun is where youfind it, my friend.
CELEBRITY SCANDAL
The lovely Mena Suvari, just 25, recently told Us Weekly: "Diet isreally important to me; I've had a nutritionist for six years."
Let's pause for a moment.
"I haven't eaten [processed] sugar in a couple of years . . ."
Hang on, I need another pause.
". . . but I make …
Tastes Like Chicken by Lolita Files Simon & Schuster, May 2004 $22.00 ISBN 0-743-24525-3
The author of Getting to the Good Pari and Scenes From a Sistah returns with a sassy new novel that serves up …
John McCain is set to appear on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" comedy show just three days before the presidential election.
Aides say the Republican presidential candidate will make a detour from battleground states to the late-night weekend show that has been a must-watch for many Americans during the political season.
Earlier this month, McCain running …
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - First a tornado tore through the St. Louisairport. Then rising waters swamped small towns and flooded miles offertile farmland along the Mississippi River. Then the nation'sdeadliest tornado in six decades ripped apart the city of Joplin.
Thirty days of destruction in Missouri. Billions of dollars ofdamage. And it may not be done, as communities along the MissouriRiver from St. Joseph to St. Louis brace for a new round offlooding.
The economic aftershocks of Missouri's spring of disasters may befelt for years, even by many who weren't personally affected by thestorms. Insurance premiums are likely to increase for home andvehicle …
LESLIE, Mich. - A man widely believed to be the model for the smiling chef on Cream of Wheat boxes finally has a grave marker bearing his name.
Frank L. White died in 1938, and until this week, his grave in Woodlawn Cemetery bore only a tiny concrete marker with no name.
On Wednesday, a granite gravestone was placed at his burial site. It bears his name and an etching taken from the man depicted on the Cream of Wheat box.
Jesse Lasorda, a family researcher from Lansing, started the campaign to put the marker and etching on White's grave.
"Everybody deserves a headstone," Lasorda told the Lansing State Journal. He discovered that White was born about 1867 …
| Trn Money |
| 1. Bernhard Langer 6 $860,627 |
| 2. Scott Hoch 6 $566,269 |
| 3. Fred Funk 5 $499,643 |
| 4. Brad Bryant 6 $468,197 |
| 5. Jay Haas 5 $435,000 |
| 6. Loren Roberts 7 $430,259 |
| 7. Jerry Pate 7 $386,250 |
| 8. Lonnie Nielsen 6 $338,913 |
| 9. Denis Watson 7 $332,011 |
| 10. John Cook 7 … |
Scholars react to a doctoral student's discovery that a "pioneer" of African American women's literature was not black at all. BY WAYNE DAWKINS
LATE-1800s AUTHOR EMMA DUNHAM KELLEY-HAWKINS'S NOVEL FOUR Girls AT Cottage City inspired the Oxford University Press's Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers. This is what Henry Louis Gates Jr. once said of the 40-volume set published in 1988.
Yet there was something odd about Kelley-Hawkins's 1895 novel set in New England: The characters were blond, blue-eyed girls, who never suggested they were mulattoes, using cunning and stealth to live on the other side of the color line.
In fact, Kelley-Hawkins was true to herself; she was a white woman, writing about her white experiences.
A stunning piece of detective work this year by Holly Jackson, a doctoral student of English at Brandeis University, revealed that based on superficial evidence [a photograph] and wrongheaded assumptions [that Kelley-Hawkins was a light-skinned black "passing" for white, an obsession of that era] scholars incorrectly assumed the author's racial identity. Somehow, numerous scholars over decades had perpetuated colossal errors of identity and facts.
Jackson's February 20 article in The Boston Globe was headlined "Mistaken Identity: What If a Novelist Celebrated As a Pioneer of African-American Women's Literature Turned Out Not to Be Black at All?"
Jackson wrote: "Here at last, Gates explained in his foreword, were the literary ancestors of Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. With one exception, all these works had been previously out of print, making it difficult for scholars to track down copies. In fact, it was Gates's discovery of one such 'lost' novel, 'Four Girls at Cottage City' [1895] by Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins, that prompted him to put these neglected texts back into print'in part,' he wrote, 'so that I could read them myself.'"
So with the mystery about Kelley-Hawkins's identity apparently solved, what will the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture do?
"That's a good question. We haven't addressed it," Diana Lachatanere, curator of manuscripts, archives and rare books division at the center in Harlem told Black Issues Book Review. "We haven't pulled her books from our shelves. We need to look at the article and have a conversation with a few scholars and go from there."
Lachatanere, in a June telephone interview, said she was aware of the mistaken ID assertion but had not seen the article. Lachatanere then said she did not know Jackson and wanted to know "what 'Skip' Gates and other scholars think [before we do anything]."
BIBR pointed out that Jackson made the discovery while essentially doing a project for Gates. We e-mailed The Boston Globe article to the curator. Ten days later, Lachatanere's e-mail response to a follow-up inquiry was "I read it and have no additional comment."
Jackson had been contracted to write a biography of Kelley-Hawkins [1863-1938] for the African American National Biography (AANB), affiliated with Gates's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University.
"I assumed she [Kelley-Hawkins] was black myself, but it became abundantly clear that she was white. I was surprised as anyone," Jackson said.
When completed, the AANB "will present history through a mosaic of the lives of 10,000 individuals, some known throughout the world and others all but forgotten, illuminating the abiding influence of African Americans on the life of this nation through the immediacy of personal experience," notes the online home page [www.fas.harvard.edu/~aanb].
Jackson, who expects to finish work on her Ph.D. two years from now and teach American literature in a college, said her entry would not be included in the AANB.
The Brandeis University English and American Literature Web site acknowledged Jackson's Boston Globe article [http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/english/accomplish.html]. The piece was also discussed on the History News Network Web site http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/10590.html.
Cracking the Case
Biographically, Jackson wrote in the Globe, Kelley-Hawkins was a cipher. There was no acknowledgment of when she was born or when she died, or her family history, although she was identified as an African American writer in numerous accounts dating to the early 1970s.
Jackson went about her spadework and dug for facts. Massachusetts Vital Records produced an Emma D. Kelley, born November 11, 1863, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Powerful evidence, but not absolute proof that she was the author. A rare books librarian at Brown University provided Jackson with a true first-edition copy of KelleyHawkins's Four Girls at Cottage City.
Gates, who said he discovered a copy of the out-of-print book, had what appeared to be a second-edition copy printed three years after the original by a different publisher, said Jackson.
Jackson went on to cobble together other essential biographical facts: Emma D. Kelley married Benjamin A. Hawkins in 1893. Four Girls at Cottage City was published two years later. She had published another novel, Megda, in 1891. She later named one of her two daughters Megda.
Jackson also found documentation on all four grandparents of Kelley-Hawkins. She established the author's date of death, October 22,1938, in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Richard Noble, the rare books librarian at Brown, also noticed that a Megda Hawkins was listed at the church he attended in Providence, Rhode Island. He found a 1984 obituary that confirmed that the woman was the daughter of Emma D. Kelley-Hawkins. Kelley-Hawkins's husband and second daughter are also deceased.
Emma D. Kelley-Hawkins, wrote Jackson in the Globe, "Never fit comfortably within the African American canon. Most puzzling has been the apparent whiteness of her characters, who are repeatedly described with blue eyes and skin as white as 'pure' or 'driven' snow-a conundrum that critics have largely sidestepped by arguing that these women would have been understood as 'white mulattos,' or very light-skinned women of color by Kelley-Hawkins's original audience of black readers."
What made critics draw these conclusions? Exhibit A was the photo of the author on the cover of her novel Megda. Jackson told BIBR, "People read the photo as black and took that to be evidence. Now, when you look, it's a little more ambiguous. It may be the quality of photo, all of this is speculative."
Another detail that apparently made scholars stubbornly assume that Kelley-Hawkins was black was that Cottage City, the name in one of the author's titles, is part of what is now known as Oak Bluffs, the black vacation community on Martha's Vineyard.
There is a big problem with that assumption: Kelley-Hawkins wrote Four Girb at Cottage City about 17 years before blacks began coming to Martha's Vineyard in significant numbers.
Gates told Jackson that he did not know how Kelley-Hawkins came to be identified as African American. "I'm intrigued by the idea, however, that so many scholars have concluded that this woman was black, and it certainly will be interesting for us to figure out why," he said.
Family Knew of the Mix-Up
Jackson said there are no direct descendants of Kelley-Hawkins. After her Boston Globe piece was published, however, she spoke to two different branches of the family, including the family of the author's sister Alice.
"They were excited and happy with my article and aware of the mistake," said Jackson. "They were excited that someone was tied up in the detective work.
"They did not make attempts to come forward and correct the mistakes," Jackson explained. "They did not have anxieties about people thinking they were black or white. They trace their genealogy to English, Welsh and Irish settlers in Cape Cod. They know their family history very well."
So a caution for future literary scholars should be to verify, verify and verify biographical details rather than make judgments based on appearances or attitudes of an era.
"I still think her novels are of huge historical interest," said Holly Jackson of Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins. "Reconsideration of her place in literary history is appropriate."
[Sidebar]
"People read her photo as black and took that to be evidence. Now, when you look, it's a little more ambiguous."
[Sidebar]
Black Biographies Editor
Applauds Discovery
John K. Bollard, executive editor of the African American National Biography, provided BIBR with a response that was originally offered to The Boston Globe, but wasn't published. Log on to www.bibookreview.com to read it.
[Author Affiliation]
Wayne Dawkins is author of two books on the National Association of Black Journalists and founder of August Press LLC in Virginia.
Search and rescue crews are on scene off of Canada's British Columbia Sunshine Coast where a Grumman Goose plane has gone down near Thormandy Island.
The Joint Rescue Coorindation Center in Victoria, British Columbia, confirms eight people were on board.
Lt. Marguerite Dodds-Lapinski said there was no confirmation on survivors yet.
She says the rescue center received a call from someone in the area Sunday morning saying they had heard a plane crash.
Rescue officials dispatched several search and rescue planes as well as a Coast Guard hovercraft to the scene.
Greek police say they have charged 25 people including a priest and a neurosurgeon for allegedly downloading child pornography from the internet.
Police say they acted on a tip from Interpol to detain the suspects in Athens, Thessaloniki and another three Greek cities, as well as on the islands of Mykonos and Mytilini.
A police statement issued Tuesday says the suspects allegedly subscribed to Web sites that displayed pornographic pictures and videos of children as young as 6 months old being sexually abused by adults.
It says the 25 suspects include a priest attached to a church near the southern town of Sparta, a neurosurgeon, a gynecologist and an army officer.
European Union lawmakers will vote Wednesday on a new set of common rules for expelling illegal immigrants from the 27-nation bloc _ a bill that faces opposition from left-leaning parties and human rights groups.
The rules are part of efforts to craft a common EU asylum and immigration policy by 2010. If approved by the EU assembly, countries will have two years to implement them.
The bill says illegal immigrants in the EU can be held in specialized detention centers _ not jails _ for no more than 18 months before being expelled.
It also says EU nations should grant immigrants basic rights, including access to free legal advice, food and shelter, and prohibit the expulsion or detention of unaccompanied children.
Once found by authorities, illegal immigrants will first be given the opportunity to leave voluntarily for up to 30 days, according to the proposal.
If there is a risk they will abscond, they can be put in custody for up to six months while their deportation is being processed. There can be a 12-month extension in specific cases, such as when illegal immigrants do not cooperate with authorities.
The agreement among EU governments took more than two years to design. At present, there is no common policy on expelling illegal immigrants, and detention periods vary from 32 days in France to indefinite custody in Britain, the Netherlands and five other countries.
The EU estimates there could be up to 8 million illegal immigrants in the bloc, with up to 500,000 arriving every year.
A cliffhanger vote was expected in the European Parliament.
Conservative lawmakers and the Liberal Democrats backed the proposed rules, which already have been approved by EU governments but will not automatically apply in Britain, Ireland, and Denmark, because they have negotiated opt-outs.
Center-left groups and the Greens said Tuesday the proposed detention period was too long.
They also protested a proposed five-year re-entry ban, which can be imposed on expelled immigrants who are deemed a threat. Currently, there is no EU-wide re-entry ban.
The bill's opponents also called for more humane treatment of immigrants in detention centers, which can be very grim in some countries.
"The directive is not adequate in terms of protection of fundamental rights. It will not allow for the improvement of detention conditions in the EU," French Socialist Martine Roure said in a debate, urging the EU to allow for more legal migrants.
Her group called for a maximum three-month detention period, with an extra three months in special cases.
Human rights groups deplored the law.
"We consider that systematic detention of persons who have committed no crime is inhumane and unwarranted," the European Council on Refugees and Exiles said. It added that the proposed 18-month detention period is "excessive, disproportionate and therefore unacceptable as a common EU standard."
But Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, backed the draft law.
"Only 10 states have custody periods lower than six months. All other countries will have to adapt their legislation, and this means great progress. Also, we're granting vulnerable people and children many more rights," said Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate, who was in charge of drafting the compromise.
Objectives: The Healthy You Program was developed by dietitians to address the large demand for weight loss counseling in primary care.
Methods: The program consists of eleven one-hour weekly sessions facilitated by a dietitian. Inclusion criteria were BMI>27 and no concurrent individual nutrition counseling. Pre- and post-data collection included the Paul Stress and Well Being inventories. Self-reported data included 3-day food records, body weight monitoring and minutes of exercise completed per week.
Results: 6 sessions with 84 participants have completed to date. Overall mean improvements include: Paul Stress (46[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]14 to 42[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]12)**, Well Being (63[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]18 to 69[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]20)**, weight(kg) (100.5[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]22 to 96.4[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]21)***, kcal/d (1705[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]426 to 1440[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]271)***, g fat/d (46[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]18 to 31[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]18)***, g fibre/d (14[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]6 to 18[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]7)**. There was also a trend towards an increase in minutes of exercise per week (173[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]108 to 219[Symbol Not Transcribed] [plus or minus]137, p=0.07). Participant satisfaction was consistently positive with the exception of the lack of an exercise component. Dietitians also enjoyed facilitating the sessions.
Conclusions: This type of service delivery in primary care is effective and is satisfying for participants and dietitians. **p<0.05, ***p<0.001
NEW YORK - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday switched his party status from Republican to unaffiliated, a stunning move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race.
The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the GOP for his first mayoral run, said the change in voter registration does not mean he is running for president.
"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city," he said in a statement.
Despite his coyness about his aspirations, the mayor's decision to switch stokes speculation that he will pursue the White House, challenging the Democratic and Republican nominees with a legitimate and well-financed third-party bid.
Bloomberg has an estimated worth of more than $5 billion and easily could underwrite a White House run, much like Texas businessman Ross Perot in 1992. Bloomberg spent more than $155 million for his two mayoral campaigns, including $85 million when he won his second term in 2005.
The 65-year-old mayor has fueled the presidential buzz with increasing out-of-state travel, including New Hampshire last weekend; a greater focus on national issues and repeated criticism of the partisan politics that dominate Washington.
"The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy," he said in a speech Monday at the start of a University of Southern California conference about the advantages of nonpartisan governing.
A Bloomberg entry would roil the already volatile and wide-open race to succeed President Bush.
"If he runs, this guarantees a Republican will be the next president of the United States. The Democrats have to be shaking in their boots," said Greg Strimple, a Republican strategist in New York who is unaligned in the race.
The belief among some operatives is that Bloomberg's moderate positions would siphon votes from the Democratic nominee. Others say it's not clear and his impact would depend on the nominees.
Former Democratic Party Chairman Donald Fowler said Bloomberg would be "a disturbing factor to both parties," but the mayor would probably draw more Republican votes simply because "Republicans are more disenchanted than Democrats."
He called Bloomberg "an exceptionally capable guy" who is "hard-nosed and accomplished," but argued that the obstacles for a third-party candidate are so daunting that it would be nearly impossible for Bloomberg to win.
In 1992, Perot captured 19 percent of the popular vote as Democrat Bill Clinton seized the presidency from incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush. Independent Ralph Nader played the spoiler in the 2000 race, taking votes from Democrat Al Gore in a disputed election won by President George W. Bush.
Strategists say he could mount a third-party campaign by stressing that he is a two-term mayor in a Democratic city and that he built his reputation as a political independent, social moderate and fiscal conservative.
Throughout his 5 1/2 years as mayor, Bloomberg has often been at odds with his party and Bush. He supports gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control and stem cell research, and raised property taxes to help solve a fiscal crisis after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But he never seemed willing to part with the GOP completely, raising money for the 2004 presidential convention and contributing to Bush and other Republican candidates.
Just last year, he told a group of Manhattan Republicans about his run for mayor: "I couldn't be prouder to run on the Republican ticket and be a Republican."
On most occasions, Bloomberg has rolled his eyes at the suggestion that he might one day be a presidential contestant. But during a holiday party with City Hall staffers last December he performed a Bruce Springsteen rendition of "Born to Run."
Appearing Monday at Google Inc.'s California campus, Bloomberg teased questioners about a presidential bid, refusing to rule out the prospect but repeating that he plans to serve out his term through 2009. And he didn't debunk a report that he talked about an independent presidential bid with former Sen. David Boren, D-Okla.
Asked about a hypothetical independent candidate entering the race, Bloomberg launched a broad critique of the Bush administration and Congress and lamented the presidential debates to date.
"I think the country is in trouble," Bloomberg said, citing the war in Iraq and America's declining standing globally.
"Our reputation has been hurt very badly in the last few years," he said. "We've had a go-it-alone mentality in a world where, because of communications and transportation, you should be going exactly in the other direction."
But Bloomberg on Tuesday in California restated that he was not planning a presidential run.
"I have no plans to announce a candidacy because I plan to be mayor for the next 926 days," he said.
His entry into the campaign would give the presidential contest a decidedly New York flavor, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York senator on the Democratic side, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani on the Republican.
---
Associated Press writers Liz Sidoti, Jim Kuhnhenn and Libby Quaid in Washington and Michael Blood in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce will have to wait to get the go-ahead for its new multi-million pound expansion of its Patchway plantafter its application deferred by South Gloucestershire planners.
It is hoped that the investment will secure the engine maker'slong-term future at Bristol.
But despite being urged to approve the development of a new state-of-the-art manufacturing base, the council's planning committeehighlighted a number of concerns at a meeting held yesterday.
The company is applying for the go-ahead to demolish its present,out-dated production facilities at Gypsy Patch Lane. The site willthen be sold for development and the profits used to help fund themulti-million pound, three-phase investment programme.
If approved, the first stage will be a massive 550ft long by 350ftwide turbine and engine component production building.
It will be followed by two more buildings of a similar size forRolls-Royce marine and defence divisions.
But planning chiefs have called for more detailed plans on how theland will be used.
A spokesman for South Gloucestershire Council said: "Councillorswant to see a master plan for the Rolls Royce site, detailing anumber of major points, such as traffic congestion as a result of thedevelopment, pedestrian and cycle access and more detailed buildingplans including their proposed energy efficiency."
Gary Atkins, communications manager at Rolls Royce, said: "We aregoing to need to assess the points raised by the council.
"I can't really say more than that until we have analysed thesepoints had further discussion with the council."
| AMERICAN LEAGUE | |
|---|---|
| Minnesota 400 011 002_8 15 2 | |
| Tampa Bay 000 000 060_6 5 0 | |
| Slowey, Crain (8), Mahay (8), Capps (8) and Butera | W.Davis, Choate (7), Benoit (9) and Shoppach. W_Capps 1-0. L_Benoit 0-1. HRs_Minnesota, Repko (3). Tampa Bay, B.Upton (10), Bartlett (3). |
| ___ | |
| Chicago 000 020 002 02_6 13 0 | |
| Detroit 000 000 103 00_4 8 0 | |
| (11 innings) | |
| F.Garcia, Thornton (7), Putz (8), Jenks (9), S.Santos (10) and R.Castro | Scherzer, Coke (8), Weinhardt (9), Valverde (10) and Laird, Avila. W_S.Santos 1-0. L_Valverde 1-3. HRs_Chicago, Kotsay (7). Detroit, Kelly (2), Raburn (3). |
| ___ | |
| Los Angeles 000 000 040_4 7 1 | |
| Baltimore 000 002 201_5 13 1 | |
| Haren, Jepsen (7), Rodney (8), F.Rodriguez (9) and J.Mathis, Bo.Wilson | Arrieta, M.Gonzalez (8), Berken (8) and Wieters. W_Berken 3-2. L_F.Rodriguez 0-3. HRs_Los Angeles, Tor.Hunter (17). Baltimore, Markakis (8). |
| ___ | |
| Cleveland 100 000 001_2 7 1 | |
| Boston 000 400 02x_6 6 0 | |
| Tomlin, Herrmann (8) and Marson | Matsuzaka, Okajima (9), Papelbon (9) and V.Martinez. W_Matsuzaka 8-3. L_Tomlin 1-1. Sv_Papelbon (26). HRs_Cleveland, Choo (14). Boston, A.Beltre (20). |
| ___ | |
| Texas 000 000 330_6 11 1 | |
| Seattle 000 000 000_0 8 1 | |
| Tom.Hunter, Harrison (7), O'Day (8), N.Feliz (9) and B.Molina | F.Hernandez, J.Wright (7), Seddon (8), White (9) and A.Moore. W_Tom.Hunter 9-1. L_F.Hernandez 7-9. HRs_Texas, Dav.Murphy (7). |
| ___ | |
| NATIONAL LEAGUE | |
| Colorado 000 000 010_1 7 0 | |
| Pittsburgh 031 001 00x_5 11 0 | |
| Francis, Corpas (6), R.Flores (7), Street (8) and Olivo | Ja.McDonald, Ledezma (7), Gallagher (8), J.Thomas (8), Resop (9) and Snyder. W_Ja.McDonald 1-1. L_Francis 4-4. HRs_Pittsburgh, G.Jones (15), Cedeno (6). |
| ___ | |
| Philadelphia 000 002 002 1_5 14 0 | |
| Florida 000 000 400 0_4 7 1 | |
| (10 innings) | |
| Oswalt, J.Romero (7), Contreras (7), Baez (8), Madson (9), Lidge (10) and C.Ruiz | Volstad, Veras (6), Hensley (8), Nunez (9), Ohman (10) and R.Paulino, Hayes. W_Madson 4-1. L_Ohman 0-1. Sv_Lidge (12). HRs_Philadelphia, C.Ruiz (5). |
| ___ | |
| San Francisco 110 000 000_2 8 0 | |
| Atlanta 020 001 00x_3 6 0 | |
| Lincecum, Ja.Lopez (7) and Posey | Jurrjens, Venters (7), Saito (8), Wagner (9) and McCann. W_Jurrjens 4-4. L_Lincecum 11-5. Sv_Wagner (26). HRs_Atlanta, Ale.Gonzalez (2), Hinske (9). |
| ___ | |
| Washington 001 010 110_4 9 3 | |
| Arizona 020 230 01x_8 13 1 | |
| Detwiler, Balester (5), Batista (7), Storen (8) and Nieves | Enright, Demel (7), Vasquez (8), Heilman (9) and Hester. W_Enright 3-2. L_Detwiler 0-2. HRs_Washington, A.Kennedy (3), Zimmerman 2 (21), Bernadina (7). |
| ___ | |
| San Diego 000 300 002_5 9 0 | |
| Los Angeles 000 000 000_0 9 0 | |
| Correia, Thatcher (6), Frieri (7), Gregerson (8), H.Bell (8) and Torrealba | Billingsley, Jansen (7), Sherrill (8), Dotel (9) and A.Ellis. W_Correia 8-7. L_Billingsley 9-6. Sv_H.Bell (31). HRs_San Diego, Denorfia (7). |
After backing Mexico's ongoing battle against drug cartels, President Barack Obama is heading to a Western Hemisphere summit with a sudden spotlight on Cuba.
The president was to fly Friday to the island of Trinidad for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas, a gathering to which Cuba, as the region's only non-democracy, is not invited. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a staunch ally of Cuba's communist government, vowed to torpedo a final summit communique in protest at the country's exclusion.
But Obama's move this week to ease travel and some other restrictions for Cuban-Americans brought an unprecedented reply from Havana. Raul Castro, who took over from his ailing brother, Fidel, a year ago, offered to talk to the Obama administration about all outstanding grievances.
Speaking from a meeting Chavez hosted in Venezuela, Raul Castro declared: "We have sent word to the U.S. government in private and in public that we are willing to discuss everything _ human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything."
Previously, Cubans had insisted their domestic politics were their own business. Administration officials were trying to determine what to make of the development.
On Tuesday, Obama lifted limits on visits by Americans with relatives in Cuba, eased restrictions on family gifts and cash payments, and moved to allow U.S. telecom companies to expand service to the island.
But the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo remained in place, despite pleas from U.S. allies that it's counterproductive.
"The embargo has been there long before we were even born," Mexican President Felipe Calderon said. "And yet things have not changed all that much in Cuba."
After talks with Calderon during a pre-summit stop in Mexico, Obama told reporters that further easing depends on Havana sending "signals that they're interested in liberalizing."
He also sounded a note of caution. "A relationship that effectively has been frozen for 50 years is not going to thaw overnight," he said.
Chavez said the summit's final statement and its call for greater democracy reflected American hypocrisy.
"I have no doubt there's more democracy in Cuba," he jeered.
Aides said Obama doesn't plan to meet with Chavez during a summit session, but if the fiery leftist approaches him, Obama would likely engage in polite conversation.
Obama said the gathering, being hosted by the two-island country of Trinidad and Tobago off Venezuela's coast, "offers the opportunity of a new beginning" in the region. And he expected the major focus to be on the global economic crisis, which has America's Latin American neighbors reeling as their prime export markets shut down.
The summit will aim to "jump-start job creation, promote free and fair trade, and develop a coordinated response to this economic crisis," Obama said.
The president's brief stop in Mexico was a chance to talk about trade and immigration with Calderon, but also was a visible show of support for the Mexican's crackdown on drug trafficking. In the two years since it began, more than 10,000 Mexicans have perished as regional cartels target each other and Mexican security forces with contract killings and kidnappings.
Obama lamented the bloodshed, saying it's been "sowing chaos in our communities and robbing so many of a future both here in Mexico and in the United States."
But he said America must do its part to help stop it.
"A demand for drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business," he said. "This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States."
That said, Obama acknowledged he's unlikely to get Congress to reimpose the Clinton-era ban on assault-style weapons that he favored as a candidate, and which Calderon has urged to help stanch the flow of arms to Mexican drug traffickers.
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On the Net:
Summit of the Americas: http://www.summit-americas.org
Thousands of war-weary refugees set out on foot for their homes in eastern Congo on Friday, taking advantage of a cease-fire as American and U.N. envoys joined efforts there to find a political solution to the region's long-running rebellion.
Troops from Laurent Nkunda's renegade movement manned checkpoints outside Goma, the eastern provincial capital where they halted their advance Wednesday and called the truce after an upsurge of fighting this week. He said he wanted the cease-fire to allow humanitarian help to get through and refugees to go home.
Tens of thousands of people who fled their homes to get away from the battlefront between Congo's army and the rebels have sought shelter where they could, scattered around the region, trying to keep their families together.
The U.N. refugee agency said it was getting reports that 50,000 people have been forced out of refugee camps and settlements in rebel-held areas near the town of Rutshuru in recent days.
The uprooted were in "desperate need of help," the agency chief Antonio Guterres said in Geneva, Switzerland.
Associated Press reporters followed the flood of misery, past bodies of several soldiers on the outskirts of the besieged capital. Women whose faces streamed with sweat carried bundles of belongings on their backs and toddlers on their necks.
"We've had nothing to eat for three days," Rhema Harerimana, who has been on the run for five days, told the AP. She was heading home Friday to Kibumba, about 17 miles (28 kilometers) from Goma.
"There's no shelter, there's no food," she said. "My only choice is to go home."
Nkunda's rebellion has threatened to reignite the back-to-back wars that afflicted Congo from 1996 to 2002, drawing in eight African nations. President Joseph Kabila, elected in 2006 in the first vote in 40 years, has struggled ever since to contain the bloody insurgency in the east.
Nkunda, who said Thursday that he wanted direct talks with the Congo government, began a low-level rebellion in 2004, claiming Congo's transition to democracy had excluded the Tutsi ethnic group. Despite agreeing in January to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, he resumed fighting in August.
He alleges the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis in 1994.
Congo has charged Nkunda himself with involvement in war crimes, and Human Rights Watch says it has documented summary executions, torture, and rape committed by soldiers under Nkunda's command in 2002 and 2004.
Rights groups have also accused government forces of atrocities and widespread looting.
The top U.S. envoy for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, and Alan Doss, the top U.N. envoy in Congo, flew into Goma on Friday to try to help. One of the aims of the diplomatic efforts is to get Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame to sit down together and sort out the issues at the root of the conflict.
Frazer and Doss were met by Goma's governor, Julien Mpaluku, along with government ministers and local officials. The peacekeepers also put on an unusual show of force, with at least four tanks deployed around the city, armored cars on patrol as well as U.N. troops with riot shields patrolling on foot.
France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband were to leave immediately for Congo and were expected to go to Goma as well as the Congo capital, Kinshasa. The Foreign Office said Miliband would also go to Rwanda.
The cease-fire Nkunda called on Wednesday night appeared to be holding Friday morning.
A team from International Medical Corps trying to reach a clinic in Kibumba was stopped by a rebel guard who said he needed permission from higher-up to let them pass. Two hours later, the team was still waiting.
Nearby, rebels refused to allow a group of about 20 drivers of motorbike taxis to return home to Goma.
"Those new soldiers have blocked us from returning," said driver Ruwara Nuyubuzu, referring to the rebels manning a checkpoint. "We want to go home."
In Kibumba, soldiers had looted homes and the bank, said village chief Gatambaza Kariwabo.
The United Nations has only 6,000 of its 17,000 Congo peacekeepers in the east because of unrest in other provinces. It says the force is badly overstretched, but European nations were sharply divided Thursday over whether to send troops to Congo.
A half-mile (kilometer) outside Kibumba, there was an abandoned U.N. peacekeeping camp that days ago was filled with Indian troops. The road into Kibumba was blocked by three red Coca-Cola crates and a band of rebels whose commander said reporters must wait to get permission to take photographs.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters in New Delhi, urged all sides to respect the cease-fire. He also said he was concerned about attacks on U.N. workers by Congolese who accused them of not protecting the population.
This comes from a purely, some purely misunderstandings from them," Ban said. "United Nations is there to keep peace and stability."
I am in Egypt, aren't I?
I mean, there's at a pyramid just down the street.
And there's the Sahara over there.
Of course, there is also a billboard nearby advertising the"Thunder From Down Under," which is the name for the six Australianguys wearing grins and jockstraps and now performing their art atsome local hotel.
And workers in another hotel are running around in togas andolive wreaths.
And last night there was a volcano erupting along the boulevard.
And I'm looking right this moment at a Martian with desiccatedFrosty-Whip hair screaming into a microphone, singing the words to"Chicago," like a demented Frank Sinatra impersonator.
But it's only Don King.
Which means this could be no other place than the dear old USA,Vegas-style.
King is actually responding to a question I threw at him, as hesits on the dais at the MGM Grand Hotel, linked via phone andloudspeaker and frighteningly strong vocal cords to WBC heavyweightchampion Oliver McCall, who is in London promoting his Septemberrematch with Frank Bruno.
What I asked King was this: "Ask Oliver if he misses Chicago."(McCall being a Chicagoan, and me just wanting to make idle chatterwith a local guy.)
McCall said over the phone he would make his next fight a titlefight against, "hopefully," Mike Tyson, in none other than Chicago atComiskey Park, "because I've been dreaming my whole life to fight athome."
And then King went off.
"The Windy City, here we come!" he bellowed. "Wind blowing offLake Erie. At the United Center! My kind of town! Chicago needsthe lamp relit!" Etc.
And then the Sinatra stuff.
The fact that both Tyson and McCall are King fighters certainlydidn't dampen King's enthusiasm and voice. A Chicago title fight isa doubtful thing - unless it's held aboard a riverboat in theSanitation Canal - but a matchup of Tyson and somebody who actuallycan fight will happen sooner rather than later, somewhere.
Though not here Saturday night.
Tyson's opponent for his second fight, Nov. 6, is supposedlyBuster Mathis Jr., who allegedly owns the United States BoxingAssociation heavyweight title.
Most people might confuse Mathis with the guy who retired yearsago and opened a chain of weight-loss salons with former pudgy champJames Douglas, calling the establishments "Fat-Busters."
Instead, this is his son. And Tyson is set to mop up any greasespilled by any of the crown holders in any of the many boxingorganizations.
And as he comes out now for the official prefight weigh-in, inthe actual ring in which he will flatten a fine young side of beefknown as Peter McNeeley in 48 hours, Tyson looks somber as anexecutioner.
This fight coming up, Tyson's first in more than four years, isnot really even a test.
Just the thoughts of metal doors clanging shut for so many daysand nights should provide enough juice for him to swiftly escortMcNeeley to the avenue of broken dreams.
But then there's the actual person himself, McNeeley, front andcenter.
Smiling, the happy lad from Massachusetts strips to his whitebriefs, tips in at 224 pounds, waves to the crowd, flexes, spins toshow his soon-to-be-canvas-covered back, and reveals that he has hisdrawers on inside out.
Oh, please.
McNeeley has a 36-1 record over opponents who, at fight time,differed from corpses only in their (allegedly) measurable pulses.
One McNeeley victim hadn't fought in 10 years. Another hadnever won a fight. One came into his bout with a 1-9 record and wasknown as "The Fighting Mortician."
And McNeeley's final tune-up before the big event?
A one-round TKO in April over a body named Frankie Hines,possessor of 63 losses, including 11 in a row.
But here's Tyson now in red undies, 220 pounds of muscle andfresh tattoos, surprising even moderator Al Bernstein, by blowingglaringly past him and off-stage.
Tyson's a serious destroyer.
Soon McNeeley will have a scrapbook to remind him of such.
In Tyson's vacuum, Don King comes forward to take the limelightand talk the talk. Work the room.
This fight is a joke. Everybody knows it.
But my goodness, the wind.
Rick Telander's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday andFriday.
Rev. Jesse Jackson is going to Washington next month to lead a Rainbow/PUSH march on behalf of organizations from all over the United States With him will be students from 200 colleges and universities.
Once again, the nation's master of mobilizing people on behalf of honorable causes will invoke justice through public action; this time to protect affirmative action in our educational institutions.
In the grand sweep of history, peaceful protest has been mostly ineffective. History gives us no indication that pyramid builders got relief from the Pharaoh by protesting the onerous labor required to lift those blocks of rocks or that Rome's leaders obeyed citizens shouting "Down with Caesar."
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, workers suffered from billy club-wielding police officers while on strike for better pay from factory owners.
Progress and justice in the United States come from our legislative halls and high courts, where the blessings of law are rendered, where reason and devotion to Constitutional ideals are observed.
On April 1, Rev. Jackson and his followers will march at the very center of our source of American justice, the U.S. Supreme Court, as it hears arguments in a case against the University of Michigan that would cripple affirmative action in admissions of minority students.
Rev. Jackson said last week that a decision against the university is the most significant threat to civil rights in our lifetime.
The civil rights leader is heir to history's greatest civil rights genius, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., one whose public action and moral stature in less than a decade transformed American civil rights law.
Rev. Jackson's leadership of thousands to the ultimate sanctuary of American law in the nation's capital is in itself a stroke of genius. It dramatizes in the form of living witnesses those principles for which Rev. King gave his life.
Were the court to rule in favor of those who are trying to eviscerate America's affirmative action admissions policy, it would reduce higher education to old, primitive levels.
Rev. Jackson believes that were the high court to destroy the affirmative action principle, the results could be catastrophic. Rules that give women college athletes equal access to sports under Title IX could end, and even racially balanced voting districts could be abolished.
Some day the need for affirmative action in college admissions will itself be history. Until then, the high court must not deal a fatal blow to a popular and effective American policy that's exercised in the halls of academe, that enriches our nation and that advances the very purpose of education itself, to enlighten the entire populace.
During an hour in which vocal protesters are wringing their hands about a Washington war policy which they call failed in retrospect, Rev. Jackson is acting with vision about the future, not with complaints and lament about questionable past policy.
His Washington march has a goal. It is based on a conceptual framework into which he leads serious thinkers and dedicated activists who insist that the future not be damaged for millions of minority students by a court decision that would itself become failed policy.
Article copyright REAL TIMES Inc.
LONDON (AP) — Prince William and Kate Middleton will soon have company on the royal wedding calendar. Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday that Zara Phillips, Queen Elizabeth II's eldest granddaughter, is engaged.
Phillips, an accomplished equestrian, said she was shocked but "very happy" that her rugby-playing boyfriend Mike Tindall had proposed.
No date has been set yet. Phillips is close friends with her cousin, Prince William, who plans to marry Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29. Their engagement was announced last month.
Phillips, 29, is 12th in line to the throne.
The 32-year-old Tindall has played 66 times for England and was in the team that won the 2003 World Cup. It was during the tournament that he first met Phillips in a Sydney bar. Tindall plays for club side Gloucester and is still a regular in the national side.
The palace said in a statement that the couple got engaged Monday evening at their home in western England.
In a statement, Phillips said she was "really shocked when Mike proposed but I am very happy."
Tindall said: "I am delighted that Zara has agreed to marry me. We are both very excited about the next stage of our lives together."
Buckingham Palace said the queen and her husband Prince Philip "are delighted with the news."
Phillips, the daughter of Princess Anne, has won medals in world equestrian championships and was once voted BBC sports personality of the year — as was her mother, who shares her loves of horses.
She was due to compete at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but pulled out of the competition because of an injury to her horse.
The marriage between Princess Anne and Phillips' father, Mark Phillips, ended in divorce in 1992. Princess Anne has since remarried.
Zara Phillips and her older brother Peter are among the most low-profile members of the royal family, and the only ones among the queen's eight grandchildren not to hold royal titles. Princess Anne turned down her mother's offer of the honors for her children.
As soon as the engagement was announced, bookies began taking bets on the date and venue.
August was the early favorite, with St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle the odds-on venue. Zara's brother, Peter, married his wife Autumn there two years ago.
A man ejected from a pub in Australia broke into a zoo and climbed onto the back of a crocodile named Fatso, which bit him on the leg but then let him go. Police say they're surprised the croc didn't inflict worse damage.
The 36-year-old man, who police said had just been thrown out of a pub for being drunk, told officials he scaled the barbed wire fence surrounding the Broome Crocodile Park in remote northwest Australia on Monday night because he wanted to give the 16-foot (5 meter) Fatso a pat.
"He has attempted to sit on its back and the croc has taken offense to that and has spun around and bit him on the right leg," Broome Police Sgt. Roger Haynes said.
The saltwater crocodile then inexplicably let the man go, and he climbed back over the fence to safety, police said.
The man, who was a tourist from eastern Australia and whose name was not released, suffered some "very nasty lacerations" and was taken to a hospital, Haynes said.
"Saltwater crocodiles ... once they get hold of you, are not renowned for letting you go," Haynes said. "He's lucky to have escaped with his life."
Saltwater crocodiles are the world's largest reptile and can grow up to 23 feet (7 meters). They have become increasingly common in Australia's tropical north since hunting that almost extinguished the species was banned in 1971.
DENVER (AP) — At the Ohio Department of Mental Health, Christy Murphy's days are filled with calls from people seeking help she can't seem to give.
They plead with her, but budget cuts have trimmed services so much that she is not sure where to send them.
The desperation on the other end of the line hits painfully close to home for Murphy. Her 19-year-old son, Christopher, suffers from a range of mental problems, including one that's linked to a short-tempered, hostile attitude. Although he has coverage through Medicaid, he can't get the services he needs. His mother says he has no psychiatrist, no case manager and no medication.
"I think it's 100 percent about money," said Murphy, who lives in Columbus with her son.
An onslaught of budget cuts has hit mental health services in states struggling to weather economic woes. Even in better times, help could be hard to find. Now, just as demand is soaring, billions of dollars in cuts have shuttered facilities, prolonged waiting times to get services and purged countless patients from the rolls.
"We're getting some epidemic-proportion demands for services," said Mary Ruiz, chief executive at the Manatee Glens mental health facility in Bradenton, Fla., which has had to cut charity care for the indigent by $2 million a year.
State mental health funding was on a steady upward trajectory for three decades until the Great Recession hit in 2007. Over the last two fiscal years, states have cut a combined $1.8 billion from the public mental health system, according to a recent report by the National Alliance for Mental Illness, an advocacy group that tracks mental health spending in all 50 states.
All of this comes as experts see the dueling economic stresses of job losses and home foreclosures escalating depression, anxiety and suicide. Nine state mental health agencies have reported increased emergency-room visits for psychiatric care since the recession began, and five more reported higher suicide rates, the state mental health association reported.
The cuts have hit every aspect of state behavioral health systems, which served 6.4 million people nationwide in 2009, according to the most current federal government statistics. Only four states made no cuts to mental health services between fiscal 2009 and the fiscal year that will end in 2012, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. As states face the end of federal stimulus spending, mental health advocates expect the situation to get much worse this year and next.
"I'm begging for help. Begging. And there's no one who can help me," said Sandra Roskilly of Denver, whose 15-year-old son Gregory left the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan when its children's ward was shuttered last year due to budget cuts.
Roskilly's son has returned home, where his grandmother has moved in to help care for him. But she worries the boy is getting worse without residential treatment, sometimes breaking furniture and shoving his grandmother. She wonders aloud if he might pose a threat to others without the proper care.
"What's going to happen when he kills somebody?" she remembers asking a doctor.
Mental health advocates often say every dollar cut from their budgets ends up being spent elsewhere, particularly in prisons. In some instances, violent crimes involving the mentally ill have raised new questions about the risks of funding cuts.
An Idaho man released from a state mental health program faces felony charges after a shooting last year that wounded a man walking out of a coffee shop. Emergency room nurses from Ohio to Vermont have reported being attacked by patients seeking psychiatric services in recent years.
In Arizona, 22-year-old Jared Loughner caught the attention of staff and administrators at his community college and was told he could not return until he had been evaluated by a mental health professional. There is no indication the man who is charged in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and shot six others to death ever sought such services.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, whose adult son is mentally ill, took office in January 2009 as an advocate for mental health and persuaded lawmakers to restore $18 million in proposed midyear budget cuts to social programs, including behavioral health.
But two years later, tough times have led Brewer to call for dropping 280,000 people from Medicaid coverage, including an estimated 5,000 adults with serious mental illnesses. Over the past two years, Arizona cut counseling, case management and virtually all other services except medication for an estimated 14,000 mentally ill patients.
More than half the states surveyed by the state mental health association have cut staff at state mental health agencies and reduced funding for community mental health services. Of those, almost half closed state mental hospitals or wards. Nationwide, states closed 2,158 beds for mentally ill patients over the last three years, and another 1,772 beds may be closed next year to meet budget cuts, the organization says.
In Colorado, staffing at state mental health hospitals is so short that the state no longer complies with federal Medicaid and Medicare funding rules, putting some $14 million at risk for next fiscal year.
Colorado lawmakers responded by adding enough money to hire five nurses at two mental-health hospitals. Budget writers said they would have liked to add twice as many nurses, but the money was not available.
"They are so severely understaffed it has become a serious safety issue for patients and caregivers," Colorado state Sen. Mary Hodge said.
Texas ranks near the bottom in per-capita mental health spending, one of nine states that spend $66 or less per person, and officials there have proposed cutting an additional $134 million in mental health services in the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years.
Those cuts could mean immediately halting behavioral health services for thousands, even though Texas sheriffs have complained the cuts would mean more mentally unstable people ending up in county jails.
"Mental health is right down there at the bottom of the priority list, it seems," said Colleen Horton, policy program director for the Hogg Foundation at the University of Texas-Austin, which advocates for mental health services in that state.
In Ohio, funding for state mental health programs was reduced in the current budget from about $1.1 billion to just over $900 million. A separate agency that specializes in combatting alcohol and drug addiction had its budget cut by 30 percent.
Dick Paterson of Brunswick Hills, Ohio, grows emotional when he talks of the effects of cuts in Ohio. His 39-year-old son suffers from schizoaffective disorder and has lived a life marked by hospitalizations and imprisonments, relapses and stabilizations, violent outbursts and suicide attempts.
Three years ago, Paterson and his wife Marlene found their son a place at a mental health facility operated out of a townhouse about 100 miles away. The staff has kept him on his medication, away from other drugs and in the best state he's been in years.
The Patersons worry the facility could be the target of further budget cuts. They don't know where their son would go if that happened.
"I don't know what price tag you put on a human soul," Dick Paterson said.
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Online: http://www.nami.org/budgetcuts
After 102 years, this lady radiates
When Georgia Price Deskins made her entry into the world, African Americans were called race people. She has lived to be called colored, Negro, Black and African American. But what does she call herself - just plain lucky to be alive.
Born 102 years ago in Birmingham Alabama, Mrs. Deskins, who has lived through three centuries, made a career of serving her family and community.
Her service work has been recognized by President Bill Clinton and Mayor Richard M. Daley in addition to numerous awards and certificates from her church, Olivet Baptist Church, 3101 S. Martin Luther King Drive, where she has been a member for many …
Here we go with Boston's second unit again.
Rasheed Wallace blocking shots. Nate Robinson making jumpers and running 10 rows up the stands to chase loose balls. Glen Davis setting monster-sized screens. Tony Allen knocking down shots.
The subs were the key to Boston's Game 4 win, and they're why the Celtics are up 30-22 so far in Game 5.
___
Math 101, NBA finals style.
First 10 minutes of the game in the books. Celtics shooting 67 percent. Lakers shooting 33 percent.
Celtics lead by only two.
Lakers have a 5-0 lead in free throws made, which helps. But you know that disparity is going to close, by a lot, …
Byline: Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Feb. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- After Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a press conference yesterday that the U.S. military had never lied and would not lie in the future, scholars who study the military responded today that the Pentagon often uses the banner of national security to mislead the general public and even to require soldiers to lie to each other.
Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, and a former scientific advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations, told researchers at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara that it can be difficult to distinguish between justified and unjustified deception. "I think the problem we see a lot in the Pentagon these days," he said, "is that many people have the sense that what they are doing is for the good of the country and therefore it's …
Byline: Carol Coogan - Special to the Times Union
The greenery of conifers and the intricate patterns of bare branches do much to help me offset this gloomy edge of winter. But it is the appearance of the seasoned sycamore that stops me in my tracks, demanding attention. Knowledge of its deep, moisture-seeking roots, indicating the past and present path of water, also intrigues me.
Aged sycamores continuously shed their bark. Standing in stark contrast to other trees around it, mottled camouflage patches of pale brown, yellow, green and gray peel off in thin brittle sheets, exposing a distinctly smooth and bright white trunk underneath. From its branches …
Byline: MAUREEN KELLY - Staff writer
Cape Breton was coming off two consecutive nights of overtime when it entered Sunday's game with the Adirondack Red Wings.
But the Wings couldn't take advantage of the fatigued Oilers, despite pushing them into yet another extra period of hockey as the two teams skatedto a 3-3 tie before a crowd of 3,790 at the Glens Falls Civic Center.
With Portland notching a 6-1 win over Rochester, the Wings and Pirates are now tied for first place with 89 points.
"Tonight was like pushing a barrel uphill," said Adirondack coach Newell Brown. "We didn't have any jump. We were soft around the puck and that is very …
A gunman barricaded the back door of a community center with his car and then opened fire on a room full of immigrants taking a citizenship class, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide, officials said.
Investigators said they had yet to establish a motive for Friday's massacre, which was at least the fifth deadly mass shooting in the U.S. in the past month alone.
The attack came just after 10 a.m. local time at the American Civic Association, which helps immigrants with citizenship, resettlement and family reunification in Binghamton, a city of about 47,000 situated 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of New York City.
Police …
As campaign teams gear up for next year's electoral battles, one component of any strategy should be public opinion polling. But some candidates and groups resist this extremely helpful tool.
Leadership
The strongest resistance to public opinion polling is the notion that elected leaders should lead the American people, not follow them. When campaign consultants propose polling, political candidates are most likely to say that they know what the people want, and they do not need a poll to tell them what policies they should support or oppose.
Leading, rather than following, public opinion is a very strong argument, one often cited by Arianna Huffmgton, political …
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IS CALLING FOR MEMBER NATIONS TO implement a mandatory environmental inspection program for major industrial facilities, including chemical plants. The proposed directive would require each nation to implement standardized inspections defined by the European Union to ensure that the 15 EU nations are meeting environmental targets.
The parliament recently voted to reject a voluntary standardized inspection process proposed by the European Commission. Parliament argues that a voluntary enforcement program would not guarantee compliance with EU targets or allow EU officials to effectively monitor member nations' progress. The mandatory process …
A week after Hurricane Fran smacked into the North Carolina coast, estimated insured property losses from the storm stand at $1.6 billion.
In releasing the estimate, the Property Claims Service of the New York-based American Insurance Services Group Inc. said it expects the insurance industry to receive about 500,000 Fran-related claims.
Property damage was reported in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The bulk of the claims for Fran losses - 350,000 - will come from North Carolina, PCS estimated.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Hortense turned north Wednesday into the Atlantic, having already crashed across Puerto Rico, the …
Byline: ANDREW TILGHMAN Staff writer
Albany In an interview with the diocesan newspaper, Bishop Howard Hubbard spoke in depth the first time this year about the sexual abuse scandal.
``It's been a year of horrendous pain. Pain in realizing more fully how deeply victims have been hurt and their families affected,'' Hubbard said in an extensive interview with The Evangelist Editor James Breig. The weekly paper, with a circulation of more than 56,000, was distributed Thursday.
The bishop discussed the toll the 14-month scandal had taken on ``the members of our faith community'' and on himself. He said he had lost 25 pounds, and he lamented the …
Byline: Combined wire services
U.S. peace activists took to the nation's streets Monday, decrying the prospect of a Persian Gulf war in public outbursts not seen since the Vietnam era.
National anti-war activists said most of the demonstrations were spontaneous, outracing the ability of a fledgling national anti-war movement to coordinate them. Instead, a patchwork of unconnected, grass- roots demonstrations took place in some big cities, largely in response to Saturday's congressional vote granting President Bush authorization to attack Iraq after today.
In Chicago, for example, as many as 3,000 anti-war demonstrators protested for three hours at the Federal Building plaza, blocking morning rush-hour traffic. Police said …
A jury sentenced a Nevada man to death Wednesday for raping and killing a college coed after sexually assaulting two others in a string of attacks that had the city of Reno on edge for most of 2008.
The same jury that convicted James Biela, 28, last week deliberated for about nine hours before reaching a unanimous verdict to execute him by lethal injection for the 2008 rape and strangulation of Brianna Denison, 19.
Her family members burst into tears and Biela stared straight ahead as the sentence was read aloud in Washoe County District Court. Biela's sentence will be automatically appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.
The pipe fitter and ex-Marine …
HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — Josimar Ayarza scored 18 points to lead four players in double figures as Southern Mississippi rolled to a 94-41 victory over Spring Hill on Saturday night.
D.J. Newbill added 15 points and had 11 rebounds, Gary Flowers scored 14 points and Maurice Bolden added 12 points for the Eagles (4-0).
Southern Miss has won 17 consecutive games against Spring Hill (1-3), an NAIA program that counted the game as an …
Byline: Rotman School of Management
TORONTO, Sept. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- A $2-million gift from Canadian media and entertainment company Corus Entertainment will fund a chair in communications strategy at the University of Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management. The company will also fund a scholarship at the Rotman School in memory of late Toronto businesswoman Judy Elder, who died in March.
The chair, known as the Corus Entertainment Chair in Communications Strategy, will investigate the recent trends towards convergence in the Canadian media and how, in the emerging knowledge economy, there is a critical need for Canadian media companies to look beyond their own borders and compete globally. Helping Canada understand …
