Current Events (NEWS)

[yudansha]

Japanese elementary school boy bullies classmate for one million yen

TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese sixth grader bullied a classmate into giving him over one million yen ($12,000 Cdn) over several years so he and his friends could buy video games, fishing gear and snacks, an official said Tuesday.

The 11-year-old student at a public school in western Tokyo had been squeezing cash out of his classmate since they were in the third grade, said Shigeru Sakurai, a member of the Kiyose Board of Education overseeing the boys' school.

The parents of the victim, also 11, grew suspicious after noticing a large sum of money had been withdrawn from a bank account they seldom used, Sakurai said.

He said he didn't know how much was withdrawn from the account. The national Asahi newspaper reported that the parents saw footage from the bank's security camera, which showed their son and the group taking out money - amounting to a total of 950,000 yen ($11,500 Cdn) - from their account through an ATM.

The parents then contacted the police.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said they hadn't announced any information on the case and couldn't comment.

The victim had also been bullied in other ways, such as having his sports clothes and lunch bag thrown into the garbage. Other students also forced him to do their homework.

His mother talked to his teacher about the harassment, but his teacher says he doesn't remember the conversation, Sakurai, the education board official, said.

Bullying has been consistent problem for Japanese schools. In recent years, truancy has been on the rise as greater numbers of students have been skipping school to avoid bullying, peer pressure and stress from exams.

© The Canadian Press, 2004

 

[yudansha]

No response to bullies I see... that's too bad...

Val Kilmer, Freddie Prinze Jr. to shoot 10th & Wolf in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A little bit of South Philadelphia is coming to the Steel City.

Actor Val Kilmer poses at the Bryant Park Hotel in New York, in this 2003 file photo. (AP/Jim Cooper)​

Starting in September for eight weeks, Val Kilmer and Freddie Prinze Jr. will be shooting 10th & Wolf. The movie is a Mafia tale about a South Philadelphia family and is based on actual events.

Suzanne DeLaurentiis, the film's producer, said most of scenes would be shot in and around downtown. She last worked in Pittsburgh in 2000, on the movie Out of the Black.

"It was fabulous. I just love Pittsburgh," DeLaurentiis told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently.

10th & Wolf, directed by Robert Moresco, also will feature James Marsden, Lesley Ann Warren and rocker Tommy Lee.

© The Canadian Press, 2004

 

[yudansha]

Chess great Bobby Fischer appeals Japanese deportation order; seeks asylum

"Searching for Bobby Fischer"! Wow, I guess the movie finally could have a good conclusion. I wonder if they will release it on DVD with an updated ending.

TOKYO (AP) - Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has appealed Japanese plans to deport him to the United States and hopes to find political asylum in a third country, a friends said Wednesday.

Fischer was detained by Japanese immigration officials last week after trying to leave the country for the Philippines. Officials say his passport was invalid, and on Tuesday confirmed that he was being processed for deportation.

Fischer is wanted in the United States for playing a rematch against Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992. Yugoslavia was under international sanctions at the time, and U.S. citizens were banned from doing business there.

Fischer won the match and some $4 million Cdn in prize money.

Fischer rocketed to fame in the United States at the height of the Cold War when he defeated Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1972.

His genius for chess was quickly overshadowed by his eccentric behaviour, however. He lost his title as world champion in 1978 and then largely vanished from the public eye.

He has also become a severe critic of his own country, having praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and saying the United States deserves to be "wiped out."

After visiting Fischer in custody at Tokyo's Narita Airport, Miyoko Watai, of the Japan Chess Association, said Wednesday Fischer was appealing the deportation.

Watai, a longtime friend of Fischer's, said he was also hoping to find political asylum in a third country. She refused to provide any further details, however.

"There is no other way," she said. "Otherwise, he will be sent back to the United States."

Watai said Fischer is now looking for a lawyer. She said he was "a pathetic sight" in custody, but refused to disclose what else they discussed during their 30-minute meeting.

Immigration officials have refused to comment on Fischer's case, other than to confirm he was taken into custody and faces deportation. When that might happen remains unclear. Requests by The Associated Press to meet with Fischer have been denied.

"It is a race against time," Watai said. "We are fighting this from morning to night."

ERIC TALMADGE; © The Canadian Press, 2004

 

[yudansha]

The ultimate drug?

LONDON - Scientists are testing the implanted drug Melanotan, an artificial hormone that causes users to develop a tan in three weeks by increasing the amount of melanin in the skin.

Even better, the drug's side-effects include weight loss and it's also said to be an effective treatment for impotence and erectile dysfuntion.

Epitan, the manufacturer of Melanotan, says the tan lasts for three months and the durg is intended to protect fair-skinned people against sunburn.

 

[Littledragon]

Video shows 9/11 hijackers at airport.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/21/attacks.surveillance.video.ap/index.html

This image taken from the surveillance video shows one of the hijackers pulled aside after setting off the metal detector.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Surveillance video from Washington Dulles International Airport the morning of September 11, 2001, shows four of the five hijackers being pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after setting off metal detectors but then permitted to board the fateful flight that crashed into the Pentagon.

The video shows an airport screener hand-checking the baggage of one hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, for traces of explosives before letting him continue onto American Airlines Flight 77 with his brother, Salem, a fellow hijacker.

The disclosure of the video comes one day before the release of the final report by the September 11 commission, which is expected to include a detailed accounting of the events that day.

Details in the grainy video are difficult to distinguish. But an earlier report by the commission describing activities at Dulles is consistent with the men's procession through airport security as shown on the video.

No knives or other sharp objects are visible on the surveillance video. But investigators on the commission have said the hijackers at Dulles were believed to be carrying utility knives either personally or in their luggage, which at the time could legally be carried aboard planes.

All 58 passengers -- including the hijackers -- and six crew members, along with 125 employees at the Pentagon, died when the flight crashed into the Pentagon at 9:39 a.m. on September 11, 2001.

The video shows hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Majed Moqed, each dressed conservatively in slacks and collared shirts, setting off metal-detectors as they pass through security. Moqed set off a second alarm, and a screener manually checked him with a handheld metal detector.

The pair were known to travel together previously and had paid cash to purchase their tickets aboard Flight 77 on September 5, 2001, at the American Airlines counter at Baltimore's airport.

Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been known to be associated with al Qaeda since early 1999 by the National Security Agency, and were put on a terrorism watch list on August 24, 2001.

Only Hani Hanjour, believed to have been the hijacker who piloted Flight 77, did not set off a metal detector as he passed through Dulles security that morning, according to the video.

Moments after Hanjour passed alone through the security checkpoint, wearing dark slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, the final two hijackers, the al-Hazmi brothers, walked through the checkpoint.

Nawaf al-Hazmi, described by investigators as the right-hand accomplice of hijacker-planner Mohammed Atta, set off two metal-detectors, and a screener manually checked him with a handheld device.

Nawaf and his brother, each wearing slacks and Oxford shirts, were directed to a nearby counter, where they appeared to examine their tickets while another screener checked Nawaf's carryon bag with an explosive trace detector. Each was cleared to board Flight 77.

The Associated Press obtained the video from the Motley Rice law firm, which is representing some survivors' families who are suing the airlines and security industry over their actions in the September 11 attacks.

"Even after setting off these alarms, the airlines and security screeners failed to examine the hijackers' baggage, as required by federal regulations and industry mandated standards, or discover the weapons they would use in their attack," lawyer Ron Motley said.

Elaine Teague, one of the family members suing over the death of her 31-year-old daughter, Sandra, said she had previously been shown the footage by the FBI. But the terrorists' faces had been digitally disguised.

Teague said she was surprised at how relaxed security was, given that airlines had received three warnings from the Federal Aviation Administration. One such warning, issued in June 2001, cited "unconfirmed reports that American interests may be the target of a terrorist threat from extremist groups."

 

[Littledragon]

I am so sick of this cowardness!!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/21/iraq.main/index.html

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/WORLD/meast/07/21/iraq.main/story.hostages.ap.jpg

Three masked gunmen are seen in front of a multinational group of hostages.

(CNN) -- An obscure militant group in Iraq holding six foreign truckers hostage said one man will be beheaded every three days if the truckers' employer fails to leave the country.

The six hostages -- two from Kenya, three from India and one from Egypt -- and three masked gunmen were shown in a video aired on the Arabic-language network Al Arabiya.

A spokesman for the militant group, which calls itself Black Flags, demanded that the companies or countries the men are affiliated with pull their personnel from Iraq. Kenya, India and Egypt do not have troops in Iraq.

The six work for a Kuwaiti trucking company. The militants said one hostage will be beheaded every 72 hours -- the first on Saturday -- if the demand isn't met.

It said that any Kuwaiti company that deals with Americans will be attacked by Iraqi insurgents.

In photographs given to The Associated Press, the hostages are standing behind three seated, masked gunmen.

The news was much better for a former hostage who had been taken by another militant group.

Angelo de la Cruz, a 46-year-old Filipino truck driver, was reunited with his wife and brother in the United Arab Emirates Wednesday. (Full story)

Kidnappers had threatened to behead de la Cruz, who was taken hostage on July 7, if the Philippines did not withdraw its forces from Iraq.

De la Cruz was dropped off in front of the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, a day after the Philippine government withdrew the last of its 51 humanitarian troops from Iraq.

Rumsfeld: Guard tours will not be extended
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that the United States has no plans to extend the tours of National Guard soldiers posted in Iraq past their current two-year terms.

"However, never say never. We are at war," Rumsfeld cautioned at an afternoon press conference at the Pentagon.

He also addressed criticism that the Bush administration continues to maintain too few troops in Iraq.

"Commanders on the ground are the ones that are making the recommendations," said Rumsfeld, adding that it is an "urban myth" that there is discontent inside the Pentagon over troop levels.

The secretary dismissed the disagreement between the administration's stance on troop levels and that of Republican Sen. John McCain, who has long called for more U.S. troops in Iraq, as a "difference of view."

Meanwhile north of Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol early Wednesday, according to a 1st Infantry Division spokesman, bringing the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq to 901.

The latest death came when the 1st Infantry Division soldier's Bradley fighting vehicle was hit around midnight in the city of Duluiyah, Master Sgt. Robert Powell said. The soldier was the fifth U.S. military member to be killed in the past 24 hours.

Of the 901 U.S. troops who have died in the Iraq war, 667 died in combat and 234 in non-combat incidents.

On Tuesday, two Marines and two U.S. soldiers were killed in action in Anbar province, according to coalition statements.

The Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in separate incidents during security and stability operations.

The slain soldiers were attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, the coalition said.

Sprawling Anbar province, which includes the troubled cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, has been the scene of fierce fighting.

Other developments

A huge weapons cache, including 80 mortars, 110 rockets and 123 mortar rounds, was found in western Najaf, provincial Gov. Adnan Zurufi said Wednesday. Zurufi offered a half-million Iraqi dinar reward for reliable information on weapons caches and a million dinar reward for information on terror networks in Iraq.


Four people were killed Wednesday in a car bombing in central Baghdad, authorities said. An Interior Ministry spokesman said the bomb exploded in a section of town called Baghdad Al-Jadeeda. The explosion was near a swimming facility and was not a suicide bombing, the spokesman said.


Five members of the Turkmen National Front were wounded Wednesday in a drive-by shooting in western Mosul, a Ninevah province police official said. At least three gunmen attacked the group headquarters with machine guns. Monday, a TNF political official was shot dead in Mosul.


Two Iraqi patients were killed and four were wounded Wednesday when a rocket-propelled grenade struck a hospital, according to a Health Ministry official. Saad al-Amili told CNN the RPG hit the the surgery recovery floor of the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad.


A National Guardsman just back from a tour of duty in Iraq won $143,000 a year for life on a state lottery scratch ticket, The Associated Press reported. John Morrissey, 42, told the AP that he is in bankruptcy and

 

[Littledragon]

GOP lawmaker: 9/11 reforms may be delayed.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/21/911.report/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A report by the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, is expected to recommend reforms in the U.S. intelligence structure, but any changes may have to wait until next year, a top Republican congressman said Wednesday.

The independent 9/11 commission -- formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -- is scheduled to release the final report Thursday.

Congressional sources told CNN the report outlines 10 "missed opportunities" by both the Clinton and Bush administrations to derail the suicide hijacking plot.

One source said, however, that it would take a "huge stretch of the imagination that any of these opportunities would have really happened."

Congressional leaders were briefed on the report by the commission's leaders Tuesday and Wednesday. Top White House officials were scheduled to be briefed Wednesday afternoon.

President Bush told reporters at the White House that there needs to be a "full discussion" of how to overhaul U.S. intelligence after the commission's findings are released.

But he disputed any suggestion that his administration could have done more to prevent the al Qaeda attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people

"I told the commissioners, right here in the Oval Office, that had we had any inkling whatsoever that terrorists were about to attack our country, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect America," he said.

"And I'm confident President Clinton would have done the same thing. Any president would."

Six of the missed opportunities mentioned in the report occurred during the Bush administration and four under the Clinton administration, according to a story in The Washington Post, citing an unnamed government official it said had read the report.

Officials told CNN the report will note that both Clinton and Bush took action against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but that neither administration totally appreciated the threat his al Qaeda terror network posed.

Delays could hamper reforms
Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, said it was unlikely the 9/11 attacks could have been stopped.

"This report's only of value if we use it in a positive, forward-looking way, and not try to get into meaningless blaming, who could have done what when; now that it doesn't matter," Blunt said on CNN's "American Morning."

But Blunt said that because the report was delayed for two months, any reforms it proposes are unlikely to be made until next year.

"If this would have come out in the spring, I would have hoped we could have had by Labor Day or so, some actual changes to take to the House and Senate floor and put on the president's desk," he said.

Commissioners complained that the White House and other agencies impeded access to documents, information and officials, making the two-month extension of its deadline necessary.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, said the report would include some "very realistic" recommendations.

"It's not about assigning blame, it's about preventing any future acts of terrorism to our country," Pelosi said.

She suggested that a lame-duck session could address the recommendations after the November elections.

Republican Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said the report will show "there was failure on all fronts."

"What I heard was what most of us already knew," DeLay said Tuesday. "I'm sure the report will give the details substantiating what we've all already known, that basically security is not something that can be 100 percent."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the United States was "not on war footing" before the attacks.

"The threat from terrorism was building for more than a decade; this was a threat that was emerging for quite some time," he said. "I expect that the 9/11 commission will talk about how [the] national security and counterterrorism apparatus of the United States did not evolve with that emerging, building terrorist threat."

Intelligence czar recommended
The commission is expected to recommend the creation of a new, Cabinet-level intelligence chief and major changes in "both the structure and the culture" of the FBI, a source familiar with the report said.

The nearly 600-page document criticizes Congress for not having done more over the years to exert oversight authority and correct obvious problems, the source said.

The report concludes in "sharp language" that a main reason the country was ill-prepared for the attacks is that intelligence responsibilities are spread too widely across the government, according to a source who said he had read a final draft.

The report notes there have been too many turf battles and other budget and jurisdictional fights, he said.

Congressional sources also said the report does not recommend the creation of a domestic intelligence agency, similar to Britain's MI5.

But commissioners are expected to call for a new National Counterterrorism Center that would replace the current Terrorism Threat Integration Center, according to congressional and government officials briefed on the report.

The commission feels the current center, which is charged with condensing all threat reporting in the government, is duplicative with other operations, the officials said.

The report will call for unifying government counter-terrorism efforts in this new center, they said.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, White House chief of staff Andrew Card and White House counsel Al Gonzales will be briefed on the report Wednesday afternoon, and Bush will review the full report Thursday, McClellan said.

The document will be published for sale in bookstores for $10. It will also be available online and through the Government Printing Office.

The 10-member bipartisan panel was established by Congress to investigate the events before, during and immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

John King and Elaine Quijano contributed to this report.

 

[Littledragon]

CIA secrecy at issue in beating case.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/21/cia.passaro.court/index.html

RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN) -- A federal judge agreed Wednesday to set up procedures to help keep secret what the CIA may have been doing in the mountains of Afghanistan when one of its independent contractors allegedly beat a detainee who died a day later.

David Passaro, 37, a former Green Beret on leave from a civilian job with the Special Forces command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is facing trial on four counts of assault involving assault with a dangerous weapon, resulting in serious bodily injury.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle said he would wait until after September 30 to set a trial date.

The indictment said Passaro was "a contractor working on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency" and was involved in "paramilitary activities" in the remote Kunar province in the mountains of Afghanistan when the detainee died.

Passaro's lawyers told the court they would need security clearances before Passaro would even discuss the case with them.

"He hasn't told us anything. ... We know very little about what happened," one attorney said.

The judge agreed to allow the government to set up a secure location where the defense can view sensitive evidence once it's cleared, and lawyers can work out summary statements, if necessary, to present the information in court without compromising CIA secrets.

The area where Passaro was assigned is thought to remain a haven for remnants of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The United States is still hunting terrorist leader Osama bin Laden there and elsewhere.

Boyle said he would schedule Passaro's arraignment for the week of August 2.

Passaro was working as a civilian medical specialist for the Army's Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg when he was given unpaid leave last summer to take a CIA assignment in Afghanistan.

The charges say that a month later Passaro beat a detainee with a flashlight two straight days during questioning about rocket attacks at the Asadabad base. The detainee, Abdul Wali, died the next day. The cause of his death remains unknown, which is why Passaro is charged with assault.

Passaro is being held without bail. The prosecution has argued he is a flight risk.

 

[Littledragon]

Yet another one.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/07/21/missing.jogger.ap/index.html

The last known sighting of Lori Kay Hacking was in a park Monday.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- The search for a pregnant woman who apparently vanished during a morning run was expanded Wednesday from a park and canyon into nearby neighborhoods.

Volunteers took fliers door-to-door in downtown Salt Lake City neighborhoods in their search for Lori Kay Hacking, who hasn't been seen since going for a run Monday morning.

Her tearful parents said they assume she has been abducted and pleaded on television for her safe return.

"We want to get Lori's face before the public, all over the country," her mother, Thelma Soares, told KUTV on Wednesday. "We need to find her, and we need all the eyes we can get."

More than 1,200 volunteers scoured the Memory Grove Park and City Creek Canyon area where Hacking, 27, was last seen. The canyon was searched twice Tuesday, but there were no signs of Hacking, and Thelma Soares expressed some relief that her daughter had not been found injured "or worse."

Hacking left her Salt Lake home around daybreak Monday for a run, Detective Dwayne Baird said. After she failed to show up at work later, her husband, Mark Hacking, called police, Baird said.

Her car was found parked near the front gates of the park. The car and one belonging to her husband were confiscated by police.

Police also seized items from the couple's apartment near the University of Utah. Authorities would not say what they removed, but television news footage showed paper bags, boxes and a box spring being taken from the residence.

Police impounded a large trash bin as well but would not confirm reports that investigators were examining a mattress found inside the bin. Detective Kevin Joiner said the bin was "somewhere between Memory Grove and the apartment."

Mark Hacking also was interviewed by police. "It's important that he be cleared of any suspicion from the beginning," said his father, Doug Hacking.

Doug Hacking said the couple were not having any marital problems. Mark and Lori Hacking have been married almost five years, and she learned last week that she is five weeks' pregnant.

They planned to move next week to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Mark Hacking is to attend medical school.

Among those who have assisted in the search were relatives of Elizabeth Smart, the girl who vanished from her home in 2002 and was found nine months later in a Salt Lake suburb.

 

[Littledragon]

Convicted murderer Andrea Yates hospitalized.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/21/yates.hospitalized.ap/index.html

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Andrea Yates, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her children in a bathtub three years ago, has been hospitalized because she is refusing to eat, her attorney said Tuesday night.

Her condition was unclear, attorney George Parnham told The Associated Press late Tuesday. He said he tried but was unable to visit with his client Tuesday because she wasn't coherent.

"There is apparently a determination within her that wants to put an end to this," Parnham said. "I'm not sure what type of psychiatric medications can offset the reality of what occurred and make her feel better about that."

Prison spokesman Mike Viesca said Yates was transported from the Skyview Unit to a hospital in Galveston Monday night. He said he could give no other details.

Jurors rejected Yates' insanity defense in March 2002 and found her guilty of capital murder for the June 20, 2001, drownings of three of her five children. The children ranged in age from 6 months to 7 years. Yates was not tried in the deaths of the other two children and would be eligible for parole in 2041.

The hospital did not immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press Tuesday night.

Her husband, Russell Yates, did not immediately return a phone message late Tuesday.

Parnham said he visited with Yates in May about her appeal. She seemed fine at the time, but the next time he saw her, he said she had done a "180 turnaround."

"The closer she got to the anniversary, the more thoughts she got, figuratively and literally," Parnham said. "She started losing weight, going psychotic and it's just not a good time."

Parnham said Yates is down to about 107 pounds. Her Texas driver's license lists her weight as 126 pounds. She is 5-foot-7.

Within hours of her husband leaving for work June 20, 2001, Yates called police and an ambulance to her home. She answered the door in wet clothes and told an officer what she had done.

She led the officer to a back bedroom where the four youngest children's lifeless bodies were laid out on a bed. Police later found the oldest child, Noah, 7, floating face down with his arms outstretched in the tub's murky water.

During her trial, psychiatrists testified that Yates suffered from schizophrenia and postpartum depression, but defense and prosecution expert witnesses disagreed over the severity of her illness and whether it prevented her from knowing that drowning her children was wrong -- the two requirements to be declared legally insane in Texas.

Jurors determined Yates knew it was wrong to kill her children and found her guilty.

 

[Littledragon]

Stephen Hawking revamps black hole theory.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/07/21/hawking.blackholes.ap/index.html

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says black holes, the mysterious massive vortexes formed from collapsed stars, do not destroy everything they consume but instead eventually fire out matter and energy "in a mangled form."

Hawking's radical new thinking was presented in a paper to the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin.

It capped his three-decade struggle to explain an elemental paradox in scientific thinking: How can black holes destroy all traces of consumed matter and energy, as Hawking long believed, when subatomic theory says such elements must survive in some form?

Hawking's answer is that the black holes hold their contents for eons but themselves eventually deteriorate and die. As the black hole disintegrates, they send their transformed contents back out into the infinite universal horizons from whence they came.

Previously, Hawking, 62, had held out the possibility that disappearing matter travels through the black hole to a new parallel universe -- the very stuff of most visionary science fiction.

"There is no baby universe branching off, as I once thought. The information remains firmly in our universe," Hawking said in a speech to the conference.

"I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes," he said.

"If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe, but in a mangled form, which contains the information about what you were like, but in an unrecognizable state."

At that point, the audience of about 800 people, including many of his peers, laughed.

He added, "It is great to solve a problem that has been troubling me for nearly 30 years, even though the answer is less exciting than the alternative I suggested."

In a humorous aside, Hawking settled a 29-year-old bet made with Caltech astrophysicist John Preskill, who insisted in 1975 that matter consumed by black holes couldn't be destroyed.

He presented Preskill a favored reference work "Total Baseball, The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia" after having it specially flown over from the United States.

"I had great difficulty in finding one over here, so I offered him an encyclopedia of cricket as an alternative," Hawking said, "but John wouldn't be persuaded of the superiority of cricket."

There is no baby universe branching off, as I once thought.
-- Stephen Hawking

Later, Preskill said he was very pleased to have won the bet, but added: "I'll be honest, I didn't understand the talk."

Like other scientists there, he said he looked forward to reading the detailed paper that Hawking is expected to publish next month.

Hawking pioneered the understanding of black holes -- the matter-consuming vortexes created when stars collapse -- in the mid-1970s.

He has previously insisted that the holes emit radiation but never cough up any trace of matter consumed, a view that conflicts with subatomic theory and its view that matter can never be completely destroyed.

Hawking, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University, shot to international fame with his best-selling book "A Brief History of Time," which sought to explain to a general audience the most complex aspects of how the universe works.

Despite being virtually paralyzed and wheelchair-bound with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis since his mid-20s, Hawking travels the world on speaking engagements.

He communicates by using a hand-held device to select words on his wheelchair's computer screen, then sending them to a speech synthesizer.

 

[Littledragon]

Fort preps for baby invasion.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/07/21/baby.invasion.ap/index.html

FORT CARSON, Colorado (AP) -- Officials at Fort Carson are mobilizing for a baby boom among the first soldiers who returned from Iraq earlier this year.

About 160 babies are expected in December, followed by another 140 in January, said Roycelyn Bowman, obstetrics director at the post.

More are set to follow in February and March as some soldiers get ready to deploy again to the Middle East.

"We knew as soon as the troops came back that we were going to have a population explosion," Bowman said.

They say 'He got back, and yup, now I'm pregnant!"'

Fort Carson sent 14,000 soldiers to Iraq and soldiers began returning in February. Most returned in March and April.

To accommodate all the expectant mothers, Fort Carson is holding group pregnancy education classes for the women instead of the normal one-on-one classes.

The post's Evans Army Community Hospital won't be able to handle all the births. Civilian doctors have been found to care for some of the women off-post.

 

[Littledragon]

Experts: Beheadings pervert legitimate law.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/21/beheading.background/index.html

(CNN) -- Muslim captors who behead their hostages call it execution, but many more call it murder.

And the Tuesday discovery of American Paul Johnson Jr.'s head in the freezer of a Saudi Arabian villa rekindled the horror a succession of decapitations created in recent months.

Experts on Islam and Arab culture have said the kidnappers who behead civilians likely point to the strictest interpretation of Islamic law -- Shariah -- as justification for their deeds. But several contend that comparison is not a legitimate one.

Executions are part of a judicial process. But Daniel Pearl, Paul Johnson, Nicholas Berg and Kim Sun-il were all killed, although never arrested, tried or convicted of crimes.

"It's not even a perversion of the law," said Samer Shehata of Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. "It's just a perversion because the law does not say you have to behead someone.

"It's absurd to even speak about it in [a legal context]. These are terrorists, extremists, who want to draw attention to themselves at maximum impact by gruesome images and horrific acts."

And there's another important distinction: the victim's suffering. In countries that practice beheading in the context of a legal execution, professionals carry out the act swiftly, generally with one blow, and death occurs within seconds.

But that has not been the case with some of the recent decapitations.

"It was akin to an animal being slaughtered," said Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University who saw one of the executions on a Web site. "It was literally how you slaughter sheep. ...They slit the throat (at) the two carotid arteries, and they severed the head."

Universal revulsion
The beheadings have caused revulsion in the United States, where legal execution occurs in front of limited spectators and with a ban on anything "cruel and unusual."

But experts say the recent beheadings are considered heinous in Arab and Muslim nations despite decapitation being a permissible punishment in some Middle Eastern countries.

"Many people in countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and elsewhere think that beheading -- if it is done appropriately, that is, if a person is found guilty at the end of a trial with evidence and witnesses, and [the execution] is done in a humane manner -- then it would be acceptable," said Shehata, an assistant professor of politics.

"But that is a fundamentally different scenario," he said, "than the case of Nick Berg or Paul Johnson or the South Korean, where someone just took a kitchen knife and cut somebody's head off. That is disgusting universally."

Although once allowed in France, Britain, other European countries and the state of Utah in the United States, decapitation as a punishment no longer exists in the Western world.

"I think they have chosen this form of execution because it has a terrifying effect," said Michael Doran, an expert on Islam at the Council of Foreign Relations.

"When you hear about the Irish reporter who was shot in Riyadh and then Johnson, who was beheaded, the Johnson beheading had a much greater effect than the shooting of the Irish reporter," said Doran, who teaches Near Eastern studies at Princeton University.

Criminal code, spiritual law
Beheading as an execution option remains a part of the criminal legal code in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran and Qatar, Haykel said. Only Saudi Arabia continues the practice.

However, insurgents justify the decapitations they conduct by pointing to spiritual laws, Haykel said.

"The terrorists have said ... the movement of al Qaeda represents the true Islamic state... and [they] claim the right to kill prisoners of war," said Haykel, the author of several books on Islam.

"That is consistent with Islamic law if one recognizes al Qaeda as the properly constituted head of the Islamic state," Haykel said. "It is a legitimate practice in Islamic law to behead your enemy if the ruler so deems it as a punishment that is required."

Doran concurred that the militants may be looking to Shariah to justify the brutality of the deaths.

"You can come up with a Shariah justification for it," he said, "but you can come up with a Shariah justification for a lot of things."

 

[Littledragon]

Officials raise estimate of death toll on lower WTC floors.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/21/trade.center.collapse.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal investigators analyzing evacuation patterns at the World Trade Center estimate more people than previously thought died below the areas hit by the hijacked planes.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is conducting an extensive review of the collapse of the towers. Between 567 and 610 people died below the impact floors, "somewhat higher than previously thought," lead investigator Shyam Sunder said Tuesday.

The NIST has tried to determine where people died to better understand evacuation responses and craft recommendations that would make skyscrapers safer.

The agency's interim figures estimate 1,466 building occupants died in World Trade Center Tower 1, the vast majority, 1,356 people, at or above the impact site. In Tower 2, the second to be struck, 624 office workers were killed, and only six of those were below the impact site. More than 400 emergency responders were killed in the twin towers below the impact floors.

NIST also has determined 30 other people were killed in the towers below the impact sites, without being able to say which building they were in.

Sunder said between 1,974 and 2,017 people died at or above the areas of impact, a figure slightly below previous estimates. He said the shift may be explained by the lowering death toll since the first calculations were made in 2002. NIST said it still had no information on where 17 people died.

Tallying information
The main source of information for the analysis came from 300 in-person interviews conducted by the NIST and about 800 phone interviews.

In many cases, the agency was able to use employees' building identification information to determine on which floors they worked. That information was cross-checked against survivor accounts of their evacuations.

The investigators also tallied information gleaned from press accounts and a Web site dedicated to victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The agency had previously estimated that between 16,200 and 18,600 people were in the buildings.

It also determined 18 bystanders or occupants of nearby buildings were killed.

The institute's investigation began two years ago in an effort to determine why the towers collapsed and use those lessons to recommend improvements in building codes, evacuation procedures and other standards. Its final report is due in December.

 

[Littledragon]

Inmates riot, set fires at prison.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/07/21/inmate.riot.ap/index.html


OLNEY SPRINGS, Colorado (AP) -- Several hundred prisoners rioted at a privately run prison in southern Colorado, setting fires and leaving more than a dozen people injured before it was quelled early Wednesday, authorities said.

No guards were hurt, but an inmate with multiple stab wounds was airlifted to a Pueblo hospital, where his condition was unknown, said Alison Morgan, spokeswoman for the state corrections department.

Another inmate was shot in the foot by guards using rubberized bullets to quell the five-hour riot at the medium-security Crowley County Correctional Facility.

Morgan said it started in the recreation yard late Tuesday and grew to include several hundred prisoners.

The Crowley County facility includes seven buildings on 22 acres some 50 miles east of Pueblo in the southeastern part of the state.

Four of the prison's five living units for inmates are uninhabitable because of broken windows, fire, smoke and water damage, and a vocational greenhouse burned to the ground, Morgan said.

In all, 13 inmates were taken to hospitals. Nine have been returned to the prison and four remained hospitalized, said Louise Chickering, a vice president with Nashville, Tennessee-based Corrections Corp. of America, which owns the prison.

Some inmates were treated for chest pains or existing conditions such as asthma and diabetes, Morgan said.

The prison, which opened in 1998, is designed to hold 1,152 inmates and currently has 1,125 -- 807 from Colorado, 120 from Wyoming and 198 from Washington.

More than 100 corrections officers, the corrections department's special operations team and emergency response teams from five state prisons were sent to the prison after the riot broke out. Officials were investigating whether the riot was gang-related, Morgan said.

She said investigators were interviewing inmates and planned to file charges against the riot leaders. Inmates displaced by the damage to the living units likely will be sent to other prisons around Colorado, including three operated by CCA.

CCA is the nation's largest private prison operator. Last month, it signed a contract with Colorado to house 128 maximum-security inmates at a prison it owns in Mississippi.

 

[Littledragon]

National Archives records under watchful eyes.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/21/national.archives.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pens are forbidden, pencils provided. Each scribbled piece of paper is checked, then stamped. Cell phones and jackets go into lockers. Prying eyes make sure nothing precious walks off.

Researchers digging into the nation's history at the National Archives are watched every step of the way.

Despite precautions like those, former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger somehow came away with material he wasn't supposed to have.

"The nation's record keeper" safeguards and makes available to the public -- under certain terms -- 5 billion pieces of paper, 9 million photographs and 11 million maps and aerial photographs. The items are stored at 25 buildings -- in Washington, College Park, Maryland, regional centers and presidential libraries.

For a person wanting to pore over maps, military records, historical data and more, there's an exacting procedure everyone must follow.

A person must show a photo ID, obtain a researcher ID card and fill out a form telling what they're interested in looking at and the reason.

All of that gains entry to "clean research rooms." Most research institutions, including the Library of Congress, university libraries and rare book collections, have similar facilities.

People put their own possessions into a locker and go to the research room practically empty-handed, unless they bring in some papers, which will be stamped.

Pencils and paper are provided in the rooms. Boxes filled with the requested material are waiting.

On the way out, an archives staffer looks at the pages leaving the room to make sure they fall under one of only two categories. They must either be photocopies bearing the archives' special mark, or notes taken by the researcher that are checked by a guard and stamped.

Cameras are in some research rooms, human monitors are in all.

"It's a pretty rigorous protocol and quite successful," said archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper. "We have a huge amount of material to keep track of, and we feel quite comfortable we do a good job at maintaining high standards in security and constantly reassessing standards."

Most of the information that researchers look at is declassified or unclassified. The archives takes possession of anything created by the federal government deemed permanently valuable.

"For an average user of the National Archives who is looking at declassified historical records, the facility has a stringent set of regulations to ensure that these original documents are not damaged, marked on and can't leave the building," said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst for the Washington-based National Security Archive, which is not affiliated with the government.

The process is somewhat different for those who have security clearance or otherwise are allowed access to classified information, as Berger was.

"He was a special case," Kornbluh said. "He was a former government official who was there to look at still-classified material."

Only a few come to the archives to thumb through classified information, and they go to a different room with its own strict set of rules, said Cooper. Only a few archives employees are authorized to work with classified material, and elaborate regulations govern who is allowed to come in to see them.

Former presidential appointees such as Berger may, under certain conditions, see papers that they dealt with while in office.

Such researchers must have clearance, sign a form pledging to safeguard the material and authorize a review of their notes.

Because they are not working in the main reading room with others, they are not required to put everything in lockers.

"You can ask them to leave their briefcase and coat over at the other side of the room," Cooper said. "It's a very different thing."

Despite all the security, not everything is where it is supposed to be.

Among significant documents missing from their expected places is the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment communications journal for July 1950, during the Korean War. That month, a battalion from the cavalry killed many South Korean refugees at the village of No Gun Ri.

The journal would have recorded any orders to shoot the civilians, but after a 1999-2001 inquiry, Army investigators said they didn't find the document and didn't know what happened to it.

 

[Littledragon]

Concert tours struggling this summer.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/21/music.tour.slump.ap/index.html

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- When it comes to concert tours, the good times are not rolling this summer.

Major acts like Britney Spears, Marc Anthony and Christina Aguilera, as well as large-scale festivals like Lollapalooza, all pulled the plug on their tours before they even started.

In some cases personal problems, like Spears' knee injury, were to blame. Anthony said he called off his tour to focus on production of his next album. Industry insiders, however, point to a much bigger issue: falling ticket sales.

"People aren't buying tickets," said Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of Pollstar, the concert industry trade magazine. "For whatever reason, ticket sales dried up around the middle of April -- it was widespread across the industry."

According to a Pollstar analysis of the top 50 shows through June, gross revenues were up 11 percent to $753.5 million, but ticket sales were down 2 percent to 12.8 million, with ticket prices up almost 13 percent.

The average price of a ticket shot up from $26.05 in 1995 to $50.35 last year, according to Pollstar.

"Ticket prices have gone crazy -- very, very, very high, and nobody knows how to change that tide," said veteran concert booker Jonny Podell.

"When I was kid, I didn't have to make a big commitment to go to concerts," he said. "My children don't have the same discretionary income that I have. When they're excited about a show ... and they hear a $300 price, they get very unexcited."

'Hard to organize'
Donald Law, chairman and co-CEO of Clear Channel Entertainment's music division, which owns or operates 135 venues in North America, admitted that prices are high.

"We have provided $10 and $20 tickets to many of our amphitheater shows in many of our markets over the last couple of years and we do this in an effort to make tickets accessible for fans," he said.

Tom Gray, whose band Gomez was on the Lollapalooza bill, said he had a feeling the tour might not go off.

"The sheer size of Lollapalooza was really too mammoth to pull off," he said from his home in England. "Kids are likely to wait until the last minute (to buy tickets). It makes it hard to organize these money spinners where you have to count on advance sales to pull it off. It's just a shame really."

And when an artist cancels, the fans aren't the only ones who suffer. Supporting talent on the bill can feel the ripple effect, too.

Sixteen-year-old Canadian newcomer Skye Sweetnam was set to open for Spears. Her debut album is scheduled for a September release on Capitol Records, and the tour could have served as a launching pad for her burgeoning career.

Now, as Sweetnam puts it, she'll have to scramble to pull together a media tour and perform small acoustic shows to get the word out.

"It was kind of disappointing (when Britney hurt her knee) because we had this whole media hype behind the tour. It would have worked really well for a lead up for my album," Sweetnam said.

Some positive signs

One tour that's doing well is the Sting-Annie Lennox show.
Not all tours are doing poorly. Madonna, with a top ticket price of $300, is selling out nearly every show. Bongiovanni points out that Sting's co-headlining tour with Annie Lennox is selling well in most markets, and the Vans Warped tour, celebrating its 10th anniversary, continues to attract hordes of young fans who love punk music and skateboarding.

The Warped Tour offers tickets for around $25 to see upwards of 50 bands at one show.

Promoters took note of the low ticket prices and have followed suit, albeit temporarily. Clear Channel Entertainment recently offered a one-day discount, selling lawn tickets at their Northern California outdoor amphitheaters for any show at $20 apiece, parking and fees included.

"They sold about 50,000 to 60,000 tickets in one day," Bongiovanni said. "Was it a good move? In the short term, yes. But in the long term it trains your audience to anticipate deals at the last minute and not buy tickets in advance."

 

[Littledragon]

Researchers study Alzheimer's-race link.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/conditions/07/21/alzheimers.race.reut/index.html

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- Minorities may be harder hit by Alzheimer's disease than whites and researchers said Wednesday they are trying to find out why.

One study presented to a conference on Alzheimer's shows that Hispanics begin to show symptoms of Alzheimer's at younger ages than whites, while another study showed middle-aged blacks are more likely to suffer from the disease than whites of the same age.

"Studies like this should serve as a wake-up call to Congress and the nation," said James Jackson, a member of the Alzheimer's Association Medical & Scientific Advisory Council. "Minorities face disproportionate burdens of many diseases, including some that may contribute to Alzheimer's," Jackson added in a statement.

"As minority populations get older, they will see a dramatic rise in their risk of Alzheimer's disease. This will overwhelm their families and communities unless we take action now."

Several studies presented at the Philadelphia conference show that obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure can all raise the risk of Alzheimer's, which currently affects 4.5 million Americans.

Many minority groups suffer from a higher rate of these cardiovascular risk factors.

This could help explain the early onset in Latinos, said Dr. Christopher Clark of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

"We know that Latinos have high rates of vascular disease, leave school earlier, and are less likely to use medical services or have health insurance than other Americans -- all factors that appear to accelerate or increase the risk of Alzheimer's," Clark said in a statement.

Clark's team studied 119 Latinos and 55 non-Latino white Alzheimer's patients, talking to relatives to find out when symptoms first began.

They found that the first symptoms of Alzheimer's began at 67.6 on average for the Hispanic patients as opposed to 73.1 for the white patients.

In a second study, James Laditka of the University of South Carolina studied 37,000 Alzheimer's patients, part of a statewide registry of the disease. His team found that blacks aged 55 to 64 were more than three times as likely to have Alzheimer's as their white counterparts.

Noting that South Carolina blacks have an especially high rate of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, Laditka said the findings may reflect lifestyle.

"In South Carolina, we may be anticipating what will happen in the rest of the U.S. as the country grows in girth," Laditka said.

 

[Littledragon]

President signs vaccine legislation.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/21/bush.vaccine.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday signed a bill to develop and stockpile vaccines and other antidotes to biological and chemical weapons.

The legislation provides the drug industry with incentives to research and develop bioterrorism countermeasures, speeds up the approval process of antidotes and, in an emergency, allows the government to distribute certain treatments before the Food and Drug Administration has approved them.

On Thursday, Bush is to sign the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, giving qualified off-duty and retired law enforcement officers the ability to carry their concealed firearms nationwide.

That same day the bipartisan September 11 commission releases its report saying the U.S. intelligence community missed the significance of "telltale indicators" of impending terrorist attacks, partly because of its piecemeal approach to intelligence analysis.

Later on Thursday, Bush travels to Illinois to tour the Northeastern Illinois Public Training Academy in Glenview, Illinois, and give a speech on homeland security.

Bush told supporter in St. Charles, Missouri, Tuesday night that fighting enemies abroad is the best way to prevent another attack on U.S. soil.

"In this big, sweet country of ours, there's no such thing as perfect security," Bush said. "The threats to this homeland are real. We know that the terrorists want to strike the United States again. They want to disrupt our way of life, or cause panic or great fear."

He said his administration has reorganized the government to increase communication among federal, state and local governments. The FBI also has changed its mission to make sure that counterterrorism is the top priority, he said.

According to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 71 percent of Americans think the government is doing a "fairly well' or "very well" at protecting the nation against another terrorist attack. But the poll also said that a majority believe terrorists have at least the same ability to strike inside the United States as they did on September 11, 2001.

U.S. officials are hoping that Project BioShield, which Bush signed into law, will yield enough new-generation anthrax vaccine to dose 25 million people. Federal health officials also hope that the $5.6 billion program will provide antidotes for botulism and anthrax, a safer smallpox vaccine and a long-awaited children's version of an anti-radiation pill.

The program passed the House on a 414-2 vote on July 15. The discovery of sarin gas in a roadside bomb in Iraq and ricin and anthrax attacks against the Capitol spurred the Senate to pass it 99-0 in May.

"Modern terrorist threats come not just from explosions, but also from silent killers such has deadly germs and chemical agents," Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, an author of the bill, said in a statement released Tuesday night. "Project BioShield creates a lifesaving partnership between our government and the private sector to develop the vaccines needed to project our citizens from this bioterrorism. This bill could save millions of lives."

 

[Littledragon]

New poll smiles on Kerry.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5479065/

NANTUCKET, Mass. - John Kerry is heading to his party’s national convention with Democrats faring better with the public on both domestic and international issues, according to a poll released Wednesday. But Kerry remains locked in a tie in the presidential race.

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When people are asked which party would do a better job of handling a given issue, Democrats are now 12 points up on handling the economy and have an even larger lead on issues from education to health care and the environment, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

They are about even with Republicans on which party would do the better job on Iraq and foreign policy and are almost even with the GOP on which party is stronger on the issue of morality.

Republicans are stronger than Democrats on the issue of fighting terrorism.

Despite the Democrats’ strong position, Kerry and running mate John Edwards remain in a tie with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Kerry and Edwards are at 46 percent, Bush and Cheney at 44 percent, and Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo at 3 percent.

The best news for Bush and the Republicans is that the GOP remains united behind the president.

“The most important thing in this poll is that Kerry is entering the Democratic convention with things breaking his way, even though he remains in a tie for voter support,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.

Iraq is the top issue
Iraq has become the top issue for the public and Bush’s public support on Iraq has not improved, even though the United States and its allies turned over authority to Iraqis in June.

Just over four in 10, 42 percent, approve of the president’s handling of Iraq — at the same low levels it has been in recent weeks.

Voters generally, and especially Democrats, have become more optimistic about Kerry’s chances of winning in November. The public gives Bush a slight edge on his chances of winning, but they split 2-1 on a Bush victory just two months ago.

And Democrats are in a commanding position on the public’s preference on specific issues:

Leading Republicans by 50-23 on which party is more trusted to handle health care.
Leading Republicans by 45-29 on handling education, a traditional Democratic issue that Republicans neutralized early in Bush’s term.
Leading Republicans by 46-34 on handling the economy.
Tied with Republicans on handling of Iraq.
Tied with Republicans on handling foreign policy.
Trailing Republicans 45-30 on handling the campaign against terrorism.
“Kerry’s party has improved its image on just about all key issues,” Kohut said. “And rank-and-file Democrats are increasingly unified and optimistic about their chances in November.”

The poll of 2,009 adults, including 1,568 registered voters, was taken July 8-18 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, slightly higher for registered voters.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.