The Bush administration, The Washington Post reports Thursday, worried that negative stories are dominating the news headlines during an election period, has decided to send out Iraq Americans to bring what the Defense Department calls "the good news" about the situation in Iraq to US military bases.

The Post also reports that the administration is moving to "curtail distribution" of reports that show the situation in Iraq growing worse. In particular, the US Agency of International Development said this week that it will "restrict distribution" of a report by its contractor, Kroll Security International, that showed the number of attacks by insurgents had been increasingly dramatically over the past few months. Attacks have risen to 70 a day, up from 40-50, since Iraqi Prime Minister Alawi took office in June.

 

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - The Ohio Supreme Court asserted a man's "right to procreate" on Wednesday and ruled that a father of seven could not be threatened with jail for skipping child support if he fathered more children.

Five of seven judges agreed the 2002 sentence meted out to Sean Talty was "overbroad" by threatening him with a year in jail if he fathered another child.

Talty, 32, has seven children by five different women and was $38,000 behind in child support payments.

 Chief Justice Thomas Moyer dismissed prosecutors' argument that Talty had been given a break because if he had been sent to prison on the original felony convictions for failure to pay child support for three of his children he would not have been allowed conjugal visits.

 

 

Man hit by train forced to pay for rail delays

Mon 27 September, 2004 17:42

By Nathaniel Espino

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's state railway PKP is claiming compensation from a man who caused delays to its services by being run over by a train -- but said it may forgive the debt after learning the man's house had burned down.

Pawel Banaszek, who was paralysed in the incident in August 2003, caused 2,058 zlotys (320 pounds) worth of losses due to delays.

Half the amount was written off and Banaszek was paying the rest in 80-zloty monthly instalments from his 600-zloty disability pension.

Poland's daily Wyborcza said he was beaten up in a bar fight in his home village of Stare Bosewo, central Poland, and left for dead on the rails.

 

 

 

A cloud formation in the aftermath of Hurricane Charley

 

 

BLUEWELL, W.Va. (AP) -- A family meal erupted into a gunbattle after a father and son clashed over how to cook chicken.

The two men argued Sunday over the best way to prepare skinless chicken for dinner.

"It started out as a physical confrontation, but it escalated until both of them were shooting at each other."

 

 

Wed Sep 29, 7:35 PM ET
Oblique aerial photograph shows the north flank, crater, lava dome and new glacier (behind dome), of Mount St. Helens, about 100 miles south of Seattle, Washington and 50 miles north of Oregon's largest city, Portland, in this image released by the U.S. Geological Survey  September 26, 2004. Mount St. Helens could erupt within days, government scientists said on Sept. 29, raising the alert after movement in the volcano's lava crust was detected following a week of small earthquakes.

 

Frisky flamingo's flap

A lonely and confused male flamingo has caused a stir at a Gloucestershire nature reserve by trying to incubate a pebble.

Andy, an Andean flamingo, has spent two weeks trying to incubate the pebble he thinks is an egg at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge.

Nigel Jarrett, a bird nesting expert, believes Andy's broodiness is down to his body being full of hormones at the end of the breeding season.

"He doesn't seem to have a mate."

 

 

Oakland police halt DUI checkpoints

By Heather MacDonald, STAFF WRITER

Oakland police officers have stopped setting up roadblocks to check whether drivers are under the influence because of a rash of complaints from the Latino community.

 The checkpoints, which allow officers to demand licenses and proof of insurance, are an effective way to get drunken drivers off Oakland's streets. But the checks also have ensnared dozens of illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive.

The new checkpoint guidelines, which are not final, may call for police to notify Latino community organizations of the time and location of coming checkpoints.

 

 

47 YEARS AGO TODAY

Sep 29 1957

An explosion at the Chelyabinsk-40 complex, a Soviet nuclear fuel processing plant, irradiates the nearby city of Kyshtym with strontium-90, cesium-137, and plutonium. One of the largest ecological catastrophes of human kind, this accident releases twice the radioactivity of the Chernobyl incident.

Not many people were thinking about environmental safety then. Nuclear waste was discharged in the local river. People who lived nearby did not have a slightest idea about it.

Large amount of water, used for operating of nuclear reactors, was saturated with radioactive and toxic substances and was wasted in special radiological effluents’ storages.

Because of monitoring devices malfunction, ventilation was not turned on and oxyhydrogen gas had accumulated above these storages on September 29, 1957. As a result of the detonation, 80 tons of radioactive mixture had risen in the air, forming above the industrial complex a cloud of strontium-90 isotope. The trail from this cloud made up about 350 kilometers, and was about 50 kilometers wide. Contaminated area in Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions made up more than 20 000 square meters. The trail from the cloud went over 4 rivers and 30 lakes, consequently water sources’ radiation level had increased 10-100 times. 124 000 people were exposed to radiation.

 

A lot of people had seen a strange yellow cloud and a fog that day. Later on, a plain explanation was published in the local newspaper: it was a rare natural phenomenon.

Soldiery and local residents were liquidating the catastrophe. They did not have any protection, not even breathing masks. With the help of bulldozers they were stripping topsoil, knocking off plaster from the buildings and washing away radioactive dust with wet brushes. Only 1.5 years later the industrial complex started operating again.

Later, people were resettled – but only from the most contaminated areas. On various pretexts, about 10 000 people were resettled from the “dead zone”. For example, they were told that oil was found, that is why the village would be demolished.

During the years of Soviet regime, authorities were keeping silence. Circumstances and consequences of the catastrophe were kept secret. Even doctors were forbidden to diagnose radiation sickness.

-http://www.uralpress.ru/english/show_region.php?id=4

see also http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak/index.html

 

 

Punch-up at tomb of Jesus

Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem
Tuesday September 28, 2004
The Guardian

Fistfights broke out yesterday between Christians gathered on the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ.

"There was lots of hitting going on. Police were hit, monks were hit ... there were people with bloodied faces," said a witness in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, reputed to be Golgotha where Christ was crucified, and the site of the tomb where he was buried.

The punch-up erupted during a procession to mark the discovery in 327 by Helena, mother of Constantine, of the True Cross.

A Greek Orthodox cleric said Franciscans had left open their chapel door in what was taken as disrespect. Priests and worshippers hit one another at the doorway dividing Orthodox and Franciscans, said a police spokesman.

Two years ago, Ethiopian and Copt monks threw stones at each other over rights to the church roof.