The New Hampshire Senate voted narrowly on Wednesday to legalize same-sex marriage, paving the way for the state to potentiallybecome the fifth in the nation — and the third this month — to allow gay couples to wed. The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 13 to 11 in favor of the bill, but only after a last-minute [...]
Archive for April, 2009
N.H. Senate Passes Gay Marriage Bill
Posted in Law, tagged New Hampshire, Same-sex union on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Court Upholds 10-Year Penalty for Robber’s Flub
Posted in Law, tagged Supreme Court on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
“This,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said on Wednesday in announcing one of the term’s less momentous Supreme Court decisions, “is the case of the bumbling bank robber.” The bank robber, Christopher M. Dean, was wearing a mask and waving a gun, when he entered a branch of AmSouth Bank in Rome, Ga., in [...]
Civilians Flee as Pakistani Forces Hit Resistance
Posted in Conflicts and wars, tagged Pakistan on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Soldiers in Rustum, Pakistan fired artillery rounds towards Taliban positions on Wednesday. The Pakistani forces air-dropped commandos into the main town in Buner on Wednesday and quickly retook control of it from Taliban militants who flooded into the area last week, the military said. But the district was far from recaptured and the military may [...]
Debut for world’s fastest camera
Posted in Physical sciences, tagged Camera on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The technique hinges on an ordered spreading of the colours in laser light The fastest imaging system ever devised has been demonstrated by researchers reporting in the journal Nature. Their camera snaps images less than a half a billionth of a second long, capturing over six million of them in a second continuously. It [...]
World can burn 25 percent of oil, coal “safely”: study
Posted in Energy and Environment on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Petro-Canada’s Edmonton Refinery and Distribution Centre glows at dusk in Edmonton in this photo from February 15, 2009. The world can burn only a quarter of proven reserves of oil, gas and coal to be confident of staying within safer climate limits, unless untested carbon fixes work, experts said on Wednesday. In two studies published [...]
Better than it looks?
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
America’s economy shrank at an alarming rate in the first quarter IT WOULD be tempting to use America’s grim first-quarter GDP figures, released on Wednesday April 29th, to squelch talk of green shoots in the global economy. In fact, the figures contain flickers of hope, as well as one looming threat in the form of [...]
Cheaper gas goes against the agenda
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
First of two columns. TESTIFYING before the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked about something he said in September. “Somehow,” the Nobel laureate had told The Wall Street Journal, “we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” At the [...]
Begging for help on Crack Street
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
HOW MANY female crack addicts with health insurance do you know? Not too long ago, my son Ricky called me. For three straight mornings, he had called every drug rehabilitation center in a 200-mile radius of his home in Massachusetts. Not one had a bed available for his mother – unless, of course, she had [...]
Access to List of Clinton Backers Is Sold
Posted in Politics, tagged Hillary Clinton on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Hillary Clinton dropped out of the presidential election last June, but her campaign committee continued to raise millions of dollars this year by selling access to a valuable asset: Mrs. Clinton’s vast list of political supporters. In the first three months of 2009, Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign brought in $4.5 million by selling or renting [...]
Why Congress Won’t Investigate Wall Street
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion, Law, Politics on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Republicans and Democrats would find themselves in the hot seat. The famous Pecora Commission of 1933 and 1934 was one of the most successful congressional investigations of all time, an instance when oversight worked exactly as it should. The subject was the massively corrupt investment practices of the 1920s. In the course of its investigation, [...]
Spain’s Top Investigative Magistrate Opens Inquiry on Guantánamo
Posted in Law, tagged Garzon, Guantanamo, Spain on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Spain’s top investigative magistrate opened an investigation into the Bush administration Wednesday over alleged torture of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Judge Baltasar Garzon said documents declassified by the new U.S. government suggest the practice was systematic. Garzon said he was acting under Spain’s observance of the principle of universal justice, which allows crimes allegedly [...]
Women’s activist groups in Kenya have slapped their partners with a week-long sex ban in protest at unity government rift
Posted in Politics, tagged Kenya on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The wives of the Kenyan president and PM have been asked to join in Women’s activist groups in Kenya have slapped their partners with a week-long sex ban in protest over the infighting plaguing the national unity government. The Women’s Development Organisation coalition said they would also pay prostitutes to join their strike. The [...]
Russia mulls rocket power ‘first’
Posted in Physical sciences, Politics, tagged Russia, Space on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The future Russian capsule could land on a bright rocket plume. Russia’s next-generation manned space vehicle might be equipped with thrusters to perform a precision landing on its return to Earth. Engineers are considering a rocket-powered landing system for the successor to Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. If accepted, it would be the first time in history [...]
Lebanon releases Hariri suspects after a UN court rules there was not enough evidence to hold them
Posted in Law, Politics, tagged Lebanon on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The generals’ supporters celebrated their release with fireworks and gunfire. Four Lebanese generals held since 2005 over the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri have been freed. Their release comes hours after a UN court ruled there was not enough evidence to hold them. Supporters of the generals, mainly from the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement, [...]
Judging Presidents in 100 Days
Posted in Politics, tagged 100 days on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Franklin D. Roosevelt set a high standard for new presidents during his first 100 days, launching a raft of New Deal reforms over his first three months in office. But since, a president’s first 100 days have been at least as much about establishing a new chief executive’s leadership style as about legislative victories. On [...]
The Principle At Stake at Notre Dame
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law, Politics, Religion, tagged Abortion, Notre Dame on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Why Obama should decline to speak at Notre Dame. Here on planet “What About Me,” principled people are so rare as to be oddities. Thus, it was a head-swiveling moment Monday when Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, quietly declined Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal. Glendon — a Harvard University law professor [...]
On Higher Ground, but Not Safer
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
On April 16, President Obama released the now-infamous torture memos along with a covering statement that said the CIA’s old interrogation methods not only failed to “make us safer” but undermined “our moral authority.” A week later, a woman holding the hand of a child walked into a throng in Baghdad and blew herself up. [...]
Experts Study Differences in Flu’s Severity
Posted in Health, tagged Swine flu on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Health authorities raced yesterday to unravel the many mysteries about the ominous new swine flu spreading around the world, including how widely the virus might cause the severe form of illness that so far has been restricted to the epicenter of the outbreak in Mexico. As the number of confirmed infections in the United States [...]
Justice Department Urges Equalizing Drug Sentences
Posted in Law, tagged Cocaine, Drugs on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Justice Department officials this morning endorsed for the first time proposed legislation that would eliminate vast sentencing disparities for possession of powdered versus rock cocaine, an inequality that civil rights groups say has disproportionately affected poor and minority defendants. Newly appointed Criminal Division chief Lanny A. Breuer told a Senate Judiciary Committee panel this morning [...]
Shadows of Violence Cling to Indian Politician
Posted in Politics, tagged India on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Mr. Modi campaigning last week in Gujarat State. He was chief minister during a deadly episode of Hindu-Muslim violence in 2002. Narendra Modi, India’s most incendiary politician, is trying to cast himself as the vanguard of India’s modern industrial future. The ghosts of this city’s savage past, though, are refusing to leave his side. Mr. [...]
Britain Jails 2 Men Linked to 2005 Suicide Bombers
Posted in Law, tagged 2005 suicide bombing, London on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Two men cleared of helping to plot the 2005 suicide bombings in London have each been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges connected to terrorism training. Judge Peter Gross sentenced Waheed Ali and Mohammed Shakil on Wednesday after a jury found them guilty of conspiracy to attend a terrorist training camp. The jury [...]
Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat
Posted in Health on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
There was a time when red meat was a luxury for ordinary Americans, or was at least something special: cooking a roast for Sunday dinner, ordering a steak at a restaurant. Not anymore. Meat consumption has more than doubled in the United States in the last 50 years. Now a new study of more than [...]
Judge Bybee Defends Signing Interrogation Memos
Posted in Law, tagged Bybee, Torture memos on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Jay S. Bybee, shown teaching at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in 2001, is now a federal judge on the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In 2002, while at the Justice Department, he signed a memo narrowly defining torture. Judge Jay S. Bybee broke his silence on Tuesday and defended the [...]
We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Politics, tagged GOP on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was [...]
Let’s Hear It for the Bees
Posted in Natural sciences on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Honeybees getting nectar. Certain flowers open and close on regular schedule. But for real circadian synchronicity, it’s the bees. Gardeners know that plants open and close their flowers at set times during the day. For example, the flowers of catmint open between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.; orange hawkweed follows between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 [...]
U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline
Posted in Economy and business, tagged United States on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
The American economy shrank rapidly in the first three months of the year, the government reported on Wednesday, a signal that the economy is likely to remain a dominant issue as the Obama administration looks beyond its first 100 days. The gross domestic product shrank at an annual rate of 6.1 percent from January through [...]
Locking up Nigeria’s ‘civil lunatics’
Posted in Health, Law, tagged Nigeria on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
In the third of a series of articles looking at policing in Nigeria, the BBC’s Andrew Walker visits a prison in the south-eastern city of Enugu where some people who have not committed any crime are locked up for years on end: “Welcome to the asylum!” says prison warder Iroha Uka, cracking a broad [...]
Genes ‘have key role in autism’
Posted in Health, tagged Autism on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Autism is more often diagnosed in boys Scientists have produced the most compelling evidence to date that genetics play a key role in autism. They highlighted tiny genetic changes that appear to have a strong impact on the likelihood of developing autism and related conditions. The changes influence genes which help form and maintain [...]
Over-40s may benefit from aspirin
Posted in Health, tagged Aspirin on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Regular aspirin use has been linked to abdominal bleeds. Taking aspirin in your 40s could cut the risk of cancer later in life, a review of research suggests. Experts said taking the drug at an age before cancer usually develops, and for ten years would maximise its potential to prevent the disease. Aspirin has [...]
‘Proof’ face creams beat wrinkles
Posted in Health on April 29, 2009 | Comments Off
Sun damage causes wrinkles Scientists say they have clinical proof that a face cream available on the high street does reduce wrinkles. Five months’ worth of stock of the leading brand sold in a day after Professor Chris Griffiths announced in 2007 it appeared to combat sun damage. Two years on from the BBC [...]
