Evening Edition is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Fighting grips Misrata, drones enter Libya conflict
by Marc Bastian and Andrea Bernardi, AFP
41 mins ago
| MISRATA (AFP) – Heavy fighting rocked Misrata on Saturday, overwhelming its hospital, after Moamer Kadhafi’s regime gave its army an “ultimatum” to take the besieged Libyan city and US drones entered the fray.
The United States said it carried out the first drone strike in the more than month-old conflict. At least 25 people were killed and 100 wounded in street battles on Saturday in the western port city of Misrata, a doctor said, on a day on which NATO air raids struck near a compound in Tripoli where Kadhafi resides. |
2 Syrians bury their dead in new bloody rallies
AFP
6 mins ago
| DAMASCUS (AFP) – At least 13 mourners were shot dead on Saturday as Syrians swarmed the streets to bury scores of demonstrators killed in massive protests and two MPs resigned in frustration at the bloodshed.
Activists said the death toll from Friday’s protests could top 100, pending confirmation of a list of names. Two independent MPs from the protest hub city of Daraa, Nasser al-Hariri and Khalil al-Rifai, told Al-Jazeera television they were resigning in frustration at not being able to protect their constituents. |
3 Thai-Cambodian border fighting leaves 10 dead
by Tang Chhin Sothy, AFP
Sat Apr 23, 12:13 pm ET
| SAMRONG, Cambodia (AFP) – Fierce clashes on the Thai-Cambodia border have left 10 dead and forced thousands to flee the worst bloodshed since a UN ceasefire appeal in February, officials said Saturday.
The two countries exchanged heavy weapons fire for a second straight day on their disputed jungle frontier, the scene of a series of deadly gunbattles in recent years. Three Cambodian troops and one Thai soldier were killed Saturday, according to officials in the two countries, a day after three soldiers died on each side. |
4 Twelve killed in pro-democracy protests in Syria
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi, Reuters
2 hrs 11 mins ago
| AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces killed at least 12 people on Saturday when they fired on mourners calling for the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule at mass funerals of pro-democracy protesters shot a day earlier.
Witnesses said the mourners were chanting “Bashar al-Assad, you traitor! Long live Syria, down with Bashar!” “There was a heavy volley of gunfire in our direction as we approached Izra’a to join the funerals of martyrs,” a witness in the southern town of Izra’a told Reuters. |
5 Iraq must decide in "weeks" on U.S. troops: Mullen
By Phil Stewart, Reuters
Sat Apr 23, 5:55 am ET
| BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq has only weeks to decide if it wants to keep U.S. troops beyond an end-2011 deadline for their withdrawal, the top U.S. military officer said Friday in Baghdad following talks with Iraq’s prime minister.
The comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, are the strongest so far by U.S. officials warning Baghdad that Washington will soon have to initiate the withdrawal of its 47,000 forces under the terms of a bilateral security pact. Asked what Iraq’s deadline was for deciding, Mullen said: “I think the timeline is in the next few weeks.” |
6 Libya troops retreat in Misrata, rebels claim victory
By Michael Georgy, Reuters
1 hr 8 mins ago
| MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Rebels in Misrata claimed victory as Libyan government troops retreated from front lines, in what appeared to be a significant setback for Muammar Gaddafi’s forces hastened by NATO air strikes.
Misrata, the last large city held by rebels in western Libya, had been under a punishing government siege for nearly two months and hundreds of civilians have died in the fighting. “We have been told to withdraw. We were told to withdraw yesterday,” a government soldier captured by rebels, Khaled Dorman, told Reuters on Saturday from the back of a pickup truck. |
7 Japan earmarks first $50 billion for post-quake rebuild
By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Linda Sieg, Reuters
Sat Apr 23, 4:57 am ET
| TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s cabinet approved on Friday almost $50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, a downpayment on the country’s biggest public works effort in six decades.
The emergency budget of 4 trillion yen ($48.5 billion), which is likely be followed by more reconstruction spending packages, is still dwarfed by the overall cost of damages caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, estimated at $300 billion. “With this budget, we are taking one step forward toward reconstruction … and toward restarting the economy,” Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters after a cabinet meeting. |
8 120 dead after 2 days of unrest in Syria
By BASSEM MROUE and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press
2 hrs 19 mins ago
| BEIRUT – Syrian security forces fired at tens of thousands of people joining funeral processions Saturday after the bloodiest day of the monthlong uprising against President Bashar Assad, bringing the death toll from two days of violence to more than 120 and prompting two lawmakers and a local religious leader to resign in disgust over the killings.
The resignations were a possible sign of cracks developing in the regime’s base in a nation where nearly all opposition figures have been either jailed or exiled during the 40-year dynasty of the Assad family. “I cannot tolerate the blood of our innocent sons and children being shed,” Sheikh Rizq Abdul-Rahim Abazeid told The Associated Press after stepping down from his post as the mufti of the Daraa region in southern Syria. |
9 Rebels in besieged Libyan city claim a victory
By KARIN LAUB and DIAA HADID, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 10:28 am ET
| TRIPOLI, Libya – Government troops retreated to the outskirts of Misrata under rebel fire Saturday and the opposition claimed victory after officials in Tripoli decided to pull back forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi following nearly two months of laying siege to the western city.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, said the U.S. Air Force carried out its first Predator missile strike in Libya on Saturday, but gave no details. Libyan government officials showed evidence of an airstrike near Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli that it said caused no injuries, but it was not clear if that site was the Predator’s target. Opposition forces in Libya’s third-largest city had held firm after being pounded by the government’s heavy weapons for weeks. On Friday, a top Libyan official said troops would be withdrawn and local tribes would take up the fight – a notion scoffed at by rebels. |
10 Yemeni president agrees to step down in 30 days
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press
26 mins ago
| SANAA, Yemen – Yemen’s embattled president agreed Saturday to a proposal by Gulf Arab mediators to step down within 30 days and hand power to his deputy in exchange for immunity from prosecution, a major about-face for the autocratic leader who has ruled for 32 years.
A coalition of seven opposition parties, which do not speak for all of the hundreds of thousands of protesters seeking President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s ouster, said they also accepted the deal but with reservations. Even if the differences are overcome, it is unclear whether the many different groups of protesters will agree to immediately leave the streets. A day earlier, protesters staged the largest of two months of demonstrations, filling a five-lane boulevard across the capital with a sea of hundreds of thousands of people. A deadly crackdown by government forces and Saleh supporters has killed more than 130 people and prompted key allies to abandon the president and join the protesters. |
11 Obama knows political fortunes tied to gas prices
By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press
9 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – With gas prices climbing and little relief in sight, President Barack Obama is scrambling to get ahead of the latest potential obstacle to his re-election bid, even as Republicans are making plans to exploit the issue.
No one seems more aware of the electoral peril than Obama himself. “My poll numbers go up and down depending on the latest crisis, and right now gas prices are weighing heavily on people,” he told Democratic donors in Los Angeles this past week. |
12 Your Phone, Yourself — when is tracking too much?
By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer
32 mins ago
| SAN FRANCISCO – If you’re worried about privacy, you can turn off the function on your smartphone that tracks where you go. But that means giving up the services that probably made you want a smartphone in the first place. After all, how smart is an iPhone or an Android if you can’t use it to map your car trip or scan reviews of nearby restaurants?
The debate over digital privacy flamed higher this week with news that Apple Inc.’s popular iPhones and iPads store users’ GPS coordinates for a year or more. Phones that run Google Inc.’s Android software also store users’ location data. And not only is the data stored – allowing anyone who can get their hands on the device to piece together a chillingly accurate profile of where you’ve been – but it’s also transmitted back to the companies to use for their own research. Now, cellphone service providers have had customers’ location data for almost as long as there have been cellphones. That’s how they make sure to route calls and Internet traffic to the right place. Law enforcement analyzes location data on iPhones for criminal evidence – a practice that Alex Levinson, technical lead for firm Katana Forensics, said has helped lead to convictions. And both Apple and Google have said that the location data they collect from the phones is anonymous and not able to be tied back to specific users. |
13 FAA struggles with fatigued aviation worker issue
By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press
23 mins ago
| WASHINGTON – The Federal Aviation Administration told a government watchdog nearly two years ago that it was prepared to let air traffic controllers sleep or rest during work shifts when they weren’t directing aircraft. It still hasn’t happened.
When the FAA proposed new limits on airline pilots’ work schedules to prevent fatigue last year, it rejected its own research recommending that pilots be allowed to take naps during the cruise phase of flight – typically most of a flight when the plane is neither climbing nor descending – so that they are refreshed and alert during landings. And an FAA committee that has been working for several years on new work rules to prevent fatigue among night-shift airline mechanics has made little progress, said one committee member. Allowing naps during breaks on overnight shifts was dismissed as a nonstarter. |
14 Letters trace Civil War for writer’s forebears
By ALLEN G. BREED, AP National Writer
2 hrs 51 mins ago
| BOSTON – Alone in his hotel room after a solemn dinner with his brother, the newly enlisted Army surgeon took up pen and paper to make the first installment on his promise.
“I have a few moments,” he wrote to his wife, just 10 miles up the coast in Lynn. “I am in such a whirl that I can hardly think much less write.” Just four days earlier, on April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery had fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, igniting the Civil War. On April 15, President Abraham Lincoln issued an urgent appeal “to all loyal citizens,” seeking 75,000 volunteers to quell the rebellion. |
15 Gulf disaster renews debate over Arctic oil spill
By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 11:22 am ET
| WASHINGTON – A year after the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, some experts are pondering the next doomsday scenario – a massive oil well blowout in the icy waters off Alaska’s northern coast.
Like the deepest waters of the Gulf, the shallow but frigid seas off Alaska are a new frontier for oil and gas exploration. The reserves are large but come with risks. With no roads connecting remote coastal towns, storms and fog that can ground aircraft, no deep-water ports for ships and the nearest Coast Guard station about 1,000 miles away – it would be nearly impossible to respond on the scale that was needed last year to stop a runaway oil well and clean up the mess. That means the burden to respond would rest to an even greater degree on the company doing the drilling. |
16 Renewed fight for gay marriage in NY hits suburbs
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 12:17 pm ET
| ALBANY, N.Y. – Lady Gaga on stage on Long Island this weekend, actors Kevin Bacon, Julianne Moore and Kyra Sedgwick on video and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Albany are headliners in New York’s growing push to legalize gay marriage, a fight that may already be won thanks to shifting voter sentiment and a concerted, disciplined campaign.
New Yorkers opposed to gay marriage are being swamped by younger people who support it, while polls seem to show a new tactic by advocates is working in the suburbs and upstate, the more conservative region where the issue will be won or lost. Five states, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Iowa and Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia have approved gay marriage laws. New York has always been a goal of advocates because of its size, high profile and unparalleled media presence. |
17 Careful search for mementos slows Japan rebuilding
By JAY ALABASTER, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 9:33 am ET
| KESENNUMA, Japan – Sakuji Funayama watched intently as a giant steel claw tore chunks off the remains of his two-story home, ripped open like a dollhouse by last month’s tsunami and washed up onto a pile of debris. Suddenly, he spied something, waved his arms and pointed.
The claw froze and a half dozen construction workers scrambled into the wreckage, emerging a few minutes later with a battered backpack that belonged to Funayama’s son, who moved away years ago. He set it off to the side. The race to clear the destruction from Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami so rebuilding can begin is a delicate process, with workers taking precautions not to damage bodies buried in the rubble. But the work has been further slowed by clearance crews who feel duty bound to help survivors search the rubble for lost possessions, precious mementos of their former lives. |
18 Cambodia claims Thai used chemical weapon in clash
By SOPHENG CHEANG, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 9:56 am ET
| PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Thailand strongly rejected accusations it used chemical weapons against Cambodian troops in fighting that extended into a second day Saturday and has killed 10 soldiers and forced thousands of civilians from their homes.
Firing by both sides had ceased by noon, but Cambodia’s defense ministry said at nightfall that the situation was “still tense.” A Cambodian defense ministry statement earlier charged that Thailand had fired 75 and 105 mm shells “loaded with poisonous gas” into Cambodian territory, but did not elaborate. A Cambodian field commander said separately that Thailand used both cluster shells – anti-personnel weapons banned by many countries – and artillery shells that gave off a debilitating gas. |
19 In Turkey, surveyors map a WWI battlefield
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 4:46 am ET
| ISTANBUL – The World War I battlefield of the Gallipoli campaign, where throngs gather each April to remember the fallen, is a place of lore, an echo of ancient warfare that took place on the same soil. Now researchers are mapping dugouts, trenches and tunnels in the most extensive archaeological survey of a site whose slaughter helped forge the identity of young nations.
Armed with old maps and GPS technology, the experts from Turkey, Australia and New Zealand have so far discovered rusted food cans, unused bullets and their shell casings, and fragments of shrapnel, Ottoman-era bricks with Greek lettering, ceramic rum flagons of Allied soldiers and glass shards of beer bottles on the Turkish side. They announced early findings ahead of annual commemorations on the rugged peninsula on Sunday and Monday. The chief aim is to gain a detailed layout of a battlefield whose desperate trench warfare, with enemy lines just a few dozen meters (yards) apart in some places, has been recounted in films, books and ballads, acquiring a legendary aura in the culture of its combatants. |
20 ‘Birther’ claims force GOP leaders to take a stand
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 3:30 am ET
| WASHINGTON – It’s the conspiracy theory that won’t go away. And it’s forcing Republican officials and presidential contenders to pick sides: Do they think Barack Obama was born outside the United States and disqualified to be president?
As the Republican candidates tiptoe through the minefield, Democrats are watching. They hope the debate will fire up their liberal base and perhaps tie the eventual GOP nominee to fringe beliefs that swing voters will reject. In recent days several prominent Republicans have distanced themselves, with varying degrees of emphasis, from the false claim that Obama was born in a foreign country. But with a new poll showing that two-thirds of adult Republicans either embrace the claim or are open to it, the GOP leaders for the most part are not calling for a broader effort to stamp out the allegations. |
21 Timing of Sen. Ensign resignation raises questions
By CRISTINA SILVA, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 5:09 am ET
| LAS VEGAS – The resignation this week by U.S. Sen. John Ensign raised questions about what an ongoing Senate ethics probe has uncovered, while also muddling the field of candidates for congressional seats now held by the GOP headed into a key election year.
The decision to step down marked an unexpected change of heart for the Nevada Republican who as recently as last month said he would remain in office until his planned retirement from politics because he had not violated ethics rules. “If I was concerned about that, I would have resigned, because that would make the most sense, because then it goes away,” Ensign said then as he announced he would retire after 2012. |
22 Nigeria violence an echo of nation’s bloody past
By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 4:28 am ET
| KAFANCHAN, Nigeria – Whole sections of towns are burned out, the smell of rot is in the air, and people are escaping with whatever they can carry across the rural lands that separate Nigeria’s Christian south and Muslim north.
The religious rioting that swept Africa’s most populous nation days after its presidential election likely killed hundreds of people, though government officials remain hesitant to offer death tolls for fear of sparking more violence. To the nation’s president and his top political rival, however, the rioting evokes memories of the nation’s bloody post-independence chaos. |
23 Wash. considers annual flat fee for electric cars
By ROBIN HINDERY, The Associated Press
Fri Apr 22, 8:12 pm ET
| OLYMPIA, Wash. – Drivers of electric cars may have left the gas pump behind, but there’s one expense they may not be able to shake: paying to maintain the roads.
After years of urging residents to buy fuel-efficient cars and giving them tax breaks to do it, Washington state lawmakers are considering a measure to charge them a $100 annual fee – what would be the nation’s first electric car fee. State lawmakers grappling with a $5 billion deficit are facing declining gas tax revenue, which means less money to maintain or improve roads. |
24 Speed limit plan for GG Bridge meets pedal protest
By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press
5 mins ago
| SAN FRANCISCO – Plans to put the brakes on bicyclists riding across the Golden Gate Bridge has cycling enthusiasts crying foul in this urban center of two-wheeled activism.
Thousands of commuters, residents and tourists ride the bridge’s stately span each day, and occasionally there is a smash-up when bikers collide with tourists drinking in the views or run into each other. Still, the city was taken by surprise this week when bridge officials proposed speed limits as a way to lower the accident rate on San Francisco’s signature landmark. |
25 Gun incident at Texas school renews safety debate
By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 1:15 pm ET
| HOUSTON – While some parents clamor for stricter security measures at a Houston elementary school where a kindergartner accidentally fired a gun that injured three students, school security and national security experts say the rarity of such incidents among younger students make spending limited resources on such things as metal detectors impractical.
Experts say more effective prevention efforts include working directly with parents and students on gun safety, better training of faculty and staff and building better trust between teachers and students. Police say an unidentified 6-year-old boy took a semi-automatic pistol in his backpack to Ross Elementary on Tuesday. Later that morning as he and more than 40 other kindergartners were having lunch in a crowded cafeteria, the boy accidentally fired the gun as he was showing it off to friends. |
26 In Hawaii, accessing some Obama birth info is easy
By MARK NIESSE, Associated Press
Sat Apr 23, 11:36 am ET
| HONOLULU – Lost in the renewed scrutiny into President Barack Obama’s birth records is the fact that anyone can walk into a Hawaii vital records office, wait in line behind couples getting marriage licenses and open a baby-blue government binder containing basic information about his birth.
Highlighted in yellow on page 1,218 of the thick binder is the computer-generated listing for a boy named Barack Hussein Obama II born in Hawaii, surrounded by the alphabetized last names of all other children born in-state between 1960 and 1964. This is the only government birth information, called “index data,” available to the public. So far this month, only The Associated Press and one other person had looked at the binder, according to a sign-in sheet viewed Wednesday in the state Department of Health building. The sheet showed about 25 names of people who have seen the document since March 2010, when the sign-in sheet begins. |
27 With lights, poems, teens say goodbye to Cabrini
By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer
Sat Apr 23, 10:30 am ET
| CHICAGO – Every day at sundown, the gutted shell of the last Cabrini Green public housing tower takes on a ghostly aura as lights start flickering sporadically from 15 floors of empty rooms.
It looks like a distress signal – but it’s really a goodbye. This is the final Cabrini high rise to meet the wrecker’s ball, the end of an era in Chicago, where public housing has long been a symbol of every form of inner-city agony: crumbling bases for vicious street gangs, darkened stairways reeking of urine, gunfire echoing in the night. |
28 Pastor seeking to protest at mosque briefly jailed
By COREY WILLIAMS, Associated Press
Fri Apr 22, 10:27 pm ET
| DEARBORN, Mich. – A Florida pastor’s planned demonstration outside a Michigan mosque was scuttled Friday after a jury determined the protest would constitute a breach of the peace and he was briefly jailed for refusing to pay what authorities called a “peace bond.”
The Rev. Terry Jones, whose past rhetoric against Muslims has inflamed anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, said he refused to pay the $1 bond because to do so would violate his freedom of speech. He later paid it and was released. Jones had planned a demonstration Friday evening outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit that is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the nation. An estimated 30,000 people in Dearborn, about a third of the city’s population, trace their roots to the Middle East. |
29 Fake pregnancy shines light on Latina teen rates
By SHANNON DININNY, Associated Press
Fri Apr 22, 9:58 pm ET
| TOPPENISH, Wash. – When Gaby Rodriguez took off her fake baby belly and revealed to her classmates that for months they had been part of an elaborate social experiment, she did more than force members of her community to examine how they treat pregnant teens – she got the attention of the nation.
The Yakima Herald-Republic detailed the experience of the 17-year-old Rodriguez in a story Wednesday that caught the attention of shows like “Good Morning America” and resonated with viewers of popular teen mom reality shows. School officials said they and Rodriguez would have no more comment until she returns from a class trip next week. But her action thrust her into a growing conversation. |
30 Christine O’Donnell amends fundraising reports
RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press
Fri Apr 22, 7:33 pm ET
| DOVER, Del. – New campaign finance reports filed by former U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell include what appear to be previously undisclosed payments to her for travel expenses and indicate that she ended 2010 with $230,000 less cash on hand than previously reported.
In an April 15 memorandum to the Federal Election Commission, O’Donnell campaign committee lawyer Cleta Mitchell said the committee had retained FEC compliance experts who reviewed the Delaware Republican’s campaign finance paperwork for the 2009-2010 election cycle. According to Mitchell, the compliance experts discovered several “inadvertent” errors resulting from campaign software used in 2009 and early 2010. |
31 Ex-Atlanta bank executive sentenced to 5 years
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press
Fri Apr 22, 5:51 pm ET
| ATLANTA – The moment Jeffrey Levine got a call from federal prosecutors telling him he was the target of an investigation of suspected fraud at his Atlanta-based bank, he says he knew there was no use fighting. He told prosecutors not to bother with a trial, cooperated with investigators and pleaded guilty to his part in the national wave of financial trickery that a judge called “the crime of the century.”
Levine, the 70-year-old former vice president of the failed Omni National Bank, was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday and ordered to repay more than $6.7 million in restitution for his role in a scheme to cook the bank’s books to mask millions of dollars in losses. His case is a sign of the ramped-up focus on bank fraud in Georgia, which leads the nation with 59 bank failures since 2008. Minutes after Levine’s hearing, a judge sentenced Omni customer Delroy Davy to 14 years in prison for giving kickbacks to a bank officer and participating in a house-flipping scheme. |
32 Report: Transocean contributed to Gulf disaster
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press
Fri Apr 22, 4:35 pm ET
| NEW ORLEANS – Flaws in Transocean Ltd.’s emergency training and equipment and a poor safety culture contributed to the deadly Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion that led to the Gulf oil spill, according to a Coast Guard report released Friday.
The report centered on Transocean’s role in the disaster because it owned the rig and was primarily responsible for ensuring its safety, the Coast Guard said. BP PLC owned the well that blew out. The Coast Guard report also concluded that decisions made by workers aboard the rig “may have affected the explosions or their impact,” such as failing to follow procedures for notifying other crew members about the emergency after the blast. |
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes. 
On this day in 1564, 
Recent Comments