A full-scale evacuation could delay by up to two weeks the final operation to plug BP’s runaway well, which has unleashed millions of barrels of crude on Gulf Coast shorelines in one of America’s worst ever environmental disasters.

“Activities that are under way for storm preparedness include evacuating specialized vessels from the path of any severe weather to prevent damage and ensure that oil recovery operations can resume as soon as possible after a storm,” a Coast Guard statement said.

“We are having to watch the weather very, very carefully now and adjust our plans accordingly,” BP senior vice president Kent Wells told reporters.

Anxiously eyeing the bad weather brewing in the Caribbean to see if it could become a tropical storm and veer towards the Gulf, US and BP officials pored over data mulling whether to order an evacuation.

With no crews on site to monitor pressure inside the well, top US official Admiral Thad Allen has also warned that the cap that has prevented any toxic crude from entering the sea for the past week may have to be opened up again.

Storm warnings were extended Thursday from the Caribbean around the Florida Keys to the Gulf Coast, but there was no immediate order from BP or the US government to suspend operations and pull hundreds of staff back to shore.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged all nations including Serbia to recognise Kosovo after the International Court of Justice in The Hague backed its independence from Serbia.

“We call on all states to move beyond the issue of Kosovo’s status and engage constructively in support of peace and stability in the Balkans, and we call on those states that have not yet done so to recognise Kosovo,” she said.

The non-binding finding was greeted with euphoria among Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanian population, who hooted car horns in delight while their president said it removed the last vestiges of doubt over independence.

But Serbian President Boris Tadic said Serbia would never recognise Kosovo’s independence, while his foreign minister appealed to the minority Serb community concentrated in the north of Kosovo to remain calm.

The London-based Committee of European Banking Supervisors is to publish the results of tests on 91 European Union banks which account for 65 percent of the EU banking sector.

Ministers in several European countries and European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet have said most banks should pass the check-up, leading some analysts to wonder if the tests are really tough enough.

The sites are nominated to join 890 already on the United Nations’ cultural body’s list of the world’s top spots, with three new candidates, including two that are specks in the Pacific: the Marshall Islands and Kiribati.

The Marshall Islands include the Bikini Atoll, which were evacuated in 1946 while the United States carried out nuclear weapons tests.

Schleck began the final climbing stage of this year’s race, a 174km ride from Pau to the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees, with an eight-second deficit to Spain’s two-time winner in the race for the yellow jersey.

But despite staying faithful to his promise of attacking Contador throughout the 18.6km slog to the summit of the fog-shrouded Tourmalet, stage winner Schleck finished with Contador sitting comfortably on his wheel.

Schleck launched attack after attack on Contador as the pair duelled up the final 10km of the 18.6km slog to the summit of the legendary Col du Tourmalet on stage 17.

In the end, Contador allowed Schleck to take the stage win but emerged with the bigger prize of the yellow jersey still on his back and his eight-second lead intact to all but secure his third triumph on the race.

“Every three minutes a person living with HIV has his or her life cut off prematurely by TB,” said Jorge Sampaio, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special envoy on stopping tuberculosis.

“This is completely unacceptable. TB is a preventable and curable disease.”

Another report on Thursday showed an index of leading indicators, a gauge of the economy’s future prospects, fell last month, consistent with views the recovery was cooling and the slowdown could persist through the end of the year.

With the data stream continuing to be weak, fears have escalated that the economy may be slipping back into recession, but both private economists and Federal Reserve officials see the recovery still intact.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton will hear arguments in a federal lawsuit at 1:30 p.m. local time (2030 GMT) seeking to block Arizona’s tough new immigration law that is scheduled to take effect on July 29.

The Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature passed the law in April to try to stem the flow of illegal immigrants over the state’s border with Mexico and cut down on drug trafficking and crime — setting it on a collision course with the federal government.

The delay would give Democrats a small window to advance the complex legislation amid intense political pressure in the weeks before the November elections.

“We will fight that out in September,” said a Democratic senator who did not wish to be quoted by name. “It will be tough to win.”

The non-binding, but clear-cut ruling by the International Court of Justice is a major blow to Serbia and will complicate efforts to draw the former pariah ex-Yugoslav republic into the European Union.

It is likely to lead to more states following the United States, Britain and 67 other countries in recognizing ethnic-Albanian dominated Kosovo, which broke away after NATO intervened to end a brutal crackdown on separatism by Belgrade.

Growing confidence in the mechanical plug’s security convinced scientists it was safe to leave it unmonitored for a few days, Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said. He said they’ll decide Thursday evening whether dozens of ships in the area will leave.

“While this is not a hurricane, it’s a storm that will have probably some significant impacts, so we’re taking appropriate cautions,” Allen said.

The museum and research complex in Washington holds the most complete set of invertebrate species from the Gulf, offering scientists studying the spill’s effects a look at life before the gusher began. A researcher pulling a creature from the Gulf can use the Smithsonian’s collection to compare its size, body chemistry and other characteristics to a specimen collected before the catastrophe.

Smithsonian scientists began putting their collection to use just days after the oil spill, creating a digital map showing where each specimen was collected in the Gulf. Information from the collection could help settle conflicts about how much damage the spill caused, said Jonathan Coddington, head of research and collections at the National Museum of Natural History.

Obama expressed his regret in a phone call, telling Sherrod he hopes she will accept the Agriculture Department’s offer of a new position and saying she could parlay “this misfortune” into an opportunity to use her life experiences to help people, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. The president thought Sherrod was “very gracious,” Gibbs told reporters.

Sherrod was forced to resign as a USDA official in Georgia earlier this week after a conservative blogger posted an edited video of her recalling at an NAACP meeting her reluctance 24 years ago to help a poor white farmer seeking government assistance. She later said that the video posting took out of context what had been a talk advocating racial reconciliation.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer attended the second hearing, as did the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Dennis burke.

Judge Susan Bolton did not issue a ruling at the end of the first hearing. The afternoon hearing focused on the U.S. Justice Department requesting a preliminary injunction blocking key sections of the law from taking effect next week.

The White House said President Barack Obama would quickly sign the legislation Congress approved Thursday to restore benefits to people who have been out of work for six months or more, ending an interruption that cut off payments averaging about $300 a week to 2 1/2 million people who have been unable to find work in the aftermath of the nation’s long and deep recession.

At stake are up to 73 weeks of federally financed benefits for people who have exhausted their 26 weeks of state jobless benefits. About half of the approximately 5 million people in the program have had their benefits cut off since its authorization expired June 2.

The records, which document his superiors’ decisions to pass over Greene for promotion, cite mistakes as severe as improperly uploading sensitive intelligence information to a military server, and as basic as an overall inability to clearly express his thoughts and perform basic tasks.

Greene, 32, won a surprise victory in the June 8 Democratic primary. Greene handily defeated Vic Rawl, a former lawmaker and judge who had been considered an easy win by the party establishment.

“Are they no longer cracking down on pornographic websites? A lot of porn sites and forums are accessible,” technology blogger William Long wrote on his feed.

Messages like that startled Chinese Web surfers, long accustomed to the authorities’ Internet blockades. The country had been in the midst of highly publicized anti-pornography sweeps, and there had been no announcement of any change in government policy.

There’s some debate about what exactly has been found. The survey team which uncovered the structure said it could be the foundation for a circle of freestanding pieces of timber, a wooden version of Stonehenge.

But Tim Darvill, a professor of archaeology at Bournemouth University in southern England, expressed skepticism, saying he believed it was more likely a barrow, or prehistoric tomb.

Democrats are hedging about making Obama’s pledge stick for more than a year or two, setting up a major battle on a super-sensitive subject just before the November elections.

With the most sweeping tax cuts in a generation due to expire in January, the Democrats are divided over whether the government can afford to make any of them permanent – especially with voters increasingly upset over the fast-rising federal budget deficit.

Sales of previously occupied homes fell 5.1 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million, the National Association of Realtors said.

Meanwhile, new claims for unemployment insurance jumped by 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 464,000, the Labor Department said. Seasonal factors boosted new requests for benefits. Still, first-time claims remain elevated, pointing to a sluggish job market.

A federal bankruptcy judge decided Thursday to keep the Aug. 4 date to auction off the team, rejecting requests to delay it nearly two months so bidders could line up financing. And Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a billionaire businessman, may be among those bidding on the Rangers.

“It’s real simple: We’re going to get it done Aug. 4 and 5,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge D. Michael Lynn said after a three-day hearing that included plenty of squabbling among attorneys involved in the long-delayed sale.

At a little more than $35,000, the 2011 Lincoln MKZ sedan won’t be cheap, but the decision by Ford to match the prices of the two styles could lead competitors to follow suit with future models.

The hybrid MKZ, debuting this fall and running on both gas and electric power, will be a bargain after factoring in savings at the pump. It gets more than double the mileage of the traditional version in city driving.

The president’s signing ceremony capped nearly two years of intense and partisan debate over how to avoid a recurrence of the 2008 financial meltdown that buckled the U.S. economy and left sharp, lasting imprints on the nation’s politics and in Americans’ homes.

“Because of this law, the American people will never be asked again to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” Obama said.

The unusual memo by Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, describes Ban as more concerned with preventing news leaks than with releasing possible criminal evidence to prosecutors. It also details how she fought Ban’s efforts to set up a competing “new investigative capacity” within the United Nations.

The Swedish former auditor general also stated that the secretary-general improperly refused to allow many of her office’s audit reports to be made public, or to allow nearly all of its confidential investigative reports, with evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing, to be referred to outside prosecutors.

Mayor Dave Bing’s comments came a day after he fired Chief Warren Evans – one year after he was hired for the job.

On his Facebook page, Evans, 61, lashed out at critics, saying he didn’t understand the problem with a video promoting a reality show in which he would star.

Defense officials had to temporarily halt the program in February after an unexpected spike in applications threatened to bust its $174 million budget.

The department on Tuesday announced plans to resume the Military Career Advancement Accounts, or MyCAA, for new appplicants in October.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton was holding the hearing on whether the law should be put on hold and whether a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups and others challenging it should be dismissed.

About 30 lawyers were in court to represent defendants in the case. There also were about 150 spectators in the courtroom, many in a second-floor gallery.

It pays to read between the label lines, nutritionists say.

“People in the store, trying to make healthy choices, do fall into that pitfall,” said Andrea Giancoli, registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “They see ‘wheat’ or they see ‘multigrain’ or ‘sprouted’ and things of that nature. Unless it said ‘whole grain’ or ‘whole wheat’, it probably isn’t.”

In 1969, the government detonated a subterranean nuclear bomb to break loose natural gas deposits from tight sandstone formations more than 8,000 feet below ground on a Colorado mountain. The bomb was twice as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

The scheme worked – to an extent. The gas was unlocked by the blast but was deemed too radioactive for commercial use.

Shirley Sherrod was dismissed from her Agriculture Department job because remarks she made about her dealings with a white farmer almost a quarter century ago were perceived as racist. She was offered her job back Wednesday because a full viewing of that speech showed it to be a tale of racial reconciliation.

But put aside the furor and confusion over the employment of the black woman who headed the USDA’s rural development office in Georgia. The Sherrod affair brings to the fore a simmering debate over whether black racism is cause for concern in America under its first black president.

Monday ends, but not the story.

A complete, 43-minute version of the video surfaces the next day, Tuesday, and casts a much different light on Shirley Sherrod’s comments: They were part of an NAACP speech about how she overcame her racial prejudice to help the farmer, not about prejudice that stopped her from helping him.

Obama said the Tribal Law and Order Act, which passed the U.S. House Wednesday, is an important step in addressing the “unique public safety challenges” that confront reservations.

“The federal government’s relationship with tribal governments, its obligations under treaty and law, and our values as a nation require that we do more to improve public safety in tribal communities,” Obama said. “And this act will help us achieve that.”

US and BP officials were poring over weather data as the National Hurricane Center downgraded an earlier forecast saying there was now a 50 percent chance of the bad weather “becoming a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours.”

Depending on how the system develops, officials may have to issue evacuation orders for hundreds of support ships and engineers trying to complete a relief well being drilled deep under the seabed.

The British energy giant and US government officials were evaluating the cap each day, and on Tuesday extended for another 24 hours the period of evaluation of the so-called capping stack structure that appeared to stop the oil flow last week after nearly three months.

“We’re just going to continue on with the tests. And every day that we continue on with the tests, that gives us more confidence when we don’t see any anomalies,” BP vice president Kent Wells told a briefing Tuesday.

The bomb in a car parked near a Shiite mosque in the Abu Sayeeda neighbourhood of the city exploded at around 6:00 pm (1500 GMT), an official from Baquba Operations Command said.

Police imposed a curfew in Abu Sayeeda as they suspect there might be more bombs, the official said, adding later that police had defused two roadside bombs in the area.

“The appeals chamber … orders that Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj be retried” on several counts of the initial indictment, appeals judge Patrick Robinson of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said.

This would be the court’s first-ever retrial.

The exhumation at Bucharest’s military graveyard of Ghencea came at the request of the family who have long suspected the bodies in the burial plot were not those of the Ceausescus.

Although the test results are not expected for months, one relative said he thought the remains were indeed that of the Communist strongman who ruled Romania from 1965 until 1989, and his wife Elena.

The legislation, which some Republicans have pledged to repeal, introduces new consumer protections, checks the power of big banks and cracks down on deceptive practices by credit card firms.

“Because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street?s mistakes. There will be no more tax-funded bailouts,” Obama promised.

Unveiling a strategy here this week, Bordeaux’s wine trade council (CIVB) decided to increase overall production by 12 percent while reducing the current 1.1 million hectolitre production of so-called “Basic Bordeaux”.

These cheap and cheerful labels retail for less than two euros (2.50 dollars) per bottle in France, but producers and merchants fear they dilute the region’s image as the home of prestigious wines.

But when it comes to winning stages on the Tour de France, the hosts are leading the way.

After 17 days of racing French riders have won six stages, equalling a modern day record that was last set in 1997 — a year before the Festina doping scandal almost brought the event to its knees.

The recovery, driven mainly by external demand, “is likely to be slowed in the near term by market tensions related to sovereign risks,” the International Monetary Fund said in a report.

“Over the medium term, the need for fiscal consolidation and structural rigidities will weigh on it, leading to persistent unemployment and subdued investment,” the Washington-based fund said after annual consultations with the 16 member economies of the eurozone area.

The maverick chief executive is seen to be positioning the group to join the fray as major world automakers seek new alliances, a year and a half after orchestrating a tie-up with near-bankrupt US automaker Chrysler.

“It will be easier for Fiat to merge with other companies and the first that comes to mind obviously is Chrysler,” said Umberto Bertele, chairman of Milan Politechnic’s business school, of the restructuring.

Airlines and leasing companies have splashed billions of dollars on planes seating around 100 passengers from Brazil’s Embraer and Russia’s Sukhoi but have sat tight regarding Mitsubishi’s new planned jet and Bombardier’s CSeries.

Short-haul planes are being snapped up to meet soaring demand for air travel across emerging markets, especially in Asia, and ahead of an expected upturn in European and US economic growth.

The unknown attackers, who also beat up other plant employees, set off the explosions at the station in the North Caucasus’s Kabardino-Balkaria region by laying mines in the turbine room. The plant has been shut down as a result.

“A terror act took place at the Baksanskaya hydroelectric power plant,” state-run power group RusHydro, which runs the plant, said in a statement.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said he did not regret freeing Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds last August.

And Salmon denied claims from US lawmakers that the release formed part of an oil deal between BP and resource-rich Libya.

CEO Tony Hayward, criticized for his handling of the disaster, has the full support of the company’s board and will remain in his job, a BP spokesman said, dismissing a Times of London report that he would step down within the next 10 weeks.

The Times, citing a person close to the matter, said Hayward would have to step down so the British energy giant could protect itself against a potential buyout threat by ExxonMobil or Royal Dutch Shell.

It is, in other words, business as usual for the former Coast Guard boss, the unlikely face of an Obama administration that has been pilloried by critics for a tepid response to the worst oil spill in U.S. history — a perception the White House and Allen vehemently dispute.

After breakfast at his New Orleans hotel, Allen loads up in a waiting SUV, leaving by 7:00 a.m. for the airport, where a helicopter will fly him to Theodore, Alabama, his first stop.

Policy makers, however, still expect growth to be sustained despite a recent softening in the economy evident in data, Bernanke said in congressional testimony.

The Federal Reserve is continuing “prudent planning for the ultimate withdrawal of monetary policy accommodation” even as it recognizes the uncertain outlook, Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee.

Influential business groups lined up to criticize the new law, underscoring Obama’s uneasy relationship with America’s business community. Some on Wall Street, however, welcomed the clarity offered by the law after months of wrangling in Congress over what should be in the legislation.

The law, which got final approval from the Senate last week, targets the kind of Wall Street risk-taking that helped trigger a global financial meltdown in 2007-2009 and also aims to strengthen consumer protections.

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the increase was due largely to the government’s pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market.

Increased guarantees for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, the Government National Mortgage Association and the Veterans administration increased the government’s commitments by $512.4 billion alone in the year to June 30, according to the report.

Retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said a weather system brewing in the Carribean could force crews to abandon their watch over the experimental cap that’s been bottling oil a mile below the surface of the water for nearly a week.

Scientists have been scrutinizing underwater cameras and data for days, trying to determine if the cap is displacing pressure and causing leaks underground. If storms keep them from seeing the cap and getting those readings – for up to four days, Allen said – BP could reopen the well to avoid missing signs it is buckling.

Hordes of helicopters, bulldozers, Army trucks, ATVs, barges, dredges, airboats, workboats, cleanup crews, media, scientists and volunteers have descended on the beaches, blue waters and golden marshes of the Gulf Coast.

That’s a lot of propellers, anchors, tires, and feet for a fragile ecosystem to take, and a tough truth is emerging: In many places, the oil cleanup itself is causing environmental damage.

An official warned the spill posed a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality as China’s latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China’s most livable city.

One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude.

The decision closes the books on one of the lingering political disputes of the Bush administration, one that Democrats said was evidence of GOP politics run amok and that Republicans have always said was a manufactured controversy.

Investigators looked into whether the Bush administration improperly dismissed nine U.S. attorneys, and in particular New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, as a way to influence criminal cases. The scandal added to mounting criticism that the administration had politicized the Justice Department, a charge that contributed to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the dismissal of Shirley Sherrod an injustice and a mistake and said he was apologizing for the “entire administration.” He said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was trying to reach her to extend an apology.

“I accept the apology,” Sherrod said on CNN after watching Gibbs talk to reporters at a televised briefing. But she said the apology took too long and she wasn’t sure if she wanted her job back.

The president’s signing ceremony capped nearly two years of intense debate over how to avoid a recurrence of the 2008 financial meltdown that buckled the U.S. economy and has left sharp, lasting imprints on the nation’s politics and in Americans’ homes.

In a heated midterm election season that has put a dent in his public support, Obama sought to put the complex law in pocketbook terms. Emphasizing provisions that guard borrowers from abusive lenders, he claimed “the strongest financial protections for consumers in the nation’s history.”

Both lawsuits said the ordinance amounted to discrimination. The suits were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, also known as MALDEF.

“This law encourages discrimination and racial profiling against Latinos and others who appear to be foreign-born, including U.S. citizens,” said Amy Miller, legal director of ACLU Nebraska. “We’re going to do all we can to make sure this extreme law, which would lead to individuals losing housing and jobs because of their appearance and language ability, never goes into effect.”

Several volleyball players and their coach had sued Quinnipiac University after it announced in March 2009 that it would eliminate the team for budgetary reasons and replace it with a competitive cheer squad.

The school contended the cheer squad and other moves kept it in compliance with Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandates equal opportunities for men and women in athletics. But U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill disagreed in a ruling that those involved say was the first time the issue has been decided by a judge.

Those behind the find say the star, called R136a1, may once have weighed as much as 320 solar masses. Astrophysicist Paul Crowther said the obese star – twice as heavy as any previously discovered – has already slimmed down considerably over its lifetime.

In fact, it’s burning itself off with such intensity that it shines at nearly 10 million times the luminosity of the sun.

After the Democratic-controlled Senate voted 60-40 on Tuesday to move ahead on the bill, approval became a formality. The measure would go to the House for a final vote and on to President Barack Obama.

At issue are payments averaging $309 a week for almost 5 million people whose 26 weeks of state benefits have run out. Those people are enrolled in a federally financed program providing up to 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits.

Ceausescu ruled Romania for 25 years with an iron fist before being ousted and executed during the 1989 anti-communist revolt in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

Many Romanians have doubted for years that the Ceausescus were really buried in the Ghencea military cemetery in west Bucharest. Still, they were shocked by the unannounced early-morning exhumation, part of a five-year lawsuit.

Bernanke said the Fed would consider action if matters worsened.

His comments to the Senate Banking Committee sent stocks tumbling. The Dow Jones industrial average had been up 20 points before he spoke. It fell as much as 160 points during his testimony, but recovered some losses to close down 109 points. Investors shifted money into the safety of Treasury bonds; the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell to 2.86 percent.

The department abandoned the practice after AP investigated. Inspectors from the department’s Office of Inspector General quietly conducted interviews last week to determine whether political advisers acted improperly.

The Freedom of Information Act, the main tool forcing the government to be more open, is designed to be insulated from political considerations. Anyone who seeks information through the law is supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose confidential decision-making in certain areas.

Cameron planned to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery before heading to the Pentagon for briefings on military operations in Afghanistan.

Britain has the most troops serving in Afghanistan of any NATO nation after the United States. But Cameron said he wants his country’s 10,000 troops out by the time of Britain’s next election, which must be held by 2015.

On Tuesday, an Afghan army sergeant opened fire at an army base in northern Afghanistan, killing two American civilian trainers before being shot dead. That followed an attack in the south on July 13, when a soldier killed three British troopers, including the company commander, with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the dead of night.

Military commanders have described the two attacks as isolated events, and it is indeed rare for an Afghan soldier to turn on NATO forces. Still, they feed on larger doubts about the ongoing massive recruiting among a largely illiterate population – many of whom are used to holding a gun but not to rigid military discipline.

Just one Republican joined Democrats to approve Kagan’s nomination and send it to the full Senate, where she’s expected to win confirmation within weeks.

“Elena Kagan will be confirmed,” predicted Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary chairman. “She will go on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Former Secretary of State Karen Handel will face former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal in an Aug. 10 runoff for the Republican nomination. With 83 percent of precincts reporting from Tuesday’s primary, unofficial returns showed Handel had 33 percent of the vote to Deal’s 24 percent.

Palin’s nod helped Handel surge to the top of the polls in recent days, while Deal had an endorsement from Gingrich.

Byron Williams, 45, a parolee with two previous bank robbery convictions, wanted to “start a revolution” by killing people at the American Civil Liberties Union and Tides Foundation, both in San Francisco, Oakland police Sgt. Michael Weisenberg said in court documents.

The weekend shootout occurred during a 24-hour span in Oakland when a sniper shot at police officers from a high-rise building, and a Virginia man who had a job interview in the San Francisco Bay area was fatally shot in downtown Oakland by robbers who got away with just $17.

Two of the cases were set to go before U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton on Thursday.

Lawyers in separate cases filed by the federal government and by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups are seeking an order to keep the law from taking effect.

The head of the Environmental Protection Department on Wednesday approved the six-day hunt in northwestern New Jersey as part of a management policy that includes public education and habitat protection.

Bears have always had a plentiful food supply in the hilly wilds of northwestern New Jersey, but as civilization pushes ever westward from New York they are finding it easier to live off crops, garbage and other vestiges of humanity, experts say.

The frightening encounter shows the keeper trying to protect himself as the elephant lowered its head, its tusks narrowly missing the man’s head and chest.

The elephant then backed away as the keeper stumbled out.

A family court judge in Reno signed the divorce decree Wednesday for Gov. Jim Gibbons and his now ex-wife, Dawn.

Gibbons becomes the first sitting governor to get divorced in Nevada’s history. The former congressman won’t be returning to the governor’s mansion next year because he lost the Republican primary last month to former federal judge Brian Sandoval – another first for an incumbent governor.

The predators were poisoned and trapped to near-extermination in the United States last century, but have since clawed their way back to some of the most remote wilderness in the lower 48 states.

That recovery was boosted in the 1990s by the reintroduction of 66 wolves in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Yet as those first packs have flourished, increased livestock killings and declining big game herds have drawn sharp backlash from ranchers, hunters and officials in the Northern Rockies.

The district also agreed to follow a non-discrimination policy as part of the settlement, though it argues such a policy was already in place.

Constance McMillen, 18, said the victory came at the price of her being shunned in her small hometown of Fulton.

An Associated Press-Univision poll of more than 1,500 Latinos uncovered several distinct trends. Hispanics worry more than most Americans about losing jobs and paying bills. They place a high importance on education and expect their children to go to college.

The poll, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, showed that Hispanics are torn between hopes for tomorrow and daily doses of financial stress.