The Pentagon could boost the number of additional forces being sent to Iraq, adding as many as 3,000 troops to the 21,500 being deployed under the president's war plan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.Gates and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the total number of additional forces being sent to Baghdad and Anbar province could increase by 10 percent to 15 percent. "We think the number is going to be around 21,500," Gates told a Senate panel. "But it would not be more than 10 percent more — 10 to 15 percent." That would amount to about 3,000 troops. ... http://abcnews.go.com censor News |
Editor - 09:36:00 02-06-07 |
Arkansas Rethinks Child Obesity Reports New Governor May Ditch Or Weaken Obesity Report Cards Program |
Arkansas — the first state to send home obesity report cards to warn parents of overweight kids' health risks — may ditch the plan or weaken it with the help of the new governor. Gov. Mike Beebe said the school weigh-ins and report cards had "a lot of negative, unintended consequences" and hurt some children's self-esteem. He favors letting parents drop out of the program more easily and wants the state to test children less often. His predecessor, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, said reversing the state's trendsetting, 3-year-old effort, "would be a huge step backwards." It's worth noting that Beebe, a Democrat, has no weight problem. Huckabee, a Republican, used to weigh 280 pounds, and before he began campaigning for president he campaigned against the ills of obesity. ... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/06/health/main2438250.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2438250
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Editor - 09:34:00 02-06-07 |
Maliki orders commanders launch crackdown |
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered Iraq's military commanders on Tuesday to speed up preparations for a U.S.-backed crackdown in Baghdad after a string of attacks killed hundreds of people in recent days.Addressing Iraqi generals over what he called a "delay" in a plan seen as a last-ditch effort to prevent Iraq from pitching into all-out civil war, Maliki said: "I call on you to quickly finish the preparations so that we don't disappoint people." His words came three days after a suicide truck bomb killed 135 people in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad in the worst single bombing since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. There is growing frustration among Iraqis over the delay in launching the offensive that Maliki first announced nearly a month ago. ... http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2853250
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Editor - 09:30:00 02-06-07 |
FEMA wants millions in hurricane aid returned Grants fraudulently, improperly distributed in rush after Katrina, Rita |
In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time. Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region. The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow. In the chaotic period after two deadly hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, slammed the Gulf Coast in 2005 — Katrina making landfall in late August, followed by Rita in late September — federal officials scrambled to provide help in hard-hit areas such as submerged neighborhoods near the French Quarter.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17002441/
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Editor - 09:28:00 02-06-07 |
Zimbabwe to Jail White Farmers if They Don't Leave Properties |
Zimbabwe's national security minister has told the country's last remaining white farmers that they will be jailed if they refuse to abide by a deadline that passed over the weekend for them to leave their farms, according to a newspaper report on Monday.The official Chronicle newspaper quoted the minister Didymus Mutasa as saying police would be "unleashed" to deal with white farmers who ignored the eviction notice."Those farmers who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be dealt with severely," said the minister, known to be close to President Robert Mugabe. The deadline was on Saturday.Farming officials said there were no immediate reports of arrests but they feared the worst.... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250483,00.html
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Editor - 09:25:00 02-06-07 |
House fire kills 10 — including 6 children — in Kentucky |
Fast-moving flames trapped a dozen people inside a burning house early Tuesday, killing 10 — six of them children — and leaving the only survivors hospitalized, authorities said.Most of the victims were dead by the time firefighters reached them, Nelson County Coroner Field Houghlin said. Neighbors said the two survivors had be held from running back into the flames for the screaming children."It may have been an explosion in the center of the house. The fire flashed very quickly," said Bardstown Fire Department spokesman Tom Isaac.Two of the children were found dead under the bodies of adults inside the charred one-story brick home, said Emergency Medical Services director Joe Prewitt.... http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-06-kentucky-fire_x.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 09:24:00 02-06-07 |
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