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U.S. keeps pressure on Abbas after Netanyahu visit

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s low-profile White House visit, widely portrayed as frosty, in fact broke the ice in his relations with President Barack Obama, a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday.

And since the meeting on Monday, Washington has been keeping the pressure on Palestinians to resume peace talks without an Israeli settlement freeze first.

Netanyahu, who has withstood U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction, was ushered into the Oval Office after nightfall for a session at which, contrary to normal practice with a visiting Israeli leader, reporters were not allowed in.

Back home in Israel, newspapers seized on the low-profile White House visit as a snub, a sign of strained relations between Obama and Netanyahu, who had rejected his calls for a halt to settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

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Lack of health care killed 2,266 US veterans last year: study

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

The number of US veterans who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance was 14 times higher than the US military death toll in Afghanistan that year, according to a new study.

The analysis produced by two Harvard medical researchers estimates that 2,266 US military veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health coverage and had reduced access to medical care.

That figure is more than 14 times higher than the 155 US troop deaths in Afghanistan in 2008, the study says.

Released as the United States commemorates fallen soldiers on Veterans Day, the study warns that even health care provided by the Veterans Health Administration (VA) leaves many veterans without coverage.

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Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

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White House: Obama weighs 4 options in Afghanistan

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

President Barack Obama is considering four options for realigning U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, his spokesman said Tuesday, while military officials said the choices involve several ways the president could employ additional U.S. forces next year.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama will discuss the four scenarios with his national security team on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Fort Hood, Texas, Gibbs would not offer details about those options. He insisted that Obama has not made a decision about troop deployments.

Gibbs said that anybody who says Obama has made a decision “doesn’t have in all honesty the slightest idea what they’re talking about. The president’s yet to make a decision” about troop levels or other aspects of the revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

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Witness: Fla. office shooter stayed about a minute

Monday, November 9th, 2009

A man who was in an Orlando office when a former employee came in and started shooting said Monday that the ordeal that left one dead and five injured lasted about a minute.

Mark Davidson, a vice president at the engineering firm Reynolds, Smith and Hills, said Monday that his co-workers stayed calm Friday and didn’t scream as Jason Rodriguez entered a reception area of the eighth-floor office and began shooting randomly.

“Nobody was screaming or yelling,” Davidson said. “It wasn’t panicky.”

The gunman pulled a pistol from a holster under his shirt in the reception area of the U-shaped office and began shooting. At first, Davidson said he didn’t know what the noise was. He thought it might be balloons popping or book shelves falling over. There is only one main entrance to the office from outside, and it was typically unlocked during business hours.

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Obama, Netanyahu meet as U.S. peace bid flounders

Monday, November 9th, 2009

President Barack Obama held unusually low-profile talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that failed to provide any sign of progress toward reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

A White House statement after the one-hour, 40-minute session framed the meeting in only general terms, saying the two leaders discussed “how to move forward on Middle East peace” and also spoke about Iran and security issues.

A spokesman for Netanyahu declined to comment on the talks and a briefing the prime minister intended to hold on Tuesday for reporters who accompanied him to Washington was canceled.

Netanyahu, who began the day by publicly urging Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate immediately and drop a demand to halt Jewish settlement construction first, arrived at the White House after dark.

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Carrey’s ‘Christmas Carol’ wraps up $31M weekend

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Jim Carrey’s Scrooge collected holiday donations from movie fans with his new take on “A Christmas Carol,” which took in $31 million to open as the weekend’s top movie.

The Disney animated version of the Charles Dickens classic knocked the King of Pop out of the No. 1 spot as “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” slipped to second place with $14 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Sony’s “This Is It,” presenting rehearsal performances Jackson shot before his death last June, raised its domestic total to $57.9 million. Worldwide, “This Is It” has taken in $186.5 million.

Featuring Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and also as the three holiday ghosts that show Scrooge the error of his miserly ways, “A Christmas Carol” came in on the low end of Disney’s expectations for opening weekend.

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AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn — by a PC virus

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it’s your reputation that’s stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they’ll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — and might not realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

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Hopper: All’s ‘good right now’ despite cancer

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Prostate cancer couldn’t keep Dennis Hopper away from the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday.

The 73-year-old actor and artist attended the Breeders’ Cup in support of The V Foundation for Cancer Research, the official charity of the year-ending thoroughbred championships Saturday at Santa Anita Park in Southern California.

It was revealed last month that Hopper had been diagnosed with cancer, although he said Saturday he’s been battling it for the past nine years. He’s started a new, experimental treatment at the University of Southern California that he says he hopes will help.

“It has great promise,” Hopper said. “Everything’s good right now.”

Hopper recently canceled his appearance at an exhibition of his artwork and photography at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. He was hospitalized in New York last month and treated for dehydration.

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High court to look at life in prison for juveniles

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.

Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away.

They didn’t kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison.

Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.

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