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January 10, 2007
Anyone still think Al Gore is wrong?
Maybe they should ask these bears:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian bears at Moscow Zoo have finally dropped off into their hibernation slumber despite months of insomnia caused by a record mild start to winter, zoo officials said on Tuesday.
Russia's arctic winters, which scuttled the occupation plans of both Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, came to an end this year in European Russia with no snow and temperatures so warm that bears were left pacing around and unable to sleep."The bears have finally fallen asleep and they have not woken up yet," Natalia Istratova, a spokeswoman for Moscow Zoo, said by telephone.
"They usually fall asleep when there is continuous snow cover but despite the fact that there is no snow they are still asleep," she said.
The bears, which usually go into hibernation in November at the latest, finally dropped off at the end of December when a tiny amount of snow fell before swiftly melting, she said.
Russians, who discuss the weather with peculiar intensity, have had to leave their fur hats and ice-skates at home this Christmas, which Moscow's weather centre said was the warmest since records began in 1879.
Posted by Mike at 02:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 09, 2007
Coincidence or something worse?
Gun shots fired into La. mayor's home
GREENWOOD, La. - Two shotgun blasts were fired into the home of the town's mayor, who says he had been cursed at before but never physically threatened.
Police stepped up security after the shots were fired early Monday at the home of Ernest Lampkins, who was elected in 2004 as the first black mayor of the small, predominantly white northwest Louisiana town.An NAACP leader on Tuesday called for an FBI investigation.
One slug left a hole the size of a baseball in a glass panel separating the living room from the family area, and another lodged in a wall. No one inside the house was injured.
Police Chief J.D. Dunn said he didn't know why it happened or who was responsible.
Officers increased security at the mayor's home after the shots were fired Monday and used handheld metal detectors to check people entering Monday's Board of Aldermen meeting.
"We don't know if the shooting was racially motivated. We have nothing to suggest that at this point," said James Pannell, head of the Shreveport chapter of the National Association for the advancement of Colored People, but he said the group is concerned because Lampkins is black.
Agents at the FBI's Shreveport office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
"Anytime you shoot in someone's house, there is intent to kill," Lampkins said.
The mayor said about 10 people in the town of some 2,600 residents oppose everything he does. "They're really anti-administration. They are not team players. They are citizens who have a vendetta," he said. "I'm not saying they have anything to do with it, but they have created an atmosphere to making such things possible."
"It could be I'm black or the fact that I defeated the acting mayor," he said.
Lampkins, a retired educator, has lived in Greenwood, 10 miles west of Shreveport, for about 20 years. He said he found a "For Sale" sign posted in his yard in December but has never faced physical threats.
"I enjoy what I do in terms of being mayor," he said. "The only thing that has bothered me is the invasion of my home and the personal safety of my family."
Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator said charges in the case will depend on motive. "If it was intended to intimidate, then you have a realm of hate-crime," he said.
Greenwood is about 150 miles north of Westlake, where Gerald Washington, that town's first black mayor, was found shot to death in a parking lot on Dec. 30, a few days before he was to take office. The coroner and the sheriff pronounced Washington's death a suicide, but his family and supporters have questioned the ruling.
Posted by Mike at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 07, 2007
Mayors seek to gain control over schools
Now this sounds like a plan for accountability that could work. When a school district is contained within a certain city, town, or county, the elected officials for that jurisdiction should be held responsible for the quality of their schools. I believe they are usually responsible for raising the tax revenue for them anyways. Of course, having the authority is a lot different than having the money, but a mayor has more leverage to demand state or federal aid.
WASHINGTON - The statistics tell a sorry tale about the public schools in America's capital. A majority of fourth- and eighth-graders are failing to read or do math at basic levels. Roughly four in five schools are not meeting achievement goals under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Just 43 percent of students graduate from high school in five years.
The new mayor, Adrian Fenty, got an earful about the situation during last year's campaign.So he is doing what a dozen other city leaders around the nation have done: trying to gain control over the schools. For Fenty, that means convincing the city council and Congress to support his plan to require the superintendent to report to him and to further limit the authority of the elected school board.
The problem for Fenty and his colleagues is that mayors generally lack the power to overhaul schools.
"Mayors are held accountable for something they have no responsibility for," said Fritz Edelstein, who recently stepped down as a senior adviser to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
In most places, elected school boards and the superintendents they hire govern school districts. It is a structure set up about a century ago to insulate schools from political strife and corruption in city government.
Yet it has not always worked as planned.
For example, before a mayoral takeover of New York City's schools, an investigation into a Bronx school board found that members routinely misused district personnel and resources.
Those kind of problems, plus low voter turnout for school board elections and sagging test scores, have fueled a movement since the 1990s for mayoral control of schools.
Posted by Mike at 05:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 05, 2007
Alabama: 45th in helping kids, No. 1 in paying coach
Someone was paying attention over at the AP:
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) -- The $4 million-a-year salary offered to the University of Alabama's new football coach has some questioning the priorities in a poor state that often ranks near the bottom nationally for education.Many Crimson Tide fans, hopeful for another championship title, cheered the hiring of Nick Saban, who took a cut from his $4.5 million salary to leave the Miami Dolphins. His compensation at Alabama, though, makes him the highest paid college coach in the country, well ahead of Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, who makes about $3.4 million.
The reported salary is more than most CEOs make in a state that ranks 46th in the country in household income, with a median of $37,502. It also is nearly seven times what the university's president, Robert E. Witt, earns, according to an executive-compensation database compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The hiring announced Wednesday also came on the same day Education Week magazine released a study showing Alabama ranked 45th nationally in giving public schoolchildren a chance for success.
"You couldn't have a more stark picture of education priorities in the state of Alabama," said Jim Carnes, communications director for Alabama Arise, a coalition that represents the poor. "We put that kind of money into a college football coach and leave our younger children at the mercy of inadequate schools and underpaid teachers. We strongly need a priority adjustment."
Posted by Mike at 12:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 02, 2007
Louisiana town's first black mayor killed
WESTLAKE, La. - The newly elected mayor of this southwest Louisiana town was found shot to death in a parking lot over the weekend three days before he was to become the town's first black mayor.
The body of Gerald Washington, 57, was found Saturday night in the parking lot of a former high school. He had been shot once in the chest, investigators said.Funeral arrangements had not been made as of Tuesday morning, City Clerk Andrea Mahfouz said.
Officials said Washington was found lying by his truck with his cap on and a pistol nearby.
Gary "Stitch" Guillory, chief deputy of the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office, said his death is being treated as a homicide.
Washington, who served three terms as a city councilman, was sworn in Dec. 19 as Westlake's first new mayor in 24 years. He was set to take office Tuesday.
Although the town of 4,500 is 80 percent white, Washington had no trouble winning election in September. He had 696 votes — nearly 69 percent of the vote — to 318 for social worker Paula Johnson.
The city council will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday. The council has 10 days to appoint an interim mayor, and if it fails to do so by that deadline the governor could appoint someone to lead the town, according to Mayor Dudley Dixon, who is retiring after 32 years as mayor and council member.
"Mr. Washington is going to be missed by all the people of Westlake," Dixon said. "It's one of the most tragic things I've heard in a long time. He would be a good mayor."
"Westlake lost a good friend," said longtime Councilman Dan Cupit. "I was excited about the next four years. We all had good chemistry together."
Mahfouz said Washington was retired from the Conoco refinery, where he had worked for more than 30 years.
He and his wife, Mary Washington, had an adult son and daughter, Mahfouz said.
Posted by Mike at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)