Gas Prices Reduce Traffic Fatalities
Current mood: curious
Category: Automotive

(WASHINGTON) — Roll back the clock to 1961: John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president. The Peace Corps was founded. The Dow Jones industrials hit 734. Gasoline reached 31 cents a gallon.

And the number of people killed in U.S. traffic accidents that year topped 36,200.

This year, gasoline climbed over $4 a gallon, and the traffic death toll — according to one study — appears headed to the lowest levels since Kennedy moved into the White House.

The number is being pulled down by a change in Americans' driving habits, which is fueled largely by record high gasoline prices, according to the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan.

The institute's study — which covers 12 months ending in April — found that as gas prices rose, driving and fatalities declined. The surprise, said Professor Michael Sivak, author of the study, was the huge decline in fatalities in March and April as gasoline prices surged above $3.20 a gallon.

Over the previous 10 months, monthly fatalities declined an average of 4.2% compared to the previous year. Then, Sivak's data shows, fatalities dropped 22.1% in March and 17.9% in April of this year — numbers that did not show up in a recent federal report that tracked a drop in traffic deaths through the end of 2007.

The declines found by Sivak suggest that motorists reached what he calls a "tipping point" and have begun significantly changing their behavior — altering not only how much they drive, but where, when and how they drive. Sivak said early data for May and June show similar trends.

"There is something more than just the reduction in driving that has to be brought in as an explanation for the huge drop in fatalities," Sivak said.

If the pattern continues for the rest of this year, it would lead to "an unheard of improvement" in motor vehicle fatalities, said Sivak, who used data from the National Safety Council, National Center for Health Statistics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Sivak predicts that highway deaths this year will drop below 37,000 for the first time since 1961 if the March and April trends continue. The government motor vehicle death count for 1961 totaled 36,285. The number of highway deaths peaked in 1972 at 55,600, then generally declined over the next two decades. For the past several years, the number has hovered above 42,000 a year.

NHTSA reported last week that motor vehicle deaths in the United States totaled 41,059 last year, the lowest level in more than a decade. And the Federal Highway Administration said Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than a year earlier, the biggest monthly decrease in a downward trend that began in November.

Experts who have studied motor vehicle fatality trends said one reason for the dramatic decline is that people are reducing their nonessential driving first, which is often leisure driving at night or on weekends. That also happens to be riskier than daylight commuting on congested highways at lower speeds.

Teenage and elderly drivers — who also have higher accident rates — are more likely to feel the pinch of higher gas prices, and thus may be cutting back more than other drivers. Federal data also shows that driving declines have been more dramatic on rural roads, which have higher accident rates than urban highways.

And, some drivers are simply trying to save on gas by slowing down, which also decreases risk.

"It's really very interesting that with all these efforts that have gone into building safer highways, safer cars, better enforcement ... this really dramatic change we're seeing is due to economics, to the price of gasoline," said Paul Fischbeck, director of Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation at Carnegie Mellon University.

The impact of high gas prices appears to extend well beyond traffic fatalities, also reshaping the way in which Americans travel and where they choose to live. Public transit, from trains to buses, is enjoying a revival. Amtrak, the passenger rail service that once struggled to attract riders, is now so popular it may soon not have enough trains to meet demand.

The increased cost of commuting to work by car is making close-in urban neighborhoods more attractive, accelerating a shift away from suburbs on the fringes of metropolitan areas — neighborhoods that have already been battered by the mortgage credit crisis.

"This is really the first time since the 1970s that people are thinking about driving and about what is the cost of an individual trip," said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia.

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Iraq: 650 Doctors Returned From Exile

(BAGHDAD) — Some 650 of the 8,000 Iraqi physicians who fled the country since 2003 due to violence have returned to their jobs in the past two months because of improved security, a Health Ministry official said Monday.

Adel Muhsin, the ministry's inspector general, said the doctors have gone back to hospitals across Iraq.

The country's medical system is woefully understaffed because of workers fleeing, and several weeks ago the government appealed to doctors to come home.

"We expect more doctors will respond to our call," Muhsin said in a phone interview.

Killings and kidnappings of doctors during five years of war and sectarian strife led to an unprecedented exodus of medical personnel that left Iraq's already troubled health care system almost paralyzed. Medical infrastructure is poor and some medicines are in short supply.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, 618 medical professionals, including 132 doctors, have been slain nationwide, according to figures issued earlier this year by the Health Ministry.

Muhsin said only 16,000 health care workers are running hospitals and clinics, but 100,000 are needed.

"The return of these doctors is a positive thing because we are suffering from a severe shortage of personnel and we welcome doctors willing to their country," he said.

The security situation has dramatically improved since last year, in part because of a 2007 U.S. troop buildup, a Sunni decision to join forces with the Americans against al-Qaida and a Shiite militia cease-fire.

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"Gay-Adoption" Ban on Ark. Ballot
Current mood: disgusted

(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — A proposal aimed at effectively banning gays and lesbians from becoming foster or adoptive parents was cleared Monday to appear on this fall's ballot in Arkansas.

The measure would prohibit unmarried couples living together from fostering or adopting children.

Secretary of State Charlie Daniels certified the proposed initiated act for the Nov. 4 ballot after verifying that the Arkansas Family Council Action Committee had submitted 85,389 valid signatures of registered voters. Supporters needed to turn in at least 61,974 valid signatures.

"Arkansas needs to affirm the importance of married mothers and fathers," Family Council President Jerry Cox said. "We need to publicly affirm the gold standard of rearing children whenever we can. The state standard should be as close to that gold standard of married mom and dad homes as possible."

The Family Council campaign is a response to a 2006 Arkansas Supreme Court decision striking down a state policy that specifically banned gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents.

The ballot measure would take the place of a state policy that currently bars unmarried couples living together from serving as foster parents.

The measure faces the threat of a lawsuit from groups who say that it unfairly discriminates against unmarried couples and limits the number of foster and adoptive homes available for children.

Arkansas Families First is campaigning against the measure and has said it plans to file a lawsuit to keep it from appearing on the November ballot. Debbie Willhite, a lead consultant for the group, said last week the group has found numerous signatures that should have been rejected by the state as invalid and that the group also plans to challenge the constitutionality of the measure.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel opposes the proposed initiated act but said last week that he was confident it could survive a legal challenge.

Cox said the Family Council will rely on support from the same network of churches that helped it pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2004.

The Family Council's campaign had a debt of nearly $2,800 as of July 31. By comparison, Arkansas Families First reported more than $45,000 in the bank for its efforts to fight the measure.

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Bush to relax protected species rules

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Monday said it plans to let federal agencies decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

The proposal, which does not require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews that government scientists have been performing for 35 years. Developers welcomed the plan, while environmentalists derided it.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said late Monday the changes were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.

"The existing regulations create unnecessary conflicts and delays," added Kempthorne. "The proposed regulations will continue to protect species while focusing the consultation process on those federal actions where potential impacts can be linked to the action and the risks are reasonably certain to occur. The result should be a process that is less time-consuming and a more effective use of our resources."

The proposal would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats.

The Interior Department cited its recent decision on polar bears as an example. While listing polar bears as endangered due to melting sea ice habitat, it argues that scientists at this time cannot "draw a direct causal link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts affecting species.

"As a result, it is inappropriate to consult on a remote agency action involving the contribution of emissions to global warming because it is not possible to link the emissions to impacts on specific listed species such as polar bears," the department stated.

Kempthorne has instead urged lawmakers to deal with climate change via separate legislation, not the Endangered Species Act, which dates from 1973.

Biggest overhaul since 1988
The changes represent the biggest overhaul of the Endangered Species Act since 1988. They would accomplish through regulations what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

The changes would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize. Government wildlife experts currently perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

"The new rules take decision-making on endangered species listings out of the hands of scientists and wildlife professionals at agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, and instead put those decisions in the hands of agencies working on projects that may be adversely affected by a listing," added Sierra Club director Carl Pope.

Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.

Proposal: Agencies have expertise
The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects, according to the 30-page draft.

"We believe federal action agencies will err on the side of caution in making these determinations," the proposal said.

The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, H. Dale Hall said the changes will help focus expertise on projects that have serious repercussions for species. "We are trying to be more efficient, which means not do consultations that result in a difference for the species," Hall said.

"We are not being good stewards of our resources," he added, "when we pursue consultation in situations where the potential effects to a species are either unlikely, incapable of being meaningfully evaluated, wholly beneficial, or pose only a remote risk of causing jeopardy to the species or its habitat."

The proposal is subject to a 30-day public comment period before being finalized by the Interior Department, giving the administration enough time to impose them before November's presidential election. A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, a process that could take months. Congress could also overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer.

The proposal was drafted largely by attorneys in the general counsel's offices of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Interior Department, according to a source with the National Marine Fisheries Service. The two agencies' experts were not consulted until last week, the official said.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

The reviews have helped safeguard protected species such as bald eagles, Florida panthers and whooping cranes. A federal government handbook from 1998 described the consultations as "some of the most valuable and powerful tools to conserve listed species."

"We have always had concerns with respect to the need for streamlining and making it a more efficient process," said Joe Nelson, a lawyer for the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, a trade group for home builders and the paper and farming industry.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the proposed changes illegal.

The Bush administration and Congress have attempted with mixed success to change the law.

In 2003, the administration imposed similar rules that would have allowed agencies to approve new pesticides and projects to reduce wildfire risks without asking the opinion of government scientists about whether threatened or endangered species and habitats might be affected. The pesticide rule was later overturned in court. The Interior Department, along with the Forest Service, is currently being sued over the rule governing wildfire prevention.

In 2005, the House passed a bill that would have made similar changes to the Endangered Species Act, but the bill died in the Senate.

The sponsor of that bill, then-House Resources chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., told the AP Monday that allowing agencies to judge for themselves the effects of a project will not harm species or habitat.

"There is no way they can rubber stamp everything because they will end up in court for every decision," he said.

But internal reviews by the National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that about half the unilateral evaluations by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management that determined wildfire prevention projects were unlikely to harm protected species were not legally or scientifically valid.

Those had been permitted under the 2003 rule changes.

"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act."

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Customs slip cannabis into passenger’s bag
Current mood: amused

(CNN) -- A passenger who landed at Tokyo's Narita airport over the weekend has ended up with a surprise souvenir courtesy of customs officials -- a package of cannabis.

A customs official hid the package in a suitcase belonging to a passenger arriving from Hong Kong as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs on Sunday, Reuters.com reported.

However, staff then lost track of the drugs and suitcase during the exercise, a spokeswoman for Tokyo customs said.

Customs regulations specify that a training suitcase be used for such exercises, but the official had used passengers' suitcases for similar purposes in the past, domestic media reported.

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In wake of twister, Kansas town is rebuilding green.
Current mood: impressed
Category: Life

GREENSBURG, Kansas (CNN) -- There are still piles of bricks and rubble on countless streets in Greensburg, Kansas, a year after a tornado demolished more than 90 percent of the town.

Yet what is happening in the city's rebuilding process may not only re-invent Greensburg but provide a model for "green" building everywhere.

Just a week after the deadly tornado hit May 4, 2007, a similar idea sparked in the mayor, a representative from the governor's office and a nonprofit expert from a nearby town.

The concept: If the whole town had to be rebuilt anyway, why not be bold and build it as a global example of conservation, energy efficiency and creativity?

Daniel Wallach, the nonprofit specialist, soon got the green light to help residents and businesses start over in a project known as Greensburg GreenTown.

"My first order of business was to listen. What I heard were a lot of concerns about politicization and being associated with 'tree huggers.' I helped frame it with the people here in such a way they saw, this is their movement," he said.

Fifth-generation Greensburg resident Anita Hohl joined the staff of Greensburg GreenTown as a Web specialist.

"I was pretty green to begin with. I used to get teased about being a tree hugger. Now it's 'the thing!' This has really brought us so much closer together. What you can accomplish when just a few people are working toward the same goal is amazing," she said.

Her farming grandparents instilled the virtue of being energy-efficient.

"My grandma always put her clothes on the line, did her own gardening and re-used everything," Hohl said.

Hohl and her husband, a daughter, a son, four cats, a dog and two birds are among the Greensburg residents in "FEMAville," a cluster of mobile homes set up as temporary housing. The family hopes to break ground soon for their new house and move in by Thanksgiving. Although they have made the best of the cramped quarters, she says, there are some challenges.

"It sort of feels like living in a cheap motel! But it's a lot better than it could be. It's nice to have a place to be," she said.

From the start, the GreenTown staff knew that getting the business community on board with the green plan was vital.

And in rural America, there is no business that's more of a bedrock than the John Deere dealership.

In Greensburg, that dealership has been in the Estes family for four generations. Their facility was wiped out by the twister.

"The building was a total loss. And we saved only 13 pieces of machinery out of 220 on the lot," Kelly Estes said.

"The FEMA guy said he had never seen anything like it. Steel twisted into brick, and then the miles per hour needed to pick up combines that weigh 25,000 pounds and move them half a mile in the air," he said.

Kelly and his brother Mike decided to rebuild in town to the highest green-building standard.

The U.S. Green Building Council establishes a rating system for efficient buildings called LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The Greensburg facility is aiming for LEED platinum, the most demanding standard.

There is one wind turbine on their new property, a 100-foot structure designed to generate 5 kilowatts of electricity. It is providing power for the construction site.

Although "green" may be viewed as trendy and new by some, Mike Estes knows that it is not for show.

"We're looking at saving money here; truthfully, we are. We're running a business. If we can't make this make sense, why would we do it?" he asked.

And he says the non-political approach of the city in encouraging energy efficiency has helped.

"I don't think it's red or blue to be green; I think green is green, and green makes sense. And green saves you green!" he said with a laugh.

Being a model for the world in energy efficiency is a major goal of Greensburg GreenTown.

But there is another even more urgent .. keeping this rural town from disappearing. The lack of jobs in many small towns means that after teenagers graduate from high school, they have to leave to find other opportunities.

"The average age of people living in rural communities is in their 50s," Wallach said. "There are very few folks in the communities under that age, because there are just no jobs. Families have been split up for decades."

So in addition to the long-term goal of Greensburg's pre-tornado businesses from leaving, people hope to attract new green trade as well. The city wants to open a biodiesel facility as one of its first green newcomers.

Another long-term goal is to have 100 percent renewable energy. It is probable that the greatest contribution would come from large wind turbines.

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Snipes gets the max -- 3 years -- in tax case
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

OCALA, Florida (CNN) -- Actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison and fined up to $5 million Thursday for failing to file federal tax returns.

It was the maximim sentence possible under federal sentencing guidelines.

Prosecutors last week urged U.S. District Judge William Hodges in Ocala, Florida, to sentence Snipes to the maximum penalty to demonstrate to taxpayers that refusal to pay income taxes carries severe penalties.

"The law is very clear: People must pay their taxes," Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman said. "There is no secret formula that eliminates a person's tax obligations."

Snipes was convicted on three misdemeanor counts of failure to file federal income tax returns.

Snipes, who has starred in movies such as "Blade," "Major League" and "Murder at 1600," had been charged with felony conspiracy counts for participating in a scheme that rejects the legal foundation of the tax system. However, a jury accepted his argument that he was innocently duped by errant tax advisers and acquitted him on the most serious charges.

"The fact that Snipes was acquitted on two felony charges and convicted 'only' on three misdemeanor counts has been portrayed in the mainstream media as a 'victory' for Snipes," the government document says.

"The troubling implication of such coverage for the millions of average citizens who are aware of this case is that the rich and famous Wesley Snipes has 'gotten away with it.' In the end, the criminal conduct of Snipes must not be seen in such a light."

Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hochman, head of the Justice Department's Tax Division, has promised to beef up the government's efforts to pursue those engaged in a variety of schemes making legal assertions that income taxes are either voluntary or unconstitutional.

"For nearly a decade, Snipes has engaged in a campaign of criminal tax conduct combining brazen defiance with insidious concealment," the prosecutors say. "By these means, Snipes has escaped paying more than $15 million in income tax to the IRS and has pursued an intended fraudulent harm to the United States Treasury of more than $41 million."

The document says Snipes shipped millions of dollars to accounts in Switzerland, Antigua and the Isle of Man to avoid taxes.

"Given defendant's income, earning capacity, and financial resources, both disclosed and undisclosed, the United States submits that a fine of at least $5 million is warranted," the sentencing recommendation says.

The 35-page argument for the stiffest possible penalty ends with a dramatic flair.

"In the defendant Wesley Snipes, the court is presented with a wealthy, famous and inveterate tax scofflaw. If ever a tax offender was deserving of being held accountable to the maximum extent for his criminal wrongdoing, Snipes is that defendant," it says.

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Archaeologists unearth 35,000-year-old tools in Australia
Category: Life

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A piece of flint the size of a small cell phone and hundreds of tiny sharp "knives" unearthed deep in a rock shelter in Australia date back at least 35,000 years, archaeologists said Monday.

While the archaeologists hailed the find as one of the oldest inhabited sites uncovered so far in Australia, one local Aboriginal elder saw it as vindication of what his people have said all along -- that they have inhabited this land for tens of thousands of years.

"I’m ecstatic, I’m over the moon, because it’s now indisputable," Slim Parker, an elder of the Martidja Banyjima people, told The Associated Press by telephone from Western Australia. "This area of land, in regard to our culture and customs and beliefs, is of great significance to us. We have songs and stories relating to that area as a sustaining resource that has provided for and cared for our people for thousands of years."

The tools, along with seeds, bark and other plant material, were found nearly two meters (6.5 feet) beneath the floor of a rock shelter on the edges of an iron ore mine site in Australia’s remote northwest, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) northeast of Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

The excavation was carried out between October and February by archaeologists from Australian Cultural Heritage Management who were hired by the local Aborigines to find and preserve heritage sites within the mine area run by resource giant Rio Tinto.

Archaeologist Neale Draper said the tools included at least one "beautifully made" piece of flint from which sharp knifelike shards were knocked off, hundreds of tiny knives, and pieces of grindstones. He hopes that testing of the knives will reveal residue that could indicate what the people ate.

"Very old sites are rare, and this is one of the oldest" in this region, Draper said by telephone from Adelaide in south Australia.

He said the oldest sites found so far in that part of Australia "have been about 20,000 years or just over."

"All of a sudden we’re at 35,000. We’re filling in a picture of who the first Australians were and what they were doing where they were really, really early," Draper said.

He said the team has sent other materials for carbon sampling -- including a piece of charcoal -- that were found in the dirt layers below the tools.

"These could be another 5,000 to 10,000 years old, and that would be really exciting," Draper said, adding that a dozen other shelters in the area would also be excavated.

Australian’s Aborigines have been called the world’s oldest continuous culture; some archaeological sites elsewhere in Australia date an Aboriginal presence to at least 40,000 years ago.

They are now an impoverished minority of 450,000 within Australia’s population of 21 million. They have been battling to reclaim their traditional lands since the early 1990s, when the country’s highest court cleared the way for so-called native title claims.

Rio Tinto, which had been expanding its Hope Downs mine, halted all work when the rock shelter was discovered, company spokesman Gervase Greene said.

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Cops: Third-graders arrested in teacher attack plot
Category: Life

WAYCROSS, Georgia (AP) -- A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.

The plot involving as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said.

School officials alerted police Friday after a pupil tipped off a teacher that a girl had brought a weapon to school.

Tanner said the students apparently planned to knock the teacher unconscious with a crystal paperweight, bind her with the handcuffs and tape and then stab her with the knife.

"We did not hear anybody say they intended to kill her, but could they have accidentally killed her? Absolutely," Tanner said. "We feel like if they weren’t interrupted, there would have been an attempt. Would they have been successful? We don’t know."

The children, ages 8 to 10, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair, Tanner said.

Two of the students were arrested on juvenile charges Tuesday and a third arrest was expected. District Attorney Rick Currie said other students told investigators they didn’t take the plot seriously or insisted they had decided not to participate.

"Some of the kids said, ..We thought they were just kidding,"’ Currie said. "Another child was supposed to bring a toy pistol, and he told a detective he didn’t bring it because he thought he would get in trouble."

Currie said the children are too young to be charged as adults, and probably too young to be sentenced to a youth detention center.

Police seized a steak knife, steel handcuffs, duct tape, electrical and transparent tape, ribbons and the paperweight from the students, Tanner said.

Currie said he decided to seek juvenile charges against two girls, ages 9 and 10, who brought the knife and paperweight and an 8-year-old boy who brought tape. He said all three students faced charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and both girls were being charged with bringing weapons to school.

Nine children have been given discipline up to and including long-term suspension, said Theresa Martin, spokeswoman for the Ware County school system. She would not be more specific but said none of the children had been back to school since the case came to light.

The purported target is a veteran educator who teaches third-grade students with learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, delayed development and hyperactivity, friends and parents said.

The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child’s job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack.

"We’re not sure at this point in the investigation how many of the students actually knew the intent was to hurt the teacher," Tanner said.

He said the teacher told detectives the children involved weren’t known as troublemakers.

"You can’t dismiss it," Tanner said. "But because they are kids, they may have thought this was like a cartoon -- we do whatever and then she stands up and she’s OK. That’s a hard call."

The parents of the students have cooperated with investigators, who aren’t allowed to question the children without their parents’ or guardians’ consent, he said. Authorities have withheld the children’s names.

Martin told The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, Fla., that administrators would follow school system policy and state law in disciplining the students.

"From what I understand, they were considered pretty good kids," Martin said. "But we have to take this seriously, whether they were serious or not about carrying this through, and that’s what we did."

Four mothers of other third-grade students at Center Elementary called for the immediate expulsion of the suspected plotters.

Stacy Carter and Deana Hiott both cited school system policy stating that any student who brings "anything reasonably considered to be a weapon" is to be expelled for at least the remainder of the school year.

"We don’t want our children around them," Carter told the Times-Union. "The one with the knife could have stabbed my child or someone else’s child at lunch or out on the playground."

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Developer sues to recover 9/11 costs.
Current mood: disgusted

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The developer of the World Trade Center in New York is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from the airlines and other companies associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks, his spokesman said Thursday.

Larry Silverstein, president and CEO of Silverstein Properties, has recovered $4.6 billion in insurance payments, spokesman Bud Perrone said.

The additional money is meant to offset the remaining costs of what was lost on September 11.

Perrone was not able to provide a full list of defendants, but the companies named in the suit include American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines and Boeing.

Also named: MassPort, which manages Logan International Airport in Boston, where the planes that hit the World Trade Center took off.

Most of the money sought in the lawsuit -- $8.4 billion -- would replace the property that was destroyed in the attacks, Perrone said.

The remaining $3.9 billion would pay for lost income and expenses associated with renting the new buildings.

The efforts to recover damages did not stand in the way of the families of September 11 victims pursuing wrongful-death suits, said Janno Lieber, president of World Trade Center Properties.

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