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Gazans brace for response as militants fire rocket into Israel
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza militants fired a Qassam rocket into Israel Wednesday, Jan. 28, an escalation in the fighting that could bring Israeli retaliation and further undercut the Obama administration’s high-profile effort to negotiate a lasting truce.
“There is no cease-fire,” said Ahmed Yousef, the Hamas political adviser and deputy foreign minister in the Hamas-led Gaza Strip government. He said there could be one early next month, however, shortly before Israel holds national elections.
President Barack Obama’s newly named special envoy, George Mitchell, said in Jerusalem that a cease-fire was of “critical importance.”
The former U.S. senator from Maine, who arrived in the region Tuesday, held closed-door talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Wednesday.
After the original cease-fire, Palestinian militant groups vowed to hold their fire for one week, but that pledge ended Sunday, Jan. 25. Since then, militants have bombed an Israeli patrol – killing an officer along the Gaza Strip border – fired a dozen mortars at southern Israel and launched the first new rocket from the northern Gaza Strip.
Iraqi election could signal beginning of U.S. troop withdrawal
BAGHDAD – For the fourth time since the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraq will be voting on Saturday, in provincial elections that are offering Iraqis perhaps their first real experience with democracy in action.
There’s a carnival mood in Baghdad, where the streets are festooned with campaign posters and banners. In past elections, candidates’ names were kept secret out of fear for their safety, and the raging insurgency permitted little in the way of open campaigning.
This time around, candidates are holding rallies, town meetings and going door to door seeking votes. Security has faded as a major concern, and in its place services and corruption are hot-button issues.
If all goes smoothly, this could be the election that finally paves the way for U.S. troops to start drawing down in significant numbers, an important step toward stabilizing Iraq’s fractious society enough to guarantee that there won’t be another major eruption of violence.
National
Peanut plant in Georgia linked to salmonella had earlier problems
BLAKELY, Ga. – Federal officials acknowledged Friday, Jan. 30, that there were warnings about problems at the peanut plant linked to a national salmonella outbreak as early as April 2008, when metal fragments were found in a shipment of chopped peanuts sent to Canada.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the shipment, described as “filthy and putrid,” was rejected in Canada and returned to the Peanut Corp of America in Blakely, Ga., where federal officials ordered that the entire shipment be destroyed.
While the FDA said it took appropriate steps in blocking the distribution of the peanuts, the federal government said the FDA did not conduct a full inspection of the processing plant, now determined to be the source of a salmonella outbreak responsible for 529 cases of poisoning, including eight deaths, in 43 states.
Also Friday, the FDA said the agency, working through the U.S. Justice Department, had begun a criminal investigation into the activities at the peanut plant, which federal officials said knowingly shipped out tainted peanut products that had tested positive for salmonella. In addition, the Justice Department would be responsible for prosecuting
the cases.
GOP picks its first black chairman
WASHINGTON – Republican leaders from across the country Friday, Jan. 30, chose former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as the party’s first black national chairman in what many said was a necessary response to President Barack Obama’s historic election.
Steele, a 50-year-old son of a laundress, defeated two state party heads and incumbent Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan in the sixth round of day-long voting.
“This is the dawn of a new party moving in a new direction,” Steele said after his win.
The choice of Steele, a relative moderate, to lead the party was the Republicans’ first concrete acknowledgment since Obama’s inauguration that they must chart a new course after George W. Bush’s departure as one of America’s least popular presidents.
Local/BSU
Professor chosen as Fulbright Specialist
Boise State University nursing professor Vivian Schrader has been named a Fulbright Specialist, the first for the university’s Department of Nursing.
As part of the Fulbright program, she has been invited to work at the Noordeljke Hogeschool Leeuwarden in the Netherlands during the month of April.
In addition, Schrader, the associate chair of the Department of Nursing’s online distance bachelor’s completion program, will make a presentation at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Florence Network
International Conference at The Hague University April 21-25. Participants will be coming from 37 partner universities for higher education in 17 European countries.
While the specific focus of her work at Noordeljke Hogeschool Leeuwarden is still being defined, Schrader said her expertise in developing online initiatives likely contributed to her selection by the school.
Power rates increased Sunday
IDAHO – Rates for Idaho Power Company customers increased by an average 3.1 percent effective Sunday, Feb. 1.
The order, which was issued Friday by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, allows Idaho Power to charge residential customers an average 1.6 percent more.
Last July, Idaho Power asked the commission to approve an overall average 9.89 percent increase with a requested 6.31 percent increase for residential customers. The utility asked to increase its annual revenue requirement by $66.6 million. Friday’s order authorizes a $20.87 million increase in annual revenue.
The order also establishes a year-round, three-tiered rate structure for residential customers to promote energy efficiency and provide cost-saving opportunities. The new non-summer residential rate of 5.58 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 800 kWh of monthly use is actually less than the current non-summer rate of 5.78 cents per kWh.
What The?
I know it was around her somewhere
Poachers bulldozed tons of dirt into a lake in Elk, Poland, leaving thousands of fish floundering in just a few inches of water. They then gathered up the fish and fled. Police were alerted when fishermen reported the lake missing.
Nothing can possibly go wrong
A Colorado couple filled a balloon with acetylene, a highly explosive gas used in welding, and put it on the back seat of their car to bring it home and blow it up at a Super Bowl celebration. Unfortunately, it exploded prematurely in their car. Police said it was “amazing that these people weren’t killed."
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