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From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Romney: McCain used Nixon-like tactics
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
33 minutes ago

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Thursday accused his rival John McCain of adopting underhanded tactics from Richard Nixon, the GOP president who resigned in disgrace. "I don't think I want to see our party go back to that kind of campaigning," Romney said in his most pointed rebuttal yet to front-runner McCain's claim that the former Massachusetts governor favors a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Romney denies this charge and most media analyses have concluded that Romney wasn't using `timetable' in the same way Democratic candidates have. McCain's decision to level the timetable charge this week without leaving Romney time to rebut it before Florida Republicans voted in their primary "was reminiscent of the Nixon era," Romney said. McCain ended up winning the Florida contest Tuesday.

2 Bush's budget lean on domestic programs
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
29 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush's 2009 budget will virtually freeze most domestic programs and seek nearly $200 billion in savings from federal health care programs, a senior administration official said Thursday. Overall, the Bush budget will exceed $3 trillion, this official said. The deficit is expected to reach about $400 billion for this year and next. Bush on Monday will present his proposed budget for the new fiscal year to Congress, where it's unlikely to gain much traction in the midst of a presidential campaign. The president has promised a plan that would erase the budget deficit by 2012 if his policies are followed.

3 Media bidding war starts for Guantanamo ex-detainee
Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 8:29 PM ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian David Hicks, the only Guantanamo Bay detainee convicted of terrorism charges, is at the centre of a worldwide media bidding war for his story, with a possible price tag of A$1 million (US$892,000), local media said. Hicks, 32, has had 30 offers from television and publishing firms in Australia, the United States and Italy, his lawyer told The Australian newspaper. Media analysts say Hicks' story could fetch A$1 million, the newspaper said on Friday, but Australian laws preventing people profiting from their crimes may deny Hicks any money.

4 Annan due to resume Kenya crisis talks as UN chief arrives
AFP
by Bogonko Bosire 16 minutes ago

NAIROBI (AFP) - Former UN chief Kofi Annan was Friday due to resume talks aimed at ending Kenya's political crisis a day after an opposition lawmaker was shot dead by a policeman, setting off further clashes in the volatile western region. The talks were the first between the camps of President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga since December polls which the latter claims he won. Both camps have vowed to carry on with the talks until the crisis was resolved. Also Friday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who met Kibaki at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa the previous day, is expected in the country to hold talks with Odinga.]

5 Japan kills whales as protesters pull out: report
AFP
1 hour, 15 minutes ago

SYDNEY (AFP) - Japanese harpoonists killed five whales in one day after protesters who had halted the hunt in Antarctic waters were forced to return to port to refuel, an Australian report said Friday. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith had raised the issue and voiced his "disappointment" during a face-to-face meeting with his counterpart in Tokyo late Thursday, his spokesman said. The meeting came shortly after reports that the whalers were hunting again after low fuel forced Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd ships to abandon their protests.

6 Pakistan air strike bodies buried, Qaeda death not confirmed: army
AFP
1 hour, 15 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The bodies from a missile strike that killed several militants have been buried and it was impossible to confirm or refute if a top Al-Qaeda operative was among them, the army said Friday. An Islamist website reported Thursday that Al-Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in Pakistan, and a Western official said there were "very strong indications" that he had been slain. The report came after a suspected US missile raid in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan on Monday night which security officials said had killed seven Arab militants and six Central Asians.

7 The Mountain West, once GOP turf, is now competitive
By Ben Arnoldy, The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Jan 31, 3:00 AM ET

Las Vegas - They tend to ham it up: bolo ties and cowboy boots, a gun and a fishing poll never far from hand. Democrats who've won statewide offices in mountain states often look the part of old West clichés. But they owe their victories to a new reality: The interior West is urban and professional, more focused now on environmental protection and renewable energy development, and swelling with new independent and Latino voters who are up for grabs. Respect for the "purple mountain majesties" started with Nevada's early caucuses and will culminate in Denver, host of the Democratic National Convention. So far, the region has received more presidential candidate visits than California, with candidates stopping in Colorado ahead of Tuesday's big-state primary blowout.

8 U.S. economy still ticking, just barely
By Ron Scherer, The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Jan 31, 3:00 AM ET

New York - The US economy is losing its momentum but is stubbornly refusing to drift into a recession. Instead, it appears that consumer purchases of appliances such as flat-screen TVs, a modest increase in state and local spending, and continued strength in the construction of commercial buildings have kept the economy on the plus side. Housing, however, remains a major drag on economic growth. And businesses are continuing to let inventories run down.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended

9 Safety agency slow to publicize hazards: report
By Karey Wutkowski, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 4:57 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer safety regulators typically take almost seven months to inform the public of dangerous products in cases where the manufacturers were fined for not promptly reporting the defect, watchdog group Public Citizen said on Thursday. Companies that were fined for not timely reporting hazards took an average of 2.7 years to notify the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of the problems, according to a report issued by the nonprofit group. "Companies don't appear to take the disclosure law very seriously," Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, told reporters. "Meanwhile the CPSC's turnaround time for informing the public is far too long."

10 Finger-thin cables tie Internet together
By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
Thu Jan 31, 9:19 PM ET

NEW YORK - The lines that tie the globe together by carrying phone calls and Internet traffic are just two-thirds of an inch thick where they lie on the ocean floor. The foundation for a connected world seems quite fragile, an impression reinforced this week when a break in two cables in the Mediterranean Sea disrupted communications across the Middle East and into India and neighboring countries. Yet the network itself is fairly resilient. In fact, cables are broken all the time, usually by fishing lines and ship anchors, and few of us notice. It takes a confluence of factors for a cable break to cause an outage.

11 Suicide bomber kills Afghan official
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 31, 9:42 PM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday in a mosque in southern Afghanistan, killing a deputy provincial governor and five other people in another blow to President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as U.S. officials were warning that the six-year mission to stabilize Afghanistan faces a crisis due to Taliban resilience and weakening international resolve. Pir Mohammad, deputy governor of Helmand province, was attending noon prayers at the mosque in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah when the bomber struck, according to police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.

From Yahoo News World

12 Rockets hit British in southern Iraq
By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer
3 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Violence returned Thursday to the southern city of Basra, where militants pummeled Britain's airport base with 20 rockets and British gunners answered with volleys of artillery. Civilians were killed and wounded in the crossfire. In Baghdad, a bomb-rigged car blew apart at a bus stop, killing at least five people in a Shiite enclave that had not seen major violence in months. The two attacks — in areas considered relatively stable — were troubling reminders that recent improvements in Iraqi security were fragile and far from deeply rooted.

13 Killing of Kenyan MP overshadows mediation efforts
By David Lewis, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 11:51 AM ET

ELDORET, Kenya (Reuters) - A police officer in Kenya shot dead an opposition legislator on Thursday, the second killed in a week, triggering fatal protests and interrupting talks to try to end more than a month of violence. Warning of catastrophe, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said he would travel to Nairobi on Friday from an African Union summit in neighboring Ethiopia to help his predecessor Kofi Annan, who has been trying to mediate an end to the crisis. Political and ethnic violence has killed 850 people in Kenya since the disputed December 27 re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. At least two more people were killed in clashes on Thursday.

14 Poland would like NATO base, foreign minister says
By Susan Cornwell, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 10:19 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Poland would like to host a major NATO military installation on its soil as part of a deeper security relationship with the United States, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Reuters on Thursday. Sikorski is in Washington to discuss with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others the conditions under which Poland would agree to host a defensive missile shield, a U.S. proposal which has angered Moscow, Poland's eastern neighbor. "We've been a NATO member since '99, but we don't have any hard NATO facilities on our territory," he said in the interview with Reuters. "The only thing we have is a conference center. And we are a border country of NATO."

15 Mosul, the next major test for the U.S. military in Iraq
By Steve Lannen, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Jan 31, 6:27 PM ET

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq's third-largest city looks like Baghdad did a year ago. U.S. soldiers drive armored Humvees and tanks through a decimated and dusty landscape. Burned-out cars sit on the street corners, and trash and chunks of concrete litter the medians and the gutters. Poor people from the countryside have flooded the city, but the streets and sidewalks are mostly deserted. U.S. officials say that al Qaida in Iraq and other terrorist groups have a significant presence in the city and that Mosul is a gathering point for foreign fighters coming across the border from nearby Syria .

16 U.S. casualties rise in Iraq after falling for 4 months
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Jan 31, 5:49 PM ET

WASHINGTON — The U.S. death toll in Iraq increased in January, ending a four-month drop in casualties, and most of the deaths occurred outside Baghdad or the once-restive Anbar province, according to military statistics. In all, 38 American service members had been reported killed in January by Thursday evening, compared with 23 in December. Of those, 33 died from hostile action, but only nine of them in Baghdad or Anbar. A total of 3,942 American service members have been killed in Iraq as of Thursday, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks the statistics.

17 U.S. declines to press Pakistan's Musharraf on his judiciary crackdown
By Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Jan 31, 4:34 PM ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Bush administration has signaled that it will continue to tolerate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown on his country's judiciary at least until after a Feb. 18 national election. Calling Musharraf an indispensable ally, U.S. officials have largely declined to criticize his ouster of top judges and said that questions about restoring the courts' independence should be put on hold until after the election. Pakistani analysts said that muzzling the courts might help the embattled and increasingly unpopular leader remain in power, and administration officials told Congress this week that nothing should be done to press Musharraf on the judiciary until after the election.

18 2nd opposition politician killed in Kenya
By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Jan 31, 4:06 PM ET

ELDORET, Kenya — Another opposition politician was gunned down in Kenya on Thursday, this time under dubious circumstances, in the second such killing in three days. The killing renewed fears of reprisal attacks in this country, which has been racked by post-election tribal violence. A police officer shot and killed David Kimutai Too , a 40-year-old former teacher, in what government officials quickly labeled "a crime of passion" linked to a love triangle. Leaders of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement said it was an assassination aimed at stealing the party's slim parliamentary majority. "The purpose of this killing is to reduce the ODM majority," said opposition leader Raila Odinga.

19 How Kenya's election was rigged
By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers
Thu Jan 31, 6:00 AM ET

NAIROBI, Kenya — The spark for Kenya's firestorm of ethnic violence was lit inside a cavernous meeting hall in downtown Nairobi , where election officials over four days doctored vote counts, dismissed eye-popping irregularities and thwarted monitoring by independent observers to deliver a razor-thin victory to President Mwai Kibaki . Observers who were allowed into the vote-tallying center on Dec. 29-30 , hours before the results were announced, said there was so much systematic fraud by Kenya's government-appointed election commission that it's impossible to know who really won. The extent of the commission's deceptions has faded into the background as more than 800 Kenyans have been killed in ethnic clashes and police crackdowns. The events also have deeply unsettled the Bush administration, which has relied on Kenya as an ally in the war on terror and a bulwark of stability in East Africa .

From Yahoo News U.S. News

20 FBI: Students' 'bombs' were fireworks
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 31, 3:25 PM ET

TAMPA, Fla. - Two Egyptian college students arrested near a South Carolina Navy weapons station last year were carrying low-grade fireworks, as they claimed, not the dangerous explosives as charged by federal prosecutors, the FBI has determined. Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, have been in jail since sheriff's deputies found what they called bomb-making materials in the trunk of their car during a traffic stop near Charleston, S.C. The FBI report was submitted to the court Wednesday by Megahed's public defender as part of a motion seeking bail. U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Steve Cole declined comment on the filing Thursday.

21 Nations try to advance climate road map
By AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 18 minutes ago

HONOLULU - Delegates from the nations that emit the most pollutants worked Thursday to advance discussions on how the world can combat global climate change. Phil Woolas, Britain's environment minister, said the closed-door talks addressed whether nations should compile a series of national commitments to reduce emissions. Another option is to set a worldwide long-term goal and then divide the emissions reductions needed among different countries, he said during a break in the meeting. Delegates from 16 nations, plus the E.U. and the U.N., gathered for the U.S.-sponsored meeting also discussed what temperature they'd like the Earth to be, Woolas said.

22 Pentagon not ready for attack response in U.S.: study
By Kristin Roberts, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 3:56 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is not prepared to respond to a catastrophic chemical, biological or nuclear attack within the United States, placing Americans at risk, an independent panel reported to Congress on Thursday. While the Defense Department conducts exhaustive planning for operations overseas, its planning for possible action inside the United States in response to attacks is inadequate, said the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. "We looked at their plans. They're totally unacceptable," said commission chairman Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps major general.

23 Figures suggest new increase in U.S. Army suicides
Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 3:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As many as 121 U.S. soldiers may have committed suicide in 2007, a record number if confirmed, according to Army statistics released on Thursday. The Army reported 89 suicides and 32 suspected cases among active-duty soldiers in 2007. If the 32 cases are confirmed, the 121 suicides would be a nearly 20 percent increase over 2006, when 102 soldiers committed suicide. Army officials said relationship problems were the main cause of suicides among soldiers, but those problems were increasing due to repeated long deployments as the force is strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

24 NY group charges, and police deny, racial profiling
Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 6:11 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Black and Latino New Yorkers are far more likely to be stopped and frisked by police and a court should put a stop to this "racial profiling," a rights group said in a lawsuit on Thursday. The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, is the latest in a series of disputes between the police and civil liberties groups over whether stopping a large number of black and Latino individuals reflects the realities of the street or the bias of police officers. Rights groups say that the New York Police Department should make internal data about stops and frisks available to the public and better train officers to avoid singling out minority groups.

25 US judge halts Noriega extradition
AFP
Thu Jan 31, 6:15 PM ET

MIAMI (AFP) - A US federal judge on Thursday blocked the extradition of Panama's former dictator Manuel Noriega to France, saying he had not exhausted his possible appeals. Noriega, 73, in September completed a 17-year US prison term on drug charges but has remained in US custody while appealing his extradition to France where he faces money laundering charges. Judge Paul Huck in Miami said that the Panamanian former strongman was entitled to have his appeals heard by a court in the state of Georgia, and possibly even before the US Supreme Court.

From Yahoo News Politics

26 Bush: Don't show Iran US is 'paper tiger'
by Olivier Knox, AFP
Thu Jan 31, 4:23 PM ET

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Thursday warned that a hasty pull-out from Iraq would ruin fragile progress there and convince extremists and Iran that the United States is a "paper tiger." "Failure in Iraq would embolden the extremists. Failure in Iraq would say to thugs and killers, the United States is a paper tiger," Bush said in a speech here. "Failure in Iraq would embolden Iran." Bush also painted his most rosy picture in months of the situation in Iraq, but left open the possibility that he could leave office in January 2009 with more US troops there than before he "surged" 30,000 more soldiers last year.

27 US concerned international community may abandon Afghanistan
by P. Parameswaran, AFP
Thu Jan 31, 6:35 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States expressed concern Thursday that the international community could abandon Afghanistan, cautioning that success in the insurgency-wracked nation was "not assured." "The greatest threat to Afghanistan's future is abandonment by the international community," Richard Boucher, the State Department's pointman for Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing on the turmoil in Afghanistan. He said the mission in Afghanistan needed more troops and equipment, such as helicopters, and pointed out that "too few of our allies have combat troops fighting the insurgents especially in the south."

28 US mulls slowing Iraq troop drawdown to protect gains
by Daphne Benoit, AFP
Thu Jan 31, 6:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US command in Iraq appears leaning toward freezing further troop reductions this summer as security gains in the country remain fragile, despite the deep unpopularity of the five-year-old war. President George W. Bush has given his tacit backing to the possible slowdown, after top Iraq commander General David Petraeus suggested it was now his thinking in an interview Sunday. Speaking Thursday in Las Vegas, Bush noted that roughly 20,000 of the recent peak of 160,000 US troops in Iraq were expected to come home by July.

From Yahoo News Business

29 Motorola mulls breakup, phone unit sale
By DAVE CARPENTER, AP Business Writer
30 minutes ago

CHICAGO - Less than two years past the most successful stretch in its 80-year history, Motorola Inc. is considering a sale or spinoff its now free-falling cell phone business. Even a breakup of the troubled company may not head off another proxy fight with billionaire financier Carl Icahn. Motorola, which fought off Icahn's bid for board seats and a drastic overhaul just a year ago, said late Thursday it would consider separating the handset unit from its other two businesses. The announcement drove its shares more than 10 percent higher in after-hours trading and touched off a round of speculation about what form a makeover might take — and whether it can reverse the company's steep slide.

30 Google's earnings miss raises worries
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
27 minutes ago

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s top executives say all is well at the Internet search leader despite a rare earnings disappointment, but investors are worried something is amiss. Concerns about how the feeble U.S. economy might affect Google contributed to a nearly 20 percent decline in the company's stock during January. Now, it looks like February will begin on a sour note. Google shares dropped by more than 6 percent from their Thursday closing price of $564.30 after the company released fourth-quarter results that missed analysts' expectations.

31 Marketers make call on Super Bowl TV ads
By DAN SEWELL, AP Business Writer
20 minutes ago

CINCINNATI - The nation's biggest advertiser is running some options for the nation's biggest football game. Procter & Gamble Co., with a nearly $8 billion global annual advertising budget, has already aimed some brand promotions, using celebrities, online sites and contests, at football fans and families as the Super Bowl approaches on Sunday. But Tide detergent is going for the big play. The six-decade-old brand has bought its first Super Bowl commercial, one of the 30-second ads on the Fox television network estimated to be going for some $2.7 million this year. It will feature Tide to Go, a cleaning pen that moved Tide beyond the laundry room in 2005.

32 FBI director: mortgage fraud substantial
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 59 minutes ago

HONOLULU - FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday that the agency is committed to investigating and prosecuting companies involved in mortgage fraud and other violations in connection with home loans made to risky borrowers. Mueller said probes were being conducted across the country, including in Hawaii, where he stopped on his way back from a trip through Asia. "There is not a state that does not have some investigation," he told reporters at the FBI office in Honolulu. "It is a substantial problem but we've been through problems like this in the past."

33 MBIA lifts Wall Street
By Ellis Mnyandu, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 7:41 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended higher on Thursday after a major bond insurer reassured investors about its stability, fueling a rebound by financial shares hammered recently by the prospect of crumbling credit markets. Even with the day's strong advance, the S&P 500 capped its worst January performance since 1990 as crises in the credit and housing markets stirred fears the U.S. economy was at the edge of a recession. The Nasdaq had its weakest start to a year ever. The market rallied after MBIA Inc (MBI.N), the No. 1 U.S. bond insurer, said it had enough cash to run its business of guaranteeing payments on corporate and municipal bonds. Standard & Poor's also told the company it had enough capital to keep its triple-A rating, MBIA executives said.

34 MBIA aims to assure on cash as rating pressure grows
By Patrick M. Fitzgibbons, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 8:34 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - MBIA Inc (MBI.N) said on Thursday it would have the cash to meet commitments even after reporting a worse-than-expected loss, but rating agencies kept the pressure on the world's largest bond insurer with a series of actions and warnings late in the day. U.S. bond insurers' shares staged a comeback after MBIA held a marathon conference call to reassure investors. U.S. government bonds rose on a wave of safe-haven buying following a rating agency cut of an MBIA rival. Speculation about looming cuts in credit ratings for bond insurers has battered the U.S. stock market in recent sessions, though shares were broadly higher on Thursday. Despite gloomy employment data on Thursday, financial stocks rebounded.

35 OPEC to hold oil output amid cooler prices
by Simon Morgan and Ben Perry, AFP
37 minutes ago

VIENNA (AFP) - OPEC was on Friday set to leave unchanged its oil production ceiling, snubbing US demands for a hike, as the cartel looks to support crude prices which are tumbling on fears of an economic slowdown. "It's very likely that they are not going to do anything" at their meeting, said Bill Farren-Price, an analyst at Medley Global Advisors. Crude futures ended down on Thursday, closing at 91.75 dollars a barrel in New York, after falling to as low as 89.58 dollars at one point.

36 Yahoo's dethroned chief executive leaves board of directors
by Glenn Chapman, AFP
Thu Jan 31, 11:31 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Dethroned Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel left the struggling Internet firm's board of directors on Thursday. Semel's departure comes just two days after Yahoo revealed plans to lay off 1,000 employees as part of an effort to revitalize a company that analysts say strayed from its profitable strengths while Semel was at the helm. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Semel as chief executive in June to shore up the California firm's profits and stock price.

37 BNP weighing bid for crisis-hit Societe Generale
AFP
Thu Jan 31, 4:44 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - French bank BNP Paribas revealed Thursday it was weighing a bid for stricken national rival Societe Generale, a move that would find political backing by preventing the lender falling into foreign hands. Societe Generale is fighting to discourage potential takeover bids and raise 5.5 billion euros in fresh capital, a week after announcing losses of 4.8 billion euros (7.1 billion dollars) blamed on a rogue trader. A spokeswoman for BNP Paribas, France's top bank, said Thursday it was considering making a bid: "We are thinking (about it), simply because all of Europe is thinking about it," she said.

From Yahoo News Science

38 'Missing link' croc displayed in Brazil
BY STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 21 minutes ago

SAO PAULO, Brazil - The 80 million-year-old remains of a land-bound reptile described as a possible link between prehistoric and modern-day crocodiles were displayed to the public for the first time on Thursday. The fossil of the 5 1/2-foot-long predator was found in 2004 near the small city of Monte Alto, 215 miles northwest of Sao Paulo, paleontologist Felipe Mesquita de Vasconcellos said by telephone, after presenting the find to a news conference at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The long-limbed and extremely agile animal, dubbed "Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi," roamed arid and hot terrain that is now Brazilian countryside, Vasconcelos said.

39 People blamed for water woes in West
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 31, 7:21 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Human activity such as driving and powering air conditioners is responsible for up to 60 percent of changes contributing to dwindling water supplies in the arid and growing West, a new study finds. Those changes are likely to accelerate, says the study published Thursday in Science magazine, portending "a coming crisis in water supply for the western United States." The study is likely to add to urgent calls for action already coming from Western states competing for the precious resource to irrigate farms and quench the thirst of growing populations. Devastating wildfires, avalanches and drought have also underscored the need.

40 NASA photos reveal Mercury is shrinking
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Thu Jan 31, 7:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The first pictures from the unseen side of Mercury reveal the wrinkles of a shrinking, aging planet with scars from volcanic eruptions and a birthmark shaped like a spider. Some of the 1,213 photos taken by NASA's Messenger probe and unveiled Wednesday help support the case that ancient volcanoes dot Mercury and that it is shrinking as it gets older, forming wrinkle-like ridges. But other images are surprising and puzzling. The spidery shape captured in a photo is "unlike anything we've seen anywhere in the solar system," said mission chief scientist Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The image shows what looks like a large crater with faint lines radiating out from it.

41 Hundreds of profs hold green 'teach-in'
By JULIA SILVERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 31, 8:39 PM ET

PORTLAND, Ore. - Global warming issues took over lecture halls in colleges across the country Thursday, with more than 1,500 universities participating in what was billed as the nation's largest-ever "teach-in." Organizers said the goal of the event, dubbed "Focus the Nation," was to move past preaching to the green choir, to reach a captive audience of students in many fields who might not otherwise tune in to climate change issues. Faculty members from a wide spectrum of disciplines — from chemistry to costume design — agreed to incorporate climate change issues into their lectures on Thursday. Community colleges and some high schools also took part.

42 Pope says some science shatters human dignity
By Philip Pullella, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 9:57 AM ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Thursday that embryonic stem cell research, artificial insemination and the prospect of human cloning had "shattered" human dignity. In an address to members of the Vatican department on doctrinal matters, Benedict said the Church had a duty to defend the "great values at stake" in the field of bioethics. The speech was the latest in a series in which the conservative Pope has told his listeners that scientific progress should not be accepted uncritically.

43 Ah, that's the spot: Why scratching brings relief
Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 1:22 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Oh, it brings such blessed relief and now scientists can tell you why -- scratching an itch temporarily shuts off areas in the brain linked with unpleasant feelings and memories. "Our study shows for the first time how scratching may relieve itch," Dr. Gil Yosipovitch, a dermatologist at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said in a statement. Prior studies have shown that pain, including vigorous scratching, inhibit the need to itch. Yosipovitch and colleagues looked at what goes on in the brain when a person is scratched.

44 Rats might hold clues to ancient migration: study
Reuters
13 minutes ago

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Research into the common rat has revealed how people and certain diseases migrated around the ancient world, Australian scientists said on Friday. A study of DNA from 165 Black Rat specimens from 32 countries has found six distinct family groups, with each group coming from a different part of Asia. "It has been unclear why certain rodent-borne diseases are more common in some places than others," said head researcher Ken Alpin, from Australia's top science research body, the CSIRO.

45 Epsom salt can prevent cerebral palsy: U.S. study
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, Reuters
Thu Jan 31, 4:22 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Giving a woman an infusion of Epsom salts when she goes into premature labor can help protect her baby from cerebral palsy, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday. Magnesium sulfate, popularly known as Epsom salts, cut the rate of cerebral palsy in half, Dr. John Thorp, a professor of obstetrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues reported. "We have a cheap, widely available treatment already in hand that cuts in half the risk of babies being born with an extremely disabling disorder," Thorp said in a statement.

46 Australia experiences hottest ever January: weather bureau
AFP
2 hours, 31 minutes ago

Temperatures rose by between 1.0 and 2.0 degrees in most parts of the country, with the national average hitting 29.2 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit) for the summer month, said the bureau's head of climate analysis, David Jones. "It's a remarkable number certainly. Averaging, as we did across the whole country 1.3 degrees above average is the highest temperature we've seen in our history of records for Australia in January," he told AFP.

47 The Yellow River, "China's sorrow", in troubled times
by Robert J. Saiget, AFP
Thu Jan 31, 10:43 PM ET

ZHENGZHOU, China (AFP) - The Yellow River has traditionally been called "China's sorrow" and for Li Xiaoqiang, the grief strikes particularly close to home. As a senior official with the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, Li observes -- up close and on a daily basis -- the gradual deterioration of China's second-largest waterway. "The Yellow River is still in a pretty bad state," he told AFP, sitting in his sparsely furnished office in Zhengzhou, a major central Chinese industrial city on the river.

48 Climate change could devastate South Asia, Africa crops: study
by Mira Oberman, AFP
Thu Jan 31, 3:31 PM ET

CHICAGO (AFP) - Climate change will cause severe crop losses in Africa and Asia within the next 20 years unless farming practices are changed, a study released Thursday has found. Those crop losses could lead to food shortages and a loss of livelihood among the world's poorest people, the authors warned. And since it typically takes 15 to 30 years to for major agricultural investments to be fully realized, work must start soon to help subsistence farmers increase their yields and switch crops, the study published in Science magazine said.

49 NASA Spots Mysterious 'Spider' on Mercury
Clara Moskowitz, Staff Writer, SPACE.com
Wed Jan 30, 4:00 PM ET

Mercury has revealed a whole new side of itself through pictures taken by NASA's MESSENGER probe, which flew by the tiny planet two weeks ago in the first mission to Mercury in more than three decades. MESSENGER skimmed only 124 miles (200 km) over Mercury's surface on Jan. 14, in the first of three passes it will make by the planet before settling into orbit around it on March 18, 2011. The spacecraft snapped pictures of a feature the scientists informally call "the spider," which appears to be an impact crater surrounded by over 50 cracks in the surface radiating from its center.

50 Galactic Wi-fi?
Seth Shostak, SETI Institute, SPACE.com
Thu Jan 31, 7:01 AM ET

Incredibly, it's been only a bit more than a century since Oliver Heaviside consolidated the work of several 19th century physicists into the four compact mathematical formulations known as Maxwell's Equations. You may gleefully recall them from sophomore physics. Aside from their display by the rabidly nerdy on pretentious t-shirts, the formulae have a splendid utility: they describe all electromagnetic radiation — in particular, light and radio. In the short time since their discovery, we have been able to milk these elegant equations to build crude spark transmitters, and eventually to develop the diminutive cell phones that allow you to blithely ring up your pals while comfortably seated in restaurants and movie theaters. We have exploited Maxwell's Equations like an old-growth forest, and many technical types aver that we know all there is to know about them. Not true. And the fact that it's untrue may affect our thinking about SETI.

51 50 Years Later: First U.S. Satellite's Souvenirs Still Circle the Earth
Robert Z. Pearlman, SPACE.com
Thu Jan 31, 7:01 AM ET

Fifty years ago today, the 70-foot (21-meter) tall Juno 1 rocket, a modified Redstone missile, launched the Explorer I satellite, marking the first U.S. built payload to enter Earth orbit. Three of the booster's four stages fell into the ocean while the fourth, which was used to boost Explorer I's velocity, entered orbit behind the satellite. Explorer I - a 30-pound (13-kg), 7-foot (2-meter) satellite - was the third man-made moon to circle Earth, following the Soviet Union's Sputnik I and II spacecraft. It was the second satellite with a payload, a small science package that was built to measure cosmic rays, which led to the detection of a radiation belt (the Van Allen belt, named after Dr. James van Allen, who designed and built the instrumentation). Explorer I operated, sending back data to the ground, for just over 100 days before its batteries died, but it wasn't until March 31, 1970, 12 years and two months after its launch, did the satellite disintegrate while reentering the atmosphere.

52 Orbital Traffic Jam Looms for Space Station
Tariq Malik, Staff Writer, SPACE.com
Thu Jan 31, 11:15 PM ET

WASHINGTON — The maiden flight of an unmanned European cargo ship is just one of several of tightly-packed arrivals and departures coming up for the International Space Station (ISS). The European Space Agency's (ESA) first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is set to launch toward the space station as early as Feb. 22 between a pair of U.S. shuttle missions hauling new modules to the orbital laboratory. "We've been developing this vehicle for more than 12 years now and we're within touching distance of getting it on orbit," said Alan Thirkettle, the ESA's station program manager, in a Thursday briefing. "We're very excited."

53 One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
Thu Jan 31, 11:16 AM ET

People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research. A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, so before then, there were no blue eyes. "Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

54 Survey: 'Green' Actions Not Bound by Political Persuasion
Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer
Thu Jan 31, 11:46 AM ET

The number of "green" actions a person takes has little to do with whether they’re a Republican or a Democrat, according to a new survey. Of the 11,000 American adults, 65 percent of those who always vote Republican and 71 percent of those who always vote Democrat said they were actively reducing energy use in their homes. On the whole, Democrats performed about 15 percent more "green" actions than Republicans, the survey found.

55 Secrets of Success for Super Bowl Ads
Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer
Thu Jan 31, 11:46 AM ET

The Super Bowl is no longer just an annual Sunday affair of guttural cheers and gorging of snack food. It's a "veritable selling season," as one researcher called it, for mega advertisements. Thirty-five advertisers this year will shell out about $3 million per 30-second television ad — that's $100,000 per second, nearly double the price a decade ago. So do they pay off? For companies that create the right ad magic, the answer is a resounding "yes." Their creativity can even boost their stock prices. The right combination, research shows, is a blend of humor and either celebrity appeal or animal antics.

56 Strange New Creature: Giant Shrew or Tiny Elephant?
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
Thu Jan 31, 10:11 PM ET

Sporting a trunk-like nose and a jet-black rump, a new species of a bizarre furry mammal was caught on film as it scuttled along a forest floor in Tanzania. Researchers first sighted the elephant-shrew (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis) in 2005, but not until recently did they confirm the animal as a new species of giant sengi. They filmed the cat-size creature in March 2006 as it twitched its slender snout while searching for insect snacks in the Ndundulu Forest in Tanzania. But what exactly is it?