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LOS ANGELES – Sixty percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels, despite a growing green movement and more stringent laws aimed at improving air quality, the American Lung Association said in a report released Wednesday. The public-health group ranked the pollution levels of U.S. cities and counties based on air quality measurements that state and local agencies reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency between 2005 and 2007. Overall, the report found that air pollution at times reaches unhealthy levels in almost every major city and that 186.1 million people live in those areas. The number...

Just because Katrina was the perfect storm — a catastrophic combo of the wrong hurricane in the wrong place at the wrong time — doesn't mean that history can't repeat itself, leaving another city obliterated by another tempest. It can. And as we enter what weather prognosticators are euphemistically calling another "active season," citizens and civil servants from Texas to New England are asking themselves: Where's the next New Orleans? The Associated Press has pinpointed five of the most vulnerable U.S. coastal spots. Among them: Galveston, Texas, sitting uneasily by the Gulf of Mexico, its residents limited to a single...

Pakistan says it's reining in tribal areas By Carlotta Gall and Ismail Khan Published: April 13, 2007 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: After some of the heaviest fighting in two years in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan's generals are claiming initial success in their latest efforts to combat foreign militants and regain some control in one of the most lawless regions. President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged Thursday for the first time that the Pakistani military had been involved in the recent heavy fighting in the tribal area of South Waziristan and said that nearly 300 foreign militants had been killed. The commander of Pakistani...

Aided by a governor who has promised to preserve the coast, California is expanding its network of areas where fishing and other marine harvesting are banned or restricted. The idea is to better safeguard the diversity and abundance of marine life by limiting those activities in key habitats such as lagoons, bays, kelp forests, rocky reefs and the edges of marine canyons. California already has 80 “marine protected areas” covering about 4 percent of state waters, but scientists agree that most of those sites are too small to help depleted species rebound. “No other state in the Union has done...

Archaeologists discover more than 70 ancient settlement areas in Yozgat Thursday, August 24, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News Archaeologists working at the ancient settlement of Tavium located in what is today Yozgat have discovered more than 70 previously unknown ancient settlements in the area. The Central Anatolian province, mostly famous for the Chalcolithic Period discoveries at its Aliþar Tumulus and the Hittite era artifacts at Kerkenes, is likely to hold much more archaeological wealth than previously believed, and archaeologists say the new studies will shed more light on history. Austrian archaeologist Professor Karl Strobel, who is currently heading surveys...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday plans to ask the federal government to prohibit roads on 4.4 million acres of national forest land in California, with limited exceptions for thinning trees to reduce fire danger. The goal is to protect areas of the forests that currently are not accessible by roads, Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said Tuesday. Schwarzenegger is acting under a regulation adopted last year by the Bush administration. That regulation replaced a Clinton-era rule prohibiting road-building on nearly a third of national forest land. Clinton passed the road-building ban eight days before he left office in January 2001....

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2006 – Coalition leaders are working to transfer security responsibility to Iraqis as soon as possible, but they recognize the dangers of "rushing to failure," a senior military official told Pentagon reporters today. Army Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, deputy director of regional operations for the Joint Staff, called the seating of Iraq's new government and its building a force of more than 263,000 security forces major milestones for Iraq. "There's still a lot to be done in Iraq, and we shouldn't kid ourselves about that," he said. "But I think that every now and then it's...

U.S. soldiers assigned to the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division's 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Quick Reaction Force provide security during a visit by U.S. Army Gen. George Casey, Multinational Forces-Iraq commanding general, to the government center in downtown Balad Ruz, Iraq, April 29, 2006. U.S. Army photo by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Mark Wojciechowsk Quick Reaction Force Secures Operations Areas Quick Reaction Force soldiers' security duties range from clearing the way for a visiting VIP to assisting with security during the recovery of an unexploded roadside bomb. By U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Mark Wojciechowski 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment...

Bird flu hits new areas in Europe Health officials step up precautions near Thessaloniki, northern Greece The deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has reached three new European countries, officials have confirmed. The virus has been found in wild swans in Sicily, and other cases are suspected elsewhere in Italy, the country's health minister says. A specialist UK laboratory has identified the virus in dead swans found in northern Greece and Bulgaria. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 80 people since early 2003, mostly in South-East Asia. Seventeen migratory birds which had fallen ill...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - For months, the young Shiite couple could not decide whether to move from Dora, a mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood and one of Baghdad's most dangerous. After death threats, the murder of a neighbor and the birth of their first child, they decided it was time to go. High rents kept Rana Ali and her husband, Hussein Youssef, from finding a new home in one of the capital's safest areas, where Shiites are dominant, and they could not afford refuge in Iraq's overwhelmingly Shiite south. Instead, they settled in nearby Saydiyah, another majority Sunni area only marginally safer...

Poor children may be bused to school in wealthy areas By Liz Lightfoot, Education Correspondent (Filed: 18/10/2005) Free bus travel for children from council estates will be announced next week as part of the Government's effort to end the middle class stranglehold on popular schools. "Choice advisers" will tell parents about schools outside their areas to which they can apply and help them through the admissions process. Groups of schools will be allowed to test children and put them into ability bands, sharing out the most and least able so that their intakes reflect the profile of the local authority...

10/3/2005 - CLEVELAND, Texas (AFPN) -- As power is restored to smaller cities, Texas National Guardsmen are moving further into rural areas of Texas to assist Federal Emergency Management Agent officials with distribution of food, water and ice to Hurricane Rita victims. Task Force-Seguin, which comprises 300 Army and Air National Guardsmen from throughout Texas, is currently distributing commodities in various Texas towns. Since Sept. 28 the team has distributed 19,214 meals to area residents, along with more than 30,000 bags of ice and almost 35,000 cases of water. “As the electricity comes on and grocery stores open for business,...

GasBuddy.com can help you find cheap gas prices in your city. It is comprised of 170 gas price information web sites that help consumers find low gasoline prices. All web sites are operated by GasBuddy. GasBuddy has the most comprehensive listings of gas prices anywhere by far.Each of GasBuddy Organization's web sites provides a live forum for consumers to post local recent low and high gasoline prices.Since gasoline prices change frequently and may vary by as much as 20 percent within only a few blocks it is important to be able locate the service station with the lowest priced fuel....

Musharraf moves to prevent 'Talibanisation' of lawless tribal areas By Peter Foster, South Asia Correspondent (Filed: 02/08/2005) In a fresh attack on Islamic extremism, Pakistan's president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has moved to overturn plans to introduce Taliban-style moral laws into the country's lawless tribal areas. The general, who ordered the arrest of 600 suspected militants last month, is fighting the introduction of a strict Islamic Hasba (accountability) law in North West Frontier Province. Gen Musharraf will confront the mullah-clerics of the Frontier Province Critics say the law, passed by a majority of hard-line Islamists in the province's local assembly last...

Critical Areas Ordinance foes register name, taking it from less vocal property rights group Just who is the ``real'' Rural Majority?Ron Ewart of Fall City and Preston Drew of Carnation think it's rural folks like them. Foes of government, they oppose any regulation they figure tramples on their property rights. On their side are roughly 18,000 residents who signed petitions to do away with the county's controversial Critical Areas Ordinance and two other pieces of environmental regulation.What they didn't have was a catchy name that, as a bonus, carried great symbolic weight.They've got one now -- at the expense of...

Last month the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Connecticut case of Kelo vs. New London, gave local governments the power to seize the homes of property owners and give the land to private companies. Florida Attorney General Charles Crist and other sources have been quoted as saying that Floridians don’t have to worry about this decision because state law provides greater protection for private-property owners than the U.S. Constitution or Connecticut law. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Florida’s Community Redevelopment Act that allows “blighted” areas to be condemned by local governments under eminent domain gives public entities unbridled discretion in...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday asked the White House to declare disaster areas in eight Southern California counties ravaged earlier this month by a spate of deadly storms. If the request is approved, the move should help municipalities fund repairs to roads, bridges and other structures damaged by flooding and mudslides triggered by days of heavy rain in the counties of Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura. Twenty-eight deaths were linked to the effects of the storms that began Jan. 7. "I have determined that this incident is of...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - The Bush administration Tuesday proposed large cuts in federally designated areas in the Northwest and California meant to aid the recovery of threatened or endangered salmon. Protection would focus instead on rivers where the fish now thrive. The critical habitat designation originally included rivers accessible to salmon, even if no fish occupied them, and covered most of Washington, Oregon and California and parts of Idaho. Under the federal plan, critical habitats would be cut by more than 80 percent in the Northwest and 50 percent in California — and more cuts might be ordered based on...

<p>SAN DIEGO (AP) - Fire codes should be made uniform in the state's highest-risk wildfire regions, overriding a patchwork of local regulations, a state report says.</p> <p>The proposal is one of 69 recommendations developed by the Gov.'s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission staff in response to last October's firestorms, many of which call for more funding. A draft summary obtained by The Associated Press also calls for more coordination among local, state and federal officials, including quicker use of military aircraft in emergencies.</p>

Rural areas questioning incentives Thursday, December 11, 2003 5:58AM EST By AMY GARDNER AND CHRIS SERRES, Staff Writers Robert Neal, a laid-off textile worker from Cabarrus County, traveled to Raleigh this week looking for good news for his community and others that have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs. He came away disappointed. In a special session called by Gov. Mike Easley, lawmakers passed a $240 million package that provides tax breaks for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., other cigarette makers and pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Most of the immediate benefits will go to companies doing business in two of the...