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CAPE CANAVERAL - A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday. The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it. Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August. Kylie Clem,...

Kenyan first lady fails in assault on press freedom By Adrian Blomfield in Nairobi (Filed: 04/05/2005) Kenya's first lady stormed into a newspaper's newsroom yesterday and demanded the arrest of journalists in a protest over allegedly snide coverage of her behaviour. Lucy Kibaki's bizarre actions, captured on video, were later televised to astonished Kenyans, some of who have nicknamed her "Stormin' Lucy" because of her temper fits. She had earlier called on the police in Nairobi to detain the World Bank's representative in Kenya, accusing him of playing loud music. Mrs Kibaki, wife of President Mwai Kibaki, was furious at...

Zimbabwe famine red alert as harvest fails By Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 30/04/2005) A famine watch group issued a red alert for Zimbabwe yesterday, saying that most people were no longer able to buy enough food. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network said the harvest was "insufficient to satisfy consumption needs" for the next year. The maize harvest has been the worst in memory It issued its warning the day after the head of the country's grain marketing board admitted to a state-run newspaper that it was planning to import 1.2 million tons of maize, a staple food which...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - For the second time in just under a year, a circuit breaker failed on the international space station Wednesday, shutting down one of the gyroscopes needed to keep the orbiting outpost steady and pointed in the right position. The circuit breaker was a new one put in by spacewalking astronauts last summer. In a repeat from one year ago, the latest failure left the space station with only two functioning gyroscopes, the bare minimum needed for control, NASA (news - web sites) said. This time, though, the problem could affect NASA's plans to launch Discovery to...

San Diego's pension system has issued a report on how it handles payments once a retiree dies, but some City Council members say it raises more questions than it answers. The report states that since 1996 the pension system inadvertently has paid 36 individuals after they died. Those 36 are among 114 cases in which payments to deceased retirees might have occurred and are under review. The report does not mention the 114 number. "I view that as a material fact that should have been included in the report," Councilman Brian Maienschein said. Maienschein is a member of the council's...

U.S. Fails to Make List of World's Freest Economies The United States is missing for the first time from an annual ranking of the world's 10 freest economies. Story Continues Below The Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal since 1995, finds that the United States is letting Big Brother grow obese as other countries get lean and fit. Chile, Australia and Iceland improved enough to leave the U.S. in a tie with Switzerland for 12th place. "The United States is resting on its laurels while innovative countries around the world are changing...

Women who are overweight or obese have a much higher chance of becoming pregnant because their Pill has failed, researchers have found. Overweight women were 60% more likely to fall pregnant while on the Pill. Obese women were 70% more likely, found a study in Obstetrics and Gynaecology by a team from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. It suggested that of 100 women on the Pill, an extra two to four would fall pregnant due to being overweight. The Pill is usually estimated to be over 99% effective. This means that less than one woman in 100...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California air pollution regulators, frustrated with the failure of a voluntary plan promoted by the trucking industry, instituted mandatory requirements Thursday to clean up illegal diesel engines. Air quality groups hope California's decision once again ripples across the country, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency struggles with the same nationwide enforcement problem. The decision applies to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles licensed in other states that drive through California, as well as 58,000 California-licensed trucks. But the Engine Manufacturers Association suggested it will sue on behalf of its members, who believe they shouldn't have to pay...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - As a candidate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to illuminate the inner workings of Sacramento the way klieg lights bring sunshine to a movie set. No more back-room handshakes and whispers, no more money-for-favors legislating. "I will work to reform government by bringing openness and full disclosure to public business," the governor said on his inauguration day. As the former Hollywood actor marks his first 12 months in office Wednesday, his plan to usher in a new era of transparency at the statehouse remains a work in progress, even by the account of his staff. While Schwarzenegger...

Although U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer's double-digit lead has dipped slightly, Republican challenger Bill Jones has failed to make a significant impression on voters after five months of campaigning for the Nov. 2 election, according to a new statewide Field Poll. Half of likely voters said they have no opinion of former Secretary of State Jones, despite his recent appearances with Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The Democratic senator leads Jones among likely voters by 50 percent to 33 percent, according to the survey. Seventeen percent said they support another candidate or were undecided. "The reason Boxer...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Lacking Republican support, a proposed $103 billion state budget failed in the Senate by three votes Wednesday as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continued to campaign for his own spending plan. The largely symbolic vote came as Schwarzenegger prodded San Diego shoppers and diners to keep pressure on lawmakers and he continued to blame the three week impasse on unions and special interests linked to Democrats. But the governor curbed his harsh partisan rhetoric that peaked over the weekend. In the Capitol, Democrats attempted to shift responsibility for the holdup to the governor and his fellow Republicans by voting...

Democratic Convention Media Area Not Ready Fri Jul 9,11:12 PM ET By JENNIFER PETER, Associated Press Writer BOSTON - A pavilion for working news organizations at the Democratic National Convention is not up to city codes and requires about $300,000 worth of work just two weeks before the event begins. "The building is not ready to be occupied," Lt. Richard Powers, a member of the fire department's public information office, said Friday. "They have certain standards which they haven't met." The pavilion is next to the FleetCenter sports arena, site of the convention. Several news organizations, including The Associated Press,...

A group of libertarian-minded Republicans in Congress is blocking President Bush’s effort to strengthen domestic counterterrorism laws and reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, which the president has made one of his top domestic priorities this year. As a result of this opposition, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was forced last week to cancel panel consideration of legislation that would have given law-enforcement officials more tools to pursue suspected terrorists. As other administration policy initiatives — such as a manned mission to Mars — have languished in Congress, Bush has emphasized the importance of renewing the...

Putin Watches As Missile Launch Fails By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV The Associated Press Tuesday, February 17, 2004; 2:45 PM MOSCOW - A technical glitch thwarted the launch of Russian ballistic missiles in the Barents Sea on Tuesday during naval maneuvers overseen by President Vladimir Putin, who watched the massive exercise while decked out in naval officer's garb aboard a nuclear submarine. The failed launch - part of an exercise described as the largest show of Russian military might in more than 20 years - marred an event apparently aimed at playing up Putin's image as a leader attempting to restore the...

<p>FRESNO - California's political odd couple kicked off their campaign to pass a $15 billion bond on the March ballot, stressing that the state faces ``Armageddon cuts'' if voters reject it.</p> <p>Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Controller Steve Westly appeared in a town hall-style meeting at Duncan Ceramics in an industrial part of east Fresno to stump for the bond and a companion measure that would limit state spending.</p>

New bid fails to raise Beagle Scientists say two further attempts to contact Britain's Beagle 2 Mars probe have failed. The craft's mothership, Mars Express, flew over the landing site at 12.50pm yesterday and 1.27pm today but heard no signal. Mars Express was in its most sensitive listening mode. Hopes of finding the lander, which has been missing since Christmas Day, are now fading fast.More passes will be made tomorrow at 2.04pm and on Monday at 2.02am. Story filed: 18:10 Friday 9th January 2004

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Old rifts over the war in Iraq kept the European Union from forging a united position on when the United States should cede power, highlighting the difficulties Washington will face trying to reach agreement on a new U.N. resolution. President Bush hopes such a resolution will bring more troops and money into Iraq. The unofficial target date for adopting a U.N. resolution is Oct. 22 - the day before a major donors meeting begins in Madrid, Spain, to try to generate funds for Iraq's reconstruction. On Monday, Russia said it wants a "realistic but short" timeline...

ADD another billion, more or less, to California's budget crisis. When state lawmakers finally got around to approving a budget, they managed to make the document look a mere $8.1 billion in the red -- significantly lower than the earlier estimate of $38 billion. But the politicians' dirty little secret is that many of the savings they claim to have achieved were imaginary -- derived from accounting gimmicks, borrowing, and forecasts based on rosy assumptions that had little chance of ever coming true. One of those rosy predictions was that the state's public-employee unions would agree to forgo the pay...

Florida security plan fails AP in Tampa Thursday August 21, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Florida police have scrapped a security camera system that scanned city streets for criminals, saying it had failed to recognise anyone wanted by authorities since its introduction two years ago. The system was intended to recognise the facial characteristics of criminals and runaway children by matching passers-by in the Ybor City district of Tampa with a database of 30,000 mugshots. "It's just proven not to have any benefit to us," Captain Bob Guidara, a department spokesman, said. The cameras have led only to arrests for such...

Korea nuclear talks bid fails The North is thought to have stored 8,000 spent fuel rods South Korea has failed to persuade the North to attend talks with its neighbours and the United States to resolve the dispute over its nuclear weapons programme. Delegations from the two Koreas, meeting in the southern capital Seoul, did agree to seek a peaceful solution through "appropriate" dialogue. North Korea has long insisted on first having bilateral discussions with the US before wider talks involving China and Japan as it blames Washington for provoking the crisis over its weapons programmes. At the meeting, which...