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This animated video with a background sound of wild birds depicts a deer and rabbit becoming friends in the wild.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich's plea to supporters to send money has paid off. In the past six weeks, Kucinich raised nearly $700,000 in his bid to hold onto his 10th Congressional District seat. That brings his total to $735,000, the most he has amassed in a congressional race, including his initial bid 12 years ago against incumbent Martin Hoke. His top rival, Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman, reported total contributions of $487,000, a little over half which was raised this year. Thursday was the deadline for congressional candidates to file pre-primary finance reports with the Federal Elections Commission. To check the...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama, who criticized big spending by outside groups that boosted his rivals in Iowa and New Hampshire, is getting some help of his own these days as the campaign moves on to delegate-rich Feb. 5 contests. Two related San Francisco-based groups headed by an Obama supporter are running ads and mobilizing voters in California and a handful of other Feb. 5 states, aiming to build support for Obama among black voters and young people. Vote Hope and PowerPac.org, founded by San Francisco lawyer Steven Phillips, have reported spending about $350,000 on Obama's behalf. Of that, $245,000 was...

The Republicans will head into a tough primary fight in Michigan this week, with all of the candidates vying for an important win before the South Carolina vote on the 22nd. The Democrats, however, will focus on Nevada, since the Michigan primary has been disqualified by the DNC for violating the party's rules by moving its primary up before February 5th. Only Hillary Clinton appears on the ballot among the main contenders, leaving Democrats the option of skipping their side of the ticket and focusing in on the Republicans. The Democrats don't want that, and have organized an effort --...

How children lost the right to roam in four generations http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091 http://tinyurl.com/yt6geg By DAVID DERBYSHIRE Last updated at 01:03am on 15th June 2007 When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere. It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision. Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom. He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride...

The Final Word: Maybe it's time to let boys be boys — outside http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2007-05-01-final-word_N.htm http://tinyurl.com/ythtr3 By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY May 1, 2007 E-mail Craig Wilson at cwilson@usatoday.com

What Does The Decline In Hunting Mean For America's Kids? http://fieldandstream.blogs.com/news/2007/06/what_does_the_d.html http://tinyurl.com/2azh4n June 18, 2007 “I like to play indoors better,” a fourth grader told Richard Louv, “because that’s where the electrical outlets are.” In his bestselling 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, journalist and author Louv argues that never before has a generation of children been so separated from the natural world. The consequences, he says, can be seen in trends such as increases in obesity, stress, and psychiatric disorders among our kids. With the declining number of outdoorsmen indicated by the...

JOSEPH GALLO, 10, of Santa Cruz, Calif., is well armed in the battle against childhood boredom, with a bedroom arsenal that includes a computer hooked to the Internet, a DVD player, two Game Boys, as well as an Xbox and GameCube. But in recent weeks, the hum of that war room of machinery has quieted because Joseph has acquired a new playtime obsession that would have seemed quaint even in his parents’ day: marbles. But lately, a number of educators like Mr. Cohill, as well as parents and child-development specialists are trying to spur a revival of traditional outdoor pastimes,...

A large number of protestors gathered opposite the United Nations building in New York City Wednesday afternoon to protest Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and demand the release of Israel's captives. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, US Ambassador John Bolton, New York State Governor George Pataki, Holocaust survivor and author Eli Wiesel and human rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz, among others, addressed the crowd, which stretched down the streets and avenues surrounding the plaza opposite the United Nations. Also attending the rally and issue emotional pleas for the release of their captive family members were Carmit Goldwasser, wife of IDF soldier Ehud Goldwasser,...

Go outside and playhttp://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1158309564312510.xml&coll=2 http://tinyurl.com/pg6bd That's the advice nature educators have for increasingly reined-in kids and their very protective parents Friday, September 15, 2006 Susan Glaser Plain Dealer Reporter When Steve Cadwell was a kid, he had the North Chagrin Reservation in his back yard, and he used to disappear for hours. "My mom said, 'Go outside, and don't come back until the streetlights are on,' " said Cadwell, 47, now executive director of the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes. Rare is the mother who issues that directive these days. Thanks to everything from fears about stranger danger to video...

Nature-deficit disorder is ruining our kidshttp://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20060816/OPINION/108160053 http://tinyurl.com/zchy3 by jim stiles August 16, 2006 No matter how old I live to be, there will never be a place so full of mystery and adventure as a place of my childhood called The Woods. The stories that grew out of those trees still kindle powerful feelings, even after all these years. My friends and I knew the place was haunted. It had no boundaries, and in our 10-year-old minds, it went on forever. Jump ahead a few decades to a familiar topic: the commercialization of wilderness. What created the demand for such...

PHILADELPHIA - How's this for a breath of fresh air? Barbaro is enjoying daily outings outside his intensive care stall to pick his own grass, enjoy the warm weather and stretch his recovering legs. Barbaro stepped outside his ICU stall and started daily walks on a grassy area near the unit last week for the first time since having catastrophic injuries in the Preakness nearly three months ago. The Kentucky Derby winner, also recovering from a severe case of laminitis on his left hoof, continues to show signs he's on the road to recovery. "It's a big step just to...

TAKE A HIKEhttp://familyfun.go.com/family-travel/places/feature/famf0804hikes/famf0804hikes.html http://tinyurl.com/nfdbn by Alan Kesselheim Adventure has always been a priority for my wife, Marypat, and me. So when we decided to have children, we promised each other to do all we could to make the great outdoors part of the family equation. To our delight, not only have our kids--Ruby, age nine, Sawyer, 11, and Eli, 13--embraced our passion for exploring, but seeing nature from their perspective has deepened our appreciation of it. On the following pages, you'll find a variety of trail-tested strategies we've adopted to keep hiking a favorite pastime in our family. Whether you're...

Summer Over but Kids Still Need Time Outdoorshttp://www.newswise.com/articles/view/522009/ Source: National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Released: Wed 19-Jul-2006, 12:00 ET Newswise — Summertime often provides a reprieve for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but now that school is starting up, the usual parental concerns are at the forefront again. Can my child stay focused enough to keep up with his class work? Will he get the extra attention he needs in the classroom to keep him on task? There are now 2.5 million children using ADHD medications to reduce symptoms, but there may be a “greener” part of the solution....

Camping, hiking and fishing in the wild as a child breeds respect for environment in adults, study findshttp://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/wild.nature.play.ssl.html http://tinyurl.com/ljnj3 By Susan S. Lang March 13, 2006 If you want your children to grow up to actively care about the environment, give them plenty of time to play in the "wild" before they're 11 years old, suggests a new Cornell University study. "Although domesticated nature activities -- caring for plants and gardens -- also have a positive relationship to adult environment attitudes, their effects aren't as strong as participating in such wild nature activities as camping, playing in the woods, hiking,...

Take a Hike, Kidhttp://www.utne.com/webwatch/2006_258/news/12198-1.html Bears, sharks, and strangers -- oh my! How kids are taught to fear the outdoors By Rachel Anderson, Utne.com July 20, 2006 Issue Kids say the darnedest things. "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are," one fifth-grader told Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Raise the age bracket and you might hear, as did one high school teacher querying his students on the environment: "If you go out [in nature], there has to be a parent because you can't protect...

Bird flu swan was from outside UK AREA ON ALERT * Poultry owners within wild bird risk area must keep birds indoors or, if not possible, ensure they are kept away from wild birds * Bird transport within 6 mile (10km) surveillance zone will be curbed * Poultry within 1.8 mile (3km) protection zone must be kept indoors and will be tested A dead swan found in Fife which tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was a whooper swan, DNA tests by government scientists have found. The breed originates from outside the UK but it was...

/28/2006 - KIRKUK AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- Most medical teams deployed to Iraq treat their patients from the forward operating base, but three Airmen in Kirkuk are taking their knowledge to the streets by providing medical care to security forces troops outside the wire. The 506th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron boasts a medical cell attached to the unit comprised of a physician’s assistant and two independent duty medical technicians. Airmen train alongside the security forces members in weapons qualification, performing patrols and convoy training. Then medical training takes off in the form of tactical combat casualty care. “Our mission...

Body Found Hanging Outside VFW Post in Ky.2 hours, 17 minutes ago WINCHESTER, Ky. - A man apparently hanged himself outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post early Wednesday morning, just hours after someone burned an American flag in the same place, Winchester police said. Detective James Hall said foul play was not suspected. Hall said the dead man was found by a passer-by about 1 a.m., about two hours after the flag was burned. He was dressed in civilian clothes and found hanging by the flagpole rope, Hall said. The man had not been identified Wednesday afternoon. Clark County...

Death to America - More Than Just a Slogan ! It has become quite fashionable-in leftist, copperhead,and pro-Islamic circles-to claim the United States has attacked Islamic countries without justification or reason. History,however, tells a very different story ! Before 9/11/01, there were at least 12 attacks by Islamists : all carried out on US soil. Daniel Pipes lists the following: July 1980: an Iranian dissident killed in the Washington, D.C. area. August 1983: a leader of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam killed in Canton, Mich. August 1984: three Indians killed in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash. September 1986: a doctor...