Dubai-owned Any Given Saturday, winner of the Grade I Haskell Invitational over Hard Spun and Curlin, has been retired and will stand at stud at Darley at Jonabell in Lexington.
The stud fee will be $40,000 (27,000), the stable announced.
Shiekh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum "considered keeping Any Given Saturday in training but it was decided that it was in the horse's best interest to retire him to stud," said John Ferguson, the Dubai ruler's …
1632–1704
Political philosopher
Although John Locke was born in a quiet corner of the English county of Somerset, his youth was shaped by the calamitous events of the English Civil Wars. His father was a solicitor who served in the Parliamentary Army. In 1652, during the chaotic years of the Puritan Commonwealth, Locke entered Oxford, where he appears to have been a diffident student. He was drawn at the time to the exciting ideas of RenéDescartes, but the traditionalism of the English university of his day meant that Oxford's curriculum was still largely taught in the mold of Aristotelian scholasticism of previous centuries. As a result, Locke drifted, although he indulged his curiosity by undertaking medical and scientific studies outside his course of study, an endeavor that paved the way for his eventual election to the Royal Society in 1668. He may have considered a clerical career, but in 1659 he began to serve as a tutor in his college at Oxford. Despite this honor, Locke did not take an Oxford degree until 1674, when he was finally awarded a Bachelor of …
WWC?'s 'Trainspotting' comes off the rails at Ringwald
REVIEW
'Trainspotting'
Who Wants Cake Theatre at The Ringwald Theatre, 22742 Woodward Ave., Ferndale. 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday through June 20, plus 8 p.m. June 15 & 22. $10. 248-545-5545. www. whowantscaketheatre.com
This season has seen some tremendous strides by Who Wants Cake? Theatre. Productions like "Love and Human Remains" and "Killer Joe" have shown authences that they're every bit as capable of tackling dark, gritty plays as they are with the lighter fare that's become their signature. With their newest late night endeavor, Harry Gibson's stage adaptation of Irvine Welsh's breakout novel - and …
A man who admits causing a Southern California commuter train derailment that killed 11 people has apologized from the witness stand at his murder trial.
Juan Alvarez said Tuesday he was trying to kill himself and never meant to harm anyone else. Has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder.
Alvarez asked for forgiveness from families of those …
New York Republicans on Thursday picked a former Long Island lawmaker and an economist to run in a primary for the chance to take on Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Republicans wrapped up a sometimes fractious party convention by giving Bruce Blakeman, a former member of the Nassau County Legislature, the party's official designation after two rounds of balloting, but former Bear Stearns chief economist David Malpass earned enough support to force a two-way Sept. 14 primary.
Gillibrand was appointed last year to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton after Clinton was named U.S. secretary of state.
The little-known former congresswoman from upstate …
The football question today: Who fumbled the ball with apremature announcement that Mike Ditka is joining NBC as an analyst?It's not a done deal - yet. A number of major problems still remain,which NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol and Ditka's agent, BarryFranks, are trying to resolve. And Iron Mike, to avoid all phonecalls to his home Tuesday, ducked out for the nearest golf course.
ANOTHER TV QUESTION: Will Walter Jacobson, after 25 years atChannel 2, find happiness at Channel 32, anchoring its 9 p.m. newsagainst the network prime time shows? There's also an uphill battlefor "Skippy" at the 9 p.m. slot, with Channel 32's ratings only a 4,contrasted to an 8 for rival …
DETROIT (AP) — Nelson Cruz made a rocket throw to keep the score tied, then hit a three-run homer in the 11th inning that gave the Texas Rangers a 7-3 win over the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday and a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series.
The Rangers moved within one win of a place in the World Series thanks largely to Cruz, who backed up the grand slam winner he hit in Game 2 by producing two vital moments in Game 4.
In the bottom of the eighth, with Detroit runners at the corner bases, one out, and the score 3-3, Cruz caught a fly ball in right field and made a strong and accurate throw to home where catcher Mike Napoli tagged Miguel Cabrera rushing in from third …
U.S. and European regulators have cleared the long-discussed Internet search partnership between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., enabling the rivals to form a tag team as they try to mount a more serious challenge to Google Inc.
The government approvals announced Thursday anointed an alliance that Microsoft and Yahoo proposed nearly seven months ago after years of flirtation and often contentious negotiations.
Microsoft first approached Yahoo about working together in late 2006 and again in 2007. In 2008, Microsoft launched a hostile bid to buy Yahoo in its entirety, only to withdraw the $47.5 billion offer in exasperation.
Yahoo now plans to …
Kansas coach Roy Williams has brought his teams to five of the sixGreat Eight tournaments, but Williams is among those who believe thetwo-day December college event is finished.
"I personally don't think they will get their exemption," he saidof the special NCAA dispensation allowing teams to add a Great Eightgame without affecting their 27-game limit. "I think it will beawfully difficult to pull that rabbit out of the hat again like theydid last year. Athletic directors went to bat for them last time andhelped pull it out."
ESPN and Raycom Sports have been principal sponsors of the event,which played its last scheduled run last week at the United Center.Officials …
LONDON (AP) — A court clerk has become the first person convicted under Britain's new bribery laws after he admitted to accepting cash to clear up a traffic summons, British prosecutors said Friday.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Munir Yakub Patel admitted to taking a 500 pound ($800) bribe to "get rid" of a speeding charge by not entering the details of a traffic summons into a court database when he was a clerk at east London's Redbridge Magistrates' Court.
He pleaded guilty Friday at Southwark Crown Court — making him the first person convicted under the Bribery Act 2010, which took effect July 1, 2011 and updated century-old bribery laws.
"Public servants are …
The Arkansas Medical Board chairman has testified that he suffered many injuries, including the loss of an eye, much of his hearing and sense of smell in a bombing at his home.
Dr. Trent Pierce testified Wednesday against Dr. Randeep Mann. Prosecutors say Mann planned the February 2009 attack as retaliation for the medical board taking away his license to write prescriptions.
…
THE Wise administration has named Tom Susman director of insuranceand retirement services for West Virginia. With the exposure comeshandsome combat pay.
Susman made $75,000 a year as director of the Public EmployeesInsurance Agency. He now also assumes the duty of overseeing theConsolidated Public Retirement Board, the Board of Risk and InsuranceManagement and the Children's Health Insurance Program. His pay willbe $125,000 a year.
Huh?
Each of these entities already has a well-paid leader. It soundslike the Wise administration has quietly moved to create a new supersecretary, the cabinet- level post invented by the Capertonadministration. The highest paid …
Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.
Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.
The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.
The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year's presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order _ and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change, and his large crowds believe his exhortation, "Yes, we can."
Even so, a battered public seems discouraged by the onslaught of dispiriting things. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll says a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction. That is the lowest reading since the survey began in 2003.
An ABC News-Washington Post survey put that figure at 14 percent, tying the low in more than three decades of taking soundings on the national mood.
"It is pretty scary," said Charles Truxal, 64, a retired corporate manager in Rochester, Minn. "People are thinking things are going to get better, and they haven't been. And then you go hide in your basement because tornadoes are coming through. If you think about things, you have very little power to make it change."
Recent natural disasters around the world dwarf anything afflicting the U.S. Consider that more than 69,000 people died in the China earthquake, and that 78,000 were killed and 56,000 missing from the Myanmar cyclone.
Americans need do no more than check the weather, look in their wallets or turn on the news for their daily reality check on a world gone haywire.
Floods engulf Midwestern river towns. Is it global warming, the gradual degradation of a planet's weather that man seems powerless to stop or just a freakish late-spring deluge?
It hardly matters to those in the path. Just ask the people of New Orleans who survived Hurricane Katrina. They are living in a city where, 1,000 days after the storm, entire neighborhoods remain abandoned, a national embarrassment that evokes disbelief from visitors.
Food is becoming scarcer and more expensive on a worldwide scale, due to increased consumption in growing countries such as China and India and rising fuel costs. That can-do solution to energy needs _ turning corn into fuel _ is sapping fields of plenty once devoted to crops that people need to eat. Shortages have sparked riots. In the U.S., rice prices tripled and some stores rationed the staple.
Residents of the nation's capital and its suburbs repeatedly lose power for extended periods as mere thunderstorms rumble through. In California, leaders warn people to use less water in the unrelenting drought.
Want to get away from it all? The weak U.S. dollar makes travel abroad forbiddingly expensive. To add insult to injury, some airlines now charge to check luggage.
Want to escape on the couch? A writers' strike halted favorite TV shows for half a season. The newspaper on the table may soon be a relic of the Internet age. Just as video stores are falling by the wayside as people get their movies online or in the mail.
But there's always sports, right?
The moorings seem to be coming loose here, too.
Baseball stars Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens stand accused of enhancing their heroics with drugs. Basketball referees are suspected of cheating.
Stay tuned for less than pristine tales from the drug-addled Tour de France and who knows what from the Summer Olympics.
It's not the first time Americans have felt a loss of control.
Alger, the dime-novel author whose heroes overcame adversity to gain riches and fame, played to similar anxieties when the U.S. was becoming an industrial society in the late 1800s.
American University historian Allan J. Lichtman notes that the U.S. has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Depression of the 1930s.
"All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored," he said. "Of course, that doesn't mean it will happen again."
Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House.
This period has seen intense interest in the presidential primaries, especially the Democrats' five-month duel between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Records were shattered by voters showing up at polling places, yearning for a voice in who will next guide the country as it confronts the uncontrollable.
Never mind that their views of their current leaders are near rock bottom, reflecting a frustration with Washington's inability to solve anything. President Bush barely gets the approval of three in 10 people, and it's even worse for the Democratic-led Congress.
Why the vulnerability? After all, this is the 21st century, not a more primitive past when little in life was assured. Surely people know how to fix problems now.
Maybe. And maybe this is what the 21st century will be about _ a great unraveling of some things long taken for granted.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's immigration authority on Monday rejected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's request for residency, a potential setback in his efforts to gain protection from Swedish press freedom laws.
The Australian has been exploring ways to take advantage of legal protection for whistle-blowers in the Nordic country, where WikiLeaks has some of its servers. He applied for residency on Aug. 18.
"His application has been denied," Migration Board spokeswoman Gunilla Wikstrom told The Associated Press. She declined to give the reason, saying it was confidential.
Assange has three weeks to appeal.
Wikstrom wouldn't say whether the decision was influenced by allegations of rape and sexual molestation against Assange by two Swedish women. Assange has denied the allegations, made nearly two months ago. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to file charges in the case.
Speaking generally, Wikstrom said only crimes that have been proven would affect the Migration Board's decisions.
WikiLeaks has angered the Pentagon by releasing thousands of classified U.S. war reports from Afghanistan. It's believed to be preparing to release an even larger set of classified documents on the Iraq war.
Assange has said that WikiLeaks is preparing to apply for a publishing certificate in Sweden to take full advantage of its press freedom laws. If Assange fails to get residency, someone else would have to be listed as the publisher responsible for the site.
To get residency applicants either need to have a job offer from a company in Sweden or, if they are planning to start their own business, the skills needed and a solid plan for the business, Wikstrom said.
"The person also needs funds to cover the start-up costs for the business and to maintain a living in Sweden for the first year," she added.
The economy is going to the doggie bags.
In an economic indicator that Alan Greenspan might do well toconsider, restaurants are reporting an increase in doggie-bagrequests over the past year or two. They say it shows that theircustomers are feeling the bite from the unfriendly economy.
"People who wouldn't have thought about it a year ago will say,'You know what? I'm going to take that with me,"' says Izzy Kharasch,a Chicago-based restaurant industry consultant. "They now will takehome the smallest of portions."
The upswing was cited in an industry trends report this month bythe National Restaurant Association, which said one in five dinnercustomers now asks to take uneaten food home. Twenty percent of the450 restaurants the trade group surveyed said their customers wererequesting more doggie bags than two years ago.
Kharasch says he makes extra sure the restaurants he advises dodoggie bags these days, even the expensive ones, where the averagecheck is $80 a person.
"People used to be too embarrassed to ask for doggie bags. Not anymore. They don't want to waste anything," he says.
Who--or what--let the doggie bags out?
Restaurateurs say it is generally the economy, though calorie-counters looking to make today's heftier dinner portions last throughtomorrow's lunch also are doggie-bag users.
Customers at Elliott Fread's restaurant in New York have startedmaking his sandwiches last for two days.
"They won't say it's because of money. They'll say, 'This isreally good. Can you wrap it up?"' says Fread, owner of Bimmy's inChelsea Market. "But I know it's due to monetary reasons."
Judy Katz admits it, to an extent. A book collaborator in NewYork, she and her husband are well-off but "feeling the pinch" fromthe stock market's swoon. They now dine at a neighborhood bistroinstead of the elegant Le Cirque and take their leftovers home.
"My portfolio is gone," she laments. "But I'm not going to give upgoing out to eat. Now we share a meal, and we take home a doggiebag."
Some diners are just staying home.
The average number of U.S. restaurant meals per person per year isdown for the first time since 1990, according to the Port Washington,N.Y.-based NPD Group, which conducts industry research. The numberwas 137 meals purchased per capita over the 12-month period ended inFebruary, down 2.8 percent from 141 the previous year.
Still, the NPD data show the average American still eats out 15times more a year than a decade ago.
"Maybe people think a little more frugally when there is aneconomic downturn," says Steven Anderson, the National RestaurantAssociation's president and chief executive. "But I think we'vebecome such an essential part of people's lives that they're goingout to eat regardless."
| All Times Eastern |
| American League |
| Baltimore vs Boston, 7:05 p.m. |
| Minnesota vs Detroit, 7:05 p.m. |
| Tampa Bay vs Cleveland, 7:05 p.m. |
| N.Y. Yankees vs Toronto, 7:07 p.m. |
| Chicago White Sox vs Texas, 8:05 p.m. |
| Seattle vs Kansas City, 8:10 p.m. |
| L.A. Angels vs Oakland, 10:05 p.m. |
| National League |
| San Francisco vs Chicago Cubs, 2:20 p.m. |
| Arizona vs Philadelphia, 7:05 p.m. |
| St. Louis vs Pittsburgh, 7:05 p.m. |
| Colorado vs N.Y. Mets, 7:10 p.m. |
| Houston vs Washington, 7:35 p.m. |
| Cincinnati vs Milwaukee, 8:05 p.m. |
| Atlanta vs San Diego, 10:05 p.m. |
| Florida vs L.A. Dodgers, 10:40 p.m. |
| WNBA Basketball |
| Washington vs Detroit, 7:30 p.m. |
| Atlanta vs San Antonio, 8 p.m. |
| Major League Soccer |
| No games today. |
A congressman on Monday protested the return to duty of an Army officer who was cleared more than two years ago of killing two Iraqi civilians, saying he deserves more from the military that falsely accused him.
U.S. Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ask that 1st Lt. Erick Anderson's return-to-duty order be reconsidered.
"It is unconscionable that after all Anderson has been through _ at the hands of the Army no less _ that the Army thinks he should give it another go as if all is fine and all is forgiven," LaTourette wrote. "This young man lost almost two years of his life defending himself against scurrilous and false murder charges."
Anderson, of Twinsburg, Ohio, and now living in Iowa, separated from the Army in 2006 and went from active duty to inactive reserve. His lawyer, Neal Puckett, said Monday that Anderson has no comment.
Maj. Maria Quon, an Army spokeswoman, said Monday that military privacy regulations prevent her from commenting specifically about Anderson. Receipt of LaTourette's letter could not be confirmed by the Department of Defense late Monday, said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a department spokesman.
The officer must report to Fort Benning in Georgia on Aug. 3 and could be sent back to Iraq. Puckett said he will offer medical evidence that Anderson suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and should not serve again.
Anderson was a platoon leader in an infantry regiment in August 2004. Four men in the 36-member platoon were convicted of murdering unarmed Iraqis during operations near Sadr City.
On Dec. 5, 2005, the Army dropped murder charges against Anderson, who was accused of giving soldiers in his platoon permission to kill two Iraqi civilians. Anderson could have gotten life in prison if convicted.
The charges were dropped after an Army investigator who presided over a hearing recommended that Anderson not face a court-martial. At the hearing, one soldier who had accused Anderson changed his story, and another refused to testify.
Quon said any soldier receiving an order to return to duty may request a delay or exemption and will not be mobilized until the matter is settled.
"YOU CAN'T FIRE ME, I QUIT!" QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Because I care so deeply about this district and the people in it, I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign."
-former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, announcing his resignation from the House of Representatives on Tuesday morning on his Web site (http://tomdelay.house.gov). DeLay added that it was "time to begin opening new chapters and pursuing new opportunities to engage in the important cultural and political battles of our day," which we take to refer to the battle to defeat the evil insectoids and revive his career as the greater Houston metropolitan area's premiere "Time to Make the Bug Bombs!" guy ... or the battle to choose between ivory backscratchers while living it up on the corporate-kickback nest egg.
SEMPRA PULLS THE PLUG
Looking for a nice spot of ground in central Idaho? Maybe something along the highway from Twin Falls to Sun Valley, just a three-wood or so from the-biggest Idaho Power transfer station in the area? Then today's your lucky day, because something just opened up. On Thursday, March 29, Sempra Energy announced that it will has dropped its plans to build Idaho's first-ever coalfired power plant, which was to be located in south central-Idaho just northwest of Jerome.
Idaho lawmakers have been frantically battling the proposed plant ever since realizing last year, "Whoah, whoah-what kind of power plant is coming to central Idaho? And the only people who can stop it are a couple of Jerome County commissioners? Holy mercury emissions, Batman! Let's go write some new laws fast!"
After trying on several different versions of a moratorium on coal-fired plants, the House and Senate finally approved one last week. Although it hasn't been signed into law, Sempra nevertheless sent a letter to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne saying they received the message-or more accurately, that they didn't but they were leaving anyway.
"No, it was a strategic decision," Sempra president Michael Niggli told the San Diego Union Tribune. Niggli denied that protests to the project had played a large role in the company's decision, saying. "We think they [the Idaho site and another one in Nevada] are excellent sites, and the projects will continue with new owners. We would not be surprised to see them constructed."
Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennet, an opponent of the plant, echoed Niggli's sentiment. After the vote, Stennet told the online news blog New West. "This changes nothing."
IDAHO'S CRAZY LAW CLEARINGHOUSE, PART TWO
Last week, we gave you a preview of some lesser-known bills recently signed into law by Dirk "Catch you on the Flipside, Idaho" Kempthorne. The Governor's pen continued to work overtime this week, and it wasn't just over the much-bally hood pseudophenedrine thingy, the school bullies thingy or the Medicaid reform thingy. For instance, did you know that in Idaho:
* People buying a kit to make their own glider no longer have to pay sales tax on the kit.
* Public employees are allowed to take a monthlong leave of absence in order to donate organs, or five days to donate bone marrow.
* Children between the age of 16 and 18 are now allowed to make "anatomical gifts" for purposes of "transplantation, therapy, research or education," as long as they have parental consent.
* Organ donors are allowed to take up to a $5,000 tax credit after dishing out their bone marrow, intestines, kidneys, livers, lungs and pancreases (or is it pancreai?).
* During all future "disaster emergencies," neither the governor nor any other governmental entity will be allowed to impose restrictions on the possession, transfer, sale, transport, storage, display or use of firearms or ammunition. So y'all have fun and stay safe-ish, ya heart!
* Anyone who refuses to take a breathalyzer test when being grilled by a police officer for possibly driving under the influence will be subject to an immediate $250 fine.
* Anyone who refuses to take a breathalyzer test, and requests a hearing to explain why he (and the law says "he") refused, and then doesn't show up at the hearing, will have his license suspended for a year for the first offense. For a second offense, the suspension is two years.
* Alcohol vaporizers are now illegal to use, possess, purchase, sell or offer for sale in Idaho-that is, unless you're using it for "bona fide research or medical purposes" (wink, wink).
* Anyone who finds a dead body but doesn't tell a county coroner or law enforcement officer can be charged with a misdemeanor and put in county jail for a year.
* Non-profit organizations who put on shooting competitions, or who use shooting ranges, no longer have to pay sales tax on membership dues.
* Anyone who leaks personal information (read: identity theft) from a corporation or agency can be fined up to $25,000 per offense.
* Part-time members of governmental boards, commissions and councils will received $100 per diems. Good for them.
* People who operate title loan companies are now required to have licenses. Good for us.
To wade through these and other new laws, visit www.idaho.legislature.gov.
International
UK GETS AND IDAHO OF ITS VERY OWN
That's right, as of this Friday, the United Kingdom will be home to a new arm of IDAHO. Of course, their version is quite different than ours. In some ways, it's even better. For instance, in the U.K., IDAHO is spelled with all capital letters-which is very dashing. Also, their IDAHO is opposed to homophobia. How do we know this? Because it stands for the International Day Against Homophobia.
You didn't know about IDAHO, you say? That's probably because the United States, unlike Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Italy, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, the Phillipines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Ukraine, Venezuela and now the U.K., does not have an IDAHO branch of its very own. IDAHO is scheduled for May 17, the 16th anniversary of when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. (Click over to www. idahomophoia.org for more info).
And in other name-game news, IDAHO is very angry with Moscow-but not because its football team stinks. IDAHO groups in five European countries marched in front of their respective Russian diplomatic offices last week to protest Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov's stated intention to ban a gay pride parade in the Russian capital on May 27, according to the UK Gay News. The parade is planned to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Russian President Boris Yeltsin decriminalizing gay sexual relations in 1993. Luzkhov's plan met with support from leaders in Russian Islamic and Russian Orthodox churches, while the Council on Europe and several international human rights groups have requested that Luzhkov to reverse his stance and allow the march to happen.
war in Iraq
U.S. CASUALTIES: As of Tuesday, April 4, 2,338 U.S. service members (Including 12 Idahoans) have died since the war in Iraq began in March 2003: 1, 835 in combat and 503 from noncombat related incidents and accidents. Injured service members total 17,486. In the last week, 12 U.S. soldiers died.
Since President George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" aboad the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, 2,192 sol-diers have died.
Source: U.S. Dept of Defense
IRAQI CIVILAIN DEATHS: Estimated between 33,821 and 37,943.
Source: www.iraqbodycount.net
COST OF IRAQ WAR: $270,692,434,000
Source: www.costofwar.com
-Nicholas Collias
MOSCOW (AP) — U.S. and Russian defense leaders say they are still divided over the planned missile defense system in Europe but will continue talks to try to resolve the differences.
The issue, which has been simmering for several years, was a major topic during a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, although the ongoing military strikes in Libya — and Russian opposition to them — grabbed the headlines.
Gates says the two leaders had an intensive discussion on the missile shield and are making progress.
The plan, which is under way, begins with ship-based, anti-missile interceptors and radars, and would add land-based radars in Southern Europe.
The missile shield is aimed at countering future Iranian threats.
WASHINGTON -- Police and prosecutors are worried that a Web siteclaiming to identify more than 4,000 informants and undercoveragents will cripple investigations and hang targets on witnesses.
The Web site, WhosaRat .com, first caught the attention ofauthorities after a Massachusetts man put it online and named a fewdozen people as turncoats in 2004.
Since then, it has grown into a clearinghouse for mug shots,court papers and rumors.
Federal prosecutors say the site was set up to encourageviolence, and federal judges around the country were recently warnedthat witnesses in their courtrooms may be profiled online.
VICTIMS WON'T TALK
"My concern is making sure cooperators are adequately protectedfrom retaliation," said Chief Judge Thomas Hogan.
The Web site is the latest unabashedly public effort to identifywitnesses or discourage helping police. "Stop Snitching" T-shirtshave been sold and popular hip-hop lyrics disparage or threatenpeople who help police.
Such threats hinder criminal investigations, said RonaldTeachman, police chief in New Bedford, Mass., where murder caseshave been stymied by witness silence.
"Every shooting we have to treat like homicide. The victim'salive but he's not cooperative," Teachman said. "These kids have theidea that the worst offense they can commit is to cooperate with thepolice."
'Things happen to people'
A WhosaRat spokesman identifying himself as Anthony Capone saidthe site does not condone violence.
"If people got hurt or killed, it's kind of on them. They knewthe dangers of becoming an informant," Capone said. "We'd feel bad,don't get me wrong, but things happen to people." AP
