| The week in seven stories
Keen told MPs that the risk of a nuclear accident was one in 1,000. One in a million is an acceptable level of risk internationally. Health Minister Tony Clement said cancer patients in Canada and other countries were going without crucial therapies while Keen split hairs over safety issues. His cabinet colleague, Gary Lunn, whose natural resources portfolio includes responsibility for Atomic Energy of Canada, warned that "people would have died" if the shutdown had continued and dismissed opposition calls for an inquiry. Angry Liberal MPs said they'd be keeping an eye on the nuclear safety issue and wouldn't let up in their calls for a public investigation of the affair. Medical isotopes explained Afghanistan 'failing' Canada could leave Afghanistan next year if NATO countries don't pony up more soldiers.
Don't blame Duluth cops for action of one
I've been following the Jay Dailey story quite closely, and it only gets more bizarre. Can we get a blog about corrupt cops in this town?" Here's your blog. But it's probably not what you were expecting. To recap: A Duluth police officer, Jay Dailey, 42, was jailed Saturday after being treated for a gunshot wound. He is said to have been shot during a confrontation with Fulton County police officer Paul Phillips, who also was injured. Dailey faces four counts of felony aggravated assault. Gwinnett Police have not said much about what happened, but witness statements to the media paint this picture: Phillips was flagged down to help a distressed woman on Level Creek Road in Sugar Hill. He was off duty but in uniform and driving a marked patrol car.
Friday Legends — Rodney Cress
China Grove Junior High track coach Harry Bame stared at his stopwatch one spring afternoon in 1963. The watch was still functioning, but his brain couldn't process what his eyes were telling him. Ninth-grader Rodney Cress had just run 100 yards in 10-flat, something Bame had never witnessed in a junior high track meet. The world's fastest human, Bullet Bob Hayes, lowered the mark for the 100 to 9.1 seconds in 1963, but here was a ninth-grader from Rowan Mills with zero track training, with no clue how to get out of the blocks, running 10-flat. "I'd always run or rode a bicycle everywhere I went, and I guess all that pumping my legs made me fast," Cress said. "I always was faster than the other kids, but I had no idea how fast I was until the day Coach timed me.
Former Lt. Gov. Wilder improving from bout with pneumonia
NASHVILLE — Former Lt. Gov. John Wilder has been hospitalized since last week with pneumonia but his family says he's doing better and should be home soon. The 87-year-old Mason Democrat was admitted to a local hospital last Wednesday, Senate Democratic Caucus spokesman Mark Brown said today. Family members told Brown that Wilder has been on antibiotics and that he's able to walk around. They hope he'll be able to return to his West Tennessee home as early as Tuesday, but doctors have not said exactly when. Wilder, known for his rambling storytelling during his 36 years as Senate speaker, lost the job last January to Sen. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville. Wilder confirmed in December that he plans to seek re-election. At the time, Wilder, a pilot, told The Associated Press that he rides a bicycle daily and still regularly flies his small airplane.
Edward M. Gomez
Our concern is for the safety of the Serbs and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo....We'll strongly warn against any attempts at repressive measures, should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply with this unilateral proclamation of independence." Russia is worried "that Kosovo's move [may set] a dangerous precedent for separatist groups globally." (Press Association) In fact, "the most immediate diplomatic aftershocks" following the news of Kosovo's independence declaration "came in the Caucasus, where two separatist regions of the former Soviet state of Georgia announced they too would be seeking independence. 'Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have more political and legal justification to declare independence than Kosovo does,' said the South Ossetian president, Eduard Kokoity.
Ban on smoking becomes Md. law
Ellicott City resident Carole Fisher was also there. A cancer and tuberculosis survivor, Fisher was a smoker for 25 years before she stopped in the 1970s. But doctors told her that she paid the price for her smoking when an aggressive strain of tuberculosis left her fighting for her life in 1997.
"I didn't want my seven grandchildren to go through what I did," Fisher said, wearing a bright yellow "I'd [heart] a smoke-free Maryland" sticker on her lapel. "And now they won't have to deal with secondhand smoke. They can live a healthy life."
Jane McConnel, Paula Lawry and Janet Pfeffer, health advocates from Talbot County who have canvassed the state over the past five years convincing Howard and Prince George's officials to adopt similar bans, were front and center at the signing too.
Young DM inventor snatches spotlight
A Des Moines boy got a nice bit of free national advertising for his latest invention - The Snatcher - when he appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" last week.
Alek Luong's device, which he demonstrated on the daytime television talk show, is essentially a wide box with teeth that attaches to the front of a lawn mower. The box has wheels, and as the wheels turn, brushes push items such as dog poop, golf balls and walnuts into the box.
"The idea is to pick up things before they get to the lawn mower," said Alek, a fifth-grader at Lawson Elementary School in Johnston. .
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