AP Karim Kadim, Saturday, May 20th
AP/Kalid Mohammed, Sunday, May 21stWASHINGTON, May 19 — For months, even in the face of an avalanche of bad news for Republicans, Democratic ambitions for capturing Congress have collided with an electoral map created to protect Republicans from ouster. Despite polls showing rising support for Democrats and scorn for Republicans, analysts have said Democratic hopes for big gains remain remote, because so few seats are in contention.
That appears to be changing.
Over the past week, a handful of once-safe Republican Congressional seats have come into play, and other Republican incumbents are facing increasingly stiff re-election battles, according to analysts, pollsters and officials in both parties. The change amounts to a slight but significant shift in the playing field, and a potentially pivotal change in the dynamics of this midterm election.
Fred Greaves/Reuters
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.
AP Javier Galeano
Reuters/Luke MacGregor
April 24, 2006—This is one sweet 16 that calls for more than just a first driver's license photo.
NASA and the European Space Agency today marked the 16th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope by releasing a brilliant new image captured by the orbiting observer.
The composite picture, taken last month, depicts the starburst galaxy Messier 82, a hothouse of rapidly forming stars some 12 million light-years away. The image features the long blue disk of the galaxy's core laced with fiery tendrils of hydrogen gas (shown in red). The image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of the galaxy.
Interstellar eye candy like this has been part of Hubble's stock in trade over the past 16 years, but the telescope has much more to show for its service than an album of cool images.
Since it was launched into space on April 24, 1990, the Hubble has contributed to some significant astronomical studies, from measuring the effects of mysterious dark matter to helping scientists determine the age of the universe itself.
NASA has tentatively cancelled missions to maintain the Hubble, citing safety concerns for astronauts after the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.
A new study finds that the supermassive black holes at the hearts of some galaxies are the most fuel efficient engines in the universe.
"If you could make a car engine that was as efficient as one of these black holes, you could get about a billion miles out of a gallon of gas," said study team leader Steve Allen of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University. "In anyone's book, that would be pretty green."
The finding, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and announced in a media teleconference today, is giving scientists insights into how supermassive black holes generate energy and how they affect the galaxies where they make their homes.
Beneath the waves of the South Pacific lies a volcanic realm nearly as strange as that featured in TV's hit drama Lost.
But instead of a mysterious island, scientists have found a bubbling submarine volcano whose weird features include a swirling vortex, a host of strange animals, and a fearsome zone of toxic waters dubbed the Moat of Death.
The volcano, described in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sits within the crater of a gigantic underwater mountain rising more than 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) from the ocean floor near the island of Samoa.
The seamount, called Vailulu'u, is an active volcano, with a 2-mile-wide (3.2-kilometer-wide) crater. The cone rising within it has been dubbed Nafanua, for the Samoan goddess of war.
...The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.
The parallels to the run-up to to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.
GARDINER: Actually, Jim, I would say – and this may shock some – I think the decision has been made and military operations are under way . . .
The Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year. I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, "Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units."
He said, quite frankly, "Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans."
The evidence is mounting that that decision has already been made.
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