Madrid (EON) - Spanish police have made the announcement that they have arrested two men for attempted extortion from the parents of 4-year-old Madeleine McCann, a British Girl.
The tow men, one an Italian man and the other a Portuguese woman, are accused of extortion during the time period where the British girl disappeared during a vacation in Portugal.
Authorities in Spain stated that they had no connection with the actual disappearance of the girl but that it was merely a case of extortion.
They reportedly tried to contac the parents of Madeleine to collect a reward for providing information about where exactly the girl was.
The man was arrested on an international warrant issued in France and the woman was detained due simply to her being associated with the man.
Boston (EON) - Democratic presidential candidates are joining as one along with other Democrats to battle the Supreme Court ruling on diversity in schools.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton stated that the Supreme Court turned the clock back on history in a major way. Barack Obama is the only black candidate among the eight and stated that it was the wrong decision.
The debate went on for 90 mnutes and was the third time Democratic presidential hopefuls joined to talk. This debate focused on health care, education criminal justice, etc.
The debate focused on the diversity in America. John Edwards stated that the poverty isse in America is something which needs to be focused. The economic gap must be decreased between teh rich and poor, stated Edwards.
The ruling by the Supreme Court put a stop on a history new limit on school desegregation plans.
Washington (EON) - Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy are facing jail sentences for bribery and corruption while their attorneys prepare an appeal.
The judge stated that the case damaged public trust in state government. The sentence came out for Siegelman on Thursday putting him in federal prison for a period of 7 years. Scrushy got almost 9 years for his sentence.
Both of the men were immediately taken into custody without even being able to talk to their family members.
U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller made the ruling as Siegeman’s attorney David McDonald is preparing an emergency appeal.
The attorney stated that there was no need to immediately take them into custody. Attorney Vince Kilborn is expected to appeal the convictions of both men.
Washington (EON) - US health officials have made the announcement that they have blocked the import of seafood farmed in China.
The US health officials are adding seafood to the list of contaminated or defective products from China as they could be dangerous to the health of people.
Contamination with drugs was shown on the testing of seafood from China spawning the US to block all shipments of seafood such as fish, shrimp, eel, etc.
China is the largest producer of farmed seafood in the world and the third largest exporter of seafood to the US.
The FDA stated there have not yet been any reports of illnesses from the contaminated seafood.
Boston (EON) - Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated that the number of iPhones manufactured may not be enough to meet the customer demand on launch day.
The iPhone is set to go on sale this afternoon on Friday around 6 p.m.
Jobs spoke to the Wall Street Journal and stated that they have made their best guess as to what exactly the demand is going to be and they are trying to supply as many as they possibly can to meet that demand.
He stated that they “built factories to build these things and everything.”
He did state though that he would not be suprised if it will still not enough to meet the demand.
The hype of the iPhone is unprecedented and it is set to launch today selling for $499 and $599 depending on which model you desire.
Boston (EON) - Reserachers have managed to transform a bacterial species into someting else by swapping genomes.
Craig Venter stated that the researchers transplanted the entire genetic code of a bacterial organism into another closely related species.
This is the biggest attempt to date to try and re-engineer a living cell in order to use it for things such as biofuels, etc.
Reserachers have managed to transform a bacterial species into someting else by swapping genomes” style=”padding-right: 7px”>Barbara Jasney, deputy editor of the journal Science, stated that this “is a landmark in biological engineering taking us from moving one gene or a set of genes to the ability to move an intact genome.
This is the first time researchers have been able to transplant an entire genome into a living organism and shown that the cell can showcase foreign DNA.
Mexico City - Mexican President Felipe Calderon Thursday called the withdrawal of legislation to overhaul US immigration law from consideration in the US Senate “a grave mistake.”
Calderon said the US Senate is avoiding “giving a sensible, rational, legal solution to the immigration problem” and opening the door to illegal immigration.
“It is a problem that is not being faced and, with this evasive answer from the US Senate, it simply gets worse,” Calderon said, in a joint press conference with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in Mexico City.
The Mexican president said the decision sacrifices “the chances for the development of millions of people and families” and deteriorates the competitiveness of the US economy.
“The US economy could not prosper and could not move forward without the manpower of migrants both from Mexico and from Central America,” Calderon said.
The immigration reform bill failed to gather enough votes to move forward. It could have led to the legalization of some 12 million illegal immigrants.
San Francisco - Outside the Apple and AT&T stores in Silicon Valley Thursday it was hard to find too many business types waiting breathlessly for the release of the most-hyped gadget in modern history.
But there were plenty of casually-dressed twenty-somethings waiting for the multitasking iPhone that appears set to become the must-have device for a tech-savvy generation that likes its tech-toys to have as much style as substance.
Some call these individuals techno-sexuals for their almost fetishistic lust for new high tech gadgets. Another name could be the iGeneration, reflecting the ability of gadgets to empower the individual, or the narcissistic obsession with owning the latest tech creations.
For those waiting in line outside the Apple store in Mountain View - home to Google, that other great icon of Silicon Valley - such theories were inconsequential.
“We’re just here for the phone, because it’s the coolest phone ever, because it will impress our friends, and maybe even impress some girls,” said Lee Chen, a 27-year-old graphic designer who had been waiting outside the store with three friends since before dawn on Wednesday. The phone is going on sale on Friday at 6 pm.
Similar lines were reported outside many of the major urban stores selling the new handset, which combines Apple’s market crushing iPod media player with an internet browser and a cellphone.
The triple play device is encased in a beautiful black tablet which features an innovative multi-touch screen that Apple contends is far superior to the myriad of tiny buttons that have been used to operate so called smart-phones in the past.
The phone, which costs 500 or 600 dollars depending on memory size, has so far won largely positive backing from reviewers, who say that despite a few shortcomings it is an impressive device.
The Wall Street Journal called it “a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer” while The New York Times said the phone “matches most of its hype” and that it was “amazing … but not perfect”.
One of the most critical reviews appeared in the New York Post whose reviewer said the phone was “a technological marvel” but was flawed by a lack of memory and slow internet service. He advised consumers to wait for more advanced versions to come out within the year.
“Don’t get hung up on buying an iPhone,” he said. “Tens of thousands of people are expected to line up this Friday for the most hyped gadget of the decade - the iPhone. Don’t be one of them.”
Those arguments appeared to have little sway on Chen or the many others clamouring to get their hands on the sexy black box, despite the high retail price and additional monthly service charges of at least 60 dollars.
Industry analysts expect the first iPhone to sell quickly, with predictions Apple and AT&T could shift about three million handsets within the first weeks.
But it’s unlikely to dominate the cellphone market in the same way that the iPod changed the world of music listening. The iPhone has many entrenched competitors who are already ramping up their products to match some of the iPhone’s innovations.
Even if it is a hit with consumers, the most robust market for smartphones has so far been the corporate market, which is keeping well away from the new device largely because of its unproven record and incompatibility with corporate networks.
Some even believe that the phone’s drawbacks, like its high price and inability to use the fastest cellular networks, could give Apple a flop to rival that of the company’s infamous 1993 Newton personal organizer which was also ahead of its time but failed to gain traction with consumers.
“I think it’s going to be a flop,” said tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson. “It’s beautiful, no doubt. I think it’s going to be a bust of a product, but it is going to push the industry forward a lot, and make the carriers - especially in the United States - consider higher-end, more feature-rich phones.”
Washington - In a decision that hit on hot-button issues of race, discrimination and education, the US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that school districts cannot use race alone to determine which schools students can attend.
In a divided 5-4 decision, the highest US court found school districts in Seattle, Washington and Louisville, Kentucky could not use race as a tie-breaker in determining which students would attend which schools.
The ruling follows a similar decision in 2004 aimed at universities, which said race could only be considered as one of many factors in educational admission decisions to address past discrimination against blacks and other minorities.
Supporters of the schools’ plans saw so-called affirmative action as a way to keep schools from becoming segregated based on the location of minority neighbourhoods.
The districts in Seattle and Louisville allowed students to choose which school in the area they wanted to attend, but had policies that used race if there were more students than spaces in a particular school. The efforts were used to keep the racial makeup of the schools in line with that of the city.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court’s decision.
Before a landmark 1954 decision that outlawed school racial segregation, “schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on colour of their skin. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once again - even for very different reasons,” Roberts wrote.
Dissenting justices said the decision threatened efforts to prevent resegregation of schools.
“This is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret,” Justice Stephen Breyer said.
Toronto - According to two new studies, antidepressants, including Proza, Paxil and Soloft pose little risk of causing birth defects in unborn babies.
The studies, published in the New England Jornal of Medicine, found that the drugs will not harm the child, even if the mother takes them early in her pregnancy.
Previous studies have linked the drugs to heart defects and lung problems, reported WebMD.
Researchers say that the dugs pose “no major risk” to newborns.
Dr. Michael Katz, acting Medical Director of the March of Dimes, said the studies show how important post-market surveillance is in assessing the safety of medications in pregnancy. During pre-approval, drugs are tested on relatively few subjects and only side effects with a large frequency are detected. Once approved, many people take the medication and even very rare side effects surface.
“Most prescription drugs are not tested on pregnant women,” said Dr. Katz. “So we must start monitoring the effects of these medications as soon as they reach consumers, and keep monitoring for as long as it takes to get good data on risks to mothers and babies.”
Today we know that 10 percent of women will experience depression during pregnancy.