Washington (EON) - The United Transportation Union has announced that they have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
This is the very first national union endorsement of the 2008 presidential race. The United Transportation Union represents 125,000 active and retired bus, railroad, and public transit workers.
The president of the United Transportation Union Paul Thompson put out a press release stating that “The UTU has a long history of picking winners early. Hillary will be a president that America’s working families can count on. Tiem and again, as a United States senator, she has stood with us.”
Clinton stated she was honored to have the support of the UTU. Clinton statd that “America’s workers have been invisible to this administration, and it’s time they have an advocate in the White House.”
Clinton threw in that shot at the Bush administration in celebrating the endorsement.
New Orleans (EON) - It has been two years since Hurricane Katrina plowed through the south with the rebuilding in New Orleans going at a slow pace.
The damage was estimated at $150 billion following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many groups are beginning to form as they are not happy about the slow progress and activity in New Orleans. One group called the Women of the Storm has been giving tours to members of Congress trying to get them to pay more attention to the region.
Two years later and not a lot has changed as the FEMA issues continue to unfold as the mess that Hurricane Katrina caused is far from over to say the least. New Orleans is nowhere near where it was prior to the natural disaster and may never be there at that height again. The people of New Orleans though continue to fight for their city and try to rebuild it as best they can to try and bring it back to prominence in the world.
Two years later, and the damage and devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused is still quite clear and apparent by just taking one look at New Orleans.
Boston (EON) - The United States District Court Judge J. Daniel Breen has sentenced former State Senator John Ford to over 5 years in prison.
This was in relation to the “Tennessee Waltz.” This was a public corruption scandal. The actual sentence to the 65-year-old former senator is 66 months in jail. He was convicted back in April for accepting $55,000 in bribes from a fake company created by the FBI.
Ford is also facing many more criminal charges so he may not be done yet getting more jail time.
Ford’s attorney Micheal Scholl stated that “What I have seen is John Ford singled out in all of this. John Ford coule have gone out and robbed and shot somebody and he would be facing less time than he is now. What I want to emphasize here is all the good that John Ford has done. We can’t just wipe out 30 years in the legislature.”
Former State Senator Roscoe Dixon and Rep. Chris Newton have been sentenced already as well. Former Sen. Ward Cructchfield and Kathryn Bowers await their sentences.
Boston (EON) - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are set to kick off another world tour.
They made the announcement that October 2nd would be the first date of a very long world tour. The world tour is going to be called the “Magic” tour which is also the name of their soon to be released album. The album will also release on October 2nd.
The tour will kick off in Hartford, COnnecticut on October 2nd and then head out to play 15 different cities in North America. They will also play 13 concerts in Europe. The entire world tour for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will end up being 31 shows.
Some of the bigger dates include two shows at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 17th and 18th as well as a show in Boston before going to Europe. They will play in London on December 19th to wrap up the tour.
Hollywood (EON) - An investigation has begun to look into Britney Spears in relation to her possibly committing child abuse.
The lawyer for Spears, Dennis Wasser, appeared at a hearing this morning in LA County Superior Court. He appeared in the dependency section which handles child abuse cases.
Apparently the LA County Department of Children and Family Services is holding a very active investigation into the matter of Britney Spears and her possible parenting skills and child abuse.
The lawyer for Kevin Federline, her ex-husband, was also present at the hearing. It is expected that this investigation will come first before the actual custody battle over the two sons of Federline and Spears.
Spears has been showing some crazy behavior for months now since splitting from Federline last November. The latest in this ridiculous behavior has the former manager of Spears hiding to avoid a legal subpoena from the attorneys of Kevin Federline.
Boston (EON) - The judges for the The Next Great American Band which wil air on Fox have been named.
John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls will be accompanied by Sheila E who is a percussionist, as well as Ian “Dicko” Dickson. These three are going to make up the panel who reportedly are going to choose the Next Great American Band.
Dickson is the most surprising choice.
The producers of American Idol put together American Band which will have many of the same traits as American Idol except for the fact that it will focus on a band rather than just a singer.
Nationwide auditions will be held until the judges narrow it down to 10 semifinalist bands. They will perform each week before a live studio audience until a winner is chosen.
Boston (EON) - Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, have agreed to a $75 million deal which will make for a three-season extension to the popular vulgar cartoon as well as a digital offshoot which will be new.
Parker and Stone will work with Comedy Central to create the South Park Digital Studios. They will work on making the animated show work in the digital world.
The pair will be splitting the ads 50-50 on digital platforms per the agreement with Comedy Central.
Matt Stone stated that “Three more years of South Park will give us the opportunity to offend that many more people. And since Trey and I are in charge of the digital side of South Park, we can offend people on their cell phones, game consoles, and computers too. It’s all very exciting for us.”
The current South Park deal was set to expire in 2008, but the show is now set to go through 2011.
New York (EON) - According to a new study workers who worked in and around the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 are far more prone to develop asthma.
A new survey was held from the Health Department of New York City. This made the alarming revelation in regards to 9/11 workers getting asthma.
The results have been published in the August 27th issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.
NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas R. Frieden stated “The dust from the WTC collapse appears to have had significant repiratory health effects at least for people who worked at the site.”
About 3.6% of the 25,000 rescue and recovery workers who made it to the WTC site after the towers collapsed had a high risk of developing cancer. Those who arrived on the day of the event and worked more than 90 days had the highest rate of asthma at 7%.
Washington - The US poverty rate declined for the first time this decade in 2006, but the number of Americans without health insurance increased, the US Census Bureau said Tuesday.
The poverty rate declined to 12.3 per cent in 2006 from 12.6 per cent in 2005, with 36.5 million people living in poverty in the United States. A family of four living on less than 20,000 dollars per year is considered to be in poverty.
The number of people without insurance increased to 15.8 per cent of the population, or 47 million people, in 2006 from 15.3 per cent, or 44.8 million in 2005.
The data also showed that real median household income increased for the second consecutive year to 48,200 dollars in 2006 from 47,845.
In 2006, the US population topped 300 million.
Washington - A US senator who was a top official in Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s campaign Tuesday insisted he was not gay after pleading guilty to charges of disorderly conduct in a men’s bathroom in the Mid-West.
Idaho Senator Larry Craig made a public apology for bringing a “cloud” over his home state, and blamed his poor judgement in pleading guilty to the June charges on a local newspaper which has been investigating him for eight months.
Craig resigned from the post in Romney’s campaign after revelations on Monday about the incident.