The Nightowl Newswrap

Gad prices heading down?  Energy analysts say that oil production is currently outstripping demand, and as a result the day is fast approaching when suppliers will tire of paying storage costs and glut the market, driving the price of refined products like gasoline down below $2.00 per gallon.  

Apparently the Chinese weren't content to just sell us corrosive and toxic drywall  but it might be radioactive, too.  Some of the drywall shipped to the United States by at least four different Chinese firms was made with radioactive phosphogypsum, a waste byproduct.  

Good Samaritan dies  Charles Bybee, a  62 year old Norwalk, California man has died Friday of injuries he sustained four days earlier when he went to the aid of a suicidal woman who was trying to jump into traffic.  He saved the woman and talked with police afterward, then turned to cross the street and was hit by an oncoming car he had not seen.  

The most important Pentagon official you have never heard of is a 48-year-old woman named Michele Flournoy who is the child of an actress and a cinematographer who grew up in Beverly Hills playing beach volleyball and who, in her own words, "majored in rowing" when she went to Oxford, but has been a defense wonk for over 20 years, and this year she is in charge of  the Quadrennial Defense Review, which the Pentagon is required by Congress to produce every four years.  (If I were to put money on who will be the first female Secretary of Defense, it would be her.)

Recycling: It isn't just for affluent lefties any more  Women like Gloria Allen are preaching the recycling gospel in the projects.

A huge progressive step for India  The highest court in New Delhi has decriminalized homosexuality in a ruling that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gays and lesbians in India.

North Korea continues to push the envelope, popping off another trio of missiles on Saturday.  South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted military officials as saying the missiles appeared to be a type of Scud missile, believed to have a range of 300-500 miles.  

Philadelphia, Mississippi has it's first black mayor  The town whose reputation for violent racism is rivaled only by Selma or Birmingham, Alabama - the place where Reagan went to blow the 'states rights' dog whistle when he announced his 1980 candidacy - took a huge step away from the sins of the past today when James Young, who as a child hid from the Klan behind the couch in his families home, was sworn in today as the city's first black mayor.

The economy takes a toll on fireworks displays  Across the country municipalities have cancelled their annual fireworks displays, victims of the recession.

German physicians certify Demjanjuk fit to stand trial on charges that he was an accessory to murder at a Nazi death camp.  The doctors said the 89-year-old retired auto worker, recently deported from the United States, can stand trial so long as his time in court does not exceed two 90-minute sessions daily, Munich prosecutors said.

Myanmar refuses to let Ban Ki-moon meet with Ang San Suu Kyi  The Secretary General of the United Nations met with the countries top military ruler on Friday but failed to win any concessions from the junta and although he asked to meet with Suu Kyi, that request was denied.

Surgery tech/drug thief may have exposed 6000 patients to Hepatitis C  A former surg tech in Colorado faces criminal charges after she admitted to stealing preloaded syringes of fentanyl to inject into herself then reloaded them with saline and rewrapped them.  She is infected with Hepatitis C and nine patients have tested positive, and the facility where she worked is advising about 6000 patients that they need to be tested.  

Johnny came marching home to Elkhart, Indiana this week, to no jobs.  A quarter of the soldiers from the Elkhart-based Indiana National Guard's 1538th Transportation Company from Iraq who came home after a ten month rotation in Iraq this week returned to no jobs, the companies they worked for have fallen on hard times while they were gone, and when layoffs happen while soldiers are deployed, the federal job protection laws don't apply.  


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ightowl-newswrap

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