| Millions in Katrina aid still available
BATON ROUGE, La. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (NAY'-gin) often complains about how slowly his city has been getting federal hurricane recovery money. But a homeland security official in Louisiana says nearly 600 (m) million dollars more is available if only Nagin would request it. New Orleans has received nearly 300 (m) million dollars of the recovery money promised by FEMA. But officials say there's still another 595 (m) million available that the city hasn't asked for. That money can be used to replace city property and structures that were damaged or ruined in Katrina and its aftermath, including police cars and buses, the city jail, roads and the sewer and water systems. But a city financial officer says the process for distributing the money is cumbersome and that New Orleans needs cash now to get the ball rolling on critical projects that are federally funded on a matching basis.
State Briefly
HOUSTON - Ben Glisan Jr., the first former Enron executive to go directly to jail after pleading guilty to conspiracy in 2003, is expected to finish a stint of home confinement after three years in prison, his attorney and the federal Bureau of Prisons said Thursday.
Glisan, the former Enron treasurer, pleaded guilty on Sept. 10, 2003, in the corporate scandal that brought down the energy company and rocked Wall Street. He received a five-year sentence.
Truck driver sentenced to life after 58 counts of conspiracy
HOUSTON - A truck driver was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison Thursday for his role in the nation's deadliest human smuggling attempt - a journey that ended in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants crammed in a sweltering tractor-trailer.
Racism, personal safety factors in Obama's deliberations
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Jesse Jackson says that as he shares fond memories of his 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns with Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, he also passes along memories of the ugly side. "There was an antipathy to my running," Jackson said. "We received the most threats of any candidate ever." Jackson aides and Secret Service officials from those days recall hate mail, racial slurs and death threats aimed at both the candidate and his family. "I had the most sensitivity to the fact that we had to have security at home. The threats are very real," Jackson said. "Everyplace we went, Secret Service always on edge." Obama, a Democrat elected to the Senate just two years ago, announced Tuesday on his Web site -- http://www.barackobama.com/ -- that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee.
Final Life Safety Summit Looks at Education, Prevention
Those were among the conclusions during the final mini-summit on Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives held this past weekend. Although the groups discussed five separate topics all shared a common theme -- firefighters must get involved. Whether it is burn care, training or codes, nothing will change until everyone gets on the same page, participants said. The summit on prevention, held in conjunction with a conference hosted by the Home Safety Council, addressed measures that must be implemented to reduce the number of firefighter injuries. Reports on all six mini-summits will be available soon on the Everyone Goes Home Web site. In addition, white papers are being prepared on each of the 16 life safety initiatives. They will serve as a guide for national fire officials attending the second national summit in California.
Is the MySpace net closing in?
Social networking site MySpace is working on new software aimed at protecting its younger users from predators. But will this go far enough to keep children safe? It is the latest internet scare story to confront parents - online paedophiles posing as teenagers, attempting to exploit young surfers. Fears about abusers "grooming" victims have thrown the spotlight on hugely popular web communities like MySpace and Bebo, where as many as 61% of 13 to 17-year-olds are estimated to have a profile. Mindful of the public's concern, MySpace, the most popular of these sites, has confirmed it is working on software to keep parents informed about what their children are doing on the net. The project, codenamed Zephyr, would alert parents to the name, age and location details entered by the youngster on the profile of his or her homepage.
|
