Spirit of forgiveness rules the day in face of school shooting tragedy

NICKEL MINES, Pa. — "We don't know what God's purpose is," John told me, "but we believe there is a purpose."

I can tell you something that God told me about all of this.

See what I mean? He did what he did. He will get memories of that – I don’t forget. If he can’t handle Reality, that’s his own issue. His own weakness. If he can’t move forward, than that’s his own weakness. He held that anger, that’s his own choice.
The families that lost those girls in that shooting, forgave immediately. They are very Holy, very forgiving, very special people. They don’t want to be tainted by society. They’re a good bunch, you know? Good people.
It’s sad that he chose to target them. It’s the most massive contrast – the hateful God-hating molester, and the Holy forgiving loving Amish young girls. How crazy, you know? How crazy is that.
Of course I’ll make him dream of his past. Of course. That’s his punishment for doing what he did. I won’t forget, and I’ll make him remember forever too. That’s his Judgment.

Judgment in God's Hands

Huntington, the authority on the Amish, predicted they will be very supportive of the killer and his wife, "because judgment is in God's hands: `Judge not, that ye be not judged."

And God's Judgment on America:

Revelation 18:8
She will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has Judged her is Strong.

Forest Service spends $1.5B on wildfires

BOISE, Idaho - Wildfires across the country have burned a record number of acres this year, and with the scorched land comes a record bill, a federal official said Tuesday.

The U.S. Forest Service's firefighting efforts for fiscal year 2006, which ended Sept. 30, cost more than $1.5 billion, at least $100 million over budget, said Mark Rey, the Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural resources and the environment.

To pay for the fires, money was transferred from other programs that had surpluses, including a reforestation program, said Kent Connaughton, the Forest Service comptroller.

The wildfire season is not over yet, but so far more than 15,515 square miles, or 9.93 million acres, have burned in the Lower 48 states, Rey said. That is the most since at least 1960, when the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center began keeping reliable records.

Maine Quake Causes Dramatic Drop in Well Water Level

A minor earthquake that shook parts of Maine at 8:07 p.m. local time Monday caused water to drop 2.5 feet at a U.S. Geological Survey monitoring well.

Nearly 17 hours later, the water level was still dropping, scientists announced today.

Hydrologists call the change in the well “dramatic,” and said well-water users might notice changes in their drinking water.

The preliminary magnitude 3.9 earthquake was the third such event to shake the state in the past few weeks. It was centered about 4 miles south-southeast of Bar Harbor, or 45 miles southeast of Bangor. A magnitude 2.5 earthquake on Sept .28 and a magnitude 3.4 on Sept. 22 were centered in the same location.

“It isn’t unusual for earthquakes to cause minor changes in water levels in wells, but this is the most memorable in Maine in the last decade,” said USGS hydrologist Gregory Stewart. “Users of well water could notice cloudy water and possibly a change in availability of water.”

Filipino Christian Belaro, 36, took this photo on Velero Street in central Manila. She said the damage was extensive along the streets outside her condominium and that the power kept going out.


An unidentified survivor surveys the mud-buried homes Tuesday Oct. 3, 2006 at Antipolo city east of Manila, Philippines after heavy rains overnight caused flash flooding and landslides leaving six people dead and six more missing. The incident occurred as the country is still recovering from last week's worst typhoon in a decade that left a wide swath of destruction in the capital, central and northern Philippines and left 78 people dead and 69 more missing. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Tropical Storm Bebinca lessens threat to Philippines, veers north toward Japan

MANILA (AP) — Tropical Storm Bebinca has changed course, heading toward southern Japan and away from the rain-soaked northern Philippines, which was still reeling from last week's typhoon, forecasters said Wednesday.
Bebinca, with maximum winds of 53 miles per hour and gusts of up to 60 mph, is expected to continue moving northward and could intensify into a typhoon as it heads toward southern Japan in the next few days, forecasters said.

The Philippine weather bureau said the storm was located 380 miles east of the northeastern tip of Luzon island, and by Saturday, will be 560 miles east of the Batanes islands in the Luzon Strait.

Authorities lowered a storm alert over northeastern provinces but said Bebinca has interacted with a low pressure area east of Luzon, bringing rains and flash floods.

Radio reports on Wednesday said flash floods stranded hundreds of commuters in Mindoro Occidental province, 125 miles south of Manila, and sank several houses.

On Tuesday, six people were killed in flash floods east of Manila, while the official death toll from Typhoon Xangsane, which cut across Luzon on Thursday, stood at 98 dead and 72 missing.

Bebinca is a pudding common in former Portuguese colonies of Asia.

S.East Asian flood toll, damage rise after typhoon

HANOI (Reuters) - Flooding and landslides triggered by Typhoon Xangsane have raised the death toll to more than 150 in the past week from the storm that hit Vietnam and the Philippines, officials said on Wednesday.

The typhoon's fierce winds and rain destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes when it slammed Vietnam's central coast on Sunday after bringing parts of the Philippines, including the capital Manila, to a standstill last week.

Vietnamese officials said more than 50,000 houses were still submerged along a roughly 1,000 km (600-mile) area from northern Nghe An province to Gia Lai province in the south. Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper said the evacuation of 6,000 people started on Tuesday in Nghe An.

Vietnam's resort city of Danang, the country's fourth largest with 1 million people, was hardest-hit by the typhoon, both in terms of casualties and damage to homes, power supply and its seafood industry.

The National Flood and Storm Control Committee said at least 42 people were killed in Vietnam by the storm or swept away by floods in its aftermath. Seven were missing and 502 injured.

Initial estimates of damage were around 9.98 trillion dong ($623 million), the government said.

The committee warned residents across the storm-damaged region to "be prepared for flash floods, landslides and flooding in the low-lying areas."

Officials in the Philippines said on Wednesday that the death toll had risen to 110 from 78 on Monday.

At least 88 people were injured and a further 79 were still missing. Around 2.9 billion pesos ($58 million) worth of properties were damaged by Xangsane, which means "elephant" in the Lao language.

The storm weakened after crossing into Vietnam and moved west across Laos and into Thailand.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are killed and property and crops damaged each year by tropical storms in the two countries, which are separated by the South China Sea.

Mountain pine beetles killing S.D. trees

RAPID CITY, S.D. - Large colonies of mountain pine beetles have become established in the central Black Hills, and officials estimate that about 2 million trees have been lost in the last two years.

The Black Hills Forest Resource Association says drought has made things worse because trees that lack water and nutrients are more vulnerable to the insect pests.

"You have to have a balanced strategy of taking care of spot problems when you can, but the larger emphasis on trying to get out in front of it, and you've got a big green buffet out there if you're a mountain pine beetle, and we're looking to try and break some of that up for them," said Aaron Everett of the Black Hills Forest Resource Association.

Brown Widow makes its home on Gulf Coast


A Brown Widow spider, displaying the famous red hour glass marking under her abdomen, guards her egg sacs in this 2004 file photo near Archer, Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Sandlin, FILE)

JACKSON, Miss. - As if the West Nile-toting mosquito isn't enough to worry Mississippians, add the poisonous Latrodectus geometricus to the state's list of creepy-crawly creatures.

Dr. Jerome Goddard, entomologist with the Mississippi Department of Health, said the poisonous Brown Widow spider that is a cousin to the well-known Black Widow, is now calling the Mississippi Gulf Coast home.

"The tropical Brown Widow spider .... has recently been captured in many locations along the Mississippi Gulf Coast," Goddard said in a news release Tuesday.

He said his office has been receiving many phone calls reporting buildings and grounds heavily infested with this type of spider.

"This spider is in the same family as the Black Widow, and is poisonous to humans," Goddard said. "I first heard of a collection of this spider at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi in early 2005 and figured it was probably just an isolated incident."

The Health Department said the Brown Widow can grow to 1 1/2 inches long. It is brown or grayish-brown instead of black and has an orange-to-yellow hourglass design on its underside, as opposed to the familiar red hourglass design on the Black Widow.

"That's a dead giveaway," Goddard said. "When the hourglass design is yellowish or orange, instead of deep red, you know it is a Brown Widow."

Iraq violence claims dozens of lives

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber unleashed a blast in a Baghdad fish market Tuesday and two Shiite families were found slain north of the capital as violence across Iraq claimed at least 52 lives.

Ozone hole matches record size of 2000

GENEVA (AP) — The "ozone hole" over Antarctica this year has matched the record size of 11.4 million square miles, the U.N. weather agency said Friday.
The area of the so-called hole — a thinning in the ozone layer during the South Pole winter — is the same as in the record year of 2000, according to measurements by NASA, said Geir Braathen, ozone specialist at the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization.

But Braathen said of greater concern is that the amount of ozone gas particles remaining in the hole is even lower than in 2000, a measurement called "the mass deficit." According to the European Space Agency, the loss has been 39.8 megatons, he said.

"In a way this mass deficit is a better measure of how much ozone is depleted ... because it counts how many tons of ozone are lacking," Braathen told The Associated Press.

The thinner layer this year "will lead to more ultraviolet radiation on the ground," Braathen said.

Too much ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and destroy tiny plants at the beginning of the food chain.

Nuke test worries N. Korea's neighbors


South Korean protesters burn the pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during an anti-North Korea rally at downtown Seoul, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun called Wednesday for a 'cool-headed and stern' response to North Korea's threat to conduct a nuclear test that has raised regional tension to new heights. (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea faced stern warnings from its neighbors Wednesday against carrying out an unprecedented nuclear test, but insisted such a move wouldn't be meant as a provocation. A top South Korean security official said there was no sign a test was imminent.

China, Japan and South Korea announced a series of summits among their leaders, ratcheting up diplomacy over tensions caused by the North's announcement Tuesday that it intends to detonate a bomb.

Such a test would confirm the North's claim that it has atomic capabilities, and would severely undermine efforts to prevent an Asian nuclear arms race by getting Pyongyang to disarm.

South Korea's top official on dealings with the North, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok, said Wednesday that there were no definite signs that the test is imminent.

However, Lee also told lawmakers there was "a high possibility" it would eventually take place if "efforts to resume the six-party talks fail," Yonhap news agency reported.

15,000 Afghan families 'displaced'

GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- This year's upsurge in fighting is causing serious dislocation in southern Afghanistan, where NATO and government troops are battling insurgents, the U.N. refugee agency said.

The office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees issued a statement Tuesday saying "an estimated 15,000 families" have been displaced in Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces since July.

The UNHCR says it is "concerned about the increasing number" of displaced people.

"This fresh displacement adds new hardship to a population already hosting 116,400 people earlier uprooted by conflict and drought," it said.

"We expect further displacement may take place until conditions are safe for the population to return to their homes."

1.8 million face harsh Pakistan winter in tents

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - At least 1.8 million people living in makeshift shelters and tents are at risk from the Himalayan winter a year after an earthquake ravaged northern Pakistan, the international aid agency Oxfam said on Wednesday.

The 7.6. magnitude quake on October 8, last year killed more than 73,000 people in northern Pakistan, a further 1,500 in Indian Kashmir and rendered more than three million destitute.

“A recent Oxfam survey of 17 earthquake-hit villages found that virtually all those who were living in tents lacked adequate protection against winter weather,” the aid agency said in a statement saying 1.8 million quake-affected people were at risk.

E. coli found in cattle feces near spinach fields

SAN FRANCISCO - California officials have discovered E. coli in cattle feces on pastures near farms being investigated as possible sources of spinach contaminated with the bacteria, which caused a nationwide outbreak of food poisoning, a state health officer said Tuesday.

State investigators have obtained eight samples of cattle feces testing positive for E. coli. The samples are being retested to see if their bacteria strain matches the strain in 193 cases of food poisoning, including one confirmed fatality last month, linked to tainted spinach, said Kevin Reilly, a deputy director at the California Department of Health Services.

Experts: Great Lakes dunes face threats

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Known as Pigeon Hill, the Lake Michigan dune towered 30 stories high on the south side of Muskegon. Formed over thousands of years, it disappeared in three decades as its sand was mined for industrial use in the mid-20th century.

"These are truly world-class, fantastic dunes," said Alan Arbogast, associate professor of geography at Michigan State University. "We have good reason to love these dunes."

"It is possible to actually love something to death," said Jim Buchholz, a supervisor at Kohler-Andrae State Park in Sheboygan, Wis. The 1,000-acre park, an increasingly popular tourist attraction, features an unusual set of dunes intermingled with wetlands that are under attack by purple loosestrife.

Invasives also are a problem at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan, staff biologist Ken Hyde said. Plants such as baby's breath are replacing natural grasses that help stabilize dune sands, while knapweed hampers germination of native vegetation.

I was there. You can watch it here. And here.

87 die from mosquito diseases in India

NEW DELHI - Outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases in northern and southern India left ordinarily overburdened hospitals and clinics swamped with patients Wednesday, and officials said at least 87 people had succumbed to the infections.

At New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India's premier state-run hospital, a makeshift ward was set up in a hallway to deal with hundreds of dengue fever patients, some of whom were forced to hold intravenous drip bags above their heads because of a lack of equipment.

The dengue outbreak began in late August, and the death toll in New Delhi and surrounding areas of northern India rose to 16 on Wednesday when a patient at the institute died.

The situation was even worse in the southern state of Kerala, where 71 people have died in the past month from another mosquito-borne disease, a rare viral fever known as chikungunya, said the state's health minister P. K. Sreemathi.

In the hardest-hit district of the state, Alappuzha, some 40,000 people were showing symptoms of the disease — such as high fevers and severe joint pain — and thousands had been hospitalized, said the area's chief medical officer, K. Velayudhan.

Across the state, local authorities were overwhelmed by the outbreak, and Sreemathi said a World Health Organization team made up of experts from India's National Institutes of Communicable Diseases was to arrive Thursday.

"The expert heath team from WHO needs to make an on-the-spot assessment to tackle the situation," she told The Associated Press from Alappuzha.

The outbreaks of dengue in the north and chikungunya in the south come as the annual monsoon tapers off across much of the subcontinent, leaving behind countless small pools and puddles of dirty, stagnant water where infectious mosquitoes breed. Open sewers that are features of many Indian towns and cities provide even more breeding grounds.

While a dengue outbreak is an annual post-monsoon occurrence in parts of northern India, this year's has been particularly widespread, with more than 400 cases compared to last year's 217 infections.

Severe storms followed by colder temperatures in usa

Sex, shopping and gambling all in a day's work for usa interior department

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -- Interior Department employees aren't just using their computers to oversee parks and wildlife, an investigation found. They're spending thousands of hours a week visiting shopping, sex and gambling Web sites.

A report made public Wednesday on an internal investigation examining a week of computer use found more than 1 million log entries in which 7,700 employees visited game and auction sites.

More than 4,700 log entries were to sexually explicit and gambling Web sites.

The findings are "egregious" and "alarming," the department's inspector general, Earl Devaney, wrote in the report.

"Computer users at the department have continued to access sexually explicit and gambling Web sites due to the lack of consistency in department controls over Internet use," he wrote.

Devaney titled his report, "Excessive Indulgences." Its cover illustration is a photo montage of the types of Web sites employees have visited. One picture includes a shot of a woman's bare stomach.

Department officials say they are taking action to cut back on abuses by the agency's almost 80,000 employees with Internet access.

Devaney said in his report that he wanted to test the effectiveness of the department's rules on Internet usage. He looked primarily for visits to sexually explicit, gambling, gaming and auction sites because they are time-consuming and obviously not work-related, he said.

The investigation also found:

--A number of computers accessed sexually explicit Web sites for 30 minutes to an hour.

--One computer had 2,369 log entries at two game sites for about 12 hours.

--At least one computer accessed an Internet auction for almost eight hours.

Despite the findings, Devaney noted that since 1999, the department has taken just 177 disciplinary actions, 112 of which were for accessing pornographic or sexually explicit Web sites.