Eastern U.S. heat wave continues amid power outages

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A heat wave baking the eastern United States in record temperatures is set to continue on Sunday after deadly storms killed at least 12 people, downed power lines from Indiana to Maryland and left more than 3 million customers without power.

Emergencies were declared in Washington D.C., Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia on Saturday because of damage from overnight storms, which unleashed hurricane-force winds across a 500-mile (800-km) stretch of the mid-Atlantic region.

President Barack Obama authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to coordinate all disaster relief efforts in storm-ravaged Ohio.

The storms' rampage was followed by roasting temperatures that topped 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in several southern cities, including Atlanta, where the mercury hit 106 degrees (41 Celsius), according to Accuweather.com.

Heat advisories remained in effect into Sunday across the southeast and lower half of the Mississippi valley, with "triple-digit temperatures expected across the southern third of the country," the National Weather Service said.

"It is very unsafe outdoors for those susceptible to these extreme conditions," it warned in a statement.

Power crews worked into the night to try to restore service to homes and businesses, and officials said in some areas the job could take up to a week. Utilities in Ohio, Virginia and Maryland described damage to their power grids as catastrophic.

Six people were killed in Virginia in storm-related incidents, and more than 1 million customers were left without power in the worst outage not linked to a hurricane in the state's history, said Bob Spieldenner, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

Two Maryland residents died in the storm - one struck by a falling tree in Anne Arundel County, the other electrocuted after a tree crashed into a house in Montgomery County - said state emergency management agency spokesman Edward Hopkins.

In New Jersey, two cousins aged 2 and 7 were killed by a falling tree in a state park. And in eastern Tennessee, heat was blamed for the deaths of two brothers, ages 3 and 5, in Bradley County. They had been playing outside in 105-degree Fahrenheit (41-degree Celsius) heat.

OUTAGES ACROSS MARYLAND

In Maryland, about 800,000 customers lost power, with outages reported throughout the state, Hopkins said.

Ohio, where one storm-related death was reported, faced similar difficulties. Outages hit two-thirds of the state with about 1 million homes and businesses left without electricity. Governor John Kasich said it could take a week to fully restore power.

West Virginia was also hard hit by storm-related outages, with about 614,000 customers without power, said Terrance Lively, spokesman for the state emergency management agency.

Further north, the storm caused outages from Indiana, where 135,000 customers lost power, to New Jersey, where Atlantic County declared a state of emergency and at least 206,000 customers were without power.

Blazing temperatures in New York, where thermometer readings were in the 90s (32-38 Celsius) on Saturday, came ahead of a threat of strike by 8,500 Consolidated Edison workers over a new contract.

Early Sunday morning, the company locked out its unionized workers after contract talks broke down, both sides said, raising the possibility of power cuts during the heat wave.

The company asked to extend negotiations for two more weeks, it said, but the union refused. In response, the firm told union members not to report for work on Sunday.

The action increased the risk of power outages if the heat wave puts extra strain on the electrical grid for New York City and suburban Westchester county.

"Both sides are far apart," said company spokesman Mike Clendenon. "We asked the union to extend the talks for two weeks but they refused."

"We can't operate the system reliably for customers if the union can still call a strike at a moment's notice," he said.

John Melia, a spokesman for the Utilities Workers Union of America (UWUA) said that as of 2 a.m. Sunday (EDT) its 8,500 ConEd power workers were locked out.

"ConEd took the extreme measure of locking out its unionized workforce putting the city of New York and Westchester county in peril during a heat wave."

Both sides continued talking for over an hour after the midnight Saturday deadline expired, but failed to reach a settlement over a new contract for the company's unionized workers. A major sticking point in the contract was ConEd's plan to phase out defined pensions.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Paul Thomasch and Steve James in New York, Susan Guyett in Indianapolis, Tim Ghianni in Nashville and Alistair Bull in Washington; Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lethal-eastern-u-storms-kill-12-millions-lose-031440132.html

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Chrysler UAW Partners with Booker Washington Community Center

ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- A local community center is making some improvements of its own, thanks to a partnership with the UAW and Chrysler.

Union workers at the Belvidere Assembly Plant donated several computers, scanners, and other equipment to the Booker Washington Center. And now, they'll be able to open a second computer lab.

Previously, the center was only able serve about 15 students at a time. But now, It could accommodate 65.

Booker Washington's Executive Director, Rev. Ovester Armstrong, Jr., calls this a tremendous gift, "In a community center, it should be all about partnerships, or extending a helping hand to other entities so that we can provide services. Organizations like UAW Chrysler empower us to do more for more people. "

The UAW Local 1268's President made the donation in person today.

Source: http://www.wifr.com/news/headlines/Chrysler_UAW_Partners_with_Booker_Washington_Community_Center_160888145.html

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Rare meeting between Afghan government, Taliban

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? A Taliban emissary sat face-to-face this week with a senior Afghan government official responsible for peace talks in a rare high-level gathering between the bitter adversaries, an official said Saturday.

The encounter at a peace and reconciliation conference in Kyoto, Japan, was a rare a positive sign in faltering attempts to find a peaceful end to the protracted conflict in Afghanistan. It also provided an unusual opportunity for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government to sit down with its enemies ? the Taliban and the Hezb-e-Islami insurgent group.

Siddiq Mansour Ansari, a peace activist who was invited to attend the meeting this week at Kyoto's Doshisha University, said it was the third peace and reconciliation conference organized by the school but the first time the Taliban had sent an emissary.

The Taliban's former planning minister, Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, took part in the conference "to explain the policies of the Islamic Emirate," Taliban spokesman Zabilullah Mujahed told The Associated Press by telephone.

Taliban officials rarely travel abroad for public meetings, and Mujahed didn't say how Hanif, an ethnic Tajik from Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province, made the trip to Japan. Although a senior member of the Taliban and a member of the movement's political committee, Hanif is not on any wanted list.

The Afghan government was represented by Mohammed Masoon Stanikzai, a senior member of the government's High Peace Council, which is responsible for talks with the insurgency.

Ansari said the conference was not intended to find a peace settlement but to air ideas and differences.

"In this third Doshisha conference all the parties presented their ideas and agendas but there were no concrete agreements," he said.

Karzai and U.S. officials are trying to draw the Taliban back to negotiations toward a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Pashtun-based insurgency that would end a war that American commanders have said cannot be won with military power alone.

The Taliban have refused to negotiate with the Karzai government, saying the U.S. holds effective control in Afghanistan. The Obama administration has set a 2014 deadline to withdraw forces, and is trying to frame talks among the Afghans beforehand.

Hanif said peace talks with the United States in Qatar were suspended earlier this year after the U.S. reneged on a promise to release Afghans from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and allow them to go where they pleased, according to Ansari.

In an attempt to restart the stalled peace talks, the Obama administration is considering sending several Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a prison in Afghanistan, U.S. and Afghan officials told The Associated Press.

Under the proposal, some Taliban fighters or affiliates captured in the early days of the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and later sent to Guantanamo under the label of enemy combatants would be transferred out of full U.S. control but not released. It is meant to show more moderate elements of the Taliban insurgency that the U.S. is still interested in cutting a deal for peace.

But Mujahed said the White House's proposal won't coax the Taliban back to the negotiating table.

"We want the prisoners to be freed and allowed to go anywhere," he told the AP Saturday. "But we do not want that they be released from one prison and shifted to another prison, which means from Guantanamo to Bagram. The Americans are not sincere in talks and they are responsible for the stalemate."

Under the new proposal, Guantanamo prisoners would go to a detention facility adjacent to Bagram Air Field, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, officials of both governments said. The prison is inside the security perimeter established by the U.S. military, and is effectively under American control for now. It is scheduled to be transferred to full Afghan control in September.

Meanwhile, the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami, despite reports of infighting in Afghanistan, found common ground at the Kyoto conference in their demand that all foreign troops, including trainers, leave Afghanistan after 2014.

"The Taliban insisted on complete withdrawal of foreign troops from the country after 2014 and called the Karzai government a puppet saying they would not negotiate with Karzai or his government," Ansari said.

Hezb-e-Islami is a radical Islamist militia that has thousands of fighters and followers across the north and east. Its leader, powerful warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a former Afghan prime minister and one-time U.S. ally who is now listed as a terrorist by Washington.

Hekmatyar, who has widespread support in parts of Afghanistan and within the Afghan government, wants transitional talks as well as a broad-based government to replace the existing one in Kabul

His party representative, Dr. Ghairat Baheer, has previously held talks with U.S. officials in Kabul, including U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker.

Ansari said the conference will seek to set up an international commission that could act as a peace broker between the Afghan government and insurgents. There was no agreement on this commission at the conference, he said.

"We are proposing an international commission for this because no one trusts each other," he said. "They didn't trust the High Peace Council of Afghanistan and now we hope they will agree to an impartial international commission," made up of Islamic scholars, academics and civil society representatives.

"It's been 11 years and billions of dollars have been spent and there has been no change and good brought to Afghans," said Ansari. "We need to stop this war because it is affecting not only Afghanistan but it is a big headache to the international community as well."

___

Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be reached at www.twitter.com/kathygannon . AP writers Anne Gearan contributed to this report from Washington and Deb Riechmann from Kabul.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rare-meeting-between-afghan-government-taliban-212850689.html

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Suu Kyi returns to hard graft of Myanmar politics

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suu-kyi-returns-hard-graft-myanmar-politics-051525261.html

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Canada: The Creation Of The Expected Aboriginal Woman Drug Offender In Canada - Exploring Relations Between Victimization, Punishment, And Cultural Identity

Details

Published on Friday, 29 June 2012 22:21

This article illustrates how the Aboriginal female drug user is responded to as an expected offender based on the intersection of her gender, race, and class. Drawing on the findings of a national Canadian study documenting the lived experiences of First Nations, M?tis, and Inuit female drug users, we argue that the strengthening of cultural identity can potentially disrupt this expected status at both the individual and social system levels. Within the framework of critical victimology, the challenge then becomes to translate this understanding into praxis. In response, we suggest advancing women?s agency at the individual level in the face of disempowering images and practices related to the offender, the victim, and Aboriginality. For change at the system level, we return to Christie?s notion of the need to dismantle the stereotypical construction of the Aboriginal female drug user. We illustrate both levels of change with an innovative form of knowledge sharing, which aims to evoke transformation with respect to individual and socially constructed conceptualizations of identity.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndigenousIssuesToday/~3/uQH8rCbJnj4/index.php

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Eastern United States Storms Leave Two Dead, Two Million Without Power

-- Violent evening storms following a day of triple-digit temperatures wiped out power to more than 2 million people across the eastern United States and caused two fatalities in Virginia ? including a 90-year-old woman asleep in bed when a tree slammed into her home, a police spokeswoman said Saturday.

Widespread power outages were reported from Indiana to New Jersey, with the bulk of the service interruptions concentrated on Washington, D.C., and the surrounding areas. Earlier Friday, the nation's capital reached 104 degrees ? topping a record of 101 set in 1934.

More than 20 elderly residents at an apartment home in Indianapolis were displaced when the facility lost power due to a downed tree. Most were bused to a Red Cross facility to spend the night, and others who depend on oxygen assistance were given other accommodations, the fire department said.

The storms, sometimes packing 70 mph winds, toppled three tractor trailers on Interstate 75 near Findlay, Ohio.

Fallen trees were blamed on both deaths in Springfield, Va.

Besides the 90-year-old woman, who authorities didn't identify pending notification of kin, a man driving his car was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities identified him as Khiet Nguyen, 27, of Burke, Va.

In addition, a park police officer was injured by an uprooted tree in the northern Virginia county, and an 18-year-old man was struck by a power line, Jennings said. He was in stable condition after receiving CPR, she said.

"Our officers and firefighters are out there with power saws, trying to clear the streets," Jennings said.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency after more than 500,000 customers in 27 counties were left without electricity.

At least four utility poles fell on a road in Columbus, Ohio, making it too dangerous for people in four cars to get out, police said. One person was taken to a hospital.

As of 1 a.m. Saturday, Pepco was reporting 406,000 outages in the District of Columbia and Montgomery and Prince George's counties, Md.

"We have more than half our system down," said Pepco spokeswoman Myra Oppel. "This is definitely going to be a multi-day outage."

Amtrak suspended its service from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia due to the storms, at least until mid-morning.

In the Washington, D.C., area, the Metrorail subway trains were returned to their endpoints due to the storms and related damage, officials said.

"It has had a widespread effect on the region," Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said early Saturday. He said about 17 train stations were operating on backup power due to local power outages, but that he didn't anticipate service being disrupted on Saturday.

___

Associated Press writer Norman Gomlak in Atlanta and Rebecca Miller in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/30/eastern-united-states-sto_n_1639745.html

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World markets surge after Europe finds rescue plan

FILE - In this June 25, 2012 file photo, specialist Douglas Johnson, left, and trader Michael Urkonis work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks are up at midday, Friday, June 29, 2012, after European leaders agreed to a set of prescriptions aimed at easing their debt crisis. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - In this June 25, 2012 file photo, specialist Douglas Johnson, left, and trader Michael Urkonis work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks are up at midday, Friday, June 29, 2012, after European leaders agreed to a set of prescriptions aimed at easing their debt crisis. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - In this Thursday, June 28, 2012 file photo, traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks are up at midday, Friday, June 29, 2012, after European leaders agreed to a set of prescriptions aimed at easing their debt crisis. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Financial markets around the world stormed higher Friday after European leaders came up with a breakthrough plan to rescue banks, relieve debt-burdened governments and restore investor confidence.

On the final trading day of the second quarter, the Dow Jones industrial average was on track to record one of its biggest gains of the year, and stocks advanced even further in Europe ? in strong and weak countries alike. Prices for oil and other commodities shot higher.

In Brussels, leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro appeared finally to have found a broad strategy to fight a debt crisis that has hounded European governments and world investors for three years.

The leaders agreed to pump money directly into stricken banks, let some countries tap into rescue money without submitting to stringent budget requirements and, later, tie European governments closer in economic union.

There was a sign immediately that it was working: The cost for the troubled government of Spain to borrow money on the bond market fell dramatically, by more than half a percentage point, to 6.34 percent.

Previous market rallies tied to progress in Europe have proved temporary. But for the day, at least, global stock markets were jubilant:

? In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed as much as 236 points, its second-best showing this year, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index soared more than 2 percent.

? The benchmark stock index in Germany rose 4.3 percent, by far its best performance this year. Germany has the healthiest economy in Europe, and a warm reaction there was a crucial sign of approval for the plan.

? Stocks hit their highest level in two months in Italy and Spain, two of the countries with the shakiest finances. Stocks also neared a two-month high in Greece, another epicenter of the debt crisis.

Traders of other risky investments also rejoiced. They sold U.S. Treasurys, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note up to 1.63 percent from 1.57 percent late Thursday, as demand decreased for ultra-safe investments.

Energy prices rose sharply because a cure for Europe's debt problem would remove a big drag on global economic growth. The price of oil jumped 9 percent, its biggest gain since March 2009, to almost $85.

Gold gained more than 3 percent, rising $53 to $1,603 an ounce, and copper and silver both rose about 5 percent.

The euro gained 2.3 cents against the dollar, to $1.266.

Among the cautious market analysts was Uri Landesman, president of Platinum Partners LLC, a New York hedge fund. He said he expects more sharp leaps and dives this summer as traders speculate about Europe's future.

"This Europe thing is going to trade up and down based on the news of the day," Landesman said.

And other global economic engines are cooling. China's expansion is slowing, and U.S. employers have created fewer jobs in the past three months. A report next Friday is expected to show a fourth straight month of anemic U.S. job growth.

Because of the economic fears and a deep slump in May as Spain's banks teetered near collapse, the broad S&P 500 index was headed for a quarterly loss of 3.7 percent.

There may be more damage in store, Landesman said. "I remain quite negative about the market in the next two months," he said, adding that lower trading volumes during the summer can lead to choppier trading.

But for all the challenges, the S&P 500 was up almost 8 percent for the year as the first half ended. It has risen 3.4 percent this month, its best month since January and its strongest June since 1999.

The Dow was up 617 points for the year, about 5 percent, as it neared the halfway point. The Nasdaq composite index was up 12 percent.

For the day, the Dow was up 232 points at 12,834 as of 2:20 p.m. EDT. The S&P 500 rose 27 to 1,356. The Nasdaq rose 77 to 2,926.

Industrial and information technology stocks rose the most of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500. Those companies would benefit from faster growth and stronger demand from Europe, a key trading partner.

In corporate news, Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry plunged 20 percent after the company posted quarterly results that suggest it is crumbling faster than thought. RIM is cutting 5,000 jobs and unexpectedly delaying the launch of new phones deemed critical to its survival.

The biggest gainer in the S&P was the alcoholic beverage giant Constellation Brands. The stock jumped 23 percent after the company secured the right to distribute Corona beer and other popular brands in the U.S. Constellation bought the other half of Crown Imports LLC from Grupo Modelo for $1.85 billion.

Nike plunged 8 percent, the biggest drop in the S&P 500. The world's largest athletic shoe and clothing company said profit dropped 8 percent last quarter on high product costs, a restructuring charge and an unexpected customs assessment.

___

Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-06-29-Wall%20Street/id-db45c42f4ab142aeb31a5d38f2b7303f

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