LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We’re not here to argue or anything, just to
support our governor and his decision.”
Olivia Peach,
a Wisconsin Tea Party supporter, on the debate over her state’s labor bill Article, 1A
Marchers celebrate Jefferson Davis
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Confederate descendants and re-enactors dressed in soldiers’ uniforms and hoop skirts marched down the main avenue in Montgomery on Saturday to mark the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
They started at a fountain where slaves were once sold, past the church that Martin Luther King Jr. led during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and ended at the Capitol steps - the spot where former Gov. George Wallace proclaimed “segregation forever” in 1963 and where King concluded the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in 1965.
On Saturday, state and city officials gave permission for the Sons of Confederate Veterans to march, but had no role in the events.
Detroit orchestra suspends season
DETROIT - The Detroit Symphony Orchestra on Saturday suspended the rest of its season after musicians voted to reject management’s latest contract offer, dashing hopes for an end to a contentious walkout that has dragged on for months.
The musicians said no further meetings with management had been scheduled, but both sides said they remained committed to talks to end the more than fourmonth strike.
The musicians said the 3-year, $36 million proposal, dubbed a final offer by management, would have saddled them with unacceptably higher heath-care deductibles and travel costs.
Even before the strike, the nationally acclaimed orchestra had seen its donations fall, endowment shrink and ticket sales soften as the state’s auto industry shed jobs and plants and experienced bankruptcy reorganizations.
Experts: 50 billion planets in galaxy
WASHINGTON - Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way.
At least 500 million of those planets are in the nottoo-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope.
Kepler science chief William Borucki said scientists took the number of planets they found in the first year of searching a small part of the night sky and then made an estimate on how likely stars are to have planets.
Borucki and colleagues figured one of two stars has planets and one of 200 stars has planets that are in the habitable zone, announcing these ratios Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington.
U.S. urged to take group off terror list
WASHINGTON - Former top-ranking U.S. officials Saturday urged the Obama administration to take an Iranian dissident group off its list of terrorist organizations, saying the move would raise pressure on Tehran at a time when authoritarian regimes are tottering across the Middle East.
Several ex-officials called on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to rescind the 14-year-old designation of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq Organization as a terrorist group.
Ex-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.N.
ambassador, said the “thirst for freedom and democracy” in the Mideast and the failure to win concessions on Iran’s nuclear program had built support for the dissident group in Washington.
Retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Iran the world’s biggest exporter of state-sponsored terror and said that the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, as Iran’s best organized internal resistance group, could increase the pressure on Tehran.
The Mujahedeen-e Khalq allied with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, which supported the group’s attacks against the Iranian regime.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 02/20/2011