A school custodian’s impromptu after-hours karaoke performance prompted a police response when a teacher thought she was being threatened over the loudspeaker. State police say a teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N’ Roses song over the public address system for a threat.
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PHILADELPHIA (AP)–Pharmaceutical maker Merck & Co. will pay more than $20 million in fines for three chemical spills, one of which killed more than 1,000 fish, and forced Philadelphia to temporarily shut off drinking water intakes.

The spills violated the U.S. Clean Water Act. Continue Reading »

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–Merck & Co. is recalling about 1.2 million doses of a childhood vaccine used to protect against meningitis, pneumonia and other serious illnesses after the company found the equipment used to make the vaccine was contaminated with bacteria. The Whitehouse Station, N.J., firm has halted production of the vaccine and likely won’t resume production until the third quarter of 2008 and shipments until the fourth quarter, probably causing a temporary shortage of the widely used vaccine. Continue Reading »

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–U.S. President George W. Bush vetoed children’s health legislation Wednesday, the second time he has rejected expanding a popular state insurance program. In a letter to the House of Representatives, Bush said he is ready to work with lawmakers to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, but couldn’t sign the bill because it would boost the government’s role in health care and shift the program to cover more people in the middle class.
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WASHINGTON (AP)–U.S. President George W. Bush granted pardons Tuesday to carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner and an election-laws violator but not to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, his vice president’s former top aide who was convicted in the case of the leaked identity of a CIA operative. Continue Reading »

WASHINGTON (AP)–Illicit drug use by teens continued to gradually decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers remains popular among young people, according to a federally financed study released Tuesday at the White House.

The survey, by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, looked at the behavior of 8th, 10th and 12th graders nationwide. The study, in its 33rd year, found that overall drug use is falling, thanks to a drop in the popularity of marijuana and methamphetamines. But it also found that teen use of other drugs, such as cocaine, is holding steady, and narcotics like OxyContin and Vicodin remain in vogue. Continue Reading »

MEMMINGEN, Germany (AP)–A German who claims CIA agents kidnapped and tortured him in a case of mistaken identity was sentenced to two years’ probation Tuesday on charges of arson, causing serious bodily harm and slander.

The state court in the southern town of Memmingen also ordered Khaled el-Masri, 44, to seek therapy. Continue Reading »

NORFOLK, Va. (AP)–An animal-rights group said Tuesday its undercover investigation has documented animal cruelty at a pig-breeding farm that supplies Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD), the nation’s largest hog producer and pork processor.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has asked local authorities to file charges against Murphy Family Ventures LLC in Garland, N.C. Continue Reading »

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Michael Pickens, son of billionaire investor Boone Pickens, was sentenced to probation and continued drug and alcohol treatment for using fake stock tips to dupe investors out of $1.2 million.

With his father watching from the courtroom gallery, the younger Pickens avoided as much as 71 months in prison after making what a Manhattan federal judge said were “tremendous strides” in a New Jersey program he just completed. Continue Reading »

Their ranks thinned by age, Pearl Harbor veterans today are commemorating the 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack and wondering whether Americans will remember one of the most defining moments in history after they die.

“When we’re gone, we’re gone,” said 87-year-old Jack Ray Hammett. “We’re already just a paragraph in the history books. Will even that disappear when the last one of us dies?”
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