1 in 4 Gulf vets has syndrome

It's easy to remember the yellow ribbon stickers hanging on the windows of businesses and the words "Support the Troops" or "Pray for the Troops" while they were trying to get the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. People were determined to not repeat the same mistake of blaming those who serve for where they are sent to go. While the majority of the nation was behind helping the people of Kuwait, some in this country were against using our troops on foreign lands when our security was not threatened. Still, the mood of the country was that the troops deserved full support and we managed to prove it. Or so we thought we did.

Yet when the parades were over, we thought our obligation to them was over as well. We didn't pay attention to them suffering the usual wounds of war and the unique wounds of what happened in Kuwait or the oil fires. There really isn't much we did pay attention to other than the fact they won.

Today we see yellow ribbons and the words "support the troops" all over the place but do any of the people hanging these messages ever really stop to think was supporting the troops really means? Do they know it has to include taking care of them when they come home from where they are sent? This report shows exactly how little the men and women serving this nation, fighting the battles they are sent to fight actually do receive the support we claim to provide.

1 in 4 Gulf vets has syndrome
Neurotoxic exposures from first Iraq invasion rears widespread illness.
Panel finds widespread Gulf War illness


11/16/08
ANNE USHER/Cox News Service
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WASHINGTON - At least one in four U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffers from a multi-symptom illness caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during the conflict, a congressionally mandated report being released Monday found.

For much of the past 17 years, government officials have maintained that these veterans -- more than 175,000 out of about 697,000 deployed -- are merely suffering the effects of wartime stress, even as more have come forward recently with severe ailments.

“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that ’Gulf War illness’ is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time,” said the report, being released Monday by a panel of scientists and veterans. A copy was obtained by Cox Newspapers.

Gulf War illness is typically characterized by a combination of memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue and widespread pain. It may also include chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.

Two things the military provided to troops in large quantities to protect them -- pesticides and pyridostigmine bromide (PB), aimed at thwarting the effects of nerve gas -- are the most likely culprits, the panel found.

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Capital punishment commission hears surprising, sobering stories

Capital punishment commission hears surprising, sobering stories
By Jennifer McMenamin
November 16, 2008

When the New Jersey legislature voted late last year to repeal the death penalty, it did so on the heels of a near-unanimous recommendation from a state commission that said capital punishment was too costly, too arbitrary and too tough on victims' families to justify the risk of an irreversible mistake.

So when Maryland lawmakers created a panel to study the issue, death penalty opponents hoped it would produce a similar recommendation and provide the boost needed to repeal the death penalty law.

Last week, they got that recommendation - but on a much closer vote than in New Jersey, where the margin was 12-1.

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment found, by 13-7 vote, that the state should abolish the death penalty because it carries the "real possibility" of executing innocent people and may be biased against blacks.
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High Levels Of Uranium Found In Water At 2 Madison Schools

High Levels Of Uranium Found In Water At 2 Madison Schools
By DAVID FUNKHOUSER The Hartford Courant
3:32 PM EST, November 16, 2008
MADISON - Unusually high levels of uranium found in the well water of two schools has forced town officials to shut off the bubblers and provide students with bottled water while they investigate.

School officials said they have been told the contamination is not harmful.

"The state toxicologist said it shouldn't be a great concern, it's a non-problem as far as they are concerned," board of education Chairman Robert Hale said.

Hale said the Robert H. Brown Middle School and Kathleen Ryerson Elementary School off Route 79 have been supplied with bottled water fountains, and the schools will stick with bottled water for drinking and cooking until a solution can be found.
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S. Florida Teen Recovering After Cougar Attack

S. Florida Teen Recovering After Cougar Attack
CBS 4 - Miami,FL,USA
PALM SPRINGS NORTH (CBS4) ― A South Florida teen is recovering at home after being mauled by a cougar in a North Miami-Dade home Saturday.

The 4-year-old cougar named Chaos belongs to retired teacher Alan Rigerman. Rigerman owns has a second cougar, who is Chaos' mother, along with several snakes, tortoises and alligators at his home in the 17 thousand block of Northwest 84th Avenue. Jorge Pino, a spokesman for The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, says Rigerman is properly permitted to keep the animals at his home.

Miami-Dade police said the incident occurred when the 16 year old entered Rigerman's home with Anthony Zitnick, 21, around 1:30 p.m. Saturday. CBS4 news partners at the Miami Herald report Rigerman said Zitnick went into the house without his permission with a key he'd given him soon after Hurricane Wilma when he did yard work for the older man.

''He helped me with my cats under my supervision,'' Rigerman told the Miami Herald. ``But never, never, never alone.''

Neighbors believe Zitnick took the girl into the house because he was trying to impress her.

Richard Miralles said he was outside when he heard the girl scream. He rushed to the house and was shocked by what he found. The girl was lying on the floor, Chaos was on top of her with the girl's head in his mouth and declawed paw on her face.
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Marilyn Mock, Foreclosure Angel, not done helping

Reaching out to foreclosure victims

WFAA-TV
Marilyn Mock, the "foreclosure angel" who helped a Pottsboro woman keep her home last month, wants to help others facing the same fate.

"People need to help each other, that's all there is to it," Mock said last month.

Weeks later, she kept her promise and signed the papers so Orr can move in.

"She is going to make payments on whatever she can afford," Mock explained.

And now, Marilyn Mock wants to reach out to others who are facing foreclosure. She has launched the Foreclosure Angel Foundation, a non-profit organization to help struggling homeowners.

"I am trying to set up so people can actually meet and see the people they are going to be helping," Mock said.

One by one, she hopes to bring more families back home.

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Pacific Washington:Mourners keep vigil for young man shot in cold blood

Mourners keep vigil for young man shot in cold blood
This shell-shocked community came together Saturday night, keeping vigil for a young man who was shot and killed at a crowded, church-sponsored youth event on Friday. A candlelight vigil was held at a memorial that sprang up near the scene of the deadly shooting a short time after it happened.

PACIFIC, Wash. - This shell-shocked community came together Saturday night, keeping vigil for a young man who was shot and killed at a crowded, church-sponsored youth event on Friday.

A memorial sprang up near the scene of the deadly shooting a short time after it happened, and became a focal point for grieving friends and family of the victim during the day that followed.


It continued Saturday night during the vigil as people stood together, stunned, candlelight flickering across their sorrowful faces.

They came together for Shiloh Drott, 21, who was enjoying an evening with family and friends at the community center in Pacific when he was gunned down in cold blood.

Someone opened fire through a window of the community center next door to Pacific's city hall, hitting Drott in the chest. He died on the rec room floor as shocked friends and children - some reportedly as young as 4 years old - looked on.

Drott's mother, says the community center was always a special place for their family.

"Our kids grew up with the rec hall. This is their sanctuary," she said late Saturday.

Drott was well-known for his work as a youth mentor. He and his friends had just finished a basketball game and were about to eat pizza when the gunman tracked him down.

"He was like, sitting in his chair. He was like, "What's going on?" And another bullet came and hit him, he just fell on the ground," says 11-year-old Kaleb Shoute, who was sitting next to Drott when he was shot to death.

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The heroes of the wrongfully convicted

Heroes of the wrongfully convicted
For decade, NU center has shaken up justice system
By Steve Mills Tribune reporter
November 16, 2008
The Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law has won freedom for nearly three dozen innocent people and, in that often difficult process, changed how many people think about the state's criminal justice system.

In the 10 years since the center was founded in 1998, it has played a leading role in the exonerations of 19 people in Illinois. Before that, members of its staff were crucial to 14 exonerations. Those include 13 inmates who had been under a death sentence, as well as the country's first DNA-based exoneration, Gary Dotson, who had been convicted of rape.

Among the high-profile cases the center or its founders have tackled and won are those of the Ford Heights Four, exonerated in the 1978 murders of a suburban couple, and Rolando Cruz, exonerated in the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville. Three others are detailed on this page.

Through its work, the Center on Wrongful Convictions has made people think twice about claims that the system always works. It has prompted some top city, county and state officials to reconsider their views on the death penalty and other aspects of criminal justice
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4 Pacific Union College students killed in crash

4 College Students Killed In Crash
Quartet from Pacific Union College are killed late Saturday night when their speeding car skids out of control and collides with a pickup truck north of St. Helena. Demian Bulwa

15:00 PST NAPA -- -- Four students at Pacific Union College, a Christian liberal arts school in the Napa Valley, were killed late Saturday night when their speeding car skidded out of control and collided with a pickup truck north of St. Helena and just a few miles south of their campus in Angwin, California Highway Patrol officials said.

The Napa County coroner's office today identified the victims as Luke Kotazo Nishikawa, 22; Boaz Joshua Pak, 20; Chon Shin, 20; and Simon Cholin Son, 19.
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NOTE: A reader posted comment that "Chon Shin" has wrong spelling. It should be Chong Shin.

Patiently waiting on science and faith for daughter's healing

Patiently waiting on science and faith
By Billy Cox

The Palmetto youngster was badly hurt when a swingset toppled onto her in December 2007.

PALMETTO - One day, Lexi Antorino was painting with watercolors, reciting her ABCs, and counting to 10 in Spanish.

Then, in a moment, her life and the lives of those who care for her were forever

The thing packs a jolt to the fingertip, like one of those concealed hand-buzzer gags. Sarah laughs; Lexi gets it in the arm twice a day, 90 minutes per session.

"She's the youngest person they've ever tried it on," Sarah says.

It's called a right median nerve stimulation (RMNS) cuff, and its effect on the brain was discovered, accidentally, by American orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Ed Cooper in the 1980s.

At his practice in Kinston, N.C., Cooper initially used neuro-stimulation therapy to reduce spasticity and increase muscle control among brain-damaged patients. By placing a cuff of electrodes along the median nerve of the right forearm in quadriplegics, he learned that the current jumped hemispheres and also strengthened the left arm.

But he also began to notice that certain patients in minimally conscious states showed signs of improvement in their cognitive abilities.

After observing the positive responses of several dozen brain-impaired patients at the University of Virginia and East Carolina University, Cooper published his results in the journals of "Neuropsychological Rehabilitation" and "Brain Injury."

Widespread research has yet to occur, but the RMNS cuff has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. With their pediatrician's approval, the Antorinos began using Lexi's cuff in July.

Now retired, Cooper has neither met Lexi nor examined her records. His remarks are cautious: "You never know about these things. Overall, I'd have to say I'm optimistic about her making some type of functional mental recovery."

Then he volunteers an observation that has nothing to do with his medical credentials but seems on-point with the views and hopes of the Antorinos.

"I've found that the kind of parents who have the most hope are conservative Christians and faithful Roman Catholics. They seem to have the deepest belief in miracles."

Web page, http://www.prayforlexi.com/,
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Operation Lioness, When Women Go To War

Female U.S. soldiers' role in Iraq war profiled
Documentary follows 5 troopers stationed in Ramadi in 2004
Marines preparing to leave west Iraq
Displaced Iraqis forced to live at Kirkuk Stadium
Training offers lessons in culture

By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times

"Lioness," showing this week on PBS' "Independent Lens" series, is an up-close look at the evolving role of women in the U.S. military — not just in traditional roles as nurses and support personnel but as weapon-toting frontline troops.

The 82-minute piece, by veteran documentarians Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, deals with five women attached to a Marine battalion in the middle of prolonged fighting in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004.

Retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, now of the Women's Research and Education Institute, says they were among the first U.S. women to experience combat on an essentially equal footing with men.

Federal law prohibits assigning women to direct combat, but that distinction has been blurred on the ground in the Iraq war. Among other things, U.S. troops, particularly in the combat-heavy phase of the war, were stretched thin and needed help. Also, there are Islamic cultural prohibitions against men searching Iraqi women or even talking to them.

As a solution, the Army began Operation Lioness, assigning female soldiers to accompany male troops on patrol and on checkpoint duty, although the women had not had infantry training.

Staff Sgt. Ranie Ruthig, a mechanic who never expected to fire a weapon, remembers a late-night mission in which troops forced their way into Iraqi homes to search for weapons and insurgents.

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