Students Bring Newark’s Murder Toll to 60 in 2007

By Kayla Webley
NPR

Billboards in Newark, N.J., read, “HELP WANTED: Stop the Killings in Newark Now!”

The new mayor, elected last year, ran on a campaign promise of reducing crime. Still, gun violence has become an all too common part of daily life.

Last weekend, four young adults, friends who were headed to college together in a few days, were shot at close range, killing three and critically wounding the fourth.

The brutal killings, along with another unrelated shooting over the weekend, brought Newark’s murder total to 60 in 2007. That is three fewer than for the same period in 2006. The count is lower, but statistics show that 17 people have been killed in the city in the past eight weeks – a rate that, if it continues, would surpass 2006’s total of 106 murders for the calendar year.

A month ago, Newark’s mayor, Cory Booker, announced that crime in the city had fallen by 20 percent in the first six months of 2007, compared with the year before. The number of rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies has fallen. But shootings continue unabated. The murder rate is up 50 percent since 1998.
Read more

List of Problem Chinese Imports Grows

by Kayla Webley

NPR.org, July 2, 2007 ·

Contaminated foods and other dangerous items continue to build an ever-growing list of unsafe products imported from China by the United States.

Chinese-made products have accounted for 60 percent of recalls this year, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

For the most part, the businesses responsible for the faulty products and bad food have denied the problems, saying their products are safe.

In an effort to quell international fears over tainted and defective exports, Chinese officials have insisted that the safety of the country’s products is “guaranteed.” Chinese officials aim to downplay the safety and health problems before the 2008 summer Olympics, to be held in Beijing.

At the same time, officials in Beijing are attempting to clean up the problems. Earlier this week, inspectors announced they had closed 180 food factories in China in the first half of this year, and that they seized tons of candy, pickles, crackers and seafood tainted with formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax.
Read more

Bald Eagle Leaves Endangered Species List

NPR.org, June 28, 2007 · The Interior Department said Thursday that it is removing the American bald eagle from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The announcement by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne caps a four-decade struggle to help the national symbol recover.

Once almost wiped out by hunters and DDT poisoning, the eagle not only has survived but is thriving.

Government biologists have counted nearly 10,000 mating pairs of bald eagles, with at least one pair in each of the lower 48 states.

“The rescue of the bald eagle … ranks among the greatest victories of American conservation,” said John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society.
Read more

Recall of Chinese-Made Tires Faces Complications

Morning Edition, June 27, 2007 · A Chinese tire maker accused of exporting faulty tires to the United States denied the claims Wednesday.

U.S. regulators have ordered tire importer Foreign Tire Sales, based in Union, N.J., to recall as many as 450,000 tires after the company reported that the treads on light-truck radials manufactured by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. in Hangzhou, China, might separate.

Hangzhou Zhongce replied in a written statement that it has not found fault in the tires. It said the tires met U.S. safety standards and the importer’s specifications.

But Foreign Tire Sales said many of the tires are missing a safety feature called a gum strip, which helps bind the belts of the tire to each other. The gum strip prevents tread separation, which can cause a tire to blow, possibly making a driver lose control of the vehicle and crash.

The Chinese-made tires were sold under at least four brand names: Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS. The tires, which were sold for use on vans, sport utility vehicles and pickups, have been linked to at least two deaths after tread separation.
Read more

Police Seek Help Picking Killers from a Texas Crowd

by Deborah Tedford and Kayla Webley
NPR.org

June 21, 2007 · Austin, Texas, police and minority leaders appealed for community help in finding three to four people who beat a Hispanic man to death following an accident in a crowded parking lot.

David Rivas Morales, 40, died Tuesday night after being beaten outside the housing project where he lived, police said. The murder has sparked outrage because it was witnessed by more than a dozen people, none of whom has come forward to identify the killers.

Police said the incident happened shortly before 9:30 p.m., when a co-worker gave Morales a ride home after work. The co-worker was leaving the parking lot when his car “bumped” a 2-year-old child, a city official said.

Assistant Police Chief David Carter said the child was not seriously injured, but the incident enraged three or four people, who started beating the driver. When Morales tried to intervene, the men started beating him. Carter said Morales’ co-worker drove away without knowing that his friend was being beaten. Police said there were 15 to 20 witnesses to the attack.

Carter urged the witnesses to come forward. “We need the public’s help,” Carter said. “We want to bring justice to the Morales family, as (well as) to the community.”
Read more

Investigation Launched in Dolphin Deaths

Morning Edition, June 19, 2007 ·

Four dolphins with fatal gun shot wounds have washed ashore in the San Diego area in recent weeks, and federal investigators are offering a reward for information about the deaths.

The long-beaked, common dolphins were all discovered between May 29 and June 5 between Carlsbad State Beach and Oceanside Harbor. Their normally sleek, gray skin was mottled and stained with blood from the bullet wounds.

A fifth carcass was found without bullet wounds, but there were lacerations on its pectoral fin.

“It’s a horrendous thing that happened,” said Mark Oswell, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. “That someone would go out there and shoot four dolphins.”

Necropsies, autopsies performed on animals, revealed that the dolphins were all healthy with fish in their bellies. They may have been shot at the same time with the same gun. Four had between one and three bullets of the same caliber in the same part of their heads.
Read more

Test Scheduled for Space Station Computers

NPR.org, June 18, 2007 ·

The international space station’s recently repaired computers face a final test Monday to determine if the station can function on its own, which would allow the shuttle Atlantis to return to Earth.

Monday’s test will determine if the two Russian computers can control the station’s orientation in orbit, which allow the station’s solar array to point toward the sun and generate power for oxygen generators and other vital equipment.

If the test goes smoothly, Atlantis will decouple from the station Tuesday and return to Earth on Thursday.

After all six of the space station’s computers crashed last week, Atlantis’ thrusters were used to help the station maintain its position.

During the test, Atlantis’ thrusters will take control of the joined craft so it can change positions to dump waste and water. Then, the Russian thrusters onboard the space station will take over. During the second part of the test, U.S. computers will send commands to the Russian thrusters.
Read more

NASA Eases Heat Shield, Computer Worries

NPR.org, June 15, 2007 ·

NASA astronauts ventured out to fold down a loose flap of a thermal cloth on the space shuttle Atlantis, using a medical stapler to secure the fold in place. The shuttle is docked to the International Space Station, which is showing signs of recovering from a massive computer failure.

Two Russian cosmonauts began to get crucial computers up and running Friday, four days after they crashed at the International Space Station and curbed the outpost’s ability to orient itself and produce oxygen.

The progress came after days of frustrating effort and, for the time being, removed a set of troubling options lying ahead for NASA and the Russian space agency if the computers continued to fail.

“They’re up and operational and this is good news for all,” said Lynette Madison, a NASA spokeswoman in Houston.

The space agency is still trying to find the cause of the failure. The leading theory is that a newly installed power-conducting truss caused the glitch — the Russian computers blinked out at about the same time the connector went on line.
Read more

Former U.N. Chief Kurt Waldheim Dies at 88

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who hid his Nazi past while leading the world body for nine years, died Thursday at age 88.

Waldheim died of heart failure at his home in Austria, just weeks after being hospitalized for an infection, according to the Austrian broadcasting service ORF.

In a written statement, Austrian President Heinz Fischer expressed his “deepest condolences” and had the flag lowered outside his office to half-staff.

“We have lost a great Austrian,” Austrian Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer said.

Waldheim served as U.N. secretary-general from 1972-81, but it was not until he ran for president of Austria in 1986 that his military service in Nazi Germany came to light.
Read more