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Hundreds of Chinese students buried alive

AP — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:45:00 PDT

A powerful earthquake struck central China on Monday and state media reported that as many as 5,000 people were killed in a single county while nearly 900 students were trapped after their school collapsed.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 3,000 to 5,000 people had died in Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the 7.8-magnitude quake. Another 10,000 people there were believed to be hurt.

The earthquake sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.

Four of the dead were ninth-grade students killed when their high school collapsed, Xinhua said. Photos showed heavy cranes trying to remove rubble from the ruined school. Xinhua did not say how many of the students were feared dead.

Oxfam: Myanmar toll could reach 1M

DM — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:43:00 PDT

An epidemic of disease could raise the death toll in cyclone devastated Burma to more than 1.5million, Oxfam has warned.

The charity said yesterday that unless the hundreds of thousands of homeless in the flooded south of the country get clean water and sanitation, the number of deaths could rise to six times that of the 2004 tsunami.

But ten days after Cyclone Nargis hit, the country's military leaders are still dragging their heels in allowing aid and relief experts into the country.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband yesterday accused the regime of having only "dimly heard" offers of help from around the world.

He said: "A natural disaster is turning into a humanitarian catastrophe of genuinely epic proportions in significant part because of the malign neglect of the regime.

"The basic point is that the scale of the response inside the country is so far inadequate to the scale of the disaster." Burmese state television reported yesterday that the official death toll had risen to 28,458 dead with more than 33,400 missing -- but disaster experts believe at least 100,000 have died.

Awkward: Russert insists dad not dead

MTP — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:40:00 PDT

Hillary Clinton's campaign co-chair Terry McAuliffe appeared as a guest on Meet the Press yesterday. In one of the show's more awkward moments, McAuliffe told host Tim Russert that both of their fathers were looking down from heaven and musing about the benefits of a long Democratic primary fight. Which is great, except Russert's father isn't dead.

Hacker leaks 6M Chileans' records

BBC — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:32:00 PDT

A computer hacker in Chile has published confidential records belonging to six million people on the internet, officials say.

The information was obtained by hacking into government and military servers, and was posted on a technology blog. It included ID card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and academic records.

The hacker left a message saying the aim was to demonstrate the poor level of data protection in Chile, says the newspaper which uncovered the story.

El Mercurio newspaper reports that the data came from computer servers at the education ministry, the military and the electoral service.

It was posted on the forum of a Chilean blog dedicated to technology issues, but was quickly removed by site's administrators, who contacted the police.

Links to files containing the information were also posted on another Chilean website, and again promptly removed, El Mercurio reports.

Police commissioner Jaime Jara told the newspaper that an investigation into the incident was under way.

Obama camp: Clinton not looking for a deal

CNN — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:32:00 PDT

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign rejected suggestions Sunday that Sen. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in hopes of brokering some kind of agreement with the likely Democratic nominee.

"I don't believe that Sen. Clinton is looking for a deal," Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, told "Fox News Sunday," when asked about suggestions she may want the Obama campaign's help retiring her campaign debt.

"I don't think that's what this is about," he said.

Last week, Obama sparked rumors that his campaign would pay off Clinton's campaign debts once he secured the nomination.

"I'd want to have a broad range of discussions with Sen. Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team moving forward," Obama told reporters Friday.

Rove offers Obama advice

NYT — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:31:00 PDT

WASHINGTON -- Late Thursday night, Karl Rove, the architect of the last two Republican presidential victories, was on his new television perch at Fox News, offering free advice to Senator Barack Obama as he closed in on the Democratic nomination.

Any move by Mr. Obama to declare victory before the last of the Democratic primaries in June, Mr. Rove said, would alienate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's wing of the party. "That's a mistake,"he said. "That just is rubbing the loser's nose in it. And a lot of those supporters will remember it by November."

In the Obama campaign war room in Chicago, where Mr. Rove's talking head was just one of several across six television screens, his counsel was taken with a heavy dose of salt.

"Wouldn't taking his advice be a little like getting health tips from a funeral home director?"said Mr. Obama's press secretary, Bill Burton.

The bÃªte noire of the Democrats has turned pundit, and his old nemeses -- along with those who used to cover him in the news media -- do not always know what to make of it.

One year ago, when he was still a deputy White House chief of staff in the Bush administration, Mr. Rove was more likely than not ducking news organizations.

Now, he has joined them, as an analyst for Fox News and a contributor to Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. A book is in the offing, too. (Still no word on a radio show, but there was an NPR appearance late last week.)

Clinton "willing" to lend campaign more money

CNN — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:30:00 PDT

A top Clinton adviser this morning said that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is open to the possibility of loaning her campaign more money to continue in the race.

Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton campaign chairman, told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press"that he spoke to Clinton about the possibility of contributing more money and "she said that she would be willing to do it."However, McAuliffe insists, "We haven't needed it."ÃÂÃÂ

Russert pressed the issue, asking McAuliffe if the Clintons will be able to repay all debts after the campaign is over. "We plan on it," he replied.

The Clintons have contributed a sizeable amount to Hillary's campaign, loaning $6.4 million in just the last few weeks. The total amount loaned is estimated to be around $11 million, with the campaign $20 million in debt.

Hawking seeks "African Einsteins"

TIMES — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:29:00 PDT

Professor Stephen Hawking, who has devoted his career to finding the origins of the universe, is to begin a new search -- for Africa's answer to Einstein.

Despite suffering from motor neurone disease which has left him almost completely paralysed, Hawking, 66, has made the journey to South Africa to launch the project today.

Some of the world's leading high-tech entrepreneurs and scientists have backed the Â£75m plan to create Africa's first postgraduate centres for advanced maths and physics, after the British government declined to provide funding.

Hawking will be joined by eminent physicists and mathematicians including two Nobel laureates in physics, David Gross and George Smoot, and Michael Griffin, the head of Nasa. Naledi Pandor, South Africa's education minister, will also speak.

"The world of science needs Africa's brilliant talents and I look forward to meeting prospective young Einsteins from Africa,"said Hawking.

Neil Turok, founder of the project and professor of mathematical physics at Cambridge University, where he is a close colleague of Hawking, said the aim of the centres was to "unlock and nurture scientific talent"across Africa. "Apart from an African Einstein, we want to find the African Bill Gates and the Sergey Brins and Larry Pages of the future,"said Turok, referring to the founders of Microsoft and Google.

Militias seize West Beirut

NYT — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:31:00 PDT

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Heavily armed Hezbollah fighters seized control of much of western Beirut on Friday, patrolling the deserted streets in a raw show of force that underscored the Shiite militia's refusal to back down in its escalating confrontation with the American-backed government.

Hezbollah allies also forced a government-allied satellite television station off the air and burned the offices of its newspaper affiliate, as Sunni fighters loyal to the government largely melted away after three days of the worst sectarian clashes Lebanon has seen since its 15-year civil war.

Those humiliating blows made clearer than ever the power and determination of Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, and its allies. By Friday afternoon, a long column of armed Shiite fighters was riding joyfully through west Beirut in trucks, cars, and scooters, shouting and firing their weapons into the air in a raucous victory celebration.

The government majority issued an urgent appeal for help from other nations on Friday evening, calling Hezbollah's actions an "armed coup" against Lebanon and its democratic system using "weapons sent by Tehran." Some government lawmakers, including the Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and Saad Hariri, the son of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, spent the day holed up in their compounds, protected by Lebanese Army contingents and police.

Al Sharpton owes $1.5M in overdue taxes

AP — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:00:00 PDT

NEW YORK -- Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's mansion. The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the nation's most prominent civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.

But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and associated penalties.

Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that an undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.

"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he told the AP. "I think that that is why they try to intimidate us."

Over the past year, Sharpton's lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group has also been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain workers compensation and unemployment insurance.

Plea deal in baby-snatching case

AP — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:00:00 PDT

UNION, Mo. -- A woman who slashed a young mother and kidnapped her newborn entered into a plea deal Friday, and the prosecutor revealed additional details of the 2006 attack Ã¢ÂÂ including that the victim was stabbed repeatedly and her toddler son was tied up.

Shannon Torrez, 38, of Lonedell, Mo., entered an Alford plea to one count each of child kidnapping, armed criminal action and first-degree assault. Under the arrangement, she does not admit guilt but concedes there is sufficient evidence for a guilty verdict.

Prosecutors are seeking a 30-year prison sentence. Sentencing testimony is set to begin May 27.

Abby Woods was kidnapped Sept. 15, 2006. Authorities said the week-old-baby's mother, Stephenie Ochsenbine, then 21, allowed Torrez into the family home, where Abby lived along with her mother, her father, James Woods, and her brother, Connor.

The two women lived just a few miles apart in the rural area about 45 miles southwest of St. Louis but did not know each other.

Banksy unmasked?

GWKR — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:00:00 PDT

Banksy: millionaire street artist, fierce cultural critic, celebrity darling of the art world. The man's prestige has been immeasurably enhanced by his anonymity. He insists on it, and it gives him an air of mystery that only increases his allure to the media, fans, and collectors alike. An alleged photo of him was widely circulated last year, but it certainly didn't result in his real name being printed in his omnipresent media coverage. Those in his inner circle insist on strict concealment of his identity. Theories, of course, abound. But today, Bucky Turco at Animal NY believes he's stumbled upon Banksy's true identity. Combined with some corroborating evidence we got ourselves, the case is plausible -- athough far from proven. Now this would be big news:

This morning, we got a tip about a sighting of Banksy painting on the side of Thunder Jacksons in NYC. Bucky Turco went and took pictures of the work. Shortly afterwards, Gothamist and others proclaimed that the piece was in fact by Nick Walker -- another well known stencil artist from Bristol, England.

Well.

The piece at Thunder Jacksons is by Nick Walker. You can see the theme in his own photos on Flickr. Our own original tipster wrote in to say, "I stand corrected. It wasn't Banksy -- it was Nick Walker ... the pics of the artwork show a signature that happens to be Nick Walker's. Youtube has some videos of Nick Walker working and he is the guy who was at TJ's last night."

But, asked for more information, the same tipster added this: "While he was outside doing his stencil sombody asked if he was banksy and he said he was."

Nick Walker said he was Banksy. [This is also corroborated by Gawker commenter chickenjungle, a.k.a. Abbe Diaz, here. She says she was at Thunder Jacksons last night and heard Walker say the same thing]. With that in mind, allow us to quote liberally from Bucky Turco's just-posted item at Animal NY:

According to a waitress at the newly stenciled Thunder Jackson restaurant, who witnessed Banksy painting the wall last night, "the whole thing took him about 15 minutes." When asked if she was positive it was Banksy, she emphatically stated "yes," and then awkwardly added, "Banksy is Nick Walker, they are the same person. Oops, I don't think I was supposed to say that." When pressed on why Banksy would use different names, she spilled, "He uses that identity because of visa and passport issues." The waitress added that Banksy is going to make a big announcement about his identity but not while he's in town, "He has a whole master PR plan, but he's waiting till he leaves the country."

Obama takes superdel lead?

WR — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:50:00 PDT

It has been a very, very good day for Barack Obama. Good enough, in fact, that Time's Mark Halperin is dubbing it "Super Friday" for him. At the moment, he has picked up endorsements from seven superdelegates. And while Hillary Clinton got an endorsement of her own, she also lost one to Obama, so he has netted seven delegates.

The Obama camp has even more reason than just that big score to celebrate with a special happy hour -- according to both the New York Times and ABC News, Obama has now overtaken Clinton and leads her in the two outlets' superdelegate tallies. (A lot of the big media outlets have their own unique tallies; in some, Clinton still leads or is tied with Obama.)

Human remains at ex-Manson hideout?

AP — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:48:00 PDT

FRESNO, Calif. -- The sheriff of the remote region where Charles Manson hid after a killing spree in the summer of 1969 said Friday that he will allow researchers to begin digging into the sandy soil in search of possible human remains.

In February, a team of forensic researchers visited the Death Valley ranch where Manson took refuge and found at least two sites that could be clandestine graves holding the bodies of additional victims.

Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze said he will allow a limited four-day excavation at Barker Ranch beginning May 20 because forensic tests of the soil had produced mixed results.

"There was no consistent response from the dogs that searched, and no conclusive findings from the soil samplings tested by top experts in the field," Lutze said in a statement. "The only way to determine once and for all whether there are bodies buried at Barker Ranch from the time of the Manson family is to proceed with limited excavation."

National Park Service officials said Thursday that the ranch, which lies within the boundaries of Death Valley National Park in the rugged Panamint Mountain range, would be closed for as long as four days "to protect the integrity of the investigative process."

Hulk Hogan's son headed to jail

PPLE — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:40:00 PDT

Nick Bollea was sentenced to eight months in Florida's Pinellas County Jail for felony reckless driving Thursday after pleading no contest in in court.

A judge also handed down five years probation, 500 hours of community service and a three-year drivers license revocation. Nick will not be able to drink for the duration of his probation, and will attend DUI education classes within one year.

The 17-year-old donned a light colored suit to Pinellas County Court and stared straight ahead as the sentence was read.

Sitting behind him was a black-clad Hulk, who prayed during the proceedings and grew teary-eyed, sister Brooke, who wore a top with the shoulders cut out and Hulk's soon-to-be ex-wife, Linda.

Nick was arrested last November on reckless-driving charges stemming from an August 26 crash. An eyewitness told police that Bollea and a pal were drag racing upwards of 100 mph when Nick's yellow Toyota Supra slammed into a palm tree. Two hours after the crash, alcohol was detected in his bloodstream.

John Graziano, who was in Bollea's passenger seat and not wearing a seat belt, was seriously injured. A report filed in court in September said he likely spend the remainder of his life in a nursing home.

"My life now consists of 10 hours each day at a hospital watching my son suffer," John's father said in a statement during today's court proceedings. "Nick has shown no remorse for what he's done for my son.

Added John's sister: "We have never once heard him apologize for what he's done or take any responsibility for any of his actions."

Myanmar's junta seizes U.N. supplies

AP — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:40:00 PDT

YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar's junta seized U.N. aid shipments headed for hungry and homeless survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, prompting the world body to suspend further help on Friday.

The U.N. said the aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Myanmar on Friday on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.

"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said. "For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time."

Myanmar's government acknowledged taking control of the shipments and said it plans to distribute the aid itself to the affected areas.

In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, government spokesman Ye Htut said the junta had clearly stated what it would do and denied the action amounted to a seizure.

"I would like to know which person or organization (made these) these baseless accusations," he said.

The WFP's regional director, Tony Banbury, directly appealed to Myanmar's military leaders in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

"Please, this food is going to people who need it very much. You and I, we have the same interests," Banbury said. "Those victims -- those 1 million or more people -- who need this assistance are not part of a political dialogue. They need this humanitarian assistance. Please release it."

Gore: No Cabinet post for me

BMBG — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:35:00 PDT

Sorry, next president. Al Gore is not available to be your interior secretary, or secretary of state, or whatever.

"I won't accept a cabinet post regardless of which of the three candidates wins the presidency," Gore said yesterday.

"I am looking for a way to bring about change in other ways," the former vice president and former Democratic presidential candidate said. Gore is in Rome to present the Italian version of his Current Media Inc.'s Current TV channel.

He is one of the superdelegates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are courting to try to secure the Democratic nomination.

NYT turned into beatbox

VIMEO — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:30:00 PDT

Ever wondered what a web site sounds like? Not the words, but the actual data on the site itself? Here's a Lily application that let's you "play" the data in a web page like an instrument.

When the patch starts, the browser enters a DOM inspection mode and mousing over a DOM element highlights the node. Clicking on a node writes the element's data (its innerHTML value if it's a text element or the binary data if it's an image) as a sound file and the file is then loaded in a quicktime player in the patch. The sounds can then be triggered using OSC messages. While a DOM element is "playing", the browser scrolls to and highlights the element with a thick black border.

In the video, I'm spazzing out on the NY Times homepage using the monome controller, but the demo should work with any OSC enabled controller. Sound conversion code based in part on a javascript port of the baudio project.

More information available at lilyapp.org.

Finally found a use for the NY Times from Bill Orcutt on Vimeo.

(Via Waxy.)

Men dug up skull, used as bong

BT — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:00:00 PDT

HOUSTON -- Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office confirmed today that misdemeanor abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case.

One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as a bong.

Police found the cemetery and a grave that had been disturbed but are still investigating the rest of the story, officials said.

Facebook flash mob wrecks prized garden

DM — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:52:00 PDT

More than 300 people ran riot and destroyed an award-winning garden after they responded to a campaign for a mass water fight on social networking website Facebook.

With the country basking in its recent spell of fine weather, hundreds descended on the Millenium Square garden in Leeds following a listing on the popular website.

Leeds City Council claim around 350 people armed with water pistols and buckets trashed the garden, which scooped a bronze medal at the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show and is a symbol of the city's enduring partnership with Nelson Mandela and his hometown of Durban

Council chiefs claim years of hard work on the square's stunning centrepiece, establishing the garden's exotic greenery, were ruined in the Bank Holiday water fight.

Videos and pictures of people destroying the garden have been posted on the Facebook site and footage has also featured on YouTube. Organisers even boast of the "success" of their "event", the council said.

Plants were trampled, turf ripped up, water features emptied and filled with foam and the mechanism for the fountains is thought to have been damaged during the rampage.

Council CCTV footage will now be handed over to the police.

Councillor John Procter, executive member for Leisure, said: "Our parks staff were distraught when they discovered the wreckage.

"Frankly I'm appalled at the total disregard for people's ongoing enjoyment of this beautiful city centre oasis.

Suits to spice up virtual sex

SXDV — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:00:00 PDT

No matter how beautiful the sex animations are in your favorite virtual playground, they can't compete with the movement of your own body.

How soon will we be slipping gracefully into motion-capture suits or using 3-D cameras to capture those uniquely natural moves and engage our entire bodies in online sexual adventures, rather than limping along with keyboard and mouse? Sooner than you might think.

Kevin Alderman, who's already infamous for the sex animations his company Strokerz Toyz creates for Second Life, is developing a wireless, consumer-level motion-capture suit that's expected to hit shelves in 2009.

"Right now only a dozen or so sites on the web offer downloadable mocap files," Alderman says. "You have to wait until some studio becomes benevolent enough to make the animations you want, or you have to engage them for your specific needs." Personal motion-capture suits will enable residents to contribute sex animations to the world of their choice -- and to develop scenarios tailored to their own deepest desires, especially if they team up with others who also have the suits. It's the bridge between today's expensive studio mocap and the real-time avatar control of tomorrow.

Meanwhile, technologists Mitch Kapor and Philippe Bossut have developed a less exotic, yet more familiar, prototype for hands-free interaction in virtual worlds: They're using a 3-D camera to track body movements, which are in turn translated and used to control avatars in Second Life.

These new technologies won't instantly set off the "ZOMG it's sex!" media alarms the way Bluetooth-to-sex-toy interfaces do. These developers can position themselves as facilitators of dancing and flying and walking around, creators of new input devices rather than instigators of a whole new level of cybersex.

Oil hits $126 -- record high

AP — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:53:00 PDT

Oil prices surpassed a record $126 per barrel Friday on the eve of the U.S. driving season as a weakening dollar drove investors to snap up commodities.

Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose $2.51 to a new record of $126.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by the afternoon in Europe.

Myanmar wants supplies not foreigners

BBC — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:52:00 PDT

Burma wants supplies but not foreign aid workers, its foreign ministry says, hours after the UN chief urged military leaders to prioritise relief work.

Burma was "making strenuous efforts" to get aid to affected areas by itself and was not ready for foreign teams, a statement in a state daily said.

On Thursday UN officials expressed mounting frustration over Burma's failure to accept international help.

Some aid has made it in, but experts stress that it is nothing like enough.

The UN says that up to 1.5 million people may have been affected by Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region on Saturday. Burmese state media say 22,980 people were killed, but there are fears the figure could rise to 100,000.

Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water or shelter. Officials say people could die because no help is getting to them. In a statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the junta to prioritise the aid effort over tomorrow's nation-wide referendum on a widely-criticised new constitution.

It would be "prudent to focus instead on mobilising all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts", he said.

U.S. questions al-Qaida arrest

CNN — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:52:00 PDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was captured early Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said.

U.S. military officials were surprised about the report of Abu Ayyub al-Masri's capture -- first reported by Iraqi media and picked up by The Associated Press. And intelligence officials said they were skeptical, even though Iraqi officials said al-Masri was already in U.S. military custody.

Al-Masri ("the Egyptian"), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, took the reins of the Iraqi al Qaeda offshoot in June 2006 after a U.S. missile strike killed his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Since then, Iraqi officials have reported his death three times, his capture twice and a mortal wounding once.

This time, Nineveh Gov. Duraid Kashmoula and Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed al-Askari told CNN of al-Masri's capture during a late-night operation in Mosul, saying he had since been handed over to the U.S. military.

Kashmoula said police, acting on reliable sources, surrounded and stormed a house in Mosul's southern Wadi Hajer neighborhood, finding a man who readily identified himself as al-Masri sleeping on a thin mattress on the ground.

Iraqi security forces are 100 percent certain of the identification, he said. ...

But U.S. military officials could only say on the record they had nothing to confirm the report.

"I am seeing the same reports you are and am checking into it," Col. Steve Boylan told CNN. "Have not heard any confirmation as yet. We are trying to get confirmation one way or the other."

"We do not have any operational reporting at this time that indicates that Abu Ayyub al-Masri has been captured," another military spokesman said. "We are still checking with our Iraqi counterparts to verify the exact details."

A senior federal law enforcement official told CNN that "U.S. intelligence officials have no information to confirm the report and at this point are skeptical of the reported capture."

Calif. taxing porn and music downloads?

LAT — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:52:00 PDT

SACRAMENTO -- As state leaders hunt for politically palatable solutions to the swelling budget shortfall, some Democrats are proposing unorthodox ways to generate cash.

Strip clubs, six-packs, grocery bags and iTunes downloads are all in their sights as alternatives to broad income or sales tax hikes. So are gas guzzlers and yachts -- and a tax loophole for criminals.

Despite tough odds of overcoming an oath signed by their Republican colleagues to stop any tax hikes, Democratic lawmakers seem confident that their ideas will carry the day. They predict the public won't stand for painful cuts to schools and healthcare to close a shortfall the governor now pegs as high as $20 billion, and say anti-tax forces will ultimately have to accept that more revenue is needed to bring the state into the black.

GOP lawmakers say the majority party simply has an insatiable appetite for taking money from Californians. The California Republican Party recently released an Internet video, set to the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money," in which the tax ideas float across the screen after footage of Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland) telling the media in March his prescription for balancing the budget: "Raise taxes. That clear enough? Raise taxes."

Almost all of the Democrats' ideas are being met with some degree of scorn.

"Some people are e-mailing, threatening to come and slug me," said Assemblyman Jim Beall (D-San Jose), who hopes to see a $1.80 tax added to the price of every six-pack of beer sold in the state. "We're getting some pretty nasty comments."

The idea of taxing comforts and conveniences evokes the budget crisis of 1991, when then-Gov. Pete Wilson agreed to impose a "snack tax" on Californians, raising the cost of junk food and bottled water. Voters repealed it a year later. ÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂ¢Ã¢ÂÂÃÂ¬ÃÂÃÂ¦ "If we don't do some of these things, we are going to have to cut nearly $5 billion out of schools," said Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Montebello), chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee. He has proposed some of the Legislature's more unconventional measures, including taxes on digital downloads and adult entertainment.

Calderon said he was moved to push for levies on downloads such as iTunes because state sales tax laws do not reflect the high volume of purchasing that Californians do online. Consumers can download music from the Internet through Apple's iTunes and other services tax-free, Calderon noted, while they pay sales tax for buying the same music on a compact disc at a store.

His proposal would empower state authorities to collect sales tax on the downloads, increasing the cost of a typical 99-cent song to roughly $1.07. Calderon projects that the bill (AB 1956), which could also apply to pornography downloads, cellphone ring-tones, online books and feature films distributed on the Internet, would raise about $500 million for the state budget.