North Carolina Community Colleges Will No Longer Admit Illegal Immigrants
North Carolina's community colleges will no longer admit illegal immigrants, returning to more restrictive policy on the advice of the state Attorney General's Office. Last year, the system said it would enroll illegal immigrants who are 18 years old and high school graduates at all of its 58 campuses. The policy provoked heavy criticism, especially from the leading candidates for governor. The system later asked North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper for guidance on whether the admissions policy was legal under federal law. Last week, Cooper's office suggested the system drop the admissions policy.  Fox News

Democrats' Budget Agreement Assumes Bush Tax Cuts Will Expire
Democrats controlling Congress are leaving grim decisions on automatic tax increases to the next president and the newly elected Congress under a freshly negotiated House-Senate blueprint for the upcoming budget year. The fiscal 2009 budget plan worked out in private talks between House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., and his Senate counterpart, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., awards an approximately 4 percent increase on average to nondefense Cabinet budgets passed by Congress each year. But it makes no effort to rein in the rapidly rising cost of federal benefit programs such as Medicare. CNS

Senate: Let First Responders Unionize
The Senate has given critical approval to legislation to give all police, firefighters and other first responders the right to collective bargaining. The 69-29 procedural vote proves the bill would survive any possible filibuster attempt. The Senate will vote to send the bill to President Bush later this week. However, several of Bush's Cabinet secretaries say they will suggest he veto the bill. MSNBC

Pentagon Balks At New G.I. Education Bill
Veterans groups say it's time to expand college aid for GIs, and Democrats want to use an election year to do it. Their biggest obstacle? The Pentagon. The Defense Department is lobbying against legislation proposed by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would guarantee a full-ride scholarship for service members to any in-state public university. According to defense officials, the plan would hurt its ability to retain service members because the new GI education bill would require only three years before the full benefit kicks in. The Defense Department wants the commitment to be extended to at least six years. CBS News

Anonymous Rape Tests Are Going Nationwide
Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges. The new federal requirement that states pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" is aimed at removing one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting rape cases: Some women are so traumatized they don't come forward until it is too late to collect hair, semen or other samples. Newsday

3 In 10 Get All Or Most Calls On Cell Phones
or nearly three in 10 households, don't even bother trying to call them on a landline phone. They either only have a cell phone or seldom if ever take calls on their traditional phone. The federal figures, released Wednesday, showed that reliance on cells is continuing to rise at the expense of wired telephones. In the second half of last year, 16 percent of households only had cell phones, while 13 percent also had landlines but got all or nearly all their calls on their cells. The number of wireless-only households grew by 2 percent since the first half of last year. Underscoring the rapid growth, in early 2004 just 5 percent had only cell phones. Indy-Star 

Senate Backs Effort To Lower Gas Prices
The Senate voted 97-1 to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for six months in an effort to bring gas prices down, a move President Bush opposes. Stopping deposits to the petroleum reserve is estimated to save drivers between a penny and 25 cents a gallon. Many Senate Republicans, driven by fears that high gas prices are damaging the economy and their re-election chances, defied President Bush by backing the Democratic amendment. Many Republicans have "an honest disagreement" with the president. CNN

MOUNTAIN LANDSLIDE FOR HOPE-LESS HILL
Hillary Rodham Clinton romped to a landslide victory in West Virginia last night, but her win will likely do little to halt Barack Obama's march to the Democratic nomination. Clinton routed Obama here, 67-26 percent, with 99 percent of precincts counted. At her victory party, Clinton supporters chanted "It's not over!" and "To the White House!" and the New York senator vowed to fight until the final primary on June 3. The former first lady said she "deeply admires Obama but believes she is the stronger candidate to take on Republican John McCain in November. NY Post 

National Climate Service Proposed
With concerns about global warming rising along with the planet's temperature, the head of the federal agency in change of weather research and forecasting is proposing creation of a new National Climate Service. Currently, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program integrates climate research by 13 government agencies. It would make a more sense to have something that is a lot more organized, pulling together data from both U.S. agencies and other countries around the world. Today everybody just cherry-picks the data that support their point of view.Las Vegas Sun

Want A Longer Life? Then Study
The difference in death rates between highly educated and poorly educated people in the United States is very wide and growing wider, according to new research. For Americans with less than a high school education, the risk of dying prematurely is on the increase — rising most quickly for white women in that category. In contrast, the risk of premature death among college graduates is falling — fastest of all for black men. White high-school dropouts are four times more likely to die young than white college graduates, up from a three-fold difference in the early 1990s. Among blacks, the trend is similar but less dramatic. Houston Chronicle

ACLU Attributes Membership Growth To Bush
According to some, the Bush administration has been bad for civil liberties. Yet the past seven years have been particularly good for the American Civil Liberties Union. National membership in the organization, which fights for freedom of speech and religion, equal protection, due process and privacy, has doubled since Bush took office in 2001an extraordinary spurt of growth for the 88-year-old institution. The ACLU counted about 250,000 members in the final year of Bill Clinton's presidency. Today, the organization has about 500,000 card-carriers. SHNS

Rumor Mill Keeps Obama On Defense
Sen. Barack Obama says he is well-prepared to battle false smears and Republican attacks on his religion and patriotism, but various rumors have permeated so deeply into the electorate that they present a general election challenge for the likely Democratic presidential nominee. From state to state, voters who support Mr. Obama's rivals regularly cite information gleaned from e-mails that falsely claim that he is a Muslim or that he doesn't respect the Pledge of Allegiance. Washington Times

Vatican: It's OK To Believe In Aliens
Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.  The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as a brother and sister, why should we not talk about an extraterrestrial brother?" Funes said. "It would still be part of creation." Detroit Free Press

Bush Calls New Attack On US His Worst Worry
President Bush said Tuesday he was disappointed in "flawed intelligence" before the Iraq war and was concerned that if a Democrat wins the presidency in November and withdrew troops prematurely it could "eventually lead to another attack on the United States." In an interview with the political newspaper Politico and Yahoo News, Bush also said he gave up golf in 2003 out of respect for U.S. soldiers killed in the war, which has now lasted more than five years. Atlanta Journal

More Than 2 Million U.S. Youths Depressed
More than 2 million U.S. teenagers have suffered a serious bout of depression in the past year, including nearly 13 percent of girls, according to a federal government survey released. On average, 8.5 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 17 described having had a major depressive episode in the previous year, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported. But there were "striking differences" by sex, with 12.7 percent of girls and 4.6 percent of boys affected. Depression is the leading cause of suicide, which in turn is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds in the United States. Reuters

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FAA Misses 3rd Deadline In Airline Mechanics Probe
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has failed for the third time to provide records to federal investigators conducting a probe into how the agency tracked falsely certified airplane mechanics.  The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which investigates alleged government wrongdoing, gave the FAA its third 30-day extension last week to provide answers about how many falsely certified mechanics are working for the nation's airlines and how well the FAA retested those who were falsely certified but subsequently located. The OSC's investigation has been ongoing since October 2007. CNS

Clinton's Wealth Rose Fastest Among Lawmakers
Propelled by her husband's post-White House earnings, Sen. Hillary Clinton's average net worth soared from red ink to $30.7 million between 2000 and 2006, the fastest financial climb among members of Congress who arrived without assets, a watchdog group reported Tuesday. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, reported a $27.6 million surge in his and his wife's average worth from 1995 to 2006. Their worth rose over that 11-year period from an inflation-adjusted average of $8.9 million to $36.4 million, the ninth-biggest rise in Congress, the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation reported. Kansas City Star

Oil Prices Soar On Iran Concerns
Oil prices shot to a new record near $127 a barrel on concerns that Iran may consider cutting crude oil production. Gas prices, meanwhile, rose to a new record over $3.73 a gallon Tuesday, and their advance shows little sign of slowing with Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer driving season, just 10 days away. Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose as high as a record $126.98 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday before retreating to trade up $1.33 at $125.56. ABC News

Democratic Victory May Be A Bellwether
A Democrat won the race for a GOP-held congressional seat in northern Mississippi yesterday, leaving the once-dominant House Republicans reeling from their third special-election defeat of the spring. Travis Childers, a conservative Democrat who serves as Prentiss County chancery clerk, defeated Southaven Mayor Greg Davis by 54 percent to 46 percent in the race to represent Mississippi's 1st Congressional District, which both parties considered a potential bellwether for the fall elections. Democrat Don Cazayoux won the special election for a GOP-held House seat in Louisiana on May 3. Washington Post

Military Cracks Down On Scrap-Metal Scavengers
Hundreds of Marines were conducting a combat training mission in the Mojave Desert when an air patrol spotted something kicking up dust: A civilian pickup truck speeding across the barren landscape. Behind the wheel was a suspected scrap metal thief who had been combing the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center for spent brass shell casings. His intrusion onto the base was the 12th time in six months that scavengers had inadvertently halted combat exercises. Bombing ranges have become prime hunting grounds for so-called "scrappers," who are motivated by soaring commodity prices to take greater risks in their quest for brass, copper and aluminum. Newsday

U.S. Senators Pressuring Saudis To Hike Oil Output
Senate Democrats introduced legislation to stop a U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia worth $1.4 billion in a tactic supporters said was aimed at pressuring the OPEC country to increase its oil output. The resolution to disapprove the Saudi arms sale package that the Bush administration outlined in December and January could be voted on in coming days, timed for U.S. President George W. Bush's trip to the kingdom this week. The move also came as Democratic and Republican lawmakers scurried in this election year to show voters they are trying to do something about rapidly rising gasoline prices. Reuters

Shipping Containers Could Become $100K Condos In Detroit
Empty shipping containers could get new life as designer condominiums, if a Detroit-based group gets its way. Architect Steven Flum and developers Patrick and Leslie Horn plan to build a $1.8 million, 17-unit condo project near Wayne State University, the Detroit Free Press reports. The project would stack empty containers four high, cut in windows and doors, install plumbing, stairways and heating, and add amenities such as balconies and landscaped patios, according to the Free Press. Developers plan to offer condominium units measuring 960 to 1,920 square feet. Prices will range from about $100,000 to about $190,000. Fox News

Einstein's View Of God Is Amplified In Letter
Albert Einstein: Archrationalist or scientist with a spiritual core? A letter being auctioned in London tomorrow adds more fuel to the long-simmering debate about the Nobel Prize-winning physicist's religious views. In the note, written the year before his death, he dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish." The letter, handwritten in German, is being sold by Bloomsbury Auctions and is expected to fetch $12,000 to $16,000. Einstein, who helped unravel the mysteries of the universe with his theory of relativity, expressed complex and arguably contradictory views on faith, perceiving a universe suffused with spirituality while rejecting organized religion. Philadelphia Inquirer 

Farm Bill Has Little Aid For Needy Children Abroad
A five-year farm bill in Congress this week does little to address the growing global food crisis. Instead, it diverts money that could be spent feeding poor children abroad to give more subsidies for U.S. farmers now enjoying record high crop prices and incomes. Food experts, international aid groups and the White House all complain that the $300 billion bill crafted by House and Senate negotiators focuses on the wrong priorities. The bill has widespread bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, but President Bush has promised to veto it. Las Vegas Sun

Colombia Extradites Top Militia Bosses To U.S.
Colombia extradited 14 paramilitary warlords to the United States on charges related to drug trafficking, saying they violated the peace pact under which they demobilized. Those extradited in the surprise operation comprise most of the top leaders of Colombia's illegal right-wing militias including Salvatore Mancuso, who has commanded their umbrella group, Interior Minister Carlos Holguin said. Colombian prosecutors blame the warlords for some of their nation's worst atrocities. MSNBC

Don't Wait To Shop For Summer Flights
See an affordable domestic airfare? Book it now. The latest domestic fare hike added a $20 roundtrip fuel surcharge to the price of tickets. Travelers will see more price hikes for summer as the airlines struggle with staggering jet fuel costs, say airline analysts. So far this year, 11 of 15 attempted domestic fare hikes have been widely adopted, setting the pace for just under 40 increases for 2008. Fare hikes only stick in competitive markets when all the carriers adopt the increase. CNN

Military Suffering From 'Next-War-Itis,' Gates Says
In a pointed admonition to Pentagon planners, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the U.S. military was afflicted with "next-war-itis" and must concentrate more on winning in Iraq and less on future conflicts that might never happen. Gates said that since he took office, his priority had been to "concentrate the minds" of the defense establishment on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sun-Sentinel 

Median Home Prices Drop In Many Cities
Median home prices fell in two-thirds of the cities surveyed during the first three months of this year while 46 states reported experienced declining sales, a real estate trade group reported. The National Association of Realtors said that median prices for existing single-family homes dropped in 100 of 149 metropolitan areas in the January-March period, while 48 metropolitan areas saw prices increase and one reported no change. The price declines in 67 percent of the areas surveyed was the largest percentage of areas reporting declining prices in the history of the Realtors' survey, which goes back to 1979. ABC News

Bernanke Says Fed To Boost Loans To Banks
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said financial markets remain unsettled and the central bank will increase its auctions of cash to banks as needed. While markets have improved, they remain ``far from normal,'' Bernanke said today in a speech to an Atlanta Fed conference at Sea Island, Georgia. Bernanke's comments contrast with those by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Wall Street leaders including Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc., who say the worst of the credit crisis is over. The flight from risk since August has made financial institutions reluctant to lend to each other, driving up banks' borrowing costs. Bloomberg

Over Half Of Americans On Chronic Medicines
For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows. The most widely used drugs are those to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol - problems often linked to heart disease, obesity and diabetes. The numbers were gathered last year by Medco Health Solutions Inc., which manages prescription benefits for about one in five Americans. Charlotte Observer

Mammogram With Ultrasound Improved Detection Of Cancers
Using ultrasound in addition to mammography helped doctors spot significantly more breast cancers in high-risk women compared with mammograms alone, but it also resulted in four times as many false alarms, researchers said Tuesday. “Mammograms saw only half of the breast cancers that were present,” said Dr. Wendie Berg of American Radiology Services at Johns Hopkins at Green Spring Station in Lutherville, Md., who did the study. “If we added ultrasound to mammography, we saw 78 percent of the cancers.” NY Times 

Down Economy Denting Baby Boomer Future
The economic downturn is hitting roughly one in 10 middle-aged and older Americans especially hard, compelling them to borrow money for everyday living expenses and to seek help from family, friends or charities, according to a survey released. In the telephone survey of 1,002 adults 45 and older, nearly four in 10 said they had helped a child pay bills or expenses. Among retirees, one-third said they'd helped their children pay bills. Eight percent said they'd helped a parent pay bills or expenses. The survey's margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points. CBS News

NRA Chief Stresses Common Ground With McCain
A top official of the National Rifle Association said Republican John McCain has been a reliable ally of gun owners despite divisions with the powerful lobbying group on some issues. "We've had our disagreements, everybody knows it," NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on those. We're not foolish enough to ignore the vast areas of agreement in which John McCain has been a friend to gun owners." McCain is scheduled to address the NRA convention Friday in Louisville. USA Today

Televangelist Apologizes For Remarks 'Hurtful' To Catholics
Hagee's support for McCain has drawn outrage from some Catholic leaders, who called on McCain to reject Hagee's endorsement. The likely Republican nominee has said he does not agree with some of Hagee's past comments, but did not reject his support. Boston Globe

Israel To Relax West Bank Restrictions
Israel has agreed to ease severe travel and trade restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the Middle East envoy Tony Blair said today.In an announcement aimed at bolstering forthcoming peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Blair described the breakthrough as a "significant first step". The news came on the eve of a visit by the US president, George Bush, to Israel to celebrate its 60th anniversary.The agreement will see Israel scrap one checkpoint near the West Bank city of Hebron this week and remove or relocate several others, including a crossing at Beit El, near Ramallah. Guardian

More Blacks Than Whites In Brazil
Blacks will outnumber whites in Brazil this year for the first time since slavery was abolished, but the income gap between the two groups may take another 50 years to bridge, according to a government study released Tuesday. The government's Applied Institute of Economic Research said Brazil, which has the world's second-largest black population after Nigeria, is decades away from racial equality despite public policies aimed at decreasing the gap. Blacks generally earn 50 percent to 70 percent less than whites, and hold only 3.5 percent of management positions at Brazil's 500 largest companies, according to the labor-union statistics institute Diesse. Seattle Times

Iran To Offer Solution To Nuke Dispute
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that the Islamic Republic will put forward proposals this week in order to solve the dispute with Western countries over its nuclear program. Delegates from Russia, France, Germany, the UK, the US, China and the EU took part in a six-nation meeting on Iran's nuclear program last month, which yielded no clear result. The chair of the talks, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei, had said that the diplomatic efforts would continue. Jerusalem Post

Food Prices Drive China Inflation
Higher food prices are a worry for the Chinese authorities China's consumer price inflation stood close to a 12-year high in April, official figures showed, as the cost of food continued to take its toll. Annual inflation rose to 8.5% from 8.3% in March - despite the government having earlier pledged that tackling price rises was a priority. Food costs rose 22.1% in April from a year earlier, driven by demand for pork. However fresh food prices dipped. High inflation increases worries that China's economy may be overheating. BBC

'18,000 Still Buried'
Rescue workers sifted through tangled debris today for tens of thousands of victims buried or missing after the earthquake in China, where the death toll soared to more than 12,000 people in the hardest-hit province alone. As night fell the day after the powerful 7.9 magnitude quake tore through urban areas and mountain villages across central China, state media said rescue workers had reached the epicenter in Wenchuan county, north of the Sichuan provincial capital, Chengdu. State television quoted He Biao, director of the emergency office of the Aba government, as saying initial reports from soldiers who had to hike in showed there may be only 2,300 survivors from a population of 9,000 in Yinxiu, one of the affected towns. Independent New

Siege Of Gaza Squeezes Life Out Of The Land
The field is planted with shoulder-high rows of corn and is so close to Israel that the tall concrete boundary wall is well within sight, along with the Israeli military jeeps on their regular patrols into northern Gaza. Last month, after militants used the field for a rocket attack, the Israeli military sent in armoured bulldozers which carved sweeping paths through his corn, tearing down the crops and wrecking the extensive plastic irrigation pipes. Then a bulldozer demolished the cement hut housing the water pump in the corner of the field. Guardian

45 Killed In India Terrorist Attack
Six bombs ripped through crowded parts of an ancient city in western India, killing at least 45 people and wounding 100 others, police and hospital officials said. The six explosions in Jaipur took place in markets and several other areas of the city in Rajasthan, a region dotted with palaces and temples that draw hundreds of thousands of Indian and foreign tourists every year, said A.S. Gill, the state's police chief. A seventh bomb was defused before it exploded, he said. Jerusalem Post

Arrests Follow Malawi 'Coup Plot'
Mr Mutharika fell out with his predecessor after becoming president. Heavily armed police in Malawi have arrested four opposition officials and ex-security chiefs after the president said that was a plot to remove him. Those arrested include a former army commander and police chief. President Bingu wa Mutharika at the weekend accused his predecessor Bakili Muluzi of being behind a plot to remove him by Friday 16 May. BBC

Al-Sadr Ceasefire Allows Troops To Wnter Shia Slum
The anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is the great survivor of Iraqi politics. In a tactical retreat he yesterday authorised a ceasefire under which the Iraqi army, but not US troops, will enter the great Shia slum of Sadr City in Baghdad while Mr Sadr's Mehdi Army militia will stop firing rockets and mortars into the fortified Green Zone. The ceasefire agreement is intended to end seven weeks of fighting in which more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed during US-backed Iraqi government offensives against Mehdi Army strongholds in Basra and Baghdad. Independent News

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