Some point to anti-gun politics as applications rise 39 percent and swamp the state
By JANET ELLIOTT
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK
During the week that ended Friday, DPS said, it processed 1,043 original and renewal applications but received 1,871 requests.
AUSTIN — Demand for concealed handgun licenses has risen nearly 40 percent in Texas in a year, an increase being attributed to many factors, even presidential politics.
Though the exact cause may be unclear, what's certain is that the spike in applications has caught the Department of Public Safety unprepared.
The state is taking a month longer than the 60 days allowed by law to process original applications and 80 days longer on renewals, which are supposed to be handled within 45 days.
"We're trying really hard, but there have been delays because of the tremendous increase in applications," said Tela Mange, a DPS spokeswoman.
She said the department is paying overtime and hiring temporary workers to reduce the backlog. Mange said she doesn't know why applications last month were 39 percent higher than they were in April 2007.
But Ross Bransford, who trains 1,000 Texans a year to qualify for a concealed handgun license, said he believes ...   more »

By Roland Gribben
An extinct volcano in the US may hold the key to extending the life of North Sea oilfields and squeezing an extra 17pc of untapped reserves out of them.   
Artist's impression of the volcano near Jackson City
Malcolm Wicks, the energy minister, is visiting the site near Jackson City in Mississippi to see how carbon dioxide is extracted deep underground before being piped 60 miles to force out oil from an old field.
With an estimated 25bn barrels of oil equivalent left to exploit in the North Sea, Mr Wicks said it would be increasingly challenging and would need innovative technologies to tap the remaining reserves.
More on oil
Denbury Resources homepage
He added: "This project uses pressurised carbon dioxide which could also be captured from industrial plants so it would mean a plus for the environment too."
advertisementDenbury Resources, the biggest oil and gas operator in the state, has successfully exploited carbon injection techniques in Mississippi and elsewhere to recover significant quantities of reserves from mature reservoirs, and it believes the technology can be successfully developed in the North Sea.
The Government is anxious to see Britain break into the carbon market to squeeze oil ...   more »

By Paula Horton, Herald staff writer
Emergency sirens sounded just after 9 a.m. after a mock fire and explosion at the Umatilla Chemical Depot sent a plume of toxic smoke toward Benton County.
Residents around the depot were evacuated, along with Benton County residents north of the Columbia River in the Paterson and Plymouth areas.
Evacuation shelters were opened in Kennewick and Prosser.
 About 30 minutes after the disaster drill, Benton County's Emergency Operations Center in Richland activated to coordinate evacuation plans and set up decontamination shelters so officials would be prepared for whatever happened next.
Monday's emergency drill was the first scenario for emergency responders to deal with during a three-day disaster preparedness drill.
Benton, Umatilla and Morrow county officials, along with officials from both states, are participating in the annual Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program drill.
The local drill is being done as part of a national training exercise coordinating local, state and federal agencies.
At Benton County's Emergency Operations Center on Monday, everyone appeared calm as they answered phones, received weather updates and monitored events online at other regional emergency centers and the state's emergency center.
"A lot of information used to be on telephones and there'd ...   more »

Tornado-safe rooms shielded students in Carlisle, Arkansas, from storm last week
Gov. Mike Beebe urges schools statewide to use funds to build safe rooms
State law does not require schools to install safe tornado-safe rooms
CARLISLE, Arkansas (AP) -- Just before the tornado sirens sounded, school superintendent Floyd Marshall got the warning from police -- a twister was coming right for the town's elementary and high school.
But Marshall had a weapon of his own: Unlike most other schools in Arkansas, the two Carlisle schools have specially designed interior hallways -- dubbed tornado-safe rooms -- where 750 students cowered until the storms passed by Friday.
"You may never need it, but that one time that you do that you don't have it, it's something you can't recover from," Marshall said.
The tornado eventually veered away from the shared campus of the schools at the last moment, but Gov. Mike Beebe acknowledged the importance of the rooms on a visit to the city Monday.
"I'd like to see them everywhere. I'd like to see them as much as possible," Beebe said. "But at this juncture, we're not in a position to mandate them everywhere, unless you have the money to be ...   more »

Archaeologists believe they have found the Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia and an altar which held the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, the Ark of the Covenant, the University of Hamburg said Wednesday. Scientists from the German city made the startling find during their spring excavation of the site over the past three months. The Ethiopian queen was the bride of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before the Christian era. The royal match is among the memorable events in the Bible. Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which allegedly contained Moses' stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, was smuggled to Ethiopia by their son Menelek and is still in that country. The University said scientists led by Helmut Ziegert had found remains of a 10th-century-BC palace at Axum-Dungur under the palace of a later Christian king. There was evidence the early palace had been torn down and realigned to the path of the star Sirius. The team hypothesized that Menelek had changed religion and become a worshipper of Sirius while keeping the Ark, described in the Bible as an acacia-wood chest covered with gold. Remains of sacrifices of bullocks were evident around ...   more »

Dirty bomb ingredients: They're radioactive, and
they're missing


--WND Exclusive--
================================


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63749
Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from
Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium online
newsletter published by the founder of WND.
Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials,
just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and
provide instant access for the complete reports.
Harwell Atomic Energy Center
LONDON -- Britain's intelligence service MI5 has
launched a high priority search for more than 1,000
pieces of missing radioactive medical equipment used
in the treatment of cancers and other illnesses in
British hospitals, says a report in Joseph Farah's G2
Bulletin.
The loss was discovered after Britain's understaffed
National Health Service hospitals made their quarterly
inventory returns to the government Environmental
Agency -- responsible for the safety of all medical
radioactive materials.

In all, some 10,000 items -- mostly used in nuclear
medicine -- were accounted for. Those past their
use-by date were destroyed at one of Britain's nuclear
reactors.
But the missing 1,000, all of which the last inventory
check show contained radioactive material, remain
unaccounted for.
"So far nine items are definitely believed to have
been stolen or lost. But theft is the most ...   more »