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2 US Embassy workers in Paris undergo medical tests after opening suspicious letter. Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, but the embassy said preliminary analysis suggested it was not harmful. “There is no indication that the envelope contained something dangerous or poisoned,” Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said. “There is no indication that anyone is in danger or hurt.” A Paris police official said the employees were “unwell” after the incident. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named because an investigation was under way, did not elaborate on the workers’ condition. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted the French authorities, Patin said. Story continues below… “The letter is being examined by chemical experts. The two people who handled the letter are being examined by medical authorities” at the Paris hospital Hotel Dieu, Patin told The Associated Press. The embassy could not immediately provide further information about where the letter came from or what was suspicious about it, or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees and not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident, and employees were entering and exiting the building as usual Friday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, but the embassy said preliminary analysis suggested it was not harmful. “There is no indication that the envelope contained something dangerous or poisoned,” Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said. “There is no indication that anyone is in danger or hurt.” A Paris police official said the employees were “unwell” after the incident. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named because an investigation was under way, did not elaborate on the workers’ condition. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted the French authorities, Patin said. “The letter is being examined by chemical experts. The two people who handled the letter are being examined by medical authorities” at the Paris hospital Hotel Dieu, Patin told The Associated Press. The embassy could not immediately provide further information about where the letter came from or what was suspicious about it, or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees and not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident, and employees were entering and exiting the building as usual Friday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Two men who work for the U.S. Embassy in Paris underwent medical tests after handling a suspicious letter Friday, but the embassy said preliminary analysis suggested it was not harmful. “There is no indication that the envelope contained something dangerous or poisoned,” Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said. “There is no indication that anyone is in danger or hurt.” A Paris police official said the employees were “unwell” after the incident. The official, who was not authorized to be publicly named because an investigation was under way, did not elaborate on the workers’ condition. Mailroom employees identified a suspicious letter and the embassy alerted the French authorities, Patin said. “The letter is being examined by chemical experts. The two people who handled the letter are being examined by medical authorities” at the Paris hospital Hotel Dieu, Patin told The Associated Press. The embassy could not immediately provide further information about where the letter came from or what was suspicious about it, or the nationalities of the employees. The mailroom is in the main building of the embassy, located just off the Champs-Elysees and not far from the French presidential palace. The embassy, which is always surrounded by layers of security, remained open after the incident, and employees were entering and exiting the building as usual Friday afternoon. ___ Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. Source: AP News Powered by Mochila

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History of pipeline problems follows Canadian company at center of huge Mich. river oil spill. A Canadian company at the center of a huge oil spill in southern Michigan has a history of pipeline problems, including leaks, an explosion and dozens of regulatory violations. Enbridge Inc. or its affiliates have been cited for 30 enforcement actions since 2002 by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is the U.S. Department of Transportation’s regulatory arm. In a warning letter sent Jan. 21, the agency told the company it may have violated safety codes by improperly monitoring corrosion in the pipeline responsible for the massive spill Monday in Talmadge Creek. The creek feeds into the Kalamazoo River, which eventually flows into Lake Michigan. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 1 million gallons may have spilled into the waterway, but Enbrige estimates the spill at closer to 820,000 gallons. Cleanup efforts could take several weeks, possibly two months, officials said. Story continues below… The EPA says the oil had traveled 25 miles downstream, but state officials estimate it has traveled 35 miles. Gov. Jennifer Granholm warned of a “tragedy of historic proportions” should it travel another 80 miles and reach Lake Michigan, but EPA officials don’t expect that to happen. Steve Wuori, an Enbridge executive vice president, said the company was doing maintenance all along the pipeline this year, but the section at the leak site was not scheduled for replacement. Enbridge CEO Patrick D. Daniel again apologized Thursday to the residents “for the mess that we have made.” Hundreds of workers and contractors went to work on the oil Thursday with more than 12,000 feet of containment and absorption boom, 14 skimmers, 43 vacuum trucks and a number of tanker trucks, excavators and other trucks, he said. Health officials went door-to-door, telling Calhoun County residents in about 30 to 50 homes near the spill to evacuate because of air quality concerns. Others were told to use bottled water for drinking and cooking. About 20 injured animals — mostly birds — were being treated Thursday at a wildlife rehabilitation center, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said. The center refused to admit an Associated Press reporter, saying officials didn’t want to further traumatize the animals by allowing in more people, but planned a media tour for Friday. According to the government agency’s letter sent Jan. 21 to Enbridge, the company was implementing an alternate way of monitoring corrosion in the pipeline, and had detailed to regulators the steps it was taking to track corrosion in the interim. But the agency warned the company that it was violating code by not using a sufficient amount of certain chemicals to protect pipe interiors, not using proper monitoring equipment to determine if those chemicals were working, and not examining its monitoring equipment at least twice a year. Two years ago, Enbridge was cited for committing eight probable violations that may have contributed to an explosion that killed two people working Nov. 28, 2007, on a 34-inch pipeline near Clearbrook, Minn. Among its findings, the regulatory agency said Enbridge failed to follow written procedures for couplings on the pipeline, didn’t make the repairs in a safe manner and didn’t make sure workers had adequate training for that job. Such violations aren’t uncommon for pipeline companies, said Jeff Share, editor of the Pipeline & Gas Journal. An Enbridge affiliate, Houston-based Enbridge Energy Co., spilled almost 19,000 gallons of crude oil onto Wisconsin’s Nemadji River in 2003. Another 189,000 gallons of oil spilled at the company’s terminal two miles from Lake Superior, though most was contained. And in 2007, two spills released about 200,000 gallons of crude in northern Wisconsin as Enbridge was expanding a 320-mile pipeline. The Michigan leak came from a 30-inch pipeline, which was built in 1969 and carries about 8 million gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario. Bruce Bullock, director of Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business, said Enbridge is similar to many other pipeline companies. Noting the age of Michigan’s pipeline, Bullock said that like the rest of the industry, Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge is dealing with aging infrastructure. “They don’t have a reputation of being particularly a star player in terms of their profile or anything like that, but they certainly have a good reputation in terms of delivering for their shareholders,” Bullock said. “They certainly don’t have a bad reputation.” But Andy Buchsbaum, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office, said Enbridge has a history of spills — including two major leaks in the past year. He said those leaks, coupled with the fatal blast in Minnesota, are problematic. “This is a company whose safety record is very definitely suspect and cause for concern,” Buchsbaum said. ___ Runk reported from Detroit. Associated Press writers Corey Williams and Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this report. Source: AP News Powered by Mochila

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Black Eyed Peas ‘I Gotta Feeling’ hits 6 million download mark; will.i.am talks new album. The Black Eyed Peas have more proof of the ubiquity of “I Gotta Feeling.” Their No. 1 hit has become the first song to reach the 6 million mark in digital downloads. The milestone was announced Friday and confirmed by Nielsen SoundScan. For the group’s leader, will.i.am, the moment is about much more than the song. “We came out in ‘98 and our career, if you would look at it on chart, there’s no dips in it,” he said in a phone interview Thursday. “For our career to still be healthy and vibrant and doing things like 6 million downloads, it’s pretty significant.” Story continues below… It’s also significant, he said, in a time when illegal downloading is the norm. “That means that they chose to support the group, support the art,” he said. “God knows how many people listened to it online and didn’t buy it, downloaded it for free and didn’t think about it.” The upbeat song about good vibes was No. 1 for 14 weeks; will.i.am said the reason it was so successful was because it gave people hope in a downward time. “It’s a positive, feel-good song at the time where there’s question marks and uncertainty. People want to be reminded that it’s going to be all right,” he said. The song was one of the hits from the group’s multiplatinum “The E.N.D.,” which was released last year. Although it is still on the charts, will.i.am said a new album, “The Beginning,” is almost finished and likely due at the end of the year. “It symbolizes growth, new beginnings and starts, fresh new perspective,” he said. ___ Online: http://blackeyedpeas.com Source: AP News Powered by Mochila

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Walt Disney Co. agrees to sell Miramax Films for $660M; deal ends six-month bidding process. The Walt Disney Co. said Friday that it agreed to sell its Miramax Films to an investor group for about $660 million, ending a 17-year association with the studio and a six-month bidding process. Miramax’s Oscar-laden film library has more than 700 titles, including prestigious films such as “My Left Foot” (1989), “Pulp Fiction” (1994) and “Good Will Hunting” (1997). But Disney had been looking to sell Miramax amid a studio overhaul because it no longer resonated with its other family centric studio units such as Pixar and Marvel. “Although we are very proud of Miramax’s many accomplishments, our current strategy for Walt Disney Studios is to focus on the development of great motion pictures under the Disney, Pixar and Marvel brands,” said Disney president and CEO Robert A. Iger said in a statement. “We are delighted that we have found a home for the Miramax brand and Miramax’s very highly regarded motion picture library.” Story continues below… The entertainment company signed an agreement late Thursday with Filmyard Holding, an investor group led by construction magnate and Hollywood outsider Ronald Tutor. Other investors include Colony Capital LLC, a real estate investment group, and its CEO Tom Barrack. Tutor and his partners put down a nonrefundable deposit of $40 million to Disney on Thursday. Disney said the deal could close as soon as Sept. 10. Despite its past success with prize-winning films, Miramax also faces challenges. Earlier this year, Disney stopped investing in its new projects, laying off all but a handful of staff beginning in January in a major round of cost-cutting and reorganization under its new studios chairman, Rich Ross. It was one of many niche labels shuttered or downsized in Hollywood recently, plagued by high costs and few commercial hits despite their occasional critical success. The label was founded in 1979 by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who named it after their parents, Miriam and Max. It was sold to Disney for $80 million in 1993, and the brothers stayed on as managers. But the duo left in 2005 to found The Weinstein Co. after years of troubled relations with Disney and a public spat over Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which Disney refused to distribute. The Weinstein’s recent bid to buy Miramax with the financial backing of supermarket magnate Ron Burkle was halted after Burkle cut the offered price to about $565 million from $625 million. Disney shares closed Thursday at $33.71. Source: AP News Powered by Mochila

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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Army on Thursday said leadership and discipline have deteriorated at bases in the United States, with officers missing warning signs of soldiers on the verge of suicide. As the military focused on fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over nearly a decade, senior leaders have failed to track reckless behavior and monitor alcohol and drug abuse among soldiers back home, said an army report on suicide prevention. “Because of everything we’re doing, we have not paid the attention we need to high-risk behavior,” said General Peter Chiarelli, the US Army’s vice chief of staff, who oversaw the report. Senior officers had “rightly prioritized the number-one thing that they were going to do is to prepare their soldiers to go into harm’s way,” he said. But the army needed to improve “garrison leadership” at US bases and take steps to stop rising suicide rates, he said. Story continues below… The general said “it’s time for the army to take a hard look at itself, to sit down and say, okay, what are those things that came lower on our priority list that we need to reinstitute, reinforce and start doing to get at this problem?” The report, titled Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention, is the result of a 15-month effort to better understand the alarming increase in suicides. The army reported 32 suicides in June, an all-time high, and so far this year 80 active duty soldiers and 65 soldiers in the reserves have committed suicide. The report showed illegal drug use was increasing among troops and that the army did not have a clear idea of the scale of the problem. Crime also was “on the rise and discipline is seemingly going unchecked,” the report said. About 1,054 soldiers who have committed two or more felony offenses are still serving in the army, it said. The general said data showed soldiers who enlisted at an older age, about 28-29 years old, were three times more likely to take their lives, possibly because they had more personal or financial problems. And suicides were more frequent among soldiers in their first year in the army, with the risk gradually declining the more time soldiers served in the force. “We see more suicides in that first year than in any other years,” he said. There was no evidence that showed soldiers who had been repeatedly deployed in combat faced a greater risk of suicide, but Chiarelli said he still suspected that could be the case. To combat suicides and a rise in depression and anxiety, the army hoped to increase the time soldiers had at home between deployments, he said. The army hopes to soon give soldiers two years at home for every year deployed. “We still have an Army that’s out of balance,” he said, referring to the strain of repeated combat tours. Preventing suicides remained a difficult task, and some cases defied explanation, he said. Chiarelli said there were about two or three suicides a month in which soldiers displayed no tell-tale signs of desperation beforehand. “These are the ones that are so perplexing and difficult for us to understand,” he said. Top military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, have appealed to officers to ensure soldiers who need psychological help do not face ridicule or risk to their careers. Chiarelli said the growing number of soldiers who are seeking help was a possible sign that the stigma in the military associated with psychological problems was starting to fade.

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US expert says China’s worst oil spill is far larger than government has reported so far. China’s worst known oil spill is dozens of times larger than the government has reported, and some of the oil was spilled deliberately to avoid an even larger disaster, an American expert said Friday. China’s government has said 1,500 tons of oil spilled after a pipeline exploded two weeks ago near the northeastern city of Dalian, sending 100-foot- (30-meter-) high flames raging near one of the country’s key strategic oil reserves. It has not updated that estimate since a few days after the spill. But Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, estimated 60,000 tons to 90,000 tons of oil actually spilled into the Yellow Sea. “It’s enormous. That’s at least as large as the official estimate of the Exxon Valdez disaster” in Alaska, he told The Associated Press. Story continues below… The estimates, though rough, could complicate official efforts to move on and declare China’s latest environmental disaster a closed issue: State media has reported Dalian’s mayor already declared a “decisive victory” in the oil spill cleanup. The spill has caused at least one death when a cleanup worker drowned in the sticky crude, and thousands of Dalian residents have used everything from their bare hands to chopsticks to pick the goo from the sea. Steiner, who worked on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, announced the China estimates after touring the oil spill area as a consultant for the environmental group Greenpeace China. “It’s habitual for governments to understate oil spills,” Steiner told a press conference. “But the severity of the discrepancy is unusual here.” An official with Dalian’s propaganda department told The Associated Press he was not aware of Steiner’s estimates and had no comment. “I think we should follow the figures released by the city government,” said the man, who gave his surname as Li. The government has said the pipeline exploded July 16 after workers continued to inject an agent to strip sulfur from oil after a tanker had finished unloading its cargo. Firefighters at the scene later told Greenpeace China workers had let oil escape from other nearby tanks to reduce the risk that another nearby tank containing the chemical dimethylbenzene would explode as well. Steiner said his estimates came from the fact the oil storage tank that was destroyed had a capacity of about 90,000 tons and reportedly had just been filled by the tanker. He said his lower estimate of 60,000 tons came from the rate of oil recovery by thousands of fishing boats dispatched for the cleanup. “They’ve already collected more oil than the official estimate of the spill size,” he told The Associated Press. He praised the makeshift cleanup efforts but said this year’s shellfish harvest has been wiped out. Some Chinese environmental experts have said the oil spill’s effects around Dalian, once named China’s most livable city, will be felt for years. Both Steiner and Greenpeace China warned their oil spill estimates could be 50 percent off because of the lack of information about the spill and expressed their frustration, putting “information transparency” at the top of their list of demands Friday. “(The oil) could have spread to North Korea by now. As far as we know, nobody knows,” Steiner told the press conference. Source: AP News Powered by Mochila

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