Bush Demands Clean War Funding Bill

WASHINGTON - President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress lurched toward a veto showdown over Iraq on Wednesday, the commander in chief demanding a replenishment of war funding with no strings and Speaker Nancy Pelosi counseling him, "Calm down with the threats."

Bush said imposition of a "specific and random date of withdrawal would be disastrous" for U.S. troops in Iraq and he predicted that lawmakers would take the blame if the money ran short.

"The clock is ticking for our troops in the field," he said. "If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible."

Bush spoke as the …

Class 5-8 truck sales fall.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

U.S. sales of Class 8 trucks in June totaled 12,980 units, 40.5 percent below the June 2000 figure.

It was the 15th consecutive month of decline for the Class 8 segment.

Western Star, a DaimlerChrysler company, took the segment's biggest hit for the second consecutive month.

Sales plunged 69.1 percent to 110 units.

Kenworth, a division of Paccar Inc., had the second-largest percentage decrease, down 57.6 percent to 1,014 units.

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Cause For Effect.

By Stuart Miller

Channeling Positive Energy In Campaigns

While cable networks across the spectrum have been busy trying to find ways to generate green programming consistent with their brands, even channels that can't regularly find a good content fit are devoting time, energy, and money to the issue through green cause campaigns. In most cases, they are using their online platforms to inform and encourage action in ways that don't always work in entertainment programs.

Nickelodeon has long been a leader in ambitious pro-social initiatives - in 1993, it ran a 'Plan It for the Planet' special featuring then-Vice President Al Gore - so it should come as no surprise that its campaign, 'The Big Green Help,' is a long-term, multilayered effort. (It is modeled on 'The Big Help' drives that Nick ran in the 1990s.)

The campaign has four major themes:

Slow the Flow - teaching kids about minimizing the waste of energy and natural resources.

Recycle and Pre-Cycle - not only encouraging recycling but also the use of recyclable items.

Give It the Third Degree - teaching kids to use less heat in the winter and less air conditioning in the summer.

Grow the Green - fostering the planting of trees and the preservation of natural resources.

Senior vice president of public affairs Jean Margaret Smith said the project was based on a study done in conjunction with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change revealing that the vast majority of kids 8-14 believe they can stop global warming, though half of them were not sure what steps they could take. The study also found that while 33% of kids and 25% of parents feel responsible for the environment, 62% of families drink bottled water daily, while 45% still do not recycle.

'We really need to connect the dots,' Smith said, adding that while most adults in the survey felt world leaders were responsible for transforming society on this issue, kids believed it was up to individuals. 'We need to show how they can do something about it and how they can engage in the here and now.'

Smith added the campaign will be about more than simply doling out takeaway tidbits of information.

'We want to go beyond the tip of the …

STATE LAWMAKER PLEADS GUILTY TO DWAI COUNT.(CAPITAL REGION)

Byline: LARA JAKES Staff writer

COLONIE -- Silently nodding to a judge's orders, Assemblywoman Susan V. John pleaded guilty Wednesday to driving while ability impaired, a crime she said will bring ``valuable new perspective'' to her duties chairing a state committee on alcoholism and drug abuse.

Two days after John, 39, was pulled over with a blood-alcohol content of 0.14 percent, the Rochester Democrat appeared before town Justice Nicholas J. Greisler and news media from across the state to apologize for drinking too much before getting behind the wheel of her car. Because she had no prior alcohol-related convictions, John was allowed to plead guilty to …

Review: `Jonah Hex' is short, sugarcoated violence

Critics always gripe that movies are too long and could stand some pruning.

Then you get the occasional movie, like comic-book adaptation "Jonah Hex," that is too short; so short, and so bad, you cringe at the thought of how awful whatever ended up on the cutting-room floor must be.

Take away the eight minutes of end-credits, a lengthy prologue sequence built around comic-book panels and some repetitive flashbacks of action we already have seen, and there's barely an hour's worth of actual movie in "Jonah Hex." And that is using the term "actual movie" generously.

Part of what is missing is the harder-core violence …

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: YOUR SUMMER READING LIST

In Politics, Aristotle famously declared that humans are political animals, a seemingly inescapable truth. We live in groups; we survive by virtue of interaction with other humans. But politics is born, Aristotle argued, not because we live in herds but instead because we use sophisticated communication and form partnerships that rely on our highly developed sense of justice and fairness.

The depth of any innate tendency toward politics is unclear. In The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau posited a natural human condition free of societal encumbrance. He also, however, said that we savages willingly traded this boundless freedom for the lasting security of a polity. …

Fitch: Card Charge-Offs And Delinquencies Fell In February.(News)(Brief article)

Byline: Kate Fitzgerald

The charge-off rate on U.S. credit cards declined last month, along with the rate of card accounts past due, according to a March 26 report from Fitch Group's Fitch Ratings Inc.

The rate of defaults on credit card outstanding receivables dipped 10 basis points during February, to 11.27% from 11.37% during the previous collection period in January. Credit card accounts at least 60 days past due in February fell six basis points, to 4.44% from 4.5%, while accounts at least 30 days past due also fell six basis points, to 5.66% from 5.72%.

The trends …