National: For New Orleans, 'worst-case scenario' kept at bay By LEE BOWMAN - Waves of computer-model projections and dire warnings of Hurricane Katrina's path and potential destruction preceded the storm for days, but a slight jog to the north and a little shot of cool air kept the "worst-case scenario" out of New Orleans on Monday.

Katrina went down in the books as the fourth-most-intense Atlantic hurricane in modern times upon reaching its lowest barometric reading of 902 millibars and top sustained winds of more than 160 mph.

But the storm didn't maintain its catastrophic strength before making landfall 60 miles south of New Orleans, largely because cooler air from another weather system started to influence the storm late Sunday. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

National: Anti-, pro-war groups skirmish outside Walter Reed By MARGARET TALEV - Since spring, long before an angry mom named Cindy Sheehan set up camp outside President Bush's Texas ranch, anti-war activists have been holding vigils outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday nights, when many soldiers and their families venture off-campus for steak dinners.

They've called for better health-care benefits for soldiers wounded in Iraq, protested an early policy of making some soldiers buy their own meals while in care and accused the military of purposely flying injured troops in under cover of night to play down the volume of casualties. And they've waved signs protesting the war and the Bush administration.

Organizers say they weren't getting much media attention - even after a pro-war group began gathering to protest the vigils - and that the coverage they did get was generally positive, including a write-up in the military newspaper Stars & Stripes. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

International: Conspiracy theory deflated in death of Diana By DOUG SAUNDERS - The bloom, it seems, has begun to fade from England's rose.

After eight years during which Diana, Princess of Wales, was an untouchable idol here, Britons have spent the summer owning up to her less savory traits - the spoiled hard-partying lifestyle, the ego, the promiscuity.

And Friday, the dethroning accelerated, as British papers reported what counts for conspiracy theorists as a stunning revelation: that her death in 1997 was the simple result of a drunk and reckless driver after she had spent a night on the town in Paris with a fleeting boyfriend. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

Election 2005 List of Candidates Filed For Office   Assembly & School Board Updated 08/23/05   City Council Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Schoenbar School Plan By Harry E. Martin - Monday Commitments By Bill Thomas Sr. - Monday CHOICES By Rick Watson - Monday More on Coaching By Richard Cropp - Monday Trains: A different perspective By Bob Ciminel - Monday Airplane Noise is Music to My Ears By Doug Barry - Monday Exercise By Myra Callahan - Monday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Hurricane and Osama Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen Distributed exclusively to subscribers by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. More Political Cartoonists Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements August 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S   01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31       Front Page Archives

Robert Mott: Historic moment for United Nations - At an extraordinary session of the U.N. General Assembly starting Sept. 14, world leaders will try to achieve a historic turning point, 60 years after the institution's founding and at a time when it has never been more controversial. The odds against success, regrettably, are long.

On the agenda in New York is reform of the United Nations to make it more relevant in a new and challenging age and, perhaps most difficult, to amend its rules to make it more effective. A set of reforms to be presented has just been challenged by the Bush administration, which demands extensive changes before a final vote. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

Steve Brewer: We've graduated beyond school lists - I was bracing myself for the annual debacle that is back-to-school shopping when my 16-year-old son said, "Nope, we don't need to go."

Huh-wha? That can't be right. Every August, we troop into the air-conditioned confines of the nearest mall to select school supplies and new clothes. We spend too much money on cartoon-character notebooks and brittle plastic protractors and dozens of mechanical pencils when plain old Nos. 2 would do just fine.

We argue over saggy jeans and rock band T-shirts and enormous sneakers. We load our loot into the minivan and drive home and immediately lose many of the new purchases in our pigsty bedrooms. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

Dan Thomasson: Saving Private Pruett - In 1942, at the beginning of World War II, the Sullivan family of Waterloo, Iowa, lost all five of its sons when the ship on which they were serving in the Pacific was torpedoed. While the Sullivan boys became national heroes - receiving numerous awards posthumously, including the naming of a destroyer after them - Congress wisely passed a law preventing siblings from serving together on the same ship.

That generally became the practice on the ground as well as at sea, with commanders striving to protect mothers and fathers from the devastating loss of multiple sons or daughters in combat. That effort, of course, was the subject of Steven Spielberg's brilliant but emotionally wrenching film, "Saving Private Ryan," about the hunt to locate and extract from danger after Normandy the remaining son whose older siblings were killed. - - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

Dale McFeatters: Katrina: Big, but not the Big One - Hurricane Katrina could have been a lot worse than it was, but it was still a frighteningly close call. Just before coming ashore, the storm started to weaken and it changed direction just enough so that New Orleans didn't get the direct hammer blow for which it was braced.

But the likelihood of the "Big One," a killer category 5 hurricane taking dead aim at New Orleans or another of our major and fast-growing coastal cities, is a chilling reality. And as the Katrina narrow escape so dramatically demonstrated, there is no such thing as too much advance planning and preparation. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005

Editorial: Shunning bad taste - What's news? To cable television networks, it seems to be whatever draws viewers, and competition - especially between Fox and CNN - threatens to lower that common denominator. Cable news operations have turned endless coverage of personal tragedies almost into a grotesque art form. Add to Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson the name of Natalee Holloway, a young woman missing in Aruba for nearly three months. - More...
Monday - August 29, 2005