NEWS FOR THURSDAY Feb 22

WORLD NEWS
Italian Prime Minister hands in resignation


Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has handed his resignation to the country's president after losing a crucial foreign policy vote in the Senate. President Giorgio Napolitano is now expected to hold talks with political leaders before reaching a decision. He could accept the resignation or ask Mr Prodi to stay in power.

In the vote, several of Mr Prodi's coalition partners opposed troop deployments in Afghanistan and plans to expand a US airbase in northern Italy. The BBC's Jonny Dymond says it is not a foregone conclusion that the government will fall.
Mr Napolitano has several options, of which dissolving parliament and calling new elections is the most radical.

We are ready to renew our full confidence in Prodi. A spokesman for the prime minister said Mr Prodi needed the full support of the coalition if he was to continue. "Prodi has acknowledged this is a serious crisis and he doesn't have a majority in the Senate," Silvio Sircana said.

"He is ready to carry on as prime minister if, and only if, he is guaranteed the full support of all the parties in the majority from now on."






Blair announces Iraq troops cut

Some 1,600 British troops will return from Iraq within the next few months, Prime Minister Tony Blair has told MPs.
He said the 7,100 serving troops would be cut to 5,500 soon, with hopes that 500 more will leave by late summer.

Remaining troops will stay into 2008, to give back-up if necessary and secure borders, but the Iraqis would "write the next chapter" in Basra's history.

The announcement follows a five-month security operation to quell violence in British-controlled Basra.

Mr Blair said Operation Sinbad, aimed at allowing Iraqis to take the lead in frontline security in the city, had been successful.
He acknowledged that Basra was still "difficult and sometimes dangerous", but he said levels of murder and kidnappings had dropped and reconstruction was under way.

"The UK military presence will continue into 2008, for as long as we are wanted and have a job to do...Increasingly our role will support and training, and our numbers will be able to reduce accordingly," Mr Blair said. (BBC NEWS)

COALITION FORCES
US -132,000
UK - 7,100
South Korea - 2,300
Poland - 900
Georgia - 800
Australia - 900
Romania - 600
Denmark - 460
El Salvador - 380
Bulgaria - 150
Sources: Brookings Institution; Globalsecurity.org; media reports

US NEWS
JetBlue vows to win back custom

Budget US airline JetBlue has launched a customer bill of rights in a bid to win back customers after a series of costly flight cancellations. Under the charter, it has vowed to issue vouchers to compensate people hit by delays for anything from $25 to the full cost of their ticket.

The news came after the firm was forced to cancel 1,096 flights after a snow storm last week. JetBlue added it would cost $30m (£15m) or more to reimburse those affected. "It's going to be very expensive. I don't have the final number, but it's going to be maybe $20 million or $30 million and maybe a little bit higher," chief executive David Neeleman told NBC television.

More than 100,000 people were hit by the cancellations over the past six days. Delays and cancellations also led to a surge in passenger complaints while they also led to many of pilots and flight crews being stranded away from where they were needed.

Passengers and Wall Street analysts were critical of JetBlue, but hopeful the setback would lead to improvement. Meanwhile, analysts warned that the recent crisis - the worst in its eight-year history - would hit its bottom line prompting experts to cut their earnings forecasts for the firm. (BBC NEWS)


LOCAL NEWS
Hilltop Steak House auctions off cookware, cows, and memories

The green, 50-foot tall cactus that greeted motorists on Union Street in Braintree for more than 15 years sold for $100. The aluminum pots, mixers, ovens, tables, and chairs also went to the highest bidders. As did the sign for the butcher shop, the stainless steel display racks, and the chandeliers that look like deer antlers.

But nothing made quite as much buzz today when the Hilltop Steak House auctioned off the contents of its Braintree location as those famous fiberglass cows. The 7-foot-long, 4-feet-high, black, white, and brown bovines sold for up to $1,100 apiece.

"The cows were a great attraction," said a melancholy Lenny DeRosa, the vice president of restaurant operations for the Hilltop chain, of which only the original location in Saugus remains. "To be honest with you, I'm a little heartbroken."

The first Hilltop opened in 1961 in Saugus and was followed by others in Nashua, N.H. and Braintree. The Nashua location closed some time ago. The 410-seat Braintree restaurant and butcher shop shut down earlier this month to make way for a Toyota dealer.

That prompted today's 450-lot auction, to sell everything from kitchen equipment to the western-style kitsch that makes the Hilltop unique. About 75 people came to the daylong sale, following two auctioneers as they moved from the kitchen, to the butcher shop, to the dinning room. Some came searching for deals on used restaurant equipment. Others wanted to take home a sign, a cow, a spittoon, or some other tangible piece of the Hilltop. (Boston Globe)






Ice sends many slip-sliding into ERs


Across the region, young and old alike have been streaming into emergency rooms with broken wrists, fractured legs, cracked ribs, crushed fingers, concussions, sore backs, and bleeding heads since last week's ice storm turned the region into a rock-hard, slick obstacle course. Formerly gentle slopes for sledding are creating speeds that approach those of luge runs. Sledders who crash are finding out the hard way that ice is unforgiving. And pedestrians on sidewalks are not faring much better.

Boston Medical Center has treated about 40 people who broke bones and bruised bodies on the ice in the last week. Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have treated about 30 people each day who have fallen on the ice, and Newton-Wellesley Hospital has treated another 20 to 30 people a day since last Wednesday's storm. Officials say the numbers are twice as high as during a normal winter week.

"We've seen a dramatic increase," said Dr. Ron Walls , chairman of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, who said he has noted a particularly worrisome increase in the number of elderly falling and injuring their heads on icy sidewalks and stairs. "The reason is the ice is just so slick."

Another reason for the increase, officials say, is that the icing of the region, unlike other kinds of extreme weather such as a blizzard, is not keeping people confined. People are going about their business and in some cases seeking thrills on frozen fields and hard, high hills that offer the fastest runs.

The deluge of injuries is spurring a push for legislation to make children wear helmets while skiing or sledding, modeled after a similar law requiring protective headgear for young bicyclists, inline skaters, and skateboarders.

Locally, the most serious injury happened Sunday at the Mount Hood Golf Course in Melrose, where the woman who had gone sledding with her children crashed on an inner tube. The 39-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, was flown by helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was treated for head trauma, injuries to her back and leg, and hypothermia. It was the second injury at the course over the weekend and city officials shut the park and posted a police officer there to keep children and parents away. Signs there already warn them that they sled at their own risk.

"It's just treacherous," said Captain Ed Collina of the Melrose Fire Department. "Anybody sledding has absolutely no control of themselves. They're at the whim of the slope. Even if you're walking and you slip and fall it's like hitting concrete."

Even so, a half-dozen sledders were at the 300-acre park yesterday, whizzing down icy hills when no police officer was present to stop them. None of them wore helmets.

Senator Steven C. Panagiotakos, Democrat of Lowell , said it is not enough to be careful, and will push for a law this year requiring children under 13 who ski or sled to wear helmets. A similar bill died last year in committee. "Most kids ride bikes, so almost every kid has a bicycle helmet and they could use that for sledding, too," Panagiotakos said yesterday. "It's not like it's an extra cost to the family." (Boston Globe)


CAMPUS NEWS
The GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender) Advisory Committee will be hosting a series of monthly “Brown Bag Breakout” discussion sessions on relevant topics of interest and discourse.

It is the committee’s hope to open up dialog and debate to help bring tolerance, understanding, and enlightenment to fruition and dispel miss-conceptions and fear.

Communication and understanding in a shared, safe environment will be our goal.

Everyone is welcome here!

The latest in the series of Brown Bag Lunches sponsored by the Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues will be held Thursday FEBRUARY 22ND from 12-1 in Curry 433.

TRANSGENDER-101

Ethan Levine from the Network/LARED will be speaking on topics relative to Transgender concerns, stereotypes, transitioning etc.


For more information please contact: Colleen Fritze at x-7398 or e-mail c.fritze@neu.edu


CELEBRITY NEWS
Spears 'leaves rehab after a day'

Spears has sparked fears for her mental health
Britney Spears has checked out of rehab after just one day for the second time in a week, according to US reports.
The shaven-headed singer left a treatment centre in Malibu, California, on Wednesday, TMZ.com and TV shows Entertainment Tonight and Extra said.

The previous day her manager Larry Rudolph said Spears had checked into rehab voluntarily.

She reportedly spent just 24 hours in a facility in Antigua last week before shaving her head in front of onlookers.

Rudolph had asked for privacy while she underwent this latest round of treatment.


MUSIC NEWS

Yorke, Franz, Cocker, Albarn, B&S Say "No" to Nukes
As do Bloc Party, Mogwai, Aphex Twin, Super Furry Animals, Massive Attack, many more
Here in the U.S., Trident just keeps your breath fresh. For our UK brothers and sisters, however, the only thing Trident keeps fresh is the bleedin' nuclear arms race. Instituted in 1994, the Trident in question today refers to Britain's submarine-housed nuclear weapons system, which the country's Parliament will vote to replace next month. Turns out the majority of the populace-- and a bunch of respected UK musicians-- are none too happy about it.

Thom Yorke, Franz Ferdinand, Jarvis Cocker, Belle & Sebastian, Bloc Party, Damon Albarn, Mogwai, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Super Furry Animals, Massive Attack, Richard Hawley, Guillemots, and many, many others issued a statement on Monday via the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament asking Parliament not to replace Trident. "Almost 60% of the British public say they don't want Trident replaced," the statement reads. "A decision to replace it would make the world a more dangerous place and reinforce the hypocrisy of our government which invaded Iraq on the basis of lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction-- but now plans to build its own new nuclear weapons."

It continues, "To replace Trident, when we face no nuclear threat, could start a nuclear arms race.

"The £76 billion cost to replace and maintain Trident would be better spent on health care, education, alleviating global poverty or tackling the problems of climate change."

Other anti-Trident signatories include Scritti Politti, Ian Brown, Sway, Snow Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, British Sea Power, Supergrass, Babyshambles, Dirty Pretty Things, Elbow, Archie Bronson Outfit, Chemical Brothers, Zero 7, the Magic Numbers, King Biscuit Time, Doves, and more. For the complete text of the statement and all who signed, check out the .pdf linked below. Not surprisingly, you won't find any Gallagher brothers on it.

In addition, CND, Stop the War Coalition, and the British Muslim Initiative are calling for a demonstration against Trident replacement this Saturday, February 24. Demonstrators will gather at noon at London's famed free-speech site Speakers' Corner, near Marble Arch in northeast Hyde Park. Please protest responsibly, people!