Obama tells Cabinet to make $100 million in cuts

AP – President Barack Obama works with volunteers as he and the first lady plant a tree while participating …

WASHINGTON – Calling on Americans to volunteer, President Barack Obama signed a $5.7 billion national service bill Tuesday that triples the size of the AmeriCorps service program over the next eight years and expands ways for students to earn money for college. "What this legislation does, then, is to help harness this patriotism and connect deeds to needs," said Obama, a former community organizer in Chicago.

"It creates opportunities to serve for students, seniors and everyone in between," he said. "And it is just the beginning of a sustained, collaborative and focused effort to involve our greatest resource — our citizens — in the work of remaking this nation."

Joining Obama was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who has been battling brain cancer. Kennedy championed the legislation with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the bill was named in honor of the Massachusetts Democrat.

Kennedy told the audience that included former President Bill Clinton, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former first lady Rosalyn Carter that Obama's efforts echoed those of his late brother, President John F. Kennedy.

"Today, another young president has challenged another generation to give back to their nation," Kennedy said, citing his brother's advocacy for the Peace Corps.

The service law expands ways for students and seniors to earn money for college through their volunteer work. It aims to foster and fulfill people's desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or buildings and weatherizing homes for the poor.

"I'm asking you to help change history's course, put your shoulder up against the wheel," Obama said. "And if you do, I promise you your life will be richer, our country will be stronger, and someday, years from now, you may remember it as the moment when your own story and the American story converged, when they came together, and we met the challenges of our new century."

Bolstering voluntary public service programs has been a priority of Obama, who credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life. The president cited his work in Chicago as an example of how one person can make a difference.

"All that's required on your part is a willingness to make a difference," Obama said. "And that is, after all, the beauty of service: Anybody can do it."

Obama visited the SEED School of Washington, a public boarding school that serves inner-city students facing problems in both the classroom and at home, for the signing ceremony.

Afterward, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama joined Clinton to plant trees at a national park site along the Anacostia River in northeast Washington. At the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, Obama rolled up his sleeves with volunteers from the Student Conservation Association and local public high schools.

"Somebody forgot my boots," Obama joked to the students.

Obama on Tuesday also nominated Nike Inc. vice president Maria Eitel to lead the federal agency that oversees the country's national service programs.

Eitel, who's also president of the Nike Foundation, would have to be confirmed by the Senate to become CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Congress passed the bill last month with largely bipartisan support and Obama is seeking $1.1 billion to fund it next year. Some Republicans complain it is too costly and is an unnecessary intrusion by government into something Americans already do eagerly and in great numbers — helping their neighbors and communities.

The legislation provides for gradually increasing the size of the Clinton-era AmeriCorps to 250,000 enrollees from its current 75,000. It outlines five broad categories where people can direct their service: helping the poor, improving education, encouraging energy efficiency, strengthening access to health care and assisting veterans.

AmeriCorps offers a range of volunteer opportunities including housing construction, youth outreach, disaster response and caring for the elderly. Most receive an annual stipend of slightly less than $12,000 for working 10 months to a year.

AmeriCorps has seen a recent surge in applications, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the program.

In March, the organization received 17,038 online AmeriCorps applications, nearly double those received in the previous month and nearly triple the 6,770 received last March.

Alan Solomont, who chairs AmeriCorps' board, said former President John F. Kennedy's call to service inspired more people to help others than just those who joined the Peace Corps. He said this national service legislation could produce the same effect.

"It is not unlike the moment in 1960 when President Kennedy asked Americans, you know, to serve, but it is certainly going to engage millions more today," Solomont said in a conference call arranged by the White House.

The bill also ties volunteer work to money for college.

People 55 and older could earn $1,000 education awards by getting involved in public service. Those awards can be transferred to a child, grandchild or even someone they mentored.

Students from sixth grade through senior year of high school could earn a $500 education award for helping in their neighborhoods during a new summer program.

AP – An artist's impression of 'Planet e' , forground left, released by the European Organisation for Astronomical …

HATFIELD, England – In the search for Earth-like planets, astronomers zeroed in Tuesday on two places that look awfully familiar to home. One is close to the right size. The other is in the right place. European researchers said they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, called Gliese 581 e, but realized that a neighboring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habitable zone for potential life.

"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland.

An American expert called the discovery of the tiny planet "extraordinary."

Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of Earth — while previous planets found outside our solar system are closer to the size of massive Jupiter, which NASA says could swallow more than 1,000 Earths.

Gliese 581 e sits close to the nearest star, making it too hot to support life. Still, Mayor said its discovery in a solar system 20 1/2 light years away from Earth is a "good example that we are progressing in the detection of Earth-like planets."

Scientists also discovered that the orbit of planet Gliese 581 d, which was found in 2007, was located within the "habitable zone" — a region around a sun-like star that would allow water to be liquid on the planet's surface, Mayor said.

He spoke at a news conference Tuesday at the University of Hertfordshire during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.

Gliese 581 d is probably too large to be made only of rocky material, fellow astronomer and team member Stephane Udry said, adding it was possible the planet had a "large and deep" ocean.

"It is the first serious 'water-world' candidate," Udry said.

Mayor's main planet-hunting competitor, Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, praised the find of Gliese 581 e as "the most exciting discovery" so far of exoplanets — planets outside our solar system.

"This discovery is absolutely extraordinary," Marcy told The Associated Press by e-mail, calling the discoveries a significant step in the search for Earth-like planets.

While Gliese 581 e is too hot for life "it shows that nature makes such small planets, probably in large numbers," Marcy commented. "Surely the galaxy contains tens of billions of planets like the small, Earth-mass one announced here."

She knows this only because someone told her about it later. She has no memory of the time between when she filled up water bottles for her bike ride and when she awoke from surgery five days later to discover that her own body "felt like a foreign place to me."

On a sunny May afternoon in 1998, she had suffered a spinal cord injury that left her a paraplegic. Gulden, now 42, is one of 5.6 million Americans living with some degree of paralysis, according to a just-released survey commissioned by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

In some ways, though, Gulden is far from typical.

Teaching criminal justice

The former police officer in Alexandria (a handcuffs key on the keychain tucked beneath her bicycle seat led to her sergeant identifying her) and triathlete teaches criminal justice full time at Alexandria's sprawling T.C. Williams High School — featured in the 2000 film Remember the Titans.

She retired from the police department on disability in 2000 and, for a time, "traveled and fooled around. In some ways, living was a full-time job." When a new REI store opened near her home in Arlington, Va., she took a job as a saleswoman, figuring "I'll meet like-minded people."

Police department friends told her about the opening for a criminal justice teacher at T.C. Williams. "I had come to realize that I really like kids," Gulden says, so she applied for the job.

Although she taught three years at the police academy, this is her first year teaching high school. One day last week, she asked her students what they liked most about a recent field trip to see the Alexandria jail and courthouse. Said one girl: "The best part for me was how Miss Gulden knew everybody."

Relatively few Americans with spinal cord injuries are employed, the new survey suggests. It found that 42% have an annual household income of less than $15,000, while that's true for only 13% of the general population. More could work, says Joe Canose of the Reeve Foundation, but they'd lose Medicare coverage if they earned too much.

An eloquent "ambassador" for the Reeve Foundation, Gulden has testified on Capitol Hill about the need for stem cell research.

Last month, she was among the invited guests at the White House when President Obama announced he was reversing the Bush administration's limits on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research.

She presented the president with a pair of Superman dog tags from the Reeve Foundation for his daughters. Pretty heady stuff for a Northumberland, Pa., native who credits actress Angie Dickinson in the 1970s TV show Police Woman for her interest in law enforcement.

'It doesn't get easier'

But if Gulden seems upbeat when you first meet, do not tell her that she seems to have adjusted well to life in a wheelchair.

"I may just be having a good day," says Gulden, who was injured while training for a 330-mile ride to raise money for AIDS. "It doesn't get easier. It just gets different."

Not surprisingly, people living with paralysis have an increased risk of depression, says Edwin Trevathan, director of the Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Being in a wheelchair also raises their risk of obesity and related diseases, such as diabetes, Trevathan says, as well as bladder and kidney problems.

Pressure sores also are a problem. To reduce her risk, several times an hour Gulden grasps the top of her chair's wheels and pushes straight down, raising her bottom off the seat for a second or two.

Nearly 11 years after her accident, living still is nearly a full-time job for Gulden.

She awakes at 4 a.m., because it takes her an hour and a half to get ready, much of that time in the bathroom. And this is a woman with very close-cropped dark hair who doesn't wear makeup.

She drives her station wagon to T.C. Williams, where she arrives a little after 6 a.m. "There's just so much to do, I can't get it all done between 8 and 8:30," when her first class begins. She returns home at 4:45 p.m. Every other day, after letting her yellow Lab outside to do his business, she starts her "bowel program." That requires sitting on the toilet for an hour and a half.

"Who spends 2½ hours a day in the bathroom?" Gulden says.

At least she can get into her bathroom. When she visits her brother in California, she must stay in a hotel because his bathroom doorways aren't wide enough for her wheelchair. When visiting friends close to home, she has to keep her stay short for the same reason.

Other barriers are attitudinal.

Despite her many accomplishments, Gulden says, "there's still an attitude that because I'm in a wheelchair, I can't do anything."

When her faculty mentor introduced her last summer to another teacher at T.C. Williams, that teacher addressed questions about her to the mentor instead of Gulden.

Says Gulden: "We're all a bunch of 'Delta Does.' "

When you consider all the studies, statistics, reports, and books, you realize that they all paint the same bleak and depressing picture. We spend more and billions every year but SAT scores fall. Our better students do not compete well with the better students from other countries. The general public seems to know barely enough to read a daily newspaper. Can most Americans find Idaho on a map? Never mind Japan? And then there’s the really big mystery: 50 million functional illiterates. How could this happen?

To answer all these puzzles, I researched further and further back in history. I tried to understand how the early educators, a century ago, looked at life, at their country, at children, and at this new field they had created. You want to know what’s really funny? These people in fact were not primarily interested in education as most of us understand that term. They were obsessed with ideology, psychological breakthroughs, and cultural transformations. They saw the school as a tool. Education was the factory in which they intended to build a new society. Note that nobody asked them to do this; they arrogantly appointed themselves our saviors. They didn’t do us any favors.

At this point I have more than 120 articles on the web trying to explain how and why our educators got off track. I’ve been especially fascinated by the reading war, which is far and away our biggest, dumbest scandal and a blazing paradigm for everything else. As I understood the damage caused by bogus reading methods, I began to have a clearer sense of what we need to do across the board: simply enough, get rid of all the failed ideas.

Oddly enough, we are engaged in a war with our own educators. I want to persuade people that this is an intellectual war; and we must fight the bad ideas with good ideas. So I’ve collected my 50 favorite articles in a book titled THE EDUCATION ENIGMA (What Happened To American Education). Partly it’s a history book. It’s also a guidebook to the toxic nonsense in American schools. Most importantly, it’s a map to a better future. It’s also entertaining. What other book talks about Pavlov, Mick Jagger, the Tao, John Dewey and robots?

My thesis is that we have no hope of improvement unless we understand exactly what happened to American education: our schools were made dumb by design. Then we have to identify and deconstruct all the gimmicks that have been smuggled into the system. Throwing more billions of dollars at the problem won’t help. Writing more glowing policy recommendations won’t help. Giving money to so-called best practice won’t help. Our educators are set in their ways; they often seem addicted to worst practice. We need an intervention.

So our first job is simply this: we have to grasp that our house is dirty and then clean it. We have to get rid of the overhyped “progressive” innovations that turn out in practice to be destructive and regressive. For example, Whole Word, Reform Math, Constructivism, Self Esteem, Cooperative Learning, Fuzzy Anything, and much more. We need to restore basics and academics to their proper prominence.

Many people are comforted by the idea that our educators are clumsy, inept, or befuddled by fads. No, I’m afraid you really have a much better sense of what happened to us if you imagine a bunch of guys like John Dewey gathered around a table discussing their philosophical goals, devising strategies, and trying to figure out how to keep the public from interfering. I know people who shy away from the word conspiracy. But let’s be realistic. This track record goes back nearly a century. Let’s show respect for those 50 million functional illiterates who spent their lives in a twilight zone thanks to John Dewey and his pals. You can’t create this kind of disaster in a few years or by accident. No, the perpetrators have to keep plugging away, decade after decade.

I should mention by the way that I never criticize teachers. I’m concerned only with the top educators, people with Ph.D.’s at Teachers College and such. These people are responsible for what happens in American education. Teachers are as much their victims as children are.

Britain's Got Talent hopeful Susan Boyle became an overnight sensation last week with her moving performance of "I Dream A Dream" from the Broadway musical Les Miserables. Her back story of being a 48-year-old plain Jane who had never been kissed and lives with her cat helped her rack up tens of millions of YouTube video plays in days.

But 12-year-old Shaheen Jafargholi from Mount Pleasant, Swansea appears to have the goods to eclipse Boyle.

Jafargholi's performance Saturday night on the competition show has given the Internet yet another new buzz.

Initially, Jafargholi's fate did not look so promising when he began singing Amy Winehouse's "Valerie." Though his pure vocals were evident, judge Simon Cowell stopped him just seconds into the song to tell him that he was headed in the wrong direction and asked him what else he sang.

Instead of being crushed, the savvy preteen immediately responded with The Jackson 5's "Who's Loving You?" (Click image below to see him perform.)

From the first note of the track, Jafargholi won over Cowell, the other judges and audience.

Susan Boyle is incredible, but personality plays a big part on these shows. It is going to be tough for a humble, middle aged woman who is hesitant to get a makeover to pose stiff competition for a cute kid who is quick on his feet and able to tackle a Michael Jackson song.

While Jafargholi's skill is undeniable the Jackson song was not spontaneous or much of a risk for him. Last year, he toured the UK for six weeks performing Jackson music for an elaborate pop concert-style show Wales reports.

Additionally, he already has an impressive resume that includes attending The Mark Jermin Stage School in Swansea since the age of five, appearing in the BBC's Torchwood And Casualty and an ad for Comic Relief.

And if that is not enough competition for Susan Boyle, Jafargholi also offers humility to match.

When asked how he felt when Cowell interrupted his performance and asked him to sing a different song, Jafargholi said he was grateful. "I couldn't believe Simon Cowell had given me a second chance," Jarargholi told Wales. "He's basically God in the music industry."

NEC and Panasonic will unveil on Monday nine new cell phone models running the open-source LiMo operating system, wireless Linux foundation LiMo said at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.

The focus of the cell phone market has been shifting to software development since Google and Apple entered the mobile market in the past two years, with phone vendors and operators increasingly looking for open source alternatives like LiMo to cut costs.

The market for software platforms on cell phones is led by Nokia's Symbian operating system, but it has lost much ground over the last year to Apple and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

Computer operating system Linux has had little success in cell phones thus far, but its role is increasing with the LiMo platform, and Google is using Linux for its Android platform.

Linux is the most popular type of free or so-called open source computer operating system, which is available to the public to be used, revised and shared.

Linux suppliers earn money selling improvements and technical services, and Linux competes directly with Microsoft, which charges for its Windows software and opposes freely sharing its code.

LiMo also said five firms -- Aromasoft, CasioHitachi Mobile Communications, Marvell, Opera Software and Swisscom -- had joined the not-for-profit foundation, increasing its membership to 55.

Google's Android camp has so far announced 47 members.

However, LiMo has been missing support from the largest cell phone vendors -- so far only NEC, Panasonic and Motorola have unveiled phones using its software.

The world's second- and third-largest cell phone vendors, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, are members of LiMo, but have not unveiled commercial models.

LG Electronics will be providing technology previews of its sleek touchscreen handset at the trade show, LiMo said, while Samsung will show plans of two devices.

LiMo hopes to benefit from its focus on giving greater say over software development to telecoms operators.

Last week its key members -- Vodafone, Orange, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, Korea's SK Telecom, U.S. operator Verizon Wireless and Telefonica -- pledged to introduce LiMo phones in 2009.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki, editing by Martin Golan)

Washington will be the first U.S. city to get free digital TV broadcasts for mobile devices like cell phones, laptop computers and in-car entertainment systems, broadcasters were set to announce Monday.

Broadcasts using new "mobile DTV" technology are expected to begin in late summer from five stations: local affiliates of CBS, NBC, PBS and Ion and one independent station owned by Fox.

The initial broadcasts will be identical to those beamed to TV sets, including the advertising.

It's unclear what devices might be available with the special receivers needed for the new signals. Cell phones are main candidates for the technology, but the wireless carriers have shown no enthusiasm, and the largest two have their own TV services, which require subscriptions.

However, Dell Inc. will be showing a prototype of a small laptop with a built-in mobile DTV receiver at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas this week. The computer maker joins cell phone makers LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in supporting the technology. Kenwood Corp. is developing car-based receivers.

The companies backing the technology in the so-called Open Mobile Video Coalition said Washington was chosen as a test market because the city is full of tech-savvy viewers who pay attention to local news. Attention from politicians and regulators probably doesn't hurt either — the coalition has earlier pointed to the usefulness of free mobile TV broadcasts in case of emergencies and disasters like hurricanes.

Broadcasters plan to quickly start broadcasts in more than two dozen other cities by the end of the year, covering 39 percent of U.S. households. Among the target cities are New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Atlanta.

AP – In this photo taken on Feb. 26, 2009, aeration basins are seen in operation at the Wilmington Wastewater …

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.

Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.

As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.

To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.

But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.

"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.

Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.

Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.

Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.

Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.

Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.

Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.

___

Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals — the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide — account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.

However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.

Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.

A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried — 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.

In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate — which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish — to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.

___

Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations — albeit aimed at other chemicals — help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.

"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."

Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?

No drugmaker answered directly.

"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.

AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."

One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater — but outside the United States.

The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."

It's not just the industry that isn't testing.

FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro — whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" — did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.

"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."

His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s — before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed — that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.

Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.

"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."

Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.

"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."

___

After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.

Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.

Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.

Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.

The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.

"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.

Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.

In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a blood thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.

Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.

"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."

Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.

"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."

Miss North Carolina USA Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA 2009 on Sunday, beating out 50 other beauty queens in the live pageant televised from Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas

The 22-year-old aspiring motivational speaker and entertainer from Wilmington edged out first runner-up Miss California USA Carrie Prejean, of San Diego, and second runner-up Miss Arizona USA Alicia-Monique Blanco, of Phoenix.

"It feels really natural," Dalton said of her win. "I've worked so be here and this has been my lifelong dream and it's finally here. And whoever knew you could win in a turquoise gown?"

Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia competed in the pageant, aired live on NBC. Contestants were judged by their performance in swimsuit and evening gown modeling contests and their responses to a question asked onstage; unlike the rival Miss America pageant, Miss USA contestants do not perform a talent.

The top 15 contestants worked the stage in white string bikinis designed by pop star Jessica Simpson's swimwear line. Rocker Kevin Rudolf performed his song "Let it Rock," followed by The Veronicas, who performed their single "Untouched" as the top 10 beauties showed off their choice of glittering evening gowns.

Dalton's was a flowing, blue Grecian number that stood out among a series of white gowns.

Her title comes with a year's use of a New York apartment, a public relations team, a two-year scholarship at the New York Film Academy and an undisclosed salary.

She also will go to the Bahamas in August to compete in the Miss Universe pageant, where American beauties haven't been lucky in recent years. Both Miss USA 2008 Crystle Stewart and her predecessor, Rachel Smith, wiped out on stage during the evening gown competition, becoming accidental YouTube stars.

Asked about the tumble during the show on Sunday, Stewart said it was a lesson in bouncing back from defeat.

"I think it was a true test of my character," said the 27-year-old Texan, who worked to raise awareness for breast cancer as she traveled the globe promoting the beauty contest.

If there is a YouTube moment from Sunday's show, it may be Miss California's answer to a question about legalizing same-sex marriage. The tall blonde stumbled some before giving an answer that appeared to please the pageant audience.

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," Prejean said. "And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Some in the audience cheered, others booed. The answer sparked a shouting match in the lobby after the show.

"It's ugly," said Scott Ihrig, a gay man, who attended the pageant with his partner. "I think it's ridiculous that she got first runner-up. That is not the value of 95 percent of the people in this audience. Look around this audience and tell me how many gay men there are."

Charmaine Koonce, the mother of Miss New Mexico USA Bianca Carla, argued back.

"In the Bible it says marriage is between Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve!"

The pageant had enjoyed a scandal-free year until earlier this month, when Miss Universe 2008 Dayana Mendoza was skewered for a blog posting from a trip to Guantanamo Bay. The entry described having "aloooot of fun" at a base that houses the notorious military prison; it was later deleted from the pageant's Web site.

The contest, which is owned by NBC and reality TV mogul Donald Trump, was hosted by "Access Hollywood" co-anchor Billy Bush and Nadine Velazquez of the NBC sitcom "My Name is Earl." This year's judges included "Saturday Night Live" cast member Kenan Thompson, "Dancing with the Stars" winner Kelly Monaco and gossip blogger Perez Hilton

Miss Wyoming USA Cynthia Pate, of Casper, Wyo., was voted Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants. Jessi Pierson, of Milton, W.Va., was voted Miss Photogenic through an online contest on the Miss Universe Web site.

Organizers said Sunday's show kicks off "Green Week" at NBC. As part of the environmental awareness campaign, the Miss USA crown was designed by a jeweler that specializes in conflict-free and eco-friendly jewels. The crown from Diamond Nexus Labs of Franklin, Wis., is worth $202,000.

AFP/HO/File – Handout picture released by the Venezuelan Presidency press office showing Venezuelan President Hugo …

PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) – A book accusing the United States of being a neo-colonial bully in the Americas has rocketed up the sales charts, after a copy was given as a gift by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to US leader Barack Obama.

The book, "The Open Veins of Latin America" was given by Chavez, a longtime US critic, to Obama Saturday at an Americas summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

The English version of the tome, a well-known in leftist political circles, catapulted from 734th place to second place in just 24 hours on the online bookseller Amazon.com.

The work in its original Spanish language had an even more spectacular ascent, from 47,468th place to 283th. It also showed substantial increased sales on the website of online bookseller Barnes and Noble.

The work by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano is about the region's colonial past and exploitation by the world's big powers -- themes hammered constantly by Chavez, who frequently accuses the United States of "imperialist" policies.

Chavez had inscribed the book to his US counterpart with the message "For Obama, with affection."

The Venezuelan leader told reporters Saturday that "this book is a monument in our Latin American history. It allows us to learn history, and we have to build on this history."

Obama on Sunday called the gift "a nice gesture."

"I think it was, it was a nice gesture to give me a book," he said at a press conference at the conclusion of the three day summit. "I'm a reader."

Obama added that recent harsh rhetoric did not mean that the two countries could not engage in civil dialogue.

"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interest of the United States," Obama said.

Despite its theme, the gift might have been meant as another conciliatory gesture from Chavez, whose country is a major oil exporter to the United States.

Hours after giving Obama the book, the Venezuelan leader said he was naming Roy Chaderton, Venezuela's current representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), to be his new ambassador to Washington.

The job had been open since September, when Chavez kicked out the US ambassador to Venezuela and Washington responded in kind.

Proposed Tax Increases on Six-Figure Earners Highlight Mounting Costs of Living -- and the Relativity of Prosperity

Ellen Parnell and her husband, Donald Parnell Jr., seem like the kind of well-off couple President Barack Obama has in mind when he suggests raising taxes on families earning more than $250,000 a year. A surgeon at Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center in Sevierville, Tenn., he drives an Infiniti. They vacation at a beach resort every year.

"I'm not complaining, but the reality is Obama may call me wealthy, but I thought we were just good old middle class," says Ms. Parnell. "Our needs are being met, but we don't have a load of cash to cover wants."

It is a tricky situation in which some Americans find themselves after a long boom: They are by no means struggling, compared with the 98% of Americans who make far less, but depending on where they live and the lifestyle choices they have made, they don't necessarily feel rich, either. Worse, in their view, they are facing the same tax rates as those making millions. Some of the expenses are self-inflicted -- like private-school costs and conspicuous consumption. Others, though, are unavoidable, like child-care costs, larger health-care deductibles and education expenses, especially college.

Under Mr. Obama's budget proposal, two of the highest tax brackets would see rates rise, and deductions would be reduced for households earning more than $250,000 annually. President Obama said Wednesday, "We've made a clear promise that families that earn less than $250,000 will not see their taxes increase by a single dime."

By any statistical measure, that income level is at the top of the bracket. But for those closest to the line, the money might be less a sign of affluence than it is of the industry of dual-income couples. It is possible, say observers, that veteran civil servants could fall into the higher tax bracket.

The political calculation is dicey. The White House needs the additional revenue to cover some of its ambitious policy agenda, especially a health-care revamp. But some polling data suggest households that earn above $200,000 went heavily for Mr. Obama in November.

Until more details of the tax changes are disclosed, it is unclear whether people making big six-figure sums will be affected at all. They may, for example, be able to avoid tax increases if any number of deductions pull them below the threshold. But that isn't stopping those who earn near the threshold from worrying about it.

Already, many members of Congress are seeking to scale back some of the proposed tax increases, which call for raising the top federal tax rates to 36% from 33% on households earning $250,000 or above.

Wealth and comfort "depends on where you're coming from," said Lois Avitt, a sociologist and founding director of the Institute for Socio-Financial Studies in Charlottesville, Va. To a family earning $50,000, $250,000 is well off, but for the family earning $250,000, rising college and medical costs and dropping home values make the perception debatable.

The reasons for the insecurity are that net worth is declining at the same time that expenses like education and health care, two of the biggest concerns cited by members of that income group, are going up faster than wages and income, says Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "Those are the biggies. They are huge parts of the set of middle-class aspirations, and the prices of those have increased way faster than income." The bursting of the housing bubble makes that more stark.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, says data show that over the last 10 years, education costs have risen 5.91% annually, and health- care expenses have gone up 4.16% annually, while wages and income have risen only 3.7% over the same time span. That means many families are seeing a greater percentage of their income going toward those two areas.

Education costs, which are far outstripping wages and income, are especially worrisome for this income bracket because upper-income earners are much less likely to receive the kind of financial aid that lower income levels can expect.

The drop in net worth has been staggering. The Federal Reserve, in a recent report, found that U.S. households' net worth dropped by $11 trillion, a decline of nearly 18%, during 2008. That wealth includes everything from home values to mutual funds and life insurance, college and pension funds. The decline equaled the combined output of Germany, Japan and the U.K.

Changes to the tax code don't generally make adjustments for high costs of living in particular areas of the country.

San Jose, Calif., Mayor Chuck Reed calls a family living in Silicon Valley earning $250,000 "upper working class." That is about what two engineers working at a technology firm can expect to make, but "a family earning $250,000 a year can't buy a home in Silicon Valley," he said.

James Duran owns a human-resources company in Silicon Valley and is president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in California. He supported Mr. Obama, but is worried about the tax proposals. He has laid off some employees in recent months and has been wondering how he can fund an extension of those workers' health-care benefits.

Mr. Duran said he and his wife earn about $400,000 annually, but "I'm barely getting by." They have high property and state taxes, as well as college tuition and savings to cover. "I'm an Obama man, but this side of him is a difficult pill for me," he said.

Van Moore, an optometrist in Sevierville, makes just enough in his practice that he worries he might qualify for the tax increase. Mr. Moore said he was contemplating adding two staff workers and another doctor to his practice, but then the economy went soft. In the years after he finished optometry school, his first job brought in less than $20,000 a year. Then he made $50,000 for several years, all the while dealing with his $150,000 student-loan debt, which he still has. Now he is making just above $250,000.

"I'm not in a mobile home with no utilities or running water and holes in the floor," he said. "I'm not poor, but I'm not rich."

For the Parnells, their perception of themselves is based on the math. The value of their house is down $60,000. Ms. Parnell says the couple's gross income last year was about $260,000. Taxes, premiums for medical care and deductions for Social Security and their 401(k) contributions cut the gross to about $12,000 per month. The family tithes $1,300 a month at their church. Their mortgage, second mortgage and payment on land they bought is nearly $4,000 a month. Other expenses, including their family car payment, insurance and college funds, as well as basics like food, utilities and donations to charities, leave them with about $1,200 left over each month.

"I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury."