| Tax plan gets cold response
Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel said the circuit breaker provision would require the city to slash its operations budget by an estimated $4.6 million in 2010. In practical terms, Weinzapfel said, that could necessitate drastic cuts such as the loss of 58 police officers or 61 firefighters. Or, the mayor said, the city could be forced to close the zoo and eliminate maintenance at its parks, while still falling short by $500,000 or more. "These are real numbers, and this would have a real impact on city operations," he said. The requirement that large capital projects be approved by voters in a referendum could hurt the city's economic development efforts, Weinzapfel said. The mayor cited American General Finance's $35 million expansion of its corporate headquarters, an investment that also brought the promise of 150 new jobs over five years.
FDA says meat from cloned animals is safe but not everyone agrees
The FDA says seven years of detailed study and analysis have shown that meat and milk from cloned animals are as safe as food from conventionally bred animals. The advice applies to meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and goats. The FDA says insufficient information was available to enable a conclusion on the safety of food from clones of other animal species, such as sheep. The FDA has issued three documents on animal cloning outlining the agency's regulatory approach - a risk assessment; a risk management plan; and guidance for industry which were released in draft form in December 2006. Since then the agency says the risk assessment has been updated to include new scientific information which reinforces the food safety conclusions of the drafts.
Kranz: Four decades, five presidents
When it came time for me to position my old box camera on the fence to take the picture that my boss at the Austin Daily Herald had insisted I get, I snapped the shutter. But the camera had frozen. This was more than a bummer.
I got in the old, white Ford company car and headed for downtown Rochester to the Kahler Hotel, where the Johnsons would take a break before going to a dinner for Mayo directors. I stood outside and waited, hoping to redeem myself from the photographic failure at the fence. First, I took a picture of them emerging from the hotel. Then I crouched at the side of the limousine, wanting to get one of those black-and-white pictures of a president in a limousine, waving to the crowd as he left.
I ended up in a one-way conversation with President Johnson, something short of an interview.
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