Texting a Million Thanks

When Shauna Fleming was 15 years old, she set out to convince Americans to write thank-you notes to overseas troops. So she founded amillionthanks.org, with a goal to send 1 million letters to

Fleming met that goal within six months of starting the project, through fairs, air shows and NASCAR races. Four million letters later, the Pentagon took notice.

Now Fleming is a college freshman whom the Department of Defense has drafted to move her gratitude-gathering efforts into the digital age by using her organization to support the effort to text troops over the holiday.

“When they came to me and had this new novel idea … to send text messages,” Fleming said, “I thought it was great because it’s something that’s immediate.”

Click here to learn more about the program “America Supports You.”

Major cell phone carriers have agreed to send the messages for free. People can send a text message of thanks to 8-9-2-7-9, until midnight, PT, on Thanksgiving Day. The messages end up on a Web site, where troops with Web access around the world can log on to read the sentiments and respond.

“Thank you for keeping us safe,” one text message from Maryland reads.

At just more than 62,000 text messages sent so far, the program has a way to go to reach that million-message goal. But it’s doable, considering that quick texting is this generation’s communiqué of choice.

“I thought it was a really easy way just to be able to … send a text message of thanks,” said student Maria Sanchez. “I mean, as college students, we don’t exactly have all the time in the world to sit and write a card.”

And it is Fleming’s mission to engage her peers in a war that is out of sight … and often out of mind.

“A lot of them may not get support from their friends and family. They may not get care packages, and so, you have some soldiers … who are sitting there who get absolutely nothing,” Fleming said. “This is something that will connect them with home … where complete strangers will say ‘Happy Thanksgiving, Happy holidays. We’re thinking about you.’”

This is the fifth Thanksgiving since the invasion of Iraq. Fleming believes a million thanks is the least we can do.

Happy in their personal lives, Americans worry about country

WASHINGTON (AP) — Julie Murray says life is good. Yet gasoline prices are crimping her grocery budget, she can’t afford a larger house, and she says President Bush is not focused enough on people’s problems at home.

“My husband and I are happy,” said Murray, 46, a homemaker from Montpelier, Miss. “We just wish we could buy more into the American dream.”

Like Murray, most in the U.S. say they are personally happy and feel in control of their lives and finances, according to an extensive Associated Press-Yahoo! News survey on the mood of voters. Beneath the surface, though, personal and political discontent is bubbling.

There is a widespread unease—shared by 77 percent—that the country has meandered off in the wrong direction. Nearly all Democrats and more than six in 10 Republicans think the country has taken the wrong course. And although almost half express interest and hope in the upcoming elections, a third voice frustration—particularly Republicans.

The AP-Yahoo! News survey will track voters’ perspectives during the run-up to next year’s election, interviewing more than 2,000 people repeatedly about their lives and views about the country, candidates and issues. The polling, conducted by Knowledge Networks, will let the AP and Yahoo! track how and why opinions form and change during the campaign.

People are paying attention to the 2008 presidential campaign. Solid majorities think their vote matters and say this wide-open presidential contest is more important than usual.

Stirred in are warning signs for Republican candidates: Democrats seething after nearly seven years under President Bush are happier and more psyched up about this election than Republicans.

More Democrats than Republicans say they are hopeful about the voting, 54 percent to 39 percent, and more of them are interested in it. Republicans are more likely to say the election leaves them frustrated and bored.

“There’s no one out there to vote for,” Rocky Belcher, 43, a Republican and college professor from Vandalia, Ohio, said about the GOP field. “That means a lot of Republicans may not get out there to vote.”

Happy and unhappy people alike say they are likelier to vote for the Democratic nominee, with the unhappy—who are likelier to be lower-income and less educated—giving Democrats a bigger, 2-to-1 margin. When it comes to the candidates battling for those nominations, the two front-runners—Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former GOP New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani—are faring about equally among the happy and unhappy.

More Democrats than Republicans say the 2008 contest is unusually important, and they are likelier to describe themselves as excited, interested and hopeful. By wider margins than Democrats, Republicans say the election makes them feel frustrated and bored.

Democrats and Republicans differ when defining the key issues. Democrats list the economy and health care followed by Iraq, while Republicans name three equally—terrorism, the economy and Iraq.

Joseph Lyon, a 22-year-old Republican from Houston, is most troubled by a fear the U.S. will leave Iraq too soon and by immigrants who stream into the U.S. but do not learn English.

“That’s ridiculous,” said Lyon, who begins serving with the Marines early next year. “They come here to live and expect us to assimilate to them. It’s our country.”

In Oshkosh, Wis., Jenny Walsh is most concerned about the failure to end the war and what she sees as a growing gap between rich and poor.

“We need change, just something that’s completely different,” said Walsh, 28, a Democrat and convenience store manager. “It’s just slowly going downhill.”

With the limp housing and credit markets dominating recent headlines, financial problems are at the heart of many people’s worries. Though three-quarters say they control their financial situation, most say they are having trouble getting ahead, including a third who say that has become very difficult.

“Something’s gotten out of synch between what we make and what things cost,” said Sandra Dempsey, 47, a child-care provider in Jonesboro, Ga. “Slowly but surely the middle class is becoming the lower class.”

In a measure of the two parties’ traditional strengths with income classes, people saying they are enjoying good financial times said they are slightly likelier to support next year’s Republican presidential candidate over the Democrat. Those saying times are tough are less likely to vote, but back the Democrat by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, though they don’t necessarily blame Republicans for their problems.

“We have illegal immigrants coming in, they work for cheaper and that keeps black folks out of jobs,” said Charlie Burnette, 56, a mechanic from Durham, N.C.

When it comes to the stressed out, they are as likely to vote Democratic or Republican as are those without such tension in their lives. The same is true for people who generally trust others and those who do not.

While two-thirds said they approve of gambling, overwhelming majorities disapproved of heavy drinking, smoking marijuana, and using cable TV or a neighbor’s Internet connection or sharing music or video files without paying. There are scant party differences in most, though Democrats were twice as likely as Republicans to approve of marijuana smoking, and young people are far likelier than their elders to assent to each one.

The online survey of 2,230 adults was conducted Nov. 2-12 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points. The survey included 1,049 Democrats, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points, and 827 Republicans, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

This Internet survey uses Knowledge Networks’ online panel, which is nationally representative because people are first contacted using traditional telephone polling methods, and then followed with online interviews. People selected for the study who do not already have Internet access are provided with it for

Hollywood Writers To Return To Negotiation Table November 26

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (November 17, 2007) — Hollywood film and TV writers who’ve been on a nearly two-week strike against studios will return to contract negotiations on Nov. 26, their union and producers said Friday.

In a joint statement, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said both sides had agreed to return to formal negotiations.

The statement said no other details would be released.

“That’s fabulous, that’s great,” said Sean Jablonski, a writer for the FX drama “Nip/Tuck.” “You can’t get a deal until two sides sit down and talk about it,” Jablonski said.

“It’s a good message to hear around the holidays,” he said.

John Aboud, a TV writer and a strike captain, said he hoped a return to talks would quickly lead to a contract.

“I’m delighted to see they’re starting to move forward and I hope we can wrap this thing up soon,” Aboud said.

It’s unclear what pushed both sides back to the table. The strike has been bruising and very public, with writers being joined by actors on picket lines and producers taking out full-page newspaper ads to tell their side of the story.

Since the strike began Nov. 5, late night talk shows and several sitcoms have gone to reruns. Other shows are counting down the number of episodes they have left before running out of scripts.

Industry analysts had thought there would be enough scripts to produce shows well into January. But many shows have gone off the air at a faster pace than expected, as cast members and show runners have refused to cross picket lines.

Compensation for shows offered on the Internet is at the heart of the dispute.

The producers have said it’s offering writers a share of licensing fees paid by Web sites to stream shows. The union has rejected the offer, saying the payments wouldn’t begin until six weeks after a show goes online and viewer interest is nearly exhausted.

Writers also want a cut of revenue from non-skippable ads contained in many shows streamed free online. The alliance slammed the door on that demand.

The last writers walkout in 1988 lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry $500 million. The entertainment industry contributes an estimated $30 billion a year to the Los Angeles economy, or about $80 million a day.

Meanwhile, the writers, who went on strike Nov. 5, would continue on the picket line, said Gregg Mitchell, a spokesman for the guild.

Some writers applauded the return to talks.

Pakistan rejects calls to end emergency

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan on Sunday rejected a blunt call from Washington’s No. 2 diplomat for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to lift emergency rule and free political opponents ahead of elections.

“This is nothing new,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told The Associated Press. “The U.S. has been saying this for many days. He has said that same thing. He has reiterated it.”

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte delivered the message that Musharraf must end emergency rule as soon as possible during a two-hour meeting Saturday with Musharraf and Pakistan’s deputy army commander, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. The envoy’s visit was seen as a last best chance to ease the latest political turmoil in Pakistan.

Sadiq said the government was taking steps to hold free and fair elections, and any decision on lifting the emergency would “be taken according to the ground situation.”

Speaking during a news conference at the U.S. embassy earlier Sunday, Negroponte said he “urged the government to stop such actions, lift the state of emergency and release all political detainees” and that “Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible elections.”

It’s a view shared by opposition leaders, who insist that any vote held while thousands of opponents are in jail cannot be considered credible. They say most of those targeted in the emergency are pro-Western moderates, not the Islamic extremists Musharraf said he needed to combat.

The state of emergency came into effect Nov. 3, and since then, thousands of opponents have been jailed, Supreme Court judges purged and independent TV stations muffled.

Just ahead of Negroponte’s visit, Musharraf made some concessions — freeing opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and a leading human rights activist, and loosening his restrictions on several independent television news outlets.

Though measured in his comments, Negroponte expressed some impatience with Musharraf, saying he hoped to see more steps toward democracy soon. “There remain some other issues that are yet to be considered, or yet to be undertaken,” he said, without going into detail.

But despite Musharraf’s apparent intransigence, Negroponte would not characterize his trip as a failure. “In diplomacy, as you know, we don’t get instant replies when we have these kinds of dialogue,” he said. “I’m sure the president is seriously considering the exchange we had.”

Negroponte also praised Musharraf’s efforts in the war on terror, and said he was heartened by the announcement that elections would be held by Jan. 9.

“President Musharraf has been and continues to be a strong voice against extremism,” he said. “We value our partnership with the government of Pakistan under the leadership of President Musharraf.”

Going into Saturday’s meeting, senior Bush administration officials were clear on what they wanted: an end to the emergency, a date set for legislative elections in January, the release of opposition leaders and that Musharraf step down as army chief.

Kayani is widely expected to take over the powerful role of military chief when Musharraf sheds his uniform and starts his second term as president in the coming weeks.

Shortly after arriving in Pakistan, Negroponte phoned Bhutto, the highest-level U.S. contact with the Pakistani opposition leader since the emergency rule began.

In their discussion, Negroponte underscored Washington’s opposition to the emergency and its desire to see her and other opposition figures free to peacefully take part in Pakistani politics, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. The conversation came just hours after Bhutto was released from house arrest.

Bhutto and Musharraf had been negotiating a power-sharing arrangement, but talks apparently collapsed as the general moved against the opposition following his decision to suspend the constitution.

On Sunday, Negroponte urged the two to restart talks and ease “the atmosphere of brinkmanship and political confrontation.”

“If steps were taken by both sides to move back toward the kind of reconciliation discussions they were having recently, we think that would be very positive and could help improve the political environment,” he said.

Bhutto has in recent days made increasingly strident demands for Musharraf to resign, and has proposed the opposition form a unity front to serve as a transition government ahead of elections.

Musharraf has steadfastly refused. Instead, he’s expressed exasperation with the mounting Western pressure and has pressed ahead with plans for elections, swearing in an interim government Friday charged with preparing for the vote.

___

Dr. Jan Adams Shows Up To Court After Arrest Warrant Issued For Missing Hearing

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (November 16, 2007) – After a warrant for his arrest was issued earlier this morning, embattled surgeon Dr. Jan Adams showed up to court around 11:40AM, essentially turning himself in, Access Hollywood has learned.

As a result, the judge suspended his warrant for failure to appear at his morning hearing and the hearing has been rescheduled for 2PM today.

A spokesperson for Dr. Adams told Access Hollywood he missed his hearing this morning because Adams was “stuck in traffic.”

Earlier today, Dr. Adams, the surgeon who operated on Donda West prior to her death, failed to show up for a court hearing today, according to the LA Superior Court, and a judge issued a $30,000 warrant for his arrest.

This morning’s hearing was a “judgment debtor” examination, stemming from a $100,000 lawsuit brought by former patient Lori Ufondu, who claimed Dr. Adams left a sponge inside of her after a surgical procedure.

“It was quite large, quite large. It took up quite a bit of room in my breast,” Ufondu told Access Hollywood of the material left inside her body.

Ufondu said she went to see Dr. Adams in 1996 to fix a breast augmentation done by another doctor.

She says following the surgery performed by Dr. Adams, she was left with dents below both breasts.

However, it wasn’t until 2003 that Ufondu went to another doctor for reconstructive surgery to correct the problem and the new doctor discovered the sponge, or surgical gauze, that had been left inside for so many years.

“He said that when he opened it up, first of all the stench from the infected area, from the infection was really bad. He said his nurses started to cry. They couldn’t believe what they had seen,” Ufondu told Access Hollywood.

She sued Dr. Adams for medical malpractice and was awarded a default judgment of over $100,000. However, according to Lori, she has yet to receive a dime, thus the reason for Friday’s hearing.

Army desertion up 80 percent since Iraq war

Jeremy Hinzman, a U.S. Army private who deserted to Canada because he opposed the war in Iraq, speaks at a rally in Toronto in March. Canada’s Supreme Court on Thursday ruled U.S. deserters do not qualify for refugee status.

WASHINGTON – Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year.

“We’re asking a lot of soldiers these days,” said Roy Wallace, director of plans and resources for Army personnel. “They’re humans. They have all sorts of issues back home and other places like that. So, I’m sure it has to do with the stress of being a soldier.”

The Army defines a deserter as someone who has been absent without leave for longer than 30 days. The soldier is then discharged as a deserter.

According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.

The increase comes as the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Military leaders — including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey — have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. Efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments.

“We have been concentrating on this,” said Wallace. “The Army can’t afford to throw away good people. We have got to work with those individuals and try to help them become good soldiers.”

Still, he noted that “the military is not for everybody, not everybody can be a soldier.” And those who want to leave the service will find a way to do it, he said.

3 of 4 in first term
While the Army does not have an up-to-date profile of deserters, more than 75 percent of them are soldiers in their first term of enlistment. And most are male.

Soldiers can sign on initially for two to six years. Wallace said he did not know whether deserters were more likely to be those who enlisted for a short or long tour.

At the same time, he said that even as desertions have increased, the Army has seen some overall success in keeping first-term soldiers in the service.

There are four main ways that soldiers can leave the Army before their first enlistment contract is up:

• They are determined unable to meet physical fitness requirements.
• They are found to be unable to adapt to the military.
• They say they are gay and are required to leave under the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
• They go AWOL.

According to Wallace, in the summer of 2005, more than 18 percent of the soldiers in their first six months of service left under one of those four provisions. In June 2007, that number had dropped to about 7 percent.

The decline, he said, is largely due to a drop in the number of soldiers who leave due to physical fitness or health reasons.

Army desertion rates have fluctuated since the Vietnam War — when they peaked at 5 percent. In the 1970s they hovered between 1 and 3 percent, which is up to three out of every 100 soldiers. Those rates plunged in the 1980s and early 1990s to between 2 and 3 out of every 1,000 soldiers.

Desertions began to creep up in the late 1990s into the turn of the century, when the U.S. conducted an air war in Kosovo and later sent peacekeeping troops there.

The numbers declined in 2003 and 2004, in the early years of the Iraq war, but then began to increase steadily.

In contrast, the Navy has seen a steady decline in deserters since 2001, going from 3,665 that year to 1,129 in 2007.

The Marine Corps, meanwhile, has seen the number of deserters stay fairly stable over that timeframe — with about 1,000 deserters a year. During 2003 and 2004 — the first two years of the Iraq war — the number of deserters fell to 877 and 744, respectively.

Fewest in Air Force
The Air Force can tout the fewest number of deserters — with no more than 56 bolting in each of the past five years. The low was in fiscal 2007, with just 16 deserters.

Despite the continued increase in Army desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they find. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.

“My personal opinion is the only way to stop desertions is to change the climate … how they are living and doing what they need to do,” said Wallace, adding that good officers and more attention from Army leaders could “go a long way to stemming desertions.”

Unlike those in the Vietnam era, deserters from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars may not find Canada a safe haven.

Just this week, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of two Army deserters who sought refugee status to avoid the war in Iraq. The ruling left them without a legal basis to stay in Canada and dealt a blow to other Americans in similar circumstances.

The court, as is usual, did not provide a reason for the decision.

Climate change report to warn of potentially ‘irreversible’ impacts

VALENCIA, Spain (AFP) – Less than three weeks before a crucial conference on climate change, UN experts agreed Friday on a draft report that warns global warming may have far-reaching and irreversible consequences.The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is designed to guide policymakers for the next five years.

Delegates to the Nobel-winning scientific authority agreed the draft after night-long negotiations, chief French delegate Marc Gillet told AFP.

Human activities “could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts,” the agreed text said.

The report will be officially adopted on Saturday, followed by a press conference attended by United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.

It summarises three massive documents issued this year covering the evidence for climate change; the present and possible future impacts of it; and the options for tackling the peril.

After Saturday, attention shifts to a key meeting in Bali, Indonesia, where governments must set down a “roadmap” for negotiations culminating in a deal to slash carbon emissions and help developing nations cope with climate change.

The IPCC experts agreed that the rise in Earth’s temperature observed in the past few decades was principally due to human causes, not natural ones, as “climate sceptics” often aver.

The impacts of climate change are already visible, in the form of retreating glaciers and snow loss in alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost, according to the three IPCC reports issued earlier this year.

But sometimes sharp disagreement emerged during the five days of negotiations in Valencia to hammer out the summary, even though the main findings remained untouched.

US delegates in particular said references to “irreversible” climate change and impacts were imprecise.

They argued, for example, that the melting of glaciers or ice sheets — which could raise ocean levels by several meters (a dozen feet) — was not “irreversible” as ice could eventually reform.

“But we are not dealing with geological time scales of tens of thousands of years,” said one delegate, irked by this reasoning. “We are talking about dire consequences to humans and the environment in the coming decades.”

By 2100, global average surface temperatures could rise by between 1.1 C (1.98 F) and 6.4 C (11.52 F) compared to 1980-99 levels, while sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (7.2 and 23.2 inches), according to the IPCC’s forecast.

Heatwaves, rainstorms, drought, tropical cyclones and surges in sea level are among the events expected to become more frequent, more widespread and/or more intense this century.

As a result, water shortages, hunger, flooding and damage to homes will be a heightened threat.

“All countries” will be affected, according to the IPCC. Those bearing the brunt, though, will be poor countries which incidentally bear the least responsibility for creating the problem.

Green groups applauded the provisional report, saying it hiked pressure on world leaders to curb greenhouse gases.

“The result appears to be much better than we had expected going into the meeting,” said Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace, which along with the WWF is an official observer at IPCC meetings.

“It could be a groundbreaking document to pave the way for deep emissions cuts by developed countries,” said WWF’s Stephan Singer.

Belgian IPCC delegate Jean-Pascal van Ypersele said his concerns that the synthesis would only be a “cut-and-paste” rather than a coherent summary proved unfounded.

He pointed to a draft section on “key vulnerabilities” that distilled the main reasons for concern about global warming.

Despite sharp challenges, especially from the US, the text remained intact, making “the problems more prominent,” he said.

The IPCC won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize alongside climate campaigner and former US vice president Al Gore.

The December 3-14 conference in Bali aims at deepening and accelerating cuts in greenhouse-gas pollution after 2012, when current pledges under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol expire.

There is now broad agreement on the amplifying scale of the problem, but countries remain sharply divided on how to tackle it, fearing economic costs and loss of competitive advantage.

Scandal; Former Oprah Speaks To The Media Over School Dorm Matron Faces Judge

JOHANNESBERG, South Africa (November 5, 2007) – Oprah Winfrey spoke out today on the scandal at her Leadership Academy while the former dorm matron accused of abusing six children and one adult was freed on bail.

“This has been one of the most devastating, if not the most devastating experience of my life,” Oprah told a gathering of media in South Africa, via satellite earlier today. “As is often the case, child abuse, sexual abuse happens right within the family. This was also the alleged case here.”

Cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom, but the scene outside was a media crush, with a line of people waiting for a spot inside the packed room.

Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson sat behind Makopo once she entered the courtroom. Makopo, who looks young enough to be a student herself, had her hair back in cornrows. She wore a black Adidas shirt and an olive green skirt.

She was soft-spoken during the hearing and rarely made direct contact with anyone. She constantly wiped her hands with a tissue.

When the judge explained the charges and asked what her plea was going to be, she softly whispered, “Not guilty.”

Makopo was released on the equivalent of $450 bail. While out on bail she must report to the police station every Monday. She cannot leave the area, apply for a passport or have contact with anyone associated with the Leadership Academy or the investigation.

Makopo left the courtroom, covered by her friend’s coat. Once inside the waiting vehicle, photographers pounced on top of the car.

Just hours after Makopo’s release, Oprah broke her silence, speaking for the first time to the press since the school scandal was unleashed. She spoke at the press conference via satellite from Chicago, sharing her devastation over the incidents.

“When I first heard about it I spent about a half hour crying, moving room to room in my house. Within an hour I pulled myself together and started making calls and preparing for what to do next, ” Oprah told journalists.

“I was, needless to say, devastated and really shaken to my core when I first heard this news,” she continued. “I was not directly responsible or in charge, although the buck always stops with me, of hiring the dorm parents.”

Oprah also addressed the criticism received from relieving all the dorm matrons from their job.

“I feel that the girls were placed in an atmosphere where they were taught to be fearful and they were taught to literally be silenced,” she said. “All the girls were afraid of repercussions by other dorm matrons, so we immediately removed all the remaining dorm matrons and put teachers in rotation in the dorms.”

One of the alleged abuse victims has since left the school, but Oprah says she can come back at any time.

“I welcome her,” Oprah said. “I welcome the opportunity for her to come back to the school.

As for the alleged perpetrator, Tiny Makopo, the woman at the center of the scandal — she had her day in court. She appeared inside the Magistrate Courtroom, 13 miles away from Oprah’s Leadership Academy.

Makopo faces 13 charges of indecent assault, assault, and criminal injury allegedly committed against the six students and one adult at the school.

US: NKorea starts disabling nuke program

SEOUL, South Korea – A team of U.S. experts has begun disabling North Korea’s nuclear weapons-making facilities, a U.S. official said, the first time Pyongyang has ever moved to scale back its development of atomic bombs.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Monday in Washington that the disabling of the North’s nuclear reactor at Yongbyon “is a positive first step in this process, and we certainly hope to see it continue.”

He had no details about what specific steps the team was conducting. “This is going to be a process that is going to take some time,” he said.

The North shut down Yongbyon in July and promised to disable it by year’s end in exchange for energy aid and political concessions from other members of talks on its nuclear program: the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

The main U.S. envoy to the talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has said the experts would take steps that would require the North to take at least a year for the reactor to be restarted.

On Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Minister Mashiko Komura said Japan may bear some costs for the disablement of the facilities.

Washington hopes that future talks will yield an agreement for the North to dismantle the facility entirely, and also wants the nuclear bombs Pyongyang is believed to have built to be confiscated.

The country conducted its first-ever nuclear test detonation in October 2006 — the culmination of decades of efforts to build the world’s deadliest weapons — and is believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium to make about a dozen bombs.

Sung Kim, the top State Department expert on the Koreas and head of the U.S. team, was due in Seoul later Tuesday to take part in meeting of U.S. and South Korean defense ministers the following day, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was arriving in Seoul from China for the previously planned discussions on the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Some 29,000 U.S. troops remain deployed in the South as a legacy of the Korean War, which ended in a 1953 cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

Watch your step: Time change can be deadly

Nighttime walkers this weekend more likely to be struck and killed by cars

WASHINGTON – After clocks are turned back this weekend, pedestrians walking during the evening rush hour are nearly three times more likely to be struck and killed by cars than before the time change, two scientists calculate.

Ending daylight savings time translates into about 37 more U.S. pedestrian deaths around 6 p.m. in November compared to October, the researchers report.

Their study of risk to pedestrians is preliminary but confirms previous findings of higher deaths after clocks are set back in fall.

It’s not the darkness itself, but the adjustment to earlier nighttime that’s the killer, said professors Paul Fischbeck and David Gerard, both of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fischbeck, who regularly walks with his 4-year-old twins around 6 p.m., is worried enough that he’ll be more cautious starting Monday.

“A three times increase in the risk is really dramatic, and because of that we’re carrying a flashlight,” he said.

Fischbeck and Gerard conducted a preliminary study of seven years of federal traffic fatalities and calculated risk per mile walked for pedestrians. They found that per-mile risk jumps 186 percent from October to November, but then drops 21 percent in December.

They said the drop-off in deaths by December indicates the risk is caused by the trouble both drivers and pedestrians have adjusting when darkness suddenly comes an hour earlier.

The reverse happens in the morning when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier. Pedestrian risk plummets, but there are fewer walkers then, too. The 13 lives saved at 6 a.m. don’t offset the 37 lost at 6 p.m., the researchers found.

The risk for pedestrian deaths at 6 p.m. is by far the highest in November than any other month, the scientists said. The danger declines each month through May.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of Arlington, Va., in earlier studies found the switch from daylight savings time to standard time increased pedestrian deaths. Going to a year-round daylight savings time would save about 200 deaths a year, the institute calculated, said spokesman Russ Rader.

“Benjamin Franklin conceived of daylight savings time as a way of saving candles,” Rader said Friday. “Today we know it saves lives.”

The risk at 6 p.m. in November, after daylight savings time ends, is 11 times higher than the risk for the same hour in April, when daylight savings begins, according to the Carnegie Mellon researchers.

Fischbeck and Gerard used federal traffic fatality data that they’ve incorporated into a searchable database for different risk factors. Their analysis was not peer-reviewed or being published in a scientific journal.

But it does jibe with other peer-reviewed studies that looked at raw fatalities.

A 2001 study by John M. Sullivan at the University of Michigan looked at national traffic statistics from 1987 to 1997 and found that there were 65 crashes killing pedestrians in the week before the clocks fell back and 227 in the week after.

Fischbeck and Gerard found the increase in fatality risk after the end of daylight savings time is only for pedestrians. No such jump was seen for drivers or passengers in cars.

Once everyone “springs forward” to daylight savings time in April, there is a 78 percent drop in risk at 6 p.m., they said.