Gordon Parks, pioneer in the arts, dies at 93

Gordon Parks, pioneerin the arts, dies at 93
WASHINGTON -- Gordon Parks, a photographer, filmmaker and poet whose pioneering chronicles of the black experience in America made him a revered elder and a cultural icon, died Tuesday at his home in New York. He was 93. His nephew, Charles Parks of Lawrence, Kan., said Parks had cancer and had been in failing health since 1993. Parks, the son of a dirt farmer, rose from meager beginnings and above recurrent discrimination to walk through doors previously closed to black Americans. He was the first black to work at Life magazine and Vogue, and the first to write, direct and score a Hollywood film, "The Learning Tree" (1969), which was based on a 1963 novel he wrote about his life as a farm boy in Kansas. He also was the director of the 1971 hit movie "Shaft," which opened the way for a host of other black-oriented films.
U.N.: Airlift, weather aidsurvival of quake victims
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- An airlift of relief aid ferried on helicopters into the snowy mountains of devastated Kashmir has averted a second humanitarian disaster in the aftermath of the October earthquake that killed more than 80,000 people. The United Nations declared Wednesday that the battle to sustain more than 3 million homeless survivors through the winter has been won, thanks to a comparatively mild winter and massive international aid. "It was very kind weather, the number of helicopters we had at our disposal also helped and ... people didn't come down from the mountains and overburden the towns," U.N. Deputy Humanitarian Aid Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick told The Associated Press. By this week, helicopters had flown more than 27,400 sorties into the treacherous Himalayan region of Pakistan's north, where the magnitude-7.6 temblor was centered, according to government statistics released Wednesday.
U.S. to boost flu testingin migratory birds
NEW YORK -- The federal government is boosting its effort to look for bird flu in migratory birds, planning to test five to six times as many birds this year alone as it has screened since 1998. Much of the effort will focus on Alaska, where scientists worry that birds arriving from Asia -- beginning next month -- will bring in the H5N1 virus and pass it along to other birds, which will fly south this fall. Scientists had already been watching for the deadly flu strain in wild birds in Alaska and North American migratory flyways. But the effort is being dramatically stepped up this year, said John Clifford, chief veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is working with other agencies on the program.
Ex-Texas governorRichards has cancer
AUSTIN, Texas -- Former Gov. Ann Richards said Wednesday she has cancer of the esophagus and will undergo treatment at the world-renowned M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Richards, 72, went in for tests Monday and got the diagnosis Tuesday, said spokesman Bill Maddox. Maddox said the former governor is waiting to hear from M.D. Anderson how advanced the cancer is and what her chances are. "She's facing this challenge," Maddox said. Richards, a Democrat, was governor from 1991 to 1995, losing a re-election bid to George W. Bush. Since 2001, she has been an adviser at a public relations and lobbying firm.
Parental consent lawtied to drop in abortions
Abortion rates declined significantly among Texas girls -- though some got riskier abortions later in pregnancy -- after the state enacted a parental notification law, researchers say. The findings could have a strong influence on the abortion debate. Texas is the biggest of 35 states that require minors to notify their parents or get their consent before obtaining an abortion, although a judge can usually grant a waiver. Researchers at Baruch College at City University of New York studied the records of teen abortions and births for the two years before the Texas law took effect Jan. 1, 2000, and for three years afterward. Abortion rates dropped for girls ages 15 through 18, even though the 18-year-olds were not subject to the law. But the drop was more pronounced among the younger girls. Their rates fell 11 percent to 20 percent more than the rate among the 18-year-olds did.
Combined dispatches