New FEMA director says agency is back on track

New FEMA director says agency is back on track
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Federal Emergency Management Agency acting director David Paulison said Friday that his overhauled agency has fixed many of its communications and logistics flaws and will react more efficiently this hurricane season. "This hurricane season is a defining moment for emergency management," said Paulison, a longtime South Florida resident. "It is extremely important that we act on the lessons learned throughout last year's hurricanes." Paulison made the comments at the end of the three-day Governor's Hurricane Conference. President Bush tapped Paulison to replace former FEMA head Michael Brown on an interim basis last year amid national scrutiny for the agency's slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Bush nominated Paulison for the permanent job in April, and the acting director will seek confirmation from the U.S. Senate later this month.
Mayo doctors separateconjoined twin girls
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- After nearly seven hours of surgery Friday to untangle their livers, reposition their hearts and divide a shared intestine, Mayo Clinic surgeons separated 5-month-old twins born joined at the chest and abdomen. Abbigail and Isabelle Carlsen spent their first five months looking eye to eye, often bumping legs and arms and touching each other in the face. That changed at 4:28 p.m. when the last tissue connecting the girls was cut "for the first time, completely separating the two young twins," said Mayo Clinic spokesman Lee Aase. "The family is elated," he said, saying that they were happy to have separate babies. The girls' liver were intertwined and they also were joined at the diaphragm and the pancreas, and shared part of an intestine. Doctors said that the surgery was complicated but that there was a 90 percent to 95 percent chance that both girls would survive.
Jurors again recommenddeath in triple slaying
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- For a third time, jurors have recommended the death penalty for a man who bludgeoned three people to death during the robbery of a convenience store in 1994. Jurors returned the verdict Thursday night after 2 1/2 hours of deliberation in the case of Ernest Lee Johnson, 45. Prosecutor Kevin Crane described Johnson as a "cold-blooded killer" who planned, executed and tried to cover up the crime. Johnson's attorneys, seeking a sentence of life in prison without parole, presented testimony from experts who said he was mentally retarded and from siblings who described an abusive upbringing. Johnson's first death sentence after his conviction in 1995 was overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court because his attorneys had not offered testimony about his upbringing and drug addiction. A second death sentence in 1999 was overturned, with the state Supreme Court citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it is unconstitutionally cruel to execute a retarded person.
Palestinians give jewels,paychecks to government
NABLUS, West Bank -- Thousands of Hamas followers gathered Friday to donate money and jewelry to their cash-strapped government, while a Western boycott stirred debate inside the militant group over whether to accept a state alongside Israel. The Hamas-led government has been under increasing economic pressure since taking office in March, with Israel halting $55 million in monthly tax transfers to the Palestinians, and the United States and European Union freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. Without the money, the Palestinian Authority has been unable to pay its 165,000 workers for the past two months and is having trouble buying medicines and other vital supplies. In a show of solidarity with Hamas, about 5,000 Palestinians gathered in the northern West Bank city of Nablus to make personal contributions to the government. Several women put jewelry in a collection plate. A group of gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with the Fatah Party, fired rifles in the air before donating $22. The contributions were touted over megaphones, and some people said they were donating their entire paychecks.
Several top officials lose jobs in shakeup
MOSCOW -- Russian authorities fired a string of high-ranking security and law enforcement officials in a shake up described Friday as part of a Kremlin push to fight graft and cement control of key government agencies. The firing of senior officials in the Federal Customs Service, Federal Security Service, Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office -- among the most powerful agencies in Russia -- was reported by local media Friday, two days after President Vladimir Putin called for a stronger anti-corruption effort in his state of the nation speech. Government officials said little about the firings, but analysts said they could indicate a strike against what may have been a ring of corrupt officials. "It looks like a major corruption scheme that involved representatives of different agencies," said Yevgeny Volk, the head of the Heritage Foundation's Moscow office.
Associated Press
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