Riots continue in Kenya

hRiots continue in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s president threatened a tough crackdown Monday as rioters rampaged for a third day to protest what they called his sham re-election — a bloody convulsion threatening what has been East Africa’s most stable and prosperous democracy. At least 135 Kenyans were reported killed in violence that flared from the shantytowns of Nairobi to resort towns on the sweltering coast. Opposition leaders set the stage for more turmoil by calling for a million people to rally against President Mwai Kibaki. In the slums of Nairobi, rioters waved machetes and shouted “Kibaki must go!” while police beat protesters with clubs, fired off tear gas and shot live bullets in the air. Much of the country was at a standstill, with shops closed and many people hunkered inside their homes. Above, looters carry televisions from a store in Mombasa.

Would-be assassin paroled

SAN FRANCISCO — Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at President Ford in a bizarre assassination attempt just 17 days after a disciple of Charles Manson tried to kill Ford, was paroled Monday after 32 years behind bars. Moore, 77, was released from the federal prison in Dublin, east of San Francisco, where she had been serving a life sentence, the Bureau of Prisons said. Bureau spokeswoman Felicia Ponce said she had no details on why Moore was let out. But she said that with good behavior, inmates sentenced to life can apply for parole after 10 years. Moore was 40 feet away from Ford outside a hotel in San Francisco when she fired a shot at him Sept. 22, 1975. As she raised her .38-caliber revolver and pulled the trigger, Oliver Sipple, a disabled former Marine standing next to her, pushed up her arm. The bullet flew over Ford’s head by several feet.

NASA air safety study

NASA grudgingly released some results Monday from an $11.3 million federal air safety study it previously withheld from the public over concerns it would upset travelers and hurt airline profits. It published the findings in a format that made it cumbersome for any thorough analysis by outsiders. Released on New Year’s Eve, the unprecedented research conducted over nearly four years relates to safety problems identified by some 29,000 pilots interviewed by telephone.

Sleep-diabetes link

WASHINGTON — When Shakespeare called sleep the “chief nourisher of life’s feast,” he may have been well ahead of his time, medically at least. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center report that disrupting sleep damages the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar levels, potentially raising the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. More than 18 million Americans have diabetes, and the most common form is type 2, in which the body either becomes resistant to insulin or doesn’t produce enough of it to regulate sugar in the bloodstream. In a small experiment, researchers led by Dr. Esra Tasali, an assistant professor of medicine, found that disrupting the deepest sleep periods of volunteers rapidly resulted in reduction in their ability to regulate blood-sugar levels.

Banished-words list

DETROIT — Resist the urge to say you will “wordsmith” your list of New Year’s resolutions rather than write one. And don’t utter, “It is what it is” when you fail to meet your first goal. Those are two of the 19 words or phrases that appear in Lake Superior State University’s annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness. The school in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula released its 33rd list Monday, selecting from about 2,000 nominations. Among this year’s picks are “surge,” the term for the troop buildup in Iraq. “Give me the old days, when it referenced storms and electrical power,” Michael Raczko of Swanton, Ohio, said in nominating the word. The list also included “waterboarding,” “perfect storm,” “under the bus” and “organic.” Also: “It is what it is,” which Jeffrey Skrenes of St. Paul, Minn., said “accomplishes the dual feat of adding nothing to the conversation while also being phonetically and thematically redundant.”

Associated Press