U.N. to name Bill Clinton as special envoy to Haiti

U.N. to name Bill Clinton as special envoy to Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The U.N. will name Bill Clinton its special envoy to Haiti, his spokesman said Monday, in a move that could capitalize on the ex-president’s years of involvement with the impoverished nation to burnish the international body’s image there.

An official announcement is expected from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon today, Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said.

Iraq postpones elections

BAGHDAD — National parliamentary elections will be Jan. 30, Iraqi officials announced Monday, sliding the date into next year in a move that could complicate the U.S. timetable for drawing down its forces.

The new parliament will choose a prime minister and Cabinet, a process that could take months. A long and turbulent delay in setting up a new government could force President Barack Obama to revise his goal of removing most of American troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010.

Sheriff: Teen outlined plan for shooting kids, suicide

LAROSE, La. — A Louisiana middle school student who stormed into a classroom Monday and fired a gunshot over a teacher’s head, then shot himself in a bathroom had detailed plans for a rampage in a journal and suicide note, authorities said.

The 15-year-old student, whose name was not released, fired once around 9 a.m. inside a classroom at Larose-Cut Off Middle School, then shot himself in the head, said Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre. He was in critical but stable condition. The teacher had never taught the teen.

Webre said investigators found a note describing the boy’s plans to “gear up” before his spree, along with a drawing of how he’d dress. Although he apparently was intent on killing people, he was armed with only four bullets for the .25-caliber, semiautomatic pistol he had taken from his father’s home.

Study: Mockingbirds can ID people they dislike

WASHINGTON — Mockingbirds may look pretty much alike to people, but they can tell us apart and are quick to react to folks they don’t like.

Birds rapidly learn to identify people who have previously threatened their nests and sounded alarms and even attacked those folks, while ignoring others nearby, researchers report in today’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This shows a bird is much more perceptive of its environment than people had previously suspected,” said Douglas J. Levey, a professor in the zoology department of the University of Florida.

Postponing retirement may delay dementia, study finds

LONDON — Working a few years beyond retirement could help stave off Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new British study published Monday.

Experts from King’s College London analyzed data from more than 1,300 people with dementia. They considered factors including education, employment and retirement.

Researchers found that people who retired later were able to avoid the mind-robbing Alzheimer’s disease longer than people who retired earlier.

Each extra year of work was associated with approximately a six-week delay in the onset of dementia.

The study was published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and was paid for by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust and Britain’s Medical Research Council.

Latest quake highlights seismic danger in LA

LOS ANGELES — The latest earthquake to hit the nation’s second-largest city was a garden-variety temblor by California standards, rumbling through on a Sunday evening when most residents were home eating dinner or watching TV. The magnitude-4.7 quake shattered more nerves than glass, and scientists say it could have been worse.

The quake, centered three miles east of Los Angeles International Airport, appeared to have ruptured a fault under the city that is capable of producing a damaging magnitude-7 temblor.

Survived convoy ambush

KABUL — Rockets and machine gunfire buffeted an Afghan government motorcade in an apparent assassination attempt on the president’s brother on Monday, the brother said. A bodyguard was killed.

The second apparent attempt on Ahmad Wali Karzai’s life in less than two months underscores the danger facing even the most well-protected Afghans in a country under siege from Taliban militants and going into a summer that many predict will be very violent.

Associated Press