Medal of Honor goes to slain Green Beret

Medal of Honor goes to slain Green Beret

WASHINGTON

In a ceremony that mixed pain, pride and determination, President Barack Obama on Wednesday awarded the Medal of Honor to a young Army Green Beret who saved his patrol by holding off a Taliban ambush in a snowy Afghan valley two winters ago.

He told the parents of Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, “You gave your oldest son to America, and America is forever in your debt.” Miller was killed in the ambush.

The presentation in a hushed East Room came on the eve of the war’s ninth anniversary.

File details dangers of ‘Shrek’ glasses

LOS ANGELES

Federal regulators leaned on McDonald’s to quickly recall 12 million “Shrek”-themed drinking glasses this spring because they concluded that a typical 6-year-old could be exposed to hazardous levels of the metal cadmium by touching one of the glasses just eight times in a day, according to documents obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Of the four collectibles in the series tied to the hit movie “Shrek Forever After,” the glass depicting the character Puss in Boots, with a predominantly orange design, prompted the recall push.

Trio wins Nobel for key chemistry tool

NEW YORK

A method for building complex molecules has paid off by helping to fight cancer, protect crops and make electronic devices — and now it has earned its developers a Nobel Prize.

Three men designed the technique to bind together carbon atoms, a key step in assembling the skeletons of organic compounds used in medicine, agriculture and electronics.

The winners are Richard Heck, 79, a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware, now living in the Philippines; Ei-ichi Negishi, 75, a chemistry professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and Akira Suzuki, 80, a retired professor from Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

Electronic monitors shut down for hours

MADISON, Wis.

An electronic monitoring system tracking sex offenders, parolees and others shut down, leaving authorities in 49 states blind to offenders’ movements for about 12 hours, authorities said Wednesday.

A system operated by Boulder, Colo.-based BI Inc. unexpectedly hit its data storage capacity Tuesday morning, which blocked notifications to prisons and other corrections agencies on about 16,000 people being tracked, BI spokesman Jock Waldo said.

Tracking devices continued to record movement, but corrections agencies couldn’t immediately view the data.

Poem details Plath’s suicide

LONDON

A previously unseen poem by Ted Hughes that details the painful moments surrounding the suicide of his wife, Sylvia Plath, is being published by The New Statesman today, the magazine said.

Hughes, an English poet laureate, and Plath, his American wife, are considered among the 20th century’s greatest poets.

The poem, called “Last Letter,” chronicles the three days leading up to Plath’s death in her London home Feb. 11, 1963, beginning: “What happened that night? Your final night.”

Its discovery has created a minor sensation in Britain. The country’s Channel 4 News broadcast excerpts of the work Wednesday evening, read in a dry, quivering voice by actor Jonathan Pryce.

Associated Press