Ferguson residents optimistic over vote

Ferguson residents optimistic over vote

FERGUSON, Mo.

A surge of voters helped alter the racial makeup of the Ferguson City Council, and observers said Wednesday that the change creates a new energy in a community trying to find its way after months of turmoil after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown.

More than 29 percent of Ferguson voters — double the percentage from the April 2014 election — went to the polls Tuesday and elected three new city council members, including two blacks. That means half of the six-member council will now be African-American. The lone black incumbent councilman was not up for re-election. The mayor is white.

Cuban dissidents heckled at summit

PANAMA CITY

About 100 supporters of Cuba’s government aggressively heckled dissidents from the communist-run island attending a civil society forum Wednesday at the start of the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

Opponents of President Raul Castro were greeted to shouts of “imperialist” and “mercenaries” as they filed into a hotel auditorium to attend speeches by summit host Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Organizers appealed for calm during the frenzied scene, which lasted for more than an hour.

Study: Short people’s genes tied to heart risk, cholesterol

Short people have more risk for heart disease, and now researchers may know why: Genes that govern height also seem to affect cholesterol, especially in men.

Doctors have suspected that height and heart risks are related. Shorter people are more prone to heart attacks, high blood pressure and diabetes than taller people are, but the reason has been unclear.

Earlier studies that made this link did it by comparing heart risks in groups of people according to their height. But that method makes it hard to rule out the influence of smoking, weight, nutrition and other things. The new study looked at genes, a factor present from birth.

First lady: Agents taught Malia to drive

WASHINGTON

Some teenagers get driving lessons from their parents. Other teens are taught by licensed instructors.

But Malia Obama isn’t your average 16-year-old: Her driving lessons were provided by the U.S. Secret Service.

Asked who taught Malia how to drive, first lady Michelle Obama told celebrity chef and daytime talk-show host Rachael Ray in an interview that it was the armed agents who provide round-the-clock security for the family.

“The Secret Service, actually, because they wouldn’t let me in the car with her,” Mrs. Obama said in an excerpt of the interview that was released by Ray’s program. The full interview is set to air today.

Iran calls for global disarmament

UNITED NATIONS

Iran accused the five nuclear powers Wednesday of failing to take concrete action to eliminate their stockpiles and called for negotiations on a convention to achieve nuclear disarmament by a target date.

Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador Gholam Hossein Dehghani told the U.N. Disarmament Commission that “a comprehensive, binding, irreversible, verifiable” treaty is the most effective and practical way to eliminate nuclear weapons.

He accused the nuclear powers — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — of promising nuclear disarmament but making no significant progress.

Associated Press