The James Logan Courier

By David Lightman
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

DENVER — On a historic day echoing the dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday became the first African-American to accept a major-party presidential nomination and immediately set a JFK-like goal: to end America's dependence on Middle East oil within 10 years.

"For the sake of our economy, our security and the future of our planet," he said, with a stern look on his face, "I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East."

Critics slam Obama for being all rhetoric and no substance, but in a summer when Americans are paying nearly $4 a gallon for gasoline and fretting about high heating costs to come this winter, he vowed to end what he called "this addiction" to oil.

Compiled from Courier Staff Reports

Thousands of students returned to James Logan this week, some cheering their return to school, and some lamenting the end of their summer vacations.

As of Friday morning, 3,920 students were enrolled in the high school, one of the largest in the state.

Some were happy to get back to their school work.

Junior Raven Jones' first days back on campus were "awesome...it went well."

"It was cool to come back to school...having something to do," said Toni Polé, a junior.

By David Lightman
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

DENVER — On a historic day when Democrats nominated Barack Obama, the first African-American ever chosen by a major party for the presidency, his ticket mate, Joe Biden, on Wednesday launched the new partnership's attack on John McCain by insisting that America needs more than a decorated military veteran as its leader.

"These times require more than a good soldier — they require a wise leader," Biden said.

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Schools Public Information Officer

The Board of Education on Tuesday night received a report from the Division of Teaching and Learning on second-year implementation of the Strategic Plan, the New Haven community’s vision for the District. The Strategic Plan, crafted during the 2005-06 school year by more than 150 students, parents, teachers, classified employees, principals, administrators and community members, is designed to drive budgeting and decision-making through 2010-11. It was updated in November 2007.

Courier Staff Report

Hundreds of James Logan's veteran teachers, and several new ones hired this summer, returned to James Logan Monday to prepare for the return of students on Wednesday.

The returning teachers and new recruits started their day in the Pavilion at 8:30 a.m., where new Principal Judy Billingsley welcomed them back and introduced them to a largely new administrative team, which reviewed the policies and procedures guiding the opening of school.

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven Schools Public Information Officer
Hillview Crest Elementary School students and Alvarado Middle School School students made dramatic improvement in both English/language arts and mathematics, and science scores across the District took an impressive jump, according to results from standardized tests taken in 2007-08 in the New Haven Unified School District.

By Mike Hughlett
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

CHICAGO — Food safety experts generally say that zapping spinach and iceberg lettuce with a tiny shot of radiation is the best way to vanquish deadly outbreaks of E. coli. It's safe, too, they say and the federal government officially agreed Thursday, allowing so-called irradiation of our leading leafy greens.

But whether irradiation ever takes hold is in the hands of consumers, and they've shown resistance to a process whose very name has a glow-in-the-dark ring to it. Federal regulators years ago declared irradiation of red meat as safe, but beef producers have hardly flocked to the technology.

From wikipedia:
Thomas Garrett (August 21, 1789 – January 25, 1871) was an abolitionist and leader in the Underground Railroad movement before the American Civil War.

Garrett was born into a prosperous landowning Quaker family on their homestead called "Thornfield" in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The house in which he lived until 1822, which was built around 1800, still stands today in what is now Drexel Hill in Upper Darby Township.

Read Station Master On The Underground Railroad, by James A. McGowan, William C. Kashatus, free from googlebooks.com.

By Megha Satyanarayana
Detroit Free Press (MCT)

DETROIT — Sylvia Johnson, 70, is an active, retired Detroit school teacher who rides her exercise bike and uses an abdominal machine to strengthen her bones and muscles. She eats well, too, having cereal and fruit for breakfast and sometimes fish in the afternoon. But Johnson has one bad habit that researchers at Boston University now have linked to diabetes in black women.

"I'm a Pepsi addict. I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't curse," she said.

By Mike Swift
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

In 2000, there were about 50,000 Americans who had celebrated their 100th birthday. By 2050, there will be 601,000.

In releasing a comprehensive new forecast today for the nation's demographic future, the U.S. Census Bureau said that Baby Boomers, who redefined youth culture, are going to redefine old culture — really old culture.

The number of centenarians will grow by 660 percent between 2010 and 2050, the Census Bureau predicts.

By Tom Lasseter and Steven Thomma
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

TBILISI, Georgia — Russia declared a cease-fire in Georgia on Tuesday after a five-day war that left Georgia's military in tatters and Russia seemingly on the verge of reasserting old Soviet-style authority over its neighbors.

But Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and the heads of state of five other nations that had once been dominated by the Soviet Union vowed never to concede the independence they've enjoyed since 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved.

"The entire world is with us," Saakashvili told a crowd of thousands that thronged downtown Tbilisi in a late night rally.

By Jamie Maxfield, Courier Editor-in-Chief

Hundreds of incoming seniors gathered at the Logan Pavilion Wednesday hoping to get their schedules for their last year in high school; instead, no schedules were handed out to the students, but everyone had to take pictures and receive new ID cards to prepare for the start of the new school year.

Many students, like senior Kristen Kidd, were expecting to have their schedules in hand as they left campus that day because “that is what the school had initially informed everyone about.” She said that the day “was sloppy and Logan wasn’t prepared.” Kidd felt upset and because this is not how she wants to start her final year at Logan, and she does not like the new I.D. cards.

New Principal Judy Billingsley said that the hastily changed plan was not an echo of last year's problem-plagued school opening, but rather an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year's mistakes.

Ophelia DeVore was the first mixed-race model in the United States. In 1946, she helped establish the Grace Del Marco Agency, one of the first modeling agencies in America.

DeVore was born on August 12, 1922 in Edgefield, South Carolina. She was one of ten children born to John Walter DeVore, who was of German American and African American descent, and Mary Emma Strother, who was a Black Indian.

Read The Secret of Inner Beauty, a story about Ophelia DeVore by Melissa Sones, free from the University of Central Oklahoma's College of Liberal Arts.

By Tom Lasseter and Steven Thomma
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

TBILISI, Georgia — Russian forces broadened their crushing offensive against Georgia on Monday, and Georgian officials feared the worst — that the Russian invasion would mean the end of their country's independence.

Russian troops were reported in control of Georgia's main east-west highway outside the central Georgian town of Gori, had taken control of Georgia's main port at Poti, seized a Georgian military base in the west and had complete dominion of the skies, from which they bombed and strafed retreating Georgian troops at will.

By Sharon Noguchi
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Home-schoolers across California won't need to rush back to class themselves to continue educating their children.

In a highly unusual move, a state appeals court on Friday reversed its earlier decision and declared that home-school parents don't need teaching credentials.

The decision by the Los Angeles-based second district court of appeals had home-schooling advocates rejoicing in California — home of more than 160,000 home-schooled students — and across the nation.

By Carol Rosenberg
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — In a historic split verdict that sets the stage for dozens more war crimes trials, a U.S. military jury on Wednesday convicted Osama bin Laden's driver of aiding terror but acquitted him of conspiring with al-Qaida to commit worldwide terror.

Salim Hamdan, 37, bowed his head and wiped his eyes with his head scarf upon becoming the first man convicted at trial in the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War II.

By Renee Schoof
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that it couldn't propose any regulation of greenhouse gases because the issue was too complex and there were too many objections from other federal agencies.

The Bush administration consistently has objected to mandatory limits on the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. The EPA's decision to issue a 588-page report that calls for 120 days of public comment means that any regulatory action will be up to the next administration.

By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

BAGHDAD — It seemed like another routine trip as the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq boarded his helicopter in Amara, where a battalion of U.S. troops is based. Only two months ago, however, the smuggling hub on the Iranian border was a stronghold of Shiite Muslim militants, a place that no American general without a death wish would visit.

The climate has changed, said Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III.

Four jet airliners carried members of James Logan High School’s band and color guard to China last week, where they will be part of the festivities leading up to the 2008 Olympics.

Two flights left Monday, and two more flights took off Tuesday morning for Beijing, where the Logan contingent will be part of the Beijing Olympic Orchestra that is being described as the first foreign group ever to perform in Tiananmen Square.

Logan also is scheduled to be part of pre-Games performances at the Olympic Square in Tianjin, at Tianjin Olympic Stadium (following a preliminary soccer match) and at the Olympic Cultural Square in Beijing. The band and color guard also will perform at one of the Olympic Live Stages in Beijing before televised coverage of the opening ceremonies.

By Rick LaPlante, New Haven School's Public Information Officer

Friends and community members have set up a memorial fund for the family of Catlynne Shaw, an Alvarado Middle School student who died July 22 , six days after her heart stopped while she was riding a roller coaster in Las Vegas.

By Elie Dolgin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MCT)

MILWAUKEE — Researchers are one step closer to reprogramming skin cells into tailor-made, healthy replacements for diseased cells.

Applying the technique first developed by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, scientists at Harvard and Columbia universities reported online Thursday in the journal Science that they had turned skin cells from two elderly patients with the neurodegenerative disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis into motor neurons, the nerve cells that become damaged in ALS.

This is the first time that scientists have coaxed embryonic-like cells from adult patients suffering from a genetic-based disease, then induced the cells to form the specific cell types that would be needed to study and treat the disease.