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Despite the uproar over the state's proposal to build Trans-Texas Corridor 69 through East Texas, Lufkin's mayor says he supports the highway — as long as it follows the path of the current U.S. Highway 59. The Trans Texas Corridor/I-69 project is a statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways and utility right-of-ways. Anyone wishing to comment on the proposed road can go online to www.keeptexasmoving.com. TxDOT has expanded its public comment period for TTC-69 to Friday, April 18. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Gorden, along with 17 other Texans, to an I-69...

As the state's population continues to grow in its urban centers, expansion plans for the highway system continue to be the focus for transportation improvements. The Trans Texas Corridor proposal is aimed to alleviate traffic congestion, improve air quality and provide safer traveling for drivers, among other goals. In 2002, Texas Governor Rick Perry released the plan to create the passageway, which spans northeast from Laredo to Oklahoma and is set to total 4,000 miles in the next 50 years. The $140 billion project calls for the incorporation of new toll roads, commuter railways, power lines and gas pipelines, while...

For Peyton Gilbert, the battle over the Trans-Texas Corridor is reminiscent of the moment in 1836 when Lt. Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand at the Alamo and invited those willing to fight thousands of Mexican soldiers to step across. "That line in the sand is the Trans-Texas Corridor, and it's a threat to our sovereignty again, just like at the Alamo," said Gilbert, 14, who is from Whitehouse, near Tyler. Gilbert was among a large crowd of people who marched down Congress Avenue to the Capitol on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the proposed highway-rail-utility corridor...

Thanks to an extended comment deadline, almost three weeks remain for people to let their feelings be known about the Trans-Texas Corridor. The most recent study of the proposal, which includes a stretch in Fort Bend County, must be approved by the federal government for the Texas Department of Transportation to proceed with planning and, eventually, construction. TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration have extended their formal comment period through April 18. During this time, individuals are encouraged to submit written comments on either the project itself or what is called the Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS), which is a...

Lufkin Mayor Jack Gorden has been selected by the Texas Transportation Committee to serve on a citizens' advisory committee for putting together information regarding the proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. According to Texas Department of Transportation officials, advisory committee members represent a cross-section of community and business leaders, landowners, local transportation experts and others. "Our goal is to enhance the public dialogue and meaningfully involve more Texans in transportation decisions," said Texas Transportation Commission Chair Hope Andrade. "These committees will have an important seat at the table as we work together to shape the future of transportation for our state." Gorden...

FORT WORTH -- The Trans-Texas Corridor is now so controversial, merely uttering the words in most political circles is taboo. "We're calling it a 'regional loop' because you can't say 'Trans-Texas Corridor' in the state of Texas anymore," said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. "The Trans-Texas Corridor is a lightning rod," he told visiting state representatives this week while explaining how the corridor would connect to regional highways by 2030. Opposition to the proposed construction of a $184 billion network of toll roads during the next 50 years is so strong statewide that...

State Rep. Jim McReynolds has sent a letter to the Texas Department of Transportation saying he thinks TxDOT should drop the idea of tying the Trans-Texas Corridor in with plans for routing Interstate 69 through East Texas. McReynolds says tremendous negative outcry from his constituents and other East Texas residents has made it clear to him no one wants infrastructure that massive and disruptive to the quality of life to be built, taking big swaths out of the Pineywoods countryside. "Within the past several weeks, I have personally attended every TxDOT hearing held in my district regarding this proposed corridor,"...

DEADLINE to Register is March 24th in Pennsylvania BY JULIE BENAMATI The Tribune-Democrat As Monday’s deadline fast approaches to sign up to vote in Pennsylvania’s presidential primary, elections offices in Cambria and Somerset counties report a significant increase in Democratic registrations. Political party leaders say the contest between Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton is bringing new voters to the polls – and causing some to change party affiliation altogether. Cambria County’s election office has seen 955 new voter registrations since October, and 377 voters have changed parties in the past four weeks – about 90 percent of...

Topeka — Agreements with Mexico and Canada are setting the stage for construction of a huge highway that will gobble up Kansans’ property and jeopardize U.S. security, representatives from a wide range of groups said Monday. “Through incrementalism, apathy and inattention, our national sovereignty is being sacrificed on a cross of greed, socialism and globalism,� said state Rep. Judy Morrison, R-Shawnee. Morrison has introduced House Concurrent Resolution 5033 urging Congress to withdraw from further participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement and Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. At a hearing before the House Federal and State Affairs...

Plots by Communists to infiltrate America. The disintegration of borders and rural areas. Citizens mobilizing and rising up against government agencies and big business. It all sounds like the plot for a summer blockbuster, but it's something that could be happening in your own backyard. These were just a few of the topics addressed in the "How to fight the TTC" workshop, held Monday at the Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin. The conference served as an informational meeting aimed at informing citizens and local government officials how they can unite in trying to stop the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project....

There's been a lot of talk about the new Trans-Texas Corridor — the next-generation "super-highway" — and opinions are varying. Now the debate is coming to Lufkin's doorstep. On Monday, the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF will hold a workshop at Lufkin's Pitser Garrison Civic Center on how to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor 69. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A portion of Texas citizens have voiced their opposition to the TTC-69 in public meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation, but believing they are not being heard, four cities and their...

Time is almost up for Texas residents who wish to submit a comment on the proposed Trans Texas Corridor, which must be received by the Texas Department of Transportation by Wednesday. Submissions of comments would have to be made either by mail or online at this point, and can be sent to I-69/TTC, P.O. Box 14428, Austin, TX 78761, or go to keeptexasmoving.com, then click on “question or comment” on the left side of the screen. Previously, throughout February and March, TxDOT held 47 well-attended hearings at which oral comments from the public were taken into account. The TTC has...

WASHINGTON - The Democratic nomination is now Barack Obama's to lose. After 10 consecutive defeats — including a heartbreaker in tailor-made Wisconsin on Tuesday — Hillary Rodham Clinton can't win the nomination unless Obama makes a major mistake or her allies reveal something damaging about the Illinois senator's background. Don't count her out quite yet, but Wisconsin revealed deep and destructive fractures in the Clinton coalition. It's panic-button time. That explains why Clinton's aides accused Obama of plagiarism for delivering a speech that included words that had first been uttered by Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts governor and a friend of...

US warning to North Korea as nuclear deadline lapses Mon Dec 31, 3:26 PM ET The United States warned North Korea Monday of potential economic and political fallout after the Stalinist state failed to meet a year-end deadline to come clean on its nuclear activity. The State Department said its top envoy on the nuclear issue, Christopher Hill, was expected to hold talks with officials from Japan, South Korea, China and Russia to chart the next steps. Department spokesman Tom Casey confirmed that North Korea, to no one's surprise, had failed to deliver a declaration detailing its atomic programs by...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three suspected Islamist militants who were planning to attack American targets in Germany had orders to act by Sept. 15 and knew police were hot on their trail before their arrest, a magazine said on Saturday. The plan was foiled on Tuesday when police arrested two German converts to Islam and a Turk in the biggest German police investigation in the last 30 years. According to surveillance details published in Der Spiegel magazine, the men had been given a two-week deadline for their planned strikes in a late August call from northern Pakistan that was monitored by...

The US House of Representatives has voted to approve a bill tying extra cash for military operations to a timetable for pulling US troops out of Iraq by a goal of March 31, 2008. George Bush, the US president, has said he will veto the bill if it reaches his desk after passing the house and senate.

North Korea miss deadline in nuclear deal: NBC 14 minutes ago North Korea, told it will soon receive its assets frozen at a Macau bank, said it could start shutting down its main nuclear reactor within 30 days but likely miss a Saturday deadline to do so, NBC news reported on Wednesday. North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan made the pledge during a dinner meeting with a U.S. delegation visiting Pyongyang led by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, NBC reported members of his team as saying. Kim also said the reclusive state would also allow nuclear inspectors back into...

BRUSSELS - A major report on how global warming will dramatically change life on Earth will likely read less dire about massive extinctions than scientists originally wrote. Participants in marathon negotiations over an authoritative climate change report, due out Friday, said government delegates have weakened the original language in the report. A final draft of the report — written by scientists before government officials edit it — says "roughly 20-30 percent of species are likely to be at high risk of irreversible extinction" if global average temperature rises by 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit. That part has been "diluted," said...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran failed to suspend uranium enrichment activity by February 21, ignoring a U.N. Security Council deadline to halt work the West fears could give Tehran an atomic weapon, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said on Thursday.The International Atomic Energy Agency also said in a report that Iran had installed two cascades, or networks, of 164 centrifuges in its underground Natanz enrichment plant with another two cascades close to completion. This represented efforts to expand research-level enrichment of nuclear fuel into "industrial scale" production. It said Iranian workers lowered into the plant an 8.7-tonne container of uranium hexafluoride gas...

Elected officials, business leaders and environmental watchdogs, invited by the editorial board, recently met at The Dallas Morning News to discuss clean air issues. This is the first of three excerpted transcripts from the roundtable. The speakers quoted: Colleen McCain Nelson, editorial writer; Margaret Keliher, Dallas County judge through 2006; Richard Greene, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency; Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office; Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk board member; Todd Campbell, director of public policy for Clean Energy and mayor of Burbank, Calif.; Al Armendariz, assistant professor, SMU School of Engineering; Robert Cluck, Arlington...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2006 -- Time is running out to get the stockings of troops stationed in Iraq stuffed through Operation Christmas Stocking. The deadline to get needed items to the program’s warehouse is Nov. 1. Paul Holton, founder of Operation Give, goes through donations received for Operation Christmas Stocking at the program's warehouse in Salt Lake City. Items will be sent from the warehouse to troops stationed in Iraq in time for the holidays. Courtesy photo  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. This is the second year that Operation Give and Stars for Stripes have teamed up to...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 20 -- With Iran still resisting a freeze on its nuclear activities, the United States and five partners have decided to set yet another deadline in hopes that Iran will finally agree to terms paving the way for substantive talks on its nuclear program. Under the plan, reached by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from five other nations over a late-night dinner Tuesday, Iran will have until early October to agree to suspend its nuclear activities as the negotiations take place, diplomats said. At the meeting, Rice backed off the U.S. demand that the...

On their website, the Fox News Channel asked the question, "How would you handle Iran thumbing its nose at the U.N. deadline?" Here is my seven step response. First: I would identify 30 - 50 nuclear threat targets and confirm their exact coordinates with at least three different intelligence organizations. Second: I would use my best spyware to track Ahmadinejad's exact location. Third: I would pick a time and place when I can confirm Ahmadinejad's expected long term presence at a place which offers minimal collateral damage. Fourth: I would launch a series of Tomahawk missiles on Ahmadinejad's confirmed location....

Iran taunts West on eve of nuclear deadline By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent (Filed: 30/08/2006) Iran goaded the West yesterday, suggesting that European and American companies should bid for contracts to build reactors and other nuclear infrastructure planned by Teheran. Meanwhile, diplomats were searching in vain for signs of a change in Iran's defiant position before tomorrow's UN deadline for it to halt uranium enrichment. Promising to press ahead with his country's nuclear programme, Mr Ahmadinejad complained bitterly about the UN Security Council, saying that its domination by the victorious powers of the Second World War was out of...

Facing a looming deadline, lawmakers on Tuesday were reviewing late changes to legislation that would make California the first state to impose a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from industries. Democrats and top aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have spent the last few months negotiating a bill that would put the state on the path to reducing its emissions by an estimated 25 percent by 2020, to the levels of 1990. The sides have been at odds over how to achieve the goal, but a compromise deal appeared to be in the works, according to aides with both camps. Assembly...

UN may be close to deal on N.Korea resolution By Evelyn Leopold 50 minutes ago Japan and the United States insisted on a U.N. Security Council vote on Saturday on a resolution condemning North Korea's barrage of missile launches amid signs of a compromise with China. After a flurry of negotiations on Friday, Japan produced a new draft resolution that sought to bridge the differences with China. But Beijing's ambassador said he would still veto it unless more changes were made, which many diplomats expect when council members resume negotiations on Saturday. "My instructions are to get a vote by...

In this photo released by Xinhua news agency, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, front left, and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, front right, walk to the assembly room of the 7th ordinary session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) in Banjul, capital of Gambia, Saturday, July 1, 2006. African leaders opened a summit addressing their continent's many woes Saturday while offering a special welcome to the firebrand presidents of Iran and Venezuela, each seeking support for anti-American agendas. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Ying) VIENNA, Austria Jul 3, 2006 (AP)— Western powers will reactivate efforts to punish Iran through possible U.N. Security...

ISRAEL has approved further military action in Gaza in a bid to release a kidnapped soldier, as a deadline set by his captor drew nearer. Israel swiftly rejected the captors' 6.00am deadline (1.00pm AEST) to free prisoners or face unspecified "consequences", but the Palestinian government said it still believed there was a chance for a negotiated solution. Israel warned the captors "the sky will fall on their heads" if Corporal Gilad Shalit, abducted in a raid on his army post last week, was harmed. The ultimatum was issued after six straight nights of Israeli air strikes and a massive military...

Egypt to Hamas: Sunday Morning Deadline 05:00 Jul 02, '06 / 6 Tammuz 5766 by Hana Levi Julian Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak gave Hamas terrorists until Sunday morning to decide whether to accept his proposal for the release of their hostage, IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit. “The proposal is that the Israeli soldier will be freed immediately and in return, Israel will release prisoners in the near future,” said Palestinian Authority sources quoted by the Haaretz news service. Mubarek has reportedly pushed Syrian President Bashar Assad to pressure exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal, whose headquarters are based in Damascus. “At first,...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June. As of Thursday, the next-to-last day of the month, fewer than 1,000 troops were in place, according to military officials in the four border states of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. President Bush's plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But only 10 states — including the four border states — have signed commitments. Some state officials have argued that they cannot free up Guardsmen because...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The United States would like to hear Iran's response to a U.S.-backed offer of incentives in advance of a mid-July summit of major world powers in Russia, the White House said on Thursday. A day after Iran gave August 22 as the date when it would respond to an offer to try to contain its nuclear program, the White House national security adviser noted to reporters there was a meeting next week of Group of Eight foreign ministers and then the summit of leaders in mid-July in St Petersburg. "It would be helpful and useful if we...

After early hopes that California might have its first on-time budget in 20 years, lawmakers Wednesday failed to bridge differences over funding health care for the children of illegal immigrants and settle on a plan to pay down state debt. Lawmakers from both parties said they plan to continue negotiating Thursday - the constitutional deadline to pass the budget - but no vote on the proposed $131 billion spending plan is scheduled. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, criticized Republicans for the delay, saying the party had gone looking for reasons to hold up a vote. Republicans' attempt to block...

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Union president Austria said on Friday Iran has until the Group of Eight (G8) summit in July to consider an offer of incentives to suspend its nuclear enrichment program. The offer, which EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana personally delivered to Tehran earlier this week, was prepared by Germany, France and Britain and is backed by the EU, United States, Russia and China. Asked what would happen if Iran did not accept the offer, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "This will be discussed within the framework of the G8. Iran has until...

SACRAMENTO Six lawmakers are scheduled this week to begin the tedious task of ironing out differences between Assembly and Senate versions of the state budget, but this year their job could be easier than usual. Both chambers have produced spending plans for the fiscal year starting July 1 that are remarkably similar to the $131.1 billion budget Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed earlier this month. "Over the years I've worked here, this is about the smallest number of differences between us and the Senate and us and the administration that I've seen," said Craig Cornett, budget adviser to Assembly Speaker Fabian...

Ynet learns that Bush told Olmert US time limit for action to stop Iran's nuclear program fits Israel's own timetable, but American diplomats make it clear diplomacy will be given chance (WASHINGTON) US President George W. Bush agreed that plans for American intervention to halt Iran's nuclear program are congruent with a timetable discussed with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during talks in Washington. According to Israeli intelligence assessments Iran will acquire the necessary nuclear technology to build a nuclear weapon within a year, Olmert said during the talks. The prime minister said Israel fears diplomatic foot-dragging at the United Nations,...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 8, 2006 – Even though the registration deadline is only a week away, there's still room for military children to attend an "Operation Purple" summer camp free of charge, according to National Military Family Association officials. Applications are available only online, and officials emphasized they will be accepted only through May 15. NMFA's Operation Purple camps provide children from military families fun and memorable opportunities to learn new skills for managing deployment-related stress, officials said. NMFA developed this free summer camp program, sponsored this year by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and TriWest Healthcare Alliance,...

TOMSK, Russia - The leaders of Russia and Germany urged Iran to fulfill its international nuclear obligations Thursday, a day before a U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium. Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that no one could make Tehran give up its nuclear technology, and he warned that the United States and its European allies will regret their decision if they "violate the rights of the Iranian nation." "The Iranian nation has acquired nuclear fuel production technology. It didn't get assistance from anybody and nobody can take it back," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in...

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The April 10 deadline for all victims of Hurricane Katrina and Rita requesting assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is rapidly approaching. In an initial news release March 10, David Paulison, FEMA acting director, announced that the deadline for registering for assistance as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas would be extended 30 days to April 10. Applicants may qualify for help under a wide range of federal and state programs, such as temporary disaster housing assistance; SBA low-interest disaster loans for homeowners, renters and businesses; and assistance for...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders on Tuesday gave themselves at least one more day to try to overcome what one lawmaker called "the diabolical politics of water" and put a record-setting public works bond measure on the June ballot. Negotiators have been working on borrowed time since last Friday, the secretary of state's official cutoff date for the Legislature to add proposals to the June 6 ballot. Lawmakers and administration officials have repeatedly stretched that deadline as they try to find a way out of a seemingly intractable disagreement over how much bond money to spend for new reservoirs....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2006 – A delay in the mailing of absentee ballots means ballots sent in by some servicemembers and their families overseas for the March 7 primary election in Texas will be counted until March 20, Federal Voting Assistance Program officials here said. Uniformed servicemembers, their family members and overseas citizens who have not yet received their requested state absentee ballot may use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, Standard Form 186 to vote for candidates for federal, state, and local offices. All ballots must be placed in delivery by 7 p.m. Central Standard Time on March 7 and...

Nuclear chief gives Iran a deadline By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor (Filed: 17/01/2006) The chief international nuclear inspector has given Iran an ultimatum to come clean about its nuclear programme or face political isolation, sanctions and ultimately military force. As Britain, France and Germany prepared the ground to report Iran to the United Nations, the usually cautious Mohammed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke with unprecedented bluntness about his frustration with Iran. "We are coming to the litmus test in the next few weeks," he said in an interview in Newsweek magazine. "Diplomacy has...

Iraq hostage deadline is extended The peace campaigners oppose the war in Iraq An Iraqi militant group holding four Western peace activists hostage has extended the deadline for their execution, al-Jazeera reports. The original deadline set by the group for the US to release all Iraqi detainees was extended from Thursday to Saturday, the Arab TV station said. The four men - two Canadians, a Briton and an American - were seized last month in Baghdad. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has renewed calls for the men's release. "If the kidnappers want to get in touch we want to hear...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A federal judge Friday gave federal agencies one year to come up with a new plan to keep threatened and endangered salmon from getting killed by the government's hydroelectric dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers. Federal officials had asked for two years. But U.S. District Judge James Redden went along with the one-year timetable sought by environmentalists, Indian tribes and fishermen. "We're running out of time," the judge said. "This time we're going to do it." Salmon are dwindling in the Columbia Basin because of the combined effects of dams, overfishing, logging, grazing, irrigation and...

WASHINGTON - President Bush and his Iraqi counterpart refused Tuesday to set a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but the Iraqi leader said he hoped his security forces would be ready to take over defense of his country by the end of next year. "As Iraqis stand up, America will stand down," Bush said at a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani after their White House meeting. Bush said the United States will not relent in its support of Iraq's new and fragile democracy despite "acts of staggering brutality" in the country. "I pledge we...

CIA report on 9/11 is complete Two years after deadline, findings have yet to reach Congress By Walter Pincus Updated: 1:39 a.m. ET Aug. 20, 2005 The CIA inspector general's report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has finally been completed — nearly two years after its congressionally set deadline — but has yet to be sent to Capitol Hill because CIA Director Porter J. Goss is still deciding how to respond to its findings, according to administration and congressional sources. Inspector General John L. Helgerson's voluminous report, triggered in December 2002 by a recommendation of the House-Senate inquiry...

VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear watchdog expressed "serious concern" Thursday over Iran's resumption of nuclear activities that could lead to an atomic bomb and diplomats said Tehran faced a September deadline to stop uranium conversion at a plant in central Iran. The Iranians resumed work at the nuclear facility in Isfahan earlier this week, despite appeals from European negotiators to maintain a voluntary suspension of nuclear activities. Diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be quoted, made clear that insufficient progress by Sept. 3 could lead the board to consider reporting Iran to...

Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Hundreds of bills, including measures to allow gay marriages, set up a universal health care system and authorize doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, face a make-it-or-break-it deadline this week in the California Legislature. Most bills must be approved by their first house by Friday to have a chance to be signed into law this year. That means both the Senate and Assembly plan long floor sessions in a week shortened by the Memorial Day holiday today. Measures needing to move to the other house by Friday include:| • A bill by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco,...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A federal judge issued a third restraining order Friday that gives the U.N. oil-for-food probe another 2 1/2 weeks to work out a deal with a former investigator over the fate of thousands of documents he took with him when he quit. The order from a Washington judge, which expires June 14, again blocks Robert Parton from handing over the documents to two congressional committees that subpoenaed them after he quit the U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee. Parton resigned from the probe in April, reportedly because he believed it ignored evidence critical of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan....

US sets currency deadline for China By Andrew Balls in Washington Published: May 17 2005 19:31 | Last updated: May 17 2005 19:31 The US Treasury, in its twice-yearly report to Congress on exchange rates and trade, stopped short on Tuesday of accusing China of currency manipulation but made clear it expected revaluation within six months. The conclusions sparked an angry reaction from those legislators who have lost patience with the Treasury's gentle diplomacy on China's exchange rate. The report, however, marked a clear hardening by the administration. It said: “If current trends continue without substantial alteration, China's policies will...