U.S. News: April

China reported that a U.S. Navy ship was involved in a confrontation with some of its vessels off the southern island of Hainan.  They said the incident  violated international law.  Ma Zhaoxu

Foreign ministry spokesman said that U.S. reports that five Chinese vessels harassed the USNS Impeccable were “totally inaccurate”.  China requested that the U.S. stop these activities immediately.  U.S. reports stated that the Chinese ships moved in dangerously close to an unarmed U.S. navy surveillance vessel during routine operations in international waters 75 miles south of Hainan island.  A Pentagon rep said that Chinese ships “aggressively manoeuvred” around the Impeccable “in an apparent co-ordinates effort to harass the U.S. ocean surveillance ship.”

A California stem cell company jumped for joy as did its stock prices after President Obama brought to an end an eight-year limit on federal funding for studies of embryonic stem cells.  The executive order allows federal funding for research on numerous embryonic stem cell lines that did not qualify for federal support under a policy signed by former President George W. Bush in 2001.  That policy limited government-sponsored research to the 21 embryonic stem cell lines created prior to 2001.

Scientists and patient-advocacy groups have lobbied for years to overturn the Bush restrictions in hope that research will offer improved medical treatments for conditions including damaged spinal nerves, reinforce weakened heart muscle and restore a diabetic’s ability to manufacture insulin. 

Statistics show that one in 50 children becomes homeless in the U.S. each year.  The National Center on Family Homelessness researched data from 2005-2006 and discovered there are more than 1.5 million children without homes with numbers expected to rise along with devastating increases in home foreclosures.  States citing the most cases were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana. Hawaii, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and North Dakota fared better.  Homeless children have poor health, emotional problems and low graduation rates, the study found.

Regarding federally financed human embryonic stem cell research, President Obama hopes to bypass the biggest question pertaining to the subject: should taxpayer dollars be used to experiment on embryos?  White House reps said the president will leave the decision to Congress to determine whether the long-standing legislative ban on federal financing for human embryo experiments is overturned.

A man strolled into a First Baptist church near St. Louis during a meeting and shot to death the pastor and two congregants according to police reports.  Churchgoers wrestled the gunman to the ground as he waved a knife, slashing himself and two other people.  The assailant was not recognized by any of the 150-or-so congregants .

The Supreme Court has ruled that: “Only election districts in which minorities make up at least half of the voting-age population are entitled to the protections of a part of the Voting Rights Act that seeks to ensure and preserve minority voting power”.

North Carolina officials argued that the act required that they maintain black influence at the voting booth by creating a district that included about 39 percent of the black voting-age population.  In effect the theory was that the law protected black voters willing to join white “crossover voters” to elect a candidate of the black voters’ choice.  It was rejected by the court in a 5-to-4 vote.

The Obama administration said it will not use “enemy combatant” in reference to Guantánamo Bay detainees, but asserts the power to detain them.

A healthier Barbara Bush was released from a Houston 9-day hospital stay after heart surgery.

Failure in passport security is higher due to a rising problem in counterfeit documents.  The identities of a dead man and a 5-year-old boy were obtained by a government investigator in a test of security measures.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s request to use $700 million in federal stimulus cash to pay down his state’s debt was rejected by the Obama administration. White House budget director, Peter R. Orszag, said that the federal stimulus law did not allow President Obama to make an exception for that cash.  The $787 billion stimulus legislation has reportedly set strict rules for the $53.6 billion available to help state budgets. Exactly 82 percent of the money is to be used for public schools and colleges and 18 percent on public safety and other government services.  Congress won’t authorize the executive branch to waive statutory requirements.  

It’s being reported that the U.S. government knew that top Guatemalan officials that the U.S. was supporting with arms and cash were responsible for the disappearance of thousands of people during a 36-year civil war.  The now declassified documents were obtained by a U.S. research institute.

U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. stated that the Justice Department will not prosecute California medical pot dispensaries operating legally under state laws.  Obama administration officials say they hope to take a hands-off approach to the clinics, as they have changed priorities toward the controversial prosecutions.  The Bush administration targeted medical marijuana distributors even in states that had passed laws allowing use of the drug for medicinal purposes by cancer patients, those in chronic pain and other serious ailments.  The administration will target egregious offenders operating in violation of federal and state laws and those that use the clinics as fronts for drug dealers.

A federal judge  blocked a federal rule allowing people to carry concealed, loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly halts a change in regulations issued in the waning days of the Bush administration and orders further review. 

The rule, which took effect in January allows visitors to carry a loaded gun into a park or wildlife refuge as long as the person has a permit for a concealed weapon and the state where the park or refuge was located allowed concealed firearms. Previously, guns in parks had been severely restricted.

More headaches for Congress and the Obama administration when a disclosure showed that 13 financial firms that had received federal bailout money owed around $220 million in unpaid taxes.  Headline making mortgage giant Fannie Mae was ready and willing to pay millions in retention bonuses—the same as AIG did, but the House quickly threw in the measure, that a 90% tax was going to be imposed on anyone receiving bonuses at AIG and other firms that received more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds.