News Bytes

US economy: growing more than seven percent Over the last quarter, the US economy grew faster than it has for almost 20 years. With 7.2% it exceeded the economists' expectations by far. According to preliminary calculations of the US Department of Commerce, the US economy grew at a rate of 7.2% projected on the entire year in the third quarter after a plus of 3.3% in the previous quarter. More good news: the number of initial applications for unemployment benefit decreased further. During the reference week, the number dropped by 5,000 applications to 386,000, according to the US Department of Labor. Most economists' expectations, which had been at 5.5%, have been exceeded by far with these numbers. Ever since the first quarter of 1984 the US has not registered an increase like this one. Germany can only dream of an economic growth like this one. On the other hand, the US economy has been stimulated like no other. About one year before the presidential elections, the US Federal Reserve and the Bush administration have done everything they could possibly think of - low taxes, high military spending, a weak Dollar and generous tax cuts have developed their full effect in the last quarter. The weak Dollar is also beneficial to European tourists - a vacation to the US hasn't been this cheap in a long time.

Elections in Louisiana: second generation immigrant defeated by very small margin For the first time in the history of the US state of Louisiana, a woman has been elected Governor. With 52 percent of the votes, 60-year old Democrat Kathleen Blanco has won the elections with a very small margin to her competitor, the Republican Bobby Jindal (48 percent). The Louisiana election has been regarded as a historical event from the beginning. Apart from the vice-governor Kathleen Blanco, it was also the first time that a son of Indian immigrants ran for the office of governor in this southern state of the US. And the 32-year old Jindal was seen as the champion in this race for a long time. As a minority member, he could win the votes of many African-Americans in Louisiana. Even the African-American Democratic mayor of New Orleans had publicly supported Jindal and not his fellow Democrat Blanco. At the same time, the strictly conservative Jindal has also managed to win over many white people in Louisiana.

48 hours prior to the elections, it still looked as though Jindal would win. But during the last few days before the elections, Blanco campaigned more aggressively and attacked Jindal directly. She portrayed him as a cold-hearted, career-oriented and know-it-all over-achiever, who didn't understand the real problems of the people in Louisiana. As proof of this, she referred to Jindal's health reforms from the 90s, which cost several thousand people their health insurance. Apparently, this aggressive campaign style paid off at the last minute...

California: Schwarzenegger doesn't need to be paid The new governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, will do without his governor's salary ($175,000) to relieve the highly indebted state. Furthermore he announced that he wanted to take up another $15 billion to close some holes in the budget. The day after he was sworn in, Schwarzenegger said that he wanted to whip his state into shape financially with a special recovery plan. The first measure was the cut of motor vehicle tax yesterday, now he also wants to cut the social benefits for employees. Furthermore, in March the Californians are supposed to vote on whether or not the state should take up a loan of another $15 billion. With, Schwarzenegger wants to repair the budget. Democrat Phil Angelides, however, warned that the new debt would even worsen California's already bad credit ranking.

Illegal immigrants: FBI storms Wal-Mart stores American retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc has apparently violated several immigration laws, according to a letter from the US legal authority. During a search of several Wal-Mart stores in the US at the end of October, 250 illegal immigrants had been arrested. Most of them had been employed at cleaning companies that had contracts with Wal-Mart to clean their stores. Ten were directly employed at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart already announced that all of the roughly one million employees in the US were going to be checked by the company to find out whether they had the necessary residence permits. A first hearing for this case will be held in mid-December.

University: entry regulations taking effect The tightened visa regulations introduced after September 11, 2001 apparently make foreign students choose other countries over the US. According to a study by the Institute for International Education that is being published annually, enrollment of foreign students has increased by only 0.6%. In the two previous academic years, it was still a 6.4% increase a year. So this is the lowest increase in seven years.

Race for giant telescope US researchers are planning to construct the biggest telescope of all time. Its 30-meter mirror would be almost nine times bigger than the reflectors of the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. However, the Americans do have to hurry - in Europe, plane exist for telescopes with 100-meter mirrors. Usually, the old world cannot compete with America in everything relating to gigantism. However, when it comes to optical telescopes, the Europeans may well leave the Americans far behind - if they are fast enough. Because in the US, the planning of an observatory with a 30-meter mirror is entering the second stage. After some first drafts the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has now granted the California Institute of Technology and the University of California $17.5 million (roughly €14.9 million) to draw up detailed plans for the "Thirty-Meter Telescope" TMT.

The giant telescope, previously talked about as California Extremely Large Telescope, is supposed to gather nine times as much light as each of the two Keck telescopes, which are currently the biggest of their kind. Its pictures would be ten times as sharp as those of the Hubble space telescope. With this, astrophysicists might be able to study the development of galaxies from the early ages of space and the formation of planetary systems. Until the next generation of reflecting telescopes is ready for use, however, it might take a few more years. According to its developers, the Californian 30-meter telescope can be used 2012 at the earliest. And it looks like the Europeans will not finish a giant telescope before 2014.

Medical training: "doctors are not unfeeling" Too much is going wrong with the communication between doctor and patient, believes a physician from the Columbia University in New York. There, listening is now an academic subject - "narrative medicine" is the name of the new discipline. The conversation between patient and diagnostician consists mainly of technical jargon. Every doctor knows that the patient history is important to understand the condition, but often this does not affect the diagnosis. Medical training in the US will now put a greater emphasis on teaching future doctors to listen - as an academic discipline. "Narrative medicine" is the term for that and the most important exercise for the student is to re-tell the patient's report in his own words and without using medical terms.

Rita Charon, physician and literary scientist at the Columbia University in New York trains her med students in reading seminars to improve conversations with their patients. She says the habit of many doctors to interrupt the patient with own questions while he or she is giving the history was to be completely done away with. With this, Charon also wants to improve the image of physicians in general - "doctors are not unfeeling, they just don't have the training they need."

Manufacturer of handguns offers blankies 151-year old manufacturer of handguns Smith & Wesson in the US is suffering form severe decline in sales. About to time to expand the product range - as of now, the arms manufacturer offers, apart from the Magnum, clothes and jewelry cowboy-style - just in time for Christmas, "Crossing by Smith & Wesson" is what the company from Scottsdale, Arizona, call their new catalog that is offering a rather unusual range of products. Cowboy shirts for men and women, cowboy hats, soft pillows and blankets that read "don't fence me in" and even colorful earrings and necklaces are not missing from the collection.

Background of this new product range is a severe drop in turnover for the main business of Smith & Wesson - in 2000, the company in the US was still selling a little over 960,000 guns. One year later, this number had already decreased by one third. One reason for the dramatic drop in sales are the lawsuits started by dozens of US cities who make the manufacturer of Magnum, Pumpgun etc responsible for the increasing armed violence on their streets and in their schools - accusations that are, of course, not true, according to the defendant. The products were meant to promote their customers patriotism, because every article represented a lifestyle that rooted deeply in the ancient American values of freedom and independence. Maybe cowboy equipment has the same effect, at least it might not be a bad way to go for Smith & Wesson.

Diplomats: tickets to be paid The unpaid tickets their diplomats got in the US could turn out to be expensive for some foreign countries. The US Senate now passed an amendment according to which the unpaid tickets plus a fine may be counted against financial aid for those countries. Especially New York and Washington are suffering from illegal parking diplomats. The new law would mean an extra 21 million Dollars for New York alone for 168,000 unpaid tickets. The greatest debtor is Egypt with tickets worth 2 million Dollars. Kuwait has the second place with 1.2 million Dollars for 11,122 unpaid tickets. Other countries include Nigeria, Indonesia, Morocco, Brazil, Pakistan, Senegal, Angola and Sudan. Kuwait is the only country, however, whose debt is higher than the actual financial aid for the country.

Employee lost access equipment for US nuclear laboratory An employee lost his key and code card for a secret arms and nuclear laboratory in California. This laboratory is said to also develop nuclear weapons for the US army. The employee reported the loss of his access key and code card only after three weeks. According to the regulations, this has to be reported within 24 hours.

Now the central locking system needs to be replaced, which will cost the government and the tax payer approximately 2.3 million Dollars. 100,000 locks need to be replaced.

New York: man stuck in train toilet This man was really unlucky - first of all, he dropped his cell phone into the toilet of a regional train in New York. When he tried to reach for it, his hand got stuck. All his attempts to free himself failed. His cries were heard by another passenger who got the train conductor. The train had to be stopped until the fire department arrived to save him with a flame cutter.

But that's not the end of the story - he might even have to pay compensation for the rerouting of other trains and the delays. According to the train company, this could be several thousands of Dollars.

Police: warns of the Mobile Infrared Transmitter When the fire department and the emergency service are called out, they have only green lights thanks to the infrared device. If private vehicles will also be equipped with this device, chaos will ensue, according to the US police. In the US, a cheap version of the device is already being sold via the internet. Turning red lights green - defeating big city traffic with the transmitter. A controversial new device makes US drivers happy and the US police nervous. The Mobile Infrared Transmitter (MIRT) turns most red lights green as soon as a car equipped with the device approaches the intersection. As the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, the transmitter had been invented to allow the police and the fire department to get to the scene quicker. The MIRT with $500-$900 is the cheaper version of an already existing, more expensive system offered for communities that have financial difficulties. Via the internet (http://www.themirt.com), however, all other drivers may buy these devices as well and thus enter a legal gray area. Sally Greenberg of the Consumers Union told the newspaper "every driver I know would like to have this kind of power, but these devices can lead to serious safety problems." The police is worried that more and more drivers will buy this device and thus cause chaos at the intersections. Especially if cars equipped with MIRTs are approaching from several directions, the traffic lights may malfunction.