USA
BellSouth Corp., which provides telecommunication services to nine Southeastern states, said it did not share customer calling records with the National Security Agency as reported by USA Today last week. According to a spokesman, the company conducted a "thorough review" that confirmed no contract exists with the NSA. The USA Today story claimed BellSouth, AT&T Inc., and Verizon Communications contributed to a massive call databank. Michael Copps, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, said the regulatory agency should investigate the nation's phone companies to find out which, if any, may have broken the law by turning over customer records.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported being besieged by calls Monday from seniors looking to beat a midnight deadline to enroll in the new Medicare drug benefit plan. Officials said that enrollment efforts could result in 90 percent coverage among 43 million eligible individuals.
David Evans, a co-captain of the Duke University lacrosse team, called rape allegations brought against him Monday "fantastic lies" in the Durham, N.C., case that has garnered national headlines. Evans was the third white player charged in the rape of a black exotic dancer at a team party. Defense attorneys have cited the results of DNA tests in claiming their clients' innocence, and Evans said he'd taken a lie detector test to substantiate his story.
Inaccurate navigational data on a robotic NASA spacecraft caused it to collide last year during an attempted rendezvous with an orbiting satellite, according to portions of an agency investigation released Monday. Both spacecraft are expected to burn up upon re-entry.
A pause, if not a break, in the weather pattern that has dumped as much as 15 inches of rain in several days on parts of New England is expected Wednesday, according to forecasters. The region's worst flooding in nearly seven decades has overwhelmed sewage systems, drowned wastewater treatment plants, and forced thousands of residents to evacuate homes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Although soaring energy costs caused wholesale prices to jump 0.9 percent in April, prices for products other than energy and food rose only 0.1 percent for the second month in a row, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The finding suggests that many other products have been spared from inflation, perhaps contributing to an 0.8 percent jump in industrial production.
