2008-07-04T18:23:51Z User 228 http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/ OrgSpace NewsLog

Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:13 AM Article Font Size LUBBOCK, Texas -- A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra—but don't necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks all night long. ...

Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:13 AM

Article Font Size



LUBBOCK, Texas -- A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra—but don't necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks all night long.


Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation's top producers of the seedless variety.


Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.


"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects."


Todd Wehner, who studies watermelon breeding at North Carolina State University, said anyone taking Viagra shouldn't expect the same result from watermelon.


"It sounds like it would be an effect that would be interesting but not a substitute for any medical treatment," Wehner said.


The nitric oxide can also help with angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, according to the study, which was paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


More citrulline—about 60 percent—is found in watermelon rind than in the flesh, Patil said, but that can vary. But scientists may be able to find ways to boost the concentrations in the flesh, he said.


Citrulline is found in all colors of watermelon and is highest in the yellow-fleshed types, said Penelope Perkins-Veazie, a USDA researcher in Lane, Okla.


She said Patil's research is valid, but with a caveat: One would need to eat about six cups of watermelon to get enough citrulline to boost the body's arginine level.


"The problem you have when you eat a lot of watermelon is you tend to run to the bathroom more," Perkins-Veazie said.


Watermelon is a diuretic and was a homeopathic treatment for kidney patients before dialysis became widespread.


Another issue is the amount of sugar that much watermelon would spill into the bloodstream—a jolt that could cause cramping, Perkins-Veazie said.


Patil said he would like to do future studies on how to reduce the sugar content in watermelon.


The relationship between citrulline and arginine might also prove helpful to those who are obese or suffer from type-2 diabetes. The beneficial effects—among them the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does—are beginning to be revealed in research.


Citrulline is present in other curcubits, like cucumbers and cantaloupe, at very low levels, and in the milk protein casein. The highest concentrations of citrulline are found in walnut seedlings, Perkins-Veazie said.


"But they're bitter and most people don't want to eat them," she said.

]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000405.htm 2008-07-04T18:23:51Z 2008-07-04T18:23:51Z

Paul McCartney is no longer a threat to Israeli youth. More than four decades after the Beatle and his famous band mates were told they couldn’t perform in Israel for fear that they would corrupt the country’s young people, the “Let It Be” singer has signed on for a September concert in either ...

Paul McCartney is no longer a threat to Israeli youth.

More than four decades after the Beatle and his famous band mates were told they couldn’t perform in Israel for fear that they would corrupt the country’s young people, the “Let It Be” singer has signed on for a September concert in either Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan. The big-budget show, first reported by Yediot Aharonot, will follow McCartney concerts in Georgia and Turkey. The show, likely to be the largest and most expensive of the summer, is being organized by David Zarzevski, a promoter behind the Eilat Jazz Festival and recent Tel Aviv-area concerts by Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu.

The show will mark McCartney’s debut concert in Israel, though not his first invitation to perform. The singer and his Beatles counterparts planned a concert in the country in 1965, but they were barred from performing by then-education minister Yaakov Schneider on grounds that the band members might serve as negative role models for the country’s youth. (Israeli government approval is no longer needed for performances by foreign artists.)

Israel’s current ambassador to England sent letters to McCartney, Ringo Starr and relatives of deceased Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon earlier this year, expressing regret for the incident. The letter to McCartney declared that “Israel missed a chance to learn from the most influential musicians of the decade.”

McCartney isn’t the only high-profile musician heading to the Holy Land. Also on his way is American jazz great Branford Marsalis, who will perform at the Tel Aviv Opera House on July 17. The saxophonist previously performed in Israel in 1997.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000404.htm 2008-07-04T17:03:59Z 2008-07-04T17:03:59Z

Day to Day, July 4, 2008 · In Germany, almost everyone has access to heath care coverage. A small 0.2 percent of legal German residents are uninsured, compared with nearly 18 percent of Americans. Many clinics for the uninsured in the United States can't meet the demand of people in need of...

Day to Day, July 4, 2008 · In Germany, almost everyone has access to heath care coverage.

A small 0.2 percent of legal German residents are uninsured, compared with nearly 18 percent of Americans.

Many clinics for the uninsured in the United States can't meet the demand of people in need of free care. But it's a different story in Germany, where there are very few clinics — eight in the entire country —

Struggling with Demand in the U.S.

Someone who is uninsured in Washington, D.C., could try to get an appointment at La Clinica del Pueblo in Columbia Heights.

There are four doctors. It's open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week — and stays open late on Wednesdays. But it's always fully booked.

"At our busiest days we have 50 or 60 patients coming through. The waiting room is often packed," says Dr. Meredith Josephs, the director of the clinic. She says that only a quarter of people who walk into the clinic without an appointment get seen.

"We are still unfortunately turning folks away," Josephs says.

She works 11-hour days and still goes home frustrated.

"It's definitely emotionally difficult sometimes," she says. "I sort of try and live life sort of focusing on the ones that I can help and I'm kind of cold-hearted to the others, because if I were to spend my time trying to figure out how to serve all the people who can't get in the door, I think I would just go crazy."

Josephs isn't alone. There are 10 free clinics like this in Washington, D.C., dedicated to caring for uninsured patients — and thousands more across the United States.

Serving Patients Across the Ocean

The story is very different in Germany, where there are only eight free clinics for the uninsured in the whole country.

Dr. Herbert Breker is beginning his day at the Malteser Clinic for the uninsured in Cologne. This is a small, three-room clinic — a tiny office, exam room and waiting area attached to a private charity hospital.

It's 9 a.m. Breker looks out the window and checks the waiting room for patients. But no one is coming. So, he sits at his desk, makes some calls and gets some paperwork done.

About 15 minutes later, his first patient shows up. It's a middle-aged man suffering from vertigo. He's one of only two German citizens who come into the clinic this day. That's because almost all Germans have health insurance.

Breker sends the man home with a referral to get additional tests — then has some more downtime before other patients arrive.

"I take a quick look to see if somebody arrived meanwhile and I see that it's empty. I'll look out the windows. And I don't see anybody, so no nobody is coming," Breker says as he checks the waiting room.

Breker pours himself a cup of coffee. He explains why the man is uninsured.

All Germans, he says, can get medical insurance through their employers. This man didn't qualify — he was self-employed. For a while he bought insurance on his own, then as he got older it became too expensive.

Breker tells us that kind of problem won't last much longer: Germany has passed a law that will get people in that situation covered by health insurance. It will take effect next January.

The Clinic's Customers

Breker says people who have no insurance in Germany are usually living in the country illegally. That's who most of his patients are.

He reads through a log of recent patients. In addition to the occasional German patient, most are from other places — Turkey, Romania, Morocco, Bosnia, Poland, Costa Rica and Nigeria.

Late in the afternoon on one particular day, two people show up at once. A Romanian woman pleads for medicine for her husband. And a frantic American walks in.

Breker greets him at the door. The patient, Michael Davis, has a cardiac condition — and is uninsured. He's nervous that Breker will turn him away.

Davis, 35, says he suffered a massive heart attack in Germany last summer — while on vacation. He spent a couple of weeks in the hospital. They told him he would have to have bypass surgery. He flew back to the U.S. and saw a cardiologist.

"The cardiologist said right then and there we must admit you; if we let you leave, liability-wise we could be in serious trouble because we just know that you are a walking time bomb," Davis says.

So he had the surgery right away, but he didn't have insurance. His employer didn't offer coverage for part-time workers like him.

"I was never offered to get any kind of health care," he says. "Whether I even pay into it or whether it was supplemental."

Davis says he is still dealing with more than $50,000 in bills from his heart attack in Germany and bypass surgery in the U.S.

"Medicaid's supposed to cover the hospitalization and the bypass from the United States, but Medicaid's saying I made too much money even though I didn't work from April to September," he says. "I've gone through so much of an ordeal because of it."

Davis is now living in Germany, and he hopes to get a job and get married to his German partner soon. Then he'll have health care coverage. But those bills won't go away.

Breker examines Davis, then sends him for additional tests.

"Look, what I tried to do, I referred you to the service of this hospital. They'll give you an appointment for an echocardiogram, it's just an EKG, which I think is very important to see how much your left ventricle is damaged," he says.

Davis' shoulders drop, and he leans against the counter when the exam ends. You can see him relax.

"I wasn't expecting to be treated like this let alone to get such immediate care as quickly as this occurred. I'm actually shocked right now," he says.

A World of Difference

At 2 p.m. Breker closes up shop for the day.

"That's about time we close now. We close," Breker exclaims.

So, by the end of the day, Breker has seen eight patients and given them treatment, medicine and referrals to the specialists they need. It's a situation Josephs at La Clinica Del Pueblo in Washington can hardly imagine.

"Wow, that's amazing. I wish I could say it were the same here," she says. "It's a different experience."

Josephs says it's not easy to get health care in the U.S. if you don't have insurance. It means long waits — and a lot of barriers.

Radio piece produced by Jane Greenhalgh. ]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000403.htm 2008-07-03T08:32:33Z 2008-07-03T08:32:33Z

For second straight month, more coalition troops die in Afghanistan than Iraq — a grim milestone that analysts says underscores the Taliban's growing strength. KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month, a gr...

For second straight month, more coalition troops die in Afghanistan than Iraq — a grim milestone that analysts says underscores the Taliban's growing strength.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month, a grim milestone capping a run of headline-grabbing insurgent attacks that analysts say underscore the Taliban's growing strength.

The fundamentalist militia in June staged a sophisticated jailbreak that freed 886 prisoners, then briefly infiltrated a strategic valley outside Kandahar. Last week, a Pentagon report forecast the Taliban would maintain or increase its pace of attacks, which are already up 40 percent this year from 2007 where U.S. troops operate along the Pakistan border.

Some observers say the insurgency has gained dangerous momentum. And while June also saw the international community meet in Paris to pledge $21 billion in aid, an Afghanistan expert at New York University warns that there is still no strategy to turn that commitment into success.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000402.htm 2008-07-01T07:52:01Z 2008-07-01T07:52:01Z

Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors." Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO." If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others. Stomp o...

Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO."
If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
Reply to everything someone says with "that's what you think."
Practice making fax and modem noises.
Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
Staple pages in the middle of the page.
Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
Honk and wave to strangers.
Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
type only in lowercase.
dont use any punctuation either
Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
"DO YOU HEAR THAT?"
"What?"
"Never mind, it's gone now."
As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "No, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
Ask people what gender they are.
While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
Sing along at the opera.
Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a ]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000400.htm 2008-06-27T09:24:23Z 2008-06-27T09:24:23Z

Seventeen students in one Massachusetts high school are pregnant and many of them became that way on purpose. The girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of them is older than 16. The school’s superintendent said these are girls who generally lack sel...

Seventeen students in one Massachusetts high school are pregnant and many of them became that way on purpose. The girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of them is older than 16. The school’s superintendent said these are girls who generally lack self-esteem, a sense of direction and have a lack of love in their life; they are young women wanting and needing affection. School officials started looking into the spike in pregnancies after an unusual number of girls came to the school clinic for pregnancy tests. Some came by several times. Some of the girls reacted to the news they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the school principal stated.

Question: What is it in our society that would encourage this type of pack mentality behavior (Juno, Jamie Lynn Spears, etc.) and should the school be held responsible at all?
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000399.htm 2008-06-23T10:17:09Z 2008-06-23T10:17:09Z

George Carlin Dead at Age 71 June 23, 2008, 2:44 AM EST SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71. ...

George Carlin Dead at Age 71
June 23, 2008, 2:44 AM EST
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with the "Seven Words" routine. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace.

When the words were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long."

He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we, surprised?"

"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. r Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.

Only problem was, it didn't work for him.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."

Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000398.htm 2008-06-23T08:53:56Z 2008-06-23T08:53:56Z

George Carlin will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said Tuesday that Carlin will be honored for his 50-year career as a Grammy-winning standup comedian, writer and actor. He will be the 11th recipient of the award. It...

George Carlin will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts said Tuesday that Carlin will be honored for his 50-year career as a Grammy-winning standup comedian, writer and actor. He will be the 11th recipient of the award.

It will be presented November 10th at a tribute performance that will be televised by PBS.

Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen Schwarzman says Carlin makes people laugh but also makes them think.

Carlin has released 22 solo albums and three best-selling books. He starred in a variety of TV and movie roles and is famous for his ''Seven Dirty Words'' routine.

Past recipients of the prize include Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin and Neil Simon.]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000396.htm 2008-06-19T08:00:28Z 2008-06-19T08:00:28Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday. A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.

A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years," said John Walters, director of the office. "This is not just youthful experimentation that they'll get over as we used to think in the past."

Smoking marijuana can lead to more serious problems, Walters said in an interview.

For example, using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers, it said.

The report also cited research that showed that teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed were more than twice as likely as their peers to abuse or become addicted to pot — 8 percent compared with 3 percent.

Experts who have worked with children say there's nothing harmless about marijuana.

"I've seen many, many kids' lives negatively impacted and taken off track because of marijuana," said Elizabeth Stanley-Salazar, director of adolescent services for Phoenix House treatment centers in California. "It's somewhat Russian roulette. There are so many factors, emotional, psychological, biological. You can't predict the experimentation and how it will impact a kid."

The drug control policy office analyzed about a dozen studies looking at marijuana use, including research by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Overall, marijuana use among teens has decreased 25 percent since 2001, down to about 2.3 million kids who used pot at least once a month, the drug control office said.

While the drop is encouraging, Walters appealed to parents to recognize signs of possible drug use and depression.

"It's not something you look the other way about when your teen starts appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family, losing interest in daily activities," Walters said. "Find out what's wrong."
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000395.htm 2008-05-10T04:02:26Z 2008-05-10T04:02:26Z

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamist sect descended into farce Thursday, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and the judge struggling to maintain order. The case — clearly one o...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamist sect descended into farce Thursday, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and the judge struggling to maintain order.

The case — clearly one of the biggest, most convoluted child-custody hearings in U.S. history — presented an extraordinary spectacle: big-city lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th-century, pioneer-style dresses, all packed into a courtroom and a nearby auditorium connected by video.

At issue was an attempt by the state of Texas to strip the parents of custody and place the children in foster homes because of evidence they were being physically and sexually abused by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group suspected of forcing underage girls into marriage with older men.
As many feared, the proceedings turned into something of a circus — and a painfully slow one.

By midafternoon only two witnesses had testified, and both only to lay the foundation for documents to be admitted. One witness, a state trooper, was cross-examined by dozens of attorneys, each of them asking the same question on behalf of a child or parent.

As the afternoon dragged on, no decisions had been made on the fate of any of the youngsters.

Additional details on life at the ranch began to emerge as child welfare investigator Angie Voss testified.

She said that if one of the men fell out of favor with the FLDS, his wives and children would be reassigned to other men. The children would then identify the new man as their father. Voss said that contributed to the problem of identifying children's family links and their ages.

Tough time keeping order
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther struggled to keep order as she faced 100 lawyers in her 80-year-old Tom Green County courtroom and several hundred more participating over a grainy video feed from an ornate City Hall auditorium two blocks away.

The hearing disintegrated quickly into a barrage of shouted objections and attempts to file motions, with lawyers for the children objecting to objections made by the parents' attorneys. When the judge sustained an objection to the prolonged questioning the state trooper, the lawyers cheered.

Upon another objection about the proper admission of medical records of the children, the judge threw up her hands.
assume most of you want to make the same objection. Can I have a universal, 'Yes, Judge'?" she said.

In both buildings, the hundreds of lawyers stood and responded in unison: "Yes, Judge."

But she added to the chaos as well.

Walther refused to put medical records and other evidence in electronic form, which could be e-mailed among the lawyers, because it contained personal information. A courier had to run from the courthouse to the auditorium delivering one document at a time.

"We're going to handle this the best we can, one client at a time," Walther said.

Legal wrangling
Little evidence had been admitted by midafternoon. The first attempt to admit evidence resulted in an hour-long recess while all the lawyers examined it. The rest of the morning was spent in arguments about whether to admit the medical records of three girls, two 17-year-olds and one 18-year-old.

Department of Public Safety Sgt. Danny Crawford testified to DPS's discovery of a church bishop's records taken from a safe at the ranch that listed about 38 families, some of them polygamous and some that included wives 16 or 17 years old. But under repeated cross-examination, Crawford acknowledged the records contained no evidence of sexual abuse.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v228/__show_article/_a000228-000394.htm 2008-04-18T06:28:41Z 2008-04-18T06:31:56Z