American Cancels About 300 Flights March 26, 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — American Airlines canceled about 300 flights Wednesday so its crews could inspect some wire bundles aboard its MD-80 aircraft.

The canceled flights represent about 13 percent of the estimated 2,300 flights that the nation’s biggest airline had scheduled for the day. The highest concentrations of the cancellations were in the airline’s hubs at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare international airports.

American initially put the number of cancellations at 200, but spokesman Tim Wagner said that was a conservative estimate because the airline prefers to hold off on cancellations as long as possible. The entire fleet of MD-80s is being inspected, Wagner said.

The need for the new inspections became known during an audit of American by a joint team of inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Fort Worth-based airline, Wagner said.

The inspection involves proper spacing between two bundles of wires in the plane’s auxiliary hydraulic system, Wagner said. It must be installed “exactly according to the directive,” he said.

Wagner did not have an estimate of how many planes had completed the inspection and returned to service, and he couldn’t say whether cancellations would continue into Thursday.

“We are in the process of completing the inspections on the remaining airplanes and will return them to service on a rolling basis throughout the day,” Wagner said.

About 80 departures were canceled in Dallas-Fort Worth and another 67 were grounded in Chicago, Wagner said.

Shares of American’s parent AMR Corp. fell $1.02, or 10.6 percent, to close at $8.61 Wednesday, approaching the lower end of their 52-week range of $8.38 to $34.

England disappoints in Paris March 26, 2008

 England suffered their first defeat under coach Fabio Capello with a disappointing performance in France.

Franck Ribery scored the only goal from the penalty spot with 32 minutes gone after David James had spectacularly brought down Nicolas Anelka.

Florent Malouda, Anelka and Ribery all went close to a second, while Steven Gerrard twice headed wide on a night when England created very little.

David Beckham lasted 63 minutes on the night he won his 100th cap.

On the evidence on display France can look forward to their opening Euro 2008 fixture in 75 days with growing confidence after a mature, composed display.

In contrast, Capello must realise that he has a lot of work to do if he is to translate his success at club level to the international stage.

Massive ice shelf collapsing off Antarctica(Photos explained) March 26, 2008

 

Scientists are citing “rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica” as the cause of an initial collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The damage got started at the end of February when an iceberg dropped off and triggered the “runaway disintegration” of a 160-square-mile portion of the 5,282-square-mile shelf.

The ice shelf, which scientists speculate has floated in the Antarctic region for hundreds of years, is succumbing to recent rises in temperature in the area–an average of 0.9 degree Fahrenheit every 10 years for the last 50 years.

This series of pictures that show the beginning of the breakup were taken by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensor, which flies on its Earth Observing System Aqua and Terra satellites.

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center/NASA

 

The true-color blue area is breaking off the rest of the ice shelf. A narrow, 3.7-mile section is all that remains to protect from further crumbling, though scientists say that, with Antarctica’s summer just ending, they don’t expect further disintegration in the next few months.

“This unusual show is over for this season,” Ted Scambos, lead scientist for the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said in a statement. “But come January, we’ll be watching to see if the Wilkins continues to fall apart.”

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

The crumbled portion of the Wilkins Ice Shelf features 492-foot-wide icebergs that are crumbling into house-size blocks.

Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center; right, National Snow and Ice Data Center/courtesy Cheng-Chien Liu, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan and Taiwan’s National Space Organization (NSPO); processed at Earth Dynamic System Research Center at NCKU,

The red line shows the position of the ice shelf in 2007.Credit: British Antarctic Survey

The Wilkins Ice Shelf breakup, as observed by scientists of the British Antarctic Survey in an overflight.

Credit: Jim Elliot, British Antarctic Survey

Transgender Man Says He’s Pregnant March 26, 2008

A transgender man from Oregon says he is five months pregnant, according to gay rights magazine The Advocate.

 

Stunning photos of what appears to be a pregnant Thomas Beatie accompany the first-person article on the publication’s Web site.

“Our situation sparks legal, political and social unknowns,” wrote Beatie, who’s from Bend, Ore.

Beatie, who was born a woman named Tracy Lagondino, had reassignment surgery to appear as a man outwardly, but he never surgically altered his reproductive organs, he said in the article. He only had chest reconstruction and began taking testosterone, Beatie said, meaning he still has ovaries and a uterus.

Now Beatie, who said he was able to get pregnant using artificial insemination, is expecting a baby girl with his wife, Nancy. He said he was 22 weeks along. The baby is due July 3.

But Beatie’s case, while uncommon, is not unique. Another transgender man has given birth before, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center obstetrician Dr. Lisa Masterson said on “Good Morning America” today.

“A transgender man can be pregnant because he has the same organs as a woman,” she said, adding that Beatie should have no problem having a baby.

But Masterson said there are some health risks with this kind of pregnancy.

“It’s really important that he doesn’t take any testosterone early on in the pregnancy and later on,” she said. “That can cause male-type characteristics in the female baby.”

Usually, transgender men use testosterone to gain more masculine qualities. The article said he stopped getting injections and was able to get pregnant.

Beatie also addressed some burning, practical questions people may have.

“To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child,” he wrote, explaning that his wife is unable to conceive. “I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.”

But not everyone believes Beatie’s story. Some of his neighbors expressed indredulity.

“Quite frankly, I think it’s a hoax,” Beatie’s neighbor Ron Schlieper said. “I saw him a few days ago, and he didn’t look like that.”

Another Bend resident, Josh Love, said, “I couldn’t say that he looks pregnant. I can stick my stomach out and almost make it look like that. I think it’s kind of bizarre. I don’t know if I believe it or not.”

But The Advocate, which posted the story in its online edition, said it stands by its story even though so far the couple has refused to talk to other media.

“We asked Thomas to provide the name of his doctor, and she confirmed that he was pregnant and that his pregnancy is proceeding as it should,” Advocate editor in chief Anne Stockwell said.