5.1-magnitude earthquake shook Oklahoma just after 9 a.m. Wednesday, and tremors were reported everywhere from the Kansas state line to the Red River.


The U.S. Geological Survey reported the earthquake was centered at Lake Thunderbird State Park, about six miles southeast of Norman.

"It came in loud and strong on all of our seismic stations and we are checking all of our equipment now," said Randy Keller, director at the Oklahoma Geological Survey.

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry said today that state authorities are in the process of reviewing state infrastructure in the wake of this morning’s earthquake in Oklahoma.

“Teams are already in the field examining roads, bridges and other state structures to determine if any damage occurred and whether any additional actions are necessary to protect public safety,” Henry said in a statement. “There’s certainly no reason to panic, but we want to err on the side of caution and do everything we can to make sure people and structures are safe.”

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, along with their consulting engineer, The Benham Companies, began inspections on all bridges located around the Oklahoma City metro area after Wednesday morning's 5.1 magnitude earthquake.

911 dispatchers in the Tulsa area reported getting 50 to 60 calls following the quake from residents wondering what caused the shaking.

Dispatch Supervisor Michael Pittman said no one called to report an emergency in the Tulsa area concerning the quake.

None of the calls were from overly worried residents, he said, "But some of the people here were."

At Hale High School, students were in the halls getting ready for their first class to start at 9:10 a.m.

Principal Caleb Starr said a secretary in the main office felt the quake, so an e-mail was sent out to all teachers, directing them to discuss what happened with their students.

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MENTOR, Ohio – Sladjana Vidovic's body lay in an open casket, dressed in the sparkly pink dress she had planned to wear to the prom. Days earlier, she had tied one end of a rope around her neck and the other around a bed post before jumping out her bedroom window.

The 16-year-old's last words, scribbled in English and her native Croatian, told of her daily torment at Mentor High School, where students mocked her accent, taunted her with insults like "Slutty Jana" and threw food at her.

It was the fourth time in little more than two years that a bullied high school student in this small Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie died by his or her own hand — three suicides, one overdose of antidepressants. One was bullied for being gay, another for having a learning disability, another for being a boy who happened to like wearing pink.

Now two families -- including the Vidovics -- are suing the school district, claiming their children were bullied to death and the school did nothing to stop it. The lawsuits come after a national spate of high-profile suicides by gay teens and others, and during a time of national soul-searching about what can be done to stop it.

[Related: School-yard bullying: A survivor's tale]

If there has been soul-searching among the bullies in Mentor — a pleasant beachfront community that was voted one of the "100 Best Places to Live" by CNN and Money magazine this year — Sladjana's family saw too little of it at her wake in October 2008.

Suzana Vidovic found her sister's body hanging over the front lawn. The family watched, she said, as the girls who had tormented Sladjana for months walked up to the casket -- and laughed.

"They were laughing at the way she looked," Suzana says, crying. "Even though she died."

___

Sladjana Vidovic, whose family had moved to northeast Ohio from Bosnia when she was a little girl, was pretty, vivacious and charming. She loved to dance. She would turn on the stereo and drag her father out of his chair, dance him in circles around the living room.

"Nonstop smile. Nonstop music," says her father, Dragan, who speaks only a little English.

At school, life was very different. She was ridiculed for her thick accent. Classmates tossed insults like "Slutty Jana" or "Slut-Jana-Vagina." A boy pushed her down the stairs. A girl smacked her in the face with a water bottle.

Phone callers in the dead of night would tell her to go back to Croatia, that she'd be dead in the morning, that they'd find her after school, says Suzana Vidovic.

"Sladjana did stand up for herself, but toward the end she just kind of stopped," says her best friend, Jelena Jandric. "Because she couldn't handle it. She didn't have enough strength."

[Related: Cyber-bullying: When enough is enough]

Vidovic's parents say they begged the school to intervene many times. They say the school promised to take care of her.

She had already withdrawn from Mentor and enrolled in an online school about a week before she killed herself.

When the family tried to retrieve records about their reports of bullying, school officials told them the records were destroyed during a switch to computers. The family sued in August.

Two years after her death, Dragan Vidovic waves his hand over the family living room, where a vase of pink flowers stands next to a photograph of Sladjana.

"Today, no music," he says sadly. "No smile."

___

Eric Mohat was flamboyant and loud and preferred to wear pink most of the time. When he didn't get the lead soprano part in the choir his freshman year, he was indignant, his mother says.

He wore a stuffed animal strapped to his arm, a lemur named Georges that was given its own seat in class.

"It was a gag," says Mohat's father, Bill. "And all the girls would come up to pet his monkey. And in his Spanish class they would write stories about Georges."

Mohat's family and friends say he wasn't gay, but people thought he was.

"They called him fag, homo, queer," says his mother, Jan. "He told us that."

Bullies once knocked a pile of books out of his hands on the stairs, saying, "'Pick up your books, faggot,'" says Dan Hughes, a friend of Eric's.

Kids would flick him in the head or call him names, says 20-year-old Drew Juratovac, a former student. One time, a boy called Mohat a "homo," and Juratovac told him to leave Mohat alone.

"I got up and said, 'Listen, you better leave this kid alone. Just walk away,'" he says. "And I just hit him in the face. And I got suspended for it."

Eric Mohat shot himself on March 29, 2007, two weeks before a choir trip to Hawaii.

His parents asked the coroner to call it "bullicide." At Eric's funeral and after his death, other kids told the Mohats that they had seen the teen relentlessly bullied in math class. The Mohats demanded that police investigate, but no criminal activity was found.

[Related: 6 signs of cyber-bullying and what you can do about it]

Two years later, in April 2009, the Mohats sued the school district, the principal, the superintendent and Eric's math teacher. The federal lawsuit is on hold while the Ohio Supreme Court considers a question of state law regarding the case.

"Did we raise him to be too polite?" Bill Mohat wonders. "Did we leave him defenseless in this school?"

___

Meredith Rezak, 16, shot herself in the head three weeks after the death of Mohat, a good friend of hers. Her cell phone, found next to her body, contained a photograph of Mohat with the caption "R.I.P. Eric a.k.a. Twiggy."

Rezak was bright, outgoing and a well-liked player on the volleyball team. Shortly before her suicide, she had joined the school's Gay-Straight Alliance and told friends and family she thought she might be gay.

Juratovac says Rezak endured her own share of bullying — "name-calling, just stupid trivial stuff" — but nobody ever knew it was getting to her.

"Meredith ended up coming out that she was a lesbian," he says. "I think much of that sparked a lot of the bullying from a lot of the other girls in school, 'cause she didn't fit in."

Her best friend, Kevin Simon, doesn't believe that bullying played a role in Rezak's death. She had serious issues at home that were unrelated to school, he says.

After Mohat's death, people saw Rezak crying at school, and friends heard her talk of suicide herself.

A year after Rezak's death, the older of her two brothers, 22-year-old Justin, also shot and killed himself. His death certificate mentioned "chronic depressive reaction."

This March, her only other sibling, Matthew, died of a drug overdose at age 21.

Their mother, Nancy Merritt, lives in Colorado now. She doesn't think Meredith was bullied to death but doesn't really know what happened. On the phone, her voice drifts off, sounding disconnected, confused.

"So all three of mine are gone," she says. "I have to keep breathing."

___

Most mornings before school, Jennifer Eyring would take Pepto-Bismol to calm her stomach and plead with her mother to let her stay home.

"She used to sob to me in the morning that she did not want to go," says her mother, Janet. "And this is going to bring tears to my eyes. Because I made her go to school."

Eyring, 16, was an accomplished equestrian who had a learning disability. She was developmentally delayed and had a hearing problem, so she received tutoring during the school day. For that, her mother says, she was bullied constantly.

By the end of her sophomore year in 2006, Eyring's mother had decided to pull her out of Mentor High School and enroll her in an online school the following autumn. But one night that summer, Jennifer walked into her parents' bedroom and told them she had taken some of her mother's antidepressant pills to make herself feel better. Hours later, she died of an overdose.

[Related: Stop bullying by complaining – in writing]

The Eyrings do not hold Mentor High accountable, but they believe she would be alive today had she not been bullied. Her parents are speaking out in hopes of preventing more tragedies.

"It's too late for my daughter," Janet Eyring says, "but it may not be too late for someone else."

___

No official from Mentor public schools would comment for this story. The school also refused to provide details on its anti-bullying program.

Some students say the problem is the culture of conformity in this city of about 50,000 people: If you're not an athlete or cheerleader, you're not cool. And if you're not cool, you're a prime target for the bullies.

But that's not so different from most high schools. Senior Matt Super, who's 17, says the suicides unfairly paint his school in a bad light.

"Not everybody's a good person," he says. "And in a group of 3,000 people, there are going to be bad people."

StopCyberbulling.org founder Parry Aftab says this is the first time she's heard of two sets of parents suing a school at the same time for two independent cases of bullying or cyberbullying. No one has been accused of bullying more than one of the teens who died.

Barbara Coloroso, a national anti-bullying expert, says the school is allowing a "culture of mean" to thrive, and school officials should be held responsible for the suicides — along with the bullies.

"Bullying doesn't start as criminal. They need to be held accountable the very first time they call somebody a gross term," Coloroso says. "That is the beginning of dehumanization."

BAGHDAD – A Muslim cleric who once used a militia to resist the American positioned himself as a big winner in Iraq's monthslong political deadlock Friday when his party threw its support behind the beleaguered prime minister.The hard-line Shiite group led by Muqtadaal-Sadr called it the start of its ascent to nationwide power — a specter sure to spook the United States.Washington considers the cleric a threat to Iraq's shaky security and has long refused to consider his movement a legitimate political entity. But Prime Nouri al-Maliki may be unable to govern without him.March elections failed to produce a clear winner and left the nation in turmoil — a power vacuum that U.S. military officials say has encouraged a spike in attacks by Sunni insurgents.Final agreement on how to form the new government could still be weeks if not months away, but "the Sadrist acceptance of al-Maliki as prime minister could begin to break the logjam," said Iraq expert Daniel Serwer of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.

A two-year-old Rottweiler has been recognised for his bravery after he saved a woman from a sex attacker.

The dog, named Jake, chased off the man as he molested a woman on Hearsall Common, Coventry, in July 2009.

Jake, who stood guard over the victim until police arrived, received his honour at an RSPCA event in Shrewsbury.

The attacker was convicted of serious sexual assault and jailed for four years.

Jake, who was honoured at the Prostar Stadium at an RSPCA conference on Saturday, was nominated by police for the bravery award and medallion after the incident.

Det Con Clive Leftwich, from Coventry police station, said: "From our point of view Jake the Rottweiler stopped a serious sexual assault from becoming even worse."

Liz Maxted-Bluck, who rescued Jake from an RSPCA home in December 2008, said: "He is such a lovely natured dog and is very nosey so I think that was why he went to investigate that day when he heard the screams.

"After I called the police, he stayed alert and close to us like he was guarding us.

"It is brilliant that he is receiving this award from the RSPCA, I am really proud."

Glenn Mayoll, manager of RSPCA Coventry Animal Centre, said it was "immensely proud" of Jake.

He added: "This story just goes to show that a rescue dog can be a great addition to any family."

The Phoenix airport has introduced new technology that can see through a person& clothes.
The new machine costs $100,000 to make and is designed to find out if a passenger is carrying a weapon or explosives.
Critics of the new X-Ray scanner, however, say it takes away a person privacy

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – firms went to court seeking to lift a six-month freeze on deepwater drilling as the US government slapped BP with another major bill for the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The White House sent BP a bill for 51 million dollars, the third sent to the British giant and its partners for government expenses incurred in efforts to halt the oil spill under a US law requiring oil firms to pay for cleanups.

Two earlier bills to BP and other responsible parties this month amounting to 70.89 million dollars have been paid in full.

BP also said it has spent two billion dollars so far on cleaning up the spill and compensating residents and businesses facing ruin nine weeks into the nation's worst ever envirometal disaster.

Some 32 US firms, whose crews and equipment have been left idle since US President Barack Obama imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf, were urging federal judge Martin Feldman to ease the restrictions.

"There's an ecosystem of businesses that are being harmed every day by this moratorium," Carl Rosenblum, an attorney for the oil companies, insisted in a reference to the environmental damage being inflicted on southern US shores.

But government lawyer Guillermo Montero replied that deepwater drilling was more complicated than many other industries and the government had to review and, if necessary, update its safety protocols.

Tens of thousands of women with breast enlargements have been warned to have check-ups over fears they were given dangerous implants.

Up to 50,000 British women - including some breast cancer survivors - have implants filled with a silicone gel that may have been made for mattresses and so has not undergone vital safety tests.

In addition, there are concerns that a protective coating, designed to stop the implant from splitting and prevent any gel that leaks from spreading through the body, is missing.

The Poly Implant Prothese - or PIP - implants were among the cheapest on the market, and so were widely used in commercial clinics here and abroad.

Last night, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) urged women who have had implants to contact their surgeon to find out what brand was used.

Women with PIP implants should have an ultrasound test within the next six months to check for flaws and cracks. If there are signs of damage, implants on both sides should be removed.

And the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which is responsible for the safety of drugs and medical devices, has told surgeons to stop using the implants.

To add to the worry for women, PIP, once the world's third-largest manufacturer of implants, has gone into liquidation - meaning those affected could be footing large parts of the bill themselves.

The alarm was raised in France after surgeons noticed that the PIP implants were rupturing much more quickly than other brands.

An inquiry ordered by health watchdogs found 'serious irregularities' in the implants, minutes of a meeting held by the French Society of Reconstructive and Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons state.

The meeting also heard that when asked for studies on the safety of the gel, its manufacturer said he did not have any, because he believed it was being used to make mattresses.

The minutes contain the caveat that his claims have still to be verified.

Nigel Mercer, a Bristol plastic surgeon and president of BAAPS, said: 'This is certainly an unusual situation but so far there is no serious cause for alarm.

'While further tests are conducted into the substance, we recommend that women who have undergone breast augmentation contact their surgeons to find out what kind of implant was used.

'If it's PIP, they should have an ultrasound in the next six months, to establish whether there is any rupture.

'Removal is recommended in these cases but if there is one ruptured implant, the other one should be taken out as well, as a preventative measure.'

Mr Mercer added that the French investigation firmly lays the blame at the door of the manufacturer and not the surgeons.

He said: 'This situation is clearly not the fault of the surgeons, who acted in good faith - it would be similar to blaming a dealership for a faulty car.'

Women may be able to be referred for ultrasound through their GP. Otherwise, they will have to pay for it privately.

The NHS does remove damaged implants but won't pay for new ones.

In France, more than 500 women have filed complaints with the prosecutor of Marseilles in which they demand free replacements of their implants and compensation for harm suffered.

One, Annick Dejoie, said: 'It gave me swollen glands and also severe fatigue that nearly caused a very serious car accident.'

LONDON--Putera Mahkota Kerajaan Inggris, Pangeran Charles, mengakui prinsip-prinsip spiritual Islam dapat menyelamatkan dunia. Hal itu disampaikan Pangeran Charles dalam pidatonya yang bertema "Islam and the Environment" di gedung Sheldonian Teater, Universitas Oxford, Oxford, Inggris, seperti dilaporkan harian terkemuka Inggris, Daily Mail, Kamis waktu setempat.

Dalam ceramahnya selama satu jam di hadapan para sarjana studi Islam di Oxford, Pangeran Charles berargumen bahwa kehancuran manusia di dunia terutama karena bertentangan dengan Islam. Untuk itu, ia mendesak, dunia untuk mengikuti prinsip-prinsip spiritual Islam seperti untuk melindungi lingkungan.

Menurut ayah Pangeran William dan Harry ini, arus 'pembagian' antara manusia dan alam ini disebabkan bukan hanya oleh industrialisasi, tetapi juga oleh sikap kita terhadap lingkungan. Pangeran yang menganut agama Kristen dan akan menjadi kepala Gereja Inggris bila naik tahta sebagai Raja Inggris ini berbicara secara mendalam mengenai Alquran yang dipelajarinya sendiri. Charles mengatakan, ''Tidak ada pemisahan antara manusia dan alam.''

Charles berbicara kepada para sarjana di Pusat Studi Islam Oxford dalam rangka mendorong pemahaman yang lebih baik dari budaya dan peradaban agama. Dalam pidato menandai ulang tahun ke-25 Pusat Studi Islam Oxford ini, tempat ia menjadi pelindungnya, Charles mengajak untuk memahami agama dengan mata pelajaran favorit lain seperti lingkungan. ''Islam selalu mengajarkan keseimbangan dan bila kita mengabaikannya sangat bertentangan dengan penciptaan,'' katanya.

ROBERT, La. (May 29) -- BP admitted defeat Saturday in its attempt to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but said it's readying yet another approach to fight the spill after a series of failures.

BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater. More than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.

In the six weeks since the spill began, the company has failed in each attempt to stop the gusher, as estimates of how much is leaking grow more dire. It's the worst spill in U.S. history - exceeding even the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 off the Alaska coast - dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

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Crews on ships work on the "top kill" procedure at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. BP said Saturday that this latest attempt to plug the well had failed and that a new approach was being readied. Click through for more photos of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

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Crews on ships work on the "top kill" procedure at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. BP said Saturday that this latest attempt to plug the well had failed and that a new approach was being readied. Click through for more photos of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

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As the Lib-Dems agonise over which way to jump, a fascinating development this afternoon might make them think even harder about accepting David Cameron's offer.

Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, has urged the Lib-Dems to join in a progressive alliance with Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru to bring in electoral reform. This may seem strange, since on Friday Alex Salmond was telling the BBC's Election programme that he was not going to be part of any coalition. But what Salmond has now realised is that the numbers are just about there to bring in PR, if all those who want it get together.

Salmond is still not suggesting a formal coalition. But his intervention gives the lie to one of the most persuasive arguments for the Lib-Dems to join with the Conservative: the maths. Supporters of a Lib-Dem/Conservative deal argue that the maths don't add up for anything else. Labour and the Lib-Dems together would only muster 315 seats, still short of the magic 326 needed for a Commons majority.

Now that Salmond is offering SNP and Plaid Cymru support – even if it is only to bring in PR – that's another 9 MPs, bringing the numbers to 324. Caroline Lucas, the sole Green MP could be expected to join them too – 325. Then there are 3 SDLP MPs, or the 1 Alliance MP from Northern Ireland who may lend support and bingo – the once in a lifetime chance to change the electoral system.

As Nick Clegg is discovering today, his party members are far more reluctant to embrace a deal with the Conservatives than he and some of his colleagues. Interestingly, some Conservatives too are starting to voice their concern about the odd marriage of convenience. Alex Salmond's intervention could be critical at this stage – giving Clegg the reason he needs to reject the Tory offer, and to give his party the chance of electoral reform that has been the holy grail for so many years.

He was president of Romania between 1996 and 2000. With legal studies and a career started, waive and walk reprofilează of geology. Follows a consistent teaching and pedagogical career, through all the academic degrees. Professor full specializing in mineralogy, rector of the University of Bucharest, is one of the iconic figures of the political life after 1989.

Founder of Civic Alliance-represented and active civil society, unable to unify the democratic opposition forces in the Democratic Convention of Romania, whose support will become president of Romania. Moment of bliss and delusion to a whole world and not believed in the values of a multilaterally developed NSF offers extremely active and aggressive. Constantinescu is a saying with sadness and resignation, failure to test the country's democratization.

Beyond the events that marked his presidential mandate, and the CDR efforts were not enough to put Romania on a path of democracy.

CDR struggles within and between the ambitions of many politicians have reached the crest of the wave that Constantinescu's presidential mandate to end in failure. Affairs, willingly or not, visible or hidden sabotaged, went increasingly worse. To the disappointment of voters who had great illusions, to the delight of many other interest groups that are mounted on the situation today.

Professor Emil Constantinescu has sufficient ability to twist and twirl in city affairs and politicians and ended up sacrificing has run for a second term. It was a difficult and unexpected time has given grist to the mill neoconservative forces with democratic leftists frill, to return to the forefront of political life that the forces of right. What followed all know well, not very comfortably endure today. Not quite all. Return to the PSD's force and then the birth of a hybrid such as PDL confirmed, unfortunately, not very optimistic visions of Silviu Brucan the birth of democracy in Romania.

Constantinescu's name remains, especially for those who really lived life intensely political earthquakes in the '90s, related to victory and then defeat and dissolution of the CDR. Everything that followed were steps backward, not forward. We do not know exactly how and what can be done Constantinescu during his tenure, but some remained in the middle of the road. Otherwise, an austere intellectual and talk too long, in a country where neseriozitatea pasty is a virtue and it brings more votes than the wise.

Today only present stage of political debate, more or less television, Constantinescu can not influence the Romanian public opinion, set to other than strictly moral coordinates. Live it well or not, but enough. That seems at least.