Rockets hit Israel, which says truce broken
[Gee, ya think?--A]

Palestinian militants on Tuesday fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel, the first such attack since a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza militants took effect last week. Israel condemned the attack as a "gross violation" of the truce, but did not say whether it would retaliate.
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Just before midnight, Palestinian militants fired a mortar shell into an empty area in southern Israel. And in a pre-dawn raid, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Islamic Jihad, a small armed group backed by Syria and Iran, claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. Although the West Bank is not included in the truce, the group said the Nablus raid had soured the atmosphere of calm. "We cannot keep our hands tied when this is happening to our brothers in the West Bank," the militant group said.

Iran: Leader of the Sunni Movements

Paradoxically, Iran, an extremist theocratic Shiite regime with Ahmadinejad at its helm, is orchestrating and funding the activities of extremist Sunnis in the region.

The paradox is most striking in the case of Al-Qaeda, the most extremist Sunni organization, which has joined, in the full sense of the word, the Iranian apparatus. The alliance between the two enemies began in the wake of the defeat of Al-Qaeda and the organization's flight from Afghanistan to all Sunni countries. The first group of Al-Qaeda, which was led by Egyptian national Saif Al-Adel, and included Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's son, fled to Iran immediately after the fall of the Taliban regime.

Group Home Girls Make a Barefoot Run for It

Three bipolar teen girls who live in a rural North Carolina group home for adolescents with mental and behavioral problems remained missing today, two days after they eluded a counselor Sunday night by wading barefoot across a shallow river.

Shikeyla Wilfong, 16, Taylor Sandefer, 13, and Brittany Roper, 17, were reported missing to the Boiling Springs, N.C., Police Department at 7:25 p.m. Sunday after leaving during a group outing at a recreational area.
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Thomas said he is most concerned for the safety of the 13-year-old, Taylor Sandefer. He said the girl came to the group home from a broken family and has had violent manic episodes in the past. She has a severe beesting allergy and is traveling without an EpiPen, which could prevent her from experiencing anaphylactic shock if stung.

Not good at all. :( I hope they're found safe.


Swollen Mississippi defeats another levee
Floodwaters submerge farmland and threaten residential area

WINFIELD, Mo. - The swollen Mississippi River burst another levee Tuesday, submerging farmland and threatening a residential area whose occupants had
already moved out in anticipation of a flood.

The levee failure near St. Charles comes as teams furiously fill sandbags to reinforce other waterlogged embankments guarding towns still waiting for the arrival of the huge river's flood crest.

Forecasters expect the last stretch of the bloated river to crest later this week.

Hundreds of post-lightning fires burn in California

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was told late Sunday evening that the state had 520 fires, and he found it "quite shocking" that by Monday morning the number had risen above 700. Moments later, a top state fire official standing at Schwarzenegger's side offered a grim update. The figure was actually 842 fires, said Del Walters, assistant regional chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All but a couple were in the northern part of the state.

"This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes," Walters said. "We are finding fires all the time."

Gonna be a rotten summer out there.