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GRASSY KEY, Florida (Reuters) - Deep in the heart of the Florida Keys, wildlife officials are laying bait laced with poison to try to wipe out a colony of enormous African rats that could threaten crops and other animals.
 

U.S. federal and state officials are beginning the final phase of a two-year project to eradicate the Gambian pouched rats, which can grow to the size of a cat and began reproducing in the remote area about eight years ago.

"This is the only place in the United States where this is occurring," said Gary Wither, a biologist with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado.

"They don't belong here and they need to be controlled."

A former exotic pet breeder, living in a small house, bred the species and allowed the critters to escape.

Without eradication, wildlife officials fear the rats could eventually make their way onto the Florida mainland where they could quickly destroy fragile ecosystems.

"They could cause a lot of damage," Wither said.

In Zimbabwe, for example, ravenous Gambian rats are blamed for damaging nut and young pea crops.

Grassy Key is a 1,500-acre (607-hectare) spit of land, lined with subtropical hardwood hammocks and flowering bougainvillea bushes, about 60 miles north of Key West at Florida's southern tip. Streets are named after limes, lemons, peaches and avocados.

Like other islands in the Florida Keys, Grassy Key is a contrast of inland rustic wooden cottages just a stone's throw from multimillion-dollar waterfront mansions.

"Florida's become quite the hotbed. Florida and Hawaii are vying for which state has the most invasive species," Wither said.

That dubious honor is attributed to the region's encroaching development, subtropical climate and free-spirited residents who like to keep exotic species, Wither said.

"VERY MESSY ANIMALS"

In mid-April, Florida Keys wildlife officials found another invasive species: an 8-foot (2.4-metre) Burmese python. The first wild Burmese snake to be discovered in the archipelago, officials say, was found in a Key Largo state park.

The snake had swallowed two of an estimated 500 remaining and endangered Key Largo wood rats, one outfitted with a radio-tracking collar.

Unlike the wood rats, the Gambian rats "don't have any real friends, that we can tell," said Scott Hardin, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's exotic species coordinator.

Gambian pouched rats, targeted for eradication during the next six weeks, are not related to the Key Largo wood rat.

The African rats can weigh 6 to 9 pounds (2.7-4 kg), with body shades ranging from brown to gray. They have large ears, black, beady eyes, hamster-like pouched facial cheeks, sharp teeth and distinctive long, stringy and white-marked tails.

This week, wildlife officials began baiting 1,000 traps laid out in a grid with narrow four-inch (10-cm) openings. Peanut butter, almond extract and anise are the lures.

Most of the rats will die quickly in underground burrows after ingesting the bait laced with toxic zinc phosphate.

"They're a big rodent. They're not particularly attractive. I don't understand why anyone would want them as a pet," Wither said. "They're very messy animals."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (
CDC) in Atlanta and the
Food and Drug Administration have banned importation of Gambian rats since 2003.

That was after an outbreak of monkey-pox, similar to but milder to humans than smallpox, was linked to Gambian rat contact with prairie dogs in the U.S. Midwest.

The CDC hopes to study the carcasses and fecal samples of Gambian rats from the Grassy Keys to learn about internal parasites, but they have shown no signs of monkey-pox.

"We're lucky that's the case," Wither said. "They sure can bite."

Fossilized foot marks left by a big meat-eater on a lake bed in northern Spain 125 million years ago provide strong evidence that at least some dinosaurs were good swimmers, scientists said on Thursday.
 

Dinosaurs ruled the land from about 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago. But how they did in the water has been less clear.

There were numerous huge, fully marine reptiles living at the same time, including the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but they were not dinosaurs and in fact were only very distantly related to them.

Writing in the journal Geology, researchers led by Loci Costar of the University de Nantes in France described tracks fossilized in sandstone that were left as a dinosaur swam in water roughly 10.5 feet deep, scratching the lake bottom with clawed feet.

"The animal used a pelvic paddle motion, much like living aquatic birds," Costar said by e-mail.

Twelve "swim tracks" over a stretch of about 50 feet (15 meters) included long and slender sets of grooves. Fossilized ripple marks at the site suggested the dinosaur was swimming against a current whiling trying to maintain a straight path, the researchers said.

The researchers said the shape and nature of the tracks indicated they were left by a large bipedal theropod dinosaur and not a big crocodile even though these were around at the time. Theropods are the familiar big carnivores like the North American dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus.

Scientists have been seeking evidence that dinosaurs -- like today's large mammals such as elephants and tigers -- were capable of swimming when circumstances demanded, like hunting in wet ecosystems, crossing rivers or escaping floods.

Previously discovered fossils showed swimming tracks apparently left by other dinosaurs such as sauropods -- long-necked animals like Diplodocus -- and duckbilled dinosaurs. But some of these have been disputed and were not as revealing as the new ones.

The new tracks provided the first definitive evidence of an active swimming behavior in dinosaurs and are the best record of swimming by theropods, researchers said.

The finding also extends the range of ideas about dinosaur behavior, Costar added, including whether some thrived in aquatic environments.

The tracks were discovered three years ago in the Spanish province of La Rioja, Costar said.

"The excellent preservation of these tracks provides an invaluable opportunity for biomechanical modeling in order to improve our understanding of dinosaur swimming ability and physiology," the researchers wrote.

Some birds, which scientists believe descended from small feathered dinosaurs roughly 150 million years ago, also were highly adept at swimming during the age of dinosaurs, including the diving bird Hesperian's.

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton on Thursday took aim at spiraling health care costs, outlining a seven-part plan that she said would cut national health spending by $120 billion a year by boosting preventive-medicine efforts, using soaped-up information technology and other measures.
"Our present system is outdated, ineffective, and unsustainable. But we know we can spend far less and create an efficient, high-quality health care system for all Americans," the New York senator said in remarks prepared for delivery at George Washington University. "The key is to modernize our health care infrastructure and demand a better return on our investment."
Rising health-care costs are expected to be a top domestic-policy issue in the 2008 presidential election. Democratic Sen. Barrack Osama of Illinois has said he would move to enact universal health coverage. Another Democrat, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, has said he's willing to boost taxes to pay for covering millions of uninsured.
Meanwhile, a growing chorus of corporations have joined in calls for universal health care - a major change from President Bill Clinton's first term, when Hillary Clinton took heavy political fire as the sweeping health-care proposal she helped design collapsed amid a corporate-led campaign that highlighted worries about government meddling.
The plan outlined by Clinton on Thursday calls for a national initiative aimed at reducing obesity, diabetes and cancer, requiring all insurers that participate in federal programs to cover a number of preventive procedures. It also would coordinate public spending across federal programs to maximize "high-priority prevention."
On the technology front, Clinton's plan calls for the creation of a "paperless" health information-technology system.
The 14-page plan also outlined proposals to improve outcomes of the chronically ill, who usually incur catastrophic expenses and are a key driver of rising health-care costs.
Clinton criticized health insurers for steering clear of Americans with expensive, pre-existing conditions, and called for ending insurance discrimination. Under the plan, a "guarantee-issue" system would allow anyone to join an insurance plan and would bar insurers from carving out benefits or charging higher rates to people with health problems.
Wider coverage would reduce administrative costs by forcing insurers to compete on lowering costs and improving quality, the Clinton outline said.
The plan also calls for some medical malpractice reforms, including a program that would provide liability protections for physicians who disclose medical errors to patients and offer to enter into negotiations for fair compensation

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed concern on Thursday about the increasing sophistication of China's military and called on Beijing to be more open about its intentions.
 

Gates said a new annual
Pentagon assessment of China's military, due to be released on Friday, depicts "a country that has steadily devoted increasing resources to their military, that is developing some very sophisticated capabilities."

"Some of the capabilities that are being developed are of concern," he told reporters at the Pentagon.

The China Military Power Report issued by the Pentagon last year said China's buildup retained a long-standing focus on rival Taiwan but that years of double-digit growth in arms spending gave it the ability to project power further afield.

Gates, who has seen the 2007 report, said the new document would not contain "any exaggeration of the threat" and reiterated a long-held U.S. call for greater Chinese transparency about its intentions and strategies.

"These are assessments that are in this publication," he said. "It would be nice to hear first-hand from the Chinese how they view some of these things."

Chinese President
Hun Junta said on Wednesday his country must build up more modern armed forces to safeguard national security, according to the official Inhaul news agency.

The expansion of China's navy includes a growing submarine fleet and new ships suitable for the open seas, fueling fears in the United States that its military could alter the balance of power in Asia.

China has said it would attack Taiwan if the self-ruled island, which Beijing views as a renegade province, formally declares independence.

Ann Coulter
Apparently, my position on immigration is that we must deport all 12 million illegal aliens immediately, inasmuch as this is billed as the only alternative to immediate amnesty. The jejune fact that we "can't deport them all" is supposed to lead ineluctably to the conclusion that we must grant amnesty to illegal aliens -- and fast!
 

I'm astounded that debate has sunk so low that I need to type the following words, but: No law is ever enforced 100 percent.

We can't catch all rapists, so why not grant amnesty to rapists? Surely no one wants thousands of rapists living in the shadows! How about discrimination laws? Insider trading laws? Do you expect Bush to round up everyone who goes over the speed limit? Of course we can't do that. We can't even catch all murderers. What we need is "comprehensive murder reform." It's not "amnesty" -- we'll ask them to pay a small fine.

If it's "impossible" to deport illegal aliens, how did we come to have so much specific information about them? I keep hearing they are Catholic, pro-life, hardworking, just dying to become American citizens, and will take jobs other Americans won't. Someone must have talked to them to gather all this information. Let's find that guy -- he must know where they are!

How do we even know there are 12 million of them? Why not 3 million, or 40 million? Maybe we should put the guy who counted them in charge of deporting them.

If the 12-million figure is an extrapolation based on the number of illegal immigrants in public schools or emergency rooms and well-manicured lawns in Brentwood, then shouldn't we be looking for them at schools and hospitals and well-manicured lawns in Brentwood?

I believe that the shortage of unskilled, non-English-speaking Mexicans we experienced in the '60s has been remedied by now.

Since Teddy Kennedy's 1965 Immigration Act, more than half of all legal immigrants have been unskilled, non-English-speaking Mexicans. America takes in roughly 1 million legal immigrants each year. Only about 30,000 of them have Ph.D.s. Why on earth would any rational immigration policy discriminate against immigrants with Ph.D.s in favor of unskilled, non-English-speaking immigrants?

Say, don't Ph.D.s and other skilled workers have more influence on government policy than unskilled workers? Aren't they more likely to bend a president's ear? Yes, I believe they are! Noticeably, the biggest proponents of the government's policy of importing a huge underclass of unskilled workers are not themselves unskilled workers.

The great bounty of cheap labor by unskilled immigrants isn't going to hardworking Americans who hang drywall or clean hotel rooms -- and who are having trouble getting jobs, now that they're forced to compete with the vast influx of unskilled workers who don't pay taxes.

The people who make arguments about "jobs Americans won't do" are never in a line of work where unskilled immigrants can compete with them. Liberals love to strike generous, humanitarian poses with other people's lives.

Something tells me the immigration debate would be different if we were importing millions of politicians or Hollywood agents. You lose your job, while I keep my job at the Endeavor agency, my Senate seat, my professorship, my editorial position or my presidency. (And I get a maid!)

The only beneficiaries of these famed hardworking immigrants -- unlike you lazy Americans -- are the wealthy, who want the cheap labor while making the rest of us chip in for the immigrants' schooling, food and health care.

These great lovers of the downtrodden -- the downtrodden trimming their hedges -- pretend to believe that their gardeners' children will be graduating from Harvard and curing cancer someday, but (1) they don't believe that; and (2) if it happened, they'd lose their gardeners.

Not to worry, Marie Antoinette's! According to "Alien Nation" author Peter Brim low, "There is recent evidence that, even after four generations, fewer than 10 percent of Mexicans have post-high school degrees, as opposed to nearly half of non-Mexican-Americans." So you'll always have the maid. As New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said, our golf fairways would suffer without illegal immigrants: "You and I both play golf; who takes care of the greens and the fairways on your golf course?"

We fought a civil war to force Democrats to give up on slavery 150 years ago. They've become so desperate for servants that now they're importing an underclass to wash their clothes and pick their vegetables. This vast class of unskilled immigrants is the left's new form of slavery.

What do they care if their servants are made citizens eligible to vote and collect government benefits? Aren't the fabulously rich happy in Venezuela? Oops, wrong example. Brazil? No, no, let me try again. Mexico! ... Well, no matter. What could go wrong?

Brian Bilbray Thu May 24, 6:56 AM ET

As the Senate considers illegal immigration reform legislation, my office has been inundated with phone calls from constituents asking, "What part of 'illegal' don't senators understand?"
 

You would think that Congress would learn from the failures of the past. We've all seen how the 1986 amnesty bill became a gateway for illegal immigration. What was promised as a one-time fix that would be matched with real employer enforcement and commitment to securing the border resulted in a public policy nightmare we are almost doomed to repeat. Why anyone thinks that repeating the failed policies of years gone by is the solution to this out-of-control problem is beyond me.

While some may dispute using the term "amnesty" to describe this proposal, that's exactly what it is - a bill that would set aside an exclusive program for 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants that allows them to stay in the country while going through the legalization process. All the while we have millions of immigrants waiting to come to the USA legally. The Senate plan sends the message that these immigrants would be better served by violating our laws, rather than by following them.

Some will say this is different from the 1986 law because the secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) would be required to certify that border security and employer verification programs were in place before any temporary guest-worker program would go into effect.

This is the same department that has lost track of 600,000 foreign fugitives, failed to implement the Real ID bill and has turned the US-VISIT program into the "stay here indefinitely" project. Given that track record, it is easy to see why members of Congress are skeptical of DHS' desire to secure the border and implement a working employer verification program in just 18 months.

Even more telling is the opposition of the National Border Patrol Council, the organization that represents more than 10,000 border patrol agents and support personnel. The NBPC vehemently opposes this bill, saying it would exacerbate the problem - not solve it.

E.G.. Bonner, president of the NBPC, said, "Every person who has ever risked their life securing our borders is extremely disheartened to see some of our elected representatives once again waving the white flag on the issues of illegal immigration and border security. Rewarding criminal behavior has never induced anyone to abide by the law, and there is no reason to believe that the outcome will be any different in this case."

We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. This most basic principle is why so many flock to our nation.

It is our right and our responsibility to maintain and defend the laws that govern our land, and no one should be exempt from them.