New license plates help local youth art programs
SANTA FE (AP) - Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, granddaughter of former President Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt, has given the state's youth art programs a helping hand. She helped unveil five limited edition license plates featuring New Deal-era art by New Mexico artists during an event Saturday. Sales of the front license plates will raise funds for youth art programs as part of the statewide Legacy Art Plates Project created by the New Mexico Community Foundation. "New Mexico was one of the places where New Deal art was created in abundance," said Roosevelt, executive director of the Brain Research Foundation and director of community and education relations for Boeing World Headquarters. "It's a no-brainer to continue the legacy and extend it to future generations."
Investigators find flaws in Israeli intelligence
JERUSALEM (AP) -A claim by Israeli intelligence that Iraq probably had weapons of mass destruction was based largely on speculation, not fact, parliamentary investigators said in a report Sunday. They dismissed suggestions that Israel tried to push its Western allies to war.
The report also faulted the intelligence agencies for failing to detect Libya's chemical and nuclear programs, calling the lapse "intolerable."
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The 80-page document delivered a rare rebuke to the country's highly regarded intelligence community, which has taken pride in its ability to penetrate hostile countries. It also revealed the limitations of Israel's intelligence-gathering bodies, respected and feared around the world.
"The lessons of the war in Iraq are a warning light that the intelligence estimates could be turned from a working instrument into a useless one, and that there is a danger that they could once again be revealed in the future to be standing on shaky ground," the report concluded.
French citizens criticize government in exit polls
PARIS (AP) - French voters delivered a stinging defeat to President Jacques Chirac's government and its program of painful economic reforms in regional elections Sunday, according to exit polls.
The heavy losses in many regions will increase pressure on Chirac to reshuffle his conservative government, and perhaps even ditch his prime minister, the unpopular Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
Polls of voters as they left voting stations showed the opposition, the left getting nearly half of the votes, compared with about 37 percent for the right.
One of at least eight regions that the government appeared to have lost was Poitou-Charentes in western France, once Raffarin's fiefdom.
The midterm bruising, Chirac's first national test since he and his party swept presidential and legislative elections in 2002, could also make it difficult for the government to pursue promised but unpopular economic reforms.
"Two years ago, the left was censured in a historic fashion. Today, we've been censured in the same way," said Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon.
Fillon hinted that a government shake-up may now be needed but said reforms must continue.
