Six Utah miners are still trapped beneath more than 1,500 feet of rock as rescue workers frantically toil to reach them. The miners have been trapped since 4 a.m. Monday after a powerful explosion. Scientists still don't know the origin of the explosion, but the chance that it was a natural earthquake hasn't been ruled out. No one has communicated with the trapped miners since the blast occurred; however, if they survived, there are stores of both oxygen and drinking water in the mine, located 140 miles south of Salt Lake City. Mining is a dangerous job and in the past few years has caused both triumph--nine men were rescued from the Quecreek Mine in Pennsylvania in 2002--and tragedy, as when 12 workers perished at the Sago Mine in West Virginia in 2006. U.S. News reported on how mining coal can come with a nasty price.
A New Jersey city is mourning the loss of three recent high school graduates after they were murdered execution style as part of an apparent robbery by multiple assailants. A fourth remains in the hospital in fair condition. The teens lived in Newark, N.J., a city whose murder rate has doubled since 1998. All four were headed to Delaware State University in the fall. The shootings have put the heat on Mayor Cory Booker, who campaigned to reduce crime in a city that has already seen 60 homicides this year alone.
Even the most unpopular of politicians can usually count on the political support of closest family members. Perhaps not so for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. While doing relatively well in the polls, he may not be the candidate of choice for his 17-year-old daughter, Caroline. A reporter for the online magazine Slate.com stumbled upon Caroline's Facebook profile and discovered not only that she defined herself as a "liberal" but also that she was a member of the group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)." Caroline is set to attend Harvard University in the fall and is a recent graduate of New York City's Trinity School. Only users who attend those two schools had access to her profile, but she has since removed it from the social-networking site. U.S. News reported in July that her father, a leading Republican candidate, is also not a big hit with some New York City firefighters and some of the families of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
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