National / International News

President Barack Obama says the US has seen evidence of chemical weapons being used in Syria, after talks with Turkey's prime minister.

Bonnie Tyler is preparing to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest this weekend.

For decades, a turkey-processing company housed intellectually disabled men in squalid conditions, subjecting them to physical and emotional abuse while paying them $2 per day. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently won a huge judgment against the company.

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A Conservative backbencher introducing a bill paving the way for a referendum on the UK's EU membership will have the "full support" of the party.

The results are preliminary, and alpha parents seeking an edge for their children shouldn't risk electrocution. Still, the findings are provocative and may lead researchers down a new road.

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There has been a shocking increase in violence in Iraq, especially in Baghdad, with 16 bombs in the capital in the last two days.

Gaza Strip residents rely heavily on smuggling tunnels to Egypt. Among many other goods, the passageways are reportedly bringing regular deliveries of fast food.

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Dan Brown, the author of the Da Vinci Code, has given his first UK TV interview about his new book Inferno to Newsnight. In it he talks about dislodging writer's block by hanging upside down.

Championship side Brighton suspend manager Gus Poyet and tell him to stay away from the club pending an inquiry.

In his first major statement on the global financial crisis, the pontiff calls on world leaders not to forget the poor.

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Egypt's capital has been associated with protest and political upheaval. But an arts festival attempts to clear away the dust and revitalize a once-glorious cultural hub.

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Police in Albuquerque, N.M., are interviewing a man they say is a "person of interest" in the abduction of a five-year-old girl. After the girl was taken Wednesday evening, her mother chased down and rammed the car she had been in; a suspect fled on foot. The girl is reportedly safe.

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The mother of a two-year-old girl whose body was found in a house in Oxfordshire is believed to have left the UK, police say.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld published his memoir, “Known and Unknown” in 2011. His latest book, “Rumsfeld’s Rules” suggests he still has lessons to share after a lifetime in politics and business.

The book is a collection of advice that he started collecting through a habit taught to him by his schoolteacher mother.

“If I didn’t know a word she’d say, 'Well write it down and look it up,'" he says. "Then I started writing down various other thoughts and rules and anecdotes.”

The anecdotes Rumsfeld recounts are pulled from his time in office with the Bush, Reagan and Nixon administrations.

Three of many Rumsfeld Rules in the book:

It’s easier to get into something than it is to get out.

“I thought of that when I was President Reagan’s Middle East envoy and we had 241 Marines killed at Beirut, at the airport. And I concluded then that the United States has to be careful about putting ground forces in because we’re such a big target. And I also over the years came to the conclusion over the years that the United States really was organized, trained and equipped to do nation-building.”

Rumsfeld says this was on his mind as the United States entered Afghanistan and Iraq. “When you do something, then someone wants you to do something else and then something else and then over time, the mission, historically, creeps into something else that was initiated at the outset.”

But in the end, “it’s not easy for countries to evolve and grow but I think that both of those countries are a whale of a lot better off than they were before.”

“I’ve been mistaken so many times I don’t even blush for it anymore.” – Napoleon

“You see things that don’t turn out the way you hoped.”

Monitor progress through metrics.

“I think that history over time will probably be a better judge than you or I, but I’ve been struck by the amount of criticism that the Bush administration has received and President Bush personally and the attempts to assign blame to him and I think it’s probably not going to sort out that way.”

He says President Bush’s decision to enter Iraq is “something that over time will be better understood.”

AUDIO EXTRA: Kai Ryssdal asks Donald Rumsfeld about a reputation for not tolerating dissent.

Glencore Xstrata shareholders vote to appoint Tony Hayward, BP's former chief executive, as interim chairman to replace Sir John Bond.

Flats housing up to 50 students in Aberystwyth face demolition because a council says they were built without the correct planning permission.

The number of passengers planning to fly this summer will rise 1 percent from 2012, climbing back to the highest level since 2008, an industry group said Thursday. After years of instability, airlines welcome an easing in jet fuel prices. Even customers' complaints are quieting down.

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Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams by Scottish 'chick-lit' author Jenny Colgan is named Romantic Novel of the Year by the Romantic Novelists Association.

Marilyn Tavenner, who has been running the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in an acting capacity since late 2011, has a big job. The agency oversees health coverage for more than 100 million Americans.

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When companies pack up and abandon places like apartment complexes, gas stations, factories, and rail yards, those properties often become what’s known as a brownfield.

Cleaning them up has become the focus of cities big and small.

This week, folks in Brownfield redevelopment from all over the nation are in Atlanta for the 2013 Brownfields Conference.  

And it’s no accident they picked Atlanta. The old railroad town is in the midst of a huge rebirth, spawned by a 22-mile system of trails, parks, and transit known as the BeltLine.

It’s been called “Atlanta’s best idea.” And it’s also one of the nation’s most successful brownfield clean-up stories.

“This most certainly is a Brownfield -- this was a Brownfield, I should say,” says Lee Harrop as he looks around a busy section of trailway in the northeast part of Atlanta known as the Old 4th Ward.

Amid the skyline views and park-like setting, bicyclists and runners create a steady stream of passers-by.

But this very area was a rail corridor for more than a century. And until about a year ago, it was a desolate area of urban blight.

“People call this the Hobo Highway,” says Harrop. “It was a source of dumping. It was a source of homelessness.  It was a source of really not what you wanted to see in the city.”

WhenBeltLine officials started sampling soil to find out what it would take to clean up this area, they discovered a toxic soup of contaminants in the soil, including arsenic, pesticides and dry cleaning solvents.

“It was a wasteland,” confirms Jenny Everett, who lives in the neighborhood and remembers how she avoided the area at all costs.

Now, she runs along the trail three times a week.

Everett says she was skeptical when she heard what the BeltLine would do to the Old 4th Ward neighborhood.  But color her skeptical no more.

“The place is packed,” Everett says as she walks along the Northeast Trail.  “You have every possible type person out on this BeltLine, from mothers strolling their children to guys and girls walking their dogs to runners and bicyclists. It serves a lot of purposes for a lot of different people.”

None of this comes cheap.

For this two square-mile section of trail and adjoining park, the price tag was $63 million. But that’s spawned three-quarters of a billion dollars in redevelopment, BeltLine officials say.

It’s likely developers wouldn’t have touched this place with a 10-foot railroad spike if the city, state and federal governments hadn’t shouldered the cost of  cleanup.

And this story isn’t unique to Atlanta -- it’s the same in every U.S. city.

“There’s sometimes could be situations where you say that you’ve just got to pass,” says Janine Betsey, a developer who heads the King Park Area Development Corporation in Indianapolis.  

Betsey says brownfield cleanup can get expensive. And without a little help taxpayers, developers sometimes won’t take the risk.  If that seems unfair, she says consider what would happen if cities don’t clean up brownfield sites.   

“Contamination can leak into drinking water and other things throughout the community. So you’re really preserving the health of the entire community and not just cleaning up a property,” says Betsey.

Much of the money for cleanup comes from federal Environmental Protection Agency grants and loan funds a lot of this. The EPA  has spent tens of millions of dollars in some cases to clean up so-called “superfund” sites. But often, brownfield clean-ups are only a few thousand dollars says Mathy Stanislaus, an assistant administrator with the EPA.  

“Because you’re able to quantify the relatively manageable cost,” says Stanislaus. “You can quickly conduct any necessary cleanup and redevelop the site.”

So what used to be seen as a brown liability is suddenly becoming a green opportunity.