MIDWEST

NEWSPAPER IDENTIFIES 2,653 CIA EMPLOYEES

Forget about “Scooter” Libby outing Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. The Chicago Tribune was able to identify 2,653 CIA employees by name by trawling through public data on the Internet that is available to all. They were also able to find two dozen “secret” CIA facilities in Chicago, northern Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington state. The paper resisted publishing the names, at the CIA’s request. “Cover is a complex issue that is more complex in the Internet age,” said CIA spokesman Jennifer Dyck, who is allowed for her name to be public.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WEST

HELLS ANGELS SUE DISNEY

The California chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle club are suing Walt Disney for using their name, which is trademarked, and their skull logo without permission in the film script of Wild Hogs, according to a BBC report. The film, which will go into production later this year, will star John Travolta and Tim Allen. A Disney spokesman told the BBC that the suit was “without merit.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

NATIONWIDE

MILITARY: MOST YOUNG AMERICANS ARE UNFIT

WASHINGTON – Uncle Sam wants YOU, that famous Army recruiting poster says. But does he really? Not if you’re a Ritalin-taking, overweight, Generation Y couch potato – or some combination of the above. As for that fashionable “body art” that the military still calls a tattoo, having one is grounds for rejection, too.

With American casualties rising in wars overseas and more opportunities in the civilian work force from an improved American economy, many young people are shunning a career in the armed forces. But recruiting is still a two-way street – and the military, too, doesn’t want most people in this prime recruiting age group of 17 to 24.

Of some 32 million Americans now in this group, the Army deems the vast majority too obese, too uneducated, too flawed in some way, according to its estimates for the current budget year.

“As you look at overall population and you start factoring out people, many are not eligible in the first place to apply,” the spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command, Doug Smith, said.

Some experts are skeptical. Previous Defense Department studies have found that 75% of young people are ineligible for military service, noted Charles Moskos of Northwestern University. While the professor emeritus who specializes in military sociology says it is “a baloney number,” he acknowledges he has no figures to counter it.

– Associated Press