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Nation briefs: 691,000 U.S. children went hungry in 2007

Compiled from news dispatches

November 18, 2008

Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downturn, the Agriculture Department reported yesterday. The department's annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than 50 percent above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998. Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. The findings should increase pressure to meet President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to expand food aid and end childhood hunger by 2015, said James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group.

A blast of cold wind spread snow along the Great Lakes from Michigan to New York yesterday. The deepest of the lake-effect snow was at Constableville, at the east end of Lake Ontario, where 24 inches fell. Moisture from Lake Erie had turned into 23 inches of snow by midmorning at Ellicottville, south of Buffalo.

Astronauts hitched a giant shipping crate full of home improvement "goodies" to the International Space Station yesterday, a critical step for boosting the population in orbit. It was the first job for the crews of the linked space station and space shuttle Endeavour. More than 14,000 pounds of gear in a 21-foot container that flew up on Endeavour was hoisted onto the space station. It held an extra toilet, refrigerator and kitchenette, exercise machine and sleeping compartments, and a new recycling system for converting urine into drinking water.

A toddler was killed by a stray bullet when a deer hunter fired his rifle too close to her grandparents' Hudson Valley home. Edward Taibi, 45, of Queens, was held without bail yesterday after arraignment on a second-degree manslaughter charge in the Town of Bethel court. Taibi was hunting from a tree stand Sunday in Sullivan County when he shot a deer. He came down from the stand and fired the .30-caliber rifle again about 400 feet away from a trailer home in Swan Lake, just south of the Catskill Mountains. The bullet hit 16-month-old Charly Skala in the upper body. She was flown to Westchester Medical Center, where she died. Police said the child's parents live in nearby Woodburne. [CORRECTION: Woodbourne, N.Y., was misspelled in a nation update item yesterday about a toddler killed by a hunter's stray bullet. (A17 ALL 11/19/2008)]

A federal appeals court threw out a contempt order yesterday that required fines of up to $5,000 a day against a former USA Today reporter who refused to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks. Toni Locy had been ordered by a judge to pay the fines unless she identified officials who discussed Steven J. Hatfill, who was named a person of interest but was exonerated by the Justice Department. Hatfill, a former Army scientist, sued the government for violating his privacy by talking to reporters and was awarded $5.8 million.