■UNITED STATES
Suspended police dog back
A police dog in the central Idaho resort town of Sun Valley is back on duty after serving a “suspension” for an unprovoked attack on a small schnauzer. Sun Valley Police Chief Cameron Daggett said the five-year-old German shepherd named Dax took a few weeks off the job after the incident. The dog will receive more training to prevent a reoccurrence of what Daggett said was an unfortunate situation. Dax is a four-year veteran of the force. He is trained to find illegal drugs, missing people and evidence at crime scenes. On June 26, authorities said Dax attacked a schnauzer named Max. Max’s owner said the city was paying the US$600 veterinarian bill.
■UNITED STATES
Obama urges liberal action
President Barack Obama is urging liberal activists and bloggers to “keep up the fight” to bring change to Washington. In a video played on Saturday at the annual Netroots Nation convention, the president acknowledged that some in the party’s left wing have been unhappy with the pace of change. Liberals have been disenchanted on issues from the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the failure to create a government-run insurance option in the healthcare overhaul. The president says in the brief video that the combat mission in Iraq will end in August. It’s a tough election year for Democrats, but Obama warned about returning to Republican policies “that got us into the mess.”
■UNITED STATES
Lutherans welcome gays
Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the country’s largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service. The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy. Churches can now hire noncelibate gay clergy who are in committed relationships. Megan Rohrer, one of the pastors who was to participate in yesterday’s rite of reception service, grew up in South Dakota and attended a Lutheran college where she said students tried to exorcise her “gay demons” by throwing holy water on her. Some of those people are now Lutheran pastors in South Dakota, she said.
■PERU
Miners call off strike
Workers at Buenaventura’s Uchucchacua silver mine suspended strike plans to continue labor talks aimed at improving working conditions, a union leader told reporters on Saturday. Only a day earlier, workers at Buenaventura’s Orcopampa gold mine delayed plans for a walkout after making progress in labor negotiations. Labor unrest has plagued Buenaventura, the country’s top precious metals miner, whose workers demand a bigger slice of the mining bonanza as the precious metal powerhouse recovers from the global financial crisis. A week-long strike by Buenaventura workers in February stopped production at Orcopampa, Uchucchacua and the company’s other gold unit Antapite.
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