Midwest hit by earthquake on April 18
The 5.4 earthquake took place at 4:36 a.m. local time, and was centered 5 miles north-northeast of Bellmont, Illinois. The quake was felt in Champaign, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and St. Louis.

On April 18 in history
In 1906, an earthquake struck San Francisco. The earthquake began near dawn, at 5:12 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and lasted for a little over a minute. Scientists later determined that the San Andreas Fault had moved about 23 feet. The quake measured 8.3 on the Richter scale, and it was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and as far east as central Nevada. The epicenter was near San Francisco.
Lawyer and writer Clarence (Seward) Darrow, (books by this author) was born in Kinsman, Ohio (1857). Darrow became famous for defending some of the most unpopular people of his time. In the 1925 Monkey Trial, he defended high school teacher John Scopes for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in a Tennessee school. In "The Crime of the Century," in 1924, he successfully defended two confessed teenage
He once said: "I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure."

Is the Harry Potter Lexicon — a proposed hardbound compendium to all-things Harry — a “fair use” of copyrighted Harry Potter material? During the three-day trial, the plaintiffs, Rowling and Warners, argued no: that the lexicon, in the words of lawyer Dale Cendali, “takes too much and does too little” to warrant fair-use protection. On the other side, the putative publisher, RDR books, argued yes: that the lexicon offers more to Harry Potter fans than a mere regurgitation of Rowling’s novels. The trial wrapped up on April 16 and is now in the hands of Judge Robert Patterson
WSJ Law Blog April 17, 2008

Freedom of Speech and Press: Exceptions to the First Amendment (PDF; 237 KB)Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists)
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….” This language restricts government both more and less than it would if it were applied literally. It restricts government more in that it applies not only to Congress, but to all branches of the federal government, and to all branches of state and local government. It restricts government less in that it provides no protection to some types of speech and only limited protection to others.
This report provides an overview of the major exceptions to the First Amendment — of the ways that the Supreme Court has interpreted the guarantee of freedom of speech and press to provide no protection or only limited protection for some types of speech. For example, the Court has decided that the First Amendment provides no protection to obscenity, child pornography, or speech that constitutes “advocacy of the use of force or of law violation … where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
The Court has also decided that the First Amendment provides less than full protection to commercial speech, defamation (libel and slander), speech that may be harmful to children, speech broadcast on radio and television, and public employees’ speech. Even speech that enjoys the most extensive First Amendment protection may be subject to “regulations of the time, place, and manner of expression which are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.” And, even speech that enjoys the most extensive First Amendment protection may be restricted on the basis of its content if the restriction passes “strict scrutiny,” i.e., if the government shows that the restriction serves “to promote a compelling interest” and is “the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest.”
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Rising food prices: Policy options and World Bank response (Word; 175 KB)Source: World Bank
The rising trend in international food prices continued, and even accelerated, in 2008. U.S. wheat export prices rose from $375/ton in January to $440/ton in March, and Thai rice export prices increased from $365/ton to $562/ton. This came on top of a 181 percent increase in global wheat prices over the 36 months leading up to February 2008, and a 83 percent increase in overall global food prices over the same period.
Increased bio-fuel production has contributed to the rise in food prices. Concerns over oil prices, energy security and climate change have prompted governments to take a more proactive stance towards encouraging production and use of bio-fuels. This has led to increased demand for bio-fuel raw materials, such as wheat, soy, maize and palm oil, and increased competition for cropland. Almost all of the increase in global maize production from 2004 to 2007 (the period when grain prices rose sharply) went for bio-fuels production in the U.S., while existing stocks were depleted by an increase in global consumption for other uses. Other developments, such as droughts in Australia and poor crops in the E.U. and Ukraine in 2006 and 2007, were largely offset by good crops and increased exports in other countries and would not, on their own, have had a significant impact on prices. Only a relatively small share of the increase in food production prices (around 15%) is due directly to higher energy and fertilizer costs.
The observed increase in food prices is not a temporary phenomenon, but likely to persist in the medium term. Food crop prices are expected to remain high in 2008 and 2009 and then begin to decline as supply and demand respond to high prices; however, they are likely to remain well above the 2004 levels through 2015 for most food crops. Forecasts of other major organizations (FAO, OECD, and USDA) that regularly monitor and project commodity prices are broadly consistent with these projections. Predictions of high food price in the medium run are further strengthened when we factor in the impact of policies aimed at achieving energy security and reduced carbon dioxide emissions, which may present strong trade-offs with food security objectives.
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Federal Reserve Board Beige Book, April 2008
"Prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and based on information collected on or before April 7, 2008. This document summarizes comments received from businesses and other contacts outside the Federal Reserve and is not a commentary on the views of Federal Reserve officials. Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts indicate that economic conditions have weakened since the last report. Nine Districts noted slowing in the pace of economic activity, while the remaining three--Boston, Cleveland, and Richmond--described activity as mixed or steady."
 Links to reports on Federal Reserve Districts
 Federal Reserve Board Beige Book, Full Report, April 16, 2008

Earth Day is April 22
http://earthday.envirolink.org/
Find where activities are being held at the above link

The First Earth Day We only have one earth, so we need to take care of her. That's what Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin believed. He was disturbed that an issue as important as our environment was not addressed in politics or by the media, so he created the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970. An estimated 20 million people nationwide attended festivities that day.
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/jb_date.cgi?day=22&month=04
On the first Earth Day, a co-worker and I plus our children marched in a parade. Then I decided to do something in a small way, and gave up paper napkins for cloth. I had been buying 200 paper napkins a month at that point, and it was a simple thing to do.

Who is Ned Ludd? What is a Luddite?
http://www.usu.edu/sanderso/multinet/lud1.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.org