News Briefs

Clinton convenes second round of Mideast talks

Israeli and Palestinian leaders met at a Red Sea resort Tuesday for their second round of direct talks, tackling for the first time some of the toughest "core issues" dividing the parties as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton scrambled to keep the talks from collapsing over the issue of renewed Israeli settlement construction.

No resolution of that impasse appeared to have been found during two hours of discussions, both before and after lunch, between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinian officials have indicated they would like to discuss borders first, while Israel officials appear more keen to discuss security.

The U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian meeting followed bilateral talks Clinton held earlier with the two leaders. But looming over this week's diplomacy is the 10-month moratorium on settlement construction that is due to expire by the end of the month.

Palestinian officials talked tough as they arrived at the negotiations, reiterating threats to walk out if construction does not continue to be curtailed.

U.S. officials are trying to keep the talks going past the initial phase, making the settlement issue less of factor in whether the talks continue.

President Obama has set an ambitious goal of concluding the talks within a year - a tall order, given that a final agreement has eluded peacemakers for decades.

British archaeologists find remnants of house dating back to Stone Age

British archaeologists have uncovered what they say is the foundation of the oldest house in the United Kingdom, an 11,000-year-old circular structure that suggests Stone Age people may not have been as nomadic as previously thought.

Excavation at the archaeological site Star Carr unearthed a circular wooden structure about 11 feet in diameter with 18 holes carved along the perimeter for posts that may have sustained a roof. After radiocarbon dated the structure to 8500 B.C. or earlier, researchers announced their finding last month.

Since Milner and her colleagues began work at Star Carr six years ago, they have found a wooden platform featuring the earliest evidence of carpentry in Europe. They have uncovered barbed harpoon points and headdresses with red deer antlers attached. A peat bog on the site has preserved ancient plants and pollen; as a result, archaeologists can reconstruct the landscape.

When Star Carr was discovered in the early 1950s, archaeologists thought they had found the full site. Today, Milner suspects that less than 5 percent has been identified.

Unpredictable primary season comes to a close

The tumultuous primary season will come to a close on Tuesday with the potential for still more shocks to the political establishment. The question is what the upheaval of the primaries says about the prospects for November.

The story line of Election 2010 has seemed to change week by week. Candidates, consultants, pollsters - and political reporters - have described it at one time or another as a year of anti-incumbency, or anti-establishment, or anti-Obama. The power of the Tea Party has been measured and measured again. Republicans have been described as both resurgent and at war with themselves; Democrats as embattled and endangered, or outright doomed.

Out of all this, only a few things are clear. In the primaries, Republicans have borne the brunt of the anti-establishment fervor that has swept the country. But come Election Day November 2, say strategists in both parties, Democrats will probably bear the brunt of that anger.

The primaries have underscored a potentially yawning enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats. Republican turnout in primaries often has greatly exceeded that of Democrats, signaling that GOP voters are far more likely to turn out in November and giving the party a decided advantage.

But fueling that enthusiasm gap is a Tea Party movement that has been both a blessing and a potential problem for the Republicans. Grass-roots activists on the right have shown little respect for the GOP leadership. Establishment candidates have found themselves on the defensive repeatedly and some are now on the sidelines.