Washington, D.C.

Study: Speed humps make neighborhoods safer

Some people find them annoying, but those speed humps that force motorists to slow down in residential neighborhoods and near schools can significantly cut the risk of injury or death to children, a study says.

The review found that children who lived on streets near a speed hump were up to 60 percent less likely to be hit and injured by an automobile than youngsters in areas without them.

The study, released Tuesday, is published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

It looked at youngsters under 15 who were struck on residential streets and taken to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital Oakland in California over a five-year period.

Washington, D.C.

Pentagon drops plan to test Internet voting

The Pentagon has decided to drop a $22 million pilot plan to test Internet voting for 100,000 American military personnel and civilians living overseas after lingering security concerns, officials said Tuesday.

The program ran into trouble late in January when a group of academics who had been invited to review the system released a report saying the Internet was so insecure that the integrity of the entire election could be undermined by online voting. Two weeks later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz decided not to allow Internet ballots to be counted in the presidential tally.

Now, the Pentagon has decided that even the experiment is over.

“It’s not that it’s never going to go in test mode,” said Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood. “It’s that right now we’re not going to do it.”

Iraq

Roadside bombing kills U.S. soldier, wounds another

A roadside bombing Tuesday killed one U.S. soldier, and another was wounded.

The injured soldier was flown to a combat support hospital after the explosion near Ramadi, west of Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said.

In Ramadi, a U.S. Humvee was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade Tuesday, setting it on fire, witnesses said. Four soldiers who were in the vehicle were seen being rushed away in another Humvee. A U.S. spokeswoman in Baghdad could not confirm the attack.

Identifications of the U.S. troops were not immediately available.