Bush seeks funding for language studies

President Bush said Thursday the United States could help shed its "bullying" image abroad if more Americans learned to speak a foreign language.

Bush said he would request $114 million in the next budget year to help teach U.S. students Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Farsi and other languages that are rarely studied.

The president said it is natural that people who speak the same language relate better. It helps when he meets with foreign dignitaries, Bush said.

As an example, he cited Peru's president, Alejandro Toledo, who was educated at Stanford University. "When somebody comes to me and speaks Texan, I know they appreciate the Texas culture," Bush told the U.S. University Presidents Summit on International Education, where he announced the initiative.

"Message received,"

Calif. governor says

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday urged state lawmakers to work together and assured them, "I have learned my lesson."

In his third State of the State speech, his first statewide speech since voters rejected all four of his ballot measures Nov. 8, he said: "I have absorbed my defeat. I have learned my lesson. ... To my fellow Californians, I say, 'Message received.' "

He proposed a $222.6 billion public-works program that would require the largest bond package in state history.

Suit seeks protection

for rare butterfly

Conservationists sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday seeking protection for a rare butterfly they say is threatened by off-road vehicles at one of the largest sand dunes in the West.

Environmentalists want the agency to declare the Sand Mountain blue butterfly an endangered species because, they say, its habitat is being destroyed at the only place it is known to live: the Sand Mountain Recreation Area in western Nevada.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., accuses the agency of violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to respond to petitions since April 2004 seeking federal protection for the butterfly. The act requires the government to provide a preliminary response to such petitions within 90 days.

Washington

Chicken producers

to test for bird flu

Seeking to reassure people that chicken is safe to eat, companies that raise chickens said Thursday they will test every flock for bird flu before the birds are slaughtered.

Companies that account for more than 90 percent of the nearly 10 billion chickens produced in 2005 in the nation have signed up for the testing program and said they expect more to follow, according to the National Chicken Council, a trade group that represents producers.

Consumption of chicken in the nation has held steady despite worries about a bird-flu strain that has infected millions of birds throughout Asia and parts of Europe and has killed 74 people.

Compiled from The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times