They declined to discuss further details of the trip for fear of repercussions in a climate of stepped-up workplace raids, harsher penalties against hiring illegal workers and arrests of some 675 illegal immigrants per week in recent months.After a bipartisan bill that would have offered legalization to the country’s estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants was defeated in the Senate this summer, federal officials have embarked on such measures to prove they’re serious about enforcing immigration laws.Arellano, 32, was arrested in 2002 during a federal sweep at O’Hare International Airport, where she worked cleaning airplanes. Convicted of using a fake Social Security number, she was scheduled to turn herself in last summer for deportation to Mexico.Instead, she took refuge inside the church, and has never left since, she says.”God has protected me for this long year,” Arellano said, delivering a prepared statement in both unsteady English and in her native Spanish before a standing-room-only crowd of supporters and TV cameras in the tiny church.”But I cannot sit by now and watch the lives of mothers and fathers like me and children like Saul be destroyed,” Arellano said.”If this government would separate me from my son, let them do it in front of the men and women who have the responsibility to fix this broken law and uphold the principles of human dignity,” she said, calling on supporters to skip school and boycott local businesses while she’s in Washington.Though Arellano and her supporters insist the trip is not meant as a challenge to federal immigration authorities, their plans nonetheless further complicate the government’s position.All along, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has had the legal authority to enter the church and arrest Arellano.But, with worldwide publicity surrounding her case, officials have avoided the symbolism of raiding a church, referring anyone who asks about their intentions to a prepared statement that calls Arellano a fugitive and explains that all arrests are prioritized.On Wednesday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman again referred reporters to the statement.. CRAWFORD, TEXAS The temperature topped 100 sweaty degrees at President Bush’s ranch on Wednesday — a fine day for a three-mile run.Forty White House staffers, members of the military and Secret Service gathered at a starting line and took off running. Their secret hope was to be inducted into the “President’s 100-Degree Club.”"You have to run for three miles No walking. And then you get a T-shirt,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said of the event, which has become an August tradition at the ranch.It was grueling. The runners poured water over their heads as they ran, each at their own pace.

All 40 made it.”The air temperature was 104, but with the humidity it felt like 109 degrees,” Perino said.A member of the Marine One presidential helicopter team came in first with a time of about 18 minutes, 50 seconds. David Sherzer was the first White House staffer to cross the finish line.”We gave him a hard time because he ran with his BlackBerry,” Perino said. “I think it was by accident that he had it in his pocket, but he said in case ‘the boss’ needed anything, he was going to have his BlackBerry ready.”The president gave the runners a pep talk at the starting point of the midafternoon run — two laps on a paved road that winds near a helicopter landing zone. “He told them not to push it too hard, but to give it their all,” she said.Bush cheered them on at the halfway point and then rode in his pickup truck back to the finish line in time to shake hands with every runner and present each with a light-blue T-shirt emblazoned with: “The President’s 100-Degree Club.”Bush traded in his running shoes for mountain bikes several years ago after pain in his knees kept him from jogging. At 61, he is a devoted mountain bike rider, regularly leaving the White House for rides on Saturday mornings or after church on Sundays.Besides, he had already gotten his exercise for the day.After his morning briefings, he cut down a few trees and took a spin on his bicycle. Earlier in the week, he worked outside building mountain bike trails.”I would expect that there would be some brush-cutting to do,” Perino said..

An epidemic of thyroid disease among pet cats could be caused by toxic flame retardants that are widely found in household dust and some pet food, government scientists reported Wednesday.The often-lethal disease was rare in cats until the 1980s, when it began appearing widely, particularly in California cats. That was at the same time industry started using large volumes of brominated flame retardants in consumer products, including furniture cushions, electronics, mattresses and carpet padding.Scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency noted a possible connection between hyperthyroidism and flame retardants. The chemicals — known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs — mimic thyroid hormones, so experts have theorized that high exposure in cats could cause overactive thyroids.Cats that remain indoors and eat fish-flavored canned food were found to be the most highly contaminated.”We know there is an association between indoor living for cats and hyperthyroidism,” said Linda Birnbaum, a senior author of the study and the EPA’s director of experimental toxicology. “Our paper does show cats are highly exposed and hyperthyroidism may be due to the high PBDEs. More studies are needed to fully determine this.”A major unanswered question is whether cats are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, signaling health dangers for their owners. Cats and human beings are the only mammals with a high rate of hyperthyroidism.So far, no link has been established between human endocrine disorders and exposure to flame retardants. However, “there is growing concern,” the scientists wrote.”It is clear that house cats may be able to serve as sentinels for indoor exposure to PBDEs for humans who share their houses,” said Birnbaum, one of the world’s leading experts on hormone-altering chemicals.Brominated flame retardants are ubiquitous outdoors and inside homes.

The chemicals have been building up in people and wildlife over the last two decades, particularly in the United States, where human concentrations have doubled every few years.People in the United States have the highest PBDE levels in humans worldwide, but U.S. cats are even more exposed — some with levels 100 times greater, according to the study.Twenty-three cats were tested in the EPA’s study, including 11 with hyperthyroidism. The researchers found that the cats with hyperthyroidism had substantially higher levels of a PBDE compound. Symptoms of the disease, which is a leading cause of cat death, include weight loss, rapid heartbeat and irritability.”Our results demonstrated that cats are being consistently exposed to PBDEs, an endocrine-disrupting environmental contaminant,” the research team, led by Janice Dye and Marta Venier of the EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory in North Carolina, wrote in their study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Because of this exposure, “cats may be at increased risk for developing thyroid hyperplastic changes.”Myrto Petreas, branch chief of environmental chemistry at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, said that the cat study was small but that it reaffirmed health concerns not only for cats but humans too, “especially children, anyone exposed to high levels.”"PBDEs are in consumer products, so we get exposed while we use the products in homes and during the lifetime of the products. We inhale or ingest dust, mostly from hand-to-mouth transfer,” said Petreas, who did not participate in the study.The risk to cats that eat dry food and live in homes with average contamination is minimal, the study said, while “at the other extreme, maximal PBDE exposure” occurs in cats that eat fish-flavored canned food and live in houses with highly contaminated dust.Cats that eat canned food containing whitefish, salmon and other seafood are exposed to PBDE levels up to 12 times higher than cats that eat dry food, and five times more than cats that eat poultry or beef canned foods, the study said. The chemicals build up in oceans and other water bodies and magnify in food chains.However, much of the exposure — for cats as well as people — comes from dust, not food.Cats, while sleeping, often come in direct and prolonged contact with upholstery, carpeting and mattress materials that contain flame retardants. In addition, they often sit on electronic equipment.”Because of their meticulous grooming behavior, cats would effectively ingest any volatilized PBDEs or PBDE-laden dust that deposited on their fur during such activities,” the scientists wrote.Scientists say toddlers who crawl on floors and put objects in their mouths also can be highly exposed to the chemical-tainted dust, which has been found in most U.S. homes.In people and cats with the highest levels, Petreas said, “it’s explained not by diet, but more contact with contaminated sofas, computers and other consumer products.”Two pervasive PBDEs, used mostly in foam cushions, mattresses and carpet padding, have been banned in the United States since 2004.