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Health care bill passes Senate panel 14-9

USA Today
By John Fritze, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Obama praised Senate leaders Tuesday who approved an $829 billion health care bill advancing his vision to reshape the insurance system further than any other such bill has in more than a generation.

Calling it a critical milestone, Obama said "we are now closer than ever before to passing health reform. Now's the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done."

The Senate Finance Committee, led by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., voted 14-9 to approve the proposal, which would expand insurance coverage to 29 million uninsured Americans while reducing budget deficits by $81 billion over 10 years.

Obama singled out Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who broke with her own party to support the bill — a decision that could have wide implications as Democrats seek the 60 votes needed to clear the next hurdle: a vote by the full Senate.

Obama thanked Snowe for her "political courage and seriousness of purpose she's demonstrated throughout this process."

Earlier when Snowe said she would vote for the bill, she said "when history calls, history calls," adding that she may change her position depending on how the bill evolves. "I happen to think the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress."

All other Republicans on the committee voted against the bill, which is the product of months of bipartisan talks. All Democrats supported the legislation, including Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who had not previously stated their support.

"Ours is a balanced package," Baucus said. "This is now the time to get this done."    more ...

Twitterers Thwart Effort to Gag Newspaper

Time Magazine
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009
By Catherine Mayer / London

Twitterers across the world colored their avatars green to show support for protesters who took to Iran's streets after the country's disputed elections earlier this year. Users of the micro-blogging site might now consider overlaying their avatars with a film of sludge brown as a mark of their spontaneous, collective action to help undermine an attempt by the international oil trader Trafigura to gag a British newspaper's reporting on a toxic-dumping case.

Trafigura's legal representatives, the London-based law firm Carter-Ruck, had obtained a secret injunction in September to prevent the Guardian from revealing the existence of a report commissioned by the oil trader about the alleged 2006 dumping of toxic waste off the Ivory Coast by a ship chartered by the company. The lawyers then tried to stop the Guardian from telling its readers about a written question lodged in Parliament this week by Paul Farrelly, a Labour MP. His question mentioned both the secret injunction and the report.    more ...

Why Pakistan Must Widen Its Hunt for Militant Bases

Time Magazine
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009
By Omar Waraich / Rawalpindi

Just weeks after trumpeting the results of a military offensive in the Swat Valley, the Pakistan army suddenly finds itself under attack on multiple fronts. A day after an élite unit of army commandos secured the release of 39 hostages, bringing to an end a 22-hour siege of its military headquarters that left 25 people dead over the weekend, the Taliban struck again. In the fourth major attack in eight days, a suicide bomber killed 41 people in a marketplace near Swat on Monday, underscoring the militants' enduring ability to strike across the country.

As the army revealed in a briefing on Oct. 12, the Taliban threat has now spread well beyond its northwestern borderlands and grown tentacles that reach deep into the country's heartlands. Five of the 10 attackers who laid siege to Pakistan's equivalent of the Pentagon in Rawalpindi came from Punjab, Pakistan's largest and wealthiest province. It is also home to the bulk of the army. The Punjabi militants involved in the audacious assault were linked to groups that once enjoyed the military's patronage, and until five years ago, the ringleader had been among its very own ranks.    more ...

Senate Finance Committee Approves Health-Care Bill

Baucus: 'This Is Our Opportunity to Make History'

The Washington Post
By Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 13, 2009; 4:10 PM

A key Senate committee easily approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health-care system Tuesday afternoon, clearing the way for President Obama's top domestic initiative to advance to a historic debate before the full Senate.
The Senate Finance Committee vote in favor of the bill was 14 to 9.

Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine broke with her party and joined all 13 Democrats on the committee in voting for the package, which would spend $829 billion over the next decade to make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans who would otherwise go without coverage, according to congressional budget analysts.    more ...

Ford adds 4.5M vehicles to defective switch recall

USA Today
October 13, 2009

DETROIT (AP) — Ford (F) said Tuesday it will add 4.5 million older-model vehicles to the long list of those recalled because a defective cruise control switch could cause a fire.  Company spokesman Wes Sherwood said 1.1 million Ford Windstar minivans will be recalled for repairs due to a small risk of fires.  He said another 3.4 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles with the same switches also will be recalled even though there have been no reports of fires with them. Those vehicles mainly are trucks and sport-utility vehicles.  All vehicles covered by the recall are from the 1992 to 2003 model years.   more ...

China vows to stand by isolated North Korea

Reuters
Mon Oct 5, 2009 5:46pm EDT
By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China pledged to strengthen bonds with isolated North Korea, nudging it to improve its economy, while reports of Indian and South Korean swoops on North Korean shipping underscored strains behind a recent easing of tension.

The renewed courting between the two communist neighbors came in messages between Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong-il, who on Sunday hugged Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the start of a visit intended to bolster bilateral relations.

The messages marked 60 years since the countries established formal ties on October 6, 1949, and did not mention of the North's nuclear weapons program, instead stressing their focus on shoring up ties.

"History demonstrates that developing China-North Korea relations is in keeping with the fundamental interests and shared wishes of both countries' people," said the congratulatory message from China, issued by the official Xinhua news agency. "It also benefits protecting regional peace and stability."

In a message to China, Kim Jong-il and other North Korean leaders said relations would "constantly consolidate and develop," Xinhua reported.

The relationship between the world's third-biggest economy and its impoverished, isolated neighbor sets apart Beijing's approach to Pyongyang from the harder line long favoured by Washington, Tokyo and other regional capitals.   more ...

Doctors swamped by swine flu vaccine fears

Many say they’re not prepared to handle push to immunize everyone

msnbc.com
updated 2:21 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct . 5, 2009
By Anemona Hartocollis, The New York Times

The fear of swine flu is being compounded by new worries, this time among primary care doctors who say that they are already being swamped by calls from patients anxious to get the new vaccine, and that they are ill-prepared to cope with the nationwide drive to immunize everyone, particularly children and adults with chronic illness.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to begin releasing the first doses of vaccine to doctors across the country this week.

Many doctors, especially pediatricians, say that while they know little about the program, they have been deluged with questions.  more ...

Suicide Attack on U.N. Office in Pakistan Kills Five

time.com
Monday, Oct. 05, 2009
By Omar Waraich / Islamabad and Aryn Baker / Kabul

In a shocking breach of security, a suicide bomber posing as a paramilitary soldier blew himself up Monday inside the heavily fortified offices of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in a tightly controlled part of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, killing at least five of the humanitarian agency's staff, Pakistani officials said.

The bombing, the latest in a series of troubling attacks on foreign aid workers in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months, came as the Pakistani army is poised to mount a fresh ground offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area against the country's most fearsome al-Qaeda-linked Taliban militants. It also followed a vow by the Pakistani Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, on Sunday to mount revenge attacks for the killing of the group's former leader in a U.S. air strike two months ago. Addressing Pakistan's parliament after the bombing, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that although security had been stepped up across the country, "we should expect a few more [attacks like this]."    more ...

Obama's Meeting With the Dalai Lama Is Delayed

Move Appears to Be A Nod to Chinese

Washington Post
Monday, October 5, 2009
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer

In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks.

For the first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president. Since 1991, he has been here 10 times. Most times the meetings have been "drop-in" visits at the White House. The last time he was here, in 2007, however, George W. Bush became the first sitting president to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest civilian award.    more ...

Gates Urges Confidentiality in Advising Obama on Afghan War

Washington Post
Monday, October 5, 2009; 2:39 PM
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday it is "imperative" that the advice U.S. military and civilian leaders provide to President Obama as he contemplates strategy in Afghanistan remain private.

"In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations -- civilians and military alike -- provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately," Gates said in a speech to hundreds of Army personnel at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting in Washington.

Gates's admonition came as differences have grown apparent between U.S. military leaders who say more troops are required in Afghanistan and a White House that is reevaluating the counterinsurgency mission amid an intensifying Taliban insurgency, mounting casualties and domestic opposition to the war.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has stated in a blunt assessment that without additional troops the coalition mission in Afghanistan could fail. In an address last week in London, McChrystal said that he did not support the idea of significantly scaling back the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and narrowing the focus of the mission from defeating the Taliban insurgency to tracking down al-Qaeda leaders.    more ...

Mending Fences for 2 Asian Leaders

The New York Times
October 4, 2009
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, held talks with the visiting prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao, on Sunday as his government tried to mend ties with Beijing, while international attention focused on whether Pyongyang could be coaxed back to the negotiating table over its nuclear weapons program.
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KCNA, via Reuters

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, right, met Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China at the airport after he arrived in Pyongyang on Sunday.

Mr. Kim demonstrated an eagerness to woo China when he made a rare appearance at the airport to give Mr. Wen a hug and mobilized crowds waving flowers and shouting slogans along the road that Mr. Wen’s motorcade traveled through Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

Mr. Wen was the first Chinese prime minister to receive such a treatment of honor from Mr. Kim, who officially assumed the title of North Korea’s “supreme leader” in a constitutional amendment in April.

The two held talks later on Sunday, reported Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, without giving details. Mr. Wen was the most senior Chinese official to visit Pyongyang since President Hu Jintao came in 2005. Mr. Kim visited China in 2006.   more ...

Taiwan launches world's first anti-swine flu spray

Oct 1, 2009, 13:12 GMT

Taipei - A Taiwan company on Thursday launched what it called the world's first spray capable of destroying the swine-flu virus.

VirusBom costs 350 Taiwan dollars (10 US dollars) and can be used 700 times, Money Marketing communication
Ltd. It contains a chemical compound that can destroy many kinds of bacteria and viruses, including the H1N1 swine-flu strain, company representative Heidi Wang said.

'We began selling the VirusBom spray today, but we have already been approached by companies from China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and the United States who want to import our product,' she said Thursday.

VirusBom was invented in July by a research team from National Taiwan University.

The team said VirusBom is an organic compound that is made through synthetic means and can kill both bacteria and viruses.

It can be made into a hand wash, spray or detergent and applied to face masks, surgical gowns and air filters, said Professor Lee Shih-kuang, head of the research team.   more ...

Spate of terrorism arrests not connected, analysts say

CNN
September 25, 2009

(CNN) -- In the past week, U.S. officials have announced charges in five terrorism probes in five states. It is a confluence of cases unlike anything the country has seen since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Najibullah Zazi, 24, has been indicted on a charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the U.S.

But CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen and law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks say not to read too much into it -- the rush of arrests is a coincidence.

"These are things that are happening completely independently," Bergen said. Brooks agreed, calling it a "happenstance."

Last weekend, authorities arrested three suspects -- two in Colorado and one in New York -- for allegedly lying to the FBI in a terrorism probe. One of the three is now also accused of plotting to make a powerful bomb.

A federal judge on Friday ordered Afghan native Najibullah Zazi, 24, of Colorado to remain in custody. Zazi is charged with plotting to set off "weapons of mass destruction" in the United States.

Investigators say Zazi plotted to make bombs from household chemicals. He made several recent purchases from beauty supply stores in suburban Denver, telling workers he had "a lot of girlfriends," employees said Thursday.   more ...

First swine flu vaccines may arrive by Oct. 5

Initial batch expected to protect six or seven million people, officials say

msnbc.com
September 25, 2009

ATLANTA - U.S. health officials say the first swine flu vaccine should be in some doctors' offices as early as Monday, Oct. 5.

The first batches of vaccine will be 6 million to 7 million doses of nasal spray. Forty million doses of injectable vaccine are expected to arrive by mid-October, with another 10 million to 20 million doses available weekly after that. Over time, the government expects to have a total of 250 million doses of the new vaccine. Ten percent of that will go to other countries.

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the U.S. vaccine shipments will go directly to doctors, clinics and other providers designated by each state.   more ...

Raped at 8 and left for dead, a victim raises her voice

CNN
September 25, 2009
By Mayra Cuevas-Nazario

(CNN) -- For nearly 20 years Jennifer Schuett has held onto every memory of the night she was abducted from her bedroom, raped and left for dead.
Jennifer Schuett remembers small details of the night she was abducted, raped and her throat slashed at age 8.

It was August 10, 1990. Schuett was 8 years old and lived alone with her mother in the first floor of an apartment complex in Dickinson, Texas. The bedroom windows faced the parking lot.  Investigators were never able to identify a suspect, but new DNA testing may change that.  CNN normally does not identify victims of sexual assaults. But Schuett wants to go public with her story-- and her name-- to increase the chances of finding and prosecuting her attacker. "It's not about me anymore," she explained. "It's about all the little girls that go to sleep at night. I know there are so many girls out there who have been raped and hurt. You have to fight back."  For that, Schuett, 27, is relying on her voice, her memory and advances in DNA testing. "I remember everything; I've always wanted to remember everything, so I can find the person that did this," Schuett told CNN during a phone interview. "If I had blocked this out of my memory, the investigation wouldn't have come this far. I'm a fighter."

Schuett says she was alone in her bed when a man came creeping in through the window. She remembers waking up in a stranger's arms as he carried her across a dark parking lot.   more ...

China allays US trade war fears

China has said it does not think its trade disputes with the US will hurt ties between the two countries, playing down the threat of a trade war.

BBC News
15 September 2009 07:16 UK

The US imposed tariffs on Chinese tyre imports on Friday. China then requested talks, under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, over the issue. "We don't want to see anything bad happen to bilateral relations," the Chinese commerce ministry said.  China has called America's move on tyres "protectionist".  Under WTO rules, Beijing and Washington will try to solve the dispute over the next 60 days through negotiations.  If that fails, China can ask for a WTO panel to make a ruling on tyre imports.

'Groundless'

"The US judgement about the disturbance is groundless," the Chinese commerce ministry said. "During the Chinese-US negotiations, the US side never gave feedback on whether Chinese tyre products disturbed local markets," it added.  On Friday, under pressure from US unions, the White House announced duties of an additional 35% on Chinese-made tyres for one year, followed by tariffs of 30% and 25% in the following two years.  It said it was in order "to remedy a market disruption caused by a surge in tyre imports".    more ...

It should now be called cheap, slave Labor Day

Virginia Beach Conservative
September 7, 2009

As the U.S. unemployment rate continues to rise, and bankruptcies and foreclosures follow, we are told that all of these maladies can be blamed upon the current recession. However, the seeds of the current and as yet, unfolding disaster started several years ago, when both our federal government and business community betrayed American working class families.

With so many American companies now firing their American workers and opening factories in China and Mexico, manufacturing jobs have become few and far between. We constantly hear that this nation's economy is becoming service-based. However, with about a million illegal aliens streaming across the border every year who are willing to work for sub-standard wages, even the service jobs will soon become unavailable to Americans. If current corporate trends continue, labor will become a thing of the past for most Americans as poverty becomes their future.

The United States is manufacturing less and less every year and importing more and more. Big American retailers such as Wal-Mart import nearly all of their merchandise from China. Wal-Mart offers prices to their customers on products which if made in the U.S., would be less than the production costs. Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer and as such, now dictates policy to their suppliers. Since Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton died in 1992, the company has been suggesting to their suppliers that they re-locate their factories to China. Wal-Mart sets a price which can only be met with slave labor.

American companies such as RCA and Black and Decker maintain factories throughout Asia to take advantage of the incredibly cheap labor, which can only be offered by countries without reasonable labor laws. Because an item bears the name of an American company, many Americans believe that they are getting a great price on an American product. Unfortunately, the only Americans now employed by most of these companies are a handful of executives, as the actual factory workers live in foreign lands and work for pennies.   more ...

Police Break Strike at Philips in Shenzhen

Epoch Times
Sep 6, 2009
By Fang Xiao

A strike by one thousand workers was curtailed by armed police in the southern China city of Shenzhen, China on September 2. At least two workers were injured and taken to a hospital.

The workers were employees of the local factory of Philips Respironics, a sleep and respiratory healthcare apparatus manufacturer, headquartered in the U.S. The workers were expressing their grievances with the company for changing their work hours, effecting wage deflation through various tactics, and providing inferior quality meals and benefits.   more ...

2-Year-Old, 3 Others Dead in La. Murder-Suicide

Man shoots wife, son and 2-year-old grandson to death at rural La. home, then kills himself

ABC News
September 6, 2009
By DOUG SIMPSON Associated Press Writer
HOLDEN, La. (AP)

A man shot his estranged wife, son and 2-year-old grandson to death and seriously wounded his pregnant daughter-in-law at their rural Louisiana home, then killed himself as police tried to pull over his car 20 minutes later, authorities said.

The pregnant woman later gave birth, about three months early, her father said.

The shootings late Saturday appeared to stem from an ongoing dispute between 50-year-old Dennis Carter Sr. and his wife, Donna Carter, who had a restraining order against him, Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office Chief of Operations Perry Rushing said Sunday.   more ...

Duncan says furor over Obama speech 'silly'

Critics say president is trying to indoctrinate kids with ‘socialist’ agenda

MSNBC
September 6, 2009

WASHINGTON - The furor surrounding President Barack Obama's plans to address the nation's school children is "just silly," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday.

Duncan's department has taken heat for proposed lesson plans distributed to accompany Tuesday's speech, and he acknowledged that a section on writing to the president about how students can help him meet education goals was poorly written. It has been changed.

Debate about conservative objections to the speech has dominated cable television and talk radio for several days, signaling again the stark divisions in the country both over politics and social issues.   more ...

What will rise at ground zero?

USA Today
September 6, 2009

By Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK — The five skyscrapers were all supposed to rise by early next decade to replace the ravaged World Trade Center, with the city's tallest towers set in a spiral evoking the Statue of Liberty's torch.

They would frame a massive memorial in a tree-filled park, plus a theater and a transportation hub with uplifted wings — one of several symbols intended to defy the terrorists who destroyed the 16-acre site in under two hours.

Standing on the site now — a multi-level labyrinth of concrete and steel, from the entrance resembling the rooftops of an underground city — the sweeping design unveiled 6 1/2 years ago still hasn't materialized.

And while the most symbolic pieces of the puzzle at ground zero are taking shape, it's become increasingly clear that the grand scheme will take decades to be fully completed, if it ever is at all.   more ...

Coroner Rules Jackson's Death Homicide

Time Magazine
Aug. 24, 2009
By AP / THOMAS WATKINS

(LOS ANGELES) — The Los Angeles County coroner has ruled Michael Jackson's death a homicide, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press, a finding that makes it more likely criminal charges will be filed against the doctor who was with the pop star when he died.

The coroner determined a fatal combination of drugs was given to Jackson hours before he died June 25 in his rented Los Angeles mansion, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the findings have not been publicly released. Forensic tests found the powerful anesthetic propofol acted together with at least two sedatives to cause Jackson's death, the official said.   more ...

China reduces holdings in US debt

BBC News
18 August 2009 12:27 UK

China reduced its holdings of US government debt by the largest margin in nearly nine years in June, according to data from the US Treasury.

China holds more US government debt than any other country and cut its holdings of US securities by more that 3% in June, said the BBC's Chris Hogg.  Japan and the UK - second and third largest holders of US debt - increased their holdings over the same period.  China's holding of US debt is about 7% higher than at the turn of the year.

Inflation fear

In recent months the US government's budget deficit has widened thanks in part to the Obama administration's costly stimulus plan.  Our correspondent in Shanghai says that China is worried about this, and fears the stimulus efforts will fuel inflation in the US, reducing the value of the dollar.  This would then erode the value of the debt China holds in the US currency.  In June, China cut its holdings of US securities by about $25bn, a fall of 3.1%.

'Dollar alternative'

The sales were made as the US treasury secretary was visiting Beijing to try to reassure the Chinese that their investment in his country's government debt is safe.

In 2008, the Chinese increased their holdings in US debt by 52% over 12 months.   more ...

White House ready to drop ‘public option’?

HHS official: Insurance cooperatives would be an acceptable alternative

MSNBC
August 16, 2009

WASHINGTON - Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama's administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession would likely enrage his liberal supporters but could deliver Obama a much-needed win on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had wanted the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured, but didn't include it as one of his three core principles of reform.   more ...

China calls halt to Gwadar refinery

Asia Times
Aug 14, 2009

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

QUETTA, Pakistan - Cash-strapped Pakistan, which has had to accept more than US$11 billion from the International Monetary Fund, is threatened with the loss of a huge foreign investment after China said it had shelved its multi-billion dollar coastal oil refinery project at Gwadar, in southwest Balochistan province.

China has formally informed the Pakistani authorities that the refinery project has been deleted from the list of financial development plans agreed with Islamabad for the financial year ending next June as there has been no progress on the project, according to a Business Recorder report.

The decision, which follows suspension in January by the

United Arab Emirates state-run International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) of work on the $5 billion Khalifa Coastal Refinery (KCR) project at Hub, also in Balochistan, creates uncertainty about the future of the planned $12.5 billion mega oil city project in Gwadar, of which the refinery there was to be a key element.

It also casts doubt over plans for a corridor carrying energy pipelines and refinery products the length of Pakistan from Gwadar onto western China.

The global recession was a factor in forcing the Chinese and UAE governments to shelve their refinery projects, the Business Recorder report said, citing sources in Pakistan's Petroleum Ministry. Local analysts, however, believe that security concerns were also an important factor.   more ...

Riot at Crowded Calif. Prison as Budget Cuts Loom

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 10, 2009

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Inmates at an overcrowded California prison tore doors from their hinges and broke off toilets and sinks in a four-hour riot that injured 175 people, and many fear the crowding that may have helped escalate the brawl will only get worse with $1.2 billion in budget cuts.

A national expert warned 20 months ago that the Chino prison, which held nearly twice as many men as it was designed for, was ''a serious disturbance waiting to happen'' because of crowding.

The fight, which appeared to be racially motivated, comes at a critical time for California prisons. Next week state lawmakers begin deciding how to cut $1.2 billion from the corrections budget, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to trim the state inmate population by about 27,000 inmates to save money.

Prison watchdogs and some state lawmakers were quick to blame Saturday's riot on overcrowding. The California Institution for Men in Chino holds 5,900 men but was designed for 3,000.   more ...

A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform

The NHew York Times
By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: August 9, 2009

WASHINGTON — With the debate over the future of health care now shifted from Capitol Hill to town halls, supporters and critics of the Democrats’ legislative proposals are polishing their sound bites and sharpening their attack lines.
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Increasingly, the battle looks like a presidential contest, with expensive advertising campaigns and Internet-driven efforts to mobilize local support. It can be difficult to sort fact from fiction, as angry protesters denounce the legislation at raucous public forums.

President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have made the health care overhaul their top priority, putting their political futures on the line. Democrats had hoped to spend the month whipping up support for the legislation, but instead find themselves on the defensive, responding to what Mr. Obama describes as “outlandish rumors” spread by critics.

Many Republicans view fighting the president as a smart political strategy, turning a potentially wonkish debate over Medicare reimbursement rates and subsidies for the uninsured into an ideological battle over the government’s role in health care.

Each side hopes to win ground by boiling down one of the most complex policy discussions in history into digestible nuggets. For beachside viewers who might be more interested in iced-tea service than fee-for-service, here is a guide to the main fight points.   more ...

Squalene: The Swine Flu Vaccine’s Dirty Little Secret Exposed

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com

The U.S. government has contracts with several drug companies to develop and produce swine flu vaccines. At least two of those companies, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, are using an adjuvant in their H1N1 vaccines.

The adjuvant? Squalene.

According to Meryl Nass, M.D., an authority on the anthrax vaccine,

“A novel feature of the two H1N1 vaccines being developed by companies Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline is the addition of squalene-containing adjuvants to boost immunogenicity and dramatically reduce the amount of viral antigen needed. This translates to much faster production of desired vaccine quantities.”[v]

Novartis’s proprietary squalene adjuvant for their H1N1 vaccine is MF59. Glaxo’s is ASO3. MF59 has yet to be approved by the FDA for use in any U.S. vaccine, despite its history of use in other countries.

Per Dr. Nass, there are only three vaccines in existence using an approved squalene adjuvant. None of the three are approved for use in the U.S.

Oil-based vaccination adjuvants like squalene have been proved to generate concentrated, unremitting immune responses over long periods of time.[vi]

A 2000 study published in the American Journal of Pathology demonstrated a single injection of the adjuvant squalene into rats triggered “chronic, immune-mediated joint-specific inflammation,” also known as rheumatoid arthritis.   more ...

Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S.

The New York Times
Published: August 4, 2009
By MARK MAZZETTI and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — A pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines has been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States in recent days, a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military.

The episode has echoes of the cold war era, when the United States and the Soviet Union regularly parked submarines off each other’s coasts to steal military secrets, track the movements of their underwater fleets — and be poised for war.

But the collapse of the Soviet Union all but eliminated the ability of the Russian Navy to operate far from home ports, making the current submarine patrols thousands of miles from Russia more surprising for military officials and defense policy experts.

“I don’t think they’ve put two first-line nuclear subs off the U.S. coast in about 15 years,” said Norman Polmar, a naval historian and submarine warfare expert.

The submarines are of the Akula class, a counterpart to the Los Angeles class attack subs of the United States Navy, and not one of the larger submarines that can launch intercontinental nuclear missiles.

According to Defense Department officials, one of the Russian submarines remained in international waters on Tuesday about 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The location of the second remained unclear. One senior official said the second submarine traveled south in recent days toward Cuba, while another senior official with access to reports on the surveillance mission said it had sailed away in a northerly direction.

The Pentagon and intelligence officials spoke anonymously to describe the effort to track the Russian submarines, which has not been publicly announced.   more ...

New Poll Finds Growing Unease on Health Plan

The New York Times
Published: July 29, 2009
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

President Obama’s ability to shape the debate on health care appears to be eroding as opponents aggressively portray his overhaul plan as a government takeover that could limit Americans’ ability to choose their doctors and course of treatment, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Protesters and supporters lined Mr. Obama’s route in Raleigh, N.C. A poll shows concern about the effect of an overhaul.

Americans are concerned that revamping the health care system would reduce the quality of their care, increase their out-of-pocket health costs and tax bills, and limit their options in choosing doctors, treatments and tests, the poll found. The percentage who describe health care costs as a serious threat to the American economy — a central argument made by Mr. Obama — has dropped over the past month.

Mr. Obama continues to benefit from strong support for the basic goal of revamping the health care system, and he is seen as far more likely than Congressional Republicans to have the best ideas to accomplish that. But reflecting a problem that has hindered efforts to bring major changes to health care for decades, Americans expressed considerable unease about what the end result would mean for them individually.

“We need to fix health care,” Mary Bevering, a Democrat from Fort Madison, Iowa, said in a follow-up interview, “but if the government creates the system, I’m afraid the quality of care will go down and costs will go up: We will pay more taxes.”

“It’s going to come down to regulation,” Ms. Bevering said. “What also worries me is whether we will be told what physician we can have.”

The poll was taken at a moment of extreme fluidity, both in terms of the complicated negotiations in the House and the Senate as lawmakers and the administration sort out the substance and politics of competing proposals, and in the efforts by both sides to define the stakes of the health care debate for the public.  more ...

F.B.I. Watched Terror Suspects for Three Years

The New York Times
Published: July 28, 2009
By LIZ ROBBINS

The F.B.I. watched Daniel Patrick Boyd for three years as he stockpiled rifles and revolvers, trained accomplices including his two sons, and planned to commit terrorist attacks overseas, before agents arrested the group in coordinated raids on Monday afternoon, according to a federal indictment filed in the case.

Mr. Boyd, his sons and four other men were charged with providing material support to terrorists and planning terror attacks. They apparently did not succeed in carrying out any attacks. An eighth man was still being sought in the case, according to a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Raleigh, N.C.; The Associated Press reported that he may be in Pakistan.

More than 100 law enforcement officials, including four S.W.A.T. teams and a hostage rescue team from Quantico, Va., stormed several homes in arresting the seven suspects on Monday afternoon, according to an F.B.I. spokeswoman, Amy Thoreson. “With what they are accused of planning, we wanted to take every precaution,” she said.

Detention hearings are scheduled for the men on Thursday, Ms. Thoreson said. The location where they are being held was not disclosed.

Besides Mr. Boyd, who is 39, the indictment names his sons Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22; Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; Ziyad Yaghi, 21; and Hysen Sherifi, 24. All are American citizens except Mr. Sherifi, who is from Kosovo and has legal residence in the United States.

The North Carolina arrests, which stunned many residents of Johnston County in suburban Raleigh, were the latest in a series of efforts break up homegrown terrorists cells after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, from Lackawanna, N.Y. to Miami.   more ...

As Cash for Clunkers Starts, Dealers Hope to Clear Lots

time.com
Jul. 27, 2009
By Joseph R. Szczesny / Detroit

They've got good reason to be nervous. With sales running at less than 10 million units annually — the lowest level in more than three decades — there is still a mountain of inventory sitting with dealers around the U.S. despite deep cuts in production, not only by the bankrupt General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC, but also by companies such as Toyota, Ford and Nissan. (See the 50 worst cars of all time.)

With production reduced, dealers have been working off their swollen supply in recent months and many have offered substantial deals. But the inventory problem has been complicated by widespread dealer shutdowns — no change in inventory but fewer dealers to sell it — so the correction process is far from complete. Carmakers had nearly 3 million units on hand at the end of 2008 and could have any many as 2 million units in stock by the end of 2009, according to an estimate by the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The numbers, however, don't tell the whole story because the start of the 2010 model year is only a couple of months away — it officially kicks off Oct. 1 — and once that happens the sea of 2009 models now sitting on dealer lots will suddenly depreciate.    more ...

Liberal, conservative Dems feud over health bill

msnbc.com
July 25, 2009

WASHINGTON - House Democrats feuded openly over health care Friday before shaking hands on a deal that guaranteed only that they would keep negotiating, wrapping up a week in which consensus on a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health-care system seemed to diminish by the day.

White House aides announced a week ago that President Obama was ready to "take the baton" for his biggest domestic campaign initiative, and indeed Obama campaigned for his proposals nearly nonstop this week, including taking an hour to make his case directly to the American public on prime-time television.

Despite the president's attentions, Congress was further Friday from passing health-care legislation than it was on Monday, with only days left before lawmakers leave Washington for their August recess.   more ...

China's economics lesson to the US

China's government is doing a better job than the US at coping with the effects of global economic recession

guardian.co.uk
Thursday 23 July 2009 19.30 BST
Mark Weisbrot

Global trade and the economic stimulus policies of individual national economies will play an important role in the recovery from the current global recession. This is especially true of the world's two largest economies, the United States and China.

The US economy was running an annualized trade deficit of $697bn , or five per cent of GDP, when our recession began in the last quarter of 2007. By the first quarter of this year, it had fallen by more than half to $327bn, or 2.3% of GDP. Partly this is due to the arithmetic of going into a world recession with a large trade deficit. If imports and exports decline by the same proportion, then the trade deficit will shrink, because the imports are bigger in absolute size. It so happens that US imports have declined even faster than our exports in percentage terms too, partly due to falling oil prices – which are also a product of the world recession.

This means that the US economy is getting a boost from the global economy during the current global recession. It may not feel like that, as we in the US now hemorrhage jobs and have about one-sixth of the labour force officially unemployed or underemployed. But the national income accounting is real. If not for our shrinking trade surplus, for example, the first quarter of this year would have seen a fall of 7.9% of GDP, instead of 5.5% – a big difference in terms of output and employment.

Countries that export a lot (relative to their economy) and entered the recession with a surplus are affected by the opposite arithmetic: they get hit harder in the recession as their trade surplus shrinks. Japan's GDP is projected to fall by six per cent this year, much worse than the United States' projected 2.6%. Although it is no consolation for the Japanese, their shrinking trade surplus contributes to the growth of the rest of the world.

Countries that export significant amounts to the US have also been hit hard. Mexico, which exports more than 21% of its GDP to the US, is expected to shrink by 7% this year. Brazil, by comparison, exports less than two per cent of its GDP to the United States (and does not have a large trade share of GDP overall), is expected to decline by 1.3%.

This seems to offer a lesson for developing countries: it's good to diversify your trade, and maybe not become overly dependent on markets where there are enormous asset bubbles (such as our $8tn housing bubble) and large trade deficits. Mexico's "free trade" agreement with the United States also had the misfortune of not even producing decent economic growth before the crash.   more ...

Democrats grow wary as health bill advances

Questions surface about whether proposals might do more harm than good

msnbc.com
By Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn
July 18, 2009

WASHINGTON - Three of the five Congressional committees working on legislation to reinvent the nation’s health care system delivered bills this week along the lines proposed by President Obama. But instead of celebrating their success, many Democrats were apprehensive, nervous and defensive.

Even as Democratic leaders and the White House insisted that the nation was closer than ever to landmark changes in the health care system, they faced basic questions about whether some of their proposals might do more harm than good.

And while senior Democrats vowed to press ahead to meet Mr. Obama’s deadline of having both chambers pass bills before the summer recess, some in their ranks, nervous about the prospect of raising taxes or proceeding without any Republican support, were pleading to slow down.   more ...

Church asks Obama to prevent China takeover

Taipei Times
Saturday, Jul 18, 2009, Page 1 By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER

The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan yesterday issued an open letter to US President Barack Obama, reminding him not to sacrifice Taiwan’s national interest as the US develops closer ties with China.

“We urge the US government to review its policies concerning Taiwan and China, recognize the fact that Taiwan and China are two separate countries, and take a leading role in calling together all peace-and-justice-loving countries in the world to prevent China from taking over Taiwan through military or any other means for any reason,” the Church’s statement said.

“The Taiwanese are a people who enjoy democracy and freedom, and we cherish our achievements [in freedom and democracy],” the statement said. “At the moment, more than 80 percent of the people are opposed to unification with China, thus we insist on defending our right to self-determination under peaceful means and wish to participate in international affairs as an independent country.”

The statement said that if China were to take Taiwan by force, it would not only destroy the hard-earned democracy in Taiwan, but could also jeopardize peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. more ...

As the World Turns in Taiwan II: More Games than One In Kaohsiung

Jerome F. Keating's writings
Friday July 17, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan is gloriously hosting the 8th World Games this year and some 105 countries are here to participate. But the World Games are not the only game in town. Last year when Chen Yunlin from China visited the country, Ma Ying-jeou did not want to admit he was president in front of him. He was introduced as Mr. Ma so as not to offend China. This year, however, things are different. Ma opened the games as the President of Taiwan. So why the change?

Surprise, surprise there are elections coming up this December and Ma needs votes from the south for his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates. So true to his chameleon nature Ma has changed and put on his pro-Taiwan hat. He always does it for elections but don't worry it will only be for a brief time.

Wonder also why the hot topic of ECFA has suddenly dropped off the radar also. Ma had wanted it signed as soon as possible, but the elections reared their head for that as well. Now ECFA is on the back burner so that the KMT non-transparent pushing it down Taiwan's throat is delayed. But once the December elections pass, expect Ma to go back to being Mr. Ma and the KMT will try to ramrod ECFA through.

There is still yet another game being played in Kaohsiung. The team from China boycotted the opening ceremony. They did not want to be present where they marched alphabetically but Taiwan came last since it was the host country. They likewise did not want to hear the verboten statement, "The President of the Republic of China will open the games." So what did they do? They arrived late. more ...

US eyes rising Chinese seapower

TaipeiTimes
AFP , WASHINGTON
Friday, Jul 17, 2009, Page 1

The US voiced concern on Wednesday about rising tension between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea as a senator led calls to boost US seapower faced with Beijing’s growing military.

Experts at a Senate hearing pointed to a string of incidents — including standoffs this year between US and Chinese ships — as evidence of a more assertive sea posture by Beijing.

State Department official Scot Marciel said that Beijing has told US and other foreign oil companies to halt work with Vietnamese partners in the South China Sea or face consequences inside lucrative China.

“We object to any effort to intimidate US companies,” Marciel, a deputy assistant secretary of state handling Asia, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He said Washington has raised concerns directly with China.

“We have also urged that all claimants exercise restraint and avoid aggressive actions to resolve competing claims,” he said.

Marciel said the US would not take sides on the myriad island disputes involving China and its neighbors, including Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Senator Jim Webb, who called the hearing, said he understood the need to stay out of Asia’s sometimes emotionally charged territorial disputes, but worried that the lack of a US position may embolden China.  more ...

Queries on Abortion and Guns Fail to Break Judge’s Stride

New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: July 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — Republicans turned to the politically fraught issues of abortion and gun rights on Wednesday in an effort to knock Judge Sonia Sotomayor off stride, but as she neared the end of her testimony, her composure remained intact and her confirmation to the Supreme Court seemed on track.

Publicly, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee said they had not yet made up their minds about how to vote; several used the word “muddled” to describe Judge Sotomayor’s answers. But the Republicans also seemed to be conceding that they had not built the momentum necessary to derail the nomination.

One of the committee’s most senior members, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said in an interview that he would be surprised if some in his party did not vote to confirm.

Though Mr. Hatch said he had not made up his mind, he could be a barometer for other Republicans. He has voted in the past to confirm Democratic nominees to the Supreme Court, and said even before Judge Sotomayor was nominated that she would be difficult to oppose.

“Has she handled all the questions well? No,” he said. “But she’s handled a lot of the questions probably well enough.”   more ...

JPMorgan Chase profits soar 36%

BBC News
Thursday, 16 July 2009 13:08 UK

JPMorgan Chase has become the second major US bank to report a big rise in profits for the April to June period.

Net profit for the second quarter totalled $2.72bn (£1.6bn), an increase of 36% on the same period last year.

Revenues at the company rose 41% to a record $27.7bn. Its results come two days after rival Goldman Sachs reported a $3.44bn second quarter profit.

Analysts said the results underscored growing confidence among banks and could signal an end to the crisis.

JP Morgan has repaid in full the $25bn it received as part of the US government's bank bail-out in October last year.

End of crisis?

However, critics have questioned whether banks should be making such juicy profits less than a year after accepting taxpayer's money to stave off potentially devastating losses.

It was a truly positive surprise which does away with the question whether we actually have reached the end of the crisis
Joerg Rahn, from Marcard, Stein & Co

US banks are not cured yet

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan's chairman and chief executive, said it was confident it could continue to perform well even if the economic environment deteriorated further.

The bank said its investment banking arm had performed well as increased volatility had boosted trading, helping to offset losses on consumer loans such as mortgages.    more ...

What if my car dealership shuts down?

Your warranty is still valid, but you may have to find a new mechanic

msnbc.com
May 14, 2009

DETROIT - So your local Chrysler dealer is slated to close, and a nearby General Motors dealer could get the ax too. What happens if you need service on your car?

It's a natural question in the changing automotive landscape, as those two U.S. automakers attempt to restructure in and out of bankruptcy court.

In bankruptcy court filings, Chrysler said Thursday it would shutter 789 of its dealerships — about 25 percent of them — across the country. GM dealers are awaiting word on which 1,100 of them will not see their contracts renewed when they expire at the end of September 2010.   more ...

Pelosi Moves to the Fore

The Washington Post
May 14, 2009
By Dan Balz

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques dramatically raised the stakes on the growing debate over the Bush administration's anti-terror policies even as it brought troubling new questions about the speaker's credibility.

Pelosi's performance in the Capitol was either a calculated escalation of a long-running feud with the Bush administration or a reckless act by a politician whose word had been called into question. Perhaps it was both.   more ...

Some states try to protect rights from federal government

USA TODAY
May 14, 2009
By Kathy Kiely

WASHINGTON — For some states, the message to the federal government is clear: Back off.

Legislatures in Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota this year have approved resolutions asserting sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution and suggesting that Uncle Sam "cease and desist" from interfering in their business.

The largely Republican backers say the federal government has overstepped its constitutional bounds by meddling in local matters ranging from education to drunken driving. "It's telling the federal government, 'Guys, you really need to back off,' " said Judy Burges, a GOP state representative who is sponsoring a sovereignty resolution in Arizona.

Oklahoma's Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a sovereignty resolution, in defiance of a veto from the state's Democratic governor, Brad Henry, on a similar measure. The resolution already passed the Oklahoma House twice.    more ...

DOD: U.S. soldier who opened fire at Iraq base in custody

USA Today
May 11, 2009
From staff and wire reports

BAGHDAD — A U.S. soldier opened fire at a counseling center on a U.S. base Monday, killing five fellow soldiers before being taken into custody.

The shooting occurred at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city's international airport and adjacent to another facility where President Obama visited last month.

MORE: Obama shocked by shooting on Iraqi base

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that the shooting was a "terrible tragedy" and Obama plans to meet with Defense Secretary Gates later Monday to discuss the matter. Gibbs said the president's heart goes out to the victims' families.

At the Pentagon, Gates called the incident shocking and said that "we're still in the process of gathering information on exactly what happened."
FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Washington | Barack Obama | Afghanistan | Iraq | Baghdad | Kuwait | Vietnam War | Mosul | Basra | Liberty | Tikrit | Baghdad International Airport | 2003 invasion of Iraq | Hasan Akbar

The shooting happened at a stress clinic where troops can go for help with the stress of combat or personal issues.

It was unclear whether those killed were workers at the clinic or were there for counseling. No details were released about the gunman or what might have provoked the shooting.

"Anytime we lose one of our own, it affects us all," U.S. military spokesman Col. John Robinson said in Baghdad. "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all the servicemembers involved in this terrible tragedy."   more ...

U.S. replaces general in Afghanistan

Move comes as Obama approves new strategy for fighting militants

Associated Press
May 11, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama fired the top U.S. general in Afghanistan on Monday, replacing him with a former special forces commander in a quest for a more agile, unconventional approach in a war that has gone quickly downhill.

With the Taliban resurgent, Obama's switch from Gen. David McKiernan to Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal suggests the new commander in chief wants major changes in addition to the additional troops he's ordering into Afghanistan to shore up the war effort.

McKiernan, on the job for less than a year, has repeatedly pressed for more forces. Although Obama has approved more than 21,000 additional troops this year, he has warned that the war will not be won by military means.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed that view at a grim Pentagon news conference announcing the leadership overhaul. "As I have said many times before, very few of these problems can be solved by military means alone," he said. "And yet, from the military perspective, we can and must do better."

"It's time for new leadership and fresh eyes."    more ...

Obama Hails the Industry's Promise to Cut Costs by $2 trillion in Next Decade

Obama's Meeting with Health Care Industry Heavyweights Draws Mixed Reaction, Some Skeptical, Others Elated

abcnews.com
By JAKE TAPPER and HUMA KHAN
May 11, 2009

President Obama called today's meeting with healthcare industry heavyweights "historic" and "a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for healthcare reform," despite the muted reaction outside the White House as proponents and critics wait to see how the plan actually develops.
Health care industry leaders pledge to dramatically reduce health care costs.

The president, echoing his past remarks, emphasized today that healthcare reform is a central component of fixing the economy and the lives of the American people.

He told healthcare players at the meeting, "You've made a commitment. We expect you to keep it," according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

"We cannot continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years, with costs that are out of control, because reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait," the president said in a speech following the meeting.    more ...

Shuttle lifts off for last Hubble repair job

NASA’s last visit to orbiting telescope comes with higher risk than usual

msnbc.com
May 11, 2009
msnbc.com staff and news service reports

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Atlantis and a crew of seven thundered away Monday on one last flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, setting off on an extraordinarily ambitious repair mission that NASA hopes will lift the celebrated observatory to new scientific heights.

Atlantis rose from its seaside pad just after 2 p.m. ET and arced out over the Atlantic, ducking through clouds. Hubble was directly overhead, 350 miles up (560 kilometers up).

For the first time ever, another shuttle was on a nearby launch pad, primed for a rescue mission if one is needed because of a debris strike.
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After seven months of delay, the astronauts were anxious to get started on the complicated, riskier-than-usual job at Hubble. They were two weeks away from launching last fall when a critical data-processing device on the telescope failed and picture-taking ceased. NASA decided it wanted to take up a spare to replace the broken unit, and it took months to get it ready.

"At last our launch has come along," commander Scott Altman told mission controllers just minutes before blastoff. "It's been a long time coming. ... At this point, all I've got left to say is, 'Let's launch Atlantis.'"

“Enjoy the ride, pal,” launch director Mike Leinbach replied.

Minor nuisances cropped up during the final countdown and the ascent: The launch pad team had to take a close look at ice buildup on one of Atlantis' fuel lines, and for a time, forecasters worried about weather at one of the shuttle's emergency landing sites in Spain. But those concerns didn't hold up the launch.

As Atlantis headed for orbit, one of its flight control feedback systems suffered a power failure, and one of its engine indicators experienced a glitch, NASA managers said. But they said those problems were nothing serious. They said a few pieces of debris came off the external fuel tank during the first few minutes of flight, but nothing appeared to hit Atlantis.

Over the next day or so, engineers on the ground will review imagery captured during the ascent, and Atlantis' crew will give the shuttle's protective skin a thorough inspection — just to make sure that no significant damage was done.

Atlantis should reach the orbiting telescope Wednesday.   more ...

Ten of the largest U.S. banks need $75 billion

Results of the ‘stress tests’ show financial system is on the mend, though

msnbc.com
May 7, 2009

WASHINGTON - The government’s long-awaited “stress-test” results show the financial system, like the overall economy, is healing but not yet healed.

Ten of the nation’s 19 largest banks need a total of about $75 billion in new capital to withstand losses in case the recession gets worse, according to the Federal Reserve’s findings, released Thursday.

Some of the largest banks are stable, the tests found. Others need billions more in capital. Government officials have said a stronger banking system is needed for an economic rebound.   more ...

Manny tests positive, is suspended 50 games

Star reportedly used women’s fertility drug, commonly used by steroid users

NBCSports.com
May 7, 2009

NEW YORK - Manny Ramirez joined a growing lineup of All-Stars linked to drugs Thursday, with the dreadlocked slugger banished for 50 games by a sport that cannot shake free from scandal.

The Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder was suspended by Major League Baseball, adding a further stamp to what will forever be known as the Steroids Era.

Ramirez said he did not take steroids and was given medication by a doctor that contained a banned substance. A person familiar with the details of the suspension said Ramirez used the female fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the banned substance wasn’t announced.    more ...

Former US congressman Kemp dies

Former US Congressman and football star Jack Kemp has died at the age of 73, after suffering from cancer, his spokeswoman has announced.

BBC News
Sunday, 3 May 2009 07:39 UK

He was a tax-cutting Republican who described himself as a "bleeding-heart conservative".

He represented western New York for nine terms in Congress, then failed in a presidential bid in 1988.

He became housing secretary under the first President Bush, but also failed in a bid for vice-president in 1996.

In that campaign, he was Bob Dole's running-mate - a surprise combination as they were not close and clashed on policy.

Mr Kemp advocated tax cuts as the way to promote growth, while Mr Dole was opposed to them.

His spokeswoman Bona Park said he died at his home in Washington.    more ...

Confirmed cases of H1N1 virus now at 787, WHO says

CNN.com
April 3, 2009

GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) -- The number of H1N1 cases worldwide now stands at 787 with two additional deaths reported in Mexico, the World Health Organization announced early Sunday.
An employee at Beijing hotel that is under quarantine receives supplies from her husband Sunday.

The organization said the virus, more commonly known as swine flu, has been confirmed in 17 countries.

The higher number of cases is a result of ongoing tests on previously collected samples; not newly reported and confirmed infections, the WHO said.

Several other countries reported additional cases that have not yet been added to the WHO tally.

While the new virus strain in the recent outbreak has affected humans, Canadian officials said it has shown up at a pig farm in Alberta.

Officials said the pigs may have been infected by a Canadian farmer who recently returned from a trip to Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak. The pigs have since been quarantined.

"We have determined that the virus H1N1, found in these pigs, is the virus which is being tracked in the human population," said Dr. Brian Evans of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Evans and other officials said it is not uncommon for flu viruses to jump from humans to animals, and that it does not pose a risk for consuming pork. The number of pigs infected was not disclosed.

The infected farmer had flu-like symptoms, but he is recovering, Evans said.

Mexico has the largest number of confirmed cases with 506, followed by the United States at 160. So far, 19 people in Mexico and a toddler in the United States have died from the virus. Learn about the virus »

The WHO has confirmed cases in 15 other countries: Canada, with 70; the United Kingdom with 15; Spain with 13; Germany with six; New Zealand with four; Israel with three; France, with two; and Ireland, Austria, China, South Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Costa Rica, each have one.    more ...

Pain Spreads as Credit Vise Grows Tighter

New York Times
Published: September 18, 2008
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

The latest outgrowth of the housing crisis, the breakdown on Wall Street, threatens to gradually corrode economic activity on Main Street, mainly by disabling the credit on which so many everyday transactions depend — but also by frightening people.

A shopper browsing at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Texas. Harley-Davidson is now issuing bonds at slightly higher rates.
Lenders of all types had already been raising the bar for borrowers, turning away all but the best customers. This week, they became even less willing to part with their money, further crimping budgets and family spending.

An economy propelled by easy credit for more than a decade is fraying as credit disappears. American Express, to take one striking example, is reducing the maximum credit limit for half of its tens of millions of cardholders.    more ...

Can Marchionne’s magic work at Chrysler?

Some say automakers good match; others call it reckless gamble

msnbc.com
April 30, 2009
By Roland Jones

Fiat chief executive Sergio Marchionne is not one to shirk a challenge. He made his name as a corporate whiz in June 2004 when he stepped in to take the wheel of Italy’s then-dying automaker, driving through a swift and vigorous turnaround that returned it to profitability by 2006.

Now Marchionne is about to attempt to do the same for Chrysler, the smallest of Detroit’s “Big Three” and North America’s most sickly automaker.    more ...

WHO raises swine flu alert leve

BBC News
Monday, 27 April 2009 23:07 UK

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised its alert level over swine flu from three to four - two steps short of declaring a full pandemic.

WHO Assistant Director General Dr Keiji Fukuda said it signalled a "significant step towards pandemic influenza", but added "we are not there yet".

Mexico earlier said it believed 149 people had now died from the swine flu outbreak - only 20 cases are confirmed.

Other, milder, cases are confirmed in the US, Canada, Spain and Britain.

The WHO's decision to raise the alert level to four came after an emergency meeting of experts, brought forward by a day because of concerns over the outbreak.

WHO PANDEMIC ALERT PHASES
Phase 1: No viruses circulating among animals causing infections in humans
Phase 2: Animal influenza virus causes infection in humans, and is considered potential pandemic threat
Phase 3: Influenza causes sporadic cases in people, but no significant human-to-human transmission
Phase 4: Verified human-to-human transmission able to cause community-level outbreaks. Significant increase in risk of a pandemic
Phase 5: Human-to-human transmission in at least two countries. Strong signal pandemic imminent
Phase 6: Virus spreads to another country in a different region. Global pandemic under way

Level four means the virus is showing a sustained ability to pass from human to human, and is able to cause community-level outbreaks.

"What this can really be interpreted as is a significant step towards pandemic influenza. But also, it is a phase that says we are not there yet," Mr Fukuda said.

"In other words, at this time we think we have taken a step in that direction, but a pandemic is not considered inevitable."

He said the virus had become too widespread to make containment a feasible option, and said countries must focus on trying to put measures in place to protect the population.

He also stressed that the experts did not recommend closing borders or restricting travel. "With the virus being widespread... closing borders or restricting travel really has very little effects in stopping the movement of this virus," he said.

The first batches of a swine flu vaccine could be ready between four to six months, but it will take several more months to produce large quantities of it, Mr Fukuda said.

Health experts say the virus comes from the same strain that causes seasonal outbreaks in humans. But they say this newly-detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.   more ...

U.S. swine flu cases rise, more expected

Reuters
4/27/2009
By Andrew Quinn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Up to 41 people in five states have been sickened by new strain of swine flu that doctors fear may cause a pandemic, U.S. officials said on Monday, promising more cases to come.

Nervous investors sent U.S. stock prices tumbling on expectations that the flu outbreak could further undermine the economy, which is struggling in recession.

President Barack Obama told Americans he was monitoring the situation amid more bad news from southern neighbor Mexico, where up to 149 people have died and more than 1,600 have been infected by the never-before-seen virus.

The U.S. government declared the flu strain a public health emergency on Sunday.   more ...

Global race is on to contain swine flu outbreak

U.S. declares state of emergency as 20 cases confirmed; 86 dead in Mexico

msnbc.com
April 26, 2009

WASHINGTON - The world’s governments raced to avoid both a pandemic and global hysteria Sunday as more possible swine flu cases surfaced from Canada to New Zealand and the United States declared a public health emergency. “It’s not a time to panic,” the White House said.

Mexico, the outbreak’s epicenter with up to 86 suspected deaths, canceled some church services and closed markets and restaurants. Few people ventured onto the streets, and some wore face masks. Canada became the third country to confirm cases, in six people, including some students who — like some New York City spring-breakers — got mildly ill in Mexico. Countries across Asia promised to quarantine feverish travelers returning from flu-affected areas.

The U.S. declared the health emergency so it could ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they eventually need them — although, with 20 confirmed cases in five states recovering easily, they don’t appear to for now.    more ...

Mexico City locks itself in amid swine flu fears

Mass, concerts, sports matches were canceled in country's capitol on Sunday

msnbc.com
April 26, 2009

MEXICO CITY - The cardinal said Mass in a shuttered cathedral. Soccer teams played to empty stadiums. Mexico's overcrowded capital locked itself indoors Sunday, terrified by a new strain of swine flu that was quickly spreading around the world.

Mexico City residents — chilangos, they're called — are accustomed to living in public view. They eat greasy tacos at stands along smog-choked avenues, play pickup soccer games on potholed streets and snuggle with sweethearts on benches in tree-lined parks.

But on Sunday even the enormous Zocalo plaza, where throngs of families congregate for street performances and open-air concerts, was all but empty. A handful of women wearing surgical masks knelt on the plaza's stones and prayed, their arms reaching upward in a lonely vigil.   more ...

Swine flu cases confirmed in NYC

USA Today
April 26, 2009
Staff and wire reports

NEW YORK — A swine flu outbreak continued to spread Sunday with several cases confirmed in New York City, adding to others confirmed in southern California and Kansas earlier in the weekend.

In New York, tests confirmed that eight students at a private Catholic high school had contracted swine flu. Some of the school's students had visited Mexico on a spring break trip two weeks ago.   more ...

Susan Boyle focused on BGT rehearsals as singing star's fame continues to grow

dailyrecord.co.uk
Apr 23 2009

THE rise and rise of Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle continued yesterday as the Scots singer was acclaimed by showbusiness royalty, foreign media and fans.

She even seemed to have been taking style tips from fashion icon Kate Moss. The 47-year-old appearead at her door in black trousers, an 80s inspired black jacket and a white blouse – classic Moss.

Yet again, stacks of mail was delivered to her home in Blackburn, West Lothian, by postie Lewie Adamson.

And she was handed a note from a public relations adviser for US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey, asking her to phone.

It is estimated 200 items a day are pouring through the Royal Mail sorting office for Susan – some addressed to “The Lady From Britain’s Got Talent”.

They include letters with postmarks from across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and America.

Two star-struck Croatian fans even ditched the London premiere of the Russell Crowe movie State Of Play for the chance to meet Susan. Fani Stipkovic and Milan Bajic, of Croatian TV channel Nova, snubbed Aussie hunk Crowe to travel to Scotland Former model Fani, 27, said: “We decided at the last minute to fly up in an effort to meet Susan and to tell her how much the Croatian people love her.

“She proves that the dream can come true. It is never too late to shine.

“Susan proves that talent is the only thing that matters and it’s great to see someone with real talent make the
breakthrough.”   more ...  

Obama pledges to support protections for credit card borrowers

April 23, 2009
By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY

President Obama pledged Thursday to support legislation to protect credit card borrowers from unfair rate increases and abusive fees, and to crack down on issuers who engage in deceptive lending practices.

Obama met Thursday with 14 leading credit card executives to discuss the impact of issuers' practices on consumers and the economy. The President was joined at the White House meeting by economic adviser Lawrence Summers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

The administration said it also wants credit card companies to use clear language in disclosures to consumers, and to provide adequate information so consumers can compare products online.

"I trust that those in the industry who want to act responsibly will engage with us in a constructive fashion, and that we're going to get this done in short order," Obama said after the meeting.   more ...

Chrysler could file bankruptcy next week

Alliance with Italian automaker Fiat would happen under protection

The New York Times via msnbc.com
April 23, 2009

DETROIT - The Treasury Department is preparing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for Chrysler that could come as soon as next week, people with direct knowledge of the action said Thursday.

The Treasury has an agreement in principle with the United Automobile Workers union, whose members’ pensions and retiree health care benefits would be protected as a condition of the bankruptcy filing, said these people, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Moreover, Fiat of Italy would complete its alliance with Chrysler while the company is under bankruptcy protection.   more ...

Victims' Panties Found in Craigslist Suspect's Home

Police Sources Say Philip Markoff Collected Souveniers from Alleged Victims; May Be More Victims

ABC News
April 22, 2009
By LAUREN PEARLE, LISA FLETCHER, MICHELE MCPHEE and SARAH NETTER

Investigators searching the apartment of Philip Markoff, the accused murderer now known as the "Craigslist Killer," found a handgun and panties belonging to the two victims hidden in a hollowed-out copy of the textbook Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, two law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Trisha Leffler describes her encounter with Philip Markoff at a Boston hotel.

Markoff appeared to be collecting women's panties, which investigators believe were "souvenirs" from his alleged victims, two law enforcement sources said.

Police have asked anyone who may have been contacted by Markoff via Craigslist to come forward, and law enforcement sources told ABC News that detectives investigating the case are now fielding calls from other potential victims.

"There could be none, there could be others," Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley told "Good Morning America." "We're not interested in prosecuting them for massage services."    more ...

Police Found Freddie Mac CFO Dead by Hanging

Police believe David Kellermann, 41, Killed Himself in HIs Virginia Home

ABC News
April 22, 2009
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN, JACK DATE and ANN COMPTON

Law enforcement sources said David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of mortgage company Freddie Mac, was found hanging in the basement of his Vienna, Va., home, dead from an apparent suicide early this morning.
David Kellerman, CFO of Freddie Mac, was found dead by hanging in his home.

The death was "an active investigation" and there were "no signs of foul play," Fairfax County police officer Sabrina Ruck said.

Local police said they were called to Kellermann's home at 4:48 a.m., but would not say who'd placed the call to 911.

Kellermann, 41, and a 16-year veteran of Freddie Mac, had been the company's CFO since September, after a government takeover of the company following the housing crisis. County records show the large home in Hunter Mill Estates was worth about $900,000.

Click Here for the Latest Business Stories From ABC News

Neighbors said they were shocked to learn of the man's death.   more ...

Momentum builds against Taliban in Pakistan

USA TODAY
By Paul Wiseman and Zafar M. Sheikh,
March 22, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A public backlash is building against the Pakistani Taliban, who looked triumphant after gaining control of the northern Swat region last week.

Since Pakistan's parliament approved a peace deal turning Swat over to militants on April 13, their leader Sufi Muhammad has moved forces into a neighboring district, rejected the legitimacy of the country's elected leaders, vowed to spread Islamic law across the country, and offered sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and other foreign terrorists.

These moves have turned hopes for peace in a strife-torn area into fears that the entire country will fall into the hands of militants, said Shoaib Bhutta, a journalist and confidant of Pakistan's president.

CLINTON: Pakistan 'abdicating to the extremists'
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Taliban tightens grip on Pakistan's northwest
OPPOSITION LEADER: Sharif urges dialogue to quell insurgency

Muhammad is overreaching and that "may deprive him of the fruit of his life-time achievement," prominent political commentator Ansar Abbasi wrote Wednesday on the front page of The News International.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Washington | Hillary Rodham Clinton | Osama bin Laden | Interior Ministry | Swat | Pakistani Taliban | Sufi Muhammad | Awami National Party | News International

"If there is no peace, the government will use force," Rehman Malik, head of the Interior Ministry, told parliament Wednesday.   more ...

Reverse discrimination? Justices weigh case

City threw out promotion test for firefighters after few minorities passed

msnbc.com
updated 2:42 p.m. ET, Wed., April 22, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appeared divided Wednesday over whether a Connecticut city's decision to scrap a promotion exam for firefighters because too few minorities passed violates the civil rights of top-scoring white applicants.

As is often the case with closely fought social issues at the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy appeared to hold the key to the outcome. He seemed concerned that New Haven, Conn., scuttled the test after it learned that no African Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be promoted based on the results.

"It looked at the results and classified successful and unsuccessful applicants by race," said Kennedy, who often frowns on racial classifications, yet is not as opposed to drawing distinctions on the basis of race as his more conservative colleagues.   more ...

GM May Idle Many Of Its Factories This Summer

NPR.org
The Associated Press
April 22, 2009

General Motors Corp. is planning to temporarily close most of its U.S. factories for up to nine weeks this summer because of slumping sales and growing inventories of unsold vehicles, two people briefed on the plan said Wednesday.

The exact dates of the closures were not known, but both people said they will occur around the normal two-week shutdown in July to change from one model year to the next. Neither person wanted to be identified because workers have not been told of the shutdowns.

GM spokesman Chris Lee would not comment other than to say the company notifies employees before making any production cuts public.

The automaker is living on $13.4 billion in government loans and faces a June 1 deadline to cut its debt, reduce labor costs and take other restructuring steps. If it doesn't meet the deadline, the company's CEO has said it will enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.   more ...

Craigslist murder suspect held without bail

Gun found at medical student's home; motive might have been robbery

NBC News and news services
Marc 21, 2009

BOSTON - A Boston medical student accused of targeting women who advertised exotic services on Craigslist was ordered held without bail Tuesday on charges that he sought to rob a masseuse, but bashed her in the head and shot her through the heart when she fought back.

Philip Markoff, 22, a second-year medical student at Boston University, said nothing during a brief appearance Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court where he was ordered held on charges including murder, armed robbery and kidnapping.  more ...

Obama open to some interrogation prosecution
But president concerned about the impact of hearings

NBC News and news services
Marc 21, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terrorism-suspect interrogations, saying the United States lost "our moral bearings" with use of the tactics.

The question of whether to bring charges against those who devised justification for the methods "is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said.   more ...

Mystery surrounds Somali teen pirate

USAToday
March 21, 2009

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — At home in central Somalia, Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse studied English, frequented a dusty, outdoor cinema after school where he watched Bollywood films dubbed into his native Somali and, his mother says, "was wise beyond his years."

The neighborhood where he grew up in the town of Galkayo is one of small homes with corrugated iron roofs, and no running water or electricity.

Now Muse — the sole surviving Somali pirate from the hostage-taking of an American ship captain — is a world away in New York City to face what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the United States in more than a century. He smiled but said nothing Tuesday as he was led into a federal building under heavy guard.   more ...

U.S. judge orders Madoff assets secured for seizure

Reuters
Mon Apr 20, 2009
By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge blocked the transfer of the personal wealth of swindler Bernard Madoff and his wife because it could be subject to forfeiture as various parties compete to lock down the assets for distribution to defrauded investors.

The order on Monday by Judge Denny Chin, who oversees the criminal case against Madoff, came on the same day a bankruptcy court judge approved the appointment of an interim trustee to coordinate efforts to recover the former investment adviser's property and money.

Madoff pleaded guilty in March to running the biggest investment fraud in Wall Street history.

U.S. prosecutors said in court papers on Friday that Chin should restrain the Madoff assets so they are not part of any proceeding in bankruptcy court.   more ...

Motor show gears up in Shanghai

BBC News
Monday, 20 April 2009 06:08 UK

The Shanghai motor show has got under way in China, one of the few countries in the world where the automobile market is growing.

The show once seen by the industry as marginal on the international circuit is expected to see carmakers unveil an unprecedented 13 new models.

China has just overtaken the US as the world's largest car market, with buyers spurred on by government incentives.

US and European car sales are sharply down in the global recession.

Porsche kicked off the show on Sunday night by unveiling the Panamera, the German luxury carmaker's first foray into the sedan segment.

"We wanted to give a sign how important the Chinese market for us, is," said a Porsche official of the company's first launch of a new model series outside Europe or the US.    more ...

GM cutting 1,600 U.S. salaried positions

Reuters
Mon Apr 20, 2009

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp said on Monday it is telling about 1,600 salaried U.S. employees this week to leave by May 1 as it scrambles to reduce costs under a restructuring mandated by the U.S. government.

The reductions are part of GM's plan to slash its global salaried work force this year by about 10,000, or 14 percent. GM also aims to cut 37,000 hourly jobs worldwide by the end of the year.   more ...

Man arrested in Boston Craigslist slaying
Victim had advertised massage services; 2 other crimes may be linked

msnbc.com
March 20, 2009

BOSTON - A man was arrested Monday in connection with the death last week in a luxury hotel of a woman who advertised massage services on Craigslist, Boston police said.

Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll did not immediately provide any other information about the man Monday.

Suffolk District Attorney spokesman Jake Wark said he did not know of any charges filed in the case. A police source told NBC News: "We expect him to be booked and charged shortly."    more ...

Obama thanks CIA for securing America

USAToday
March 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday defended before his most skeptical audience his decision to release Bush-era memos outlining interrogation techniques, telling CIA employees it will make the country more safe, not less.

"I know that the last few days have been difficult," Obama said during brief remarks in the lobby of CIA headquarters at Langley, Va. He also met privately with senior CIA officials.

The Obama administration released on Thursday a series of key legal opinions that amount to the government's fullest accounting yet of the harshest techniques authorized under President George W. Bush and used to question suspected terrorists in the early stages of the anti-terror war. Obama has said he will not seek charges against CIA officers who carried out interrogations that many critics contend amounted to torture.   more ...

New hijack raises stakes as U.S. warships converge

USA Today
April 10, 2009

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Cheering and guarded by Navy Seals, the crew of an American ship reached a Kenyan port Saturday evening without their captain, still held hostage by Somali pirates in a lifeboat hundreds of miles from shore.

Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was seized Wednesday when he thwarted the takeover of the 17,000-ton U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama, which was carrying food aid for hungry people in Somalia, Rwanda and Uganda. He told his crew to lock themselves in a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crewmembers told stateside relatives.

"He saved our lives!" second mate Ken Quinn, of Bradenton, Florida, declared after he walked off the ship in the resort and port city of Mombasa. "He's a hero!"

The crew later overpowered some of the pirates but the Somalis fled with the captain to an enclosed lifeboat, the relatives said.

Quinn told reporters the experience was "terrifying and exciting at the same time."   more ...

Tenn. twister kills 2, flattens homes

System pounded much of Southeast with hail, rain; earlier tornado killed 3

msnbc.com
April 10, 2009

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - A tornado ripped through this city Friday afternoon, killing at least two people, injuring 30 and flattening homes. The twister was one of several over the previous 24 hours, including one in Arkansas that killed three people.

In Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, emergency officials said the area was "heavily impacted" after reports of a tornado touching down.

Officials said at least two people were killed and 30 hurt, two of them critically. One of the injured was a woman whose car was flipped over.
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Search teams fanned out across Murfreesboro, which has about 100,500 residents, looking for anyone trapped in homes. A police spokesman said he believed the twister had touched down three to five times.

A grocery store evacuated customers into a cooler until the storm passed.

At least a dozen homes had their roofs ripped away, and some trees were blown down. Thousands were without power.

Brian Smith, manager of a restaurant along Interstate 24, said he saw a "pretty wide" tornado with "debris in the air from the rotation."    more ...

Obama sees 'hope' for US economy

US President Barack Obama has said he sees "glimmers of hope" in the economy, but warned that the system remained under "severe strain".

BBC News
Friday, 10 April 2009 18:05 UK

Speaking after a meeting with his top economic advisers, he said there was still "a lot of work to do".

Mr Obama promised more action on the economy in the coming weeks.

He said he and his team had discussed the stability of the financial system, the housing market and plans to help banks clear their books of bad assets.

'A lot of hardship'

Mr Obama was speaking after a meeting at the White House with top strategists including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke.    more ...

Navy, FBI work to rescue ship captain

USA Today
April 10, 2009
By Jim Michaels and Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY

The U.S. Navy and the FBI worked Thursday to rescue a merchant ship captain being held by pirates off Somalia's coast. The military consulted with FBI negotiators as surveillance aircraft and a destroyer moved into the area to monitor the situation.

Capt. Richard Phillips' ship, the Maersk Alabama, began sailing Thursday toward the Kenyan port of Mombasa — its original destination — and was expected to arrive Saturday night, said Joseph Murphy, a professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. His son, Shane Murphy, is second in command of the vessel.

A Navy team of armed guards was aboard the Alabama, the Associated Press reported.   more ...

Taliban Flog Teenage Girl in Public

Here we see the people that Hillary Clinton thinks should be offered an “honorable form of reconciliation,” the Taliban, brutally whipping a teenaged girl because she left her house in the company of her father-in-law.  Warning: it’s a disturbing video.

A video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley in Pakistan, offering a shocking glimpse of militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, and a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country.

The two-minute video, shot using a mobile phone, shows a burka-clad woman face down on the ground. Two men hold her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly.

“Please stop it,” she begs, alternately whimpering or screaming in pain with each blow to the backside. “Either kill me or stop it now.”

A crowd of men stands by, watching silently. Off camera a voice issues instructions. “Hold her legs tightly,” he says as she squirms and yelps.

After 34 lashes the punishment stops and the wailing woman is led into a stone building, trailed by a Kalashnikov-carrying militant.

Apple Sued Over Touch-Screen Rights

New York Times
By JONATHAN ADAMS
Published: April 8, 2009

TAIPEI — The Taiwanese company Elan Microelectronics has sued Apple, alleging infringement of two of its touch screen patents, an Elan spokesman said Wednesday.

The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Dennis Liu, an Elan spokesman, said by telephone from the headquarters of the chip design company in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

“We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” he said, adding that the companies had been in licensing talks for about two years.

Apple is based in Cupertino, California.

The lawsuit alleges that Apple products — including its MacBook computer, iPhone and iPod Touch — use technology that infringes on two of Elan’s patents, Elan said.    more ...

China prepares for the rise of the yuan

Monday, April 6, 2009
TWN, By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times

SHANGHAI, China -- Could the world's currency of choice have the face of Mao Tse-tung on it, not George Washington's?

Quixotic or not, the Chinese are preparing for that day. In a series of what might be called baby steps, Chinese officials recently have moved to globalize the yuan and promote its influence overseas, with Shanghai designated as command central.

Since last December, China has signed deals with six countries, including South Korea, Malaysia and most recently Argentina, for currency swaps that would inject Chinese money into foreign banking systems. That would allow foreign companies to make payments for Chinese exports in yuan, bypassing the dollar — the currency that dominates international trade and finance, including foreign exchange reserves. Beijing is also taking initiatives to use the yuan, also known as the renminbi, to settle trade accounts between some Chinese provinces and neighboring states, starting with Hong Kong.

“The central bank has set promoting the renminbi for payment settlements as the main task for this year's work,” said Shi Lei, an analyst in the global financial markets section at Bank of China in Beijing.   more ...

Capturing Burma's protests on film

By Philippa Fogarty
BBC News
Monday, 6 April 2009 00:13 UK

A monk looks into a camera at a monastery in Rangoon. His face is bruised and swollen.

Troops came during the night, he says. They beat the monks and took dozens of them away. He doesn't know where they are.

Outside, the camera records pools of blood on the floor, shards of glass and rubble.

The date was 27 September 2007 and the man behind the camera was Aung Htun.

He was one of a network of people working as undercover reporters for an Oslo-based NGO and opposition broadcaster, the Democratic Voice of Burma, when a fuel price hike triggered anti-government protests.

The protests spread from activists to monks and students, and became an uprising - the most significant challenge to Burma's generals in almost two decades.

Most foreign journalists are banned from Burma and the military government censors all media.

But the undercover reporters used small hand-held cameras to record what was happening. Even as troops brutally suppressed the unrest, they took enormous risks to send the pictures out of the country.

Media organisations used them to report on the unfolding crisis and the footage was broadcast around the world, defying government efforts to hide events from international eyes.   more ...

GM, Chrysler may be in fast lane to bankruptcy
Experts say a managed reorganization may now be only possible option

March 31, 2009
By Roland Jones
msnbc.com

Executives at General Motors and Chrysler are speeding to put in place workable plans to restore their faltering businesses. But this may be one race they are unlikely to win.

On Monday, President Obama said the turnaround plans that the two automakers presented to Congress earlier this year hadn’t gone far enough. He gave them one last chance to turn their operations around, raising the threat that he might force GM into a quick, managed bankruptcy if that proves to be the fastest way to restore it to health.

Obama’s measures were drastic. Chrysler received financing for 30 days to complete a partnership with Italian automaker Fiat, after which the government will no longer continue to fund it. GM got 60 days worth of funds to revise its turnaround plan. Despite the tough deadlines, some form of managed bankruptcy now looks like the most probable option for GM, analysts say. And it’s a move that could have a slew of side effects, not least of which would be lower confidence in GM’s products.  more ...

China denies spying allegations

China has denied involvement in the electronic spy network which researchers say infiltrated computers in government offices around the world.

BBC News
Monday, 30 March 2009 16:33 UK

The spokesman of the Chinese embassy in London said that there was no evidence to show Beijing was involved.

He suggested the findings were part of a "propaganda campaign" by the Tibetan government in exile.

The research was commissioned by the Dalai Lama's office alarmed by possible breaches of security.

'Pieced together'

In an official statement, Liu Weimin writes that the report by Canadian researchers at the Information Warfare Monitor is "just some video footage pieced together from different sources to attack China".

Mr Liu stresses that in China "it is against the law to hack into the computers of others". Cyber attacks, he says, are "a global challenge" requiring global co-operation.

"China is an active participant in such co-operation in the world."

The report said that the electronic network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including computers belonging to foreign ministries and embassies.  more ...

Presidents looking for answers

Asia Times
Mar 28, 2009
By Shen Dingli

SHANGHAI - While the world is focused on the Group of 20 (G20) summit in London early next month, it will also watch closely the meeting on the sidelines between Chinese President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart Barack Obama. The first Sino-US summit since Obama was sworn in more than two month ago will not only address bilateral relations and mutual concerns, but also provide an opportunity for the leaders to build personal trust and upgrade the countries' strategic dialogue.

A number of issues of mutual interest are likely to be addressed at the Hu-Obama meeting.

To foster closer cooperation on bilateral and international affairs, the leaders are likely to endorse the establishment of a mechanism of Strategic and Economic Dialogue, an upgrade from the current level of dialogue between the countries. This has been indicated by meetings held between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi in each nation's capital before the summit.

Days after the Sino-US naval standoff on South China Sea this month, Obama told Yang during an Oval Office meeting that it was crucial to raise the level of military-to-military talks "in order to avoid future incidents". The meeting between Hu and Obama, both commanders-in-chief of their armed forces
, will decide whether the two militaries are truly ready to enhance links.    more ...

Beijing Largest U.S. Bond Holder

Epoch Times Staff Mar 27, 2009
The National Debt Clock. (Wen Zhong/The Epoch Times)

Recently, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his concern over the security of American bonds that China holds. However, only 10 days later, during a press conference on March 23, the Chinese Central Bank Deputy Governor Hu Xiaolian announced that China will continue buying U.S. Treasury bonds as an important investment of China’s foreign exchange reserves.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the United States experienced a record high net capital outflow of US$148.9 billion in January. However, China increased its U.S. treasury purchases by $12.2 billion in January reaching $739.6 billion, nearly a quarter of the total. In addition to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock, as well as other U.S. government bills and bonds, China surpassed Japan, becoming the largest owner, holding more than $1 trillion.

Observers believe, while other countries are reducing their holdings of U.S. interests, Beijing’s move is based on a political motive.

When Hu announced the decision on Monday, he also emphasized the significance of the first meeting between regime leader Hu Jintao and U.S. President B. Obama scheduled on April 2 during the G-20 London Summit.　　

Editor-in-chief of Chinese Global Finance magazine holds a negative view about the regime’s move. He said, “The whole world is worried about how the United States is going to control and reduce its deficit in the future, in order to prevent the price landslide of its treasury bonds. Mainstream Chinese scholars believe China will definitely suffer losses in this investment, currently, it is a question of how to minimize the loss.”  more ...

Pentagon report: China's military expanding its capabilities

CNN
March 25, 2009
By Mike Mount
CNN Senior Pentagon Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- China's military is developing longer-range ballistic and anti-ship missiles that are "shifting the balance of power in the region" and could help Beijing secure resources or settle territorial disputes, a report released by the Pentagon said Wednesday.
U.S. and Chinese militaries need "resumption of dialogue," Adm. Timothy Keating told Congress.

China also continues to build up short-range missiles and increase its "coercive capabilities" against Taiwan. The report suggests such moves constitute an effort to pressure Taiwan into settling the cross-strait dispute in favor of China, though tensions between the two countries have receded over the past year.

The report, called the "Military Power of the People's Republic of China," is the Pentagon's annual briefing to Congress on the status of the communist country's military might.

While China continues to proclaim that its military buildup is for defense purposes to protect its interests, the report says the country's lack of transparency is worrisome and could lead to an unintended conflict.

"The limited transparency in China's military and security affairs poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation," according to the report. "Much uncertainty surrounds China's future course, particularly regarding how its expanding military power might be used."

The lack of transparency causes Washington "to speculate to some degree on what their intentions are," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters at a Wednesday briefing.

According to Adm. Timothy Keating, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, some of that uncertainty is due to the cessation of talks between the Chinese and U.S. militaries. more ...

Lockheed Martin gets $665.6 Mln Taiwan Navy contract

RTT News
3/19/2009 10:23 AM ET

(RTTNews) - Thursday, defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT: News ) said it secured a $665.6 million contract from Taiwan Navy to modernize its twelve P-3C maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft by fitting them with state-of-the-art equipments. The first upgraded P-3C aircraft will be delivered in 2012. more ...

US admiral condemns China's 'aggressive' actions

March 18, 2009
By FOSTER KLUG – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. commander says China's "aggressive and troublesome" run-in with an unarmed American ship shows that Beijing won't behave acceptably.

Adm. Timothy Keating told senators that Beijing's suspension of military contact last year because of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the South China Sea confrontation are "vivid reminders" that it has yet to become a "responsible stakeholder."

The U.S. has pushed for more frequent and intense communications with China to avoid military confrontations that could upset a relationship crucial to solving global crises. But Keating, who heads the Pacific Command, said the bilateral military relationship "certainly isn't where we want it to be." more ...

China’s Leader Says He Is ‘Worried’ Over U.S. Treasuries

New York Times
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: March 13, 2009

BEIJING — The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern on Friday about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to provide assurances that its investment would keep its value in the face of a global financial crisis.

The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao spoke at a news conference on Thursday at the end of the Chinese parliament’s annual session.

Speaking at a news conference at the end of the Chinese parliament’s annual session, Mr. Wen said he was “worried” about China’s holdings of Treasury bonds and other debt, and that China was watching United States economic developments closely.

“President Obama and his new government have adopted a series of measures to deal with the financial crisis. We have expectations as to the effects of these measures,” Mr. Wen said. “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”

He called on the United States to “maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.” more ...

 

Madoff fraud investigation widens

BBC News
Friday, 13 March 2009

With disgraced US financier Bernard Madoff now behind bars, attention has turned to whether others were involved in his estimated $50bn (£35bn) fraud.

While Madoff insists he acted alone, prosecutor Lev Dassin said he was investigating if others had joined in the crime.

Investigators are also continuing work to see how much of the stolen funds can be recovered.

Madoff has been remanded in jail ahead of his sentencing in June.

This has seen him swap his wife's luxury Manhattan apartment for a small cell in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Centre, just a few miles away.

No plea deal

"We are continuing to investigate the fraud and will bring additional charges against anyone, including Mr Madoff, as warranted," said Mr Dassin.

He also rejected speculation that Madoff had agreed to plead guilty in exchange for leniency to help any others who may have been involved in the crime. "There is no agreement whatsoever," he said. more ...

China may spend more to get growth, worries over U.S.

Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:56am EDT
Reuters
By Jason Subler

BEIJING (Reuters) - Premier Wen Jiabao held out the prospect of extra stimulus spending if needed to hit China's 8 percent growth goal this year and called on Washington to ease worries Beijing has about the safety of its vast U.S. assets.

In his annual news conference ending the nine-day session of China's ceremonial parliament, Wen on Friday reaffirmed China's commitment to keeping the yuan broadly steady and noted that the currency, far from having depreciated, had been rising in value.

Wen, who fielded questions for well over two hours, said the 8 percent growth target was a measure of his government's confidence and a reflection of its commitment to keep raising living standards. But he said the task was not easy.

"I believe that there is indeed some difficulty in reaching this goal. But with effort it is possible," Wen said.

"Only when we have confidence can we have courage and strength, and only when we have courage and strength can we overcome difficulties," the avuncular Wen, 67, said.

The premier said Beijing expected to see results from President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan but expressed concern that massive U.S. deficit spending and near-zero interest rates would erode the value of China's huge U.S. bond holdings. more ...

Americans lost wealth at staggering rate in '08

New statistics underline how Americans college funds, nest eggs vanished

MSNBC
By Annys Shin
updated 4:11 a.m. ET, Fri., March. 13, 2009

Meager signs of life in the economy sparked another rally on Wall Street yesterday, but new data showed that markets have a long way to go to replace the vast wealth lost by Americans in recent months.

The second major rally of the week came after General Motors dropped its request for an additional $2 billion in government assistance for March, saying that its cost-cutting measures were working. Bank of America, meanwhile, said it had made money during the first two months of the year.

Investors were even encouraged by Standard & Poor's decision to cut the long-term credit rating of General Electric by one notch. They had expected worse.

The S&P 500-stock index gained more than 4 percent yesterday, with every major sector closing higher. Still, the S&P is off nearly 17 percent on the year.

Falling stock and home prices have wiped out four years of gains in Americans' net worth since the start of 2008, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. Nearly half of those losses occurred over the last three months of the year, the biggest quarterly decline since recordkeeping began in 1952.

The new data underlined just how quickly wealth created during the biggest credit bubble in history has vanished, leaving Americans without the college funds, nest eggs and other reserves they had set aside. more ...

China dissident's family flee to U.S.

Reuters
Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:30am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - The wife and two children of one of China's most prominent dissidents have fled to the United States and the wife said on Friday that police pressure had made life in Beijing unbearable.

The family's escape may become another irritant between Beijing and Washington as they wrestle with the financial crisis and try to set aside a recent squabble over a confrontation between a U.S. and Chinese naval vessels off the Chinese coast.

Gao Zhisheng, an outspoken lawyer who took on sensitive cases that riled China's ruling Communist Party, was sentenced to four years in jail for subversion in 2006 but won a good behavior reprieve. Since then, however, he has been under constant police watch and periods of secretive detention, said his wife, Geng He.

Geng said she and their teenage daughter and 5-year-old son had fled to the United States, arriving a few days ago after a clandestine trip to Thailand.

She did not have the heart to tell Gao they were leaving and so had left him a note saying not to expect their return, she told Reuters by telephone.

"I couldn't bring myself to tell him, because I was scared our plan might come out or that he couldn't handle the news," she said from Phoenix, Arizona, where she said supporters were helping them settle in.

"I felt we had to leave, because the pressure on the children was ruining their lives ... They were followed and harassed so much that they've become very sensitive and down on themselves."

Geng said she had not contacted her husband since arriving in the United States. more ...

Ex-financier Madoff pleads guilty to all charges

Disgraced investor jailed until sentencing, says ‘deeply sorry,’ ‘ashamed’

MSNBC
March 12, 2009

NEW YORK - Saying he was “deeply sorry and ashamed,” Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history and was immediately led off to jail in handcuffs to the delight of his seething victims.

Madoff, 70, could get up to 150 years in prison when he is sentenced in June.

In refusing to let the disgraced financier remain free on bail until then, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin noted that Madoff had the means to flee and an incentive to do so. more ...

U.S. jobless seen nearing 10 percent

Reuters
March 12, 2009
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. unemployment will approach 10 percent as the country endures its worst recession since World War Two, leaving more than 13 million Americans jobless, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

The economy will level out in the third quarter, the results showed, but the poll painted a bleaker picture than a survey conducted just a month ago.

Median forecasts now assume gross domestic product will shrink an annualized 5.3 percent this quarter, following a brutal 6.2 percent decline at the end of 2008.

The recession will continue into the second quarter, moderating to a 2 percent drop, stabilizing sometime this summer. GDP should turn the corner, albeit hesitantly, by autumn. more ...

Earth warming faster than thought

The worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged by the UN are already being realised, say scientists at an international meeting in Copenhagen.

BBC News
By Matt McGrath
BBC environment reporter, Copenhagen

In a statement outlining their six key messages to political leaders, they say there is an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climate shifts.

Even modest temperatures rises will affect millions of people, particularly in the developing world, they warn.

But most tools needed to cut global carbon dioxide emissions already exist.

More than 2,500 researchers and economists attended this meeting designed to update the world on the state of climate research ahead of key political negotiations set for December this year.

New data was presented in Copenhagen on sea level rise, which indicated that the best estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made two years ago were woefully out of date.

Scientists heard that waters could rise by over a metre across the world with huge impacts for hundreds of millions of people. more ...

Some denounce Obama's homeowner rescue as unfair

yahoo.com
By STEVENSON JACOBS and ALAN ZIBEL, AP Business Writers
February 20, 2009

NEW YORK – Banks got bailed out. So did automakers. So why not struggling homeowners? The question has struck a raw nerve across the country, with critics saying the Obama administration's latest housing rescue rewards people who bought homes they couldn't afford. Others counter that the taxpayer-financed plan will slow spiraling home prices and avert a deeper economic disaster.

The debate captures the strong emotions stirred up over who benefits as the government tries to fix the financial crisis. It's likely to remain on the front burner for months as lawmakers consider other contentious issues — like whether bankruptcy judges should be given the power to impose changes on borrowers' home loans.

"I feel like I'm doing the right thing paying my mortgage, and now apparently I have to pay my neighbor's mortgage, too. People are really angry," said Kim Guymon, a stay-at-home mom who bought a three-bedroom home with her husband in suburban Seattle in 2001 and has watched it drop $150,000 in value since last summer. more ...

Obama nixes plan to tax motorists on mileage

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will not adopt a policy to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive instead of how much gasoline they buy, his chief spokesman said Friday. Press secretary Robert Gibbs commented after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told The Associated Press that he wants to consider the idea, which has been proposed in some states but has angered many drivers.

"It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration," Gibbs told reporters, when asked for the president's thoughts about the policy and LaHood's remarks.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood told the AP in an interview Thursday. more ...