YUCK - Keeba



IRAQ DEATH TOLL

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'EXCESS' IRAQI DEATHS: 655,000

Doctor Admits Errors

Pa. doc at center of VA cancer probe admits errors

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jun 29, 5:39 pm ET

PHILADELPHIA – A doctor accused of botching dozens of prostate cancer surgeries at a Veterans Administration hospital admitted Monday that he sometimes missed his target when implanting radioactive seeds, leaving patients with incorrect dosages.

But Dr. Gary D. Kao called the mistakes commonplace in aiming seeds at the walnut-sized prostate, which sits near the bladder and rectum, and he steadfastly refused to become a scapegoat for the scandal at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia.

"Contrary to the allegations that I was a 'rogue' physician, ... I always acted in the best interest of the patients in delivering this important treatment," Kao, a radiation oncologist, testified at a Senate field hearing at the hospital, where he worked from 2002 to 2008.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has found that 92 of 116 men treated in the hospital's brachytherapy program received incorrect doses of the radiation seeds, often because they landed in nearby organs or surrounding tissue rather than the prostate. Kao performed the majority of the procedures under a VA contract with the University of Pennsylvania, where he was on staff.

Under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter, Kao acknowledged that he never informed patients when he missed the prostate or delivered insufficient doses.

Kao, however, said the mistakes did not necessarily amount to substandard care that had to be reported to the NRC or other agencies.

"Brachytherapy was and still is an evolving field," he said.

Kao, 45, testified at the hearing voluntarily, albeit with a lawyer at his side. In a lengthy written statement, he said he earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University, did his radiation oncology residency at the University of Pennsylvania and has never been sued for malpractice.

Rep. John Adler, D-N.J., harshly questioned why he still had a medical license.

Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., seemingly defended Kao while questioning the long-term safety of the procedure, which thousands of men across the country have undergone in recent years.

Specter sought the middle ground, eliciting an apology and an awkward embrace from Kao to one of his alleged victims, the Rev. Ricardo Flippin.

Flippin, 68, of Charleston, W.Va., testified that he lost his job during five months he spent in bed, incapacitated, after Kao implanted seeds into his rectum instead of his prostate in 2005. The VA suggested he was suffering from hemorrhoids or constipation afterward, but an Ohio State University physician finally diagnosed the problem as radiation burn and surgically corrected it, Flippin said.

"Rev. Flippin, we should have, we can do better," Kao said. "I hope we have a chance to do better for you and your colleagues in the future."

Flippin said he would have chosen another treatment option, such as having his prostate removed, had he known the risks involved with the radiation seeds.

The brachytherapy program at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia has been suspended. A review of 12 other VA hospitals where the procedure is performed showed a handful of problems, but none on the same magnitude. The NRC also said, based on reporting by doctors and the agency's own reviews, the problems at the Philadelphia hospital were far more frequent than U.S. hospitals overall.

Kao has stopped performing the surgeries and last week took a leave from the University of Pennsylvania.

Slavery State Name

RI closer to changing state name over slavery

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 25, 9:53 pm ET

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The country's smallest state has the longest official name: "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."

A push to drop "Providence Plantations" from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the "State of Rhode Island." It's an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it's an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island's tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.

The bill permitting a statewide referendum on the issue next year now heads to the state Senate.

"It's high time for us to recognize that slavery happened on plantations in Rhode Island and decide that we don't want that chapter of our history to be a proud part of our name," said Rep. Joseph Almeida, an African-American lawmaker who sponsored the bill.

Rhode Island's unwieldy name reflects its turbulent colonial history, a state that consisted of multiple and sometimes rival settlements populated by dissidents.

Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his unorthodox religious views, minister Roger Williams set out in 1636 and settled at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay, which he called Providence Plantations. Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later.

Other settlers made their homes in modern-day Portsmouth and Newport on Aquidneck Island, then known as the Isle of Rhodes.

In 1663, English King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements into a single colony called "The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." The name stuck. Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.

Opponents of the name charge argue that "plantations" was used at the time to describe any farming settlements, regardless of slavery.

Rhode Island merchants did, however, make their fortunes off the slave trade. Slaves helped construct Brown University in Providence, and a prominent slave trader paid half the cost of its first library.

Still, Stanley Lemons, a professor emeritus of history at Rhode Island College, said changing the state's name ignores the accomplishments of Williams, whose government passed laws trying to prevent the permanent servitude of whites, blacks and American Indians.

"There are different meanings for this word," Lemons said. "To try to impose their experience on everyone else wipes out Roger Williams."

Healthcare Cost

The Family Doctor: A Remedy for Health-Care Costs?

By Catherine Arnst Catherine Arnst – Fri Jun 26, 9:28 am ET

The primary-care doctor is gaining new respect in Washington. Battles may be breaking out left and right over the various health-care bills emerging from Congress, but reformers on both sides agree that general practitioners should be given a central role in uniting the fragmented U.S. medical system.

This vision has a name: the "patient-centered medical home." The "home" is the office of a primary-care doctor where patients would go for most of their medical needs. The general practitioner would oversee everything from flu shots to chronic disease management to weight loss, and coordinate care with nurses, pharmacists, and specialists. A 2004 study estimated that if every patient had such a home, the resulting efficiencies might reduce U.S. health-care costs by 5.6%, a savings of $67 billion a year.

Instead, most patients today get a scant seven minutes with a general practitioner, who has time to do little more than ask cursory questions and focus on the problem at hand. The patient rushes to specialists for chronic conditions that could be managed by a regular doctor. (Today, these different physicians rarely coordinate.) Last-minute appointments are almost unheard of -- one reason patients with minor complaints flock to already crowded hospital emergency rooms.

This medical home may sound like the "gatekeeper" model of the 1990s, a managed-care creation that was all about holding down costs. But advocates say the new concept is designed to help patients, not insurers. It's more like doctoring 1950s-style, when a Marcus Welby figure handled all the family's medical needs. This time it's juiced up with digital technology.

It also represents a politically painless way to streamline a disorganized and wasteful system that chews up a crippling 18% of the U.S. gross domestic product. That burden is felt particularly by private industry, which covers 60% of the nation's insured. Since most businesses try to ferret out waste and disorganization in their own operations, the medical home is a concept they can embrace in good conscience.

One of the biggest advocates is IBM (ibm.), which shelled out $1.3 billion last year on health benefits for its U.S. employees and retirees, equal to one month of the company's net income. Dr. Paul H. Grundy, 57, who holds the unusual title of director of health-care transformation for IBM, is a medical-home evangelist who led the company to start the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a coalition of some 500 large employers, insurers, consumer groups, and doctors. Part of his goal, he says, is to show that "employers can drive the medical-home idea as buyers of care."

Four medical societies have also endorsed the concept, and pilot programs are under way in several states. Most significantly, the idea has the imprimatur of President Barack Obama, who has said any health-care bill should "encourage and provide appropriate payment for providers who implement the medical-home model."

The current practice of medicine in the U.S. is a long way from this model. One recent study found that only 27% of physician practices come close to qualifying as a medical home. Still, for a real-world example, step into a nondescript building in Newport News, Va. There, Dr. Peter B. Anderson is examining Gretchen Parker, 72, his patient for 25 years. A year ago, Anderson warned Parker she was pre-diabetic, a condition that afflicts 57 million Americans. Instead of putting Parker on medication, his team helped her change her lifestyle and lose 55 pounds. Her blood sugar readings are now back to normal.

Anderson next examines a 46-year-old shipbuilder with a husky voice, the result of a three-pack-a-day, 30-year smoking habit. He quit last year -- on Anderson's advice -- and today he's in for a three-month checkup.

Later Anderson attends to an assistant high school principal and her 16-year-old son. She'd called only this morning because both had flulike symptoms; the office always holds time open for same-day appointments. Anderson determines that the pair has colds, convinces them they don't need antibiotics, and gets the mother to book an appointment in three months to check her high blood pressure. He even has time to discuss colleges with the basketball-playing son. By 6 p.m., he's done for the day.

A Smarter Operation

An ordinary day for Anderson, but extraordinary in the context of U.S. medicine. Unlike most primary-care doctors, Anderson and his team take ample time to counsel patients, guide them through lifestyle changes, and monitor chronic conditions with frequent checkups. He has helped patients avoid heart attacks, diabetes, and unnecessary surgeries by focusing on prevention and disease monitoring. He does all this while seeing 30 to 35 patients a day, compared with 20 to 25 for most practices. And he accepts Medicare. "This is what I always wanted to do," says the 56-year-old Anderson, who converted to a medical home five years ago. "I'm seeing far more patients and delivering the best care I've ever done."

Anderson has three full-time nurses on staff and one part-timer, where most doctors have one or two. The nurses spend much of their time updating patient records, a job that once ate up hours a week on Anderson's schedule. "The history-taking just kills the doctor's time. I don't have to do any of that," Anderson says. It helps that he has an electronic medical-records system, found in only 17% of doctors' offices. Anderson also belongs to a group of 300 specialists and primary-care doctors, all on the same computer network, making it easier to consult with any doctor a patient may need.

Anderson's nurses spend about 30 minutes with each patient on each visit, working through a long list of questions, assessing new health problems, and reviewing old ones. The nurses also discuss preventive measures and treatment options. Once Anderson takes over, he can spend the visit addressing a specific complaint and warding off future crises. To make sure he hasn't missed anything, he has a nurse sit in with him and the patient during the exam, pointing out details in the medical record that a busy doctor could easily overlook.

As sensible as this routine may sound, it goes against the grain of most primary-care practices. Medicare and other insurers pay doctors on a fee-for-service basis that rewards quantity of care over quality. There are no reimbursements for discussing diabetes management with a patient, say, or talking over a case with a specialist. "The main hurdle to getting the medical home accepted more widely is the lack of compensation for cognitive work," says Harvard Business professor Clayton M. Christensen, co-author of The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care.

IBM's Grundy is campaigning to change all that. There is some self-interest here, as IBM sells the electronic health-record systems that are a must for well-run medical homes. But Grundy, the son of missionaries who fought AIDS in Africa, also argues for social responsibility. He worries about the on-site clinics that many companies are establishing in an effort to control their health costs. "That's just opting out," he says. "We need to transform the system if we don't want two-tiered health care."

IBM is working with several pilot medical-home projects around the country. The furthest along was started by Community Care of North Carolina almost six years ago, with 870,000 Medicaid recipients and 97,000 children enrolled. CCNC pays primary-care physicians in the experiment a premium of only $2.50 per patient per month to emphasize preventive, coordinated care. Yet a study by Mercer Human Resources Consulting Group (NYSE:MMC - News) estimates the state saved $161 million on health-care costs in 2006 as a result.

North Carolina aside, it is tough for many doctors to focus on coordinated care when there is no mechanism to pay them for their time. A nationwide switch to medical homes is also constrained by an extreme shortage of primary-care physicians, again because of the economics. Medicare reimburses primary care at a lower rate than any other specialty, so only 17% of medical graduates choose to enter the field.

Anderson insists it is possible to set up a profitable medical home with current reimbursements, but only by increasing patient volume. In fact, he made the switch strictly for economic reasons. "Even though I was working 50 to 60 hours a week, I wasn't able to pay my bills, and one of my nurses was going to quit," he says. "I had to increase my patient load."

A few years earlier he had heard a lecture about a Kentucky doctor who was able to see 50 patients a day after converting to a medical home. The efficiencies came from relying on a team approach, where nurses take on a lot of the record-keeping once left to the doctor. Trying the same model, Anderson hired an additional nurse, added some 15 patients a day, and was able to increase his annual billings by $200,000, to $620,000. He personally earns $240,000 and works 45 hours a week.

Medical-home enthusiasts are lobbying for a change in primary-care reimbursements in any health-care bill that emerges from Congress, with a payment structure that rewards collaboration and prevention. They have a friend in Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), a key player in the health-care reform effort. As he points out: "Watching over a patient's full medical history... is a quality measure and a cost-control measure."

Obama on Iran

Obama scoffs at Ahmadinejad's demand for apology

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – 15 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's criticism of Iran escalated Friday into an unusually personal war of words. To Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's demand he apologize for meddling, Obama shot back that the regime should "think carefully" about answers owed to protesters it has arrested, bludgeoned and killed.

"The violence perpetrated against them is outrageous," Obama said. "We see it and we condemn it."

The president spoke at an East Room news conference capping his third set of meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of several European leaders who spoke out more forcefully, more quickly than Obama on the unrest in Iran that followed the disputed June 12 elections.

"We will not forget," Merkel said.

Turning to Iraq, where a deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave all cities was just four days away, Obama offered no support for allowing a spate of recent violence to push back the withdrawal. "If you look at the overall trend, despite some of these high-profile bombings, Iraq's security situation has continued to dramatically improve," Obama said.

Of bigger concern than the violence, Obama said, is the lack of movement on laws to share oil revenues and other matters that keep Iraq deeply fractured along sectarian lines. He called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step up his leadership.

Merkel's visit happened to coincide with the day that a sweeping global warming bill came up for a vote in the House amid contentious partisan sniping about its effect on jobs and consumer costs. With the vote still hours away and the outcome in doubt, Obama and Merkel, who has made climate change a top priority, presented the rare sight of an American president and a visiting foreign leader together urging the U.S. Congress to act.

Obama said he had been "very blunt and frank" with Merkel that it will take significant time to turn the U.S. into a world leader on climate change but that the "critical" bill before the House was a good start.

Merkel sympathized with the difficulty of approving such legislation, which would impose the first-ever limits on greenhouse gas pollution and force a shift to cleaner energy sources. "I know what's at stake, when you talk about reduction targets, how tricky that is," Merkel said.

In Iran, the government proclaimed the incumbent hardline president, Ahmadinejad, the landslide winner of the June 12 voting over opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, prompting widespread protests followed by a brutal state-led crackdown.

Ahmadinejad told Obama Thursday to "show your repentance" for criticizing Tehran's response.

"I don't take Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements seriously about apologies, particularly given the fact that the United States has gone out of its way not to interfere with the election process in Iran," Obama responded sternly.

"I would suggest that Mr. Ahmadinejad think carefully about the obligations he owes to his own people," he added. "And he might want to consider looking at the families of those who've been beaten or shot or detained. And, you know, that's where I think Mr. Ahmadinejad and others need to answer their questions."

It was Obama's first direct criticism of any of Iran's leaders. Even more, it was coupled with his first specific boost for Mousavi. "Mousavi has shown to have captured the imagination or the spirit of forces within Iran that were interested in opening up," Obama said.

The remark sought to clarify what many view as Obama's biggest misstep — saying last week in a television interview that there may not be much difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But it appeared to swing over to an outright endorsement of Mousavi, though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied it was meant that way.

Obama also said for the first time that his offer to loosen the decades-old U.S. diplomatic freeze with Iran through direct talks is now in question.

"There is no doubt that any direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran is going to be affected by the events of the last several weeks," Obama said, without elaborating.

Gibbs said Obama was "more stating the obvious" that no talks are possible while developments are still unfolding. And Obama said that an existing system of multilateral talks with Iran over its suspected goal of building a nuclear bomb, involving nations including the U.S., Europe, China and Russia, must continue.

"The clock is ticking. Iran is developing a nuclear capacity at a fairly rapid clip," he said.

Merkel agreed there must be no letup among nations trying to stop Iran's nuclear development, which Tehran insists is aimed at providing only electric power, not weapons. She said "we have to bring Russia and China alongside," referring to the two nations most historically unwilling to get tough with Iran over the nuclear standoff.

Cancer in the Air

Air has elevated cancer risk in 600 neighborhoods

By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writer Dina Cappiello, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 24, 12:01 am ET

WASHINGTON – Millions of people living in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution.

The average cancer risk across the country is 36 in 1 million, according to the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, which will be released by the EPA on Wednesday.

That's a decline from the 41.5 in 1 million cancer risk the EPA found when it released the last analysis in 2006. That data covered 1999 emissions.

"If we are in between 10 in 1 million and 100 in 1 million we want to look more deeply at that. If the risk is greater than 100 in 1 million, we don't like that at all ... we want to investigate that risk and do something about it," said Kelly Rimer, an environmental scientist with the EPA, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Parts of Los Angeles, Calif., and Madison County, Ill., had the highest cancer risks in the nation — 1200 in 1 million and 1100 in 1 million, according to the EPA data. They were followed by two neighborhoods in Allegheny County, Pa., and one in Tuscaloosa County, Ala.

People living in parts of Coconino County, Ariz., and Lyon County, Nev., had the lowest cancer risk from air toxics. The counties with the least toxic air are Kalawao County, Hawaii, and Golden Valley County, Mont.

"Air toxic risks are local. They are a function of the sources nearest to you," said Dave Guinnup, who leads the groups that perform the risk assessments for toxic air pollutants at EPA. "If you are out in the Rocky Mountains, you are going to be closer to 2 in a million. If you are in an industrial area with a lot of traffic, you are going to be closer to 1100 in 1 million."

The analysis predicts the concentrations of 124 different hazardous air pollutants, which are known to cause cancer, respiratory problems and other health effects by coupling estimates of emissions from a variety of sources with models that attempt to simulate how the pollution will disperse in the air. Only 80 of the chemicals evaluated are known to cause cancer, EPA officials said.

The information is used by federal, state and local agencies to identify areas in need of more monitoring and attention.

The data to be released Wednesday covers pollution released in 2002.

___

On the Net:

EPA National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA):

Teachers paid but NOT working

700 NYC teachers are paid to do nothing

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Karen Matthews, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jun 22, 2009

NEW YORK – Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.

Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

The 700 or so teachers can practice yoga, work on their novels, paint portraits of their colleagues — pretty much anything but school work. They have summer vacation just like their classroom colleagues and enjoy weekends and holidays through the school year.

"You just basically sit there for eight hours," said Orlando Ramos, who spent seven months in a rubber room, officially known as a temporary reassignment center, in 2004-05. "I saw several near-fights. `This is my seat.' `I've been sitting here for six months.' That sort of thing."

Ramos was an assistant principal in East Harlem when he was accused of lying at a hearing on whether to suspend a student. Ramos denied the allegation but quit before his case was resolved and took a job in California.

Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.

"It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work.

Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, said the union and the Department of Education reached an agreement last year to try to reduce the amount of time educators spend in reassignment centers, but progress has been slow.

"No one wants teachers who don't belong in the classroom. However, we cannot neglect the teachers' rights to due process," Davis said. The union represents more than 228,000 employees, including nearly 90,000 teachers.

Many teachers say they are being punished because they ran afoul of a vindictive boss or because they blew the whistle when somebody fudged test scores.

"The principal wants you out, you're gone," said Michael Thomas, a high school math teacher who has been in a reassignment center for 14 months after accusing an assistant principal of tinkering with test results.

City education officials deny teachers are unfairly targeted but say there has been an effort under Mayor Michael Bloomberg to get incompetents out of the classroom. "There's been a push to report anything that you see wrong," Forte said.

Some other school systems likewise pay teachers to do nothing.

The Los Angeles district, the nation's second-largest school system with 620,000 students, behind New York's 1.1 million, said it has 178 teachers and other staff members who are being "housed" while they wait for misconduct charges to be resolved.

Similarly, Mimi Shapiro, who is now retired, said she was assigned to sit in what Philadelphia calls a "cluster office." "They just sit you in a room in a hard chair," she said, "and you just sit."

Teacher advocates say New York's rubber rooms are more extensive than anything that exists elsewhere.

Teachers awaiting disciplinary hearings around the nation typically are sent home, with or without pay, Karen Horwitz, a former Chicago-area teacher who founded the National Association for the Prevention of Teacher Abuse. Some districts find non-classroom work — office duties, for example — for teachers accused of misconduct.

New York City's reassignment centers have existed since the late 1990s, Forte said. But the number of employees assigned to them has ballooned since Bloomberg won more control over the schools in 2002. Most of those sent to rubber rooms are teachers; others are assistant principals, social workers, psychologists and secretaries.

Once their hearings are over, they are either sent back to the classroom or fired. But because their cases are heard by 23 arbitrators who work only five days a month, stints of two or three years in a rubber room are common, and some teachers have been there for five or six.

The nickname refers to the padded cells of old insane asylums. Some teachers say that is fitting, since some of the inhabitants are unstable and don't belong in the classroom. They add that being in a rubber room itself is bad for your mental health.

"Most people in that room are depressed," said Jennifer Saunders, a high school teacher who was in a reassignment center from 2005 to 2008. Saunders said she was charged with petty infractions in an effort to get rid of her: "I was charged with having a student sit in my class with a hat on, singing."

The rubber rooms are monitored, some more strictly than others, teachers said.

"There was a bar across the street," Saunders said. "Teachers would sneak out and hang out there for hours."

Judith Cohen, an art teacher who has been in a rubber room near Madison Square Garden for three years, said she passes the time by painting watercolors of her fellow detainees.

"The day just seemed to crawl by until I started painting," Cohen said, adding that others read, play dominoes or sleep. Cohen said she was charged with using abusive language when a girl cut her with scissors.

Some sell real estate, earn graduate degrees or teach each other yoga and tai chi.

David Suker, who has been in a Brooklyn reassignment center for three months, said he has used the time to plan summer trips to Alaska, Cape Cod and Costa Rica. Suker said he was falsely accused of throwing a girl's test sign-up form in the garbage during an argument.

"It's sort of peaceful knowing that you're going to work to do nothing," he said.

Philip Nobile is a journalist who has written for New York Magazine and the Village Voice and is known for his scathing criticism of public figures. A teacher at Brooklyn's Cobble Hill School of American Studies, Nobile was assigned to a rubber room in 2007, "supposedly for pushing a boy while I was breaking up a fight." He contends the school system is retaliating against him for exposing wrongdoing.

He is spending his time working on his case and writing magazine articles and a novel.

"This is what happens to political prisoners throughout history," he said, alluding to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "They put us in prison and we write our `Letter From the Birmingham Jail.'"

Obama Cigarettes

Obama signs anti-smoking bill, cites own struggle

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer – 06/22/09

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama cited his own long struggle to quit the cigarettes he got hooked on as a teenager as he signed the nation's strongest-ever anti-smoking bill Monday and praised it for providing critically needed protections for kids.

"The decades-long effort to protect our children from the harmful effects of tobacco has emerged victorious," Obama said at a signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

The bill marks the latest legislative victory for Obama's first five months. Among his other successes: a $787 billion economic stimulus bill, legislation to expand a state program providing children's health insurance and a bill making it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination.

The president has frequently spoken, in the White House and on the campaign trail, of his own struggles to quit smoking. He brought it up during Monday's ceremony while criticizing the tobacco industry for marketing its products to young people.

Obama said almost 90 percent of people who smoke began at age 18 or younger, snared in a dangerous and hard-to-kick habit.

"I know — I was one of these teenagers," Obama said. "So I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it's been with you for a long time."

Before dozens of invited guests, including children from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the president signed legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate tobacco.

Obama accused the tobacco industry of targeting young people, exposing them to a "constant and insidious barrage of advertising where they live, where they learn and where they play. Most insidiously, they are offered products with flavorings that mask the taste of tobacco and make it even more tempting."

The new law bans candy and fruit flavors in tobacco products, and it limits advertising that could attract young people.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act also allows the FDA to lower the amount of addiction-causing nicotine in tobacco products and block misleading labels such "low tar" and "light." Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings.

The law won't let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright.

"It is a law that will save American lives," Obama said.

Anti-smoking advocates looked forward to the bill after years of attempts to control an industry so fundamental to the U.S. that carved tobacco leaves adorn some parts of the Capitol.

Opponents from tobacco-growing states such as top-producing North Carolina argued that the FDA had proved through a series of food safety failures that it was not up to the job of regulation. They also said that instead of unrealistically trying to get smokers to quit or to prevent others from starting, lawmakers should ensure that people have other options, like smokeless tobacco.

As president, George W. Bush opposed the legislation and threatened a veto after it passed the House last year. The Obama administration, by contrast, issued a statement declaring strong support for the measure.

Obama & Drugs

Obama announces agreement with drug companies

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – 06/22/09

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Monday welcomed the pharmaceutical industry's agreement to help close a gap in Medicare's drug coverage, calling the pact a step forward in the push for overhaul of the nation's health care system.

Obama said that drug companies have pledged to spend $80 billion over the next decade to help reduce the cost of drugs for seniors and pay for a portion of Obama's health care legislation.

"This is a significant breakthrough on the road to health care reform, one that will make a difference in the lives of many older Americans," Obama said in the White House's Diplomatic Room.

He was joined by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who struck the deal with the White House; Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Barry Rand, head of the senior citizens' advocacy group AARP. Notably absent was a representative from the pharmaceutical association.

"It was always designed to be an AARP event," said Ken Johnson, spokesman for the association. "We don't think we should have been invited to it."

Billy Tauzin, the group's president and a former Republican congressman from Louisiana, will attend a town hall meeting on health care that Obama is staging at the White House on Wednesday, Johnson said.

The president used the opportunity to make his sternest call yet for action, saying the drug agreement is one piece of "health care reform I expect Congress to enact this year."

Obama said the move on Medicare will help correct an anomaly in the program that provides a prescription drug benefit through the government health care program for the elderly and disabled. Under the deal, drug companies will pay part of the cost of brand name drugs for lower and middle-income older people in the so-called "doughnut hole." That term refers to a feature of the current drug program that requires beneficiaries to pay the entire cost of prescriptions after initial coverage is exhausted but before catastrophic coverage begins.

Obama said some Medicare beneficiaries will find at least a 50 percent discount on prescription drugs. Obama says drug companies stand to benefit when more Americans can afford prescription drugs.

The drug companies' investment would reduce the cost of drugs for seniors and pay for a portion of Obama's proposed revamping of health care.

"This is an early win for reform," Rand said.

Johnson said there are other parts to the agreement that have still not been completed, but he declined to provide details.

"There are a lot of discussions going on right now, there are a lot of moving pieces, there are a lot of elements to it that have not been finalized," Johnson said.

Others following the health care debate said they understood that as part of the agreement, the drug group was also discussing additional savings for low-income people, but details were unclear. Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which favors a health overhaul, said he understood the additional cost reductions would be for lower-income seniors.

On a parallel track, the White House and Senate Democrats have been holding private, separate talks with representatives of doctors, hospitals, insurers and medical device manufacturers in hopes of finding specific savings those groups would be willing to produce. None of those negotiations have yet to yield an agreement.

Under the agreement Obama discussed Monday, part of the $80 billion would be used to halve the cost of brand name drugs for Medicare recipients when they are in a coverage gap of the program. AARP, which represents 40 million older Americans, has long lobbied to eliminate that coverage gap completely.

The deal would affect about 26 million low- and middle-income recipients of the program's enrollees, AARP said. It would apply to brand name and biologic drugs, but not generics, the group said, and likely take effect in July 2010, assuming drug overhaul legislation becomes law.

Under Medicare's Part D prescription drug program, recipients pay about 25 percent of the cost of their drugs until they and the government have paid $2,700.

At that point, beneficiaries must cover the full cost of drugs until they have spent $4,350 from their own pockets. When they reach that amount, Medicare's catastrophic drug benefit takes effect, and recipients only pay 5 percent of their drugs' costs until the end of the year.

____

Associated Press Writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.

No Cure

Pets Pass Superbug to Humans

LiveScience Staff

livescience Staff

– Sun Jun 21, 11:25 pm ET

Transmission of an infectious superbug from dogs and cats to humans, and back again, is an increasing problem, a new study finds.

The superbug, a strain of bacteria known as MRSA, has evolved a resistance to antibiotics. It has long plagued hospitals but in recent years has become more common in homes. MRSA has even invaded beaches.

Only about two years ago, scientists began to seriously suspect pets were transmitting the bacteria.

In the July edition of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Richard Oehler of the University of South Florida College of Medicine and colleagues lay out the latest thinking on MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and pets.

The infections can be transmitted by animal bites and most threaten young children, the researchers note.

"As community-acquired strains of MRSA increase in prevalence, a growing body of clinical evidence has documented MRSA colonization in domestic animals, often implying direct acquisition of S aureus infection from their human owners," they write. "MRSA colonization has been documented in companion animals such as horses, dogs, and cats, and these animals have been viewed as potential reservoirs of infection."

Dog and cat bites make up about 1 percent of emergency room visits in the United States.

Some facts presented in the journal:

Women and the elderly are most at risk of being bitten by a cat.

Men in general and those aged under 20 of both sexes are most likely to be injured.

Most bite exposures occur in young children, involve unrestrained dogs on the owner's property, and about 20 percent involve a non-neutered dog.

Risk is highest in young boys aged 5 to 9 years, due to their small size and lack of understanding of provocative behavior.

Severe infections can occur in about 20 percent of all cases, the researchers state, and are caused by Pasteurella, Streptococcus, Fusobacterium, and Capnocytophaga bacteria from the animal's mouth, plus possibly other pathogens from the human's skin.

"Proper treatment of dog and cat bites should involve treatment of the immediate injury (whether superficial or deep) and then management of the risk of acute infection, including washing with high pressure saline if possible, and antibiotics in selected cases," the researchers suggest.

"Bites to the hands, forearms, neck, and head have the potential for the highest morbidity," the scientists warn. They conclude: "Much more remains to be learned about MRSA and pet-associated human infections."

The Truth About Deadly 'Superbugs'

10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species

Top 10 Mysterious Diseases

Original Story: Pets Pass Superbug to Humans

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Burqas Not Permitted

Sarkozy says burqas are 'not welcome' in France

Mon Jun 22, 11:47 am ET

PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Muslim burqa would not be welcome in France, calling the full-body religious gown a sign of the "debasement" of women.

In the first presidential address to parliament in 136 years, Sarkozy faced critics who fear the burqa issue could stigmatize France's Muslims and said he supported banning the garment from being worn in public.

"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said to extended applause at the Chateau of Versailles, southwest of Paris.

"The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement — I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

Dozens of legislators have called for creating a commission to study a possible ban in France, where there is a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment despite a 2004 law forbidding it from being worn in public schools.

France has Western Europe's largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people, and the 2004 law sparked fierce debate both at home and abroad.

Even the French government has been divided over the issue, with Immigration Minister Eric Besson saying a full ban would only "create tensions," while junior minister for human rights Rama Yade said she was open to a ban if it was aimed at protecting women forced to wear the burqa.

The terms "burqa" and "niqab" often are used interchangeably in France. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes.

A leading French Muslim group, the French Council for the Muslim Religion, has warned against studying the burqa, saying it would "stigmatize" Muslims.

Sarkozy was due to host a state dinner Monday with Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani of Qatar, where women wear Islamic head coverings in public — whether while shopping or driving cars.

Obama tells men

Obama tells men what kind of dads they should be

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jun 20, 8:52 am ET

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama got a basketball, his first name and ambition from his father. Little else.

The son gave back more than he received: a lifetime of ruminations about the man who abandoned the family, a memoir named "Dreams from My Father," and endless reflections on his own successes and shortcomings as a parent of Sasha, 8, and Malia, 10.

As a candidate and now president, he's been telling men what sort of father they should be. It's become his Father's Day ritual.

He's asking American men to be better fathers than his own.

The president showcased fatherhood in a series of events and a magazine article in advance of Father's Day this Sunday. He said he came to understand the importance of fatherhood from its absence in his childhood homes — just as an estimated 24 million Americans today are growing up without a dad.

Fathers run deep in the political culture as they do everywhere else, for better and worse. Michelle Obama has said many times how her late dad, Fraser, is her reference point and rock — she checks in with him, in her mind, routinely, and at important moments.

Obama's presidential rival, John McCain, called his own memoirs "Faith of My Fathers," tracing generations of high-achieving scamps. The father-son presidencies of the George Bushes were bookends on Bill Clinton, whose father drowned in a ditch before the future president was born and whose stepfather was an abusive alcoholic nicknamed Dude.

A Kenyan goatherder-turned-intellectual who clawed his way to scholarships and Harvard, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. left a family behind to get his schooling in the United States. He started another family here, then left his second wife and 2-year-old Barack Jr. to return to Africa with another woman.

His promise flamed out in Africa after stints working for an oil company and the government; he fell into drink and died in a car crash when his son was 21, a student at Columbia University.

"I don't want to be the kind of father I had," the president is quoted as telling a friend in a new book about him.

His half-sister, Maya, called his memoirs "part of the process of excavating his father."

Obama now cajoles men to be better fathers — not the kind who must be unearthed in the soul.

His finger-wagging is most pointed when addressing other black men, reflecting years of worry about the fabric of black families and single mothers, but it applies to everyone.

Father's Day 2007: "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."

Father's Day 2008: "Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Father's Day 2009: "We need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what's going on in their lives."

He doesn't hold himself out as the ideal dad. No driven politician can.

"I know I have been an imperfect father," he writes in Sunday's Parade magazine. "I know I have made mistakes. I have lost count of all the times, over the years, when the demands of work have taken me from the duties of fatherhood."

He volunteered for those demands, as all people do when they want power. His years as a community organizer, Illinois lawmaker, U.S. senator and presidential candidate often kept him apart from family.

At the same time, he went to great lengths in the 2008 campaign to find time with his girls and wife, and now considers the routine family time one of the joys of living and working in the White House.

The new book "Renegade" by Richard Wolffe recounts strains in the marriage early this decade, arising from his absences and from what Michelle Obama apparently considered his selfish careerism at the time. The author interviewed the Obamas, friends and associates.

Obama himself attributed his "fierce ambitions" to his dad while crediting his mother — a loving but frequently absent figure — with giving him the means to pursue them.

"Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes," he once wrote, "and I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else." By malady, he meant the will to achieve.

Obama was a schoolboy in Hawaii when his father came back to visit. He gave his dad a tie. His father gave him a basketball and African figurines and came to his class to speak about Kenya. He was an impressive, mysterious figure whom Obama found compelling, volatile and vaguely threatening.

The visit took a sour turn when Obama went to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and his father made him shut off the TV, saying he watched too much. Obama slammed the bedroom door; a loud argument ensued among grown-ups.

Not the quality time Obama has in mind in asking dads to turn off the TV now.

___

Associated Press writer Ann Sanner contributed to this report.

Obama puts critics

Obama puts critics of financial overhaul on notice

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jun 20, 8:41 am ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Saturday that current financial rules exploit consumers and he put critics of his proposed overhaul on notice: "While I'm not spoiling for a fight, I'm ready for one."

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to defend his recent proposal, which is intended to prevent a repeat of the breakdown that has sent the U.S. economy reeling. But such major changes face a fight in Congress and opposition from some leaders in the banking and insurance industries.

In the address, Obama focused on a consumer watchdog office that he wants to set up.

"This is essential," Obama said. "For this crisis may have started on Wall Street. But its impacts have been felt by ordinary Americans who rely on credit cards, home loans and other financial instruments."

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency would take over oversight of mortgages, requiring that lenders give customers the option of "plain vanilla" plans with clear and affordable terms.

"It will have the power to set tough new rules so that companies compete by offering innovative products that consumers actually want and actually understand," Obama said. "Those ridiculous contracts — pages of fine print that no one can figure out — will be a thing of the past. You'll be able to compare products, with descriptions in plain language, to see what is best for you."

More broadly, Obama's changes would begin to reverse the easing on federal regulations pressed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Democratic leaders in Congress are promising legislation will get passed this year, but that depends in part on how Congress answers big questions about the overhaul, including the role of the Federal Reserve.

"I welcome a debate about how we can make sure our regulations work for businesses and consumers," Obama said. "But what I will not accept — what I will vigorously oppose — are those who do not argue in good faith."

By that, Obama said, he meant those who defend the status quo at any cost. He didn't name any people or organizations, but said special interests are already mobilizing to fight change. He called that typical Washington.

"These are the interests that have benefited from a system which allowed ordinary Americans to be exploited," Obama said. The president said he would stand up for his plans, saying: "While I'm not spoiling for a fight, I'm ready for one. The most important thing we can do to put this era of irresponsibility in the past is to take responsibility now."

___

On the Net:

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Dreams

Wish Fulfillment? No. But Dreams (and Sleep) Have Meaning

By TIFFANY SHARPLES Tiffany Sharples – 06/16/09

Dreams may not be the secret window into the frustrated desires of the unconscious that Sigmund Freud first posited in 1899, but growing evidence suggests that dreams - and, more so, sleep - are powerfully connected to the processing of human emotions.

According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life. "Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass," says Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)

A recent study by Walker and his colleagues examined how rest - specifically, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - influences our ability to read emotions in other people's faces. In the small analysis of 36 adults, volunteers were asked to interpret the facial expressions of people in photographs, following either a 60- or 90-minute nap during the day or with no nap. Participants who had reached REM sleep (when dreaming most frequently occurs) during their nap were better able to identify expressions of positive emotions like happiness in other people, compared with participants who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap at all. Those volunteers were more sensitive to negative expressions, including anger and fear.

Past research by Walker and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal Current Biology, found that in people who were sleep deprived, activity in the prefrontal lobe - a region of the brain involved in controlling emotion - was significantly diminished. He suggests that a similar response may be occurring in the nap-deprived volunteers, albeit to a lesser extent, and that it may have its roots in evolution. "If you're walking through the jungle and you're tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things," he says. The idea is that with little mental energy to spare, you're emotionally more attuned to things that are likely to be the most threatening in the immediate moment. Inversely, when you're well rested, you may be more sensitive to positive emotions, which could benefit long-term survival, he suggests: "If it's getting food, if it's getting some kind of reward, finding a wife - those things are pretty good to pick up on."

Our daily existence is largely influenced by our ability "to understand our societal interactions, to understand someone else's emotional state of mind, to understand the expression on their face," says Ninad Gujar, a senior research scientist at Walker's lab and lead author of the study, which was recently submitted for publication. "These are the most fundamental processes guiding our personal and professional lives."

REM sleep appears to not only improve our ability to identify positive emotions in others; it may also round out the sharp angles of our own emotional experiences. Walker suggests that one function of REM sleep - dreaming, in particular - is to allow the brain to sift through that day's events, process any negative emotion attached to them, then strip it away from the memories. He likens the process to applying a "nocturnal soothing balm." REM sleep, he says, "tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way." (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)

"It's not that you've forgotten. You haven't," he says. "It's a memory of an emotional episode, but it's no longer emotional itself."

That palliative safety-valve quality of sleep may be hampered when we fail to reach REM sleep or when REM sleep is disrupted, Walker says. "If you don't let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety," he says.

The theory is consistent with new research conducted by Rebecca Bernert, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Florida State University who specializes in the relationship between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and who also presented her work at the sleep conference this week.

In her study of 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66 who were admitted into a mental-health hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation, Bernert discovered that the presence of severe and frequent nightmares or insomnia was a strong predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More than half of the study participants had attempted suicide at least once in the past, and the 17% of the study group who had made an attempt within the previous month had dramatically higher scores in nightmare frequency and intensity than the rest. Bernert found that the relationship between nightmares or insomnia and suicide persisted, even when researchers controlled for other factors like depression.

Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide-prevention warning signs. Yet what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.

If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says. "The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night, the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record ... What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.' "

At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous-system activity during sleep: faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing - or hinders it, when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms - may eventually provide clues to effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressing sleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.

The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"

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CIA head says Cheney almost wishing US be attacked

WASHINGTON – CIA Director Leon Panetta says former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's approach to terrorism almost suggests "he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."

Panetta told The New Yorker for an article in its June 22 issue that Cheney "smells some blood in the water" on the issue of national security.

Cheney has said in several interviews that he thinks Obama is making the U.S. less safe. He has been critical of Obama for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.

Last month the former vice president offered a withering critique of Obama's policies and a defense of the Bush administration on the same day that Obama made a major speech about national security.

Panetta said of Cheney's remarks: "It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."

Asked if he agreed with Panetta, Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he wouldn't question the motive behind Cheney's criticism.

"I think Dick Cheney's judgment about how to secure America is faulty," Biden said. "I think our judgment is correct."

Weak security enables credit card hacks

AP IMPACT:

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer - Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:06PM EDT

Every time you swipe your credit card and wait for the transaction to be approved, sensitive data including your name and account number are ferried from store to bank through computer networks, each step a potential opening for hackers.

And while you may take steps to protect yourself against identity theft, an Associated Press investigation has found the banks and other companies that handle your information are not being nearly as cautious as they could.

The government leaves it to card companies to design security rules that protect the nation's 50 billion annual transactions. Yet an examination of those industry requirements explains why so many breaches occur: The rules are cursory at best and all but meaningless at worst, according to the AP's analysis of data breaches dating to 2005.

It means every time you pay with plastic, companies are gambling with your personal data. If hackers intercept your numbers, you'll spend weeks straightening your mangled credit, though you can't be held liable for unauthorized charges. Even if your transaction isn't hacked, you still lose: Merchants pass to all their customers the costs they incur from fraud.

More than 70 retailers and payment processors have disclosed breaches since 2006, involving tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Meanwhile, many others likely have been breached and didn't detect it. Even the companies that had the payment industry's top rating for computer security, a seal of approval known as PCI compliance, have fallen victim to huge heists.

Companies that are not compliant with the PCI standards — including one in 10 of the medium-sized and large retailers in the United States — face fines but are left free to process credit and debit card payments. Most retailers don't have to endure security audits, but can evaluate themselves.

Credit card providers don't appear to be in a rush to tighten the rules. They see fraud as a cost of doing business and say stricter security would throw sand into the gears of the payment system, which is built on speed, convenience and low cost.

That is of little consolation to consumers who bet on the industry's payment security and lost.

It took four months for Pamela LaMotte, 46, of Colchester, Vt., to fix the damage after two of her credit card accounts were tapped by hackers in a breach traced to a Hannaford Bros. grocery store.

LaMotte, who was unemployed at the time, says she had to borrow money from her mother and boyfriend to pay $500 in overdraft and late fees — which were eventually refunded — while the banks investigated.

"Maybe somebody who doesn't live paycheck to paycheck, it wouldn't matter to them too much, but for me it screwed me up in a major way," she said. LaMotte says she pays more by cash and check now.

It all happened at a supermarket chain that met the PCI standards. Someone installed malicious software on Hannaford's servers that snatched customer data while it was being sent to the banks for approval.

Since then, hackers plundered two companies that process payments and had PCI certification. Heartland Payment Systems lost card numbers, expiration dates and other data for potentially hundreds of millions of shoppers. RBS WorldPay Inc. got taken for more than 1 million Social Security numbers — a golden ticket to hackers that enables all kinds of fraud.

In the past, each credit card company had its own security rules, a system that was chaotic for stores.

In 2006, the big card brands — Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB International — formed the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council and created uniform security rules for merchants.

Avivah Litan, a Gartner Inc. analyst, says retailers and payment processors have spent more than $2 billion on security upgrades to comply with PCI. And the payment industry touts the fact that 93 percent of big retailers in the U.S., and 88 percent of medium-sized ones, are compliant with the PCI rules.

That leaves plenty of merchants out, of course, but the main threat against them is a fine: $25,000 for big retailers for each month they are not compliant, $5,000 for medium-sized ones.

Computer security experts say the PCI guidelines are superficial, including requirements that stores run antivirus software and install computer firewalls. Those steps are designed to keep hackers out and customer data in. Yet tests that simulate hacker attacks are required just once a year, and businesses can run the tests themselves.

"It's like going to a doctor and getting your blood pressure read, and if your blood pressure's good you get a clean bill of health," said Tom Kellermann, a former senior member of the World Bank's Treasury security team and now vice president of security awareness for Core Security Technologies, which audited Google's Internet payment processing system.

Merchants that decide to hire an outside auditor to check for compliance with the PCI rules need not spend much. Though some firms generally charge about $60,000 and take months to complete their inspections, others are far cheaper and faster.

"PCI compliance can cost just a couple hundred bucks," said Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security Inc., a Web security firm. "If that's the case, all the incentives are in the wrong direction. The merchants are inclined to go with the cheapest certification they need."

For some inspectors, the certification course takes just one weekend and ends in an open-book exam. Applicants must have five years of computer security experience, but once they are let loose, there's little oversight of their work. Larger stores take it on themselves to provide evidence to auditors that they comply with the rules, leaving the door open for mistakes or fraud.

And retailers with fewer than 6 million annual card transactions — a group comprising more than 99 percent of all retailers — do not even need auditors. They can test and evaluate themselves.

At the same time, the card companies themselves are increasingly hands-off.

Two years ago, Visa scaled back its review of inspection records for the payment processors it works with. It now examines records only for payment processors with computer networks directly connected to Visa's.

In the U.S., that means fewer than 100 payment processors out of the 700 that Visa works with are PCI-compliant.

Visa's head of global data security, Eduardo Perez, said the company scaled back its records review because it took too much work and because the PCI standards have improved the industry's security "considerably."

"I think we've made a lot of progress," he said. "While there have been a few large compromises, there are many more compromises we feel we've helped prevent by driving these minimum requirements."

Representatives for MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB — which, along with Visa, steer PCI policy — either didn't return messages from the AP or directed questions to the PCI security council.

PCI's general manager, Bob Russo, said inspector certification is "rigorous." Yet he also acknowledged that inconsistent audits are a problem — and that merchants and payment processors who suffered data breaches possibly shouldn't have been PCI-certified. Those companies also might have easily fallen out of compliance after their inspection, by not installing the proper security updates, and nobody noticed.

The council is trying to crack down on shoddy work by requiring annual audits for the dozen companies that do the bulk of the PCI inspections. Smaller firms will be examined once every three years.

Those reviews merely scratch the surface, though. Only three full-time staffers are assigned to the task, and they can't visit retailers themselves. They are left to review the paperwork from the examinations.

The AP contacted eight of the biggest "acquiring banks" — the banks that retailers use as middlemen between the stores and consumers' banks. Those banks are responsible for ensuring that retailers are PCI compliant. Most didn't return calls or wouldn't comment for this story.

Mike Herman, compliance managing director for Chase Paymentech, a division of JPMorgan Chase, said his bank has five workers reviewing compliance reports from retailers. Most of the work is done by phone or e-mail.

"We have faith in the certification process, and we really haven't doubted the assessors' work," Herman said. "It's really the merchants that don't engage assessors; those get a little more scrutiny."

He defended the system: "Can you imagine how many breaches we'd have and how severe they'd be if we didn't have PCI?"

Supporters of PCI point out nearly all big and medium-sized retailers governed by the standard now say they no longer store sensitive cardholder data. Just a few years ago they did — leaving credit card numbers in databases that were vulnerable to hackers.

So why are breaches still happening? Because criminals have sharpened their attacks and are now capturing more data as it makes its way from store to bank, when breaches are harder to stop.

Security experts say there are several steps the payment industry could take to make sure customer information doesn't leak out of networks.

Banks could scramble the data that travels over payment networks, so it would be meaningless to anyone not authorized to see it.

For example, TJX Cos., the chain that owns T.J. Maxx and Marshalls and was victimized by a breach that exposed as many as 100 million accounts, the most on record, has tightened its security but says many banks won't accept data in encrypted form.

PCI requires data transmitted across "open, public networks" to be encrypted, but that means hackers with access to a company's internal network still can get at it. Requiring encryption all the time would be expensive and slow transactions.

Another possibility: Some security professionals think the banks and credit card companies should start their own PCI inspection arms to make sure the audits are done properly. Banks say they have stepped up oversight of the inspections, doing their own checks of questionable PCI assessment jobs. But taking control of the whole process is far-fetched: nobody wants the liability.

PCI could also be optional. In its place, some experts suggest setting fines for each piece of sensitive data a retailer loses.

The U.S. might also try a system like Europe's, where shoppers need a secret PIN code and card with a chip inside to complete purchases. The system, called Chip and PIN, has cut down on fraud there (because it's harder to use counterfeit cards), but transferred it elsewhere — to places like the U.S. that don't have as many safeguards.

A key reason PCI exists is that the banks and card brands don't want the government regulating credit card security. These companies also want to be sure transactions keep humming through the system — which is why banks and card companies are willing to put up with some fraud.

"If they did mind, they have immense resources and could really change things," said Ed Skoudis, co-founder of security consultancy InGuardians Inc. and an instructor with the SANS Institute, a computer-security training organization. Skoudis investigates retail breaches in support of government investigations. "But they don't want to strangle the goose that laid the golden egg by making it too hard to accept credit cards, because that's bad for everybody."

Iran Elections

Clashes erupt in Iran over disputed election

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writers Ali Akbar Dareini And Anna Johnson, Associated Press Writers – (06/13/09)

TEHRAN, Iran – Supporters of the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with police and set up barricades of burning tires Saturday as authorities claimed the hard-line president was re-elected in a landslide. The rival candidate said the vote was tainted by widespread fraud and his followers responded with the most serious unrest in the capital in a decade.

By nightfall, cell phone service appeared to have been cut in the capital Tehran. And Ahmadinejad, in a nationally televised victory speech, accused the foreign media of coverage that harms the Iranian people. There was more rioting at night and fires continued to burn on the streets of Tehran.

Several hundred demonstrators — many wearing the trademark green colors of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign — chanted "the government lied to the people" and gathered near the Interior Ministry as the final count from Friday's presidential election was announced.

It gave 62.6 percent of the vote to Ahmadinejad and 33.75 to Mousavi — a former prime minister who has become the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, closed the door on any chance he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the disputes from Friday's election. In a message on state TV, he urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, calling the result a "divine assessment."

Mousavi rejected the result as rigged and urged his supporters to resist a government of "lies and dictatorship."

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," said a statement on Mousavi's Web site. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran's sacred system and governance of lies and dictatorship," it added.

Mousavi warned "people won't respect those who take power through fraud." The headline on one of his Web sites read: "I won't give in to this dangerous manipulation."

Mousavi appealed directly to Khamenei to intervene and stop what he said were violations of the law. Khamenei, who is not elected, holds ultimate political authority in Iran and controls all major policy decisions.

Mousavi and key aides could not be reached by phone.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. hopes the outcome of the election reflects the "genuine will and desire" of the Iranian people. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. administration is paying close attention to reports of alleged election irregularities.

At a joint appearance with Clinton, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his country was "deeply concerned" by reports of irregularities in the election.

The clashes in central Tehran were the more serious disturbances in the capital since student-led protests in 1999. They showed the potential for the showdown to spill over into further violence and challenges to the Islamic establishment.

The demonstrations began Saturday morning shortly before the government announced the final results.

Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.

An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi's headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman's tapes, the station said.

In another main street of Tehran, some 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain and chanted "Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone." There was no word on any casualties from the unrest.

There were also protests by Mousavi supporers in the southern city of Ahvaz in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan who shouted, "Mousavi, take our votes back!" witnesses said.

It was not clear how many Iranians were even aware of Mousavi's claims of fraud. Communications disruptions began in the later hours of voting Friday — suggesting an information clampdown. State television and radio only broadcast the Interior Ministry's vote count and not Mousavi's midnight news conference.

After night fell, Tehran's cell phone network appeared to be down. When users tried to call cell phones, a message appeared on their phones saying "error in connection." There was no immediate comment from Iran's Telecommunications Ministry and it did not appear that cell phones were down throughout the country. Residents in several provinces say their service is working.

Nationwide, the text messaging system remained down Saturday and pro-Mousavi Web sites were blocked or difficult to access. Text messaging is frequently used by many Iranians — especially young Mousavi supporters — to spread election news. It was also difficult to access social networking sites such as Facebook, which Mousavi's campaign used to galvanize supporters.

Ahmadinejad called on the public to respect the vote and attacked the foreign media's coverage.

"All political and propaganda machines abroad and sections inside the country have been mobilized against the nation," he said in a televised addresss. "They have launched the heaviest propaganda and psychological war against the Iranian nation. Many global networks continuously worked, employing very complicated methods, that work against our nation and arranged a full-fledged battle against us."

Without mentioning the unrest on the streets, Ahmadinejad proclaimed that "a new era has begun in the history of the Iranian nation."

"A bright and glorious future is ahead for the Iranian nation. ... I invite everyone to join me in constructing Iran," he said.

Mousavi's campaign headquarters urged people to show restraint.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, who supervised the elections and heads the nation's police forces, warned people not to join any "unauthorized gatherings."

The powerful Revolutionary Guard cautioned Wednesday it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic regime by Mousavi's "green movement." The Revolutionary Guard is directly under the control of the ruling clerics and has vast influence in every corner of the country through a network of volunteer militias.

Police stormed the headquarters of Iran's largest reformist party and arrested several top reformist leaders, said political activists close to the party.

There was no immediate confirmation from authorities of the raid on the party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front. The activists spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Even before the vote counting began, Mousavi declared himself "definitely the winner" based on "all indications from all over Iran." He accused the government of "manipulating the people's vote" to keep Ahmadinejad in power and suggested the reformist camp would stand up to challenge the results.

"It is our duty to defend people's votes. There is no turning back," he said, alleging widespread irregularities.

Mousavi's backers were stunned at the Interior Ministry's claim that Ahmadinejad won after widespread predictions of a close race — or even a slight edge for the reformist candidate.

Turnout was a record 85 percent of the 46.2 million eligible voters.

"Many Iranians went to the people because they wanted to bring change," said Mousavi supporter Nasser Amiri, a hospital clerk in Tehran. "Almost everybody I know voted for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner. The government announcement is nothing but widespread fraud. It is very, very disappointing. I'll never ever again vote in Iran."

At Tehran University — the site of the last major anti-regime unrest in Tehran in 1999 — the academic year was winding down and there was no sign of pro-Mousavi crowds. But university exams, scheduled to begin Saturday, were postponed until next month around the country.

In the capital, several Ahmadinejad supporters cruised the streets waving Iranian flags out of car windows and shouting "Mousavi is dead!"

The election outcome will not sharply alter Iran's main policies or sway major decisions, such as possible talks with Washington or nuclear policies. Those crucial issues rest with the ruling clerics headed by Khamenei.

But the election focused on what the office can influence: boosting Iran's sinking economy, pressing for greater media and political freedoms, and being Iran's main envoy to the world.

Iran does not allow international election monitors. During the 2005 election, when Ahmadinejad won the presidency, there were some allegations of vote rigging from losers, but the claims were never investigated.

___

Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi contributed to this report from Tehran.

Obama

Obama plan to pay for health reform

Josh Gerstein Josh Gerstein – Sat Jun 13, 7:06 am ET (Politico)

President Barack Obama says he's now found savings that will pay almost all the costs of a massive overhaul of America's health care system.

Obama on Saturday is announcing an additional $313 billion in new proposed savings that he says would bring the total funding available for his top-priority health insurance reform to nearly $950 billion over 10 years.

White House officials insisted the new savings were rock-solid, but also acknowledged they had yet to settle on a specific mechanism to achieve lower prescription drug costs that make up nearly one-quarter of the new savings.

“Any honest accounting must prepare for the fact that health care reform will require additional costs in the short term in order to reduce spending in the long term,” Obama says in his weekly radio and Internet address. “Today, I am announcing an additional $313 billion in savings that will rein in unnecessary spending, and increase efficiency and the quality of care.”

The new proposals from Obama came as the drive for health care reform reaches a pivotal juncture in Congress. On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to receive Congressional Budget Office estimates on a slew of health-care options. On Wednesday, the committee is expected to unveil proposed legislation.

In advance of those milestones, the White House was moving aggressively to counter public criticism that funding plans for the health reform effort are unrealistic, particularly in the face of an expected 10-year pricetag of $1 trillion or more. Some analysts have faulted the White House for being overly optimistic about savings and tone-deaf to which tax-raising proposals are likely to fly in Congress.

In his address Saturday, Obama refers to a 10-year total of more than $600 billion in “savings” for health care. However, he does not explain in his latest comments that, under his revised budget released last month, $326 billion of that amount would come from tax hikes on Americans making over $250,000 a year, “loophole closers,” and higher fees for some government services.

In a conference call with reporters Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said the latest announcement signaled that the White House had met its obligation to identify funding sources for a broad-based effort to make health insurance more affordable and more widely available.

“We are making good on this promise to fully finance health care reform over the next decade,” Orszag declared.

//

The bulk of the new $313 billion in savings would come from cutting or reducing the growth of payments to hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers and laboratories — though the major cuts don't target doctors, Orszag said.

Over the next decade, $110 billion is slated to come from reducing reimbursements to take account of what Orszag described as the ability of providers to improve their efficiency. “Health care services should be able to achieve and do achieve productivity improvements over time,” he said. According to a fact sheet released by the White House, future increases in such Medicare payments would be reduced based on an assumption that health care providers achieve half the productivity increases seen elsewhere in the economy. The budget official said the reductions would take place even if providers failed to garner the projected efficiencies.

Another $106 billion would come from cuts in so-called disproportionate share payments the federal government makes to hospitals with large numbers of uninsured patients. “As the ranks of uninsured decline under health reform, those payments become less necessary,” Orszag said.

About $75 billion is slated to come from lower payments for prescription drugs. However, Orszag said the White House was “in discussions with stakeholders over the best way of achieving that $75 billion.”

Notwithstanding that ambiguity, Orszag asserted that the White House had put forward $950 billion in budgetary offsets that could be use to fund health reform. He called the proposals "hard" and "scoreable," meaning that they were sufficiently certain and specific to pass muster with CBO officials who formally tally the cost of budget items.

Asked about the discrepancy, Orszag said, “There’s been continuous skepticism that we will come forward with detail….The detail on the $75 billion for prescription drugs will be forthcoming in the very near future and I will rest my reputation as a former CBO director on the fact that there are multiple ways in which those savings can be achieved and we are committed to achieving that level of savings in this package.”

There were signs that the announcement of the additional $313 billion of savings may have been rushed. In addition to the vagueness about the $75 billion in lower drug costs, the White House’s health care reform coordinator, Nancy-Ann DeParle, did not join a conference call with reporters to announce the new proposals. Her presence had been advertised in advance, but a spokesman said she was in another meeting and could not participate.

The cuts and savings are likely to engender warnings from providers that de-facto rationing will occur as patients in some areas find themselves unable to find providers willing to perform lab tests, X-rays and the like, due to the lower reimbursement rates.

Hospitals are also likely to protest that the disproportionate share payments, which are targeted for cuts of 75 percent, are vital to maintaining hospitals in costly urban centers, and to keeping teaching hospitals viable.

“It is unlikely to be an exact match on a hospital-by-hospital basis but what we believe will occur is that the remaining DSH payments that will still exist can be better targeted to the hospitals most in need,” Orszag said.

Obama

Text of Obama's speech to Muslims

By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Thu Jun 4, 2009 3:58 pm ET

Text of President Barack Obama's speech at Cairo University, as provided by CQ Transcriptions.

___

Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, al-Azhar has, had stood as a beacon of Islamic learning. And for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress.

I'm grateful for your hospitality and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the good will of the American people and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalamu Alaikum.

(APPLAUSE)

We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world, tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation but also conflict and religious wars.

More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims and a Cold War in which Muslim majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries but also to human rights.

All this has bred more fear and more mistrust. So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap and share common principles, principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. I know there's been a lot of publicity about this speech, but no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust nor can I answer in the time that I have this afternoon all the complex questions that brought us to this point.

But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect one another, and to seek common ground.

As the holy Quran tells us: "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth."

(APPLAUSE)

That is what I will try to do today, to speak the truth as best I can. Humbled by the task before us and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Now, part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I'm a Christian. But my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk.

As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith. As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam at places like al-Azhar that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities...

(APPLAUSE)

It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra, our magnetic compass and tools of navigation, our mastery of pens and printing, our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires, timeless poetry and cherished music, elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

(APPLAUSE)

I also know that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second president, John Adams, wrote:

"The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars. They have served in our government. They have stood for civil rights. They have started businesses. They have taught at our universities. They've excelled in our sports arenas. They've won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building and lit the Olympic torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same holy Quran that one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, kept in his personal library.

(APPLAUSE)

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

(APPLAUSE)

But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as...

(APPLAUSE)

Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire.

We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal. And we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words, within our borders and around the world.

We are shaped by every culture. Drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept, E pluribus unum: Out of many, one.

Now much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president.

(APPLAUSE)

But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores. And that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average.

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.

So let there be no doubt...

(APPLAUSE)

... let there be no doubt, Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations: to live in peace and security, to get an education and to work with dignity, to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead. And if we understand that the challenges we face are shared and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations.

When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. When innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience.

(APPLAUSE)

That is what it means to share this world in the 21st Century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings. This is a difficult responsibility to embrace, for human history has often been a record of nations and tribes, and, yes, religions subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests.

Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership, our progress must be shared.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, that does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite. We must face these tensions squarely. And so, in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together.

The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all its forms. In Ankara, I made clear that America is not and never will be at war with Islam.

(APPLAUSE)

We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject, the killing of innocent men, women and children. And it is my first duty as president to protect the American people.

The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al-Qaida and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice. We went because of necessity. I'm aware that there's still some who would question or even justify the offense of 9/11. But let us be clear. Al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on that day.

The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al-Qaida chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach.

These are not opinions to be debated. These are facts to be dealt with. Make no mistake, we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We see no military — we seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict.

We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

And that's why we're partnering with a coalition of 46 countries. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths but, more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam.

The holy Quran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as — it is as it if has killed all mankind.

(APPLAUSE)

And the holy Quran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

(APPLAUSE)

The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism; it is an important part of promoting peace.

Now, we also know that military power alone is not going solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who've been displaced.

That's why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend on.

Now, let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.

(APPLAUSE)

Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be."

Today America has a dual responsibility to help Iraq forge a better future and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people...

(APPLAUSE)

I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no basis and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own. And that's why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July and to remove all of our troops from Iraq by 2012.

(APPLAUSE)

We will help Iraq train its security forces and develop its economy. But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner and never as a patron.

And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable. But in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals.

We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States. And I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.

(APPLAUSE)

So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities, which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.

Now, the second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world. America's strong bonds with Israel are well-known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries. And anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich.

Six million Jews were killed, more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless. It is ignorant, and it is hateful.

Threatening Israel with destruction or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews is deeply wrong and only serves to evoke in the minds of the Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians, have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years, they've endured the pain of dislocation.

Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.

So let there be no doubt, the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.

(APPLAUSE)

For decades, then, there has been a stalemate. Two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It's easy to point fingers.

For Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel's founding and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history, from within its borders as well as beyond.

But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth. The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

(APPLAUSE)

That is in Israel's interests, Palestine's interests, America's interests and the world's interests. And that's why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all of the patience and dedication that the task requires.

The obligations — the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them and all of us to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding.

This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia, to Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed, that's how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern with institutions that serve the needs of its people.

Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities, to play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.

(APPLAUSE)

This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

(APPLAUSE)

And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society. Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security, neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank.

Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace. And Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

And, finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibility. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel's legitimacy and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.

We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state.

It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true. Too many tears have been shed, too much blood has been shed.

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians could, can see their children grow up without fear, when the holy land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be, when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed — peace be upon them — joined in prayer.

(APPLAUSE)

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons. This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself, in part, by its opposition to my country. And there is, in fact, a tumultuous history between us.

In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known.

Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question now is not what Iran is against but, rather, what future it wants to build.

I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve. There will be many issues to discussion between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.

But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests.

It's about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

Now, I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nations should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that's why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.

(APPLAUSE)

And any nation, including Iran, should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the treaty. And it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.

(APPLAUSE)

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years. And much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear. No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other. That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people.

Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.

But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed, confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people, the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas. They are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, there is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear. Governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments, provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they're out of power. Once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others.

(APPLAUSE)

So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power. You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion. You must respect the rights of minorities and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise. You must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party.

Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

(AUDIENCE MEMBER SHOUTS)

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom. Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia where devout Christians worshipped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind and the heart and the soul.

This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive. But it's being challenged in many different ways. Among some Muslims, there's a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of somebody else's faith.

The richness of religious diversity must be upheld, whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt.

(APPLAUSE)

And if we are being honest, fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which people protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation.

That's why I'm committed to work with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat. Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit, for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.

We can't disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism. In fact, faith should bring us together. And that's why we're forging service projects in America to bring together Christians, Muslims and Jews.

That's why we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations.

Around the world, we can turn dialogue into interfaith service so bridges between peoples lead to action, whether it is combating malaria in Africa or providing relief after a natural disaster.

The sixth issue — the sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

(APPLAUSE)

I know, and you can tell from this audience, that there is a healthy debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal. But I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality.

(APPLAUSE)

And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

Now let me be clear, issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, we've seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead.

Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life and in countries around the world. I am convinced that our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons.

(APPLAUSE)

Our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity, men and women, to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal. And I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice.

That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.

(APPLAUSE)

Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity. I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence into the home.

Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities but also huge disruptions and change in communities. In all nations, including America, this change can bring fear; fear that, because of modernity, we lose control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly, our identities, those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions and our faith.

But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradictions between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies enormously while maintaining distinct cultures. The same is true for the astonishing progress within Muslim majority countries from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai.

In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education. And this is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work.

Many Gulf States have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century. And in too...

(APPLAUSE)

And in too many Muslim communities, there remains underinvestment in these areas. I am emphasizing such investment within my own country. And while America, in the past, has focused on oil and gas when it comes to this part of the world, we new seek a broader engagement.

On education, we will expand change programs and increase scholarships like the one that brought my father to America.

(APPLAUSE)

At the same time, we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America, invest in online learning for teachers and children around the world and create a new, online network so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo.

On economic development, we will create a new core of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim majority countries. And I will host a summit on entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim majority country and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create more jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia and appoint new science envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, grow new crops.

Today, I'm announcing a new global effort with the organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.

All these things must be done in partnership. Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments, community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.

The issues that I have described will not be easy to address, but we have a responsibility to join together to behalf of the world that we seek, a world where extremists no longer threaten our people and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes, a world where governments serve their citizens and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together. I know there are many, Muslim and non-Muslim, who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort, that we are fated to disagree and civilizations are doomed to clash.

Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust that has built up over the years. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith in every country. You more than anyone have the ability to reimagine the world, the remake this world.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart or whether we commit ourselves to an effort, a sustained effort to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It's easier to start wars than to end them. It's easier to blame others than to look inward. It's easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is one rule that lies at the heart of every religion, that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

(APPLAUSE)

This truth transcends nations and peoples, a belief that isn't new, that isn't black or white or brown, that isn't Christian or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world. It's a faith in other people. And it's what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written. The holy Quran tells us: "Mankind, we have created you male and a female. And we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The holy Bible tells us: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

(APPLAUSE)

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

END

North Korea & The US

N. Korea sentences US reporters to 12 years labor

By VIJAY JOSHI, Associated Press Writer Vijay Joshi, Associated Press Writer – 06/08/09

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea convicted two American journalists and sentenced them Monday to 12 years of hard labor for crossing into its territory, intensifying the reclusive nation's confrontation with the United States.

The Obama administration said it would pursue "all possible channels" to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV media venture.

There are fears Pyongyang is using the women as bargaining chips as the U.N. debates a new resolution to punish the country for its defiant May 25 atomic test and as North Korea seeks to draw Washington into direct negotiations.

Washington's former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson called the sentencing part of "a high-stakes poker game" being played by North Korea. He said on NBC's Today show that he thinks negotiations for their "humanitarian release" can begin now that the legal process has been completed. Other South Korean analysts also said they expect the two to be freed following negotiations.

The journalists were found guilty of committing a "grave crime" against North Korea and of illegally entering the country, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

North Korean guards arrested Ling and Lee near the China-North Korean border on March 17. The two were reporting about the trafficking of North Korean women at the time of their arrest, and it's unclear if they strayed into the North or were grabbed by aggressive border guards who crossed into China. A cameraman and their local guide escaped.

The Central Court in Pyongyang sentenced each to 12 years of "reform through labor" in a North Korean prison after a five-day trial, KCNA said in a terse, two-line report that provided no further details. A Korean-language version said they were convicted of "hostility toward the Korean people."

The ruling — nearly three months after their arrest on March 17 — comes amid soaring tensions fueled by North Korea's nuclear test last month and signs it is preparing for a long-range missile test. On Monday, North Korea warned fishing boats to stay away from the east coast, Japan's coast guard said, raising concerns more missile tests are being planned.

Over the weekend, President Barack Obama used strong language on North Korea's nuclear stance and said his administration did not intend "to continue a policy of rewarding provocation."

Verdicts issued by North Korea's highest court are final and cannot be appealed, said Choi Eun-suk, a North Korean law expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at South Korea's Kyungnam University. He said North Korea's penal code calls for transferring them to prison within 10 days.

The United States, which does not have diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, was "deeply concerned" about the reported verdict, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington. He said officials would "engage in all possible channels" to win the reporters' release.

At the White House on Monday, deputy spokesman William Burton said in a statement: "The president is deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release."

Ling's father Doug spoke briefly to The Associated Press at his home outside Sacramento, California, saying the family was "going to keep a low-profile until we hear something better about the situation," he said.

The family of Lee had no immediate comment, spokeswoman Alanna Zahn said from New York. Gore also had no comment, spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said.

Lee, 36, is Korean-American and speaks Korean, but it is not clear how well. She lives in California with her husband and 4-year-old daughter Hannah. Ling, 32, is Chinese-American and a native of California. Her sister is National Geographic "Explorer" TV journalist Lisa Ling.

Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the 12-year sentence — the maximum allowed under North Korean law — may have been a reaction to recent "hard-line" threats by the U.S., including possible sanctions and putting North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But he predicted the journalists' eventual release following diplomatic negotiations.

"The sentence doesn't mean much because the issue will be resolved diplomatically in the end," Kim said.

Just weeks after arresting the women, North Korea launched a multistage rocket over Japan in defiance of international calls for restraint. The U.S. and others called the launch a cover for a long-range missile test, and the U.N. Security Council condemned the move.

The U.N. censure enraged Pyongyang. North Korea abandoned nuclear disarmament talks, threatened to restart its atomic program and vowed to conduct nuclear and long-range missile tests if the Security Council failed to apologize.

The North followed through with its threat and staged its second-ever underground nuclear test. U.S. officials say the North appears to be preparing another long-range missile test at a west coast launch pad.

Some analysts called the arrest of the Americans a timely "bonanza" for Pyongyang as the impoverished regime prepares to negotiate for aid and other concessions to resolve the tense standoff over its nuclear defiance.

"North Korea refused to release them ahead of a court ruling because such a move could be seen as capitulating to the United States," said Hajime Izumi, professor of international relations and an expert on North Korea at the University of Shizuoka in Japan.

But now, "North Korea may release them on humanitarian grounds and demand the U.S. provide humanitarian aid in return," he said. "North Korea will certainly use the reporters as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States."

Their release could come through a post-negotiation political pardon, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies.

Asked whether U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had a reaction to the sentencing, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said: "We are concerned about the harsh sentencing of the two reporters and their well-being. We hope that the governments concerned expeditiously resolve the matter."

Ban was South Korea's foreign minister before his selection as U.N. chief.

The sentence is "a terrible shock for all those who have repeatedly insisted on their innocence," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement, noting that North Korea is ranked as Asia's worst country for press freedom.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists urged South Korea, Japan, Russia and the U.S., the five countries involved in the stalled disarmament talks with North Korea, to work for the journalists' release."

The sentencing comes a month after Iran released Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who had been sentenced to eight years in prison for on a charge of spying for the United States. An appeals court reduced that to a two-year suspended sentence and she was freed May 11.

Little is known about prison conditions in North Korea. But Rev. Chun Ki-won, a South Korean missionary who helped arrange the journalists' trip to China, said inmates in North Korean labor camps frequently face beatings and other inhumane treatment while being forced to engage in harsh labor such as logging and construction work.

Chun, however, predicted the North would send the journalists to a labor camp.

___

Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang and William Foreman in Seoul, Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Judy Lin in Carmichael, California, contributed to this report.

War Spending

APNewsBreak: Major problems found in war spending

By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer Richard Lardner, Associated Press Writer – June 7, 2009

WASHINGTON – This is one Christmas gift U.S. taxpayers don't need. Construction of a $30 million dining facility at a U.S. base in Iraq is scheduled to be completed Dec. 25. But the decision to build it was based on bad planning and botched paperwork.

The project is too far along to stop, making the mess hall a future monument to the waste and inefficiency plaguing the war effort, according to an independent panel investigating contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In its first report to Congress, the Wartime Contracting Commission presents a bleak assessment of how tens of billions of dollars have been spent since 2001. The 111-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, documents poor management, weak oversight, and a failure to learn from past mistakes as recurring themes in wartime contracting.

The report is scheduled to be made public Wednesday at a hearing held by the House Oversight and Government Reform's national security subcommittee.

U.S. reliance on contractors has grown to "unprecedented proportions," says the bipartisan commission, established by Congress last year. More than 240,000 private sector employees are supporting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands more work for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

But the government has no central data base of who all these contractors are, what services they provide, and how much they're paid. The Pentagon has failed to provide enough trained staff to watch over them, creating conditions for waste and corruption, the commission says.

In Iraq, the panel worries that as U.S. troops depart in larger numbers, there will be too few government eyes on the contractors left to oversee the closing of hundreds of bases and disposal of mountains of federal property.

At Rustamiyah, a seven-acre forward operating base turned over to the Iraqis in March, the military population plunged from 1,490 to 62 in just three months. During the same period, the contractor population dropped from 928 to 338, leaving more than five contractors for every service member.

In Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama has ordered a large increase of U.S. troops, existing bases will have to expand and new ones will be built — without proper oversight unless the Pentagon rapidly changes course.

One commander in Afghanistan told the commission he had no idea how many contractors were on and off his base on a daily basis. Another officer said he had property all over his installation but didn't know who owned it or what kind of shape it was in.

There are questionable construction projects in Afghanistan, too. The commission visited the New Kabul Compound, a building intended to serve as headquarters for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But members saw cracks in the structure, broken and leaking pipes, sinking sidewalks and other defects.

"The Army should not have accepted a building in such condition," the report says.

The commission cites concerns with a massive support contract known as "LOGCAP" that provides troops with essential services, including housing, meals, mail delivery and laundry.

Despite the huge size and importance of the contract, the main program office managing the work for both Afghanistan and Iraq has only 13 government employees. For administrative help, it must rely on a contractor.

KBR Inc., the primary LOGCAP contractor in Iraq, has been paid nearly $32 billion since 2001. The commission says billions of dollars of that amount ended up wasted due to poorly defined work orders, inadequate oversight and contractor inefficiencies.

In one example, defense auditors challenged KBR after it billed the government for $100 million in costs for private security even though the contract prohibited the use of for-hire guards.

KBR has defended its performance and criticized the commission for making "biased" statements against the company.

"As we look back on what we've done, we're real proud of being able to go into a war theater like that as a private contractor and support 200,000 troops," William P. Utt, chairman of the Houston-based KBR, said in May interview with AP reporters and editors.

KBR is also linked to the dining hall construction snafu, although the commission faults the military's planning and not the contractor. With American forces scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, the U.S. will use the new facility for two years at most.

In July 2008, the Army said a new dining facility was badly needed at the Camp Delta forward operating base because the existing one was too small, had a saggy ceiling, poor lighting and an unsanitary wooden floor.

KBR was awarded a contract in September. Work began in late October as American and Iraqi officials were negotiating the agreement setting the dates for the U.S. troop withdrawal

But during an April visit to Camp Delta, the commission learned that the existing mess hall had just been renovated. The $3.36 million job was done by KBR and completed in June 2008. Commission staff toured the renovated hall "without seeing or hearing of any problems or shortfalls," the report says.

The decision to push ahead with the new hall was based on paperwork that was never updated and a failure to review the need for the project after the security agreement was signed. Most of the materials have been ordered and construction is well under way. That means canceling the project would save little money because KBR would have a legitimate claim for payment based on the investment it has already made.

The commission urges commanders in Iraq to review thoroughly all ongoing construction and improvement projects and only continue those essential to the life, health and safety of U.S. troops.

___

On the Net:

Wartime Contracting Commission:

Wal-Mart Jobs

Wal-Mart says it will create 22,000 jobs in 2009

BENTONVILLE, Ark. – As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opens about 150 new or expanded stores in the U.S. in 2009, the company expects to hire about 22,000 people for new positions.

Those positions include plenty of cashiers and stock clerks, but the world's largest retailer will also be adding store managers, pharmacists and personnel workers.

Wal-Mart is holding its annual shareholders meeting on Friday, and employees from its stores around the world are spending the week in Bentonville at company headquarters.

Wal-Mart, still the target of criticism from union-backed groups for its pay and benefits, has improved its health insurance coverage and opened it to full- and part-time employees. The company says 94 percent of its employees have health coverage, either through Wal-Mart or another family member.

"At Wal-Mart, we offer competitive pay and benefits and real opportunities for our associates to advance and build careers," Wal-Mart Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said. "Job creation is just one way in which we're working hard every day to help people across this country live better."

Other employee benefits include a 401(k) plan, stock purchases and discounts for workers making in-store purchases.

The company has touted its generic drugs program in which Wal-Mart is selling $4 prescriptions for many popular medicines. Competitors, such as Kroger Co., have matched the price for some prescriptions.

"During this difficult economic time, we're proud to be able to create quality jobs for thousands of Americans this year," Castro-Wright said.

Earlier this year, the company shared more than $2 billion with its workers through bonuses, profit sharing and payments into the company 401(k) plan.

Wal-Mart has more than 2.1 million employees in the U.S. and abroad. The company had sales last fiscal year of $401 billion.

___

On the Net:

Wal-Mart corporate site:

Wal-Mart Job Center can be found here:

Jobless Claims

Initial jobless claims drop unexpectedly

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber, Ap Economics Writer – 05/28/2009

WASHINGTON – The tally of newly laid-off people requesting jobless benefits fell last week, the government said Thursday, a sign that companies are cutting fewer workers.

But the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to 6.78 million — the largest total on records dating back to 1967 and the 17th straight record week. The figures for continuing claims lag behind initial claims by one week.

The Labor Department said the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to a seasonally adjusted 623,000, from a revised figure of 636,000 in the previous week. It was below analysts' estimates of 635,000.

In a separate report, the government said demand for big-ticket manufactured goods soared by the largest amount in 16 months in April, the second increase in the past three months. New orders have risen in two of the past three months, which may be signaling that the deep recession in manufacturing is bottoming out.

The government also said new U.S. home sales were almost flat last month, indicating the housing market's recovery will likely be slow and gradual. And an industry report said a record 12 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were behind on their payments or in foreclosure.

Stocks gave up early gains after the two disappointing housing reports. The Dow Jones industrial average fell about 35 points.

Auto-related layoffs elevated the jobless claims numbers in recent weeks, but a Labor Department analyst said no states said their claims figures were affected by job cuts in that sector last week.

The four-week average of initial jobless claims, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped slightly to 626,750. That figure is about 30,000 below the peak for the recession reached in early April. Some economists say the drop is a sign the recession is bottoming out. Jobless claims reflect the number of job cuts by companies.

Still, claims remain far above levels in a healthier economy. Weekly initial claims were 378,000 a year ago.

And the relentless rise in continuing claims for jobless benefit means the unemployment rate, which reached 8.9 percent in April, will rise in May, economists said. Many economists expect the rate to approach 10 percent by the end of this year.

Even if layoffs are slowing, jobs remain scarce. A net total of more than 5.7 million jobs have been lost since the recession — the longest since World War II — began in December 2007.

More job cuts have been announced in the past week. Cleveland-based bank KeyCorp said it will cut 300 jobs during the second quarter, while Japanese camera maker Nikon Corp. said it will lay off 1,000 workers, including some in the United States.

Among the states, California reported the largest increase in claims of 5,447, which it attributed to layoffs in the construction, trade, and service industries. State data also lags initial claims data by a week.

The next largest increases were in North Carolina, Georgia, Washington and Florida.

Michigan reported the largest decrease in claims, a drop of 9,758, which it said was due to fewer layoffs in the auto industry. The next largest decreases were in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

North Korea Incompliant

N. Korea threatens to attack US, S. Korea warships

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer 05/27/09

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas' disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime's underground nuclear test.

Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul's decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called the move tantamount to a declaration of war.

"Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots," North Korea is "compelled to take a decisive measure," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.

The North Korean army called it a violation of the armistice the two Koreas signed in 1953 to end their three-year war, and said it would no longer honor the treaty.

South Korea's military said Wednesday it was prepared to "respond sternly" to any North Korean provocation.

North Korea's latest belligerence comes as the U.N. Security Council debates how to punish the regime for testing a nuclear bomb Monday in what President Barack Obama called a "blatant violation" of international law.

Ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — as well as Japan and South Korea were working out the details of a new resolution.

The success of any new sanctions would depend on how aggressively China, one of North Korea's only allies, implements them.

"It's not going too far to say that China holds the keys on sanctions," said Kim Sung-han, an international relations professor at Seoul's Korea University.

South Korea, divided from the North by a heavily fortified border, had responded to the nuclear test by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led network of nations seeking to stop ships from transporting the materials used in nuclear bombs.

Seoul previously resisted joining the PSI in favor of seeking reconciliation with Pyongyang, but pushed those efforts aside Monday after the nuclear test in the northeast.

North Korea warned Wednesday that any attempt to stop, board or inspect its ships would constitute a "grave violation."

The regime also said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the Korea's western maritime border.

"They should bear in mind that the (North) has tremendous military muscle and its own method of strike able to conquer any targets in its vicinity at one stroke or hit the U.S. on the raw, if necessary," the army said in a statement carried by state media.

The maritime border has long been a flashpoint between the two Koreas. North Korea disputes the line unilaterally drawn by the United Nations at the end of the Koreas' three-year war in 1953, and has demanded it be redrawn further south.

The truce signed in 1953 and subsequent military agreements call for both sides to refrain from warfare, but doesn't cover the waters off the west coast.

North Korea has used the maritime border dispute to provoke two deadly naval skirmishes — in 1999 and 2002.

On Wednesday, the regime promised "unimaginable and merciless punishment" for anyone daring to challenge its ships.

Pyongyang also reportedly restarted its weapons-grade nuclear plant, South Korean media said.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper said U.S. spy satellites detected signs of steam at the North's Yongbyon nuclear complex, an indication it may have started reprocessing nuclear fuel. The report, which could not be confirmed, quoted an unidentified government official. South Korea's Yonhap news agency also carried a similar report.

The move would be a major setback for efforts aimed at getting North Korea to disarm.

North Korea had stopped reprocessing fuel rods as part of an international deal. In 2007, it agreed to disable the Yongbyon reactor in exchange for aid and demolished a cooling tower at the complex.

The North has about 8,000 spent fuel rods which, if reprocessed, could allow it to harvest 13 to 18 pounds (six to eight kilograms) of plutonium — enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts said. North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least a half dozen atomic bombs.

Further ratcheting up tensions, North Korea test-fired five short-range missiles over the past two days, South Korean officials confirmed.

Russia's foreign minister said world powers must be firm with North Korea but take care to avoid inflaming tensions further.

The world "must not rush to punish North Korea just for punishment's sake," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that Russia wants a Security Council resolution that will help restart stalled six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear programs and will not provoke Pyongyang into even more aggressive activity.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged officials to "remain calm" in the face of North Korean threats, said Lee Dong-kwan, his spokesman.

Pyongyang isn't afraid of any repercussions for its actions, a North Korean newspaper, the Minju Joson, said Wednesday.

"It is a laughable delusion for the United States to think that it can get us to kneel with sanctions," it said in an editorial. "We've been living under U.S. sanctions for decades, but have firmly safeguarded our ideology and system while moving our achievements forward. The U.S. sanctions policy toward North Korea is like striking a rock with a rotten egg."

___

Associated Press writer Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Recession Ends

Survey: Most economists see recession end in '09

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer – Wed May 27, 10:34 am ET

WASHINGTON – More than 90 percent of economists predict the recession will end this year, although the recovery is likely to be bumpy.

That assessment came from leading forecasters in a survey by the National Association for Business Economics released Wednesday. It is generally in line with the outlook from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues.

About 74 percent of the forecasters expect the recession — which started in December 2007 and is the longest since World War II — to end in the third quarter. Another 19 percent predict the turning point will come in the final three months of this year, and the remaining 7 percent believe the recession will end in the first quarter of 2010.

"While the overall tone remains soft, there are emerging signs that the economy is stabilizing," said NABE president Chris Varvares, head of Macroeconomic Advisers. "The economic recovery is likely to be considerably more moderate than those typically experienced following steep declines."

One of the major forces that plunged the economy into a recession was the financial crisis that struck with force last fall and was the worst since the 1930s. Economists say recoveries after financial crises tend to be slower.

Against that backdrop, unemployment will climb this year even if the economy is rebounding, the NABE forecasters predict. Companies won't be in a rush to hire until they feel certain any recovery is firmly rooted.

For all of this year, the forecasters said the unemployment rate should average 9.1 percent, a big jump from 5.8 percent last year and up from its current quarter-century peak of 8.9 percent. If NABE forecasters are right, it would be the highest since a 9.6 percent rate in 1983, when the country was struggling to recover from a severe recession.

Some forecasters thought the unemployment rate could rise as high as 10.7 percent in the second quarter of next year. The NABE outlook from 45 economists was conducted April 27 through May 11.

General Motors Corp., chemical company DuPont and Clear Channel Communications Inc. were among the companies announcing mass layoffs during the survey period.

With joblessness rising, consumers — major shapers of overall economic activity — likely will stay cautious, making for a tepid turnaround. And given the big bite the recession has taken out of household wealth, notably the values of homes and investment portfolios, consumers probably will stay subdued for some time.

Seventy-one percent of the forecasters believe a more-thrifty consumer will be around for at least the next five years. Americans' personal savings rate edged up to 4.2 percent in March, marking the first time in a decade that the savings rate has been above 4 percent for three straight months.

Even as the NABE forecasters believe the country will emerge from recession later this year, they also predict the economy's overall performance in 2009 will be rotten.

The economy should contract by 2.8 percent this year, the forecasters said in updated projections. That's worse than the 1.9 percent drop they forecast in late February. If they are right, it would mark the worst annual contraction since 1946, when economic activity fell by 11 percent.

Still, the forecasters believe the worst is already behind the country in terms of lost economic activity.

The economy shrank at a 6.1 percent annualized pace in the first three months of this year, on top of a 6.3 percent decline in the final three months of last year, the worst six-month performance in 50 years.

For the current April-June quarter, the NABE forecasters believe the economy will shrink at a pace of 1.8 percent. After that, the economy should start growing again — at a 0.7 percent pace in the third quarter and a 1.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

NABE's growth projections for the third and fourth quarters are lower than those made in late February. The downgrade was based on the expectation that businesses, whose profits and sales were hit hard by the recession, will remain wary of ramping up investment.

President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package of increased government spending and tax cuts, near-zero interest rates ordered by the Fed and government programs to get banks to lend more freely again all factor into the expected economic revival.

Many forecasters also predict that home sales will hit bottom by the middle of this year, another stabilizing factor for the economy.

In an encouraging sign, sales of previously owned home rose 2.9 percent in April as buyers snapped up bargains, the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. The median sales price sank to $170,200, a 15.4 percent drop from a year ago. Data on new-home sales is due Thursday.

Next year, the economy should grow by 2 percent, the forecasters said. That was lower than the 2.4 percent growth projected in February.

With a lethargic recovery expected, forecasters predict the Fed won't start boosting interest rates until the second quarter of next year.

Because Fed policymakers expect credit and financial problems to ebb slowly, "the pace of the recovery would continue to be damped in 2010," they said last week.

Credit Card Bill

Senate passes credit card bill

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted on Tuesday to prohibit credit card companies from arbitrarily raising a person's interest rate and charging many of the exorbitant fees that have become customary — and crippling — to cash-strapped consumers.

The overwhelming bipartisan vote of 90-5 was lawmakers' way of telling Americans that they haven't been forgotten amid a recession that has left hundreds of thousands jobless or facing foreclosure.

With the House on track to endorse the measure by week's end, President Barack Obama could see a bill on his desk by the end of the week.

"We've got too many hard-working families in Massachusetts struggling to keep their heads above water, and the last thing they need is to get whacked with unfair credit card fees," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

If enacted into law as expected, the credit card industry would have nine months to change the way it does business: Lenders would have to post their credit card agreements on the Internet and let customers pay their bills online or by phone for free. They'd also have to give consumers a chance to spare themselves from over-the-limit fees and provide 45 days notice and an explanation before interest rates are increased.

Some of these reforms are already on track to take effect in July 2010, under new rules by the Federal Reserve. But the Senate bill would put the changes into law and go further in restricting the types of bank fees and who can get a card.

For example, the Senate bill requires anyone under 21 seeking a credit card to prove first that they can repay the money or that a parent or guardian is willing to pay off their debt if they default.

Obama

Obama pledges protections for credit-card users

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says he will push for a law to provide "strong and reliable" protections for the millions of Americans who have credit cards.

The president on Thursday outlined his priorities after meeting with chief executives of the credit-card lending industry.

Obama said he wants legislation that will prevent consumers from facing a sudden, surprising rise in fees. He said credit-card companies must publish their forms in plainspoken language. The president said companies must make it easier for people to do comparison shopping and said there must be greater enforcement so that violators feel the "full weight" of the law.

Both the House and Senate are working on versions of such a law.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is pushing to rein in costs for millions of Americans who use credit cards, an appeal to consumers as many struggle to pay their bills.

But the banking industry is warning that Obama's push for legislation could backfire, restricting lenders and making less credit available to Americans during the economic crisis.

Obama was meeting with leaders of the credit-card industry Thursday, a session the White House said would be an "open and productive conversation."

"The president believes new rules of the road for the credit card industry are needed," Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said ahead of the president's planned session at the White House with executives from the nation's top credit-card companies.

Obama and some congressional leaders are particularly focused on what they consider to be abusive and deceptive practices that squeeze people into paying much higher fees or interest rates than anticipated. Both the House and Senate are considering a credit card "bill of rights" to limit the ability of credit-card companies to raise interest rates on existing balances and to require greater disclosure.

At issue is how to protect consumers, particularly in a severe economic downturn, while not imposing the kind of rules that could make it harder for banks to offer credit or that put credit out of reach for many borrowers. Industry advocates are wary of those consequences and hopeful Obama will listen.

Kenneth Clayton, senior vice president for card policy at the Americans Bankers Association, said the concern is that new legislation may make economic matters even worse by shrinking lenders' ability, resulting in "less credit available to vast numbers of Americans" at just the wrong time.

The Federal Reserve has already ordered new rules, to take effect in July 2010, that are designed to enforce a host of new consumer protections.

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Finance Committee, and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Banking Committee, wrote a letter asking the Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the National Credit Union Administration to use their emergency powers and put next year's planned rules in place immediately.

"Congress is working on legislation to strengthen these rules and provide additional protections for consumers," the senators wrote. "As Congress works to pass this legislation, and before your rules become effective, issuers continue to operate using unfair and deceptive acts and practices."

Almost 80 percent of American households have credit cards. The average outstanding credit card debt for households that have a credit card was $10,679 at the end of 2008, according to , an online marketplace designed to link consumers and card issuers.

The White House says Obama is aware of the importance that credit cards hold in many families, particularly as a last option during hard times.

White House economic adviser Larry Summers said over the weekend that the administration wants to curb pitches that addict people to plastic.

"Individuals are going to have to save more. That's why savings incentives are so important," he said. "That's why we need to do things to stop the marketing of credit in ways that addicts people to it and so that our households are again saving and families are again preparing to send their kids to college."

Obama

Credit companies brace for W.H. visit

Lisa Lerer, Victoria McGrane Lisa Lerer, Victoria Mcgrane – Thu Apr 23, 5:18 am ET

Last fall, a group of credit card companies asked Lawrence Summers for a sit-down, with the goal of “educating” the incoming Obama administration about their much-maligned industry.

Now it looks like they’ll be the ones getting schooled.

The CEOs from Visa, Mastercard, American Express and the credit card divisions at about a dozen of the largest banks will get their meeting Thursday, but it will be at the White House, and President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will join Summers as not-so-happy hosts.

On the Sunday show circuit last weekend, Summers made it clear that the administration wants to talk with the companies about high fees and predatory lending practices.

“If you are the chairman of Citibank, you don’t want your card guy going in there, because you know, having been there, that the companies will get the s—- beat out of them by the president and Summers,” a Republican credit card lobbyist told POLITICO. “You don’t meet with the president to talk about substance. You do that with lower-level guys at the Fed or Treasury — not with Geithner and Summers.”

The meeting is particularly ill-timed for the card industry. On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee approved legislation cracking down on credit card billing practices, frequently derided as abusive by consumer advocates. A bill has also passed the Senate Banking Committee but faces a tougher fight on the floor.

Industry representatives are trying to paint a happy face on Thursday’s meeting. “We hope it involves a constructive dialogue about the various complex issues that are involved here,” said Ken Clayton, managing director of credit card policy for the American Bankers Association.

A White House spokeswoman confirmed that the meeting was originally proposed by some banks. “As part of our ongoing outreach to the business community, we decided to expand the group to make the meeting as productive as possible,” said Jen Psaki in an e-mail to POLITICO.

But bashing the credit card industry is Politics 101 for a Ph.D.-level White House.

Consumer outrage about credit cards is at an all-time high. So are delinquencies, which hit 5.56 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. That’s a 60 percent jump since 2005, according to the Federal Reserve.

And then there are the fears that credit card defaults could be the next financial storm to hit already struggling consumers.

Even some of the industry’s longtime allies on Capitol Hill admit that change is coming.

“Most of the banks realize that some of what they’ve done before — the processes being followed — don’t really look very good in the light of day,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), whose state is home base for a large number of credit card firms.

What remains unclear is whether Obama will throw enough political capital behind the issue to get a bill passed into law.

Conventional wisdom is that any credit card reform bill would have a hard time reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster threat in the Senate. Republicans would most likely stand united in voting against it, as would two Democrats from states with a heavy credit card company presence: Carper and Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota.

There are signs that the political dynamics are shifting. Carper said he is open to a compromise bill, as did Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who sits on the Senate Banking Committee.

The House Financial Services Committee approved credit card reform legislation Wednesday, and the bill is expected to pass the House easily as early as next week.

The House would largely codify into law new rules authored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney and approved by the Federal Reserve last year but not scheduled to take effect until July 2010. The House bill wouldn’t kick in much sooner, but Maloney won an amendment that speeds up the start date for a provision requiring card companies to provide consumers with a 45-day notice before they hike interest rates. Under Maloney’s amendment, the companies would be required to give 90 days’ notice.

“The dynamic and the politics have changed dramatically” from last year when the effort died in the Senate, Maloney told POLITICO.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has introduced legislation that goes further than Maloney’s bill. He pushed the bill through committee without a single Republican vote.

Dodd said he moved the bill despite the deep divide in order to get the issue moving, but he plans to work with his committee to find a compromise that could pass the full Senate.

At least one of the Republican on the Banking Committee thinks that’s a realistic goal.

“There are some areas where there is significant agreement,” Corker said. Corker — who has two daughters in college — cited bipartisan support for limits on the marketing of credit cards to students.

He said that the Senate could pass a bill if senators focus on the areas of agreement. But he warned that Dodd’s bill is too partisan in its current form.

A White House push could help tip the scales for the bill.

“If [the president] calls for this to be acted upon, I think that will give it great boost,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who’s held multiple hearings investigating predatory credit card practices. “I think if this is brought up, there’d be a good chance that we can get 60 votes, even more.”

Economy

When economy bottoms out, how will we know?

When will this wretched economy bottom out? The recession is already in its 15th month, making it longer than all but two downturns since World War II. For now, everything seems to be getting worse: The Dow is in free fall, jobs are vanishing every day, and one in eight American homeowners is in foreclosure or behind on payments.

But the economy always recovers. It runs in cycles, and economists are watching an array of statistics, some of them buried deep beneath the headlines, to spot the turning point. The Associated Press examined three markets — housing, jobs and stocks — and asked experts where things stand and how to know when they've hit bottom.

None of them expects it to come anytime soon.

___

JOBS

HOW BAD IS IT?: The U.S. unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent in February, a 25-year peak. The nation has lost 4.4 million jobs since the recession began in late 2007.

The job cuts began early last year, as the housing and construction industries slowed down. The collapse of the financial industry in the fall battered white-collar workers. Soon, layoffs spread across industries and income levels.

HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT GET? The darkest days for the job market are almost certainly still ahead. With spending weak and credit markets stalled, experts think the economy will probably shed a total of 2.4 million jobs this year. That would mean an unemployment rate above 9 percent.

That would easily surpass the 2001 and 1990-91 recessions but trail the 10.8 percent rate of December 1982. Those expectations could be optimistic: The government's "stress tests" to check the strength of banks' balance sheets assume a 10.3 percent rate.

The job market will probably be weak for years, even if the economy starts to turn around next year. The unemployment rate may not fall back to its pre-recession level of 5 percent until 2013, according to Moody's .

WHERE'S THE BOTTOM?: Economist Sophia Koropeckyj, a managing director at Moody's , is keeping an eye out for two signs — an inching up in companies hiring temporary workers and a rise in the number of hours worked by those who have managed to keep their part-time and full-time jobs.

When business conditions improve, employers hire temporary workers first, she said, and a pickup in permanent hiring wouldn't be far behind. Koropeckyj estimated that could come in mid-2010.

HOUSING

HOW BAD IS IT?: The median price of a home sold in the United States fell to $170,300 in January, down 26 percent from a year and a half earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.

But that figure masks the complexity of the market. Price drops have been far steeper around Phoenix and Las Vegas, where new homes sprouted everywhere during the housing boom, than, say, in Detroit, where economic problems predate the recession.

And even within a single metro area, price declines vary sharply. Faraway suburbs, where many buyers stretched to qualify for mortgages, have been hit harder than city centers.

This housing crash has spread pain more widely than any before it. Home prices fell about 30 percent during the Great Depression, according to calculations by Yale University economist Robert Shiller. But the nation was less concentrated in urban centers then. And a much smaller proportion of adults owned homes.

Other housing downturns in recent decades have been regional. This one is truly national. Prices in the fourth quarter of 2008 fell in nearly 90 percent of the top 150 metro areas, according to the Realtors group. And 5.4 million homeowners, about 12 percent, were in foreclosure or behind on mortgage payments at the end of last year.

HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT GET?: The Federal Reserve estimates home prices could fall 18 to 29 percent more by the end of 2010. Declines will probably be less severe in cities with healthier economies that don't have a glut of unsold homes, like Tulsa, Okla., and Wichita, Kan.

The nation's overall economic health is vital to the health of housing. "History tells us that as long as we're losing jobs, that's not good news for the housing market," said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

WHERE'S THE BOTTOM?: Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania, is watching the backlog of unsold homes. At January's sales pace, it would take about 9 1/2 months to rid the market of all those properties. A more normal pace would be six months.

Once foreclosures level off and the backlog is cleared, Wachter says, the housing market can begin to recover. But even with the Obama administration directing $75 billion in bailout money to stave off foreclosures, most economists don't expect home prices to bottom out before the first quarter of 2010. And don't expect an explosive rebound: Price increases will probably be modest when they come.

STOCKS

HOW BAD IS IT?: The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index have lost more than half their value since the stock market peaked in October 2007. It's the worst bear market since the aftermath of the crash of 1929, when the Dow plunged 89 percent and the S&P 500 index tumbled 86 percent.

HOW MUCH WORSE COULD IT GET? Analysts generally think Wall Street has endured the worst of the bear market. But many of those same analysts never thought the market would fall this far.

Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago, said the Dow could fall to 6,000 if the economy slows much further and unemployment rises well past the current 8.1 percent. He pegs the likelihood of that at about 30 percent. Others are more pessimistic. Bill Strazzullo, chief market strategist for Bell Curve Trading, contends the Dow might fall to 5,000 and the S&P to 500.

WHEN WILL THE BOTTOM COME?: In downturns over the past 60 years, the S&P 500 has hit bottom an average of four months before a recession ended and about nine months before unemployment hit its peak.

Investors will be looking for turnarounds in housing, lending and employment, plus signs that consumer spending has picked up. Then market players would be more likely to move their money from safe havens, such as gold, back into stocks.

Other investors may look to obscure indicators such as the Baltic Dry Index, which tracks the cost of shipping iron ore, grain and other materials. Rising rates can indicate demand for raw materials is increasing, which suggests a strengthening economy.

But most of all, traders are waiting for a sudden spasm of selling known as capitulation. That wrings fearful investors out of the market, and as they rush out, bargain-hunters rush in. Capitulation would trigger a huge plunge in prices and frenzied trading volume.

Many market experts say the bottom of the stock market could come in the second or third quarter of this year. And the recovery, whenever it comes, could be as breathtaking as the fall: Since 1932, the S&P 500 has gained an average of 46 percent in the year after stocks have hit a bottom.

Obama

Obama: Endure, find opportunity in time of crisis

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama appealed Saturday to his fellow citizens to endure, find opportunity in these hard times and ultimately prosper from the challenge.

"That is what we can do and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do," Obama said in his weekly radio and video address, taped on Friday at the White House.

On Saturday morning, the president and first lady Michelle Obama flew by helicopter to the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., for the weekend. Their daughters, Sasha and Malia, traveled to Camp David separately, the White House said.

The work week ended on more down news, with the report of 651,000 more American jobs slashed and an unemployment rate climbing to 8.1 percent. That is the highest rate of people out of work in more than 25 years, as the recession continued to put enormous pressures on families and industries.

Obama recapped the work of the latest hectic week in his young presidency. His goal was to reassure the country that he and his team are taking specific steps to create jobs in the short term and begin to address huge issues such as health care.

His rundown of the past week: the launch of a more detailed plan to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure; a new credit plan to spur lending for people and businesses; an overhaul of the way the government hands out private contracts to reduce waste; and a summit on how to overhaul health care.

On the last point, Obama has set a goal of signing a bill this year that would fix the U.S. health care system, which is the costliest in the world and leaves an estimated 48 million people uninsured, plus many others lacking adequate coverage.

"Our ideas and opinions about how to achieve this reform will vary, but our goal must be the same: quality, affordable health care for every American that no longer overwhelms the budgets of families, businesses and our government," Obama said.

Obama says he is not wedded to a plan on how to fix the problem. But one proposal he has endorsed, giving Americans the option of buying medical coverage through a government plan, is drawing opposition from Republicans.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., emphasized that point in the Republican weekly radio address.

"I'm concerned that if the government steps in it will eventually push out the private health care plans millions of Americans enjoy today," Blunt said. "This could cause your employer to simply stop offering coverage, hoping the government will pick up the slack."

As the White House takes on so many huge issues at once, Obama is encouraging people to take a longer view, and not get caught up in the fits and starts. The president said in his address that the nation will continue to face difficult days in the months ahead. Still, he ended with hope.

"Yes, this is a moment of challenge for our country," Obama said. "But we've experienced great trials before. And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper — to discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis."

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On the Net:

Obama address:

Preisty Saint

Priest who aided lepers in Hawaii to become saint

VATICAN CITY – A 19th-century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii will be declared a saint Oct. 11 at a Vatican ceremony presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Rev. Damien de Veuster's canonization date was set Saturday during a meeting between Benedict and cardinals at the Apostolic Palace.

De Veuster will be canonized along with four other people, the Vatican said.

In July, Benedict approved a miracle attributed to the priest's intercession, declaring that a Honolulu woman's recovery in 1999 from terminal lung cancer was the miracle needed for him to be made a saint.

He was beatified — a step toward sainthood — in 1995 by Pope John Paul II.

Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840, he took the name Damien and went to Hawaii in 1864 to join other missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Nine years later he began ministering to leprosy patients on the remote Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai island, where some 8,000 people had been banished amid an epidemic in Hawaii in the 1850s.

The priest eventually contracted the disease, also known as Hansen's disease, and died in 1889 at age 49.

The Rev. Alfred Bell, who spearheaded Damien's canonization cause, said the priest had given his all to help those in need. "He went there (to Hawaii) knowing that he could never return," Bell told Vatican Radio. "He suffered a lot, but he stayed."

Bell said Damien's concern for others was a model for all the faithful today, particularly the young.

"Father Damien's example helps us to not forget those who are forgettable in the world," he said.

The Vatican's saint-making procedures require that a miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession be confirmed in order for him or her to be beatified. Damien de Veuster was beatified after the Vatican declared that the 1987 recovery of a nun of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was a miracle. The nun recovered from an illness after praying to Damien.

After beatification, a second miracle is needed for sainthood.

The Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints said Audrey Toguchi's 1999 recovery from lung cancer defied medical explanation, and in July, Benedict agreed. Toguchi, too, had prayed to Damien.

The Vatican announced the date for Damien's canonization and that of nine other people. Five will be declared saints at a ceremony April 26, five others, including Damien, on Oct. 11.

02/21/09

Obama-Healthcare

Obama wants to overhaul health care; can he do it?

WASHINGTON – Now for the hard part. Even if the national credit card is maxed out and partisanship remains the rule for Washington's political tribes, President Barack Obama and Congress are plunging ahead with a health care overhaul.

This week, Obama will start the dialogue on how to increase coverage, restrain costs and improve quality.

Whether a bill can get through Congress and to Obama this year is uncertain. For half a century, the track record on health care has been one of missed opportunities, spectacular failures and hard-won incremental gains.

Obama plans to stress the need for major changes in his address to Congress on Tuesday, administration officials say. He quickly will follow up with a budget that includes a commitment to expand coverage for the uninsured. A White House summit on health care is being planned in coming weeks.

"They don't intend to blink. They intend to plow ahead," said health economist Len Nichols of the nonpartisan New America Foundation. "Health reform is seen as essential to balancing the federal budget and economic recovery in the long run."

People in the U.S. spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care, or about $7,900 per person. That's more than twice as much per capita as in other advanced countries. But few would claim those dollars are buying good value. The costs are a staggering burden for taxpayers, employers and families, and the recession is leaving more people without insurance.

Yet even a self-described optimist such as Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., says he has doubts about prospects for overhauling health care. "It needs to be done up front and quickly," said Enzi, the senior Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "I'm not so sure that we haven't already lost that, with so many other things coming in and weighing us down."

In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton took the better part of a year to deliver a 1,300-page health care bill to Congress and later waved his veto pen at lawmakers who might have given him half a loaf. He got nothing. Obama has shown a tendency to be more pragmatic.

Administration and congressional officials say Obama will lay out a vision and see if Congress can make the details work. The Senate has gotten an early start and is shaping up as the proving ground for legislation.

"The Obama administration has said they are going to give the Senate a very wide berth," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who for years has tried to get Democrats and Republicans working together. "There are areas in which there is going to be spirited debate. But there are four or five major areas where there's a lot of common ground."

Polls show most people support coverage for all and believe government should help guarantee it. But what looks like consensus starts to break down once thorny details such as costs and the government's influence on the doctor-patient relationship come into the picture.

Administration officials say Obama has made a down payment by expanding coverage for children of low-income working families and by providing subsidies to help people who lose their jobs keep health benefits.

As he moves forward, Obama will follow the plan laid out in his campaign.

It calls for government, employers, families and individuals to keep sharing financial responsibility for health care. The approach would overhaul the health insurance market, particularly for self-employed people and small businesses. It would set up a national insurance purchasing "exchange" through which people would be guaranteed access to private health insurance or the choice of a new public plan.

Obama sees coverage for all as a goal to be reached in steps. His plan would not require every individual to purchase insurance. The estimated cost is about $90 billion a year, to start with.

The plan might sound simple in a brief summary, but it's not. Potential dealbreakers lurk at every turn.

Many liberals can't get excited about doing battle for just a promise — not an immediate guarantee — of coverage for all.

Conservatives and insurance companies fear that a public plan offered to workers and their families could become the gateway for Canada-style government health care for all.

Employers, hospitals, doctors, and drug companies worry that the government's already pervasive influence in health care will become stifling.

The initial work has fallen to the Senate, where Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts want to present a bill by the summer.

Baucus is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare and taxes. Kennedy, who is under treatment for brain cancer, leads the Senate health committee. He has pursued the goal of coverage for all his entire career and doesn't want this opportunity to slip away.

Baucus has already outlined a plan that differs in some key details from Obama's. For example, it contemplates taxing some health insurance benefits to raise money for expanded coverage. That's an idea Obama has rejected but one that certain Republicans favor.

It takes 60 votes to get a bill through the Senate, and Democrats don't have them.

In the House, the effort seems to be moving more slowly. Senior aides from leadership offices and committees are talking. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is expected to take a leading role.

Some experts believe the issue is too complicated to try to accomplish in one year and one bill.

Watching and waiting are people such as Robyn Perry, 56, of Lake Worth, Fla., who recently lost a job with health benefits. She has struggled to find coverage now that she is self-employed. Private plans are either too expensive or won't take her because she had a ministroke several years ago. A plan sponsored by local government accepted her, but won't cover her outside her county.

"Something has to be done," said Perry. "I work. I make decent money. But I still can't get coverage. I would really like to find a normal health insurance plan that would cover me wherever I get sick, not just in Palm Beach county."

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On the Net:

White House:

02/21/09

Obama: People should see tax cut help by April 1

WASHINGTON – It took only weeks for the notoriously slow Congress to pass the $787 billion economic stimulus package. President Barack Obama signed it into law less than one month into his presidency.

So when should most people hope to start seeing the benefits of tax cuts in it?

By April 1, according to the president.

"Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

The president said his signature two-year "Making Work Pay" tax break will affect 95 percent of working families, and, in six weeks' time, a typical family will start taking home at least $65 more every month.

Taxpayers won't get a separate check mailed to them like many did with last year's one-time payment designed by the Bush administration to help boost the economy.

Instead, Obama's credit — up to $400 credit for individuals and up to $800 credit for married couples — is to be doled out through the rest of the year through paychecks. Most workers are to see about a $13 per week increase in their take-home pay. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.

People who do not earn enough money to owe income taxes are eligible for the credit, an attempt to offset the payroll taxes they pay.

But the credit is phased out for higher-income taxpayers, defined as individuals who have a modified adjusted gross income of between $75,000 and $95,000, and married couples filing jointly who make between $150,000 and $190,000. Thus, the administration says many of them will see little or no change in their paychecks.

With employers and payroll companies responsible for making the necessary changes, no worker has to fill out a new W-4 withholding form or do anything else to get the credit. The Internal Revenue Service, however, is suggesting that individuals and couples with multiple jobs submit a revised withholding form to be on the safe side. And, it's always a good idea for people to keep a close eye on pay stubs to make sure their money is included.

In concert with Obama's announcement, the Treasury Department on Saturday began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from people's paychecks in accordance with the new law as soon as possible and not later than April 1. The IRS also released new withholding tables on its Web site to help guide employers in reflecting the new credit. It says more instructions about tax provisions in the law will be available next week, and will be mailed to more than 9 million employers next month.

"We have the wheels turning to deliver much needed boosts to the paychecks of working Americans," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a statement.

Obama's expensive and ambitious package of federal spending and tax cuts is designed to revive the economy and save or create 3.5 million or more jobs. It aimed to inject a sudden boost of cash into transportation, education, energy and health care, while helping recession victims through tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits and short-term health insurance assistance. It also will add to a rapidly growing national debt.

The president signed the measure into law Tuesday.

In his weekly address, Obama said he was grateful to Congress, governors, mayors and all the people who supported the measure.

Still, he added: "It is only a first step on the road to economic recovery. And we cannot fail to complete the journey." He said the country also must stem foreclosures, repair the banking system, get credit flowing again and revamp financial industry regulations.

And, even as he promoted the record-breaking spending plan, he called for doing what's necessary to control "exploding" deficits as the economy begins to improve.

Obama is holding a bipartisan "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House on Monday to talk about ways to control the trillion-dollar budget deficit. The next day, he is to address a joint session of Congress, a speech expected to focus heavily on the economy. On Thursday, Obama will send a budget request to Congress "that's sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't and restoring fiscal discipline."

Republicans are certain to hold him to that.

In the GOP's weekly address, Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said his party wants to work with Obama to solve the country's economic problems "in a responsible way that does not burden our children and grandchildren with a mountain of debt."

"We can't borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," Camp said. "If he is serious about dealing with the tough issues and getting spending under control, his budget will show it."

___

On the Net:

Internal Revenue Service:

White House:

02.21.09

President Barack Obama listens as Vice President Joe Biden speaks to mayors from cities across the United States, Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, in the East Room of the White House.

(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Bailout?

The View From a Throne

There's something about the image of John Thain sitting on a $35,000 toilet that won't go away.

It began with a report by CNBC that the former Merrill Lynch boss, facing the demise of his firm, blew $1.22 million redecorating his office.

Contributing to this obscene tab was "something called a 'commode on legs,' " CNBC reported, based on the details it had at the time.

As other media outlets began to swirl about the story, this minor detail was shortened to "$35,000 for a commode" in a list of outrages that included $1,400 for a trash can, $68,000 for a credenza, $87,000 for a rug and $800,000 for a celebrity designer.

After that, many reporters and bloggers mistakenly took out their plungers.

"During his $1.22 million office renovation, ex-Merrill Lynch boss John Thain reportedly bought a portable toilet at a cost of $35,000," the Chicago Tribune quipped in a Jan. 23 column about popular Internet searches of the week. "No doubt a metaphor for where such purchases have taken our economy."

"Not only did John Thain flush Merrill Lynch shareholders down the drain, and not only did he oversee $100 billion of losses, we now find out that the most overpaid and over-compensated CEO in America now spent $35,000 on a toilet," read blog Wall Street Manna in a Jan. 22 post. "Let's face it, a (bleep-bleep) that big needs a $35,000 toilet," read another piece at , called "John Thain: Corporate Jerk of the Moment."

Subsequent reports concluded that there is more than one definition for "commode," including, "a low cabinet or chest of drawers . . . usually standing on legs or short feet," according to .

But in every carnival of greed, we love to see sideshows.

Like the anonymous trust-fund kids who took credit for toilet-papering alleged Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff's $9 million Palm Beach home last weekend.

Like Dick Fuld, former boss of bankrupt Lehman Brothers, who recently sold his $14 million seaside mansion in Florida to his wife for $100.

Like Citigroup planning to buy a $50 million corporate jet even as it bagged billions in government bailouts.

Like insurance giant AIG getting bailout money but still paying for pricey hunting trips and sending independent insurance agents to a posh resort.

Pundits often use these examples to allege that there is a disconnect between the super-rich and the rest of us. But greed is just a part of the human condition. And anyone climbing the socioeconomic ladder is looking up, rarely noticing the rungs below.

This is why middle-class folks can still buy shirts for $18 and never even know about the young laborers who sewed them together for just enough pennies to buy rice.

And it's also how Wall Street executives can insulate themselves from the middle-class lugs whose retirement funds they've been pinching to keep their jets in the air.

Sometimes, when such oversights are called to their attention by raging mobs, they repent.

Citigroup is backing out of its jet deal after a little chiding from President Barack Obama. AIG has long apologized and promised to be more conscious of the fact that it's funded by taxpayers.

But Fuld hasn't explained his fire sale. And Thain's apology — though it came with a pledge to personally reimburse his lavish office expenses — was pretty much a "Sorry, but . . ."

"It is clear to me in today's world that it was a mistake," he said in a CNBC interview. But then he preceded to blame the decorating choices of his predecessor, the overpaid and then ousted Stan O'Neal.

"It really would have been very difficult for me to use it in the form that it was in," Thain said. "It needed to be renovated no matter what."

And there was no $35,000 toilet.

Nevertheless, Thain risks installation in the same filthy bathroom where we've collectively hung the $6,000 shower curtain of former Tyco International CEO Dennis Koz lowski.

Because it's a lot easier to imagine Thain on a throne than to fathom the fortunes he made turning a 94-year-old powerhouse into something resembling an outhouse.

Or that in his firm's final days, he rushed $4 billion in bonuses to Merrill's merry managers for their parts in this feat.

Or that the global economy is collapsing because the paper that Wall Street firms sold us may soon be worth less than a jumbo pack of Charmin.

Al Lewis 201-938-5266 or al.lewis@

02/01/09

Obama

Obama touts middle-class task force led by Biden

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama signed a series of executive orders Friday that he said should "level the playing field" for labor unions in their struggles with management.

Obama also used the occasion at the White House to announce formally a new White House task force on the problems of middle-class Americans. He named Vice President Joe Biden as its chairman.

Union officials say the new orders by Obama will undo Bush administration policies that favored employers over workers. The orders will:

_Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.

_Reverse a Bush administration order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.

_Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

"We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests," Obama said during a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

"I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution," he said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."

Signing the executive orders was Obama's second overture to organized labor in as many days. On Thursday, he signed the first bill of his presidency, giving workers more time to sue for wage discrimination.

"It's a new day for workers," said James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who attended the ceremony with other union leaders. "We finally have a White House that is dedicated to working with us to rebuild our middle class. Hope for the American Dream is being restored."

Of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, Obama said, "We're not forgetting the poor. They are going to be front and center, because they, too, share our American Dream."

He said his administration wants to make sure low-income people "get a piece" of the American pie "if they're willing to work for it."

"With this task force, we have a single, highly visible group with one single goal: to raise the living standards of the people who are the backbone of this country," Biden said.

Obama set several goals for the task force, including expanding opportunities for education and training; improving the work-family balance; restoring labor standards, including workplace safety; and protecting retirement security.

The president and vice president said the task force will include the secretaries of commerce, education, labor, and health and human services because those Cabinet departments have the most influence on the well-being of the middle class. It also will include White House advisers on the economy, the budget and domestic policy.

Biden pledged that the task force will conduct its business in the open, and announced a Web site, , for the public to get information. He also announced that the panel's first meeting will be Feb. 27 in Philadelphia and will focus on environmental or "green jobs."

AP 01/30/09

8 Children Equals 14

Family: Octuplets' mother has 6 other children

WHITTIER, Calif. – The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week already had six children but refused the option of reducing the number of embryos she was carrying last year, her mother said.

Angela Suleman said good news for her daughter is all the babies appear healthy.

"I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful," Suleman told The Los Angeles Times on Thursday.

Suleman's daughter gave birth to the octuplets Monday at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center but had requested that doctors keep her name confidential.

She also was counseled about the risks of her pregnancy — then in its 12th week — and about the option of aborting some fetuses when she arrived at the hospital, Dr. Harold Henry said.

Suleman said her daughter had not expected so many embryos to keep developing, but rejected selective reduction.

"What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed," Suleman told the Times. "That is a very painful thing."

Doctors had been expecting only seven babies, but an eighth was born in the Caesarean delivery.

Media knew little about the woman until a family acquaintance told CBS' "The Early Show" on Thursday that the mother is "fairly young" and lives with her parents and her six children.

Within hours, media had camped out at the family's home in Whittier, where the babies' grandfather pulled up in a minivan in the evening and briefly spoke to The Associated Press. Beside him were two children — a 7-year-old and 6-year-old — who said they were excited to have eight new siblings.

But the grandfather warned that media may have a tougher time finding the family after the babies are released from the hospital.

"We have a huge house, not here," said the man, who would only identify himself as Ed. "You are never going to know where it is."

The mother's other children are 5 and 3, and 2-year-old twins, neighbors told the Times.

The six boys and two girls are only the second octuplets born alive in the United States. The were born nine weeks premature and ranged between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces at birth.

Dr. Mandhir Gupta said seven of the babies were breathing without assistance. One was still receiving oxygen through a tube in his nose.

All babies continued to receive intravenous nutrition. They were expected to remain in the hospital for several more weeks.

It's not clear if the octuplets' mother had embryos implanted. Another option is egg stimulation through fertility drugs, which provides less control. The doctor is supposed to use blood tests and ultrasound to monitor how many egg follicles develop. If too many do, the doctor is supposed to stop the drugs.

Doctors say they are not in the business of regulating family size. But they try everything to avoid higher-order pregnancies to prevent health problems for mothers and infants.

National guidelines suggest that doctors limit the number of embryos implanted to avoid multiple births. Women are also counseled to not go through with attempting pregnancy if too many eggs have budded when they're taking fertility drugs.

Dr. James Grifo, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the NYU School of Medicine, added: "I don't think it's our job to tell them how many babies they're allowed to have. I am not a policeman for reproduction in the United States. My role is to educate patients."

___

Associated Press writer Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Bellflower and AP science writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

01/30/09

8 Children Equals 14

Grandma: Octuplets mom obsessed with having kids

LOS ANGELES – The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said.

Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she was not supportive when her daughter, Nadya Suleman, decided to have more embryos implanted last year.

"It can't go on any longer," she said in a phone interview Friday. "She's got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn't want to get married."

Nadya Suleman, 33, gave birth Monday in nearby Bellflower. She was expected to remain in the hospital for at least a few more days, and her newborns for at least a month.

A spokeswoman at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center said the babies were doing well and seven were breathing unassisted.

While her daughter recovers, Angela Suleman is taking care of the other six children, ages 2 through 7, at the family home in Whittier, about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

She said she warned her daughter that when she gets home from the hospital, "I'm going to be gone."

Angela Suleman said her daughter always had trouble conceiving and underwent in vitro fertilization treatments because her fallopian tubes are "plugged up."

There were frozen embryos left over after her previous pregnancies and her daughter didn't want them destroyed, so she decided to have more children.

Her mother and doctors have said the woman was told she had the option to abort some of the embryos and, later, the fetuses. She refused.

Her mother said she does not believe her daughter will have any more children.

"She doesn't have any more (frozen embryos), so it's over now," she said. "It has to be."

Nadya Suleman wanted to have children since she was a teenager, "but luckily she couldn't," her mother said.

"Instead of becoming a kindergarten teacher or something, she started having them, but not the normal way," he mother said.

Her daughter's obsession with children caused Angela Suleman considerable stress, so she sought help from a psychologist, who told her to order her daughter out of the house.

"Maybe she wouldn't have had so many kids then, but she is a grown woman," Angela Suleman said. "I feel responsible and I didn't want to throw her out."

Yolanda Garcia, 49, of Whittier, said she helped care for Nadya Suleman's autistic son three years ago.

"From what I could tell back then, she was pretty happy with herself, saying she liked having kids and she wanted 12 kids in all," Garcia told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

"She told me that all of her kids were through in vitro, and I said 'Gosh, how can you afford that and go to school at the same time?"' she added. "And she said it's because she got paid for it."

Garcia said she did not ask for details.

Nadya Suleman holds a 2006 degree in child and adolescent development from California State University, Fullerton, and as late as last spring she was studying for a master's degree in counseling, college spokeswoman Paula Selleck told the Press-Telegram.

Her fertility doctor has not been identified. Her mother told the Los Angeles Times all the children came from the same sperm donor but she declined to identify him.

Birth certificates reviewed by The Associated Press identify a David Solomon as the father for the four oldest children. Certificates for the other children were not immediately available.

The news that the octuplets' mother already had six children sparked an ethical debate. Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that she was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.

Others worried that she would be overwhelmed trying to raise so many children and would end up relying on public support.

The eight babies — six boys and two girls — were delivered by Cesarean section weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Forty-six physicians and staff assisted in the deliveries.

AP 01/31/09

Watching You

When you watch these ads, the ads check you out (AP)

MILWAUKEE - Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there's a slim — but growing — chance the ad is watching you too.

Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly.

That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

And even if the ads don't shift based on which people are watching, the technology's ability to determine the viewers' demographics is golden for advertisers who want to know how effectively they're reaching their target audience.

While the technology remains in limited use for now, advertising industry analysts say it is finally beginning to live up to its promise. The manufacturers say their systems can accurately determine gender 85 to 90 percent of the time, while accuracy for the other measures continues to be refined.

The concept is reminiscent of the science-fiction movie "Minority Report," in which Tom Cruise's character enters a mall and finds that retinal scanners identify him and prompt personalized ads that greet him by name.

But this technology doesn't go nearly that far. It doesn't identify people individually — it simply categorizes them by outward appearances.

So a video screen might show a motorcycle ad for a group of men, but switch to a minivan ad when women and children join them, said Vicki Rabenou, the chief measurement officer of Tampa, Fla.-based TruMedia Technologies Inc., one of the leaders in developing the technology.

"This is proactive merchandising," Rabenou said. "You're targeting people with smart ads."

Because the tracking industry is still in its infancy, there isn't yet consensus on how to refer to the technology. Some call it face reading, face counting, gaze tracking or, more generally, face-based audience measurement.

Whatever it's called, advertisers are finally ready to try it, said advertising consultant Jack Sullivan, a senior vice president of Starcom USA in Chicago. "I think you're going to see a lot of movement toward it by the end of this year in the top 10 markets," he said.

Because face tracking might feel reminiscent of Big Brother, manufacturers are racing to offer reassurances. When the systems capture an image of who's watching the screen, a computer instantly analyzes it. The systems' manufacturers insist, however, that nothing is ever stored and no identifying information is ever associated with the pictures. That makes the system less intrusive than a surveillance camera that records what it sees, the developers say.

The idea still worries Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group in San Francisco. Tien said it's not enough to say some system is "not as bad as some other technology," and argues that cameras that study people contribute to an erosion of privacy.

In general, the tracking systems work like this: A sensor or camera in or near the screen identifies viewers' faces by picking up shapes, colors and the relative speed of movement. The concept is similar to the way consumer cameras now can automatically make sure faces are in focus.

When the ad system pinpoints a face, it compares shapes and patterns to faces that are already identified in a database as male or female. That lets the system predict the person's gender almost immediately.

"The most important features seem to be cheekbones, fullness of lips and the gap between the eyebrows," said Paolo Prandoni, chief scientific officer of Quividi, a French company that is another player in face-tracking technology. Others include Studio IMC Inc. in New York.

The companies say their systems have become adept at determining a viewer's gender, but age is trickier: The software can categorize age only in broad ranges — teens, younger to middle-aged folks and seniors. There's moderate demand for ads based on ethnic information, but the companies acknowledge that determining ethnicity is more challenging than figuring out gender and age range.

Prandoni provided The Associated Press a limited version of Quividi's software, which uses an ordinary webcam to stream video to a computer. The trial version tracked gender only, using color-coded circles to distinguish male and female faces.

The sample size was too small to be statistically significant, but it was accurate about 80 to 90 percent of the time.

That might be as precise as the systems ever get, said Deborah Mitchell, a professor of consumer psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even the human brain can't always determine gender, age or ethnicity.

Still, "even if it gets to 70 percent accuracy, that's still giving you a wealth of information," said Mitchell, who teaches in the Wisconsin School of Business.

That information is certainly valuable to Bill Ketcham, the chief marketing officer of Adspace Networks Inc. His New York company sells video advertising on 1,400 video screens at 105 malls around the nation.

Adspace is testing six TruMedia systems at malls in Winston-Salem, N.C., Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The kiosks display a daily list of top 10 sales at the mall, as well as paid advertising that comes largely from movie studios and TV networks.

A 15-second video ad that replays across Adspace's national network can cost as much as $765,000 per month. So advertisers expect rigorous information about who sees the spots — information that face tracking can now provide, Ketcham said.

For now, at least, Adspace isn't changing the ads based on who's watching — Ketcham said the kiosks' audiences are so large that it wouldn't be practical to personalize ads to individuals.

While advertisers like the face-tracking technology, another privacy advocate, Harley Geiger, questions whether it should be used on consumers without their knowledge. Geiger, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., said advertisers should be telling consumers what details about them are being collected and for what purpose.

"With the technology proliferating, now or the short-term is the time to consider privacy protections," he said. "If you don't build it in at an early stage it becomes very difficult to build it into an already established system."

AP 01/30/09

Obama

Obama touts aid plan's impact on average Americans

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama met with his economic advisers Saturday after he asked Americans to support his economic package as a way to better schools, lower electricity bills and health coverage for millions who lose insurance.

The two-hour session in the Roosevelt Room focused the proposed $825 billion economic stimulus package that Congress is considering. The group also discussed the upcoming federal budget, Obama's first chance to shape the country's spending amid a recession that lost 2.6 million jobs last year, the most in a single year since World War II.

"Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. And we could lose a generation of potential, as more young Americans are forced to forgo college dreams or the chance to train for the jobs of the future," Obama said in a five-minute address released Saturday morning by radio and the Internet.

"In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse."

It was the latest appeal from the new president for a massive spending bill designed to inject almost $1 trillion into the economy and fulfill campaign pledges. Obama spent much of last week wooing reluctant legislators — many from his own Democratic Party — and weighing whether there's a need for a second economic package, which aides refused to rule out.

That sequel would be designed to assuage Democratic lawmakers who fret that too little of the money is going toward public works projects that would employ their constituents. Others aides are trying to work with Republican leaders to sustain the current bill's bipartisan flavor; the president planned to visit to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet privately with GOP lawmakers.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said his party would continue to push for immediate tax cuts — "not slow-moving government spending programs" — in the weekly GOP address.

"We let families, entrepreneurs, small businesses and the self-employed keep more of what they earn to encourage investment and create millions of new private-sector jobs," he said.

Republicans also proposed a tax credit for home purchases, an end of taxation of unemployment benefits and tax incentives for small businesses to invest in new equipment and hire new employees. Boehner was scheduled to make the case for the GOP plan on Sunday morning talk shows; Vice President Joe Biden and Obama economic adviser Larry Summers also planned interviews that morning.

"We cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," Boehner said.

Both parties, though, agree something has to be done.

Manufacturing is at a 28-year low and even Obama's economists say unemployment could top 10 percent before the recession ends. One in 10 homeowners is at risk of foreclosure and the dollar continues its slide in value. On Friday, 1st Centennial Bank of Redlands, Calif., became the third U.S. bank to fail this year.

That harsh reality has dominated Obama's first days in office.

In addition to the president's speech, Obama aides released a report Saturday that outlined exactly what people could expect if Congress supported his proposed economic legislation.

Many of the ideas, such as shifting to electronic medical records and investing in preventive health care, were familiar from Obama's two-year campaign for the presidency. Other parts added specifics.

Obama's recovery package aims to:

_Double within three years the amount of energy that could be produced from renewable resources. That is an ambitious goal, given the 30 years it took to reach current levels. Advisers say that could power 6 million households.

_Upgrade 10,000 schools and improve learning for about 5 million students.

_Save $2 billion a year by making federal buildings energy efficient.

_Triple the number of undergraduate and graduate fellowships in science.

_Tighten security at 90 major ports.

The plan would spend at least 75 percent of the total cost — or more than $600 billion — within the first 18 months, either through bricks-and-shovels projects favored by Democrats or tax cuts that Republicans have pushed.

There is heavy emphasis on public works projects, which have lagged as state budgets contracted. Governors have lobbied Obama to help them patch holes in their budgets, drained by sinking tax revenues and increased need for public assistance such as Medicaid and children's health insurance. Obama's plan would increase the federal portion of those programs so no state would have to cut any of the 20 million children whose eligibility is now at risk. (AP 01/24/09)

Obama

Obama breaks from Bush, avoids divisive stands

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama opened his presidency by breaking sharply from George W. Bush's unpopular administration, but he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. He focused instead on fixing the economy, repairing a battered world image and cleaning up government.

"What an opportunity we have to change this country," the Democrat told his senior staff after his inauguration. "The American people are really counting on us now. Let's make sure we take advantage of it."

In the highly scripted first days of his administration, Obama overturned a slew of Bush policies with great fanfare. He largely avoided cultural issues; the exception was reversing one abortion-related policy, a predictable move done in a very low-profile way.

The flurry of activity was intended to show that Obama was making good on his promise to bring change. Yet domestic and international challenges continue to pile up, and it's doubtful that life will be dramatically different for much of the ailing country anytime soon.

Obama's biggest agenda items — stabilizing the economy and ending the Iraq war — are complex tasks with results not expected soon. Even as Obama made broad pronouncements and signed a stream of executive orders to usher in a new governing era, his actions leave unanswered or unresolved questions, including how he will close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists.

In other cases, Obama set out new policy, only to signal it could be applied selectively.

He decreed that interrogators must follow techniques outlined in the Army Field Manual when questioning terrorism suspects, even as he ordered a review that could allow CIA interrogators to use other methods for high-value targets. Also, while a new White House rule limits staffers' previous lobbying activities, exceptions were made for at least two senior administration officials.

"It's always a delicate task to maintain your coalition and try to expand it," said George Edwards, a Texas A&M University political science professor. "He's making the moves in the right direction to please his supporters on signature issues. At the same time, he has not elicited immediate outrage from Republicans because he's gone out of his way to reach out to them."

Certainly, some Republicans are griping about Obama's economic stimulus plan and closing Guantanamo. But their protests are somewhat muted, perhaps because little of what Obama has done thus far is a surprise. He had prepared the country and Congress for such steps during the campaign and transition. He also has emphasized a pragmatic, bipartisan approach, and enjoys broad public support.

Most of what he tackled came in areas where there is agreement across the political spectrum for a new direction, although the country is divided over shuttering Guantanamo. Obama long has emphasized solutions over partisanship, and he doesn't seem eager to address issues — at least for now — that create great ideological divides.

That is a sharp contrast with Democrat Bill Clinton, who set the tone for an ideological presidency when he tried to overturn the ban on gays in the military. It pleased liberals, enraged conservatives and angered both the military and Congress, neither of which was consulted.

So far, Obama's only real brush with issues that stoke partisan passions came when he revoked a ban on federal funding for international groups that provide or promote abortions. He did that quietly by issuing a memorandum late Friday afternoon. The move was expected; the issue has vacillated between Republican and Democratic presidents.

Obama was sworn in Tuesday with huge support — 68 percent in a Gallup poll released Saturday — and incredible optimism from the public; Bush left Washington with record-low job approval ratings.

A picture of poise, Obama didn't get rattled when Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed the oath of office, an exercise repeated a day later to ensure constitutionality. He breezed through his speech — which repudiated Bush's tenure though never personally attacked him — without a misstep. Even with the weight of the country's troubles now on his shoulders, he was relaxed as he twirled his wife, Michelle, at celebratory balls.

"I don't sweat," Obama said on the eve of his inauguration — a comment meant literally, and, perhaps, figuratively.

Maybe not. But he has yet to face a crisis head-on as the country's leader, and it's only then that his confidence truly will be tested.

Still, Obama clearly has made the transition to governing.

"It's as if Superman stepped out of a phone booth and became Clark Kent," said Fred Greenstein, a Princeton University professor emeritus of politics. "He's beginning to put aside the rhetoric in favor of listing the policies and doing the checklist. He's not going out of his way to show a lot of flash. It's much more lets-get-down-to-work."

That said, there's a limit to what he can immediately accomplish, Greenstein said, and "the really big things can't be done on Day One, particularly if they are going to be done well."

In a mix of symbolism and substance, Obama used a host of executive tools to put his stamp on the country without having to go through Congress, making statements from the bully pulpit and signing White House directives.

He pledged to take bold steps to reverse the recession while meeting with his economic team, and told top military officials to do whatever planning necessary to "execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq." He issued new ethics rules for his administration and pledged to preside over a transparent government.

He ordered the Guantanamo detention center shut within a year, required the closure of any remaining secret CIA "black site" prisons abroad and barred CIA interrogators form using harsh techniques already banned for military questioners. He also assigned veteran troubleshooters to the Middle East, and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Throughout it all, Obama demonstrated noticeable stylistic differences with his predecessor.

The high-tech Obama chose to keep his cherished BlackBerry, becoming the first sitting president to use e-mail. He made an impromptu visit to the White House's cramped media quarters just "to say hello." He also was spotted at one point ducking into the White House press office to consult with an aide. Bush avoided both areas at all costs.

In one Oval Office ceremony, Obama went through each executive order as he signed them, reading parts of each and methodically explaining them. He even halted a few times to ask for clarification from his White House counsel. That sort of deferral to someone else in a public setting and admission of a less-than-perfect command of the facts was never Bush's style.

(AP 01/25/09)

Obama

Issue of terrorists' rights to test Obama's pledge

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's pledge of bipartisan cooperation with Congress will be tested as he tries to fulfill a campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay and establish a new system for prosecuting suspected terrorists.

The undertaking is an ambitious one. Fraught with legal complexities, it gives Republicans ample opportunity to score political points if he doesn't get it right. There's also the liklihood of a run-in with his former rival, Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war who before running for president staked his career on overhauling the nation's detainee policies.

"We look forward to working with the president and his administration on these issues, keeping in mind that the first priority of the U.S. government is to guarantee the security of the American people," McCain, R-Ariz., said in a joint statement with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

The statement seemed aimed at putting Obama on notice that he must deal with Congress on the matter.

In his first week in office, Obama ordered Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to be closed within a year, CIA secret prisons shuttered and abusive interrogations ended.

So far, Obama's team has given every indication it will engage lawmakers, including Republicans, on the issue. Graham and McCain were among several Republicans briefed last week by White House counsel Greg Craig and handed drafts of the executive orders.

But once the two sides begin delving into details, there will be ample room for dispute.

Among the unknowns is how many of the 245 detainees now at Guantanamo Bay will be prosecuted.

Administration officials said that, pending an internal review, federal and military courts may be used. But, the officials added, a version of the secretive military tribunals, as established under President George W. Bush with the help of McCain, remains an option, too.

Officials say the tribunals may be needed to prosecute suspected terrorists who are too dangerous to release but whose cases would otherwise fail, either because evidence was coerced or trying them in a less secretive court would expose classified information.

Obama could take a page from the Bush administration and try to revamp the system on his own, through executive order. But that approach failed for Bush, who angered members of his own party and wound up seeking congressional approval anyway after the Supreme Court in June 2006 ruled his tribunal system was unconstitutional.

Obama's other option is to seek legislation on the issue, potentially exposing his administration to a bruising fight with Republicans on how to handle the most dangerous of terrorism suspects.

A narrow majority of Americans supports shutting down Guantanamo Bay on a priority basis. But people are likely to become much less sympathetic to detainee rights if there is another terrorism attack inside the United States or if the new system is portrayed as too lenient on suspected al-Qaida members.

Republicans already are trying to portray Obama's review of detainee rights as soft on terrorism. House Republicans on Friday mobilized a "rapid response team" of lawmakers to speak out against the president's plans.

"The Guantanamo Bay prison is filled with the worst of the worst — terrorists and killers bent on murdering Americans and other friends of freedom around the world," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio. "If it is closed, where will they go, will they be brought to the United States and how will they be secured?"

Democrats have suggested they expect to be important players in the debate.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who heads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the panel planned to hold back on legislation "for a time" to allow the administration to complete its own assessment. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would like "to at least have an advisory role" on the final plan.

In 2006, the question of detainee trials and interrogations enveloped Congress and exposed Republican infighting. McCain, Graham and now retired Sen. John Warner, R-Va., sharply challenged Bush's handling of detainees. In the end, the two sides emerged with complex legislation that outlined the inner workings of military tribunals and defined what constitutes a war crime, effectively banning specific interrogation techniques seen as too harsh.

Human rights groups and Democrats said the system still gave too much power to the president. But now, Republicans are worried Obama will swing too far in the other direction.

Graham, a colonel in the Air Force Reserves assigned to the service's Judge Advocate General School, said he is concerned that Obama will wind up giving civilian courts too heavy a hand in dealing with terrorists handled by the military and CIA.

"Federal judges in my opinion should not be making battlefield decisions. ... I don't want to lose sight of the fact that we are at war," he said.

(AP 01/25/09)

Multiple Scelrosis

Merck: New pill may work for MS

LONDON – German drugmaker Merck Serono is one step closer to releasing the first pill to treat multiple sclerosis, the company said Friday.

In a press statement, Merck said that patients taking cladribine tablets had a nearly 60 percent lower relapse rate than those on placebo pills. The two-year study included 1,326 MS patients who were randomly divided into three groups. Two groups received different doses of cladribine and one group received fake pills.

Patients on cladribine had up to a 60 percent reduced chance of having a relapse compared to patients on placebo. The study was paid for by Merck.

"This is promising news," said Dr. Lee Dunster, head of research for the Multiple Sclerosis Society in the United Kingdom. Dunster was not linked to the Merck study. He said cladribine appeared to be twice as effective as current primary treatments for MS.

Multiple sclerosis is the most common neurological condition affecting young adults. It is the result of damage to myelin, the protective coating on nerve fibers of the central nervous system. When myelin is damaged, that interrupts the brain's messaging system to other parts of the body.

Patients with MS often suffer from fatigue, muscle spams, problems with vision, speech, coordination, and the bladder. Relapses are often unpredictable and there is no known cure.

Current treatments for MS must be given by injections and have varying success rates.

Cladribine is already used to treat leukemia, but only for short periods of time. Doctors said more information was needed about the potential side effects from taking the drug in the long term, since multiple sclerosis is a lifelong condition.

Known side effects from cladribine include fatigue, an increased chance of infections, and anemia.

Merck has already asked American and European drug regulators to fast-track the drug to the market. In their press statement, Merck said they will submit cladribine for registration in the U.S. and Europe later this year.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG is also working on a pill to treat MS.

Though Merck's study showed that cladribine reduced the relapse rate, Dunster said the real question was whether the drug slowed the disease's progression. He expected that data to be released in the next few months.

"Relapses are not very nice things to have, but we are really looking to slow down the disease," Dunster said. "For patients, it's all about whether or not they will be able to kick around the ball with their kids in a few years."

Obama

What we don't know about Obama

We know a lot more about Barack Obama than we did on Election Day. He wastes little time making big decisions. He was serious about surrounding himself with seasoned people, even if they are outsized personalities likely to jostle one another and unlikely to salute on command. He intends to move quickly to put his personal stamp on government and national life.

Yet much about how the 44th president will govern remains a mystery—perhaps even to Obama himself.

The stirring rhetoric witnessed on the campaign trail and in Tuesday’s inaugural address is laced with spacious language — flexible enough to support conflicting conclusions about what he really believes.

Only decisions, not words, can clarify what Obama stands for. Those are coming soon enough.

Until then, here are the questions still left hanging as the Obama administration begins:

DOES HE REALLY THINK AFGHANISTAN IS WINNABLE?

The new president has strongly signaled that he thinks the answer is yes. But neither his rhetoric nor his policy proposals so far have fully reckoned with the implications.

If he intends to win in Afghanistan, he is not going to be a Peacemaker President. To the contrary, he is committing himself to being just as much of a War President as George W. Bush, certainly for the first term and very possibly for a potential second.

Most military experts think a decisive win in Afghanistan — as opposed to a muddle-through strategy leading to a gradual withdrawal —will involve a major surge in troops and a willingness to tolerate high costs and high casualties.

In any event, the country and its unruly neighbor, Pakistan, will quite likely dominate Obama’s attention much more than Iraq.

Obama advisers say one of the biggest surprises of recent secret briefings on trouble spots around the globe was how unstable, exposed and dangerous Pakistan is. A nuclear neighbor that harbors terrorists injects all the more danger and uncertainty to the war on the other side of its border.

Joe Biden’s first trip abroad as vice President-elect included a stop in Afghanistan. When he returned home, he told Obama: “The truth is that things are going to get tougher in Afghanistan before they’re going to get better.”

If that’s true, Obama may in the end find muddle-through more attractive than victory.

DO DEFICITS MATTER?

In the short-run, Obama and his advisers believe, just like Bush and his advisers, that pumping up the economy is the top priority —budget deficits be damned.

But when does the short-run become the long-run?

Obama has said long-term, trillion-dollar deficits are “unsustainable.” His inaugural address warned about the need to cut programs that don’t work and make “hard choices.”

Does he really mean it? If so, the second half of Obama’s first term likely will be marked by austerity just as much as the first half is going to be marked by massive spending in the name of economic stimulus.

Embracing balanced budgets would also mean embracing steep cuts in weapons systems and entitlement programs, as well as curbing his ambitions for new initiatives in health care and energy. Tax hikes would also be part of the remedy.

With unpleasant medicine like this, Obama may instead find common cause with Democratic liberals and with Dick Cheney, who, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, once dismissed GOP deficit hawks by saying that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.

HOW FAST IS TOO FAST IN IRAQ?

The president says he still wants U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months. Tellingly, he always adds caveats that conditions and advice from commanders will dictate the pace. Defense Secretary Gates recently made this clear: “He also said he wanted to have a responsible drawdown. And he also said he was prepared to listen to his commanders. So, I think that that’s exactly the position the president-elect should be in.”

What if conditions change for the worse? Violence is way down and many of the most troubled areas are showing signs of stability. But this remains an extremely volatile region that could erupt in new bloodshed. Will Obama still cling to a speedy pull-out if it means the country could implode?

Obama met with his military commanders on Wednesday. But it’s anyone’s guess whose advice he’ll be listening to most closely, and which members of his heavyweight foreign policy team – within which there are significant disagreements over the Iraq war – will really have his ear.

WHAT’S IN THE FILES?

Any time someone criticized their policies on use of force, covert surveillance, or detention or interrogation of terrorism suspects, Bush and Cheney had an answer that was impossible for any outside critic to fully contend with: You don’t know what we know.

What they said they knew was top-secret intelligence showing how many people with murderous designs on the United States are roaming the planet, how imminent the threats are, or how effective controversial anti-terrorist programs had been in averting another attack. Since no one else could see the files, no one else could be on equal footing in deciding whether the administration was right or wrong.

Since Tuesday, Obama has all the same files, and all the same access to the nation’s top secrets, that Bush and Cheney ever did.

How will Obama react when he gets a constant morning diet of dire warnings? The president today moved to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and end torture – and has surrounded himself with critics of both who are unlikely to tolerate backsliding. But it is not unfathomable that Obama has a “Few Good Men” moment and has to tell liberals and civil libertarians they can’t handle the truth – and that drastic steps sometimes need to be taken to avert disastrous consequences. What’s more, it is hardly a given that any president—no matter his philosophy—would wish to give up the expanded executive power that Bush claimed in the name of national security.

DO UNIONS WEAR WHITE HATS?

Obama, for the entire campaign, said all the right things when it comes to keeping peace with Big Labor. He praised the power and fairness of unions. He expressed skepticism about free trade agreements like NAFTA. Most of all, he proudly sponsored legislation to make it much easier for workers to unionize.

Lately, he sounds like a man rethinking his enthusiasm.

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, he suggested he would not aggressively push for legislation to free workers to easily unionize (the bill is known as the Employee Free Choice Act. “If we are losing half a million jobs a month, then there are no jobs to unionize.” Even Nancy Pelosi seems inclined to cut him some slack for a while on this one – but at some point the pressure will intensify and we will learn if this is truly a pro-union White House.

CAN U.S. POWER SAVE DARFUR?

Darfur will be the first test case - but almost certainly not the last one - in which we will learn just how strongly Obama believes his stated view that the United States should act aggressively when it can use its military power to stop genocide or other humanitarian catastrophes.

There is powerful momentum inside the Democratic Party to come to the aid of the suffering people of Darfur. Among the biggest advocates are two of Obama’s top advisers: Biden and U.N Ambassador-designate Susan Rice.

But with the military stretched thin, and with many others in his administration more skeptical about the use of force on problems that don’t directly threaten national security, nothing is likely to happen unless Obama puts his own influence and reputation strongly behind an intervention.

During the campaign, he signaled a willingness to intervene, but also cautioned: “There’s a lot of cruelty around the world. We’re not going to be able to be everywhere all the time.”

HOW MUCH DOES HE HAVE TO PLACATE THE LEFT?

In his inaugural speech, Obama spoke of tired ideologies and a time to think anew about policy and politics. That is easy to do if he simply means rejecting Bush’s idea. But he has suggested this rethinking will hit the left, too – that’s trickier.

Some times, Obama has been wiling to tick off the left. He picked Rick Warren, a Christian conservative, to deliver Tuesday’s opening prayer and filled his cabinet and staff mainly with centrists. Other times, he seems to bend to liberal frustration.

Obama nixed John Brennan’s appointment to be CIA director after anti-torture advocates expressed outrage over Brennan’s involvement in Bush-era interrogations. Brennan’s going to be working in the White House anyway, but not in any position that requires Senate confirmation. Obama also quickly moved to give a prime role to Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay religious leader from New Hampshire, when liberals protested the choice of Warren to deliver the inaugural prayer.

Politically savvy liberal activists are an important reason Obama beat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic nominating contest, and a big reason he blew through all fund-raising records. It will be hard for Obama to govern without their enthusiasm, onthe other hand, it will be tough to reinvent politics if Obama is forced to routinely throw bouquets to the various factions of the Democratic Party.

(Politico 01/22/09)

Obama and Abortion

Officials: Obama to reverse abortion policy

WASHINGTON – In a long-expected move, President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order ending the ban on federal funds for international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option, officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

Liberal groups welcomed the decision while abortion rights foes criticized the president. Known as the "Mexico City policy," the ban has been reinstated and then reversed by Republican and Democratic presidents since GOP President Ronald Reagan established it in 1984. President Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but President George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.

The policy bans U.S. taxpayer money, usually in the form of U.S. Agency for International Development funds, from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion. It is also known as the "global gag rule," because it prohibits taxpayer funding for groups that lobby to legalize abortion or promote it as a family planning method.

The Democratic official and senior U.S. official who disclosed the plans did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to pre-empt Obama's announcement.

Obama was expected to sign the executive order at a low-key event, one day after the 36th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.

The move was not a surprise as both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will oversee foreign aid, had promised to do away with the gag rule during the presidential campaign. Clinton is to visit the U.S. Agency for International Development, through which much U.S. foreign aid is disbursed, later on Friday.

Obama has spent his first days in office systematically signing executive orders reversing Bush administration policies on issues ranging from foreign policy to government operations. But, save for ending the ban, Obama has largely refrained from wading into ideological issues, perhaps to avoid being tagged a traditional partisan from the outset after his campaign promises to change "business as usual" in the often partisan-gridlocked capital.

Rather, Obama has chosen to focus initially on issues in which there is consensus across the political spectrum and support from the public, such as closing the prison camp for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to making government documents more accessible.

In a move related to the lifting of the abortion ban, Obama also is expected to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) at his earliest opportunity, probably in the next budget. Both he and Clinton made this a campaign issue.

The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from going to the fund, contending that work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.

Organizations that had pressed Obama to make the abortion-ban change were jubilant.

"Women's health has been severely impacted by the cutoff of assistance. President Obama's actions will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning," said Tod Preston, a spokesman for Population Action International, an advocacy group.

Anti-abortion groups criticized the move.

"President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.

(AP 01/23/09)

Obama and Money

Obama asks lawmakers to back stimulus bill

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats sought to ease Republican complaints about a massive economic stimulus plan Friday, meeting with GOP leaders in the White House and promising to consider some of their recommendations.

Many Republican lawmakers say the $825 billion package is too costly, and that too much of the spending is for long-range projects that won't aid the economy quickly. Some economists say the package should be even bigger, however, and it was unclear whether Republicans would have much impact.

House and Senate GOP leaders "had some constructive suggestions, which we'll review," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters after the meeting with Obama and House and Senate leaders from both parties in the Roosevelt Room.

Speaking at the National Press Club shortly after the White House gathering, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said he believes the measure will clear Congress by the mid-February target date set by Obama and Democratic leaders.

In brief remarks before the meeting, Obama urged bipartisan support for the package, adding that he wanted to hear the Republicans' concerns.

"I know that it is a heavy lift to do something as substantial as we're doing right now," Obama said. "I recognize that there are still some differences around the table and between the administration and members of Congress about particular details on the plan.

"But I think what unifies this group is a recognition that we are experiencing an unprecedented, perhaps, economic crisis that has to be dealt with, and dealt with rapidly."

He thanked congressional leaders for working quickly on the rescue package that he says will create 3 million to 4 million new jobs.

"That is going to be absolutely critical and it appears that we are on target to make our President's Day weekend," he said. President's Day falls on Monday, Feb. 16.

Obama also said that any legislation governing the use of an additional $350 billion in financial industry bailout money must include new measures to ensure accountability and transparency.

After the meeting, House Republican Leader John Boehner said he and his colleagues told Obama they feel the stimulus package is too expensive and too slow. He said Republicans told Obama of their own plans to "get fast-acting tax relief in the hands of American families and small businesses, because, at the end of the day, government can't solve this problem."

Republicans have been seeking deeper tax cuts and have said there was no reliable estimate of the bill's impact on employment.

Democrats tried to mitigate the impact of a Congressional Budget Office study that questioned administration claims that the money could be spent fast enough to reduce joblessness quickly.

After attending the White House meeting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said there was "significant discussion about the CBO numbers." He said Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag, who recently headed the CBO, told participants that the study analyzed only 40 percent of the pending stimulus bill and that Orszag "would guarantee that at least 75 percent of the bill would go directly into the economy within the first 18 months."

Also on Friday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus unveiled a Senate version of the tax-cutting portion of the bill. Social Security recipients would get a bonus payment of $300 under the plan. Its tax cuts and spending proposals total $355 billion. It will be paired with $400 billion in further spending proposed by the Appropriations Committee on the Senate floor.

The House version of the bill advanced in committees this week. Republicans, who are in the minority, were unable to make inroads with their proposals.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday approved $275 billion in tax cuts on a party-line vote of 24-13. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, also working on the bill, cleared $2.8 billion to expand broadband communications service. And on Wednesday night, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $358 billion spending measure on a 35-22 party-line vote.

Obama is scheduled to meet in the Capitol with House Republicans next week, at their request. But by then the House bill could be on the floor awaiting a vote.

Government reports showed the number of new jobless claims was up and new home construction hit an all-time low in December.

___

Associated Press writers Charles Babington, Andrew Taylor, David Espo, Stephen Ohlemacher and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

(AP 01/23/09)

Inauguration History2009

Mr. President, it's cold outside

It's cold, maybe even freezing. Sometimes it snows. So why do we have to have a huge outdoor event to inaugurate a new president on January 20? Our first president, George Washington, was smart enough to get himself inaugurated on a more balmy April 30, 1789. What went wrong?

In short, the Constiution did it. Inaugurations used to be held in March to give electors four months to cast their ballots. But the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution changed the date to Jan. 20, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's second swearing-in ceremony in 1937 was the first held on the new date. FindLaw says a report from the Senate Committee on the Judiciary offered some reasons for the change:

"[W]hen our Constitution was adopted there was some reason for such a long intervention of time between the election and the actual commencement of work by the new Congress.... Under present conditions [of communication and transportation] the result of elections is known all over the country within a few hours after the polls close, and the Capital City is within a few days' travel of the remotest portions of the country....

"Another effect of the amendment would be to abolish the so-called short session of Congress.... Every other year, under our Constitution, the terms of Members of the House and one-third of the Members of the Senate expire on the 4th day of March.... Experience has shown that this brings about a very undesirable legislative condition."

In other words, that's an awfully long lame-duck session, and we now have airplanes and 24-hour news and the Internet — in 2008, we knew Obama would be the next president by 11pm ET. As the 2000 election reminded us, we don't always know who's going to president by the end of election night. And in the days of yore, presidents had to physically move to the nation's capital without the help of FedEx, super highways and United hubs.

Getting our president to work on time — that seems a worthwhile amendment. And not to worry: President-elect Obama says a chilly weather report won't deter him from the traditional outdoor ceremony. So if you're headed to D.C. to catch the big show for yourself, you might want to take some advice from Karin Tanabe at the Huffington Post, who has clearly been debating "what to wear?" for quite some time:

"So what does one wear to be sandwiched between total strangers for hours while craning your neck to see a Jumbotron in sub-zero weather? Clothing you never want to see again. Don't mind if a reveler accidentally flambés your parka? Then by all means wear it. And then throw another one on top for good measure. Spent your entire month's salary on stilettos so fabulous you had them sewn to your feet? It's time to cut them off and wear the sensible shoes favored by nuns and your Aunt Mildred."

Even if you're cold and not-so-comfortable, it's always a special moment watching a new leader say these famous words:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

01/19/2009

Bailout…don’t you feel good?

Report: Over 8 in 10 corporations have tax havens

WASHINGTON – Eighty-three of the nation's 100 largest corporations, including Citigroup, Bank of America and News Corp., had subsidiaries in offshore tax havens in 2007, and some of the companies received federal bailout funding, a government watchdog said Friday.

The Government Accountability Office released a report that said Bank of America Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley all had more than 100 units in countries that maintain low or no taxes. The three financial institutions were included in the $700 billion financial bailout approved by Congress.

Insurance giant American International Group Inc., which has received about $150 billion in bailout money, had 18 subsidiaries. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had 50 units and Wells Fargo & Co. had 18; both financial institutions received government bailout money.

Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who requested the report, have pushed for tougher laws to fight offshore tax havens around the globe. Levin, who leads the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has estimated abusive tax havens and offshore accounts cost the U.S. government at least $100 billion a year in lost taxes.

"I think we should take action to shut down these tax dodgers and we will be introducing legislation to do just that," Dorgan said.

General Motors Corp., which received $13.4 billion from the federal rescue package, had 11 offshore subsidiaries while GM's financing arm, GMAC LLC, had two offshore units. GMAC, whose majority owner is private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, received $5 billion from the Treasury Department in late December.

Citigroup said in a statement that it has more than 4,000 subsidiaries around the globe "which enables us to serve hundreds of millions of individuals and institutions in more than 100 countries." A News Corp. spokeswoman declined comment. Messages were left with several of the companies identified in the report.

Separately, the GAO said 63 of the 100 largest federal contractors maintain subsidiaries in 50 tax havens.

Levin noted that many competitors use the tax havens to varying degrees. PepsiCo Inc. has 70 subsidiaries while the Coca-Cola Co. has eight units. Caterpillar Inc. had 49 while Deere & Co. had three.

"We need to put an end to the use of offshore secrecy jurisdictions as tax havens," Levin said.

The GAO said the subsidiaries could be established in the countries "for a variety of nontax business reasons" and said having a business unit in one of the countries "does not signify that a corporation or federal contractor established that subsidiary for the purpose of reducing its tax burden."

Citigroup had 427 units in 23 countries, including 91 subsidiaries in Luxembourg and 90 in the Cayman Islands. Morgan Stanley had 273 units, News Corp. had 152 and Bank of America had 115. Procter & Gamble Co. had 83 subsidiaries and Pfizer Inc. had 80 in the jurisdictions.

Several major corporations have announced plans to leave Bermuda, a leading offshore business center, amid the global financial crisis and fears of tighter tax rules. Tyco Electronics Ltd., which makes electronic components, and Foster Wheeler Ltd., an engineering and construction company, are reincorporating in Switzerland — which has a tax treaty with the U.S. — for tax and other reasons. Covidien Ltd., a health care products company, is heading to Ireland.

___

AP 01/17/09

Bush - One FINAL Time

Editorials worldwide pillory Bush one final time

BERLIN (Reuters) – Editorial writers around the world have been taking their final printed whacks at George W. Bush, accusing the president of tarnishing America's standing with what many saw as arrogant and incompetent leadership.

Some newspaper editorials, for all their criticism, suggested historians might just be kinder later on than those now writing first drafts of history. A success often cited by those seeking a silver lining was the United States' freedom from further homeland attacks following September 11.

Bush's successor, Barack Obama, will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president on Tuesday.

"A weak leader, Bush was just overwhelmed in the job," said Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung under a headline: "The Failure." "He confused stubbornness with principles. America has become intolerant and it will take a long time to repair that damage."

Editorials hit out at Bush for two unfinished wars, for plunging the economy into recession, turning a budget surplus into a pile of debt, for his environment policies and tarnishing America's reputation with the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

Bush was given credit in some editorials for defending the United States against terror attacks after September 11, 2001.

Israel was most complimentary, of his intentions if not necessarily of his achievements.

"Of all the U.S. presidents over the past 60 years, it is hard to think of a better friend to Israel than George W. Bush," the Jerusalem Post daily wrote during Bush's final visit.

Last week columnist Caroline Glick wrote Bush "recognizes Israel and the U.S. share the same enemies and they seek to destroy us because we represent the same thing: freedom. But Bush never learned how to translate personal views into policy."

Canada's Toronto Star was categorical in its condemnation.

"Goodbye to the worst president ever," it declared. "Bush was an unmitigated disaster, failing on the big issues from the invasion of Iraq to global warming, Hurricane Katrina and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

"Bush leaves a country and an economy in tatters," wrote the Sunday Times in London. It said America's national debt and unemployment nearly doubled on his watch.

Britain's Daily Mail said he entered office with a budget surplus of $128 billion but exits with a $482 billion deficit.

"He leaves the world facing its biggest crisis since the Depression, the Middle East in flames and U.S. standing at an all-time low.

"How will history judge George W.? Have we, perhaps, to quote his own mangled malapropisms, 'misunderestimated' him? On the plus side, after 9/11 he achieved what became his number one priority: to prevent his country suffering further attack on its own soil. Al Qaeda has been hugely weakened."

LEGACY OF WARS

The Scottish Daily Record observed: "America is now hated in many parts of the world. Bush leaves a legacy of wars and the world economy in meltdown. He has been dismissed as a buffoon and a war-monger, a man who made the world a more dangerous place while sending it to the brink of economic collapse."

The Economist found room to praise Bush on free trade, immigration reform and China. But its overall view was negative:

"He leaves as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America's reputation since World War Two."

The Sydney Morning Herald complained about Bush's "singular lack of curiosity in international matters" in an editorial titled "Farewell to a flawed and unpopular commander-in-chief."

But it also praised Bush for improving U.S. relations with China and India, his efforts to fight AIDS in Africa. It predicted historians might one day rank Bush in the mid range.

Le Monde disagreed.

"It's hard to find a historian who won't say that Bush was the most catastrophic leader the U.S. has ever known," the French daily wrote. "One success: since September 11, 2001, there was no attack on U.S. soil. But this sits alongside an interminable list of failures, starting with the war in Iraq."

Germany, ridiculed as "old Europe" by Bush's former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for opposing the Iraq invasion, took aim at Bush.

"Bush brought great misery to the world with his 'friend-or-foe' mentality," wrote Die Zeit.

Stern magazine said: "Bush led the world's most powerful nation to ruin. He lied to the world, tortured in the name of freedom and caused lasting damage to America's standing."

The Pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper resorted to bitter black humor under the headline: "We cried a lot and the joke was on us." It recalled his controversial election win in Florida and how he once nearly choked on a pretzel, watching television.

"Perhaps we could say that fate, which let the American people down first in Florida and then with the issue of the pretzel in the president's throat, ultimately helped them by making sure the president would spend half his time on vacation.

"Indeed, he would have caused twice the damage if he had been more active and focused."

Austria's Wiener Zeitung wrote Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even ranked higher in one international opinion poll than Bush:

"The United States was once the symbol of justice in the world but that has been damaged by Bush. A web of manipulation has cost America $900 billion and the lives of 4,000 soldiers -- along with at least 500,000 Iraqis."

In Poland, the Warsaw daily Dziennik lamented the worst part about Bush's presidency: "It was empty rhetoric."

(Additional reporting by Jakub Jaworoski in Warsaw, Peter Griffiths in London, Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem, and Francois Murphy in Paris; editing by Ralph Boulton).

Reuters (01/202009)

Obama’s Train Ride

Obama rides rails to capital, as onlookers cheer

PHILADELPHIA – President-elect Barack Obama, cheered by onlookers along the train route Abraham Lincoln took nearly a century and a half earlier, undertook the final leg of his inaugural journey to the nation's capital Saturday, pledging to reclaim America's spirit but also warning of steep challenges facing the country.

Hundreds of excited people screamed and cheered as Obama waved from the back of his inaugural train when it rolled slowly through the station in little Claymont, Del., on the way to larger crowds at stops in Wilmington, Del., and Baltimore on the route to Washington.

Unfazed by frigid temperatures, scattered groups stood waving at crossroads along the way.

"Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union," Obama told several hundred people gathered for the sendoff inside a hall at Philadelphia's historic 30th Street train station. "Let's build a government that is responsible to the people and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable. ... Let's make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning and the hope for the future."

While talking about the future, Obama reflected on the past, echoing the words of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy. He cited the founding fathers who risked everything with no assurance of success in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776:

"They were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line — their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor — for a set of ideals that continue to light the world: That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure."

Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who hopped aboard the train in Wilmington, said the train ride marked the beginning of a journey that would change America.

"Our economy is struggling. We are a nation at war," Biden said. "Sometimes, just sometimes, it's hard to believe that we'll see the spring again. But I tell you spring is on the way with this new administration."

This is a momentous time for the Obamas. And for Michelle Obama, it was also her 45th birthday. The crowd in Wilmington sang "Happy Birthday" to her, forcing the president-elect to briefly delay the start of his second speech of the day in which he pledged a revival of the middle class.

"When we Americans get knocked down, we always, always get back up on our feet," Obama said.

"We've heard your stories on the campaign trail," he said. "We have been touched by your dreams, and we will fight for you every single day that we're in Washington because Joe and I are committed to leading a government that is accountable not just to the wealthy or to the well-connected, but to you."

The president-elect's triumphant day — heralded along the 137-mile rail route — started in Philadelphia with a sober discussion of the country's future with 41 people he met during his long quest for the White House.

He told the crowd in Philadelphia that the same perseverance and idealism displayed by the nation's founders are needed to tackle the difficulties of today.

"We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly," Obama said. "There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency."

He cited the faltering economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — "one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely" — the threat of global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

"We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began," he said. "The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast."

Preparing to board the train, Obama said that "what's required is a new declaration of independence — from ideology and small thinking."

Obama's vintage rail car, known as Georgia 300, was tacked onto the back of a 10-car train made up of Amtrak cars filled with hundreds of guests, reporters and staff along for the ride.

The train was due at Washington's Union Station after nightfall.

At Union Station, as Obama set out from Philadelphia, the vanguard of perhaps the greatest crowd in Washington history was beginning to arrive.

Bursting with enthusiasm, Toni Mateo arrived from Atlanta, where he works at a public relations firm.

"It's going to be life-affirming for me," said Mateo. "It was really important that I come here to represent the family and to take the energy back with me." He said his train car was crowded but quiet — until "I just screamed out `Obama,' and the whole crowd erupted."

Elsewhere in Washington, members of his administration stayed focused on policy.

Addressing the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, asked for help keeping the momentum going for passage, and implementation, of a measure to jump-start the economy.

House Democrats this week unveiled their version of the bill, an $825 billion package of tax cuts and spending.

Although his path tracked Lincoln's and took on the same overtone of high security, it wasn't the journey of virtual secrecy that the 16th president-elect took so long ago on the eve of the Civil War. Lincoln was smuggled under cover of darkness from one train station to another to avoid a feared assassination attempt.

This year, the FBI has been planning its inauguration mission since June. Large trucks, a bomb-detecting robot, canisters with h

undreds of gallons of water to disrupt a car bomb and other emergency response equipment stretch down a block near the FBI's Washington Field Office.

John Perren, a special agent in charge of counterterrorism, said there was no credible intelligence warning of any attack.

AP 01/17/09

America Thoughts

America: What in the world does it want to be?

NEW YORK – George Washington, first president, said this: "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

Eldridge Cleaver, civil rights leader, said this: "Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on 24-hour call."

Toby Keith, populist country singer, said this: "This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage — and you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A."

Now: Place those three divergent sentiments in a large bowl. Whip vigorously until blended. There you'll have, in one curious, often contradictory recipe, the world-changing, world-shaking world view of the quixotic species known as the American people.

When 21st-century Americans contemplate their place on the planet, they confront a complex history of isolationism and engagement, a deep instinct to live and let live that coexists with an equally fervent desire to be a robust beacon of freedom — sometimes by any means necessary.

That means that, while a presidential transition offers many limbos, none is quite so stark as the expected change in the approach, method and technique of foreign policy that will come with the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday.

"It's a very plastic moment," says Eric Rauchway, author of "Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America."

The arrival of Obama and his secretary of state designate, Hillary Rodham Clinton, represents a baton-passing between two distinct versions of the American world view — George W. Bush's interventionist, we-know-best foreign policy and Obama's vow to "restore our moral standing."

Both of those outlooks have their merits and their supporters. In the era after 9/11, particularly, Americans' hunger for security in the "homeland" is fervent — enough so that we re-elected Bush in 2004 more than a year after he ordered the invasion of Iraq on a false premise.

Nevertheless, polls show an increasing dissatisfaction with how America plays with others in the international sandbox, and the neoconservatives who pushed a more aggressive American position toward the world — men such as Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz — left the Bush administration years ago.

But when a new president gazes out upon the republic and looks for clues to consider the American mood toward the world and craft policy accordingly, sometimes it's all quite difficult to figure out.

We are a welcoming people who have embraced waves of immigrants who have changed us — and keep changing us — in productive ways. Yet ours is a suspicious land where accusations of Frenchness helped sour voters against John Kerry and, days after 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment claimed the life of an Indian Sikh — the cultural equivalent of mistaking a pine tree for a chrysanthemum bush.

This is a country where ordering Chinese takeout has become a fundamentally American activity, yet also where legions of non-passport-holders who devour the mediated experiences of "Morocco" and "Japan" at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center would never dream of visiting the real thing.

And this is a nation where festivals celebrating faraway cultures are held in the smallest, least diverse of communities — but where an average senior citizen in Frederick, Md., will issue whispered warnings about black helicopters and the one-world government that's surely going to usurp our sovereignty.

"We need others and others need us. And we don't like that," says Schuyler Foerster, president of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, one of many such groups that work with their regions to facilitate American engagement with the world.

Jack Holmes, a political scientist at Hope College in Holland, Mich., studies long-term foreign policy trends. He says American attitudes typically pinball every couple of decades between two phases, "introvert" and "extrovert," and are approaching the end of an extrovert phase.

He doesn't expect an introverted Obama administration but thinks the public is ready for changes in strategy, tactics and tone.

"Americans are never quite happy with what their role is in the world. Either they want to show the world how to do it, or sit back and set an example that the world can follow," Holmes says. But with a sharp change in policy and attitude potentially at hand, he says, "The American public is at a very important moment when it comes to how this country sees itself."

Evidence is everywhere, and has been for many generations, that this country sees itself as a "shining city upon a hill," as one of its earliest leaders, John Winthrop, put it — a metaphor that Ronald Reagan reintroduced effectively in the 1980s.

"Inspiration is our export," says Ted Widmer, author of "Ark of the Liberties: America and the World."

That tendency to be a model for humanity created a magnificent society built on ideas and ideals — and also got a lot of people killed.

It is the instinct that makes Americans the most philanthropic people in the world. It also makes them a wellspring of resentment by nations that bristle at what they call U.S. arrogance — something that perplexes many good Americans who say they are only trying to help.

"I think we do underestimate the degree that our actions are considered by people of other countries," Widmer says.

In fact, when foreigners actually visit America they seem to come away charmed. U.S. Travel, the leading industry group for the travel sector, surveyed more than 2,000 foreign nationals and found those who had visited the United States were 74 percent more likely to have a favorable opinion about Americans than those who had not.

"When the American people are being themselves, it is proven to work," says Geoff Freeman, U.S. Travel's senior vice president for public affairs.

"There's been a healthy debate in this country as to, `Does it matter what the world thinks of us?'" he says. "And I think that the past eight years have turned much of that debate toward, `Yes, it does matter.'"

It matters because, like it or not, the domino effect isn't just about communism anymore. Markets fail in Asia, and Americans convulse. Jobs shed in Dubuque show up in Dubai. And, most dramatically, foreign-policy decisions executed in far-off lands can have direct security effects at home.

At the same time, engaging Americans in the nuances of foreign affairs has often proven difficult. Not only does geography keep most things far away in concept if not in fact, but many of the 21st century's diffuse global realities are difficult to wrangle because they lack visual, Hollywood-style iconography.

Instead of dust bowls and bread lines, we have intricate financial networks that connect us with the world but are impossible for all but experts to visualize. Instead of menacing footage of Nazi rallies or Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe, we have an undefined enemy who roams the globe surreptitiously and hides in plain sight. And instead of the movie ending with a climax — an Iraq invasion, say — the aftermath trickles on and the mission is not, in fact, yet accomplished.

For eight years of Bush foreign policy, the Democrats have insisted, quite vociferously, that they understand America's place in the world better than their rivals. On Tuesday, they get to show us if they're right.

"We must use what has been called `smart power,'" Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at her confirmation hearing last week. That, she said, means deploying "the full range of tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural — picking the right tool or combination of tools for each situation."

Is that the wariness of permanent alliances? The huge rescue squad? The big dog unleashed? From isolationism to Manifest Destiny, from emergence as a major power to post-World War II consensus to neoconservative activism, American history is replete with all three options.

And the American people of the 21st century, part of a connected world for better and worse, face the same challenge their leaders do: understanding that, when it comes to reaching a hand into the complex toolbox of world affairs, you'd better know how to use the implement you grab.

___

Ted Anthony covers politics and culture for The Associated Press. Comments about Measure of a Nation can be sent to measure(at).

AP 01/17/09

BEST BAILOUT OUT PLAN

This is a piece from Michael Moore:

The richest 400 Americans -- that's right, just four hundred people -- own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion -- the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the "bailout." Why don't they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They'd still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!

Of course, they are not going to do that -- at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a $127 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not his, he did what the rich prefer to do -- spend it and never look back. Now we have a $9.5 trillion debt. Why on earth would we even think of giving these robber barons any more of our money?

I would like to propose my own bailout plan. My suggestions, listed below, are predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps. Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times: There... is... no... free... lunch. And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare! So, there will be no handouts from us to you. The Senate, tonight, is going to try to rush their version of a "bailout" bill to a vote. They must be stopped. We did it on Monday with the House, and we can do it again today with the Senate.

It is clear, though, that we cannot simply keep protesting without proposing exactly what it is we think Congress should do. So, after consulting with a number of people smarter than Phil Gramm, here is my proposal, now known as "Mike's Rescue Plan." It has 10 simple, straightforward points. They are:

1. APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO CRIMINALLY INDICT ANYONE ON WALL STREET WHO KNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COLLAPSE. Before any new money is expended, Congress must commit, by resolution, to criminally prosecute anyone who had anything to do with the attempted sacking of our economy. This means that anyone who committed insider trading, securities fraud or any action that helped bring about this collapse must go to jail. This Congress must call for a Special Prosecutor who will vigorously go after everyone who created the mess, and anyone else who attempts to scam the public in the future.

2. THE RICH MUST PAY FOR THEIR OWN BAILOUT. They may have to live in 5 houses instead of 7. They may have to drive 9 cars instead of 13. The chef for their mini-terriers may have to be reassigned. But there is no way in hell, after forcing family incomes to go down more than $2,000 dollars during the Bush years, that working people and the middle class are going to fork over one dime to underwrite the next yacht purchase.

If they truly need the $700 billion they say they need, well, here is an easy way they can raise it:

a) Every couple who makes over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year will pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years. (It's the Senator Sanders plan. He's like Colonel Sanders, only he's out to fry the right chickens.) That means the rich will still be paying less income tax than when Carter was president. This will raise a total of $300 billion.

b) Like nearly every other democracy, charge a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This will raise more than $200 billion in a year.

c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders will forgo receiving a dividend check for one quarter and instead this money will go the treasury to help pay for the bailout.

d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raise the corporate income tax back to the level of the 1950s, that gives us an extra $500 billion.

All of this combined should be enough to end the calamity. The rich will get to keep their mansions and their servants, and our United States government ("COUNTRY FIRST!") will have a little leftover to repair some roads, bridges and schools.

3. BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOMES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BUILD AN EIGHTH HOME. There are 1.3 million homes in foreclosure right now. That is what is at the heart of this problem. So instead of giving the money to the banks as a gift, pay down each of these mortgages by $100,000. Force the banks to renegotiate the mortgage so the homeowner can pay on its current value. To insure that this help does no go to speculators and those who have tried to make money by flipping houses, this bailout is only for people's primary residence. And in return for the $100K paydown on the existing mortgage, the government gets to share in the holding of the mortgage so that it can get some of its money back. Thus, the total initial cost of fixing the mortgage crisis at its roots (instead of with the greedy lenders) is $150 billion, not $700 billion.

And let's set the record straight. People who have defaulted on their mortgages are not "bad risks." They are our fellow Americans, and all they wanted was what we all want and most of us still get: a home to call their own. But during the Bush years, millions of them lost the decent paying jobs they had. Six million fell into poverty. Seven million lost their health insurance. And every one of them saw their real wages go down by $2,000. Those who dare to look down on these Americans who got hit with one bad break after another should be ashamed. We are a better, stronger, safer and happier society when all of our citizens can afford to live in a home that they own.

4. IF YOUR BANK OR COMPANY GETS ANY OF OUR MONEY IN A "BAILOUT," THEN WE OWN YOU. Sorry, that's how it's done. If the bank gives me money so I can buy a house, the bank "owns" that house until I pay it all back -- with interest. Same deal for Wall Street. Whatever money you need to stay afloat, if our government considers you a safe risk -- and necessary for the good of the country -- then you can get a loan, but we will own you. If you default, we will sell you. This is how the Swedish government did it and it worked.

5. ALL REGULATIONS MUST BE RESTORED. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD. This catastrophe happened because we let the fox have the keys to the henhouse. In 1999, Phil Gramm authored a bill to remove all the regulations that governed Wall Street and our banking system. The bill passed and Clinton signed it. Here's what Sen. Phil Gramm, McCain's chief economic advisor, said at the bill signing:

"In the 1930s ... it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.

"We are here today to repeal [that] because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.

"I am proud to be here because this is an important bill; it is a deregulatory bill. I believe that that is the wave of the future, and I am awfully proud to have been a part of making it a reality."

This bill must be repealed. Bill Clinton can help by leading the effort for the repeal of the Gramm bill and the reinstating of even tougher regulations regarding our financial institutions. And when they're done with that, they can restore the regulations for the airlines, the inspection of our food, the oil industry, OSHA, and every other entity that affects our daily lives. All oversight provisions for any "bailout" must have enforcement monies attached to them and criminal penalties for all offenders.

6. IF IT'S TOO BIG TO FAIL, THEN THAT MEANS IT'S TOO BIG TO EXIST. Allowing the creation of these mega-mergers and not enforcing the monopoly and anti-trust laws has allowed a number of financial institutions and corporations to become so large, the very thought of their collapse means an even bigger collapse across the entire economy. No one or two companies should have this kind of power. The so-called "economic Pearl Harbor" can't happen when you have hundreds -- thousands -- of institutions where people have their money. When you have a dozen auto companies, if one goes belly-up, we don't face a national disaster. If you have three separately-owned daily newspapers in your town, then one media company can't call all the shots (I know... What am I thinking?! Who reads a paper anymore? Sure glad all those mergers and buyouts left us with a strong and free press!). Laws must be enacted to prevent companies from being so large and dominant that with one slingshot to the eye, the giant falls and dies. And no institution should be allowed to set up money schemes that no one can understand. If you can't explain it in two sentences, you shouldn't be taking anyone's money.

7. NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD BE PAID MORE THAN 40 TIMES THEIR AVERAGE EMPLOYEE, AND NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD RECEIVE ANY KIND OF "PARACHUTE" OTHER THAN THE VERY GENEROUS SALARY HE OR SHE MADE WHILE WORKING FOR THE COMPANY. In 1980, the average American CEO made 45 times what their employees made. By 2003, they were making 254 times what their workers made. After 8 years of Bush, they now make over 400 times what their average employee makes. How this can happen at publicly held companies is beyond reason. In Britain, the average CEO makes 28 times what their average employee makes. In Japan, it's only 17 times! The last I heard, the CEO of Toyota was living the high life in Tokyo. How does he do it on so little money? Seriously, this is an outrage. We have created the mess we're in by letting the people at the top become bloated beyond belief with millions of dollars. This has to stop. Not only should no executive who receives help out of this mess profit from it, but any executive who was in charge of running his company into the ground should be fired before the company receives any help.

8. STRENGTHEN THE FDIC AND MAKE IT A MODEL FOR PROTECTING NOT ONLY PEOPLE'S SAVINGS, BUT ALSO THEIR PENSIONS AND THEIR HOMES. Obama was correct yesterday to propose expanding FDIC protection of people's savings in their banks to $250,000. But this same sort of government insurance must be given to our nation's pension funds. People should never have to worry about whether or not the money they've put away for their old age will be there. This will mean strict government oversight of companies who manage their employees' funds -- or perhaps it means that the companies will have to turn over those funds and their management to the government. People's private retirement funds must also be protected, but perhaps it's time to consider not having one's retirement invested in the casino known as the stock market. Our government should have a solemn duty to guarantee that no one who grows old in this country has to worry about ending up destitute.

9. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH, CALM DOWN, AND NOT LET FEAR RULE THE DAY. Turn off the TV! We are not in the Second Great Depression. The sky is not falling. Pundits and politicians are lying to us so fast and furious it's hard not to be affected by all the fear mongering. Even I, yesterday, wrote to you and repeated what I heard on the news, that the Dow had the biggest one day drop in its history. Well, that's true in terms of points, but its 7% drop came nowhere close to Black Monday in 1987 when the stock market in one day lost 23% of its value. In the '80s, 3,000 banks closed, but America didn't go out of business. These institutions have always had their ups and downs and eventually it works out. It has to, because the rich do not like their wealth being disrupted! They have a vested interest in calming things down and getting back into the Jacuzzi.

As crazy as things are right now, tens of thousands of people got a car loan this week. Thousands went to the bank and got a mortgage to buy a home. Students just back to college found banks more than happy to put them into hock for the next 15 years with a student loan. Life has gone on. Not a single person has lost any of their money if it's in a bank or a treasury note or a CD. And the most amazing thing is that the American public hasn't bought the scare campaign. The citizens didn't blink, and instead told Congress to take that bailout and shove it. THAT was impressive. Why didn't the population succumb to the fright-filled warnings from their president and his cronies? Well, you can only say 'Saddam has da bomb' so many times before the people realize you're a lying sack of shite. After eight long years, the nation is worn out and simply can't take it any longer.

10. CREATE A NATIONAL BANK, A "PEOPLE'S BANK." If we really are itching to print up a trillion dollars, instead of giving it to a few rich people, why don't we give it to ourselves? Now that we own Freddie and Fannie, why not set up a people's bank? One that can provide low-interest loans for all sorts of people who want to own a home, start a small business, go to school, come up with the cure for cancer or create the next great invention. And now that we own AIG, the country's largest insurance company, let's take the next step and provide health insurance for everyone. Medicare for all. It will save us so much money in the long run. And we won't be 12th on the life expectancy list. We'll be able to have a longer life, enjoying our government-protected pension, and living to see the day when the corporate criminals who caused so much misery are let out of prison so that we can help reacclimate them to civilian life -- a life with one nice home and a gas-free car that was invented with help from the People's Bank.

Feeling pretty?

Hormones may lead to more...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Women with high levels of estrogen not only look and feel prettier -- but they may act on those feelings by moving from man to man, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Estrogen, the so-called female hormone, affects fertility and has been shown to make women dress more provocatively and show more thrill-seeking behavior.

Dr. Kristina Durante of The University of Texas at Austin and colleagues found that young women felt more attractive when they had high levels of an estrogen known as estradiol, and they acted on those feelings.

"Women with higher estradiol reported a greater likelihood of flirting, kissing and having a serious affair with someone other than their primary partner and were marginally more likely to date another man," Durante's team wrote in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters.

"Results provide support for the relationship between physical beauty and fertility and suggest that women high in reproductive health engage in opportunistic serial monogamy -- being open to affairs and moving on to a new relationship if a higher-quality mate becomes available."

Durante's team tested 52 female undergraduates aged 17 to 30 who were not taking hormone contraceptives. They took two estradiol samples from each, as hormone levels fluctuate from week to week.

They had the women rate their own attractiveness and showed their photographs to others to rate, as well.

"High-estradiol women were considered significantly more physically attractive by themselves and others," Durante and colleagues wrote.

The high-estrogen women also reported more sexual behavior -- especially outside of a relationship, although it was not linked to one-night stands.

"Our results are consistent with the possibility that highly fertile women are not easily satisfied by their long-term partners and are especially motivated to become acquainted with other, presumably more desirable, men," they concluded.

The findings fit in with many other studies showing that hormones influence the behavior and success of both men and women. Earlier this week, U.S. and British researchers showed that male financial traders whose finger lengths indicate high testosterone levels in the womb made more money.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox)

AIDS Cure

Doctors say marrow transplant may have cured AIDS

By PATRICK McGROARTY, Associated Press Writer

BERLIN – An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.

While researchers — and the doctors themselves — caution that the case might be no more than a fluke, others say it may inspire a greater interest in gene therapy to fight the disease that claims 2 million lives each year. The virus has infected 33 million people worldwide.

Dr. Gero Huetter said Wedneday his 42-year-old patient, an American living in Berlin who was not identified, had been infected with the AIDS virus for more than a decade. But 20 months after undergoing a transplant of genetically selected bone marrow, he no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.

"We waited every day for a bad reading," Huetter said.

It has not come. Researchers at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school say tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.

However, Dr. Andrew Badley, director of the HIV and immunology research lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said those tests have probably not been extensive enough.

"A lot more scrutiny from a lot of different biological samples would be required to say it's not present," Badley said.

This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported.

Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.

As Huetter — who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist — prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.

"I read it in 1996, coincidentally," Huetter told reporters at the medical school. "I remembered it and thought it might work."

Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.

Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system — a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.

He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.

"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.

David Roth, a professor of epidemiology and international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said gene therapy as cheap and effective as current drug treatments is in very early stages of development.

"That's a long way down the line because there may be other negative things that go with that mutation that we don't know about."

Even for the patient in Berlin, the lack of a clear understanding of exactly why his AIDS has disappeared means his future is far from certain.

"The virus is wily," Huetter said. "There could always be a resurgence."

Mystery solved: How bleach kills germs

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Bleach has been killing germs for more than 200 years but U.S. scientists have just figured out how the cleaner does its dirty work.

It seems that hypochlorous acid, the active ingredient in bleach, attacks proteins in bacteria, causing them to clump up much like an egg that has been boiled, a team at the University of Michigan reported in the journal Cell on Thursday.

The discovery, which may better explain how humans fight off infections, came quite by accident.

"As so often happens in science, we did not set out to address this question," Ursula Jakob, who led the team, said in a statement.

The researchers had been studying a bacterial protein called heat shock protein 33, which is a kind of molecular chaperon that becomes active when cells are in distress, for example from the high temperature of a fever.

In this case, the source of the distress was hypochlorous acid or hypochlorite.

Jakob's team figured out that bleach and high temperatures have very similar effects on proteins.

When they exposed the bacteria to bleach, the heat shock protein became active in an attempt to protect other proteins in the bacteria from losing their chemical structure, forming clumps that would eventually die off.

"Many of the proteins that hypochlorite attacks are essential for bacterial growth, so inactivating those proteins likely kills the bacteria," Marianne Ilbert, a postdoctoral fellow in Jakob's lab, said in a statement.

The researchers said the human immune system produces hypochlorous acid in response to infection but the substance does not kill only the bacterial invaders. It kills human cells too, which may explain how tissue is destroyed in chronic inflammation.

"Hypochlorous acid is an important part of host defense," Jakob said. "It's not just something we use on our countertops."

(Editing by Maggie Fox and John O'Callaghan)

The Obama Transition:

What Will Change Look Like?

By KAREN TUMULTY - Writer for Tiem magazine 11/13/08

It is one of the ironies of politics and history that when the candidate of change was pondering what he would do if he actually got elected President, he turned to the man who eight years before handed over the White House keys to George W. Bush. Former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta had met Barack Obama only a few times before the Democratic nominee summoned him to Chicago in August to ask him to begin planning a transition. Podesta supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries and had little in common with Obama beyond the fact that they are both skinny guys from Chicago. Yet it is hard to think of a Democrat in Washington who can match Podesta's organizational abilities or his knowledge of the inner workings of government. And Obama was already giving plenty of thought to the crucial 76 days between the election and the Inauguration. "He understood that in order to be successful, he had to be ready," says Podesta, who is now a co-chairman of the transition team. "And he had to be ready fast."

Even in the calmest of times, the transfer of presidential power is a tricky maneuver, especially when it involves one party ceding the office to another. But not since Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in the midst of the Depression has a new President faced a set of challenges quite as formidable as those that await Obama. That's why Obama has been quicker off the blocks in setting up his government than any of his recent predecessors were, particularly Bill Clinton, who did not announce a single major appointment until mid-December. As the President-elect put it in his first radio address, "We don't have a moment to lose." (See Photos of Obama's Victory Celebration in Chicago)

Not only did Obama name a White House chief of staff two days after the election, but he also began to fill 120,000 sq. ft. (11,000 sq m) of office space in downtown Washington with a transition operation that is ultimately expected to have a staff of 450 and a budget of $12 million, more than half of which must be raised from private funds. Obama's goal, says his old friend Valerie Jarrett, another co-chair of the transition operation, "is to be able to be organized, efficient, disciplined and transparent to the American people." More disciplined than transparent: Washington's quadrennial parlor game is in full swing, with scores of names being circulated as contenders for top jobs in the Obama Administration. But the number of people who actually know anything is small, and they are not prone to leaking.

The transition provides an early glimpse of how the Obama team will conduct itself in power - and a test of how much change it really will bring to Washington. As the cascade of crises grows - the collapse of General Motors being the latest - the President-elect won't have time to settle in before making big decisions. In a real sense, the moves Obama makes in the next six weeks may help define what kind of President he will be. The appointments he makes, the way he engineers his government, how fast he gets everything in place - each of those things will determine whether he stumbles or bursts out of the starting gate and whether he sets forth a clear or an incoherent agenda for governing.

Planning Ahead

by all indications, this is shaping up to be one of the most amicable transfers of power between the parties in recent years - thanks in no small part to the extraordinary efforts of the current occupant of the Oval Office. Planning for the handoff was under way well before the Obamas paid a visit to the Bushes at the White House on Nov. 10 for a tour of the place that they, their daughters and the new President's mother-in-law will soon be calling home. Since September, Podesta has been quietly working with current White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and Bolten's deputy, Blake Gottesman, to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible. Bolten and Gottesman have been offering advice on which posts need to be filled quickest and making their personnel available to Obama advisers. More than 100 interim security clearances have already been granted to Obama aides. "If a crisis hits on Jan. 21, they're the ones who are going to have to deal with it," Bolten said in an interview with C-SPAN. "We need to make sure that they're as well prepared as possible."

The most labor-intensive phase is about to begin, as teams of Obama aides descend on more than 100 federal departments and agencies to begin poring over their operations. Meanwhile, the new Administration is looking for more than 300 Cabinet secretaries, deputies and assistant secretaries, plus upwards of 2,500 political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Not that there will be any lack of candidates: in the first five days after Obama's team set up its website, 144,000 applications poured in.

Obama seems determined to avoid the mistakes of Bill Clinton's chaotic transition in 1992, which helped set the stage for what turned out to be a rocky first year in office. Whereas Clinton put most of his early efforts into picking a diverse Cabinet that he said would look like America - and required three attempts to come up with a female Attorney General - Obama will initially focus on building his White House operation, much as Ronald Reagan did in 1980. Cabinet appointments are likely to begin coming by the end of the month, which is still early by recent historical standards. But Podesta says Obama intends to make the White House the locus of policy formulation and decision-making.

The strongest signal of how that White House will operate has been Obama's pick of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to be its chief of staff. Emanuel is a win-at-any-cost partisan but not an ideologue; in his earlier White House stint as a top aide to Clinton, he was a key figure in shepherding through the North American Free Trade Agreement, a crime bill and welfare reform - none of them popular with the Democratic Party's liberal base. The appointment of someone who has been a savvy operator at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue also shows that, for all Obama's talk of change, he does not intend to make the mistake of earlier Presidents who ran as outsiders and brought in top advisers who did not understand the folkways of Washington. (See Photos of How The World Reacted to Obama's Win)

But there are those who worry that Emanuel's hard-edged style - he's famously profane and once sent an enemy a dead fish - will stifle dissent and debate in a White House that, Jarrett says, Obama wants to function using a "team-of-rivals approach, with differences of opinion." Comparing Emanuel with Richard Nixon's ruthless chief of staff, New York University government expert Paul Light predicts, "He's going to make Bob Haldeman look like a cupcake."

The Agenda Dilemma

beyond personnel, the transition period is likely to yield insights into Obama's executive abilities and his agenda. Obama, following a model set by F.D.R. during his transition, has signaled that he does not intend to get deeply involved in the wrangling between Bush and Congress over an economic-stimulus package. Nor does he intend to return to Washington from Chicago to vote on one if it should come to the Senate chamber, where he technically still serves.

But given the urgency of the challenges - guarding against another terrorist attack and dealing with an economic crisis - Obama knows he doesn't have time on his side. His top priority will be stabilizing the financial system, he said in an interview with CNN shortly before the election, followed by investing in renewable energy, universal health care, middle-class tax cuts and education reform. Then there are the other things he talked about at various points in the campaign: closing GuantÁnamo, withdrawing from Iraq, renegotiating trade deals, reforming immigration. How quickly those now secondary goals will follow is a major question and source of debate among Obama's advisers. Publicly, they insist that he can do it all, and there is plenty of talk about putting these issues on parallel tracks. But it is hard to see how he can afford such expensive undertakings alongside a $700 billion federal bailout of the financial system (which Obama now wants to extend to the collapsing auto industry) and a new economic-stimulus package.

One relatively easy way that he can put early points on the change board once in office is by issuing a series of Executive Orders - for instance, reversing Bush policies on stem-cell research, offshore drilling and the prohibition against using foreign-aid money for abortion counseling. Congress, with its stronger Democratic majorities in both houses, is likely to quickly pass legislation that previously died under a Bush veto, beginning with expanded funding for the children's health-insurance program that is administered by the states. And lawmakers may also begin passing parts of Obama's economic and energy plans piecemeal.

The question is whether that will build Obama's momentum for bigger change or merely squander his honeymoon. Here too, Clinton's history is telling. In his first year, he put so much energy and capital into his deficit-reduction package and NAFTA that, in the view of some who served with him, he had little left for health care in his second.

The greatest challenge of all for President Obama will be the one set for him by candidate Obama. A Diageo/Hotline poll conducted after his election showed that two-thirds of those surveyed are now confident that "real change" is coming to Washington. How long are they willing to wait for it? Hope can fuel a campaign, but Presidents are measured by results.

- With reporting by Jay Newton-Small / Washington

Photos: Scenes from Voting Day

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Bush: Economic crisis not a failure of free market

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK – President George W. Bush asserted Thursday that the global financial crisis is "not a failure of the free market" and urged world leaders to adopt modest financial reforms that stop short of the tighter regulations Europeans favor.

"Our aim should not be more government. It should be smarter government," Bush said during a speech in New York, a day before about two dozen world leaders converge on Washington for a weekend summit he is hosting.

Bush called on the leaders to embrace "reasonable" reforms, saying changes won't work if they shun the free market system or restrict trade.

The president delivered a vigorous defense of free-market capitalism and easier global trade to frame his approach to the high-level gathering. Bush invited representatives of some of the world's biggest industrial democracies, emerging nations and international bodies to Washington to start developing a more coordinated world response to the economic woes that have millions of people struggling to keep their jobs, their homes and their hopes.

With the severe economic downturn threatening to end Bush's tenure on a sour note before President-elect Barack Obama takes over, he will host the leaders at a White House dinner Friday and review causes and solutions for the financial mess Saturday.

It was fitting that Bush's argument against regulatory overreach was delivered not in Washington but from the heart of Wall Street. He spoke at venerable Federal Hall, which was home to the first Congress and is within shouting distance of New York Stock Exchange.

Bush called for reforms to strengthen the global economy long-term and said leaders at this weekend's meeting would "discuss specific actions we can take."

Among the areas for possible agreement, Bush listed:

_bolstering accounting rules for stocks, bonds and other investments so investors have a clearer sense of the true value of what they buy.

_requiring "credit default swaps" — a type of corporate debt insurance — to be processed through a central clearinghouse. That would help provide crucial information on the parties involved in these complex, unregulated products. Prices for this insurance soared in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and imperiled American International Group, a major insurer of this kind of corporate debt.

_taking a fresh look at rules aimed at preventing fraud and manipulation in trading of stocks and other securities.

_better coordinating financial regulations among countries.

_Giving a wider variety of countries voting power at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Notably absent from his speech was any talk about what the U.S. might do to bail out the troubled auto industry or the debate over a second U.S. stimulus package.

"The crisis was not a failure of the free market system," Bush said. "And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system."

But Bush's argument that "government intervention is not a cure-all" came as some critics think his administration already is overstepping in private markets. The federal dollars being spent or put on the line to rebuild the nation's financial system could easily run into the trillions. Already the Bush administration has enacted a $700 financial rescue package, backed the purchase of investment bank Bear Stearns, bought stock in leading banks, engineered a government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, guaranteed money market fund holdings and funneled billions to stabilize troubled insurance giant American International Group.

"I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown," Bush said.

At the same time, the president aggressively defended the U.S. against charges from around the world that insufficient U.S. regulation led to the credit collapse worldwide. This was his way of pushing back against both the criticism and the calls by allies for more intrusive rules. Heading into the meeting, Europeans are seen as looking more urgently for broad changes and tighter universal banking regulations than is the United States.

"Many European countries had much more extensive regulations and still experienced problems almost identical to our own," Bush said.

Some critics have said that lax oversight by U.S. and other regulators failed to detect problems and respond with action that could have prevented the meltdown. The crisis began with the collapse of the U.S. housing market, which froze credit, then shook the broader financial sector and finally rippled overseas.

"History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, it is too much government involvement in the market," he said. "It would a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success."

Dan Price, Bush's deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, rejected suggestions of discord with other nations and said it was "grossly inaccurate" to suggest the U.S. was not taking a firm lead in reform.

"We are no less committed to fixing the problems, and addressing regulatory and other deficiencies, than any other leader," he said.

While in New York, the president addressed a conference at the United Nations on religious tolerance and met privately with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The summit is just the first in a series intended to deal with the enormity of the economic meltdown, and the next meeting won't be until after Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.

In the United States alone, the nation's jobless ranks zoomed past 10 million last month, the most in a quarter-century, as 240,000 more people lost jobs. In the latest dire sign, American automakers say they are struggling to survive.

Obama is steering clear of the summit but will have a couple representatives available to meet with leaders on his behalf.

Besides the United States, the countries represented will be Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey. Those countries and the European Union make up the so-called G-20.

Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated Press Writer – Wed Oct 29, 9:18 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama's assertion that "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond" the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by "eliminating programs that don't work" masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are — beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn't tell them:

THE SPIN: "That's why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year."

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it's not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

___

THE SPIN: "I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care."

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: "I want to start doing something about it." He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.

___

THE SPIN: "I've offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost."

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say both Obama and Republican John McCain would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years — and that analysis accepts the savings he claims from spending cuts. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: "Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years." The analysis goes on to say: "Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified."

___

THE SPIN: "Here's what I'll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we'll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. "

THE FACTS: His proposals — the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more — cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged — although not in his commercial — that: "The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals."

Loser Scapegoat

John McCain's campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.

And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”

Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”

Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision?

And if you are a 72-year-old presidential candidate, wouldn’t you expect that your running mate’s fitness for high office would come under a little extra scrutiny? And, therefore, wouldn’t you make your selection with care? (To say nothing about caring about the future of the nation?)

McCain didn’t seem to care that much. McCain admitted recently on national TV that he “didn’t know her well at all” before he chose Palin.

But why not? Why didn’t he get to know her better before he made his choice?

It’s not like he was rushed. McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination in early March. He didn’t announce his choice for a running mate until late August.

Wasn’t that enough time for McCain to get to know Palin? Wasn’t that enough time for his crackerjack “vetters” to investigate Palin’s strengths and weaknesses, check through records and published accounts, talk to a few people, and learn that she was not only a diva but a whack job diva?

But McCain picked her anyway. He wanted to close the “enthusiasm gap” between himself and Barack Obama. He wanted to inject a little adrenaline into the Republican National Convention. He wanted to goose up the Republican base.

And so he chose Palin. Is she really a diva and a whack job? Could be. There are quite a few in politics. (And a few in journalism, too, though in journalism they are called “columnists.”)

As proof that she is, McCain aides now say Palin is “going rogue” and straying from their script. Wow. What a condemnation. McCain sticks to the script. How well is he doing?

In truth, Palin’s real problem is not her personality or whether she takes orders well. Her real problem is that neither she nor McCain can make a credible case that Palin is ready to assume the presidency should she need to.

And that undercuts McCain’s entire campaign.

This was the deal McCain made with the devil. In exchange for energizing his base by picking Palin, he surrendered his chief selling point: that he was better prepared to run the nation in time of crisis, whether it be economic, an attack by terrorists or, as he has been talking about in recent days, fending off a nuclear war.

“The next president won’t have time to get used to the office,” McCain told a crowd in Miami on Wednesday. “I’ve been tested, my friends, I’ve been tested.”

But has Sarah Palin?

I don’t believe running mates win or lose elections, though some believe they can be a drag on the ticket. Lee Atwater, who was George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager in 1988, told me that Dan Quayle cost the ticket 2 to 3 percentage points. But Bush won the election by 7.8 percentage points.

So, in Atwater’s opinion, Bush survived his bad choice by winning the election on his own.

McCain could do the same thing. But his campaign’s bad decisions have not stopped with Sarah Palin. It has made a series of questionable calls, including making Joe the Plumber the embodiment of the campaign.

Are voters really expected to warmly embrace an (unlicensed) plumber who owes back taxes and complains about the possibility of making a quarter million dollars a year?

And did McCain’s aides really believe so little in John McCain’s own likability that they thought Joe the Plumber would be more likable?

Apparently so. Which is sad.

We in the press make too much of running mates and staff and talking points and all the rest of the hubbub that accompanies a campaign.

In the end, it comes down to two candidates slugging it out.

Either McCain pulls off a victory in the last round or he doesn’t.

And if he doesn’t, he has nobody to blame but himself.

Press for McCain and Obama

Politico political editor Charles Mahtesian was e-mailing the other day with a Republican lobbyist who signed off with a plea that sounded more like a taunt: “Keep it balanced.”

A reader e-mailed us with the same sentiment in different language. “Are you f***ing joking! Your bias has stooped to an all-time low. Wait, it will probably get worse as election day nears.” Those asterisks, by the way, are hers, not ours.

And get a load of this one, from someone in Rochester, N.Y., who did not like our analysis of the final presidential debate. “You guys are awfully tough on McCain. There may be some legitimacy to the claim of press bias. Mom.”

We were all set to dismiss Harris’ mother as a crank. Same for VandeHei’s: a conservative dismayed by what she sees as kid-glove treatment of Barack Obama. Then along came a study — funded by the prestigious Pew Research Center, no less — suggesting at first blush, at least, that they may be on to something.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s researchers found that John McCain, over the six weeks since the Republican convention, got four times as many negative stories as positive ones. The study found six out of 10 McCain stories were negative.

What’s more, Obama had more than twice as many positive stories (36 percent) as McCain — and just half the percentage of negative (29 percent).

You call that balanced?

OK, let’s just get this over with: Yes, in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at Politico.

And, yes, based on a combined 35 years in the news business we’d take an educated guess — nothing so scientific as a Pew study — that Obama will win the votes of probably 80 percent or more of journalists covering the 2008 election. Most political journalists we know are centrists — instinctually skeptical of ideological zealotry — but with at least a mild liberal tilt to their thinking, particularly on social issues.

So what?

Before answering the question, indulge us in noting that the subject of ideological bias in the news media is a drag. The people who care about it typically come at the issue with scalding biases of their own. Any statement journalists make on the subject can and will be used against them. So the incentive is to make bland and guarded statements. Even honest ones, meanwhile, will tend to strike partisans as evasive or self-delusional.

Here goes anyway.

There have been moments in the general election when the one-sidedness of our site — when nearly every story was some variation on how poorly McCain was doing or how well Barack Obama was faring — has made us cringe.

As it happens, McCain’s campaign is going quite poorly and Obama’s is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.

Politico was not included in the Pew study. But our researcher Alex Burns pulled out his highlighter pen and did his own study of Politico's October stories last week: 110 stories advanced a narrative that was more favorable to Obama than McCain. Sixty-nine did the opposite.

Our daily parlor game (which some readers, alas, seem to take a bit more solemnly than we do) declaring “who won the day” has awarded the day to Obama by a 2-to-1 margin. It’s doubtful even McCain would say he’s had more good days than that.

Still, journalists should do more than just amplify existing trends. A couple weeks back, Politico managing editor Bill Nichols sent out a note to the campaign team urging people to cough up more story ideas that took a skeptical look at the campaign tactics and policy proposals of the Democrat, who is likely to be president three months from now. As it happened, the response was a trickle (though Nichols and Mahtesian came up with some ideas of their own).

Responsible editors would be foolish not to ask themselves the bias question, especially in the closing days of an election.

But, having asked it, our sincere answer is that of the factors driving coverage of this election — and making it less enjoyable for McCain to read his daily clip file than for Obama — ideological favoritism ranks virtually nil.

The main reason is that for most journalists, professional obligations trump personal preferences. Most political reporters (investigative journalists tend to have a different psychological makeup) are temperamentally inclined to see multiple sides of a story, and being detached from their own opinions comes relatively easy.

Reporters obsess about personalities and process, about whose staff are jerks or whether they seem like decent folks, about who has a great stump speech or is funnier in person than they come off in public, about whether Michigan is in play or off the table. This is the flip side of the fact of how much we care about the horse race — we don’t care that much about our own opinions of which candidate would do more for world peace or tax cuts.

If that causes skeptics to scoff, perhaps they would find it more satisfying to hear that the reason ideological bias matters so little is that other biases matter so much more.

This is true in any election year. But the 2008 election has had some unique — and personal — phenomena.

One is McCain backlash. The Republican once was the best evidence of how little ideology matters. Even during his “maverick” days, McCain was a consistent social conservative, with views on abortion and other cultural issues that would have been odds with those of most reporters we know. Yet he won swooning coverage for a decade from reporters who liked his accessibility and iconoclasm and supposed commitment to clean politics.

Now he is paying. McCain’s decision to limit media access and align himself with the GOP conservative base was an entirely routine, strategic move for a presidential candidate. But much of the coverage has portrayed this as though it were an unconscionable sellout.

Since then the media often presumes bad faith on McCain’s part. The best evidence of this has been the intense focus on the negative nature of his ads, when it is clear Obama has been similarly negative in spots he airs on radio and in swing states.

It is not our impression that many reporters are rooting for Obama personally. To the contrary, most colleagues on the trail we’ve spoken with seem to find him a distant and undefined figure. But he has benefited from the idea that negative attacks that in a normal campaign would be commonplace in this year would carry an out-of-bounds racial subtext. That’s why Obama’s long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was basically a nonissue in the general election.

Journalists’ hair-trigger racial sensitivity may have been misplaced, but it was not driven by an ideological tilt.

In addition, Obama has benefited from his ability to minimize internal drama and maximize secrecy — and thus to starve feed the press’ bias for palace intrigue. In this sense, his campaign bears resemblance to the two run by George W. Bush.

Beyond the particular circumstances of McCain v. Obama, there are other factors in any race that almost always matter more than the personal views of reporters.

The strongest of these is the bias in favor of momentum. A candidate who is perceived to be doing well tends to get even more positive coverage (about his or her big crowds or the latest favorable polls or whatever). And a candidate who is perceived to be doing poorly tends to have all events viewed through this prism.

Not coincidentally, this is a bias shared by most of our sources. This is why the bulk of negative stories about McCain are not about his ideology or policy plans — they are about intrigue and turmoil. Think back to the past week of coverage on Politico and elsewhere: Coverage has been dominated by Sarah Palin’s $150,000 handbags and glad rags, by finger-pointing in the McCain camp, and by apparent tensions between the candidate and his running mate.

These stories are driven by the flood of Republicans inside and out of the campaign eager to make themselves look good or others look bad. This always happens when a campaign starts to tank. Indeed, there was a spate of such stories when Obama’s campaign hit turmoil after the GOP convention and the Palin surge.

For better or worse, the most common media instincts all have countervailing pressures. Countering the bias in favor of momentum is the bias against boredom. We’ve seen that several times this cycle — an outlying poll number being pumped to suggest big changes in a race that is basically unchanged. There’s a good chance you’ll see this phenomenon more in the next week.

Then there is the bend-over-backward bias. This is when journalists try so hard to avoid accusations of favoritism that it clouds critical judgment. A good example were stories suggesting Palin held her own or even won her debate against Joe Biden when it seemed obvious she was simply invoking whatever talking points she had at hand, hanging on for dear life.

Finally, one of the biases of journalists is the same one that is potent for almost all people: the one in favor of self-defensiveness. That’s why, even though we think ideological bias is pretty low on the list of journalistic maladies in this election, it is not viable for reporters to dismiss criticism out of hand.

So there you go, Ma: We’ll look into it.

Palin: Bad Advice

Even as John McCain and Sarah Palin scramble to close the gap in the final days of the 2008 election, stirrings of a Palin insurgency are complicating the campaign's already-tense internal dynamics.

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.Â

The emergence of a Palin faction comes as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party: Some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.

"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," a McCain insider said, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. Palin's partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin's avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News' Katie Couric, the sometimes painful content of which the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week.

"A number of Gov. Palin's staff have not had her best interests at heart, and they have not had the campaign's best interests at heart," the McCain insider fumed, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign.

Wallace declined to engage publicly in the finger-pointing that has consumed the campaign in the final weeks.

"I am in awe of [Palin's] strength under constant fire by the media," she said in an e-mail. "If someone wants to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most graceful thing to do is to lie there."

But other McCain aides, defending Wallace, dismissed the notion that Palin was mishandled. The Alaska governor was, they argue, simply unready — "green," sloppy and incomprehensibly willing to criticize McCain for, for instance, not attacking Sen. Barack Obama for his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Palin has in fact performed fairly well in the moments thought to be key for a vice presidential nominee: She made a good impression in her surprise rollout in Ohio and her speech to the Republican National Convention went better than the campaign could have imagined. She turned in an adequate performance at a debate against the Democratic Party's foremost debater.

But other elements of her image-making went catastrophically awry. Her dodging of the press and her nervous reliance on tight scripts in her first interview, with ABC News, became a national joke — driven home to devastating effect by "Saturday Night Live" comic Tina Fey. The Couric interview — her only unstaged appearance for a week — was "water torture," as one internal ally put it.

Some McCain aides say they had little choice with a candidate who simply wasn't ready for the national stage, and that Palin didn't forcefully object. Moments that Palin's allies see as triumphs of instinct and authenticity — the Wright suggestion, her objection to the campaign's pulling out of Michigan — they dismiss as Palin's "slips and miscommunications," that is, her own incompetence and evidence of the need for tight scripting.

But Palin partisans say she chafed at the handling.

"The campaign as a whole bought completely into what the Washington media said — that she's completely inexperienced," said a close Palin ally outside the campaign who speaks regularly to the candidate.

"Her strategy was to be trustworthy and a team player during the convention and thereafter, but she felt completely mismanaged and mishandled and ill advised," the person said. "Recently, she's gone from relying on McCain advisers who were assigned to her to relying on her own instincts."

Palin's loyalists say she's grown particularly disenchanted with the veterans of the Bush reelection campaign, including Schmidt and Wallace, and that despite her anti-intellectual rhetoric, her closest ally among her new traveling aides is a policy adviser, former National Security Council official Steve Biegun. She's also said to be close with McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, who prepared her for the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate.

When a McCain aide, speaking anonymously Friday to The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, suggested that Palin's charge that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" had "escaped HQ's vetting," it was Scheunemann who fired off an angry response that the speech was "fully vetted" and that to attack Palin for it was "bull****."

Palin's "instincts," on display in recent days, have had her opening up to the media, including a round of interviews on talk radio, cable and broadcast outlets, as well as chats with her traveling press and local reporters.

Reporters really began to notice the change last Sunday, when Palin strolled over to a local television crew in Colorado Springs.

"Get Tracey," a staffer called out, according to The New York Times, summoning spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, who reportedly "tried several times to cut it off with a terse 'Thank you!' in between questions, to no avail." The moment may have caused ulcers in some precincts of the McCain campaign, but it was an account Palin's admirers in Washington cheered.

Palin had also sought to give meatier policy speeches, in particular on energy policy and on policy for children with disabilities; she finally gave the latter speech Friday, but had wanted to deliver it much earlier.

She's also begun to make her own ad hoc calls about the campaign's direction and the ticket's policy. McCain, for instance, has remained silent on Democrats' calls for a stimulus package of new spending, a move many conservatives oppose but that could be broadly popular. But in an interview with the conservative radio host Glenn Beck earlier this week, Palin went "off the reservation" to make the campaign policy, one aide said.

"I say, you know, when is enough enough of taxpayer dollars being thrown into this bill out there?" she asked. "This next one of the Democrats being proposed should be very, very concerning to all Americans because to me it sends a message that $700 billion bailout, maybe that was just the tip of the iceberg. No, you know, we were told when we've got to be believing if we have enough elected officials who are going to be standing strong on fiscal conservative principles and free enterprise and we have to believe that there are enough of those elected officials to say, 'No, OK, that's enough.'"

(A McCain spokeswoman said Palin's statement was "a good sentiment.")

But few imagine that Palin will be able to repair her image — and bad poll numbers — in the eleven days before the campaign ends. And the final straw for Palin and her allies was the news that the campaign had reported spending $150,000 on her clothes, turning her, again, into the butt of late-night humor.

"She never even set foot in these stores," the senior Republican said, noting Palin hadn't realized the cost when the clothes were brought to her in her Minnesota hotel room.

"It's completely out-of-control operatives," said the close ally outside the campaign. "She has no responsibility for that. It's incredibly frustrating for us and for her."

Between Palin's internal detractors and her allies, there's a middle ground: Some aides say that she's a flawed candidate whose handling exaggerated her weak spots.

"She was completely mishandled in the beginning. No one took the time to look at what her personal strengths and weaknesses are and developed a plan that made sense based on who she is as a candidate," the aide said. "Any concerns she or those close to her have about that are totally valid."

But the aide said that Palin's inexperience led her to her own mistakes:

"How she was handled allowed her weaknesses to hang out in full display."

If McCain loses, Palin's allies say that the national Republican Party hasn't seen the last of her. Politicians are sometimes formed by a signal defeat — as Bill Clinton was when he was tossed out of the Arkansas governor's mansion after his first term — and Palin would return to a state that had made her America's most popular governor and where her image as a reformer who swept aside her own party's insiders rings true, if not in the cartoon version the McCain campaign presented.

"There are people in this campaign who feel a real sense of loyalty to her and are really pleased with her performance and think she did a great job," said the McCain insider. "She has a real future in this party."

Obama and McCain roll through Western swing states

RENO, Nev. – Scrambling to win the West, Democrat Barack Obama mocked John McCain on Saturday for aggressively trying to distance himself from President Bush. McCain touted his Western ties and warned that Obama is a tax-and-spend threat to the nation.

Ten days before the election, both candidates were targeting the same trio of states — Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Any of them could help shape who wins the presidency.

The flurry of appearances by Obama and McCain likely represent the last time in a long, testy campaign that the toss-up territory of the West will get this much attention. Electoral prizes of the East Coast, like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, will soon take command.

Obama recharged his habit of lumping McCain with the unpopular president of his own party. McCain, an Arizona senator, has outspokenly blamed Bush's leadership for the country's woes in recent days, a line of attack that may be giving him some traction as time runs out.

Obama said it was too late for McCain to portray himself as independent from Bush after standing with him for years. McCain has a mixed record of supporting and bucking Bush.

Real change, Obama said, is "not somebody who's trying to break with his president over the last 10 days after having supporting him for the last eight years."

As the front-running Obama campaigned at a baseball stadium, McCain was at an outdoor rally at the New Mexico state fairgrounds in Albuquerque. The Arizona Republican claimed he had the edge in battleground states in the region, calling himself "a fellow Westerner."

"Sen. Obama has never been south of the border," said McCain, arguing that he has a feel for issues like water that resonate throughout the region. Obama's campaign said Obama has, in fact, been to Mexico before he got into public office.

Later, in Mesilla, N.M., McCain said he had a home-court advantage in the West.

"I know the issues, I know land, I know water, I know native American issues," said McCain, speaking at a sun-splashed rally. "I know how western states are growing with dynamic strength. Senator Obama does not understand these issues."

McCain continued to portray Obama, an Illinois senator, as a tax-and-spend liberal certain to push for more government and higher spending.

"He believes in redistributing wealth," McCain said. "That's not America."

His running mate, Sarah Palin, evoked the same theme Saturday in Sioux City, Iowa.

While she spoke, the crowd at her rally cried out about Obama: "He's a socialist."

Obama, meanwhile, continued to use his massive fundraising appeal to his advantage.

On Sunday, his campaign unveiled a two-minute TV ad that asks, "Will our country be better off four years from now?"

The length of the ad, which will air in key states, highlights Obama's fundraising superiority — most campaign commercials run 30 seconds or a minute.

Without mentioning McCain, the ad promotes Obama's economic policies while saying that Obama will work to end "mindless partisanship" and "divisiveness."

The Republican National Committee released its own TV ad Saturday questioning whether Obama has the experience to be president. The ad, featuring the image of a stormy ocean, says the nation is in "uncertain times" that could get worse and asks whether voters want a president "who's untested at the helm."

In competitive Virginia, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Americans have been "knocked down" by Bush's economic policies. "It's time for us to get back up," he said. "It's time for us together to get back up and demand the change we need."

The West, once reliable Republican territory, has seen its politics and demographics shift over the last decade. Bush narrowly won Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico four years ago and Democrats see them and their 19 electoral votes as a real opportunity.

There was a glitch for Obama in Reno, though. A generator at his rally apparently failed, killing power and cutting off his microphone. Obama said someone from the McCain campaign may have pulled the plug on the rally — but quickly added he was kidding.

Later, at a rally at a high school football field in Las Vegas, Obama said: "We're not going to let George Bush pass the torch to John McCain."

Obama resumed his campaign in Nevada after spending Thursday night and Friday in Hawaii with his grandmother, who is gravely ill. He offered thanks to those who wished her well.

Despite sour polls, McCain pledged a scrappy close to the campaign.

"We're a few points down and the pundits, of course, as they have four or five times, have written us off," said McCain. "We've got them just where we want them."

McCain was headed briefly to El Paso, Texas, before moving on to Iowa where he's looking to make up for some lost ground in a state campaign aides argue is closer than the public polling shows. McCain was to appear on "Meet the Press" and hold a campaign rally.

Obama is campaigning on Sunday in Colorado.

_____

Associated Press writers Dena Potter, Mike Glover and Anna Jo Bratton contributed to this report.

The Stink in Farts Controls Blood Pressure

A smelly rotten-egg gas in farts controls blood pressure in mice, a new study finds.

The unpleasant aroma of the gas, called hydrogen sulfide (H2S), can be a little too familiar, as it is expelled by bacteria living in the human colon and eventually makes its way, well, out.

The new research found that cells lining mice's blood vessels naturally make the gas and this action can help keep the rodents' blood pressure low by relaxing the blood vessels to prevent hypertension (high blood pressure). This gas is "no doubt" produced in cells lining human blood vessels too, the researchers said.

"Now that we know hydrogen sulfide's role in regulating blood pressure, it may be possible to design drug therapies that enhance its formation as an alternative to the current methods of treatment for hypertension," said Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., a co-author of the study detailed in the Oct. 24th issue of the journal Science.

Snyder and his colleagues compared normal mice to mice that were missing a gene for an enzyme known as CSE, long suspected as being responsible for making hydrogen sulfide. As they measured hydrogen sulfide levels taken from tissues of the CSE-deficient mice, the scientists found that the gas was depleted in the cardiovascular systems of the altered mice. By contrast, normal mice had higher levels of the gas, thereby showing that hydrogen sulfide is naturally made by mammalian tissues using CSE.

Next, the mice were subjected to higher blood pressures comparable to serious hypertension in humans. Scientists had them respond to a chemical called methacholine that relaxes normal blood vessels. The blood vessels of the CSE-lacking mice hardly relaxed, indicating that hydrogen sulfide is a huge contender for regulating blood pressure.

Hydrogen sulfide is the most recently discovered member of a family of gasotransmitters, small molecules inside our bodies with important physiological functions.

This study is the first to reveal that the CSE enzyme that triggers hydrogen sulfide is activated itself in the same way as other enzymes when they trigger their respective gasotransmitter, such as a nitric oxide-forming enzyme that also regulates blood pressure, Dr. Snyder said.

Because gasotransmitters are common in mammals all over the evolutionary tree, these findings on the importance of hydrogen sulfide are thought to have broad applications to human diseases, such as diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.

The research was supported by grants from the U.S. Public Health Service and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as well as a Research Scientist Award.

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New MS Drug

Leukaemia drug can halt, reverse MS

New

LONDON (AFP) – Researchers at the University of Cambridge said Thursday they have found that a drug originally developed to treat leukaemia can halt and even reverse the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis (MS).

In trials, alemtuzumab reduced the number of attacks in sufferers and also helped them recover lost functions, apparently allowing damaged brain tissue to repair so that individuals were less disabled than at the start of the study.

"The ability of an MS drug to promote brain repair is unprecedented," said Dr Alasdair Coles, a lecturer at Cambridge university's department of clinical neurosciences, who coordinated many aspects of the study.

"We are witnessing a drug which, if given early enough, might effectively stop the advancement of the disease and also restore lost function by promoting repair of the damaged brain tissue."

The MS Society, Britain's largest support charity for those affected by the condition, said it was "delighted" at the trial's results, which must be followed up with more research before the drug can be licensed.

"This is the first drug that has shown the potential to halt and even reverse the debilitating effects of MS and this news will rightly bring hope to people living with the condition day in, day out," said head of research Lee Dunster.

MS is an auto-immune disease that affects millions of people worldwide, including almost 100,000 in Britain and 400,000 in the United States.

It is caused by the body's immune system attacking nerve fibres in the central nervous system, and can lead to loss of sight and mobility, depression, fatigue and cognitive problems. There is no cure, and few effective treatments.

In the trial, 334 patients diagnosed with early-stage relapsing-remitting MS who had not previously been treated were given alemtuzumab or interferon beta-1a, one of the most effective licensed therapies for similar MS cases.

After three years, alemtuzumab was found to reduce the number of attacks the patients suffered by 74 percent over the other treatment, and reduce the risk of sustained accumulation of disability by 71 percent over interferon beta-1a.

Many individuals who took alemtuzumab also recovered some of their lost functions, becoming less disabled by the end, while the disabilities of the other patients worsened, the study in the New England Journal of Medicine said.

Alastair Compston, professor of neurology and head of the clinical neurosciences department at Cambridge, said alemtuzumab was the "most promising" experimental drug for the treatment of MS.

He expressed hope that further trials "will confirm that it can both stabilise and allow some recovery of what had previously been assumed to be irreversible disabilities".

Alemtuzumab was developed in Cambridge and has been licensed for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.

House GOP leader asks Bush to cut off ACORN funds

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer Jim Abrams, Associated Press Writer – Wed Oct 22, 7:34 pm ET

AP – In this Monday, Sept. 29, 2008 file photo, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, is pursued by …

Related Quotes

WASHINGTON – House Republican leader John Boehner on Wednesday urged President Bush to block all federal funds to a grass-roots community group that has been accused of voter registration fraud.

"It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law," Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote Bush, saying that funds should be blocked until all federal investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are completed.

ACORN, a group that has led liberal causes since it was formed in 1970, this year hired more than 13,000 part-time workers to sign up voters in minority and poor neighborhoods in 21 states. Some of the 1.3 million registration cards submitted to local election officials, using the names of cartoon characters or pro football players, were obviously phony, spurring GOP charges of widespread misconduct.

ACORN has said it was its own quality-control workers who first noticed problem registration cards, flagged them and submitted them to local election officials in every state that is now investigating them.

To commit fraud, a person would have to show up on Election Day with identification bearing the fake name.

Local law enforcement agencies in about a dozen states are investigating fake registrations submitted by ACORN workers and the FBI is reviewing those cases.

Boehner said his office had determined that ACORN had received more than $31 million in direct federal funding since 1998. He said the group had likely received far more indirectly through federal block grants to states and localities. "Immediate action is necessary to ensure that no additional tax dollars are directed to ACORN while it is under investigation," he wrote Bush.

Boehner said he and other Republicans were also asking the Justice Department to investigate ACORN's connections to the home mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying ACORN "appears to have played a key role in the irresponsible schemes that led to the current financial meltdown."

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has asked if ACORN, which he accused of perpetuating voter registration fraud, was "destroying the fabric of democracy." ACORN and other advocacy groups have suggested that Republicans are exaggerating the issue to keep the underprivileged, who tend to vote Democratic, from casting ballots.

Maverick?

Who You Callin' a Maverick?

The Nation

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

There's that word again: maverick. In Thursday's vice-presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point calling him "the consummate maverick."

But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch - and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.

"I'm just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick," said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called "Maverick's. " The name came to mean anyone who didn't bear another's brand.

Sam Maverick's grandson, Fontaine Maury Maverick, was a two-term congressman and a mayor of San Antonio who lost his mayoral re-election bid when conservatives labeled him a Communist. He served in the Roosevelt administration on the Smaller War Plants Corporation and is best known for another coinage. He came up with the term "gobbledygook" in frustration at the convoluted language of bureaucrats.

This Maverick's son, Maury Jr., was a firebrand civil libertarian and lawyer who defended draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society. He served in the Texas Legislature during the McCarthy era and wrote fiery columns for The San Antonio Express-News. His final column, published on Feb. 2, 2003, just after he died at 82, was an attack on the coming war in Iraq.

Terrellita Maverick, sister of Maury Jr., is a member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Considering the family's long history of association with liberalism and progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, "is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase."

"It's just incredible - the nerve! - to suggest that he's not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, `Oh, my God, he said it again.' "

"He's a Republican," she said. "He's branded."

Obama, McCain seek leader's image in final debate

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer Wed Oct 15, 12:03 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and John McCain will both pursue the image of a strong leader in troublesome economic times as they meet Wednesday night for their third and final presidential debate.

Their face-off comes as Obama widens his lead in typically Democratic states and campaigns with an air of optimism about his prospects, while McCain seeks a way to gain ground and finds himself defending traditionally Republican states with less than three weeks left in the race.

"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change. ... As president I intend to act, quickly and decisively," McCain said Tuesday in battleground Pennsylvania. There, he unveiled new economic proposals and previewed a possible debate strategy: argue that he would be different from Bush and better than Obama.

One day earlier in swing state Ohio, Obama outlined his own economic plan and showed off his own pitch. He suggested that McCain was more of the same and that putting a Democrat in charge was the only way to fix the economy's woes: "It will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years."

The economic crisis has transformed the campaign over the past month. Obama has built leads nationally and in key states as the turmoil has returned the nation's focus to the unpopular Bush's policies. Now, the burden is on McCain to try to reverse his slide.

Wednesday's debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., is slated to focus entirely on the economy and domestic policy. The candidates will be seated at a table with moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS.

Both presidential contenders have used the previous debates to make and remake their main campaign points, frequently sidestepping direct questions such as how they would have to scale back their long lists of campaign promises in light of the economic crisis.

Advisers for each candidate say he will use the final debate to lay out his vision for the country and promote his economic policies while drawing differences with his opponent.

Character attacks — subtle or not — also could occur.

Obama has increasingly labeled McCain "erratic" and "lurching" during the economic crisis. The words suggest unsteadiness on the part of the 72-year-old four-term senator.

The Democrat's campaign released a pre-debate memo Tuesday that argued McCain was "ill-equipped" to lead during this crisis, saying his response "has careened, sometimes changing course within the span of a single day."

McCain has accused Obama of lying about his association with 1960s radical William Ayers, a founder of the violent anti-war group Weather Underground. Obama was 8 years old when the Weather Underground claimed responsibility for a series of bombings. Now a professor in Chicago, Ayers hosted a meet-the-candidate session at his home for Obama as he prepared to run for the state Senate. Later, the two worked with the same charity and social-service organizations in Chicago.

McCain has softened that attack on the campaign trail in recent days, though not in his TV and radio ads.

His campaign assailed Obama's on Tuesday for its "failure to explain how it is that Barack Obama carried on a decade-long friendship with a man who sought to topple the U.S. government through violence."

McCain has solidified and energized his base of Republican voters, but he has problems with his support among swing-voting independents. A recent Associated Press-GfK Poll showed them divided about evenly between the two candidates. That's a problem for McCain because Democrats decisively outnumber Republicans this year.

Compounding McCain's woes, new Quinnipiac University polls released Tuesday showed Obama leading by double digits in two states that Democrat John Kerry won four years ago and that McCain is trying to put in his column this year — Wisconsin and Minnesota — as well as in Michigan, which McCain abandoned earlier this month.

Also, McCain running mate Sarah Palin is being dispatched to campaign in usually Republican states such as Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia to shore up GOP support. However, McCain campaigned Tuesday in Pennsylvania and was to return there Thursday as well, a signal of the campaign's sustained effort to try to pick off that Kerry-won state offering a whopping 21 electoral votes.

To win, 270 are required.

McCain's strategy relies on keeping Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio in the GOP column along with 21 other Bush-won states that aren't seriously contested. That would give McCain 260 electoral votes. He would then have to win 10 more votes from a pool of contested states won by Bush (Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico) and Kerry (New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).

Polls show Obama leading or tied in all of those.

IRS promises fix to stimulus check problem

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 14, 3:17 PM ET

ST. LOUIS - The Internal Revenue Service says overdue economic stimulus checks will soon be mailed to about a quarter of a million married couples who had been denied the money because a spouse's married name and Social Security number didn't match.

When a couple marries and a spouse — usually the woman — changes names, the couple is supposed to alert the Social Security Administration. But tens of thousands have failed to do so and were unaware of the consequences until this year, when they didn't cash in on the rebate package. The package, enacted in February, resulted in payments to taxpayers of mostly $600-$1,200.

In an interview with The Associated Press last month, an Internal Revenue Service spokesman affirmed that stimulus checks would be sent only to those whose names and Social Security numbers matched.

But on Oct. 8, without fanfare, the IRS updated the question-and-answer section on its Web site to say it will mail economic stimulus payments this month to an additional 260,000 married taxpayers whose names did not match Social Security numbers.

"During the processing of the 2007 returns for these taxpayers, the IRS was able to determine that the person listed on the return actually was the person associated with the SSN," the Web site reads.

Those people should be getting letters within days telling them how much they'll get. The checks should arrive by the end of the month, according to the IRS.

The IRS blamed itself for the problem, saying married taxpayers whose names and Social Security numbers didn't match "were inadvertently omitted from the initial economic stimulus payments."

"The IRS regrets the inconvenience for these affected taxpayers and will continue to work hard to deliver stimulus payments to qualifying taxpayers," the Web site reads.

An IRS spokesman declined interview requests, and would not say if the re-evaluation was prompted by inquiries from The Associated Press or other news organizations. It was also unclear if the recent economic downturn played a role in the decision as a means of giving a boost to more people.

Either way, the news was welcomed by Sam and Elaine Vilardo, both 51, of Sinking Spring, Pa. After the couple married in 2001, she failed to register her name change with the Social Security Administration. When they called the IRS several months ago, they were told they'd have to wait until next year for the stimulus money because of that oversight.

Not anymore.

"It's great news," Sam Vilardo said Monday. "We've already spent the money, so we might as well get the check."

Vilardo blamed procrastination for failing to get his wife's name change registered.

"After you get married you have all those paper changes," said Vilardo, a mechanical machine designer at a steel company. "You just drop the ball."

The problem with the checks affected mostly those who filed tax returns on paper rather than electronically, said Jackie Perlman, senior tax researcher for H&R Block's Tax Institute in Kansas City.

"If you e-file and have a name discrepancy you will get an immediate rejection," and thus be aware of the need to fix it, Perlman said.

The system works differently for paper returns, Perlman said. If the name and Social Security number don't match, the paper return is stamped "invalid," but is accepted. And the taxpayer isn't informed.

Perlman said the Social Security Administration and the IRS both stress through community outreach efforts the need to file name changes. Even with the checks on the way, she encouraged any married couple who has not filed for a name change to do so to avoid future headaches.

Affected couples may want to act sooner than later. A second stimulus package is being considered in Washington, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has not ruled out proposing another round of rebates.

___

On the Net:

IRS economic stimulus payment Q-and-A:

Bush, Paulson take new approach to economic crisis

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Business Writer 10/14/08

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's latest effort to resolve the financial crisis embraces an approach it had resisted just a few weeks ago.

But things move fast in the bailout world. And in deciding to inject fresh capital into U.S. banks in return for ownership stakes, the administration adopted a plan that many leading economists had been pushing for weeks.

"I — and many others — have been harping on (the banks') inadequate capital for months," said Anil Kashyap, an economist at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.

The latest move follows a Herculean effort by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to win congressional approval last month of the $700 billion bailout package.

That legislation will fund the recapitalization. But the focus of Paulson's initial plan — buying distressed mortgage-related securities to improve banks' balance sheets and make it easier for them to lend again — is now taking a back seat.

The shift in approach suggests the administration had miscalculated the time it had to take corrective action before realizing the urgency of the crisis demanded the swiftest possible response.

Scott Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group, said he thinks last week's "plunge in the Dow" — its worst ever — convinced the Treasury Department that it needed to move faster.

"Time is now of the essence," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for the consulting firm High Frequency Economics, wrote this week in a note to clients. "The authorities do not have the luxury of mulling over the fine details; they need to act now."

Losses on mortgage-related securities have depleted bank capital. Those securities had collapsed in the face of falling home prices and rising defaults and foreclosures. Without sufficient capital, banks have been reluctant to lend, depressing economic activity.

Some economists say Paulson initially opposed the notion of recapitalizing the banks partly out of a bias against government intervention in a private industry.

The delay in taking that step "mostly seems to have been (due to) ideological blinders on Paulson's part," said Adam Posen, deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

When asked during congressional hearings three weeks ago about providing new capital to banks, Paulson dismissed the idea, saying he preferred "market mechanisms" like his proposal to remove troubled mortgage-related assets from banks' balance sheets.

Government injection of capital "is about failure," he told members of the Senate Banking Committee. "This is about success."

That argument seemed to be at odds with Federal Reserve economists, who favored government recapitalization of banks, Posen said. Bernanke was careful to note during a House hearing last month that the bailout legislation was "flexible" enough to let the government provide an injection if necessary.

At the same time, Paulson faced a backlash from many Republicans in Congress who objected to the initial bailout plan and wanted a much smaller government role. Their rebellion contributed to the initial House rejection of the bailout on Sept. 29.

Many of these lawmakers were suspicious of Paulson, privately voicing concern that he was too willing to push solutions to the crisis that violated the conservative credo of limited government and frugality with taxpayer dollars.

Other Republicans, though, joined Democrats in prodding Paulson to consider taking equity stakes in financial institutions, on the theory that if government money was going to be used, taxpayers should at least get the chance eventually to profit from the investment.

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican, noted Tuesday that even though Paulson initially opposed the idea, he has come to view it as a vital way to get money into banks faster than asset purchases could.

"We're investing taxpayer money with an almost certain guarantee of return and profit," Blunt said.

The administration's plans also put the United States in the unfamiliar position of following the lead of Britain and other European nations, which have already announced similar steps.

That's another sharp reversal from several weeks ago, when many European officials opposed a systemic approach to the crisis and made clear they felt it was largely an American problem.

"The Europeans look good, the Americans look terrible and it is a surprise, because the stereotype is the European Union can't get it together," Posen said.

In part, the United States was forced to act after Britain said last week that it would recapitalize its banks, and 15 European governments followed suit over the weekend.

If the United States hadn't fallen in line, U.S. banks would have faced a significant competitive disadvantage against European banks, Posen said.

"The Brits did us a big favor," Kashyap said.

The U.S. and European governments are now taking a consistent, if not fully coordinated, approach. That is something many economists had hoped for late last week, just before the G-7 group of wealthy countries met Friday and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank held their annual meetings over the weekend.

_

Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this report.

Social Security benefits going up by 5.8 percent

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 10/15/08

WASHINGTON - Social Security benefits for 50 million people will go up 5.8 percent next year, the largest increase in more than a quarter century.

The increase, which will start in January, was announced Thursday by the Social Security Administration. It will mean an additional $63 per month for the average retiree.

It's the largest increase since a 7.4 percent jump in 1982 and is more than double the 2.3 percent rise that retirees got in their monthly checks starting in January of this year.

The typical retiree's monthly check will go from $1,090 currently to $1,153.

But the fatter Social Security check may still seem puny to millions of retirees battered this year by huge increases in energy and food costs who have also watched helplessly as their retirement savings have been assaulted by the biggest upheavals on Wall Street in seven decades.

"Right now many senior citizens are feeling depressed because things seem out of control. They feel like they are in a boat being whipped around by rough seas," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Their purchasing power has been going down because of higher prices for food and energy and a lot of other things while their savings have taken a hit because of what is happening in the markets."

The market turbulence has continued this week with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging by 733 points on Wednesday, the second largest point drop on record. Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Americans' retirement plans have last as much as $2 trillion over the last 15 months — more than 20 percent of their value — because of all the market upheaval.

With all the gloomy news, retirees may take little comfort in the new cost of living adjustment. The benefit change is based on the amount the Consumer Price Index increases from July through September from one year to the next.

The increase would have been even higher, but after racing ahead earlier in the year, energy costs fell in both August and September, helping to moderate the overall price gain.

The 5.8 percent rise in the cost of living adjustment is a sharp departure from recent years. The COLA increases have been below 3 percent for all but three of the past 15 years as the Federal Reserve waged a successful campaign to keep inflation under control.

Even with the big increase, the COLA is well below the gains of the late 1970s and early 1980s when the country was in the grips of a decade-long bout of high inflation. The biggest cost of living benefit on record was a 14.3 percent increase in 1980. Social Security benefits have been adjusted every year since 1975.

In one break for most retirees, the cost of living increase will not be eaten up by higher monthly premiums for the part of Medicare that pays for physician services. Because of gains in the Medicare Part B trust fund, that premium will hold steady at $96.40 a month, although higher-income people including couples making more than $170,000 annually will see their premiums increase.

Next year's cost of living increase will go to more than 55 million Americans. More than 50 million receive Social Security benefits while the rest get Supplemental Security Income payments for the poor.

The average couple, both getting Social Security benefits, will see their monthly check go up by $103 a month to $1,876.

The standard Supplemental Security Income payment for a couple will go from $956 per month to $1,011. The SSI payment for an individual will go from $637 per month to $674 per month.

The average monthly check for a disabled worker will go from $1,006 to $1,064.

Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain have sparred over Social Security during the presidential campaign, although neither has provided much insight into how they would fix the government's largest entitlement program, which is facing severe strains with the upcoming retirement of 78 million baby boomers.

If no changes are made, the Social Security trust fund is projected to deplete its reserves in 2041 and will begin paying out more than it collects in benefits even sooner, starting in 2017.

In addition to the cost of living adjustment, the government announced Thursday that the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax will increase next year to $106,800, up from $102,000 this year.

Of the 164 million workers who will pay Social Security taxes in 2009, about 11 million will pay higher taxes as a result of this increase.

Obama's Proposal

Obama calls for 90-day moratorium on foreclosures

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writer 10/13/08

TOLEDO, Ohio - Democrat Barack Obama proposed more immediate steps Monday to heal the nation's ailing economy including a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures at some banks and a two-year tax break for businesses that create new jobs.

With the economic turmoil weighing down his Republican presidential rival, Obama also proposed allowing people to withdraw up to $10,000 from their retirement accounts without any penalty this year and next.

The Democratic presidential candidate said his proposals, with a price tag of $60 billion over two years, can be enacted quickly, either through the government's regulatory powers or legislation that Congress could pass in a special session after the election.

"I'm proposing a number of steps that we should take immediately to stabilize our financial system, provide relief to families and communities and help struggling homeowners," Obama told a crowd of 3,000. "It's a plan that begins with one word that's on everyone's mind, and it's spelled J-O-B-S."

Obama delivered his economic message in Toledo, a struggling blue-collar city in a state that could be critical to Obama's presidential hopes. Polls show a close race between Obama and Republican John McCain in Ohio, which decided the 2004 presidential election. At stake are 20 electoral votes.

His call for action comes just two days before the final debate of the presidential race and at a time when McCain is sending mixed signals about how he'll address the economy.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key McCain adviser, said Sunday the Republican candidate was considering a proposal to reduce taxes on investment, including a possible cut in capital gains taxes, but McCain offered no new economic proposals when he gave a new stump speech Monday morning promising a change in direction from the economic policies of President Bush.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds accused Obama of planning to raise taxes if elected, something that would "have a devastating effect" on the already-troubled economy.

Obama's plan calls for raising taxes only on the 5 percent of people who make more than $250,000 a year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that under Obama's approach the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers would see their taxes go up on average by $93,709 in 2009, For McCain, those same wealthy taxpayers would see an average reduction of $48,860.

Obama is proposing tax cuts for those making less than $200,000 a year.

Obama's latest proposals are in addition to other policies the Illinois senator has already offered as the stock market struggles, financial institutions wobble and tight credit chokes the economy.

Obama supported the $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan and endorsed the latest twist on it: the government buying ownership in major banks and partially nationalizing them to keep them afloat. He also calls for tax breaks for most families, cutting capital gains taxes for investment in small business and extending unemployment benefits.

Obama proposed Monday that banks participating in the federal bailout should temporarily postpone foreclosures for families making good-faith efforts to pay their mortgage.

"We need to give people the breathing room they need to get back on their feet," he said, adding that families living beyond their means share some of the responsibility.

"Part of the reason this crisis occurred, if we're honest with ourselves, is that everyone was living beyond their means — from Wall Street to Washington to even some on Main Street," Obama said.

He also called for a $3,000 tax credit for each additional full-time job a business creates. That means a business that adds five jobs would get a $15,000 break. That would end after 2010 and would cost $40 billion, the campaign estimates.

Obama proposes letting people withdraw up to 15 percent of their retirement funds, to a maximum of $10,000, without the penalty that now applies to early or excess withdrawals. The change would apply retroactively to all of 2008, as well as 2009. People would still have to pay normal taxes on the money. He said letting people dip into their IRAs and 401(k)s would help them get through tough times when money is tight.

State and local governments face a money crunch, too, and Obama called for new federal short-term loans to help them through the crisis. He called it a "funding backstop" to ensure that states and cities can meet payroll or keep projects moving.

He ended the speech with a call for people to unite and make sacrifices, as America did during the Great Depression, until the economy is back on track.

"Together, we cannot fail. Not now. Not when we have a crisis to solve and an economy to save. Not when there are so many Americans without jobs and without homes," Obama said. "We can do this because we've done it before."

___

On the Net:

McCain:

Obama:

Suicide And The Economy

Suicides from financial crisis cause concern

By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 14, 9:00 AM ET

An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years.

In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family's mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead."

Then Carlene Balderrama shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table.

Across the country, authorities are becoming concerned that the nation's financial woes could turn increasingly violent, and they are urging people to get help. In some places, mental-health hot lines are jammed, counseling services are in high demand and domestic-violence shelters are full.

"I've had a number of people say that this is the thing most reminiscent of 9/11 that's happened here since then," said the Rev. Canon Ann Malonee, vicar at Trinity Church in the heart of New York's financial district. "It's that sense of having the rug pulled out from under them."

With nowhere else to turn, many people are calling suicide-prevention hot lines. The Samaritans of New York have seen calls rise more than 16 percent in the past year, many of them money-related. The Switchboard of Miami has recorded more than 500 foreclosure-related calls this year.

"A lot of people are telling us they are losing everything. They're losing their homes, they're going into foreclosure, they've lost their jobs," said Virginia Cervasio, executive director of a suicide resource enter in southwest Florida's Lee County.

But tragedies keep mounting:

• In Los Angeles last week, a former money manager fatally shot his wife, three sons and his mother-in-law before killing himself.

Karthik Rajaram, 45, left a suicide note saying he was in financial trouble and contemplated killing just himself. But he said he decided to kill his entire family because that was more honorable, police said.

Rajaram once worked for a major accounting firm and for Sony Pictures, and he had been part-owner of a financial holding company. But he had been out of work for several months, police said.

After the murder-suicide, police and mental-health officials in Los Angeles took the unusual step of urging people to seek help for themselves or loved ones if they feel overwhelmed by grim financial news. They said they were specifically afraid of the "copycat phenomenon."

"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair," Deputy Police Chief Michel Moore said. "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times."

• In Tennessee, a woman fatally shot herself last week as sheriff's deputies went to evict her from her foreclosed home.

Pamela Ross, 57, and her husband were fighting foreclosure on their home when sheriff's deputies in Sevierville came to serve an eviction notice. They were across the street when they heard a gunshot and found Ross dead from a wound to the chest. The case was even more tragic because the couple had recently been granted an extra 10 days to appeal.

• In Akron, Ohio, the 90-year-old widow who shot herself on Oct. 1 is recovering. A congressman told Addie Polk's story on the House floor before lawmakers voted to approve a $700 billion financial rescue package. Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae dropped the foreclosure, forgave her mortgage and said she could remain in the home.

• In Ocala, Fla., Roland Gore shot his wife and dog in March and then set fire to the couple's home, which had been in foreclosure, before killing himself. His case was one of several in which people killed spouses or pets, destroyed property or attacked police before taking their own lives.

"The financial stress builds up to the point the person feels they can't go on, and the person believes their family is better off dead than left without a financial support," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Washington D.C.-based Violence Policy Center.

Dr. Edward Charlesworth, a clinical psychologist in Houston, said the current crisis is breeding a sense of chronic anxiety among people who feel helpless and panic-stricken, as well as angry that their government has let them down.

"They feel like in this great society that we live in we should have more protection for the individuals rather than just the corporation," he said.

It's not yet clear there is a statistical link between suicides and the financial downturn since there is generally a two-year lag in national suicide figures. But historically, suicides increase in times of economic hardship. And the current financial crisis is already being called the worst since the Great Depression.

Rising mortgage defaults and falling home values are at the heart of it. More than 4 million Americans were at least one month behind on their mortgages at the end of June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

A record 500,000 had entered the foreclosure process. And that trend is expected to continue through next year, despite the current programs from the government and the lending industry to refinance delinquent homeowners into more affordable loans.

Counselors at Catholic Charities USA report seeing a "significant increase" in the need for housing counseling.

One counselor said half of her clients were on some form of antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. The agency has seen a decrease in overall funding, but it has expanded foreclosure counseling and received nearly $2 million for such services in late 2007.

Adding to financially tense households is an air of secrecy. Experts said it's common for one spouse to blame the other for their financial mess or to hide it entirely, as Balderrama did.

After falling 3 1/2 years behind in payments, the Taunton, Mass., housewife had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company and shredding them before her husband saw them. She tried to refinance but was declined.

In July, on the day the house was to be auctioned, she faxed the note to the mortgage company. Then the 52-year-old walked outside, shot her three beloved cats and then herself with her husband's rifle.

Notes left on the table revealed months of planning. She'd picked out her funeral home, laid out the insurance policy and left a note saying, "pay off the house with the insurance money."

"She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," said her husband, John Balderrama. "Apparently she didn't have anyone to talk to. She didn't come to me. I don't know why. There's gotta be some help out there for people that are hurting, (something better) than to see somebody lose a life over a stupid house."

___

Associated Press Writers P. Solomon Banda in Denver, Joann Loviglio in Philadelphia, Juanita Cousins in Atlanta, Samantha Gross in New York and John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Hillary Clinton

Sen. Clinton says 2nd White House run is unlikely

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton puts the chances of her running for president again at near zero — slightly higher than the chances she gives for becoming Senate majority leader or a Supreme Court justice.

In an interview aired Tuesday on "Fox & Friends" on the Fox News Channel, Clinton, D-N.Y., was asked the chances, on a scale of 1 to 10, that she would be the next majority leader in the Senate.

"Oh, probably zero," she said. "I'm not seeking any other position than to be the best senator from New York that I can be."

Being nominated to the Supreme Court?

"Zero," Clinton said. "I have no interest in doing that."

Running for president again?

"Probably close to zero," she said. "There's an old saying: Bloom where you're planted."

The former first lady, who was elected to the Senate in 2000 and re-elected in 2006, said she looked forward to working as a senator with a Barack Obama administration.

Voter Fraud?

Report: Voter purges in 6 states may violate law

Thu Oct 9, 1:07 AM ET

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters' exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report.

The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data.

The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters' registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, so any closer screening of new applications may affect their party's supporters disproportionately, the Times said.

The result is that on Election Day, voters who have been removed from the rolls could show up and be challenged by political party officials or election workers.

The six states seem to have violated federal law in two ways. Some are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.

And some of the states are improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters, the newspaper reported.

"Just as voting machines were the major issue that came out of the 2000 presidential election and provisional ballots were the big issue from 2004, voter registration and these statewide lists will be the top concern this year," said Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University.

Bailout

Battered financial industry faces more oversight

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Business Writer 10/05/08

WASHINGTON - With the passage of the $700 billion rescue package, the financial industry will face greater congressional scrutiny in coming weeks and months.

Further-reaching regulation is almost certain. Previously obscure corners of the industry now subject to few rules, such as complex derivatives and hedge funds, could face federal supervision for the first time.

Meanwhile, heavily regulated sectors, such as banking and insurance, are likely to face greater oversight. Even some financial industry groups support federal oversight for the insurance industry, which is now regulated only at the state level.

"Clearly, next year we will have more regulation," said Scott Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, a group of the 100 biggest companies in the industry.

Having passed the bailout bill, Congress is now shifting its attention to its next steps.

"Passing this legislation is only the beginning of our work," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., just before the House approved the package.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Financial Services Committee chairman, said next year Congress will seek to overhaul housing policy and financial regulation in a legislative effort he likened to the New Deal.

"We were the EMTs rushing to the rescue of an economy that suddenly found itself choking, but now we have to perform more serious reform," Frank said.

The bailout bill, approved by the Senate Wednesday, provides $700 billion to buy bad assets from banks and other institutions to shore up the financial industry.

Hearings that begin Monday will examine the failures of current regulations. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., will hold two hearings on the causes and effects of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and on the $85 billion bailout of the giant insurer American International Group Inc.

The committee will hold three more hearings this month on hedge funds, credit rating agencies and the role of regulators in the run-up to the crisis.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has been invited to testify at the third hearing, the committee said.

Meanwhile, the House Agriculture Committee, which has some oversight of commodities and futures trading, plans to hold a hearing this month on a class of derivatives known as credit default swaps. AIG held huge amounts of credit default swaps, which act as insurance against bond defaults. The prospect that AIG wouldn't be able to pay out the swaps was a major reason the government took over the company.

Hedge funds, which invest huge pools of money for wealthy investors and pension funds, are part of what some analysts call the "shadow banking" system that also included investment banks such as Lehman.

The "shadow" system provided the capital for many subprime mortgage brokers by buying huge amounts of mortgage-backed securities and creating demand for more mortgage loans.

Credit rating agencies such as Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings have been criticized for slapping their top ratings on complex mortgage-related securities that few investors are now willing to buy.

The battle lines are already emerging for next year's fight. Industry lobbyists will push to consolidate the numerous financial regulatory agencies, similar to a proposal outlined by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson earlier this year. To prevent future meltdowns, they want the Federal Reserve to focus on "systemic risk," or the risk that individual banks pose to the larger financial system. Currently, regulators focus too much on individual banks in isolation, Talbott said.

Business groups also will push to loosen accounting standards that they blame for deepening the current crisis.

Some consumer groups, meanwhile, argue that structural changes to the financial regulatory system aren't as important as having regulators enforce existing rules more strictly.

If regulators had cracked down on abusive lending practices in the mortgage industry several years ago, much of the current meltdown could have been avoided, said Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America.

"It was a failure of will on the part of existing agencies to use their existing authority that triggered this crisis," Plunkett said.

For example, only this summer did the Federal Reserve issue rules that barred lenders from making loans to risky borrowers without proof of the borrower's income, long after "the horse was out of the barn," he said.

Looking ahead, Plunkett said Congress should allow individual mortgages to be adjusted by judges in bankruptcy courts, a proposal opposed by the financial industry.

Consumer groups sought to include such a provision in the bailout bill but failed.

In addition, many regulatory agencies, such as the Office of Thrift Supervision, receive some of their funding from fees assessed on the companies they regulate, Plunkett said.

"That's a conflict of interest we need to reduce or eliminate," he said.

Congress will also have to figure out the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants taken over by the government last month after sustaining huge losses.

There's a broad consensus that the two companies' hybrid structure as government-backed entities and for-profit private companies put them in the difficult spot of serving two conflicting goals: provide financial support for the housing market while also maximizing shareholder profit.

The two companies could end up as much smaller federal agencies, or they could be fully privatized, among other options.

How the push for new regulations will play out depends, in part, on whether Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain or Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama wins the White House.

But no matter who is president, the next set of officials at financial agencies such as the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Securities and Exchange Commission will likely be much tougher.

"In the future, I think we'll see fewer political hacks and industry mouthpieces and more competent regulators," said Howard Glaser, an industry consultant who has worked for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Palin vs. McCain

Analysis: Palin's words may backfire on McCain

10/05/08

By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

First, Palin's attack shows that her energetic debate with rival Joe Biden may be just the beginning, not the end, of a sharpened role in the battle to win the presidency.

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo. A deliberate attempt to smear Obama, McCain's ticket-mate echoed the line at three separate events Saturday.

"This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America," she said. "We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism."

Obama isn't above attacking McCain's character with loaded words, releasing an ad on Sunday that calls the Arizona Republican "erratic" — a hard-to miss suggestion that McCain's age, 72, might be an issue.

"Our financial system in turmoil," an announcer says in Obama's new ad. "And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy."

A harsh and plainly partisan judgment, certainly, but not on the level of suggesting that a fellow senator is un-American and even a friend of terrorists.

In her character attack, Palin questions Obama's association with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground. Her reference was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were "pals" or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.

Obama, who was a child when the Weathermen were planting bombs, has denounced Ayers' radical views and actions.

With her criticism, Palin is taking on the running mate's traditional role of attacker, said Rich Galen, a Republican strategist.

"There appears to be a newfound sense of confidence in Sarah Palin as a candidate, given her performance the other night," Galen said. "I think that they are comfortable enough with her now that she's got the standing with the electorate to take off after Obama."

Second, Palin's incendiary charge draws media and voter attention away from the worsening economy. It also comes after McCain supported a pork-laden Wall Street bailout plan in spite of conservative anger and his own misgivings.

"It's a giant changing of the subject," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist. "The problem is the messenger. If you want to start throwing fire bombs, you don't send out the fluffy bunny to do it. I think people don't take Sarah Palin seriously."

The larger purpose behind Palin's broadside is to reintroduce the question of Obama's associations. Millions of voters, many of them open to being swayed to one side or the other, are starting to pay attention to an election a month away.

For the McCain campaign, that makes Obama's ties to Ayers as well as convicted felon Antoin "Tony" Rezko and the controversial minister Jeremiah Wright ripe for renewed criticism. And Palin brings a fresh voice to the argument.

Effective character attacks have come earlier in campaigns. In June 1988, Republican George H.W. Bush criticized Democrat Michael Dukakis over the furlough granted to Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who then raped a woman and stabbed her companion. Related TV ads followed in September and October.

The Vietnam-era Swift Boat veterans who attacked Democrat John Kerry's war record started in the spring of 2004 and gained traction in late summer.

"The four weeks that are left are an eternity. There's plenty of time in the campaign," said Republican strategist Joe Gaylord. "I think it is a legitimate strategy to talk about Obama and to talk about his background and who he pals around with."

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

The fact is that when racism creeps into the discussion, it serves a purpose for McCain. As the fallout from Wright's sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America's promise to treat all people equally.

John McCain occasionally says he looks back on decisions with regret. He has apologized for opposing a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He has apologized for refusing to call for the removal of a Confederate flag from South Carolina's Capitol.

When the 2008 campaign is over will McCain say he regrets appeals such as Palin's? ___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Douglass K. Daniel is a writer and editor with the Washington bureau of The Associated Press.

Presidential Race

McCain-Obama tie possible in presidential race

By Andy Sullivan Sun Oct 5, 10:25 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - What if it's a tie?

A handful of battleground states are likely to determine the November 4 U.S. presidential election and it's possible that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama could split them in a manner that leaves each just short of victory.

If that happens, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would pick the president but it's unclear whether Democrats would have enough votes to send Obama to the White House.

The House last decided an election in 1824. But the legal skirmishing and partisan rancor would probably resemble a more recent election -- the 2000 vote in which Republican George W. Bush narrowly defeated Democrat Al Gore after a disputed Florida vote count and legal battle.

"This would be the seamy side of democracy, the lobbying and the money would be so intense," said American University history professor Allan Lichtman.

In the United States, presidential elections are determined on a state-by-state basis rather than a nationwide popular vote. Each state, along with the District of Columbia, is allotted a number of votes in the Electoral College that correspond to the number of representatives it has in Congress. To become president, a candidate must win at least 270 electoral votes.

If McCain wins Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida and Ohio but loses Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa to Obama, both candidates could end up with 269 electoral votes.

Other, less likely scenarios -- McCain losing Virginia and New Hampshire but winning Michigan, for example -- also could result in a tie.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House would then decide the election when it meets in January, with each state getting one vote -- regardless of its size -- if the chamber has to break a tie.

Democrats, who control the 435-seat House, outnumber Republicans in 27 state congressional delegations and could see that number rise in the November elections.

Republicans have a majority in 21 state delegations. Two states have an equal number of Republican and Democratic representatives.

Some members could feel pressure to vote for the other party's candidate if he carried their state or district or if he won a clear margin of the national popular vote, said Northwestern University law professor Robert Bennett.

They would also be under extraordinary pressure from party leaders to stick together.

"There would be bargaining in that context and lots of room for rancor and bitterness. It would be a mess," Bennett said.

The dispute probably would not be confined to Congress.

"Do you believe for one moment that this won't end up in the courts?" Lichtman said.

Other possible scenarios, according to Bennett:

* Before the House meets, the Obama and McCain campaigns could try to convince the Electoral College voters who actually cast each state's electoral votes to switch their support. This has happened occasionally in past elections but has never affected the outcome of an election. Electors in roughly half of the states are bound by law to honor the popular vote.

* While the House picks a president, the Senate picks the vice president in the event of a tie. The Democratic-controlled chamber could pick Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden even if McCain wins the House vote.

* The newly minted vice president could become acting president if the House doesn't reach a resolution by the time President George W. Bush leaves the White House on January 20.

* House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become acting president if neither chamber could settle on a president or vice president but she would have to resign her post.

(Editing by David Alexander)

Europeans scramble

… to save failing banks

By MATT MOORE, AP Business Writer Sun Oct 5, 2:07 PM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Germany joined Ireland and Greece on Sunday in guaranteeing all private bank accounts, putting Europe's biggest economy at odds with calls for a unified European response to the global financial meltdown.

The decision came as governments across Europe scrambled to save failing banks, working largely on their own a day after leaders of the continent's four biggest economies called for tighter regulation and a coordinated response.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said that no citizen should fear for the safety of their investments, speaking to reporters as her government held crisis talks on the collapse of a ballyhooed euro35 billion (US$48.4 billion) bailout of Hypo Real Estate AG, the country's second-biggest property lender.

German Finance Ministry spokesman Torsten Albig said the unlimited guarantee covered some euro568 billion (US$785 billion) in savings and checking accounts as well as time deposits, or CDs.

In Iceland — particularly hard-hit by the credit crunch — government officials and banking chiefs were discussing a possible rescue plan for the country's overstretched commercial banks.

Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme said he aims to find a new owner for troubled bank Fortis NV to restore confidence in the company before the opening of markets on Monday.

Leterme told two media outlets that government officials were going over a takeover bid for Fortis' Belgian operations. The bank's Dutch operations were nationalized amid fears they could go insolvent.

British treasury chief Alistair Darling said that he was ready to take "pretty big steps that we wouldn't take in ordinary times" to help the country weather the credit crunch.

In the past year the government has nationalized struggling mortgage lenders Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley.

"The European banking industry is feeling the wind of default blowing from the other side of the Atlantic," said Axel Pierron, senior vice president at Celent, a Boston, Massachusetts-based financial research and consulting firm.

The erosion has also injured overall confidence and caused concern among investors, politicians and the European public.

The leaders of Germany, France, Britain and Italy met Saturday to discuss the meltdown that has leapfrogged across the Atlantic from the U.S. to Europe, but shied away from action on the scale of the massive US$700 billion bailout passed by the U.S. Congress on Friday and later signed into law by President Bush.

Their failure to agree to an EU-wide plan showcased the divisions in Europe on how to deal with the crisis.

France had suggested a multibillion-euro (multibillion-dollar) EU-wide government bailout plan, but backed off after Germany said banks must find their own way out.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's top adviser, Claude Gueant, insisted that a "common European plan" had come out of the summit.

"What is certain and what the citizens of France and Europe must know is that their (banking) establishments won't be left in difficulty," he told Europe-1 radio on Sunday.

Germany's Hypo Real Estate said Saturday that the rescue plan had fallen apart after private lenders withdrew support, a key element to the proposal that had already been approved by the EU earlier this week.

Icelandic banks expanded rapidly after deregulation of the domestic financial market in the 1990s and now have combined foreign liabilities in excess of euro100 billion (US$138.34 billion) — dwarfing the tiny country's gross domestic product of euro14 billion (US$19.37 billion).

The government last week took over Iceland's third-largest bank, Glitnir, a decision that prompted major credit ratings agencies to downgrade both Iceland's four major banks and its government credit rating.

Looming large was a growing sense that the Federal Reserve and Europe's major central banks — which have been flooding euros and dollars to banks that have grown increasingly unwilling to lend money even to themselves — were ready to institute emergency cuts to their benchmark interest rates this week.

None of the banks, including the European Central Bank and Bank of England, have commented on potential rate hikes or cuts. But analysts believe the Bank of England, which meets this Thursday, will likely lower its rate below 5 percent. The ECB left its rate unchanged at 4.25 percent on Thursday, but opened the door to a rate cut.

Robert Brusca, chief economist at the New York-based Fact and Opinion Economics, said that the ECB does issue such a cut it would a be a sign "that they're really, really scared."

___

Associated Press writers Angela Doland in Paris, Patrick McGroarty in Berlin and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Woman shoots self

Mortgage forgiven for woman, 90, who shot herself

Sun Oct 5, 11:31 AM ET

AKRON, Ohio - Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said it is forgiving the mortgage debt of a 90-year-old woman who shot herself in the chest as sheriff's deputies attempted to evict her.

Addie Polk's plight was cited by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on Friday before the House voted to approve the $700 billion financial rescue package. Kucinich voted against the plan.

Fannie Mae announced later Friday that it would dismiss its foreclosure action, forgive Polk's mortgage and allow her to return to the Akron home where she's lived since 1970.

"Just given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate," Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said, citing Kucinich's statement and news reports. "It certainly made our radar screen."

Polk remained in Akron General Medical Center and was expected to recover from chest wounds suffered last week.

She became the home's sole owner in 1995 when her husband died, then took out a mortgage loan in 1997 and refinanced several times, court and property records show.

Countrywide Home Loans filed for foreclosure last year, and Polk's home was sold to Fannie Mae at a sheriff's auction in June. Deputies were to escort Polk from her home Wednesday when gunshots were heard inside.

Polk's longtime neighbor, Robert Dillon, climbed through her window and found her lying in bed bleeding with a gun next to her. He visited Polk in the hospital on Friday.

"She said it was a crazy thing to do, now that she's had time to think about it," Dillon said.

Saturday Night Live

`SNL' sends up VP debate with Fey, Queen Latifah

By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer Sun Oct 5, 1:46 AM ET

NEW YORK - It's starting to feel like Tina Fey is running for vice president.

Fey again returned to "Saturday Night Live" to play Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the sketch comedy show continued to pull out all the stops in its election year season. Queen Latifah dropped by to portray Thursday's debate moderator, PBS's Gwen Ifill, and cast member Jason Sudeikis stepped into the role of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The "SNL" take on the week's political events has become a dependable part of the news cycle this fall, offering near-immediate parodies of the presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, and their running mates. The show — particularly the opening sketches — have resonated with higher ratings for the NBC program and increased traffic on its Web site where early-to-bed viewers catch the talked-about sketches in the days after.

Saturday night's opening sketch of the VP debate appeared likely to garner similar buzz thanks to Fey's popular Palin impression. Winking and giving answers not always directly related to Queen Latifah's questions, Fey's Palin said that if she was elected, her decisions would be guided by considering "what would a maverick do?"

At the end of the segment, she asked with flute in hand, "Are we not doing the talent portion?"

Palin was runnerup in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest.

Sudeikis, with hair slicked back and a tight-fitting suit, portrayed Biden as conflicted in his feelings for McCain, whom he called "a raging maniac and a dear, dear friend."

Saturday's "SNL" concluded the opening run of four straight shows — including three with guest appearances from Fey, a former cast member and head writer for "SNL" whose day job is starring in, producing and writing for NBC's "30 Rock." The network has said her appearances on "SNL" are being decided on a week-to-week basis.

The show has shown its willingness this fall to cast from beyond its current lineup. Last week, former cast member Chris Parnell returned to play Jim Lehrer, the moderator of the first presidential debate.

"SNL" — which was hosted Saturday by Anne Hathaway with the Killers performing — will get its first weekend off this week. But it will still capitalize on election campaign fodder with the first of three prime-time "Weekend Update" specials beginning Thursday.

Bailout

Congress OKs historic bailout bill

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and DAVID ESPO, Associated Press Writers 10/03/08

WASHINGTON - With the economy on the brink and elections looming, Congress approved an unprecedented $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday and sent it to President Bush for his certain signature.

The final vote was 263-171 in the House, a comfortable margin that was 58 more votes than the measure garnered in Monday's stunning defeat. The vote capped two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by daily warnings that the country confronted the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act.

At the White House, Bush declared, "We have acted boldly to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pledged quick action to get the program up and operating.

"We all know that we are in the midst of a financial crisis," House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, said shortly before casting his vote for government intervention in private capital markets that was unthinkable only a month ago.

"And we know that if we do nothing, this crisis is likely to worsen and to put us into an economic slump like most of us have never seen."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill was needed to "Begin to shape the financial stability of our country and the economic security of our people."

Stocks were up on Wall Street, where there was a lot of anticipation of the vote but where investors also were buffeted by a bad report on the job market. The Labor Department said employers slashed 159,000 jobs in September, the largest cut in five years and further evidence of a sinking economy.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who had joined the administration in urging quick action, said, "The legislation is a critical step toward stabilizing our financial markets and ensuring an uninterrupted flow of credit to households and businesses." He said the Fed would work closely with the Treasury Department to put the bill's provisions into effect.

Even before the measure cleared Congress, the White House sought to dampen optimism of its immediate impact on the economy. "This legislation is to fix a problem in our financial markets," said spokesman Tony Fratto. "It's not sold as giving a boost to the economy, but rather preventing a crisis in our economy... If it works as we hope it will, credit will be able to begin flowing again."

The House vote marked a sharp change from Monday, when an earlier measure was sent down to defeat, largely at the hands of angry conservative Republicans.

Senate leaders quickly took custody of the measure, adding on $110 billion in tax and spending provisions designed to attract additional support, then grafting on legislation mandating broader mental health coverage in the insurance industry. The revised measure won Senate approval Wednesday night, 74-25, setting up a furious round of lobbying in the House as the administration, congressional leaders, the major party presidential candidates and outside groups joined forces behind the measure.

It worked — augmented by a sudden switch in public opinion that occurred after the stock market took its largest-ever one-day dive on Monday.

"No matter what we do or what we pass, there are still tough times out there. People are mad — I'm mad," said Republican Rep. J. Gresham Barrett of South Carolina, who opposed the measure the first time it came to a vote. Now, he said, "We have to act. We have to act now."

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., another convert, said, "I have decided that the cost of doing nothing is greater than the cost of doing something."

Critics were unrelenting.

"How can we have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, a leader among conservative Republicans who oppose the central thrust of the legislation — an unprecedented federal intervention into the private capital markets.

It was little more than two weeks ago that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke concluded that the economy was in such danger that a massive government intervention in the private markets was essential.

The core of the plan remains little changed from its inception — the Treasury Department would have $700 billion at its disposal to purchase bad mortage-related securities that are weighing down the balance sheets of institutions that hold them. The flow of credit has slowed, in some cases drying up, threatening the ability of businesses to conduct routine operations or expand.

At the same time, lawmakers have dramatically changed the measure, insisting on greater congressional supervision over the $700 billion, taking measures to protect taxpayers, and insisting on steps to crack down on so-called "golden parachutes" that go to corporate executives whose companies fail.

Earlier in the week, the legislation was altered to expand the federal insurance program for individual bank deposits, and the Securities and Exchange Commission took steps to ease the impact of the questionable mortgage-backed securities on financial institutions.

In the moments before the vote, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pledged "serious surgery" next year to address the underlying causes of the crisis.

If anything, the economic news added to the sense of urgency.

The Labor Department said initial claims for jobless benefits had increased last week to the highest level since the gloomy days after the 2001 terror attacks. The news of the payroll cuts came on top of Thursday's Commerce Department report that factory orders in August plunged by 4 percent.

Typifying arguments the problem no longer is just a Wall Street issue but also one for Main Street, lawmakers from California and Florida said their state governments were beginning to experience trouble borrowing funds for their own operations.

Pelosi said, "We must win it for Mr. and Mrs. Jones on Main Street."

One month before Election Day, the drama unfolded in an intensely political atmosphere.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a supporter of the bill, made calls to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who publicly credited him with changing their minds.

Rep. Elijah Cummings and Donna Edwards, both Maryland Democrats, were among them. They said Obama had pledged if he wins the White House that he would help homeowners facing foreclosure on their mortgages. He also pledged to support changes in the bankruptcy law to make it less burdensome on consumers.

"It's not too often you get the future president telling you that his priority matches your priority," said Cummings.

Obama's rival, Sen. John McCain, who announced a brief suspension in his campaign more than a week ago to try and help solve the financial crisis, made calls to Republicans.

Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, who switched her vote to favor the measure, looked ahead to the election and said, "I may lose this race over this vote, but that's OK with me. This is the right vote for the country."

The vote on Monday staggered the congressional leadership and contributed to the largest one-day stock market drop in history, 778 points as measured by the Dow Jones Industrials.

Across the Capitol, Senate leaders reacted quickly, deciding to sweeten the bill with a series of popular tax breaks as well as spending on rural schools and disaster aid. They also grafted on a bill to expand mental health coverage under private insurance plans.

At the same time, the change in federal deposit insurance and the action by the SEC on an obscure accounting rule helped produce a steady trickle of converts.

JOBS

Economy sheds most jobs since 2003, more cuts seen

10/03/08

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 4 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Jobs are vanishing at the fastest pace in more than five years with pink slips likely to keep stacking higher in the months ahead, an urgent signal the country may be careening toward a deep and painful recession just as Americans prepare to elect a new president.

Whether that's Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, one of them will be dealing with the weakest employment climate in years.

Increasingly skittish employers dropped the ax even harder in September, chopping payrolls by 159,000 — more than double the cuts made just one month before. It was the ninth straight month of job losses. A staggering 760,000 jobs have disappeared so far this year.

The Labor Department's report, released Friday, also showed that the nation's unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, up sharply from 4.7 percent a year ago. Over the last year, the number of unemployed people has risen by 2.2 million to 9.5 million.

"Washington, the labor market has a problem," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "Firms are hunkering down and running as lean as possible. ... We are likely to see more months of job losses before conditions turn around."

The unemployment rate for blacks shot up to 11.4 percent, the highest since late 2003.

Even with Congress' unprecedented $700 billion financial bailout, the faltering economy and the jobs markets probably will get worse. Many believe the economy will jolt into reverse later this year — if it hasn't already_ and will stay sickly well into next year.

The unemployment rate could hit 7 or 7.5 percent by late 2009. If that happens, it would mark the highest since after the 1990-91 recession. Some economists say the jobless rate could rise even more before the situation starts to get better.

Pressure is growing on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to do an about-face and lower a key interest rate in a bid to revive the economy. Many now think that will happen at the Fed's next meeting on Oct. 28-29 or even earlier.

The hope riding on such a move would be to spur nervous consumers and businesses to spend more freely again. They've clamped down as housing, credit and financial problems intensified last month, throwing Wall Street into chaos.

Friday's employment snapshot is the last before America goes to the polls in November.

Mounting job losses, shrinking paychecks, shriveling nest eggs and rising foreclosures all have weighed heavily on American voters.

The economy is their No. 1 concern. An Associated Press-GfK poll earlier this week showed that likely voters now back Obama 48 percent to McCain's 41 percent. They believe Obama is better suited to lead the country through the financial turbulence.

"I will rebuild the middle class and create millions of new jobs by investing in infrastructure and renewable energy," vowed Obama.

McCain pledged to "open markets around the globe for our products, cut taxes and expand domestic production of energy ... I will create jobs and get the economy on the right track."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto called the latest employment figures disappointing "but not unexpected given the shocks to the economy."

The 159,000 tally of total job losses — government and private payrolls — was the most since March 2003, when the labor market was still struggling to get back on its feet after being knocked down by the 2001 recession. The picture was even darker for private employers. They cut 168,000 jobs last month, the 10th month of such losses.

The pink slips were widespread.

Manufacturers (especially auto makers), home builders, retailers, securities and investment firms, hotels and motels, accountants and bookkeepers, architects and engineers, and legal services all cut back. So did temporary help firms — usually a barometer of future hiring. That overwhelmed employment gains by the government, in education, health and elsewhere.

Cost-cutting employers are getting rid of workers as companies chafe under all the economy's problems. Companies announcing layoffs in September included Hanesbrands Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Schering-Plough Corp., Alaska Airlines and Alcoa Inc.

Spooked consumers and businesses have pulled back so much that some analysts fear the economy could stall out — or even worse — shrink in the July-to-September quarter. Many predict the economy will contract in both the final quarter of this year and the first quarter of next year, meeting the classic definition of a recession.

"The economy was on the way down even before the latest tightening in the credit crunch," said Nigel Gault, economist at Global Insight.

Wage growth for workers is slowing, meaning they'll be more hard-pressed to spend and help the ailing economy.

Average hourly earnings rose to $18.17 in September, a 0.2 percent increase from the previous month. That was half the pace logged in the previous month. Over the past year, wages have grown 3.4 percent, but paychecks aren't stretching as far because of high food and energy prices.

Strains on Americans were sorely evident. The number of consumer bankruptcy filings rose about 29 percent in September from a year ago, the American Bankruptcy Institute reported Friday.

The financial crisis that intensified in September is forcing a seismic shake-up on Wall Street.

Lehman Brothers, the country's fourth-largest investment bank, filed for bankruptcy protection. A weakened Merrill Lynch, deciding it couldn't go it alone anymore, found help in the arms of Bank of America. AIG was thrown a financial lifeline. And, the last two investment houses — Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — decided to convert themselves into commercial banks to better weather the financial storms. The number of banks that have failed this year are up sharply from last year. On Friday, Wachovia Corp. said it will be acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. wiping out Wachovia's previous plan to sell its banking operations to rival suitor Citigroup Inc.

Bailout

Furious lobbying for much-maligned bailout bill

By CHARLES BABINGTON and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writers 10/02/08

WASHINGTON - President Bush and congressional leaders conducted fierce eleventh-hour lobbying Thursday for enough House votes to push the $700 billion financial industry bailout bill to the finish line.

Bush said "a lot of people are watching" and he kept up his pleas from the White House as Democratic and Republican party leaders worked over wayward colleagues wherever they could find them. Bush argued that the measure represents the "best chance" to calm unnerved financial markets and ease a widening credit crunch.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, said that his party won't put the bill up for the vote planned for Friday unless lawmakers are sure it will pass.

Speaking to reporters during a meeting with business executives, Bush said the increasingly tight credit markets are in some instances threatening the existence of small businesses. He said Congress "must listen" to those arguing for passage of the bill, derided by many on Capitol Hill and within the general public as a handout to a risk-taking Wall Street.

The much-maligned measure was returned to the House after the Senate resuscitated it with tax cuts and other sweeteners in a 74-25 vote late Wednesday. The bill had been defeated in House narrowly on Monday.

Hoyer said that "there's a good prospect of getting it done" but left open the possibility the House could make changes to the legislation. What won't happen, he said, is a repeat of the kind of crushing scene that played out earlier this week when the bill went down on the House floor, triggering the largest stock sell-off in history.

"I'm going to be pretty confident that we have sufficient votes to pass this before we put it on the floor," Hoyer said.

The Senate's addition of some $110 billion in tax breaks and other sweeteners helped satisfy some Republican critics, but angered conservative so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats concerned about swelling the deficit. Still, Hoyer predicted the number of Democratic defectors from the measure "is going to be minimal."

The rescue package would let the government spend billions of dollars to buy bad mortgage-related securities and other devalued assets held by troubled financial institutions. If successful, advocates say, that would allow frozen credit to begin flowing again and prevent a serious recession.

In efforts to appease GOP opponents, the Senate-passed bill contains a provision to raise, from $100,000 to $250,000, the cap on federal deposit insurance.

House Republicans also welcomed a decision Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ease rules that force companies to devalue assets on their balance sheets to reflect the price they can get on the market.

The fierce lobbying came as the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, urged people to remain calm.

"I think overall the banking system remains very sound so that's why I think it's so important for everybody to keep their head," commission Chairman Sheila Bair said.

But the drumbeat of bad news rattled on. A government report said that orders to U.S. factories plunged by the largest amount in nearly two years as the credit strains smashed manufacturers with hurricane-like force.

The bailout package was never in danger in the Senate. Lawmakers there played catalysts for the House instead, adding tax provisions popular with the left and right in a bid that House leaders hope — but cannot guarantee — will persuade enough of the House rank-and-file to switch from "nay" to "aye" on a highly contentious bill a month before Election Day.

They were especially targeting the 133 House Republicans who voted against the package.

To some degree, at least, House GOP opposition appeared to be easing as the Senate added $100 billion in tax breaks for businesses and the middle class, plus a provision to raise, from $100,000 to $250,000, the cap on federal deposit insurance.

"This is an issue that is affecting hardworking people," Bush said Thursday. "They are worried about their savings; they're worried about their jobs; they're worried about their houses; they're worried about their small businesses."

"The House of Representatives must listen to these voices and get this bill passed so we can get about the business of restoring confidence," Bush added.

House Republicans also welcomed a decision Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ease rules that force companies to devalue assets on their balance sheets to reflect the price they can get on the market.

The Senate-backed package extends several tax breaks popular with businesses. It would keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million middle-income Americans. And it would provide $8 billion in tax relief for those hit by natural disasters in the Midwest, Texas and Louisiana.

Leaders in both parties, as well as private economic chiefs almost everywhere, said Congress must quickly approve some version of the bailout measure to start loans flowing and stave off a potential national economic disaster.

But critics on the right and left assailed the rescue plan, which has been panned by their constituents as a giveaway for Wall Street with little obvious benefit for ordinary Americans.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a leading conservative, said the step was "leading us into the pit of socialism."

But proponents argued that the financial sector's woes already were being felt by ordinary people in the form of unaffordable credit and underperforming retirement savings. Still, they said voters were unlikely to reward those who vote for the measure.

"There will be no balloons or bunting or parades" when the rescue becomes law, said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Senate Banking Committee chairman.

Healthcare Differences

Obama assails McCain over health care proposal

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer 10/04/08

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Democrat Barack Obama sharply criticized Republican John McCain's health care proposals Saturday, saying they could force millions of Americans to struggle to buy medical insurance.

Turning to an issue that has faded somewhat during the economic crisis, Obama gave an unusually detailed outline of his own plans in a 40-minute speech to thousands of sun-soaked Virginians at a waterside park in Newport News. He would make coverage more affordable to most Americans, he said, paying for the subsidies largely by canceling the Bush administration's tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year.

In a sign that the presidential campaign's final month may have a nastier tone, Obama called McCain's health plan "radical," and Republican officials accused Obama of lying.

Wearing a dark suit and speaking from a TelePrompTer, Obama told the Virginia crowd he would reduce premiums for most people by "as much as $2,500 per family."

He would save money in the heath care system, he said, by holding drug and insurance companies "accountable for the prices they charge and the harm they cause." He also said he would outlaw "insurance company discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions."

Medicare would be allowed to negotiate with drug makers for cheaper prices, he said, and his administration would place greater emphasis on preventing illnesses.

"The time has come," Obama said, "to solve this problem, to cut health care costs for families and businesses, and provide affordable, accessible health insurance for every American."

He devoted at least half his speech to criticizing McCain. The Republican nominee has proposed to tax the health benefits that 156 million people get through the workplace as income. In exchange, McCain would give tax credits to help pay for insurance — $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families, paid directly to the insurer they choose.

The criticisms that Obama made here are echoed by his campaign in four new television ads, four separate mailers targeted to swing state voters, radio commercials and events in every battleground state.

"On health care, John McCain promises a tax credit," an announcer says in one of Obama's new ads, over images of families examining their bills. "But here's what he won't tell you: McCain would make you pay taxes on your health benefits, taxing your health care for the first time ever, raising costs for employers who offer health care so your coverage could be reduced or dropped completely. You won't find one word about it on his Web site."

It's true that McCain doesn't mention that he would tax health benefits on the section of his Web site where he describes his plan. But the Obama ad omits some important context — the tax credit McCain plans to offer would be more generous than the current tax break, at least for most families for the first several years, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center.

Obama said Saturday that under McCain's plan, younger, healthier workers would buy cheaper insurance outside the workplace, leaving an older, sicker pool to drive up the cost of the employer-based system.

"As a result, many employers will drop their health care plans altogether," Obama said. "And study after study has shown, that under the McCain plan, at least 20 million Americans will lose the insurance they rely on from their workplace."

He called McCain's plan "so radical, so out of touch with what you're facing, and so out of line with our basic values."

An assessment by health care economists published last month in the journal Health Affairs projected that McCain's plan would lead 20 million people to lose their employer-sponsored insurance. But it also found that 21 million people would gain coverage through the individual market.

Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant responded: "Barack Obama is lying about John McCain's plan to provide more Americans with more health care choices. Obama's plan only offers more government, while McCain's plan offers more choices."

Obama's speech was more loaded with policy than most, and he seemed to realize that many in the crowd wanted a pep rally more than a detailed examination of health care practices.

"You still with me?" he said halfway through.

Lyndon Johnson was the last Democratic nominee to carry Virginia. But Obama is making an all-out push here, encouraged by growing numbers of Democratic voters in the Washington suburbs and the near-certainty that former Gov. Mark Warner will win the Senate seat being vacated by Republican John Warner.

Newport News, near Norfolk, is home to many military families, and McCain hopes to do well in the area.

Polls show Obama has taken a lead in the national race, fueled by voters' increasing confidence that he would be better equipped to handle the struggling economy. Campaign aides said they long planned to focus on economic issues in these final weeks of the race, but the debate over the government's $700 billion financial bailout focused voters on such concerns more than they could have imagined.

The push on health care is an opportunity to raise the debate on a pocketbook issue that voters rank near the top of their concerns. According to an AP-Yahoo News poll taken last month, 78 percent of voters rate health care as at least a very important issue, which puts it behind the economy in a group of second-tier issues along with Iraq and terrorism.

Plalin

Palin facing voters who doubt her readiness

10/02/08 By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin enters her debate Thursday night with Democratic rival Joe Biden as many voters harbor serious doubts about her readiness for the nation's highest office.

An AP-Gfk poll released Wednesday found that just 25 percent of likely voters believe Palin has the right experience to be president. That's down from 41 percent just after the GOP convention, when the Alaska governor made her well-received debut on the national stage.

Thursday night's debate in St. Louis gives Palin a chance to overcome the doubts in a 90-minute showcase, her first lengthy give-and-take session since joining the GOP ticket with presidential candidate John McCain.

McCain on Thursday dismissed suggestions that he was upset with campaign staff for holding back Palin from extensive questioning by reporters and voters and not letting her be herself on the campaign trail. In the four weeks since she was nominated by party delegates, Palin has appeared without McCain at six rallies and other major campaign events. She has appeared with McCain at 15.

"We let Sarah be Sarah. She's smart, she's tough, she's been in debates before," McCain told "Fox & Friends" on Fox News Channel. "The American people ... the more they see of her, the more they love her, and I'm confident of that at the end."

Palin has granted just a handful of interviews and has often appeared to be uninformed about national issues. McCain and other Republicans have criticized the questions that produced this impression as "gotcha journalism."

In a CBS News interview aired Wednesday she criticized the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion but was unable to name any other Supreme Court decision she disagreed with, though she said there were other decisions that divided Americans.

"I think it should be a states' issue not a federal government, mandated, mandating yes or no on such an important issue," said Palin, who opposes abortion except in cases where the pregnancy threatens the woman's life.

Asked what other Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with, she replied:

"Well, let's see. There's, of course, in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are, those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ...."

Asked again to name another decision she disagreed with, Palin replied: "Well, I could think of, of any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today."

In a separate CBS interview, Biden said Roe v. Wade was a good decision "because it's (as) close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours." Asked to name high court rulings he disagrees with, Biden cited the decision that struck down a law giving abused women the right to sue their tormentors in federal court.

Meantime, the Democratic National Committee has e-mailed news stories to reporters describing Palin's able performances in Alaska gubernatorial debates in 2006, part of the party's effort to dispel the notion that Palin is a sub-par debater.

One Republican saw the debate as a chance for Palin to dispel doubts about her.

"People will have a chance to see her from beginning to end without being edited," former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., told CBS' "The Early Show" on Thursday.

"We've all had bad days," Thompson said, "and she's had some bad moments in some of these interviews, just like the rest of us have had."

Palin has been preparing at McCain's retreat in Sedona, Ariz. Biden has prepped near his home in Wilmington, Del., though he went to Washington for Wednesday night's vote on the economic rescue package.

The 90-minute televised debate at Washington University in St. Louis will be moderated by PBS anchor Gwen Ifill. Ifill herself was criticized by some conservatives because she is writing a book, "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama," on how politics in the black community have changed since the civil rights era. She has said she has yet to write the chapter on Obama and questioned why people think it will be favorable toward the Democrat.

"Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn't writing a book favorable to Barack Obama," McCain told Fox News on Thursday. "But I have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will treat this as a professional journalist that she is."

McCain laments selection of Ifill

Mike Allen Thu Oct 2, 10:05 AM ET

Hours ahead of the vice presidential debate, Sen John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized the selection of PBS's Gwen Ifill as moderator because she is writing a book called "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama."

“Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn’t writing a book favorable to Barack Obama — let's face it," McCain said on "Fox & Friends." "But I have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will handle this as the professional journalist that she is. ...

"Life isn’t fair, as I mentioned earlier in the program."

Ifill is moderator and managing editor of "Washington Week" and senior correspondent of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." She is viewed as one of Washington's fairest journalists.

The propriety of her selection as moderator for tonight's debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) was questioned by conservatives after the Drudge Report drew attention to her book, to be published in January.

McCain took a different tack the day before, telling Fox News in another interview: "I think that Gwen Ifill is a professional, and I think that she will do a totally objective job because she is a highly respected professional. Does this help that if she has written a book that is favorable to Senator Obama? Probably not, but I have confidence that Gwen Ifill will do a professional job. And I have that confidence."

Palin told conservative radio host Sean Hannity on Wednesday that the supposed conflict would just make her "try harder." Here's their exchange:

HANNITY: Let me ask you one last question. There's been this issue that the moderator of tomorrow night's debate, Gwen Ifill, is apparently writing a book to come out the time the next president takes office, and apparently, I actually have the tape, and I'll play it for you. This is Gwen Ifill talking about the book and it seems very favorable to Barack Obama, I want to ask you out of this if you're concerned about it.

IFILL: My name is Gwen Ifill. I am the moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and a senior correspondent for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The title of the book is "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama." It's taking the story of Barack Obama and extending it to cover a whole new generation of black politicians who are doing similar things in different ways.

HANNITY: Your thoughts, Governor, is that a concern at all to you?

PALIN: You know, I'm not going to let it be a concern. Let me just tell you that John McCain has been in an underdog position before, and this ticket, I think it is safe to say, is in an underdog position. But that's what makes us work harder. It makes us want to communicate more clearly and profoundly with the electorate, letting them know what the contrasts are between these two tickets, It's motivating to me, even, to hear Gwen's comments there because, again, it makes us work that much harder, and it provides even more fairness and objectivity and choices for the voters on Nov. 4, if we try that much harder.

Here is McCain's exchange on "Fox & Friends," as released by the Fox News Channel:

HOST BRIAN KILMEADE: Right now a recent study says and the polls reflect that Barack Obama is gaining ever since this crisis has landed in everyone’s kitchen table, why is that?

McCAIN: Because life isn’t fair. ... He certainly did nothing for the first few days. I suspended my campaign, took our ads down, came back to Washington, met with the House folks and got on the phone, and also had face to face meetings.

HOST GRETCHEN CARLSON: Do you think it will work to your advantage [having Ifill moderate the debate given her book] because people will really be looking at her questions?

McCAIN: Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn’t writing a book favorable to Barack Obama. Let’s face it. But I have to have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will handle this as the professional journalist that she is. ... Life isn’t fair, as I mentioned earlier in the program.

Agree to Financial Woes?

Lawmakers: Financial bailout agreement reached

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writers 09/25/08

WASHINGTON - Key Republicans and Democrats reported agreement Thursday on an outline for a historic $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, but there was still resistance from rank-and-file House Republicans despite warnings of an impending panic.

"I now expect we will, indeed, have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate, be signed by the president and bring a sense of certainty to this crisis that is sill roiling in the market," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said as members of both parties emerged from a two-hour negotiating session.

Negotiators planned to present the outline at a White House meeting later Thursday with President Bush and the rivals to replace him, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barrack Obama.

"We're very confident that we can act expeditiously," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman.

Not everyone in the closed-door talks was as optimistic. Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the only House Republican in the bargaining meeting, stopped short of saying he agreed with the other lawmakers on an imminent deal.

"There was progress today," said Bachus, the senior Republican on the House Financial Services panel.

Later, he issued a statement saying he was not empowered to strike any deals and there was "no agreement other than to continue discussions."

Both houses' Republican leaders, Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell, also issued statements saying there was no agreement.

Still, the White House called the announcement "a good sign that progress is being made."

"We'll want to hear from (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson and take a look at the details. We look forward to a good discussion at the meeting this afternoon," said Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary.

A Treasury spokeswoman said the proposal was being reviewed there.

On Wall Street, stock prices were up late in the trading day, but not by as much as earlier in the day.

The core of the plan proposed by the administration just a few days ago envisions the government buying up sour assets of shaky financial firms in a bid to keep them from going under and to stave off a potentially severe recession.

Obama and McCain called for a bipartisan effort to deal with the crisis, little more than five weeks before national elections in which the economy has emerged as the dominant theme.

McCain on Wednesday asked Obama to agree to delay their first debate, scheduled for Friday, to deal with the meltdown. Obama said the debate should go ahead.

Congressional negotiators said Thursday there were few obstacles to a final agreement, although no details of an accord were immediately available.

"There really isn't much of a deadlock to break," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

But there were fresh signs of trouble in the House Republican Caucus. A group of GOP lawmakers circulated an alternative designed to attract private money back into the credit markets with less government intrusion.

Under that proposal, the government would provide insurance to companies that agree to hold frozen assets, rather than purchase them directly as envisioned under the administration's plan. The firms would have to pay insurance premiums to the Treasury Department for the coverage.

"The taxpayers haven't done anything wrong," said Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., adding that rather than require them to bear the cost of the bailout, the alternative "pretty much puts the burden on Wall Street over time."

Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, was huddling with McCain on the rescue. When asked whether the GOP presidential nominee could corral restive Republicans to support the plan, Boehner said, "Who knows?"

Bush told the nation in a televised address Wednesday night that passage of the package his administration has proposed was urgently needed to calm the markets and restore confidence in the reeling financial system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's agreement with Democrats on limiting pay for executives of bailed-out financial institutions and giving taxpayers an equity stake in the companies cleared a significant hurdle.

It was not immediately clear how lawmakers had resolved differences over how to phase in the unprecedented cost — a step demanded by Democrats and some Republicans who want stronger congressional control over the bailout — without spooking markets. The idea of letting the government take an ownership stake in troubled companies as part of the rescue, rather than just buying bad debt, also has been a topic of intense negotiation.

Frank told The Associated Press Thursday both elements would be included in the legislation.

Bush acknowledged Wednesday night that the bailout would be a "tough vote" for lawmakers. But he said failing to approve it would risk dire consequences for the economy and most Americans.

"Our entire economy is in danger," he said.

___

On the Net:

White House:

House Financial Services Committee:

700 Billion

How Much is $700 Billion?

Live Tue Sep 30, 5:55 PM ET

The short answer: a lot. The long answer: depends on how you look at it.

Whatever your viewpoint, here's how $700 billion - the figure inked in the initial dead-in-the-water government bailout bill for Wall Street - compares to other vast sums.

NASA in fiscal year 2009 will launch several missions into space and pay for hundreds of people to operate a host of space telescopes and even remote robots on Mars and run a PR and media department that puts most large corporations to shame. The agency's budget: $17.6 billion, or 2.5 percent of the bailout sum.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has an annual budget of $6.06 billion to support research and education on astronomy, chemistry, materials science, computing, engineering, earth sciences, nanoscience and physics (among others) at more than 1,900 universities and institutions across the United States.

You have to turn to much bigger initiatives, like war and defense, to get beyond this chump change and approach the bailout figure.

From 2003 through the end of fiscal year 2009, Congress has appropriated $606 billion for military operations and other activities associated with the war in Iraq, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The entire military budget for fiscal 2008 is $481.4 billion.

Social Security is a $608 billion annual program.

Many analysts fear the bailout because the cost must ultimately be borne by taxpayers.

Based on the U.S. Census Bureau's estimate of the current population of about 305 million people, each person would have to pay $2,300 to fund the $700,000,000,000. If each American (including children) paid a dollar a day, it would take more than six years to pay the money in full. One might argue, however, that this $700 billion would be a modest splash in the bucket of national debt, which already stands at well over $9 trillion (which means you already owe $31,642 each).

Even the New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez would lose sleep over all those zeroes. Currently the top paid major league baseball player, Rodriguez takes home $28 million a year, meaning it would take 25,000 A-Rod salaries to carry the $700 billion.

Nobody is rich enough to pay back this $700 billion by himself. In fact, the Forbes 400 richest list recently came out. It would take most of what these 400 people collectively have - a combined net worth of $1.57 trillion - to dig out of this mess.

Financial Crisis:

Can Americans Stay Happy?

09/24/08

This article was reported by Robert Roy Britt, Jeanna Bryner and Clara Moskowitz.

Given the nation's dismal financial situation this week, not to mention this year, many people are pondering a present and future with less money in the bank. Does that mean that as a nation we'll be less happy?

For a while, perhaps.

But researchers and analysts say finances, as well as moods, will bounce back.

Meanwhile, the experts advise against panicking in these uncertain times. The accounts of the not-so-wealthy are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which guarantees our deposits for up to $100,000 ($200,000 for couples), explains Cristian Pardo an economist at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

"By definition, that is better than putting the money under the mattress," Pardo said today.

Don't worry, be happy

Yeah, yeah, money can't buy happiness, right? Actually, research is conflicting on this point.

Money can buy a measure of happiness, says sociologist Glenn Firebaugh of Pennsylvania State University. But the happiness is derived mostly from comparing our "wealth" to the financial situations of others in our age group, rather than simply adding up the stuff one can buy, Firebaugh and colleagues found in a 2005 study.

So if the national piggy bank goes empty, what will our mood be?

"In the short run, we will be less happy as we lose ground financially, because we will compare our poorer financial situation to what we had before," Firebaugh said today. "But in the long run I don't think we will change all that much — people are resilient."

Already, the nation's anxiety is palpable.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds the highest level of citizen interest in reports about the economy in nearly 20 years. Fifty-six percent of Americans in the survey said they followed news about the economy very closely last week, while 49 percent reported specifically following news about the turmoil on Wall Street very closely.

"It definitely affects people's mood and increases anxiety levels, which is not a good thing for a person's happiness," said Aaron Ahuvia, professor of marketing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

But everyone is different, and the financial crisis will impact each person a little differently.

"When people who have a higher propensity toward anxiety hear news like this, they tend to respond to [the financial crisis] more strongly," Ahuvia said.

There's also a generational divide.

"People who are senior citizens and perhaps had direct experience with the Great Depression will respond to this much more strongly than people who are younger and grew up in periods of financial stability. Younger people tend to have a mental model where the economy has occasional bumps, but basically things are OK," Ahuvia said.

Jeff Larsen, a psychologist at Texas Tech University, sees the small picture. "What affects our happiness more so than what's going on in the larger world is what's happening to us on a day-to-day basis — Do we enjoy what we do? Do we enjoy who we spend our time with? Do we have meaningful social relationships, people we can count on?"

Larsen added, "If we get such a meltdown that people lose the ability to do the things they enjoy, there is a risk that the nation as a whole will be less happy."

Other research suggests we'll be just fine with less money, however, once we adjust.

The problems with money

A report in the journal Science in 2006 found that while people expect money to provide toys and fun, in fact, the relatively well-off — both men and women — tend to be tense and spend less time relaxing. Of course, everyone has his own definition of well-off. In the case of this study, men who make more than $100,000 a year spend 19.9 percent of their time watching television, socializing or doing other passive leisure activities, while those making less than $20,000 spent more than 34 percent of their time doing this stuff — basically nothing.

Money brings on a host of problems. Baby Boomers, as a broad example, make up one of the most well-off generations in U.S. history. But they are, as a lot, relatively miserable. In a survey earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, Boomers were found to be gloomier about their lives and the prospects for improvement than younger and older generations.

Perhaps nothing defines Boomers more than the treadmill of materialism, our national desire to keep up with the Joneses during several decades of robust economic growth.

"Rather than promoting overall happiness, continued income growth could promote an ongoing consumption race where individuals consume more and more just to maintain a constant level of happiness," Firebaugh hypothesized back in the 2005 study.

An editorial in the British Medical Journal that same year put into perspective the problem with human nature in this regard: "As we realize one set of aspirations, it seems we immediately trade up to a more expensive set, to which we transfer our hopes for happiness."

Don't panic

Assuming you want to hang on to your life savings, however, advice from several experts is similar: Hang in there, and be cautious.

The proposed $5 billion investment into Goldman Sachs by stock market whiz Warren Buffet this week offers some sage advice about market timing. First: Don't try it if you're not Warren Buffet. Second: Don't sell when everyone else is selling.

"Now is not the time to sell off your stocks," said George Morgan, professor of finance at Virginia Tech. "But you should only invest to the extent that you are comfortable with the risk."

Selling now, for those who have these assets, would be trying to time the market, Morgan told LiveScience in an email interview. "This is notoriously hard to do — just look at the huge losses incurred by the investment banks lately, and those are the professionals! In trying to time the market, one is tempted to sell at just the wrong times and buy at just the wrong times."

Anyone interested in the stock market should invest in strong companies and think for the long term, advises Syracuse University Finance Professor Yildiray Yildirim, who suggests waiting a couple of months as stock prices may fall further.

"If they like to invest on real estate, I would suggest they wait until next summer when prices fall even more and buy foreclosures and flip into rentals," Yildirim said.

And in the meantime? Yildirim recommends holding money in money market account, CDs and U.S. Treasuries.

Over time, mutual funds and index funds (not individual stocks) are good picks for most investors under age 50 or so, Pardo said. These funds are riskier than CDs, but over time they tend to return more, so if you don't plan to retire for 25 years, for example, they make sense, he said. "But if you are over 50, then this type of strategy is much riskier."

Craig G. Rennie, an associate professor of finance at the Sam M. Walton College of Business in Arkansas, also advised for the long run. "People should be investing on the basis of a long-term investment policy statement (ideally developed with a professional, licensed, and insured financial advisor)," he said. "When a downturn in the markets does occur, if people do not panic but continue to invest on the basis of their long-term strategic asset allocation strategy, they should do fine."

Silver linings

It might also be prudent to invest some time into looking for silver linings. A spouse, say.

Marriage brings greater wealth, according to 2006 study of 9,000 people reported in the Journal of Sociology. And now is definitely not the time to dump your spouse, if you can hang in there or work it out. Divorce reduces a person's wealth by 77 percent compared to that of a single person, the study found.

Or, if you're feeling magnanimous, there's one surefire way to buy some happiness: Give your money away. A study earlier this year in the journal Science found that income translates into happiness only when it is spent on donations or gifts for others.

In the end, happiness depends significantly on attitude, as well as how the current crisis directly affects an individual.

"If you're someone who loses your job or house as a result of this, then absolutely that will affect you," said Ahuvia, the marketing professor. "For those of us who are just hearing it on the news, I would be very surprised to learn that two weeks from now people's overall sense of happiness was measurably affected by this kind of thing."

Other subtle effects could linger.

"I'm worried about how [the financial crisis] affects people's overall sense of optimism," Ahuvia said. "It's not so much the money, but if people feel that they can't pursue their dreams in this economy that's a problem," he said.

No matter how bad it gets, history offers an upbeat lesson.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests that people certainly suffered during the Great Depression, but they were nonetheless able to enjoy the simple pleasures in life," Firebaugh points out. "When it comes to happiness, money is not as important as, say, good health or good friends or a good marriage."

BAILOUT

ABCs of the bailout:

What it may mean for taxpayers

Published September 25, 2008 10:05 am

The final in a two-part series concerning the Wall Street meltdown outlines the proposed $700B bailout and reveals local reaction.

By TEDDYE SNELL Staff Writer

TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS —

Treasury officials and congressmen are scrambling to find a viable solution to what been dubbed the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and are tossing around figures unimaginable to most “regular folks.”

The latest amount being discussed in Washington is $700 billion, which would come at the taxpayers’ expense.

If the three-page act is passed as is, what would this mean to the taxpayer? Dr. John Yeutter, associate professor of accounting and Certified Financial Planner, explained the situation in layman’s terms.

“Let’s put this in perspective,” said Yeutter. “The U.S. Federal Government collected $2,568 billion in fiscal year 2007, while spending $2,730 billion, generating a total deficit of $162 billion. This proposal asks for more than 25 percent of last year’s collections. This is more than the government spent on defense ($549 billion), Social Security ($581 billion), or Medicare and Medicaid ($561 billion) last year. So we’re talking about ‘real money’ here.”

Yeutter indicated this money will come by increasing the federal debt, and will have to be paid back somehow.

“So our children and our grandchildren will have to pay for the mistakes of a few executives on Wall Street, through future taxes,” he said. “So we shouldn’t expect anything but tax increases until this debt is paid.”

Indeed, a review of the text of the bill, available at the New York Times Web site, provides a stark – some might say frightening – plan that would leave U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in charge of running the whole show.

Particularly sobering is Section 8 of the three-page document, which states: “Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed in any court of law or any administrative agency.”

If passed, not only would the legislation increase the national debt to $11.3 trillion, it would leave one man in charge with absolutely no oversight.

According to a report by the Associated Press, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress Wednesday they risk a recession if the plan is not approved immediately, as is.

Yeutter is concerned about the act and its potential long-term effects on other programs.

“We all hope that the government has the ability to stop what might be a crisis of similar proportions to that which brought on the 1929 depression,” he said. “The difficulty that exists here is that our lawmakers are being told, ‘Give us this blank check, or the economy will collapse,’ and the current proposal has little in it to provide protection for the citizen taxpayers who are funding it, or accountability from the secretary of the Treasury who will administer it. This also means the next administration, whoever that may be, will be left with less available funds to spend solving other economic or social problems, like health-care costs, health-insurance costs or education.”

The latest U.S. Census information indicates there are 116 million households in the U.S. – given that information, the cost per household for this proposal equals approximately $6,000.

What some may find even more disconcerting is there is no “Plan B,” should this plan fail.

According to Eamon Javers, writer for Politico magazine, if this week’s bailout plan fails, the government will probably have no choice but to continue to buy up assets, which could include credit-card debt, car-loan debt, as well as commercial real-estate debt, until the problem abates or taxpayers gain control over the banking system.

BAILOUT

Bailout passes Senate, House foes soften

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writers 10/01/08

WASHINGTON - After one spectacular failure, the $700 billion financial industry bailout found a second life Wednesday, winning lopsided passage in the Senate and gaining ground in the House, where Republicans opposition softened.

Senators loaded the economic rescue bill with tax breaks and other sweeteners before passing it by a wide margin, 74-25, a month before the presidential and congressional elections.

In the House, leaders were working feverishly to convert enough opponents of the bill to push it through by Friday, just days after lawmakers there stunningly rejected an earlier version and sent markets plunging around the globe.

The measure didn't cause the same uproar in the Senate, where both parties' presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, made rare appearances to cast "aye" votes, as did Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.

In the final vote, 40 Democrats, 33 Republicans and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut voted "yes." Nine Democrats, 15 Republicans and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont voted "no."

President Bush issued a statement praising the Senate's move. With the revisions, Bush said, "I believe members of both parties in the House can support this legislation. The American people expect and our economy demands that the House pass this good bill this week and send it to my desk."

The rescue package lets the government spend billions of dollars to buy bad mortgage-related securities and other devalued assets held by troubled financial institutions. If successful, advocates say, that would allow frozen credit to begin flowing again and prevent a deep recession.

Even as the Senate voted, House leaders were hunting for the 12 votes they would need to turn around Monday's 228-205 defeat. They were especially targeting the 133 Republicans who voted "no."

Their opposition appeared to be easing after the Senate added $110 billion in tax breaks for businesses and the middle class, plus a provision to raise, from $100,000 to $250,000, the cap on federal deposit insurance.

They were also cheering a decision Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ease rules that force companies to devalue assets on their balance sheets to reflect the price they can get on the market.

There were worries, though, that the tax breaks would cause some conservative-leaning "Blue Dog" Democrats who voted for the rescue Monday to abandon it. The bill doesn't designate a way to pay for many of the tax cuts, and Blue Dogs typically oppose any measure that swells the deficit.

"I'm concerned about that," said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the majority leader.

Raising the deposit insurance limit — along with the SEC's accounting change — helped House Republicans claim credit for some substantive changes. And with constituent feedback changing dramatically since Monday's shocking House defeat and the corresponding market plunge, lawmakers' comfort level with the package increased markedly.

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., who voted "no" on Monday, said he was leaning toward switching, and Rep. Steve LaTourette,R-Ohio, said he was "getting there." Several others were weighing a flip, said Republican officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the lawmakers had not yet announced how they would vote.

Leaders in both parties, as well as private economic chiefs everywhere, said Congress must quickly approve some version of the bailout measure to start loans flowing and stave off a potential national economic disaster.

"This is what we need to do right now to prevent the possibility of a crisis turning into a catastrophe," Obama said on the Senate floor. In Missouri, before flying to Washington to vote, McCain said, "If we fail to act, the gears of our economy will grind to a halt."

Critics on the right and left assailed the rescue plan, which has been panned by their constituents as a giveaway for Wall Street, and has little obvious direct benefit for ordinary Americans.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a leading conservative, said the step was "leading us into the pit of socialism."

Sanders, a self-described socialist, said the rescue was fundamentally unfair.

"The masters of the universe, those brilliant Wall Street insiders who have made more money than the average American can even dream of, have brought our financial system to the brink of collapse," Sanders said, and are demanding that the middle class "pick up the pieces that they broke."

Still, proponents argued that the financial sector's woes were already being felt by ordinary people in the form of unaffordable credit and underperforming retirement savings and without the bailout would soon translate into even more economic pain for working Americans, including more job losses.

"There will be no balloons or bunting or parades," when the rescue becomes law, said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman. But lawmakers will have "the knowledge that at one of our nation's moments of maximum economic peril, we acted — not for the benefit of a particular few, but for all Americans."

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said the intense, at times contentious, 11-day round of bipartisan talks to craft the bailout — which followed dire warnings of impending economic meltdown from Bush's economic chiefs to congressional leaders — was an "extraordinary experience."

"This is the way government's supposed to work, folks, and it did," Gregg said.

The Senate specializes in high-stakes legislating by enticement, and the long list of sweeteners it added was designed to attract votes from various constituencies.

In addition to extending several tax breaks popular with businesses, the bill would keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million middle-income Americans and provide $8 billion in tax relief for those hit by natural disasters in the Midwest, Texas and Louisiana.

Tax cuts new and old are favorites for most House Republicans. Help for rural schools was aimed mainly at lawmakers in the West, while disaster aid was a top priority for lawmakers from across the Midwest and South.

Another addition, to extend the deductibility of state and local taxes for people in states without income taxes, helps Florida and Texas, among others.

Increasing the deposit insurance cap was a bid to reassure individuals and small businesses that their money would be safe if their banks collapsed. It was particularly geared toward small banks that fear customers will pull their money and park it in larger institutions seen as less likely to fold.

The FDIC would be allowed to borrow unlimited money from the Treasury Department through the end of next year as a way to cover the increased insurance limit. If used, it would be the first time the agency has tapped Treasury for a loan since the early 1990s.

The rescue bill hitched a ride on a popular measure that gives people with mental illness better health insurance coverage. Before passing it, senators voted by an identical 74-25 margin to attach the massive bailout and the tax breaks.

Debate?

McCain campaign won't commit to debate on Friday

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer 09/25/08

WASHINGTON - John McCain's campaign expressed cautious optimism Thursday as congressional Republicans and Democrats agreed in principle on a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry hours before the two presidential candidates were to meet with President Bush on the crisis.

Even so, the action didn't appear to be strong enough to convince McCain to attend Friday's scheduled presidential debate. His campaign has said he wouldn't participate unless there was consensus between Congress and the administration, and a spokesman said the afternoon developments had not changed his plans.

"There's no deal until there's a deal. We're optimistic but we want to get this thing done," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

Obama still wants the face-off to go on, and is slated to travel to the debate site in Mississippi on Friday.

The debate over the debate is the latest campaign twist as McCain and Obama try to navigate the uncharted politics of the financial meltdown and show leadership at a time of national angst.

"With so much on the line, for America and the world, the debate that matters most right now is taking place in the United States Capitol — and I intend to join it," McCain said after addressing former President Clinton's Global Initiative in New York on Thursday before heading to Washington.

Obama argued the debate should proceed because a president needs to be able to handle more than one issue at a time.

"Our election is in 40 days. Our economy is in crisis, and our nation is fighting two wars abroad. The American people deserve to hear directly from myself and Sen. McCain about how we intend to lead our country. The times are too serious to put our campaign on hold, or to ignore the full range of issues that the next president will face."

In Oxford, Miss., debate organizers continued to prepare.

At a news conference, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, said he expected the presidential debate to go ahead, though he said he had no inside information. "This is going to be a great debate tomorrow night. We're excited about it," Barbour said.

Television networks, too, were moving forward. "We're proceeding as if it's on and will until someone tells us that it's not," ABC spokeswoman Cathie Levine said.

The two candidates spoke to the Clinton Global Initiative — McCain in person, Obama via satellite — before the meeting in Washington with Bush and House and Senate leaders from both parties. One of them is certain to inherit the economic mess, including the aftermath of the unprecedented plan to rescue the financial sector.

Presidential politics was running smack into the delicate negotiations over how to stop further weakening the sagging economy without putting an enormous new burden on taxpayers or rewarding corporations or their executives who share the blame for the woes.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic and Republican negotiators emerged from a closed-door meeting to report an agreement in principle. They said they would present it to the Bush administration in hopes of a vote within days.

Rogers said McCain didn't participate in that meeting, but was in talks with Republican leaders afterward. Conservative Republicans were among the holdouts, and there were indications they were waiting for McCain to make a move before they did.

As Thursday began, McCain said he didn't believe the administration's plan had the votes to pass without changes. "We are running out of time," McCain said. However, he said he still was confident a bipartisan compromise could be reached before markets open on Monday, one that would stabilize the markets, protect taxpayers and homeowners and "earn the confidence of the American people."

He again portrayed his announced halt to campaign events, fundraising and advertising as an example of putting the country ahead of politics. But in doing so he also hoped to get political credit for a decisive step on a national crisis as polls show him trailing Obama on the economy and slipping in the presidential race.

Despite McCain's stated campaigning hiatus, his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, paid a highly visible visit to memorials in lower Manhattan to those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Democrats derided McCain's claim to have halted his campaign as a political stunt, though Obama himself didn't go that far.

For his part, Obama urged a swift resolution that would get the legislation passed, saying "action must be taken to restore confidence in our economy ... Now is a time to come together — Democrats and Republicans — in a spirit of cooperation on behalf of the American people."

Obama also rolled out a new 60-second TV ad to run in "key targeted states" in which he cited economic policies endorsed by Bush and McCain as essentially to blame for the troubles.

"For eight years we've been told that the way to a stronger economy was to give huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest. Cut oversight on Wall Street. And somehow all Americans would benefit," Obama says in the ad. "Well now we know the truth. Instead of prosperity tricking down, the pain has trickled up. We need to change direction. Now."

Jokes - John McCain

mccain is so old

his social security number is eleven.

mccain is so old

his high school year book has pictures of algae.

mccain is so old

he'll see the fall of rome, twice.

There's a new ice cream coming out in tribute to John McCain:

BenGay and Geriatrics, Straight Talk Espresso Nut Crunch

What if the bailout plan doesn't work?

Eamon Javers Tue Sep 23, 6:33 AM ET (Politico)

Lawmakers raised doubts Monday about what would be the largest government bailout in American history, but a bigger, more terrifying question lurked right under the surface: What if it doesn’t work?

Failure, says one insider, is not an option.

“The alternative is complete financial Armageddon and a great depression,” said a former Federal Reserve official. “Where do they go after this? Well, the U.S. government could nationalize the banking system outright.”

A few months ago, that idea would have been laughed out of the room.

But no one’s laughing anymore.

While almost no one wants to dwell publicly on the possibility that a $700 billion package could simply be too small to forestall a financial meltdown, privately some aides were already thinking of what the government might do if the Treasury plan passes but fails.

In a statement Monday, President Bush said that “the whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to our capital markets, businesses, our housing sector and retirement accounts.”

What the president didn’t say is that the whole world will be watching to see not just if Washington can act but whether Washington’s actions can still make a difference.

Under the current plan, the U.S. government will buy up to $700 billion in assets from private holders on Wall Street. That would help banks stabilize their balance sheets, and in theory provide an incentive for banks to begin extending credit among themselves again — a critical component of a functional financial system.

So what’s Plan B?

There really isn’t one.

If this week’s bailout doesn’t work, the government will probably have no choice but to continue to buy assets. There’s no one left to pick up the tab. “The private sector got us into this mess,” said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.). “The government has to get us out of it.”

Getting us out of it would likely mean buying up even more debt in the markets if the $700 billion fails to turn things around. That could include credit card debt, which is securitized and sold on Wall Street the same way as home mortgages, car loan debt and even commercial real estate debt, until the problem begins to recede or the taxpayers gain effective control over the nation’s banking system.

So how will leaders know whether it’s working or not?

Traders and Washington insiders will look at credit market indicators to gauge their progress. One number in particular will be the focus of enormous attention on the day the bill passes: the difference between the interest rate offered by the federal government and the rates private banks charge when they loan money to one another.

If confidence is returning to the credit markets, the spread between the two numbers should begin to narrow as the banks’ rate — known by the acronym LIBOR — falls. But if the credit market is still in distress, the spread will widen.

In theory, traders should be able to see the results of any congressional legislation within minutes of news of the bill’s passage hitting Wall Street.

Here’s the good news: Already, just based on the news that Treasury is working on the proposal, the spread has been narrowing this week, down from the dramatic highs of last week. That means the market is pricing in an expectation that Congress will act and that the action will work.

If everything goes smoothly, it is even possible that taxpayers will profit from the deal in the long run, as the underlying assets accumulate value over the coming years and the government is able to ultimately sell them back into the market at higher prices than it’s paying now. Of course, it’s also possible that the values will never come back, in which case taxpayers would be on the hook.

The specific details of the package were a moving target on Monday, and congressional Democrats tangled with administration Republicans over the exact makeup of the bill.

Said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.): “The last thing any of us want is to be back here in a month coming up with some new plan because this didn’t work. It’s important that we act quickly, but it’s more important that we act responsibly.”

That’s congressional code for: “Hey, wait a minute.”

The Banking Committee’s ranking Republican was of a similar mindset. “I am concerned that Treasury’s proposal is neither workable nor comprehensive, despite its enormous price tag,” said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. “In my judgment, it would be foolish to waste massive sums of taxpayer funds testing an idea that has been hastily crafted and may actually cause the government to revert to an inadequate strategy of ad hoc bailouts.”

Ultimately, the negotiations will come down to doling out huge new powers, including:

• Buying Power: This is the cornerstone of the proposal — allowing Treasury to buy up to $700 billion of privately held assets in the market. The original proposal called for buying power to be limited to “mortgage-related” assets, but a later draft expanded that to allow the government to purchase any “troubled assets.” There’s a staggering difference in authority between the two phrases, and it is a moving target as of press time. The banking industry generally favors the second version, but that potentially exposes taxpayers to much higher costs.

• Managing Power: Under the Bush administration’s plan, Treasury would hire private managers to handle the hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of assets it will soon own. But Treasury was silent on whether those managers would be able to actually negotiate directly with homeowners who hold the troubled mortgages. Democrats would go further and demand that bankruptcy judges be given the ability to renegotiate those failing mortgages on behalf of homeowners. This will be one of the more contentious sideshow fights of the negotiations.

• Global Power: Under one version of Treasury’s proposal, the government would have the power to buy assets from any institution in the world that it deemed worthy of a bailout.

• Pay Power: Democrats on Capitol Hill say they want the final plan to include restrictions on payouts to the executives of the financial institutions that take the taxpayer lifeline. Paulson says he doesn’t like this idea, but it may be tough for elected officials to oppose this populist carve-out in an election year.

• Equity Power: Democrats would like the government to get shares in the financial institutions that take federal help — effectively giving taxpayers ownership stakes in the nation’s largest banks and providing them with a huge windfall if those institutions prosper in future years.

• Oversight Power: Treasury’s initial proposal included very little room for congressional oversight of the new effort, calling for reports to be sent to the Hill just twice per year. That isn’t flying with Democrats or many Republicans on the Hill; if a bill makes it through Congress, it will almost certainly have much stronger oversight provisions.

Palin Shuns Press

Palin meets Karzai without usual reporters in tow

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer 09/23/08

NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has not held a press conference in nearly four weeks of campaigning, on Tuesday barred most pool reporters from her meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the first foreign head of state she has ever met.

Journalists protested the campaign's decision to exclude all but photographers and a TV crew from Palin's sessions with foreign leaders. CNN decided to withdraw its TV crew, effectively denying Palin the high visibility she sought for her initial foray into world affairs. The campaign then reversed course, saying pool reporters — a small group that provides information to all media — could attend the meetings planned after Karzai hosted Palin at his suite in The Barclay New York Hotel.

A television producer with a notepad was denied entry into Karzai's suite by a man who repeatedly said, "No writers." However, a Palin official stepped in and let him pass, according to a pool report.

In the Karzai suite, Palin sat in a large chair a few feet from Karzai. Behind her were foreign policy advisers for the campaign, Steve Biegun and Randy Scheunemann.

Photographers and the TV crew were asked to leave after about a half-minute of recording Palin and Karzai. An exchange clearly heard above the clicking of cameras involved Karzai's son, born in January 2007.

"What is his name?" Palin asked.

"Mirwais," Karzai responded. "Mirwais, which means, 'The Light of the House.'"

"Oh, nice," Palin said.

"He is the only one we have," Karzai said.

Presidents and members of Congress routinely allow reporters to attend photo opportunities along with photographers. Reporters sometimes are able to ask questions during the brief photo sessions, usually held at the beginning of private meetings.

In response to questions about why pool reporters who routinely travel with Palin were denied access, spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt didn't offer a reason in a statement that read, "The decision was made for this to be a photo spray with still cameras and video cameras only."

At first, campaign aides said pool reporters would not be admitted along with still photographers and a video camera crew taken in to photograph Palin's meetings with Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who were in town for the United Nations General Assembly. She was to meet later with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Those sessions and meetings scheduled for Wednesday were part of the Republican campaign's effort to give the Alaska governor some experience in foreign affairs. She had never before met a foreign head of state and had first traveled outside North America just last year.

At least two news organizations, including The Associated Press, objected to the exclusion of reporters and were told that the decision was not subject to discussion. Campaign aides subsequently announced that reporters would be allowed to accompany photographers into the later sessions with Uribe and Kissinger.

Palin has been criticized for avoiding taking questions from reporters or submitting to one-on-one interviews. She has had just two major interviews since Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate on Aug. 29.

On Wednesday, McCain and Palin were expected to meet jointly with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. Palin was then to meet separately with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Buffet Bail

Buffett's Berkshire betting $5 billion on Goldma

By ANNA JO BRATTON, Associated Press Writer 09/24/08

OMAHA, Neb. - Warren Buffett, one of the world's best known and wealthiest investors, is betting $5 billion that the U.S. financial system is not about to collapse.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Tuesday it will invest at least $5 billion in Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a huge vote of confidence for one of the survivors of the credit crisis that felled two of its investment banking peers.

It may be just the shot in the arm that shares needed. Wall Street appeared headed for a higher opening Wednesday, though credit markets remained uncertain about the government's $700 billion bailout plan for banks.

In addition to buying $5 billion in preferred stock, Berkshire also got warrants to buy another $5 billion in Goldman's common stock. Goldman also said late Tuesday it would raise another $2.5 billion in its own public stock offering.

The news, which broke late Tuesday, sent shares of Goldman Sachs and stock index futures higher in electronic trading, after the Dow Jones industrial average posted a triple-digit decline for the second day in a row. Early Wednesday, before markets opened, Goldman shares gained about 5 percent in electronic trading over their Tuesday close of $125.05. The stock had traded as high as $250.70 in the past year.

Goldman Sachs' shares had been tumbling ahead of the announcement of the government rescue plan last Friday as investors feared it could face the same kinds of funding squeezes as Bear Stearns and Lehman.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a former co-CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress hours earlier that quick action on a $700 billion bailout measure for financial services firms was needed to prevent economic havoc.

Buffett, one of the most successful investors in history, did not mention what is happening in Washington, but he did heap praise on the New York-based firm.

"Goldman Sachs is an exceptional institution," the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway said in a news release. "It has an unrivaled global franchise, a proven and deep management team and the intellectual and financial capital to continue its track record of outperformance."

It will be Buffett's second major foray into Wall Street.

In the late 1980s, Berkshire Hathaway invested in Salomon Brothers Inc. When the investment firm admitted wrongdoing in bidding for U.S. Treasury bonds in 1991, Buffett became interim chairman and helped Salomon reach a settlement with the government before stepping down in 1992. Salomon was later sold to what is now Citigroup Inc.

Buffett's latest investment comes two days after Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two independent investment banks on Wall Street, won approval from the Federal Reserve to change their status to bank holding companies.

By becoming commercial banks, the two companies avoided the fate of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers — the first taken over in a fire sale and the second now bankrupt — by giving them broader access to borrow federal money and the ability to build a stable base of deposits.

But it also comes with closer regulatory oversight that likely limit its ability to generate the kinds of sky high profits that were topped by few other companies.

The strict rules set by the Federal Reserve will limit opportunities for big payoffs from what is known as proprietary trading, using borrowed funds to place high-octane bets on everything from the price of oil to currencies and other commodities.

Berkshire's preferred stock in Goldman will pay 10 percent and can be bought back any time at a 10 percent premium. The warrants allow Berkshire to buy $5 billion in common stock at $115 per share any time over the next five years.

Morgan Stanley got its own cash infusion on Monday, agreeing to sell a 20 percent stake for more than $8 billion to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan's largest bank.

Mark Lane, an analyst who follows Goldman for William Blair & Co. in Chicago, said he had expected Goldman and Morgan Stanley to raise capital after getting the Fed's approval to become bank holding companies.

Buffett's investment "sends a pretty strong message of support for the independent-bank business model," Lane said. "It sends a stabilizing signal to the market."

On Sept. 14, the No. 4 investment bank, Lehman Brothers, filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, weighed down by fouled commercial real estate holdings and a loss of faith from investors and other banks it did business with. On the same day, ailing Merrill Lynch & Co. arranged a hasty deal to be bought by Bank of America Corp.

Wall Street's troubles came as a freeze-up in credit markets threatened to clog the global financial system. The U.S. government arranged an $85 billion loan last week to rescue the huge insurer American International Group Inc. and is seeking approval from Congress to buy back some $700 billion in bad mortgages and other toxic debts from financial institutions.

A message left for a Berkshire spokeswoman seeking further comment on the transaction wasn't immediately returned Tuesday. Berkshire officials do not typically comment on its stock investments beyond what they are legally required to disclose.

A spokeswoman at Goldman Sachs said no one was immediately available to talk about the deal.

At last report, Berkshire had total assets of nearly $278 billion, including significant stakes in companies such as Wells Fargo & Co., American Express and the Washington Post Co.

Economy

Millions spend half of income on housing

Mon Sep 22, 8:22 PM ET (Associated Press)

By ADRIAN SAINZ and ALAN ZIBEL, AP Business Writers 47 minutes ago

MIAMI - Al Ray is so strapped for cash, the only time he eats out is on Wednesday or Sunday, when the local McDonald's sells hamburgers for 49 cents.

Ray lost his engineering job last November, and has been working as high school tutor, scratching out about $1,000 a month — if he's lucky. He struggled to make his $1,400 monthly mortgage payment and $330 monthly homeowners' association fee until May, when he stopped paying.

Ray, 44, is looking for work and renting out a room in his two-bedroom condo in Davie, Fla., for $500, but his monthly income doesn't match his expenses and he's facing foreclosure.

"I barely have money to survive," he said.

Ray is one of more than 7.5 million people — almost 15 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — who are spending half of their income or more on housing costs, according to 2007 data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. That is up from nearly 7.1 million the year before.

Traditionally, the government and most lenders consider a homeowner spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs to be financially burdened. But that definition now covers almost 38 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — 19 million of them.

Though home prices have fallen this year, in the most expensive markets where home prices tripled during the boom, many working families still cannot afford to buy a home.

"We had a bubble," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. "This is a case where we absolutely want the market to adjust."

The data underscore the serious affordability problems in this country and highlight how the slightest financial problem — from a lost job to higher gas prices or insurance premiums — can put a family behind on their mortgages and into the realm of foreclosure.

When home prices fell in the early 1990s, borrowers had more equity in their homes, and were able to escape foreclosure. But now, an estimated 10 million homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, according to Moody's .

More than 4 million homeowners were at least one month behind on their loans at the end of June, and almost 500,000 had started the foreclosure process, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Cascading foreclosures over the past two years created a domino effect in the lending industry, undermining investor confidence and forcing the Bush administration last weekend to announce the greatest rescue package and market intervention since the Great Depression.

And yet, the deal will not help Dolly Hanna, 51, and her husband, who bought five homes in the San Francisco area over the past 20 years, and were enjoying life during the housing boom by renting them out.

But her husband's overtime at his mechanic's job was cut, and the Hannas now find themselves overextended at a loss of $15,000 per month and trying two sell two of the homes.

With four children, Hanna had been a stay-at-home mom, but Monday she started a job in real estate. They are seeking a renter for two upstairs bedrooms in their primary residence for $1,200.

Getting a loan during the boom was easy, Hanna knows. Too easy.

"All you had to was massage the information enough to fit it into their round hole, and they gave us a mortgage," Hanna said.

In San Francisco, more than one out of five homeowners with a mortgage spends half or more of their income on housing.

That's also true in 13 more of the largest 100 metro areas analyzed by the Associated Press. Other places include California metro areas of Stockton, Los Angeles, Riverside, Oxnard-Thousand Oaks, San Francisco, and San Diego. Also in the top 10 are the Fort Myers, Sarasota and Orlando metro areas in Florida, and New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island.

But the most cost-burdened homeowners in the country live the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach metro area: 58 percent of homeowners spending 30 percent of their income on housing costs, and 29 percent spending half of their income or more on housing.

Though prices here are dropping, the high cost of land, construction, insurance and property taxes makes living in South Florida too expensive for some.

"Certainly, we hear about people leaving South Florida and going into Atlanta where they can get into a house for less money," Suzanne Weiss, associate director for real estate with Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida.

To help with the affordable housing stock, Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida joined forces with a construction company to build homes for low- to moderate-income residents that include energy-efficient appliances and hurricane-resistant windows.

Other cities and states are also taking action.

In Illinois, a network of 15 nonprofit housing groups gives free advice to struggling homeowners seeking to avoid foreclosure amid rising mortgage payments.

In New England, an affordable housing program funded by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston awards grants and low-interest loans to communities to encourage affordable-housing initiatives for very low- to moderate-income households.

And in Las Vegas, the Nevada Fair Housing Center is helping Rita Harvey renegotiate her mortgage from $2,700 to around $1,800 per month.

Harvey, 64, lives on about $3,300 a month in social security and disability payments for herself and her four disabled grandchildren. She nearly lost her home this summer after her adjustable rate mortgage payment jumped.

"I did not understand that in two years, this would adjust out of control," she said. "Nobody deserves what I've had to go through."

US Blamed

Iranian president blames US for market collapse

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 28 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS - Iran's president blamed U.S. military interventions around the world in part for the collapse of global financial markets ahead of his speech Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also said the campaign against his country's nuclear program was solely due to the Bush administration "and a couple of their European friends."

"The U.S. government has made a series of mistakes in the past few decades," Ahmadinejad said an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "The imposition on the U.S. economy of the years of heavy military engagement and involvement around the world ... the war in Iraq, for example. These are heavy costs imposed on the U.S. economy.

"The world economy can no longer tolerate the budgetary deficit and the financial pressures occurring from markets here in the United States, and by the U.S. government," he added.

In a separate interview with National Public Radio, Ahmadinejad said he does not want confrontation with the United States.

Despite U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, Ahmadinejad claimed vast international support for his position and said the campaign consisted "of only three or four countries, led by the United States and with a couple of their European friends."

Iran insists its nuclear activities are geared only toward generating power. But Israel says the Islamic Republic could have enough nuclear material to make its first bomb within a year. The U.S. estimates Tehran is at least two years away from that stage.

Ahmadinejad's speech will come just hours after President Bush made his eighth and final speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Bush said Tuesday the international community must stand firm against the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. And he said that despite past disagreements over the U.S.-led war in Iraq, members of the U.N. must unite to help the struggling democracy succeed.

"A few nations, regimes like Syria and Iran, continue to sponsor terror," Bush said. "Yet their numbers are growing fewer, and they're growing more isolated from the world. As the 21st century unfolds, some may be tempted to assume that the threat has receded. This would be comforting. It would be wrong. The terrorists believe time is on their side, so they've made waiting out civilized nations part of their strategy. We must not allow them to succeed."

Throughout Bush's speech, Ahmadinejad at in his seat and smiled and waved to people in the chamber. At one point during Bush's 22-minute talk, Ahmadinejad turned to someone at his side and gave a thumb's down.

Bush's appearance was overshadowed by the U.S. financial crisis that has rippled through world markets. Trying to reassure world leaders that his administration is taking decisive action to stem market turmoil, Bush said he is confident that Congress will act in the "urgent timeframe required" to prevent broader problem. But he did not ask other nations to take any specific actions.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a wholesale reform of the global financial system, urging major economic powers to meet before the end of the year to examine the lessons of the crisis.

"Let us rebuild capitalism in which credit agencies are controlled and punished when necessary, where transparency ... replaces opaqueness," Sarkozy said. "We can do this on one condition, that we all work together in our globalized world."

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also called for a global solution to the financial crisis and lashed out at speculators whom he blamed for the "anguish of entire peoples."

"The global nature of this crisis means that the solutions we adopt must also be global," Silva said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon painted a grim picture of a world facing not only a financial crisis but food and energy crises as well as new outbreaks of war and violence.

"We must do more to help our fellow human beings weather the gathering storm," he told world leaders. "I see a danger of nations looking more inward, rather than toward a shared future. I see a danger of retreating from the progress we have made, particularly in the realm of development and more equitably sharing the fruits of global growth."

"We need to restore order to the international financial markets," he said. "We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less uncritical faith in the `magic' of markets. And we must think about how the world economic system should evolve to more fully reflect changing realities of our time."

Sarah Palin

Palin press may boycott UN conference

Kenneth P. Vogel 09/23/08 - Politico

NEW YORK – Journalists, displeased with Sarah Palin’s efforts to restrict their access to her, are threatening not to cover her events surrounding the United Nations conference here unless they're allowed more access.

The unfolding boycott is the latest development in a rocky relationship between Palin’s handlers and the press, in which the campaign has sought to tightly control her interactions with the media.

The campaign had originally indicated that the print reporters following her campaign would be among the small group of journalists allowed to attend the so-called “pool sprays” before Palin’s meetings with dignitaries on the sidelines of the U.N. meetings.

The sprays are basically glorified photo opportunities during which journalists can snap photos and film footage and – if they’re lucky – shout a question or two at Palin and her company before she adjourns for private meetings. On Tuesday, those meetings were to include Afghan President Karzai and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

But the imbroglio began developing Tuesday morning when Palin’s handlers informed the small print press contingent covering her campaign that the print reporter designated to cover the events, Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal, would not be allowed to cover the sprays.

The campaign’s reasoning was that there were not going to be questions or statements at the sprays, so they were only appropriate for photographers and cameramen.

The campaign also at first moved to bar CNN, the television network designated for pool duty, from sending its editorial producer – basically a hybrid print/video journalist – though the campaign budged when the network threatened to withhold its cameras as well.

With Palin’s first meeting set to begin at noon, that leaves the print reporters on the outs.

UPDATE: After shutting the print pooler, Holmes, out of the spray before Palin’s meeting with Afghan President Karzai—“rudely,” according to Holmes—the campaign relented and agreed to let her cover the sprays before Palin’s next two meetings, with Colombian President Uribe and Kissinger. Updated story forthcoming.

Bankruptcy Law???

Bankruptcy judge orders victim to pay back thief

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 22, 4:01 AM ET

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Mark Poveromo feels ripped off twice over. A judge ordered him to repay money he collected from a builder convicted of stealing from him — and told him to kick in the thief's attorney fees and court costs, too.

Some legal experts say the case, in which a criminal case in Connecticut intersects a bankruptcy judgment filed in St. Louis, shows a need for Congress to revise the nation's bankruptcy laws to better treat people who are awarded money as part of ruling in a criminal case.

"This is an outrageous decision," said Anthony Sabino, a law professor at St. John's University and a bankruptcy expert. "I think it's a miscarriage of justice."

"I can't even begin to fathom it," Poveromo said. "Crime does pay."

The case began in 2006, when Poveromo hired Mark R. Koch of Illinois for an $80,000 project to construct a building for his pet food business in Thomaston, Conn. Poveromo paid $39,500 up front, but Koch never did any work, according to court documents.

Poveromo filed a criminal complaint, and Koch was convicted in Connecticut of first-degree larceny in April 2007 and ordered to pay restitution. Koch paid $25,000 and began monthly payments to Poveromo on the balance, but that's when the law turned on Poveromo.

Two months before his conviction, Koch filed for bankruptcy protection in St. Louis, halting any monetary claims against him. Poveromo says notices of the bankruptcy filing was sent to Poveromo's old business address and he didn't see them.

Koch then filed a complaint to the bankruptcy court accusing Poveromo of intentionally violating the stay on claims by having him arrested to collect on his debt.

Judge Charles Rendlen III agreed with the builder. In a ruling filed in December, and without hearing from Poveromo, Rendlen noted "the highly suspect timing" of Koch's arrest and conviction after filing for bankruptcy.

The judge said Poveromo intentionally violated the bankruptcy stay on claims by causing Koch's arrest to collect on the debt.

"Allowing a creditor to use the threat of incarceration on charges related to a prepetition debt undermines the most fundamental premise of bankruptcy law: the guarantee of equal treatment among creditors pursuant to the bankruptcy code," Rendlen wrote.

Rendlen ordered Poveromo to pay back the restitution Koch had given him as well as attorney's fees and costs.

Poveromo tried to challenge the ruling, but failed to get it overturned. The judge also rejected Poveromo's request to appear by telephone instead of traveling to St. Louis because he cares for his elderly sick parents.

"The inconvenience experienced by the defendant's parents does not outweigh the need of the court to observe the defendant in person as he gives his testimony, to allow the court to best weigh his credibility," Rendlen wrote.

Poveromo said he had to pay for airplane tickets to St. Louis for a hearing on the case and couldn't get a refund after Koch's attorney asked for a delay.

Poveromo said he reluctantly accepted a settlement reached a few weeks ago in which he was able to keep the nearly $28,000 Koch had given him but did not collect on the balance he was owed based on what the Connecticut court had ordered.

His attorney, Jeff Weisman, decried the ruling.

"I think it's an injustice to individuals who are victimized," Weisman said.

Koch's bankruptcy attorney, Robert Eggmann, declined to comment on the settlement and said the bankruptcy ruling speaks for itself.

Rendlen did not return a telephone message seeking comment. Court officials cited a policy that judges do not comment on their decisions.

Jack Williams, resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute, said the case highlights an area of the law that Congress should fix by expanding the exception to the stay of bankruptcy claims in criminal cases so that criminal restitutions can go forward during bankruptcies. He said the ruling is not unusual in finding a violation of the stay, but said other judges may not have sanctioned Poveromo.

Bankruptcy attorney Stuart Hirshfield said he agreed with the ruling because a stay of claims is fundamental to bankruptcy cases and violations are dealt with severely. He also said when a party fails to appear, the judge has to rule on what is known and the judge believed there was adequate notice.

Sabino, the bankruptcy expert from St. John's, said problem lies primarily with the judge's interpretation of the law.

Poveromo said he has since hired another contractor to construct the building for his business. He said he's struggling after spending $10,000 on lawyers while business has slowed amid a weak economy, but is determined to persevere.

"It's tough times," Poveromo said. "I'm not going to let this criminal ruin my business."

When you die

What Happens When We Die?

By M.J. STEPHEY 09/19/08 - Time Magazine

A fellow at New York's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week, Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S., and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics, and the difference between the mind and the brain.

What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people's claims of "near-death" experience?

When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about ten seconds, brain activity ceases - as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, ten or 20 percent of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they're able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn't functioning.

How does this project relate to society's perception of death?

People commonly perceive death as being a moment - you're either dead or you're alive. And that's a social definition we have. But the clinical definition we use is when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working, and as a consequence the brain itself stops working. When doctors shine a light into someone's pupil, it's to demonstrate that there is no reflex present. The eye reflex is mediated by the brain stem and that's the area that keeps us alive; if that doesn't work then that means that the brain itself isn't working. At that point, I'll call a nurse into the room so I can certify that this patient is dead. Fifty years ago, people couldn't survive after that.

How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?

Nowadays, we have technology that's improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now - who knows if they'll ever make it to the market - that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine, you fast-forward to ten years down the line and you've given a patient whose heart has just stopped this amazing drug, and actually what it does is it slows everything down so that the things that would've happened over an hour, now happen over two days. As medicine progresses, we will end up with lots and lots of ethical questions.

But what is happening to the individual at that time, what's really going on? Because there is a lack of blood flow, the cells go into a kind of a frenzy to keep themselves alive. And within about 5 minutes or so they start to damage or change. After an hour or so the damage is so great that even if we restart the heart again and pump blood, the person can no longer be viable because the cells have just been changed too much. And then the cells continue to change so that within a couple of days the body actually decomposes. So it's not a moment, it's a process that actually begins when the heart stops and culminates in the complete loss of the body, the decompositions of all the cells. However, ultimately what matters is, What's going on to a person's mind? What happens to the human mind and consciousness during death? Does that cease immediately as soon as the heart stops? Does it cease activity within the first 2 seconds, the first 2 minutes? Because we know that cells are continuously changing at that time. Does it stop after ten minutes, after half an hour, after an hour? And at this point we don't know.

What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?

Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about five hundred or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than ten years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also get the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.

Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?

Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that well, when you die you die, that's it. Death is a moment, you know you're either dead or you're alive. All these things are not scientifically valid but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy, even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.

Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain, they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the big bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?

GO VERMONT!

Vermont candidate to prosecute Bush if she wins

By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 19, 3:45 AM ET

BURLINGTON, Vt. - Lots of political candidates make campaign promises. But not like Charlotte Dennett's.

Dennett, 61, the Progressive Party's candidate for Vermont Attorney General, said Thursday she will prosecute President Bush for murder if she's elected Nov. 4.

Dennett, an attorney and investigative journalist, says Bush must be held accountable for the deaths of thousands of people in Iraq — U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. She believes the Vermont attorney general would have jurisdiction to do so.

She also said she would appoint a special prosecutor and already knows who that should be: former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, the author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder," a new book.

"Someone has to step forward," said Dennett, flanked by Bugliosi at a news conference announcing her plan. "Someone has to say we cannot put up with this lack of accountability any more."

Dennett and two others are challenging incumbent Attorney General William Sorrell, a Democrat, in the Nov. 4 election.

Bugliosi, 74, who gained fame as the prosecutor of killer Charles Manson, said any state attorney general would have jurisdiction since Bush committed "overt acts" including the military's recruitment of soldiers in Vermont and allegedly lying about the threat posed by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in speeches that were aired in Vermont and elsewhere.

"No man, even the president of the United States, is above the law," said Bugliosi.

The White House press office didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Republican National Committee spokesman Blair Latoff denounced Dennett.

"It's extremely disappointing that a candidate for state attorney general is more concerned with radical left-wing provocation than upholding the law of Vermont," Latoff said. "These incendiary suggestions may score points among the most fringe elements of American society, but can't be settling for anyone looking for an attorney general."

Anti-Bush sentiment runs deep in Vermont. It's the only state Bush hasn't visited as president, and one whose liberal tendencies make it unlikely he will.

In 2007, the state Senate adopted a resolution calling for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Last March, the towns of Brattleboro and Marlboro voted to seek indictments against Bush and Cheney over the war, and dozens of other towns voted at town meetings to call for his impeachment.

Sorrell, who is seeking a sixth term, said he doesn't believe a Vermont attorney general would have the authority to charge Bush.

"The reality is, in my view, that unless the crime takes place in Vermont, then I as the attorney general have no authority under Vermont law to be prosecuting the president," Sorrell said.

Rates Unchanged

Fed leaves rate unchanged despite market strains

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 1 hour, 26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve kept a key interest rate unchanged Tuesday, saying that strains in financial markets have "increased significantly" but the inflation outlook remains uncertain.

The Fed's action was a disappointment to investors who were hoping that severe stress in financial markets that surfaced in recent days would prompt the central bank to resume cutting interest rates.

The central bank said it was keeping its target for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge on overnight loans, unchanged at 2 percent.

In a statement, the Fed said "strains in financial markets have increased significantly and labor markets have weakened further."

However, the central bank said it also remained concerned about inflation pressures.

"The downside risks to growth and the upside risks to inflation are both of significant concern to the committee," the Fed officials said.

Stocks

Stocks fluctuate after Fed keeps rates unchanged

By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer 34 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Wall Street fluctuated in a wide range Tuesday after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, sending a signal to the markets that the economy is not in dire straits.

In a statement accompanying its decision, the Fed noted the growing strains in the financial markets a day after the Dow Jones industrials plunged 504 points in reaction to continuing turmoil in the financial sector. The Fed also noted the ongoing weakening of the labor market. But it also sought to give some reassurance by saying it expected its policy moves to foster moderate economic growth over time.

The Fed has cut its target federal funds rate by 3.25 percentage points to its current level of 2 percent over the past year. Many on Wall Street expected the Fed to keep rates steady but there was some hope that the central bank would try to calm uneasy financial markets with a rate cut.

Still, the fact that the Fed didn't lower rates was a sign that it doesn't believe the economy needs that type of stimulus. It reiterated that it believed its moves to inject more liquidity into the banking system to help struggling financial institutions would help them, and in turn the economy overall.

With the Fed's decision out of the way, Wall Street was still focused on troubled insurer American International Group Inc., the latest in a string of companies investors are worried could be undone by a shortage of cash.

"This was the right thing to do," said Tom Higgins, chief economist at Payden & Rygel Investment Management in Los Angeles. "I just don't think the Fed should be responding to the financial market crisis at this stage."

He contends other moves, like broadening the type of collateral the Fed accepts from banks and adding money to the banking system are more effective at addressing credit troubles.

In late afternoon trading, the Dow rose 169.92, or 1.56 percent, to 11,087.43, after falling about 100 points soon after the Fed announcement. Earlier, the Dow rose as much as 105 points and fell as much as 175 in fractious trading; on Monday, the Dow suffered its largest drop since the September 2001 terror attacks.

Broader stock indicators advanced. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 11.27, or 0.94 percent, to 1,203.97, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 15.28, or 0.70 percent, to 2,195.19.

Bond prices fell sharply as investors turned away from the safety of government debt. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.49 percent from 3.41 percent late Monday.

Light, sweet crude fell $3.70 to $92.01 on the New York Mercantile Exchange as investors placed bets that slowing economic growth will crimp demand. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

Worries about AIG's well-being intensified Monday and early Tuesday after several ratings agencies downgraded the company. Lower ratings can add to the amount of money the already cash-strapped company has to set aside. Investors fear that a failure by the world's largest insurer would touch off a wave of financial turmoil.

But reports said the government is at least discussing extending a financial lifeline to the company gave a big boost to AIG. The stock fell 4 cents, or 0.84 percent, to $4.72 after being down nearly 75 percent early in the session.

Markets around the world were still reeling from the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the quickly assembled weekend sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. to Bank of America Corp. Investors worry that tectonic shifts in the power structure of Wall Street signal that the financial sector's trouble with imperiled credit are far from over.

A partial recovery in shares of AIG and several other financial companies helped the sector show signs of life. JPMorgan Chase & Co. rose $2.11, or 5.7 percent, to $39.11, while Wells Fargo & Co. rose $3.37, or 11 percent, to $34.37.

Steven Goldman, chief market strategist at Weeden & Co., said investors are starting to examine even troubled sectors like banks to pluck out those that have managed to sidestep the worst of the credit troubles.

"There are some silver linings in a dire picture," he said, referring to some of the gainers.

Names that investors often rely on as safe bets in a weak economy also rose. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. rose 91 cents to $62.54, while McDonald's Corp. rose 49 cents to $64.21.

The market showed little reaction to the first drop in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index in nearly two years. The CPI fell 0.1 percent last month, while the index excluding food and energy costs edged up a mild 0.2 percent. Both figures were in line with analyst expectations.

In corporate news, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the largest of the two big independent investment banks on Wall Street, posted its sharpest decline in earnings since becoming a public company in 1999. The company said quarterly earnings fell 70 percent from a year earlier and that it saw a marked decrease in client activity. The profit results were better than Wall Street had been expecting, though revenue fell short. The stock fell $4.87, or 3.6 percent, to $130.63.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman's smaller rival, fell $5.02, or 16 percent, to $27.17.

Dell Inc. warned that it sees a further softening in global demand in the current quarter. The computer manufacturer fell $2.01, or 11 percent, to $15.98.

Hewlett-Packard Co. announced plans Monday to cut 24,600 jobs, or about 8 percent of its work force, over the next three years as it works through its acquisition of technology-services company Electronic Data Systems Corp. HP shares were little changed early Tuesday. HP rose $3.35, or 7.4 percent, to $48.68.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 10.60, or 1.54 percent, to 700.36.

Overseas, markets in Asia fell sharply Tuesday after being closed Monday. Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 4.95 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index lost 5.44 percent.

In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 3.43 percent, Germany's DAX index lost 1.63 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 1.96 percent.

Petraeus leaves Iraq

Gen. David Petraeus leaves Iraq after 20 months

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 38 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Gen. David Petraeus, whose strategy for countering the Iraq insurgency is credited by many with rescuing the country from all-out civil war, stepped aside Tuesday as Gen. Ray Odierno took over as the top American commander of the conflict.

At a traditional change-of-command ceremony attended by top Iraqi and American military and civilian officials, Petraeus said that Odierno's skills and experience make him "the perfect man for the job."

With Defense Secretary Robert Gates presiding at the ceremony in a cavernous rotunda of a former Saddam Hussein palace outside Baghdad, Petraeus handed over the flag of his command, known as Multi-National Force Iraq, to Odierno and then bade farewell.

Petraeus said the insurgents and militia extremists who have created such chaos in Iraq over the past five years are now weakened but not yet fully defeated. He noted that before he took the assignment in February 2007 he had described the situation as "hard but not hopeless."

He thanked his troops for having "turned 'hard but not hopeless' into still hard but hopeful."

Despite the security gains, insurgents retain the ability to carry out devastating attacks. On Monday evening, a female suicide bomber blew herself up among a group of police officers northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people. Hours earlier, car bombs in the capital killed 13 people.

Because of Odierno's extensive previous experience in Iraq, he is generally expected to be able to continue building on the gains made under Petraeus' command, although an evolving set of difficult challenges face him here and in Washington, where he will soon have a new commander in chief.

A major part of Odierno's job will involve working with Iraqi political leaders, in tandem with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. In that role Odierno may call on his experiences in 2004-05 as assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he was the Pentagon's liaison to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and traveled abroad with her frequently.

Odierno commanded the 4th Infantry Division during the opening months of the war in 2003. He returned in December 2006, at perhaps the darkest hour for the American-led enterprise, to be the No. 2 commander under Petraeus. He finished that tour in February 2008.

When he arrived in Baghdad on Saturday, Odierno recalled after accepting the handover from Petraeus, "I felt like I had never left, but I also felt like I was coming back to my second home."

Also addressing the ceremony was Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said Iraq had become a "vastly different place" during Petraeus' tenure.

"In more places and on more faces we see hope," Mullen said.

Gates recalled the perils faced by Petraeus in February 2007.

"Darkness had descended on this land," Gates said. "Merchants of chaos were gaining strength. Death was commonplace," and people around the world were wondering whether any Iraq strategy would work.

"Slowly, but inexorably, the tide began to turn," Gates said. "Our enemies took a fearsome beating they will not soon forget. Fortified by our own people and renewed commitment, the soldiers of Iraq found new courage and confidence. And the people of Iraq, resilient and emboldened, rose up to take back their country."

Injecting a bit of humor, Gates made note of what he called "one other historical achievement" for the new command team of Odierno and Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, who replaced Odierno in February as the No. 2 commander and will remain until next spring.

"Between Gen. Odierno and Lt. Gen. Austin we just might have the tallest command in American military history — about 13 feet of general by my estimate," Gates said. Each of the generals is nearly 6 feet 6 inches tall.

Odierno told the gathering that while much remains for the U.S. military to accomplish here, the Iraqis must take charge. "This struggle is theirs to win," he said.

Petraeus' next assignment will be as commander of U.S. Central Command, with broader responsibilities. From his headquarters in Tampa, Fla., he will oversee U.S. military involvement across the Middle East, including Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Central Asian nations. He takes up that post in late October.

Barbra Streisand & Obama

Barbra Streisand headlines fundraiser for Obama

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent Tue Sep 16, 9:20 AM ET

DENVER - How does Barack Obama lure wealthy donors to a big-money fundraiser in Hollywood? Bring in Barbra Streisand as the headline performer.

The Oscar-winning singer and actress was to perform Tuesday night on Obama's behalf in Beverly Hills. It was to be a two-step evening with a reception and dinner costing $28,500 a person followed by a later event featuring Streisand at $2,500 a ticket.

Obama was flying to Los Angeles after an appearance Tuesday morning in a Denver suburb.

The wealthy fundraiser comes on a day when the crisis in the U.S. economy remained an urgent issue for many Americans. Monday's sharp sell-off left the Dow Jones industrials and the Standard & Poor's 500 index down by more 4 percent, eroding the value of individual retirement and investment accounts, for example.

Streisand originally backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton but switched to Obama when he emerged as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Streisand has been outspoken in criticizing John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.

"This calculated, cynical ploy to pull away a small percentage of Hillary's women voters from Barack Obama will not work," Streisand wrote on her Web page. "We are not that stupid!"

"I believe John McCain chose Gov. Palin because he truly believes that women who supported Hillary — an experienced, brilliant, lifelong public servant — would vote for him because his vice president has two X chromosomes," Streisand said. "McCain's selection of Gov. Palin is a transparent and irresponsible decision all in the name of trying to win this election."

Obama is financing his presidential race with private contributions after abandoning a pledge to take public financing capped at $84 million. His campaign announced Sunday it had collected $66 million in August, a fundraising record for any presidential candidate in a monthlong period.

By comparison, McCain raised $47 million in August, a personal best for his campaign as well. After claiming the GOP nomination, McCain accepted the $84 million in taxpayer funds allotted the public financing system for the race.

Obama's Consideration & Regret

Obama considered joining military, regrets abortion answer

During separate televised interviews last month, Pastor Rick Warren asked the two presidential candidates when a baby gets human rights. Obama replied that the question is “above my pay grade,” while John McCain won love from the right by saying quickly, “At the moment of conception.”

Now, Obama tells ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview taped for “This Week”: “What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into … It's a pretty tough question. And so, all I meant to communicate was that I don't presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions.”

In the ABC interview, Obama goes on to give the answer he wishes he’d given: “What I do know is that abortion is a moral issue, that it's one that families struggle with all the time. And that in wrestling with those issues, I don't think that the government criminalizing the choices that families make is the best answer for reducing abortions.

“I think the better answer — and this was reflected in the Democratic platform — is to figure out, how do we make sure the young mothers, or women who have a pregnancy that's unexpected or difficult, have the kind of support they need to make a whole range of choices, including adoption and keeping the child.

In an electric interview, Obama suggested again and again that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, is unprepared for the job. At one point, he mocked her camp’s suggestion that Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign-policy credentials: “Well, look. You know, I actually knew that Russia was next to Alaska, as well. I saw it on a map.”

“It's not a qualification?” Stephanopoulos press.

“I don't think it is,” Obama replied.

But Obama’s team recognizes that picking a fight over experience isn’t necessarily in Obama’s interest, and he acknowledged as much in the interview: “You know, this whole résumé contest that's been going back and forth is not what the American people are looking for.”

Obama also accused the McCain campaign of cynicism by frequently attacking him and then denying it: “I mean, these guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand.”

However, Obama said he did not agree with the commentators who saw “racial code” in the Republicans’ mocking reference to his early work as a “community organizer” during their convention.

“You know, I didn't hear that,” Obama told Stephanopoulos. “I mean, I just think that there is a — for folks who suddenly have tried to grab the change banner, you know, they've got a very traditional view of what service means.

“You know, it means, running for office and being a politician, I guess. Or serving in the military. I mean, those are the two options that I think they've talked about. I think there are a whole lot of people — young people, in particular — who are teaching in underserved schools or working in a hospital in need, you know, volunteering for their community, that think that's part of the change that we need. That's part of the energy that we've been able to mobilize in this campaign.”

Obama disclosed that he had once considered serving in the military.

“You know, I actually did,” Obama said. “I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school. And I was growing up in Hawaii. And I have friends whose parents were in the military. There are a lot of Army, military bases there.

“And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honorable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

Banking

Banks seen offering plan to restore confidence

By JOE BEL BRUNO and MARTY CRUTSINGER, AP Business Writers 1 minute ago

NEW YORK - As the outlook for Lehman Brothers appeared to dim Sunday, U.S. and foreign banks joined forces to create a plan aimed at inoculating the global financial system against the investment bank's possible failure, a top investment banking official said.

Banks were in tense talks to create a pool of money worth up to $50 billion to lend troubled financial companies, the official said on condition of anonymity because the discussions were ongoing. And officials at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve were expected to announce they are prepared to be more generous in the Fed's emergency lending program for commercial and investment banks.

The plan comes as top government officials and Wall Street executives held marathon, but so far fruitless, meetings to save Lehman Brothers, whose shares have tumbled 95 percent in the past year over worries that it does not have enough money to cover losses from its real estate holdings.

The official also said the Treasury Department and the Fed were pushing Bank of America Corp. to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. On Friday, Merrill Lynch's shares fell as investors fretted it might be the next investment bank to come under pressure from its portfolio of risky mortgage-backed securities.

Expectations that the 158-year-old Lehman would survive dimmed Sunday afternoon after Barclays PLC withdrew its bid to buy the investment bank. Barclays' and Bank of America were considered front-runners to buy Lehman, which is foundering under the weight of $60 billion in soured real estate holdings.

The Lehman talks originally were aimed at selling the investment bank in whole or in part. The deal was tripping on the potential buyers' insistence that they receive the same kind of help that Bear Stearns Cos.' got last March when JP Morgan Chase & Co. bought the securities firm with a $29 billion Fed-backed loan.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has said the government will not help close a Lehman deal, and it was clear late Sunday he was not budging.

Lehman declined to comment on the talks.

If no deal were reached, it raised the specter of a bankruptcy and liquidation of the investment bank, which in turn could have a tumultuous effect on world markets. Late Sunday, Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 208 points, or 1.8 percent, at 11,250.

Bankers and investment banking officials briefed on the Lehman talks described them as both complicated and fluid. They spoke on condition of anonymity because talks were ongoing.

There were signs that Lehman Brothers might be edging closer to a bankruptcy filing, with several reports that it has hired Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the law firm that handled the collapse of investment firm Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1990.

Moreover, there was also an emergency trading session being held at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to "reduce risk associated with a potential Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy." The ISDA, which arranges trades for derivatives, said it was allowing customers to make trades and unwind positions linked to Lehman — but that those trades would be voided if no filing occurred before midnight.

Paulson, Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox were among those taking part in the Lehman meetings. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is actively engaged in the deliberations but wasn't in attendance.

Paulson's tough bargaining stance received support from outside observers Sunday, who argued that the government had no choice but to draw a line in the sand.

"If Treasury put money into the Lehman deal, then going forward no deal would get done without Treasury help," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's . "Every potential buyer would wait until Treasury stepped in and that would mean Treasury would be on the hook for a lot more bailouts."

The current situation is different from Bear Stearns' situation six months ago.

In Lehman's case, financial markets have been aware of Lehman's problems for a much longer period and have had time to prepare. Investment banks also now have the ability to obtain emergency loans directly from the Fed, a crucial support that they did not have back in March when Bear Stearns was rescued.

In the Lehman talks, bankers and government officials were also trying to tackle a broader agenda that includes problems at American International Group Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc., said the investment bank officials, who were briefed on the talks.

AIG, the world's largest insurer, and WaMu, the nation's biggest savings bank, have taken steep losses during the past year from risky investments. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that American International Group Inc. plans to disclose a restructuring by early Monday that's likely to include the disposal of major assets including its aircraft-leasing business and other holdings.

Lehman put itself on the block earlier last week. Bad bets on real-estate holdings — which have factored into bank failures and caused other financial companies to founder — have thrust the firm in peril. It has been dogged by growing doubts about whether other financial institutions would continue to do business with it.

Richard S. Fuld, Lehman's longtime CEO, pitched a plan to shareholders Wednesday that would spin off Lehman's soured real estate holdings into a separately traded company. He would then raise cash by selling a majority stake in the company's unit that manages money for people and institutions. That division includes asset manager Neuberger Berman.

Financial Woes

This week on Wall Street: More financial worries

By MADLEN READ, AP Business Writer 41 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Wall Street enters the new week filled with trepidation about what lies ahead for the financial sector.

Late Sunday, investors were still waiting to learn the fate of foundering Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., there were reports that Bank of America Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. might merge and insurer American International Group Inc. appeared on the verge of a huge restructuring. Meanwhile, U.S. and foreign banks were working on a plan to cushion the global banking system from Lehman's possible failure, a top investment banking official said on condition of anonymity because the discussions were ongoing.

However all the developments turned out, it was clear that the financial system still had much work to do before it could be considered healthy. And a stock market that has stumbled continually over the industry's troubles looked to be in for at least a rocky start when trading resumed Monday — it was clear that investors' confidence in financial executives' ability to clean up their books is still falling.

Meanwhile, some of the biggest financial institutions — including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley — are scheduled to post quarterly results this week.

Goldman and Morgan Stanley are expected to report declines in quarterly profits amid the continuing problems and losses in the credit markets. Lehman already said last week it would post a hefty loss, and Wall Street is hoping for more details.

"Our financial institutions are suffering. I don't think we're at the end of the tunnel yet," said Christian Menegatti, lead analyst for the economic and financial Web site RGEMonitor.

The stock market has been absolutely frenetic lately, as a simple chart of the Dow Jones industrial average's jagged, back-and-forth moves shows. One moment, investors might be cheering — as they did last Monday for the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeover. But the next moment, they are cashing out.

After rising nearly 300 points on Monday, falling by that much on Tuesday, and then seesawing for the rest of the week, the Dow ended the week up 1.79 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.76 percent, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.24 percent.

There are plenty of other issues for the market to deal with this week.

The Federal Reserve meets again to discuss monetary policy. The market expects the Fed to stand pat on interest rates when it meets this Tuesday. Investors will carefully parse policymakers' assessment of the economy to see if the central bank's concerns about inflation have abated. If they have, market participants might start betting that the Fed will keep rates steady well into next year, or perhaps even cut them again, before raising them again.

Back when oil prices were surging, some investors were anticipating a rate hike by the end of the year. Between the summers of 2007 and 2008, the key federal funds rate has been lowered to 2 percent from 5.25 percent.

Economic data could also return to the forefront this week, as investors wonder whether the consumers are getting some relief from a pullback in fuel prices.

The Labor Department is expected to report a 0.1 percent increase in consumer prices, according to the median estimate of economists polled by Thomson/IFR. Core consumer prices, which strip out energy and food, are expected to rise by 0.2 percent.

The Commerce Department is expected to report that housing starts fell to 950,000 units in August from 965,000 in the previous month.

Other major companies reporting earnings this week include electronics maker Best Buy Co., food company General Mills Inc., shipper FedEx Corp. and software maker Oracle Corp.

Tim Russert?

Luke Russert gets into family business as reporter

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer Sun Sep 14, 3:06 PM ET

NEW YORK - The reporter who sat across from John McCain and Barack Obama for separate interviews that aired on NBC's "Today" show Friday was only 23.

"Not necessarily," Luke Russert said. "I had prior relationships with both of them."

He asked both Obama and McCain about whether community service should be mandatory for young people. They said no, but both presidential candidates said the United States missed a real opportunity to teach citizens about sacrifice following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Matt Lauer debriefed him about the interviews.

No one would have figured on seeing a Russert on the "Today" show this political season following the shocking death of Luke's dad, Tim Russert, of a heart attack on June 13.

Offered the chance to report on youth issues for NBC News, the gregarious young Russert dove into the assignment with gusto, toting a microphone backstage at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Many of his stories have appeared on the "Nightly News" Web site and he blogs about his experiences on

"He's one of the rookies of the year," said NBC News President Steve Capus. "Here's a man at the worst possible time in his life who stepped into the spotlight with great poise, strength and a sense of humor, with a love of politics and a love for NBC."

Would a young man at his age and with his credentials secure such a high-profile job if his last name wasn't Russert? Doubtful, of course. But NBC News might be expected to act paternally toward a person its employees watched grow by the side of its beloved Washington bureau chief and "Meet the Press" host.

He often accompanied his dad on assignments ("as a 10-year-old I was as tall as Ross Perot," he recalled), riding McCain's "Straight Talk Express" during the 2000 primary campaign and meeting Obama at a forum on public service in 2006.

But it's not as if Russert didn't bring something to the table. The recent Boston College graduate has worked in media since he was a teenager, co-hosting a sports talk show on XM satellite radio with political consultant James Carville. Before his father died, he had already lined up a job covering the presidential campaign for another XM station. He chose to go to NBC when it offered more exposure.

The Russert name also undoubtedly helped land last week's interviews with the two candidates, particularly important since many McCain supporters have been seething about NBC News. In small talk before the interview, McCain said how much he wished Luke's father was covering the election. Obama hugged him and asked how he was holding up.

"Everybody in the political world knows Luke Russert," Capus said. "They knew him before (his father's death) and they know him after it. Here is a guy who is going to get his calls returned."

Capus said he had a couple of gut-check talks with the young Russert, aware that it could appear NBC News was adding pressure to his life by making him subject to whispers that he was getting ahead through nepotism. Capus didn't think it would be a problem, since he was getting a limited assignment, not his dad's host slot on "Meet the Press."

Russert's certainly aware that people would be watching him closely.

"It's extremely important to go to work each day knowing you're going to leave it all out on the field, to use a sports analogy," said Russert, who shares his father's love for the Buffalo Bills.

"The last thing I want to do is appear not qualified, to appear that it was just a nepotism hire, to appear that everything was just handed to (me)," he said. "I certainly acknowledge that the last name doesn't hurt. But at the end of the day I don't think a company like XM or NBC would be willing to spend money on me just for the sake of nepotism. I actually have to produce."

From the time he dreamed of being a "SportsCenter" anchor at age 10, Russert figured he'd go into the family business. His mom, Maureen Orth, writes for Vanity Fair. Dinner table conversation would be about school and friends, but also about the Contract for America.

At the Democratic convention, Russert found three young Muslim women for a story about their support for Obama, and found young Republicans in St. Paul. Much of his material appears online, partly because he claims no interest in joining the often cutthroat fights for airtime among experienced reporters.

His blog allows for a more opinionated outlook. After watching McCain deliver his convention speech, Russert wrote that the candidate "reminded me of the old war vet you meet at a bar who tells you his life story and then says something along the lines of: `Son, make this country better for us.'"

Most important is that he's out hustling at a time in his life that many in his situation might retreat to their rooms, closing the door behind them. He believes hard work is the best cure for misery.

"It keeps your mind off of a tough event," he said. "If you're busy, you don't sit and think. It's important to think, it's important to reflect on a tragic event. But I also think it's important not to harp on it all day. One has to go on and live their life as best they can and take the lessons from those lost and go forward."

Obama's Tax cuts

Obama: Recession could delay rescinding tax cuts

09/07/08

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush's tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.

Nevertheless, Obama has no plans to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond their expiration date, as Republican John McCain advocates. Instead, Obama wants to push for his promised tax cuts for the middle class, he said in a broadcast interview aired Sunday.

"Even if we're still in a recession, I'm going to go through with my tax cuts," Obama said. "That's my priority."

What about increasing taxes on the wealthy?

"I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now," Obama said on "This Week" on ABC. "The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we're fragile."

Obama was referring to the two mortgage companies taken over by the federal government Sunday in what could become a huge taxpayer bailout. The nation's unemployment rate climbed to 6.1 percent in August from 5.7 percent the month before, the government said last week. It was the first time in five years that the unemployment rate had topped 6 percent.

Obama and McCain have sparred over tax policy for months. Obama says McCain wants to continue Bush administration policies, noting that McCain had voted against the Bush tax cuts but then embraced them as he campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination.

"John McCain likes to talk about fiscal responsibility, but there is no doubt that his proposals blow a hole through the budget," Obama said.

McCain has repeatedly hammered Obama over taxes in an attempt to paint him as a typical tax-and-spend liberal. McCain wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010.

"We can get this economy back on it's feet," McCain said in an interview aired Sunday on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "Don't raise their taxes. Get it going again. Americans are hurting in a way that they have not hurt for a long time."

The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's tax plan would benefit middle-income taxpayers more than McCain's. However, Obama would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year also would see taxes rise.

McCain's plan cuts taxes across all income levels. It would cut taxes for those in the top 1 percent by more than $125,000, raising their after-tax income an average 9.5 percent, the center concluded.

Warning of US Troop Pullout

Pentagon chief cites caution on US troop pullout

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 10, 12:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Improved security in Iraq will give the U.S. military flexibility to do more in Afghanistan in coming months, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress Wednesday, after years of setting a lower priority for the Afghan fight.

But even as Gates hinted at possible further troop cuts in Iraq, he said a go-slow approach is justified by several worrisome circumstances, including slow progress on the political front.

"I worry that the great progress our troops and the Iraqis have made has the potential to override a measure of caution born of uncertainty," Gates told the House Armed Services Committee. "Our military commanders do not yet believe our gains are necessarily enduring — and they believe that there are still many challenges and the potential for reversals in the future."

Gates also warned that "we should expect to be involved in Iraq for years to come, although in changing and increasingly limited ways."

The Defense secretary said sectarian tensions still exist in Iraq and have the potential to undo recent security progress.

He was testifying one day after President Bush announced that he has approved a plan to withdraw about 8,000 U.S. troops by February. Some troops will leave this fall, but the number of combat brigades in Iraq will remain at the current 15 until late January or early February.

Both Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described a new emphasis on Afghanistan, included a greater push to improve the Afghan security forces, and increased pressure on Pakistan to work with Kabul to quell insurgents crossing the border.

Mullen told the panel that while he is not convinced the coalition is winning in Afghanistan, "I am convinced we can."

Under the Pentagon plan Bush approved, one Marine battalion will be sent to Afghanistan in November to replace two that are scheduled to leave, and an Army brigade will deploy to Afghanistan in January, increasing slightly the troop levels there in the coming months.

Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat who chairs the committee, pressed Gates and Mullen on whether the Pentagon is ready to change its repeated assertion that it does what it can in Afghanistan, and does what it must in Iraq — to reflect a new priority for the Afghan fight.

Gates responded that the Afghan fight is more complex, because there are more diverse enemies as well as a broader, more complex coalition fighting them.

"I would say we are reducing our commitments in Iraq and we are increasing our commitments in Afghanistan," he said.

Neither Gates nor Mullen would detail how many more troops can be sent to Afghanistan next year beyond the announced Marine battalion and Army brigade, or how quickly. But they acknowledged that those two units will not meet the requirements voiced repeatedly by commanders in Afghanistan — who have said they need as many as three additional combat brigades, or roughly equal to 10,000 more troops.

"It's going to be a while before we get them there," said Mullen.

Mullen, meanwhile, said it is critical that other federal agencies provide much needed additional civilian support in Afghanistan, including for provincial reconstruction teams. Defense leaders made similar arguments in the past for the teams in Iraq — urgently pressing for representatives from the Agriculture, Commerce and Justice departments to help with the reconstruction and economic rebuilding.

Without a broad interagency approach, Mullen warned, "No amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek. And frankly we are running out of time."

Requests for interagency assistance have often proved difficult to fill.

Panel members pressed Gates and Mullen on whether the latest troop changes may tie the hands of the next commander in chief. Both said no.

The next president, said Gates, will have complete flexibility and be "constrained only by his view of our national security interests." He added that he hopes the next administration will listen to the advice of its military leaders.

Cat Found After 9 Years

Lost cat returned home after nine years

Reuters

Wed Sep 10, 9:17 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A British couple have been reunited with their missing cat after nine years, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) said on Wednesday.

Dixie, a 15-year-old ginger cat, disappeared in 1999 and her owners thought she had been killed by a car.

She was found less than half a mile from her home in Birmingham after a concerned resident rang the animal charity to report a thin and disheveled cat who had been in the area for a couple of months.

RSPCA Animal Collection Officer Alan Pittaway checked her microchip and confirmed it was Dixie. She was returned to her owners, Alan and Gilly Delaney, within half an hour.

"In 29 years of working for the RSPCA I have never seen anyone so excited and happy as Mrs Delaney," Pittaway said. "It made my day to return Dixie to her owners."

The couple were "overjoyed" to be reunited with their missing cat after so many years.

"Dixie's personality, behavior and little mannerisms have not changed at all," said Gilly Delaney. "We don't think she has stopped purring since she came back through the door."

The RSPCA hope the story will encourage owners to have their pets microchipped.

(Reporting by Anna Legge; Editing by Steve Addison and Paul Casciato)

Gender Stress

Boss' Gender Can Affect Workers' Stress

Andrea Thompson Senior Writer Tue Sep 9, 5:32 PM ET

Bosses in general can be a pain in the ... well, you know, but a new study finds that your boss' gender can affect just how much pain he or she seems to inflict.

Researchers at the University of Toronto used data from a 2005 national telephone survey of working adults in the United States and compared the stress levels and physical health problems of men and women working in one of three situations: for a lone male supervisor, a lone female supervisor, or for both a male and female supervisor.

The study found that:

Women who had only one female boss reported more psychological distress (such as trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing on work, depression and anxiety) and physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomach pain or heartburn, neck and back pain and tiredness) than women who worked for one male boss.

Women who reported to a mixed-gender pair of supervisors also reported more of these symptoms than their peers who worked for a single male boss.

Men who worked for a single supervisor, regardless of the supervisor's gender, had similar levels of distress.

Men who worked for a mixed-gender pair had fewer mental and physical symptoms than those working for a lone male supervisor.

The analysis, detailed in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, controlled for occupation, job sector and other workplace conditions, meaning the results were independent of these factors.

The findings, specifically those of female subordinates with females bosses, contradict theories suggested by previous studies that demographic similarities between a boss and their subordinate would promote harmony in the work place, while demographic differences would create problems.

The researchers speculated that these contradictions may stem from the stereotype that it is more "normal" for men to be leaders and display the typical leadership characteristics. So while female subordinates may expect more "aggressive" traits from a male leader, they could expect more support from a supervisor who is also female than they actually get, said study co-author Scott Schieman.

Women leaders who "act like men" in terms of society's unconscious expectations may be viewed more negatively, Schieman told LiveScience. He and other sociologists suspect this was a situation faced by Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary races.

Despite the fact that the researchers tried to control for a worker's occupation, another possibility that could account for the finding is that "something about the nature of the work itself is influencing these health differences," Schieman said. For example, women working with a woman supervisor might tend to be found mostly in the "caring sector or in jobs that tend to be under-resourced, under-funded and under-valued," such as social work or education, creating stress both for the workers themselves and stress for the boss that might trickle down to her subordinates.

But just what is causing these differences isn't know for sure. As Schieman said, "these are speculative points that need to be investigated further."

The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control.

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Democrat Registration

Democrats post big gains in voter registration

09/06/08

By JULIE PACE and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 57 minutes ago

CLAIRTON, Pa. - Five days a week, Linda Graham trolls tattered neighborhoods of this once thriving steel city outside Pittsburgh for unregistered voters she can sign up as Democrats — one of thousands of unknown volunteers whose work outside the limelight has already altered the basic arithmetic of the November election.

The epic nomination battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton helped put millions more Democrats on the voter rolls while Republican registration declined. Now Graham, 45, has taken three months of unpaid leave from her job at Pittsburgh's Central Blood Bank in the hope of adding to those gains before the presidential vote.

She's encouraged by the response here. "They're all feeling the crunch" of lost jobs and a sagging economy, Graham said. "But people are feeling empowered. They're feeling like, you know what, I hold a little bit of power in this."

To counter this effort, the Republicans are counting on a formidable, high-tech get-out-the-vote operation that has helped them win the past two presidential elections.

Since the last federal election in 2006, volunteers like Graham combined with the enthusiasm generated by the Obama-Clinton struggle to add more than 2 million Democrats to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states.

The Democrats hope their voter registration efforts can boost Obama to victory in competitive states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Florida and perhaps even give him a shot at winning traditional Republican states like Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

Both Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, are fighting for independent swing voters, and many of the new Democrats had been unaffiliated voters.

The number of unaffiliated voters dropped by nearly 900,000 since 2006. Many joined the Democratic Party to take part in the primaries and caucuses, and now they will now be targeted by an aggressive get-out-the-vote campaign.

"We feel that our supporters are more enthusiastic than we've seen in previous cycles," said Jon Carson, Obama's national field director.

The Obama campaign is taking the lead among the party organizations and labor unions that traditionally work on voter registration efforts.

Because party organizations and unions, like the Service Employees International Union to which Graham belongs, can raise unrestricted amounts of money, presidential campaigns typically rely on them to handle the bulk of voter registration drives, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said in an interview.

"This is the first campaign I've seen where the voter registration is done by the campaign," Dean said.

The Republicans are relying on a more traditional voter registration model, with the Republican National Committee leading the effort among state parties.

"We hope that the hard work we've done in the past will provide us with a strategic advantage," said Mike DuHaime, McCain's political director. "We will have the most technologically advanced ground operation ever."

DuHaime said the RNC is working with the state parties to register voters in every battleground state. He said there is extra emphasis on the fast-growing ones, including Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida and North Carolina.

He said the GOP's comprehensive voter database helps it track voters moving into competitive states.

"If you ever voted in a Republican primary and move without registering, we pick it up," DuHaime said.

Nationwide, there are about 42 million registered Democrats and about 31 million Republicans, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.

The Democrats have posted big gains in many competitive states, including Nevada, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Florida. They have also been targeting historically Republican southern states.

Since 2006, the Democrats have added 167,000 voters in North Carolina, while the Republicans have added 36,000. The Democrats' biggest voter registration goal is in Georgia, where the Obama campaign hopes to register 500,000 voters before the election, said Dean, who has spent the past month traveling the country on a voter registration bus tour.

"The Obama folks are serious about Georgia," Dean said. Georgia has added 337,000 voters since 2006, but the state does not identify them by party affiliation.

In Pennsylvania, the Democrats have added 375,000 voters since 2006 while the Republicans have lost 117,000.

America Votes, an umbrella organization, coordinates voter registration efforts for more than 40 groups in Pennsylvania, including unions, the NAACP and the Sierra Club.

On a recent weekday, two dozen volunteers canvas neighborhoods in five southwest Pennsylvania counties, targeting African-Americans in their teens and twenties, who tend to vote at lower rates than older voters.

Graham, the SEIU member, works the neighborhoods of Clairton, where the steel industry's decline has left more downtown storefronts boarded up than occupied.

Graham finds a potential voter at the first house she stops at. Justin Webb, a father of two, is unregistered, but tells Graham he has serious concerns about the economy.

"We need more jobs," said Webb, 28. "If we had more jobs, we would have more opportunities to better ourselves."

It takes Graham less than five minutes to register Webb as a Democrat.

News Feud

MSNBC says Olbermann, Matthews won't anchor

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer 58 minutes ago

NEW YORK - MSNBC is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as co-anchors of political night coverage with David Gregory, and will use the two newsmen as commentators.

The change reflects tensions between the freewheeling, opinionated MSNBC and the impartial newsgatherers at NBC News. Throughout the primaries and summer, MSNBC argued that Olbermann and Matthews could serve as dispassionate anchors on political news nights and that viewers would accept them in that role, but things fell apart during the conventions.

Gregory, the veteran Washington hand, will anchor MSNBC's coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates and election night, network spokesman Jeremy Gaines said Sunday. The change was first reported by The New York Times.

The tipping point appears to have come during the GOP convention when Olbermann criticized MSNBC for showing a Sept. 11-themed video prepared by the Republicans.

MSNBC executives, who had publicly defended their anchors' roles while privately monitoring them throughout the political season, made the change over the weekend after discussions with Olbermann. Despite the controversy around him, Olbermann has been a hero with left-leaning viewers and keyed MSNBC's growth among coveted young viewers.

During her acceptance speech last week, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin talked about the "Washington elite" not accepting her qualifications for the job. Some delegates on the convention floor began chanting, "N-B-C, N-B-C."

Olbermann began to have difficulty keeping his opinions in check, or simply stopped trying.

He sarcastically dismissed GOP pundit Pat Buchanan on the air after Buchanan said the Republicans had been enlivened by the entrance of a conservative Republican.

"Those reading US Weekly with the picture of her and her youngest daughter with the word `scandal' written across it won't be so happy," Olbermann said.

He expressed little sympathy at another point when GOP anger at rumors over the Internet about Palin were being discussed.

"We'll see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the Internet," he said. "If that's the case, Senator Obama's probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him."

Perhaps most embarrassing, Joe Scarborough was discussing positive developments in John McCain's campaign at one point when Olbermann was heard on an offstage microphone saying: "Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?"

Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," got in another nasty on-air exchange with MSNBC reporter David Shuster, and Matthews snapped at Olbermann on-air when it appeared Olbermann was criticizing him for talking too much.

All the drama made MSNBC a punch line when top NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" last week. "Is there no control?" Stewart asked him. "`Is it `Lord of the Flies?'"

A sheepish Williams said that every family has a dynamic of its own.

"But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans?" Stewart said.

Olbermann was in Denver during the Democratic national convention, but performed his co-hosting duties for the GOP convention in a New York studio. NBC President Steve Capus said the decision was not political, that Olbermann had been sent back to anchor coverage of Hurricane Gustav.

MSNBC's decision comes just before Olbermann's "Countdown" show is set to air, on Monday, his interview with Barack Obama. That will put Olbermann in direct competition with his nemesis, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, who interviewed Obama last week and is airing a portion of it Monday in the same 8 p.m. EDT time slot.

Unemployment

Jobless rate jumps to 5-year high of 6.1 percent

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 49 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate zoomed to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as employers slashed 84,000 jobs, dramatic proof of the mounting damage a deeply troubled economy is inflicting on workers and businesses alike.

The Labor Department's report, released Friday, showed the increasing toll the housing, credit and financial crises are taking on the economy.

The report rattled Wall Street again. The Dow Jones industrial average was down about 40 points in midday trading. All the major stock indexes tumbled into bear territory Thursday as investors lost hope of a late-year recovery. With the employment situation deteriorating, there's growing worry that consumers will recoil, throwing the economy into a tailspin later this year or early next year.

The jobless rate jumped to 6.1 percent in August, from 5.7 percent in July. And, employers cut payrolls for the eighth month in a row. Job losses in June and July turned out to be much deeper. The economy lost a whopping 100,000 jobs in June and another 60,000 in July, according to revised figures. Previously, the government reported job losses at 51,000 in each of those months.

So far this year, job losses totaled 605,000.

The latest snapshot was worse than economists were forecasting. They were predicting payrolls would drop by around 75,000 in August and the jobless rate to tick up a notch, to 5.8 percent. The grim news comes as the race for the White House kicks into high gear. The economy's troubles are Americans' top worry.

"With the unemployment rate over 6 percent, it is a clear warning sign that this economy is continuing to soften faster than we thought. It is a real concern," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "Businesses have decided to hunker down. They are not hiring, and they are paring workers where they can. That is making things pretty tough out there."

The White House was disappointed, too.

"There is no question that the labor market is not as strong as we'd like," said press secretary Dana Perino. "We want to see the economy return to job growth, and we understand that this is a difficult time for many Americans. We want everyone who wants to work to be able to find a job."

Wachovia Corp., Ford Motor Co., Tyson Foods Inc. and Alcoa Inc. were among the companies announcing job cuts in August. GMAC Financial Services this week said it would lay off 5,000 workers.

Job losses in August were widespread, the government report showed.

Factories cut 61,000 jobs, with housing-related manufacturers and automakers among the hardest hit. Construction firms eliminated 8,000 jobs, retailers axed 20,000 slots, professional and business services slashed 53,000 positions and leisure and hospitality got rid of 4,000. Those losses swamped employment gains in the government, education and health.

Job losses at all private employers — not including government — came to 101,000 in August.

The government said workers age 25 and older accounted for all the increase in unemployment in August.

All told, the number of unemployed rose to 9.4 million in August, compared with 7.1 million a year ago. Economists predict more job losses ahead, pushing the jobless rate to 7 percent by the fall, according to some projections.

Workers saw wage gains in August, however.

Average hourly earning rose to $18.14 in August, a 0.4 percent increase from July. Economists were forecasting a 0.3 percent gain. Over the past year, wages have grown 3.6 percent, but paychecks aren't stretching as far because of high food and energy prices.

Caught between dueling concerns of slow growth and inflation, the Fed is expected to leave a key interest rate alone at 2 percent when it meets next on Sept. 16 and probably through the rest of this year. Concerned about inflation, the Fed at its last two meetings didn't budge the rate. Before that, though, the Fed had aggressively cut rates to shore up the economy.

With the Fed on the sidelines, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has called for a second round of government stimulus, while his GOP rival John McCain has favored free-trade and other business measures to spur the economy. Both candidates seized on the job figures Friday to take swipes at each other.

Cops Heeds to Bird

NJ cops kick in door over bird's cries for help

Fri Sep 5, 7:58 PM ET - Associated Press

TRENTON, N.J. - Cries for help inside a Trenton, N.J., home turned out to be for the birds. Neighbors called police Wednesday morning after hearing a woman's persistent cry of "Help me! Help me!" coming from a house. Officers arrived and when no one answered the door, they kicked it in to make a rescue.

But instead of a damsel in distress, officers found a caged cockatoo with a convincing call.

It wasn't the first time the 10-year-old bird named Luna said something that brought authorities to the home of owner Evelyn DeLeon.

About seven years ago, the bird cried like a baby for hours, leading to reports of a possible abandoned baby and a visit to the home by state child welfare workers. But it was only Luna practicing a newfound sound, DeLeon says.

DeLeon says her bird learns much of her ever-growing vocabulary from watching television, in both English and Spanish.

Disasters Getting Worse

Why Disasters Are Getting Worse

By AMANDA RIPLEY Thu Sep 4, 12:40 PM ET

In the space of two weeks, Hurricane Gustav has caused an estimated $3 billion in losses in the U.S. and killed about 110 people in the U.S. and the Caribbean, catastrophic floods in northern India have left a million people homeless, and a 6.2-magnitude earthquake has rocked China's southwest, smashing over 400,000 homes.

If it seems like disasters are getting more common, it's because they are. But some disasters do seem to be affecting us worse - and not for the reasons you may think. Floods and storms have led to most of the excess damage. The number of flood and storm disasters has gone up by 7.4% every year in recent decades, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. (Between 2000 and 2007, the growth was even faster - with an average annual rate of increase of 8.4%.) Of the total 197 million people affected by disasters in 2007, 164 million were affected by floods.

It is tempting to look at the line-up of storms in the Atlantic (Hanna, Ike, Josephine) and, in the name of everything green, blame climate change for this state of affairs. But there is another inconvenient truth out there: We are getting more vulnerable to weather mostly because of where we live, not just how we live.

In recent decades, people around the world have moved en masse to big cities near water. The population of Miami-Dade County in Florida was about 150,000 in the 1930s, a decade fraught with severe hurricanes. Since then, the population of Miami-Dade County has rocketed 1,600% to 2,400,000.

So the same intensity hurricane today wreaks all sorts of havoc that wouldn't have occurred had human beings not migrated. (To see how your own coastal county has changed in population, check out this cool graphing tool from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

If climate change is having an effect on the intensities of storms, it's not obvious in the historical weather data. And whatever effect it is having is much, much smaller than the effect of development along the coastlines. In fact, if you look at all storms from 1900 to 2005 and imagine we had today's populations on the coasts, as Roger Pielke, Jr., and his colleagues did in a 2008 Natural Hazards Review paper, you would see that the worst hurricane would have actually happened in 1926.

If it happened today, the Great Miami storm would have caused $140 to $157 billion in damages. (Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm in U.S. history, caused $100 billion in losses.) "There has been no trend in the number or intensity of storms at landfall since 1900,"says Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. "The storms themselves haven't changed."

What's changed is what we've put in the storm's way. Crowding together in coastal cities puts us at risk on a few levels. First, it is harder for us to evacuate before a storm because of gridlock. And in much of the developing world, people don't get the kinds of early warnings that Americans get. So large migrant populations - usually living in flimsy housing - get flooded out year after year. That helps explain why Asia has repeatedly been the hardest hit by disasters in recent years.

Secondly, even if we get all the humans to safety, we still have more stuff in harm's way. So each big hurricane costs more than the big one before it, even controlling for inflation.

But the most insidious effect of building condos and industry along the water is that we are systematically stripping the coasts of the protection that used to cushion the blow of extreme weather. Three years after Katrina, southern Louisiana is still losing a football field worth of wetlands every 38 minutes.

Human beings have been clearing away our best protections all over the world, says Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The natural protections are diminishing - whether you're talking about mangrove forests in areas affected by the Indian ocean tsunami, wetlands in the Gulf Coast or forests, which offer protection against landslides and mudslides."

Before we become hopelessly lost in despair, however, there is good news: we can do something about this problem. We can enact meaningful building codes and stop keeping insurance premiums artificially low in flood zones.

But first we need to understand that disasters aren't just caused by FEMA and greenhouse gases. Says Tierney: "I don't think that people have an understanding of questions they should be asking - about where they live, about design and construction, about building inspection, fire protection. These just aren't things that are on people's minds."

Increasingly, climate change is on people's minds, and that is all for the better. Even if climate change has not been the primary driver of disaster losses, it is likely to cause far deadlier disasters in the future if left unchecked.

But even if greenhouse gas emissions plummeted miraculously next year, we would not expect to see a big change in disaster losses. So it's important to stay focused on the real cause of the problem, says Pielke. "Talking about land-use policies in coastal Mississippi may not be the sexiest topic, but that's what's going to make the most difference on this issue." View this article on

Predicted Increase

Study: Workers to pay more for health care

09/04/08

By CANDICE CHOI, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK - Get ready for another hike in copays and deductibles. A survey being released Thursday by the Mercer consulting firm found 59 percent of companies intend to keep down rising health care costs in 2009 by raising workers' deductibles, copays or out-of-pocket spending limits.

On average, health care costs will go up by an estimated 5.7 percent next year for both workers and their employers, the study found. That repeats this year's 5.7 percent hike and a 6.1 percent jump in 2007.

The growth of health care costs has hovered at around 6 percent since 2005, according to Mercer. While that's down from the double-digit growth in previous years, it's still moving at a faster clip than inflation or workers wages.

"It's not something to cheer about, especially since costs are getting passed on to employees," said Blaine Bos, author of the survey.

The results were preliminary findings, with about half of the 3,000 large companies surveyed reporting. Preliminary findings for the annual survey have historically been in line with final results.

Between 2003 and 2007, the average deductible for an individual grew from $250 to $400. For a family, it rose from $1,000 to $1,500, according to Mercer.

Deductibles are the amount workers pay for medical care out of pocket. Once workers spend that amount, they begin sharing costs with employers, with the company covering an average of 80 percent.

Health plans are trying to rein in costs by offering choices such as disease management plans and incentives for greater use of prescription drugs, said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade association representing nearly 1,300 insurers.

"But there's certainly still more work to be done," Zirkelbach said.

He said AHIP has proposed a number of policies and measures to further curb costs.

The Mercer survey also found 47 percent of companies are encouraging enrollment in plans with lower premiums and higher deductibles.

Additionally, the survey found 19 percent of employers will start offering a consumer-directed health plan. These are high-deductible plans with employee-controlled spending accounts. They encourage employees to consider costs when by letting them save account money they don't spend for future needs.

Last year, 12 percent of all employers said they were "very likely" to implement such a plan by 2009.

Economy

July incomes drop by largest amount in 3 years

08/29/08

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 28 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Personal incomes plunged in July while consumer spending slowed significantly as the impact of billions of dollars in government rebate checks began to wane.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that personal incomes fell by 0.7 percent in July, the biggest drop in nearly three years and a far larger decline than the 0.1 percent decrease analysts expected.

Consumer spending edged up a modest 0.2 percent, in line with expectations, but far below June's 0.6 percent rise. When the impact of rising prices was factored in, spending actually dropped by 0.4 percent in July, the weakest showing for inflation-adjusted spending in more than four years.

The July performance for incomes and spending reinforced worries that the economy, which posted better-than-expected growth in the spring because of the rebate checks, could stumble in coming months as their impact fades.

Some economists worry that overall economic growth, which rose at a 3.3 percent annual rate from April-June, could come in at less than half that pace in the current quarter, and could actually dip into negative territory in the final three months of this year and the first quarter of 2009.

Back-to-back declines in the gross domestic product, which measures the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is the best barometer of the country's economic health, would meet one rule of thumb for a recession.

A gauge of inflation closely watched by the Federal Reserve remained elevated in July, rising by 0.6 percent. Over the past 12 months, this inflation gauge tied to consumer spending was up 4.5 percent, the biggest year-over-year increase in more than 17 years.

The surge reflected the big increases that have occurred this year in food and energy costs. Excluding food and energy, inflation by this measure was up 0.3 percent in July, and 2.4 percent over the past 12 months, still above the Fed's comfort zone. The central bank is caught in a bind between a sluggish economy and rising inflation pressures.

The 0.7 percent drop in personal incomes followed a 0.1 percent rise in June and a 1.8 percent surge in May. After-tax incomes dropped by an even bigger 1.1 percent in July, following a 1.9 percent decline in June and a 5.7 percent surge in May. All the income figures were heavily influenced by the rebate checks.

Democrats, including presidential nominee Barack Obama, are calling for the government to pass a second stimulus package to guard against the economy slumping into a deep recession.

But President Bush, concerned about the impact the stimulus payments will have on the budget deficit, has resisted those calls, insisting that the rebate payments will continue to support the economy in coming months. The administration is already forecasting that the federal budget deficit for the budget year that begins on Oct. 1 will soar to an all-time high in dollar terms of $482 billion.

The report on consumer spending also showed that personal savings totaled 1.2 percent of after-tax incomes in July, down from a rate of 2.5 percent in June.

OBAMA SPEECH

08/28/08

Obama sketches promise of America

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago

DENVER - Barack Obama cast his presidential nomination as proof that no dreams are too high, savoring a historic moment for himself and the nation Thursday before setting out on a difficult struggle to break another barrier for a black American.

Obama's success in obtaining the Democratic nomination was indeed a remarkable achievement, reached despite the misgivings of some Americans uncomfortable with electing the son of an African immigrant — not "the typical pedigree," as he put it.

He used his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in part to allay those concerns, to show Americans that he is one of them — not born of wealth or privilege, his gains made of hard work and sacrifice.

"This moment — this election — is our chance to keep, in the 21st Century, the American promise alive," Obama said in prepared remarks. He put himself in the shadow of great leaders like John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as his humble parents.

For those voters with another concern — that a first-term senator who just turned 47 isn't experienced enough to lead the country — Obama had an answer, too, in a list of policy proposals that he argued would improve their lives. He promised tax cuts that would benefit workers, an end to dependence on Middle East oil, more funding for education, health care for every American and an end to the war in Iraq.

"America, now is not the time for small plans," Obama said.

And he tried to raise concerns about his rival, Republican John McCain, by saying he's too much like the unpopular President Bush.

"John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time," Obama said. "Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than 90 percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change."

With the nomination in hand, Obama could afford to pause — if only for a moment — to reflect on the path that took him from untested rising star at the Democratic convention just four years ago to the party's standard-bearer this time and a symbol of hope to millions of Americans yearning for change.

Obama himself took note of the transformation.

"Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story — of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known — but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to."

Then he launched himself into the task at hand, persuading voters that he is the leader for "one of those defining moments — a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more."

Obama didn't flinch from offering himself as ready not only for the title of president but also of "commander in chief."

"If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander in chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have," Obama said.

His speech was the culminating moment of the Democrats' four-day convention, the launching point for a difficult fall campaign against McCain. He was to make his case before an enthusiastic crowd of 84,000 at Invesco Field at Mile High, every participant equipped by organizers with their own American flags to wave. More important was the audience of millions of Americans watching on television, a tougher crowd.

Obama tried to tone down the hype of a stadium audience and a Greek-style stage by giving unknown Americans prime-time speaking roles to explain their struggles and how Obama could help them. And Obama himself highlighted the stories of working class Americans, the kinds of voters who have expressed wariness of his candidacy — the woman about to retire in Ohio worried about health care costs, the Indiana worker who lost his job to competition from China, the veterans living on the streets or in poverty, the military families in the midst of repeat tours of duty.

He said he sees his World War II veteran grandfather in the faces of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, recognizes his mother in the overworked student yearning to give her children a better life and hears his grandmother in the voice of the businesswoman facing workplace discrimination.

"I get it," Obama said. "I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you."

Elitist=7 Homes

Obama raps McCain for ignorance of his own houses

08/21/08

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - John McCain may have created his own housing crisis. Hours after a report that the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting didn't know how many homes he and his multimillionaire wife own, Democratic rival Barack Obama launched a national TV ad and a series of campaign stops aimed at portraying McCain as wealthy and out of touch.

With the economy the top issue in the race, Obama sought to turn McCain's gaffe into one of those symbolic moments that stick in voters' minds.

Think John Kerry sailboarding or the first President Bush wowed by a grocery store checkout scanner, Michael Dukakis riding in a tank or Gerald Ford eating a tamale with the husk still on.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico when asked Wednesday how many houses he owns. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Later, the McCain campaign told Politico that McCain and his wife, Cindy, have at least four in three states — Arizona, California and Virginia.

Property records reviewed by The Associated Press show McCain and his family appear to own at least eight homes: A ranch and two condos in Arizona; three condos in Coronado, Calif.; a condo in La Jolla, Calif.; and another in Arlington, Va. The number of houses is a bit trickier to determine since the ranch has at least four houses and a two-story cabin on it.

Last week McCain cracked that being rich in the U.S. meant earning at least $5 million a year. His latest comments gave Democrats an opportunity to suggest that McCain cannot relate to ordinary voters.

Campaigning in Chester, Va., Obama said: "I guess if you think being rich means you've got to make $5 million and if you don't know how many houses you have, it's not surprising you might think the economy is fundamentally strong." He returned to the McCain remark later, saying of teachers: "Most teachers hold themselves accountable. They didn't go into teaching to make money. They don't have seven houses."

The Obama campaign also announced 16 campaign events across the country to highlight the comment and try to turn the tables on McCain's effort to cast him as an elitist. In the battleground state of Michigan, Obama's campaign asked volunteers to guess how many houses McCain owns, a contest dubbed, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: McCain Edition."

While both sides are trying cast the other as too rich to understand the working class, the truth is neither candidate is hurting for money.

McCain's tax returns showed a total income of $405,409 in 2007. According to her 2006 tax returns, Cindy McCain had a total income of $6 million. Her wealth is estimated by some at $100 million, based on her late father's Arizona beer distributorship. She has not released her 2007 returns, which she files separately from her husband.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported making $4.2 million in 2007.

In the 2004 campaign, Republicans tried to use wealth against Kerry even though President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were multimillionaires themselves. In 2005, Kerry reported a net worth between $165 million and $235 million, most of it controlled by his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Underscoring how seriously the McCain campaign takes the house controversy, the Republican National Committee responded with a Web site highlighting Obama's ties to Chicago businessman Antonin "Tony" Rezko, a friend and contributor who was convicted in June on more than a dozen felonies in a corruption scandal.

Obama and his wife bought their home in Chicago in 2005 for $1.6 million after getting advice from Rezko. The corruption case had no connection to Obama, and Obama has said it was a mistake to work with Rezko on buying the house.

"Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses?" asked McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

However, the campaign got one thing wrong: Hawaii has no private beaches. Obama, who was born in Hawaii and spent most of his youth there, visited relatives during a recent vacation and joined the public swimming and surfing in the ocean.

In a forum last week with the Rev. Rick Warren, McCain was asked to define the word "rich" and to give a figure. After promoting his tax policies, McCain said: "I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?" The audience laughed, and he added: "But seriously, I don't think you can — I don't think seriously that — the point is that I'm trying to make here, seriously — and I'm sure that comment will be distorted — but the point is that we want to keep people's taxes low and increase revenues."

Asked the same question at the forum, Obama said those making $250,000 and higher are in the top 3 to 4 percent and "doing well."

___

Associated Press writers Philip Elliott in Sedona, Ariz., Beth Fouhy in Chester, Va., and Ann Sanner and Douglass K. Daniel in Washington contributed to this report.

Guns To School

Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

Fri Aug 15, 3:32 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas school district will let teachers bring guns to class this fall, the district's superintendent said on Friday, in what experts said appeared to be a first in the United States.

The board of the small rural Harrold Independent School District unanimously approved the plan and parents have not objected, said the district's superintendent, David Thweatt.

School experts backed Thweatt's claim that Harrold, a system of about 110 students 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, may be the first to let teachers bring guns to the classroom.

Thweatt said it is a matter of safety.

"We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, 'What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?" he said. "It's just common sense."

Teachers who wish to bring guns will have to be certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas and get crisis training and permission from school officials, he said.

Recent school shootings in the United States have prompted some calls for school officials to allow students and teachers to carry legally concealed weapons into classrooms.

The U.S. Congress once barred guns at schools nationwide, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck the law down, although state and local communities could adopt their own laws. Texas bars guns at schools without the school's permission.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; writing by Bruce Nichols in Houston, editing by Vicki Allen)

Whites-the Minority

White Americans no longer a majority by 2042

08/14/08

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 14, 5:03 AM ET

WASHINGTON - White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004.

The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics.

It is also growing older.

"The white population is older and very much centered around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The future of America is epitomized by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future."

The Census Bureau Thursday released population projections through 2050, based on rates for births, deaths and immigration. They are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or manmade disasters.

The U.S. has nearly 305 million people today. The population is projected to hit 400 million in 2039 and 439 million in 2050.

That's like adding all the people from France and Britain, said Steve A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that advocates tighter immigration policies.

White non-Hispanics make up about two-thirds of the population, but only 55 percent of those younger than 5.

By 2050, whites will make up 46 percent of the population and blacks will make up 15 percent, a relatively small increase from today. Hispanics, who make up about 15 percent of the population today, will account for 30 percent in 2050, according to the new projections.

Asians, which make up about 5 percent of the population, are projected to increase to 9 percent by 2050.

The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 19 million.

Foreclosures

Home foreclosure filings up 55 percent in July

Thu Aug 14, 6:00 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. foreclosure activity in July rose 55 percent from a year earlier as a slump in once-sizzling housing markets forced yet more borrowers to default on their mortgages, according to a monthly report.

Foreclosure filings -- default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions -- rose 8 percent from June and 55 percent from July 2007 to 272,171, according to RealtyTrac, which records property in various stages of foreclosure.

That means one in every 464 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in July, the firm said. Bank repossessions (REOs) rose 184 percent year-over-year. Default notices were up 53 percent, and auction notices rose 11 percent.

"The sharp rise in REOs, combined with slow sales, has resulted in a bloated inventory of bank-owned properties for sale," James Saccacio, chief executive of Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, said in a statement.

RealtyTrac now has more than 750,000 properties in its active REO database, or about 17 percent of the inventory of existing homes for sale reported in June by the National Association of Realtors, RealtyTrac said.

Among 230 metro areas tracked, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida, registered the highest foreclosure rate. One in every 64 households there received a foreclosure filing last month, more than seven times the national average.

By state, Nevada led the country with its foreclosure rate in July, as one in every 106 households received a foreclosure filing. Foreclosure activity in Nevada rose 15 percent from the previous month and 97 percent from July 2007, RealtyTrac said.

REOs in Nevada jumped 384 percent from a year ago, default notices surged 59 percent and auction notices rose 31 percent.

In California, one in every 182 properties received a foreclosure filing. Florida was third, with one in every 186, while Arizona's rate was one in every 195 properties.

Other states with foreclosure rates among the top 10 were Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, Utah and Virginia.

California was first by number of foreclosures with 72,285 in July, up 5 percent from June and 85 percent on a year ago. REOs in California rose 427 percent from a year ago, while auction notices rose 67 percent and default notices were up 34 percent. But default notices declined 4 percent from June.

Foreclosures in Florida rose 14 percent from June and 139 percent from a year earlier to claim the second highest number of properties, at 45,884. REOs rose 678 percent, auction notices were up 180 percent, and default notices doubled.

Ohio was third with 13,457 filings, up 2 percent from June and 1 percent from July 2007. Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Illinois and New York also were in the top 10 for foreclosure filings.

(Reporting by Ilaina Jonas; Editing by Braden Reddall)

Stem Cell Research

Scientists create stem cells for 10 disorders

08/08/08

By STEPHANIE NANO, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 8, 9:26 AM ET

NEW YORK - Harvard scientists say they have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish.

This early step, using a new technique, could help speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most confounding ailments, the scientists said.

The new work was reported online Thursday in the journal Cell, and the researchers said they plan to make the cell lines readily available to other scientists.

Dr. George Daley and his colleagues at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute used ordinary skin cells and bone marrow from people with a variety of diseases, including Parkinson's, Huntington's and Down syndrome to produce the stem cells.

The new cells will allow researchers to "watch the disease progress in a dish, that is, to watch what goes right or wrong," Doug Melton, co-director of the institute, said during a teleconference.

"I think we'll see in years ahead that this opens the door to a new way to treating degenerative diseases," he said.

The new technique reprograms cells, giving them the chameleon-like qualities of embryonic stem cells, which can morph into all kinds of tissue, such as heart, nerve and brain. As with embryonic stem cells, the hope is to speed medical research.

Research teams in Wisconsin and Japan were the first to report last November that they had reprogrammed skin cells, and that the cells had behaved like stem cells in a series of lab tests. Just last week, another Harvard team of scientists said they reprogrammed skin cells from two elderly patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and grew them into nerve cells.

Melton said the new disease-specific cell lines "represent a collection of degenerative diseases for which there are no good treatments and, more importantly, no good animal models for the most part in studying them."

A new laboratory has been created to serve as a repository for the cells, and to distribute them to other scientists researching the diseases, Melton said.

"The hope is that this will accelerate research and it will create a climate of openness," said Daley.

He expects stem cell lines to be developed for many more diseases, noting, "this is just the first wave of diseases." Other diseases for which they created stem cells are Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes; two types of muscular dystrophy, Gaucher disease and a rare genetic disorder known as the "bubble boy disease."

Daley stressed that the reprogrammed cells won't eliminate the need or value of studying embryonic stem cells.

"At least for the foreseeable future, and I would argue forever, they are going to be extremely valuable tools," he said.

The reprogramming work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and private contributions to the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Obama Threatened

Man held in Fla. on charge of threatening Obama

08/07/08

By CURT ANDERSON, AP Legal Affairs Writer 11 minutes ago

MIAMI - A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."

Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head," according to the Secret Service.

Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.

Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined comment.

In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according to court documents.

A search of Geisel's 1998 Ford Explorer and hotel room in Miami uncovered a loaded 9mm handgun, knives, dozens of rounds of ammunition including armor-piercing types, body armor, military-style fatigues and a machete. The SUV was wired with flashing red and yellow emergency lights.

Geisel told the Secret Service he was originally from Bangor, Maine, and had been living recently in a houseboat in the Florida Keys town of Marathon, according to court documents. He said he used the handgun for training for the bail bondsman class, had the knives for protection and used the machete to cut brush in Maine.

In the affidavit, the Secret Service said Geisel told agents that he suffered from psychiatric problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, but he couldn't provide the names of any facilities where he sought treatment.

US Troops Leaving Iraq

Iraqis: Deal close on plan for US troops to leave

08/07/08

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Iraq and the U.S. are near an agreement on all American combat troops leaving Iraq by October 2010, with the last soldiers out three years after that, two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. U.S. officials, however, insisted no dates had been agreed.

The proposed agreement calls for Americans to hand over parts of Baghdad's Green Zone — where the U.S. Embassy is located — to the Iraqis by the end of 2008. It would also remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, according to the two senior officials, both close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and familiar with the negotiations.

The officials, who spoke separately on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing, said all U.S. combat troops would leave Iraq by October 2010, with the remaining support personnel gone "around 2013." The schedule could be amended if both sides agree — a face-saving escape clause that would extend the presence of U.S. forces if security conditions warrant it.

U.S. acceptance — even tentatively — of a specific timeline would represent a dramatic reversal of American policy in place since the war began in March 2003.

Both Iraqi and American officials agreed that the deal is not final and that a major unresolved issue is the U.S. demand for immunity for U.S. soldiers from prosecution under Iraqi law.

Throughout the conflict, President Bush steadfastly refused to accept any timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. Last month, however, Bush and al-Maliki agreed to set a "general time horizon" for ending the U.S. mission.

Bush's shift to a timeline was seen as a move to speed agreement on a security pact governing the U.S. military presence in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Iraq's Shiite-led government has been holding firm for some sort of withdrawal schedule — a move the Iraqis said was essential to win parliamentary approval.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on details of the talks. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nangtongo said the negotiations were taking place "in a constructive spirit" based on respect for Iraqi sovereignty.

In Washington, U.S. officials acknowledged that some progress has been made on the timelines for troop withdrawals but that the immunity issue remained a huge problem. One senior U.S. official close to the discussion said no dates have been agreed upon.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations have not been finished.

But the Iraqis insisted the dates had been settled preliminarily between the two sides, although they acknowledged that nothing is final until the entire negotiations have been completed.

One Iraqi official said persuading the Americans to accept a timetable was a "key achievement" of the talks and that the government would seek parliamentary ratification as soon as the deal is signed.

But differences over immunity could scuttle the whole deal, the Iraqis said. One of the officials described immunity as a "minefield" and said each side was sticking by its position.

One official said U.S. negotiator David Satterfield told him that immunity for soldiers was a "red line" for the United States. The official said he replied that issue was "a red line for us too."

The official said the Iraqis were willing to grant immunity for actions committed on American bases and during combat operations — but not a blanket exemption from Iraqi law.

The Iraqis also want American forces hand over any Iraqi they detain. The U.S. insists that detainees must be "ready" for handover, which the Iraqi officials assume means the Americans want to interrogate them first.

As the talks drag on, American officials said the Bush administration is losing patience with the Iraqis over the negotiations, which both sides had hoped to wrap up by the end of July.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and al-Maliki had a long and "very difficult" phone conversation about the situation on Wednesday during which she pressed the Iraqi leader for more flexibility particularly on immunity, one U.S. senior official said.

"The sovereignty issue is very big for the Iraqis and we understand that. But we are losing patience," the official said. "The process needs to get moving and get moving quickly."

The official could not say how long the call lasted but said it was "not brief" and "tense at times."

In London, Britain's defense ministry said it is also in talks with Iraq's government over the role of British troops after the U.N. mandate runs out. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently said that early next year Britain will reduce its troops in Iraq, now at about 4,100, and that Britain's role in the country will change fundamentally.

Iraq's position in the U.S. talks hardened after a series of Iraqi military successes against Shiite and Sunni extremists in Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and other major cities and after the rise in world oil prices flooded the country with petrodollars.

As the government's confidence rose, Iraqi officials believed they were in a strong negotiating position — especially with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, pledging to remove all combat forces within his first 16 months in office if security conditions allow.

Standing firm against the Americans also enhances al-Maliki's nationalist credentials, enabling him to appeal for support from Iraqis long opposed to the U.S. presence.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr said the Shiite cleric will call on his fighters to maintain a cease-fire against American troops — but may lift the order if the security agreement fails to contain a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.

The statement by Sheik Salah al-Obeidi came as al-Sadr planned to spell out details of a formula to reorganize his Mahdi Army militia by separating it into an unarmed cultural organization and elite fighting cells.

The announcement is expected during weekly Islamic prayer services on Friday.

"This move is meant to offer an incentive for the foreign forces to withdraw," al-Obeidi said. "The special cells of fighters will not strike against foreign forces until the situation becomes clear vis-a-vis the Iraq-U.S. agreement on the presence of American forces here."

Several cease-fires by al-Sadr have been key to a sharp decline in violence over the past year. But American officials still consider his militiamen a threat and have backed the Iraqi military in operations to try to oust them from their power bases in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

___

Gearan and Matthew Lee contributed to this report from Washington, Robert H. Reid from Baghdad.

Consumers Beat

Rising prices beat down consumer spending in June

08/04/08

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 47 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Consumer spending, after adjusting for inflation, fell in June as shoppers were hit with the biggest increase in prices in nearly three decades.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending dipped by 0.2 percent in June, after removing the effects of higher prices, the poorest showing since a similar drop in February. The higher prices reflected a big surge in gasoline costs and helped to drive an inflation gauge tied to consumer spending up by 0.8 percent in June, the biggest increase since a 1 percent rise in February 1981.

The big rise in inflation ate up a part of the billions of dollars in stimulus payments delivered during the month. Personal incomes rose by a tiny 0.1 percent in June following a giant 1.8 percent increase in May.

Stocks pulled off their lows after a big drop in oil prices because of concerns about weak consumer spending.

Light, sweet crude fell $4.60 to $120.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been down more than 100 points in early trading, slipped about 17 points at midday.

In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that orders to U.S. factories shot up at the fastest pace in six months in June, reflecting big increases in petroleum prices and heavy demand for military equipment.

The 1.7 percent rise in June, the best showing since a 1.9 percent increase in December, was more than double the gain that economists had expected. It was led by a 5.2 percent surge in orders for primary metals such as steel. Orders for defense capital goods soared by 16.9 percent, the second consecutive double-digit gain, reflecting heavy demand for military hardware to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Income gains were skewed by how the department accounts for the billions of dollars in stimulus payments that have been made over the past three months. Those payments totaled $1.9 billion in April, when the program was just getting started, then $48.1 billion in May and $27.9 billion in June.

Those payouts made incomes and after-tax incomes soar in May compared to April but weaken in June since the level of June payments was lower than they had been in May.

Consumer spending before removing inflation rose by 0.6 percent in June after a big 0.8 percent increase in May. Much of that spending went to pay higher prices for gasoline and other items, however. Removing inflation, spending edged up by a more modest 0.3 percent in May and fell by 0.2 percent in June.

The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at a 1.9 percent rate in the April-June quarter, more than double the 0.9 percent increase in the January-March quarter.

Economists believe the $168 billion stimulus program will continue to lift the economy in the current quarter. They predict there will be a significant slowdown in the final three months of this year and early next year, though.

Some analysts believe GDP will shrink in those two quarters, giving the country back-to-back GDP declines, the traditional definition of a recession.

The spending and incomes report showed that prices shot up by 0.8 percent. Excluding food and energy, the increase was 0.3 percent, up from a 0.2 percent rise in May and the biggest one-month gain since a similar 0.3 percent rise last September.

After-tax incomes fell by 1.9 percent in June following a huge 5.7 percent surge in May, both months heavily influenced by how the government accounted for the stimulus payments. Excluding those payments, after-tax incomes would have rise by 0.3 percent in June after a 0.4 percent rise in May.

The savings rate, as a percent of after-tax incomes, dropped to 2.5 percent in June after having shot up to 4.9 percent in May.

Korea Blame United States

AP IMPACT: Seoul probes civilian `massacres' by US

08/03/08

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writers Sun Aug 3, 3:31 PM ET

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.

A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.

Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.

"Of course the U.S. government should pay compensation. It's the U.S. military's fault," said survivor Cho Kook-won, 78, who says he lost four family members among hundreds of refugees suffocated, burned and shot to death in a U.S. Air Force napalm attack on their cave shelter south of Seoul in 1951.

Commission researchers have unearthed evidence of indiscriminate killings in the declassified U.S. archive, including a report by U.S. inspectors-general that pilots couldn't distinguish their South Korean civilian allies from North Korean enemy soldiers.

South Korean legislators have asked a U.S. Senate committee to join them in investigating another long-classified document, one saying American ground commanders, fearing enemy infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting approaching refugees.

The Associated Press has found that wartime pilots and declassified documents at the U.S. National Archives both confirm that refugees were deliberately targeted by U.S. forces.

The U.S. government has been largely silent on the commission's work. The U.S. Embassy here says it has not yet been approached by the Seoul government about compensation. Spokesman Aaron Tarver also told the AP that the embassy is not monitoring commission findings.

The commission's president, historian Ahn Byung-ook, said the U.S. Army helped defend South Korea in the 1950-53 war, but also "victimized" South Korean civilians. "We feel detailed investigation should be done by the U.S. government itself," he said.

The citizen petitions have accumulated since 1999, when the AP, after tracing Army veterans who were there, confirmed the 1950 refugee killings at No Gun Ri, where survivors estimate 400 died at American hands, mostly women and children.

In newly democratized South Korea, after decades of enforced silence under right-wing dictatorships, that report opened floodgates of memory, as families spoke out about other wartime mass killings.

"The No Gun Ri incident became one of the milestones, to take on this kind of incident in the future," said Park Myung-lim of Seoul's Yonsei University, a Korean War historian and adviser to the truth commission.

The National Assembly established the 15-member panel in December 2005 to investigate not only long-hidden Korean War incidents, including the southern regime's summary executions of thousands of suspected leftists, but also human rights violations by the Seoul government during the authoritarian postwar period.

Findings are meant to "reconcile the past for the sake of national unity," says its legislative charter.

The panel cannot compel testimony, prosecute or award compensation. Since the commission may shut down as early as 2010, the six investigators devoted to alleged cases of "civilian massacre committed by U.S. soldiers" are unlikely to examine all 215 cases fully.

News reports at the time hinted at such killings after North Korea invaded the south in June 1950. But the extent wasn't known. Commission member Kim Dong-choon, in charge of investigating civilian mass killings, says there were large numbers of dead — between 50 and 400 — in many incidents.

As at No Gun Ri, some involved U.S. ground troops, such as the reported killing of 82 civilians huddled in a village shrine outside the southern city of Masan in August 1950. But most were air attacks.

In one of three initial findings, the commission held that a surprise U.S. air attack on east Wolmi island on Sept. 10, 1950, five days before the U.S. amphibious landing at nearby Incheon, was unjustified. Survivors estimate 100 or more South Korean civilians were killed.

In clear weather from low altitude, "U.S. forces napalmed numerous small buildings, (and) strafed children, women and old people in the open area," the commission said.

Investigator Kang Eun-ji said high priority is being given to reviewing attacks earlier in 1950 on refugees gathered in fields west of the Naktong River, in North Korean-occupied areas of the far south, while U.S. forces were dug in east of the river. One U.S. air attack on 2,000 refugees assembled Aug. 20, 1950, at Haman, near Masan, killed almost 200, survivors reported.

"There were many similar incidents — refugees gathered in certain places, and there were air strikes," she said.

The declassified record shows the Americans' fear that enemy troops were disguising themselves as civilians led to indiscriminate attacks on "people in white," the color worn by most Koreans, commission and AP research found.

In the first case the commission confirmed, last November, its investigators found that an airborne Air Force observer had noted in the "Enemy" box of an after-mission report, "Many people in white in area."

The area was the village of Sanseong-dong, in an upland valley 100 miles southeast of Seoul, attacked on Jan. 19, 1951, by three waves of Navy and Air Force planes. Declassified documents show the U.S. X Corps had issued an order to destroy South Korean villages within 5 miles of a mountain position held by North Korean troops.

"Everybody came out of their houses to see these low-flying planes, and everyone was hit," farmer Ahn Shik-mo, 77, told AP reporters visiting the apple-growing village. "It appeared they were aiming at people."

At least 51 were killed, the commission found, including Ahn's mother. Sixty-nine of 115 houses were destroyed in what the panel called "indiscriminate" bombing. "The U.S. Air Force regarded all people in white as possible enemy," it concluded.

"There never were any North Koreans in the village," said villager Ahn Hee-duk, a 12-year-old boy at the time.

The U.S. military itself said there were no enemy casualties, an acknowledgment made Feb. 13, 1951, in a joint Army-Air Force report on the Sanseong-dong bombing, an unusual review undertaken because Korean authorities questioned the attack.

Classified for a half-century, that report included a candid admission: "Civilians in villages cannot normally be identified as either North Koreans, South Koreans, or guerrillas," wrote the inspectors-general, two colonels.

The Eighth Army commander, Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway, held, nonetheless, that Sanseong-dong's destruction was "amply justified," the AP found in a declassified document. Today's Korean commission held otherwise, recommending that the government negotiate for U.S. compensation.

A U.S. airborne observer in that attack, traced by the AP, said it's "very possible" the Sanseong-dong mission could be judged indiscriminate. George P. Wolf, 88, of Arlington, Texas, also said he remembered orders to strafe refugees.

"I'm very, very sorry about hitting civilians," said the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, who flew with the 6147th Tactical Control Squadron.

The day after the Sanseong-dong attack, the cave shelter at Yeongchun, 120 miles southeast of Seoul, came under repeated napalm and strafing attacks from 11 U.S. warplanes.

Hundreds of South Korean civilians, fearing their villages would be bombed, had jammed inside the 85-yard-long cave, with farm animals and household goods outside.

Around 10 a.m., Cho Byung-woo, then 9, was deep in the narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel when he heard screams up front, and saw choking fumes billowing inside. Air Force F-51 Mustangs dropped napalm firebombs at the cave's entrance, a declassified mission report shows.

"I ran forward and all I could hear were people coughing and screaming, and some were probably already dead," Cho recalled, revisiting the cave with AP reporters. His father flung the boy out the entrance, his hair singed. Outside, Cho saw more planes strafe people fleeing into surrounding fields.

He and other survivors said surveillance planes had flown over for days beforehand. "There was no excuse," Cho said. "How could they not tell — the cows, the pieces of furniture?"

Survivors said the villagers had tried days earlier to flee south, but were turned back at gunpoint at a U.S. Army roadblock, an account supported by a declassified 7th Infantry Division journal.

Villagers believe 360 people were killed at the cave. In its May 20 finding, the commission estimated the dead numbered "well over 200." It found the U.S. had carried out an unnecessary, indiscriminate attack and had failed — with the roadblock — to meet its responsibility to safeguard refugees.

The commission also pointed out that Ridgway — in a Jan. 3, 1951, order uncovered by AP archival research — had given units authority to fire at civilians to stop their movement.

Five months earlier, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea confidentially informed Washington that the U.S. Army, fearing infiltrators, had adopted a policy of shooting South Korean refugees who approached its lines despite warnings. Ambassador John J. Muccio's letter was dated July 26, 1950, the day U.S. troops began shooting refugees at No Gun Ri.

American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz reported his discovery of the declassified Muccio letter in his 2006 book "Collateral Damage." But the Army had learned of the letter earlier, during its 1999-2001 No Gun Ri investigation, and had not disclosed its existence.

The Army now asserts it omitted the letter from its 2001 No Gun Ri report because it discussed "a proposed policy," not an approved one. But the document unambiguously described the policy as among "decisions made" — not a proposal — at a high-level U.S.-South Korean meeting, and AP research found declassified documents in which U.S. commanders in subsequent weeks repeatedly ordered troops to fire on refugees.

In a May 15 letter to Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the then-vice speaker of Seoul's National Assembly, Lee Yong-hee, called on Congress to investigate whether the Army intentionally suppressed the Muccio letter in its inquiry.

Since targeting noncombatants is a war crime, "this is a matter of deep concern to the Korean people," wrote Lee, whose district includes No Gun Ri.

Lee, who has since lost his leadership position as a result of elections, suggested a joint U.S.-Korean congressional probe. Frank Jannuzi, the Senate committee's senior East Asia specialist, said its staff would seek Pentagon and State Department briefings on the matter.

In 2001, the U.S. government rejected the No Gun Ri survivors' demand for an apology and compensation, and the Army's report claimed the No Gun Ri killings were "not deliberate."

But at a Seoul news conference on May 15 with survivors of No Gun Ri and other incidents, their U.S.-based lawyers pointed out that powerful contrary evidence has long been available.

"The killings of Korean civilians were extensive, intentional and indiscriminate," lawyers Michael Choi and Robert Swift said in a statement.

In its 2001 report, the Army said it had learned of other civilian killings by U.S. forces, but it indicated they would not be investigated.

Economic Rebound

Economic rebound not as energetic as hoped for

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Thu Jul 31, 11:06 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The country didn't get the energetic rebound in economic growth hoped for from the government's tax rebates in the second quarter, and the economy jolted into reverse at the end of 2007, raising new recession fears.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the April-to-June period. That marked an improvement over the feeble 0.9 percent growth logged in the first quarter of this year and the outright contraction in the economy during the final quarter of last year.

Still, the second-quarter rebound wasn't as robust as economists had hoped; they were forecasting growth at a 2.4 percent pace. The pickup, while welcome, isn't likely to be seen as a signal that the fragile economy is growing healthier. There are fears that as the bracing tonic of the tax rebates fades, the economy could be in for another rough patch later this year.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials were off nearly 75 points in morning trading following two days of gains.

The health of the economy is the top concern of the public — and by extension politicians including candidates vying for the White House.

GDP contracted by 0.2 percent, on an annualized basis, in the last three months of 2007, according to annual revisions released by the government.

That contraction reflected the deepest cuts in 26 years from builders clobbered by the housing slump and cautious spending by consumers spooked by all the fallout.

The fourth-quarter's dip marked the worst showing since the third quarter of 2001, when the economy was last in a recession. The government's previous estimate for the final quarter of last year was in positive territory — but not by much — at an anemic 0.6 percent growth rate.

GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is the best barometer of the country's economic fitness.

A pickup in consumer spending and brisk sales of U.S. exports abroad figured prominently in the second-quarter improvement.

Consumers boosted their spending at a 1.5 percent pace in the second quarter. That was up from a 0.9 percent growth rate in the first quarter and marked the best showing since the third quarter of 2007 when the economy was still performing strongly despite the severe housing slump.

Billions of dollars in tax rebates, the centerpiece of the government's $168 billion stimulus package, spurred consumers to spend in some areas, a major force shaping overall economic activity. Spending on furniture and household appliances went up, while people cut spending on cars.

Meanwhile, sales of U.S. exports grew at a 9.2 percent pace in the second quarter, up from a 5.1 percent growth rate in the first quarter. The weak dollar has made U.S. goods cheaper to foreign buyers, helping to bolster exports.

Government spending also helped second-quarter GDP.

The housing slump continued to take a bite — although a smaller one — out of overall economic activity.

Builders cut back on residential projects by 15.6 percent, on an annualized basis, in the second quarter. That was not as deep as the 25.1 percent cut made in the first quarter or the 27 percent annualized drop in the final quarter of 2007.

Businesses showed caution in other areas. They trimmed spending on equipment and software and they reduced investment in inventories in the second quarter.

An inflation gauge tied to the GDP report showed all prices galloping ahead at a rate of 4.2 percent in the second quarter, the fastest pace since the end of last year.

However, when energy and food costs are stripped out, all other — or "core" — prices rose at a pace of 2.1 percent, down from a 2.3 percent rise in the first quarter. Still, the second-quarter's core inflation reading is outside the Fed's comfort zone.

Given mounting inflation fears, the Fed in June halted a nearly yearlong campaign of rate cuts to shore up the economy. It is expected to hold rates steady again next week. Boosting them too soon to fend off inflation could hurt the economy and the already crippled housing market.

A trio of crises — housing, credit and financial — have badly bruised the economy. In response, employers have cut jobs for six months in a row, bringing total losses this year close to a staggering half-million — 438,000.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that layoffs rose sharply last week. New claims filed for unemployment insurance jumped to 448,000, the highest in five years.

The faltering labor market is keeping a lid on wage pressures. Wages and benefits paid to U.S. workers, meanwhile, rose a moderate 0.7 percent in the second quarter, the same growth as the prior quarter. It was the lowest in two years, the department said in another report.

With more job cuts expected for July and in coming months, there's growing concern that many people will pull back on their spending when the bracing effect of the tax rebates fades, dealing a blow to the shaky economy.

These worries — along with the negative GDP in the fourth quarter of last year — may rekindle recession fears.

There's been a lot of debate about whether the economy is on the brink of, or has fallen into, its first recession since 2001. Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts for two straight quarters it is considered to be in a recession.

However, that didn't happen in the last recession — in 2001. The unofficial determination, made by a panel of academics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, usually comes well after the fact. The panel takes into account economic activity, as well as employment, income and other things.

As part of the annual revisions, the government marked down growth in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Last year the economy grew by 2 percent, the weakest showing since 2002. The revisions are based on more information as well as improved methodologies.

Exxon Mobil

Exxon Mobil 2Q profit sets US record, shares fall

By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 53 minutes ago

HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest profit from operations ever by any U.S. corporation, but the results were well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.

The world's largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 40 percent to $138.1 billion from $98.4 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding an after-tax charge of $290 million related to an Exxon Valdez court settlement, earnings amounted to $11.97 billion, or $2.27 per share.

Analysts on average expected Exxon Mobil to earn $2.52 a share on revenue of $144 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial. The estimates typically exclude one-time items.

The record-setting results were largely expected, given that crude prices in the second quarter were nearly double what they were a year ago. Natural gas prices were significantly higher too.

But investors expected even bigger profits Thursday, especially after Europe's Royal Dutch Shell reported a 33 percent jump in second-quarter earnings to $11.6 billion, which fell just shy of Exxon's own record earnings from 2007.

Exxon Mobil shares fell $2.81, or 3.3 percent, to $81.57 in morning trading.

Setting U.S. profit records has become commonplace for Irving-based Exxon Mobil. The $11.68 billion topped its own U.S. record of $11.66 billion, posted in the fourth quarter of last year. Right behind that was the $10.9 billion it reported to start 2008.

Exxon Mobil owns the record for at least the top six most-profitable quarters for a U.S. company, as well as the largest annual profit.

The company, which produces 3 percent of the world's oil, got its biggest boost from its exploration and production arm, where earnings rose 68 percent to $10.01 billion from $5.95 billion a year ago. The main driver was record crude prices, partially offset by lower sales volumes and higher operating costs.

Once again, Exxon Mobil's results revealed a troubling trend at the heart of its business.

Production on an oil-equivalent basis fell 8 percent from a year ago — a significant blow for a company that generates more than two-thirds of its earnings from oil and gas production. That follows an opening quarter of 2008 when the company said overall production fell 5.6 percent from a year ago.

Excluding last year's loss of its Venezuelan assets, a labor strike in Nigeria and lower volumes because of production-sharing contracts, Exxon said production was down about 3 percent in the most-recent quarter.

Like its competitors, Exxon Mobil said it took a beating from lower global refining margins. Earnings from refining and marketing fell 54 percent in the quarter to $1.55 billion.

For the first six months of 2008, Exxon Mobil said it earned $22.57 billion, or $4.25 a share, from $19.54 billion, or $3.45 a share, in the first half of 2007. Revenue rose to $254.9 billion from $185.5 billion.

Death Sentence

Bush: Former Army cook's crimes warrant execution

07/29/08

WASHINGTON - President Bush could have commuted the death sentence of Ronald A. Gray, a former Army cook convicted of multiple rapes and murders.

But Bush decided Monday that Gray's crimes were so repugnant that execution was the only just punishment.

Bush's decision marked the first time in 51 years that a president has affirmed a death sentence for a member of the U.S. military. It was the first time in 46 years that such a decision has even been weighed in the Oval Office.

Gray, 42, was convicted in connection with a spree of four murders and eight rapes in the Fayetteville, N.C., area between April 1986 and January 1987 while he was stationed at Fort Bragg. He has been on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since April 1988.

"While approving a sentence of death for a member of our armed services is a serious and difficult decision for a commander in chief, the president believes the facts of this case leave no doubt that the sentence is just and warranted," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

"The president's thoughts and prayers are with the victims of these heinous crimes and their families and all others affected," she said.

Bush's decision, however, is not likely the end of Gray's legal battle. Further litigation is expected and these types of death sentence appeals often take years to resolve. It also remains unclear where Gray would be executed. Military executions are handled by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Members of the U.S. military have been executed throughout history, but just 10 have been executed by presidential approval since 1951, when the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military's modern-day legal system, was enacted into law.

President Kennedy was the last president to stare down this life-or-death decision. On Feb. 12, 1962, Kennedy commuted the death sentence of Jimmie Henderson, a Navy seaman, to confinement for life.

President Eisenhower was the last president to approve a military execution. In 1957, he approved the execution of John Bennett, an Army private convicted of raping and attempting to kill an 11-year-old Austrian girl. He was hanged in 1961.

Under current military rules, such executions would be carried out by lethal injection.

Gray was held responsible for the crimes he committed in both the civilian and military justice systems.

Silas DeRoma, who left active duty in 1999, was one of several military attorneys who represented Gray on appeal.

"It's disappointing news, as you can imagine," said DeRoma, who now works as a regulatory attorney in Honolulu for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He said the basis for some of Gray's appeals focused on the prisoner's mental competency and his representation at trial.

In civilian courts in North Carolina, Gray pleaded guilty to two murders and five rapes and was sentenced to three consecutive and five concurrent life terms. He then was tried by general court-martial at the Army's Fort Bragg. There he was convicted in April 1988 and unanimously sentenced to death.

The court-martial panel convicted Gray of:

_Raping and killing Army Pvt. Laura Lee Vickery-Clay of Fayetteville on Dec. 15, 1986. She was shot four times with a .22-caliber pistol that Gray confessed to stealing. She suffered blunt force trauma over much of her body.

_Raping and killing Kimberly Ann Ruggles, a civilian cab driver in Fayetteville. She was bound, gagged and stabbed repeatedly, and had bruises and lacerations on her face. Her body was found on the base.

_Raping, robbing and attempting to kill an army private in her barracks at Fort Bragg on Jan. 3, 1987. She testified against Gray during the court-martial and identified him as her assailant. Gray raped her and stabbed her several times in the neck and side. The victim suffered a laceration of the trachea and a collapsed or punctured lung.

Gray has appealed his case through the Army Court of Criminal Appeals (then known as the U.S. Army Court of Military Review) and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Services. In 2001, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Home Prices 2008

S&P: Home prices drop by record 15.8 pct. in May

07/29/08

By J.W. ELPHINSTONE, AP Business Writer 1 hour, 14 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Home prices tumbled by the steepest rate ever in May, according to a closely watched housing index released Tuesday, as the housing slump deepened nationwide.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city index dropped by 15.8 percent in May compared with a year ago, a record decline since its inception in 2000. The 10-city index plunged 16.9 percent, its biggest decline in its 21-year history.

No city in the Case-Shiller 20-city index saw price gains in May, the second straight month that's happened. The monthly indices have not recorded an overall home price increase in any month since August 2006.

Home values have fallen 18.4 percent since the 20-city index's peak in July 2006.

Nine metropolitan cities — Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Wash., Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C. — posted record declines in May. And the value of housing in Detroit is now lower than it was in 2000.

But a possible bright spot in an otherwise dismal report, seven metros — Tampa, Fla., Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York, Dallas and Atlanta — showed smaller annual declines.

Las Vegas recorded the worst drop, with prices plunging 28.4 percent in the month. Miami came in a close second, with prices down 28.3 percent.

Charlotte, N.C., posted the smallest drop at 0.2 percent. Until April, the North Carolina city had been the last metro still showing price gains.

Inheritance

Bush administration projects record 2009 deficit

07/28/07 By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The next president will inherit a record budget deficit of $482 billion, according to a new Bush administration estimate released Monday. The administration said the deficit was being driven to an all-time high by the sagging economy and the stimulus payments being made to 130 million households in an effort to keep the country from falling into a deep recession.

But the numbers could go even higher if the economy performs worse than the White House predicts.

The budget office predicts the economy will grow at a rate of 1.6 percent this year and will rebound to a 2.2 percent growth rate next year. That's a half percentage point more than predicted by the widely cited "blue chip" consensus of leading economists. The administration also sees inflation averaging 3.8 percent this year, but easing to 2.3 percent next year — better than the 3.0 percent seen by the blue chip panel.

"The nation's economy has continued to expand and remains fundamentally resilient," said the budget office report.

A $482 billion deficit, however, would easily surpass the record deficit of $413 billion set in 2004.

The deficit numbers for 2008 and 2009 represent about 3 percent of the size of the economy, which is the measure seen as most relevant by economists. By that measure, the 2008 and 2009 deficits would be smaller than the deficits of the 1980s and early 1990s, when Congress and earlier administrations cobbled together politically painful deficit-reduction packages.

The administration actually underestimates the deficit, however, since it leaves out about $80 billion in war costs. In a break from tradition — and in violation of new mandates from Congress — the White House did not include its full estimate of war costs.

The White House in February had forecast that next year's deficit would be $407 billion, which puts the increase in the projections at $72 billion.

Figures for the 2008 budget year ending Sept. 30 will actually drop from an earlier projection of $410 billion to $389 billion, the report said.

The White House still projects that the budget will reach a surplus by 2012, helped by revenues boosted by optimistic economic projections of economic growth.

Still, the new figures are so eye-popping in dollar terms that it may restrain the appetite of the next president to add to it with expensive spending programs or new tax cuts. In fact, pressure may build to allow some tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 to expire as scheduled at the end of 2010, with Congress also feeling pressure to curb spending growth.

John McCain used the news to slam both the Bush White House for its "profligate spending" and Democratic rival Barack Obama for saying he would not try to balance the budget.

"I have an unmatched record in fighting wasteful earmarks and unnecessary spending in the U.S. Senate and I have the determination and experience to do the same as President," McCain said in a statement.

Obama's campaign used the new numbers to attack McCain for embracing Bush's tax cuts. Obama, said campaign policy director Jason Furman, "will restore balance and fairness to our economy by cutting wasteful spending, shutting corporate loopholes and tax havens, and rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, while making health care affordable and putting a middle class tax cut in the pocket of 95 percent of workers and their families."

The deficit for 2007 totaled $161.5 billion, which represented the lowest amount of red ink since an imbalance of $159 billion in 2002. The 2002 performance marked the first budget deficit after four consecutive years of budget surpluses.

That stretch of budget surpluses represented a period when the country's finances had been bolstered by a 10-year period of uninterrupted economic growth, the longest period of expansion in U.S. history.

In his first year in office, helped considerably by projections of continuing surpluses, Bush drove through a 10-year, $1.35 trillion package of tax cuts.

However, the country fell into a recession in March 2001 and government spending to fight the war on terrorism contributed to pushing the deficit to a record in dollar terms in 2004.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., said the new deficit figure confirms "the dismal legacy of the Bush administration: under its policies, the largest surpluses in history have been converted into the largest deficits in history."

Buyer Beware: The Many Ways Retailers Can Trick You

Mon Jul 21, 8:50 AM ET

Shoppers do crazy things. And retailers bank on it.

Several studies reveal how Americans shop in irrational ways, and increasingly scientists are figuring out how easily we can be duped. Retailers in turn use these tricks to get inside our heads, encouraging window shoppers to become real shoppers, driving purchases of sales items regardless of real value, and helping buyers feel good about the things they walk out with ... often for no good reason.

One new study finds that happiness with a purchase depends on the choices that were available on a store shelf and how the items were presented.

Study participants were presented products ranging from cordless phones to lawn mowers. The goods were presented in three ways:

One choice was clearly superior to the other two (asymmetric dominance)

One choice was intermediate to the other two (compromise)

Two options that were somewhat equivalent (control)

After participants made choices, they rated the products and their satisfaction. In five tests that shifted the products and setups, the participants' preferences were affected by presentation. The bottom line: A product presented as clearly superior to other products on a store shelf makes for a happy customer, regardless of the product's inherent qualities to some degree.

"A pen selected from a set in which it asymmetrically dominated another pen produced a more positive writing experience and a greater willingness to pay for the pen than if the same pen was selected from a set in which it did not dominate another option," conclude Song-Oh Yoon of the Korea University Business School and Itamar Simonson from Stanford University.

The study is detailed in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

A study last year by a separate group, published in the same journal, reached a similar conclusion. Study participants were presented with two sofas. Sofa A was softer, but Sofa B was more durable. Sofa A was preferred by the minority - 42.3 percent of the participants. Then both sofas were presented with three other sofas that had very low softness ratings. Preference for sofa A jumped to 77.4 percent.

Tricks of the trade

There are many ways retailers encourage you to open your wallet. None is more obvious than putting things on sale.

Researchers have known empirically for more than 20 years a "50% off" sign leads consumers to assume a price is attractive, even if they have no knowledge of the original price or reasonable prices for that product.

In fact, shoppers as a whole seem quite clueless about sales values.

Studies have also shown that frequent but modest discounts - such as the constant sales at a car dealership - lead to perceptions of greater value than less frequent but deeper discounts.

And when math is involved, most of us can't cope. For example: See if you can calculate the total savings in the setup: 20 percent off the original price plus an additional 25 percent off the sale price. How much is that item marked down? If you said 45 percent off, then you're math skills are as pitiful as the 85 percent of college students who also got this wrong in a study last year by researchers at the University of Miami and the University of Minnesota. The right answer: 40 percent off.

More tricks

Other tricks, such as this one documented in a study last year, are more subtle:

A salesperson can totally alter a window shopper's inclination to buy something by simply asking the right question. When a salesperson asks a shopper which of several items she prefers, the shopper tends to skip the whole "Should I buy it at all?" question and go straight to the "Which one should I buy?" phase. The study was done in simulated tests and in real-world retail situations.

"Stating a preference appears to induce a which-to-buy mindset, leading people to think about which of several products they would like to buy under the implicit assumption they have already decided to buy one of them," wrote Alison Jing Xu and Robert S. Wyer, Jr. of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "Consequently, they are more disposed to make a purchase than they otherwise would be."

Amazingly, the gimmick worked even in selling unrelated products. Just 2 percent of a control group bought candy in one test. But in a group who had been asked to indicate their preference among mp3 players, restaurants, and mobile phones, 28 percent bought candy.

Some tricks are downright nasty. One sales technique is called "disrupt-then-reframe."

Frank R. Kardes at the University of Cincinnati and colleagues found that by presenting a confusing sales pitch (such as telling a potential customer that a candy bar costs 300 cents) then restating the pitch in a more familiar way, they were able to increase sales of a candy bar in a supermarket. The same trick increased students' willingness to accept a tuition increase or to pay to join a student interest group.

Loyal shoppers

Any good salesperson knows that if you really want to sell something, you just need to know what the customer wants.

Another study by Simonson, the Stanford researcher, with Ran Kivetz of Columbia University, focused on loyalty programs, in which a consumer joins to gain discounts or some other rewards but is required to make a certain number of purchases.

People who liked sushi were offered one program that required them to buy 10 sandwiches, and another program with equal rewards that required them to buy 10 sandwiches and 10 orders of sushi. The study subjects were more likely to join the second program, even though it offered no additional benefit and required them to buy more.

The study "shows that people put too much emphasis on things that seem to fit them better than others, often leading to irrational choices," Simonson told LiveScience.

The Truth About Shopaholics

Men as Addicted to Shopping as Women

Bad Habits: Why We Can't Stop

Original Story: Buyer Beware: The Many Ways Retailers Can Trick You

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Foreclosure Info

Congress moves to help homeowners avoid foreclosures

07/23/08 By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Congress is moving quickly to pass a housing package that aims to help 400,000 strapped homeowners avoid foreclosures and prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing.

Momentum for passage picked up mightily after President Bush earlier Wednesday dropped his opposition to the bill just hours before a scheduled vote in the House. That put the legislation on track toward enactment as early as the end of the week. Bush's decision to sign the election-year bill came despite his strong resistance to including $3.9 billion in the measure for neighborhoods hit hardest by foreclosures.

The administration and lawmakers in both parties teamed to negotiate the election-year measure, which pairs Democrats' top priorities — federal help for homeowners facing foreclosure and $3.9 billion for devastated neighborhoods — with Republicans' goal of reining in mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while reassuring financial markets of their stability.

In a policy statement on the bill, the White House said that parts of it "are too important to the stability of our nation's housing market, financial system, and the broader economy not to be enacted immediately."

Bush had objected to the neighborhood grants, which would be for buying and fixing up foreclosed properties, saying that they would help bankers and lenders, not homeowners who are in trouble.

But Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, told reporters in a conference call that a showdown with Congress over the funds would be ill-timed.

It was a striking split for Bush and congressional Republicans, many of whom are angrily opposed to the housing legislation, which they call a handout for irresponsible homeowners and unscrupulous lenders.

At a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning, House Republicans denounced the plan, although it's clear they don't have enough votes to prevent it from becoming law.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, said he was "deeply disappointed" at Bush's decision to sign the bill.

"We must take responsible steps to ensure our financial and housing markets are sound, but the Democrats' bill represents a multibillion dollar bailout for scam artists and speculative lenders at the expense of American taxpayers," he said in a statement.

The measure hands the Treasury Department the power to extend the government-sponsored mortgage companies an unlimited line of credit and buy an unspecified amount of their stock, if necessary, to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two companies chartered by Congress. The firms back or own $5 trillion in U.S. mortgages — nearly half the nation's total.

With Congress just 10 days away from leaving Washington for a five-week summer break, Perino said, the possibility of waiting until mid-September for the housing measure "is not a risk worth taking in the current environment."

Key senators said they were ready to swiftly approve the measure without any changes.

"We'll be anxious to move this product along," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Banking Republican who was his party's lead negotiator on the measure, said Bush's turnabout reflected political reality.

"They looked at the Hill, they counted some votes and they see there's pretty broad support for this," Shelby said.

At the Treasury Department, Paulson told reporters that he urged Bush to sign the bill despite its inclusion of the "wasteful" $3.9 billion in grants. He said its enactment would be "a strong message that we are sending to investors" that would play a key role in "helping us turn the corner" on the housing crisis.

Congressional analysts estimate that the mortgage giant rescue could cost $25 billion, but predict there's a better than even chance it won't be needed at all.

The bill would let hundreds of thousands of homeowners trapped in mortgages they can't afford on homes that have plummeted in value escape foreclosure by refinancing into more affordable, fixed-rate loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Lenders would have to agree to take a substantial loss on the existing loans, and in return, they would walk away with at least some payoff and avoid the often-costly foreclosure process.

The plan also creates a new regulator with tighter controls for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and modernizes the FHA.

It includes about $15 billion in housing tax breaks, including a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers for people who bought homes between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009. It also allows people who don't itemize their taxes to claim a $500-$1,000 deduction on their 2008 property taxes. That chiefly benefits homeowners who have paid off their homes and can't claim a deduction for mortgage interest.

And it increases the statutory limit on the national debt by $800 billion, to $10.6 trillion.

The White House, which initially denounced the FHA rescue as too burdensome on the government and risky for taxpayers, dropped most of its objections to the measure in recent weeks in search of a swift deal. The urgent request by Paulson to throw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a federal lifeline acted as a powerful locomotive for a deal.

The bill sets a cap of $625,000 on the loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may buy and the FHA may insure. It lets them buy and back mortgages up to 15 percent above the median home price in certain areas.

Lawmakers abandoned efforts to place conditions on any Fannie and Freddie rescue, but the bill hands the new regulator approval power over the pay packages of executives at the companies regardless of whether the government moves to financially reinforce them.

It also counts any federal infusion for the mortgage giants under the debt limit, essentially capping how much the government could spend to stabilize the companies without further approval from Congress. As of Tuesday, the national debt that counts toward the limit stood at about $9.5 trillion, roughly $360 billion below the statutory ceiling.

Foreclosure Info

House to vote on foreclosure rescue measure

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 23, 6:26 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The government would help struggling homeowners get new, cheaper loans and be allowed to offer troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a cash infusion as part of legislation that aims to calm the chaotic housing market.

The House was expected to vote on the bill Wednesday, and it could become law as early as this week.

The Bush administration and lawmakers in both parties teamed to negotiate the measure, which pairs Democrats' top priorities — federal help for homeowners facing foreclosure and $3.9 billion for neighborhoods hit hardest by the housing crisis — with Republicans' goal of reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while reassuring financial markets of their stability.

It hands the Treasury Department power to extend the government-sponsored mortgage companies an unlimited line of credit and buy an unspecified amount of their stock, if necessary to prop up Fannie and Freddie. The two companies back or own $5 trillion in U.S. mortgages — nearly half the nation's total.

Congressional analysts estimated Tuesday that the rescue could cost $25 billion, but predicted there's a better than even chance it won't be needed at all.

The bill would let hundreds of thousands of homeowners trapped in mortgages they can't afford on homes that have plummeted in value escape foreclosure by refinancing into more affordable, fixed-rate loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Lenders would have to agree to take a substantial loss on the existing loans, and in return, they would walk away with at least some payoff and avoid the often-costly foreclosure process.

The plan also creates a new regulator with tighter controls for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and modernizes the FHA.

It includes about $15 billion in housing tax breaks, including a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers for people who bought homes between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009. It also allows people who don't itemize their taxes to claim a $500-$1,000 deduction on their 2008 property taxes. That chiefly benefits homeowners who have paid off their homes and can't claim a deduction for mortgage interest.

And it increases the statutory limit on the national debt by $800 billion, to $10.6 trillion.

The White House, which initially denounced the FHA rescue as too burdensome on the government and risky for taxpayers, dropped most of its objections to the measure in recent weeks in search of a swift deal. The urgent request by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson to throw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a federal lifeline acted as a powerful locomotive for a deal.

The bill sets a cap of $625,000 on the loans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may buy and the FHA may insure. It lets them buy and back mortgages up to 15 percent above the median home price in certain areas.

Lawmakers abandoned efforts to place conditions on any Fannie and Freddie rescue, but the bill hands the new regulator approval power over the pay packages of executives at the companies regardless of whether the government moves to prop them up.

It also counts any federal infusion for the mortgage giants under the debt limit, essentially capping how much the government could spend to prop up the companies without further approval from Congress. As of Tuesday, the national debt that counts toward the limit stood at about $9.5 trillion, roughly $360 billion below the statutory ceiling.

Bash Bush

Former press secretary's book bashes Bush

WASHINGTON - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush's presidency "terribly off course.'

The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."

"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.

White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of the book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague.

"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew."

Perino said the reports on the book had been described to Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment. "He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.

The book provoked strong reactions from former staffers as well.

"For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional," Fran Townsend, former head of the White House-based counterterrorism office, told CNN.

Said former top aide Karl Rove, in an interview with Fox News Channel, "If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them. And frankly I don't remember him speaking up about these things. I don't remember a single word."

Richard Clarke, another former counterterrorism adviser who also came out with a book critical of administration policy, said he could understand McClellan's thinking, however. Clarke told CNN that he, too, was harshly criticized, saying that "I can show you the tire tracks."

McClellan called the Iraq war a "serious strategic blunder," a surprisingly harsh assessment from the man who was at that time the loyal public voice of the White House who had followed Bush to Washington from Texas.

"The Iraq war was not necessary," he concludes. "Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake."

McClellan admits that some of his own words from the podium in the White House briefing room turned out to be "badly misguided." But he says he was sincere at the time.

"When words I uttered, believing them to be true, were exposed as false, I was constrained by my duties and loyalty to the president and unable to comment," he said. "But I promised reporters and the public that I would someday tell the whole story of what I knew."

The former press secretary — the second of four so far in Bush's presidency — explained his dramatic shift from loyal defender to fierce critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, he wrote, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person.

"I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be," McClellan writes. He also blames the media whose questions he fielded, calling them "complicit enablers" in the White House campaign to manipulate public opinion toward the need for war.

McClellan said Bush loyalists will no doubt continue to think the administration's decisions have been correct and its unpopularity undeserved. "I've become genuinely convinced otherwise," he said.

The book is scheduled to go on sale June 1. Quotes from the book were first reported Tuesday night by the Web site Politico, which said it found McClellan's memoir on sale early at a bookstore.

McClellan draws a portrait of Bush as possessing "personal charm, wit and enormous political skill." He said Bush's record as Texas governor and "disarming personality" inspired him to follow him and that his administration early on possessed "seeds of greatness."

But, McClellan said, Bush's unwillingness to admit mistakes and belief in his own spin contributed to turning the president into "not quite the leader I once imagined him to be." He faults Bush for a "lack of inquisitiveness" and "a degree of self-deception that may be psychologically necessary to justify the tactics needed to win the political game."

Bush "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," McClellan writes.

Jesus Answers Prayers

Pilots run out of fuel, pray, land near Jesus sign

Wed May 21, 7:50 PM ET

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - It seemed like an almost literal answer to their prayers. When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field — coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord."

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, both from the town of Blenheim on the country's South Island, were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound when the engine spluttered, coughed and died.

"My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God's help," Stubbs told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

He said he prayed during the ill-fated flight Sunday that the tiny craft would get over the top of a ridge and that they would find a landing site that was not too steep — or in the nearby sea.

Wilson said that the pair would have been in deep trouble if the fuel had run out five minutes earlier.

"If it had to run out, that was the place to be," he said. "There was an instantaneous answer to prayer as we crossed the ridge and there was an airfield — I didn't know it existed till then."

After Wilson glided the powerless craft to a landing on the grassy strip, the pair noticed they were beside a 20-foot-tall sign that read, "Jesus is Lord — The Bible."

"When we saw that, we started laughing," Stubbs said.

Nearby residents provided them with gas to fly the home-built plane back to base.

LifeLock Doesn’t Work

ID-protection ads come back to bite pitchman

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Thu May 22, 7:09 AM ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug.

Now, Lifelock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him.

Attorney David Paris said he found records of other people applying for or receiving driver's licenses at least 20 times using Davis' Social Security number, though some of the applications may have been rejected because data in them didn't match what the Social Security Administration had on file.

Davis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity, and one succeeded: a guy in Texas who duped an online payday loan operation last year into giving him $500 using Davis' Social Security number.

Paris said the fact Davis' records were compromised at all supports the claim that Tempe, Ariz.-based LifeLock doesn't provide the comprehensive protection its advertisements say it does.

"It's further evidence of the ineffectiveness of the services that LifeLock advertises," said Paris, who is lead attorney on the three new lawsuits, the latest of which was filed this month.

Davis learned about the fraud in Texas when the payday-loan outfit called to collect on the loan, he said. He didn't get an alert beforehand because the company didn't go through one of the three major credit bureaus before approving the transaction.

Davis said it's possible driver's licenses have been issued to other people in his name because of the widespread availability of his personal information — and because of what he described as the flimsy mechanisms in place to report that kind of fraud.

Paris noted that LifeLock charges $10 a month to set fraud alerts with credit bureaus, even though consumers can do it themselves for free.

But Davis stands by his company and his advertising gimmick, which has appeared in newspapers and on billboards, radio and MTV. He even broadcasts it by bullhorn on walking tours through crowded downtowns.

"There's nothing on my actual credit report about uncollected funds, no outstanding tickets or warrants or anything," he said. "There's nothing to indicate my identity has been successfully compromised other than the one instance. I know I'm taking a slightly higher risk. But I'll take my risk for the tremendous benefit we're bringing to society and to consumers."

The lawsuits, for which Paris is seeking class-action status, highlight the fundamental limits on how much security identity-theft companies can provide.

Companies like LifeLock can help guard against only certain types of financial fraud by helping consumers set up alerts with credit bureaus, which inform them when someone tries to open a new line of credit or boost their credit limit to finance a buying binge, for example.

The services don't guard against many types of identity theft such as use of a stolen Social Security number on a job application or for medical services, or even the instance of an arrestee giving police a stolen Social Security number to shield his own identity.

LifeLock is also being sued in Arizona over its $1 million service guarantee, which the plaintiffs claim is misleading because it only covers a defect in LifeLock's service, and in California by the Experian credit bureau. Experian accuses LifeLock of deceiving consumers about the breadth of its protection and abusing the system for attaching fraud alerts to credit reports.

Security experts say complaints about the company reinforce the time-honored wisdom of keeping your Social Security number secret.

"There's been a lot of marketing, a lot of hype about LifeLock," said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. "The question is, 'How much protection does it really buy you?'"

"There is no company that can guarantee they can protect you (completely) against identity theft," Stephens said. "Absolutely nobody can do that."

Osama Bin Forgotten

Bin Laden: Palestinian cause fuels war

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 22 minutes ago (05/16/08)

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden said in a new audio recording released Friday that al-Qaida will continue its holy war against Israel and its allies until it liberates Palestine.

The terrorist leader's third statement this year came as President Bush was wrapping up his visit to Israel to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.

Bin Laden said the fight for the Palestinian cause was the most important factor driving al-Qaida's war with the West and fueled 19 Muslims to carry out the suicide attacks against the U.S. on September 11.

"To Western nations ... this speech is to understand the core reason of the war between our civilization and your civilizations. I mean the Palestinian cause," said bin Laden in the close to 10 minute audiotape.

"The Palestinian cause is the major issue for my (Islamic) nation. It was an important element in fueling me from the beginning and the 19 others with a great motive to fight for those subjected to injustice and the oppressed," added bin Laden.

Al-Qaida has been stepping up its attempts to use the Israeli-Arab conflict to rally supporters. Israel has warned of growing al-Qaida activity in Palestinian territory, though the terror network is not believed to have taken a strong role there so far.

The authenticity of the message could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site commonly used by al-Qaida and the voice resembled the one in past bin Laden audiotapes. Though it was unknown exactly when the audio was recorded, but it referenced Israel's 60th anniversary, which began May 8.

IntelCenter, a U.S. group that monitors al-Qaida message traffic, said the audio message was accompanied by a photo of bin Laden wearing a white robe and turban next to a picture of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. It was unclear when the photo of bin Laden was taken.

The al-Qaida leader said the Western media managed to brainwash people over the past 60 years by "portraying the Jewish invaders, the occupiers of our land, as the victims while it portrayed us as the terrorists."

"Sixty years ago, the Israeli state didn't exist. Instead, it was established on the land of Palestine raped by force," said bin Laden. "Israelis are occupying invaders whom we should fight."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel dismissed bin Laden's new message.

"We do not relate or pay attention to the words of this terrorist lunatic," he said. "The time has come for him to be apprehended and pay for his crimes."

Bin Laden criticized Western leaders like Bush who participated in Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations. Bush feted Israel on Thursday and predicted that its 120th birthday would find it alongside a Palestinian state and in an all-democratic neighborhood free of today's oppression, restrictions on freedom and extremist Muslim movements.

Delivering this rosy forecast for the Middle East in 2068 during a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, Bush made no acknowledgment of the hardship Palestinians suffered when hundreds of thousands were displaced following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, a counterpoint to Israel's two weeks of jubilant celebrations.

Though Bush has set a goal of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian deal before the end of his term in January, he did not mention the ongoing negotiations or how to resolve the thorniest disputes.

Bin Laden said Western leaders were insincere in their expressed desire for Israeli-Palestinian peace and failed to criticize Israel.

"Peace talks that started 60 years ago are just meant to deceive the idiots," said bin Laden. "After all the destruction and the killings ... your leaders talk about principles. This is unbearable."

The terrorist leader mentioned former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who he said ordered a Jewish militia to attack the Arab village of Deir Yassin in 1948. The attack during Israel's push for statehood killed more than 100 Arabs and forced the rest of the village to flee.

"Instead of punishing him (Begin) over his crimes ... he was awarded a Nobel prize," said bin Laden.

Begin won the Nobel peace prize for negotiating a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, Israel's first with an Arab nation. The Israeli leader shared the prize with former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was Begin's negotiating partner. Israel has only signed one other peace treaty with an Arab nation, Jordan.

"We will continue our struggle against the Israelis and their allies," said bin Laden. "We are not going to give up an inch of the land of Palestine."

Bin Laden's message Friday followed an audiotape released in March in which he lashed out at Palestinian peace negotiations with Israel.

The March audiotape was the first time bin Laden spoke of the Palestinian question at length since the deteriorating situation in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military has been fighting with militants who fire rockets into southern Israel. Israel has been battling Hamas in Gaza since the Islamic militant group took control of the strip last June from followers of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Spending

Incomes and spending both slow in April

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 20 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The first round of economic stimulus checks gave a boost to personal incomes in April but a huge question remains: Will people spend the checks quickly enough to keep the economy afloat?

The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending barely budged in April, rising a tiny 0.2 percent, and income growth was just as weak, increasing a similar 0.2 percent.

The growth in incomes, held back by four straight months of jobs losses, would have been just 0.1 percent had it not been for the first wave of economic stimulus payments that the government started sending out April 28.

The impact on incomes should be even larger in the May and June reports, reflecting the bulk of the payments. The Treasury Department reported Friday that so far 57.4 million payments have been made totaling $50.04 billion, nearly half of the $106.7 billion that will be disbursed this year to 130 million households.

The checks are the centerpiece of a $169 billion stimulus package that Congress passed at President Bush's urging in February with the aim of jump-starting the stalled economy. Analysts said whether they keep the economy out of a recession will depend on how fast people spend the money.

"It will be impressive if consumers can manage to hold on given all the headwinds they are facing," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's . "Nothing is going right. Jobs are down, the stock market is wobbly, home prices are plunging and gasoline prices are at record highs."

All the problems have pushed consumer confidence to recessionary levels. The Reuters/University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment dropped for a fourth straight month in May, hitting a 28-year low of 59.8, down from a reading of 62.6 in April. The May level was the lowest since June 1980, when Jimmy Carter was in the White House and consumers were being battered by a recession and soaring gasoline prices.

Despite worries that consumers may end up using their stimulus checks to pay off credit card debt rather than spending the money to give the economy a boost, analysts said they believed that about two-thirds of the money will get spent this year, enough to keep the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, in positive territory.

The government on Thursday revised its estimate of first quarter GDP growth up to a rate of 0.9 percent, slightly better than the 0.6 percent original forecast. While many economists had believed that the economy would slip into negative territory during the current April-June quarter, the modest growth in consumer spending in April and hopes of better figures going forward are causing analysts to revise their estimates upward.

"So far, the economy is proving more resilient than we gave it credit for," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York, who said GDP growth could come in around 0.5 percent in the current quarter and then rebound to around 2 percent in the July-September quarter, as consumers spend their stimulus checks.

But Wyss and some other analysts cautioned that the boost in economic activity could be short-lived, only delaying a full-blown recession into early next year.

"There is considerable risk that the tax rebates will only put a Band-Aid over a large and growing wound to consumer sentiment with a rising possibility of a sharp pullback in spending later in 2008 or in early 2009," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at Global Insight.

The 0.2 percent rise in personal incomes in April was the weakest gain since a 0.2 percent rise in January.

Private wages and salaries fell at an annual rate of $18.2 billion in April, the biggest setback in a year. Businesses have been cutting jobs for four straight months, with analysts forecasting a fifth month of job declines when the government reports next Friday on labor market conditions in May.

The 0.2 percent rise in consumer spending followed a 0.4 percent increase in March. Increases in recent months have largely reflected the big surge in energy costs and, to a lesser extent, higher food prices. Excluding inflation, consumer spending would have been flat in April.

Consumer prices, measured by an inflation gauge tied to spending, rose by 0.2 percent, down from a 0.3 percent rise in March.

The personal savings rate, the amount of spending compared to after-tax incomes, held steady at 0.7 percent in April, the same level as in February and March.

Revealing Signatures

[pic]

In US election, every (written) word counts

by Virginie Montet Sun May 18, 3:30 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton is smart and forceful, John McCain is proud but has a volatile temper, and Barack Obama is a diplomat who deals well with different people and situations.

At least, that's what graphologists say their handwriting reveals about them.

"Handwriting is a reflection of the inner personality. It shows a person's ego strength, how good they feel about themselves, their intellectual, communication and working styles," graphologist Sheila Lowe, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis", told AFP.

Graphology -- the study of how we loop our Ls and cross our Ts -- is not taken as seriously in the United States as in Europe.

But every four years, when a US presidential election rolls around, practitioners of the arcane science are much sought after as Americans try everything to analyze contenders for the White House.

"Each time there are elections, I get invited to TV shows, radio shows," Lowe said. "There is always somebody who wants to know something, even if they don't take graphology seriously."

Just the signatures of the candidates are revelatory -- at least to the eye of an expert.

Republican John McCain's signature shows a proud, idealistic but impulsive, if not uncontrollable man, according to the experts.

Lowe saw impulsiveness and a "short fuse" in McCain's variable writing style.

New York graphologist Roger Rubin agreed, and also saw a powerful ego at play in the senator from Arizona.

"The unevenness of the rhythm reflects the unevenness of his temperament," Rubin said.

"The capital J is the largest letter, which shows his strong belief in his own ego. The size of 'John' overwhelms the size of 'McCain' -- this shows how distant he is from his family roots."

Obama's signature reveals similar traits.

The vertical straight line of the B in Obama cuts through the large O -- which is nonetheless smaller than the B in Barack.

"The very large B shows he also has a very strong sense of his own ego," Rubin said.

"And he is crossing out his family name," he added, recalling that Obama's father left the family when the front-runner for the Democratic nomination was just a young boy.

Another graphologist had a different interpretation of the bisected O.

"He draws that circle and a line through it, and it's really like he has two different worlds," said Paula Sassi, who has been interpreting handwriting for 28 years.

"I think it shows his black and white heritage."

The fluidity of Obama's signature is a sign of high intelligence, while its illegibility shows he is protecting his privacy.

"He doesn't want you to know him too well," said Arlyn Imberman, author of "Signatures for Success."

"He shows a part of himself to the world but not everything," said Lowe.

The large letters in Obama's signature show that he is ambitious, self-confident and views himself as a leader, said Imberman.

"The fluid letter forms reveal that he can form a coalition, be diplomatic and get along with both sides of the aisle," she added. "He's the type of guy who could tell you to go to hell and you'd enjoy the trip."

Clinton's legible, balanced signature shows a woman of great intelligence.

It's simplicity portrays a "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" personality, said Lowe.

Her straight-up-and-down writing indicates that she "thinks with her head, not with her heart," said Sassi.

"But there is enough roundness in her writing to show that she cares about people," said Imberman.

The fact that the second leg of the H and the second L in Hillary are higher than the first show ambition.

And she's a perfectionist: "Every thing is written carefully, legibly," said Imberman.

It is difficult, the experts say, to tell the sex of a person from their handwriting, or to discern if they are left- or right-handed.

But, interestingly enough, Obama and McCain are lefties -- just like four out of five US presidents immediately before them: Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr and Bill Clinton.

Sister pregnant with Sister

9-year-old girl's twin is found inside her stomach

ATHENS, Greece - A 9-year-old girl who went to hospital in central Greece suffering from stomach pains was found to be carrying her embryonic twin, doctors said Thursday.

Doctors at Larissa General Hospital examined the girl and surgically removed a growth they later discovered was an embryo more than two inches long.

"They could see on the right side that her belly was swollen, but they couldn't suspect that this tumor would hide an embryo," hospital director Iakovos Brouskelis said.

The girl has made a full recovery, he said.

Andreas Markou, head of the hospital's pediatric department, said the embryo was a formed fetus with a head, hair and eyes, but no brain or umbilical cord.

Markou said cases where one of a set of twins absorbs the other in the womb occurs in one of 500,000 live births.

The girl's family did not want to be identified, hospital officials said.

One More Reason Not To Vote For McCain

McCain believes Iraq war can be won by 2013

By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

The Republican presidential contender, in a mystical speech that also envisioned Osama bin Laden dead or captured, and Americans with the choice of paying a simple flat tax or following their standard 1040 form, said only a small number of troops would remain in Iraq by the end of a prospective first term because al-Qaida will have been defeated and Iraq's government will be functioning on its own.

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won," McCain told an audience of several hundred here in the capital city of a general election battleground state.

Later, as the Arizona senator drove to the airport on his "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus, McCain was peppered by reporters with questions about the timetable. He and his aides insisted there was a difference between ending the war and bringing troops home and, as they criticize the Democrats, announcing a withdrawal upfront without regard for the military endgame.

"It's not a timetable; it's victory. It's victory, which I have always predicted. I didn't know when we were going to win World War II; I just knew we were going to win," McCain said.

The Vietnam veteran added: "I know from experience, you set a day for surrender — which is basically what you do when you say you are withdrawing — and you will pay a much a heavier price later on."

In the primary campaign, McCain had criticized former Republican rival Mitt Romney for hinting at a timetable.

Democrats challenged McCain's comments, led by presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In a statement, the New York senator dismissed McCain and said he "promises more of the same Bush policies that have weakened our military, our national security and our standing in the world." The Barack Obama campaign said that while the candidate agrees with some of McCain's sentiments, "you cannot embrace the destructive policies and divisive political tactics of George Bush and still offer yourself as a candidate of healing and change."

Other Democrats equated McCain's comment with President Bush's May 1, 2003, speech on the deck of an aircraft carrier displaying a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

In his remarks, McCain peered through a crystal ball to 2013 and envisioned an era of bipartisanship driven by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress.

The senator conceded he cannot make the changes alone, but said he wanted to outline a specific governing style to show the accomplishments it can achieve. He backed up his remarks with a Web ad featuring similar content.

"I'm not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end. We belong to different parties, not different countries," McCain said. "There is a time to campaign, and a time to govern. If I'm elected president, the era of the permanent campaign will end; the era of problem-solving will begin."

To the disdain of some fellow Republicans, the likely GOP nominee has worked with Democrats on legislation aimed at overhauling campaign finance regulations, redrafting immigration rules and regulations and implementing government spending controls.

While that has cultivated a maverick image for McCain, the Arizona senator has also been accused of exhibiting a nasty temper — swearing even at fellow lawmakers from his own party — and unabashed partisanship.

In particular, McCain has clashed with the leading Democratic presidential contender, Barack Obama. After tangling with the Illinois senator on lobbying reforms, McCain questioned Obama's integrity in a publicly released 2006 letter.

McCain wrote he had thought Obama's interest in ethics legislation "was genuine and admirable," before adding: "Thank you for disabusing me of such notions." He accused Obama of "partisan posturing."

In outlining other potential achievements of a first term in his speech, the 71-year-old McCain implicitly was suggesting he would seek a second term, an attempt to mute suggestions he would serve only four years after being the oldest president elected.

In particular, he sees a world in which the Taliban threat in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced.

He added: "The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants. ... There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001."

McCain also pledged to halt a Bush administration practice of enacting laws with accompanying signing statements that exempt the president from having to enforce parts he finds objectionable.

Legalize Slavery

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - April 30, 2008 (WPVI) -- A state senator told a black pastor testifying at a committee hearing that, given the chance to cast secret ballots, his fellow legislators would vote to legalize slavery.

Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, D-Philadelphia, made the comments Tuesday during a hearing on a Republican-sponsored bill to amend the state Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriages and civil unions, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on its Web site Wednesday.

"What you are advocating here is that we take away the rights of a minority. And I don't think that's right," Fumo, a staunch defender of gay rights, told the witness, Gilbert Coleman Jr., senior pastor of Freedom Christian Bible Fellowship in Philadelphia.

He added, "If we introduced a bill on slavery, it might pass. That doesn't make it right."

Coleman, who was testifying in favor of the measure, responded: "I doubt that sir."

"Oh, don't bet on it in this General Assembly," Fumo countered. "I know some people up here, especially on a secret ballot, it would be almost unanimous."

Bishop Gilbert Coleman Junior told Action News, he was very surprised of his exchange with Senator Vince Fumo became so heated.

Coleman is Senior Pastor at Freedom Christian Bible Fellowship in West Philadelphia. He was in Harrisburg to testify in favor of the bill amending the state constitution to outlaw same sex marriages and civil unions.

Senator Fumo is a staunch defender of gay rights.

The two men traded words, even before fumo brought up slavery.

Fumo is in his final months in office after a 30-year career as a state senator. He faces trial in September on 139 counts of federal corruption.

Coleman said he saw Fumo as an angry man under a great deal of pressure, who must now apologize to his fellow legislators.

"I have friends there in the Senate who I know are not like that and for him to say that he would get a unanimous vote is something that I think is a bit much," Coleman said. The Senate Appropriations Committee could vote on the gay marriage measure as early as Monday.

In a statement Fumo said, "i wanted people at the hearing to face the facts that denying human rights to any group including homosexuals at any point in our history, including in 2008, is wrong."

Housing aid bills face vetoes by President Bush

WASHINGTON - Strapped homeowners could refinance into government-backed mortgages and states would get money to deal with foreclosed property under Democrats' housing aid plan.

The measures, slated for votes Thursday, constitute the most significant action Congress has taken to date to address the housing crisis that's at the center of the nation's economic woes.

President Bush has threatened to veto both measures, which he says reward lenders and speculators. Democrats counter that the bills will head off hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, stabilize the shaky housing market, and prevent neighborhood blight.

The centerpiece of their plan is a bill by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the House Financial Services Committee chairman, to have the Federal Housing Administration relax its standards and back up to $300 billion in more affordable, fixed-rate loans for borrowers currently too financially strapped to qualify.

Those homeowners could refinance into new loans if their lenders agreed to take substantial losses on the original mortgages. Borrowers would have to show they could afford to make payments on the new loans. They would have to share with FHA at least half of their proceeds if they profited from selling or refinancing again.

The plan is projected to help roughly 500,000 borrowers at a cost of $2.7 billion over the next five years.

A separate bill by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., would send $15 billion in loans and grants to states for the purchase and rehabilitation of foreclosed properties. Proponents say it will prevent blight in neighborhoods plagued by abandoned, foreclosed homes.

But Republican critics argue it rewards lenders and investors who own the property, and could act as an incentive for them to foreclose rather than find ways to help struggling borrowers stay in their homes.

Democrats, seeking Republican support for their housing package, were planning to attach a grab-bag of measures Bush has called for.

Those include legislation to overhaul the FHA, to more tightly regulate government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and authority for state and local housing finance agencies to use tax-exempt bonds to refinance distressed subprime mortgages.

The plan is also to include a housing tax credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home-buyers, to be paid back over 15 years. It would permanently raise the limit on the size of loans FHA could insure and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could buy to $729,750 in the highest-cost housing markets. Those caps are scheduled to fall at the end of the year, to $362,790 for the FHA, and to $417,000 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

New Law

Tests could reveal facts 'making individual less useful to society'

Posted: May 01, 2008 11:40 pm Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily

With virtually no fanfare, President Bush signed into law a plan ordering the government to take no more than six months to set up a "national contingency plan" to screen newborns' DNA in case of a "public health emergency."

The new law requires that the results of the program – including "information … research, and data on newborn screening" – shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and made available on the Internet.

According to congressional records, S.1858, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was approved in the Senate Dec. 13, in the House April 8 and signed by Bush April 24.

"Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care. "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research."

Brase has objected extensively to plans in Minnesota to provide state government the same option now handed to the federal government by Congress.

The bill, she said, strips "citizens of genetic privacy rights and DNA property rights. It bill also violates research ethics and the Nuremberg Code.

"The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA data-banking and population-wide genetic research," Brase continued. "It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child's DNA for the purpose of genetic research.

"Already, in Minnesota, the state health department reports that 42,210 children of the 780,000 whose DNA is housed in the Minnesota 'DNA warehouse' have been subjected to genetic research without their parent's knowledge or consent," she said.

The federal plan sets up the coast-to-coast DNA collections then report the results to "physicians and families" as well as educate families about newborn screening.

"We now are considered guinea pigs, as opposed to human beings with rights," said Brase, warning such DNA databases could spark the next wave of demands for eugenics, the concept of improving the human race through the control of various inherited traits. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, advocated eugenics to cull from the population types of people she considered unfit.

In 1921, Sanger said eugenics is "the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems," and she later lamented "the ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all."

Such DNA collection programs are offered as screening requirements to detect treatable illnesses. Currently, the type of tests conducted varies from state-to-state, but the Health Resources and Services Administration has requested a report that would "include a recommendation for a uniform panel of conditions."

"Fortunately," Dodd said when his plan was launched, "some newborn screening occurs in every state. … This legislation will provide resources for states to expand their newborn screening programs."

So what's the big deal about looking into DNA to hunt for various disease possibilities?

Nothing, said Brase, if that's where the hunt would end.

However, she said, "researchers already are looking for genes related to violence, crime and different behaviors."

"This isn't just about diabetes, asthma and cancer," she said. "It's also about behavioral issues."

"In England they decided they should have doctors looking for problem children, and have those children reported, and their DNA taken in case they would become criminals," she said.

In fact, published reports in the UK note that senior police forensics experts believe genetic samples should be studied, because it may be possible to identify potential criminals as young as age 5.

In Britain, Chris Davis of the National Primary Head Teachers' Association warned the move could be seen "as a step towards a police state."

Brase said efforts to study traits and gene factors and classify people would be just the beginning. What could happen through subsequent programs to address such conditions, she wondered.

"Not all research is great," she said. Classifying of people could lead to "discrimination and prejudice. … People can look at data about you and make assessments ultimately of who you are."

The Heartland Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening is one of the organizations that advocates more screening and research.

It proclaims in its vision statement a desire to see newborns screened for 200 conditions. It also forecasts "every student … with an individual program for education based on confidential interpretation of their family medical history, their brain imaging, their genetic predictors of best learning methods."

Further, every individual should share information about "personal and family health histories" as well as "gene tests for recessive conditions and drug metabolism" with the "other parent of their future children."

Still further, it seeks "ecogenetic research that could improve health, lessen disability, and lower costs for sickness."

"They want to test every child for 200 conditions, take the child's history and a brain image, and genetics, and come up with a plan for that child," Brase said. "They want to learn their weaknesses and defects.

"Nobody including and especially the government should be allowed to create such extensive profiles," she said.

The next step, said Brase, is obvious: The government, with information about potential health weaknesses, could say to couples, "We don't want your expensive children."

"I think people have forgotten about eugenics. The fact of the matter is that the eugenicists have not gone away. Newborn genetic testing is the entry into the 21st Century version of eugenics," she said.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has posted a position statement on the issue, noting that many good things can result from genetic testing.

However, it expressed two significant areas of concern.

"History shows that this information will sometimes be leaked or misused, regardless of who controls it. When private companies leak information and break people's confidence, they have often been exposed and punished, as people no longer buy their services or sue. In contrast, when government agencies do the same, the guilty bureaucrats have often been protected and rewarded instead of suffering meaningful consequences," the group said.

The AAPS said in order to do the best possible job of protecting privacy, anyone who has access to DNA data should be "individually liable in the event of unlawful disclosure of genetic testing information.

The other area of concern is equally significant.

"Genetic testing could be used for purposes found immoral in the Hippocratic medical tradition. For example, a utilitarian use of testing, in this example also immoral, would be to test for conditions which would make an individual less useful to society for the purpose of killing that person, as has been done in some totalitarian systems, such as Nazi Germany. Likewise, the use of genetic testing in attempts to breed a super race would be immoral and unethical. In these examples, the utility of the person to the society is the deciding factor, a position antithetical to the Hippocratic tradition of primary responsibility to the individual patient rather than to an amorphous society or relativistic social policies," the group said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, was one of the few voices to warn of the dangers. Before the plan's approval, he said, "I cannot support legislation, no matter how much I sympathize with the legislation’s stated goals, that exceed the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. Since S. 1858 violates the Constitution, and may have untended consequences that will weaken the American health care system and further erode medical privacy, I must oppose it."

Paul said, "S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States.

He also said as the federal government assumes more control over health care, medical privacy is coming under assault.

"Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children," Paul continued.

"In fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a 'public health' disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of 'emergency," he said.

Head Switch

Company to reprint yearbooks after head switching

McKINNEY, Texas - School officials say they are appalled by altered photos — including heads on different bodies — in hundreds of McKinney High School yearbooks delivered this week.

Besides the head and body switching, some necks were stretched, one girl's arm was missing, and another girl's head was placed on what appeared to be a nude body, with the chest blurred.

A spokeswoman for Minnesota-based Lifetouch National School Studios Inc. said the alterations were "an unfortunate lapse in judgment" by an employee but didn't believe it was malicious.

The high school had required Lifetouch to make heads the same size and eyes at the same level in all student photos, company spokeswoman Sara Thurin Rollin said Saturday. The request was "unusual and definitely very particular, but that's not to suggest what happened here is acceptable," she said.

Rollin declined to say if the company fired or reprimanded the employee who altered the images. She said Lifetouch is taking full responsibility for the altered pictures, about 30 in all, and will pay to have the publication reprinted before the seniors graduate.

Lori Oglesbee, the school's yearbook adviser at McKinney High School, said the yearbook staff would spend the weekend rebuilding the yearbook.

McKinney is about 20 miles north of Dallas.

Sleeping Green Tea

Green tea may shield brain from sleep apnea effects

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Compounds found in green tea may help ward off the neurological damage that can come with the breathing disorder sleep apnea, a new animal study hints.

Researchers found that when they added green tea antioxidants to rats' drinking water, it appeared to protect the animals' brains during bouts of oxygen deprivation designed to mimic the effects of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

The findings suggest that green tea compounds should be further studied as a potential OSA therapy, the researchers report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

OSA is a common disorder in which soft tissues in the throat temporarily collapse and block the airway during sleep, causing repeated stops and starts in breathing throughout the night.

The immediate symptoms include chronic loud snoring and gasping, as well as daytime sleepiness. Left untreated, OSA can eventually have widespread effects in the body; it's linked to high blood pressure, and research suggests that the intermittent dips in oxygen to the brain may lead to memory and learning difficulties.

In the new study, Dr. David Gozal and colleagues at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky looked at whether green tea compounds called catechin polyphenols could help shield the brain from this oxygen deprivation.

Catechin polyphenols act as antioxidants, which means they help neutralize cell-damaging particles called oxygen free radicals. Free radicals are normal byproducts of metabolism, but in excess they lead to a state known as oxidative stress.

It's thought that the oxygen deprivation of OSA leads to oxidative stress, and that this, at least in part, explains the cognitive problems seen in some people with the sleep disorder.

Gozal and his colleagues found that when rats were exposed to periodic bouts of oxygen deprivation over 14 days, it did boost signs of oxidative stress in the brain. This didn't happen, however, if rats had been given water containing green tea polyphenols.

What's more, compared with rats given plain water, these animals performed better on a standard test of learning and memory -- a water "maze" designed to encourage the animals to remember the location of an escape platform.

In theory, Gozal told Reuters Health, a regular cup of green tea could be beneficial, used alongside standard OSA treatment.

"However," he said, "definitive proof that green tea would help will have to await a trial in human patients."

SOURCE: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, May 15, 2008s

Conservatives Happier Than Liberals

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."

To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance. In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.

If your beliefs don't justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.

"Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, "apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive (or at least neutral) light."

The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.

The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.

"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."

The current study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Humans: The Strangest Species

Video: How Wishful Thinking Affects Seeing

10 Things You Didn't Know About You

Original Story: Conservatives Happier Than Liberals

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Beer Coffin

Illinois man orders custom beer-can coffin

SOUTH CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Ill. - Bill Bramanti will love Pabst Blue Ribbon eternally, and he's got the custom-made beer-can casket to prove it. "I actually fit, because I got in here," said Bramanti of South Chicago Heights.

The 67-year-old Glenwood village administrator doesn't plan on needing it anytime soon, though.

He threw a party Saturday for friends and filled his silver coffin — designed in Pabst's colors of red, white and blue — with ice and his favorite brew.

"Why put such a great novelty piece up on a shelf in storage when you could use it only the way Bill Bramanti would use it?" said Bramanti's daughter, Cathy Bramanti, 42.

Bramanti ordered the casket from Panozzo Bros. Funeral Home in Chicago Heights, and Scott Sign Co. of Chicago Heights designed the beer can.

Wise Babies

Study shows breast-fed children are smarter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new study provides some of the best evidence to date that breast-feeding can make children smarter, an international team of researchers said on Monday.

Children whose mothers breast-fed them longer and did not mix in baby formula scored higher on intelligence tests, the researchers in Canada and Belarus reported.

About half the 14,000 babies were randomly assigned to a group in which prolonged and exclusive breast-feeding by the mother was encouraged at Belarussian hospitals and clinics. The mothers of the other babies received no special encouragement.

Those in the breast-feeding encouragement group were, on average, breast-fed longer than the others and were less likely to have been given formula in a bottle.

At 3 months, 73 percent of the babies in the breast-feeding encouragement group were breast-fed, compared to 60 percent of the other group. At 6 months, it was 50 percent versus 36 percent.

In addition, the group given encouragement was far more likely to give their children only breast milk. The rate was seven times higher, for example, at 3 months.

The children were monitored for about 6 1/2 years.

The children in the group where breast-feeding was encouraged scored about 5 percent higher in IQ tests and did better academically, the researchers found.

Previous studies had indicated brain development and intelligence benefits for breast-fed children.

But researchers have sought to determine whether it was the breast-feeding that did it, or that mothers who prefer to breast-feed their babies may differ from those who do not.

The design of the study -- randomly assigning babies to two groups regardless of the mothers' characteristics -- was intended to eliminate the confusion.

'MOTHERS WHO BREAST-FEED ... ARE DIFFERENT'

"Mothers who breast-feed or those who breast-feed longer or most exclusively are different from the mothers who don't," Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal and the Montreal Children's Hospital said in a telephone interview.

"They tend to be smarter. They tend to be more invested in their babies. They tend to interact with them more closely. They may be the kind of mothers who read to their kids more, who spend more time with their kids, who play with them more," added Kramer, who led the study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

The researchers measured the differences between the two groups using IQ tests administered by the children's pediatricians and by ratings by their teachers of their school performance in reading, writing, math and other subjects.

Both sets of scores were significantly higher in the children from the breast-feeding promotion group.

The study was launched in the mid-1990s. Kramer said the initial idea was to do it in the United States and Canada, but many hospitals in those countries by that time had begun strongly encouraging breast-feeding as a matter of routine.

The situation was different in Belarus at the time, he said, with less routine encouragement for the practice.

Kramer said how breast-feeding may make children more intelligent is unclear.

"It could even be that because breast-feeding takes longer, the mother is interacting more with the baby, talking with the baby, soothing the baby," he said. "It could be an emotional thing. It could be a physical thing. Or it could be a hormone or something else in the milk that's absorbed by the baby."

Previous studies have shown babies whose mothers breast-fed them enjoy many health advantages over formula-fed babies.

These include fewer ear, stomach or intestinal infections, digestive problems, skin diseases and allergies, and less risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that women who do not have health problems exclusively breast-feed their infants for at least the first six months, with it continuing at least through the first year as other foods are introduced.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Stacey Joyce)

Picked To Die

Who should MDs let die in a pandemic? Report offers answers

CHICAGO - Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.

Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.

The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources — including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses — are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.

Their recommendations appear in a report appearing Monday in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.

"If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing," the report states.

To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:

_People older than 85.

_Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings.

_Severely burned patients older than 60.

_Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease.

_Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.

Dr. Kevin Yeskey, director of the preparedness and emergency operations office at the Department of Health and Human Services, was on the task force. He said the report would be among many the agency reviews as part of preparedness efforts.

Public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the report an important initiative but also "a political minefield and a legal minefield."

The recommendations would probably violate federal laws against age discrimination and disability discrimination, said Gostin, who was not on the task force.

If followed to a tee, such rules could exclude care for the poorest, most disadvantaged citizens who suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and disability, he said. While health care rationing will be necessary in a mass disaster, "there are some real ethical concerns here."

James Bentley, a senior vice president at American Hospital Association, said the report will give guidance to hospitals in shaping their own preparedness plans even if they don't follow all the suggestions.

He said the proposals resemble a battlefield approach in which limited health care resources are reserved for those most likely to survive.

Bentley said it's not the first time this type of approach has been recommended for a catastrophic pandemic, but that "this is the most detailed one I have seen from a professional group."

While the notion of rationing health care is unpleasant, the report could help the public understand that it will be necessary, Bentley said.

Devereaux said compiling the list "was emotionally difficult for everyone."

That's partly because members believe it's just a matter of time before such a health care disaster hits, she said.

"You never know," Devereaux said. "SARS took a lot of folks by surprise. We didn't even know it existed."

Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters puts life on display with book `Audition'

NEW YORK - No one doubts she's hard-driving. But she has never learned to drive, Barbara Walters reveals in her new memoir, "Audition."

She also discloses that she looks better on camera when shot from the left — advice she got from Sir Laurence Olivier when interviewing him in 1980.

And she allots six pages from the book's 612 for a startling confession: Her "long and rocky affair" in the 1970s with politician who was married and — further upping the ante — an African American. This covert romance between U.S. Senator Edward Brooke and Walters, then co-host of NBC's "Today" show, made headlines (and raised eyebrows) when it was leaked last week.

"I think it surprises people because it's me," said Walters during an interview Friday in her lustrous corner office at ABC News. "I know people see me as" — she paused, searching for the right word — "a little stern, or a little priggish.

"It WAS 30 years ago," said the 78-year-old TV legend, "and it was a big part of my life at the time. I thought in the beginning that he was exciting and brilliant, and I didn't expect it to progress. But when it did, that's when I got scared and said, 'You're a married man, I must break this off.' And he went home and asked for a divorce.

"I knew it was something that could have destroyed my career. And, since I'm always talking about feeling guilty: I don't THINK I destroyed his career, but, for whatever reasons, he did not get re-elected." In his bid for a third term, the Massachusetts Republican was voted out in 1978. "He was a superb senator."

Despite this steamy tidbit, "Audition" doesn't kiss and tell. Readers who hope it unearths mounds of celebrity dirt should be advised: It isn't a tell-all. No settling scores: "I have no one to get even with," insisted Walters.

Her display of equanimity includes Rosie O'Donnell, a panelist last season on Walters' weekday ABC chat show, "The View," who routinely picked fights with her fellow panelists and the world beyond.

"We had our ups and downs," Walters said, "but I have enormous affection for Rosie, and I think she's a great talent."

Walters also pardons Harry Reasoner, who sabotaged the experiment that, in 1976, brought her to ABC as the first female co-anchor of the evening news.

"Harry didn't want a partner," Walters recalled. "Even though he was awful to me, I don't think he disliked me."

How could she be so forgiving?

"I may not be a very good interviewer anymore," she replied, deadpan. "I've gotten very mellow."

The final part of "Audition" addresses Walters' resurrection at ABC News as co-anchor of the "20/20" newsmagazine, where, for a quarter-century, she interviewed nearly every public figure worth interviewing — unless she happened to be talking to them for her "Barbara Walters Specials."

She has always felt at home plying notables with questions.

"I'm not afraid when I'm interviewing," Walters said. "I have no fear! ... In my private life, I'm much more coulda-shoulda-woulda. Including when I was writing this book."

Even so, "Audition" — Walters' first book in 38 years — does what an autobiography should: charts her remarkable life, her relationships (three marriages among them) and career, while also striving to make sense of that life, and herself.

"The book makes me feel very exposed," she said. "But I'll get used to it."

Her account of her formative years lays to rest any notion that Walters, whose father was the noted nightclub impresario Lou Walters, was raised in New York cafe society. Her father made and lost fortunes in a dizzying cycle that taught her success was always at risk of being snatched away, and could neither be trusted nor enjoyed.

"That's why the book is called `Audition,'" Walters said. "I always felt I need to prove myself, over and over."

Growing up, she found her insecurity was made all the worse by her older sister, Jackie, who was mentally disabled. In that less enlightened era, Jackie's condition had a spillover effect on Barbara, stigmatizing both of them in the eyes of other kids.

"It was a lonely, isolated childhood," Walters said.

The complicated feelings that churned long after her sister's death in 1985 inspired "Audition."

In fall 2004, when Walters retired from "20/20," she was thrilled at the prospect of having time "to take Spanish lessons and go to museums. And then I thought, `Am I going to get very depressed? "20/20" was a big part of my life.'"

She decided to write a book about her childhood and her sister — just a little book. But after prodding from her publisher, her scope kept expanding. And then she signed a new contract with ABC News to continue her quarterly interview specials. Not much time left for museums.

"For the past three years, all summer long, I was writing this damn book — although when I was writing it, I said more than `damn.'"

Then came revisions and proofreading. And now publicity, including her visit Tuesday to "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and an hour special on ABC, "Audition: Barbara Walters' Journey," airing Wednesday at 10 p.m. EDT.

Walters summed up this journey: "I never would have done a book, had I known!"

It was particularly hard to write the chapter about her sister, Walters said — "going back and examining the guilt that I felt about how she was always so very loving, even while I was resenting her."

Harder still for Walters was the chapter on her daughter, also named Jackie, whose troubled adolescence led to serious drug abuse.

"That was the chapter I was not going to put in. I didn't think it was necessary. But Jackie felt that if parents saw we went through it and survived, it might give them hope." Now living in Maine, Jackie Danforth runs a residential therapy intervention program for girls.

Also difficult for Walters was revisiting those first years at ABC News, a period that seemed to mark the end of everything she'd worked for.

"I thought it was all over: `How stupid of me ever to have left NBC!'"

But salvation arrived in the form of a new boss, ABC News president Roone Arledge.

"I don't know what would have happened if Roone hadn't come in and sent Harry back to CBS, where he was much happier. Roone could've said, `We'll pay her off. We'll keep Harry. We know him.' Instead, he said, `We'll take a chance on her.'"

Since then, Walters has lived a life that, when she takes a moment to consider it, amazes her. But during her interview, she looked ahead cheerfully. She even spoke of making a clean break from ABC (including "The View"), maybe in the not-too-distant future.

"And I do think about death," she added, though not in any way that bums her out. "I'm a very optimistic person. And I'm VERY healthy, knock glass," she said, rapping her glass-top desk.

This talk of mortality reminded her of the zany Broadway hit "Spamalot," based on a Monty Python film.

"You know the scene where they're collecting dead bodies during a plague, and there's a guy they keep throwing in the heap, and he keeps saying 'I'm not dead yet'? Then they bash him on the head, and he gets up again and says, 'I'm not dead yet!'"

Barbara Walters smiled and said, "He's my hero."

Penis Theft

Penis theft panic hits city

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)

Elderly Prescription Drugs

Common drugs hasten decline in elderly: study

By Julie SteenhuysenSat May 3, 9:41 AM ET

Elderly people who took commonly prescribed drugs for incontinence, allergy or high blood pressure walked more slowly and were less able to take care of themselves than others not taking the drugs, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.

They said people who took drugs that block acetylcholine -- a chemical messenger in the nervous system critical for memory -- functioned less well than their peers.

"These results were true even in older adults who have normal memory and thinking abilities," said Dr. Kaycee Sink of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, who led the study of 3,000 people of whom 40 percent were taking more than one anticholinergic drug.

"The effect is essentially that of a three- to four-year increase in age. So someone who is 75 in our study and taking at least one moderately anticholinergic medication is at a similar functional level to a 78 to 79-year-old," Sink said in an e-mail.

Sink's findings, presented at American Geriatrics Society Meeting in Washington, add to a growing body of research that suggests these so-called anticholinergic medications can hasten functional and cognitive declines in elderly people.

Some of the most common such drugs in the study included the blood pressure drug nifedipine (sold as Adalat or Procardia), the stomach antacid ranitidine or Zantac, both with mild or moderate anticholinergic properties, and Pfizer Inc's incontinence drug tolterodine or Detrol, which is highly anticholinergic.

"The tricky part ... is that many useful drugs from many different classes of medications have anticholinergic properties," Sink said.

She said in many cases newer drugs are available that do not have these effects and said doctors should look out for them for elderly patients.

MEMORY DECLINE

Dr. Jack Tsao, a neurologist with the U.S. Navy, reported last month at a American Academy of Neurology meeting that elderly people who took anticholinergic drugs had a 50 percent greater rate of memory decline than people in a long-term study who did not take the drugs.

Sink studied the effects of taking multiple anticholinergic drugs on walking speed, basic activities such as dressing, eating, taking care of personal hygiene, grooming, and harder activities like shopping, cooking and managing money on her test subjects whose average age was 78.

The researchers found that the more anticholinergic drugs people had in their systems, the worse their physical function, based on reports from people in the study and on independent measures of their performance.

In a separate study this month in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Sink found that older nursing home residents who took drugs for dementia and incontinence at the same time had a 50 percent faster decline in function than those treated only for dementia.

"I would encourage patients to bring in a list of everything they take (even over-the-counter medications) to their doctor and have them review it at least yearly," Sink said. "Physicians should try to decrease anticholinergic burden whenever possible."

(Editing by Alan Elsner and Maggie Fox)

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Informal Writing

Not all :) as informal writing creeps into teen assignments

NEW YORK - It's nothing to LOL about: Despite best efforts to keep school writing assignments formal, two-thirds of teens admit in a survey that emoticons and other informal styles have crept in.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, in a study released Thursday, also found that teens who keep blogs or use social-networking sites like Facebook or News Corp.'s MySpace have a greater tendency to slip nonstandard elements into assignments.

The results may give parents, teachers and others a big :( — a frown to the rest of us — though the study's authors see hope.

"It's a teachable moment," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist at Pew. "If you find that in a child's or student's writing, that's an opportunity to address the differences between formal and informal writing. They learn to make the distinction ... just as they learn not to use slang terms in formal writing."

Half of the teens surveyed say they sometimes fail to use proper capitalization and punctuation in assignments, while 38 percent have carried over the shortcuts typical in instant messaging or e-mail messages, such as "LOL" for "laughing out loud." A quarter of teens have used :) and other emoticons.

Overall, 64 percent have used at least one of the informal elements in school.

Teens who consider electronic communications with friends as "writing" are more likely to carry the informal elements into school assignments than those who distinguish the two.

The study was co-sponsored by the National Commission on Writing at the College Board, the nonprofit group that administers the SAT and other placement tests.

The chairman of the commission's advisory board, Richard Sterling, said the rules could possibly change completely within a generation or two: Perhaps the start of sentences would no longer need capitalization, the way the use of commas has decreased over the past few decades. "Language changes," Sterling said.

Defying conventional wisdom, the study also found that the generation born digital is shunning computer use for most assignments. About two-thirds of teens say they typically do their school writing by hand. And for personal writing outside school, longhand is even more popular — the preferred form for nearly three-quarters of teens.

That could be because the majority of writing is short — school assignments are on average a paragraph to a page in length, Lenhart said.

Among other findings:

• Teens who keep blogs are more likely to engage in personal writing. They also tend to believe that writing will prove crucial to their eventual success in life.

• Parents are more likely than teens to believe that Internet-based writing such as e-mail and instant messaging affects writing overall, though both groups are split on whether the electronic communications help or hurt. Nonetheless, 73 percent of teens and 40 percent of parents believe Internet writing makes no difference either way.

The telephone-based survey of 700 U.S. residents ages 12 to 17 and their parents was conducted Sept. 19 to Nov. 16 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Money Is Tight!

Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet

NEW YORK - The for-sale listings on the online hub Craigslist come with plaintive notices, like the one from the teenager in Georgia who said her mother lost her job and pleaded, "Please buy anything you can to help out."

Or the seller in Milwaukee who wrote in one post of needing to pay bills — and put a diamond engagement ring up for bids to do it.

Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.

To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother's dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms.

"This is not about downsizing. It's about needing gas money," said Nancy Baughman, founder of eBizAuctions, an online auction service she runs out of her garage in Raleigh, N.C. One former affluent customer is now unemployed and had to unload Hermes leather jackets and Versace jeans and silk shirts.

At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period.

Craigslist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledged the increasing popularity of selling all sort of items on the Web, but said the rate of growth is "moving above the usual trend line." He said he was amazed at the desperate tone in some ads.

In Daleville, Ala., Ellona Bateman-Lee has turned to eBay and flea markets to empty her three-bedroom mobile home of DVDs, VCRs, stereos and televisions.

She said she needs the cash to help pay for soaring food and utility bills and mounting health care expenses since her husband, Bob, suffered an electric shock on the job as a dump truck driver in 2006 and is now disabled.

Among her most painful sales: her grandmother's teakettle. She sold it for $6 on eBay.

"My grandmother raised me, so it hurt," she said. "We've had bouts here and there, but we always got by. This time it's different."

Economists say it is difficult to compare the selling trend with other tough times because the Internet, only in wide use since the mid-1990s, has made it much easier to unload goods than, say, at pawn shops.

But clearly, cash-strapped people are selling their belongings at bargain prices, with a flood of listings for secondhand cars, clothing and furniture hitting the market in recent months, particularly since January.

Earlier this decade, people tapped their inflated home equity and credit cards to fuel a buying binge. Now, slumping home values and a credit crisis have sapped sources of cash.

Meanwhile, soaring gas and food prices haven't kept pace with meager wage growth. Gas prices have already hit $4 per gallon in some places, and that could become more widespread this summer. The weakening job market is another big worry.

Christine Hadley, a 53-year-old registered nurse from Reading, Pa., says she used to be "a clotheshorse," splurging on pricey Dooney & Bourke handbags. But her live-in boyfriend left last year, and she has had trouble finding a job.

Piles of unpaid bills forced her to sell more than 80 items, including the handbags, which went for more than $1,000 on a site called . Now, except for some artwork and threadbare furniture, her house is looking sparse.

"I need the money for essentials — to pay my bills and to eat," Hadley said.

At , which helps novices sell things online, for-sale listings rose 66 percent from February to March, much faster than the 25 percent to 30 percent average monthly pace since the company was formed in September, CEO Maureen Ellenberger said. She said she was surprised to see that most of her clients desperately needed to sell items to raise cash.

For , a classifieds and business directory site, for-sale listings for January through March rose 10 percent from the previous year.

"We can definitely detect economic stress on the part of the consumer," said John Raven, the site's chief operating officer.

On Craigslist, Buckmaster said, three of the four fastest-growing for-sale categories are tied to gas — recreational vehicles like campers and trailers, cars and trucks, and boats.

Raven noted more and more listings for furniture, particularly in areas around Miami and Las Vegas and other regions hardest hit by the housing crisis.

Baughman, who runs eBizAuctions, said that over the past four months she's been working with mostly desperate sellers instead of mainly casual ones. Most are middle-class customers who can't pay their bills and now want to be paid up front for the items instead of waiting until they are sold, she said.

The trend may be hurting secondhand stores too. Donations to the Salvation Army were down 20 percent in the January-to-March period. George Hood, the charity's national community relations and development secretary, said that was probably partly because people were selling their belongings instead.

And secondhand buyers want better deals now as well, driving prices down. Secondhand merchandise online is going for 25 to 35 percent below what it commanded a year ago, estimated Brian Riley, senior analyst at research firm The TowerGroup.

"It won't hit the saturation point until the (economy) hits the bottom and right now, we don't know when that is," he said.

In Alabama, Bateman-Lee said that she only received $30 for her TV and $45 for her DVD player at a local flea market. She doesn't have too much left to sell, but she's going back to "sort through more things."

Her $30 water bill is due this week.

Money

Dollar slumps to new record low versus euro

FRANKFURT, Germany - The euro roared to another record high Tuesday, crossing $1.60 in late afternoon trading in Europe after a pair of ECB governors said high inflation may cause the bank to raise interest rates.

The euro rose as high as $1.6018, more than a penny above the $1.5916 it bought in New York late Monday. The euro has risen 20 cents against the dollar in just five months and 10 cents in just two months.

The 15-nation currency hit its last record of $1.5982 last Thursday. It dropped back on Friday after a Wall Street rally generated optimism that the worst of the U.S. credit crunch may be over, but rose again on Monday when Bank of America's first-quarter earnings fell short of expectations.

The dollar's slump is a boon for U.S. companies that rely heavily on exports, but it's the bane of travelers as worldwide inflation rises, air fares climb and prices rise in dollar terms for everything from beer in Munich to fine wine in Paris to gondola rides in Venice.

Tuesday's remarks by Yves Mersch in the Financial Times Deutschland and comments made by Christian Noyer to France's RTL radio showed the governing council of the ECB is committed get euro zone inflation back around 2 percent, below the current 3.6 percent it is at now.

It effectively threw water on any hopes of a rate cut by the bank, which has kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 4 percent since June even as the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Canada have consistently lowered their own rates.

On Tuesday, the Bank of Canada slashed its interest rate by half a percentage point to 3 percent. It also hinted another cut may be coming as it feels the effects of a slumping economy at its largest trading partner.

The dollar has been weighed down by a combination of gloomy U.S. economic data and high European inflation — fueling expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates yet again, while the European Central Bank will leave rates unchanged.

Lower interest rates can weigh on a nation's currency as traders transfer funds to countries where they can earn better returns, while higher rates are used to curb inflation.

The British pound had been hit by a cautious reception for Monday's announcement by the Bank of England of a 50 billion-pound ($100 billion) plan to allow banks to swap mortgage-backed securities for Treasury bills but it reversed its declines on Tuesday, rising to $1.9994 from $1.9798. The dollar was down against the Japanese currency, dropping to 102.70 yen from 104.17 yen.

The high euro is bound to cause more pain for European manufacturers who export cars, food, wine and other products to the United States because it means prices for their goods are more expensive.

Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company announced a general price increase for its aircraft of an additional $2 million per single-aisle aircraft and $4 million per wide-body long range and A380 family aircraft as of May 1, citing the high euro and the cost for raw materials.

In Germany, automaker BMW AG has said it will start producing more cars in South Carolina in a bid to take advantage of the cheaper dollar. Volkswagen AG has said it is likely to build a new production plant in the United States, too.

Do Not Call listings to expire in 2008

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 21, 6:28 AM ET

WASHINGTON - The cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list.

The Federal Trade Commission, which oversees the list, says there is a simple fix. But some lawmakers think it is a hassle to expect people to re-register their phone numbers every five years.

Numbers placed on the registry, begun in June 2003, are valid for five years. For the millions of people who signed onto the list in its early days, their numbers will automatically drop off beginning next June if they do not enroll again.

"It is incredibly quick and easy to do," Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection, said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. "It was so easy for people to sign up in the first instance. It will be just as easy for them to re-up."

But Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., says people should not be forced to re-register to keep telemarketers at bay. Doyle introduced legislation this week, with bipartisan support, to make registrations permanent.

"When someone takes the time and effort to say 'I don't want these kinds of calls coming into my house,' they shouldn't have to keep a calendar to find out when they have to re-up to keep this nuisance from happening," Doyle said in an interview.

The FTC built the five-year expiration date into the program to account for changes, such as people who move and switch their phone number, Parnes said.

Doyle, however, points out that the list is purged each month of numbers that have been disconnected and reassigned to new customers.

People can register their home and cell phone numbers or file complaints at or by calling 1-888-382-1222.

The registry prohibits telemarketers from calling phone numbers on the list. Companies face fines of up to $11,000 for each violation.

Organizations engaged in charitable, political or survey work are exempt. Companies that have an established business relationship with a customer also may call for up to 18 months after the last purchase, payment or delivery.

In the first week of the program, people signed up 18 million numbers. The registry now has more than 149 million phone numbers.

"I think it's fantastic," said Bonnie Darling of Arlington, Va. Darling placed her name on the list this year after being flooded with calls from roofing companies, chimney sweeps and construction businesses. She has not heard from those companies in months.

Darling is not worried about the five-year expiration. She said she expects it to be just as easy to register as it was a couple months ago.

The FTC plans a consumer education program next spring on the re-registration process.

While polls have shown consumers reporting far fewer unwanted phone calls, some telemarketers continue to violate the law.

Since the registry began, the government has filed cases against more than 30 companies, resulting in $8.8 million in civil penalties and $8.6 million in redress to consumers and forfeitures.

Most of the penalties were paid by satellite television provider DirecTV Inc., as part of the largest settlement in the program's history.

DirecTV agreed to pay $5.3 million in December 2005 to settle charges that it and several telemarketing companies it hired had called numbers on the list. The company said then that it had stopped working with those telemarketers and taken steps to avoid calling numbers on the list.

Telemarketers are required to pay an annual subscription fee to access the FTC list so those numbers can be blocked from their dial-out programs. The companies also must update their own calling lists every 31 days to ensure there are no numbers from the registry on them.

The annual subscription fee for the list costs $62 for each area code, with a maximum cost of $17,050 for access to all U.S. numbers on the list.

The FTC reported this year that 6,824 companies and other entities paid $21.7 million in fees to access the database in fiscal year 2006. All told, 15,218 entities have paid $59 million in fees to access the database since the program's inception.

Most of the fees charged by the government are used to support the Do Not Call program.

___

On the Net:

Information on the House bill, H.R. 3541, can be found at

Corruption

11 N.J. officials arrested on corruption

Associate Press

TRENTON, N.J. - FBI agents arrested 11 public officials in towns across New Jersey Thursday on charges of taking bribes in exchange for influencing the awarding of public contracts, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Two of those arrested are state lawmakers, two are mayors, three are city councilmen, and several served on the school board in Pleasantville, where the scandal began.

All 11, plus a private individual, are accused of taking cash payments of $1,500 to $17,500 to influence who received public contracts, according to criminal complaints, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie.

"This is another sad day for the people of New Jersey," said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce. "Once again, New Jersey's culture of corruption is national news."

Initial court appearances were scheduled Thursday afternoon in Trenton, and Christie and FBI Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun planned an afternoon news conference.

A federal complaint charges each of the 12 with accepting payments from companies that offered insurance and roofing services to cities and school districts, Drewniak said.

The investigation began last year with Pleasantville schools, near Atlantic City, Drewniak said. The FBI established an undercover insurance brokerage company purporting to employ the government's two cooperating witnesses and undercover agents.

The probe widened when Pleasantville school board members referred the cooperating witnesses to public officials in northern New Jersey, Drewniak said.

Democratic state Assemblymen Mims Hackett Jr. and Alfred E. Steele were arrested, as was Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera. Also arrested were Keith Reid, the chief of staff to Newark's City Council president; Passaic councilmen Jonathan Soto and Marcellus Jackson; two current Pleasantville school board members, three former board members and a private citizen. One of the former school board members is now a Pleasantville city councilman.

Rivera is a former police officer and professional wrestler.

Hackett, 65, is both a legislator and mayor of Orange, a city of about 33,000 residents 15 miles west of New York City. He was convicted of kidnapping in 1975 and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was pardoned a year later when the victim recanted and Hackett's cousin confessed.

A phone message left at Hackett's office wasn't immediately returned Thursday. Neither were messages left at Reid's and Rivera's offices.

Newark City Council President Mildred Crump said she just found about Reid's arrest and had no comment. She said he has worked for her since she became the council president in 2006.

Steele, an assemblyman since 1996 and deputy speaker since 2002, also serves as a Baptist minister in Paterson. He had been Passaic County undersheriff but resigned from the $89,900-per-year post on Thursday, said sheriff's spokesman Bill Maer.

Jenna Pollard, who answered the phone at Steele's office and identified herself as his chief of staff, said she had no comment and didn't know if Steele had a lawyer.

One of the former school board members, Maurice "Pete" Callaway, is now a Pleasantville city councilman and the brother of former Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway, who is serving time in federal prison from stemming from an unrelated corruption scheme.

"It's just a horrible day in Pleasantville," said John Deserable, a monitor sent by the state Department of Education to oversee the district's finances. "It's another black eye to the district that we don't need. The children deserve better than this."

Thursday's arrests were the latest in an anti-corruption campaign waged by Christie's office.

More than 100 public officials in the state have been convicted on federal corruption charges in the last five years. Two other Democratic state senators, Wayne Bryant of Lawnside and Sharpe James of Newark, are among others facing pending corruption charges.

___

Associated Press writers David Porter, Janet Frankston Lorin and Matthew Verrinder in Newark, Angela Delli Santi in Trenton and Wayne Parry in Atlantic City contributed to this report.

Android

Robots may become essential on US farms

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce.

Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand.

"If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau.

California harvests about half the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department. The California Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the job requires about 225,000 workers year-round and double that during the peak summer season.

More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

Last year, amid heightened immigration enforcement, California's seasonal migration was marked by spot worker shortages, and some fruit was left to rot in the fields.

"There's a lot of very nervous people out there in agriculture in terms of what's going to be available in the labor force," said Robert Wample, viticulture and enology program director at California State University, Fresno.

Mechanized picking wouldn't be new for some California crops such as canning tomatoes, low-grade wine grapes and nuts.

But the fresh produce that dominates the state's agricultural output — and that consumers expect to find unblemished in supermarkets — is too fragile to be picked by the machines now in use.

The new pickers rely on advances in computing power and hydraulics that can make robotic limbs and digits operate with near-human sensitivity. Modern imaging technology also enables the machines to recognize and sort fruits and vegetables of varying qualities.

"The technology is maturing just at the right time to allow us to do this kind of work economically," said Derek Morikawa, whose San Diego-based Vision Robotics has been working with the California Citrus Research Board and Washington State Apple Commission to develop a fruit picker.

The process involves sending a mechanized scanning unit into orchards and orange groves. Equipped with digital-imaging technology, it creates a three-dimensional map displaying the location, ripeness and quality of fruit. A robotic picker then follows the maps, using its long mechanical arms to carefully pluck the ripe produce.

A prototype was tested last month, but it is still a few years from being ready for widespread commercial use, said Ted Batkin, a grower and president of the citrus board.

A set of scanning and harvesting units will likely cost about $500,000 when the equipment reaches market, Morikawa said.

Elsewhere, a team led by wine specialists at California State University, Fresno, is working on an automated picker to further mechanize the wine-grape business.

Growers of low- and mid-grade wine grapes already use mechanical harvesters, but picking and sorting premium grapes still requires a human touch.

The new technology includes a device called a near-infrared spectrometer, which measures the sugar levels and chemical content of grape samples before they are picked, Wample said. The data is then plotted to a global positioning system map, which a mechanical harvester uses to navigate the vineyards and pluck specific bunches at ideal ripeness.

The system has been under development for the past four years and is being tested in vineyards. The approximate cost of the two components is $230,000.

Salinas Valley-based Ramsay Highlander sells machines that partially automate lettuce picking by using band saws or water knives to cut the lettuce from the earth and convey it into bins for cleaning and processing.

The company is nearing completion on a new model that picks, cleans, cores and packs lettuce and other greens, chief executive Frank Maconachy said. It will likely cost between $250,000 and $400,000, he said.

"Because of the immigration issue, migrant workers are becoming a difficult entity to find," Maconachy said. "If growers have a crop that needs to be harvested and there aren't the people to do it, they'll need to find a mechanized way to do it."

Philip Martin, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, said it was still unclear if heightened immigration enforcement would drive away enough workers to justify huge expenditures by growers on new machinery.

And the number of variables involved makes it difficult to determine how much, if anything, growers could save by switching to automated systems.

But some growers are excited by the prospect of having robots and a few trained technicians who know how to operate them replace the droves of manual laborers they currently depend on.

"It will open up a lot of opportunity for better paying jobs in the agriculture industry and perhaps get us out of the mentality that being a farm worker is a dirty job," said Batkin, the citrus farmer.

___

CLEARFIELD, Iowa (AP) — A southwest Iowa couple was found trapped more than 33 hours after an old corn crib collapsed on them, officials said.

Rodney and Beverly Straight, of Clearfield, were found in the debris early Tuesday evening. The corn crib collapsed Monday morning, said Dwayne Cason, the town's fire chief.

The couple was conscious when they were found. They were taken to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, where they were in serious condition.

"I'm surprised they were found alive," Cason said.

Cason said the Straights had been doing work to remove the corn crib when the roof fell on top of them.

A neighbor called authorities after he came to remove corn from another bin on the property and heard a noise, he said.

YOU ARE SUFFERING

House members seek pay raise of $4,400

WASHINGTON - Despite low approval ratings and hard feelings from last year's elections, Democrats and Republicans in the House are reaching out for an approximately $4,400 pay raise that would increase their salaries to almost $170,000.

The cost-of-living raise endorsed Wednesday evening gets lawmakers back on track for automatic pay raises after a fight between the parties last year and again in January killed the pay increase due this year. That was the first interruption of the annual congressional pay boost in seven years.

The blowup came after Democrats last year fulfilled a campaign promise to deny themselves more pay until Congress raised the minimum wage. Delays in the minimum wage bill cost every lawmaker about $3,100 this year.

On a 244-181 vote Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans alike killed a bid by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Lee Terry, R-Neb., to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it. The Senate has not indicated when it will deal with a similar measure.

As part of an ethics bill in 1989, Congress gave up its ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless the lawmakers voted otherwise.

The annual vote on the pay hike comes on an obscure procedural move — instead of a direct up-or-down vote — and Democratic and GOP leaders each delivered a majority of their members to shut off the move to block the pay hike.

This year's vote was made ticklish by last year's battle. Republicans said Democrats broke a promise not to use the pay raise issue against GOP lawmakers in campaign ads and therefore were, generally speaking, more reluctant to supply votes.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., worked the floor during the vote to make sure there was relative balance between the warring parties in delivering votes. Working through Blunt, Hoyer forced more than a dozen Republicans to switch their votes in support of accepting the raise, including Reps. Mike Pence and Dan Burton of Indiana and Fred Upton, Dave Camp and Vernon Ehlers of Michigan.

Most members support the pay raise as a means of retaining experienced lawmakers and of making sure that Congress is not simply dominated by wealthy people. Many lawmakers maintain homes both in the expensive Washington housing market and back in their districts. On most days, they meet with lobbyists making far more than they do.

"Every member has some obligation to the institution for the compensation to, as much as possible, keep pace with inflation," Blunt told reporters Wednesday.

"I don't think this is the right time for members of Congress to be allowing the pay raise to go through without even an up-or-down vote," said Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. "We need to show the American people we are willing to make some sacrifices ... that we recognize there's a struggle for some in today's economy."

The exact figure for this year's cost of living adjustment has not been settled under a complicated formula that awards lawmakers a smaller pay raise than civil servants. But opponents of the congressional COLA estimated a pay increase this year of 2.7 percent, or $4,460.

Senators and representatives presently make $165,200 a year, with a handful of leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., earning more.

The pay raise would also apply to the vice president — who is president of the Senate — congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices.

This year, Vice President Dick Cheney, Pelosi and Chief Justice John Roberts receive $212,100. Associate justices receive $203,000. House and Senate party leaders get $183,500.

President Bush's salary of $400,000 is unaffected by the legislation.

April Jobless

Employers cut fewer jobs in April, jobless rate falls

WASHINGTON - Employers cut far fewer jobs in April than in recent months and the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent, a better-than-expected showing that nonetheless reveals strains in the nation's labor market.

For the fourth month in a row, the economy lost jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. But in April the losses totaled 20,000, an improvement from the 81,000 reductions in payrolls logged in March. Job losses for both February and March turned out to be a bit deeper than previously reported.

The latest snapshot of the nationwide employment conditions — while clearly still weak — was better than many economists were anticipating. They were bracing for job cuts of 75,000 and for the unemployment rate to climb to 5.2 percent.

The unemployment rate, derived from a different statistical survey than the payroll figures, fell to 5 percent from 5.1 percent in March. That survey showed more people finding employment than those who didn't.

Businesses are handing out pink slips as they cope with an economy that is teetering on the edge of a recession, or possibly in one already. A severe housing slump, harder-to-get credit and financial turmoil have forced people and businesses to be more cautious in their spending. And that has hurt the economy.

To help relieve credit problems, the Federal Reserve announced Friday that it would boost the availability of short-term loans to commercial banks to $150 billion in May from the $100 billion supplied in April. The goal is to supply a source of cash to squeezed banks so that they'll keep lending to customers.

The Fed took the action and several other moves to boost credit in coordination with the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank.

In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that orders to U.S. factories rose a bigger-than-expected 1.4 percent in March, after two straight months of declines.

The fresh economic news lifted Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrials were up in afternoon trading.

On the jobs front, construction companies slashed 61,000 positions in April. Manufacturers cut 46,000 and retailers got rid of 27,000. Those losses were eclipsed by job gains in education and health care, professional and business services, the government and elsewhere.

The job losses came in areas hardest hit by the housing and credit debacles. The fact that fewer job cuts were ordered in April raised hopes that damages could be limited.

President Bush expressed hope Friday that the economic-stimulus rebates beginning to reach taxpayers this week will help lift activity. "This economy is going to come on. I'm confident it will," Bush said while visiting a technology plant in a St. Louis suburb.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the new job figures are "sort of bittersweet — better than expected but we're still going through a difficult first half."

Voters are keenly worried about the country's economic problems and so are politicians — in Congress, in the White House and on the campaign trail.

There were 7.6 million people unemployed as of April, up from 6.8 million a year earlier.

Workers with jobs saw scant wage gains.

Average hourly earnings for jobholders rose to $17.88 in April, a tiny 0.1 percent rise from the previous month. That was less than the 0.3 percent rise economists were forecasting. Over the last 12 months, wages have grown by 3.4 percent.

The weak labor market is making employers feel less generous with compensation.

Meanwhile, zooming energy and food prices are taking a bite out of paychecks. If the job market continues to falter, wage growth probably will slow, too, making people even less inclined to spend. That would spell further trouble for the economy.

The payrolls figure and the unemployment rate come from two different statistical surveys, which can provide — as in Friday's case — a somewhat conflicting picture of what is happening in the labor market.

The seasonally adjusted overall civilian unemployment rate — 5 percent in April — is based on a survey of 60,000 households. It showed that 362,000 people said they found employment last month, outpacing the number of people who couldn't find work.

Economists tend to put more stock, however, in the much broader business survey of 400,000 work sites that is used to calculate the payroll figures.

To limit damage to the economy, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates on Wednesday, but signaled that its rate-cutting campaign could be drawing to a close.

The new employment report "will make the Fed feel more comfortable about the pause in rate cuts ... but can't be taken as a signal that the economy is out of the woods," said Nigel Gault, economist at Global Insight.

Fed officials and the Bush administration are hoping that the Fed's aggressive rate cuts since September plus the government's $168 billion stimulus package — including tax rebates that started hitting bank accounts this week — will lift the country out of its slump in the second half of this year.

Even if that happens, economists predict the unemployment rate will climb higher, hitting 6 percent early next year.

Employers often are reluctant to beef up hiring until they feel certain that any such recovery has staying power.

Democrats in Congress insist more relief needs to be provided, including additional unemployment benefits to cushion the pain of joblessness. The administration has resisted, saying the rebates and other stimulative efforts should be sufficient once they fully kick in.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he doesn't want the administration to view the new employment figures as a "green light" for not supporting more relief.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues acknowledged Wednesday the fragile state of the economy, saying hiring conditions "have softened further."

The economy advanced at a snail's pace of just 0.6 percent in the first three months of this year as people and businesses clamped down on their spending. It marked the second quarter in a row of such feeble growth.

A growing number of economists believe the economy is in a recession and is indeed contracting now.

Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession. That didn't happen in the last recession — in 2001_ though. A panel of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research that determines when U.S. recessions begin and end uses a broader definition, taking into account income, employment and other barometers. That finding is usually made well after the fact.

Credit Cards

Government cracks down on credit card industry practices

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve and other regulators are moving Friday to crack down on "unfair and deceptive" practices in the credit card industry that have added billions in debt to people already struggling to cope with the economic downturn.

In the most far-reaching crackdown on the credit industry in decades, the Fed and two government agencies are proposing rules that would stop credit card companies from unfairly raising interest rates and make sure they give people enough time to pay their bills.

The banking industry is expected to fight the new rules.

Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America, said that while he hadn't yet seen the details, the rules "appear to address some of the most significant abuses in the credit card marketplace right now."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has introduced legislation to protect consumers from credit card abuse, said in a statement that she was pleased the Fed had adopted some aspects of her legislation.

But she also expressed concern that "by the time the Fed gets around to finalizing these credit card reform proposals, they will be watered down and come too little too late for consumers who need relief now."

The Fed has been criticized for moving too slowly to respond to abuses leading to the subprime mortgage crisis.

The agencies said the new regulations could be finalized by the end of the year.

Plunkett said his group estimates that credit card debt is now about $850 billion, with households that don't pay their credit card bills in full every month owing an average $17,000.

The proposed new rules that would prohibit:

_Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay;

_Unfairly allocating payments among balances with different interest rates;

• Unfairly raising annual percentage rates on outstanding balances;

_Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account;

_Unfairly computing balances;

_Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making credit available;

_Making deceptive offers of credit.

In news releases, the agencies said the proposed rules also would require federal credit unions to give consumers a chance to opt out of an overdraft protection program. And they would prohibit those institutions from charging a fee for an overdraft caused by a hold placed on consumer's funds when a person uses a debit card.

The Fed, which is expected to vote Friday afternoon on its approval of the proposed rules, is acting in conjunction with the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Ken Clayton, senior vice president of card policy for the American Bankers Association, said the industry will fight the new proposals, describing them as "aggressive regulatory intervention in the marketplace that will result in higher prices and less consumer credit."

He said the change "basically says that we can't price for risk" and that if higher risk borrowers don't bear the costs, those costs will be passed along to other consumers.

----

Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.

___

The proposed rules will be available at 2:30 EDT at:

National Credit Union Administration:

ARREST BUSH

Bush Confesses to Waterboarding. Call D.C. Cops!

NEW YORK--"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" John Ashcroft nervously asked his fellow members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. (The Principals were Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Ashcroft.)

"History will not judge this kindly," Ashcroft predicted.

"This" is torture. Against innocent people. Conducted by CIA agents and American soldiers and marines. Sanctioned by legal opinions issued by Ashcroft's Justice Department. Directly ordered by George W. Bush.

An April 11th report by ABC News describes how CIA agents, asked by previous presidents to carry out illegal "black ops" actions (torture and killings), had become tired of getting hung out to dry whenever their dirty deeds were revealed by the press. When the Bush Administration asked the CIA to work over prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, Director George Tenet demanded legal cover. The Justice Department complied by issuing a classified 2002 memo, the so-called "Golden Shield," authored by Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee. "Enhanced interrogation techniques"--i.e., torture--were legal, Bybee assured the CIA.

Tenet was a good boss, a CYA type. He wanted to protect his agents. So he got the Principals to personally sign off on each act of torture.

"According to a former CIA official involved in the process," ABC reported, "CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques." Can we beat up this guy? Can we waterboard him?

The Bushies weren't otherwise known for dwelling on details. Osama was in Pakistan; they invaded Afghanistan instead. Two years later, he was still in Pakistan. They invaded Iraq. Bush and his top officials still found time to walk through every step of torment a detainee would suffer in some CIA dungeon halfway around the world.

"The high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, [Bush Administration] sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed--down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic. These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top Al Qaeda suspects--whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news."

Bush knew.

Not only did he know, he personally approved it. He likes torture.

"Yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue," he confirmed. "And I approved."

When the U.S. signs a treaty, its provisions carry the full force of U.S. law. One such treaty is the U.N. Convention Against Torture, of which the U.S. is a core signatory. As Philippe Sands writes in his new book "Torture Team:" Parties to the... Convention are required to investigate any person who is alleged to have committed torture. If appropriate, they must then prosecute--or extradite the person to a place where he will be prosecuted. The Torture Convention... criminalizes any act that constitutes complicity or participation in torture. Complicity or participation could certainly be extended not only to the politicians and but also the lawyers involved..."

George W. Bush has publicly confessed that he ordered torture, thus violating the Convention Against Torture. He, Cheney, Rumseld, Rice and the other Principals must therefore be arrested and, unlike the thousands of detainees kidnapped by the U.S. since 9/11, arraigned and placed on trial.

Because the torture ordered by Bush and his cabinet directly resulted in death, they must additionally be charged with several counts of murder. Fifteen U.S. soldiers have been charged with the murders of two detainees at the U.S. airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan in 2002. They were following orders issued by their Commander-in-Chief and his Principals.

One of the Bagram victims was Dilawar, a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver. "On the day of his death," reported The New York Times on May 22, 2005, "Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days. A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend... Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time."

At least four detainees have committed suicide at the torture camp created by George W. Bush after 9/11 at Guantánamo Bay. Twenty-five more made 41 unsuccessful attempts to kill themselves. The conditions of their confinement--ordered by Bush and his Principals--constitutes torture. It no doubt prompted their deaths.

If George W. Bush were an ordinary citizen, there can be little doubt that he would face a long prison sentence for the scores of acts of torture he authorized both specifically and generally. Four of the seven white hillbillies charged with the kidnap-torture of a black woman in Logan County, West Virginia are now in jail for at least the next ten years.

If Bush weren't president, he would face murder charges. The maximum sentence in a federal murder case is death.

If Bush and his co-conspirators are not above the law, if the United States remains a nation where all citizens are equal, they must be arrested and indicted. But by whom?

The Supreme Court has never resolved the question of whether a sitting president can be arrested by civilian authorities. Even if he were charged and convicted, many legal experts say he could issue himself a pardon.

However, leaving the presidency in the hands of an self-admitted torture killer is unacceptable. Congress could ask a U.S. Marshal to arrest Bush as part of impeachment charges. But the ultimate outcome--removing him from office a few months before the end of his term--seems woefully inadequate given the nature of the charges. In any case, Democrats have already said that impeachment is "off the table."

Bush could be extradited to one of the countries where the torture and murders were committed--such as Afghanistan or Cuba. But he could claim immunity as a head of state.

There is, however, a person who could begin holding Bush and the others accountable for their crimes.

She is Cathy L. Lanier, the 39-year-old chief of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. Chief Lanier, take note: you have probable cause to arrest a self-confessed serial torturer and mass murderer within the borders of the District of Columbia. He resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Go get him.

History is calling, Chief Lanier. Your city, and your country, needs you.

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

Affair

Former Sen. Brooke mum on reported Barbara Walters affair

By FRAZIER MOORE, AP Television Writer Fri May 2, 10:27 AM ET

NEW YORK - Former U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke declined to comment Friday about whether he had an affair with Barbara Walters "I have had a lifetime policy and practice of not discussing my personal and private life, or the personal and private lives of others, with the notable exception of what I wrote in my recently published autobiography, `Bridging the Divide: My Life,'" he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Miami.

A relationship with Walters wasn't mentioned in his book, the 88-year-old former senator from Massachusetts told the AP.

His memoir was published in 2006.

In an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with the married Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to excerpts of the show provided to the AP.

A moderate Republican who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Walters said he and she knew that public knowledge of their affair could have ruined their careers.

At the time, the twice-divorced Walters was a rising star in TV news and co-host of NBC's "Today" show, but would soon jump to ABC News, where she has enjoyed unrivaled success. She said her affair with Brooke, which never before came to light, had ended before he lost his bid for a third term in 1978.

Brooke later divorced, and has since remarried.

Walters, 78, will appear on Winfrey's show to discuss her new memoir, "Audition," which covers her long career in television, as well as her off-camera life. On "Oprah," Walters recounts a phone call from a friend who urged her to stop seeing Brooke.

"He said, 'This is going to come out. This is going to ruin your career,'" then reminded her that Brooke was up for re-election a year later. "'This is going to ruin him. You've got to break this off.'"

Winfrey asks Walters if she was in love.

"I was certainly — I don't know — I was certainly infatuated."

"Infatuated."

"I was certainly involved," Walters says. "He was exciting. He was brilliant. It was exciting times in Washington."

Brooke served two full terms from 1967 to 1979, taking on the populist causes of low-income housing, increasing the minimum wage and mass transit. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, an honor only 21 U.S. senators have received.

in the 1970s.

Under God

Why Is America So Mean?

NEW YORK--"The 82nd," the man ahead of me in the security line at the Kansas City airport said. He was 64 and white, very Hank Hill and not the kind of guy you'd typically see chatting up a skinny 20-year-old Latino dude. But they were both veterans. Common ground is a given.

"I was in the 82nd too," the kid told the old man. I looked down. The kid's legs were gone. He was standing on metal. Implausibly and heartbreakingly, white Converses adorned the tips of his prosthetic legs. High tops.

On the other side of the metal detector, I caught up with the young vet (Iraq? Afghanistan?). HomeSec was giving him the whole treatment: arms stretched out, the wand, stern expressions and stupid questions. The wand beeped and beeped. The TSA guy scowled. "I've got titanium all the way up my spine," the kid explained.

You're kidding me, I thought. After what he's been through. After what he's done for his country. I wanted to scream: Bastards! You should wave him around the checkpoint. Here, sir, we'd like to offer you a seat in first class. No, no, no charge.

I bit my tongue. Here in the land of the twee and the craven, I know when to shut up. That's what we do now. Airports are nodes of high-intensity fascism in a nation settling into authoritarianism lite. Hassle the bastards and you might end up dead. I had a flight to catch, doncha know.

Have we, at long last, any decency?

In one respect, the three remaining presidential candidates say, "Yes, we do." They've promised to close Gitmo.

What ought to happen to the nearly 300 detainees is obvious. Hand each of them an apology, a bag of cash--a million bucks wouldn't be nearly enough for what they've been through--and a plane ticket home. Those who can't return to their countries of origin because their U.S.-backed dictatorships would murder them receive a penthouse suite in the U.S. city of their choice.

I'd let them switch places with their guards and 300 top-ranking members of the Bush Administration for a couple of days first. No questions asked. Just get on the plane, and don't forget your bag o' cash.

Anyway.

Here's how messed up, how separated from common sense justice the United States of America has become: We might close Gitmo. But we're keeping the inmates!

"When it comes to closing Guantánamo, talk is cheap," Columbia law professor Matthew Waxman tells The Los Angeles Times. Because, you see, the U.S. government has violated the victims' rights so egregiously for so long that there's no longer a legally appropriate way to process them.

"Especially vexing," says the paper, "are scores of foreign detainees: Officials lack evidence to prosecute, but warn against setting them free." It's an 800-year-old Western legal principle called habeas corpus: you can't hold a person in custody without charging them. Oh, wait--Bush got rid of that.

"Because there is little evidence against them that could be used in a U.S. court, government officials fear that a federal judge could order them freed," the Times continues. Heaven forbid that we release people, even if there's no evidence they've done anything wrong. What's next? Taxing the rich?

"Then you would have 100-plus future sleeper-cell members unleashed in Kansas," a "midlevel official" told the Times. No grain silo would be safe.

Gitmo inmates have been waterboarded, urinated upon by U.S. soldiers, violently force-fed and driven to suicide. Some of the "dangerous terrorists" (John McCain's description) were 12 years old when Afghan warlords sold them to U.S. forces for cash bounties. They've grown up in Gitmo. When do we finally, at long last, decide that they've suffered enough?

Maybe we should just shoot them.

It's not just foreigners. Even for its own native-born wretches, America couldn't find a path to fundamental decency if it were lit up like Times Square on New Year's Eve.

In ancient Rome, executioners abided by a rule: If they failed to hack off your head after three swings of the blade, they set you free. Not here. Men condemned to lethal injection wake up screaming; the guards administer more poisons and barbiturates.

Veterinarians abandoned the three-drug cocktail used to kill inmates in most states because they considered it cruel to animals.

Many death row prisoners are innocent. Sometimes they even manage to prove it before their executions. "At least 205 men and one woman nationwide have been exonerated through DNA evidence since 1989, including 53 who...were convicted of murder," reports The New York Times. But what happens to those who are set free?

No compensation is enough for someone who serves years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. But society ought to come up with something.

There ought to be money. Millions and millions of dollars. So much that the victim of a judicial miscarriage never has to work again. It wouldn't bring back the lost years, the shattered relationships and murdered moments. But it would be a start.

Then again, this is America. We don't apologize, much less try to pay penance. Here's $24 and a cheap suit. Too bad about those 15 years. Thank you for playing. Want compensation? Find a lawyer who'll work for $24 and sue.

Ah, but there's a catch: you need a law under which to file a lawsuit. 36 of the 50 states have laws that specifically prevent innocent ex-prisoners from going to court to seek the damages they ought to have been given without asking. Twelve of the remaining 14 have limits. (New York and Maryland do not.) California caps total payouts at a stingy $100 a day, up to a maximum of $10,000--even if they lock you up for 20 years by mistake.

As individuals, Americans are generous to a fault. They do the right thing, or at least they try. The disconnect occurs when we express our collective will, through our courts and government officials. Our laws and our politicians are mean, cheap and callous.

How did a soft-hearted people wind up making such a hard-ass country?

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

THE CAVALRY ISN'T COMING

High Unemployment and High Inflation Make This Recession Different

KANSAS CITY--"Why is this recession different from almost all other recessions?" asked Herbert Barchoff. The economist, a former president of the Council of Economic Advisers, answered his own question: "This is not only the usual cyclical recession, but also a structural recession."

Barchoff's dark assessment appeared in a letter to the editor of The New York Times---in June 1992. Then, like now, Americans were suffering through a long, grinding recession following a boom (under Reagan) that had primarily benefited the wealthy. There were mass layoffs. The real estate market had collapsed. Foreclosures were rampant.

George H.W. Bush, who had expected to coast to reelection on the strength of his near 90 percent post-Gulf War approval ratings, projected a Herbert Hoover-like resolve to not lift a finger to alleviate the misery. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates, but it didn't help. Six months later, angry voters fired an out-of-touch president who seemed unwilling to fix an economy he didn't think was broken in favor of a guy who claimed to feel our pain.

Barchoff, it would turn out, was too pessimistic. "To reverse the excesses of the 1980's," he wrote, "restructuring has been going on in massive proportions at every level. It is a rare day that newspapers do not report layoffs, often in the thousands in the industrial sector." What Barchoff didn't know--few people did--was that the U.S. was about to begin the longest, broadest and biggest period of economic expansion experienced by any civilization in human history.

Downsizing continued in traditional sectors like manufacturing and newspapers. Even during the Clinton boom, millions of people were ruined, forced to declare bankruptcy. Midwestern cities were reduced to rusted-out shells. But none of that mattered to Wall Street. The Internet revolution prompted so much capital investment, and generated so many new jobs--freshly minted college grads thought it perfectly normal to earn $85,000 moving around lines of HTML--that otherwise sane people began talking about a "new paradigm" in which "the old rules no longer apply."

In other respects, however, Barchoff was prescient. "[The then-new European Community] will substantially hurt our ability to be competitive," he correctly predicted. "The drop in interest rates is no solution. During the Great Depression the prime rate went to one percent, with no cure. When you are out of work or afraid of losing your job, you do not take on debt. Nor will entrepreneurs borrow even very cheap money unless there is a market."

The Bush Sr. recession was a grim affair. When I graduated from Columbia in 1991, the university canceled its annual jobs fair due to employers' lack of interest. But it was a picnic compared to what we're facing now. Bush Jr. could finally realize Barchoff's nightmare of a structural recession--the kind of no-way-out shock experienced by Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Normal" cyclical recessions feature increased unemployment, which puts downward pressure on prices. You rarely see high unemployment and high inflation at the same time. Conservative economists point to rising inflation during the late 1970s as an exception, but that wasn't even a downturn, much less a recession. Inflation was high but unemployment was low. Anyway, the inflation didn't hurt workers; during the Carter years mean wages rose faster than inflation. The opposite is true now. Real income is falling.

The economy has bled 3.1 million jobs since George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, the worst record since the Depression. The official unemployment rate, constantly re-jiggered to make the economy appear more robust, has risen to 5.1 percent. The long-term unemployment rate, which includes people who have had such bad luck looking for work that they've given up entirely, has doubled, to over 13 percent.

Meanwhile, inflation is approaching seven percent. Again, that's the official inflation rate. Your mileage as an average American--who spends a third of your pay on housing and more and more on gas--will vary. But let's not dwell on the irony of $4-a-gallon gas resulting from a war fought to steal oil.

But wait. There's even more bad news.

Two-thirds of economic activity is generated by consumer spending. Most people are broke. So much for that two-thirds. "In 2000," reports David Leonhardt in The Times, "at the end of the last economic expansion, the median family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau's inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less--about $60,500."

This, says, Leonhardt, is a big deal. "This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records." RBC Capital Markets reports that consumer confidence has fallen below 30 percent, an all-time record low. T.J. Marta, a fixed-income strategist at RBC, said: "What confidence? There is no confidence. It's like 1929."

If Barchoff had picked up a copy of the San Jose Mercury-News in 1992, he would have read about the birth of the Web revolution, then touted as the "information superhighway." But there's nothing like that coming down the pike today. To paraphrase the ever-quotable Donald Rumsfeld, we're going to have to make do with the economy we have, not the one we wish we had.

Liberal economists like Paul Krugman suggest a rerun of the 1930s, when FDR's New Deal employed millions to build new infrastructure like dams and bridges. But none of the three remaining presidential contenders is likely to undertake such a thing. "The worst-case scenario" about the 1991 war against Iraq, Barchoff said in 1992, would have been if it had lasted two years and cost an extra $200 billion. Iraq War II, now in its sixth year, is currently pegged at an estimated $3 trillion. Republican John McCain is committed to pouring more trillions into Iraq War II until victory is achieved, i.e., forever. As Democrats wary of being tarnished with the label of "big spender," both Obama and Clinton will likely place fiscal discipline ahead of expansive new government programs.

There is no short-term fix. In the long term, we must put more money into more people's pockets. That means higher wages and lower taxes for the poor and middle class. Some of what is needed is easy to see: a more progressive tax code, repealing laws that allow employers to harass and fire those who try to organize unions, nationalizing industries run by vampire capitalists--health insurers, private hospitals, colleges and universities. Banks encourage predatory lending while stifling saving. They ought to be re-regulated. What madness permits them to charge 30 percent on credit cards while paying one percent on passbook savings accounts?

More--much more--is necessary to prevent the wholesale collapse of the U.S. economic system. A maximum wage should be imposed--the highest paid American should earn no more than ten times the lowest paid. I know, I know--none of this will happen. There will be nothing but Band-Aids and lazy rhetoric as we plummet into the abyss. It cannot be otherwise, for our politics are ossified, the media is corporatized, and we the people are dull and apathetic.

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

BIGOTRY, APOLOGY, REPEAT AS NECESSARY

The Rise of John McCain

NEW YORK--In the 1993 film noir "Romeo is Bleeding," the late Roy Scheider plays a mob boss. "You know right from wrong," he tells a hopelessly corrupt cop portrayed by Gary Oldman. "You just don't care." It's a perfect summary of John McCain's political career.

Time after time, McCain weighs a decision. Then, after careful consideration, he chooses evil over good. In the short run, evil gets him what he wants. Later, when the devil comes to collect his due, McCain issues a retraction.

Running for president in 2000, John McCain squared off against George W. Bush in the key South Carolina primary. Asked whether the Confederate battle flag should continue to fly over the state capitol, McCain sided with the rednecks: "Personally, I see the flag as symbol of heritage."

A few months later, he'd lost South Carolina and quit the race. He apologized--not to the African-Americans he'd offended, but to a friendly audience of Republicans. "I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary," he admitted. "So I chose to compromise my principles." It wasn't the first time, or the last.

Also in 2000, McCain insulted Asians. "I hate the gooks," John McCain hissed, "and I will hate them for as long as I live...and you can quote me." After a few days of negative press attention, he took it back: "I apologize and renounce all language that is bigoted and offensive, which is contrary to all that I represent and believe."

What does McCain "represent and believe"? In 2000 McCain attacked George W. Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University, a freaky institution that smeared Catholics, banned jazz and interracial dating. Six years later, however, it was McCain's turn to suck up to the Christianist right. He appeared at the Rev. Jerry Falwell's extremist Liberty University, which--like BJU--bans gays and denies pregnant students the right to seek an abortion.

No apology for that one.

In 1983, John McCain was a freshman congressman from Arizona, then one of the most right-wing states in the country. In order to appease his Republican Party's base--racist whites--he voted against the bill that established Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. "I thought that it was not necessary to have another federal holiday, that it cost too much money, that other presidents were not recognized," he explained in 2000. Do Chester Arthur or Gerry Ford deserve holidays? Anyway, MLK Day didn't cost employers a cent; Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday were replaced by the generic President's Day.

He also floated the "states rights" excuse (with its own racist signifiers) that referenced his support for Confederate "heritage" in South Carolina. "I believe it's an issue that the people of South Carolina can settle, just as we in Arizona settled the very divisive issue over the recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King as a holiday. I resented it a great deal when people from Washington and pundits and politicians and others came to my state to tell us how we should work out a very difficult problem."

Healthcare is "a very difficult problem." Iraq is "a very difficult problem." MLK Day, like the Confederate flag "issue," was a simple question of right and wrong.

True to his pattern, McCain understood that the racist pandering he used to launch his political career could come back to haunt him in the more enlightened--the John Birchers who contributed to his early campaigns might say "politically correct"--election year of 2008. Time for another apology: "I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona," he concedes. "We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans."

A little late?

"Well, I learned that this individual was a transcendent figure in American history, he deserved to be honored, and I thought it was appropriate to do so," McCain explained about his change of, um, heart. Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. McCain voted no on the MLK bill in 1983. That's 15 years later. How much longer did McCain need to "learn" about "this individual"?

The big question is: Is McCain racist? Or is he pandering to racists? And is there a difference?

His 2007 use of the term "tar baby" pretty much settles it. Unless, of course, you're a sucker for yet another apology: "I don't think I should have used that word and it was wrong to do so."

It's the 21st century. Even Nazi skinheads don't use terms like "tar baby."

God, if you're up there, please grant us this wish: Don't let John McCain become president. But if you do, don't let him meet any foreign leaders who don't happen to be white.

(Ted Rall is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

PET FOOD UPDATE

Rat poison found in tainted pet food

ALBANY, N.Y. - Rat poison was found in the pet food suspected of causing kidney failure that killed at least 16 cats and dogs, but scientists still don't know how it got there, state officials said Friday.

The toxin was identified as aminopterin, which is used to kill rats in some countries, state Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker said.

Aminopterin is not registered for killing rodents in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, though it is used as a cancer drug. State officials wouldn't speculate on how the toxin got into Menu Foods' now-recalled pet food but said no criminal investigations had been launched.

Scientists at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell and at the New York State Food Laboratory tested three cat food samples provided by Menu Foods and found Aminopterin in two of them. Hooker said they would test individual components of the pet food, as well. The early test results were released to give veterinarians a better idea of how to treat sick animals.

"Any amount of this product is too much in food," Hooker said.

Aminopterin, also used as a cancer drug, is highly toxic in high doses. It inhibits the growth of malignant cells and suppresses the immune system.

In dogs and cats, it can cause kidney failure, according to Donald Smith, dean of Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

The Food and Drug Administration has said the investigation into the pet deaths was focusing on wheat gluten in the pet food. Wheat gluten itself would not cause kidney failure, but the common ingredient could have been contaminated, the FDA said.

Bob Rosenberg, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Pest Management Association, said he had never heard of the substance before Friday.

"It would make no sense to spray a crop itself with rodenticide," Rosenberg said, though he said grain shippers typically put bait stations around the perimeter of their storage facilities.

The pet deaths led to a recall of 60 million cans and pouches of pet food produced by Menu Foods and sold throughout North America under 95 brand names. There have been several reports of kidney failure in pets that ate the recalled brands, and the company has confirmed the deaths of 15 cats and one dog.

Menu Foods last week recalled "cuts and gravy" style dog and cat food. The recall sparked concern among pet owners across North America. It includes food sold under store brands carried by Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and other large retailers, as well as private labels such as Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba.

The company, already facing lawsuits, planned a media teleconference for later Friday, a spokesman said. It is majority owned by Menu Foods Income Fund of Streetsville.

A complete list of the recalled products along with product codes, descriptions and production dates was posted online by Menu Foods and is available at . The company also designated two phone numbers that pet owners could call for information: (866) 463-6738 and (866) 895-2708.

A spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said he was not aware of any criminal investigation involving the tainted food.

FBI spokesman Paul Holstein in Albany said Friday he was not aware of any FBI involvement in the case.

"I don't know where we'll go from here," he said.

MONEY SHARED

Billionaire opens mansions to homeless

HONOLULU - Dorie-Ann Kahale and her five daughters moved from a homeless shelter to a mansion Thursday, courtesy of a Japanese real estate mogul who is handing over eight of his multimillion-dollar homes to low-income Native Hawaiian families.

Tears spilled down Kahale's cheeks as she accepted from billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto the key to a white, columned house with a circular driveway, a stone staircase and a deep porcelain bathtub. Her family will live there rent-free, but must pay utility bills.

"I'm shocked. I'm overwhelmed," Kahale said. "From the little box we had to what we have today."

Kawamoto, whose own eyes started welling up as Kahale cried, handed over two other homes Thursday to homeless or low-income families.

Kawamoto, one of Japan's richest men, said he plans to open eight of his 22 Kahala homes to needy Hawaiian families. They will be able to stay in the homes for up to 10 years, he said. He also gave each family 10 $100 bills to help them move in.

Native Hawaiians are disproportionately represented among the state's homeless and working poor.

Kawamoto owns dozens of office buildings in Tokyo under the name Marugen and his been buying and selling real estate in Hawaii and California since the 1980s.

He has been criticized for evicting tenants of his rental homes on short notice so he could sell the properties, as in 2002 when he gave hundreds of California tenants 30 days to leave.

Two years later, he served eviction notices to tenants in 27 Oahu rental homes, mostly in pricey Hawaii Kai, saying they had to leave within a month. He said he wanted to sell the houses to take advantage of rising prices.

Kawamoto selected the eight low-income families from 3,000 people who wrote him letters last fall after he announced his plan. He has said he tried to pick working, single mothers.

Giving away mansions shows more dedication to helping Hawaii's homeless than just handing out wads of cash, he said. Asked whether he was concerned about losing money on the effort, he laughed and said: "This is pocket money for me."

Kahale's new house is worth nearly $5 million, an average price for the mansion-like dwellings on Kahala Avenue. It is one of the more modest homes in the neighborhood, many of which feature ornate iron gates, meandering driveways and sculptured gardens.

Kahale became homeless two years ago when her landlord raised her rent from $800 to $1,200, putting the apartment beyond reach of her salary as customer service representative for Pacific LightNet, a telecommunications company. She first stayed with relatives, then moved to a shelter in September.

"What we need to do is appreciate," Kahale said after getting the keys to her new house. "As fast as we got it, it could disappear."

Some neighbors are unhappy with Kawamoto's plan, speculating that he is trying to drive down real estate values so he can snap up even more homes.

"Everyone's paying homage to him, but in reality, he's the problem," said Mark Blackburn, who lives down the street from Kahale's new home. "Houses are homes. They're made to live in; they aren't investment vehicles."

He suggested that the Waianae Coast, a heavily Hawaiian community on the other side of Oahu that has been hit hard by homelessness, would have been a better place for Kawamoto to carry out his charity work.

Kawamoto countered that those in the Kahala neighborhood who don't want Hawaiians next door might want to leave the islands altogether.

"The people who don't want to live near Hawaiians should move," Kawamoto said.

Lyn Worley, 40, who got the key to another Kawamoto house, said she believes her neighbors will grow to love her family.

The elementary school clerk has been living in a house in Waianae with her five children and brother for the past four years. Their lease ran out — and then Kawamoto's offer came along.

"We prayed so hard and cried so much for God to drop something from the skies, and he did," Worley said. "And he did, he really, really did."

FORECLOSURE

Credit counselors overwhelmed by U.S. mortgage crisis

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Until last year, financial counselors at the Home Ownership Center of Greater Cincinnati spent most of their time teaching Americans how to buy a first home. Now, they're deluged by broken and bereft homeowners facing foreclosure.

"Oh Lord, there is no way we can keep up with these calls," said Kaye Britton, a foreclosure counselor at the downtown nonprofit group that promotes home ownership to minority Americans, among others.

Britton has been helping clients reach the American dream of owning a home since 2002. Handmade wall signs urge would-be buyers to "sweat the small stuff" and note the lender's golden rule: "They have the gold, they make the rules."

Foreclosures were formerly rare, caused mostly by the loss of job, divorce or medical bills.

But when rising interest rates began driving up mortgage payments last year, homeowners started to feel the pain. Phones at credit counselors across the country are now ringing off the hook.

The industrial heartland has been particularly hard-hit. Ohio had the highest number of home foreclosures in 2006, while neighboring Michigan and Indiana -- all sideswiped by the faltering U.S. auto industry -- were close behind.

Housing analysts predict between 1 million and 3 million U.S. homes will be foreclosed upon in 2007. Already a wave of defaults on subprime mortgages held by those with poor credit have caused a crisis in parts of the industry, and some economists believe a recession could result.

"We knew it was going to be bad, but we didn't think it would be this bad," said Britton, echoing many who warned that increasingly exotic mortgage programs -- including those that required no down payment on home purchases -- would come back to haunt home buyers.

PREDATORY LENDING

Subprime loans allowed many Americans with spotty credit to buy into the housing boom, driving home ownership to nearly 69 percent nationwide in 2006, up from 65.4 percent a decade earlier. But teaser rates that kept interest payments low for two or three years have begun to expire, driving monthly payments through the roof.

Shanna Smith, chief executive of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said lenders often targeted the most vulnerable borrowers for subprime loans, even if they were eligible for loans with lower rates. More often than not, the borrowers had little understanding of mortgages.

"All the predatory lending that has gone on, all of the pushing of exotic loans on people of color, female-headed households, families with children, people with disabilities -- it's all coming home to roost," Smith said.

Britton said borrowers and lenders share the blame for the crisis. She sees many borrowers who simply didn't understand their interest rate was only fixed for two or three years, then could rise along with market rates.

"That's all they hear -- that it's fixed, not that it's only fixed for the first two years," Britton said. "They don't know their payment's gone up until they get the notice in the mail. And then they don't have the money."

Not all of the problem is in the subprime market. Many Americans with good credit but low income or no savings signed up for adjustable rate mortgages or interest-only loans to get into the market. As rates rise, they too feel the pinch.

At the nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service in suburban Cincinnati, counselor Darcy Blankenship sees a steady stream of people who knew their payments would be going up, but signed the loan anyway because they just wanted a house.

"People are so excited about wanting that house, they don't look at the whole picture. They just want the keys," she said.

CREDIT COUNSELING

Demand for counseling appointments at CCCS's Cincinnati offices has risen 87 percent from a year earlier.

Blankenship said one client started out with a 3.9 percent interest rate on his 30-year mortgage. Now it's rising to 11 percent -- and he can't meet the higher payments because once he bought the home he piled up debt furnishing the home.

"Now he can't refinance either, because of the debt. He just said, 'There's no way,"' she recalled.

Once borrowers fall 90 days behind on payments, lenders can start the foreclosure process, which can take up to a year. Owners can try to sell the house, but with prices falling and foreclosed homes flooding the market, borrowers often end up still owing more than they can get for the house.

Britton said people should call a reputable credit counselor as soon as they're in trouble. Loans can be restructured, and emergency funding may be available. But she admits the counseling industry is already overwhelmed.

"If I stop answering calls to actually talk to a client and help them, the messages pile up, and there's no time to call them all back," Britton said. "It's only going to get worse."

INFLATION INCREASE

WASHINGTON - Consumer inflation spurted higher in February, reflecting rising costs for gasoline and big jumps for food, while industrial output rebounded sharply, in large part because of the biggest jump in utility production in 17 years.

The Labor Department reported Friday that its Consumer Price Index rose by 0.4 percent last month, double the January increase and the largest advance since a similar increase in December.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve said that production at factories, mines and utilities surged by 1 percent last month, a sharp rebound following a 0.3 percent drop in January.

Much of the strength came from a 6.7 percent surge in utility production, as colder-than-normal temperatures in much of the country boosted production by the biggest amount since December 1989.

Output at the nation's factories rose by 0.4 percent in February, recouping much of the 0.5 percent drop in January. Auto production was up 3.2 percent, helped by an increase in light truck manufacturing, but analysts said the domestic industry remains under severe strain from foreign competition.

A jump in computer production boosted the output of home electronics but home appliances, furniture and carpeting all suffered declines, reflecting the slump in the housing industry.

The increase in consumer inflation was larger than the 0.3 percent gain that had been forecast although excluding volatile food and energy prices, inflation was better-behaved, rising by just 0.2 percent, exactly what economists had been expecting.

Federal Reserve policymakers meet next Tuesday and Wednesday with the wide expectation that they will leave interest rates unchanged even though the economy has slowed significantly under the impact of a steep slump in housing and troubles in autos and other parts of manufacturing.

While the Fed would normally be expected to ride to the rescue of a faltering economy by cutting rates, the stubbornly high inflation readings are expected to boost the arguments of Fed officials that the biggest threat to the economy remains the risk of higher inflation, not weaker growth.

The overall CPI reading was slightly bigger than expected, but it was still more moderate than a huge 1.3 percent surge in wholesale prices for February, a jump that was more than double what economists had been expecting.

At the consumer level, price pressures were led by higher energy costs, which were up 0.9 percent last month after having fallen by 1.5 percent in January.

Gasoline costs rose by 0.3 percent with economists forecasting even bigger advances as the spring driving season gets under way. The latest Lundberg Survey found that the nationwide average for gasoline has risen by 20 cents per gallon in just the past two months.

Food costs shot up by 0.8 percent in February, the biggest increase in 22 months. The gain was led by 16.3 percent surge in citrus prices, reflecting adverse weather in January in California growing areas. Rising fruit and vegetable costs contributed three-fifths of February's higher food costs.

So far an expected moderation in inflation has not occurred. For the first two months of this year, consumer prices are rising at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, up from a 2.5 percent increase for all of 2006.

Core inflation, which excluded energy and food, has been rising at an annual rate of 3 percent over the past two months, far above the Fed's comfort zone for gains of 1 percent to 2 percent in core prices. Last year, core inflation rose by 2.6 percent, which was the highest reading since 2001.

The Fed raised interest rates for two years with the last rate hike occurring in June 2006 as it attempted to slow economic growth enough to dampen inflation.

Outside of food and energy, price pressures in February were seen in rising costs for shelter, medical care and clothing.

WAR IS NOT WINNABLE

Iraq War forever alters D.C. landscape

WASHINGTON - Four years into the Iraq war, about the only thing that has not changed is President Bush's insistence the fight can be won.

With more than 3,200 U.S. troops dead and still no clear way out, the political landscape could not be more different.

Public support for the war has fallen to its lowest levels. Republicans have lost control of Congress because of voters' angst over the conflict. Even the president has acknowledged the tactical approach to the war must change.

The debate on whether to launch a pre-emptive attack against a nation has given way to this question: How soon should U.S. troops leave?

"The war that we the Congress authorized the president to engage in is different than the one we're in today," acknowledged GOP Rep. C.W. Bill Young (news, bio, voting record) of Florida, an ardent Bush supporter whose seat Democrats are targeting in the 2008 elections.

With sectarian attacks on the rise in Iraq, "I think we have to have a very serious appraisal of how you conduct yourself in that type of situation," Young said.

Young is not alone in questioning whether the U.S. is on the right track. Bush's critics and supporters alike say the four years of violence and the death toll has led to soul-searching over how far Congress should go to intervene in a war that has gone badly.

White House officials and many legal experts contend the Constitution gives the president supreme authority on foreign policy matters and control of the armed forces, whereas Congress' clearest option is to cut off money.

Democrats, reluctant to restrict that money for fear of being accused of abandoning the troops, are considering laws that would set a deadline for the war.

If these bills pass, Bush is expected to veto the legislation or ignore it.

But how much longer the president can hold out is uncertain. His Jan. 10 announcement that he planned to send in 21,500 more combat troops found support among most Republicans. Yet even they say the clock is ticking.

"If this current strategy doesn't work, the options aren't good," said Sen. John Thune (news, bio, voting record), R-S.D. If the violence continues, "you're going to see more and more people suggest we've got to do something different."

Such skepticism was rare in 2003 when the bombing began. Members of Congress lined up in support of the U.S.-led invasion; many were Democrats who did not want to appear reluctant to prevent another potential Sept. 11 attack.

Among those who voted in favor of the war are some of Bush's chief critics, including Democratic presidential contenders John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Since then, public sentiment toward the war has changed dramatically. Almost three-fourths of people in the U.S. supported the war when it began in March 2003, while one-fourth opposed it, according to Gallup polling at the time.

Last month, AP-Ipsos polling found that not quite four in 10 people surveyed agreed with the decision to go to war and six in 10 opposed — the same levels of support found by a recent Gallup poll.

The inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq did not help in maintaining support for the war. The claim that Saddam Hussein possessed such weapons was a main justification the administration used for the war.

Public acceptance of the war eroded as American casualties mounted and U.S. troops, initially focused on Sunni insurgents, instead had to grapple with Sunni-Shiite violence. This past week, the Pentagon said the violence was taking on aspects of a civil war.

Military officials agree that the task of easing that bloodshed is best accomplished by Iraqi security forces, once they become capable.

Other blows to the once-popular war effort were revelations of American forces abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha. Most recently there have been reports of substandard care of wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

One political marker was last October when Virginia Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record) declared the war was "drifting sideways." A prominent Republican on military issues, Warner stood beside Bush in 2002 as the president signed into law the congressional authorization for the war.

But four years later, upon returning from a trip to Iraq, Warner said he had lost confidence that the Iraqi government was making progress and worried that sectarian violence had consumed Baghdad.

After the elections, Warner proposed a congressional resolution stating opposition to the president's plan to augment force levels. The resolution drowned amid partisan bickering and was never voted on, but it attracted enough Republican support to worry the White House that it was losing its support base.

In another sign of the changing times, news of al-Qaida member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession that he masterminded Sept. 11 and plotted some 30 other attacks quickly gave way to another development. House Democrats won their first vote on a war spending bill that would demand the president pull troops out of Iraq before September 2008.

As that confrontation looms in the full House, Bush's supporters say they will continue to review their options to bring troops home.

Young says regardless of everything that has happened, he is not thinking of abandoning his president. But when asked if the war is winnable, Young's response was more one of optimism than anything else.

"It has to be" winnable, he said. "We can't let terrorists continue to threaten the United States."

PET RECALL

Dog, cat food recalled after pet deaths

WASHINGTON - A major manufacturer of pet foods sold throughout North America under dozens of store names is recalling millions of containers of its products while working to determine what caused kidney failure and some deaths of cats and dogs.

Menu Foods said Saturday it is recalling dog food sold under 46 brands and cat food sold under 37 brands and distributed throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. The pet foods were sold by major retailers, including Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway.

A complete list of the recalled products along with product codes, descriptions and production dates is available from the Menu Foods website, . Consumers with questions can also call (866) 895-2708.

"At this juncture, we're not 100 percent sure what's happened," said Paul Henderson, the company's president and chief executive officer. However, the recalled products were made using wheat gluten purchased from a new supplier, since dropped for another source, spokeswoman Sarah Tuite said. Wheat gluten is a source of protein.

An unknown number of cats and dogs suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, Menu Foods said in announcing the North American recall. Product testing has not revealed a link explaining the reported cases of illness and death, the company said.

The recall covers the company's "cuts and gravy" style food, which consists of chunks of meat in gravy, sold in cans and small foil pouches between Dec. 3 and March 6.

The pet food was sold by stores operated by the Kroger Co., Safeway Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and PetSmart Inc., among others, Henderson said.

The company said it makes pet food for 17 of the top 20 North American retailers. It is also a contract manufacturer for the top branded pet food companies, including Procter & Gamble Co.

P&G announced Friday the recall of specific 3 oz., 5.5 oz., 6 oz. and 13.2 oz. canned and 3 oz. and 5.3 oz. foil pouch cat and dog wet food products made by Menu Foods but sold under the Iams and Eukanuba brands. The recalled products bear the code dates of 6339 through 7073 followed by the plant code 4197, P&G said.

Menu Foods' three U.S. and one Canadian factory produce more than 1 billion containers of wet pet food a year. The recall covers pet food made at company plants in Emporia, Kan., and Pennsauken, N.J., Henderson said.

Henderson said the company received an undisclosed number of owner complaints of vomiting and kidney failure in dogs and cats after they had been fed its products. It has tested its products but not found a cause for the sickness.

"To date, the tests have not indicated any problems with the product," Henderson said.

The company alerted the Food and Drug Administration, which already has inspectors in one of the two plants, Henderson said.

Menu Foods is majority owned by the Menu Foods Income Fund, based in Ontario, Canada.

Henderson said the recall would cost the company the Canadian equivalent of $26 million to $34 million.

Phone Number

1-866-895-2708









2.2 million Americans risk losing homes

(Note: As of Tuesday, March 13, 2007, there are over 900,000 homes in foreclosure in Colorado)

As rates soar, 2.2 million Americans risk losing homes this year

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In the heady days of the US real estate boom, it seemed like a safe bet to use her house as collateral for a loan. Today, Sharon Edwardsen risks losing her Staten Island, New York home, trapped by spiraling payments.

Edwardsen, a 47-year-old assistant optician, was tempted to take out a special high-risk loan targeted at people with low credit ratings. Today her monthly repayments have soared to 2,800 dollars, yet she only takes home 1,600 dollars.

She is among 2.2 million people across the US who risk forfeiting their homes by the end of the year as they struggle to meet monthly repayments swollen by rising interest rates, and triggering fears that a financial crisis could sweep US lenders.

"I'm panicking every day. I'm not sleeping because I'm worrying. This house has been in my family forever and I don't want to lose it. But I can't make the payments they are asking me for," she told AFP.

In 2005 these so-called subprime mortgages, offering a short-termed fixed interest rate which then converts into a variable rate of about 12 percent, accounted for some 20 percent of all US mortgage deals.

As the real estate market boomed, they enabled some of the country's poorest citizens to get a toehold on the property ladder. Some of the loans dubbed "ninas" for "no income, no assets," were seen as an innovative way for people to realize the dream of owning their own home.

But now as interest rates rise, one in five borrowers of these high-risk exotic loans is set to default and see their homes seized by creditors.

"People don't understand that the loan is going to go up after two years," said Eric Halperin, director of the Washington office of the Center for Responsible Lending.

"In many of these cases, the lender lends money without regard to whether they (the borrower) will be able to repay the loan."

During the boom years, when the repayments got too high, home owners could even refinance their loans borrowing against the increased value of their house.

That's exactly what Edwardsen did, remortgaging her home three times between 2002 and 2006.

Each time she got into difficulties, her mortgage broker would offer a new deal. From an original loan of 103,000 dollars, she now owes the credit company some 285,000 dollars even though her monthly income has remained the same.

"They took advantage of the fact that I was so desperate that I needed it. I told her (the broker) I had trouble with it. So she said in three months 'we're going to do this again. We're going refinance you again and the money you take out, you going to use it for your mortgage payments,'" Edwardsen said.

"Blinded by their own greed and the incredible amount of money that was being provided by Wall Street, mortgage companies were making loans that were abusive," agreed Ira Rheingold, of the National Association of Consumer Advocates which has taken up Edwardsen's case.

Some companies were filling out false applications to ensure the credit was agreed. In Edwardsen's case, she became a doctor with a monthly income of 6,000 dollars.

"They were making loans and they knew people couldn't afford it and they made them anyway," Rheingold said, blaming "greedy deregulation, failure of the government to intervene and Wall Street's incredible appetite for high risk bonds that would pay them a lot of money."

Mortgage companies are now beginning to feel the bite.

Monday, New Century Financial, one of the major players in the market, said its credit was being cut off meaning it will have to declare bankruptcy in the next few days. Federal and state prosecutors were also probing its records.

Last week as the shaky mortgage market dragged down the US stock market, US financial authorities toughened up conditions for approving such high-risk loans.

But for some, the move comes too late.

"I'm glad they are doing it, but most of the damage has already been done. They are closing the barn door after the horse and cows are already ran out. It's too little, too late," Rheingold said.

IGNORANT IN DC

WASHINGTON - About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.

Adults are considered functionally illiterate if they have trouble doing such things as comprehending bus schedules, reading maps and filling out job applications.

The study by the State Education Agency, a quasi-governmental office created by the U.S. Department of Education to distribute federal funds for literacy services, was ordered by Mayor Anthony A. Williams in 2003 as part of his four-year, $4 million adult literacy initiative.

The growing number of Hispanic and Ethiopian immigrants who aren't proficient in English contributed to the city's high functional illiteracy level, which translated to 170,000 people, said Connie Spinner, director of the State Education Agency. The report says the district's functional illiteracy rate is 36 percent and the nation's 21 percent.

Adults age 65 and older had the lowest literacy score of any group, the report found.

The District of Columbia Chamber of Commerce, which contributed to the report, said the city lost up to $107 million in taxes annually between 2000 and 2005 because of a lack of qualified job applicants.

IRAQ

Iraqis seek to hang Saddam aide at dawn

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government asked U.S. authorities for custody of Saddam Hussein's former deputy to hang him at dawn Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam's vice president when the regime was ousted, would be the fourth man executed in the killings of 148 Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the city of Dujail.

The executions have outraged Iraqi Sunnis and caused concern among international human rights groups, which have appealed for Ramadan's life.

Saddam Hussein's regime was predominantly Sunni and many members of the sect have protested the executions on the grounds they are politically motivated by the newly empowered Shiite majority in Iraq. International human rights groups have, by and large, protested that the trial which found the men guilty did not provide them with due legal process.

Officials in the prime minister's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, said Monday that U.S. authorities had not yet responded to the request for custody of Ramadan but were expected to agree as a matter of course. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Ramadan was convicted in November of murder, forced deportation and torture and sentenced to life in prison. A month later, the appeals court said the sentence was too lenient, and returned his case to the High Tribunal, demanding he be sentenced to death. The court agreed to turn it to a death sentence.

Ramadan has maintained his innocence, saying his duties were limited to economic affairs, not security issues. Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice have said the evidence against him is insufficient for the death penalty.

Saddam was executed on Dec. 30 for his role in the killings. Two of his co-defendants in the Dujail case — his half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court — were executed in January.

Saddam's death was recorded by a cell phone video camera and posted on the Internet, and much of the Sunni Arab world was infuriated by the mockery he faced by onlookers in the moments before his hanging. Ibrahim was inadvertently decapitated when he was hanged, also causing a furor.

Around Iraq, meanwhile, bombs tore through a Shiite mosque during prayers in Baghdad and struck several targets in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Monday, killing at least 26 people.

The latest attacks highlighted the challenges facing U.S. and Iraqi forces in their bid to curb sectarian bloodshed with the month-old security crackdown. Execution-style killings usually blamed on Shiite militias have fallen dramatically but bombings have not kept pace in the downward trend.

Late Monday, U.S. and Iraqi troops engaged in a major operation as part of the crackdown in the volatile Hurriyah neighborhood in northern Baghdad, state television said. Witnesses said there were many people reported holed up in two Shiite mosques, surrounded by U.S. forces.

The state-run Iraqiya network said six civilians had been killed. The U.S. military did not immediately comment on the reports.

Last year, Hurriyah was the scene of large-scale sectarian cleansing in which Shiite militants forced much of the Sunni minority out of the district and took over or closed Sunni mosques.

With the war entering its fifth year, President Bush pleaded for patience as he faced Democrat-sponsored legislation that effectively would require the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008. He said his plan to curb violence by sending more U.S. troops to Baghdad and the surrounding areas needed more time. Fewer than half the reinforcements have arrived.

"There will be good days and bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds," he said in a televised statement, adding that he had received news of positive signs during a briefing on the war with his National Security Council and in a video conference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki's office said the Shiite leader assured Bush in their half-hour call that his government was pressing ahead with reconstruction and political reforms and that it remained committed to national reconciliation and the passage of a draft oil law.

"The two sides agreed to secure the requirements for peace and stability for a stable, democratic and prosperous Iraq," said the statement, adding that Bush welcomed the Iraqi government's efforts to follow through on its commitments and renewed his support for al-Maliki.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Monday's bombings, but they bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents.

The violence in Baghdad began shortly after the afternoon call to prayer in a small green-domed mosque in the Shorja market area, where a truck bomb killed 137 people last month.

Salah Baqir, a 42-year-old vendor who saw the attack, said the bomber slipped past the guards who were distracted by an argument and placed the explosives in a bag behind the preacher's lectern.

The blast left a crater and a pile of rubble on the floor, with a clock that was knocked off the wall. At least eight worshippers were killed and 32 other people were wounded, including the preacher, police said. Iraqi authorities have imposed strict security in the area to prevent car bombings that often target crowded markets, but Sunni insurgents have proven resilient in finding ways to circumvent the stepped up security since the start of the crackdown Feb. 14.

At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in a series of bombings in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad — the most devastating when two parked car bombs exploded within 10 minutes in a southern part of the city. Fourteen civilians and four policemen were killed and 40 were wounded, police said.

The region is home mainly to ethnic Turks. The office of the secular Iraqi List party of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and the educational directorate are in the same district about a half mile apart.

Provincial Gov. Abdul-Rahman Mustafa accused Sunni insurgents of trying to destabilize the area by provoking hostilities among the varied ethnic and religious groups in the mixed community. The city, which Kurds hope to incorporate into their autonomous zone, is also the center of an ethnic power struggle.

In all, at least 55 Iraqis were killed or found dead in Iraq, including the mayor of a Shiite village southeast of Baghdad and 29 bullet-riddled bodies that turned up in the capital.

In the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, police said at least 25 decomposed bodies — some beheaded — were found near a post office east of the provincial capital Ramadi.

Police Lt. Col. Hamid Khalaf Salim said the victims disappeared months ago after clashes between al-Qaida in Iraq and the Albu Soda clan, which recently joined the Anbar Salvation Council, an alliance of clans backing the government against the terror network. The U.S. military said it had no information on the report.

The U.S. military also said two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 12 were wounded when explosives planted by insurgents in a building being used as an observation post were detonated on Sunday, causing the structure to collapse in Fallujah.

IRAQ

Bush pleads for patience in Iraq war

WASHINGTON - With Democrats pushing for an end to the Iraq war now entering its fifth year, President Bush pleaded for more patience Monday, saying success is possible but "will take months, not days or weeks."

The war has stretched longer, with higher costs, than the White House ever predicted. On the fourth anniversary of the day Bush directed the invasion to begin, the president made a televised statement from the White House Roosevelt Room to defend continued U.S. involvement.

He said his plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and Iraq's troubled Anbar Province "will need more time to take effect," especially since fewer than half of the troop reinforcements have yet arrived in the capital. Bush added: "There will be good days and bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds."

Democrats are bringing up this week in the House a war spending bill that would effectively require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008, on top of providing funding for the wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan for the year. The White House has been pushing aggressively against this legislation, and Bush did so again on Monday.

"It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home," he said. "That may be satisfying in the short run. But I believe the consequences for America's security would be devastating."

Democrats blasted Bush's statement. They called it an an open-ended commitment to a losing strategy.

"The American people have lost confidence in President Bush's plan for a war without end in Iraq," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) of California.

"That failed approach has been rejected by the voters in our nation, and it will be rejected by the Congress."

Democrats also sought to refute Bush's assertion that the House bill would reduce flexibility needed by the military to win the war.

"There is nothing in this legislation that will be considered this week that micromanages the war," said House Majority Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record), D-Md. No military general "will in any way be constrained from the tactics or the strategies that they deem best to employ on the ground in Iraq."

House Minority Leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record) reiterated that Republicans would vote against the bill. Without GOP support, Democrats have been struggling to make sure they have enough votes within their own party.

"Our troops have not quit on us, and Republicans will not quit on them," said Boehner, R-Ohio, who has predicted "99 percent" of GOP lawmakers will vote against the Democratic proposal.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada said Democrats in his chamber won't relent in trying to stop Bush's "flawed policy." Last week, Senate Republicans easily turned back Democratic legislation requiring a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days.

"We will not stop until they listen to the American people and change course in Iraq," Reid said.

Bush said he had received news of positive signs during a morning briefing on the war with his National Security Council, and during a closed-circuit television conference call with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from Baghdad.

Bush ridiculed House Democrats' legislation to remove troops, a measure he has promised to veto because it contains a timeline. He called it an abdication of U.S. commitments to Iraqis.

"There's a lot more work to be done and Iraq's leaders must continue to work to meet the benchmarks they have set forward," he said. "As Iraqis work to meet their commitments, we have important commitments of our own."

The House's war spending bill includes a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008. The timeline would speed up if the Iraqi government cannot meet its own benchmarks for providing security, allocating oil revenues and other essential steps.

Democrats "have a responsibility to ensure that this bill provides the funds and the flexibility that our troops need to accomplish their mission," the president said.

"They have a responsibility to pass a clean bill that does not use funding for our troops as leverage to get special interest spending for their district. And they have a responsibility to get this bill to my desk without strings and without delay."

But Democratic lawmakers argue that the public voted in November to place them in charge of Congress to demand more progress in Iraq — and to start getting the U.S. troops out.

The House plan appears to have little chance of getting through the Senate, where Democrats have a slimmer majority. The White House wants to stop it anyway, fearful of the message the world will hear if the House approves a binding bill to end the war.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday the House bill could make it impossible for military commanders to do their work.

Congressional Democrats, put in power in large part because of anti-war public sentiment, are trying to use their power of the purse to force action. So far, Iraq's leadership is struggling to meet the major benchmarks that it has pledged to the United States.

The impending House vote concerns a $124 billion spending bill, $95.5 billion of which is targeted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of the other money is for unrelated domestic programs, which also has angered the White House.

Entering its fifth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 members of the U.S. military.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier Monday staunchly defended going to war but acknowledged the administration should have sent more troops initially to quell the civil strife following the invasion.

US & COMPUTER BLOWS

Most computer attacks originate in U.S.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The United States generates more malicious computer activity than any other country, and sophisticated hackers worldwide are banding together in highly efficient crime rings, according to a new report.

Researchers at Cupertino-based Symantec Corp. also found that fierce competition in the criminal underworld is driving down prices for stolen financial information.

Criminals may purchase verified credit card numbers for as little as $1, and they can buy a complete identity — a date of birth and U.S. bank account, credit card and government-issued identification numbers — for $14, according to Symantec's twice-yearly Internet Security Threat Report released Monday.

Researchers at the security software company found that about a third of all computer attacks worldwide in the second half of 2006 originated from machines in the United States. That makes the United States the most fertile breeding ground for threats such as spam, phishing and malicious code — easily surpassing runners-up China, which generates 10 percent of attacks, and Germany, which generates 7 percent.

The United States also leads in "bot network activity." Bots are compromised computers controlled remotely and operating in concert to pump out spam or perform other nefarious acts.

The legitimate owner of the computer typically doesn't know the machine has been taken over — and the phenomenon is largely responsible for the palpable increase in junk e-mail in the past half year.

Spam made up 59 percent of all e-mail traffic Symantec monitored. That's up 5 percentage points from the previous period. Much of the spam was related to stock picks and other financial scams.

The United States is also home to more than half of the world's "underground economy servers" — typically corporate computers that have been commandeered to facilitate clandestine transactions involving stolen data and may be compromised for as little as two hours or as long as two weeks, according to the report.

The study marks the first time Symantec researchers have studied the national origins of computer attacks. The report focused on attacks during the last half of 2006 on more than 120 million computers running Symantec antivirus software. The company operates more than 2 million decoy e-mail accounts designed to attract messages from around the world to identify spam and phishing activity.

Alfred Huger, vice president of Symantec Security Response, said online criminals appear to be adopting more sophisticated means of "self-policing." They're launching denial-of-service attacks on rivals' servers and posting pictures online of competitors' faces.

"It's ruthless, highly organized and highly evolved," Huger said.

One of the most startling findings: The worldwide number of bot-infected computers rose — an increase of about 29 percent from the previous six months, to more than 6 million computers total — while the number of servers controlling them plunged. The number of such "command-and-control" servers declined by about 25 percent to around 4,700.

Symantec researchers said the decrease signifies that bot network owners are consolidating to expand their networks, creating a more centralized, efficient structure for launching attacks.

Twenty-six percent of the world's bot-infected computers were in China, a higher percentage than any other country.

According to Symantec, Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer was the most-targeted Web browser, attracting 77 percent of all browser attacks.

Symantec said it expects to see more threats begin to emerge against Microsoft's Vista operating system. It also expects multiplayer online games to be targeted by phishers, who fool users into divulging passwords or other personal information by creating fake Web sites that look like the real thing.

WYNFREY CRIES

Winfrey cried over relative's 'betrayal'

CHICAGO - Oprah Winfrey says in the February issue of her magazine that she cried for three days when a relative told the National Enquirer that Winfrey became pregnant at 14 and lost the baby after birth.

Winfrey already had confirmed the Enquirer's 1990 report that she got pregnant as a teenager, telling Parade magazine later that year that the baby was born prematurely and died shortly after birth. Her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, sold the story to the tabloid, according to news reports at the time.

Winfrey, who did not name Lloyd in her column, wrote in O, The Oprah Magazine that the relative "sat in a room, told them the story of my hidden shame and left their offices $19,000 richer."

"I felt devastated. Wounded. Betrayed. How could this person do this to me?" she wrote.

Winfrey now says she learned something from what she calls "that first betrayal." Having the secret out was "liberating" and it allowed her to begin to heal from the sexual abuse she said she experienced as a girl.

She says she hasn't let more recent betrayals in her life bother her as much, although they still feel like "a kick in the gut."

CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT

Hillary Clinton launches White House bid

NEW YORK - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a trailblazing campaign for the White House on Saturday, a former first lady turned political powerhouse intent on becoming the first female president. "I'm in, and I'm in to win," she said.

In a videotaped message posted on her Web site, Clinton said she was eager to start a dialogue with voters about challenges she hoped to tackle as president — affordable health care, deficit reduction and bringing the "right" end to the Iraq war.

"I'm not just starting a campaign, though, I'm beginning a conversation with you, with America," she said. "Let's talk. Let's chat. The conversation in Washington has been just a little one-sided lately, don't you think?"

Clinton's announcement, while widely anticipated, was nonetheless an historic moment in a fast-developing campaign that has already seen the emergence of a formidable black contender, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois.

Since joining the field, Obama has secured the backing of a number of prominent fundraisers, including billionaire philanthropist George Soros, stepping up the pressure on Clinton to disclose her plans.

In an instant, Clinton became the most credible female candidate ever to seek the presidency and the first presidential spouse to attempt to return to the White House in her own right. Her husband, Bill, served two terms as president from 1993 to 2001.

"I am one of the millions of women who have waited all their lives to see the first woman sworn in as president of the United States — and now we have our best opportunity to see that dream fulfilled," said Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY's list, which raises money for Democratic women who run for office.

With her immense star power, vast network of supporters and donors and seasoned team of political advisers, the 59-year-old Clinton long has topped every national poll of potential Democratic contenders.

But her controversial tenure as first lady left her a deeply polarizing figure among voters, leading many Democrats to doubt Clinton's viability in a general election.

In a detailed statement posted on her Web site, Clinton sought to acknowledge and bat away such doubts.

"I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe in or to face down the Republican machine," she wrote. "After nearly $70 million spent against my campaigns in New York and two landslide wins, I can say I know how Washington Republicans think, how they operate and how to beat them."

Recently, Clinton has clashed with many in her own party over the Iraq war.

Clinton supported the 2002 resolution authorizing military intervention in Iraq. She has refused to recant her vote or call for a deadline for the removal of troops. She has announced her opposition to President Bush's troop increase in Iraq and has introduced legislation capping troop levels.

"A woman candidate could find it easier to run in peacetime, rather than wartime, but Senator Clinton's tried to position herself as a serious person on national security," said Andrew Polsky, a presidential historian at Hunter College. "But that means she's staked out difficult position on the war that won't make it easy for her to get Democratic nomination."

With a $14 million campaign treasury, Clinton starts with an impressive fundraising advantage over the rest of the Democratic field. But Obama and others have started to secure fundraising commitments from New York, California and other deep-pocketed, Clinton-friendly areas.

Her creation of a presidential exploratory committee, announced Saturday, allows her to raise money for the campaign; she already has lined up campaign staff.

In tone and substance, Clintons' videotaped announcement recalled her first Senate race in New York in 2000, where she conducted a "listening tour" of the state's 62 counties before formally entering the contest.

She promised a three-day series of Web chats with voters beginning Monday and prepared a campaign swing late this coming week through the early voting state of Iowa, while a visit to New Hampshire was in the works.

On Sunday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was also set to enter the Democratic field; if elected, he would be the first Hispanic president.

For the short term at least, the outsized candidacies of Clinton and Obama were expected to soak up the lion's share of attention.

Obama, who launched his own presidential committee on Tuesday, praised Clinton as a friend and colleague.

"I welcome her and all the candidates, not as competitors, but as allies in the work of getting our country back on track," he said in a statement.

Other Democratic contenders include former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack; Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd; Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the party's 2004 vice-presidential nominee. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden has said he will run and planned to formalize his intentions soon. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 standard bearer, is also contemplating another run.

An influential player in her husband's political career in Arkansas, Hillary Clinton leapt to the national scene during the 1992 presidential campaign when husband and wife fought to survive the scandal over Gennifer Flowers' allegations of a lengthy affair with Bill Clinton when he was the state's governor.

The Clintons appeared together on CBS' "60 Minutes" to talk about their marriage — Hillary Clinton's first famous "Stand by Your Man" moment.

As first lady, Clinton headed up a disastrous first-term effort to overhaul the health care insurance system. There was more controversy as the couple battled allegations of impropriety over land deals and fundraising, missing records from her former Arkansas law firm and even her quick and hefty profits from an investment in cattle futures.

There was no letup in the second term. The president found himself denying — then admitting — having a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As he battled impeachment and possible removal from office, his wife's poll numbers rose.

Her own political career began to take shape in late 1998 when New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced he would not seek re-election to the Senate seat he had held since 1976.

The campaign trail was not always friendly. For almost every cheer, there was a shouted "Go home, Hillary!" and the emerging Republican theme that carpetbagger Clinton simply wanted to use New York as a launching pad for a later presidential run.

WEATHER AFFECTS COMPUTERS

Storm Worm hits computers around the world

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Computer virus writers attacked thousands of computers on Friday using an unusually topical email citing raging European storms, a security company said.

The virus, which the company named "Storm Worm," was emailed to hundreds of thousands of addresses globally with the subject line "230 dead as storm batters Europe."

An attached file contained so-called malware that can infiltrate computer systems.

"What makes this exceptional is the timely nature of the attack," Mikko Hypponen, head of research at Finnish data security firm F-Secure (FSC1V.HE), told Reuters.

Hypponen said thousands of computers, most in private use, had been affected.

He said most users would not notice the malware, or trojan, which creates a back door to the computer that can be exploited later to steal data or to use the computer to post spam.

LOSE WEIGHT

It's official. Wii use can cause weight loss

LOS ANGELES, Jan 19 (Reuters Life!) - Video gamers who'd rather battle virtual villains than fight the flab can take heart. Use of the new Nintendo Wii can lead to weight loss.

After six weeks and 21 hours of total game play on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) new game console, Philadelphia resident Mickey DeLorenzo is nine pounds (4 kgs) lighter and making a splash with his new svelte self.

"I'm on my 15 minutes here," he joked, referring to the famous Andy Warhol quote about 15 minutes of fame, in a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday.

DeLorenzo, 25, came up with the idea for his experiment after he and his fianc饠ended up breathless and glistening with sweat after virtually pummeling each other in the "Wii Sports" boxing game.

"On the fly, as I was typing my blog posts, I set up a daily regimen and went at it 100 percent," said DeLorenzo, who tipped the scales at 181 pounds -- where he's been for the last couple years -- when he started the experiment on December 3.

He ate as usual and didn't deprive himself during the holidays. The only thing that changed was the addition of daily, 30-minute sessions of Wii tennis, bowling, boxing or baseball.

DeLorenzo chronicled his progress on his blog at , which includes weight-loss charts and "before" and "after" pictures, as well as shots recalling Rocky Balboa, the City of Brotherly Love's most famous fictional resident -- with Wiimotes.

While he expected to shed a couple pounds, DeLorenzo got more than he bargained for.

"Seeing the 'before' and 'after' pictures, I am going to keep doing it. I am going to add some weights to the next round because I don't want to shrink to nothing," said DeLorenzo, who said he had never before dieted or worked out to lose weight.

More projects are already in the works.

A fitness Web site already has asked him to help it create Wii workouts and he already owns the Internet address , which for now, links to his blog.

He's betting that Nintendo will soon have its own workout game. And no, the Japanese game giant hasn't called.

Visits to DeLorenzo's blog have jumped -- he's been the subject of numerous blog posts and news stories on major mainstream media outlets -- but his fame has not come without a price.

The bill for the extra Web traffic was $80 two days ago and has likely climbed. He's adding ads to offset the cost, but said even if he comes out in the red on this venture, it's all been worth it.

"It's been a wild ride. It's been great."

GUILTY, INNOCENT GUILTY

Guilty verdict in Wis. murder trial

CHILTON, Wis. - A man who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit was convicted Sunday of murdering a photographer, whose charred bones were found in a burn pit outside his home.

Steven Avery, 44, put his head down and shook it when the verdict was read. He faces a mandatory life prison term for killing Teresa Halbach, 25, on Halloween 2005 near his family's salvage yard.

Halbach disappeared Oct. 31, 2005, after going to the yard in rural Manitowoc County to photograph a minivan that Avery's sister had for sale through Auto Trader Magazine. Avery had called that morning to request the photo, testimony showed.

A few days later, Halbach's vehicle was found in the Avery salvage lot under branches, pieces of wood and car parts. Investigators then spent a week on the 40-acre property and found charred fragments of her bones in a pit behind Avery's garage and in a barrel, along with her camera and cell phone.

Two years before Halbach died, Avery was released from prison after serving 18 years for a Manitowoc County rape that DNA analysis showed he did not commit. He later settled a wrongful-conviction lawsuit against the county for $400,000 and used it for his defense.

The jury convicted Avery of first-degree intentional homicide and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was acquitted of mutilating a corpse. The panel deliberated over three days and heard a month of testimony.

After the verdict was read, Halbach's brother, Mike Halbach, 24, told reporters that he was pleased, despite being surprised by the split verdict, and that he believed his sister's spirit guided the jury.

"What matters is that Steven Avery is going to be in prison for rest of his life, which ... from the start is what we wanted," he said.

Defense lawyer Dean Strang said Avery was disappointed but not despondent. He said they plan to consider challenging the conviction within 30 days.

"He's surely disappointed, but he's also had experience with the time that can pass sometimes before others accept your innocence," Strang said. "He's in effect an old hand, unfortunately, at waiting out the criminal justice system to get it right."

The jurors issued a statement saying none would discuss the case.

Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey is due for trial next month. In March 2006, he confessed to helping kill and rape Halbach.

Prosecutors then added charges of sexual assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment to Avery's case. But Dassey recanted his confession and rejected a plea deal that would have required him to testify against his uncle.

The judge dismissed the sexual assault and kidnapping charges against Avery in January because prosecutors could not guarantee the nephew would testify. The judge dismissed the false imprisonment charge last week, saying the jurors didn't have enough evidence to convict Avery of the charge.

Mike Halbach said his family expects Dassey's trial to have a similar outcome after it begins April 16.

In closing arguments, defense lawyer Dean Strang had told jurors their verdict could "set a lot of things right" for Avery because of his previous wrongful conviction.

"The 1985 case won't matter so much anymore if justice is done this time," he said.

But special prosecutor Ken Kratz said it was "absolutely improper" for the defense to ask jurors to take the old case into account.

He told jurors the prosecution's theory of what happened — that Avery backed Halbach's vehicle into his empty garage, closed the garage door and at some point shot Halbach at least twice and put her in the back of her vehicle.

Avery's attorneys had claimed Manitowoc County Sheriff's Sgt. Andrew Colborn and Lt. James Lenk, embarrassed by Avery's wrongful-conviction lawsuit, planted evidence to make sure he would be convicted of the murder, including putting Avery's blood in Halbach's vehicle.

The lawyers claimed the blood came from an unsecured vial from Avery's appeals of the rape case. They also claimed the bones were moved to where they were found.

A detective in another county told Colborn in the mid-1990s that he had someone in custody who may have committed an assault in Manitowoc County. Colborn wasn't a sworn officer at the time and transferred the call to a detective. Lenk took his statement on the matter in 2003. Avery was not mentioned.

Colborn and Lenk testified they never planted evidence and had no anger or embarrassment over the lawsuit.

(Corrects time false imprisonment charge was dismissed to last week, not Monday as in previous version.)

JOHN EDWARDS INSULTED IN HIS FAVOR

SUMMARY: After right-winger Ann Coulter used the "f-word" to slam

John Edwards, the candidate put the video on his Web site and used it to raise money.

Prominently featured on John Edwards' presidential campaign Web site is a video of conservative commentator Ann Coulter insulting him. And with just a mouse click you can hear the invective and get a chance to donate at the same time.

On Friday, Coulter, a writer and columnist known for provocative remarks, told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

The Edwards camp is now seeking to capitalize on the slur by soliciting $100,000 in

"Coulter Cash" to "show that inflaming prejudice to attack progressive leaders will only backfire."

Meanwhile, conservatives were none too pleased with Coulter, either. Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said: "Frankly, I would have loved to have heard Ann expose and dissect the radical agenda of Sen. Edwards instead of restoring to cheap name-calling." (AP)

OBAMA INSULTED

Obama referred to as “Clean Darky”

Disc jockey Sam Allred, who appears on KXAN TV in Austin, Texas, has been suspended for referring to presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as a "clean darky" on the air, sources report.

Last Thursday, Allred and his co-host, Bob Cole, were apparently referring to the comment made by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) in January describing Obama as "clean." Then Allred added, "Clean darky." Cole immediately responded "Sammy!" and the show cut to commercial.

When the jocks returned, Allred commented, "See, I was making fun of politicians who say things like that."

The NAACP clearly saw the comments differently, and told the station, "That kind of ignorance has no place in this country in 2007."

Allred, meanwhile has refused to apologize, claiming that he was exercising his right to free speech. He said, "It's called the First Amendment, and you get the right to say anything."

PEDOPHILE USES OBAMA

Pedophile Removes Web Photo of Obama's Daughters After Legal Threat

A self-admitted pedophile has removed from his Web site a family photo of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, his wife and two daughters after receiving a cease and desist order from the presidential candidate's attorney.

Proud pedophile Lindsay Ashford, who runs Puellula Web site based in Panama, said despite the request from Obama attorney Robert F. Bauer, he is keeping up a link to the senator's presidential campaign site, in part because he considers it a tribute.

"I have no intention of removing references to Senator Obama and his family from my website. Whatever anybody thinks of my opinions, they are not defamatory. If anything, my comments are laudatory. Furthermore, my right to express my opinion is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," he wrote in a letter to Bauer.

Ashford's response came after Bauer wrote on behalf of Obama ordering the family photo to be removed.

"The image you use on your Web site is used without the express permission of the copyright owner, and constitutes copyright infringement. Your willful and unauthorized copying of this copyrighted picture subjects you to substantial criminal and civil damages and penalties," Bauer wrote.

Bauer also wrote that Obama's family photo on the site leaves a misimpression among those who would read Ashford's blog.

"Pedophilia — sex with under-age children — is illegal in the United States and many countries of the world. Your inclusion of a pictures associated with Senator Obama personally and Obama for America on your website creates two highly misleading and untrue impressions: first, that Senator Obama and/or Obama for America share your views, and second, that Senator Obama and/or Obama for America have authorized or sponsored your site, or are affiliated or associated with you in any way. Your actions are overtly defamatory of Senator Obama and Obama for America, infringe upon the rights of publicity of Senator Obama and his family, and have the potential to cause serious and irremediable harm.

"Your actions are particularly objectionable — if not outright dangerous — because you have included a picture of Senator Obama's young daughters on a site advocating pedophilia with young girls, heightening the risk they face. This is not simply defamatory, but is a criminal act," Bauer wrote in the letter dated Feb. 26. Calls placed to Obama and Bauer's offices were not immediately returned.

Ashford, who is brazen enough to post his photo on his site along with a long biography that reveals he has a daughter, wrote Bauer to say that pedophilia itself is not the same as child molestation and is not illegal on its face.

"Pedophilia, according to the definition of the American Psychiatric Association is a sexual attraction to children. It does not imply any action whatsoever upon that attraction. ... Whilst I agree that under the laws of many nations, sexual contact with children is illegal, my website does not encourage anybody to break the law. In fact, it clearly discourages illegal activity. It does support using democratic means to encourage dialogue and reconsider such statutes," Ashford wrote.

The APA notes (pdf) that pedophilia is a mental disorder that can be treated with drugs and cognitive-behavioral therapy but prospects for successful treatment and rehabilitation are "guarded." The APA also states that "an adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act and this is never considered normal or socially acceptable behavior."

The site Puellula, the Latin diminutive of girl, is a forum not only for Ashford to describe his fascination with "girllove" and describe himself as "somebody who is physically and romantically attracted to young girls," it offers advice for living as a pedophile and for individuals coping with learning that a partner is a pedophile.

Aside from the adoration of young girls, Ashford also uses the site to rail against the United States, which he calls "the Evil Empire," and post anti-Israel commentary, among other topics.

Ashford apparently first predicted last April that the winner of the 2008 presidential contest would be the person who had the cutest daughters. Writing that an opponent of his wrote the candidates to ask them to take action, no one did anything until last week, when he received the letter from Obama's attorney. Obama entered the presidential race in December.

Ashford said despite the content of his site, he would hope that Obama would appreciate the democratic flavor of his site.

"I certainly hope that Senator Obama would agree that debate and public discourse are important facets of any democratic society, irrespective of how distasteful some may find particular issues," he said.

WELFARE

Welfare state growing despite overhauls

WASHINGTON - The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid.

The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.

The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.

Critics of the welfare overhaul say the numbers offer fresh evidence that few former recipients have become self-sufficient, even though millions have moved from welfare to work. They say the vast majority have been forced into low-paying jobs without benefits and few opportunities to advance.

"If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo," said Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women's studies at Hamilton College in upstate New York. "If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success."

Proponents of the changes in welfare say programs that once discouraged work now offer support to people in low-paying jobs. They point to expanded eligibility rules for food stamps and Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, that enable people to keep getting benefits even after they start working.

"I don't have any problems with those programs growing, and indeed, they were intended to grow," said Ron Haskins, a former adviser to President Bush on welfare policy.

"We've taken the step of getting way more people into the labor force and they have taken a huge step toward self-sufficiency. What is the other choice?" he asked.

In the early 1990s, critics contended the welfare system encouraged unemployment and promoted single-parent families. Welfare recipients, mostly single mothers, could lose benefits if they earned too much money or if they lived with the father of their children.

Major changes in welfare were enacted in 1996, requiring most recipients to work but allowing them to continue some benefits after they started jobs. The law imposed a five-year limit on cash payments for most people in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. Some states have shorter time limits.

Nia Foster fits the pattern of dependence on government programs. She stopped getting cash welfare payments in the late 1990s and has moved from one clerical job to another. None provided medical benefits.

The 32-year-old mother of two from Cincinnati said she supports her family with help from food stamps and Medicaid.

Foster said she did not get any job training when she left welfare. She earned her high-school equivalency last year at a community college.

"If you want to get educated or want to succeed, the welfare office don't care," Foster said. "I don't think they really care what you do once the benefits are gone."

Foster now works in a tax office, a seasonal job that will end after April 15. She hopes to enroll at the University of Cincinnati this spring and would like to study accounting. She is waiting to find out if she qualifies for enough financial aid to cover tuition.

"I like data processing, something where it's a bunch of invoices and you have to key them in," Foster said. "I want to be an accountant so bad."

Shannon Stanfield took a different, less-traveled path from welfare, thanks to a generous program that offered her a chance to get a college education.

Stanfield, 36, was cleaning houses to support her two young children four years ago when she learned about a program for welfare recipients at nearby Hamilton College, a private liberal arts school in Clinton, N.Y.

"At the time I was living in a pretty run-down apartment," said Stanfield, who was getting welfare payments, Medicaid and food stamps. "It wasn't healthy."

The program, called the Access Project, accepts about 25 welfare-eligible parents a year. Hamilton waives tuition for first-year students and the program supplements financial aid in later years. Students get a host of social and career services, including help finding internships and jobs and financial assistance in times of crisis.

About 140 former welfare recipients have completed the program and none still relies on government programs for the poor, said Adair, the Hamilton professor who started the Access Project in 2001.

Stanfield, who still gets Medicaid and food stamps, plans to graduate in May with a bachelor's degree in theater. She wants to be a teacher.

"I slowly built up my confidence through education," Stanfield said. "I can't honestly tell you how much it has changed my life."

Programs such as the Access Project are not cheap, which is one reason they are rare. Tuition and fees run about $35,000 a year at Hamilton, and the program's annual budget is between $250,000 and $500,000, Adair said.

In 2005, about 5.1 million people received monthly welfare payments from TANF and similar state programs, a 60 percent drop from a decade before.

But other government programs grew, offsetting the declines.

About 44 million people — nearly one in six in the country — relied on government services for the poor in 2003, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Census Bureau. That compares with about 39 million in 1996.

Also, the number of people getting government aid continues to increase, according to more recent enrollment figures from individual programs.

Medicaid rolls alone topped 45 million people in 2005, pushed up in part by rising health care costs and fewer employers offering benefits. Nearly 26 million people a month received food stamps that year.

Cash welfare recipients, by comparison, peaked at 14.2 million people in 1994.

There is much debate over whether those leaving welfare for work should be offered more opportunities for training and education, so they do not have to settle for low-paying jobs that keep them dependent on government programs.

"We said get a job, any job," said Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees welfare issues. "And now we expect them to be making it on these minimum-wage jobs."

McDermott, D-Wash., said stricter work requirements enacted last year, when Congress renewed the welfare overhaul law, will make it even more difficult for welfare recipients to get sufficient training to land good-paying jobs.

But people who support the welfare changes say former recipients often fare better economically if they start working, even in low-paying jobs, before entering education programs.

"What many people on TANF need first is the confidence that they can succeed in the workplace and to develop the habits of work," said Wade Horn, the Bush administration's point man on welfare overhaul.

"Also, many TANF recipients didn't have a lot of success in the classroom," Horn said. "If you want to improve the confidence of a TANF recipient, putting them in the classroom, where they failed in the past, that is not likely to increase their confidence."

Horn noted that employment among poor single mothers is up and child poverty rates are down since the welfare changes in 1996, though the numbers have worsened since the start of the decade.

Horn, however, said he would like to see local welfare agencies provide more education and training to people who have already moved from welfare to work.

"I think more attention has to be paid to helping those families move up the income scale, increasing their independence of other government welfare programs," Horn said.

"The true goal of welfare to work programs should be self-sufficiency."

CHILD HEALTHCARE

Governors seek aid for child health care

WASHINGTON - Governors from both parties appealed Sunday for the Bush administration and Congress to provide more money — now and over the long term — for a health care program that insures millions of children.

At stake is coverage for 6 million people, overwhelmingly children, as well as the hopes of many governors in tackling the larger challenge of the uninsured. All governors rely on the program, intended to aid uninsured working families.

"We can come to a consensus that children should be the first priority," said Gov. Sonny Perdue, R-Ga.

State leaders met privately to discuss the State Children's Health Insurance Program at their annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association.

"This is one area where I think people stand entirely together," said Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.

Georgia and New Jersey are two of 14 states that are expected to run out of money for the program before the next budget year begins in October; in Georgia, it could be as soon as March.

The governors want two things:

_Enough money to keep the program float through October. That is estimated at $745 million.

_Changes to President Bush's budget. Analysts say his spending plan would shortchange the health program even if the number of people served did not grow. This figure is put at $10 billion to $15 billion over the next five years.

Administration officials have said that the president's plan offered a solution to the immediate shortfall by forcing states with surpluses in their program to surrender unspent money more quickly and help states with deficits.

The program, approved in 1997, covers uninsured children whose families earn too much to fall under Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care service for the poor.

More than a dozen states have expanded the SCHIP program, with consent of the federal government, to cover adults in those families. The program now insures an estimated 639,000 adults among its 6 million.

Many governors said the administration's efforts to scale back the program would undermine state efforts to craft universal health care plans. Many of these have started with a target of insuring all children.

"Many, many states seek to expand it as a step on the way to universal health care," said Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz. "Governors are doing more on health care than anyone else."

California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have developed some of the most ambitious proposals to try to get to universal health care coverage. Most states have just tried to strengthen their health care system to cover more people.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt met privately with several governors during the weekend. He did not immediately return a message Sunday seeking comment about the governors' concerns.

At their private session Sunday, governors said there was bipartisan support for help on the immediate needs and a long-term commitment to the current program.

Napolitano, who heads the NGA, said the issue would come up Monday when governments meet with members of Bush's Cabinet. A bipartisan group of 13 governors has written congressional leaders asking them to cover the money shortfall before the budget year ends.

"We built all that up. We don't want to pull the rug out," said Gov. Don Carcieri, R-R.I. With aggressive enrollment, his state had enrolled 94 percent of children before administrative hurdles and other problems had lowered that number, he said.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., said that in their private lunch, many governors were "visibly frustrated" at the administration's approach. In public, several governors said they were confident they could work out a compromise.

Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., unrolled a plan this year to extend coverage to nearly all his state's citizens. He said the administration had been helpful to his efforts and just last week approved a waiver allowing the state to raise its eligibility for the program to 350 percent of federal poverty.

"This covers about our last 180,000 children who aren't covered," Rendell said. "I want to give the administration high praise."

Amid all the discussion about dollars and percentages, the real cost is being ignored, some governors said.

"I think more about what it means to be a parent, a parent who can't go to sleep at night without worrying that if my kid gets ill tomorrow or gets in an accident, he won't have adequate coverage," said Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va. "I can't imagine more anxiety."

THURMOND OWNED SHARPTON

Slavery ties Sharpton to Thurmond

NEW YORK - Genealogists have revealed that the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond — a discovery the civil rights activist on Sunday called "shocking."

Sharpton learned of his connection to Thurmond, once a prominent defender of segregation, last week through the Daily News, which asked genealogists to trace his roots.

"It was probably the most shocking thing in my life," Sharpton said at a news conference Sunday, the same day the tabloid revealed the story.

Some of Thurmond's relatives said the nexus also came as a surprise to them. Doris Strom Costner, a distant cousin who said she knew the late senator all her life, said Sunday she "never heard of such a thing."

"My momma never would talk to me about nothing like that," Costner said of ancestors who owned slaves. "She only talked to me about good things."

The revelations surfaced after contacted a Daily News reporter who agreed to have his own family tree done. The intrigued reporter then turned around and asked Sharpton if he wanted to participate. Sharpton said he told the paper, "Go for it."

The genealogists, who were not paid by the newspaper, uncovered the ancestral ties using a variety of documents that included census, marriage and death records.

Thurmond, of South Carolina, was once considered an icon of racial segregation. During his 1948 bid for president, he promised to preserve segregation and, in 1957, he filibustered for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill.

Sharpton, who ran for president in 2004 on a ticket of racial justice, said he met Thurmond only once in 1991 when he visited Washington, D.C., with the late soul singer James Brown, who knew Thurmond. Sharpton said the meeting was "awkward."

"I was not happy to meet him because what he had done all his life," Sharpton said.

Thurmond was seen as softening his segregation stance later in his life. He died in 2003, at 100. The long-serving senator was originally a Democrat but became a Republican in 1964.

Thurmond's children have acknowledged that Thurmond fathered a biracial daughter. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' mother was a housekeeper in the home of Thurmond's parents.

Telephone message left by The Associated Press on Sunday for Strom Thurmond Jr. and an attorney who once represented Thurmond's biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, were not returned.

SLAVERY APOLOGY

02/25/07

Virginia apologizes for role in slavery

RICHMOND, Va. - Meeting on the grounds of the former Confederate Capitol, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously Saturday to express "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.

Sponsors of the resolution say they know of no other state that has apologized for slavery, although Missouri lawmakers are considering such a measure. The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said.

"This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution," said Delegate A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who sponsored it in the House of Delegates.

The resolution passed the House 96-0 and cleared the 40-member Senate on a unanimous voice vote. It does not require Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's approval.

The measure also expressed regret for "the exploitation of Native Americans."

The resolution was introduced as Virginia begins its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. Richmond, home to a popular boulevard lined with statues of Confederate heroes, later became another point of arrival for Africans and a slave-trade hub.

The resolution says government-sanctioned slavery "ranks as the most horrendous of all depredations of human rights and violations of our founding ideals in our nation's history, and the abolition of slavery was followed by systematic discrimination, enforced segregation, and other insidious institutions and practices toward Americans of African descent that were rooted in racism, racial bias, and racial misunderstanding."

In Virginia, black voter turnout was suppressed with a poll tax and literacy tests before those practices were struck down by federal courts, and state leaders responded to federally ordered school desegregation with a "Massive Resistance" movement in the 1950s and early '60s. Some communities created exclusive whites-only schools.

The apology is the latest in a series of strides Virginia has made in overcoming its segregationist past. Virginia was the first state to elect a black governor — L. Douglas Wilder in 1989 — and the Legislature took a step toward atoning for Massive Resistance in 2004 by creating a scholarship fund for blacks whose schools were shut down between 1954 and 1964.

Among those voting for the measure was Delegate Frank D. Hargrove, an 80-year-old Republican who infuriated black leaders last month by saying "black citizens should get over" slavery.

After enduring a barrage of criticism, Hargrove successfully co-sponsored a resolution calling on Virginia to celebrate "Juneteenth," a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

SCHOOL HOURS

U.S. schools weigh extending hours, year

BOSTON - School principal Robin Harris used to see the clock on her office wall as the enemy, its steady ticking a reminder that time was not on her side.

But these days Harris smiles when the clock hits 1:55 p.m. There are still two more hours in the school day — two more hours to teach math and reading, art and drama.

Harris runs Fletcher-Maynard Academy, a combined public elementary and middle school in Cambridge, Mass., that is experimenting with an extended, eight-hour school day.

"It has sort of loosened up the pace," Harris said. "It's not as rushed and frenzied."

The school, which serves mostly poor, minority students, is one of 10 in the state experimenting with a longer day as part of a $6.5 million program.

While Massachusetts is leading in putting in place the longer-day model, lawmakers in Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Washington, D.C., also have debated whether to lengthen the school day or year.

In addition, individual districts such as Miami-Dade in Florida are experimenting with added hours in some schools.

On average, U.S. students go to school 6.5 hours a day, 180 days a year, fewer than in many other industrialized countries, according to a report by the Education Sector, a Washington-based think tank.

One model that traditional public schools are looking to is the Knowledge is Power Program, which oversees public charter schools nationwide.

Those schools typically serve low-income middle-school students, and their test scores show success. Students generally go from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and for a few hours every other Saturday. They also go to school for several weeks in the summer.

That amounts to at least 50 percent more instructional time for students in such programs than in traditional public schools, according to the report.

The extended-day schedule costs on average about $1,200 extra per student, program spokesman Stephen Mancini said.

Massachusetts is spending about $1,300 per student extra on its extended-day effort.

Most of the extra cost goes into added pay for teachers. At Fletcher-Maynard, senior teachers can make up to $20,000 more per year for the extended hours, Harris said. Not all of the school's teachers have opted to work longer hours.

The National Education Association, the largest teacher's union, has no official opinion on extending the school day.

But its president, Reg Weaver, said teachers probably would support the idea if, like in Massachusetts, they could choose whether to work the longer hours.

He also said teachers must be adequately compensated and should have a say in setting the goals of any such effort.

An important impetus for the debate around extending school hours is the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The five-year-old law requires annual testing in reading and math for grades three through eight, and again in high school. All students are expected to be working on grade level by 2014.

Schools that fail to meet annual benchmarks are labeled as needing improvement and have to take steps to address the problem.

Up against such a tough requirement, extending the day makes sense, Harris said. "If you want kids to read, and you want to teach them how to read, they have to have time reading," she said.

Kathy Christie, a policy analyst at the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, said that law "has put enough pressure on more people to realize that the traditional school day is not enough to catch kids up."

Christie, whose Denver-based nonprofit focuses on school reform, added, "You can't keep taking away recess."

Schools that are experimenting with longer days are adding more down time and enrichment courses, as well as reading and math.

At Edwards Middle School, an extended-day school in Boston, students are staging musicals, designing book covers for favorite novels and coming up with new cheers to boost school spirit — an activity favored by 13-year-old Janice Tang.

"This is a class where I can express myself, be active," Tang said one afternoon after she pumped her arms in the air during a girls-only class that incorporates cheering with topics such as sex education and discouraging smoking. "It's very cool, and I have fun a lot."

Massachusetts' education commissioner, David Driscoll, said the offbeat classes get kids excited about a longer day.

"Once they're engaged, they'll learn other lessons," Driscoll said. "I think the big mistake that everybody makes is they think that education is all about the academics."

The No Child Left Behind law is due to be updated this year, and the lawmakers involved are eyeing the Massachusetts model.

U.S. Rep. George Miller (news, bio, voting record), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said he likes the way schools in Massachusetts have invited community organizations to help with some enrichment courses.

"If you're just extending the day to bore the hell out of the child, why don't we all just all go home and save the overtime. You've got to rethink these models," said Miller, D-Calif.

U.S. Sen. Democrat Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate committee overseeing education, is considering allowing schools that fail to meet annual progress goals to extend their day as a possible solution.

Kennedy, D-Mass., also is considering putting AmeriCorps volunteers — recent college graduates who can help teach — into schools that adopt a longer day.

Extending the day has not been tackled extensively in high schools where many students have afterschool jobs or play sports.

The idea is not always applauded by parents, at least initially.

Dawn Oliver was so apprehensive about a plan this year to expand the day at her daughter's middle school in Fall River, Mass., that she considered pulling 11-year-old Brittany out.

"We all had the same thought in our head, which was, 'Oh my God, these kids are going to have their head in a book for the same amount of time as working a full-time job,'" Oliver said.

She said her fears began to fade, however, when she saw the list of electives the kids could take in the afternoon, including cooking and forensics. Those reinforce core lessons, Oliver said.

"They're making a magazine. She's an advice columnist," she said of Brittany. "The kids get so involved in these things because it's not all book work."

Oliver said the real benefits showed up on Brittany's report card, which improved from straight C's to B's.

"I did not foresee honor roll," Oliver said, brimming with pride.

IRAQ

Iraq war exacts toll on contractors

In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press.

Exactly how many of these employees doing the Pentagon's work are Americans is uncertain. But the casualty figures make it clear that the Defense Department's count of more than 3,100 U.S. military dead does not tell the whole story.

"It's another unseen expense of the war," said Thomas Houle, a retired Air Force reservist whose brother-in-law died while driving a truck in Iraq. "It's almost disrespectful that it doesn't get the kind of publicity or respect that a soldier would."

Employees of defense contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater and Wackenhut cook meals, do laundry, repair infrastructure, translate documents, analyze intelligence, guard prisoners, protect military convoys, deliver water in the heavily fortified Green Zone and stand sentry at buildings — often highly dangerous duties almost identical to those performed by many U.S. troops.

The U.S. has out-sourced so many war and reconstruction duties that there are almost as many contractors (120,000) as U.S. troops (135,000) in the war zone.

The insurgents in Iraq make little if any distinction between the contractors and U.S. troops.

In January, four contractors for Blackwater were killed when their helicopter was downed by gunfire in Baghdad. In 2004, two Americans and a British engineer were kidnapped and decapitated. That same year, a mob of insurgents ambushed a supply convoy escorted by contractors, burning and mutilating the guards' bodies and stringing up two of them from a bridge.

But when contractors are killed or wounded, the casualties are off the books, in a sense.

The Defense Department issues a press release whenever a soldier or Marine dies. The AP obtained figures on many of the civilian deaths and injuries from the Labor Department, which tracks workers' compensation claims, after repeated efforts including a Freedom of Information Act request.

By the end of 2006, the Labor Department had quietly recorded 769 deaths and 3,367 injuries serious enough to require four or more days off the job.

"It used to be, womb to tomb, the military took care of everything. We had cooks. We had people who ran recreation facilities. But those are not core competencies you need to run a war," said Brig. Gen. Neil Dial, deputy director of intelligence for U.S. Central Command.

With the all-volunteer force, the military began more stringent recruiting of troops and made greater use of nonmilitary professionals. "It puts professionals in harm's way," he conceded.

Although contractors were widely used in Vietnam for support and reconstruction tasks, they have never before represented such a large portion of the U.S. presence in a war zone or accounted for so many security and military-like jobs, experts say.

Some of the workers are former U.S. military personnel. Some are foreigners. The companies and the U.S. government say they do not keep track of how many are Americans.

The contractors are paid handsomely for the risks they take, with some making $100,000 or more per year, mostly tax-free — at least six times more than a new Army private, a rank likely to be driving a truck or doing some other unskilled work.

The difference in pay can create ill will between the contractors and U.S. troops.

"When they are side by side doing the same job, there is some resentment," said Rick Saccone, who worked as an intelligence contractor in Baghdad for a year.

If the contractor deaths were added to the Pentagon's count of U.S. military casualties, the number of war dead would climb about 25 percent, from about 3,000 as of the end of 2006 to nearly 3,800.

If the contractors injured badly enough to be off the job for at least four days were added to the nearly 14,000 U.S. troops requiring medical air transport because of injuries, the injury total would rise by about the same percentage.

Early in the war, most of the casualties on the coalition side were military. But with the fall of Saddam Hussein, contractors flowed in behind the troops, and the number of deaths among the contract workers has been increasing each year.

Contractor deaths are less costly politically, said Deborah Avant, a political science professor at George Washington University.

"Every time there's a new thing that the U.S. government wants the military to do and there's not enough military to do it, contractors are hired," she said. "When we see the 3,000 service member deaths, there's probably an additional 1,000 deaths we don't see."

Houle's brother-in-law, Hector C. Patino, was driving a truck for a Halliburton subsidiary in the Green Zone when he was killed by friendly fire at an Australian checkpoint.

Patino, who served two tours in Vietnam, thought he was safe, said his mother, 82-year-old Flora Patino.

"I said, `Hector, you're playing with fire,'" she recalled.

IRAQ EXIT

White House warns against Iraq pullout

WASHINGTON - Brushing aside criticism from the White House, Senate Democrats said Friday their next challenge to President Bush's Iraq war policy would require the gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat troops beginning within 120 days.

The draft legislation also declares the war "requires principally a political solution" rather than a military one.

The provisions are included in a measure that would repeal the authority that lawmakers gave Bush in 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq, and replace it with a far more limited mission.

Democrats have said they are likely to seek a vote on the proposal within two weeks. The odds against it ever becoming law are high, and the White House and Senate Republicans were quick to denounce it.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the administration "of course" would oppose an attempt to alter the existing authorization, and he warned that a pullout of U.S. troops could bring chaos to Iraq. "We're operating under a mandate," he said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record) of Kentucky dismissed the proposal as an attempt by Democrats to produce "what could best be described as a Goldilocks resolution: one that is hot enough for the radical left wing, but cool enough for party leaders to claim that they are for the troops.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said the White House is not only confused, but in denial.

"They can spin all they want, but the fact is that President Bush is ignoring a bipartisan majority of Congress, his own military commanders, and the American public in escalating the war," said Jim Manley. "The American people have demanded a change of course in Iraq and Democrats are committed to holding President Bush accountable."

As currently drafted, the Democratic legislation says the military "shall commence phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq not later than 120 days" after the bill's enactment. The goal is to complete the withdrawal by March 31, 2008.

In the interim, the military would be required to transition to a new mission involving "targeted anti-terrorism operations," as well as providing training and logistical support for the Iraqis and helping them protect their own borders.

The measure also pledges that Congress will "continue to support and protect" the armed forces, renewing a commitment that was included in an earlier nonbinding measure that also criticized Bush's plans to deploy an additional 21,500 troops.

Republicans blocked action on the measure last week, demanding that Democrats allow a vote on an alternative that would rule out cutting off funds for the troops.

At the White House, Fratto said that changes in the existing authority for use of military force were unnecessary even though it dates from the days when Saddam Hussein was in power and there was an assumption — later proved false — that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The White House said that Democrats were in a state of confusion about Iraq but left room for compromise.

"There's a lot of ... shifting sands in the Democrats' position right now," Fratto said. "We'll see what Democrats decide to do."

He said the president would judge anything that comes out of Congress by whether it gives him "the flexibility and resources" necessary to proceed with Bush's decision to send 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq to secure Baghdad and Anbar Province.

"It's clear that if there are efforts to remove troops out of Baghdad, there are consequences for Baghdad," Fratto said. "The only credible analysis that we've seen — the (National Intelligence Estimate) report and others — are pretty clear on this, that it would bring chaos to Baghdad."

Senate Republicans recently thwarted two Democratic attempts to pass a nonbinding measure critical of Bush's troop-increase plan. Asked if Bush would oppose any effort to revoke his war authorization, Fratto said, "Of course we would."

In the House, a nonbinding anti-war measure was approved last week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) has said she expects the next challenge to Bush's war policies to be a requirement that the Pentagon adhere to strict training and readiness standards for troops heading for the war zone.

Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., the leading advocate of that approach, has said it would effectively deny Bush the ability to proceed with the troop buildup.

But Bush's Republican allies on Capitol Hill have fought that as denying reinforcements to troops already in the war zone, leading to the alternative approach in the Senate.

The measure Bush won from Congress in 2002 authorized the president to use the armed forces "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate ... to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and to enforce relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.

At the time, the world body had passed resolutions regarding Iraq's presumed effort to develop weapons of mass destruction.

CRITICISM

Obama ridicules Cheney's Iraq comments

AUSTIN, Texas - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) ridiculed Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday for saying Britain's decision to pull troops from Iraq is a good sign that fits with the strategy for stabilizing the country.

Obama, speaking at a massive outdoor rally in Austin, Texas, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision this week to withdraw 1,600 troops is a recognition that Iraq's problems can't be solved militarily.

"Now if Tony Blair can understand that, then why can't George Bush and Dick Cheney understand that?" Obama asked thousands of supporters who gathered in the rain to hear him. "In fact, Dick Cheney said this is all part of the plan (and) it was a good thing that Tony Blair was withdrawing, even as the administration is preparing to put 20,000 more of our young men and women in.

"Now, keep in mind, this is the same guy that said we'd be greeted as liberators, the same guy that said that we're in the last throes. I'm sure he forecast sun today," Obama said to laughter from supporters holding campaign signs over their heads to keep dry. "When Dick Cheney says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems."

A spokeswoman for Cheney, traveling with him in Australia, said they had no comment on Obama's remarks.

Cheney told ABC News earlier this week that Blair's announcement was good news, calling it an affirmation that parts of Iraq have been stabilized.

Obama's Austin appearance was part of a campaign swing across the country to raise money for his two-week old candidacy and build his reputation nationally.

While in Texas, Obama raised money in Houston Thursday night, where he said he'd like to see an end to the "tit-for-tat" that dominates politics.

The Obama and Clinton campaigns fired off dueling press releases this week over a top Hollywood donor who was a supporter of Bill Clinton but is backing Obama in this race.

Obama told the Austin crowd that they should try to recruit their friends to support his campaign. "I want you to tell them, 'It's time for you to turn off the TV and stop playing GameBoy,'" Obama said. "We've got work to do."

Tickets to the rally were free, but Obama asked the attendees to give even $5 or $10. "I don't want to have to raise money in Hollywood all the time," he said.

SPEAR HAIR REMOVAL

Spearmint tea may help treat excess body hair

NEW YORK - A few mugs of spearmint tea could help women combat excess facial and body hair, Turkish researchers report.

Women with excess body hair, a condition known as hirsutism, who drank two cups of the herbal tea a day for five days showed significant reductions in their levels of free testosterone, Dr. Mehmet Numan Tamer and colleagues from Suleyman Demirel University in Isparta report.

Typical treatments for hirsutism target excess levels of male hormones, and include oral contraceptives to prevent the production of these hormones or drug treatment to block the body's response to them, Tamer and his team point out in the journal Phytotherapy Research.

The researchers previously noted that drinking peppermint tea seemed to lower the libido in some men, which prompted them to investigate spearmint as an anti-hirsutism treatment. Hirsutism is characterized by excessive hair growth on the face, breasts and belly, and affects about 5 percent of women. It is thought to be related to the body's level of androgens (male hormones).

The researchers had 21 women with hirsutism drink a tea prepared from a heaping teaspoon of dried spearmint leaves twice daily. Twelve of the women had polycystic ovary syndrome, while the rest had hirsutism with known cause.

After five days, the women's levels of free testosterone (the biologically active form) declined, although their total testosterone level stayed the same. Women's levels of luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, and estrogen rose, while their triglyceride levels dropped significantly.

Women with high male hormone levels may also have high levels of triglycerides, insulin resistance, and obesity, the researchers note.

"Spearmint can be an alternative to antiandrogenic treatment for mild hirsutism. However, further studies are needed for testing the reliability and availability of spearmint as a drug for hirsutism," the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Phytotherapy Research, online February 20, 2007.

SALE

Declaration of Independence for $2.48

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A rare, 184-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence found by a bargain hunter at a Nashville thrift shop is being valued by experts at about 100,000 times the $2.48 purchase price.

Michael Sparks, a music equipment technician, is selling the document in an auction March 22nd at Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions in Burlington, North Carolina. The opening bid is $125,000 and appraisers have estimated it could sell for nearly twice that.

Sparks found his bargain last March while browsing at Music City Thrift Shop in Nashville. When he asked the price on a yellowed, shellacked, rolled-up document, the clerk marked it at $2.48.

It turned out to be an "official copy" of the Declaration of Independence — one of 200 commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820.

He didn't know he had such a valuable piece until doing some online research and then having appraisers at Raynors' offer an opinion.

TACO/CHICKEN RATS

Rats invade NYC restaurant

NEW YORK - New Yorkers are used to seeing rats where they catch their trains — not where they buy their burritos.

About a dozen rats were having a grand party Friday in a locked KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, scampering around the floor, playing with each other and sniffing for food as they dashed around tables and children's high chairs.

Onlookers could not keep their eyes away from the jaw-dropping sight — a gang of urban vermin invading a restaurant that had been taking people's chicken and taco orders just a day earlier. Video of the rats was seen around the world, disseminated on TV stations and the Internet.

"All you can eat once the store is locked," one onlooker joked.

"They should handcuff them and throw the dirty rats in jail," cabbie Wilson Paul said as he pulled over to gawk.

Word spread after a TV crew discovered the rat infestation Friday morning and filmed it through a window of the Greenwich Village building.

Health inspectors arrived, and the parent company for KFC and Taco Bell, Yum Brands, Inc., was again forced into damage-control mode a few months after enduring an E. coli outbreak.

The restaurant was not open when the rats were spotted. The company said construction in the basement on Thursday appeared to have stirred up the rodents.

"This is completely unacceptable and is an absolute violation of our high standards," Yum Brands said in a statement.

Rats have long been a problem in densely populated New York City. They are frequently seen scampering through subway tunnels, rooting through trash, dashing across parks and burrowing into the walls of apartment buildings.

Greenwich Village tends to be a happy home for them because of its combination of older buildings and a tangle of subway lines converging just below street level.

Still, it is rare to see so many rats congregating in one place in such public view.

The city Department of Health had inspectors at the site on Friday for hours, and by midday had posted a sign that read "CLOSED."

"Today, this establishment had serious unsanitary conditions," said Carol Feracho, a senior health inspector. "There were issues with vermin throughout."

She said the infestation was "coming from the building," with "openings" that allowed the vermin to enter. She provided no other details.

There was no answer at the phone number displayed in neon on the store window below the words, "We Deliver." Health Department records list the franchise owner as ADF Fifth Operating Corp., agency spokeswoman Sara Markt said.

The owner could not be reached for comment, despite numerous efforts.

The franchise owner "is actively addressing this issue," Yum Brands' statement said, adding that the restaurant will remain closed until the problem is resolved.

Joel Cohen, who lives in the building next to the restaurant, had a graphic view of the situation.

"This place is a disaster," said Cohen, who works in real estate. "They throw their rubbish in the doorways. It's loaded up with food in bags that are not tied, and the rats have eaten through the bags."

Taco Bell sales have slumped since last year's E. coli scare, in which more than 70 East Coast customers became ill. Federal officials said lettuce was the most likely source, and the company has changed suppliers.

Yum Brands stock closed Friday at $60.51, down 55 cents.

COLORADO

35 cars collide in Colorado whiteout

Saturday, February 24, 2007

DENVER - A large, fast-moving snowstorm closed sections of major highways in the Plains on Saturday and threatened to dump more than a foot of snow on the Upper Midwest.

Interstate 70, a major cross-country route, was closed for about 200 miles in both directions from just east of Denver to Colby, Kan., because of blowing snow and slippery pavement, according to Colorado and Kansas highway officials.

Between Denver and the beginning of the highway closure, about 35 cars collided in a pileup in whiteout conditions Saturday morning on an icy section of I-70. No major injuries were reported.

The weather service reported wind gusts of 68 mph in the Denver area.

A number of other highways also were closed in the two states.

"Basically there's zero visibility at this time," Kansas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Barb Blue said just before noon. "Travel is not recommended unless absolutely necessary."

A stretch of about 125 miles of I-80 was closed in both directions in western Nebraska, from Ogallala to the Wyoming line. Wind gusting to 52 mph drove wet snow. "It's nasty," said Carol McKain of the Nebraska State Patrol.

Farther east, a 30-mile stretch of U.S. 275 was closed in Nebraska because of flooding.

There was no power in parts of North Platte, Neb., where "the snow is so wet it's sticking to power poles and power lines," said Bill Taylor of the National Weather Service office in North Platte.

Flights continued operating Saturday at Denver International Airport, where thousands of travelers were stalled by a 45-hour shutdown during a pre-Christmas blizzard. The airport was on the western edge of the area of heavy snow and had only about an inch by late morning, spokesman Chuck Cannon said.

In addition to the snow on the western Plains, the vast storm system spread rain and thunderstorms across parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, with locally heavy snow across Iowa and southern Minnesota.

The weather service posted blizzard and winter storm warnings for parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Up to 16 inches of snow was possible by late Sunday in Minnesota, which would be the biggest snowfall so far in an unusually dry winter for that state, the weather service said.

Officials advised against unnecessary travel in southwestern Minnesota, where roads already were slippery from heavy sleet and freezing rain that fell during the night.

One traffic death had been blamed on the storm in Wisconsin.

HEALTHCARE

Bush spotlights rising health care costs

WASHINGTON - President Bush is not giving up on his call to overhaul the tax code for those who buy health insurance. The president focused his attention again on the topic after a recent government report projected that health care spending would double by the year 2016. Analysts say current tax policy is contributing to the increase in spending through incentives that favor more comprehensive and expensive health benefits.

The president noted that the current policy also discriminates against those who buy their insurance in the individual market. They don't get the same tax advantages as those who get insurance through their employers.

"When it comes to health care, everyone should get the same tax breaks," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

The president has proposed treating health insurance contributions as income, which would cause workers' taxable wages to shoot up dramatically. But the president then calls for a standard tax deduction for those who buy health insurance — $15,000 for family coverage and $7,500 for individual coverage.

So, the key to getting a tax cut will be to keep the cost of the policy below the size of the new deduction. The prospect of a tax cut would serve as a huge incentive for people to spend less on health insurance.

Democratic leaders were quick to criticize the plan. But more recently, a group of 10 senators — five Republicans and five Democrats — wrote the president and told him they agreed that current tax rules for health insurance disproportionately favor the rich while promoting inefficiency.

Bush went to Chattanooga, Tenn., earlier this month to try to generate momentum for his tax proposal. He shared a stage with people who hold full-time jobs but cannot afford to insure their families. For Danny Jennings, a father of two who manages a nursery, the plan would save about $4,500 a year on his tax bill, Bush said.

"These tax savings would put basic coverage within the reach of his family," Bush said.

The president said he also wants to support governors who come up with innovative ways to help their citizens get insurance coverage.

Under his proposal, states that put in place a basic health plan for all of their citizens would get access to what he calls "affordable choice grants." The grant money would come from programs that now reimburse providers when they care for the indigent.

"By taking existing federal funds and turning them into Affordable Choices grants, we will give America's governors more money and more flexibility, so they can help provide private health insurance for those who need it most," Bush said.

IRAQ TOLL

Americans underestimate Iraqi death toll

WASHINGTON - Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.

Far from a vague statistic, the death toll is painfully real for many Americans. Seventeen percent in the poll know someone who has been killed or wounded in Iraq. And among adults under 35, those closest to the ages of those deployed, 27 percent know someone who has been killed or wounded.

For Daniel Herman, a lawyer in New Castle, Pa., a co-worker's nephew is the human face of the dead.

"This is a fairly rural area," he said. "When somebody dies, ... you hear about it. It makes it very concrete to you."

The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans' tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll by tens of thousands.

Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.

Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University political scientist who tracks public opinion on war casualties, said a better understanding of the Iraqi death toll probably wouldn't change already negative public attitudes toward the war much. People in democracies generally don't shy away from inflicting civilian casualties, he said, and they may be even more tolerant of them in situations such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis.

"You have to look at who's doing the killing," said Neal Crawford, a restaurant manager in Suttons Bay, Mich., who guessed that about 10,000 Iraqis had been killed. "If these people are dying because a roadside bomb goes off or if there's an insurgent attack in a marketplace, it's an unfortunate circumstance of war — people die."

Gelpi said that while Americans may not view Iraqi deaths through the same prism as American losses, they may use the Iraqi death toll to gauge progress, or lack thereof, on the U.S. effort to promote a stable, secure democracy in Iraq.

To many, he said, "the fact that so many are being killed is an indication that we're not succeeding."

Whatever their understanding of the respective death tolls, three-quarters of those polled said the numbers of both Americans and Iraqis who have been killed are "unacceptable." Two-thirds said they tend to feel upset when a soldier dies, while the rest say such deaths are unfortunate but part of what war is about.

Sometimes it's hard for people to sort out their conflicting emotions.

"I don't know if I'm numb to it or not," said 86-year-old Robert Lipold of Las Vegas. "It's something you see in the paper every day there. And how do you feel when in the back of your mind it's unnecessary?"

Given a range of possible words to describe their feelings about the overall situation in Iraq, people were most likely to identify with "worried," selected by 81 percent of those surveyed.

Other descriptive words selected by respondents:

_Compassionate: 74 percent.

_Angry: 62 percent.

_Tired: 61 percent.

_Hopeful: 51 percent.

_Proud: 38 percent.

_Numb: 27 percent.

Women were more likely than men to feel worried, compassionate, angry and tired; men were more likely than women to feel proud, a finding consistent with traditional differences in attitudes toward war between the sexes.

For women, said Gelpi, "there is an emotional response to casualties that men don't show. ... It could be some sort of socialization that men get about the military or combat as being honorable that women don't get."

Charlotte Pirch, a lawyer from Fountain Valley, Calif., said she's "always appalled and just very upset at hearing about more casualties, whether it's U.S. troops or troops from another country."

Pirch said two of her nieces are married to men who served in Iraq and she doesn't live far from Camp Pendleton, which has sent many U.S. troops to Iraq. But she added, "Whether I knew someone personally or not, I would still feel it as a citizen of our country."

Perhaps surprisingly, the poll found little difference in attitudes toward the war between those who did and did not know someone who had been killed or wounded. There was a difference, however, in their opinions on whether opponents are right to criticize the war.

About half of those who know someone who has been killed or wounded felt it is right to criticize the war, compared with two-thirds of those who don't have a personal connection.

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,002 adults, conducted Feb. 12-15, had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

CURE

Stem Cell Advances in Treating Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis

The use of pure cord blood stem cells by a team of research doctors in Mexico has resulted in breakthrough improvements in patients with Alzheimer's disease and progressive multiple sclerosis.

Tijuana, Mexico (PRWeb) February 17, 2007 -- The International Spinal Cord Regeneration Center has been spearheading research and clinical use of pure cord blood stem cells since March 2003. Recently breakthrough developments were documented involving Alzheimer's disease and progressive multiple sclerosis.

Alzheimer's:

A 72 year old female Alzheimer's patient from the U.S. (Mrs. M.) who had little short term memory ability by mid-summer 2006 experienced the recovery of this vital mental function in the months following a catheter infusion of purified cord blood stem cells in Mexico.

MRIs of the patient's brain during July 2006 showed that her brain had shrunken considerably, one of many markers that led her neurologists in Michigan to diagnosis her has having Alzheimer's disease. Her blood and all other vital organs were normal and showed no sign of disease.

On August 28, 2006 Mrs. M. received approximately 40 million pure cord blood stem cells by catheter infusion directly into her brain at the International Spinal Cord Regeneration Center in Tijuana Mexico (Fernando Ramirez, MD, Founder & Director). A team of doctors including an interventional radiologist, a anesthesiologist, and a surgeon performed the procedure which took approximately 30 minutes.

Within five weeks of having received the cells, Mrs M's husband was reporting improvements in her ability to form new memories and recall them hours and days later. This ability has persisted and even improved since Mrs. M's treatment almost 6 months ago.

Medical records and post-treatment tests showing Mrs. M's remarkable turnaround are being used to draft a formal paper for submission to a major peer-reviewed medical journal.

A 2nd treatment for Mrs. M. is being planned for the near future.

Multiple Sclerosis:

Jim Haverlock, 67, has struggled for thirteen years with progressive multiple sclerosis, an insidious neurologic disease which has steadily eroded his balance, energy and ability to speak clearly and walk without a cane.

During November 2006 Jim received an IV (intravenous) drip infusion of cord blood stem cells that had been genetically modified to express a growth factor called ciliary neurotrophic growth factor (CNGF). This particular growth factor has been shown to encourage remyelination of demyelinated nerves in animal models.

By early February Jim was reporting high levels of physical and mental energy, better balance and the ability to crisscross his house on foot without a cane (Something nearly impossible prior to the stem cell treatment).

Jim , who is very active in terms of helping out fellow MS sufferers and their families, welcomes queries by phone at 1-509-997-0204 (9 AM to 5 PM Pacific Time). Jim has posted a chronicle of his response to stem cell therapy online at

International Spinal Cord Regeneration Center (Tijuana, Mexico) founder and director, Fernando Ramirez, M.D. has done over 400 cord blood stem cell treatments during the past 4 years. A pilot study on the positive effects of cord blood stem cells on cerebral palsy in children during 2004 was published in the online biomedical journal, "Medical Research & Hypotheses" and is available for access by the public by going to

In addition, a 90 minute documentary concerning the International Spinal Cord Regeneration Center's cord blood stem cell program is available from the producer, Dr. Burton Goldberg A eight minute clip from this documentary can be seen free-of-charge by going to Dr. Goldberg's website.

###

International Spinal Cord Regeneration Center of Mexico

Karen

011-5266-4973-2569

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MARIJUANA MESSAGE

Text messages land teacher in hot water

MURRAY, Ky. - A middle school teacher trying to buy pot was arrested after she sent text messages to state trooper instead of a dealer, police said.

Trooper Trevor Pervine was at dinner with his wife and parents celebrating a birthday when his phone started buzzing with messages about a marijuana purchase.

At first, Pervine thought the messages were from friends playing a joke, Kentucky State Police spokesman Barry Meadows said. But a couple of phone calls put that idea to rest, and Pervine responded to set up a meeting, Meadows said.

Authorities say Ann Greenfield, 34, arrived at the meeting point and found Pervine and other law enforcement officers waiting for her.

"She learned her lesson. Program your dealers into your phone," Meadows said.

Greenfield, a teacher at Murray Middle School, was charged with conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances within 1,000 feet of a school, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, Meadows said.

She was suspended with pay pending results of an investigation, the Murray Independent School District said in a statement posted Friday on the district's Web site. A message seeking comment left at a listing for an Ann Greenfield in Murray, Ky. was not returned.

DIMINISHED BABIES

Why Women Have Fewer Babies

The number of children a woman in America has in her lifetime declined during the past two centuries, and it's not just because of the birth control pill.

Historians are closing in on the socio-economic and cultural factors in family downsizing, a trend also found in most of Western Europe.

"There are two reasons fertility rates can decline," said J. David Hacker, a SUNY Binghamton historian. "One explanation is that marriage declines. Not as many women get married, and if they do marry, they do so at a later age, so that there is less time to have children. The second explanation is that people consciously try to limit having children, which was revolutionary in the 19th century."

According to most census estimates, an American woman had on average seven to eight children in 1800. By 1900 the number dropped to about 3.5. That has fallen to slightly more than two today. Birth rates fell first in New England, and then among pioneers as they headed west. Internationally, France led the way to smaller families.

Reconstructing the intricacies of census data has been difficult for dates prior to 1933, when the National Birth Registration system was put into place. With grant money from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Hacker is taking a closer look at long-term census trends thanks to a new database developed by the Minnesota Population Center.

Family budgets

Modern economics have made smaller families a good investment, historians and economists agree.

Before the 1800s, children were educated at home or in church. Children became more expensive to care for and less helpful around the house once public schooling became available. At the same time, women were freed up from all-day children-rearing, allowing mothers to enter the paid labor force.

However, money isn't the only incentive for smaller families, experts say.

"We know for sure that you don't have to reach a high level of per capita income for fertility to decline, but we don't know exactly what sets it off," said historian George Atler at Indiana University. "Whether it's general change or attitudes about birth control is still a question debated among demographers today."

The dogma of most major Christian religions during the 1800s forbade abortion and divorce in the United States. And in 1873 the Comstock Act made it illegal to send any so-called obscene materials in the mail, including information about contraception.

Popular literature

Ironically, Hackler said, record sales of two family planning books published in the 1830s suggest that the public was eager to keep families small, regardless of religious or political pressure.

"There's a flurry of publications in the mid-19th century giving readers advice on how to control family size," Hacker told LiveScience.

"Moral Physiology" by Robert Dale Owen and Charles Knowlton's "The Fruits of Philosophy" became popular for advocating contraception methods. Owen described coitus interruptus, where a man ejaculates outside of the woman's body. Knowlton's book included instructions for women on how to wash with a spermicidal solution.

Hacker's research may better inform economists and policy makers about current worldwide trends toward smaller families.

"All nations are experiencing fertility declines," said Hacker. "It's becoming a social policy issue as countries face prospects of caring for an aging population."

A Brief History of Sex

The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos, Bizarre Facts

New Year-Round Contraceptive Pill Safe and Effective

Freezing Ovaries May Preserve Fertility

Menstrual Period Now Optional

All About Reproduction

Original Story: Why Women Have Fewer Babies

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STARVATION

U.N.: Hunger kills 18,000 kids each day

UNITED NATIONS - Some 18,000 children die every day because of hunger and malnutrition and 850 million people go to bed every night with empty stomachs, a "terrible indictment of the world in 2007," the head of the U.N. food agency said.

James Morris called for students and young people, faith-based groups, the business community and governments to join forces in a global movement to alleviate and eliminate hunger — especially among children.

"The little girl in Malawi who's fed, and goes to school: 50 percent less likely to be HIV-positive, 50 percent less likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby," he said in an interview Friday. "Everything about her life changes for the better and it's the most important, significant, humanitarian, political, or economic investment the world can make in its future."

Morris, an American businessman and former president the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, one of the largest charitable organizations in the U.S., is stepping down as executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program in April after five years of leading the world's largest humanitarian organization.

He said that while the percentage of people who are hungry and malnourished has decreased from a fifth of the world's population to a sixth of the population, the actual number of hungry people is growing by about 5 million people a year because of the rising population.

"Today 850 million people are hungry and malnourished. Over half of them are children. 18,000 children die every single day because of hunger and malnutrition," Morris said. "This is a shameful fact — a terrible indictment of the world in 2007, and it's an issue that needs to be solved."

Morris said the largest number of malnourished children are in India — more than 100 million — followed by nearly 40 million in China.

"I'm very optimistic that India and China are very focused on this issue," he said. "They're making great progress — (but) need to do more. (It) needs to be a top priority."

Elsewhere, there are probably 100 million hungry children in the rest of Asia, another 100 million in Africa where countries have fewer resources to help, and 30 million in Latin America, he said.

As Morris prepares to leave his post, he said the two issues of greatest concern are the increasing number of impoverished people and the "very significant, growing number of natural disasters around the world."

According to the World Bank, natural disasters have increased fourfold over the last 30 years, he said. That means several billion people need instant help over the course of a decade because of disasters such as the tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, or drought in southern Africa.

The response to these disasters and conflicts such as in Sudan's Darfur region and Lebanon has meant that most development aid has been used to save lives — not to help communities prevent disasters and promote development through agricultural programs, education for children and water conservation, Morris said.

The agency's biggest operation today is in Darfur, where violence and security are major problems and 2.5 million people have fled their homes and now live in camps.

"Our convoys are attacked almost daily. We had a truck driver killed there at the end of last year. Our convoys coming through Chad from Libya are always at risk. When the African Union troops were there, that was very helpful. The U.N. troops will be even more helpful," Morris said.

He was referring to a plan for an AU-U.N. force to be deployed in Darfur, which is awaiting approval from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

American diplomat Josette Sheeran will replace Morris, who plans to head home to Indianapolis.

"I will work as hard as I can every day of the rest of my life to see that more resources are available to feed hungry children," Morris said.

FOOD RECALL

FDA widens peanut butter warning

'2111'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - All Peter Pan peanut butter bought since May 2006 should be discarded, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday in a statement broadening its warning about salmonella-contaminated peanut butter.

More than 290 people from 39 states have become ill in the food poisoning outbreak, and 46 have been hospitalized, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

ConAgra Foods Inc., which makes Peter Pan, said earlier it was checking the source of the contamination, which may have also affected the Great Value label peanut butter it makes for retailer Wal-Mart.

The FDA had said on Wednesday that certain batches of Peter Pan butter may contain salmonella and that all had a product code on the lid of the jar beginning with 2111.

The FDA said the suspect Great Value peanut butter also could be identified by the 2111 code.

The CDC has identified the strain of bacteria as Salmonella Tennessee, one of many strains of salmonella bacteria.

They can cause nausea, diarrhea and other ill effects, but usually the sickness clears up on its own in less than a week.

"Although Great Value peanut butter with the specified product code has not been linked by CDC to the cases of Salmonella Tennessee infection, the product is manufactured in the same plant as Peter Pan peanut butter and, thus, is believed to be at similar risk of contamination," the FDA said in a statement.

"Great Value peanut butter made by manufacturers other than ConAgra is not affected."

The FDA said it persuaded ConAgra to recall the peanut butter on Wednesday, shortly after the CDC confirmed it was investigating the outbreak.

"FDA laboratory personnel will analyze samples collected from the manufacturing plant," the agency said.

The last major outbreak of salmonella food poisoning in the United States was in November and was linked to tomatoes. It made 183 people ill in 22 states and Canada.

Every year, approximately 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported in the United States and about 600 people die of it, according to the CDC.

Consumer groups have been complaining about federal food safety efforts, saying the various agencies involved, including FDA, CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, do not work together well enough.

"If we cannot protect the nation's supply of peanut butter, one must ask how prepared we are for a terrorist attack on our nation's food supply," Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak (news, bio, voting record) said on Friday.

"As Chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, I have already been working with Commerce Committee Chairman (John) Dingell to open an investigation into the adequacy of the FDA's efforts to protect our nation's food supply."

RESTRAIN WAR ACTION

Murtha seeks to restrain action in Iran

WASHINGTON - A leading Iraq war opponent threatened Thursday to try prohibiting any U.S. military action against Iran without congressional sanction as House Republicans used military veterans within their ranks to oppose a resolution renouncing President Bush's Iraq troop buildup.

Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., said he would seek to tie future deployments in Iraq to troops meeting high standards of training and getting enough rest between combat tours. Murtha said he believes the Army may have no units that can meet those standards, meaning that Bush's attempt to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq would be effectively thwarted.

Murtha, who has been among Congress's foremost opponents of Iraq war policy, also said he is considering attaching a provision to a looming war spending bill that would bar U.S. military action against Iran without congressional approval.

"We don't have the capability of sustaining a war in Iran," Murtha, chairman of the House panel that oversees military spending, said in a videotaped online interview.

President Bush, in a speech on the war on terror, also weighed in on the House resolution, saying it comes just weeks after the Senate unanimously confirmed Gen. David Petraeus as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

"This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle," Bush said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said, meanwhile, the Senate will hold another test vote Saturday on the Iraq resolution.

The Senate has been unable to begin debate on Iraq for two weeks because of partisan bickering over the procedural terms. Democrats would need 60 votes to bring the resolution back up when Congress returns after a week's recess.

"We demand an up-or down vote on the resolution that the House is debating as we speak," said Reid, D-Nev.

Earlier, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., complained that the Senate "is about to become irrelevant," adding, "What we have here is close to anarchy."

Back in the House, Rep. Sam Johnson (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, led a group of military veterans among the GOP ranks in protesting the House resolution disapproving the deployment of the additional U.S. forces to the battlefields of Iraq. He was joined by other Vietnam War veterans in saying such opposition from Washington sends a signal of retreat in the war on terrorism.

"This nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats' political base and lowering morale in our military," said Rep. Geoff Davis (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., a West Point graduate who was a flight commander with the Army's 82nd Airborne.

Democratic Whip James Clyburn (news, bio, voting record) of South Carolina, on the third day of House debate on the resolution, countered that the victory to be won in Iraq "is not a military conquest."

"The victory we seek is earned through the restoration of America's role as peacemaker, not warmonger," Clyburn said.

It appeared certain that Democrats, who took control of Congress last fall in no small part because of growing public disenchantment with the war, would carry the day in approving the resolution when a vote takes place on Friday. On Wednesday, 10 House Republicans gave speeches indicating they would vote for the resolution.

Clyburn estimated that between 15 and 20 Republicans would join Democrats in voting for the resolution. He expected to lose only two or three Democrats.

The resolution is nonbinding, but Democrats already are turning to the more consequential debate next month over Bush's request for nearly $100 billion more for the war, a request that promises to become a new battleground over his Iraq policy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) has said the Democratic resolution was the first step in a longer campaign to end U.S. participation in the nearly four-year-old conflict.

In a letter to the president on Wednesday, Pelosi and Reid, D-Nev., said, "thousands of the new troops" being sent into Iraq "will apparently not have the armor and equipment they need to perform the mission and reduce the likelihood of casualties."

As the House debated the Democratic resolution for a second day Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said protective gear for troops in Iraq was not a problem.

"Obviously, we are not going to put any force into theater that isn't properly trained and equipped," Schoomaker said.

Bush has asked for $93 billion in additional spending to finish paying for the war through Sept. 30, and Democrats could rewrite the legislation to require that troops sent to Iraq be fully equipped.

Bush, meanwhile, shrugged off Democrats' attempt to voice opposition to the troop buildup and turned his sights on the $93 billion spending request.

"I'm going to make it very clear to the members of Congress starting now," Bush told a news conference. "They need to fund our troops, and they need to make sure we have the flexibility necessary to get the job done."

Reid has announced plans to try for a vote in the Senate on an identical bill in the next few weeks, but prospects there are uncertain.

SALMONELLA ALERT

Peanut butter recalled over salmonella

OMAHA, Neb. - ConAgra Foods Inc. told consumers to discard certain jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter after the spread was linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened almost 300 people nationwide.

Lids of jars with a product code beginning "2111" can be returned to ConAgra for a refund, the company said.

The salmonella outbreak, which federal health officials said Wednesday has sickened 288 people in 39 states since August, was linked to tainted peanut butter produced by ConAgra at a plant in Sylvester, Ga. How salmonella got into peanut butter is still under investigation, said Dr. Mike Lynch, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC officials believe the salmonella outbreak to be the nation's first stemming from peanut butter. The most cases were reported in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri.

About 20 percent of all the ill were hospitalized, and there were no deaths, Lynch said. About 85 percent of the infected people said they ate peanut butter, CDC officials said.

ConAgra officials said it was unsure why the CDC identified peanut butter as the source of the problem. Its own tests of its peanut butter and the plant have been negative, but it shut down the plant so it can investigate, spokesman Chris Kircher said.

"We're trying to understand what else we need to do or should be doing," he said.

Kircher called the recall a precaution. "We want to do what's right by the consumer," he said.

ConAgra officials haven't said how much peanut butter is covered in the recall. The Peter Pan brand is sold in 10 varieties, according to ConAgra's Web site. The Great Value brand, which is also made by other companies, is a Wal-Mart brand.

He said the CDC contacted the Food and Drug Administration, which sent investigators to the Georgia plant to review records, collect product samples and conduct tests for salmonella.

Kircher said ConAgra makes peanut butter only at the Sylvester plant, for distribution nationwide.

ConAgra randomly tests 60 to 80 jars of peanut butter that come off the line each day for salmonella and other pathogens, he said.

"We've had no positive hits on that going back for years," Kircher said.

The plant itself is also regularly tested, he said, though he didn't know how often. He said none of those tests have detected salmonella either.

The latest outbreak began in August, with no more than two cases reported each day, CDC officials said. Only in the past few days did investigators hone in on peanut butter as a source, Lynch said.

Other states reporting cases are Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

Salmonella infection is known each year to sicken about 40,000 people in the United States, according to the CDC. Salmonellosis, as the infection is known, kills about 600 people annually.

Symptoms can include diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.

The recall does not affect Great Value peanut butter made by other manufacturers, the FDA said.

Shares of ConAgra stock rose 13 cents to $25.98 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

___

To get a refund, consumers should send lids and their names and addresses to ConAgra Foods, P.O. Box 57078, Irvine, CA 92619-7078. For more information, call (866) 344-6970.

IRAQ REMOVAL

Blair announces Iraq withdrawal plan

LONDON - Britain will withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq in the coming months and aims to further cut its 7,100-strong contingent by late summer if Iraqi forces can secure the country's south, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday.

The announcement, which came as Denmark said it would withdraw its 460 troops and Lithuania said it was considering pulling out its small contingent, comes as the U.S. is implementing an increase of 21,000 more troops for Iraq — putting Washington on an opposite track as its main coalition allies.

Analysts say there is little point in boosting forces in largely Shiite southern Iraq, where most non-U.S. coalition troops are concentrated. Yet as more countries draw down or pull out, it could create a security vacuum if radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stirs up trouble.

Blair told the House of Commons that British troops will stay in Iraq until at least 2008 and work to secure the Iran-Iraq border and maintain supply routes to U.S. and coalition troops. He told lawmakers that "increasingly our role will be support and training, and our numbers will be able to reduce accordingly."

"The actual reduction in forces will be from the present 7,100 — itself down from over 9,000 two years ago and 40,000 at the time of the conflict — to roughly 5,500," Blair said.

If Iraqi forces are judged ready to assume more responsibility for security in southern Iraq, Britain could further reduce its force level to below 5,000 once a base at Basra Palace is transferred to Iraqi control in late summer, Blair said.

Blair said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had agreed to the plan.

"What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be. But it does mean that the next chapter in Basra's history can be written by Iraqis," Blair said.

Denmark said it would withdraw its troops from southern Iraq by August. The decision had been made with the Iraqi government and Britain, under whose command the Danish forces are serving near Basra, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

He added that Denmark would replace the troops with surveillance helicopters and civilian advisers. He said he spoke Tuesday with Bush who expressed "both understanding and satisfaction that the situation in Iraq makes it possible for Denmark and Britain to reduce their numbers of troops."

A Defense Ministry spokeswoman in Lithuania, Ruta Apeikyte, said the Baltic nation is also "seriously considering" withdrawing its 53 troops from Iraq in August. The Lithuanian platoon serves with a Danish battalion near Basra.

The major effect of the British and Danish withdrawals will likely be political, coming on the heels of Bush's decision to boost U.S. troop levels. Democratic leaders could use the announcements to pressure Bush to put forth his own timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice played down the British pullback, saying it is consistent with the U.S. plan to turn over more control to Iraqi forces.

"The British have done what is really the plan for the country as a whole, which is to transfer security responsibility to the Iraqis as the situation permits," Rice said in Germany, where she is meeting with the German foreign minister.

"The coalition remains intact and, in fact, the British still have thousands of troops deployed in Iraq."

Blair and Bush talked by secure video link Tuesday about Britain's proposed withdrawal, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. He also said that Bush views Britain's troop cutbacks as "a sign of success" in Iraq.

"While the United Kingdom is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq, we're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis," Johndroe said.

The British have faced problems recently in the south. Since January 2005, Basra and Maysan provinces have both fallen under the sway of Shiite militias, which have resisted British efforts to uproot them. Relations with the Basra provincial government have also deteriorated.

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said though the British and American strategies appear to be opposite, they will achieve the same end: a consolidation of Shiite power in Iraq.

The British have already acquiesced to a "situation of quiet sectarian cleansing" in the south, and their decision to pull out of Basra simply marks "acceptance of a political reality" of Shiite control in the region. He noted, for instance, that southeastern Iraq has been "a no-go zone" for some time.

"If the Shiites continue to stand down (in Baghdad), the U.S. is fighting the Sunni insurgents for them," he said, further cementing Shiite control of the country.

Blair acknowledged that "the situation in Basra is very different from Baghdad — there is no Sunni insurgency, no al-Qaida base, little Sunni on Shia violence," adding that the southern city is nothing like "the challenge of Baghdad."

The Iraqi capital has suffered from what Blair called an "orgy of terrorism unleashed upon it in order to crush any possibility of it functioning."

"If Baghdad cannot be secured, the future of the country is in peril. The enemies of Iraq understand that. We understand it," Blair said.

But opposition Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said Blair's plan fell a long way short of a promise to leave Iraq as a "beacon of democracy" for the region.

"The unpalatable truth is this ... we will leave behind a country on the brink of civil war, where reconstruction has stalled, where corruption is endemic and a region which is a lot less stable than it was in 2003," Campbell said.

Besides the United States, Britain and Denmark, the major partners in the coalition include South Korea (2,300 troops), Poland (900), Australia and Georgia (both 800) and Romania (600), according to the Brookings Institution.

South Korea plans to halve its 2,300-member contingent in the northern city of Irbil by April, and is under pressure from parliament to devise a plan for a complete withdrawal by year's end. Polish President Lech Kaczynski has said that his country's troops would stay no longer than December.

Blair, who has said he will step down by September after a decade in power, has seen his foreign-policy record overshadowed by his role as Bush's leading ally in the unpopular war. As recently as last month, Blair rejected opposition calls to withdraw British troops by October, calling such a plan irresponsible.

CONSUMER SPENDING

Consumer prices rise 0.2 percent in Jan.

WASHINGTON - Inflation at the consumer level rose by a larger-than-expected amount in January as falling energy prices only partially offset big increases in the cost of medical care, food and airline tickets.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that prices rose by 0.2 percent in January. That was down from a 0.4 percent rise in December, but it was higher than the 0.1 percent increase that Wall Street had been expecting.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food components, also was up more than analysts had been expecting, rising by 0.3 percent. It was the largest one-month gain in seven months.

In other economic news, a key gauge of future economic activity rose a tiny 0.1 percent in January, held back by the ailing housing and auto markets.

The increase in the Conference Board's Index of Leading Economic Indicators followed a much larger 0.6 percent December increase and was lower than the 0.2 percent advance that analysts were expecting.

On Wall Street, investors were spooked by the higher-than-expected inflation reading, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down by 58 points in late morning trading.

While energy prices dropped by 1.5 percent, food prices were up 0.7 percent, the biggest rise since the spring of 2005, as the cost of dairy products, fruits and vegetables all showed big gains.

The cost of medical care shot up 0.8 percent, the biggest increase in more than 15 years, reflecting higher costs for prescription drugs and doctor services, which were rising in January at the fastest clip in 25 years.

Airline tickets jumped by 2.1 percent, the biggest gain since November 2004. The cost of tobacco products rose by 3.1 percent, the largest increase in 4 1/2 years.

The report on consumer prices came a week after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had relieved fears in financial markets about possible interest rate hikes because of inflation.

Delivering the Fed's latest economic forecast to Congress, Bernanke had signaled growing confidence that inflation was heading lower although he said the Fed was still worried about some unexpected development that could push prices higher.

For all of 2006, consumer prices had risen by 2.5 percent, the smallest increase in three years, helped by big declines in energy costs in the second half of the year after a sharp run-up in energy costs through last summer.

For January, gasoline pump prices fell by 3 percent, leaving them 2.7 percent lower than they were a year ago and 32 percent lower than their peak in July of last year.

Natural gas and fuel oil costs were also down last month, giving a boost to consumers during the winter heating season. But the cost of electricity was up 2 percent, on a seasonally adjusted basis from the price in December.

The 0.3 percent rise in inflation excluding food and energy was the biggest increase in this category since a similar 0.3 percent rise in June of last year.

It left core prices rising by 2.7 percent over the past 12 months, far above the Fed's comfort zone of 1 percent to 2 percent increase in the core.

The Fed in the forecast Bernanke delivered to Congress last week predicted that inflation pressures will gradually decline over the next two years as growth remains moderate.

WORRYING FAILURE

Math anxiety saps working memory needed to do math

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Worrying about how you'll perform on a math test may actually contribute to a lower test score, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.

Math anxiety -- feelings of dread and fear and avoiding math -- can sap the brain's limited amount of working capacity, a resource needed to compute difficult math problems, said Mark Ashcroft, a psychologist at the University of Nevada Los Vegas who studies the problem.

"It turns out that math anxiety occupies a person's working memory," said Ashcroft, who spoke on a panel at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.

Ashcroft said while easy math tasks such as addition require only a small fraction of a person's working memory, harder computations require much more.

Worrying about math takes up a large chunk of a person's working memory stores as well, spelling disaster for the anxious student who is taking a high-stakes test.

Stress about how one does on tests like college entrance exams can make even good math students choke. "All of a sudden they start looking for the short cuts," said University of Chicago researcher Sian Beilock.

Although test preparation classes can help students overcome this anxiety, they are limited to students whose families can afford them.

Ultimately, she said, "It may not be wise to rely completely on scores to predict who will succeed."

While the causes of math anxiety are unknown, Ashcroft said people who manage to overcome math anxiety have completely normal math proficiency.

BULLYING ONLINE

States seek laws to curb online bullying

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Ryan Patrick Halligan was bullied for months online. Classmates sent the 13-year-old Essex Junction, Vt., boy instant messages calling him gay. He was threatened, taunted and insulted incessantly by so-called cyberbullies.

In 2003, Ryan killed himself.

"He just went into a deep spiral in eighth grade. He couldn't shake this rumor," said Ryan's father, John Halligan, who became a key proponent of a state law that forced Vermont schools to put anti-bullying rules in place. He's now pushing for a broader law to punish cyberbullying — often done at home after school — and wants every other state to enact laws expressly prohibiting it.

States from Oregon to Rhode Island are considering crackdowns to curb or outlaw the behavior in which kids taunt or insult peers on social Web sites like MySpace or via instant messages. Still, there is some disagreement over how effective crackdowns will be and how to do it.

"The kids are forcing our hands to do something legislatively," said Rhode Island state Sen. John Tassoni, who introduced a bill to study cyberbullying and hopes to pass a cyberbullying law by late 2007.

But others argue that legislation would be ineffective. George McDonough, an education coordinator with Rhode Island's Department of Education, concedes that the Internet has become an "instant slam book" but questions whether laws can stem bad behavior.

"You can't legislate norms, you can only teach norms," he said. "Just because it's a law they don't necessarily follow it. I mean, look at the speed limit."

The Internet allows students to insult others in relative anonymity, and experts who study cyberbullying say it can be more damaging to victims than traditional bullying like fist fights and classroom taunts.

Legislators and educators say there's a need for guidelines outlining how to punish cyberbullying. They say the behavior has gone unchecked for years, with few laws or policies on the books explaining how to treat it.

Cyberbullying is often limited to online insults about someone's physical appearance, friends, clothing or sexuality. But some cyberbullies are more creative. In Washington state, a bully stole a girl's instant message username and used it to send out insulting messages.

In New York, two high school boys were accused of operating an Internet site that listed girls' "sexual secrets." Prosecutors decided not to charge the boys because of free-speech concerns.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it will be difficult to draft a cyberbullying law that doesn't infringe on free-speech rights.

"The fact that two teenagers say nasty things about each other is a part of growing up," he said. "How much authority does a school have to monitor, regulate and punish activities occurring inside a student's home?"

In Arkansas, the state Senate this month passed a bill calling on school districts to set up policies to address cyberbullying only after it was amended to settle concerns about students' free-speech rights.

States are taking different approaches to the problem.

A South Carolina law that took effect this year requires school districts to define bullying and outline policies and repercussions for the behavior, including cyberbullying. One school district there has proposed punishments from warnings up to expulsion for both traditional bullying and cyberbullying.

Some of Oregon's most powerful lawmakers have lined up behind a proposed bill that would require all of the state's 198 school districts to adopt policies that prohibit cyberbullying.

Some local school districts aren't waiting for the state to take action: The Sisters school district in Central Oregon adopted rules that allow it to revoke cyberbullies' school Internet privileges, or even expel a student in egregious cases.

Ted Thonstad, superintendent of the rural school district of 1,475 students, said it was important to clarify by policy how to treat cyberbullying — now prohibited under strict school hazing rules. Previously, the district had guidelines for what types of Internet sites students could visit, he said, but no policy specifically dealt with cyberbullying.

Thonstad said no case prompted the policy, although there were some minor incidents of cyberbullying before it went into place at the beginning of the school year. Nothing has been reported since then.

"It's difficult to monitor if you don't have the right software," he said. "So you rely on students to let you know when it's going on."

Other schools are also being proactive. Rhode Island's McDonough sent both public and private school superintendents information and resources on cyberbullying. One school is designing lesson plans to help stop cyberbullying and protect children from Internet predators.

"I think it would be a good idea if there was a law, but I really believe it has to start at home," said Patricia McCormick, assistant principal of the private St. Philip School in Smithfield, R.I.

McCormick said all the teachers in the school have been trained on Internet safety, and students now receive at least 15 classes on the subject, which includes cyberbullying. But she said stopping the problem will require parental participation.

"Cyberbullying isn't going on in school," she said. "It is going on at home, and I think there needs to be more programs to educate parents about the dangers."

News Corp.'s social-networking site MySpace prohibits cyberbullying and tells users to report abuse — to the company as well as parents and law enforcement, according to a statement issued by Hemanshu Nigam, the company's chief security officer.

John Halligan, whose son's suicide has turned him into an advocate for broader cyberbullying laws that would allow victims and their families to pursue civil penalties against bullies, said something must be done to stop the problem.

"I didn't simply want it to be Ryan's school that agreed to do something," he said. "At the end of the day this wasn't just a problem in Ryan's school."

FREE DOWNLOADS

Group certifies programs OK to download

NEW YORK - An organization that monitors Web site privacy and e-mail practices for businesses has certified eight computer programs as consumer-friendly and non-invasive.

The list includes Save 4.0 from , a company that previously drew criticisms for its software distribution methods but has more recently pledged changes.

TRUSTe's Trusted Download Program is designed to help companies like Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) make decisions about where to advertise and with whom to partner.

Yahoo, which has been accused in the past of benefiting from adware companies with questionable installation practices, has said the certifications could prove useful in determining whether to make Yahoo's search results available to other companies as a component of their toolbars and other software products.

Independent technicians hired by TRUSTe review software used for advertising or tracking user behavior. Certified adware and other software must obtain consent before downloading, be easy to uninstall and cannot modify computer settings to cause damage or harm.

In unveiling the initial list of eight programs Thursday, TRUSTe said all applicants had made changes to software behavior or disclosure to receive certification. The organization said it turned down a number of applicants and is reviewing another dozen, although it did not name them.

Besides Save 4.0, the certified programs are CamFrog Video Chat 3.81 from Camshare LLC, Coupon Bar 5.0 and Coupon Printer 5.0 from Coupons Inc., Crawler Toolbar 4.2 from Crawler LLC, Illumio 1.2.73 from Tacit Software Inc., MostFun 1.0 from NeoEdge, and Vomba 1.2.0.0 from Vomba Network Inc.

Older versions of the software are not necessarily compliant.

TRUSTe said it would continue monitoring the programs certified.

"The Trusted Download Program represents another important step toward making downloadable software more transparent," Ari Schwartz, deputy director of Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement. "By assuring compliance with consumer protection standards, the Trusted Download Program will help companies make more informed decision about potential partners in this growing industry."

LAYOFFS

Chrysler announces 13,000 job cuts

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - In the next three years, 13,000 Chrysler workers will lose their jobs under a wrenching restructuring announced Wednesday that eventually may lead to a DaimlerChrysler divorce.

The Chrysler unit of the German-American automaker announced its long-awaited plan at its Auburn Hills headquarters, saying it would cut 16 percent of the U.S. division's worldwide work force, a move it hoped would return its U.S. operations to profitability next year.

The plan was announced only hours after Chrysler's parent, DaimlerChrysler AG, said it was considering "far-reaching strategic options with partners" for Chrysler and that "no option is being excluded" as it reported a 40 percent drop in companywide profit for the fourth quarter. DaimlerChrysler's U.S. shares rose nearly 7 percent by early afternoon.

The plan calls for closing the company's Newark, Del., assembly plant, and reducing shifts at plants in Warren, Mich., and St. Louis. A parts distribution center near Cleveland also will be closed, and reductions could occur at other plants that make components for those factories.

Under the plan, 11,000 production workers — 9,000 in the U.S. and 2,000 in Canada — will lose their jobs over the next three years, and 2,000 salaried jobs also will be cut — 1,000 this year and 1,000 in 2008.

"Today's action by DaimlerChrysler is devastating news for thousands of workers, their families and their communities,"

United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President General Holiefield said in a joint statement. "While Chrysler Group's recent losses are not the fault of UAW members, they will suffer because of the reductions announced today."

The job losses are the latest in a yearlong series of devastating cuts in the ailing domestic auto industry, which likely will lose more than 100,000 jobs in all.

"We believe that this represents a solid plan to return to profitability and lay the groundwork for a solid future," Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda said at a news conference.

DaimlerChrysler Chairman Dieter Zetsche said the company was looking into "further strategic options with partners" for Chrysler, but he would not give details about what has been discussed for the ailing U.S. operation.

"In this regard we do not exclude any option in order to find the best solution for both the Chrysler Group and DaimlerChrysler," Zetsche said.

Analyst Georg Stuerzer with UniCredit, when asked if the wording in the statement was a sign that the company was mulling a spinoff of Chrysler, said, "the impression was right. This is what people are thinking it could mean."

He added that the restructuring could be the first step, likely followed by a push by DaimlerChrysler to find a partner with which to operate the Chrysler unit, or even find a suitable buyer for it.

Bank of America auto analyst Ron Tadross said in a note to investors that DaimlerChrysler "did not rule out disposing of its money-losing Chrysler division."

Tadross said he "would not be surprised if there is good interest in Chrysler. We see Chrysler as a decent business, at least relative to the other U.S. domestic manufacturers."

DaimlerChrysler's U.S. shares rose $4.33, or 6.7 percent, to $68.78 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

DaimlerChrysler said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings plunged on weaker demand at the Chrysler unit, where sales fell 7 percent. DaimlerChrysler's profit fell to $761 million, or 74 cents per share, as revenue slipped to $53.7 billion. The Chrysler unit lost about $162.8 million in the fourth quarter.

LaSorda said the company expects to lose money again in 2007, but less on an operating basis than in 2006. He also said the company expects to take a $1.3 billion charge this year for restructuring expenses.

The job cuts at Chrysler will reduce by 400,000 the number of vehicles that operations can produce each year.

The Delaware plant, which makes the slow-selling Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen mid-sized sport utility vehicles, employs about 2,100 workers. Chrysler plans to close it in 2009, with a shift reduction this year.

Dean Almuwalld, who works in painting on the Newark plant's assembly line and has worked at the plant for 13 years, learned its future from news reports.

"I'll take a transfer," the 33-year-old said as he walked into the local United Auto Workers hall. Almuwalld said he has relatives in Detroit. "I've got family there, so I'm ready to go."

The Warren truck plant, with 3,313 hourly employees, makes the Dodge Ram and Dakota pickups, which saw sales decline last year. Chrysler plans to eliminate a shift there this year.

Harbert Jones said he likely would keep his job at the Warren plant. Still, he said, these are "terrible times" for his fellow Chrysler workers.

"It's going to mean a lot of hard times for people working in the plant," said Jones, who has worked at the suburban Detroit facility for 22 years.

The other plant to lose a shift is the St. Louis South assembly plant, which makes Chrysler and Dodge minivans. It has 2,850 workers and will lose the shift in 2008.

The Cleveland-area parts distribution center, which employs 95, will close sometime this year, Chrysler said.

LaSorda said after the plant cuts, Chrysler will be using 100 percent of its factory capacity going into 2008.

He also said the company will double production of four-cylinder engines at its new Dundee, Mich., plant, and it also plans to build a new V-6 engine at a plant location to be announced later.

DONATE BLOOD

Study says blood donations may help donors' health

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Blood donations may help keep the body's circulatory system healthy by reducing stores of iron, but the effect may not work for older people, a U.S. study suggested on Tuesday.

Researchers at the White River Junction, Vermont, Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Dartmouth Medical School said they looked at 1,277 men and women ages 43 to 87 who had peripheral arterial disease, a common condition in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to the limbs. The study lasted for six years.

Blood was drawn to promote iron reduction at six-month intervals from some of the patients but not from others. As a whole there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of deaths, heart attacks or other problems.

But when the researchers analyzed the results just for younger patients aged 43 to 61 they found fewer deaths from all causes in the iron-reduction group, and also fewer nonfatal heart attacks and strokes.

"While our study did not show that reducing iron led to across-the-board decreases in overall mortality, or combined death plus nonfatal (heart attack) and stroke, it did support the theory that vascular health might be preserved into later life by maintaining low levels of iron over time," said lead author Dr. Leo Zacharski.

He said blood letting is "safe and inexpensive, and correlates to routine blood donation (and) appears to contribute to improved vascular health." But, he added, until more research is done people should not try to donate blood just to lower their iron levels, and added that reductions in iron can also be achieved through dietary restrictions or drug treatment.

"We suspect that the toxic effect of excess (iron) may become permanent at an older age, such that the benefits of iron reduction are realized only if it is started early and continued over time," Zacharski added.

Excess iron in the blood is thought to promote free-radical damage to arteries, particularly in the early stages of heart disease, said the study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

FIRST BLACK WOMAN

Tyra Banks to mark S.I. cover milestone

LOS ANGELES - Tyra Banks marks a modeling milestone next week, and is donning a decade-old bikini to celebrate the special anniversary.

Ten years ago, Banks became the first black supermodel to appear alone on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. The 2007 edition, which has a music theme, features 25-year-old singer and "Dreamgirls" actress Beyonce on the cover wearing a yellow-and-pink bikini.

Sports Illustrated said Beyonce is the first nonmodel/nonathlete to appear as the main subject on the cover of the swimsuit issue.

The inside of the magazine features scantily clad models posing with Kanye West, Aerosmith, Kenny Chesney, Gnarls Barkley and Panic! At the Disco. A five-page spread featuring model Anne Vyalitsyna was shot at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Banks, 33, recently returned to the Bahamas to recreate the shoot that landed her on the coveted Sports Illustrated cover, even wearing the same red polka dot bikini — with a few adjustments.

"I was about 140 pounds on that cover ... and I'm 161 now," the 5-foot-10 TV host told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I'd say I looked like a stripper when I put it on."

Banks, who retired from modeling in 2005, said some extra fabric was added to make the bikini a little less itsy-bitsy.

"They covered the sides of my chest so that it wasn't so much hangin' out. And they put some extenders on the sides of the bikini bottom so it fit," she said.

Last month, Banks, who hosts the syndicated "The Tyra Banks Show" and the CW network's "America's Next Top Model," was mocked on the Internet for unflattering photos showing her in a one-piece bathing suit.

In the AP Radio interview, Banks said she considered going on a crash diet before the Bahamas shoot to look the same as she did 10 years ago, but then thought better of it.

"I think there's more power in embracing what I am now and showcasing that," she said.

"I'm thinking that I should probably do this every 10 years," she continued. "So, in 2017 maybe I'll get in the swimsuit again and I'll have to get them to add a little more fabric."

Banks will show the results on Monday's episode of her talk show.

IDENTITY THEFT

NY, Calif more likely identity theft targets: study

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers, especially around New York City, and Californians, especially around Los Angeles, are more likely to be targets of identity theft, according to a new study.

The study released Wednesday by ID Analytics Inc., a San Diego fraud security firm, found that New York, California and Nevada have the highest incidence of attempted identity theft, while Wyoming, Vermont and Montana have the lowest rates.

Three other Western states ranked in the top 10 in fraud attempts: Arizona (4), Oregon (7) and Washington (9).

Among states with large populations, Illinois ranked 5th, Michigan 8th, Texas 10th, New Jersey 12th, Florida 14th, Pennsylvania 36th, and Ohio 46th.

Urban areas had higher fraud rates because larger populations make it easier for criminals to "operate under the radar," according to Stephen Coggeshall, chief technology officer at ID Analytics.

"With respect to income," he added, "(fraud) rates are elevated at the high and low income ranges, and lower in middle income levels. In New York, for example, that could help explain some rates, and why there appear to be 'pockets' of fraud."

The study was released two weeks after Javelin Strategy & Research, a Pleasanton, California firm, said identity theft cost Americans $49.3 billion last year, an 11.5 percent drop that might reflect increased vigilance.

It said people with incomes above $150,000 were among those most at risk.

ID Analytics studied incidents from January 2003 to June 2006, including attempted thefts as well as reported crimes, using data collected from clients and public sources.

It said 10 percent to 15 percent of fraud attempts involve stolen identities of actual consumers, while the balance involved criminals creating identities with real and false data.

According to the study, Manhattan residents with zip codes beginning with "100" were four times as likely to be targeted. Next were Brooklyn, New York residents with 112 codes, and Detroit residents with 482 codes.

The next four zip codes were in the Bronx, Manhattan and Nassau County, New York, followed by the 948 code in Contra Costa County, near San Francisco, and Los Angeles' 900 code.

Of the top 50 codes, two-thirds were in New York and California.

Some findings appeared unusual.

The fraud rate in one zip code for Floral Park, New York was 63.3 times the national average, which Coggeshall attributed to an unexplained surge in 2005.

That rate dwarfed the next highest rate, 12.3 times the national average, in the zip code for Faulkton, South Dakota -- population 703.

Coggeshall said the data suggested that for consumers, "it's important to be aware of your general level of identity risk."

Experts urge consumers not to divulge personal data in response to unsolicited communications. They also recommend consumers notify financial services providers and file fraud alerts with credit bureaus if they suspect identity theft.

COMPUTER PROBLEMS

Time change to bring computer glitches

For three weeks this March and April, Microsoft Corp. warns that users of its calendar programs "should view any appointments ... as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees." Wow, that's sort of jarring — is something treacherous afoot?

Actually, it's a potential problem in any software that was programmed before a 2005 law decreed that daylight-saving time would start three weeks earlier and end one week later, beginning this year. Congress decided that more early evening daylight would translate into energy savings.

Software created earlier is set to automatically advance its timekeeping by one hour on the first Sunday in April, not the second Sunday in March (that's March 11 this year).

The result is a glitch reminiscent of the Y2K bug, when cataclysmic crashes were feared if computers interpreted the year 2000 as 1900 and couldn't reconcile time appearing to move backward. This bug is much less threatening, but it could cause head-scratching episodes when some computers are an hour off.

The problem won't show up only in computers, of course. It will affect plenty of non-networked devices that store the time and automatically adjust for daylight saving, like some digital watches and clocks. But in those instances the result will be a nuisance (adjust the time manually or wait three weeks) rather than something that might throw a wrench in the works.

Cameron Haight, a Gartner Inc. analyst who has studied the potential effects of the daylight-saving bug, said it might force transactions occurring within one hour of midnight to be recorded on the wrong day. Computers might serve up erroneous information about multinational teleconference times and physical-world appointments.

"Organizations could face significant losses if they are not prepared," the Information Technology Association of America cautioned this week.

Dave Thewlis, who directs CalConnect, a consortium that develops technology standards for calendar and scheduling software, said it is hard to know how widespread the problem will be.

That's because the world is full of computer systems that have particular methods for accounting for time of day. In many, changing the rules around daylight saving is a snap, but in others, it may be more complex.

"There's no rule that says you have to represent time in a certain way if you write a program," Thewlis said. "How complicated it is to implement the change has to do with the original design, where code is located."

Further confounding matters, there are lots of old computer programs whose original vendors don't support them anymore, meaning there's no repair available. Some gadgets, such as VCR clocks, may not have any mechanism to update their software.

Also, the change originated in the United States and is being followed in Canada, but not most other nations. That could befuddle conferencing systems and other applications that run in multiple countries at once.

In our hyper-networked age with data synchronizing on the fly — each year, it seems, there are fewer clocks that we have to manually change for daylight-saving time — it might be hard to imagine that computers' time could fall out of whack. After all, computers seamlessly keep their clocks in line by occasionally checking with "time servers" run by the government and other parties.

But what those time servers provide is "Universal Time" or Greenwich Mean Time. You tell your computer where in the world it is, and it performs the requisite adjustment to Universal Time. PCs on Eastern Standard Time now are subtracting five hours from Universal Time, but in daylight-saving time they will subtract four.

A common fix is a "patch" that reprograms systems with the updated start and end dates for daylight-saving time. Some of these updates are targeted at specific systems, while others have wider implications — such as one from Sun Microsystems Inc. for older versions of the Java Runtime Environment, which often fuels applications on computers and Web pages.

Microsoft planned to send its daylight-saving patch to Windows PCs with the "automatic update" feature Tuesday. Users with automatic updates turned off should download the patch from Microsoft. (New machines running Windows Vista are immune, since Vista was finalized after the 2005 law passed.)

However, computers running anything older than the most recent version of Windows XP, known as Service Pack 2, no longer get this level of tech support. Owners of those PCs should go into the control panel and unclick the setting that tells the machine to automatically change the clock for daylight-saving time. They have to make the change themselves when the moment arrives. (This is a sizable population; according to Gartner, Windows 2000 alone was still running 14 percent of PCs worldwide last year.)

For people who store their appointments in Microsoft Outlook or other desktop-based calendar programs — rather than dynamic, Web-based programs such as Google Calendar — the situation gets trickier. Patches for calendar programs are available, but appointments entered before a patch was applied might still be registered in standard time rather than daylight time — off by an hour.

Microsoft advises heavy calendar users to go online and download a small program known as "tzmove" — Time Zone Move — that can retrofit all previously booked appointments to the new daylight-saving rules. Other vendors offer similar tools for their systems.

Of course, it's likely not everyone would take that step, said Rich Kaplan, a Microsoft customer service vice president who oversaw the company's Y2K efforts and heads daylight-saving preparations. Hence Microsoft's advice to be cautious about meetings between March 11 and April 1.

"Because if one person applied the update, and one person didn't," he said, "you could end up there at the wrong time."

WHITE HOUSE TRIAL CONTINUES

Libby trial sheds light on White House

WASHINGTON - Sworn testimony in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has shone a spotlight on White House attempts to sell a gone-wrong war in Iraq to the nation and Vice President Dick Cheney's aggressive role in the effort.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald rested his case against Cheney's former chief of staff on Thursday in a trial that has so far lasted 11 days. The defense planned to begin its presentation Monday.

The drama being played out in a Washington courtroom goes back in time to the early summer of 2003. The Bush administration was struggling to overcome growing evidence the mission in Iraq was anything but accomplished.

The claim about weapons of mass destruction that was used to justify the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 had not been supported. Insurgent attacks were on the rise. Accusations were growing that the White House had distorted intelligence to rationalize the invasion.

Trial testimony so far — including eight hours of Libby's own audio-recordedd testimony to a grand jury in 2004 — suggest that a White House known as disciplined was anything but that.

What has emerged, instead, is:

_a vice president fixated on finding ways to debunk a former diplomat's claims that Bush misled the U.S. people in going to war and his suggestion Cheney might have played a role in suppressing contrary intelligence.

_a presidential press secretary kept in the dark on Iraq policy.

_top White House officials meeting daily to discuss the diplomat, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, and sometimes even his CIA-officer wife Valerie Plame.

Libby is accused of lying to the FBI and the grand jury about his talks with reporters concerning Plame. Libby got the White House press secretary to deny he was the source of the leak. He says he thought he first heard about Plame's CIA job from NBC's Tim Russert.

But after checking his own notes, he told the FBI and the grand jury Cheney himself told him Plame worked at CIA a month before the talk with Russert, but Libby says he forgot that in the crush of business.

Cheney already was helping manage the administration's response to allegations that it twisted intelligence to bolster its case on Iraq when Wilson's allegation — in a New York Times op-ed piece on July 6, 2003 — came into his cross hairs.

Cheney told Libby to speak with selected reporters to counter bad news. He developed talking points on the matter for the White House press office. He helped draft a statement by then-CIA Director George Tenet. He moved to declassify some intelligence material to bolster the case against Wilson.

Cheney even clipped Wilson's column out of the newspapers and scrawled by hand on it: "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an ambassador to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

Cheney and Libby discussed the matter multiple times each day, according to Libby's grand jury testimony.

A former Cheney press aide, Cathie Martin, testified she proposed leaking some news exclusives but was kept partly in the dark when Cheney ordered Libby to leak part of a classified intelligence report. Later she arranged a luncheon for conservative columnists with Cheney to help bolster the administration's case.

"What didn't he touch? It's almost like there was almost nothing too trivial for the vice president to handle," said New York University professor Paul Light, an expert in the bureaucracy of the executive branch.

"The details suggest Cheney was almost a deputy president with a shadow operation. He had his own source of advice. He had his own source of access. He was making his own decisions," Light said.

Wilson had written that he had not discovered any evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa. Wilson also asserted that the administration willfully ignored his findings.

Bush mentioned the unsubstantiated Africa connection in his State of the Union address in 2003. The White House and the CIA disavowed the 16-word assertion shortly after Wilson's criticism appeared in print.

A week after Wilson's article, his wife's CIA employment was disclosed in a column by Robert Novak, who wrote that two administration officials told him she suggested sending the former ambassador on the trip.

The disclosure led to a federal investigation into whether administration officials deliberately leaked her identity. Her job was classified and it is a crime to knowingly disclose classified information to unauthorized recipients.

Libby, 56, is not charged with that. He is charged with lying to the FBI and obstructing a grand jury investigation into the leak of Plame's identity. Libby is the only one charged in the case.

Cheney was upset by Wilson's suggestion that his trip was done at the vice president's behest and that the vice president had surely heard his conclusions well before Bush repeated the Niger story in his speech.

The CIA later said Wilson's mission was suggested by his wife but authorized by others. The agency said Wilson's fact-finding trip was in response to inquiries made by Cheney's office, the State Department and the Pentagon.

Testifying for the prosecution, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said he was surprised to find the administration was backing off the 16 words that he had been defending. He said it wasn't the first time he spoke of the administration's position with great certainty, only to find it had changed and nobody had bothered to let him know.

Fleischer acknowledged passing along Plame's identity to two reporters. But he testified he did not know at the time that her CIA job was classified.

According to prosecution testimony, Libby had conversations about Plame's identity with Cheney as well as with a Cheney spokeswoman, a undersecretary of state and two CIA officials before he talked to Russert. In addition, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified that Libby discussed Plame's CIA employment with them.

Russert, the final witness for the prosecution, flatly denied Libby's assertion that the two had discussed Plame before Novak's column appeared.

On the grand jury tapes, Libby also described steps that Cheney took to use parts of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified assessment of Iraq's weapons capabilities, to rebut Wilson.

Among those not informed about this Cheney maneuver, according to the Libby tapes, were then-White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

"What was interesting to me was what appears to be the total involvement of the vice president," said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar who worked in the Eisenhower and Nixon White Houses. "If he's down to micromanaging news leaks and responses at that level, I found that quite astounding."

Meantime, it's become clear that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the first to disclose Plame's work to reporters — Washington Post editor Bob Woodward and then Novak. Armitage says it was a mistake, claiming he didn't know her job was classified.

Ultimately, he, Fleischer and special presidential adviser Karl Rove all have acknowledged talking to reporters about her. According to testimony, at least six reporters were privately told by top administration officials of Plame's connection with the CIA.

DOLLAR BILL REMAINS

No plan to replace bill with dollar coin

WASHINGTON - Maybe Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea should not take public rejection personally. It's not easy overcoming people's indifference to dollar coins, even those honoring such historic figures.

An AP-Ipsos poll found that three-fourths of people surveyed oppose replacing the dollar bill, featuring George Washington, with a dollar coin. People are split evenly on the idea of having both a dollar bill and a dollar coin.

A new version of the coin, paying tribute to American presidents, goes into general circulation Thursday. Even though doing away with the bill could save hundreds of millions of dollars each year in printing costs, there is no plan to scrap the bill in favor of the more durable coin.

"I really don't see any use for it," Larry Ashbaugh, a retiree from Bristolville, Ohio, said of the dollar coin. "We tried it before. It didn't fly."

Two recent efforts to promote wide usage of a dollar coin proved unsuccessful. A quarter-century ago, it showed feminist Susan B. Anthony on the front; then one in 2000 featuring Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian who helped guide the Lewis and Clark expedition.

The latest dollar coin will bear Washington's image, followed later this year by those of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. A different president will appear on the golden dollar coins every three months.

The series of coins will depict four different presidents per year, in the order they served.

Congress voted to create the new dollar coin, betting that this series would be more popular than its recent predecessors.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar put the image of the women's rights activist on a small silver coin that looked a lot like a quarter. The U.S Mint was left with millions of unused coins.

As for the Sacagawea dollar, gold in color, millions of the coins also piled up in bank vaults for the same reason: lack of demand.

People say they just prefer the traditional greenback.

"The dollar bill is lighter, takes up less space in a clutch or a man's wallet and paper money counts easier and stacks up easier than metallic coins," said Nena Wise of York, Pa.

People have strong feelings about their money, even the penny.

A congressional effort to reduce the need for the cent piece failed even though it costs more to produce the copper-colored coin than the coin is worth.

When people were asked whether the penny should be eliminated, 71 percent said no, according to the poll of 1,000 adults conducted Nov, 28-30. Some fear that getting rid of the penny will cause product prices to be rounded up, perhaps increasing inflation.

In other poll findings:

_53 percent said they carry their loose change collected during the day to use for future purchases.

_42 percent put their loose change in a jar or piggy bank each day.

_48 percent said they use cash for purchases under $10.

_28 percent said they usually use cash in such cases, but sometimes use credit or debit cards, according to the poll with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Rather than a high-profile ad campaign like the one used to introduce the Sacagawea dollar, the Mint is trying a more grass-roots approach. The agency is talking to the Federal Reserve, banks and vending machine operators to stir up interest in the new dollar coin.

Supporters of the new presidential dollar coin point to the success of the 50-state quarter program. Begun in 1999, this program has introduced millions of people to coin collecting for the first time.

For Richard Wander of Albany, N.Y, the dollar coin is a welcome addition because he is "kind of a collector."

"I think it's good to have both," he said. "Instead of taking time to put four quarters in a parking meter, you could put in a dollar.

"But I think dollar bills are part of the economic system," he said, "and they work fine."

The presidential coins will be the 14th dollar coin series produced by the Mint going back to 1794. The Susan B. Anthony replaced the Eisenhower dollar in 1979.

Before the Eisenhower dollar's introduction in 1971, there was a gap of 36 years when the Mint did not produce a dollar coin after the last Peace dollar was minted in 1935.

The public can start getting the Washington dollars on Thursday from commercial banks that have placed orders with the Federal Reserve, which handles coin distribution for the Mint.

U.S. Mint Director Edmund C. Moy said he was encouraged by the initial demand for the new coin. The Fed has ordered 300 million Washington dollars so far.

U.S. IS TO BLAME

Putin accuses U.S. of sparking arms race

MUNICH, Germany - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday blamed U.S. policy for inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons to defend themselves from an "almost uncontained use of military force" — a stinging attack that underscored growing tensions between Washington and Moscow.

"Unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts," Putin said at a security forum attracting senior officials from around the world.

"One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way."

The Bush administration said it was "surprised and disappointed" by Putin's remarks. "His accusations are wrong," said Gordon Johndroe, Bush's national security spokesman.

In what the Russian leader's spokesman acknowledged was his harshest criticism of the United States, Putin attacked Bush's administration for stoking a new arms race by planning to deploy a missile defense system in eastern Europe and for backing a U.N. plan that would grant virtual independence to Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo.

Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who was also attending the conference, described Putin's remarks as "the most aggressive speech from a Russian leader since the end of the Cold War."

The United States and an increasingly assertive Russia repeatedly have butted heads during the past year, with Vice President Dick Cheney accusing Moscow of using its energy resources as "tools of intimidation or blackmail." Washington also has been angered by Russia's reluctance to impose meaningful sanctions against Iran, which is accused of seeking to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic energy program.

But Putin said it was "the almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations" that was forcing countries opposed to Washington to seek to build up nuclear arsenals.

"It is a world of one master, one sovereign ... it has nothing to do with democracy," he said. "This is nourishing the wish of countries to get nuclear weapons."

"This is very dangerous, nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law," Putin told the gathering.

Putin did not mention the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, but he voiced concern about NATO's expansion plans as possible challenges to Russia.

"The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance or with ensuring security in Europe," Putin said. "On the contrary, it is a serious factor provoking reduction of mutual trust."

On the missile defense system, Putin said: "I don't want to accuse anyone of being aggressive" but suggested it would seriously change the balance of power and could provoke an unspecified "asymmetric" response.

On Kosovo, Moscow has said a solution imposed against Serbia's consent could serve as a model for other separatist provinces elsewhere in the world. Washington, which supports Kosovo's independence, maintains that the Kosovo situation is a "one-off" because the province has been under U.N. rule since 1999 when Serb forces were ejected following a brief aerial war with NATO.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had little to say about the accusations, remarking only that Putin "was very candid."

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he was disappointed by Putin's criticism about NATO expansion. "Who can be worried that democracy and the rule of law is coming closer to somebody's border?" he asked.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the president's speech was not "confrontational" and attributed his blunt words to the sense that the number of conflicts fomented by Washington "was constantly growing" and that international law was being undermined by such actions.

"It is in the interest of the United States, the European Union and other countries that international law is upheld, not further destroyed," Peskov said.

Minutes earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel — whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency — had praised Russia, saying it would be a reliable energy supplier to Europe. She called for closer relations between the EU and Moscow to enhance stability on the continent.

"How relations between the EU and Russia evolve will have a crucial impact on how security in the region will develop," Merkel told the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy. The forum is often used as an opportunity for officials to conduct diplomacy in an informal setting.

Russia's reputation as a supplier of natural gas to the West was damaged in the recent past when it halted supplies to Europe through main pipelines crossing Belarus and Ukraine due to pricing disputes with those two countries.

Merkel also said that the international community is determined to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Tehran needed to accept demands made by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency, she said.

On the sidelines of the conference, Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani defended his country's nuclear program as peaceful, saying: "We are no threat to our region or other countries," while indicating a willingness to return to negotiations.

BEHIND CHILDREN

Changes to No Child Left Behind expected

WASHINGTON - When Tori Boyles, of Columbia, Mo., takes a test at school, an adult often reads the questions to her because the 9-year-old has learning disabilities that make reading difficult.

That kind of accommodation generally is not allowed for the reading test that public school students take under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Also, skipping the exam is not permitted for Tori, who has spina bifida, a condition often accompanied by learning problems.

"Why isn't there an option to opt out of that?" asks her mother, Becky Boyles. "She just has to stare at this piece of paper. She'll tell you she feels stupid. She feels absolutely stupid."

Boyles and other parents are not the only ones frustrated when children such as Tori take federally mandated tests and do poorly. School administrators feel trapped by the system as well and lagging children risk being blamed for an entire school's failure.

The dilemma is how to fix the problem without abandoning kids with special needs.

Under the federal law, which seeks to get all students reading and doing math on grade level by 2014, schools have to analyze the scores of groups of children. This includes special-education students and foreign-language speakers who are just learning English.

If certain groups of students fail to meet specific goals, entire schools can be labeled as needing improvement. They then might face steps such as having to replace teachers and principals. Critics say that can place enormous pressure on the lagging groups.

"In some instances, it's made them into scapegoats. You hear, 'Well if it wasn't for these children, then we would be OK.' It's criminal to treat them this way," said Carol Kula, who teaches high school students in Muscatine, Iowa, who are learning English as a second language.

The five-year-old federal law is scheduled to be rewritten this year, and the lawmakers in charge say they will try to change the rules for special-education students and recent immigrants. The aim is to inject more common sense into the law while sticking with its promise to leave no child behind.

"I think for both of these groups of students, the law was not well designed. It does not acknowledge (that) by definition these kids are not going to meet the same standards at the same pace as other students," said Michael Petrilli, who wrote a book about the law and helped oversee the first years of the program at the Education Department.

Parents, teachers and state policymakers are among those pushing for more flexibility in the testing of special-education students and immigrants. Advocates for both groups caution against loosening the rules too much.

"What we're hoping is that students with disabilities continue to be part of the accountability system. If they're not, schools are going to make decisions that don't include them," said Katy Neas, a lobbyist for Easter Seals, which helps people with disabilities and special needs.

Delia Pompa, vice president for education at the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group, said excusing immigrants from tests could slow their learning. She says public schools have a long history of providing less than rigorous course work for students who are learning English.

The No Child Left Behind law requires annual testing in reading and math in third grade through eighth grade and once in high school.

Roughly 10 percent of special-education students — those with the most severe disabilities — take alternative tests under the law. These are easier than the regular exams. But critics say the tests still are too hard for some children and do not reflect lessons typically taught to severely disabled students.

In addition to the 10 percent who get the special test, the Education Department is considering allowing about one-fifth of the rest of the special-education students to take alternative tests. These tests are expected to be harder than the ones given to the first group but easier than the typical tests.

There is a debate about whether that overall total — about 30 percent of special-education students — is the right proportion of students to single out and whether states should be able to set such policies on their own.

Similarly, there is disagreement over how to test students who are learning English as a second language.

The government exempts students enrolled in U.S. schools for less than a year from taking reading tests. After that time, these students have to be tested.

The law says students can take the test in their native language for up to three years. States, however, have been slow to develop tests in other languages.

Critics say children cannot be expected to be proficient in reading until they have mastered English, which generally takes several years.

Students learning English and those with disabilities were an afterthought when the No Child Left Behind law was being written, according to those involved.

"We said if you're going to have an accountability system, it needs to include everybody, and then the drafters said, 'Oh yeah you're right,'" said Neas, the Easter Seals lobbyist. She said she has heard complaints from teachers, who say the law is too rigid, and from parents, who want to know why their disabled children have to take the tests.

Peggy Walker, who teaches sixth-graders with disabilities in Stoughton, Wis., says the law has brought extra attention to the education of special-needs students.

"Everybody at our school is very focused on reducing the number of kids that aren't proficient," Walker said.

Walker said she worries the law further stigmatizes children with disabilities by placing schools on watch lists when those students fail.

Many educators say entire schools should not be labeled as failing in those circumstances and should only have to provide extra attention to lagging students.

Rep. Dale Kildee (news, bio, voting record), who is in charge of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the education law, argues against making a hasty change.

"I think we're very cautious in changing that, so we don't have them lose sight of the fact that they have to serve those kids well," said Kildee, D-Mich.

The education subcommittee's top Republican, Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, recently said the law needs to be improved for special-education students and new immigrants. But he stopped short of spelling out what he wants to do.

California Democrat George Miller (news, bio, voting record), who chairs the full education committee, also said these two areas must be reviewed.

One proposal expected to be considered would give schools credit if their students, including those with disabilities or those who are learning English, make strides but fall short of a specific goal.

"If every student moves forward, isn't that the key? Some will move faster than others because of many elements in their lives," said Brenda Dietrich, a school superintendent in the Topeka, Kan., area. She oversees a district where a school failed to meet the law's progress goal because of the scores of special-education students.

For Becky Boyles, who has adopted six children, including Tori, the idea of giving schools credit for progress makes sense. She likened it to the way she runs her home.

"Everybody's expected to help out, but Tori who uses crutches can't really get her dishes to the dishwasher," she said. "Tori can get the soap in the dish washer and get the table wiped off. She's still helping, but I'm not making her do things that she absolutely cannot do."

GERALD LEVERT

Accidental drug mix said to kill Levert

CLEVELAND - R&B singer Gerald Levert's death last fall was an accident caused by a fatal combination of prescription narcotics and over-the-counter drugs, a coroner said.

The drugs in his bloodstream included the narcotic pain relievers Vicodin, Percocet and Darvocet, along with anxiety medication Xanax and two over-the-counter antihistamines, Geauga County Coroner Kevin Chartrand said. The official cause of death was acute intoxication, and the death was ruled accidental.

Chartrand said his office received a report Thursday from the Cuyahoga County coroner's office, which conducted the autopsy.

Levert, 40, son of O'Jays singer Eddie Levert, died Nov. 10 in his suburban Cleveland home. He was a member of the R&B trio LeVert, whose hits included "(Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop) Goes My Mind" and "Casanova." He sold millions of albums and had numerous hits over his career.

His soulful voice powered his appeal and in 1991 he made his solo debut with the album "Private Line." That included a hit duet with his dad, "Baby Hold on to Me."

Andy Gibson, a family spokesman, said Levert was taking the pain medication because of chronic pain from a lingering shoulder problem and surgery in 2005 to repair a severed Achilles tendon. The autopsy revealed that Levert had pneumonia.

Levert also took Xanax for anxiety attacks, Gibson said.

SNOW HOAX

Students charged in online snow-day hoax

TRENTON, Ohio - Two teenage girls posted a fake announcement on their school district's Web site that said school was closed for the day due to winter weather, police said.

The notice, posted Monday, confused many parents — snow was not in the forecast — and persuaded some students to stay home.

Edgewood City Schools Superintendent Tom York said he discovered the posting when he logged on to write his own announcement that school would be delayed for an hour because of an extreme cold snap.

"I didn't make that call, and I'm the guy who does, so I knew something was up," York said.

The two Edgewood High School students, whose names were not released, were charged in juvenile court on Friday and face expulsion. One of the girls, 16, was charged with delinquency by unauthorized use of a computer and by reason of records tampering. The other, 17, was charged with delinquency by reason of complicity, Sheriff's Sgt. Monte Mayer said.

The company that runs the Web site, RCH Networks Inc., said the system was not hacked into because no security breach was detected. Administrators say the girls must have somehow gotten the password.

RCH helped the district track down the girls by supplying the identification numbers from computers that accessed the system, which authorities could then track to the girls' homes.

Trenton is about 25 miles north of Cincinnati.

YOUR NOVEL

Romance novels star (your name here)

PORTLAND, Ore. - This Valentine's Day, one publisher wants you to be the one doing the bodice-ripping. Book By You says it sells thousands of personalized romance novels each year with titles such as "ER Fever" and "Pirates of Desire," where the reader is the star. It's not Bronte, but customers are going crazy for the novels that make them the main characters.

"I just wanted something unique and different," said Kym Sprague, who bought a book for her boyfriend of three years. "I thought it was pretty neat."

Customers answer 20 to 30 questions about themselves and their beloved, ranging from body type to pet names. Then the details are woven into one of the company's eight pre-formatted novels.

Clients go a step further and have their photos added to the book jacket. Then the personalized novel is shipped directly to them.

One customer had a marriage proposal included at the end — for $34.95 plus shipping and handling.

Turnaround time is quick. Publisher Michael Pocock said if customers order their personalized book on Monday they'll get it in time for Valentine's Day. Virtually all the orders are done on the Internet, Pocock said.

Customers normally order just a book or two. But there are also larger orders. For example, a book club of 12 people ordered a novel for each member, Pocock said in a telephone interview from his office in Canada.

Sprague said she got a kick out of seeing her and her boyfriend's names and lives played out in the book.

She even let her daughters take a peek at the handiwork, but only at certain pages. There are no explicit sex scenes in these books, but the company says there is "lots of heavy breathing and rolling around."

Pocock said each book is carefully crafted to avoid alienating any customers — avoiding topics like marriage or religion. But he said customers are universally thrilled to see themselves in the pages.

"When you think of Valentine's Day: it's chocolate, it's roses, it's dinner," he said. "This provides something that is quite unique."

The books are modeled after traditional romance novels — a tense plot, a happy ending and a few stolen kisses along the way.

Romance novels constitute nearly 40 percent of all fiction sold, according to a survey by Romance Writers of America. So it's little surprise the twist on the traditional seems to be doing well.

Pocock said he got the idea while sitting on a beach in California with his girlfriend in 1998.

Pocock was contemplating what to do with his life. He had been an officer in a publicly traded company in the 1980s, and was cast aside when the company was taken over.

"I thought, things that have happened to me are similar to what happen to other people," Pocock said. "That's where the concept came up of a personalized novel."

He started the company a year later.

It's a small operation. Pocock has three full-time employees (including himself), three-part-timers, and two writers. The company is based in London, Ontario, but the books are printed in Pennsylvania.

The company said it sells fairly evenly to women and men. It upped its male appeal with the latest book: "Racing Hearts," a love story based on stock car racing.

"I've been the victim of boring Valentine's Day gifts for many, many years," said Wendy Pickett, a 38-year old nurse who lives in Nehalem, Ore. and wrote "ER Fever" and "Racing Hearts." "Any time I can help the opposite sex is very cool."

It takes about a year for the company to develop the story for a book, working with their writers on the story and the spots where the characters can be personalized. Some customers get hooked after their first book and go on to buy all of them.

The company's busiest time is Valentine's Day, followed by Christmas. But the company said it is busy year-round with books being sold for anniversaries and lately, for spouses who are overseas at war.

"I've been on the phone with customers who bring tears to my eyes," said Pickett. "I hear their stories and it's all love and romance."

Richard Flynn, 23, bought one of the books for his fiancée last Christmas.

"It's really hard for a guy to pick out a gift for a girl that shows meaning and thought; this does," he said. "But you really have to know your girlfriend or fiancée, if you get the eye color wrong..."

SEVEN U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED

Al-Qaida-linked group posts copter video

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An insurgent group linked to al-Qaida posted a Web video Friday showing what it said was the downing of a U.S. military helicopter this week. Seven Americans were killed in the crash.

The U.S. military has said it did not believe the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter was shot down in the crash Wednesday northwest of Baghdad.

But a U.S. official, who was not authorized to address the topic publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said "the video appears to be legitimate" — meaning that it shows a Sea Knight crashing.

The two-minute video — which says it shows the "downing of U.S. aircraft on Feb. 7" — shows a helicopter that appears to be a Sea Knight flying. An object trailing smoke is seen in the sky nearby, and then the craft bursts into orange and red flames, with a spray of debris emerging from it.

It is not clear whether the object is a rocket, and it cannot be clearly seen connecting with the craft. In the footage, the helicopter heads downward, but appears to be at least partially in control, though smoke and bright flames are trailing from it. The helicopter then disappears behind a line of trees as it hits the ground.

The video was issued by the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi insurgent groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq. The group on Wednesday issued a written claim of responsibility for the craft's downing and had promised a video would follow.

The video, titled "the Hell of Christians and Apostates in Iraq," was posted on a Web forum where the group and other Islamic militants often post messages.

The Islamic State in Iraq has also claimed responsibility for downing two other U.S. helicopters — a Black Hawk which crashed northeast of Baghdad on Jan. 20, killing 12 Americans, and an Apache shot down Feb. 12, in which two U.S. soldiers died.

At least six U.S. helicopters have crashed or been forced down under hostile fire since Jan. 20. In the wake of the recent crashes, U.S. officials have said they were reviewing flight operations and tactics but maintain there is no evidence of sophisticated new weapons used in any of the latest attacks.

The authenticity of Friday's claim could not be independently confirmed.

U.S. Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, chief operations officer for the Joint Staff, suggested the claim may not be authentic.

"This enemy is very astute in the use of the media. He has in the past had a pattern of posting things on the Web sites and claiming responsibility for attacks that did or did not occur," Lute said at a Pentagon news conference. "I'd be very cautious about drawing conclusions from things that are posted on the Internet."

As to what caused the crash, Lute said "there are some eyewitness accounts that cause professional aviation officers to believe it was most likely ... mechanical."

IRAN JOINS FIGHT

Gates: Bombs tie Iran to Iraq extremists

MUNICH, Germany - Serial numbers and other markings on bombs suggest that Iranians are linked to deadly explosives used by Iraqi militants, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in some of the administration's first public assertions on evidence the military has collected.

While the Bush administration and military officials have repeatedly said Iranians have been tied to terrorist bombings in Iraq, they have said little about evidence to bolster such claims, including any documents and other items collected in recent raids in Iraq.

National security officials in Washington and Iraq have been working for weeks on a presentation intended to provide evidence for Bush administration claims of what they say are Iran's meddlesome and deadly activities.

The materials — which in their classified form include slides and some two inches of documents — provide evidence of Iran's role in supplying Iraqi militants with highly sophisticated and lethal improvised explosive devices and other weaponry. Among the weapons is a roadside bomb known as an "explosively formed penetrator," which can pierce the armor of Abrams tanks with nearly molten-hot charges. One intelligence official said the U.S. is "fairly comfortable" it knows where the explosives came from.

The Iran dossier also lays out alleged Iranian efforts to train Iraqis in military techniques.

Yet, government officials say there is some disagreement about how much to make public to support the administration's case. Intelligence officials worry the sources of their information could dry up.

Among the evidence the administration will present are weapons that were seized in U.S.-led raids on caches around Iraq, one military official in Washington said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Other evidence includes documents captured when U.S.-led forces raided an Iranian office Jan. 11 in Irbil in northern Iraq, the official said. Tehran said it was a government liaison office, but the U.S. military said five Iranians detained in the raid were connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq.

The assertions have been met with skepticism by some lawmakers still fuming over intelligence reports used by the administration to propel the country to war with Iraq in 2003. Gates' comments came as a new Pentagon inspector general's report criticized prewar Defense Department assertions of al-Qaida connections to Iraq.

Speaking with reporters in Seville, Spain, on Friday before traveling to Munich, Gates told reporters that markings on explosives provide "pretty good" evidence that Iranians are supplying either weapons or technology for Iraqi extremists.

"I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found" that point to Iran, he said.

Gates' remarks left unclear how the U.S. knows the serial numbers are traceable to Iran and whether such weapons would have been sent to Iraq by the Iranian government or by private arms dealers.

Explosives have been a leading killer of U.S. forces in Iraq, where more than 3,000 U.S. troops have died in the nearly four-year-old war.

In Iraq on Friday, the military reported three more American soldiers killed in combat, pushing the U.S. death toll to 33 in the first eight days of the month.

Separately, U.S. helicopters targeting insurgents mistakenly killed at least five allied Kurdish militiamen in the northern city of Mosul early Friday.

Last week, Gates said that U.S. military officers in Baghdad had been planning to brief reporters on what was known about Iranian involvement in Iraq but that he and other senior officials had delayed the briefing to assure the information was accurate.

On Friday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said such information would come from U.S. officials in Iraq, though she did not say when.

"There has been discussion about how to detail out some of that evidence," she told reporters. "Decisions on that are being made out of Baghdad."

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Friday that officials hoping to publicly release the information face another problem as well.

He said, "Under the circumstances and given the attention that this has gotten, we want to make sure that we provide you the best information possible but do so in a way that doesn't compromise sources and methods, that doesn't make it harder for us to deal with the situation that's there."

Gates also told reporters that he was surprised that raids last month by coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq swept up some Iranians.

"I don't think there was surprise that the Iranians were actually involved, I think there was surprise we actually picked up some," he said.

He and other U.S. officials have said for some time that Iranians, and possibly the government of Iran, have been providing weapons technology and perhaps some explosives to Iraqi fighters.

Gates, who attended his first NATO defense ministers meeting in Seville this week before flying to Munich for a security conference, said Iran is "very much involved in providing either the technology or the weapons themselves for these explosively formed projectiles."

He acknowledged the Iranian weapons are not a large percentage of the roadside bombs used in Iraq, but he said, "They're extremely lethal."

Gates said the recent raids combined with the movement of an additional U.S. aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf have created a stir, but he said the Bush administration had no intention of attacking Iran.

Asked about the Defense Department inspector general's report criticizing the Pentagon's use of prewar intelligence, Gates said he hadn't yet read it.

But, he added, "based on my whole career, I believe that all intelligence activities need to be carried on through established institutions, and where there is appropriate oversight. And if the intelligence isn't adequate, then changes need to be made in these institutions to improve the intelligence."

YOU-TUBE IS LIVE

Militant Islamic groups turn to YouTube

LONDON - Anyone with an Internet connection can watch videos of bombings and sniper attacks against U.S. forces — shot and edited by Islamic militants and broadcast on YouTube, the world's largest video-sharing Web site.

With the global spread of high-speed Internet connections and the relative anonymity afforded by the world's biggest and busiest sites, extremists have found a new theater to display violence and anti-American propaganda.

On Friday, prosecutors in Britain charged six suspects in an alleged plot to kidnap and kill a British soldier — an act that police allege was intended to be recorded and posted on the Internet.

Parviz Khan, 36, is accused of plotting to carry out the alleged abduction while four other men are accused of acting as his accomplices, prosecutor Patrick Stevens told the court hearing. A sixth man is set to appear in court on Saturday.

Until recently, videos shot by terrorist groups were posted predominantly on specialist Internet forums, which often only those knowing what to look for could find. But more are turning to mainstream sites like YouTube, which draw millions of visitors around the world each day.

"They can always bring down a video, but it's very easy to create a new one. It's like an uphill treadmill for YouTube," said Sajjan Gohel, director of international security at the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, a counterterrorism think tank.

Jeremy Curtin, a U.S. State Department official responsible for monitoring Internet propaganda, said authorities were aware of the footage on sites like YouTube but had not made any real headway in tackling the problem.

"It's new to everybody, we are trying to find out how best to engage with Internet companies," he said.

European intelligence agencies, while acknowledging existence of the videos, also say there is little they can do to stop them from popping up.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Maiziere, who oversees intelligence agencies, said authorities are struggling to glean information from cyberspace.

"Trying to uncover Internet meetings of terrorists is like searching for a needle in a haystack," he told the online magazine Netzeitung. "The security agencies have their hands full trying to keep pace and get into these chat rooms."

That poses problems for companies like YouTube, which features a range of weird and wonderful videos directly uploaded onto the Web site by users around the world. The most popular videos now include a panda sneezing, a song by an "American Idol" entrant and a music video by hip hop star Naz.

Although scores of Web sites let anyone post and share video clips for free, YouTube is the most popular, receiving some 65,000 new clips a day. Users collectively watch more than 100 million videos on YouTube daily.

YouTube — owned by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. — says it reserves the right to remove videos that users flag as unsuitable.

"YouTube has clear terms and conditions which prohibit, amongst other things, hateful content," the company said in a statement. "Our community has been highly effective in policing the site, and YouTube removes videos if our community flags them as inappropriate."

But like other video-sharing sites, YouTube generally takes down video only after receiving a complaint. Someone else can easily repost the video under a different account, and it would remain available until YouTube receives a complaint on that as well.

It's similar to the challenges YouTube and other sites face trying to keep copyrighted clips from appearing as technology makes sharing video among everyday users increasingly easy.

A recent search brings YouTube users to a video carrying the logo of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni insurgent groups including al-Qaida in Iraq.

In the video, a man stands in a deserted field beside a blue car. Speaking in Arabic, he gives what he describes as his final testament before a suicide car bombing that he claims will target a U.S. convoy in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

"I ask God this day to enable us to kill the infidels and to grant us the highest martyrdom," he says. "I dedicate a special greeting to sheik Abu Abdulla ( Osama bin Laden), Sheik Ayman (al-Zawahri) and our Sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

Moments later, the footage shows what appears to be a checkpoint, followed by an explosion. The man shooting the film screams, "Allahu akbar. (God is great.)"

In another video entitled "Qanaas Baghdad Episode II," a man purporting to be an Iraqi sniper offers tips on attacking U.S. soldiers. As music plays, a group of soldiers stand at the side of a bustling, dusty street. The sniper locks on to one of them. A second later, the soldier falls to the ground.

The site had recorded 30,000 hits for the video since it was posted in November, according to YouTube's view counter on the site. The video was removed from the site Thursday, but other videos showing sniper shootings of American troops were still available.

Such videos often touch off heated exchanges by viewers, such as one between users Sameerah and Helmycito.

"I follow Islam and what the Koran (sic) says. I dont (sic) follow these stupid idiots who think they are Muslim and kill innocent people which is against Islam," user Sameerah wrote.

"Do u call US soldires (sic) innocent people? why r they there? Kill them as they kill our bros and sisters out there," Helmycito replied.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States accused the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera of giving a propaganda platform to al-Qaida for broadcasting videos in which bin Laden justified the attacks. The failure of American counterterrorism officials to now move against U.S. companies also displaying martyrdom videos shows a lack of fairness, said Ahmed Sheikh, Al-Jazeera's editor in chief.

"It's really hypocritical and unbelievable," Sheikh said.

Experts believe advances in Internet technology will lead to a surge in well produced, homemade extremist videos.

"It's practically impossible to stop these videos," said the State Department's Curtin. "You can close one channel and another one will open up."

Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor, said the videos at YouTube and other sites are evidence of "a new front in the propaganda battle."

"It's here to stay," Rasch said. "It's going to get worse — we are going to see real-time executions with higher production values."

INTELLIGENCE BEGUILE

Report says Pentagon manipulated intel

WASHINGTON - Pentagon officials undercut the intelligence community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq by insisting in briefings to the White House that there was a clear relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, the Defense Department's inspector general said Friday.

Acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the office headed by former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith took "inappropriate" actions in advancing conclusions on al-Qaida connections not backed up by the nation's intelligence agencies.

Gimble said that while the actions of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy "were not illegal or unauthorized," they "did not provide the most accurate analysis of intelligence to senior decision makers" at a time when the White House was moving toward war with Iraq.

"I can't think of a more devastating commentary," said Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

He cited Gimble's findings that Feith's office was, despite doubts expressed by the intelligence community, pushing conclusions that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague five months before the attack, and that there were "multiple areas of cooperation" between Iraq and al-Qaida, including shared pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

"That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," Levin said in an interview Thursday. He said the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

Rep. Ike Skelton (news, bio, voting record), D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Friday the report "clearly shows that Doug Feith and others in that office exercised extremely poor judgment for which our nation, and our service members in particular, are paying a terrible price."

Republicans on the panel disagreed. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said the "probing questions" raised by Feith's policy group improved the intelligence process.

"I'm trying to figure out why we are here," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (news, bio, voting record), R-Ga., saying the office was doing its job of analyzing intelligence that had been gathered by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Gimble responded that at issue was that the information supplied by Feith's office in briefings to the National Security Council and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney was "provided without caveats" that there were varying opinions on its reliability.

Gimble's report said Feith's office had made assertions "that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community."

At the White House, spokesman Dana Perino said President Bush has revamped the U.S. spy community to try avoiding a repeat of flawed intelligence affecting policy decisions by creating a director of national intelligence and making other changes.

"I think what he has said is that he took responsibility, and that the intel was wrong, and that we had to take measures to revamp the intel community to make sure that it never happened again," Perino told reporters.

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman denied that the office was producing its own intelligence products, saying they were challenging what was coming in from intelligence-gathering professionals, "looking at it with a critical eye."

Some Democrats also have contended that Feith misled Congress about the basis of the administration's assertions on the threat posed by Iraq, but the Pentagon investigation did not support that.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Levin said the IG report is "very damning" and shows a Pentagon policy shop trying to shape intelligence to prove a link between al-Qaida and Saddam.

Levin in September 2005 had asked the inspector general to determine whether Feith's office's activities were appropriate, and if not, what remedies should be pursued.

The 2004 report from the Sept. 11 commission found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror organization before the U.S. invasion.

Asked to comment on the IG's findings, Feith said in a telephone interview that he had not seen the report but was pleased to hear that it concluded his office's activities were neither illegal nor unauthorized. He took strong issue, however, with the finding that some activities had been "inappropriate."

"The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow 'unlawful' or 'unauthorized' and that some information it gave to congressional committees was deceptive or misleading," said Feith, who left his Pentagon post in August 2005.

Feith called "bizarre" the inspector general's conclusion that some intelligence activities by the Office of Special Plans, which was created while Feith served as the undersecretary of defense for policy — the top policy position under then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — were inappropriate but not unauthorized.

YUCK

For women, nothing's like the smell of men's sweat

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - For women, apparently there's nothing like the smell of a man's sweat.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said women who sniffed a chemical found in male sweat experienced elevated levels of an important hormone, along with higher sexual arousal, faster heart rate and other effects.

They said the study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, represents the first direct evidence that people secrete a scent that influences the hormones of the opposite sex.

The study focused on androstadienone, considered a male chemical signal. Previous research had established that a whiff of it affected women's mood, sexual and physiological arousal and brain activation. Its impact on hormones was less clear.

A derivative of testosterone, it is found in male sweat as well as in saliva and semen. It smells somewhat musky.

"It really tells us that a lot of things can be triggered by smelling sweat," Claire Wyart, who led the study, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The researchers measured levels of the hormone cortisol in the saliva of 48 female undergraduates at Berkeley, average age of about 21, after the women took 20 sniffs from a jar of androstadienone. Cortisol is secreted by the body to help maintain proper arousal and sense of well-being, respond to stress and other functions.

Cortisol levels in the women who smelled androstadienone shot up within roughly 15 minutes and stayed elevated for up to an hour. Consistent with previous research, the women also reported improved mood, higher sexual arousal, and had increased blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.

YEAST

For comparison's sake, women also smelled baking yeast, which did not trigger the same effects.

This was the first time that smelling a specific chemical secreted by people was shown to affect hormonal levels, the researchers said. The women had no skin contact with androstadienone.

The researchers used only heterosexual women in the study out of concern that homosexual women may respond differently to this male chemical.

Wyart said while this marked the first time a specific component of male sweat was demonstrated to influence women's hormones, other components of sweat may do similar things.

The study did not determine whether the increase in cortisol levels triggered mood or arousal changes or whether those changes themselves caused the cortisol elevation.

The researchers also said their findings suggest a better way to stimulate cortisol levels in patients who need it, such as those with Addison's disease. Instead of giving cortisol in pill form, which has side effects such as peptic ulcers, osteoporosis, weight gain and mood disorders, smelling a chemical like androstadienone could be used to affect cortisol levels, they suggested.

DEATH TOLL INCREASE

Four Marines killed; U.S. toll now 3,114

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four U.S. Marines were killed in fighting in Anbar province, the military said Thursday. The Marines, who were assigned to Multi-National Force — West, died Wednesday from wounds sustained due to enemy action in two separate incidents in the insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, according to a statement. The deaths raised to at least 3,114 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, said U.S. officials were investigating a previously undisclosed Jan. 31 incident involving a civilian helicopter. A military official in Washington said the helicopter either crashed or was forced to land by gunfire. The passengers and crew were rescued by another U.S. helicopter, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

If confirmed, it would be the sixth helicopter to crash or be forced down in Iraq since Jan. 20, prompting the U.S. military to review flight operations. The most recent crash occurred Wednesday when a Marine CH-46 Sea Knight went down northwest of Baghdad, killing seven people.

Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told a group of government officials in Washington on Thursday that the military did not believe the Sea Knight was shot down. An Iraqi air force officer said, however, that it was shot down with a missile. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni group claimed responsibility.

Iraqi forces Thursday detained a senior Health Ministry official accused of corruption and helping to funnel millions of dollars to Shiite militiamen blamed for much of the recent sectarian violence in the capital, the U.S. military said. The raid was the latest in a crackdown on radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, coming a day after the chief U.S. military spokesman said a security sweep to stop the rampant attacks in the capital was under way.

In Washington, a military official said it was the highest-level arrest so far and provided an example of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's assertion that nobody and no place will be exempt from the crackdown.

Maj. Gen. Abdullah Khamis, the Iraq army commander for eastern Baghdad, said the arrest of the Health Ministry official was not part of the security operation, which he said would be different from two previous attempts that failed to pacify the capital.

"The elements of the new plan will be completely different in all aspects from the previous plans," he said. "It will be comprehensive ... it will enjoy political support."

West of Baghdad, a U.S. airstrike killed 13 insurgents in a raid on two safe houses where intelligence showed foreign fighters were assembled near Amiriyah, the military said. Five militants were detained and a weapons cache was found in an initial raid on a target near the safe houses.

Police and hospital officials in the area offered a conflicting account, saying the airstrike hit the village of Zaidan south of Abu Ghraib and flattened four houses, killing 45 people, including women, children and old people.

An Associated Press photo showed the body of a boy in the back of a pickup truck at the nearby Fallujah hospital and people there said he was a victim of the Zaydan airstrike. Other photos showed several wounded children being treated in the hospital.

Amiriyah is in volatile Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad where hundreds of U.S. troops have been killed.

At least 43 other people were killed or found dead in Iraq. Car bombs struck Shiite targets in Baghdad and south of the capital.

The military statement did not identify the official detained Thursday, but a ministry spokesman said earlier that U.S. and Iraqi forces had seized deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili, an al-Sadr supporter, from his office in northern Baghdad.

A large white boot print was left on the bullet-pocked office door, which apparently had been kicked in by the troops, and shattered glass and overturned computers and phones were scattered on the floor.

The Shiite Health Minister Ali al-Shemari, who also has been linked to al-Sadr, and several other members of the movement denounced the raid.

"This is a violation of Iraq's sovereignty," he said. "They should have a court order to carry out a raid like this."

The detainee was implicated in the deaths of several ministry officials, including the director-general in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, the military said.

He reportedly orchestrated several kickback schemes related to inflated contracts for equipment and services, with millions of dollars allegedly funneled to the Mahdi Army militia that is loyal to al-Sadr, according to the statement.

The official also was suspected of providing large-scale employment of militia members who used Health Ministry facilities and services for "sectarian kidnapping and murder," the military said.

Joint U.S.-Iraqi forces stormed the Health Ministry compound early Thursday, causing its employees to flee, spokesman Qassim Yahya said.

One of al-Zamili's bodyguards said he heard gunshots, then the Americans asked him to step aside and approached the deputy health minister, who introduced himself by name and title. A U.S. soldier told al-Zamili he was on a list of wanted names and handcuffed him before leading him away, the bodyguard said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

In the deadliest attack Thursday, a parked car bomb exploded at a meat market in the predominantly Shiite town of Aziziyah, 56 miles south of Baghdad, killing 20 people and wounding 45, police said.

Another parked car bomb tore through a minibus in the mainly Shiite Amin neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad, killing seven passengers and wounding 10, police said. The blast blew out the windows of at least one car parked nearby and left piles of rubble and ashes that were being cleared away by street sweepers as the burned out frame of the bus stood nearby.

Baghdad's streets have been tense as U.S. officials confirmed the new security operation was under way. U.S. armor rushed through streets and Iraqi armored personnel carriers guarded bridges and major intersections.

New coils of barbed-wire and blast barriers marked checkpoints that caused traffic bottlenecks. U.S. Apache helicopters flew over parts of the city where they hadn't been seen before. Gunfire still rang out and some residents said they doubted life would get better.

"Nothing will work; it's too late," said Hashem al-Moussawi, a resident of the Sadr City Shiite enclave who was badly wounded in a bombing in December.

The chief U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, said Wednesday the Baghdad security operation would be implemented gradually. It is the third attempt by al-Maliki and his U.S. backers to pacify Baghdad since the Shiite leader came to office in May. The operation, which will involve about 90,000 Iraqi and American troops, was seen by many as a last chance to curb Iraq's sectarian war.

JOURNALISM & POLITICS

`Frontline' finds news media under siege

NEW YORK - The timing could hardly be better. "News War" is a "Frontline" probe into the modern Fourth Estate, embattled from many directions. And, by chance, it coincides with the imminent conclusion to a Washington free-for-all that has ensnared the news media: the perjury trial of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

He is charged with lying to investigators about his conversations with journalists such as Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail in a futile effort to avoid revealing such conversations.

The first hour of the four-part series does a splendid job of untangling the snarl of events that began in early 2003 with the Bush administration's successful drive to win support from the public, and the media, for invading Iraq.

Airing Tuesday on PBS at 9 p.m. EST (check local listings), "Secrets, Sources & Spin" lays out how the government peddled its point of view to major media outlets by planting confidential tips that supported administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Such tips sparked stories which the government then cited as bolstering its claim.

Few in the media broke this information loop at the time, nor managed to uncover what became obvious only after the invasion: There were no WMDs.

"The way that the press was sold and spun ... and just fooled by the White House in the run-up to the war represents more than just a missed story," media analyst Jay Rosen says in the film. "How can one say that we have a watchdog press after a performance like that?"

But this represents just one battle for "News War," in which investigative journalist Lowell Bergman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter whose expose for CBS' "60 Minutes" was dramatized in the film "The Insider," finds the news media locked in a protracted conflict with the White House and much of government. It's a conflict that reaches back four decades to the Nixon administration, which famously warred with the news media before being undone by The Washington Post's exposure of the Watergate scandal.

On Feb. 20, "Secrets, Sources & Spin" continues with an inquiry into how much the press can reveal about secret government programs in the war on terror without jeopardizing national security.

It also looks at the pressures on reporters who protect a confidential source under far less threatening circumstances. San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada were ruled in contempt of court for refusing to reveal the source of leaked grand jury transcripts in a steroid distribution case — even though their reporting on how sports stars have taken performance-enhancing drugs won awards, added an asterisk to the career of home run king Barry Bonds and was hailed by President Bush.

"The bottom line is: What should the news media be allowed to do? What privileges should it have?" said Bergman in a phone interview earlier this week. "Is a conversation with a reporter similar to your conversation with your doctor or your spouse," where confidentiality is legally protected and widely supported?

Summing up his series, Bergman said, "We're looking at the issues of confidential sources, national security reporting, and the changing economic model for the news industry."

When the former two issues emerged decades ago, he added, "the major media were primarily news magazines, metropolitan newspapers and the three TV networks. And they were on the rise from an economic point of view."

Today, the media landscape is shifting rapidly, and no one knows what it will eventually look like. With new technologies and a "democratization" of reporting shaking things up — and raising uncertainties about the business model of traditional media — just how bold will those mainstream media be in pursuing their longtime role as the public's surrogate?

Bergman is currently a professor of investigative journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Speaking from California, he was about to board a plane for Boston, where he would finish a series that's been in the works for two years, but whose subject matter is still changing under his feet.

On Feb. 27, "What's Happening to the News" looks ahead to the future awaiting the news media. America's major network news divisions and daily newspapers face mounting pressure for profits from corporate owners as well as growing challenges from new technologies, notably the Internet, which is transforming the very definition of news.

Finally, on March 27, "Stories From a Small Planet" looks at media around the globe to reveal the international forces that influence journalism and politics in the United States. This segment focuses on Al-Jazeera TV and how it has changed the face of Arab media, while gaining influence around the world.

Supplementing the "News War" series will be a robust Web site with additional interviews and other resources that "would have ended up in cardboard boxes" in a past media age, as Bergman noted.

The media world today is under siege by government, the marketplace and even members of the audience the media claim to serve.

According to Bergman, the overarching question "News War" raises is, "What do you expect out of your news media?" But another follows right on its heels: In the emerging new world, can those expectations be met?

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