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American Soldier Captured In Afghanistan
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 11:22:39 (11 hours ago)
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A U.S. soldier missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan since
Tuesday is believed to have been captured by Taliban militants, the
military said Thursday.
In a statement issued from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul,
officials said "we are exhausting all available resources to ascertain
his whereabouts and provide for his safe return."
The soldier was not part of the large-scale assault launched on Taliban forces
in southern Afghanistan early Thursday. That operation, which involves
about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, was
encountering only light resistance, said officials. The military
expects the Taliban to respond more harshly once troops move into towns
and begin patrols.
Military officials in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation,
said the missing soldier appears to have walked off his base into an
unsecured area.
A U.S. official in Afghanistan said the soldier's absence was
discovered when he did not show up for morning formation. It is highly
unusual for a U.S. soldier to leave a military base unaccompanied by
other American troops.
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U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits 9.5 Percent, A 26-Year High
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 11:01:14 (12 hours ago)
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The nation's unemployment rate edged up to a 26-year high of 9.5% in
June as employers slashed nearly half a million jobs over the month
across a wide spectrum of industries, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
The disappointing report provided fresh evidence that the jobs market
remained deeply troubled despite signs in recent weeks that the economy
was climbing out of its worst recession since the Great Depression.
June's jobless rate rose just a notch, from 9.4% in May, a much smaller
pace of increase than in recent months. But it appeared more
discouraged workers had dropped out of the labor force. The
unemployment rate for men reached 10%.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the ranks of unemployed has
doubled to 14.7 million, and the number of long-term unemployed swelled
by 433,000 over the month to 4.4 million, said the U.S. Labor Department.
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Rushing Ahead Of New Law, Credit Card Issuers Raising Rates
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 02:45:56 (20 hours ago)
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Credit card companies are raising interest rates and fees seven months
before new rules go into effect that will limit their ability to do so,
much to the irritation of Congress and consumer advocates.
Chase, for instance, will raise the minimum payment required of some
of its customers from 2 percent to 5 percent of the statement balance
starting in August. Chase and Discover have increased the maximum fee
charged for transferring a balance to the card to 5 percent of the
amount, up from 3 and 4 percent, respectively. Bank of America
last month raised the transaction fee for balance transfers and cash
advances from 3 to 4 percent. Card issuers including Bank of America
and Citi also continue to cut limits and hike up rates, which they have
been doing with more frequency since January.
"This is a common practice and will continue to be common, because
issuers can do these things for really no reason until February," said
John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com, which
tracks the industry. "It's what I call the Credit Card Trifecta -
lower limits, higher rates, higher minimum payments."
It's not just the top card issuers making changes. Atlanta, Georgia-based
InfiBank, for example, will raise the minimum annual percentage rate it
charges nearly all of its customers in September "in order to more
effectively manage the profitability of our credit card account
portfolio in a very challenging economic environment," said spokesman
Kevin C. Langin.
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California Chain Restaurants Must Reveal Calorie Counts On What They Serve
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 02:45:26 (20 hours ago)
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Dining at some restaurants will be a new experience starting today, when California becomes the first state to require that chain restaurants supply calorie counts for virtually everything they serve.
"Consumers
should be able to make informed decisions about their health and it
will raise the consciousness of how much we eat," said John Rogers, Sacramento County environmental health division chief.
There will be no guessing - or denial - about that double Western Bacon Cheeseburger
from Carl's Jr.: 960 calories. Side of Chili Cheese Fries to go with
that? 990 calories. Maybe stick to the fried zucchini at 330 calories?
The new law requires restaurants with at least 20 stores in California - about 17,000 locations statewide - to provide a brochure on site
listing calories, sodium, saturated fat and carbohydrates for each menu
item. Both sit-down and drive-through restaurants must comply.
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SEC Staffer Had Warned Of Madoff In 2004
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 02:44:53 (20 hours ago)
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An investigator at the Securities and Exchange Commission warned
superiors as far back as 2004 about irregularities at Bernard L.
Madoff's financial management firm, but she was told to focus on an
unrelated matter, according to agency documents and sources familiar
with the investigation.
Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, a lawyer in the SEC's Office of
Compliance Inspections and Examinations, sent e-mails to a supervisor,
saying information provided by Madoff during her review didn't add up
and suggesting a set of questions to ask his firm, documents show.
Several of these questions directly challenged Madoff activities that
much later turned out to be elements of his massive fraud.
With the agency under pressure to look for wrongdoing in the
mutual fund industry, she wasn't able to continue pursuing Madoff,
according to documents and two people familiar with the investigation,
and her team soon concluded its work on the probe.
Walker-Lightfoot's supervisors on the case were Mark Donohue, then a
branch chief in her department, and his boss, Eric Swanson, an
assistant director of the department, said two people familiar with the
investigation. Swanson later married Madoff's niece, and their
relationship is now under review by the agency's inspector general, who
is examining the SEC's handling of the Madoff case.
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Courting The Kremlin - Russian Mistrust Overshadows Obama's Moscow Visit
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:45:55 (23 hours ago)
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U.S. President Barack Obama will lobby for
nuclear disarmament
and a fresh start in relations with Russia during his first visit to
Moscow as president next week. But little concrete progress is expected
- the hosts fear America's overtures are a trap aimed at further
reducing Russia's global influence.
John Beyrle, Washington's man in Moscow, would never have seen the
light of day if it hadn't been for a group of decent Red Army soldiers.
"My father always saw the Russians as a people that saved his life,"
the U.S. ambassador recalls. "They could simply have shot him dead."
Beyrle's father had escaped from a German prisoner-of-war camp and
headed east in the final months of World War II. Soviet soldiers found
him hiding in a haystack and he was afraid they would kill him. He
offered them Lucky Strike cigarettes and spent the final weeks of the
war fighting on their side.
This background has given his son a high standing in political circles
of the Russian capital, and his fluent command of Russian no doubt
helps. He has been ambassador for exactly one year and now faces his
biggest test - next Monday, Barack Obama will travel to Moscow for his
first visit to Russia as American president.
Russia, whose foreign policy is traditionally fixated on America, is
buzzing with anticipation that the visit might improve ties between the
former Cold War enemies. Beyrle, ever the diplomat, has been at pains
to play down all the issues of conflict. Russia and America, he says
"have more common interests than disagreements."
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After A Call From Sen. Inouye's Office, Small Hawaii Bank Got U.S. Aid
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:45:27 (23 hours ago)
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U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the
bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to
establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.
The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a
program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks.
The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary
regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided
that it didn't meet the criteria for receiving a favorable
recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that
reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.
Two weeks after the inquiry from Inouye's office, Central Pacific announced that the Treasury would inject $135 million.
Many lawmakers have worked to help home-state banks get federal
money since the Treasury announced in October that it would invest up
to $250 billion in healthy financial firms. Yet the Inouye inquiry
stands apart because of the senator's ties to Central Pacific. While at
least 33 senators own shares in banks that got federal aid, a review of
financial disclosures and records obtained from regulatory agencies
shows no other instance of the office of a senator intervening on
behalf of a bank in which he owned shares.
Inouye (D-Hawaii) declined a request for an interview but
acknowledged in a statement that an aide had called the FDIC to ask
about Central Pacific's application. Inouye said he was not attempting
to influence the outcome. The statement did not address Inouye's
personal role in the inquiry, including whether he directed the aide to
make the call or knew at the time that it had been made.
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How German Banks Are Cashing In On The Financial Crisis
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:44:42 (23 hours ago)
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Germany's central banks are making trillions in unusually
cheap money available to banks in a bid to restore liquidity to the
financial system. But institutions are not passing on the cash to their
customers, choosing instead to invest it and make a fat profit.
These days, bankers are used to bad press and being scolded by
politicians. There's been no shortage of either in the past week.
"Banks Hoard Money," was the headline on the cover of the Financial Times Deutschland, while the tabloid Bild
sharply condemned the "Outrageous Overdraft Interest Rates." Consumer
Protection Minister Ilse Aigner railed: "It is unacceptable that the
financial industry takes months to pass on reductions in the key
interest rate, when it only takes a few days to pass on key interest
rate increases."
The new attacks on banks have been prompted by the fact that base
rates are at a historic low and that central banks are injecting money
into the market like never before. In the last week alone, the European
Central Bank (ECB) allocated the record sum of €442 billion ($619
billion) to 1,100 financial institutions - at a paltry 1 percent
interest rate.
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Saddam Hussein Told FBI Of Iranian Threat
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:41:52 (23 hours ago)
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Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he
allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because
he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released Wednesday. The former Iraqi president also
denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings
with al-Qaeda.
Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat
from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to
seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq]
from threats in the region."
Former president George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq six
years ago on the grounds that Hussein possessed weapons of mass
destruction and posed a threat to international security.
Administration officials at the time also strongly suggested Iraq had
significant links to al-Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks on the United States.
Hussein, who was often defiant and boastful during the interviews,
at one point wistfully acknowledged that he should have permitted the
United Nations to witness the destruction of Iraq's weapons stockpile
after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
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The Library That Never Closes
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:40:53 (23 hours ago)
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The internet's relationship with books, it is fair to say, has been a tumultuous one.
Ever since the digital revolution started changing our relationship
with information, the printed word - one of the most successful
technologies in history - has been on the back foot.
Amazon has
altered the face of the industry twice - first in the 1990s by changing
the way books are sold and then, more recently, the way they are
consumed, with its Kindle electronic book reader. Google has caused its own earthquake in the print world with its Book Search
scheme - a plan to suck the text of millions of books into its search
engine that has raised the hackles of publishers and authors alike.
Talk
to workers at either of these technology companies and there is a
feeling of technological inevitability: that the printed book is a
stepping stone in the evolution of information, and now lies ready to
be devoured by its hi-tech successors.
Not everybody thinks that way, however, including the Open Library - a project with an audacious goal that it hopes can bring the web and books closer together.
The
scheme is to create a single page on the web for every book that has
ever been published; an enormous, searchable catalogue of information
about millions of books. It is still in beta, but already more than 23 million
books are in its system, drawing information from 19 major libraries
and linking to the text of more than 1m out-of-copyright titles.
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President Obama Calls On Public To Pressure Congress On Health Care Reform
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:02:32 (1 days ago)
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With lawmakers on Capitol Hill struggling to pull together sweeping
health care legislation, President Obama Wednesday called for increase
public pressure on Congress warning that some lawmakers might be
tempted to put off action.
Obama did not present any new proposals, but Wenesday's multimedia town
hall-style forum at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale,
is part of the White House's ongoing campaign to push health care
through Congress, which returns next week from its Fourth of July
break. The president has said he hopes to sign a health care bill in
the
fall.
Meeting that timetable, however, is far from certain given Republican
opposition and concerns among some Democrats about the price of any new
program. The health care plans being considered could cost between $1
trillion and $1.6 trillion in the next decade.
"Don't let people scare you out of reforming a system that we know is
not working," Obama said in response to a question from a union member
who asked what people could do to bring about health care reform this
year.
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California, Other States Face Tough Budget Choices
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:02:08 (1 days ago)
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Legislators in more than a half-dozen states, their revenues
evaporating in the recession, frantically worked to stave off
government shutdowns and devastating service cuts. California failed to
meet a midnight deadline and now may need to issue IOUs instead of
paying bills.
Across the country, lawmakers were feeling the heat as their legislatures began the new fiscal year without a budget in place.
In Illinois, the sputtering drive to come up with a state budget
broke down completely Tuesday, leaving the state without any plan for
paying its employees or delivering government services. The session
ended without any firm plans to return or even for Gov. Pat Quinn and
legislative leaders to resume negotiations.
In Pennsylvania, talks between Gov. Ed Rendell and top legislators
ended Tuesday night with no substantial progress, aides said. Rendell
said he didn't think an agreement would come soon. The state faces the
prospect of not being able to pay state employees if they cannot
resolve an impasse.
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Oscar-Winning Actor Karl Malden Dies At 97
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:01:41 (1 days ago)
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Karl Malden, one of Hollywood's strongest and most versatile supporting
actors, who won an Oscar playing his Broadway-originated role as Mitch
in "A Streetcar Named Desire," died Wednesday. He was 97.
Malden starred in the 1970s TV series "The Streets of San
Francisco" and was the longtime American Express traveler's-check
spokesman, warning travelers to not leave home without it. He died of
natural causes at his home in Brentwood, said his daughter Mila Doerner.
With his unglamorous mug - he broke his
bulbous nose twice playing sports as a teenager - the former Indiana
steel-mill worker realized early on the course his acting career would
take.
"I was so incredibly lucky," Malden once told the Los Angeles Times. "I knew I
wasn't a leading man. Take a look at this face." But, he vowed as a
young man, he wasn't going to let his looks hamper his ambition to
succeed as an actor.
In a movie career that flourished in the 1950s and '60s, Malden played
a variety of roles in more than 50 films, including the sympathetic
priest in "On the Waterfront," the resentful husband in "Baby Doll,"
the warden in "Birdman of Alcatraz," the outlaw-turned-sheriff in
"One-Eyed Jacks," the pioneer patriarch in "How the West Was Won,"
Madame Rose's suitor in "Gypsy," the card dealer in "The Cincinnati Kid" and Gen. Omar Bradley in "Patton."
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Pressure Mounts On S. Carolina Gov. Sanford To Resign
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:00:58 (1 days ago)
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As pressure mounted Wednesday on South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to
resign, the embattled Republican insisted he would remain in office
despite mounting criticism from within his own party.
The tide of Republican opinion seemed to be shifting against the
two-term governor in the wake of an emotional interview yesterday in
which he detailed casual encounters with a number of women in addition
to his Argentine mistress.
At least 18 Republicans in the state legislature have publicly
called for him to step down, including some of Sanford's most vocal
supporters, marking a major turn against Sanford within the South
Carolina legislature. Several state Republican leaders are privately urging
Sanford to "make the right decision," said U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina).
"He's dropped the flag," DeMint said this morning on Fox News' "Fox
& Friends". "The rest of us have to get up and go on. ... A lot
of us are talking to him behind the scenes in hopes that he'll make the
right decision about what needs to be done."
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Iran Moves To Preclude Further Public Defiance
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-06-30 19:12:42 (2 days ago)
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Police officers and militia forces crowded the streets of Tehran, Iran, on
Tuesday, setting up checkpoints and making clear that the government
had zero tolerance for any further public expressions of defiance to
the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a day after the powerful Guardian Council certified his landslide victory.
The government made a series of official moves to close the book on
weeks of protest that represented the strongest challenge to its
control since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. Parliament
issued a statement expressing broad gratitude over the June 12 vote and
thanking the police and the Basiji militia for maintaining security.
President Ahmadinejad made a surprise visit to the Ministry of
Intelligence, where he gave a speech to employees.
The government crushed the vast protests following the vote,
dispatching armed police and militia and leaving 17 people dead and
hundreds more injured. The authorities continued to detain hundreds of
journalists, former government officials, political activists and even
independent researchers, in the quest to prevent any further
demonstrations.
There seemed little prospect for any chance for organized and
sustained action against the government’s version of events, political
analysts said, in part because the arrests that have starved the
opposition of leadership, foot soldiers, and an effective means to
communicate.
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Doomed Air France Plane Was Not Destroyed In Flight
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 11:22:29 (11 hours ago)
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The Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic last month with 228 people on
board was not destroyed in mid-air but hit the water intact and at high
speed, French investigators said Thursday.
Flight AF 447 went missing during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris
on June 1. The exact cause of the disaster is not yet known.
"The plane was not destroyed while it was in flight. It seems to
have hit the surface of the water in the direction of flight and with a
strong vertical acceleration," said Alain Bouillard, who is leading the
investigation on behalf of France's BEA air accident board.
Bouillard said control of the flight was supposed to have passed from air traffic controllers in Brazil to their counterparts in Senegal, but that never happened.
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Markets Fall After U.S. Jobs Report
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 11:01:05 (12 hours ago)
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Stocks started to fall in the opening moments of trading on Thursday
after a new report showed more job losses than expected in June.
The report Thursday follows a similar weak jobs report from overseas.
The Labor Department’s unemployment figures showed the jobless rate rose to 9.5 percent last month from 9.4 percent in May.
Recession-weary
employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, suggesting
that the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy. In addition, a report in Europe showed unemployment in the 16 countries that use the euro rose to a 10-year high in May.
The
Dow Jones industrial average was down 184 points, or 2.1 percent, in
mid-morning trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down
2.2 percent. The Nasdaq was down 2.5 percent.
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Suicide Warnings For Two Anti-Smoking Drugs
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 02:45:42 (20 hours ago)
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Federal drug regulators warned Wednesday that patients taking two
popular drugs to stop smoking should be watched closely for signs of
serious mental illness, as reports mount of suicides among the drugs’ users.
Officials emphasized that fear should not stop patients from
taking the smoking-cessation medicines, Chantix, made by Pfizer, and
Zyban, made by GlaxoSmithKline, which also sells it under the brand
name Wellbutrin, for depression.
“Stopping smoking is a goal we should all be working towards,” said
Dr. Curtis J. Rosebraugh, director of a drug evaluation office at the Food and Drug Administration. “We don’t want to scare people off from trying a medication that could
help them achieve this goal. You should just be careful.”
Pfizer will add a so-called black box warning - the F.D.A.’s most
serious caution - to the packaging information for Chantix.
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Harve Presnell, Singer, Actor Dies At 75
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 02:45:08 (20 hours ago)
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Harve Presnell, whose rich operatic baritone thrilled audiences in
the stage and film versions of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” and who
made an unexpected return to the screen as William H. Macy's overbearing father-in-law in “Fargo,” died Tuesday in Santa Monica, California. He was 75 and lived in Livingston, Montana.
The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, said his agent, Gregg Klein.
Mr. Presnell, who trained as an opera singer, brought an imposing
physical presence - he stood 6 feet 4 inches - and a resplendent voice
to the Broadway stage, delivering a star-making performance as
Leadville Johnny Brown in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
“He anchored that show, with a down-to-earth quality that played perfectly against Tammy Grimes'
wonderfully eccentric style,” said Miles Kreuger, the president of the
Institute of the American Musical. “It’s a pity they didn’t give him
more larger-than-life roles because he had the physical presence and
the voice for it.”
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Facing Deficits, Some States Cut Summer School
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-02 02:44:13 (20 hours ago)
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A year ago, the Brevard County Schools in Florida ran a robust summer program here, with dozens of schools bustling with
teachers and some 14,000 children practicing multiplication, reading Harry Potter and studying Spanish verbs, all at no cost to parents.
This year, Florida’s budget crisis has gutted summer school.
Brevard classrooms are shuttered, and students like 11-year-old Uvenka
Jean-Baptiste, whose mother works in a nursing home, are spending their
summer days at home, surfing television channels or loitering at a mall.
Nearly every school system in Florida has eviscerated or eliminated
summer school this year, and officials are reporting sweeping cuts in
states from North Carolina and Delaware to California and Washington.
The cuts have come as states across the country are struggling to
approve budgets, and California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared a fiscal state of emergency on Wednesday.
“We’re seeing a disturbing trend of districts making huge cuts to
summer school; they’re just devastating these programs,” said Ron
Fairchild, executive director of the National Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s having a disproportionate impact on low-income families.”
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Interview: 'This Iranian Form Of Theocracy Has Failed'
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:45:40 (23 hours ago)
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In an interview with German news magazine Spiegel, Iranian theologian and philosopher Mohsen
Kadivar discusses Tehran's path towards a military dictatorship, how
the country's religious leaders abuse Islam and opportunities for
reform.
SPIEGEL: Ayatollah Kadivar, we are meeting you here at Duke
University in the U.S. State of North Carolina, 7,500 miles away from
your home. Are you not needed more urgently in Iran now?
Kadivar: Believe me, in these dramatic hours I would much rather
be in my homeland. Within the next two weeks, the future of Iran will
be decided. Almost all my friends, 95 percent of them, are now in
prison; and I am barely able to contact my family, the phones are
almost dead.
SPIEGEL: You are said to be the co-author of the most recent declarations of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Kadivar: That is not right. Although I enjoyed his statements,
they are not mine. I published my declarations separately, although I
support Mousavi strongly. We have found means to communicate with each
other. Via the Internet and via third parties, I am in constant contact
with my homeland. Every day I receive about 100 messages.
SPIEGEL: Tehran appears quiet at the moment, at least compared
with the mass protests of the week before last. Are we currently seeing
the beginning of the end of the resistance - or the end of the Iranian
regime?
Kadivar: This Iranian form of theocracy has failed. The rights
of the Iranian peoples are trampled upon and my homeland is heading
towards a military dictatorship. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad behaves
like an Iranian Taliban. The supreme leader, Mr. Ali Khamenei, has tied
his fate to that of Ahmadinejad, a great moral, but also political
mistake.
SPIEGEL: What has your counsel been for opposition leader Mousavi in recent days? Is he truly the undisputed head of the movement?
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ACLU Says U.S. Government Used False Confessions
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:45:03 (23 hours ago)
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The American Civil Liberties Union Wednesday accused the Obama
administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify
the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and
others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as
12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in
U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation.
"The government's continued reliance on evidence gained by torture
and other abuse violates centuries of U.S. law and suggests the current
administration is not really serious about breaking with the past,"
said ACLU lawyer Jonathan Hafetz, who is representing Jawad in a
lawsuit challenging his detention.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the government would not
comment on the types of evidence it will use in Jawad's case
challenging his imprisonment. "We intend to prove our case in court
rather than attempt to do so through the media," said Boyd.
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U.S. Marines Move Out On New Afghanistan Mission
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:43:56 (23 hours ago)
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Thousands of U.S. Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River
valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday, mounting an
operation that represents the first large-scale test of the U.S.
military's new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine
Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan this year by
President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and
other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that
is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of
the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those
areas, the Taliban has evicted local police and government officials
and taken power.
Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages,
they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the
local population. The brigade's commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D.
Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting
civilians from the Taliban and on restoring Afghan government services,
instead of mounting a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the
insurgents.
"We're doing this very differently," Nicholson said to his senior
officers a few hours before the mission began. "We're going to be with
the people. We're not going to drive to work. We're going to walk to
work."
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U.S. Targets Firms Tied To North Korea Arms Trade
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:41:17 (23 hours ago)
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The Obama administration Tuesday began a campaign to curtail North Korea's ability to finance its trade in missiles and nuclear materials, with
the Treasury and State Departments announcing actions against two North
Korean companies, including one allegedly connected to the building of
a nuclear reactor in Syria.
Administration officials said they are determined to ramp up
pressure on the North Korean government in response to a series of
missile tests and the detonation of a nuclear device - its second -
this year. The playbook is drawn from similar efforts in the Bush
administration - and largely directed by the same person, Stuart
Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial
intelligence - that were abandoned by President George W. Bush in late
2006 in an effort to win North Korea's cooperation through diplomacy.
To strike a deal, Bush even authorized the return of $25 million
that North Korea had earned in part through counterfeiting and money
laundering and removed the country from the State Department's list of
state sponsors of terrorism. But the diplomatic effort fell apart
before he left office, and North Korea has since restarted its nuclear
program.
Obama administration officials said the lesson they learned is that
pressure tactics cannot be dropped until North Korea takes
"irreversible steps" to end its program.
Analysts say North Korea is planning another missile test, perhaps as early as this weekend.
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Iran Releases All But One British Embassy Staffer
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 23:40:32 (23 hours ago)
[Read 63 times || 0 comments]
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All but one of the British Embassy staff arrested in Tehran at the weekend have now been released, Iranian state media has said.
The remaining Iranian national in custody was being held on
suspicion of playing a prominent role in recent violence, according to
the English language channel Press TV.
Nine employees of the British Embassy were arrested over the weekend
amid rapidly deteriorating relations with Iran since the disputed
re-election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Five of those had been released by Monday morning, leaving four in custody.
The Foreign Office confirmed two more had been freed in the past two
days, but said it was awaiting confirmation that another had been
released on Wednesday.
The weekend arrests intensified the diplomatic row which has escalated between the U.K. and Iran in recent weeks.
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Yemeni Plane Crash Survivor, 14, Tells Her Father Of Her Ordeal
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:02:22 (1 days ago)
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The 14-year-old girl believed to be the lone survivor of Tuesday's
jetliner crash in the Indian Ocean was thrown from the plane and into
the waves, where she heard voices but saw no one in the darkness, her
father told a French radio station Wednesday.
"She is a very, very shy girl. I never thought she would survive like
that," Kassim Bakari said of his daughter, Bahia, in an interview with
French RTL radio from his Paris suburban home. "I can't say that it's a
miracle. I can say that it is God's will.
"When I had her on the phone, I asked her what happened and she said,
'Daddy, I don't know what happened, but the plane fell into the water
and I found myself in the water ... surrounded by darkness. I could
not see anyone'," said Bakari.
Bahia Bakari, who floated with debris for 13 hours in the cold sea, was
in stable condition at the El Maarouf Hospital in Moroni, the capital
of Comoros, the island nation that the jetliner, carrying 153 people,
was approaching when it went down.
Rescue workers and French and U.S. search planes scoured the area north
of the archipelago Wednesday for more survivors as debris was scattered for
miles across the ocean.
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Iranian Opposition Candidates Deem New Government Illegitimate
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:01:53 (1 days ago)
[Read 94 times || 2 comments]
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The two main opposition candidates in Iran's disputed June 12 election refused Wednesday to accept the formally
proclaimed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and branded his
government as illegitimate, defying warnings from Iran's leaders that
no further protests would be tolerated following official certification
of the results.
Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has led the opposition in demanding
annulment of the election on grounds of massive fraud, asked Iranians
to continue their protests "in a creative way," according to a
statement published on one of his campaign Web sites. He also called
for election reforms and press freedom.
"From now on, we will have a government which from the point of view
of ties with the public is in the weakest of positions," he said. "A
majority of society, of which I personally am a member, do not accept
the legitimacy of this government."
Another opposition presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, said on
his newspaper's Web site Wednesday that he also considers Ahmadinejad's
new government illegitimate. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to be sworn in
before parliament for a second four-year term between July 26 and Aug.
19.
Karroubi dismissed what he described as an official show of
accepting complaints of irregularities and conducting a partial
recount, saying that these and other events indicated that the election
should have been annulled.
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OAS Sets 3-Day Deadline For Reinstating Zelaya As Honduras President
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:01:24 (1 days ago)
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The Organization of American States decided early Wednesday to launch a
diplomatic initiative aimed at resolving the crisis caused by the coup
in Honduras, prompting that country's deposed president to delay a trip
home that could have provoked a violent clash.
After nearly 12 hours of meetings, the organization approved a
resolution shortly before dawn that called on OAS Secretary General
Jose Miguel Insulza to undertake efforts to reinstate Honduran
President Manuel Zelaya, who was detained and expelled by the military
on Sunday.
If those efforts did not succeed in 72 hours, Honduras would be
suspended from the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the
hemisphere, said the resolution.
Zelaya told reporters he would postpone a trip home he had scheduled
for Thursday, which diplomats feared could lead to a sharp escalation
of tensions in the Central American country. The president named by the
Honduran Congress to replace him, Roberto Micheletti, has threatened to
arrest Zelaya if he returns.
"I am going to return to Honduras; I am the president," Zelaya told
reporters but, he said, he did not want to complicate the diplomatic
efforts of the OAS over the next few days.
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Obama Administration Expands Home Refinancing Program
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-07-01 17:00:45 (1 days ago)
[Read 103 times || 0 comments]
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The Obama administration announced Wednesday an expansion of a key part of
its foreclosure prevention program to allow more homeowners who owe
more than their home is worth to refinance into lower-cost mortgages.
The effort is an acknowledgment by the administration that falling
home prices limited the impact of its housing program, Making Home
Affordable. Under the program, homeowners could refinance if their
mortgage did not exceed the value of their home by more than 105
percent. Now, the administration is expanding the program to homeowners
who are up to 125 percent underwater on their loan.
The refinancing program is central to the Making Home Affordable
program, which also includes measures to help distressed borrowers stay
in their home. The refinancing program is focused on borrowers who
are current on their mortgage but who can not take advantage of
historically low mortgage rates because their home values have fallen.
The refinancing program is still limited to borrowers with loans backed
by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage financing companies.
Administration officials have said that tens of thousands have already
been refinanced under the program since it was launched in March but
that the effort was slowed by a recent jump in interest rates. For the
week ending June 25, Freddie Mac said in its weekly survey that the
average interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was about 5.42
percent, after falling to 4.78 percent in April.
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Not-So-Sacred Cows - Cloned Meat Soon To Hit European Supermarkets
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Posted By: Intellpuke
2009-06-30 19:12:29 (2 days ago)
[Read 137 times || 1 comments]
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Cattle cloning has long been standard practice in the United States.
Now European Union agriculture ministers have decided that cloned meat and milk
should be allowed onto the European market. Not everyone is pleased.
Anyone who considers creation sacred should make sure they never talk
to a cattle breeder. In-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination
and embryo transfer are the terms of their trade and, now, another word
from the lexicon of reproductive medicine has joined the breeder's
jargon: cloning.
The European Union's agricultural ministers decided on Monday of
last week that in the future, the meat and milk of the offspring of
cloned animals should be allowed on the European market. The European
Parliament still needs to approve the proposal. However environmental
and animal protection organizations responded immediately to the news
and condemned the decision. They consider cloning to be unethical and
cruel, and warn that the risks of cloned meat for human health have not
been adequately researched.
The ministers' decision was long overdue. In the U.S. and South
America, cloning has long been standard practice among breeders. German
experts like Heiner Niemann from the Institute for Animal Breeding at
the Friedrich Loeffler Institute also have high expectations of the
technique. "In the future, cloning will be one of the standard
cattle-breeding techniques," says Niemann.
The technology is already widely used in the U.S. Companies like ViaGen,
Cyagra or Trans Ova Genetics offer cattle clones for between $10,000
and $20,000. The benefits are obvious: Multiple copies can be made of a
bull with particularly desirable characteristics, and multiple
"superbulls" naturally have more offspring than just one - meaning
more premium meat for the breeder.
"With elite animals, cloning can quickly pay for itself," says Mark
Walton of ViaGen. Karen Batra from the Biotechnology Industry
Organization estimates there are already about 600 cloned super cattle
in the U.S. The meat of their offspring is already on sale in
supermarkets, she says, explaining that it doesn't need to be specially
labeled. "For breeders, cloning is just another reproductive technique,
much like in-vitro fertilization," says Batra.
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