U.S. stocks sank, dragging the Standard & Poor's 500 Index down 45 percent from its peak, as slumping profits at carmakers and technology companies spurred concern the credit crisis has infected the broader economy. The government reported a jump in first-time unemployment claims Thursday. Goldman Sachs, Xerox and other companies announced this week that they are cutting thousands more workers.
Obama took time off the campaign trail Friday to visit his gravely ill grandmother and help her around the house in a highly unusual move just 11 days before the election.
Wall Street joined world stock markets in a precipitous plunge Friday, with the Dow Jones industrials dropping more than 400 points in early trading and all the major indexes falling more than 4 percent. The growing belief that the world will suffer a punishing economic recession has investors furiously dumping stocks.
The massive decline was caused by increasingly grim news from overseas. In Japan, shares of Sony sank more than 14 percent after it slashed its earnings forecast for the fiscal year. In Germany, Daimler's stock dropped 11.4 percent in morning trading after it reported lower third-quarter earnings and abandoned its 2008 profit and revenue guidance.
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The employment carnage in the ever-shrinking U.S. auto industry continued Thursday as Chrysler LLC announced it would get rid of 1,825 factory jobs and General Motors Corp. trimmed some benefits and said it would make further white-collar cuts.
As the shaky U.S. economy speeds the industry's out-of-control slide, and tight credit cuts into sales, Auburn Hills-based Chrysler said the jobs will be eliminated at the end of the year when it closes a Newark, Del., sport utility vehicle plant ahead of schedule and eliminates a shift at a Toledo, Ohio, Jeep plant.
At GM, senior managers sent a memo to executives Wednesday saying early retirement and buyout offers to white-collar workers had been well-received but that the company still would have to make involuntary layoffs.
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New lay-offs : Goldman Sachs, Xerox, Chrysler
Chrysler, GM announce more job cuts
Obama 's Mother Ann Dunham
Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro (November 29, 1942 – November 7, 1995), known as Ann Dunham, and later as Ann Sutoro[1] was an anthropologist who specialized in rural development. Born in Kansas, Dunham attended Mercer Island High School near Seattle, Washington, and spent most of her adult life in Hawaii. She was the mother of United States Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama.[2] Dunham died of ovarian cancer in 1995.
Ann Dunham was born in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas[3] while her father was in the Army.[4] She was named after her father,[3] who reportedly gave his daughter and only child his name because he had wanted a boy; however, she was referred to as "Ann."[5]
Her parents, Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Dunham, met in Wichita, Kansas, and married on May 5, 1940.[6] She had Cherokee, English and Irish heritage from her parents. She was a distant cousin of Vice President Dick Cheney.
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Obama lays out health, education reform
Barack Obama rushed to the side of his gravely ill 85-year-old grandmother in Hawaii, leaving the White House trail behind in a highly unusual move just 11 days before the election.
The Democratic nominee held a mass open air rally before 35,000 people in midwestern Indiana, before taking a nine-hour flight to his native state, where his grandmother Madelyn Dunham brought him up for much of his childhood.
Wearing a suit with no tie, Obama disembarked from his campaign plane early on Thursday evening Hawaii time and drove straight to the home of his grandmother, who is affectionately known as "Toot."
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Obama on the Race and his Grandmother
Obama heads to bedside of ailing grandmother
Obama 's Grandma Toot
White House hopeful Barack Obama has spoken out about the heart-wrenching mistake he made in not rushing to his mother's side before she died, and how he won't make the same mistake again with his grandmother.
In an unprecedented move 12 days before election day, the Democrat has left the campaign trail to be at the bedside of his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, who he described in his convention speech in August as one of his "heroes."
When Obama's Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham, passed away, I "got there too late," he told CBS television.
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Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday charged that Sen. John McCain "wants to keep on putting corporations ahead of workers."
"Just yesterday, Sen. McCain strongly defended the Bush policy of lavishing tax cuts on corporations, including those that ship American jobs overseas.
"He made the strange argument that the best way to stop companies from shipping jobs overseas is to give more tax cuts to companies that are shipping jobs overseas," Obama said at a rally in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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Obama in Indianapolis
Obama hits back on taxes
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that Republican rival John McCain is "getting a little loose" at a time when the nation needs a steady hand.
Campaigning in NASCAR country, Biden employed car racing terminology for bumping to describe the contentious final days of the campaign. He told supporters in Charlotte that he's worried about how the Republicans have been acting as the two campaigns have been "trading a little paint" recently.
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N.C. takes center stage in presidential race WRAL Raleigh Play Video Video: Early voters beating the lines CNN Play Video Video: Obama mural to ward off taggers KING5 Seattle Sen. John McCain has improved his odds of capturing one of Florida’s most competitive counties at the same time a crucial Ohio battleground seems increasingly out of reach, according to a new Politico/InsiderAdvantage poll.
While Sen. Barack Obama has widened his lead in Ohio’s Franklin County, where Columbus is located, McCain has gained ground in Hillsborough County, which includes the city of Tampa and is one of the Sunshine State’s most competitive areas.
McCain trails Obama in Hillsborough by just two points, 46 percent to 44 percent. That represents a four-point improvement for McCain since Politico’s last Hillsborough survey, conducted October 12, which showed Obama leading 47 percent to 41 percent.
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SNL Tina Fey Sarah Palin McCain