CBS: Obama: We Want To Stop Civilian Casualties
President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that the United States is making "every effort to avoid civilian casualties as we help the Afghan government combat our common enemy."
The United States has come under criticism this week after Afghan officials said dozens of civilians died as a result of an air raid conducted by American forces Monday. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday the Obama administration "deeply, deeply" regrets the loss of innocent life.
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, however, said Wednesday that the military has come to "distinctly different conclusions" about how the civilians died, though he declined to offer specifics.
The president's comment came after he hosted what he called an "extraordinarily productive" White House meeting with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, two neighboring nations where crucial U.S. security concerns are at stake.
ABC: Obama Warns of 'Difficult' Road Ahead in Pakistan, Afghanistan
President Obama warned today that there will be more violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but added because the security of the two nations and the United States is linked, his administration remains committed to defeating al Qaeda in the region.
"The United States has a stake in the future of these two countries," Obama said after a meeting with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan. "We have learned time and again that our security is shared. It is a lesson that we learned most painfully on 9/11, and it is a lesson that we will not forget."
The three leaders met this afternoon at the White House amid growing concerns about security in Pakistan in order to discuss how the three nations can work together to stabilize the region.
Obama said the United States must provide "lasting support to democratic institutions" and help support reconstruction efforts in Pakistan while the government there battles an insurgency that threatens the country's security.
Reuters: Nuclear talks get first breakthrough in 10 years
Delegates meeting on the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty struck their first agreement on the anti-nuclear arms pact in a decade on Wednesday, which diplomats said was largely due to President Barack Obama.
Three days into a two-week meeting on the landmark arms control agreement, delegates from its 189 signatories agreed on an agenda for a major conference next year, where member states hope to adopt an action plan to overhaul the treaty.
"Amazing," Ambassador John Duncan, head of the British delegation, wrote on a website he updates regularly. "We just agreed the agenda for the 2010 review conference. It may seem boring but we haven't done so for a decade."
Other diplomats described the agreement as modest but significant, because member states have been unable even to agree on what they should talk about for 10 years. They said Obama's new tone was probably the decisive factor.
BBC: Saberi ends hunger strike in Iran
The jailed US-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi has ended a two-week hunger strike, her father Reza Saberi says.
Roxana Saberi, 32, began eating again on Monday evening. She started the fast on 21 April to protest against an eight-year jail sentence for spying.
Her lawyer told the BBC that an appeals court would hear her case on 12 May. He said the verdict would be announced the same day or within a week.
Iranian judiciary officials denied Ms Saberi was ever on a hunger strike.
ABC: Pakistan Targets Militant-Held Valley
Pakistan launched air and ground attacks against up to 7,000 Taliban militants entrenched in a northwestern valley Wednesday, killing dozens holed up at emerald mines and on forested hillsides following urgent U.S. demands to step up the fight against the insurgents.
With militants fighting back and weary refugees lining up at camps, the operation will be a test of whether the army has the will, capability and political support to defeat an enemy that had three months under a now-shattered peace deal to rest and regroup.
"It is an all-out war there. Rockets are landing everywhere," said Laiq Zada, 33, who fled the Swat Valley and is living in a government-run tent camp out of the danger zone. "We have with us the clothes on our bodies and a hope in the house of God. Nothing else."
Washington has said it wants to see a sustained operation in Swat and surrounding districts, mindful of earlier, inconclusive offensives elsewhere in the Afghan border region. Eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the area remains a haven for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters blamed for spiraling violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Reuters: Mexico gets back to normal, flu advances in Europe
Mexicans got back into the swing of normal life on Wednesday after a five-day business shutdown due to the H1N1 flu virus, which spread in Europe with new infections in Poland and Sweden.
Mexico raised its confirmed death toll from the swine flu outbreak to 42 from 29, but the government says the worst is over and has eased curbs on commercial and public activity.
Nevertheless, the H1N1 virus, which has killed a woman and a child in the United States, advanced in Europe, with Sweden and Poland confirming their first cases. The flu has reached 24 countries, infecting over 2,000 people, according to data from the World Health Organization and national authorities.
The new flu, a mixture of swine viruses and elements of human and bird flu, has brought the world to the brink of a pandemic and has stoked trade and diplomatic tensions as some nations quarantined Mexican citizens and products.
MSNBC: Mexico's weapons cache hard to trace
In all, the military has 305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults, just a fraction of those used by criminals in Mexico, where an offensive by drug cartels against the military has killed more than 10,750 people since December 2006. But each weapon is a clue to how the cartels are getting arms, and possibly to the traffickers that brought them here.
The U.S. has acknowledged that many of the rifles, handguns and ammunition used by the cartels come from its side of the border. Mexican gun laws are strict, especially compared to those in most U.S. border states.
The Mexican government has handed over information to U.S. authorities to trace 12,073 weapons seized in 2008 crimes — particularly on guns from large seizures or notorious crimes.
But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which handles the U.S. investigations, is at the mercy of local Mexican police for the amount and quality of the information.
Reuters: North Korea seen readying for new nuclear test
There is increased activity at North Korea's known nuclear test site, a South Korean news report said on Thursday, suggesting Pyongyang is gearing up for a new test as it has threatened in response to tightened U.N. sanctions.
Impoverished North Korea, whose only nuclear test in October 2006 led to U.N. financial and trade sanctions, could be ready to test another nuclear device in a matter of weeks, experts have said.
"Underground nuclear tests are hard to predict and you can't tell when exactly a nuclear test would be possible, but we think the North is ready to conduct a test in a near future if it wants to," the Chosun Ilbo daily quoted a government source as saying.
South Korean authorities are monitoring increased and steady activity at the Phunggye-ri site in the North Hamgyong province where the North conducted the 2006 test, the newspaper said.
CNN: Israel rejects blame for deaths, damage to U.N. facilities in Gaza
Israel won't accept "one word" of a U.N. report blaming it for deaths and more than $10 million in damage to U.N. buildings during its monthlong offensive in Gaza, its president said Wednesday.
A U.N. board of inquiry blamed Israel for the damage during its December-January military offensive against the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers. Israeli President Shimon Peres said his country's military had made "mistakes," but said the offensive was aimed at stopping the firing of rockets into Israeli towns from Gaza.
"We're outraged because they didn't mention Hamas," he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. "If Hamas wouldn't shoot, there wouldn't be a single problem."
Peres, whose office is largely ceremonial, raised his objections in a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
BBC: Deadly bombing in Baghdad market
An explosion at a vegetable market in the Iraqi capital Baghdad has killed at least 10 people, officials say.
More then 30 others were wounded in the attack in the mostly Sunni district of Dora, in the south of the capital.
The blast occurred at about 0700 local time (0400 GMT), an interior ministry official said.
A series of deadly bomb attacks has struck Baghdad in recent weeks, killing 355 Iraqis in April and making it the bloodiest month so far this year.
The carnage at the market was followed by a car bomb blast hours later in the central shopping district of Karrada, which killed one person and wounded seven others, security officials said.
MSNBC: Death toll from Brazil floods increases to 32
Army soldiers and civil defense authorities used boats, trucks and helicopters Wednesday to tote food and water to scores of cities and towns isolated by floods that have killed at least 32 people and left nearly 200,000 homeless.
But in an ominous sign that worried officials, rain continued to fall across a vast region stretching from the Amazon jungle to the northeastern Atlantic coast and meteorologists predicted the bad weather could last for weeks.
Isolated looting was reported in communities cut off by flooding, and some areas were experiencing their heaviest rainfall in two decades, officials said.
In three Amazon states, at least 3,000 Indians near rivers that overflowed fled to higher ground or into the jungle after seeing their crops of manioc, bananas and potatoes destroyed, said Sebastiao Haji Manchiner, executive secretary of the Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Organization.
Reuters: Thousands clash with police in Chinese city: rights group
Thousands of protesters clashed with police in front of a municipal government building in south China in the latest in a series of land disputes, a human rights group reported. At least 20 people were injured.
Tuesday's protest was triggered by a villager's death in the dispute in Liling, Hunan province, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The Xiaoxiang Morning Post said a villager had been beaten to death by employees of a construction company which wanted to use vegetable fields to build a stadium.
BBC: Soldiers quell Nigeria opposition
Nigerian soldiers have confronted opposition supporters demonstrating about an election result in south-western Ekiti state.
They fired shots and tear gas to disperse demonstrators outside the Action Congress (AC) headquarters in the state capital, Ado Ekiti.
The town is now quiet after politicians called for calm following a face-off.
Nigeria's governing People's Democratic Party (PDP) narrowly won the disputed re-run election.
CBS: Gunmen Kill 44 At Turkey Engagement Party
Masked assailants with automatic weapons attacked a wedding ceremony in southeast Turkey on Monday, killing 44 people. Two girls survived after the bodies of slain friends fell on top of them during the onslaught.
Interior Minister Besir Atalay said Tuesday morning that security forces had detained eight people suspected of involvement in the attack. Atalay said a wedding was attacked, but earlier reports said it was an engagement party.
Atalay said the attack killed 44 people, correcting an earlier death toll of 45. He said six of the dead were children.
UNITED STATES
MSNBC: Southern Calif. wildfire roars back to life
Fierce winds blew a wildfire into Southern California homes Wednesday, forcing residents to flee as columns of smoke rose from a scenic coastal enclave.
TV news helicopters showed homes ablaze in Santa Barbara, but the number could not be immediately determined because of thick smoke. Authorities ordered 2,000 homes evacuated Wednesday afternoon, up from an earlier evacuation order of 1,200.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and asked federal authorities to issue an assistance grant to ensure financial resources are available for firefighting.
The fire, last reported at nearly 200 acres, became active on all sides and spot fires developed around the perimeter, said city fire Capt. Mike dePonce.
CNN: Regulators put bank CEOs on notice
Banks that need more capital under the stress tests will have a month to present regulators with a fundraising plan, federal officials said Wednesday.
The banks will have six months to raise the funds, according to a statement from the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The banks will also have to review their management and board within a month, "to assure that the leadership of the firm has sufficient expertise and ability to manage the risks presented by the current economic environment," the bank regulators said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
ABC: Maine Becomes 5th State to Allow Same-Sex Marriage
Maine's governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the region.
New Hampshire legislators were also poised to send a gay marriage bill to their governor, who hasn't indicated whether he'll sign it. If he does, Rhode Island would be the region's sole holdout.
The Maine Senate voted 21-13, with one absent, for a bill that authorizes marriage between any two people rather than between one man and one woman, as state law currently allows. The House had passed the bill Tuesday.
Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, who hadn't previously indicated how he would handle the bill, signed it shortly afterward. In the past, he said he opposed gay marriage but supported civil unions, which provide many benefits of marriage.
CNN: Obama will slice budget by $17 billion
The White House on Thursday will detail a proposal to save $17 billion next year by eliminating or reducing 121 federal programs, according to a senior administration official.
Roughly $11.5 billion of the savings would come from the discretionary side of the fiscal 2010 budget -- that is, for programs whose funding is not automatic. And roughly half of the savings would come from non-defense programs, the official said Wednesday.
"In many cases we have multiple programs that do the same things," the official said in a briefing call with reporters. "Duplication can be the enemy of efficiency."
In other cases, the results of the targeted programs didn't justify the expense, the official said.
USA Today: Pentagon to add 20,000 jobs; revamp contracting
Under pressure to overhaul its troubled weapons-buying process, the U.S. Defense Department is planning to add 20,000 new federal jobs over five years to reinforce its ability to handle contracts, cost estimates and oversight, the deputy defense secretary said Wednesday.
William Lynn told the Senate Armed Services Committee that as the department increases personnel, it also will move toward more fixed-price contracts, scrutinize programs more closely and link incentive payments to contractors' performance.
The changes are part of a broad effort to bring under control an acquisition process that has been plagued with huge cost overruns, lengthy delays and a sharp decline in competition among a shrinking number of contractor
ABC: Ginsburg: Court needs another woman
Three years after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor left the Supreme Court, the impact of having only one woman on the nation's highest bench has become particularly clear to that woman — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Her status as the court's lone woman was especially poignant during a recent case involving a 13-year-old girl who had been strip-searched by Arizona school officials looking for drugs. During oral arguments, some other justices minimized the girl's lasting humiliation, but Ginsburg stood out in her concern for the teenager.
"They have never been a 13-year-old girl," she told USA TODAY later when asked about her colleagues' comments during the arguments. "It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."
As Justice David Souter prepares to retire at the end of the term this summer, the significance of Ginsburg's position as the nine-member court's only woman has become a point of broad discussion. President Obama is under pressure from groups such as the National Women's Law Center to nominate another woman.
CBS: 2 Killed In Military Helicopter Crash
Authorities say two people were killed in a military helicopter crash in a remote section of the Cleveland National Forest in eastern San Diego County.
Captain Daryll Pina of the California Department of Forestry says the Cobra military attack helicopter crashed late Tuesday night and briefly set off a 1-2 acre wildfire.
Pina says a Defense Department accident investigation team was on the scene Wednesday morning. He did not know what branch of the military the helicopter was from, but firefighters received reports from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that a helicopter with live ordnance was missing.
A spokesman for the air station had no immediate comment.
Reuters: Private sector jobs data adds to economic hopes
The pace of private-sector U.S. job losses slowed dramatically last month, while future planned layoffs also declined, and the hard-hit housing sector showed signs of improvement last week.
Wednesday's reports are the latest indications that the U.S. economy is pulling out of freefall and may even be preparing to stop its descent, adding to hopes that have fueled a stock market rally over the last two months.
In housing, the original epicenter of the economic crisis, U.S. mortgage applications rose last week, even as interest rates jumped to their highest levels since mid-March.
The total number of U.S. private-sector job losses were much less than expected in April, hitting its lowest level since November last year, according to a report by ADP Employer Services.
USA Today: More homes get multiple offers; downturn may be nearing end
More homes for sale are attracting multiple offers as buyers pursue lower-price homes and banks low-ball asking prices to attract competing bids on foreclosures.
Multiple bids have picked up in recent months in California and other states hit hard by foreclosures and steep price drops, real estate executives say.
"If a house is in a good neighborhood, is maintained and is a good value, it'll get multiple offers," says Julie Holt, owner of Anclote Title Services in Tarpon Springs, Fla. One in 10 homes now draw multiple offers, up from one in 30 last fall, she says.
Multiple bids usually signify a market in which prices are rising and buyers outnumber sellers. That's not true now, given rampant foreclosures, still-falling prices in many regions and low demand for higher-price homes. Multiple offers on distressed properties are also not new, but their recent frequency offers hope for the real estate market, says Beth Peerce, treasurer of the California Association of Realtors (CAR).
ENVIRONMENT
ABC: Ford Takes More Fuel-Efficient Focus
Racing to return to profitability, Ford Motor Co. today announced plans to retool its Michigan truck factory to build a new generation of smaller, more fuel-efficient compacts.
Investing $550 million, Ford, the nation's second-largest automaker, will create more than 3,000 jobs in Michigan alone.
The plant, which was once home to some of the company's most popular sport utility vehicles, like the Expedition and Lincoln Navigator, will be converted to produce a new Ford Focus compact, including an all-electric model to be sold worldwide.
CEO Alan Mulally announced the plans to expand the automaker's production of compact cars in front of an eager crowd of 500 employees and Michigan's Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
USA Today: U.S. submits first plan for new U.N. climate treaty
The United States said Tuesday it would be committed to joining the world on a climate treaty with "robust targets and ambitious actions" against heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
But the formal U.S. submission to the United Nations on Tuesday offered no specifics for achieving a strategy for reducing emissions, which will be the topic of treaty talks in December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The 21-page document represents President Barack Obama's first salvo in the negotiating process.
It says the U.S. is committed to reaching a new, international agreement "based on both the robust targets and ambitious actions that will be embodied in U.S. domestic law and on the premise that the agreement will reflect the important national actions of all countries with significant emissions profiles.
ENN: EPA/DOE/Agriculture Discuss Energy Independence and Renewable Fuels Plan
The US Environemntal Protection Agency, and the Departments of Agriculture and Energy held a conference call today to field questions on the Obama Administration plans to stimulate biofuels research and commercialization. This proposed strategy is the Administration's response to requirements of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
The conference call included Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, and the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy, underscoring the importance of this rulemaking to the administration.
The approach includes a rulemaking on the Renewable Fuel Standard.
"As we work towards energy independence, using more homegrown biofuels reduces our vulnerability to oil price spikes that everyone feels at the pump," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. "Energy independence also puts billions of dollars back into our economy, creates green jobs, and protects the planet from climate change in the bargain."