Sotomayor to Be Sworn-In as Supreme Court Justice Saturday
By Amy Goldstein and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
A day after her Senate confirmation, Sonia Sotomayor prepared to travel from New York to Washington on Friday for her swearing-in at the Supreme Court on Saturday morning as the 111th justice and the first Hispanic to serve on the nation's highest court.
When you decide to wander off, check out Meteor Blade's Green Diary Rescue and Open Thread.
Democratic 'Blue Dogs' Flex Their Muscle
By Anna Mulrine
After another day wrangling over healthcare reform, it was no small amount of frustration that inspired Rep. Henry Waxman to stand in front of a press gathering and not-so-subtly accuse the "blue dog" Democrats of being party turncoats. "I won't allow them to hand over control of our committee to Republicans," Waxman said, threatening to have the bill bypass the Energy and Commerce Committee he chairs if the blue dogs didn't accept the deal before them. "I don't see what other alternative we have, because we're not going to let them empower Republicans on the committee," he added, in case his point had been lost on anyone. |
Congress may extend unemployment benefits
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress will consider extending unemployment benefits after it returns in September to help 1.5 million Americans who risk exhausting them, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Friday.
"Soon after Congress returns to Washington we'll need to address this matter," Reid said. "There is an economic case to be made for extending unemployment benefits." |
Castor heartened by reaction to town hall tumult
TBO.com
TAMPA - U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, the focus of tumultuous reaction at a town hall meeting Thursday night, said in an interview this morning that the event has strengthened her conviction to support health care reform.
"It has strengthened my resolve to stand up for families and seniors," Castor said. "Floridians are bearing a great burden in health care costs, more than almost any other state."
"A healthy debate is good, but the rude behavior is not helpful," she said. "I think it backfires. The response we're receiving today is pretty overwhelming to speak up for families and bring down the cost of health care." |
Obama denies U.S. creating military bases in Colombia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Friday denied the United States is planning to set up military bases in Colombia as part of an upgraded security agreement with the South American nation.
"There have been those in the region who have been trying to play this up as part of a traditional anti-Yankee rhetoric. This is not accurate," Obama told Hispanic media reporters. |
Two Brothers Arrested in Killing of Holocaust Survivor
By Libby Nelson
Two brothers are in custody and are expected to be charged in connection with the killing last week of Guido Felix Brinkmann, a Holocaust survivor and former manager of a Manhattan disco club, law enforcement officials said Friday.
The men, whom the Manhattan district attorney’s office identified as Aljulah and Hasid Cutts, are being questioned at the 19th Precinct station on the Upper East Side, the officials said. They were expected to be charged later on Friday. |
Senate Ethics Panel Clears Dodd on Countrywide Loans
By MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Christopher Dodd didn't violate Senate ethics rules when refinancing two loans through Countrywide Financial Corp. and there is "no credible evidence" that he knowingly accepted a special rate through a VIP program, Senate investigators said Friday.
But in absolving Mr. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, the Senate Select Committee on ethics said he should have shown better judgment in order to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing. |
Embattled S.C. Governor Sanford, Wife Are Splitting Up
By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Jenny Sanford, the wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, announced Friday morning that she and their sons will leave the governor's mansion in Columbia and settle in the Charleston area, a split that comes after the couple tried for seven weeks to mend their marriage.
Since the Republican governor secretly traveled abroad in June and admitted upon his return that he had an Argentine mistress, the Sanfords have vacationed together in Florida and Europe, and both have repeatedly said they were working to repair their marriage. |
GOP Sen. Martinez tells supporters he's resigning
By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer
ORLANDO, Fla. – Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida said Friday he will resign from the Senate as soon as a replacement can be appointed, leaving the seat more than a year before his term ends.
Martinez, the only Hispanic Republican in the Senate, revealed his plans in a statement to supporters and was expected to publicly announce the decision Friday afternoon in Florida. |
'Cash for clunkers' gets $2B boost
Deb Price / The Detroit News
Washington -- The "cash for clunkers" program that brought Americans back into auto showrooms lives on.
The U.S. Senate voted 60-37 Thursday night to pump $2 billion into the popular program, replenishing its evaporating funding pot so consumers can keep trading in gas guzzlers for fuel-efficient vehicles at least through Labor Day. But this will be the last extension, supporters say.
The House previously passed an identical bill, and President Barack Obama signed it this morning. |
Harper to visit Washington Sept. 16
Les Whittington
Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will visit U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16, the prime minister's office announced today.
Word of the visit came up during a briefing on Harper's trip to Mexico Sunday and Monday for a Three Amigos summit with Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Unlike Calderon, Harper is not scheduled to have a bilateral meeting with Obama during the talks in Mexico, a PMO spokesperson said. |
Maloney won't challenge Gillibrand for Senate seat
By Jerry Zremski
WASHINGTON — The most prominent potential Democratic challenger to Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., withdrew from the race today.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-Manhattan, said she did not want to disrupt her work in the House by running for the Senate against Gillibrand in 2010. |
U.S. moves toward releasing young Guantanamo detainee
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of the youngest detainees held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay moved a step closer to freedom when the Obama administration notified Congress of his upcoming release, a Justice Department official said on Friday.
Mohammed Jawad was accused of throwing a grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter in Kabul in 2002 but judges barred his confessions from being used because they said he made them while being tortured.
While the notification sent to Congress on Thursday starts a 15-day waiting period before he can be sent to Afghanistan, the Justice Department is still considering a criminal case against him in U.S. court, citing new evidence |
Palin says Obama's health care plan is 'evil'
By MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press Writer
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called President Barack Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office, saying in a Facebook posting that he would create a "death panel" that would deny care to the neediest Americans.
"Who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course," the former vice Republican presidential candidate wrote on her Facebook page, which has nearly 700,000 supporters. |
Suffering from rationing? Let's take a look
People nationwide are paying attention to rural Alaska these days. Will there be another winter crisis next January? Will people be asked to donate support to food drives because the government of Alaska ignored all the same warning signs, yet again? If so, it will contrast mightily with the state attempting to pipe natural gas down to the lower 48 yet routing none of that gas to its own rural villages that recently paid $8 or $9 a gallon for fuel. |
emphasis mine
Congressman gets death threat over health reform
By DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – A North Carolina congressman who supports an overhaul of the health care system had his life threatened by a caller upset that he was not holding a public forum on the proposal, his office said Friday.
Democratic Rep. Brad Miller received the call Monday, one of hundreds the congressman's office has received demanding a town-hall meeting on the health care proposal, said his spokeswoman, LuAnn Canipe. She said the callers were "trying to instigate town halls so they can show up and disrupt."
"We had one of those kind of calls that escalated to what we considered a threat" on the congressman's life, said Canipe. "These are some strong-arm tactics, and we are trying to deal with and trying to talk to people in good faith about health care reform." |
Regulators close 3 banks in Fla., Ore.; total 72
NEW YORK – Regulators on Friday shut down two banks in Florida and one in Oregon, bringing to 72 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year under the weight of the weak economy and rising loan losses.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the banks: First State Bank, of Sarasota, Fla.; Venice, Fla.-based Community National Bank of Sarasota County, and Community First Bank, of Prineville, Ore.
First State Bank had total assets of $463 million and deposits totaling $387 million. Community National Bank had $97 million in assets and $93 million in deposits. Community First Bank had $209 million in assets and $182 million in deposits. |
Geithner asks Congress for higher U.S. debt limit
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner formally requested that Congress raise the $12.1 trillion statutory debt limit on Friday, saying that it could be breached as early as mid-October.
"It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations," Geithner said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that was obtained by Reuters.
A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter. |
US jobless rate falls to 9.4%, job losses narrow
By Rob Lever
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US unemployment rate fell unexpectedly to 9.4 percent in July as job losses in the month narrowed to 247,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The much-awaited nonfarm payrolls report was better than expected by private economists, who had forecast a loss of 325,000 jobs and a jobless rate rising to 9.6 percent from the June level of 9.5 percent. |
State-rescued bank RBS mired in bad debts
By Ben Perry
LONDON (AFP) – State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland reported a five-fold jump in bad debts on Friday, warning they would stay "high for a while" and wrapping up a mixed earnings season for Britain's financial sector.
A surge in first-half impairment charges to 7.5 billion pounds (8.8 billion euros, 12.6 billion dollars) led RBS to report a 26-percent jump in net losses during the six months to June 30 compared with a year earlier. |
Berkshire profit up 14 percent as stocks rebound
By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc posted its best quarter in nearly two years, as recovering stock markets boosted the value of its equity investments and derivatives bets.
Operating earnings nevertheless fell short of expectations, reflecting lower underwriting gains, including from the Geico Corp auto insurance unit, and the impact of the recession on Berkshire's more economically sensitive manufacturing and service units. |
Freddie Mac swings to profit, after steep losses
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac announced Friday it swung to a profit of 768 million dollars in the second quarter, after a 9.9 billion dollar loss in the previous quarter.
Interim chief executive John Koskinen said the positive financial result for the quarter to June 30 meant the company seized by the Treasury last year would not seek new aid from the government. |
Swiss now pray that glacier will stop shrinking
By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer
GENEVA – Villagers from deeply Roman Catholic south Switzerland have for centuries offered a sacred vow to God to protect them from the advancing ice mass of the Great Aletsch glacier.
Global warming is making them want to reverse their prayers, and the Alpine faithful are seeking the permission of the pope. |
Salmonella outbreak strikes 21, prompts beef recall
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – At least 21 people in Colorado and 10 other U.S. states have been sickened by a salmonella outbreak that prompted the recall of more than 800,000 pounds of ground beef, federal and state officials said on Friday.
Raw hamburger associated with known illnesses in Colorado was traced to Beef Packers Inc. in Fresno, California, a unit of Minneapolis-based agribusiness giant Cargill Inc, officials said.
Beef Packers' voluntary recall of nearly 826,000 pounds (375,000 kilograms) of ground beef was announced on Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. |
Eunice Kennedy Shriver hospitalized, critical
BOSTON (Reuters) – Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of assassinated President John F. Kennedy and a champion of the rights of the mentally impaired, is hospitalized in critical but stable condition, a hospital official said on Friday.
Shriver, 88, was admitted to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts, according to hospital spokeswoman Robin Lord, who declined to give further details of her illness.
She is surrounded by her husband, long-time Washington figure Sargent Shriver, children and grandchildren, Lord said. |
Age in which letters are old-fashioned takes toll on Postal Service
By Joe Burris
As the U.S. Postal Service considers closing hundreds of post offices nationwide to save money, one question looms, especially for those 25 and younger: Who'd notice?
During her freshman year at the University of Virginia, Kaitlyn McDowell enjoyed receiving the occasional letter with a care package from younger cousins.
Beyond that, though, the 19-year-old from Ellicott City mostly corresponds by e-mail, text messaging and social networking, like many of her generation. |
Madoff deputy DiPascali to plead guilty: court paper
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Swindler Bernard Madoff's right-hand man Frank DiPascali will plead guilty on August 11 to criminal charges for his role in the $65 billion fraud, a court document said on Friday.
"The Government anticipates that the defendant will be arraigned and will plead guilty to a Criminal Information on Tuesday," a letter by U.S. prosecutors to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan said.
A criminal information is an alternative charging document to a grand jury indictment. DiPascali worked for the Madoff firm for 33 years until his Ponzi scheme collapsed in December last year. |
Recession means fewer babies; US births fell 2 pct
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA – There aren't just fewer jobs in a recession. There are fewer babies, too. U.S. births fell in 2008, the first full year of the recession, marking the first annual decline in births since the start of the decade and ending an American baby boomlet.
The downturn in the economy best explains the drop in maternity, some experts believe. The Great Depression and subsequent recessions all were accompanied by a decline in births, said Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology. |
First human case of West Nile reported in Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Department of Public Health has announced the first confirmed human case of West Nile virus in the state.
The health department said Friday that the case was a middle-aged woman in Clayton County who was not hospitalized.
Health officials say statewide surveillance has also found an increased number of mosquitoes infected with the virus. They're cautioning residents to get rid of mosquito breeding areas and to use insect repellent outdoors.
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Guidelines Address Swine Flu Outbreak in Fall
By DENISE GRADY
Most schools should be able to stay open even if swine flu outbreaks occur again this fall, government health officials said Friday, as they issued recommendations for dealing with the illness.
Decisions to close schools should be made locally, the officials said. And those decisions should balance the goal of reducing the number of people who become seriously ill or die from the flu, they said, with the goal of minimizing social disruption and the safety risks to children that sometimes occur when schools close.
Most schools should be able to stay open even if swine flu outbreaks occur again this fall, government health officials said Friday, as they issued recommendations for dealing with the illness.
Decisions to close schools should be made locally, the officials said. And those decisions should balance the goal of reducing the number of people who become seriously ill or die from the flu, they said, with the goal of minimizing social disruption and the safety risk. |
Doctors baffled by Indian village of over 200 sets of twins
KODINJI, India (Reuters Life!) – Walk around Kodinji village in rural India and you'd be forgiven for thinking you have double vision as this community is known as "twin village."
The remote village is home to more than 204 sets of twins but doctors are baffled over why this community of 2,000 families has had so many multiple births as they have no unique diet, are not exposed to any chemicals, and don't take fertility drugs.
In fact with about 45 twins per 1,000 live births, this village in North Kerala has six times more twins than the global average -- and women from Kodinju married off to far away places are also known to give birth to twins. |
How Much Vitamin D Should You Be Taking?
By Deborah Kotz
Quick quiz: What vital nutrient may protect against cancer, heart disease, stroke, bone fractures, and a host of other diseases? Experts on vitamin D are quick to answer, and, by their reckoning, many Americans are sorely lacking in the nutrient. Just this week, new data from a government-run health and nutrition survey found that most kids weren't getting enough vitamin D and that those with the lowest levels were more likely to have high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. At a meeting convened Tuesday by the Institute of Medicine, leading vitamin D researchers mentioned this study and many others as they tried to convince an IOM committee to raise the daily recommended intake (DRI) for the nutrient. |
Pakistan "pretty certain" Taliban chief is dead
By Kamran Haider
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan is "pretty certain" Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was killed with his wife and guards in a missile attack two days ago, the foreign minister said on Friday.
An intelligence officer in South Waziristan told Reuters that Mehsud's funeral had already taken place, while Pakistani media cited their own security sources, saying Mehsud was dead.
"He was killed with his wife and he was buried in Nargosey," the officer said, referring to a tiny settlement about 1 km (half a mile), from the site of the attack, believed to have been carried out by a pilotless U.S. drone aircraft. |
47 Iraqis killed in Shiite holy day attacks
By Mujahid Mohammed
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) – A powerful car bomb killed at least 37 Shiite Muslims in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul on Friday in a wave of attacks that also killed 10 people in the capital Baghdad.
A further 276 people were wounded in the Mosul suicide bombing, Nineveh province Governor Athel al-Nijafi said, in the latest in a spate of deadly attacks against Shiites which have stoked fears of a return to the sectarian conflict which swept the country in 2006 and 2007. |
Drug killings soar ahead of North America summit
By Julian Cardona
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexican drug gangs are killing rivals in record numbers in a major setback for the government, which will seek more support from U.S. President Barack Obama when he visits the country this weekend.
Severed heads, burned bodies, daylight shootouts and dead children are daily fare from Mexico's Caribbean to its desert border with the United States, even as army generals pour soldiers and elite police onto city streets. |
NATO seeks more troops for Afghanistan; 8 die
By Hamid Shalizi and Peter Graff
KABUL (Reuters) – NATO's new chief called Friday for additional reinforcements in Afghanistan, and the alliance announced the deaths of eight more U.S. and British troops as violence worsens in the eight-year-old war's deadliest phase.
In neighboring Pakistan, officials said they believed that country's Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed in a missile strike, a major coup in the fight against the militant movement which has roots in tribes on both sides of the border. |
Strike on Mehsud could spur stronger US-Pakistan cooperation
The targeting of the Pakistan Taliban leader showed US willingness to pursue Pakistani priorities. The US may now push for more help in finding Pakistan-based militants who operate in Afghanistan. |
English Anglicans breathe life into French chapels
By Suzanne Mustacich
BORDEAUX, France (AFP) – The priest is a married woman, the Anglican service is in English, yet the old stone chapel in Bordeaux is definitely 100 percent French Roman Catholic.
In southwest France, once a battlefield between medieval English and French armies, expats are breathing life into borrowed Catholic churches left empty by their local flocks, quietly sprouting a dozen Anglican congregations. |
Indonesian Police Target Terror Suspects
By VOA News
Indonesian police say they have launched a series of raids against suspected hardline Islamic terrorists, including the alleged mastermind of suicide bombings last month in Jakarta.
But there was conflicting information coming from police and media on whether leading terror suspect Noordin Top had been arrested, killed or surrounded inside a home in Temanggung, Central Java. |
More feared dead from Tonga ferry
The authorities in Tonga now say 85 people are missing and feared drowned after an inter-island ferry sank.
The probable toll rose from earlier estimates of 64, after it was found 141 people were on board the Princess Ashika when it went down on Wednesday.
Fifty-four people have so far been rescued and two bodies found.
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Particle collider: Black hole or crucial machine?
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
GENEVA – When launched to great fanfare nearly a year ago, some feared the Large Hadron Collider would create a black hole that would suck in the world. It turns out the Hadron may be the black hole.
The world's largest scientific machine has cost $10 billion, has worked only nine days and has yet to smash an atom. The unique equipment in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel with cathedral-sized detectors deep beneath the Swiss-French border has been assembled by specialists in many countries, with 8,970 physicists eagerly awaiting the startup. |
Twitter Still Struggling to Recover From DOS Attack
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
The DOS (denial-of-service) attack that crippled Twitter on Thursday is still affecting the micro-blogging service on Friday, the company said in a blog post.
Specifically, Twitter has had to take defensive actions that are preventing some third-party Twitter applications from communicating with the company's API (application programming interface).
In addition, many users can't post Twitter messages via SMS (Short Message Service), as Twitter continues to defend itself against the attack, which the company described as "ongoing" in the blog. |
Facebook Traces Web Havoc to Attack on Blogger
By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO
Facebook Inc. is providing new details of how an attack aimed at a Georgian blogger Thursday disrupted its site and crashed others, including Twitter Inc. and LiveJournal Inc.
The company rooted out the cause of the massive denial-of-service attack, said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt, after noticing that the compromised computers that began flooding its site Thursday morning were directing traffic to the profile page of a single pro-Georgian blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu," the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia. The Cyxymu blogger couldn't immediately be reached. |
FDA Head Promises Stronger Enforcement Of Food/Drug Safety
Food and drug companies that commit safety violations will face faster and more aggressive action, the new commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday.
"The agency must show industry and consumers that we are on the job," Margaret Hamburg told an audience of food and drug industry lawyers, the Associated Press reported. "Companies must have a realistic expectation that if they are crossing the line, they will be caught." |
Most Likely to Understand
John Hughes Knew Our Secret: No One Fit In in High School
By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
On the wavy matrix where popular culture and one's time in high school intersect, Gen Xers can often feel like they were born too late (post-Beatles) or too soon (pre-"American Pie"). But with John Hughes's cycle of five high-school movies that he wrote and/or directed in the 1980s, it simply felt like perfect timing. |
Birthplace of Roman emperor found in Italy
By MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer
ROME – Archaeologists have unearthed a sprawling country villa believed to be the birthplace of Vespasian, the Roman emperor who built the Colosseum, they said Friday. The 2,000-year-old ruins were found about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Rome, near Cittareale, lead archaeologist Filippo Coarelli said.
The 150,000-square-feet (14,000-square-meter) complex was at the center of an ancient village called Falacrine, Vespasian's hometown. |
Bird experiment shows Aesop's fable may be true
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
NEW YORK – From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop's fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened.
It's the fable about a thirsty crow. The bird comes across a pitcher with the water level too low for him to reach. The crow raises the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher. (Moral: Little by little does the trick, or in other retellings, necessity is the mother of invention.) |
Forty years on, Beatles fans flock to Abbey Road crosswalk
By Benjamin Legendre
LONDON (AFP) – Fans of the Fab Four are flocking to the most famous pedestrian crossing in Britain for the 40th anniversary on Saturday of the taking of one of the greatest images in rock 'n' roll history.
It was outside the Abbey Road recording studios at 11.35 am on August 8, 1969 that the Beatles strutted purposefully from one side of the street to another, for the cover of what would be their final album as a group. |
California World Premiere of 'American Idiot' Musical On Sale Online
Kenneth Jones, Playbill.com
Single tickets for the world premiere of American Idiot, the musical drawn from the Grammy Award-winning neo-punk album by Green Day, go on sale Aug. 7 at the website of Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California, which will premiere the piece on Sept. 4.
Tony Award-winning actor John Gallagher, Jr. will reunite with Michael Mayer, his Tony-winning director from Spring Awakening, to star in the production, which has commercial producers attached.
The project, co-conceived by Mayer and Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, will play the Bay Area through Oct. 11. Tickets go on sale 10 AM (PDT) Aug. 7 at berkeleyrep.org. |