New York Times: Rebels Pour Into Central Tripoli Square
Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed on Monday as rebels marched into the capital and arrested two of his sons, while residents raucously celebrated the prospective end of his four-decade-old rule.
In the city’s central Green Square, the site of many manufactured rallies in support of Colonel Qaddafi, jubilant Libyans tore down posters of him and stomped on them. The rebel leadership announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered and that their forces controlled many parts of the city, but not Colonel Qaddafi’s leadership compound.
The National Transitional Council, the rebel governing body, issued a mass text message saying: “We congratulate the Libyan people for the fall of Muammar Qaddafi and call on the Libyan people to go into the street to protect the public property. Long live free Libya.”
Officials loyal to Colonel Qaddafi insisted that the fight was not over, and there were clashes between rebels and government troops early on Monday morning. But NATO and American officials said that the Qaddafi government’s control of Tripoli, which had been its final stronghold, was now in doubt.
Washington Post: Obama sees Libya slipping from grasp of ‘tyrant,’ urges Gadhafi to yield power
Following a day of dramatic developments in Libya, President Barack Obama said Sunday night that the situation there has reached a “tipping point” and that control of the capital was “slipping from the grasp of a tyrant.” He called on Moammar Gadhafi to accept reality and relinquish power.
“The surest way for the bloodshed to end is simple: Moammar Gadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end,” Obama said in a statement issued while on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. “Gadhafi needs to acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all.”
Obama issued the statement after conducting a conference call with members of his national security team, who had provided him with updates throughout the day.
MSNBC: Syria's Assad warns against military intervention
Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday his regime was in no danger of collapse and warned against any foreign military intervention in his country as the regime tries to crush a 5-month-old popular uprising.
In his fourth public appearance since the revolt against his family's 40-year rule erupted in mid-March, Assad insisted that security forces were making inroads against the uprising.
"It may seem dangerous ... but in fact we are able to deal with it," he told state-run TV in a 40-minute interview. It was the first time he has agreed to take any questions, although the state-owned network is a mouthpiece for the regime.
The Syrian leader has come under mounting criticism over the brutal military offensive that has used tanks, snipers and gunboats to try to crush the uprising. Most recently, the United States and its European allies on Thursday demanded he step down. Late Saturday, former ally Turkey called Syria's situation "unsustainable."
Yahoo: GOP may OK tax increase that Obama hopes to block
As part of a bipartisan spending deal last December, Congress approved Obama's request to reduce the workers' share to 4.2 percent for one year; employers' rate did not change. Obama wants Congress to extend the reduction for an additional year. If not, the rate will return to 6.2 percent on Jan. 1.
"It's always a net positive to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn," says Rep. Jeb Hensarling, "but not all tax relief is created equal for the purposes of helping to get the economy moving again." The Texas lawmaker is on the House GOP leadership team.
That worries Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and a member of the House-Senate supercommittee tasked with finding new deficit cuts. Tax reductions, "no matter how well-intended," will push the deficit higher, making the panel's task that much harder, Camp's office said.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., "has never believed that this type of temporary tax relief is the best way to grow the economy," said spokesman Brad Dayspring.
Boston Globe: Scrutiny of Bain Capital and of Romney as CEO intensifies
And now, with cofounder Mitt Romney once again campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, this time as the front-runner, the scrutiny is intensifying.
One of Bain’s former executives, Edward Conard, was recently outed as the mystery donor behind a $1 million contribution to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future political action committee.
The White House also revealed it is gearing up to attack Romney not just over his politics, but also the business acumen he claims as a result of his leadership of Bain.
“The second aspect of the campaign to define Romney is his record as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm that was responsible for both creating and eliminating jobs,’’ Politico wrote recently. “Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession - a sort of political Gordon Gekko.’’
Washington Post: Romney plans to quadruple size of Calif. home
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is planning to nearly quadruple the size of his $12 million California beachfront mansion.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and the nominal front-runner for the GOP’s 2012 presidential nomination, is planning to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot home facing the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, Calif., and replace it with an 11,062-square-foot home, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Union-Tribune reported late Saturday that Romney has filed an application with the city for a coastal development permit, but that no date has been set to consider the project.
A Romney campaign official confirmed the report, saying the Romneys want to “enlarge their two-bedroom home because with five married sons and 16 grandchildren it is inadequate for their needs. Construction will not begin until the permits have been obtained and the campaign is finished.”
NY1: Pataki Considers 2012 Run For President
A spokesman has confirmed that former Governor George Pataki is strongly considering entering the crowded race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Sources say Pataki, who left office in 2007, could make an announcement as early as next week.
If he were to run, Pataki would face several major obstacles including launching an operation with little campaign cash and facing several opponents who have been meeting voters in Iowa and New Hampshire for months.
New York Times: Perry Mines Texas System to Raise Cash
Two years ago, John McHale, an entrepreneur from Austin, Tex., who has given millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes, did something very unusual for him: he wrote a $50,000 check to a Republican candidate, Rick Perry, then seeking a third full term as governor of Texas. In September 2010, he did it again, catapulting himself into the top ranks of Mr. Perry’s donors. Mr. McHale, a Perry spokesman said after the initial donation, “understands Governor Perry’s leadership has made Texas a good place to do business.”
Including, it turned out, for Mr. McHale’s business interests and partners. In May 2010 an economic development fund administered by the governor’s office handed $3 million to G-Con, a pharmaceutical start-up that Mr. McHale helped get off the ground. At least two other executives with connections to the firm had also given Mr. Perry tens of thousands of dollars. Mr. Perry leapt into the Republican presidential primary this month preceded by his reputation as a thoroughbred fund-raiser. But a review of Mr. Perry’s years in office reveals that one of his most potent fund-raising tools is the very government he heads.
Over three terms in office, Mr. Perry’s administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses. And they have helped Mr. Perry raise more money than any politician in Texas history, donations that have periodically raised eyebrows but, thanks to loose campaign finance laws and a business-friendly political culture dominated in recent years by Republicans, have only fueled Mr. Perry’s ascent. “Texas politics does have this amazing pay-to-play culture,” said Harold Cook, a Democratic political consultant.
Mark Miner, a spokesman for Mr. Perry, said there was no connection between Mr. McHale’s contributions and the grant to G-Con. He said that the purpose of the state money was to create jobs and that it was appropriate for Mr. Perry to appoint people who support his vision and policies to state oversight posts. “These issues have been brought up in previous elections to no avail,” Mr. Miner said.
New York Times: So. Calif. Grocery Workers Reject Contract Deal
Thousands of Southern California grocery workers have voted overwhelmingly to reject a health care proposal from major supermarket chains and authorize their union leaders to call a strike, a spokesman said early Sunday.
More than 90 percent of voters from the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which has about 62,000 members, rejected the proposal from Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons stores.
The rejection automatically authorizes union officials to call a strike after 72 hours
Shimpock did not have precise numbers on how many voted, but said the turnout was "huge."
Washington Post: Corporations pushing for job-creation tax breaks shield U.S.-vs.-abroad hiring data
Some of the country’s best-known multinationals closely guard a number they don’t want anyone to know: the breakdown between their jobs here and abroad.
So secretive are these companies that they hand the figure over to government statisticians on the condition that officials will release only an aggregate number. The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.
Some of the same companies that do not report their jobs breakdown, including Apple and Pfizer, are pushing lawmakers to cut their tax bills in the name of job creation in the United States.
But experts say that without details on which companies are contributing to job growth and which are not, policymakers risk flying blind as they try to jump-start the hiring of American workers.
USA Today: Gaza Militants Agree to Cease Fire with Israel
Militant groups in Gaza have agreed to a cease-fire aimed at ending a three-day round of violence with Israel, a senior Hamas official said Sunday, after a cross-border Palestinian attack on Israel threatened relations between the two countries and set off a round of Palestinian rocket barrages and Israeli airstrikes.
The official said Egypt helped broker the cease-fire, which was to go into effect Sunday evening. Egypt, which has been in contact with Israel, told the groups that Israel would halt its airstrikes only if the Palestinian groups stopped shooting first, he said.
Hamas security personnel would enforce the agreement, the official said.
New York Times: Large Zone Near Japanese Reactors to Be Off Limits
Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.
The formal announcement, expected from the government in coming days, would be the first official recognition that the March accident could force the long-term depopulation of communities near the plant, an eventuality that scientists and some officials have been warning about for months. Lawmakers said over the weekend — and major newspapers reported Monday — that Prime Minister Naoto Kan was planning to visit Fukushima Prefecture, where the plant is, as early as Saturday to break the news directly to residents. The affected communities are all within 12 miles of the plant, an area that was evacuated immediately after the accident.
The government is expected to tell many of these residents that they will not be permitted to return to their homes for an indefinite period. It will also begin drawing up plans for compensating them by, among other things, renting their now uninhabitable land. While it is unclear if the government would specify how long these living restrictions would remain in place, news reports indicated it could be decades. That has been the case for areas around the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine after its 1986 accident.
Since the Fukushima accident, evacuations have been a sensitive topic for the government, which has been criticized for being slow to admit the extent of the disaster and trying to limit the size of the areas affected, despite possible risks to public health. Until now, Tokyo had been saying it would lift the current evacuation orders for most areas around the plant early next year, when workers are expected to stabilize Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged nuclear reactors.
BBC: Tropical storm Irene heads towards Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic has issued a hurricane alert as a tropical storm closes in on its southern coast.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said tropical storm Irene could turn into a hurricane before making landfall.
They expect it to pass near Puerto Rico and make landfall in the Dominican Republic on Monday.
Haiti, where hundreds of thousands of people still live in tents after last year's earthquake, could also be hit.
BBC: Norway attacks: National memorial held for victims
A national memorial service is being held in Oslo for the victims of the 22 July bomb and gun attacks.
The ceremony at the Spektrum Arena marks the end of a month of mourning for the 77 victims, whose relatives are among the 6,000 guests.
It is featuring performances by some of Norway's top musicians, with pop band A-ha reuniting for the occasion.