Atrapados con las manos en la masa

Por Daniel Rivera Vargas / drivera2@elnuevodia.com

Utilizando un tipo de “guagua aérea” criminal, tres puertorriqueños supuestamente saquearon más de un centenar de casas y apartamentos en al menos tres estados de Estados Unidos y trajeron su botín a Puerto Rico.

Por esas imputaciones, las autoridades de Texas arrestaron el jueves a Héctor Osorio, de 40 años y quien decía que su nombre era Johnny Pérez Medina; Carla Osorio, de 36 años; y Harry J. Rivera, de 21 años, sospechosos de cometer unos 130 atracos a residencias en varias ciudades del norte de Texas.

El apodo “Johnny Pérez Medina” era utilizado por Osorio para tratar de burlar a las autoridades de Florida, donde tiene varias órdenes de arresto, según un comunicado emitido por las autoridades de Texas.

Se desconoce la cantidad de atracos de los que el trío sería responsable en Florida y Nueva York, donde las autoridades entienden que también operaba.

La racha de hurtos que se les atribuye “ha sido alrededor de todo el país”, dijo a El Nuevo Día Heather Bowden, de la Policía de la ciudad de Plano, Texas.

“Los sospechosos están detenidos con fianzas de $300,000 en Plano por robo a un apartamento y de $525,000 por tres órdenes de Dallas”.

La mujer quedó libre ayer bajo fianza y en custodia de sus hijos.

El trío no aparece con récord criminal en la Isla, informaron María del Pilar Bon y Mayra Ayala, oficiales de prensa de la Policía local.

Un comunicado oficial de la ciudad de Plano señala que los hombres fueron arrestados luego de que la policía fuera informada que estaban merodeando el área donde se había reportado una racha de atracos.

“A la llegada de los agentes, los sospechosos fueron observados tratando de entrar a un apartamento. Ambos individuos fueron capturados al intentar huir del lugar”, reza el comunicado.

Informes de prensa indican que Carla fue arrestada en la ciudad de Irving, Texas. Ayer no fue posible confirmar cuál es el parentesco entre Carla y Héctor, pero Bowden dijo que sobre ellos pesan cinco órdenes de arresto por robo en el estado de Florida.

El teniente de la División de Investigación Criminal de Euless, Texas, Wayne Pavlik, informó al diario Dallas Morning News que el trío vandalizó residencias en Dallas, Euless, Lewisville, Irving y Plano, hurtando joyas, dinero en efectivo y equipos electrónicos -como iPods y computadoras portátiles- que luego introducían a Puerto Rico.

Aunque se desconoce el monto total de la mercancía hurtada, se cree que el trío cargó con más de $75,000 en 20 apartamentos de Lewisville, Texas durante tres días en el mes pasado.


El modus operandi

“Identificamos que dos sospechosos viajaban desde Puerto Rico, rentaban carros, obtenían habitaciones de hotel, cometían su ola de robos y regresaban a Puerto Rico con todos los bienes”, le explicó Pavlick al diario texano.

Como parte de la investigación, la autoridades lograron identificar automóviles alquilados por los sospechosos ubicados en las áreas asaltadas desde julio.

Luego, detectaron que compraban muchos vuelos de ida y vuelta entre Dallas/FortWorth y San Juan.

Inicialmente, los sujetos fueron puestos bajo vigilancia, porque aún no había suficiente evidencia, pero entonces fueron sorprendidos “con las manos en la masa” durante el atraco en la calle 14 Este.

Pavlick indicó a Prensa Asociada que en julio de este año se percataron de que hubo muchos saqueos a la vez, e incluso hubo un día en que se cometieron casi 30.

Explicó que usaban siempre la técnica de tocar a la puerta, percatarse de que no había nadie en la residencia y forzar su entrada con una llave falsa.

No descartó que el trío forme parte de una organización mayor.

“Estaban muy bien organizados, como si lo estuvieran haciendo por mucho tiempo”, manifestó el teniente Pavlik al diario tejano.

Aunque la policía de Texas expresó su interés en contactar a las autoridades federales del distrito del este de Estados Unidos, una portavoz del Negociado Federal de Investigaciones (FBI, por sus siglas en inglés) dijo desconocer la materia.

La policía texana no ha contactado a las autoridades de Puerto Rico, informó el coronel José Caldero, jefe de la superintendencia Auxiliar de Investigaciones Criminales.

“Yo vi la noticia esta mañana”, dijo Caldero, cuya división investiga principalmente los hurtos domiciliarios en la Isla. “Una vez ellos se comuniquen y lo notifiquen, vamos a investigar para ver en que están involucrados”.

http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/portada/noticias/atrapados_con_las_manos_en_la_masa/304436

Qué opinan de esta noticia?

Esos tres cabrones han vuelto a joder la imagen de los puertorriqueños!!!!

Los odio!!!

Por que en USA no van a decir "tres ladrones" .... NOOOOOOO

PA JODER!!!! VAN A DECIR, TRES PUERTORRIQUEÑOS Y CON PUERTORRIQUEÑOS ASI EN BOLD

^La verdad que los 3 eran unas jodiendas...

Muy cierto lo que dices,pues en cualquier parte del Mundo es igual,cuando es un extranjero rápido sale en todos los periódicos.

Bueno, por lo menos no lo hacían aquí :hammer:

Boricua alarma aeropuerto Kennedy

Por The Associated Press
NUEVA YORK — Un joven puertorriqueño admitió ante la policía haber sido la causa de la evacuación del aeropuerto internacional John F. Kennedy, cuando salió del terminal aéreo para fumar y luego perdió su tarjeta de embarque.


William Contreras Ramos, de 20 años, oriundo de San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, explicó a policías que se le hizo tarde para abordar el martes el avión, y como no encontraba su tarjeta de embarque, pasó por otra puerta y logró llegar al lugar donde los pasajeros aguardaban a subir al avión.

Eso causó alarma en el aeropuerto. Dos terminales aéreos fueron evacuados y los pasajeros tuvieron que volver a presentar su documentación, informó la Administración de Seguridad en el Transporte. Miles de pasajeros y docenas de vuelos fueron demorados durante varias horas a raíz de la evacuación y los procedimientos para revisar la documentación de cada pasajero.


Pero Contreras sí logró subir al avión que se dirigía a Albany, capital del estado de Nueva York. La Autoridad de Puertos de Nueva York y de Nueva Jersey, que administra el aeropuerto, llamó al jefe de policía de Albany, James Campbell, para informarle que el hombre había abordado un avión rumbo a esa ciudad. Policías esperaron a Contreras en Albany y lo arrestaron para interrogarlo.


Contreras no tenía armas con él, pero se encontró una navaja en su equipaje, dijo Campbell. Contreras permanecía detenido hoy, mientras se aguardaba la llegada de agentes del FBI, informó Campbell.

http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/mundiales/noticias/boricua_alarma_aeropuerto_kennedy/306588

Y que tienen que sea boricua??? Lo hace mas malo???

La verdad que me encojona la puñetera prensa!!! Va cualquier persona a cagar en el medio de Palm Beach y dicen "persona caga en Palm Beach" ... pero va un puertorriqueño y rápido ponen "BORICUA caga en Palm Beach" ... NO JODA!!! ni que eso empeorara o mejorara la situación ¬.¬

Si se dijera que el tipo tenia malos cascos encima, pero no ... fue solo un error que lo comete cualquiera. Aunque claro con consecuencias algo malas, pero no lo hizo con malas intenciones.

Y que tienen que sea boricua??? Lo hace mas malo???

La verdad que me encojona la puñetera prensa!!! Va cualquier persona a cagar en el medio de Palm Beach y dicen "persona caga en Palm Beach" ... pero va un puertorriqueño y rápido ponen "BORICUA caga en Palm Beach" ... NO JODA!!! ni que eso empeorara o mejorara la situación ¬.¬

Si se dijera que el tipo tenia malos cascos encima, pero no ... fue solo un error que lo comete cualquiera. Aunque claro con consecuencias algo malas, pero no lo hizo con malas intenciones.
Ese reportaje es otro ejemplo de cómo la prensa crea y sostiene los estereotipos en la población. :ohno:

Culpable boricua que provocó desalojo en JFK
Por The Associated Press
ALBANY, Nueva York — Un puertorriqueño que el mes pasado provocó el desalojo del aeropuerto internacional John F. Kennedy de Nueva York se declaró culpable hoy de violar las reglas de seguridad aeroportuarias.

Según las autoridades, William Contreras Ramos, de 20 años y oriundo de San Lorenzo, esperaba el 30 de octubre para abordar un vuelo hacia Albany, y salió del área de espera para fumarse un cigarrillo, pero luego se dio cuenta de que no llevaba consigo ni su pase de abordar ni su billetera.

Entonces, regresó a la sala a través de una puerta de salida, ignoró a un guardia que intentó detenerlo y abordó su vuelo.

Sin embargo, cuando llegó a Albany fue arrestado, y las autoridades encontraron una navaja en su equipaje de mano.

Contreras Ramos enfrenta hasta un año de cárcel por violación a ese estatuto federal.

Luego de que Contreras Ramos abriera la puerta de salida, se activó un sistema de alarma que provocó el desalojo de dos terminales aéreos y que los pasajeros tuvieran que volver a presentar su documentación, informó la Administración de Seguridad en el Transporte.

Miles de pasajeros y decenas de vuelos sufrieron demoras varias horas a raíz de la evacuación y la revisión de los documentos de cada pasajero.

http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/mundiales/noticias/culpable_boricua_que_provoco_desalojo_en_jfk/318418

Y que tienen que sea boricua??? Lo hace mas malo???

La verdad que me encojona la puñetera prensa!!! Va cualquier persona a cagar en el medio de Palm Beach y dicen "persona caga en Palm Beach" ... pero va un puertorriqueño y rápido ponen "BORICUA caga en Palm Beach" ... NO JODA!!! ni que eso empeorara o mejorara la situación ¬.¬

Si se dijera que el tipo tenia malos cascos encima, pero no ... fue solo un error que lo comete cualquiera. Aunque claro con consecuencias algo malas, pero no lo hizo con malas intenciones.

Dreamer, no te pongas asi papi :lol:, que a nosotros los Dominicanos nos tratan asi mismo.

Hay periodicos en EUA especializados en recoger todo lo negativo de RD.

A cualquier latino diria yo ... Y me molesta más aún que los mismos periodicos locales se pongan a imitar eso.

^^Lo dices por El Nuevo Día???

Siempre que un extranjero hace algo rápido dicen "Colombiano hizo...", "Venezolano se...".

Lo que dá gracia es que muchos(posiblemente la mayoría)de los que trabajan en El Nuevo Día son extranjeros de América del Sur.

^^ Eso es normal. Pero cuando un periódico estadounidense informa sobre algo malo que hizo un boricua, siempre vienen asociaciones negativas y generalizantes sobre nosotros. Especialmente cuando gran parte de los medios tienen se sede en Nueva York, donde la gente asocia "Puerto Rican" con cosas muy bonitas como todos sabemos, sí, sí... :|

^^ Eso es normal. Pero cuando un periódico estadounidense informa sobre algo malo que hizo un boricua, siempre vienen asociaciones negativas y generalizantes sobre nosotros. Especialmente cuando gran parte de los medios tienen se sede en Nueva York, donde la gente asocia "Puerto Rican" con cosas muy bonitas como todos sabemos, sí, sí... :|

Exaaaactamente, usted lo ha dicho.

La estrategia de un superhéroe
Con su plan anticrimen “Tolerancia Cero”, William Bratton devolvió a los ciudadanos las calles de Nueva York. Ahora lo aplica en Los Ángeles

Por Jaime Vega Curry / Especial El Nuevo Día
LOS ÁNGELES - Si algún día William Bratton decidiera saltar al vacío desde la ventana de su oficina en un séptimo piso, apueste a que se mataría. Bratton no vuela. Tampoco tiene visión de rayos X, ni dispara proyectiles láser a través de la punta de sus dedos.

Sin embargo, en el mundo real es, probablemente, lo más cercano a un superhéroe que día a día lucha contra el crimen.

¿Su principal arma? Un programa de computadora y una filosofía basada en atender cualquier ventana rota.

Parece sencillo, demasiado sencillo quizás, pero no lo es.

De hablar claro y pausado, y típica postura policiaca -erguida, pero ligeramente encorvada a los 61 años- Bratton sabe lo que tiene entre manos.

Desde el 1994 al 1996 dirigió el Departamento de la Policía de Nueva York; ciudad donde se le acredita capitanear una marcada reducción en el crimen que devolvió al ciudadano común áreas que hoy son el deleite de los transeúntes. Desde el 2002 ocupa la misma posición en Los Ángeles, California, y las cifras oficiales arrojan que los asesinatos se han reducido a la mitad durante su incumbencia.

Esos logros pueden aquilatarse al observar los números. La población de Los Ángeles es de 4.1 millones de personas; casi igual que en Puerto Rico (3.9 millones). La ciudad tiene unos 14,000 policías en una extensión territorial de apenas 468 millas cuadradas; Puerto Rico tiene 3,435 millas cuadradas y unos 18,000 policías -sin contar los municipales. Y aunque Los Ángeles tiene reputación de ciudad violenta, bajo Bratton promedia unos 400 asesinatos anuales -la mitad de los que se registran en la Isla cada año de la pasada década.

Las estadísticas disponibles más recientes indican que, al 14 de marzo, Los Ángeles sumaba 62 muertes violentas. En la Isla, casi llegan a 180 esta semana.

Los vínculos de Bratton con la Isla son escasos. Recuerda haberla visitado “dos o tres veces” y haber recibido un acercamiento de consultoría. Reconoce que la lucha contra el crimen en Puerto Rico tiene sus particularidades, de las cuales admite que conoce muy poco. Entrevistado en su oficina, en el centro de esta ciudad, Bratton prestó atención el cuadro general que se le presentó al respecto, pero optó por enfocar el asunto desde una perspectiva general.

¿Y cuál es la varita mágica de este destacado policía? Mucha prevención, cooperación de todas las partes -incluyendo la comunidad- y el sistema computarizado ComStat, que recoge la data provista por los informes policiacos y la convierte en una herramienta para detectar patrones criminales.

A simple vista, nada innovador. Pero los hechos dicen que funciona.


Las ventanas rotas

En persona, la imagen de Bratton es diametralmente opuesta, digamos, a la de un ex superintendente policiaco como Pedro Rivera Toledo.

Durante la entrevista gesticula poco. Mira mucho a su alrededor, cual en busca de respuestas que, según evidencia, ya están en su mente.

De repente, se voltea. Baja la cabeza, alza la vista, clava la mirada en su interlocutor y se lleva la mano a la cintura. Allí no palpa un arma de reglamento: es el BlackBerry, que constantemente le avisa de algún delito de importancia.

La tecnología ha sido punta de lanza en su carrera, como lo evidencia el elogiado sistema anticrimen ComStat, que vigila desde una computadora colocada sobre un escritorio en forma de 'L', a un costado de su oficina. La computadora parece ocupar el único espacio semidespejado del escritorio. A su alrededor apenas cabría un lapicero.

El cuerpo policiaco de LA es el llamado a responder cada vez que Paris Hilton decide conducir un auto en condiciones de ebriedad, o Britney Spears forma un tumulto por mostrarle sus partes íntimas a los paparazzis, o cuando OJ Simpson opta por irse a la fuga en su SUV y arrastra consigo a medios de prensa y fuerzas de seguridad por igual. Pero también es la agencia de seguridad que tiene que enfrentar el asedio de 400 pandillas, de los 41,000 miembros de esas organizaciones urbanas ilícitas... y estar pendiente a las ventanas rotas.

“Si usted le presta atención a los pequeños detalles, puede evitar que se conviertan en problemas mayores”, dijo Bratton, en un corto resumen a su teoría de las ventanas.

“Parte de la teoría de las ventanas rotas es el convencimiento de que si usted desarrolla valores en un niño, a la larga tendrá un mejor adulto. De igual modo, si no le presta atención, puede anticipar lo contrario”, abundó. Antes, “la policía se enfocaba en responder al crimen, hacer arrestos: lo que hacíamos era reaccionar”, sostuvo.

“Pero, si usted no se preocupa por esos dos individuos que están dándose un trago sentados en la esquina de la calle, o de esa barra de prostitutas abierta hasta tarde en la noche, tendrá un vecindario con imagen de inseguridad”, agregó.


Integración y tecnología

La citada prevención es una de las tres columnas en las que se apoya la filosofía de policía comunitaria de Bratton. La segunda, cooperación, se traduce en la unión de esfuerzos, que incluye integración de todas las fuerzas de seguridad -similar a la propuesta de fusionar la Policía estatal y municipal en Puerto Rico-, agentes federales, de salud pública y líderes comunitarios.

La tercera, incluso, le ha llevado a crear el verbo “comstating”, que equivale a estudiar todo el cuadro criminal a través del lente del sistema ComStat.

“ComStat es computarizar la policía. La idea es tomar las estadísticas que recogemos a diario, analizarlas y responder rápidamente, antes de que se multipliquen y se conviertan en un patrón. Y luego, darle seguimiento para evitar que reaparezca”, explicó.

“Si lo vemos en términos médicos, es como un doctor que ve a un paciente. No existen dos ciudades idénticas, del mismo modo que no hay dos pacientes idénticos. El médico quiere ver cuáles son los síntomas, y responder de inmediato a los más peligrosos. El médico usa diferentes recetas, y es lo que tratamos de hacer en la policía: determinar qué medicina es apropiada para cada comunidad. Y para eso nos valemos de las estadísticas, para prevenir y luego evitar que se repita”.

Bratton también ha laborado, como consultor, en Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Perú, México y Brasil, lo que suma una amplia experiencia relacionada a comunidades latinas. Y sabe que son nacionalidades que comparten muchas cosas, pero que, según sus palabras, “no pueden ser tratadas como una comunidad monolítica” -en otras palabras, diferentes medicinas para diferentes pacientes.

En efecto, seguir enfrentando conductas fuera de la ley -bien provengan de minorías o no- parece ser el destino inmediato de Bratton. El también ex-jefe de la policía de Boston está en su segundo término en Los Ángeles, y aunque disfruta de la consultoría, subraya que no prevé cambios a corto plazo. “Hay mucho trabajo por aquí”, dijo, mientras camina y mira sobre su hombro, y se despidió.

http://www.elnuevodia.com/la_estrategia_de_un_superheroe/550429.html#comentarios

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East Coast casts watchful eye as Hurricane Earl nears
By Oren Dorell (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/reporter/Oren+Dorell) and Marisol Bello (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/reporter/Marisol+Bello), USA TODAY
POPLAR BRANCH, N.C. — Labor Day weekend plans are iffy for parts of the East Coast as Hurricane Earl roars north, its powerful 135-mph winds and 50-foot waves already driving tourists from North Carolina beaches.
The National Weather Service (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Government+Bodies/National+Weather+Service) on Wednesday issued storm warnings up the Atlantic seaboard to Massachusetts (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/States,+Territories,+Provinces,+Islands/U.S.+States/Massachusetts).
The Category 4 hurricane is expected to approach the Carolina coast by late today. The National Hurricane Center warned that it could strike Long Island (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/Regions/Long+Island), N.Y., and deliver heavy storms to New England by Friday.
As for the weekend, "You need to build some flexibility in your plan," said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Government+Bodies/Federal+Emergency+Management+Agency). "You may have to postpone or delay your trip."
The hurricane center cautioned that it was still too early to tell how close the storm might come to land.
North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Beverly+Perdue), Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Maryland (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/States,+Territories,+Provinces,+Islands/U.S.+States/Maryland) Gov. Martin O'Malley (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/People/Politicians,+Government+Officials,+Strategists/Governors,+Mayors/Martin+O%27Malley) declared states of emergency. Officials told tourists in coastal North Carolina to leave.
Matt Johnson, his wife, Rebecca, and their two sons were heading home to Dayton, Ohio, cutting short their week's stay in Avon on the skinny string of land that is the Outer Banks (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Outer+Banks).
"You're on a half-mile sandbar," Matt Johnson said. "I'd rather just get off of it."
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/hurricanes/2010-09-01-hurricane-earl_N.htm

Obama: US combat in Iraq over, ‘time to turn page’

September 1, 2010

http://www.prdailysun.com/images/thmb/e8f3ba0649008aa61765da5264564ed4copy (http://www.prdailysun.com/images/e8f3ba0649008aa61765da5264564ed4copy)
WASHINGTON

Claiming no victory, President Barack Obama formally ended the U.S. combat role in Iraq after seven long years of bloodshed, declaring firmly Tuesday night: “It is time to turn the page.” Now, he said, the nation’s most urgent priority must be fixing its own sickly economy.
From the Oval Office, where George W. Bush first announced the invasion that would come to define his presidency, Obama addressed millions who were divided over the war in his country and around the world. Fiercely opposed to the war from the start, he said the United States “has paid a huge price” to give Iraqis the chance to shape their future — a price that now includes more than 4,400 dead, tens of thousands of troops wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars spent since March 2003.
In a telling sign of the domestic troubles weighing on the United States and his own presidency, Obama turned much of the emphasis in a major war address to the dire state of U.S. joblessness.
In his remarks of slightly less than 20 minutes, only his second address from the Oval Office, Obama looked directly into the TV camera, hands clasped in front of him on his desk, family photos and the U.S. and presidential flags behind him.
Even as he turns control of the war over to the Iraqis — and tries to cap one of the most divisive chapters in recent American history — Obama is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan. He said that winding down Iraq would allow the United States “to apply the resources necessary to go on offense” in Afghanistan, now the nation’s longest war since Vietnam.
In Iraq, for all the finality of Obama’s remarks, the war is not over. More Americans are likely to die. The country is plagued by violence and political instability, and Iraqis struggle with constant shortages of electricity and water.
Obama is keeping up to 50,000 troops in Iraq for support and counterterrorism training, and the last forces are not due to leave until the end of 2011 at the latest.
As the commander in chief over a war he opposed, Obama took pains to thank troops for their sacrifice but made clear he saw the day as more the marking of a mistake ended than a mission accomplished.
He spoke of strained relations with allies, anger at home and the heaviest of wartime tolls.
“We have met our responsibility,” Obama said. “Now it is time to turn the page.”
To underscore his point, Obama said he had telephoned called Bush, whom he had taunted so often in the 2008 campaign, and he prominently praised the former Republican president in the heart of his speech.
“It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset,” Obama said.
“Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.”
In a post-Sept. 11, 2001, world, the Iraq war began with bipartisan congressional backing — based on what turned out to be flawed intelligence — over what Bush called a “grave danger” to the world posed by Saddam Hussein.
Now, Iraq is in political turmoil, its leaders unable to form a new government long after March elections that left no clear winner.
The uncertainty has left an opening for insurgents to pound Iraqi security forces, hardly the conditions the U.S. envisioned for this transition deadline, which Obama announced 18 months ago.
Obama pressed Iraq’s leaders anew, saying it was time to show urgency and be accountable.
Obama sought both to assure his own nation that the war was finally winding down and yet also promise Iraq and those watching across the Middle East that the U.S. was not simply walking away.
“Our combat mission is ending,” he said, “but our commitment to Iraq’s future is not.”
http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.article&id=1283309280

Discovery gunman shot dead; 3 hostages safe

The Associated Press

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Police shot and killed a man upset with the Discovery Channel network's programming who took two employees and a security officer hostage at the company's headquarters Wednesday, officials said. All three hostages escaped safely. Police spent several hours negotiating with the gunman, who was upset about the network's programming, after he burst into the suburban Washington building about 1 p.m. waving a handgun and with canisters strapped to his body.
Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said one explosive device detonated on the gunman's body when they shot him, and they were working to determine whether two boxes and two backpacks he also had with him were explosives. The 1,900 people who work in the building were able to get out safely.
Manger said officers were monitoring Lee on building security cameras and tactical officers moved in when they saw him pull out the handgun and point it at one of the hostages.
A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing said authorities had identified James J. Lee as the likely suspect.
A different official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said Lee previously protested outside the building, where he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in February 2008, according to court records.
Police reports indicate he paid homeless people to join his protest and carry signs outside the building. He gave one individual $1,000 for what he considered a prize winning essay.
At one point, a crowd of more than 100 people gathered around Lee, 43, who referred to money as "just trash" and began throwing fistfuls of it into the air.
At the trial, The Gazette of Montgomery County reported, he said he began working to save the planet after being laid off from his job in San Diego. He said he was inspired by "Ishmael," a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn and by former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
A lengthy posting which could be seen Wednesday on a website registered to Lee expressed anger against the Discovery Channel and said it promoted overpopulation.
He said it and its affiliates should stop "encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants." Instead, he said, the network should air "programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility."
"NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis," he wrote.
He also railed against "programs promoting War" and said solutions should be found for global warming and automotive and factory pollution.
"I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so," he wrote. "I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it."
Discovery Communications Inc. operates cable and satellite networks in the U.S., including The Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet. Discovery shows include "Cash Cab" and "Man vs. Wild," and TLC airs "American Chopper" and "Kate Plus Eight."
Animal Planet also airs the controversial series "Whale Wars," about attempts by environmentalists to disrupt the Japanese whaling industry.
After Lee's arrest, a magistrate ordered a doctor's evaluation, but court records do not immediately indicate the result. Lee was convicted by a jury and served two weeks in jail. He was also ordered to stay 500 feet away from Discovery headquarters.
Adam Dolan, a sales director in Discovery's education division, told The Associated Press by phone that he was heading to lunch with a co-worker when he heard there was a situation in the building.
He was told to go back up to the top floor, lock the door and turn off the lights. Eventually the workers were herded down a stairwell and told to go home.
"Everyone was very scared, but at the same time ... I think people were calm and collected and responded as one would expect in this situation," said Dolan, 28.
When he got to the bottom floor, he saw shattered glass near the company's daycare and suspected it was broken to get the children out. He later got an e-mail that all the children were safe and had been taken to a McDonald's.
Dolan said the company has unarmed security guards who won't let anyone into the building without a badge.
Melissa Shepard, 32, of Peterborough, N.H., a consultant who works there during the week, said she was on the third floor in a large room with several other workers when someone announced over a loudspeaker that there was a situation in the lobby and people should stay at their desks.
After some time, they were told to move to the other end of the building. She said she was among a dozen workers who huddled into an office, shut the door and turned off the lights.
Then she said someone knocked on the door and told them to leave the building. She said there was some confusion as they were told to go to an upper floor or down the stairs.
"Finally, I screamed, 'tell us where we need to go...I just want to get out of there,'" she said. "I was shaking...I was like what do we do what do we do?'"
Authorities descended on the area, and people were being kept away from the main drag of the downtown area where the building is located amid restaurants and shops. Traffic was jammed.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=47740&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

01 Septiembre 2010
10:39 a.m.

Gates supervisa salida de las tropas en Irak

El Secretario de la Defensa de EE.UU. tramita el cierre de la misión desde Ramadi

Por ANNE GEARAN / AP
RAMADI -El secretario estadounidense de Defensa, Robert Gates, agradeció el miércoles a las tropas de Estados Unidos en Irak mientras cerraban formalmente su misión de combate.
El jefe del Pentágono se reunió con soldados en el campamento Ramadi, asiento de una de las nuevas brigadas asesoras del ejército estadounidense, apenas unas horas después de que el presidente Barack Obama dijera que era hora de "dar vuelta a la página" en cuanto a Irak.
Ramadi está en el corazón de la provincia de Anbar, cuna de la insurgencia suní contra la ocupación inicial de Estados Unidos.
Gates dijo que Anbar tiene un "significado especial e inolvidable" para el ejército estadounidense. Varios soldados fueron heridos o vieron morir a sus camaradas en esta provincia durante los peores años de la guerra.
La diferencia entre esos momentos y la actualidad quedó ilustrada por las preguntas que los soldados le hicieron al secretario. Algunas de sus principales preocupaciones son los servicios de salud, el retiro y el salario ahora que la misión de combate terminó oficialmente.
Un soldado preguntó si Estados Unidos mantendría una presencia militar después del 2012, cuando todas las tropas estadounidenses deben salir según un acuerdo con las autoridades iraquíes.
"Cualquier propuesta de ese tipo tendría que ser a iniciativa del nuevo gobierno iraquí", respondió Gates.
Menos de 50,000 efectivos estadounidenses permanecen en Irak, en comparación con los más de 165,000 que había en el apogeo de la guerra. El principal papel de las tropas presentes es ayudar a entrenar y equipar a las fuerzas iraquíes a lo largo del año siguiente.
Gates partió hacia Irak desde Milwaukee, donde le dijo ayer a una audiencia de la Legión Americana que no todos los problemas de Irak se habían resuelto. Aun así, Gates expresó "orgullo por lo que nuestras tropas y sus aliados iraquíes han logrado".
http://www.elnuevodia.com/gatessupervisasalidadelastropasenirak-771374.html

La policía mató al secuestrador que mantuvo rehenes en Discovery Channel

Fecha: 01/09/2010



http://s.univision.com/noticias/estados-unidos/noticias/photo/2010-09-01/rehen1jpg_214x320.jpg James Lee, de 43 años, fue muerto a balazos por la policía.
- The Associated Press


The Associated Press

Secuestrador en custodia


WASHINGTON, DC - Un hombre que según la policía tenía alguna "queja" contra el Discovery Channel fue muerto a tiros por agentes en la sede central del canal en un suburbio de Washington. Todos los rehenes están a salvo.

Los agentes pasaron unas tres horas negociando con el agresor después de que entró al edificio alrededor de la 1 de la tarde pistola en mano.
Minutos de tensión se vivieron luego de confirmarse que había "un número indeterminado" de posibles rehenes en la sede del canal de televisión, tomado por un hombre armado en Maryland, cerca a la capital del país, que fue identificado como James Lee y quien, según la policía, tenía alguna "queja" contra canal.

Las autoridades informaron que el hombre tenía un arma y un mecanismo metálico en su cuerpo que podría ser una bomba, y que pronunció varias amenazas.

Según la cadena CNN, Lee tenía un historial de protestas ante el Canal, tal y como se evidencia en una fotografía con una pancarta, y en 2008 fue arrestado por desorden público y por tirar basura contra el edificio de la cadena.

El diario Huffington Post también informó que Lee solía participar en la página web "SaveThePlanetProtest.com", un sitio en Internet con once denuncias al canal por cuestiones de programación.
El capitán de policía Paul Starks, del condado de Montgomery, no aclaró si el individuo trabajaba para Discovery Communications ni si trabajó allí en el pasado. Tampoco dijo si había algún herido.
La Policía dio orden de evacuar el edificio, en el que suelen trabajar 900 personas, incluida una guardería con niños que han sido trasladados a un restaurante próximo al área.

Sin embargo, la Policía no confirmó el número de personas en el interior, ni precisó en qué pisos del edificio.
De origen asiático

El sospecho era un hombre de origen "asiático" y que podría tener algún asunto pendiente con el canal de comunicaciones, según dijo un portavoz oficial.

La Policía acudió al lugar de los hechos y localizó "visualmente" al sospechoso desde fuera del edificio, mientras los equipos especiales y de explosivos se posicionaron alrededor, según las imágenes mostradas por CNN.

Los únicos datos revelados inicialmente fueron que el hombre llevaba un camiseta gris y un revólver de color plata, según testimonios de la zona citados por la cadena.

La cadena local WJLA informó también que las autoridades confirmaron que hubo al menos un disparo en el interior de este edificio.

La edificación se encuentra en la localidad de Silver Spring, en el estado de Maryland pero dentro del área metropolitana de Washington, la capital de EU.

Varias calles de la zona, que es un área urbana en la que la mayoría de los edificios son oficinas, fueron sido cerradas al tráfico.
Expertos antiexplosivos

El capitán Oscar García, vocero del departamento de bomberos del condado, dijo que tres técnicos en explosivos fueron despachados al lugar.

El informe inicial indicó que había un paquete sospechoso posiblemente con explosivos, dijo García, quien tampoco dijo si había heridos. Agregó que algunos empleados habían salido del edificio.

El cabo Dan Friz, de la policía de Montgomery, dijo a WJLA-TV que un equipo táctico trataba de tomar contacto con el individuo, que era observado por televisión en circuito cerrado.

Una persona dentro del edificio también dijo a la Associated Press que el hombre tenía un artefacto sujeto al pecho y que había tomado rehenes. La fuente pidió no ser identificada, señalando que la gente en el edificio tenía instrucciones de no hablar con la prensa.

El vocero del gobierno del condado, Patrick Lacefield, dijo que el individuo estaba armado y decía tener un artefacto explosivo.

No estaba en claro cuántos rehenes había, agregó. Dijo que la policía evacuó el vehículo, ordenó a la gente en los edificios cercanos a permanecer en su interior y bloqueó las calles circundantes.

Funcionarios del FBI dijeron que respondían al incidente.

Discovery Communications LLC opera redes por cable y satelitales, incluidos el Discovery Channel y Animal Planet.
http://noticias.univision.com/estados-unidos/noticias/article/2010-09-01/toma-de-rehen-en-discovery-channel

Saltó del piso 40 y vivió para contarlo

Fecha: 01/09/2010

http://s.univision.com/noticias/estados-unidos/noticias/photo/2010-09-01/salto-del-piso-40-y_323x216.jpg Un hombre de 22 años saltó al vacío desde el piso 40 en un edificio en New York. Y vivió para contarlo.
- AFP


The Associated Press

Cayó sobre un automóvil


NEW YORK - Un neoyorquino que cayó a la calle desde el tejado de un edificio de 40 pisos sobrevivió tras aterrizar sobre un automóvil.

Según varios testigos y la policía, Thomas Magill, de 22 años, saltó el martes desde un edificio situado en la Calle 63 Oeste y fue a parar al asiento trasero de un automóvil tras destrozar el parabrisas.

Magill sufrió fracturas en ambas piernas y la policía dijo que se ncontraba en estado crítico.

El propietario del vehículo, Guy McCormack, dijo al diario Daily News que está convencido de que el rosario que mantenía colgado del espejo retrovisor de su coche salvó la vida de Magill.

La policía investiga por qué saltó Magill del edificio.

Magill no es el único neoyorquino que ha sobrevivido una caída de ese tipo.
El limpiavidrios Alcides Moreno se cayó desde el tejado de un rascacielos de 47 pisos en diciembre del 2007 y los médicos creen que volverá a caminar.
http://noticias.univision.com/estados-unidos/noticias/article/2010-09-01/salto-del-piso-40-y

Refuerzan seguridad en la frontera con aviones no tripulados

http://www.policemag.com/_Images/blogs/CBP-Texasdrones-web-2.jpg

http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/72301141.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF878921F7C3FC3F69D929FD2941F9E6B61A85CF16ABC75B356C3FEDBC53C05F113C3279F06BF04B24B4128C

El uso de estos aviones, a cargo de la Oficina de Aduanas y Patrulla de Fronteras (CPB) proveerán "una asistencia clave para la vigilancia aérea" en toda la zona fronteriza, afirmó Napolitano. La ampliación del uso de los aviones no tripulados (UAV, en inglés) demuestra el compromiso de la Administración del presidente Barack Obama "de desplegar las más recientes y eficaces tecnologías para la seguridad" en la frontera y combatir el tráfico de armas, dinero, drogas y personas.
http://noticias.univision.com/estados-unidos/noticias/slideshow/2010-08-30/refuerzan-seguridad-en-la-frontera

Que falta hacen en Puerto Rico.:ohno:

U.S. drones to watch entire Mexico border from September 1
http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20100830&t=2&i=193136357&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=2010-08-30T204348Z_01_BTRE67T1LL200_RTROPTP_0_081206-F-0681L-034
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection's first MQ-9 Predator B unmanned aerial vehicle to be stationed along the northern border of the United States lands at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., Dec. 6, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Department of Defense/Senior Master Sgt. David H. Lipp/Handout

PHOENIX | Mon Aug 30, 2010 4:43pm EDT

PHOENIX (Reuters) - The U.S. government will have unmanned surveillance aircraft monitoring the whole southwest border with Mexico (http://www.reuters.com/places/mexico) from September 1, as it ramps up border security in this election year, a top official said on Monday.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said U.S. Customs and Border Protection would begin flying a Predator B drone out of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Wednesday, extending the reach of the agency's unmanned surveillance aircraft across the length of the nearly 2,000 mile border with Mexico.
"With the deployment of the Predator in Texas, we will now be able to cover the southwest border from the El Centro sector in California all the way to the Gulf of Mexico (http://www.reuters.com/subjects/gulf-oil-spill) in Texas, providing critical aerial surveillance assistance to personnel on the ground," Napolitano said during a conference call.
"This is yet another critical step we have taken in ensuring the safety of the border and is an important tool in our security toolbox," she added.
Illegal immigration and security along the porous border with Mexico has become a hot topic this year, when the ruling Democrats' control of Congress is on the line in November 2 elections.
Earlier this month, President Barack Obama signed a $600 million bill that would fund some 1,500 new Border Patrol agents, customs inspectors and other law enforcement officials along the border, as well as paying for two more unmanned drones.
Napolitano said the additional aircraft pledged under the bill, together with the new aircraft soon to begin operations in Texas, would increase the Customs and Border Protection drone fleet to six by the start of next year.
The Predator B drones are made by defense contractor General Atomics. They carry equipment including sophisticated day and night vision cameras that operators use to detect drug and human smugglers, and can stay aloft for up to 30 hours at a time.
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=tim.gaynor&); editing by Mohammad Zargham (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=mohammad.zargham&))
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67T5DK20100830

Oil Rig Explodes in Gulf of Mexico, Coast Guard Says

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 2, 2010

Filed at 11:37 a.m. ET

Related



Times Topic: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (2010) (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/o/oil_spills/gulf_of_mexico_2010/index.html)



GRAND ISLE, La. (AP) -- An offshore oil (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/o/oil_spills/gulf_of_mexico_2010/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel says the blast was reported by a commercial helicopter company about 9:30 a.m. CDT Thursday. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats are en route to the site, about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.
Ranel says it hasn't been determined whether the structure is a production platform or a drilling rig or whether workers were aboard. Ranel says smoke was reported but it is unclear whether the rig is still burning.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/09/02/us/AP-US-Gulf-Rig-Explosion.html?ref=us


AGAIN? Hmmmmm.

Atacante odiaba programación del canal (http://www.vocero.com/noticias/estados-unidos/12147-atacante-odiaba-programacion-del-canal.html)


Por AP Jueves 02 de Septiembre de 2010 11:44
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http://www.vocero.com/images/stories/EstadosUnidos/atacante.jpgPistolero fue identificado como James J. Lee.

SILVER SPRING, Maryland, EE.UU. — Un hombre armado que fue muerto a disparos después de tomar varios rehenes en la sede de Discovery Channel había expresado previamente que odiaba varios programas de la empresa, como los relacionados con el medio ambiente, ya que hacían muy poco para salvar al planeta.

El atacante también había opinado que el programa "Kate Plus 8" —un programa de "reality" con una familia de ocho hijos— promovía el crecimiento de la población.

Los tres rehenes que tomó luego de su asalto —dos empleados de Discovery Communications y un guardia de seguridad— resultaron ilesos después de la crisis de cuatro horas el miércoles en Silver Spring, en las afueras de Washington DC.

Después de varias horas de negociación con el atacante, oficiales especializados intervinieron cuando las autoridades que lo vigilaban con cámaras de seguridad lo vieron sacar una pistola y apuntar a uno de los rehenes, dijo el jefe policial del condado de Montgomery, Thomas Manger.

El capitán Paul Starks, portavoz de la Policía del condado, identificó el jueves al pistolero como James J. Lee.

Manger dijo que un oficial le disparó y mató a Lee después que los rehenes comenzaron a moverse y que la Policía escuchó un ruido como "pop", y que creyó que se trataba de un arma de fuego o de un artefacto explosivo mientras estallaba.

Según Manger, Lee dijo repetidamente que estaba "dispuesto a morir".

No era la primera vez que Lee, un ex residente de California que vivía desamparado, había atacado la sede de Discovery.

En febrero de 2008, fue acusado de alteración del orden público por organizar una protesta llamada "Salvemos al planeta". Tanto en las cortes como en internet, Lee había pedido el fin de varios programas de Discovery Communications LLC, como "TLC Kate Plus 8" y "19 Kids and Counting" (19 hijos y vienen más".

Durante el juicio al individuo, el diario The Gazette of Montgomery County dijo que Lee indicó que para su acción se había inspirado en "Ishmael", una novela del ambientalista Daniel Quinn, y en el documental "An Inconvenient Truth" del ex vicepresidente Al Gore.

Lee insistía en que el canal debía transmitir "programas que fomentaran la esterilización y la infertilidad humana".

"Los seres humanos son las criaturas más destructivas, sucias y contaminantes. Están destruyendo lo que queda del planeta con su falsa moral y sus costumbres reproductivas", escribió Lee en un amargo manifiesto colocado en su cibersitio.

Lee, de 43 años, también se opuso a la programación medioambiental de Discovery. Escribió en 2008 que un programa, que según él se llamaba "Planet Green" (Planeta Verde), sólo buscaba crear más productos para ganar dinero, no para dar soluciones reales a favor del ambiente.

Discovery Communications LLC opera redes por cable y satelitales, incluidos el Discovery Channel y Animal Planet.

Waning Earl still causing havoc for holiday travel

September 4, 2010
by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)
NEWARK, N.J.
Hurricane Earl played havoc with travelers' Labor Day weekend plans even as it weakened Friday on its path up the East Coast toward New England.
Train service was suspended in the Northeast, flights were delayed or canceled up and down the Eastern seaboard and coastal roads washed out. Even Interstate 95, the most heavily traveled highway in the East and a gateway to the beaches of Cape Cod and Maine, was expected to flood in Rhode Island.
Amtrak suspended service between New York and Boston until Saturday morning after a tree fell across electrical lines in New London, Conn., at about 12:30 p.m. The rail carrier already had planned to stop service by 4:30 p.m. due to the storm.
Continental Airlines had canceled about 60 flights by Friday afternoon, and some regional carriers had done the same, though other major carriers reported few or no cancellations.
Southwest Airlines said it canceled flights Friday at three East Coast airports — Islip, N.Y., Providence, R.I., and Boston's Logan Airport — as the hurricane approached. The airline expected to resume service at all three by Saturday morning.
Southwest expected to resume flights Friday afternoon in Norfolk, Va., where flights were canceled starting Thursday night.
Arriving flights at New York's LaGuardia airports were delayed about half an hour Friday because of weather, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
On Massachusetts' Cape Cod, ferries to and from Nantucket were suspended at noon, leaving some vacationers stranded on the mainland. On the island, a steady line of pickup trucks towed boats to safe storage until the storm passed, assistant town manager Gregg Tivnan said.
Not all travelers had resigned themselves to hunkering down and waiting out the storm.
Ellen McDonough of Boston and a friend were waiting in Hyannis on Friday morning for one of the last ferries to Nantucket. The two had long planned a Labor Day weekend getaway to the island.
"It's not a 3-foot snowstorm. I think us New Englanders are tough," McDonough said. "We've had this weekend planned, and no hurricane is going to stop us."
The National Weather Service was forecasting winds up to 65 mph on Nantucket, with gusts up to 85 mph. Earl packed winds that had reached 145 mph before losing strength.
http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Waning-Earl-still-causing-havoc-for-holiday-travel

US Marines take back pirate-held ship off Somalia

The Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. Marine commandos stormed a pirate-held cargo ship off the Somalia coast Thursday, reclaiming control and taking nine prisoners without firing a shot in the first such boarding raid by the international anti-piracy flotilla, U.S. Navy officials said. The mission — using small craft to reach the deck of German-owned vessel as the crew huddled in a safe room below — ranks among the most dramatic high seas confrontations with pirates by the task force created to protect shipping lanes off lawless Somalia.
The crew managed to kill the engines before taking refuge in an panic room-style chamber, leaving the ship adrift and the pirates so frustrated they started damaging equipment after hijacking the vessel Wednesday, Navy officials and the ship's operator say.
Lt. John Fage, a spokesman at the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, described the pre-dawn raid as an "air and sea" assault that included Cobra attack helicopters for surveillance and coordination.
It was the first boarding raid since the multinational task force was formed in January 2009 to patrol off the Horn of Africa, said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Amy Derrick-Frost in Bahrain.
Fage said there were no injuries reported among the Marines or 11-member crew of the Magellan Star. The pirates were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, but "there were no shots fired" on either side, Fage said.
A Turkish frigate on anti-piracy patrols, TCG Gokceada, first responded to a distress call from the ship, which flies the flag of Antigua and Barbuda. Fage said the crew — which include Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Filipino seamen — was able to maintain contact with maritime officials from their safe room using a satellite phone.
The crew also shut down the engines as the pirates approached, leaving the ship to drift at sea, said Juergen Salamon, the ship's operator based in Dortmund, Germany.
"The pirates had entered a ship that they couldn't steer and there was no crew," he said.
The pirates then hit an emergency button that connected them directly with the ship operators in Germany.
"They asked us where the crew is," he chuckled. "We told them, 'They're on leave.'"
There was no demands for ransom, he said.
The ship was traveling from Bilbao, Spain, to Singapore with a cargo of anchor chains, Salamon said. It is now en route to Dubai for repairs.
"The pirates were angry and vandalized the ship badly," he said.
Salamon said the ship operators were not in direct contact with the U.S. Navy, but were communicating with other maritime security watchdogs in the Horn of Africa.
Then just before dawn Thursday, the U.S. team from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Maritime Raid Force launched the assault from aboard the USS Dubuque, an amphibious transport ship.
The Dubuque was in the area en route to a joint training exercise with Jordan and received orders from the White House to assist the anti-piracy task force, Brig. Gen. David Berger, the head of Marine Corps operations at the Pentagon.
After a one-hour operation, nine suspected pirates were taken into custody.
"It's a great thing that everything ended without any bloodshed," Salamon said.
In a separate case, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said a cargo ship held for four months by Somali pirates has been freed. He did not say whether ransom was paid for the release of the Bulgarian-flagged chemical tanker Panega, which was hijacked off the Yemeni port of Aden.
Borisov said the 15 Bulgarian crew members were safe.
U.S. warships are part of a 25-nation mission protecting merchant vessels from pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and into the Gulf of Aden. The task force often opens fire on suspected pirates, but had not previously launched a boarding raid.
In April 2009, a team of Navy Seal sharpshooters positioned on the fantail of a U.S. warship killed a trio of Somali pirates to free an American sea captain who had been taken hostage and was being held at gunpoint onboard a lifeboat.
Last month, Denmark said a helicopter from one of its warships fired warning shots and foiled a pirate attack off Somalia.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month options under consideration to prosecute suspected pirates include creating a special international court.
More than 140 piracy-related incidents have been reported off Somalia's coast since January and more than 30 ships have been hijacked, according to U.N. and anti-piracy task force reports.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=48047&ct_id=4&ct_name=1

Obama anuncia plan infraestructura


Por AP Martes 07 de Septiembre de 2010 11:26
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http://www.vocero.com/images/stories/EstadosUnidos/obamabreaking1_nf1_thumb.jpgAP

WASHINGTON– El presidente Barack Obama hizo un llamado para que se realicen inversiones a largo plazo en carreteras, líneas de trenes y aeropuertos que costarían al menos $50,000 millones, como parte de su compromiso para encontrar nuevas vías para estimular la economía, adelantaron funcionarios. Las inversiones en infraestructura son una parte de un paquete de propuestas que anunció Casa Blanca con la esperanza de mejorar la economía antes de las elecciones de noviembre. Aunque la propuesta de Obama llama a un inversión durante seis años, los funcionarios informaron que el proyecto se iniciaría con un desembolso de $50,000 millones para ayudar a crear nuevos puestos de trabajo en el futuro próximo. El plan de infraestructura tiene por objetivo reconstruir 241,390 kilómetros de carreteras; construir y mantener más de 6,400 kilómetros de vías férreas; y la rehabilitación o reconstrucción de cerca de 240 kilómetros de pistas de aeropuerto, al tiempo que se instalarían nuevos sistemas de navegación para reducir el tiempo de vuelo y los retrasos.
http://www.vocero.com/negocio-noticias/32/12497.html

What recession? Shoppers eat up Black Friday deals

November 27, 2010
Print by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)

For one day at least, you could almost imagine the recession never happened. Millions of the nation’s shoppers braved rain and cold to crowd stores while others grabbed online bargains on what could be the busiest Black Friday ever.
Early signs pointed to bigger crowds at many stores including Best Buy, Sears, Macy’s and Toys R Us, some of which had earlier openings than past years or even round-the-clock hours. Minnesota’s Mall of America and mall operators Taubman Centers Inc. and Macerich Co. also reported more customers than last year.
But the most encouraging sign for retailing and for the economy was what Americans were throwing in their carts. Shoppers still clutched lists and the buying frenzy was focused on the deals on TVs and toys, but many were treating themselves while they bought gifts for others, adding items like boots, sumptuous sweaters, jewelry and even dresses for special occasions.
Elayne Breton and her daughter Michelle got to Maryland’s Mall in Columbia around 7 a.m. A few hours later, Michelle had picked out several presents for herself, including a pair of UGG boots, perfume and an iPod Touch. At Nordstrom, she scored a long-sleeved purple shirt that her mother let her wear out of the store.
“Last year we were careful,” said Elayne, whose husband’s beer distribution business has started to pick up again. “This year we’ll do more.”
The strong Black Friday builds on retailers’ momentum after a solid start to November. Shoppers who can afford it are buying more nonessentials, like jewelry and luxury goods.
“Last year, consumers were extremely into the basics, the socks, the pillows,” said Keith Jelinek, director of the global retail practice at consulting firm AlixPartners. “This year, they’re hungry to dress up their wardrobes, their homes. Shoppers were buying items with a little more pizazz, trendier sweaters, sheets in higher thread counts.”
He cautioned that they’re not looking to replace everything — just looking for a few special items. “They’re still very value-conscious,” he added.
Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren said there were 7,000 people outside its Manhattan flagship store for its 4 a.m. opening, up from 5,000 people a year ago.
“The difference between this year and last year was that last year, people had a budget and a list. They’re doing the same thing this year but they’re also buying for themselves,” he said. Among some of the hot sellers were a luggage set for $49.99 and $39.99 cashmere sweaters.
He noted that two groups that helped fuel customer traffic were young shoppers, ages 15 to 25, and men, both of whom were buying for themselves.
Sharply reduced prices on flat-screen TVs helped fuel many stores’ sales, according to Marshal Cohen, market research analyst at NPD Group Inc. Stores were grappling with a glut of TVs heading into the season because they had overestimated consumer demand.
Research firm ShopperTrak is expected to release Black Friday data on Saturday, but a full picture of how retailers fared for the overall weekend won’t be known until Thursday when major retailers report their monthly sales results.
For the economy, the question remains: Will shoppers keep it up?
Nearly 15 million people remain unemployed, and concerns about job security cloud consumer confidence. Spending is picking up but has not returned to pre-recession levels. And shoppers haven’t let go of many cautious habits learned from the Great Recession.
Many purchased with cash, and layaway remained popular as shoppers try to budget. Sears reported that consumers were setting aside items like Nordic treadmills that were on sale for $399, a savings of $400, to be delivered after the holidays.
Credit cards were staying inside many wallets.
“Now that I’m debt-free. I want to keep it that way,” said Desiree Banks, who was at Best Buy in Macedonia, Ohio, with a stack of DVDS for $3.99 each.
Shoppers did their homework, researching deals on websites. Stores made planning easier by touting their bargains last week.
“Every year, we get more refined,” said Deb Brown, 42, who was at the Bellevue Square Mall in Bellevue, Wash. She came from White Rock, British Columbia.
Many teens bucked the bargain-hunting trend, shopping full force — and paying full price — at high-end stores like Hollister and American Eagle Outfitters, according to mall officials. That suggests that parents, feeling more financially secure, are giving their children extra spending money, said Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research at Thomson Research.
A big worry is that some of the solid buying earlier in November could steal thunder from the rest of the season and leave a deeper lull between Thanksgiving weekend and the few days before Christmas.
Clearly, stores worked hard to draw shoppers in for Black Friday and earlier, with more deals and expanded hours that allowed people to get shopping soon after their Thanksgiving dinner.
A number of stores including Old Navy, Toys R Us and Sears opened on Thanksgiving Day. Toys R Us was counting on getting an extra boost by opening 24 hours straight, starting at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Many stores had trotted out the “Black Friday” label on sales as far back as October.
Best Buy Co. started its holiday TV ads 11 days earlier this year than last year. CEO Brian Dunn said customer counts were showing high-single-digit percentage increases Friday morning compared to last year. He said shoppers were throwing in items like Blu-ray players to go with early morning bargains that started at 5 a.m.
“Traffic was fast and furious. ... We started earlier and we have more TV (commercials). I think both of these things helped,” Dunn said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Wal-Mart, which had most stores open around the clock, reported the top five selling electronic items included an Emerson 32-inch LCD HDTV for $198. Hot toys included $10 Barbies and $4 Zhu Zhu pets, which were last year’s hot hit.
Thanksgiving weekend is huge for retailers. In recent years, Black Friday — called that because the surge of shoppers could take retailers into profitability, or “the black,” for the year — has been the busiest shopping day of the year, according to data from ShopperTrak.
Black Friday is generally not as big for online retailers as Monday after Thanksgiving — known as Cyber Monday — but many were already off to a good start. By mid-afternoon Friday, eBags sales soared 69.5 percent compared with a year ago.
The retail blitz doesn’t make or break the holiday season. In fact, shoppers seem to be procrastinating more every year, giving retailers some nail-biting moments waiting for sales the last few days before Christmas.
Last year, the Thanksgiving shopping weekend accounted for 12.3 percent of overall holiday revenue, according to ShopperTrak. Black Friday made up about half of that.
http://www.prdailysun.com/news/What-recession-Shoppers-eat-up-Black-Friday-deals

Obama suffers basketball injury; Gets 12 stitches

November 27, 2010
Print by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)
http://www.prdailysun.com/images/thmb/b2effcde8cbcd82de4119e2237ddeed9.jpg (http://www.prdailysun.com/images/b2effcde8cbcd82de4119e2237ddeed9.jpg)
WASHINGTON

The White House says President Barack Obama has received 12 stitches in his lip after being hit during a pick up basketball game.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says the president was inadvertently struck by someone’s elbow Friday.
The president received the stitches in the doctor’s office on the ground floor of the White House. Obama had traveled to Fort McNair with a group of family and friends for an early morning game of basketball.
Obama is a sports fan, roots for his hometown Chicago teams and has often gone golfing in addition to playing basketball.
http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Obama-suffers-basketball-injury-Gets-12-stitches

Wal-Mart to make, sell healthier foods

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart, the nation's largest grocer, says it will reformulate thousands of products to make them healthier and push its suppliers to do the same, joining first lady Michelle Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. The first lady accompanied Wal-Mart executives Thursday as they announced the effort in Washington. The company plans to reduce sodium and added sugars in some items, build stores in poor areas that don't already have grocery stores, reduce prices on produce and develop a logo for healthier items.
"No family should have to choose between food that is healthier for them and food they can afford," said Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart's U.S. division.
As the largest grocer in the United States, Wal-Mart's size gives it unique power to shape what people eat. The grocery business is nearly twice the size of No. 2 competitor Kroger. The company also has massive influence on products made by other manufacturers and sold at the store.
Mrs. Obama said the announcement has "the potential to transform the marketplace and help Americans put healthier foods on their tables every single day."
"We are really gaining some momentum on this issue, we're beginning to see things move," she said.
The nation's largest retailer plans to reduce sodium by a quarter and cut added sugars in some of its private label products by 2015. It also plans to remove remaining industrially produced trans fats. The foods Wal-Mart will concentrate on our products like lunch meats, fruit juices and salad dressings, items that contain high levels of sugar or sodium that consumers don't know they're ingesting..
A number of food makers have made similar moves, lowering sodium in their products based on shopper demand and increasing scrutiny by health groups. Bumble Bee Foods, General Mills Inc., Campbell Soup Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. all announced sodium reductions to their products in this spring alone.
During the press conference Wednesday, Andrea Thomas, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of sustainability acknowledged those industry efforts but said,"Our goal is not to supplant these efforts, but to encourage their widespread adoption. We see our role as a convener and a catalyst. "
Food makers say they are trying to reduce sodium gradually, making it a more palatable change to its customers and giving the industry time to reformulate products. Most said they support efforts to curb sodium in American's diets but are waiting to see if the Food and Drug Administration decides to mandate a reduction.
Wal-Mart said it would reduce prices on fruits and vegetables by $1 billion a year by attempting to cut unnecessary costs from the supply chain. The company also said it would work to reduce price premiums on healthier items made with more expensive ingredients.
"Our customers often ask us why whole wheat pasta sometimes costs more than regular pasta made by the same manufacturer," said Thomas.
Mrs. Obama has a history of working with Wal-Mart. She once served on the board of Westchester, Ill.-based TreeHouse Foods Inc., a food supplier for the store, but resigned in 2007 while her husband was campaigning for the presidency. Barack Obama had criticized the store over wages and benefits it pays employees.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=53174&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Yet Another Storm Buries the Northeast

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/01/28/nyregion/28snow_span2/28snow_span2-articleLarge.jpg Earl Wilson/The New York Times
Shoveling out in Brooklyn Heights on Thursday morning. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/01/27/nyregion/20110127-SNOW.html)

By ANDY NEWMAN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/andy_newman/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and SABRINA TAVERNISE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/sabrina_tavernise/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: January 27, 2011

A two-stage winter storm struck, paused, gathered its breath and delivered a crippling blow to the Northeast early Thursday, dumping more than a foot of snow, closing airports and schools, stranding commuters and shattering January records.
Multimedia


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Another Snowstorm Buries the Northeast (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/01/27/nyregion/20110127-SNOW.html?ref=nyregion)





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In Washington, Mix of Rain and Snow Sowed Chaos for Commute (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/us/28washington.html?ref=nyregion) (January 28, 2011)


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Steve Berman/The New York Times

A limousine, unable to drive uphill going west on 57th Street in Manhattan, was pushed back onto Avenue of the Americas by passers-by early Thursday. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/01/27/nyregion/20110127-SNOW.html)


At least two deaths have been attributed to the storm. In Delaware, a Department of Transportation plow struck and killed a 51-year-old woman, Denise McFadden, as she was walking in Wilmington at 6:30 a.m., according to the Delaware State Police. And in northwest Washington, a tree crashed into a car at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, killing one of its four passengers, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
The storm, appearing as a giant white smudge over the Northeast on radar maps, knocked out power to half a million people in and around Washington, though it reserved its heaviest snowfall for New York City and the surrounding area. Nineteen inches (http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=OKX&product=PNS) of heavy, wet snow fell on Central Park, tied for the highest total in the region and only an inch less than the 20 inches that paralyzed the city a month ago, according to the National Weather Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_weather_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org). Parts of Connecticut and New Jersey received nearly as much, and snowfalls totaled at least a foot from Boston to Philadelphia.
Around Washington, where downed power lines left swaths of the region in darkness, the precipitation began as rain on Wednesday, then froze. Commutes on the roadways took as long as 12 hours as drivers slipped and got stuck.
“Conditions got very slick, very fast,” said John D. Lisle, the spokesman for the District of Columbia’s Transportation Department. “Plows had to battle traffic to get the salt down.”
After hours in traffic, people began abandoning cars, and some actually slept in them, according to reports. In Philadelphia, 150 buses were stuck through part of the night, with passengers spending the night on some of them, said Heather Redfern, a spokeswoman for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. As of Thursday morning, about 40 were still stuck.
New York City schools (http://schools.nyc.gov/default.htm) and offices were closed. Bus service was knocked out in most of the region (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/morning-commute-outlook-poor/) through the morning rush as hobbled train systems struggled to absorb the overload, though bus service was slowly restored as the morning wore on. At the airports, delays and cancellations were the order of the morning, though there, too, things were clearing up by noon.
The storm created a new round of snow fatigue in a region that has been unusually battered. Yet in New York City, where the slow municipal response to the Dec. 26 blizzard became a black eye for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_r_bloomberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and transit officials, things were not as dire as they could have been. Mr. Bloomberg said on the radio Thursday morning that all primary roads had been plowed and some secondary streets were beginning to be cleared.
By suspending bus service in the city, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_transportation_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org) avoided a rerun of the December storm, when hundreds of buses got stuck in the snow, blocking plows and other traffic. Passengers on one N train spent several hours on a train at the Coney Island station after service was suspended, a inconvenience but far less of an ordeal than that experienced by riders stuck overnight on disabled trains in December.
Indeed, this time many New Yorkers seemed not to be fazed by the latest round of white weather.
“I think it’s normalized,” said Andrea Stribling, 25, of Bushwick, Brooklyn, a political canvasser who was on East Eighth Street near Lafayette Street in Manhattan. “I’m kind of used to it. Ever since the first big snowfall it seems there’s always been a thick layer of snow on the ground. I think everyone is getting used to it.”
At a 10 a.m. news briefing, Mr. Bloomberg said that while several dozen ambulances got stuck in the snow, relief ambulances arrived quickly to ferry the ailing to hospitals. And while the 911 system was flooded with calls and dispatches were slowed, “no calls ever remained in a queue,” the mayor said.
This is a significantly different situation from the December blizzard, when ambulance delays were linked to deaths, hundreds of ambulances got stuck in the snow and 911 calls were not answered for hours. The debacle led the city to adopt a 15-point snow emergency management plan. Mr. Bloomberg said he expected every street in the city to have been plowed by Friday morning and urged drivers to stay off the roads, lest they be towed by the city at their owners’ expense if they get stuck.
The cancellation of school meant that thousands of city high school students scheduled to take the state Regents exam could not do so, but the mayor said: “That’s a problem for the state. We’ll get to it later.”
Even before the storm started pounding the region overnight, the Weather Service had estimated that more than 37 inches of snow — almost double the winter average — had fallen in Central Park this season. The overnight storms broke January snowfall records for Central Park; Newark; La Guardia Airport (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/l/la_guardia_airport_nyc/index.html?inline=nyt-org); Bridgeport, Conn.; and Islip, the Weather Service said.
In addition to the 19 inches in Central Park, the heaviest totals included 19 inches in Clifton, N.J.; 18.5 inches in North Haven, Conn.; 18.9 at Newark airport; and 16.5 inches in Northport, N.Y., on Long Island, the Weather Service said.
In Massachusetts, hundreds of schools were closed and yet another commute was snarled by snow. According to the Weather Service, nearly 10 inches of snow fell at Logan Airport as of 7 a.m. Areas south and west of Boston saw the most accumulation, with Milford, Mass., getting 16 inches, and North Attleboro, Mass., recording 13.
Two men had to be rescued from a car inside the parking garage of a Lynn, Mass., commercial building after its roof collapsed early Thursday. Both men were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/massachusetts_general_hospital/index.html?inline=nyt-org) with minor injuries, said Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
Across the Eastern Seaboard, snow — and snow budgets — are far above the average for this time of year, but there is still plenty of winter left.
“I guess the average for the year for the Greater Boston area is around 40 inches, and now we’re at about 60,” Mr. Judge said. “We’re about halfway there to get to the record, which is really scary when you think about it.”
The weather even played havoc with President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s schedule. After returning to Washington from a quick trip to Wisconsin on Wednesday, Mr. Obama’s motorcade spent an hour in rush hour traffic. He was supposed to return to the White House by helicopter, The Associated Press reported, but Marine One (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/presidents_and_presidency_us/marine_one/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) was grounded because of the weather.
The federal government opened two hours late, and the District of Columbia government was closed. The Metro system was operating without delays. Passengers spent the night in closed airports, and though many flights were not leaving on Thursday morning, Ronald Reagan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ronald_wilson_reagan/index.html?inline=nyt-per) National Airport was open, though Dulles International Airport was working with one runway.
A Democratic Party (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/d/democratic_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) worker, Jen Bluestein, said she spent so long in traffic — three hours on what normally would be 15 minutes driving from Connecticut and L Street downtown to Alexandria, Va. — that her iPhone (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/iphone/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) died on the ride.
“Ever seen a compulsive political operative trapped in a slow moving vehicle with no phone or e-mail?” she said. “Not pretty.”
Katie Zezima contributed reporting from Boston.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/nyregion/28snow.html?hp

Number of illegal immigrants steady at 11.2M

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — After a dropoff during the recession, illegal immigrants seeking to sneak across the U.S. border may be ready to move again. A new study released Tuesday finds the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. last year was roughly 11.2 million, a number virtually unchanged from 2009. In that year, the level of illegal immigration declined for the first time in two decades, dropping 8 percent from 2007, as a sour economy and stepped-up border enforcement made it harder or less desirable for undocumented workers to enter from Mexico.
The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. labor force also was unchanged last year at 8 million, representing about 5 percent of workers in the U.S., after hitting a peak of 8.4 million in 2007, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center, which based its analysis on census survey data.
States posting some of the biggest declines in the number of illegal immigrants since 2007 included Florida, New York, Colorado and Virginia. Unauthorized immigrants in three Mountain West states — Arizona, Nevada and Utah — also edged lower.
In contrast, illegal immigration was on the rise in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, with the combined populations of these states increasing from 1.6 million in 2007 to 1.8 million last year, according to the study.
Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior demographer at Pew who co-wrote the report, said it was difficult to discern whether the latest numbers were a sign that illegal immigration was back on the upswing. But he noted that over the last two decades, illegal immigration in the U.S. has steadily increased or remained flat during economic downturns — with the decline in illegal immigrants in 2009 being the exception.
"It's still expensive and dangerous to sneak across the border, and the likelihood of being able to find a job in the U.S. is not very good. But things are still better here than in Mexico," Passel said.
According to the Pew study, the number of illegal immigrants has risen from roughly 8.4 million estimated in 2000. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, illegal immigration was largely unchanged before spiking higher during the mid-decade housing boom. The level of illegal immigrants reached a peak of 12 million in 2007, experts say.
Currently, illegal immigrants make up roughly 4 percent of the U.S. population — a number largely unchanged from previous years.
Steve A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that advocates tighter immigration policies, said it wasn't surprising that illegal immigration had stopped declining. He predicted the numbers will soon pick up, citing some improvement in the U.S. economy as well as the Obama administration's "promise of legalization to undocumented workers."
"There's no reason for these numbers to go down," Camarota said. "Our legal policy remains very permissive, and we're not enforcing the law."
Other Pew findings:
—Mexicans make up the majority of the illegal immigrant population at 58 percent, or 6.5 million. They are followed by people from other Latin American countries at 23 percent, or 2.6 million; Asia at 11 percent or 1.3 million; Europe and Canada at 4 percent or 500,000; and African countries and other nations at 3 percent, or 400,000.
—The states with the highest percentage of illegal immigrants were Nevada (7.2 percent), California (6.8 percent), Texas (6.7 percent) and New Jersey (6.2 percent).
—About 350,000 newborns last year had at least one illegal immigrant parent, representing 8 percent of all births. That share is largely unchanged from 2009.
The Pew analysis is based on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey through March 2010. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, the estimate on illegal immigrants is derived largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population. It is a method that has been used by the government and Pew for many years and is generally accepted.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=53620&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Factory activity grows, hiring outlook brightens

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The best month for U.S. factories in nearly seven years is brightening the outlook for job growth. Companies are exporting more construction and mining equipment, and Americans are buying more cars, appliances and computers.
The Institute for Supply Management, a private trade group, said Tuesday that its index of manufacturing activity rose last month to 60.8. It was the highest reading since May 2004 and the 18th straight month the sector has grown. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion.
The strong data on manufacturing activity was a major reason the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 12,000 for the first time since June 2008. Investors overlooked a separate report that showed builders spent less on projects in December, and that the construction spending for 2010 had hit a decade low.
Construction typically helps drive economic recoveries after a recession. But this time around, factories are more likely to crank out jobs.
Manufacturers added 136,000 jobs in 2010, the first annual net gain since 1997. And the trade group's employment index last month rose to its highest level since 1973.
Still, the sector lost almost 2.2 million jobs in 2008 and 2009. And manufacturers have managed to boost output in recent years by making their operations more efficient and getting more work out of the employees they already have.
Brian Bethune, an economist at IHS Global Insight, said he expects manufacturers will likely add about 10,000 to 15,000 jobs a month for the first few months this year. The January jobs report will be released Friday.
One reason that hiring expectations are rising is that new orders, export orders, and order backlogs all gained in January. That suggests U.S. factories will continue to increase output in the coming months.
"These companies have been running lean and mean, and now they've got an orders backlog," Bethune said. That's likely to push them add some workers, he said.
Manufacturing employs twice as many people as construction, which has struggled since the housing market went bust in 2006.
Construction spending fell to $814 billion last year, the Commerce Department reported. That's the lowest level in a decade and nearly half of what some economists consider to be a healthy amount. Economists say it could take until the middle of the decade to reach that point again.
Foreclosures are piling up and home prices in nearly every major U.S. city are still falling.
Spending on public projects is declining, mostly because state and local governments are grappling with budget crises and federal stimulus dollars are fading. Between November and December, federal construction dollars plunged 11.6 percent.
Rising vacancy rates and declining rents are dragging on the commercial real estate market.
"If manufacturing is the best performing sector, construction remains the worst," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.
Manufacturing companies are likely benefiting from a cut in Social Security taxes that may boost consumer spending, and a tax break for companies that purchase new machinery and other big-ticket items, analysts said. Both tax breaks took effect last month.
Consumers are spending more on autos, appliances and other goods, while businesses have invested in more industrial machinery and computers. Those trends boosted economic growth to a 3.2 percent pace in the October-December quarter, the Commerce Department said last week.
Auto sales rose at a healthy clip in January. General Motors Co. and Chrysler said their sales soared 23 percent, while Ford Motor Co. reported a gain of 9 percent.
That's also a boon to thousands of smaller manufacturers that supply the auto industry, such as Advanced Secondaries, Inc., a small manufacturing firm in Cleveland.
The company, which employs 12 people, does drilling and other work on nuts, bolts and other fasteners. About 70 percent of its business is with the automotive sector.
Business began picking up in July and owner Don Nicholson says sales have doubled in the past year. He plans to hire three more workers over the next few months.
U.S. factories are also benefiting from rising overseas sales. The index of export orders jumped to 62 in January, from 54.5 the previous month. That matches a recent peak reached in May and is otherwise the highest level for that index since December 1988.
And the prices paid index, which measures whether manufacturing companies are paying more for raw materials, jumped sharply. That's a sign that inflation could pick up soon. If manufacturers are unable to pass on the higher costs, it could cut into their profit margins.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=53640&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Judge: States must continue with health overhaul

By : The Associated Press

PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida says states must continue implementing the president's health care overhaul even though he has declared it unconstitutional. Florida and 25 states sued to block the law, and District Judge Roger Vinson has ruled in their favor.
He says Obama administration attorneys have one week to appeal. If they don't meet that deadline, Vinson says the states can consider the law invalid.
The case is one of several challenges to the health care law, which is almost certain to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In his ruling, Vinson says it's in the best interest of the nation to continue with the massive health overhaul while the cases work their way through the legal system.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=54797&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Obama Considers Tapping Oil Reserve

By MATTHEW L. WALD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/matthew_l_wald/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: March 6, 201

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/strategic_petroleum_reserve_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) in response to rapidly rising gasoline prices brought on by turmoil in the Middle East, the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/william_m_daley/index.html?inline=nyt-per), said on Sunday.



“It’s something that only has been done on very rare occasions,” Mr. Daley said on “Meet the Press” on NBC (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/nbc_universal/index.html?inline=nyt-org), adding, “It’s something we’re considering.”
Administration officials have sent mixed signals about the possibility of opening the reserve, which would add supply to the domestic oil market and tend to push down prices.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/steven_chu/index.html?inline=nyt-per) said on Friday that the administration was monitoring prices, but he has been reluctant to endorse more aggressive steps.
“We don’t want to be totally reactive so that when the price goes up, everybody panics, and when it goes back down, everybody goes back to sleep,” he said.
A few days earlier, Mr. Chu said the administration was watching the situation closely, but it expected oil production that had been lost in Libya would be made up by production elsewhere.
Administration officials continue to emphasize the critical need for long-term steps to reduce oil use, like improving the fuel economy of cars and promoting battery-powered vehicles.
But recently, five Senate Democrats have called for opening the reserve, which is stored in four salt domes in Texas and Louisiana. And on Feb. 24, three House Democrats from New England, where oil is used to heat homes, wrote to Mr. Obama saying that while exporters could increase production, “they also profit from oil price spikes and therefore have little incentive to quickly respond with the increased supply needed to calm markets.”
In recent days, prices for the American benchmark crude, West Texas Intermediate, have exceeded $100 a barrel. Oil for April delivery settled at $104.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/new_york_mercantile_exchange/index.html?inline=nyt-org) on Friday.
The average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $3.50 on Sunday, AAA reported, up from $3.12 a month earlier. Gasoline prices routinely rise as the weather turns warmer and people drive more, leading some experts to predict gasoline at $4 a gallon this summer.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was established in response to the Arab oil embargo of 1973-4. It was tapped most recently in September 2008 in response to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. At that time, the Energy Department arranged “exchanges” with oil companies whose normal supplies had been interrupted; the oil companies later made restitution in oil. The last time the government sold oil from the reserve to address supply interruptions was in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hurricane_katrina/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).
Sales were also made in January 1991 to calm global markets as the United States invaded Kuwait, which had been occupied the previous year by Iraq.
The government suspended oil purchases when prices were approaching a peak in 2008, before the recession (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) began. In that case, members of Congress argued that acquisitions for the reserve were contributing to higher prices, harming consumers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/energy-environment/07oil.html?_r=1&ref=us

In New Food Culture, a Young Generation of Farmers Emerges

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/03/06/us/FARMER-1/FARMER-1-articleLarge.jpg Leah Nash for The New York Times
Tyler and Alicia Jones on their farm in Corvallis, Ore. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/06/us/20110306-FARMER.html)

By ISOLDE RAFTERY

Published: March 5, 2011
CORVALLIS, Ore. — For years, Tyler Jones, a livestock farmer here, avoided telling his grandfather how disillusioned he had become with industrial farming.
Multimedia
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A New Generation of Farmers (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/06/us/20110306-FARMER.html?ref=us)





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Jeff Broadie and Kasey White fixing a tractor on their farm in Eugene, Ore. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/06/us/20110306-FARMER.html)

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Jeff Broadie and Kasey White, who have been farming since 2003, cleaning heirloom beans. More Photos » (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/06/us/20110306-FARMER.html)


After all, his grandfather had worked closely with Earl L. Butz (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/washington/04butz.html), the former federal secretary of agriculture who was known for saying, “Get big or get out.”
But several weeks before his grandfather died, Mr. Jones broached the subject. His grandfather surprised him. “You have to fix what Earl and I messed up,” Mr. Jones said his grandfather told him.
Now, Mr. Jones, 30, and his wife, Alicia, 27, are among an emerging group of people in their 20s and 30s who have chosen farming as a career. Many shun industrial, mechanized farming and list punk rock, Karl Marx (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/karl_marx/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and the food journalist Michael Pollan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/michael_pollan/index.html?inline=nyt-per) as their influences. The Joneses say they and their peers are succeeding because of Oregon’s farmer-foodie culture, which demands grass-fed and pasture-raised meats.
“People want to connect more than they can at their grocery store,” Ms. Jones said. “We had a couple who came down from Portland and asked if they could collect their own eggs. We said, ‘O.K., sure.’ They want to trust their producer, because there’s so little trust in food these days.”
Garry Stephenson, coordinator of the Small Farms Program (http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/) at Oregon State University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/oregon_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org), said he had not seen so much interest among young people in decades. “It’s kind of exciting,” Mr. Stephenson said. “They’re young, they’re energetic and idealist, and they’re willing to make the sacrifices.”
Though the number of young farmers is increasing, the average age of farmers nationwide continues to creep toward 60, according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture (http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/Full_Report/index.asp). That census, administered by the Department of Agriculture, found that farmers over 55 own more than half of the country’s farmland.
In response, the 2008 Farm Bill included a program for new farmers and ranchers. Last year, the department distributed $18 million to educate young growers across the country.
Tom Vilsack (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/tom_vilsack/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the secretary of agriculture, said he hoped some beginning farmers would graduate to midsize and large farms as older farmers retired. “I think there needs to be more work in this area,” he said. “It’s great to invest $18 million to reach out to several thousand to get them interested, but the need here is pretty significant. We need to be even more creative than we’ve been to create strategies so that young people can access operations of all sizes.”
The problem, the young farmers say, is access to land and money to buy equipment. Many new to farming also struggle with the basics.
In Eugene, Ore., Kasey White and Jeff Broadie of Lonesome Whistle Farm are finishing their third season of cultivating heirloom beans with names like Calypso, Jacob’s Cattle and Dutch Ballet.
They have been lauded — and even consulted — by older farmers nearby for figuring out how to grow beans in a valley dominated by grass seed farmers.
But finding mentors has been difficult. There is a knowledge gap that has been referred to as “the lost generation” — people their parents’ age may farm but do not know how to grow food. The grandparent generation is no longer around to teach them.
So Ms. White and Mr. Broadie turned to YouTube for farming tips. They scoured the antiques section of Craigslist (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/craigslist/index.html?inline=nyt-org) for small-scale farming equipment.
“When we started, we didn’t even know what we needed,” said Ms. White, 35. “We found out that a tractor built in the 1950s would drive over our beds and weed them.”
She said that they farmed because they felt like part of a broader movement, but that the farmer’s life was not always romantic. Last year, their garlic crop rotted in the ground. Mr. Broadie, 36, is unable to repay his student loans (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/student_loans/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). They do not have health insurance, or know when they will be able to afford to buy land.
On a recent Saturday, Ms. White and Mr. Broadie moved to a farm owned by a couple that wants to support local agriculture. They hope it is their last stop.
That evening in Corvallis, the Joneses prepared for a party at Mary’s River Grange Hall with friends.
Among them, Jenni and Scott Timms, both 28, had quit their engineering jobs in Houston the month before. They would like to own their own farm someday.
“We see people like Tyler and Alicia doing it, and we thought, ‘If they can do it, so can we,’ ” Mr. Timms said.
The Timmses had arrived at the Joneses’ 106-acre farm the day before and were staying in a run-down Victorian house on the property. As they waited for their hosts, they sipped a microbrew in a kitchen overlooking wooded farmland. They said they were drawn by the state’s beauty and its 120 farmers’ markets.
And it seemed that other beginning farmers in Oregon shared their values. At the Grange hall later that evening, the gravel lot was lined with Subarus with bumper stickers that read “Buy locally,” “Who’s Your Farmer?” and “Let’s Get Dirty.” One farmer arrived by bicycle.
Inside, women in woolen sweaters and hats danced to the music of a bluegrass band. There was no formal speech, just the Grange master’s yell that food was ready.
The Grange master, Hank Keogh, is a 26-year-old who, with his multiple piercings and severe sideburns, looks more indie rock star than seed farmer. Mr. Keogh took over the Grange (http://marysrivergrange.org/rental.html) two years ago.
He increased membership by signing up dozens of young farmers and others in the region. He had the floorboards refinished, introduced weekly yoga (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/y/yoga/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) classes and reduced the average age of Grange members to 35 from 65.
The young farmers crowded around a table brimming with food they had produced — delicata squash, beet salad (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/salads/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), potato leek soup and sparkling mead. On a separate table were two pony kegs of India pale ale.
It was the first time the Joneses had been to the Grange, and Ms. Jones said they would probably join. She had already told the mead makers that she would connect them with Portland restaurants that wanted local honey.
“Literally, four years ago, this was not happening,” Ms. Jones said, gesturing to the 30 farmers who congregated at the hall. “Now, everywhere you turn, someone’s a farmer.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/us/06farmers.html?ref=us

New Laws to Control Immigration Pass in Utah

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: March 5, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah Legislature has approved an immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) package that includes an enforcement law reminiscent of Arizona’s but is tempered by a bill for a guest worker program for illegal immigrants.

The measures, approved by the State Senate and House on Friday night, would allow illegal immigrants to get a permit to work in the state. They also include a requirement that the police check the immigrant status of anyone stopped for a felony or serious misdemeanor.
Supporters said that the package balanced economic needs and compassion; opponents argued that it would probably encourage more illegal immigration.
State lawmakers initially balked at the enforcement measure because of a likely backlash feared by some. But State Representative Stephen Sandstrom, a Republican, garnered enough support after amending it to focus on more serious crimes.
An Arizona law approved last year drew nationwide attention over provisions requiring the police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person’s immigration status if they had reasonable suspicion they were here illegally. A federal judge ordered that aspect of the law put on hold.
Representative Bill Wright, a Republican who sponsored the Utah bill creating the guest worker program, said that if the state could secure a federal waiver, the program could become a model for the rest of the country.
The bill would allow illegal immigrants to get a permit to live and work in Utah with their families.
The most vocal critic of that provision, Representative Chris Herrod, a Republican, said that a guest worker program would draw more illegal immigrants to the state.
“People think we’ll be seen as compassionate,” Mr. Herrod said. “People will actually see us as weak. They will see we don’t care about the rule of law.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/us/06utah.html?ref=us

U.S. Weighs Options, on Air and Sea

By THOM SHANKER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/thom_shanker/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: March 6, 2011

WASHINGTON — American military planners are sifting through a range of options as the United States, like other Western nations, weighs the response to the bloody Libyan military assaults on rebels trying to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/muammar_el_qaddafi/index.html?inline=nyt-per).

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/03/07/world/MILITARY/MILITARY-articleInline.jpg
Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

An American military C-130 at a Tunisian airport prepared to repatriate Egyptians who had escaped the unrest in Libya.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/libyaupdatepromo190x126.png Interactive Feature (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/map-of-how-the-protests-unfolded-in-libya.html?ref=middleeast)



Rebel commanders have begged for American strikes on troops and weapons that have turned on civilians and assaulted strongholds of the resistance. And on Sunday, three prominent members of the United States Senate, from both major political parties, renewed the Senate’s call for consideration of enforcing a “no-flight” zone to ground the Libyan air force and prevent it from attacking its people. They also pressed the Obama administration for a more aggressive response, including supplying intelligence, arms and training to the rebels.
The defense secretary, Robert M. Gates (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_m_gates/index.html?inline=nyt-per), and top commanders have warned of political fallout if America again attacks a Muslim nation, even to support a popular revolt. So military planners on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and in its field commands are offering a broad range of approaches, depending on how events play out in Libya and how tough the United States and its allies want to be.
Even without firing a shot, a relatively passive operation using signal-jamming aircraft in international airspace could muddle Libyan government communications with military units. Administration officials said Sunday that preparations for such an operation were under way.
The latest military force to draw within striking distance of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, is the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (http://www.marines.mil/unit/26thmeu/Pages/welcome.aspx) aboard two amphibious assault ships, the Kearsarge and the Ponce. The unit provides a complete air, sea and land force that can project its power quickly and across hundreds of miles, either from flat-decked ships in the Mediterranean Sea or onto a small beachhead on land.
In this task force are Harrier jump-jet warplanes (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/av-8-pics.htm), which not only can bomb, strafe and engage in dogfights, but can also carry surveillance pods for monitoring military action on the ground in Libya; attack helicopters; transport aircraft — both cargo helicopters and the fast, long-range Osprey, whose rotors let it lift straight up, then tilt forward like propellers to ferry Marines (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/us_marine_corps/index.html?inline=nyt-org), doctors, refugees or supplies across the desert — landing craft that can cross the surf anywhere along Libya’s long coastline; and about 400 ground combat troops of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines.
Not that every option would require such firepower. Helicopters from that same Marine Expeditionary Unit, for example, were sent to assist after the catastrophic floods in Pakistan. Pentagon planners can also look at templates from large humanitarian missions carried out after the Haitian earthquake, Pakistani floods and an Indonesian tsunami, as well as the military operation to protect and feed residents of Iraqi Kurdistan after the first Persian Gulf war.
And the Kearsarge (http://www.kearsarge.navy.mil/default.aspx) provides a large floating hospital.
Already, a military airlift of refugees is under way. Four more flights of propeller-driven C-130s carrying international refugees back to their home nations were planned for Sunday. Earlier military flights carried relief supplies for refugee camps just beyond Libya’s border and then carried out Egyptians who had escaped into Tunisia.
But the firepower arriving off Tripoli could prove convenient, and not only to protect the expedition from coming under attack. The flotilla can be seen as a modern-day example of “gunboat diplomacy” — intended to embolden rebels and shake the confidence of loyalist forces and mercenaries, perhaps even inspiring a palace coup.
Should Mr. Obama opt for direct intervention, he has a range of choices short of what Mr. Gates cautioned could be an expensive, exhausting “no-flight” zone — though that might be simpler than he portrayed, if the United States proved willing to attack Libyan runways, missiles and radars outright.
Another tactic would be to air-drop weapons and supplies to rebels, an idea floated Sunday by Stephen Hadley, who served President George W. Bush (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/george_w_bush/index.html?inline=nyt-per) as national security adviser.
“If there is a way to get weapons into the hands of the rebels, if we can get antiaircraft systems so that they can enforce a no-fly zone over their own territory, that would be helpful,” Mr. Hadley said on “State of the Union” on CNN.
Other options include inserting small Special Operations teams, perhaps just a dozen soldiers, to assist the rebels, as was done in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/index.html?inline=nyt-org).
The teams are specially trained to turn ragtag rebel groups almost overnight into more effective fighters, with a modest infusion of know-how, equipment and leadership.
A handful of strikes on valued government or military targets could be ordered, as was done in the Gulf of Sidra raids in 1986 after Libya was linked to the bombing of a Berlin club popular with American troops. (An American plane was shot down, and residential areas were blasted, showing the many risks of even a limited operation.)
There are ample planes based in Europe and on the aircraft carrier Enterprise and its strike group, now in the Red Sea, for missions over Libya.
Pentagon officials said Sunday that those vessels were carefully sailing in the direction of the Suez Canal, gateway to the Mediterranean.
Support for a no-flight zone was voiced Sunday by Senator John Kerry (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_kerry/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as two Republicans — Senator Mitch McConnell (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mitch_mcconnell/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Kentucky, the minority leader, and Senator John McCain (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_mccain/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Arizona.
Mr. McConnell urged exploring other options like “aiding and arming the insurgents.” But he cautioned he was “not sure who the insurgents are” so the United States “ought to make sure who we’re dealing with here.”
But the administration offered no change in its position.
“Lots of people throw around phrases like no-fly zone — they talk about it as though it’s just a video game,” William M. Daley (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/william_m_daley/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the new White House chief of staff, said in at appearance on “Meet the Press” on NBC (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/nbc_universal/index.html?inline=nyt-org).
Gen. John P. Jumper, who served as Air Force chief of staff from 2001 to 2005 and commanded all Air Force missions in the Middle East from 1994 to 1996, said past flight-denial missions over Iraq proved that requirements reach far beyond the jet fighters and bombers that are the most obvious instruments of carrying out a presidential order.
The destruction of Libyan air-defense radars and missile batteries would be required, perhaps using missiles launched from submarines or warships. A vast fleet of tankers would be needed to refuel warplanes. Search-and-rescue teams trained in land and sea operations would be on hand in case a plane went down.
The fleet of aircraft needed for such a mission would easily reach into the hundreds. Given the size of such a mission, it would be expected that American and NATO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org) bases in Europe would be used, and that an American aircraft carrier would be positioned off Libya.
Joseph Berger contributed reporting from New York, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 7, 2011
An earlier version of this article incorrectly summarized the view of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, on whether to impose a “no-flight” zone. Mr. McConnell said the idea was worth considering. He did not join two other leading senators in calling outright for the establishment of a flight-denial zone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/world/middleeast/07military.html?ref=us

Obama prepared to tap petroleum reserve if needed

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Friday he's prepared to tap the country's emergency oil reserve if necessary. But as gas prices climbed toward $4 a gallon, the president said the U.S. must adopt a long-term strategy of conservation and domestic production to wean itself off foreign oil. "We've been having this conversation for nearly four decades now. Every few years gas prices go up, politicians pull out the same political playbook, and then nothing changes," Obama said at a White House news conference. "And when prices go back down, we slip back into a trance."
"I don't want to leave this to the next president," he said. "And none of us should want to leave it for our kids."
Some in Congress have been calling on Obama to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with unrest in the Middle East pushing up oil and gas prices. And the president made clear that that was an option, although not one he's yet ready to exercise. He declined to specify the conditions that would trigger the step, but said it was teed up and could happen quickly if he chooses to call for it.
The government is cautious about going to the petroleum reserve, typically holding off except in very extreme cases, such as hurricanes, that affect oil supplies. The reserves — 727 million barrels stored in salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana coasts — were created in response to the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s and last tapped in 2008 after hurricanes Gustav and Ike hit.
"If we see significant disruptions or shifts in the market that are so disconcerting to people that we think a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release might be appropriate, we'll take that step," Obama said.
"Right now, what we're seeing is not a shortage of supply; refineries are actually operating at fairly full capacity at the moment. The problem is, is a great deal of uncertainty in the oil markets."
Gas prices in the U.S. now average $3.54 per gallon. Obama said he'd asked administration officials to look out for signs of price-gouging.
Oil prices have surged 24 percent since the middle of February as unrest in the Middle East rattled world markets, although prices slid Friday on the possibility of reduced demand because of the devastating tsunami that hit Japan.
Republicans have sought to blame Obama's policies for the high gas prices, pointing to the slow pace of permitting for new offshore oil wells in the wake of the massive Gulf spill and an Obama-imposed moratorium on new deepwater exploration, though experts say more domestic production wouldn't immediately impact prices. Obama rejected that criticism Friday.
Obama said domestic oil production rose to a seven-year high last year. "Any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn't match up with reality," said the president.
Republicans, who've announced they will be advancing a series of energy bills in the House this year aimed at bringing down gas prices, rejected Obama's arguments. "While the Obama administration claims to be committed to American energy production, the facts and its own actions say otherwise," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. The American Petroleum Institute also criticized Obama's remarks and accused the Obama administration of putting up regulatory roadblocks to domestic production.
Obama said that to boost production more, he's directed the Interior Department to assess how many onshore and offshore oil leases already held by industry are going undeveloped so that companies can be encouraged to produce from those lease. He also said the administration was looking at the potential for new production in Alaska and elsewhere. He said these steps and others could increase domestic production in the short- to medium term, but were not a long-term solution, considering the U.S. has 2 percent of the world's oil reserves but accounts for over a quarter of worldwide consumption.
"The hard truth is, is that as long as our economy depends on foreign oil, we'll always be subject to price spikes. So we've got to get moving on a comprehensive energy strategy that pursues both more energy production and more energy conservation," the president said. He called for greater investments in clean energy sources like wind turbines and solar panels, and for strategies like more fuel-efficient cars.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=55110&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Teen survives plunge off Golden Gate Bridge

By : The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A California high school student visiting the Golden Gate Bridge on a Thursday morning field trip climbed over a railing, jumped — possibly on a dare by fellow classmates — and somehow survived the 220-foot plunge into San Francisco Bay that kills dozens of people each year. Most jumpers die a grisly death, with massive internal injuries, broken bones and skull fractures. Some die from internal bleeding, while others drown.
But the 17-year-old lived, and a statement from his school said he suffered no severe injuries beyond bruising and tenderness. He was rescued by a surfer who paddled over and took him ashore, California Highway Patrol Officer Chris Rardin said.
"It's a miracle in itself," Rardin said. "The majority of folks do not survive this type of fall."
Windsor Unified School District Superintendent Bill McDermott said he didn't think the teen was trying to commit suicide, but instead jumped after other students from Windsor High School in Sonoma County urged him on. Students saw the teen go over the railing.
An ambulance rushed the teen to a San Francisco hospital. Officials couldn't provide further details Thursday night on his condition.
Someone leaps off the iconic bridge an average of once every two weeks — last year, 32 jumpers died. About 98 percent of those plunges end up being fatal and authorities rule most of those deaths suicides.
The Marin County Coroner's Office and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District have said that up to 1,500 people have died after jumping off the bridge since it opened in 1937.
Last fall, transportation officials approved $5 million in federal funding to design a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. Plans include a stainless steel net that would hang below the span.
The final design isn't complete and installation is at least several years away, bridge district spokeswoman Mary Currie told the San Francisco

Chronicle.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=55105&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Group Wants New Bank to Finance Infrastructure

By MICHAEL COOPER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/michael_cooper/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: March 15, 2011

Amid growing concerns that the nation’s infrastructure is deteriorating, a group of Democrats, Republicans, and labor and business leaders called Tuesday for the creation of a national infrastructure bank to help finance the construction of things like roads, bridges, water systems and power grids.

The proposal — sponsored by Senator John Kerry (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_kerry/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/kay_bailey_hutchison/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Republican of Texas — would establish an independent bank to provide loans and loan guarantees for projects of regional or national significance. The idea is to attract more infrastructure investment from the private sector: by creating an infrastructure bank with $10 billion now, they say, they could spur up to $640 billion worth of infrastructure spending over the next decade.
“We have a choice,” Mr. Kerry said at a news conference in Washington. “We can either build, and compete, and create jobs for our people, or we can fold up, and let everybody else win. I don’t think that’s America. I don’t believe anybody wants to do that.”
To underscore the need for better infrastructure, two frequent rivals were on hand at the news conference: Richard Trumka (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/richard_trumka/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_federation_of_laborcongress_of_industrial_organizations/index.html?inline=nyt-org), and Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/chamber_of_commerce_us/index.html?inline=nyt-org), the main business lobby. With a nod to the strange-bedfellows experience of having a labor leader as an ally, Mr. Donohue said, “He and I are going to take our show on the road as the new ‘Odd Couple.’ ”
But the proposal may not have clear sailing. While Senators Harry Reid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/harry_reid/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Nevada, the majority leader, and Charles E. Schumer (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/charles_e_schumer/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, will undoubtedly support the measure, Senate officials said the outlook for such a program is dim, given the current fiscal constraints. And Congress, like state governments, has been hesitant to cede control of choosing which projects to finance, even as their spending priorities have often been questioned.
President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) has called for establishing an infrastructure bank since his 2010 campaign. His budget calls for establishing one — and gives it the catchier name I-Bank — that would work somewhat differently: it would create a $30 billion bank that would invest in transportation projects alone, and that would provide grants as well as loans.
With an expanded reach that includes water and energy projects, the bank being proposed in the Senate would be able to spur investment from more types of private funds, and back projects in a wider swath of the nation, said Michael B. Likosky, the author of “Obama’s Bank: Financing a Durable New Deal.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/us/politics/16infrastructure.html?_r=1&ref=us

A Charitable Rush, With Little Direction

By STEPHANIE STROM (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/stephanie_strom/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: March 15, 2011

Disasters, particularly those epic enough to earn round-the-clock news coverage, are a fast way to get donors to open their wallets. So it was no surprise when nonprofit groups, starting with the American Red Cross (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_red_cross/index.html?inline=nyt-org) and moving down to small charities, scrambled to raise money to help the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Traditional forms of disaster relief may only hinder recovery efforts. What will work instead?

But wealthy Japan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) is not impoverished Haiti. And many groups are raising money without really knowing how it will be spent — or even if it will be needed.
The Japanese Red Cross, for example, has said repeatedly since the day after the earthquake that it does not want or need outside assistance. But that has not stopped the American Red Cross from raising $34 million through Tuesday afternoon in the name of Japan’s disaster victims.
Roger K. Lowe, a spokesman for the American Red Cross, said his group had sent $10 million to Japan on Tuesday, and had spoken with the Japanese group, which had expressed gratitude for the support.
He also shared a note sent by the Red Cross’s international governing body in Switzerland, a missive that was sent out to the American and other national Red Cross organizations and read in part: “At present, the Japanese society is not launching a national or international appeal, but expressions of solidarity in the form of unearmarked financial contributions would be gratefully received.”
The American Red Cross keeps 9 percent of any money it raises, which means that as of Tuesday afternoon, it had raised more than $3 million for itself through the Japan campaign. It also plans to cover the costs of the shelters it opened in California and Hawaii when there were warnings that a tsunami might hit there, estimated at somewhat less than $100,000.
Mr. Lowe said more money would be sent to Japan as it was collected.
Few charitable organizations are actually at work in Japan yet. Reports filed by the United Nations (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs show that the Japanese government so far has accepted help (http://bit.ly/hJkFVf) from only 15 of the 102 countries that have volunteered aid, and from small teams with special expertise from a handful of nonprofit groups.
“The only things Japan has really asked for at this point is some specialized search-and-rescue teams with dogs, some specialized medical help and some communications equipment, as well as the bulk shipment of goods, which is largely about country-to-country assistance,” said Saundra Schimmelpfennig, a former international aid worker who writes the blog Good Intentions Are Not Enough (http://goodintents.org/), aimed at educating donors about providing support for emergencies and development abroad.
“They are working almost exclusively with other governments, not with international charities,” she said.
That means many of the groups raising money in Japan’s name are still uncertain to whom or to where the money will go.
“We’re still working to identify N.G.O.’s and finalize agreements,” said Mari Kuraishi, referring to nongovernmental organizations. Ms. Kuraishi is the president of GlobalGiving (http://www.globalgiving.org/), an online organization that had raised roughly $1 million for Japan as of Tuesday afternoon.
Some of the money GlobalGiving is raising is supporting the International Medical Corps, which has a team in Japan working to assess medical needs and prepare critical supplies for disbursement. Some GlobalGiving money will also go to Save the Children, which is formally involved in the effort.
Typical of the more obscure nonprofit appeals springing up in the wake of the earthquake is the newly formed Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children’s Fund announced on Tuesday by Kids in Distressed Situations (http://www.kidsdonations.org/).
KIDS, as the group calls itself, supplies clothing, toys, books and other basic necessities for underprivileged children and children affected by disasters. In the case of Japan, the organization said it was soliciting corporations and donors for products like new children’s underwear, blankets and toys.
Asked how money raised for the fund would be used, Dr. Janice Weinman, president of KIDS, wrote in an e-mail that it would pay for “shipping of the product and for warehousing it until the Japanese ports open.”
Holden Karnofsky, a founder of GiveWell (http://www.givewell.org/), a Web site that researches charities, said he was struck by how quickly many nonprofit groups had moved to create ads using keywords like “Japan,” “earthquake,” “disaster,” and “help” to improve the chances (http://www.givewell.org/international/disaster-relief/Japan-Earthquake-March-2011) of their ads showing up on Google (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/google_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org) when the words were used in search queries.
“Charities are aggressively soliciting donations around this disaster, and I don’t believe these donations necessarily are going to be used for relief or recovery in Japan because they aren’t needed for that,” Mr. Karnofsky said. “The Japanese government has made it clear it has the resources it needs for this disaster.”
Robert Ottenhoff, president and chief executive of GuideStar (http://www2.guidestar.org/), a Web site that provides charity tax forms and other resources for donors, said donors themselves (http://www2.guidestar.org/rxg/give-to-charity/nonprofits-working-in-the-pacific.aspx) were to blame for the fund-raising frenzy.
People who really want to support charitable organizations and good works, Mr. Ottenhoff said, should base it on a desire to support something they already understand and believe in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16charity.html?ref=us

Panel urges TSA to implement ‘trusted travelers’ program

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/03/15/Production/Daily/A-Section/Images/ME-AIRPORT.jpg Jahi Chikwendiu / WASHINGTON POST - Under a program proposed by the U.S. Travel Association, passengers such as these waiting at Reagan National Airport would zip through security checkpoints — in exchange for providing personal data.


By Ashley Halsey III, Tuesday, March 15, 10:47 PM


Treating every airport passenger as a potential terrorist slows the security system, is needlessly frustrating and deters some people from flying, according to a report that recommends ways to ease bottlenecks at security checkpoints.
The report, commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association and set to be released Wednesday, calls on airlines to allow passengers to check one bag free of charge and urges the creation of a voluntary “trusted traveler” program that partially resembles a mandatory one previously proposed by President George W. Bush — and shot down by Congress.
The furor last fall over new and invasive screening techniques by the Transportation Security Administration, and an avalanche of carry-on bags adding to airport lines, have ratcheted up pressure for change both in Congress and the travel industry.

The federal government would not need congressional approval to mandate that airlines allow one checked bag free. But it is doubtful that the TSA could implement a trusted-traveler initiative without congressional approval.
Adding impetus to the report is the heavyweight panel behind it, headed by Tom Ridge (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/history/editorial_0586.shtm) , former secretary of homeland security, and (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/history/editorial_0586.shtm)former congressman Jim Turner (http://www.arnoldporter.com/professionals.cfm?action=view&id=766) (D-Tex.), who was on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Travel industry analysts think the long-awaited report will continue the debate over screening procedures and add another element to it: Even a voluntary trusted-traveler approach would require passengers to provide credit information, tax returns and other personal data to verify that members pose little or no risk.
In return, they would be allowed to zip through security.
The panel also said that airlines should be ordered to drop baggage fees that now typically run from $20 to $100 per checked bag. Passengers carry on far more bags than ever to avoid those fees, creating even longer lines at TSA screening facilities.
Although TSA Administrator John S. Pistole would take issue with some of the panel’s findings, he has advocated moving away from a Maginot Line defense to a more nimble, risk-based approach. The report could help him deal with a risk-averse Congress.
“Pistole has outlined his vision for the future of airport security screening: one that is more risk-based and intelligence-driven, shifting away from a one-size-fits-all approach at checkpoints,” said TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball. “We welcome dialogue with stakeholders and the traveling public as the process moves forward.”
Frustration at new TSA policies boiled over last fall, drawing condemnation from a vocal minority of fliers and some members of Congress, who objected to the full-body scanners and pat-downs.
The proposal of a trusted-traveler program takes the debate through a thicket, pitting the right to privacy against the goal of secure flight. Congress rejected a Bush administration plan known as CAPPS II that would have tapped into credit information to verify passenger credentials.
“The key difference is that the program we’re recommending is totally voluntary,” said Geoff Freeman, executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association (http://www.ustravel.org/), which commissioned the study a year ago. “Travelers, and especially frequent fliers, would give their right arm for a different experience.”
The report recommends a voluntary trusted-traveler program in which passengers would supply fingerprints and other personal information in return for an identification card that would allow them to bypass security lines.
Members would enter a kiosk where either fingerprint or iris scanning technology would be used to confirm their identity. Both the passenger and carry-on bags would pass through an explosives-detection device, but there would be no requirement to remove shoes, coats or hats.
Freeman said his group, which represents airlines, airports and virtually every aspect of the travel industry, isn’t “weak on security.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “Smarter security will actually create a safer system. No industry pays a heavier price than we do when something goes wrong.”
The study portrays airport security as inefficient, invasive and expensive.
“Some in Congress appear to have calculated that there are no political consequences to an in*efficient and costly system but great political consequences to a successful terrorist attack,” the report says. “This is a classic Hobson’s choice that the American traveling public repudiates.”
The desire to debunk that political calculation runs throughout the report and is consistent with what Pistole and anti-terrorism experts have contended.
Even as his agency has adjusted its tactics to counter each new terrorist threat, Pistole has expressed views similar to some key points made by the panel.
In a keynote speech to the American Bar Association two weeks ago, Pistole said it was time to “streamline” the checkpoint process for most passengers.
“The vast majority of the 628 million [passengers who pass through TSA checkpoints each year] present little to no risk of committing an act of terrorism,” Pistole said. “My vision is to accelerate TSA’s evolution into a truly risk-based, intelligence-driven organization in every way. . . . We want to focus our limited resources on higher-risk passengers while speeding and enhancing the passenger experience at the airport.”
Although Pistole said he would support the use of personal data if Congress authorized his agency to access it or if passengers volunteered it, he’s cautious about creating a program that might give cardholders carte blanche to waltz through security.
The Travel Association study also says that the often criticized TSA security workforce should receive more training, particularly in detecting suspicious behavior by passengers.
Freeman said the will to make the system more flexible has to originate with Congress.
“Because TSA is always going to be subject to criticism from Congress, they’re always going to take the one-size-fits-all approach to security,” he said. “TSA may think that some of these are very fine ideas, but they are in a political hot seat. Nothing will happen until Congress changes the tone of the debate. Congress has to accept responsibility for risk management.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/panel-urges-tsa-to-implement-trusted-travelers-program/2011/03/15/ABoOtxa_story.html?hpid=z5

Energy Secretary Steven Chu says Obama administration remains committed to nuclear power

Steven Chu, testifying before a House subcommittee, says it's too early to assess how the crisis at a Japanese nuclear plant will affect plans to develop more U.S. nuclear power facilities. But, the Energy secretary says, 'the administration believes we must rely on a diverse set of energy sources,' including nuclear.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-03/60144762.jpg
Energy Secretary Steven Chu testifies before the House subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. (Associated Press / March 15, 2011)

By Kathleen Hennessey, Washington Bureau March 15, 2011, 11:26 a.m.WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday restated the Obama administration’s commitment to keeping nuclear power in the mix of energy sources under development in the U.S., but declined to discuss how the evolving nuclear disaster in Japan might affect that effort.

"The administration believes we must rely on a diverse set of energy sources, including renewables like wind and solar, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear power," Chu said in testimony before a House subcommittee. "The administration is committed to learning from Japan's experience as we work to continue to strengthen America's nuclear industry."

Chu echoed assurances made by the White House on Monday that nuclear facilities in the U.S. are maintained at the highest safety standards. Those near the fault lines and the coasts are designed to withstand the double blow of an earthquake and tsunami that rocked reactors in Japan and led to the release of radioactive material, he said.

More than 30 experts from the Department of Energy have been deployed to assist Japanese officials still struggling to stabilize reactors and assess potential fallout, Chu said. Emergency response experts stationed at U.S. consulates and military installations will assist with surveying and sampling. The U.S. has sent more than 17,000 pounds of monitoring equipment intended to provide early detection of contamination on the ground.

"We can be assured that whatever does get released, we can give people fair warning," Chu told the energy and water subcommittee of the House appropriations committee.

The disaster in Japan vividly illustrates public fears about the safety of nuclear power at a time when the Obama administration is accelerating its push for nuclear expansion. No new reactors have been developed since 1979, when investors and the public veered away from nuclear power after the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania.

But spurred by a shift in policy, the industry has seen a recent revival. That expansion was always on uncertain footing and the incident in Japan would likely further complicate those efforts.

Of the first wave of four new nuclear projects, just one remains clearly on track -- two new reactors at the Vogtle plant near Augusta, Ga., Chu told lawmakers, adding that investors will likely look even harder at whether nuclear plants will be safe.

Asked whether he thought the crisis at the Japanese reactor would put the brakes on nuclear expansion, Chu demurred.

"I still feel it's probably premature to say anything other than, 'We will learn from this and all forms of energy do present risks,'" Chu said.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/sc-dc-chu-nuclear-energy-20110316,0,6758322.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fpolitics+%28L.A.+Times+-+Politics%29

ATM fees heading higher (http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/03/atm-fees-heading-higher.html)

By Dow Jones Newswires
Posted today at 5:41 a.m.
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/files/2011/03/atmfees.jpg (http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/03/gasoline-prices-finally-heading-downward.html/atmfees)Customers use ATMs at a Bank of America branch in Boston. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)

Some of the nation’s biggest banks are imposing a variety of new fees on people who withdraw money from automated-teller machines.
The move is the latest example of the burgeoning new fees that banks are imposing on customers accustomed to years of free services. Banks are scrambling to replace billions of dollars in revenue expected to be lost from new federal regulations on overdraft charges and debit cards.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., TD Bank Financial Group, and PNC Financial Services Group already are changing their ATM policies to collect more fees.
J.P. Morgan’s Chase retail division, for example, is going after noncustomers who withdraw money from the bank’s ATMs, according to people familiar with the matter. Chase executives have grumbled about customers of rival banks using the company’s machines even though it charges them $3, which is standard in the banking industry. Chase is now testing fees of $5 and $4 in Illinois and Texas, respectively, for noncustomer withdrawals.
More ATM fee rises are expected in the coming months. As regulations limit certain profitable practices in the industry, the banks are replacing lost funds with new fees. Some financial institutions recently introduced new charges on checking accounts as a way to make up some of the revenue that will choked from rules imposed by the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law.
“The reality is that bank revenue is being squeezed by regulatory changes and the banks are going to be accounting for that in other areas,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
Banks usually don’t charge customers who take money out of their own ATMs. That isn’t the case when people go outside the network operated by their own bank to get cash.
Using another bank’s machine often subjects customers to charges from their bank as well as the institution operating the ATM. Some customers can avoid ATM fees by conducting a certain amount of business with the bank.
As a result, a fee on a single ATM transaction can reach the double digits, said Mike Moebs of Moebs $ervices Inc., a Lake Bluff., Ill.-based company that tracks such data. Mr. Moebs himself said he has been hit with fees as high as $20 for using an ATM that wasn’t affiliated with his bank.
Rising ATM fees have long been a source of contention between the banking industry and consumer advocates. ATMs generated $7.1 billion in fees last year, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Of that, banks collected roughly $3 billion from charging their customers for using another institution’s ATM. The operator of that ATM often levies another fee on the same customer, called a surcharge. Those surcharges averaged $2.33 in 2010, up from 89 cents in 1998, according to Bankrate.com.
Last year, federal lawmakers proposed capping ATM fees at 50 cents. The proposal never came up for a vote.
There are more than 425,000 ATMs in the U.S., according to the American Bankers Association. Roughly two-thirds of them are located outside of bank branches. Most are owned by companies other than banks, such as Cardtronics Inc. (CATM), and are located in retail stores like delis, bowling alleys and casinos. Fees on these nonbank ATMs vary greatly.
The banking industry justifies the higher fees on its machines, saying that the expense of maintaining and operating their ATM networks is rising. Banks spend $12,000 to $15,000 a year to maintain each ATM, according to the ABA.
Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said the big banks are using “scare tactics” by raising ATM fees at the same time they are fighting the new debit-card fee restrictions. He noted that small banks and credit unions don’t appear to be raising ATM fees so far.
J.P Morgan Chase, which controls nearly one dollar out of every $10 in deposits, operates roughly 16,000 ATMs. Illinois and Texas, where the bank is testing higher fees for noncustomers, represent two of the bank’s biggest retail markets, with about 3,600 ATM machines combined.
“If you have to find revenue somewhere, increasing this surcharge 1 8 on noncustomers 3 8 is the least unpleasant way of doing it,” said Tony Hayes, a partner in the banking practice of Oliver Wyman.
More bank consumers also will be facing charges from their own institutions. TD Bank last week dropped its policy of letting its customers use other ATMs for free. The bank is now charging the industry standard of $2 to most of its customers.
“The change in the ATM fee structure was necessary, in part, given the current regulatory and competitive banking environment,” said Rebecca Acevedo, a spokeswoman for the bank. TD’s research shows that most of its customers use only the bank’s ATMs, meaning they wouldn’t incur any fees, she said.
PNC recently announced that it will later this year give up its five-year-old program of reimbursing some customers for charges incurred when using a non-PNC ATM. The move came as PNC also vowed to maintain its most basic checking account free of fees.
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2011/03/atm-fees-heading-higher.html

Film legend Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/liztaya.jpg

LOS ANGELES — Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen persona, stormy personal life and enduring fame and glamour made her one of the last of the classic movie stars and a template for the modern celebrity, died Wednesday at age 79. She was surrounded by her four children when she died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.
“My Mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love,” her son, Michael Wilding, said in a statement.
“We know, quite simply, that the world is a better place for Mom having lived in it. Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts.”
“We have just lost a Hollywood giant,” said Elton John, a longtime friend of Taylor. “More importantly, we have lost an incredible human being.”
Taylor was the most blessed and cursed of actresses, the toughest and the most vulnerable. She had extraordinary grace, wealth and voluptuous beauty, and won three Academy Awards, including a special one for her humanitarian work. She was the most loyal of friends and a defender of gays in Hollywood when AIDS was new to the industry and beyond. But she was afflicted by ill health, failed romances (eight marriages, seven husbands) and personal tragedy.
“I think I’m becoming fatalistic,” she said in 1989. “Too much has happened in my life for me not to be fatalistic.”
Her more than 50 movies included unforgettable portraits of innocence and of decadence, from the children’s classic “National Velvet” and the sentimental family comedy “Father of the Bride” to Oscar-winning transgressions in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Butterfield 8.” The historical epic “Cleopatra” is among Hollywood’s greatest on-screen fiascos and a landmark of off-screen monkey business, the meeting ground of Taylor and Richard Burton, the “Brangelina” of their day.
She played enough bawdy women on film for critic Pauline Kael to deem her “Chaucerian Beverly Hills.”
But her defining role, one that lasted past her moviemaking days, was “Elizabeth Taylor,” ever marrying and divorcing, in and out of hospitals, gaining and losing weight, standing by Michael Jackson, Rock Hudson and other troubled friends, acquiring a jewelry collection that seemed to rival Tiffany’s.
She was a child star who grew up and aged before an adoring, appalled and fascinated public. She arrived in Hollywood when the studio system tightly controlled an actor’s life and image, had more marriages than any publicist could explain away and carried on until she no longer required explanation. She was the industry’s great survivor, and among the first to reach that special category of celebrity — famous for being famous, for whom her work was inseparable from the gossip around it.
The London-born actress was a star at age 12, a bride and a divorcee at 18, a superstar at 19 and a widow at 26. She was a screen sweetheart and martyr later reviled for stealing Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds, then for dumping Fisher to bed Burton, a relationship of epic passion and turbulence, lasting through two marriages and countless attempted reconciliations.
She was also forgiven. Reynolds would acknowledge voting for Taylor when she was nominated for “Butterfield 8” and decades later co-starred with her old rival in “These Old Broads,” co-written by Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.
Taylor’s ailments wore down the grudges. She underwent at least 20 major operations and she nearly died from a bout with pneumonia in 1990. In 1994 and 1995, she had both hip joints replaced, and in February 1997, she underwent surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. In 1983, she acknowledged a 35-year addiction to sleeping pills and pain killers. Taylor was treated for alcohol and drug abuse problems at the Betty Ford Clinic in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Her troubles bonded her to her peers and the public, and deepened her compassion. Her advocacy for AIDS research and for other causes earned her a special Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1993.
As she accepted it, to a long ovation, she declared, “I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame.”
The dark-haired Taylor made an unforgettable impression in Hollywood with “National Velvet,” the 1945 film in which the 12-year-old belle rode a steeplechase horse to victory in the Grand National.
Critic James Agee wrote of her: “Ever since I first saw the child ... I have been choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were in the same grade of primary school.”
“National Velvet,” her fifth film, also marked the beginning of Taylor’s long string of health issues. During production, she fell off a horse. The resulting back injury continued to haunt her.
Taylor matured into a ravishing beauty in “Father of the Bride,” in 1950, and into a respected performer and femme fatale the following year in “A Place in the Sun,” based on the Theodore Dreiser novel “An American Tragedy.” The movie co-starred her close friend Montgomery Clift as the ambitious young man who drowns his working-class girlfriend to be with the socialite Taylor. In real life, too, men all but committed murder in pursuit of her.
Through the rest of the 1950s and into the 1960s, she and Marilyn Monroe were Hollywood’s great sex symbols, both striving for appreciation beyond their physical beauty, both caught up in personal dramas filmmakers could only wish they had imagined. That Taylor lasted, and Monroe died young, was a matter of luck and strength; Taylor lived as she pleased and allowed no one to define her but herself.
“I don’t entirely approve of some of the things I have done, or am, or have been. But I’m me. God knows, I’m me,” Taylor said around the time she turned 50.
She had a remarkable and exhausting personal and professional life. Her marriage to Michael Todd ended tragically when the producer died in a plane crash in 1958. She took up with Fisher, married him, then left him for Burton. Meanwhile, she received several Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.
She was a box-office star cast in numerous “prestige” films, from “Raintree County” with Clift to “Giant,” an epic co-starring her friends Hudson and James Dean. Nominations came from a pair of movies adapted from work by Tennessee Williams: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Suddenly, Last Summer.” In “Butterfield 8,” released in 1960, she starred with Fisher as a doomed girl-about-town. Taylor never cared much for the film, but her performance at the Oscars wowed the world.
Sympathy for Taylor’s widowhood had turned to scorn when she took up with Fisher, who had supposedly been consoling her over the death of Todd. But before the 1961 ceremony, she was hospitalized from a nearly fatal bout with pneumonia and Taylor underwent a tracheotomy. The scar was bandaged when she appeared at the Oscars to accept her best actress trophy for “Butterfield 8.”
To a standing ovation, she hobbled to the stage. “I don’t really know how to express my great gratitude,” she said in an emotional speech. “I guess I will just have to thank you with all my heart.” It was one of the most dramatic moments in Academy Awards history.
“Hell, I even voted for her,” Reynolds later said.
Greater drama awaited: “Cleopatra.” Taylor met Burton while playing the title role in the 1963 epic, in which the brooding, womanizing Welsh actor co-starred as Mark Antony. Their chemistry was not immediate. Taylor found him boorish; Burton mocked her physique. But the love scenes on film continued away from the set and a scandal for the ages was born. Headlines shouted and screamed. Paparazzi, then an emerging breed, snapped and swooned. Their romance created such a sensation that the Vatican denounced the happenings as the “caprices of adult children.”
The film so exceeded its budget that the producers lost money even though “Cleopatra” was a box-office hit and won four Academy awards. (With its $44 million budget adjusted for inflation, “Cleopatra” remains the most expensive movie ever made.) Taylor’s salary per film topped $1 million. “Liz and Dick” became the ultimate jet set couple, on a first name basis with millions who had never met them.
They were a prolific acting team, even if most of the movies aged no better than their marriages: “The VIPs” (1963), “The Sandpiper” (1965), “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966), “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967), “The Comedians” (1967), “Dr. Faustus” (1967), “Boom!” (1968), “Under Milk Wood” (1971) and “Hammersmith Is Out” (1972).
Art most effectively imitated life in the adaptation of Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — in which Taylor and Burton played mates who fought viciously and drank heavily. She took the best actress Oscar for her performance as the venomous Martha in “Virginia Woolf” and again stole the awards show, this time by not showing up at the ceremony. She refused to thank the academy upon learning of her victory and chastised voters for not honoring Burton.
Taylor and Burton divorced in 1974, married again in 1975 and divorced again in 1976.
“We fight a great deal,” Burton once said, “and we watch the people around us who don’t quite know how to behave during these storms. We don’t fight when we are alone.”
In 1982, Taylor and Burton appeared in a touring production of the Noel Coward play “Private Lives,” in which they starred as a divorced couple who meet on their respective honeymoons. They remained close at the time of Burton’s death, in 1984.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the daughter of Francis Taylor, an art dealer, and the former Sara Sothern, an American stage actress. At age 3, with extensive ballet training already behind her, Taylor danced for British princesses Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret Rose at London’s Hippodrome. At age 4, she was given a wild field horse that she learned to ride expertly.
At the onset of World War II, the Taylors came to the United States. Francis Taylor opened a gallery in Beverly Hills and, in 1942, his daughter made her screen debut with a bit part in the comedy “There’s One Born Every Minute.”
Her big break came soon thereafter. While serving as an air-raid warden with MGM producer Sam Marx, Taylor’s father learned that the studio was struggling to find an English girl to play opposite Roddy McDowall in “Lassie Come Home.” Taylor’s screen test for the film won her both the part and a long-term contract. She grew up quickly after that.
Still in school at 16, she would dash from the classroom to the movie set where she played passionate love scenes with Robert Taylor in “Conspirator.”
“I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman,” she once said. “I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt.”
Soon after her screen presence was established, she began a series of very public romances. Early loves included socialite Bill Pawley, home run slugger Ralph Kiner and football star Glenn Davis.
Then, a roll call of husbands:
— She married Conrad Hilton Jr., son of the hotel magnate, in May 1950 at age 18. The marriage ended in divorce that December.
— When she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952, he was 39 to her 19. They had two sons, Michael Jr. and Christopher Edward. That marriage lasted 4 years.
— She married cigar-chomping movie producer Michael Todd, also 20 years her senior, in 1957. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Francis. Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958.
— The best man at the Taylor-Todd wedding was Fisher. He left his wife Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor in 1959. She converted to Judaism before the wedding.
— Taylor and Fisher moved to London, where she was making “Cleopatra.” She met Burton, who also was married. That union produced her fourth child, Maria.
— After her second marriage to Burton ended, she married John Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, in December 1976. Warner was elected a U.S. senator from Virginia in 1978. They divorced in 1982.
— In October 1991, she married Larry Fortensky, a truck driver and construction worker she met while both were undergoing treatment at the Betty Ford Center in 1988. He was 20 years her junior. The wedding, held at the ranch of Michael Jackson, was a media circus that included the din of helicopter blades, a journalist who parachuted to a spot near the couple and a gossip columnist as official scribe.
But in August 1995, she and Fortensky announced a trial separation; she filed for divorce six months later and the split became final in 1997.
“I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married,” she once remarked. “I guess I’m very old-fashioned.”
Her philanthropic interests included assistance for the Israeli War Victims Fund, the Variety Clubs International and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
She received the Legion of Honor, France’s most prestigious award, in 1987, for her efforts to support AIDS research. In May 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made Taylor a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — for her services to the entertainment industry and to charity.
In 1993, she won a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute; in 1999, an institute survey of screen legends ranked her No. 7 among actresses.
During much of her later career, Taylor’s waistline, various diets, diet books and tangled romances were the butt of jokes by Joan Rivers and others. John Belushi mocked her on “Saturday Night Live,” dressing up in drag and choking on a piece of chicken.
“It’s a wonder I didn’t explode,” Taylor wrote of her 60-pound weight gain — and successful loss — in the 1988 book “Elizabeth Takes Off on Self-Esteem and Self-Image.”
She was an iconic star, but her screen roles became increasingly rare in the 1980s and beyond. She appeared in several television movies, including “Poker Alice” and “Sweet Bird of Youth,” and entered the Stone Age as Pearl Slaghoople in the movie version of “The Flintstones.” She had a brief role on the popular soap opera “General Hospital.”
Taylor was the subject of numerous unauthorized biographies and herself worked on a handful of books, including “Elizabeth Taylor: An Informal Memoir” and “Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair With Jewelry.” In tune with the media to the end, she kept in touch through her Twitter account.
“I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me,” Taylor told Kim Kardashian in a 2011 interview for Harper’s Bazaar. “And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern. But sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream.”
Survivors include her daughters Maria Burton-Carson and Liza Todd-Tivey, sons Christopher and Michael Wilding, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A private family funeral is planned later this week.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=55543&ct_id=3

Agentes atrapan a inmigrantes ilegales que se hacen pasar por soldados

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/kjmVjizroQE0M3Nlej7hqQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/ap/ap_logo_106.png (http://www.ap.org/)


Dos integrantes de la Patrulla Fronteriza con experiencia en el ejército hicieron fracasar un intento de contrabandistas y de indocumentados que buscaban pasar un punto de revisión con un plan elaborado que trataba de hacerlos pasar por Infantes de Marina de Estados Unidos.
En documentos presentados ante la corte, los agentes dijeron tener sospechas cuando el conductor no supo la fecha de la creación del Cuerpo de Infantería de Marina, una fecha que todos los soldados deben conocer desde el día que ingresan a su entrenamiento básico en la fuerza.
En la demanda federal que fue divulgada el miércoles, los agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza indicaron que el grupo no actuaba ni hablaba como integrantes de la Infantería de Marina cuando su vehículo fue inspeccionado en un puesto de revisión en el Condado de San Diego el 14 de marzo.
Tres ciudadanos estadounidenses se declararon inocentes de contrabando de indocumentados, mientras que tres inmigrantes ilegales se encuentran bajo custodia como testigos materiales. El resto de los inmigrantes ilegales fueron deportados a México.

Eso estubo intelijente de parte de los mejicanos.

Big Island tsunami damage more than $14 million

By : The Associated Press

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — A county agency says the Big Island suffered more than $14 million in damage during a tsunami triggered by the earthquake in Japan. Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Quince Mento says the new estimate includes $11.1 million in damage to businesses.
Hawaii News Now reports businesses that were affected include the Kona Inn and the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel. Residences incurred about $2.5 million. County facilities in Kona suffered $562,000.
The data does not account for loss of contents in businesses or homes during the March 11 tsunami. State officials will use the report to request federal assistance.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=55574&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Eso estubo intelijente de parte de los mejicanos.

Oh the irony.

Tanbien se pueden poner super patriotas al americanismo con una gorra que diga USA y un bonche de cosas mas... como Fortuño. Los dejan pasar al ver que son mas patriotas que ellos jejeje

'Birthing tourism' center in San Gabriel shut down

Pregnant women came from China to three identical townhouses to receive care before and after giving birth to U.S. citizens at local hospitals.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-03/60392242.jpg
A diapers box lies outside one of three townhouses in San Gabriel that operated as an unlicensed birthing center for women visiting from China. (Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times / March 25, 2011)

By Ching-Ching Ni, Los Angeles Times
March 25, 2011

From the outside, they looked like other recently built San Gabriel townhouses — two stories, Spanish style, with roofs of red tile.

Inside they were maternity centers for Chinese women willing to pay handsomely to travel here to give birth to American citizens.

Southern California has become a hub of so-called birthing tourism. Operators of such centers tend to try to blend in, attracting as little attention as possible.

But on quiet, residential Palm Avenue, neighbors had noticed an unusual number of pregnant (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/physical-conditions/pregnancy-childbirth-HEPHC0000048.topic) women going in and out, and some complained about noise.

On March 8, code enforcement officials shut down three identical four-bedroom townhouses functioning as an unlicensed birthing center.

The homes, officials said, had been converted into maternity centers. Inside, they found about 10 mothers and seven newborns.

"The people were sitting and eating at a table. All the babies were in bassinets with a nurse attending to them," said Jennifer Davis, San Gabriel's director of community development.

The city fined the manager of the property, Dwight Chang of Arcadia, $800. He was cited for illegal construction and ordered to acquire permits and return the buildings to their original condition.

"They had moved walls around without proper permits. They did interior work that can sometimes create unsafe environments afterwards," Davis said. "And it's a business in a residential neighborhood. They are not permitted to operate there."

The Chinese mothers have since left the U.S. or moved into hotels, officials said. On Wednesday, construction work in the houses was underway. The doors were open, and visible inside was the detritus of a hasty departure — boxes of diapers, a baby-bottle sterilizer, a rice cooker, an electric kettle, bags of chopsticks and piles of Chinese-language magazines.

The garage of one of the buildings appeared to have been converted into an extra bedroom.

"It felt like something wasn't right in there," said Taylor Alderson, who was shocked to hear what had been going on next door. "There was a constant barrage of pregnant women going in and out of the house."

She said she rarely heard babies cry. But she was annoyed by the stream of traffic from visitors delivering baby products and the strong smell of "cheap canola oil" being used to stir fry vegetables.

"It's just too much to take in," Alderson said. "They count on people here being busy and keeping to themselves. In a more affluent neighborhood, they wouldn't' be able to get away with it."

An elderly neighbor who has lived on the block for 54 years said she did not want her name used because she feared retaliation. But she said one of the pregnant women once asked her where the local park was and if she could use her kitchen.

"She was unhappy with the food and the accommodation. They told her she had to eat what they cooked for her. I took her out to dinner," the woman said. "She even talked me into taking her to the hospital. She was having labor pains five minutes apart. Almost had the baby in my car."

The birthing centers are a twist on similar centers in China (http://www.latimes.com/topic/intl/china-PLGEO00000014.topic) in which women recuperate for a month after delivery, following a strict diet and traditional rules meant to ensure their future health.

American centers offer these services as well — but the focus here is on giving birth. The actual deliveries take place in local hospitals. At birthing centers such as the one closed in San Gabriel, mothers get room and board and care before and after delivery.

It is not illegal for pregnant women to travel to the U.S. to give birth. Birthing centers advertise in wealthier Chinese cities, where some women can afford the thousands necessary to make the trip to America for a few months.

Most of the women go back to China after giving birth. But they know their children can return easily in the future to enjoy such benefits as free public education.

That bothers some of those living near the San Gabriel center.

"If they lived here, I don't mind," said Duke Trinh, who lives a few houses down. "If they are running a business, I don't want them here. It's not fair for us if [the mothers] go back to China and later send their kids here for education — because they don't pay taxes, we do."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-birthing-center-20110325,0,5726974.story

Wal-Mart asks Supreme Court to deny class-action suit by female workers

By Robert Barnes, Sunday, March 27, 6:26 PM


Like the retail behemoth at its center, everything about the Supreme Court (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/index.html) extravaganza known as Wal-Mart v. Dukes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_story.html?hpid=z2) is super-sized.
174 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_story.html?hpid=z2#comments)
Comments (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_allComments.html#comments)


Weigh In (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_story.html?hpid=z2#weighIn)
Corrections? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/interactivity/corrections/)

More on this Story


Wal-Mart asks Supreme Court to deny class-action suit by female workers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_story.html)
Breaking down the Wal-Mart sex discrimination suit (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/political-economy/post/rundown-wal-mart-sex-discrimination-suit-goes-to-supreme-court/2011/03/25/AFrOw0nB_blog.html)
Live Q&A at 1 p.m.: Wal-Mart female discrimination Supreme Court case: Discuss with both sides (http://live.washingtonpost.com/wal-mart-women-discrimination-supreme-court-case.html)
Maryland Politics | Wal-Mart health-care battle goes to court (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/annapolis/2006/02/walmart_battle_goes_to_court.html)

View all Items in this Story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_story.html?hpid=z2#)



The number of women who could be included in the sex discrimination class-action suit is measured in millions. The amount of damages for which the nation’s largest private employer could be liable is estimated in billions.
If the Supreme Court agrees the case can move forward, it would be the largest employment discrimination class-action suit in U.S. history. As Wal-Mart (http://washpost.bloomberg.com/marketnews/stockdetail/?symbol=WMT) likes to point out, the suit could include more people than the number now serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard combined. Oral arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.
The prospect of such a massive lawsuit — or, alternatively, a ruling that hobbles workers from mounting class-action suits against large, national employers — has drawn an outpouring of competing briefs from corporate America and the nation’s leading civil rights groups.
The suit, filed by six female Wal-Mart employees in 2001, will also spotlight two intriguing story lines about the Supreme Court.
One is the perception, reinforced by President Obama, congressional Democrats and civil rights groups, that the court is overly protective of the corporate world. There is evidence to support the claim as well as exceptions, but there seems little doubt about how a ruling for Wal-Mart would be portrayed by liberal groups already suspicious of the court and the huge company.

Also notable is that the case — featuring charges by women of unequal pay, sexist remarks and insurmountable obstacles to promotion — arrives at a court whose membership for the first time is one-third female.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 78, the oldest member of the court, made her career advancing the rights of women and challenging laws that treated the sexes differently. She has been joined by fellow Democratic nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
“The mere presence of three female justices on a previously male-dominated bench gives the plaintiffs’ side a symbolic boost,” said Barbara Perry, who studies the court at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs. Referring to the Wal-Mart greeter who is the lead plaintiff in the case, she added, “The more women on the bench, the more likely Betty Dukes’ story of discrimination will resonate.”
That said, Perry also noted that the court is not deciding whether Wal-Mart is guilty of discrimination. Instead, it will decide whether the small group of plaintiffs have satisfied federal class-action rules, allowing them to stand for co-workers nationwide who they say have suffered under common discriminatory practices. The class would include all women who have worked at Wal-Mart since December 1998.
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the suit could go forward. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Brad Seligman, a class-action specialist at the Impact Fund (http://www.impactfund.org/), a tiny public-interest law firm in Berkeley, Calif., assembled statistics showing that women constitute 80 percent of hourly Wal-Mart workers but hold only a third of managerial jobs. The percentage decreases on each step up the company hierarchy.
There were allegations of pay disparities between men and women; a lack of job postings, keeping women from career advancement; and a generally hostile work environment for women. Affidavits from more than 100 female workers brought stories of women being called “Janey Qs” and being told that men were paid more because they had families to support, as well as a worker’s complaint that her male manager told her to “doll up.”
Seligman said that although pay and promotion decisions are made at the local level, they reflect an attitude from the top.
“Wal-Mart has a very in-depth training program, very careful corporate oversight, a strong corporate culture, all designed to ensure a uniformity in decision making,” he said in a recent interview.
Wal-Mart responds in its brief to the court that because the plaintiffs cannot prove the company has a doctrine of discrimination — indeed, it has a specific policy of nondiscrimination — “plaintiffs premised their motion on statistics, sociology, and anecdotes.”
At the time of the district judge’s decision in 2004, the company’s retail operation included seven divisions, 41 regions, 3,400 stores and more than 1 million employees.
“The named plaintiffs’ claims cannot conceivably be typical of the claims of the strangers they seek to represent,” Wal-Mart said.
The case languished for years at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco before a panel upheld the judge’s decision. The full court agreed in a 6 to 5 decision, although the dissenters practically urged the Supreme Court to take up the issue.
The millions of women who have worked at Wal-Mart, Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote, “have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit.”
The company contends that the plaintiffs’ goals of back pay, punitive damages and a change in the company’s allegedly discriminatory practices run counter to the court’s past decisions on class certification.
Wal-Mart’s attorney in the case, Los Angeles lawyer Theodore J. Boutrous Jr (http://www.gibsondunn.com/lawyers/tboutrous)., said the company is not arguing that the size of the potential class — which Seligman estimates would be at least 1 million women — renders it unworthy of certification.
“But the size of the class does really magnify the deeper problems of the case,” he said in an interview. Seligman said a class-action suit is the only way to help women who have encountered discrimination. The average difference in annual pay between male and female workers, he said, was a little more than $1,000.
“These are not cases they could possibly find counsel to litigate, even if they were willing to go up against Wal-Mart,” he said.
Civil rights and public-interest groups say the case is important because of the message it would send about the avenues available to employees at big companies. Paul Bland, a senior lawyer at Public Justice, said Wal-Mart is pushing a message that it is “too big to sue.”
By agreeing, he said, the justices would be saying, “As long as you discriminate against enough people, courts can’t get involved.”
But Robin Conrad of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said a decision upholding the plaintiffs would turn even frivolous class-action suits into “bet-the-company propositions” for employers who would not want to risk the potential losses at trial.
“If this class action gets certified, it’s open season for all class actions to be certified,” not just for discrimination claims but also for product liability and financial services, she said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wal-mart-asks-supreme-court-not-to-allow-class-action-suit-by-female-employees-alleging-discrimination/2011/03/25/AFTMXokB_story.html?hpid=z2

Oh HELL NO!!!:ohno:

CBO: Taxing mileage a 'practical option' for revenue enhancement
By Pete Kasperowicz - 03/24/11 04:17 PM ET


The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report (http://thehill.com/images/stories/blogs/flooraction/Jan2011/cboreport.pdf) that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.
The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles.

"In the past, the efficiency costs of implementing a system of VMT charges — particularly the costs of users' time for slowing and queuing at tollbooths — would clearly have outweighed the potential benefits from more efficient use of highway capacity," CBO wrote. "Now, electronic metering and billing are making per-mile charges a practical option."The report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who held a hearing on transportation funding in early March. In that hearing, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is hoping to spend $556 billion over the next six years, much of which would go to federal transportation improvement projects.
Conrad said in response that federal funds are tight, and in asking for recommendations on how to raise that money, he noted the possibility of a VMT tax as a way to solve the problem of collecting less in taxes as people move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.
"Do we do gas tax?" Conrad asked. "Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren't going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?"
Conrad argued some recommendation should be made by his committee on these issues when the Senate considers a transportation spending bill later this year.
CBO's report stressed it was making no recommendations but seemed to support a VMT tax as a more accurate way of having drivers pay for the costs of highway maintenance. The report said miles driven is a larger factor in highway repairs than fuel consumption and suggested that having drivers pay for the real costs of highways "would involve imposing a combination of fuel taxes and per-mile charges."
But CBO's assessment of "costs" was broader than just those costs associated with maintaining highway systems.
Check out our Transportation Report blog (http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report)
for all the latest news about trains, planes and automobiles.
"Any given driver’s highway use also imposes costs on other users, on nearby nonusers, on the environment, and on the economy in the form of congestion, risk of accidents, noise, emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants that affect local air quality, and dependence on foreign oil," CBO said.
On how to implement the idea, CBO said it is unclear how much it would cost to "install metering equipment in all of the nation's cars and trucks."
"Having the devices installed as original equipment under a mandate to vehicle manufacturers would be relatively inexpensive but could lead to a long transition; requiring vehicles to be retrofitted with the devices could be faster but much more costly, and the equipment could be more susceptible to tampering than factory-installed equipment might be," CBO said.
The report added that VMT taxes could be tracked and even collected at filling stations. "If VMT taxes were collected at the pump, each time fuel was purchased, information would be sent from a device in the vehicle to a device at the filling station," it said.
CBO also suggested different VMT tax rates might be assessed to different vehicles because heavier vehicles do more road damage, and rates might change depending on whether miles are driven at peak use times or during less congested hours.
CBO did acknowledge that privacy concerns may be a hurdle to implementing a VMT tax because electronic tracking of miles driven might provide too much personal information to the government. However, CBO noted that some have proposed restricting the information that would be transmitted to the government.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/151765-cbo-says-taxing-drivers-based-on-miles-driven-a-real-option-for-raising-revenues

WTH????? ^^ EL FORTUÑISMO LLEGO ALLA??

Ay Numeratzi, qué pasen estos años rapido para ti. You desperately need to grow up.

Obama to turn attention to energy issues – barring disaster or global crisis

President Obama is expected to outline his plan for energy security in a speech this week, followed by visits to companies operating energy-efficient vehicles. Japan's earthquake and tsunami, and Middle East turmoil, have overshadowed his earlier efforts to discuss energy.


[/URL]





By Michael A. Memoli, Washington Bureau March 29, 2011, 11:06 a.m.




Reporting from Washington—
After a speech meant to bring clarity to U.S. engagement in crises abroad, President Obama (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fla-pn-obama-energy-20110330%2C0%2C1482081.story&src=sp) will turn his attention to what aides say will be a sustained focused on energy issues in the coming weeks.

On Wednesday, Obama will outline his plan for America's energy security in a speech at Georgetown (http://www.latimes.com/topic/us/new-york/new-york-city/brooklyn-%28new-york-city%29/georgetown-PLGEO100100802013200.topic) University in Washington. It will be followed with a visit Friday to a UPS facility in nearby Landover (http://www.latimes.com/topic/us/maryland/prince-georges-county/landover-PLGEO100100615040000.topic), Md., in which Obama will inspect energy-efficient vehicles operated by major businesses like AT&T, FedEx (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/fedex-corporation-ORCRP005636.topic) and PepsiCo (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/consumer-goods-industries/beverage-industry/pepsico-inc.-ORCRP011993.topic).

In his State of the Union address in January, Obama called for investments in clean energy technology as part of his "Winning the Future" agenda. Earlier in March, Obama called a news conference to address the rising cost of gasoline and called for "a comprehensive energy strategy that pursues both more energy production and more energy conservation."

But it was also almost one year ago to the day that Obama made a similar push on energy security, announcing his administration would support an expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration. He said the decision was "part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy."

One month later, the risks of such drilling became apparent with the April 20 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Gulf Coast, which triggered a massive oil spill (http://www.latimes.com/topic/environmental-issues/environmental-pollution/water-pollution/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-%282010%29-EVHST0000243.topic) threatening the entire coastal region. In response, the president enacted a six-month moratorium on permits for new deepwater wells, among other actions.

Amid concern that the continued increasing price of oil could derail a fragile economic recovery, Republicans (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic) have ratcheted up criticism of the president for pursuing a strategy that limits America's energy potential.

"For two years, the administration has canceled dozens of oil and gas leases all across America. It's raised permit fees. It's shut down deep-water drilling in the Gulf. It won't even allow a conversation about exploring for oil in a remote, 2,000-acre piece of land in northern Alaska that experts think represents one of our best opportunities for a major oil find," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/mitch-mcconnell-PEPLT004312.topic) (R-Ky.) said Tuesday. "In the midst of average gas prices approaching $4 a gallon and a chronic jobs crisis, the White House (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/executive-branch/white-house-PLCUL000110.topic) plans to make the climate for job growth worse."

Obama has seemingly been snakebit each time he's attempted to shift his focus to domestic issues. The energy message of his March news conference was overshadowed by the earthquake (http://www.latimes.com/topic/disasters-accidents/earthquakes/tsunamis/2011-japan-earthquake-tsunami-EVWAN00003.topic) and tsunami that devastated Japan that morning. At the same time, no discussion of energy issues can ignore the effect of unrest in the Middle East, given the effect it has had on oil prices.

A Gallup survey this month found that 60% of Americans would support increasing offshore drilling, a 10% increase in support from the last survey in May 2010.
[url]http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-energy-20110330,0,1482081.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fpolitics+%28L.A.+Times+-+Politics%29

Ay Numeratzi, qué pasen estos años rapido para ti. You desperately need to grow up.

Prefiero madurar esta peronalidad que tengo en el foro con ustedes que crecer rapido . Este tiempo no lo recuperare jamas.

Obama sets ambitious goal to reduce US oil imports by one-third by 2025

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/enfut.jpg WASHINGTON — Seeking to show the public he understands the burden of rising gas prices, President Barack Obama set an ambitious goal of reducing U.S. oil imports by one-third by 2025, and vowed to break through the political gridlock that has stymied similar initiatives for decades.“Presidents and politicians of every stripe have promised energy independence but that promise has so far gone unmet,” Obama said Wednesday during a speech on energy at Georgetown University.
“That has to change. We cannot keep going from shock to trance on the issue of energy security, rushing to propose action when gas prices rise, then hitting the snooze button when they fall again,” he said.
Obama touted a series of initiatives — some new, but many he’s previously announced — that he said would boost domestic oil production, increase the use of biofuels and natural gas, and make vehicles more energy efficient. And he embraced nuclear power as part of America’s energy future, despite increased safety concerns following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that severely damaged a nuclear power plant there.
Obama said he is determined to ensure that nuclear plants in the U.S. are safe, and has ordered a safety review of all facilities that will incorporate lessons learned from the crisis in Japan.
The president spoke against the backdrop of rising gas prices following unrest in the oil-rich Middle East. Gas prices in the U.S. have shot up 50 cents a gallon this year, reaching a national average of $3.58 a gallon last week, according to AAA’s daily survey.
Republicans have blamed Obama’s policies for the rising gas prices, pointing to the slow pace of issuing permits for new offshore oil wells in the wake of last summer’s massive Gulf of Mexico spill and an Obama-imposed moratorium on new deep-water exploration.
The president struck back at that criticism Wednesday, saying his administration has approved 39 shallow water drilling permits since new standards were put in place last year, and seven new deep-water drilling permits in recent weeks.
“So any claim that my administration is responsible for gas prices because we’ve shut down oil production might make for a useful political sound bite, but doesn’t track with reality,” Obama said.
Obama said a significant part of his plans to cut U.S. oil imports would depend on further increases in domestic production, and he pledged to develop new incentives for companies to speed up oil and gas production on current and future leases. An Interior Department report released Tuesday said more than two-thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are sitting idle, neither producing oil and gas nor being actively explored by the companies who hold the leases. The department said those leases could potentially hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Even if Obama’s efforts can reduce U.S. demand for foreign oil, experts say that’s unlikely to bring down the cost of gasoline, since oil is priced globally and increased demand from China and other developing nations continues to push prices up. A longer-term energy strategy, he said, would also depend on boosting the use of alternative energy sources, including natural gas and biofuels.
“We have to discover and produce cleaner, renewable sources of energy,” Obama said. “And we have to do it quickly.”
Obama called for the construction of four new advanced biofuel plants in the U.S. within the next two years. However, advanced biofuels — fuels made from non-food sources such as wood chips, switch grass or plant waste — are still in their infancy and cannot yet be made in amounts similar to corn ethanol. Congress has directed more money to research and development of those fuels in recent years as some critics of corn ethanol have linked the diversion of corn for fuel to rising food prices.
The president also ordered government agencies to ensure that by 2015, all new vehicles they purchase are alternative-fuel vehicles, including hybrid and electric. Obama has previously set a goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015.
Administration officials said Obama’s plans would require significant spending on research and development, though they offered no cost estimates.

Prefiero madurar esta peronalidad que tengo en el foro con ustedes que crecer rapido . Este tiempo no lo recuperare jamas.

Obviously it's NOT working, or you're FAKING it.

Im not faking it.

Job Growth Suggests Resilience of U.S. Recovery

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/02/business/economy/02jobs-span/02jobs-span-articleLarge.jpg Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
Job applicants in line at a job fair in San Jose, Calif., last week.


By MICHAEL POWELL (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/michael_powell/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: April 1, 2011

The United States economy showed signs of kicking into gear in March, as the Labor Department reported Friday (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) that it added 216,000 jobs and knocked the unemployment rate down another jot, to 8.8 percent.



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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics


Related



Economix Blog: Inflation? Not in Wages (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/inflation-not-in-wages/?ref=economy) (April 1, 2011)



As many corners of the global economy are storm-tossed, with oil prices rising and rumblings of a government shutdown in Washington, economists are watching carefully to see if there will be a cumulative effect on hiring. The answer, so far, appears to be no.
President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and the Democrats quickly pointed to the numbers as proof that their policies, from the stimulus spending to the payroll tax cut, are working. “Since its low point in February 2010, private sector employment has risen by 1.8 million,” noted Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/hilda_l_solis/index.html?inline=nyt-per). “The bottom line: The policies and programs of this administration are working.”
The private sector has added, on average, 188,000 jobs in each of the last three months. Manufacturing continued its unlikely — if still modest — revival in March, adding 17,000 jobs. Health care added 37,000 jobs in the month, and professional and business services added another 78,000, although about 37 percent of that came from increases in temporary help. It was the 13th straight month of private-sector job growth.
In all, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/bureau_of_labor_statistics/index.html?inline=nyt-org) breaks the economy into 16 job sectors. The unemployment rate, while still perilously high in a few, has dropped in 13 of those since March 2010.
“The private sector of the economy has been the locomotive pulling the economy forward,” noted Sung Won Sohn (http://www.drsohn.com/ds/Default.aspx), an economics professor at California State University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/california_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Channel Islands. “Record exports, better-than-expected retail sales and the increase in business capital spending are part of the good news.”
At the same time, March’s numbers offer more than a few cautionary signs that the national economy is not cured of all its ills. The ranks of Americans who have been without a job for 27 weeks or more remains painfully high, at more than six million.
The labor force has shrunk steadily since the beginning of the recession (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), to a point that just 64.2 percent of adults are either in the work force or looking for a job. That is the lowest labor participation rate in a quarter-century. Many economists have expressed hope that as unemployed Americans grow emboldened by signs of new hiring, they will re-enter the work force in greater numbers. That did not happen in March, as the participation rate was unchanged.
“It is still a very inhospitable market for unemployed workers,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute (http://www.epi.org/). “We still have five unemployed workers for every opening and those are desperate times.”
The average workweek was also unchanged, at 34.3 hours, and average hourly earnings remained static. Both indicators point to an economy with much slack demand, some hints of deflation (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/d/deflation_economics/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), and little upward pressure on wages. In other words, the economy is an engine still coughing. Real earnings, the Brookings Institution (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/brookings_institution/index.html?inline=nyt-org) noted Friday, have fallen 1.1 percent in the past year.
“With excess supply of labor at very high levels, it is unlikely that we are going to see any meaningful acceleration in wage rates anytime soon,” Joshua Shapiro (http://www.mfr.com/WhoWeAre/JoshuaShapirobio.htm), an economist at MFR Inc., said Friday morning.
The unemployment rate for blacks and Latinos remains high, at 15.5 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively. (In 2007, the unemployment rate for blacks stood at 8.3 percent and 5.6 percent for Latinos.) State and local governments offer their own slough of despond. Local government has lost 416,000 jobs since an employment peak in September 2008, and shed another 15,000 jobs in March.
Quite a few signs, of late, have pointed to a touch of momentum in the economic recovery. Weekly unemployment claims have declined steadily (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/business/economy/01econ.html?ref=unemployment), from the mid-400,000s to 388,000 last week. In most historical contexts, the latter number would be a touch grim coming so many months after the official end of the recession. But history shows that nations are slow to recover from financial shocks as severe as that of 2008, and many signs now point toward consistent, if still sluggish, growth in hiring.
“I suspect that the workers on the sideline will start coming back in,” Ms. Shierholz said.
The larger question is what the medium-term future augurs, and this month’s report offers less than a definitive answer. Will jobs continue to expand through the spring, and with enough vigor — 300,000 a month, say — to substantially reduce the unemployment rate? As Ms. Shierholz noted, if the economy adds 200,000 jobs a month, it will be 2019 before it reaches the employment rate that preceded the Great Recession.
Many economists speak optimistically of the spring’s job growth, but some grow wary after that. The international storm clouds are many — spectacular debt problems in Europe, uprisings sweeping the oil-rich Middle East, and Japan with its many maladies. And then there is the possibility of a government shutdown in Washington, as the Republican-controlled House challenges the White House.
The worry is that these ills might press on consumer and business confidence.
“The first half of this year will be the best job market that we’ll see in this whole expansion,” said David Levy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/david_levy/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center (http://www.levyforecast.com/mission.html). “We’re riding the crest of earnings. But after that, and looking toward 2012, the situation is questionable.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/business/economy/02jobs.html?_r=1&hp

Southwest grounds about 80 planes after mishap

By : The Associated Press

PHOENIX — Flight attendants had just begun to take drink orders when the explosion rocked the cabin. Aboard Southwest Flight 812, Shawna Malvini Redden covered her ears, then felt a brisk wind rush by. Oxygen masks fell, the cabin lost pressure and Redden, now suddenly lightheaded, fumbled to maneuver the mask in place.
Then she prayed. And, instinctively, reached out to the stranger seated next to her in Row 8 as the pilot of the damaged aircraft began a rapid descent from about 34,400 feet in the sky.
"I don't know this dude but I was like, 'I'm going to just hold your hand,'" Redden, a 28-year-old doctoral student at Arizona State University, recalled Saturday, a day after her Phoenix-to-Sacramento flight was forced into an emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, Ariz., with a hole a few feet long in the roof of the passenger cabin.
No serious injuries were reported among the 118 people aboard , according to Southwest officials.
What caused part of the fuselage to rupture on the 15-year-old Boeing 737-300 was a mystery, and investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in Yuma on Saturday morning to begin an inquiry.
NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt said investigators were going to cut a piece out of the fuselage, which then would be studied for fracture patterns. Data from the plane's flight recorders and black boxes also would be examined, he said.
Southwest, meanwhile, grounded about 80 similar planes so that they could be inspected, and that as a result some 300 flights were being canceled Saturday. Airline spokeswoman Linda Rutherford said it was too soon to estimate the cost of grounding a portion of its fleet.
Southwest operates about 170 of the 737-300s in its fleet of about 540 planes, but it replaced the aluminum skin on many of the 300s in recent years, Rutherford said. The planes that were grounded Saturday have not had their skin replaced, she said.
"Obviously we're dealing with a skin issue, and we believe that these 80 airplanes are covered by a set of (federal safety rules) that make them candidates to do this additional inspection that Boeing is devising for us," Rutherford said.
Julie O'Donnell, an aviation safety spokeswoman for Seattle-based Boeing Commercial Airplanes, confirmed "a hole in the fuselage and a depressurization event" in the latest incident but declined to speculate on what caused it.
A total of 288 Boeing 737-300s currently operate in the U.S. fleet, and 931 operate worldwide, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. "The FAA is working closely with the NTSB, Southwest Airlines and Boeing to determine what actions may be necessary," the FAA said in a statement released Saturday.
Southwest officials said the Arizona plane had undergone all inspections required by the FAA. They said the plane was given a routine inspection on Tuesday and underwent its last so-called heavy check, a more costly and extensive overhaul, in March 2010.
An Associated Press review of FAA records of maintenance problems for the plane show that in March 2010 at least eight instances were found of cracking in the aircraft frame, which is part of the fuselage. Those cracks were repaired, the records indicate. It's not uncommon for fuselage cracks to be found during inspections of planes that age, especially during scheduled heavy maintenance checks in which they are taken apart so that inspectors can see into areas not normally visible.
The 737-300 is the oldest plane in Southwest's fleet, and the company is retiring 300s as it take deliveries of new models. But the process of replacing all the 300s could take years.
Seated one row from the mid-cabin rupture, Don Nelson said it took about four noisy minutes for the plane to dip to less than 10,000 feet. "You could tell there was an oxygen deficiency," he said.
"People were dropping," said Christine Ziegler, a 44-year-old project manager from Sacramento who watched as the crew member and a passenger nearby fainted. Nelson and Ziegler spoke after a substitute flight took them on to Sacramento.
Brenda Reese described the hole as "at the top of the plane, right up above where you store your luggage."
"The panel's not completely off," she told The Associated Press. "It's like ripped down, but you can see completely outside... When you look up through the panel, you can see the sky."
At an altitude above 34,000 feet, the Southwest pilots would have had only 10 to 20 seconds of "useful consciousness" to get their oxygen masks on or pass out, said John Gadzinski, an airline pilot and aviation safety consultant.
"The higher you are the less useful consciousness time you have," said Gadzinski, president of Four Winds Consulting in Virginia Beach, Va. "It's a credit to the pilots that they responded so quickly."
A loss of cabin pressure just after takeoff knocked out the pilots of a Helios Airways Boeing 737 in August 2005. The plane flew into a hillside north of Athens in Greece, killing all 121 people aboard. In that case, an investigation found the pilots had failed to heed a warning that the pressurization system wasn't working correctly.
In this case, the hole and subsequent depressurization wouldn't have affected the pilots' ability to control the plane as long as they had their oxygen masks on, Gadzinski said.
"The fact that you have a breach hole doesn't affect the aerodynamics of the plane. The plane still flies exactly the same," he said.
A similar incident happened in July 2009 when a football-sized hole opened up in flight in the fuselage of another Southwest 737, depressurizing the cabin. The plane made an emergency landing in Charleston, W.Va. It was later determined that the hole was caused by metal fatigue.
In response to that incident, Southwest changed its maintenance plan to include additional inspections, which FAA reviewed and accepted, said John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member and an expert on airline maintenance. The details of the plan are considered proprietary and aren't made public, he said.
The latest incident "certainly makes me think there is something wrong with the maintenance system at Southwest and it makes me think there is something wrong with the (FAA) principal maintenance inspector down there that after that big event they weren't watching this more closely," Goglia said in an interview.
There was "never any danger that the plane would fall out of the sky," Goglia said. "However, anybody on that airplane with any sort of respiratory problems certainly was at risk."
Four months before that emergency landing, the Dallas-based airline had agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage. The airline, which flies Boeing 737s, inspected nearly 200 of its planes back then, found no cracks and put them back in the sky.
In 1988, cracks caused part of the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel open while the jet flew from Hilo to Honolulu. A flight attendant was sucked out of the plane and plunged to her death, and dozens of passengers were injured.
Three years ago, an exploding oxygen cylinder ripped a gaping hole the fuselage of a Qantas Boeing 747-438 carrying 365 people. The plane descended thousands of feet with the loss of cabin pressure and made a successful emergency landing.
As for Friday's flight, there was obvious relief when it touched down safely. And when the pilot emerged after the landing, the atmosphere turned celebratory, Redden said.
"When the pilot came out a little bit later to look at the damage, we clapped and cheered. If overhead bins weren't in the way, I'm pretty sure we would've given him a standing ovation," she said.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=55927&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Obama: Shift from imported oil, new jobs will come

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says shifting the U.S. away from imported oil and toward cleaner forms of energy will add momentum to a trend that has led to 1.8 million new jobs in the past 13 months. Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to promote his ideas for bringing down gasoline prices by decreasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. A blueprint he outlined in a speech this past week calls for increasing domestic oil exploration and production, making cars and trucks more energy efficient and building vehicles that run on alternative fuels or electricity.
Noting that the U.S. doesn't have enough oil reserves to meet its needs, he set a goal of reducing imports by one-third by 2025.
"By doing so, we're going to make our economy less vulnerable to wild swings in oil prices," Obama said. "We're going to use cleaner sources of energy that don't imperil our climate. And we're going to spark new products and businesses all over the country by tapping America's greatest renewable resource: our ingenuity."
The address was Obama's third in recent days on the issue. On Wednesday, the president plans a trip Wednesday to Philadelphia, where an arm of the Spanish company Gamesa makes giant turbines that generate electricity from wind. Obama will hold a town-hall discussion with workers about building a clean energy economy.
Oil prices have climbed because of growing demand in China and the instability in some oil-producing countries in the Middle East. That, in turn, has pushed U.S. gasoline prices to new highs. The national average for a gallon of gas hit $3.619 on Friday, the highest price ever for this time of year, according to AAA and other sources. Prices have climbed 23.2 cents in the past month and more than 81 cents in the past year.
Obama said sparking new products and businesses during a transition from imported oil will help create jobs. The government reported Friday that 230,000 private sector jobs were created in March, bringing the number of jobs created in the past 13 months to 1.8 million. The national unemployment rate also dipped to a two-year low of 8.8 percent last month.
"That's a good sign," Obama said in the address. He recorded it during a visit Friday to a UPS shipping facility in suburban Maryland, where he examined all-electric and hybrid vehicles used by AT&T, Verizon, PepsiCo and other companies.
"But we have to keep up the momentum, and transitioning to a clean energy economy will help us do that," he said.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, focused his party's weekly message on steps he said the government must take to encourage small businesses to create jobs. Among those steps are continuing to cut spending, blocking tax increases, reducing the bureaucracy and eliminating regulations. Boehner once owned a small plastics and packaging business in Ohio.
Boehner said Congress also needs to pass a bill funding the government through Sept. 30, when the budget year ends, and avoid a shutdown. The government's authority to spend money is set to expire next Friday.
"Washington's inability to get spending under control is creating uncertainty for our job creators," Boehner said. "It's discouraging investment in small businesses and eroding confidence in our economy. To put it simply, the spending binge in Washington is holding our country back and keeping our economy from creating jobs."
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=55917&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Drivers start to cut back on gas as prices rise

By : The Associated Press

NEW YORK — With the price of gas above $3.50 a gallon in all but one state, there are signs that Americans are cutting back on driving, reversing a steady increase in demand for fuel as the economy improves. Gas sales have fallen for five straight weeks, the first time that has happened since November, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending at 140,000 service stations nationwide.
Before the decline, demand was increasing for two months. Some analysts had expected the trend to continue because the economic recovery is picking up, adding 216,000 jobs in March.
"More people are going to work," said John Gamel, director of gasoline research for MasterCard. "That means more people are driving and they should be buying more gas."
Instead, about 70 percent of the nation's major gas-station chains say sales have fallen, according to a March survey by the Oil Price Information Service. More than half reported a drop of 3 percent or more — the sharpest since the summer of 2008, when gas soared past $4 a gallon.
This year, gas prices have shot up as unrest in North Africa and the Middle East rattled energy markets and increased global demand for crude oil squeezed supplies. A gallon of unleaded regular costs $3.77 on average, and only Wyoming has an average lower than $3.50. Gas is already 41 cents more expensive then at this point in 2008, when it peaked at $4.11 in July.
Most analysts are sticking to forecasts of a high of $4 a gallon, though some have predicted $5 gas.
Across the country, some drivers are already hunting for cheaper gas, sometimes with the help of a mobile phone app. Others are checking out bus and train schedules, reconsidering mass transportation, or trading in their SUV for a more fuel-efficient model.
Kim Cramer, who works for Radio Flyer in Chicago, has started walking and carpooling more. She's also learned to be choosy, buying gas in suburbs, where she's learned she can save as much as 20 cents a gallon.
"I try to fill up anywhere besides the city," she said.
About two and a half days' worth of Whitney Shaw's pay each month goes just to fill up her 2001 Hyundai Accent. The administrative assistant is thinking about taking the bus for her daily commute, 50 miles each way between Branford, Conn., and Hartford.
"It's three hours of pay from work just to fill up my tank even once, so I'm definitely feeling it," Shaw said while filling up for $3.61 a gallon at a Valero station on the Berlin Turnpike.
Americans also appear to be turning to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars to save on gas. Sales of the Hyundai Sonata and Elantra soared 55 percent in March. Meanwhile, sales of Chevy's Suburban SUV dropped nearly 24 percent.
MasterCard's report shows drivers bought 2.7 billion gallons of gas last week, down 3.6 percent from the same period in 2010, when it was 80 cents cheaper.
The decline is somewhat puzzling because Americans typically curb their driving only as a last resort, after sacrificing other forms of discretionary spending, like shopping for new clothes, or going to movies, concerts and restaurants.
But demand for gas is falling while other types of spending are on the rise. Retail sales rose 2 percent in March compared with a year earlier, surprising economists who were expecting no increase or even a decline.
Gamel said it's too early to tell whether this is the kind of long-term decline in demand that the economy endured during the recession. Prices already are in the range when Americans started to leave their cars in the driveway several years ago. Drivers began to cut back on gas in October 2007, when the national average approached $3 per gallon.
Even if demand for gas keeps falling in the U.S., it probably won't be enough to force the price down. That's because worldwide demand for crude oil keeps rising.
Global demand for oil is about 87 million barrels per day, matching its peak from 2007. It is expected to grow to more than 88 million barrels a day by year's end, with most of the increase coming from China. At the same time, supply is shrinking because of uprisings in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In the United States, people are watching their local gas stations a little more carefully. Some are even getting rid of their old gas-guzzler.
Andrea Meyer of Manteno, Ill., has done both. She buys gas in the middle of the week because prices seem to jump over the weekend. And she recently sold her 2005 Chevy Envoy SUV and bought a 2011 Chevy Cruze, which gets 30 miles per gallon. She still spent about $200 on gas for the new car from mid-February to mid-March.
"I won't go hungry tomorrow," she says. "It's just taking away from me getting ahead faster. It throws off everything. It immediately makes you reprioritize."
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=56220&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

At NATO summit, U.S. resists calls for greater engagement in Libya

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/04/07/Web-Resampled/2011-04-07/AP110405122927-1283--606x404.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/are-libyan-rebels-up-to-the-task/2011/04/07/AF7Dt4uC_gallery.html)
Gallery: Are Libyan rebels up to the task?: Libya’s opposition fighters are determined, but they lack proper military training and don’t know how to fight a war.
By William Wan (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/william+wan/) and Leila Fadel (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/leila+fadel/), Thursday, April 14, 10:41 AM


BERLIN — At a two-day summit of NATO nations that opened here Thursday, U.S. officials played down emerging rifts among allies and said they planned to use the meeting to work toward bridging those differences.


Graphic
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/03/29/Foreign/Graphics/libya-promo-296.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/map-tracking-events-in-libya/2011/03/07/AFsjae3C_graphic.html)
Graphic: Follow how events are unfolding in Libya.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_90x60/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/04/05/Web-Resampled/2011-04-05/lbt405a-1233--252x155.jpg (http://live.washingtonpost.com/rules-of-war-american-red-cross.html)

What do we know about war?

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi “is testing our determination,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told other foreign ministers. “As our mission continues, maintaining our resolve and unity only grows more important.”
Since the United States turned over command of the Libya military operation to NATO, there has been growing criticism (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/france-wants-nato-to-fight-harder-against-gaddafis-forces/2011/04/12/AFN8pxOD_story.html)from some in the coalition — with the loudest complaints coming from France and Britain — that other allies need to commit more forces and engage more directly in helping Libya’s rebel opposition battle Gaddafi.
U.S. officials, however, have pushed back against such demands and insist that NATO commanders in charge of the operation have everything they need.
“If the commanders feel they need more capability, the commanders will ask for more capability. That’s not what they are doing so far,” said a senior U.S. administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The NATO commanders “seem satisfied with pace of the operation and we’re satisfied,” he said.
But in an afternoon briefing, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO commanders had indeed sought “more capability,” requesting in the Berlin meeting more assets — specifically equipment that can carry out precision attacks on ground forces.

According to Rasmussen, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, Adm. James Stavridis, told foreign ministers that while NATO has the assets needed overall for the mission, “our requirements change with the situation on the ground as the tactics of the regime forces change.”
Rasmussen declined to single out the United States as the country he and NATO commanders hoped would provide the additional assets now needed, but he said, “I’m confident that nations will step up to the plate.”
The type of assets NATO commanders say they need are planes that can bomb with high precision. “We had great initial success bombing Gaddafi’s tanks, but we’re encountering problems now that he’s moving his heavy armor closer to civilian populations,” said a Western diplomat involved in the discussions. NATO now needs planes such as the U.S. F-15 or F-16 or similarly equipped aircraft possessed by the British and French air forces.
Meanwhile in Libya, the besieged western city of Misurata was under heavy rocket and artillery fire Thursday morning, residents and doctors there reported. Explosions rocked the city — the only opposition foothold left in western Libya — as Gaddafi loyalists intensified their attacks and the city’s port was closed because of the intense violence, port authority officials in Benghazi said.
Misurata, 131 miles east of Tripoli, has been under siege for seven weeks as Gaddafi’s forces have tried to regain complete control of the remote city, but residents have been holding out despite sniper attacks and artillery shelling that have killed hundreds of people there.
Benghazi port authority officials said boats from aid organizations that had been shuttling weapons, medicine and other supplies from Benghazi to Misurata, as well as evacuating the wounded, were unable to dock Thursday. At the port in Benghazi, ships were being loaded with rockets and guns even as word went out the Misurata port had closed.
Misurata’s hospitals were overflowing Thursday, with at least 13 people dead and 50 wounded in the latest attacks, said Shaymaa Najil, an Iraqi doctor volunteering with the Red Cross there. Loud explosions could be heard in the background as Najil described the huge pieces of shrapnel she was removing from wounded patients.
“We can’t cover all these patients,” she said. “We don’t have enough medicine, doctors, beds or tools. Every day is the same now, we wake up to bombing and go to sleep to bombing.”
In her speech in Berlin, Clinton laid out the United States’ position on what needs to be done now, including improving coordination between NATO commanders and rebel forces — some of whom have been killed by friendly fire from NATO planes — and intensifying international pressure on Gaddafi. Planning for a post-Gaddafi Libya must also begin, she said.
“To be legitimate, any process will have to reject extremism and include a broad representation of Libyan tribes, groups and people,” Clinton said.
Also Thursday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, who has been sharply critical of other NATO allies, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/france-wants-nato-to-fight-harder-against-gaddafis-forces/2011/04/12/AFN8pxOD_story.html) reverted to a more diplomatic tone as he met with his German counterpart.
“In reality, we have the same objective. This objective is to allow the Libyan people to enjoy democratic freedom,” Juppe said. “There will not be a military solution to the problem. There can only be a political solution.”
Asked whether France might supply Libyan rebels with arms, Juppe said, “France is not in this frame of mind.” When asked the same question, U.S. officials reiterated President Obama’s statement that the United States “hasn’t ruled it out and hasn’t ruled it in.”
Meanwhile, Turkey maintains a unique position within NATO as the only country in the alliance that continues to operate a functioning embassy in Tripoli, as well as a consulate in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
A senior Turkish official said his government was hoping to use the Berlin summit to make progress on a political solution, including establishing direct communication with Gaddafi to begin making concrete arrangements for his departure, and pressing the opposition council to push for an inclusive new future government.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has maintained telephone contact with Gaddafi and his sons since before the start of the military operations, Ibrahim Kalin, Erdogan’s senior adviser, said in an interview Wednesday. On each occasion, Erdogan “urged Gaddafi to leave peacefully,” Kalin said.
“If the Berlin meeting produces results,” Kalin said, a cease-fire could be declared within days. Although he acknowledged the difficulty of dealing directly with Gaddafi, he said the international community needs to “open a line of communication” with the Libyan leader, through Arab interlocutors or Turkey itself, to assure him of a viable exit strategy and convince him he has no other option.
In its conversations with opposition leaders, Kalin said, Turkey has urged them to avoid mistakes made in Iraq, when U.S. occupation forces disbanded the Iraqi military and barred members of Saddam Hussein’s political party from government jobs, making long-term enemies and robbing the country of any chance of early stability.
“The opposition has to acknowledge that such a thing as Tripoli exists,” Kalin said.
The current fighting on the ground, Kalin said, “is not sustainable. If it continues, more people will die and Libya’s infrastructure will be destroyed. But whether it’s one week or four weeks or more, it will come to a point” that it will end. “We are trying to make that happen now,” he said.
U.S. officials said the international community had begun laying the political groundwork for the nascent opposition government at an earlier meeting on Tuesday in Qatar. Under Secretary of State William Burns also met with Gaddafi’s former foreign minister and intelligence chief, Musa Kusa, in Qatar, U.S. officials said. Kusa, who abandoned Gaddafi last month, was not invited to the official meetings there but met separately with several foreign ministers, they said.
wanw@washpost.com

Fadel reported from Benghazi, Libya. Correspondent Simon Denyer in Tripoli and staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-nato-summit-us-resists-calls-for-greater-engagement-in-libya/2011/04/14/AFn3IRcD_story.html?hpid=z2

Obama to meet with deficit commission, Qatari emir By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A day after announcing his proposal to cut the U.S. deficit by $4 trillion, President Barack Obama will meet with the co-chairmen of his bipartisan deficit-reduction commission. The plan Obama proposed Wednesday relied on some of the measures proposed by the panel in December. Vice President Joe Biden also will attend the White House meeting with Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.
In the afternoon, the president will meet with the emir of Qatar in the Oval Office. Afterward, Obama and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani will talk with the media. Qatar backs the Libyan rebels who oppose Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
Later, the president will travel to Chicago. He'll speak at several Democratic National Committee events in the evening before spending the night in his hometown.

President Obama to Announce That All Gov. Cars Will Use Clean Energy by 2015

by Brit Liggett (http://inhabitat.com/author/brit-liggett/)



http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/03/Obama-Speaks-Energy-1-537x358.jpg

President Barack Obama will be speaking at Georgetown University (http://www.georgetown.edu/) today on the future of America’s energy (http://inhabitat.com/energy) security. The President’s remarks are set to be focused on the goal of reducing American dependence on foreign oil by maximizing US oil production in the short term and focusing on clean energy technology (http://inhabitat.com/energy) for the long term. He’ll also promise to make all new government vehicles run on clean energy by the year 2015 — that’s how to lead by example. With the conflicts in the Middle East still in a heated state and the radioactive crisis in Japan on everyone’s minds, it seems a proper time to give the administrations full concentration to this issue.

http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/03/Obama-Speaks-Energy-1-75x75.jpg (http://inhabitat.com/president-obama-to-anounce-that-all-gov-cars-will-use-clean-energy-by-2015/obama-speaks-energy-1/)
http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/03/Obama-Speaks-Energy-2-75x75.jpg (http://inhabitat.com/president-obama-to-anounce-that-all-gov-cars-will-use-clean-energy-by-2015/obama-speaks-energy-2/)
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Obama’s address will likely open with a comment on his understanding of how rising gas prices affect everyone in the country. He will remain sensitive to the fact that the majority of Americans are hit hard every time they pay more at the pump and therefore his focus on domestic oil production, to some, seems fitting. Though, for us, the outlook on foreign oil production is not so comforting — the US imported 11 million barrels of oil a day in 2008 and the President can only promise to cut that by 1/3 by 2025. An estimated 57 percent of onshore leases and 70 percent offshore leases — we all know the danger of offshore leases (http://inhabitat.com/index.php?s=gulf+oil+spill) — for oil production are inactive and the President will promise to explore those for further resources. Our thought remains, if we can only cut foreign oil imports by 1/3 in 10 years, why focus any energy (http://inhabitat.com/energy) and effort on that, when we could totally cut oil use by pushing electric or hydrogen or algae or some new unknown technology (http://inhabitat.com/green-gadgets/) yet to be developed.
Beyond his oil promises, the President will speak at length on biofuel research, vehicle efficiency (http://inhabitat.com/automotive) and infrastructure for the next generation of clean tech (http://inhabitat.com/green-gadgets/) cars and trucks. In addition to mandating that all new government vehicles (http://inhabitat.com/automotive) run completely on clean energy (http://inhabitat.com/energy/) by 2015 he’ll be pushing for the right kind of research to make that energy technology available to all Americans. The Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (http://arpa-e.energy.gov/) (ARPA-E) has already invested in over 100 projects that are researching everything from smart grid technology (http://inhabitat.com/green-gadgets/) to electric vehicles (http://inhabitat.com/automotive) and in the 2012 budget the funding for that program is expected to double. Rounding out his speech on energy security the President will definitely reiterate his goals to get 80 percent of US energy (http://inhabitat.com/energy/) from clean sources by 2025 and put 1 million electric vehicles (http://inhabitat.com/automotive) on the street by 2015 — which some critics have said (http://inhabitat.com/obama-will-not-meet-his-electric-car-goal-by-2015/) isn’t possible — as well as his commitment to making American’s homes more energy efficient through government funded retrofits.


http://inhabitat.com/president-obama-to-anounce-that-all-gov-cars-will-use-clean-energy-by-2015/

South looks to recover from killer twisters

By : The Associated Press

SANFORD, N.C. — Lowe's store manager Michael Hollowell had heard the tornado warnings but his first clue that the danger was outside his front door came when he saw his staff running toward the back of the home improvement store. More than 100 employees and customers screamed in near unison when the steel roof curled off overhead Saturday. The store was becoming part of the wreckage left by a ferocious storm system bristling with killer twisters that ripped through the South.
"You could hear all the steel ripping. People screaming in fear for their lives," Hollowell told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Those in the store did not become part of the death toll that totaled at least 45 across six states, and officials said quick action by Hollowell and his employees helped them all make it out alive in Sanford, about 40 miles south of Raleigh.
In all of Lee County, where Sanford is located, officials said there was just one confirmed fatality during the storm, which claimed at least 21 lives statewide, damaged hundreds of homes and left a swath of destruction unmatched by any spring storm since the mid-1980s.
In Raleigh early Monday, authorities were blocking access to a mobile home park of about 200 homes where three children were killed. Officials planned to assess conditions after sunrise before deciding whether to allow residents to return home.
Power lines and trees still covered nearby roads. Where roads were clear, there were massive piles of debris that had been pushed to the side of the street.
Survivors were left to recall miraculous escapes.
In the Bladen County community of Ammon, about 70 miles south of Raleigh, Audrey McKoy and her husband Milton saw a tornado bearing down on them over the tops of the pine trees that surround the seven or eight mobile homes that make up their neighborhood. He glanced at a nearby farm and saw the winds lifting pigs and other animals in the sky.
"It looked just like 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Audrey said.
They took shelter in their laundry room, and after emerging once the storm had passed, were disoriented for a moment. The twister had turned their mobile home around and they were standing in their backyard.
Milton found three bodies in their neighborhood, including 92-year-old Marchester Avery and his 50-year-old son, Tony, who died in adjacent mobile homes. He stopped his wife from coming over to see.
"You don't want to look at this," he told her.
The storms crushed trailer parks and brought life in the center of the state's second-largest city to a virtual standstill. It was the worst outbreak in the state since 22 twisters in 1984 killed 42 people.
Gov. Beverly Perdue planned to tour hard-hit areas in three counties Monday. The devastation she saw Sunday left her near tears, she said. The storm pummeled bustling cities and remote rural communities. One of Perdue's stops was downtown Raleigh, where fallen trees blocked major thoroughfares and damage to the Shaw University campus forced it to cancel the remainder of its spring semester.
Perdue said she'd been in contact with President Barack Obama, who pledged his support, and that federal emergency management workers were already on the ground.
"We have in North Carolina a tremendous relationship with our federal partners, and have been through this so many times," she said. "That's not a good thing. That's a bad thing."
One place Perdue was scheduled to visit was Bertie County, where storms were deadliest. At least 11 residents died, Bertie County Manager Zee Lamb said, including three members of the same family.
Jean Burkett lived near Roy and Barbara Lafferty and Barbara's mother, Helen White, in Colerain. Burkett and Barbara Lafferty graduated from high school together in 1964 and had always been neighbors. On Sunday, at her relatively untouched home, Burkett pointed out a row of four or five about 400 yards away that had been demolished. The Laffertys and Helen White died in their home.
"The neighborhood has lost some mighty fine neighbors," Burkett said. "It's the worst thing we've ever seen."
The violent weather began Thursday in Oklahoma, where two people died, before cutting across the Deep South on Friday and hitting North Carolina and Virginia on Saturday. Authorities said seven people died in Arkansas; seven in Alabama; seven in Virginia; and one in Mississippi.
More than 240 tornadoes were reported from the storm system, including 62 in North Carolina, but the National Weather Service's final numbers could be lower because some tornadoes may have been reported more than once.
The state emergency management agency said it had reports of 23 fatalities from Saturday's storms, but local officials confirmed only 21 deaths to The Associated Press.
The conditions that allowed for the storm occur on the Great Plains maybe twice a year, but they almost never happen in North Carolina, according to Scott Sharp, a weather service meteorologist in Raleigh.
The atmosphere was unstable Saturday, which allows air to rise and fall quickly, creating winds of hurricane strength or greater. There was also plenty of moisture in the air, which fuels violent storms. Shear winds at different heights, moving in different directions, created the spin needed to create tornadoes, Sharp said.
Many of the deaths across the state occurred in mobile homes like the ones in Ammon. The three deaths in Raleigh were in a mobile home park about five miles north of downtown, which was still closed off to residents early Monday.
Census data from 2007, the latest available, estimates 14.5 percent of residences in North Carolina are mobile homes, the seventh highest percentage in the nation and well over the U.S. average of 6.7 percent.
North Carolina officials tallied more than 130 serious injuries, 65 homes destroyed and another 600 significantly damaged by Sunday evening, according to state public safety spokeswoman Julia Jarema. Officials expect those totals to climb as damage assessments continue.
Back at the Lowe's store, Joseph Rosser and his 13-year-old daughter, Hannah, had pulled their Chevrolet Colorado pickup off the road Saturday, seeking shelter. Instead, the store's exterior concrete toppled, crushing the truck's cab with both inside.
"I really didn't see much because I had a pillow over my face to protect my head and I heard my dad tell me it was going to be OK," Hannah said. "And then all of a sudden, I just heard a loud boom.
"My dad was lying there, telling me he was going to die," said Hannah, her midsection wrapped in a back brace. "He sounded very hoarse like he couldn't breathe. He was crying and was hurt really bad."
She crawled out the truck's shattered back window and ran around the parking lot calling for help, because her cell phone wouldn't work. Both Rossers are recovering from their injuries.
While the death toll may climb and while it will be weeks before final damage assessments are completed, residents and officials alike are looking to make repairs and start building what was lost.
Aleta Tootle and four other people sheltered in a closet in her Bertie County home, emerging with only a few scratches after the rest of the building was ripped to shreds. Surveying the wreckage Sunday, she said there was only one thing left to do.
"All we can do is start over," she said. "We don't have a choice."
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=56421&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

A Passion Play Endures as a Seasonal Miracle

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/21/us/21land/21land-articleLarge.jpg Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Before curtain call opening night of "The Story of Jesus," a Passion Play performed at the Hardee County Cattlemen's Arena in Wauchula, Fla., producer, director and actor Mike Graham, addressed the cast.

By DAN BARRY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/us/columns/danbarry/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: April 20, 2011

WAUCHULA, Fla. — With less than two hours until showtime, a man sits amid the backstage chaos and studies his image in a propped-up mirror. The eyes are grayish blue, the goatee trim, the long dark hair flecked with gray. Not there yet. He scoops another dab of makeup to continue the annual transformation of Mike Graham, now 58, into Jesus Christ, forever 33.

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An assistant hustles over with a sky-blue robe that an anxious Mr. Graham wriggles over his bare torso and summer shorts. “Too little on me,” he says apologetically, working his way out of it. Someone else asks him to assess a young girl’s angel costume. “I’d like her to be glittered,” he says, before asking whether the child has been warned how to behave around the camels.
Then the man who plays Jesus for a living turns back to his imperfect reflection.
For more than two decades, Mr. Graham, a preacher, has directed and assumed the lead role in a gritty Passion play, “The Story of Jesus,” that unfolds 10 nights a year in the modest Cattlemen’s Arena, in rural Hardee County. Across its dirt-floor stage come chariots and sword fights, miracles and betrayals, exotic animals and a cast of hundreds.
Over time, Mr. Graham’s play has survived many trials, some natural, some economic and some, he suspects, the work of the devil. In 2004, the production weathered both the competition of the Mel Gibson (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/mel_gibson/index.html?inline=nyt-per) movie “The Passion of the Christ” and the wrath of a hurricane that nearly swept Wauchula away, but spared the play’s many costumes and long-suffering donkey.
Other challenges, he says, have included his divorce years ago, which alienated many followers; a decline in attendance, due in part to competition from the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando; and other, curiously timed setbacks — a car accident, a sudden illness — that nearly prevented him from picking up his cross.
Finally, Mr. Graham knows the folly of trying to slow time, although he has tried. For one thing, he has enlisted a 27-year-old bridge inspector to play Jesus in certain taxing scenes. “He handles the Trial, the Ascension, the Resurrection,” Mr. Graham explains. “I do all the miracles, basically. The adult life of Jesus, the Last Supper, the garden of Gethsemane scene, and the Crucifixion.”
Mr. Graham cuts his hair just once a year, and works out every morning in his home gym so that he is able to carry a heavy cross dozens of yards across the stage. Still, he has no desire to follow the great Josef Meier (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/08/arts/josef-meier-94-producer-of-passion-play.html), who played Jesus in performances in South Dakota and in Lake Wales, just north of here, well into his 80s. A miracle in itself.
For now, Mr. Graham must set aside these concerns, and focus. The first Passion play of the season is just 90 minutes away.
Under the late-afternoon sun, white cast members take turns getting spray-painted a color called Sebring brown, a shade that Mr. Graham thinks approaches a Middle Eastern skin tone. A man in a “Sprayin’ & Prayin’ ” T-shirt dilutes the chocolate muck in plastic buckets, while another man, with a praying-hands tattoo on his left leg, paints a succession of outstretched arms, splayed legs and wincing faces.
This ritual is one of many that have evolved over the last quarter-century, ever since Mr. Graham, as a guitar-wielding youth pastor from southern Illinois, staged a crucifixion scene at a church banquet with a few teenagers and a couple of props. Some of those here tonight have never been in a Passion play; others have never known a spring without one. They are united now by glistening coats of Sebring brown.
Alongside the arena, clusters of ticketholders gather for some nonalcoholic tailgating, while a Roman centurion trots past on a horse. In a tent nearby, volunteers set out various souvenirs for sale, including cardboard license plates that say: THE STORY OF JESUS — I WAS THERE! — WAUCHULA, FLORIDA.
A kind of off-limits petting zoo has sprung up beyond the arena’s back entrance, with pens containing ducks, sheep, horses, two oxen, a donkey and three camels, just arrived from Ocala. Their owner, Butch Rivers, 70, a former stunt rider who now uses a cane — “You pay for it,” he says of certain passions — is excited to see the play again.
“The first time I saw this play it put chills on me,” Mr. Rivers says.

An hour until showtime, and the Cattlemen’s Arena awaits its first-century bustle. The dirt has been raked and sprayed with water, to keep the dust down. All soda cans and other remnants of the future have been removed. The still-life setting is as serene as the blue-dyed river dug into the dirt, stage right.

But just a few yards away, in an exhibit hall serving as backstage, a large industrial fan stirs the nervous air. Actors hunt through a long rack of costumes that runs beneath a portrait gallery of beauty queens, the “Cattlemen’s Sweethearts” of the near and distant past. Children wolf down treats and Gatorade before assuming the roles of angels and demons. Girding thespians reach for their fake spears and swords.
Here is Joann Grantham, 56, volunteer prop master, who has done everything from scour discount stores for plastic fruit to retouch the throne of the child king. She has also helped to decide whether you’re a shop owner, an apostle or a member of the Sanhedrin. (Mr. Graham, by the way, is aware of the history of anti-Semitic Passion plays, and takes pains not to traffic in stereotypes.)
In the past, Ms. Grantham has often played a “false witness” who spits on Jesus. But she chose to remain behind the scenes this year, after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer. When she goes to Wal-Mart, she says, she wears a hat to cover her bald head; but tonight she feels at home, hatless and happy.
Here, too, is Michelle Puma, 54, volunteer makeup artist, who has set up shop in the 4-H Club’s concession booth. Everything is in its place: the long-haired wigs set on Styrofoam heads; the various jars of fake blood; the blue boxes of Jesus beards; the Ace Hardware bucket containing various props, including a crown of thorns.
One of Ms. Puma’s challenges is to make young people look older, which is the opposite of Mr. Graham’s task, as he peers critically into a mirror leaning against a menu board. “My hair’s just crazy tonight,” he says.
Mr. Graham’s words seem rooted more in worry than vanity. Because he deeply believes that this play is how God wants him to spread the Word, his mind races with all the things that could distract from that message, and have: camels arriving a week late, a teenager texting on stage, a stray chicken flying out of Lazarus’s tomb. How about the time a couple of camera-carrying tourists wandered into the John the Baptist crowd scene?
He is also thinking of a shortfall. The production costs about $250,000 a year, which includes the modest salaries for Mr. Graham and his wife, Diane, who will play Mary Magdalene tonight, and various rentals, from the arena to the camels ($1,000 a night).
And, of course, here he is again, trying to be 33. But Mr. Graham has a plan: to replace “The Story of Jesus,” at least next year, with a new production, “The Story of Noah,” featuring himself in the lead role of the biblical patriarch, who was said to have lived several hundred years. Maybe someday, if he raises enough money, he will be able to build an outdoor theater of his own.
Fifteen minutes to showtime. Mr. Graham, now in full Jesus attire, climbs on top of a table, near a sign promoting beef (“Real Food for Real People”), and uses a microphone to deliver some last-minute reminders.
No cellphones. No gum. No glasses. No watches. And if you’re a teenage girl who is wondering, “Can I hang out with the Sanhedrin?” — the answer is no!
Mr. Graham leads everyone in a short prayer and a rallying hymn, then releases his energized flock with:
“Let’s go! Do it!”
Showtime, and on a dirt stage in a darkened arena, the Story unfolds again.
An innkeeper, played by a Sebring-brown student of Harley-Davidson mechanics, leads a couple to shelter. The baby Jesus, played by an infant named Angelina, is raised triumphantly into the air, while four white-robed angels, teenage girls strapped into harnesses, glide by pulley across the ceiling.
Hear the wails of mothers whose baby boys have been slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers. See the colorful scrum of early commerce. Breathe the dust kicked up by the scurry of sheep and the plodding of oxen. Marvel as Jesus raises a child from the dead, halts the stoning of an adulteress and, thanks to a concealed harness and a fog machine, walks on water.
During the brief intermission, take in the orange-blossom air of the Florida night. Buy a “Story of Jesus” fan for $2. Enjoy some nachos, or a bowl of mini doughnuts slathered with whipped cream. Return, then, to brace for the bloody, violent passion. The scourging, the spitting, the echo of nails hammered into hands and feet. The death.
But everyone in the aluminum bleachers knows: This is not how the play ends.
Soon the resurrected Jesus returns to the stage in glory. His crown of gold glittering, his sword raised high, he races back and forth on a galloping steed, perfect in its whiteness. The applause and cheers of 1,400 ring through a rodeo arena in central Florida.
When it is over, Mr. Graham, exhausted, 58, ready to do it again tomorrow, takes the microphone to thank the audience and ask for parting donations. And if anyone wants to be baptized, there are robes, towels and a manmade river dyed a deep blue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/us/21land.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

U.S. Orders Airlines to State Fees More Clearly


Published: April 20, 2011

The government announced a new set of passenger protections on Wednesday aimed primarily at travelers’ growing frustration over airline fees.


Although the rules do not set limits on how much carriers can charge for items like bags, ticket changes and seats, they do require airlines to more clearly disclose these and other fees in advertisements and on their Web sites. Ads will have to cite the full price, including government taxes that now are often relegated to the fine print.
Other provisions increase the compensation carriers must pay passengers who are involuntarily bumped from flights (from up to $800 to as much as $1,300 for the longest delays). They also require the airlines to refund checked baggage fees if luggage is lost, and require airlines to promptly notify customers of delays over 30 minutes. The provisions impose a four-hour limit on time spent on the tarmac for delayed international flights, expanding a policy that has been in place for domestic flights for a year.
The Department of Transportation proposed these and other passenger protections last June, soliciting public comment on the ideas, and ultimately adopted most of the rules under consideration, despite objections raised by the airlines.
“Airline passengers have a right to be treated fairly,” Ray LaHood (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/ray_lahood/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the transportation secretary, said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s just common sense that if an airline loses your bag or you get bumped from a flight because it was oversold, you should be reimbursed. The additional passenger protections we’re announcing today will help make sure air travelers are treated with the respect they deserve.”
The government is trying to deal with a growing frustration for travelers: confusing ticket prices and hidden fees.
When the new rules take effect in late August, airlines will have to prominently disclose all potential fees on their Web sites, including surcharges for baggage, meals, canceling or changing reservations and seat assignments. Although the overview of the new rules provided by the Transportation Department did not specify how these fees would have to be displayed during online fare searches or purchases, the government did single out baggage fees — which have become increasingly complicated — for special attention.
The new rules require the airlines and ticket agents to refer passengers to up-to-date information about baggage charges, both before and after a ticket purchase. Airlines must also include bag fees in e-ticket confirmations sent to passengers.
Another new rule that is sure to spur debate requires airlines and ticket agents to include all government taxes and fees in every advertised price. That would change the longstanding practice of allowing advertisements to list government taxes and fees separately — usually as part of a lengthy, small-print disclaimer.
The Transportation Department also noted that it planned to issue a proposal later this year that would require extra fees to be displayed at all points of sale, not just on airline Web sites. That is another hot issue, as travel agencies have been asking the government to force airlines to share fee data with databases that make it easier for customers to compare ticket prices.
Since the Transportation Department released a preview of the new rules on the condition that the details not be shared until Wednesday, the airlines’ reaction to the policies could only be gleaned from responses they and their trade associations filed during the public comment period last year.
The Air Transport Association (http://www.airlines.org/pages/home.aspx), the airlines’ trade group, objected, for instance, to the full-fare advertising requirement, calling the proposal “likely illegal” and pointing out that other businesses like hotels or telecommunications companies were not forced to include government taxes in their advertised prices.
“Given the wide and varied practice of unbundling services and advertising such services, it is not clear why the aviation industry should be treated differently,” the Air Transport Association wrote.
More pithily, Spirit Airlines (http://www.spirit.com/Default.aspx) said in its filing that forcing carriers to advertise prices including additional fees “would be akin to McDonald’s (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/mcdonalds_corporation/index.html?inline=nyt-org) being required to only advertise burgers including the price of fries and a Coke.”
The Air Transport Association also objected to a rule, which was ultimately adopted, that will require airlines to hold a reservation at the quoted fare without payment, or offer cancellations without penalty, for at least 24 hours after a reservation is made.
Spirit Airlines wrote that this proposal would be “like allowing a customer at a grocery store to take home a carton of milk without charge, leave it out in the sun and then bring back the spoiled milk the next day.”
In a concession to the airlines’ objections, the government did limit the 24-hour rule to reservations made one week or more previous to a flight’s departure date. The Transportation Department also decided not to force airlines to incorporate their customer service plans into their contracts of carriage, which would have given passengers grounds for legal action if carriers violated their service commitments. The department also did not require baggage fee refunds when luggage is merely delayed.
Although the Air Transport Association opposed extending tarmac delay limits to international flights, the government adopted this rule, which will apply to domestic and foreign carriers. The Transportation Department cited the extended tarmac delays passengers experienced on foreign carriers during a snowstorm last December at Kennedy International Airport (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/k/kennedy_international_airport_nyc/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in New York as an “important factor” in its decision.
The airlines have warned that this rule will probably increase flight cancellations. That issue is currently in dispute as analysts, airline representatives and government officials debate whether the threat of hefty penalties for tarmac delays for domestic flights has resulted in more cancellations in the last year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/business/20air.html?ref=us

Zakaria: No short-term crisis in US, S&P downgrade of outlook ‘bizarre’

By : JOHN MARINO
marino@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/zakaria.jpg

The prevailing wisdom on the U.S. economy is “backwards,” and while the nation has “huge” long-term budgetary problems to confront, it is currently the fastest growing rich country in the world. That’s the view of author Fareed Zakaria, the renowned journalist and analyst of global economic and political trends, who spoke at the Center for the New Economy’s Leadership Summit on Tuesday in Puerto Rico.
Calling this week’s decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade its outlook on U.S. debt “bizarre,” Zakaria said it came as Republicans and the Obama administration are finally putting out serious proposals to deal with the U.S. long-term debt situation.
“There is no short-term crisis. The U.S. is going to grow faster than any rich country this year. The American consumer is spending again and the savings rate is 5 percent. U.S. companies have more than $2 trillion on hand,” Zakaria said.
On Monday, S&P lowered its long-term outlook for the federal government’s fiscal health from “stable” to “negative,” and warned that failure of the U.S. government to control the massive federal deficit could cause the agency to strip the U.S. of its top investment rating in the next two years, which would make loans more expensive and credit more difficult to obtain.
“Their track record is not the greatest,” Zakaria added, pointing to the failure of S&P and other credit ratings agencies to spot the big problems with mortgage-backed securities that sparked the 2008 global financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Despite the huge total federal debt of $14.3 trillion, U.S. government bonds remain one of the most stable and attractive investments for foreign nations such as China. U.S. government bonds remain the world’s best investment.
The only two other viable competitors are securities floated by Japan, which had huge debt levels before the recent crisis sparked by a tsunami and nuclear power plant leak, and those by members of the European Union, which has been battered by the financial instability of member nations such as Greece.
While there is no “short-term” crisis, the U.S. is facing a “huge long-term crisis, according to Zakaria, who is editor of Time magazine and the host of “Fareed Zakaria” GPS on CNN.
“It revolves around the elderly and the delivery of healthcare. Unless the U.S. is able to deliver healthcare at a substantially reduced cost, we are doomed,” Zakaria said. “You can’t put 60 percent of your budget into the elderly and poor.”
About 60 percent of the U.S. budget is comprised of entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as interest on long-term debt.
Zakarias, the author of the best-selling books “The Post American World” and “The Future of Freedom,” was the keynote speaker of CNE’s “A Great Cause Leadership Summit,” a two-day activity that raised some $700,000 for the local think tank and other charitable groups.
His speech focused on the challenges of the U.S. to adapt to a world that it helped create, in which most nations on earth now participate in an open global marketplace.
Zakaria also discussed the need for the Puerto Rico government to implement strategies to create wealth on the island, rather than attracting greater federal funding and offshore investment to the island.

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=56495&ct_id=1&ct_name=1

Zakaria: No short-term crisis in US, S&P downgrade of outlook ‘bizarre’

By : JOHN MARINO
marino@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/zakaria.jpg


“It revolves around the elderly and the delivery of healthcare. Unless the U.S. is able to deliver healthcare at a substantially reduced cost, we are doomed,” Zakaria said. “You can’t put 60 percent of your budget into the elderly and poor.”
About 60 percent of the U.S. budget is comprised of entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as interest on long-term debt.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=56495&ct_id=1&ct_name=1

A ver cuando los americanos se van a dar cuenta que tienen uno de los peores sistemas de salud comparado con otros paises "Western" y pagando el doble per capita (el gobierno) a eso le a~ades el dinero que los consumidores tienen que pagar, que es mas dinero que los consumidores pudieran gastar en otro sector de su querida consumer-based economy. :)

As gas prices soar, task force to explore energy fraud

By Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini, Thursday, April 21, 8:26 PM

With U.S. gasoline prices soaring, the Obama administration Thursday unveiled a working group of federal agencies to probe potential fraud in the energy markets.
Rising fuel prices are a persistent concern for the White House, which worries about their impact on the economy’s recovery and on voters’ wallets as President Obama runs for reelection.

The Justice Department announced the working group, which will include representatives from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Agriculture, Energy, Justice and Treasury departments.
“We will be vigilant in monitoring the oil and gas markets for any wrongdoing so that consumers can be confident they are not paying higher prices as a result of illegal activity,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement unveiling the effort.
Obama devoted considerable time to the subject of rising gasoline prices this week, seeking to reassure Americans that there was enough global oil supply and blaming soaring gasoline prices on speculators.
The average U.S. price of gasoline hit $3.84 a gallon last week, its highest since August 2008, as oil prices have soared above $100 a barrel. With pump prices above $4 a gallon in such cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, there is political pressure on Obama to act.
The group, which will be part of the administration’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, will focus on any manipulation of oil and gas prices, collusion, fraud, or other violations of state and federal laws, Holder said in a memo.
It will also examine investor practices, supply and demand factors, and the role of speculators and index traders in the oil futures markets, according to his memo sent to the task force members.
Holder said that he was acting on a March 11 request from Obama to look into rising energy prices and that during a subsequent meeting last month with task force members and state attorneys general they discussed pending inquiries in some states.
They also talked about “areas that require additional exploration, including whether there is any evidence of unlawful price manipulation at the supplier level or higher,” Holder said in the memorandum released by the Justice Department.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-gas-prices-soar-task-force-to-explore-energy-fraud/2011/04/21/AFsRJGLE_story.html

Good Friday Way Of The Cross Procession On Brooklyn Bridge


Today is Good Friday, the day that Jesus was crucified, and dozens of people observed it with the Way of the Cross walk (http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/nyc-good-friday-way-of-the-cross-20110422-KC) from Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, to St. Peter's Church in lower Manhattan. The group organizing the walk (http://www.wocbrooklynbridge.com/) explains a little more about the walk below—and, no, it's not like actual Christians being crucified, the way Good Friday is being celebrated in the Philippines today (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/04/22/2011-04-22_christian_fanatics_in_philippines_celebrate_good_friday_by_recreating_crucifixio.html?r=news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nydnrss%2Fnews+%28News%29&utm_content=Google+Reader):

In the heart of a city where millions of people carry their daily cross, most of the time dreadfully alone: if God exists, He has nothing to do with my daily life. This is the true cross of every day, the cross of a person abandoned only to himself in his most inner need for a never-ending love, truth, beauty, and justice.We need the presence of “God-with-us”, Jesus every day. And Jesus, because of the sacrifice of His cross and because of His resurrection, dwells among us every day. The Way of the Cross in the heart of the city is a simple, humble sign offered to ourselves and to everyone as a witness to His merciful presence in our daily lives and as a plea, through His cross and resurrection, that our eyes and heart may be opened to His presence.
There will be noise on the bridge, possibly confusion. It is the very noise and confusion of our city, where we spend our days. We will need to desire great attention in order to follow Jesus and to fix our gaze on the event of His passion. It is that very same attention that is needed to look at the event of His presence among us every day.
This is why we suggest maintaining silence all along the Way of the Cross, a silence in front of God dying for us, a silence that isn’t merely not speaking, but is the simplest, purest way to beg to recognize His presence in our daily life.


http://gothamist.com/2011/04/22/good_friday_way_of_the_cross_across.php

Good Friday processions planned in the streets of Washington and nearby neighborhoods


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: April 22, 2011 - 2:11 am

WASHINGTON — Catholics in the Washington area will be celebrating Good Friday with processions through the streets of the city and nearby neighborhoods.
In Washington, some 200 Catholics are expected to walk from Our Lady, Queen of the Americas to the Cathedral of St. Matthew, where Archbishop Donald Wuerl will greet them. The group is expected to carry statues and sing while walking through Dupont Circle.
Other processions are taking place in Silver Spring and Takoma Park.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/9030f17c51d442e2a9190e4c0563effd/DC--Good-Friday/

Wal-Mart Tests Service for Buying Food Online

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/stephanie_clifford/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: April 24, 2011


The company has been expanding its online options, including a nationwide rollout of a service (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/business/11shop.html) that lets customers order merchandise (not food) online and pick it up in the store the same day. While that program is aimed at getting shoppers into stores more frequently, this one creates a more convenient way to buy from Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart declined to make executives available for interviews about the grocery test, which started Saturday. In early March, asked about the possibility of an online grocery ordering service, Steve Nave, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart.com (http://walmart.com/), would not discuss specifics.
“One of the great things about Wal-Mart is we’ll put something out there, test and learn from it,” he said. “I would say nothing is off limits.”
Other grocers, including Safeway and Peapod, which is affiliated with Giant Food, offer a similar service. Choose grocery items via a Web site, select a delivery time and the groceries are dropped off at your house. Fresh Direct and AmazonFresh, neither of which are run by brick-and-mortar grocers, also offer a grocery delivery service.
But some grocers have said it is not a good use of resources. Supervalu, for instance, ceased offering (http://supermarketnews.com/news/albertsons_delivery_0414/) online grocery delivery in 2009, saying most of its customers would prefer to get groceries in a store. And one of the more notorious dot-com busts was Webvan, a grocery delivery service that went bankrupt in 2001.
Delivery charges for Wal-Mart to Go start at $5.
For the test, Wal-Mart is shipping groceries from a San Jose store, packing them in tote bags and delivering them in temperature-controlled trucks that the company owns. Deliveries can be scheduled for the next day.
Currently, the groceries available lean toward prepackaged goods. Customers cannot order beef to specifications, for instance — they must buy precut meat in a range of packages. And in the produce category, while fresh mangoes and bananas are available, oranges and lemons come in bags of several pounds rather than individually.
Its prices are competitive. A 64-ounce carton of Horizon milk was $3.50 on Wal-Mart’s site, $3.99 from Peapod and $4.29 on Fresh Direct.
Sixteen ounces of celery at Wal-Mart to Go was $1.98, where 16 ounces of celery at Peapod was $3.29 and at Fresh Direct $3.49.
On shelf-stable food like crackers and candy, Wal-Mart had a broad selection — it sells 12 varieties of Triscuits, for instance, versus 10 at Peapod and two at Fresh Direct.
Wal-Mart is the biggest grocer in the country — according to estimates from Janney Capital Markets, it has about 33 percent market share in the United States. Kroger has 9 percent, Safeway 5 percent, Supervalu 4 percent and Target 3 percent, according to Janney. And groceries account for more than half of Wal-Mart’s American revenue, excluding figures from Sam’s Club.
Craig Johnson, president of the consulting firm Customer Growth Partners, said that the move made some sense.
Wal-Mart’s big stores are patronized for large stock-up trips, not for on-the-go grocery shopping, he said, and the delivery could help address that issue.
Yet Wal-Mart would need to tackle questions like how to deliver groceries on a wider scale (use its own trucks? rent a fleet? use U.P.S.?), and how to handle and keep safe prepared foods like sandwiches or ready-made dinners rather than just basic groceries, Mr. Johnson said.
“These are not simple operations to set up profitably, as Webvan and a host of others have found out over the years,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/business/25walmart.html?_r=1&ref=us

High gas prices cut into driving habits — and Obama’s approval rating

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/03/12/Web-Resampled/2011-03-12/OilGas-Prices001--606x404.jpg Peter Haley/ - The Energy Information Administration said Monday that gas prices climbed last week to $3.88 a gallon, up 81 cents since the start of the year. That is the highest pump price since August 2008, before the financial meltdown. (AP photo/ The News Tribune, Peter Haley)


By Steven Mufson and and Jon Cohen, Monday, April 25, 6:34 PM


Soaring gasoline prices are biting into household incomes and nibbling at Americans’ fuel consumption — and support for President Obama, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
About six in 10 respondents said they had cut back on driving because of rising fuel prices (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/4_a_gallon_gas_fueling_fears_for_recovery/2011/04/12/AFvNW3SD_story.html?nav=emailpage), and seven in 10 said that high pump prices are causing financial hardship.


Video
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/04/23/National-Politics/Videos/04232011-13v/04232011-13v.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-address-no-silver-bullet-for-gas-prices/2011/04/23/AFVQ0iVE_video.html) [/URL]
President Barack Obama says one answer to high gasoline prices is to spend money developing renewable energy sources. (April 23)




Obama, like previous presidents in times of high oil prices, is taking a hit. Only 39 percent of those who call gas prices a “serious financial hardship” approve of the way he is doing his job, and 33 percent of them say he’s doing a good job on the economy.
The Energy Information Administration said Monday that gas prices climbed last week to $3.88 a gallon, up 81 cents since the start of the year. That is the highest pump price since August 2008, before the financial meltdown.
Evidence of motorists’ hardships are littering the roads. The Automobile Association of America says the number of motorists running out of gas has been surging. John Townsend, a AAA spokesman, said that cash-strapped members “are pushing the envelope” and that emergency gas deliveries to stranded members jumped nationwide, including by 40 percent in the District.
That sort of hardship could slow Obama’s reelection campaign. The Post-ABC poll shows that 60 percent of independents who say they’ve been hit hard by surging gas prices also say they definitely won’t support Obama in his bid for reelection.
In a hypothetical matchup with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the top GOP performer in the Post-ABC poll, Romney wins by 24 points among the independents who have taken a severe financial hit because of gas prices, and the president is up 7 percentage points among other independents.
At a fundraiser in Southern California last week, where pump prices are the highest in the country, Obama acknowledged the political peril of high gas prices (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-address-no-silver-bullet-for-gas-prices/2011/04/23/AFVQ0iVE_video.html). He said, “My poll numbers go up and down depending on the latest crisis, and right now gas prices are weighing heavily on people.”
He tried to show that he feels motorists’ pain. “I admit, Secret Service doesn’t let me fill up the pump anymore,” he said. “But it hasn’t been that long since I did.”
The poll also shows the stubborn nature of gasoline consumption and the difficulty of weaning the country off its dependence on imported oil. About a quarter of all Americans say they would not alter their driving habits until prices, which are about $1 a gallon higher than a year ago, climb another $1.10 or to more than $5.
Although gasoline prices are just a quarter of a dollar short of their all-time record of $4.11 for a gallon of regular set in July 2008, the Energy Information Administration forecast this month that gas consumption would average about 9.3 million barrels a day over the peak summer driving season, a 0.5 percent increase over last summer.
“Population growth and a recovering economy contribute to gasoline consumption growth,” the EIA said, adding that high gas prices and better fuel efficiency standards would dampen demand. Consumption of diesel fuel is expected to climb 2.3 percent because of higher industrial output and trade.



“I think the evidence is strong that people are not very price responsive and that there are no magic thresholds where the effect changes suddenly,” said Severin Borenstein, a professor at the University of California Berkeley business school and director of the California Energy Institute.
In 2008 when prices last spiked, motorists carpooled, households drove the more efficient of their cars when a choice was possible, and many people opted for public transportation. But the impact was slight.



(http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/high-gas-prices-curb-driving-habits--and-obamas-approval-rating/2011/04/25/AF9kdpkE_story_1.html#)

Borenstein says the drop in consumption was 3 to 4 percentage points. “That’s a pretty small demand response when the price of gasoline nearly doubles,” he said. Moreover, he said, “this was happening in context of a giant recession, so there were income effects as well.”
Christopher Knittel, a professor of applied economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that “consumers are less responsive today than in the past, especially when compared to the 1970s.” With the growth of families with two income earners and other social changes, motorists are less likely to regard their day-to-day driving as discretionary.
But, Knittel said, “if prices continue to be high, they start to change what cars they buy, and manufacturers start to change the cars they offer. So it really depends on the time frame.”
Knittel said that the increase in gasoline prices is partly a result of the recovering economy. “One of the reasons gas prices are high is that we are coming out of the recession,” he said. “So it’s sort of bittersweet. The economy is getting strong, but it’s hurting our pocketbook.”
That could circle around and undercut the recovery. Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s business school, estimates that the spike in gas prices since September translates into a 5 percent cut in discretionary income and that Americans “will be eating fewer restaurant meals, wearing fewer new clothes, curtailing summer vacation plans, and postponing furniture purchases and home improvements.”
In the Post-ABC poll, 12 percent of people who consider gas prices a financial hardship said they had slashed spending elsewhere.
The telephone poll was conducted April 14 to 17 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. The margin of sampling error is 3.5 percentage points.
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/high-gas-prices-curb-driving-habits--and-obamas-approval-rating/2011/04/25/AF9kdpkE_story_1.html

Tornado causa grandes destrozos



http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif (http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer)
http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2011/04/24/22/B82710571Z.1_20110424225022_000+G492KGRMQ.3-0.embedded.prod_affiliate.84.jpg

BOB HARRAH, de 23, camina sobre los restos de la casa de su madre en Missouri, tras el paso de un gran tornado. J.B. Forbes / MCT EFE

WASHINGTON -- El tornado que azotó la noche del viernes la ciudad de St. Louis (Missouri) y sus inmediaciones ha causado destrozos en más de 750 viviendas, según los últimos cálculos oficiales de las autoridades estatales.
El mal tiempo provocó también el cierre del aeropuerto de St. Louis durante casi todo el sábado. Varios aviones aterrizaron en el área la pasada noche y está previsto que hoy despeguen las primeras naves, según informó la cadena de televisión CNN.
El alcalde de St. Louis, Francis Slay, señaló en declaraciones que recoge CNN que el objetivo es lograr que el aeropuerto opere hoy al 70 por ciento de su capacidad.
Más de la mitad de los ventanales del ala C del aeropuerto reventaron a raíz de los fuertes vientos que soplaron el viernes y están pendientes de reparación.
Según Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, directora del aeropuerto, podrían ser necesarios “un par de meses” hasta que se completen todos los arreglos necesarios.
El Servicio Nacional Meteorológico de EEUU indicó que el tornado dejó “un increíble rastro de destrucción” en la zona. Pese a los destrozos que han convertido en inhabitables más de 100 viviendas, no se registraron muertes ni tampoco ningún herido de gravedad.
El gobernador de Missouri, Jay Nixon, describió como “absolutamente increíble” el que no se hayan registrado víctimas. Nixon indicó que más de 750 viviendas sufrieron daños por el mal tiempo.
Según las estimaciones preliminares del servicio meteorológico, los vientos alcanzaron el viernes una velocidad máxima de 265 kilómetros por hora.

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/24/928650/tornado-causa-grandes-destrozos.html

EEUU pide a sus ciudadanos salir de Siria al agudizarse violencia

http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif [/URL]
http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2011/04/25/23/812-SIRIA-EEUU.SFF.embedded.prod_affiliate.84.jpg
En esta imagen de un video tomado por aficionado y difundido por Sham News Network, un hombre _izquierda_ se alista para lanzarle un objeto a un tanque en la ciudad siria de Daraa el domingo 24 de abril del 2011. Estados Unidos pidió el lunes 25 a sus ciudadanos y personal diplomático que salgan cuanto antes de Siria al agudizarse la represión gubernamental contra los manifestantes opositores. (Foto AP/Sham News Network via APTN) AP HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THIS VIDEO AP
Por MATTHEW LEE
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON --Estados Unidos apremió el lunes a sus ciudadanos para que salgan cuanto antes de Siria y le ordenó a su personal de la embajada en Damasco que abandone el país, ante el recrudecimiento de la represión del gobierno sirio contra los manifestantes opositores.
El Departamento de Estado instó también por la noche a los estadounidenses para que aplacen todo tipo de viajes a Siria y le recomendó a quienes están en ese país que salgan mientras hay transporte comercial.
Asimismo, le ordenó al personal no esencial de la embajada y a las familias de todo el personal diplomático que abandonen Siria. Indicó que la legación permanecerá abierta aunque con servicios limitados.
La decisión fue adoptada después de que miles de soldados sirios, apoyados por tanques y francotiradores, ingresaron a la ciudad sureña de Daraa y abrieron fuego contra los civiles, dijeron testigos y afirmaron que hubo al menos 11 muertos.

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/25/929177/eeuu-pide-a-sus-ciudadanos-salir.html

Wall Street avanza ante buenas noticias económicas de la Fed

The Associated Press

NUEVA YORK -- Los precios de las acciones en Nueva York aumentaron el miércoles hasta alcanzar otro nivel máximo en el año, luego que el banco central de Estados Unidos presentó un panorama positivo de la economía nacional que incluye un fortalecimiento en el mercado laboral.
El presidente de la Reserva Federal, Ben Bernanke, consideró que la economía tendrá una expansión 3,3% este año. El dato es menor a la proyección de la Fed en enero, pero el banco central dijo también que tiene un mayor optimismo en el empleo.
La Fed prevé ahora que la tasa de desempleo disminuya a 8,4% para finales de año. El desempleo se encuentra en 8,8%, su menor posición en dos años.
Bernanke hizo las declaraciones en su primera conferencia de prensa, tras concluir una reunión de dos días con los otros directivos de la Fed sobre la política económica de Estados Unidos.
La Fed anunció igualmente que su programa para adquirir 600.000 millones de dólares en bonos terminaría en el plazo previsto de junio, y reiteró el compromiso de mantener bajas las tasas de interés por "un período extenso".
El promedio industrial Dow Jones avanzó 95,59 puntos, el 0,8%, a 12.690,96. El Dow ya tenía ganancias antes de las declaraciones de Bernanke y aumentó otros 50 puntos después de conocer la posición del presidente de la Fed. La vez pasada que el Dow llegó a esas alturas fue en mayo del 2008.
El parámetro Standard & Poor's 500 creció 8,42 unidades, el 0,6%, a 1.355,66. Ese fue su precio más alto desde junio del 2008. El índice continúa, sin embargo, abajo de la cifra máxima de 1.565 enteros que alcanzó en octubre del 2007. El compuesto Nasdaq se incrementó 22,34 enteros, el 0,8% , a 2.869,88.
El indicador Russell 2000, referente en los títulos de empresas pequeñas, superó su hasta ahora mayor posición de 855,77 unidades que consiguió en julio del 2007. Cerró con una ganancia de 5,27 puntos, el 0.6%, en 858,31. Los títulos menores han aumentado a la par de la nueva racha positiva en Wall Street debido a que se considera que tienen las mejores perspectivas de crecimiento en un escenario de recuperación económica.
"El hecho es que hasta que entremos a un remanso sostenido en la economía, las (empresas) pequeñas van a seguir superando su desempeño", dijo Quincy Krosby, principal estratega de mercados en Prudential Financial.
Tres acciones ganaron por cada dos que perdieron en la Bolsa de Valores de Nueva York. El volumen de transacciones fue de 4.200 millones de títulos.
La cotización del oro subió cuando la Fed anunció que dejaría las tasas de interés cerca de cero para continuar estimulando a la economía. El oro para entrega en junio subió 13,60 dólares a 1.517,10 dólares la onza.
El dólar descendió a su menor cotización en 16 meses ante el euro, al cotizarse en 1,4656 unidades.
El precio de los bonos permaneció relativamente sin cambio luego de la rueda de prensa de Bernanke. El rendimiento del papel del Tesoro a 10 años aumentó del 3,32% del martes a 3,35%.
El crudo tuvo un ligero incremento una vez que Bernanke dijo que, ante la esperada expansión económica, los precios de la gasolina dejarán de aumentar o bajarán.
El petróleo de referencia para entrega en junio aumentó 55 centavos a 112,76 dólares por barril en la Bolsa Mercantil de Nueva York. En Londres, el crudo Brent avanzó 99 centavos a 125,13 dólares el barril en el mercado ICE.
Mientras, los reportes de ganancias de empresas fueron mixtos. Las acciones de Boeing Co. ganaron menos de 1% luego de anunciar utilidades superiores a las expectativas de los analistas. Los títulos de Broadcom Corp. cayeron 12% un día después que el fabricante de "chips" para computadoras difundió ganancias al segundo trimestre menores a lo esperado por el mercado.
En otras plazas bursátiles del mundo, el índice DAX de Alemania mejoró 0,7%, el británico FTSE británico se mantuvo invariable y el CAC 40 de Francia ganó 0,5%.
El promedio japonés Nikkei 225 subió 1,5% y el indicador Kospi de Corea del Sur bajó 0,5%. El Hang Seng de Hong Kong ganó 0,4%.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/27/929998/wall-street-abre-mixto-antes-de.html#ixzz1Kmct6KeP

Tornados devastan sur del país, dejan más de 280 muertos

Decenas de tornados dejan más de 200 muertos en 6 estados de EEUU (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/28/930739/eeuu-decenas-de-tornados-dejan.html)

Lucia Leal
EFE

Washington -- Al menos 283 muertos y una estela de devastación dejó en Estados Unidos el peor temporal de tormentas y tornados desde 1974, que en las últimas horas se desplazó al noreste y amenaza de nuevo a los estados del Sur.
Los estados afectados por el desastre se enfrentaban ahora a las crudas secuelas de los 164 tornados que se han registrado desde el lunes entre Mississippi y Nueva York y a los pronósticos que alertan de que las tormentas se abatirán otra vez sobre el sur del país.
La cifra de muertos en Alabama, el estado más devastado por la catástrofe, se elevó la tarde del jueves a 194, según confirmó en una conferencia de prensa el gobernador del estado, Robert Bentley.
El presidente Barack Obama anunció que viajará hoy a ese estado sureño para visitar algunas de las zonas afectadas y reunirse con familias, funcionarios estatales y locales y con el gobernador.
En una conferencia de prensa en la Casa Blanca, Obama calificó de “héroes” a los policías, bomberos y miembros de equipos de emergencia entregados a las tareas de rescate durante las “desgarradoras” tormentas.
“En cuestión de horas, estos tornados mortales -algunos de los peores que hemos visto en décadas- se llevaron las vidas de madres y padres, hijos e hijas, amigos y vecinos, incluso comunidades enteras. Otros están perdidos, y muchos aún están desaparecidos”, subrayó el Presidente.
Obama aseguró que el gobierno federal hará “todo lo posible” para ayudar a todos los estadounidenses afectados por el desastre a recuperarse y estará “a su lado” mientras reconstruyen sus comunidades.
A las víctimas de Alabama se suman otras 34 muertes en Tennessee, 32 en Mississippi, 14 en Georgia, 8 en Virginia y al menos una en Kentucky, según los últimos recuentos facilitados por las agencias estatales de emergencias.
En la ciudad de Tuscaloosa, probablemente la más devastada de Alabama con al menos 36 muertos, el residente James Sykes definía el tornado como “un monstruo silencioso” que se movía “a un ritmo muy rápido” y “destrozaba todo lo que encontraba a su paso”, declaró a la cadena CNN.
“No sé cómo alguien haya podido sobrevivir”, señaló por su parte el alcalde de esa localidad, Walter Maddox.
“Aquí estamos acostumbrados a los tornados. Pero ver una ruta de destrucción que se extiende en un área entre 8 y 11 kilómetros de largo y un kilómetro de ancho es una escena sobrecogedora”, añadió Maddox, que asegura que no reconoce algunas partes de la ciudad.
En el pueblo de Rainsville, Alabama, la policía encontró 25 cuerpos, mientras en la localidad de Athens una planta nuclear se quedó el miércoles sin energía eléctrica y permanecía cerrada.
Unos 2,000 miembros de la Guardia Nacional fueron desplegados en Alabama para garantizar la seguridad y rescatar a cientos de desaparecidos en medio de la “devastación masiva” que vive el estado, según el gobernador Bentley.
Obama declaró el miércoles el estado de emergencia en Alabama y se mostró “dispuesto a seguir ayudando” al estado y a los ciudadanos afectados pese a la imposibilidad de conocer la amplitud de los daños hasta dentro de “unos días más”.
Las televisiones nacionales y estatales muestran un sinfín de casas destrozadas y calles irreconocibles, como las de Nueva York, que quedaron inundadas el miércoles, mientras el río Mississippi rebasaba hoy los límites de emergencia.
El temporal sobrevino sin apenas dar un respiro a los afectados por otro sistema de tormentas que esta misma semana causó la muerte a 10 personas en Arkansas y una en Mississippi, y sólo dos semanas después de otra ráfaga de tornados que cortó la electricidad a millones de hogares en Alabama.
Mientras las autoridades se preparan para un aumento del número de víctimas, algunos meteorólogos consideran que el temporal pueda superar al peor del que se tiene memoria en el país, que en mayo de 1925 dejó 695 muertos en decenas de estados.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/28/931194/mas-de-280-muertos-por-tornados.html#ixzz1KwbUqoed

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/28/931194/mas-de-280-muertos-por-tornados.html

El Empire State Building cumple 80 años

http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/empire-state-building.jpg

El rascacielos más famoso del mundo, de 443.2 metros de altura y estilo art decó, se construyó en 410 días
MAR GONZALO
EFE
NUEVA YORK -- El Empire State Building, el edificio más alto de Nueva York, cumple este fin de semana 80 años y lo hace como uno de los rascacielos más famosos del mundo, al que ascienden millones de personas cada año para ver desde sus azoteas las espectaculares vistas que ofrece de la Gran Manzana.
“En este importante aniversario, el Empire State Building celebra sus 80 años como símbolo internacional de la innovación y el ingenio”, aseguró el propietario del inmueble, Anthony Malkin, en un comunicado.
El que, según su dueño, es “el edificio de oficinas más famoso en todo el mundo” celebrará el domingo sus ocho décadas de vida, ya que el 1 de mayo de 1931 el entonces presidente de Estados Unidos Herbert Hoover presionó un botón desde Washington para inaugurar oficialmente este imponente rascacielos de estilo art decó.
Con sus 443.2 metros de altura (antena-pararrayos incluida), levantar el que luego sería refugio del propio “King Kong” sólo requirió 410 días, ya que en plena Gran Depresión el ritmo de construcción fue de cuatro plantas y media por semana, con siete millones de horas de mano de obra y $40 millones de los de entonces de inversión.
El Empire State es reconocido como un icono internacional del desarrollo económico del último siglo, pero también es el mayor comprador de energía totalmente renovable de Nueva York, ha albergado oficialmente más de 230 bodas y desde hace más de tres décadas organiza incluso una carrera que consiste en subir a pie 1,576 de sus escalones lo más rápido posible y que atrae anualmente a atletas profesionales de todo el mundo.
“Tras un proceso de modernización que necesitó de una serie de renovaciones revolucionarias –explicó Malkin–, el edificio ofrece experiencias sin precedentes para sus inquilinos y para los millones de personas que visitan sus observatorios cada año”.
Esa reforma requirió $550 millones, pero ahora supone un ahorro de $4.4 millones anuales sólo en costos relacionados con la energía que consume este mastodonte de 5,663 metros cúbicos de granito y piedra caliza, 10 millones de ladrillos, unas 7,000 ventanas y 730 toneladas de aluminio y acero inoxidable.
Después de que los atentados del 11-S destruyeron hace casi ya diez años las Torres Gemelas y motivaran el cierre al público de emblemáticos enclaves turísticos como el precioso edificio Chrysler o la Estatua de la Libertad ─a la que ahora se puede ascender de forma muy restringida─, el Empire State es uno de los más populares sitios de la ciudad para ver Nueva York desde arriba.
En los días más claros la visibilidad desde el observatorio, que abre todos los días del año en pleno corazón de Manhattan, es de 80 kilómetros, y desde allí se pueden ver hasta cinco estados del país: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nueva Jersey, Nueva York y Pensilvania.
A algunos de los turistas más despistados que en ocasiones confunden el Empire State con el Chrysler sólo hace falta recordarles que el primero es donde se citaron los protagonistas de An Affair to Remember (1957), Cary Grant y Deborah Kerr, y los de su versión más actual Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Tom Hanks y Meg Ryan.
Si aun así no caen en la cuenta, lo que siempre funciona es decir que el Empire State no es el que por la noche parece que tiene arriba del todo una corona de arcos, sino el de forma rectangular que se ilumina de diferentes colores.
Esa tradición de iluminar su zona más alta se ha convertido en toda una imagen de la ciudad e incluso en ocasiones la elección de los colores para homenajear una u otra causa ha sido cuestión de agrias polémicas, como cuando en agosto su propietario se negó a decorarlo de azul y blanco para celebrar el centenario del nacimiento de la Madre Teresa de Calcuta.
Por supuesto, los colores de este viernes son el rojo, blanco y azul de la “Union Jack” para celebrar el enlace real británico, mientras que para este fin de semana, con motivo de su cumpleaños, el Empire State ─que a sus 80 años tiene más de 26,000 seguidores en Facebook y más de 1,500 en Twitter─ aún es un misterio.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/30/932711/el-empire-state-building-cumple.html#ixzz1L7uYcP9u

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/04/30/932711/el-empire-state-building-cumple.html

Empire State Building celebrates its 80th birthday with tourists, both international and local

BY Gina Salamone (http://www.nydailynews.com/authors/Gina%20Salamone)
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
Sunday, May 1st 2011, 4:00 AM

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2011/04/30/alg_empire_state_building.jpg

Panoramic Images/Getty
The Empire State Building celebrates its 80th birthday on Sunday, May 1.

Standing on the Empire State Building (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Empire+State+Building)'s 86th-floor observation deck, 11-year-old Andrew Lawson (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Andrew+Lawson) points out other key landmarks.
Though he lives more than 1,500 miles away in the Virgin Islands (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/U.S.+Virgin+Islands), he knows all about the building and its incredible views of the city and surrounding region.
"My dad gets these 3-D puzzles, and we build them, and we have one of New York (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/New+York)," he says proudly. They have a model of the Empire State Building alone, and another of lower Manhattan (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Lower+Manhattan) that covers Battery Park (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Battery+Park) to just past the midtown skyscraper.
Lawson was so taken by the building that it was he who convinced his parents and younger sister to visit while in New York.
"When I found out I was coming on the trip, I decided, maybe we could go to the Empire State Building and have a look," he says.
So just as more than 3.5 million others from around the world do each year, they headed up to the lookout just days before the building marks its 80th birthday Sunday.
"I think it's fascinating," says Lawson. "This is the first time I've been up this high. I'm probably going to tell my friends about how it was built, how tall it is."
He learned the trivia from the videos and facts posted along the line inside the building.
"I was listening to the story downstairs," says Lawson's mother, Valencia (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Valencia), 43, "and how they were going through the Great Depression (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/The+Great+Depression). And even with that going on, they still managed to go ahead and build it in 14 months. It's pretty incredible, especially for back then."
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2011/04/30/alg_empire_state_building3.jpg
Tourists stand in line for hours to get to the picturesque view. (Joy Keh (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Joy+Keh) for News)
Shivaram Deenadayalan, 25, visiting from Canada (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Canada) with friends, was equally impressed.
"They worked hard to build this building and without much technology," he says. "We learned that hard work can lead to this kind of great achievement."
For little Luigi Barbero (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Luigi+Barbero), 10, the height of the building alone was enough to win him over while in New York for the first time from Puerto Rico (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Puerto+Rico).
"It looked cool," he says of the 1,454-foot building. "It was awesome!"
But the stature was almost enough to scare away Steve Williams (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Steve+Williams), 62, visiting from London (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/London). He doesn't like heights, but his 24-year-old son Mark "bullied" him to not only go up to the 86th-floor observatory (1,050 feet off the ground), but also to the 102nd-floor enclosed deck.
"I can't even look outside," Williams admits. "I don't know why I came up here." But after giving in to take a glimpse, he says, "The view is beautiful."
While it was Steve's first visit to New York, Mark has been here several times and it's his third trip to the Empire State Building.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/05/01/2011-05-01_empire_state_building_celebrates_its_80th_birthday_with_ (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/05/01/2011-05-01_empire_state_building_celebrates_its_80th_birthday_with_tourists_both_internatio.html#ixzz1L7wNzNXE)
tourists_both_internatio.html#ixzz1L7wNzNXE (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/05/01/2011-05-01_empire_state_building_celebrates_its_80th_birthday_with_tourists_both_internatio.html#ixzz1L7wNzNXE)
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/05/01/2011-05-01_empire_state_building_celebrates_its_80th_birthday_with_tourists_both_internatio.html?r=ny_local&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nydnrss%2Fny_local+%28NY+Local%29

Wow, 410 days in the early 30's. Si contruyeran el ESB en PR, se tartarian mas de 10 años, MINIMO.

Bin Laden Dead, President Obama Says

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/02/us/02obama2_span/02obama2_span-articleLarge-v2.jpg
Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Obama announced the killing of bin Laden at the White House on Sunday.

By PETER BAKER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/peter_baker/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and HELENE COOPER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/helene_cooper/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: May 1, 2011

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) announced.

Related



Obama’s Remarks on bin Laden’s Killing (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/middleeast/02obama-text.html?ref=asia) (May 2, 2011)
Obituary: The Most Wanted Face of Terrorism (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/02osama-bin-laden-obituary.html?ref=asia) (May 2, 2011)
Times Topic: Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html)
The Lede Blog: Live Video of President Obama's Address (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/live-video-of-president-obamas-address/?ref=asia) (May 1, 2011)
The Caucus: After Killing of bin Laden, Official Reaction Pours In (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/after-killing-of-bin-laden-reaction-pours-in/?ref=asia) (May 2, 2011)


Enlarge This Image
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/02/world/02binladen1_span/02binladen1-articleInline.jpg
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in an undated photo.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/03/world/03binladen_map/03binladen_map-articleInline.jpg
The New York Times




In a dramatic late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org) operatives had finally cornered Mr. bin Laden, the Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org) leader who had eluded them for nearly a decade, and shot him to death at a compound in Pakistan.
“For over two decades, bin Laden has been Al Qaeda’s leader and symbol,” the president said in a statement carried on television around the world. “The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda. But his death does not mark the end of our effort.” He added, “We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”
The death of Mr. bin Laden is a defining moment in the American-led war on terrorism. What remains to be seen is whether the death of the leader of Al Qaeda galvanizes his followers by turning him into a martyr, or whether it serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to the Obama administration to bring American troops home.
The death of Mr. bin Laden came nearly 10 years after Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked three American passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth hijacked jet crashed into countryside of Pennsylvania. Late Sunday night, as the president was speaking, cheering crowds gathered outside the gates of the White House shortly before midnight as word of Mr. bin Laden’s death began trickling out, waving American flags, shouting in happiness and chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” In New York City, crowds sang the Star-Spangled Banner.
“This is important news for us, and for the world,” said Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93, the airliner that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside after passengers fought with hijackers. “It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones. It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the September 11th tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil.”
Mr. bin Laden escaped from American troops in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 2001 and, although he was widely believed to be in Pakistan, American intelligence had largely lost his trail for most of the years that followed. They picked up a fresh trail last August. Mr. Obama said in his national address Sunday night that it had taken months to firm up that information and that last week he had determined it was clear enough to authorize a secret operation in Pakistan.
The forces attacked the compound in what Mr. Obama called a “targeted operation” that left Mr. bin Laden dead. “No Americans were harmed,” Mr. Obama said. “They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”
President Obama noted that the operation that had killed Mr. bin Laden was carried out with the cooperation of Pakistani officials, but a senior American official said Pakistani officials had not been informed of the operation in advance. The fact that Mr. bin Laden was killed deep inside Pakistan was bound once again to raise questions about just how much Pakistan is willing to work with the United States, since Pakistani officials denied for years that Mr. bin Laden was in their country. More surprising still was the fact that he was killed not far from the Pakistani capital, rather than in the remote tribal areas where he had long been rumored to have taken refuge.
The capture of Mr. bin Laden comes as relations between the United States and Pakistan have fallen to their lowest point in memory as differences over how to fight Al Qaeda-linked militants became clearer.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/j/joint_chiefs_of_staff/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Adm. Mike Mullen (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/michael_g_mullen/index.html?inline=nyt-per), publicly criticized the Pakistani military two weeks ago for failing to act against extremists allied to Al Qaeda who shelter in the Pakistani tribal areas of North Waziristan.
The United States has supported the Pakistani military with nearly $20 billion since Sept. 11 for counter-terrorism campaigns, but American officials have complained that the Pakistanis were unable to quell the militancy.
Last week, the head of the Pakistani army, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, said that Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism in Pakistan, a statement that was received with high skepticism by American officials.
The president also made clear in his remarks at the White House on Sunday evening that the United States still faces significant national security threats.
“His death does not mark the end of our effort,” Mr. Obama said. “There’s no doubt that Al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”
Reporting was contributed by Mark Mazzetti from Washington, Jane Perlez from Australia and Pir Zubair Shah from New York.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-is-killed.html?hp


:dance::dance::dance:
:applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

pCavKL2zdjM

Amid Cheers, a Message: ‘They Will Be Caught’

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/05/03/nyregion/react/react-articleLarge.jpg Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
A crowd outside the White House cheering Sunday night at the killing of Osama bin Laden.

By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Published: May 2, 2011



In the midnight darkness, the crowds gathered, chanting and cheering, waving American flags, outside the front gates of the White House. In Times Square, tourists poured out of nearby hotels and into the streets to celebrate with strangers.


In the shadow of the World Trade Center site, as the news of Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s killing by American special forces spread, a police car drove north on Church Street blaring the sound of bagpipes from open windows. Officers raised clenched fists in the air.
“I don’t know if it will make us safer, but it definitely sends a message to terrorists worldwide,” said Stacey Betsalel, standing in Times Square with her husband, exchanging high fives. “They will be caught and they will have to pay for their actions. You can’t mess with the United States for very long and get away with it.”
President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s stunning announcement Sunday night that the terrorist who had eluded capture for almost 10 years drew an outpouring of emotion from political figures and citizens alike.
“This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001,” said former President George W. Bush (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/george_w_bush/index.html?inline=nyt-per) in a statement. “The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_r_bloomberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per), whose city bore the brunt of the 9/11 attack, said in a statement: “The killing of Osama bin Laden does not lessen the suffering that New Yorkers and Americans experienced at his hands, but it is a critically important victory for our nation — and a tribute to the millions of men and women in our armed forces and elsewhere who have fought so hard for our nation.
“New Yorkers have waited nearly 10 years for this news. It is my hope that it will bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”
In Westchester, Harry Waizer, a World Trade Center survivor, paused nearly a minute before he began to speak when reached by phone.
“If this means there is one less death in the future, then I’m glad for that,” said Mr. Waizer, who was in an elevator riding to work when the plane struck the building. He made it down the stairs, but suffered third-degree burns.
“But I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead, even if it is Osama bin Laden.”
Asked whether he felt any closure, Mr. Waizer said: “I’ve said for years I didn’t think there would be, but I’ll probably need to think about that more, now that it actually happened.”
“You know, the dead are still dead,” he added. “So in that sense, there is no such thing as closure.”
He expected the reaction from surviving families to be varied. ”Many of them will be grateful he has finally been brought to justice,” Mr. Waizer said. “But many of them will feel that whatever the justice of this, it won’t bring back the people they lost.”
In Lower Manhattan, near the site of the World Trade Center, some people felt drawn to the spot where almost 3,000 people lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. Three young men said they had traveled south from 19th Street when they heard the news.
“We decided to come down here because it means so much to New Yorkers,” said Alejo Cabranes, 25. “We figured it was more important to come down here rather than hear what the president was going to say on TV.”
A white sedan drove by along Church Street with two small American flags attached to the hood.
In Times Square, the mood on the street was more jubilant.
A crowd of about 100 people stood in Times Square, using cellphones to snap pictures of the news ABC news bulletin scrolling high above Broadway. “Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org)’s Osama bin Laden Killed,” it read.
“I think we need to celebrate,” said Jill Burdo, a tourist from Minneapolis who came out of her Times Square hotel room. “Who knows what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/nyregion/amid-cheers-a-message-they-will-be-caught.html?ref=nyregion

Muerto Osama bin Laden



http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2011/05/01/23/B82719673Z.1_20110501233255_000+GGA2LJAVG.3-0.embedded.prod_affiliate.84.jpg

Osama Bin Laden encabezaba la lista de criminales más buscados por los Estados Unidos. RAHIMULLAH YOUSAFZAI / AP



Osama Bin Laden, el criminal más buscado por EEUU (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/01/933366/fuente-osama-bin-laden-esta-muerto.html#/2011/05/01/v-flash_gallery/933393/cae-el-criminal-mas-buscado-por.xml)
Foto (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/01/933366/fuente-osama-bin-laden-esta-muerto.html#x)

Contenido Relacionado

Bin Laden tomó el camino del fanatismo y el terror (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/02/933432/bin-laden-tomo-el-camino-del-fanatismo.html)

EEUU mató a Osama Bin Laden casi diez años después de atentados del 11/S (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/02/933416/eeuu-mato-a-osama-bin-laden-casi.html)
Responsable de inteligencia paquistaní confirmó muerte de Bin Laden (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/02/933397/responsable-de-inteligencia-paquistano.html)
Alcalde de Nueva York: Muerte de Bin Laden es una "victoria muy importante" (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/02/933396/alcalde-de-nueva-york-muerte-de.html)


Servicios de El Nuevo Herald

WASHINGTON -- El presidente estadounidense, Barack Obama, anunció este domingo que Estados Unidos mató al líder de Al Qaida Osama Bin Laden en una operación especial en Pakistán y agradeció la ayuda de las autoridades de Islamabad.
“Esta noche, estoy en condiciones de anunciar a los estadounidenses y al mundo que Estados Unidos lideró una operación que mató a Osama bin Laden, el líder de Al Qaida, un terrorista responsable del asesinato de miles de hombres, mujeres y niños inocentes”, declaró Obama desde la Casa Blanca.
"Fuimos a la guerra con Al Qaeda para proteger a nuestros ciudadanos", dijo el mandatario estadounidense durante el anuncio, tras recordar a las víctimas de los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre del 2001. "Esta noche podemos decirle a sus familias que se ha hecho justicia", agregó.
Obama dijo en una histórica alocución que él ordenó a las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos lanzar un ataque contra un complejo en Pakistán el domingo siguiendo una pista que emergió en agosto pasado.
“Un pequeño grupo de estadounidenses condujo el operativo con un coraje y una capacidad extraordinaria. Ningún norteamericano fue herido. Ellos tomaron la precaución de evitar víctimas civiles", dijo el mandatario.
Desde hace tiempo las autoridades habían creído que bin Laden, el hombre más buscado en el mundo durante casi una década, estaba oculto en una región montañosa a lo largo de la frontera entre Pakistán y Afganistán.
Su muerte llega apenas unos meses antes del décimo aniversario de los atentados del 11 de septiembre al Centro Mundial de Comercio y al Pentágono en los que murieron más de 3.000 personas.
Los atentados desataron una serie de acontecimientos que llevaron a Estados Unidos a las guerras de Afganistán y luego Irak.
Un funcionario de Estados Unidos confirmó que Osama bin Laden fue muerto en una mansión cercana a la capital paquistaní. Un agente de inteligencia paquistaní también confirmó que el líder de al-Qaida murió en Pakistán.
Ambos funcionarios hablaron a condición de mantener el anonimato debido a lo delicado del tema.
El ex presidente estadounidense George W. Bush dijo que Obama le llamó para decirle que las fuerzas de Estados Unidos mataron a bin Laden.
Bush dijo que "este memorable logro marca una victoria para Estados Unidos, para las personas que buscan la paz en todo el mundo y para todos aquellos que perdieron a seres queridos el 11 de septiembre de 2001".
Agregó que Estados Unidos "ha enviado un mensaje claro: no importa cuánto tiempo se requiera, se hará justicia".
Por su parte, el alcalde de Nueva York, Michael Bloomberg, dijo que los estadounidenses han cumplido la promesa realizada después del 11 de septiembre de 2001 de capturar o matar a Osama bin Laden.
Bloomberg agregó que la muerte del líder de al-Qaida no disminuye el sufrimiento de los estadounidenses que vivieron en carne propia el día en que el World Trade Center fue destruido, pero es una "victoria críticamente importante" para la nación. La consideró un tributo a los hombres y mujeres en las fuerzas armadas que han peleado con fuerza.
El 10mo aniversario de los ataques del 11 de septiembre de 2001 se encuentra a pocos meses de distancia.
Bloomberg dijo en un comunicado que espera que la noticia sobre el deceso de bin Laden "ofrezca cierto cierre y comodidad para todos aquellos que perdieron a sus seres queridos" ese día.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/01/933366/fuente-osama-bin-laden-esta-muerto.html#ixzz1LAgWKUyf

:dance::dance::dance:

:applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

National Front Pages:

Portadas Nacionales:

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:rofl:

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/1193/binladenenfacebook.jpg

Por que lanzaron su cuerpo al mar?
..
Ultra la foto no se ve :(

Se lanzó al mar para no darle un punto de encuentro a su fanaticada.

¿Se ve ahora?.

:lol:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SAnB0dIsbKA/Tb41Ikg9vdI/AAAAAAAAHjw/bVjFfZXJxdk/s400/tumblr_lkjwht9Yau1qhp1pno1_500.jpg

EEUU respira con alivio; siente que se cierra un capítulo Martes 03 de Mayo de 2011 11:08
http://www.finanzzas.com/wp-content/uploads/Emision_Deuda_EEUU.bmp
Por TED ANTHONY / The Associated Press

Al escuchar las noticias, al leer comentarios en internet, al consultar la opinión popular un día después de la muerte de Osama bin Laden, es inevitable escuchar alguna variante de una palabra muy reveladora: "alivio".

Así se ha sentido la desaparición de bin Laden, como el capítulo final de una historia que para la mayoría de los estadounidenses comenzó en el este de su país el 11 de septiembre del 2001 y concluyó en Pakistán en la madrugada del 2 de mayo de 2011.

Mientras los estadounidenses celebraban la liquidación del enemigo público número uno, el ánimo prevaleciente era previsible para la cultura que produjo Hollywood: después de tantos años de incertidumbre y agravio sin resolución sobrevino un final coherente.

Basta escuchar al representante republicano Peter King para quien los familiares de las víctimas del 2001 "finalmente pueden tener cierto sentido de alivio y cierto sentido de justicia".

O Mike Low, residente de Batesville, Arkansas, madre de una azafata que murió en el vuelo 11 de American Airlines: "Por cierto pone fin a una agraviante preocupación de todos nosotros".

O Lisa Ramasci, que celebraba el lunes por la madrugada en las calles de Nueva York: "Tuvimos 10 años de frustración creciente aguardando la muerte de este individuo y ahora ocurrió".

Por cierto, la liquidación de un individuo no compensa los años de dolor de los sobrevivientes, pero el apetito de los estadounidenses por conclusiones definitivas, estilo Hollywood, es voraz, hasta el punto en que la irritación crece si algo parece no tener un cierre.

La cultura de la resolución, tan frustrante para los políticos y otros líderes, produce un apetito por un cierre de telón que muchas veces es difícil de satisfacer.

Si a eso se añaden las secuelas de los ataques terroristas y dos guerras prolongadas sin fin a la vista, se explican las reacciones de alivio y alegría por la conclusión de un capítulo.

En parte se debe a la naturaleza de las guerras estadounidenses en las últimas décadas. Actualmente es tan probable librar batallas contra enemigos amorfos que contra naciones. A causa de eso los conflictos tienden a carecer de finales concretos o rendiciones oficiales.

No hubo nada parecido a un Tratado de Versailles con Saddam Hussein y por cierto nadie espera celebrar un Día de la Victoria con al-Qaida, como en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En los conflictos modernos ya no suele haber un final solemne e identificable. Por eso, un jalón importante como la muerte de bin Laden es para Estados Unidos una causa de alegría, alivio o consuelo, en un conflicto frustrante que nunca se acaba. El senador demócrata Charles Schumer advirtió que "la guerra contra el terrorismo no ha terminado".

Sin embargo, también hay otro factor en juego. Bin Laden mismo era lo más cercano a un supervillano como los que enfrentaba James Bond en la ficción: alguien que representaba el mal para cientos de millones de occidentales.

Owen Gleiberman, en un artículo para el cibersitio de Entertainment Weekly, escribió que "es indudable que el 11 de septiembre lo hemos sentido como una gigantesca película y en parte no se debió sencillamente al espectáculo vasto y terrible de la tragedia, sino que detrás se ocultaba un villano de proporciones casi mitológicas".

http://www.elexpresso.com/noticias/estados-unidos/9561-eeuu-respira-con-alivio-siente-que-se-cierra-un-capitulo?start=2

EEUU busca destruir a al-Qaida http://www.elexpresso.com/templates/city_portal/images/emailButton.png (http://www.elexpresso.com/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&link=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5lbGV4cHJlc3NvLmNvbS9ub3RpY2lhcy9tdW5kaWFsZXMvOTU1Ni1lZXV1LWJ1c2NhLWRlc3RydWlyLWEtYWwtcWFpZGE%3D) Martes 03 de Mayo de 2011 09:21

http://www.tvcamaguey.co.cu/images/stories/soldados-americanos.jpg
Por STEVEN R. HURST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Estados Unidos buscará aprovechar la muerte de Osama bin Laden para destruir su organización terrorista al-Qaida, dijo el martes el jefe de antiterrorismo de la Casa Blanca.

John Brennan declaró que el gobierno estaba resuelto a "golpear al resto de al-Qaida" a medida que Estados Unidos avanza a partir del audaz asalto de un equipo de agentes SEAL de la Armada que mató a bin Laden de un tiro en el ojo izquierdo.

Brennan dijo que la temida organización al-Qaida sufrió "fuertes golpes al cuerpo" durante los 10 años de guerra en Afganistán. El presidente Barack Obama, quien dio la orden final del asalto el domingo, juró iniciar el retiro de las fuerzas estadounidenses de Afganistán en los próximos meses.

Obama planea visitar el sitio donde se alzaban las Torres Gemelas del Centro de Comercio Mundial en Nueva York el jueves para recordar a los casi 3.000 muertos en el lugar, así como en el Pentágono, el 11 de septiembre de 2001.

Estados Unidos, bajo la presidencia de George W. Bush, invadió Afganistán a fines de ese año con la esperanza de eliminar el santuario que le brindaba el gobierno talibán. Se creía que bin Laden y sus principales lugartenientes habían huido al vecino Pakistán cuando las fuerzas estadounidenses barrieron al Talibán del poder.

Sin embargo, hasta el domingo bin Laden había escapado a la venganza por los ataques de aviones secuestrados.

Entrevistado por la cadena NBC, Brennan dijo que "claramente había algún tipo de red de apoyo" para bin Laden dentro de Pakistán. Brennan se negó a culpar al gobierno paquistaní, al que calificó de "socio enérgico en el antiterrorismo".

Sin embargo, añadió que Islamabad realiza su propia investigación de cómo bin Laden pudo eludir a las autoridades durante tanto tiempo. Brennan dijo que se "desconoce a esta altura" si bin Laden contaba con ayuda dentro del gobierno paquistaní.

Entretanto, fuentes del gobierno de Estados Unidos seguían filtrando detalles de la misión que mató a bin Laden. Una de ellas dijo que había fotos de bin Laden que mostraban el disparo que lo mató, pero que se mantenían en secreto.

Una fuente dijo que la incursión obtuvo archivos potencialmente cruciales de al-Qaida, además del cadáver del líder terrorista global. El equipo de asalto se llevó discos rígidos, DVD, documentos y otros elementos que podrían ser útiles en la cacería del lugarteniente, Aiman al-Zawahri. La CIA ya está estudiando el material.

http://www.elexpresso.com/noticias/mundiales/9556-eeuu-busca-destruir-a-al-qaida?start=1

Se lanzó al mar para no darle un punto de encuentro a su fanaticada.

¿Se ve ahora?.

JAJAJAJAJA siiii! :lol:
Lol su destino fue como el de megatron en transformers . :lol:

To Celebrate?

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COMMENTARY: Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, a highly decorated combat aviator, searches for perspective on the death of Osama bin Laden.
By Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach (http://www.advocate.com/authors.aspx?searchterm=Lt.%20Col.%20Victor%20Fehrenbach)

http://www.advocate.com/uploadedImages/ADVOCATE/POLITICS/COMMENTARY/2011/fehrenbach-jet.jpg

On the night of May 1, I lay awake long into the night, switching between the major news channels, trying to put the reported death of Osama bin Laden into perspective. I wanted to feel some kind of happiness and satisfaction in his death, but all I could do was think back to the last time I lay awake for days glued to the television — on 9/11. I could only think of the victims and all of the military personnel we have lost since that day and their families. We, as Americans, had lost so much at the hands of this man — not just the lives of so many heroes, but in many ways, our innocence and security.
I will never forget that day and the rush of emotions I felt, but I had to suppress. Unlike most Americans, I had no time to express my sadness or grief, because minutes after American Airlines Flight 77 penetrated the rings of the Pentagon, those of us in the military were at war and we had a military mission to accomplish. Within minutes of impact the aviators in my fighter squadron and I were called into our main briefing room. Our squadron commander, “Spanky,” ominously read from a single sheet of paper words that I will never forget and sometimes still cannot believe I heard: “The president of the United States has authorized deadly force against any aircraft flying in the continental United States.” (Before that day, I could never imagine a situation where I would fly combat missions over the U.S., especially with orders to shoot down a civilian airliner.) Of all the emotions I felt that fateful day, I had to put away my extreme sadness and harness my anger, to focus on my mission. Ironically, when we took off later that night on our combat air patrol mission, the skies over the East Coast were eerily quiet and peaceful. After a day of unspeakable violence and horror, on that clear, starry night, there was peace. It was surreal.
In the months and years that followed, I — along with our nation — would know little else other than war. Without a tangible victory in sight, I remember several times, in both Afghan and Iraq campaigns, rhetorically asking, “What are we doing here?” Victims’ families wanted justice, and military personnel and their families wanted some satisfaction that their endless sacrifices were worth the effort. So as I lay awake watching the news the other night, watching the celebrations in the streets, I didn’t celebrate, but I wanted to feel that satisfaction. I remembered the last 10 years of war. I recalled the missions I flew on my deployments. I thought about those who lost their lives on 9/11 and the military heroes we’ve lost since. I prayed for the victims’ families and military families who live with a loss we can never replace. I thought of the sacrifices my military brothers and sisters and their families continue to make. I hoped and prayed they got the justice and satisfaction they needed.
For me, I was left with the sadness of all we had lost: thousands of precious lives, our innocence, our security. And I hoped that this was not just the end of one life, but the beginning — restoring the life we knew before. I came across a quote from a man of peace that seems so fitting for this moment: "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." — Martin Luther King Jr.
As I eventually fell asleep that night, it was eerily quiet and peaceful. After news of a day marked by violence far away, there was peace. It was surreal.
http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/To_Celebrate/

Economy adds jobs for a third straight month

Higher oil prices and fears about a slowdown in the recovery fail to deter employers, who add 244,000 new jobs to the economy in April across a wide spectrum of industries. The gains are tempered by a rise in the unemployment rate to 9%, up from 8.8%.
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-05/318187340-06062551.jpg
Lockheed Martin military relations manager Dave Wallace, left, shakes hands with Joe Archatowski at a job fair in Cherry Hill, N.J., aimed at helping military and former military members get civilian jobs. (Associated Press / May 3, 2011)




Related
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/photo/2011-05/318571420-06062550.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw-jobs-20110507-001,0,4434281.photo) PHOTO: Job fair (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw-jobs-20110507-001,0,4434281.photo)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/htmlstory/2011-05/61401659-06090242.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-unemployment-2011-05-i,0,1854589.htmlstory) Interactive: Map of U.S. unemployment rate for March, by state (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-unemployment-2011-05-i,0,1854589.htmlstory)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-05/61395052-05165951-187105.JPG (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-economy-20110506,0,971332.story) Applications for unemployment benefits hit 8-month high (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-economy-20110506,0,971332.story)
Stories
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-04/60924341-15171949.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-jobs-20110416,0,3985062.story) California employers cut a net 11,600 jobs in March (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-jobs-20110416,0,3985062.story)
Economic growth slows sharply; new jobless claims rise (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-economy-growth-20110429,0,6163865.story)

By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times May 6, 2011, 8:50 a.m.

Reporting from Washington—
The American economy created a healthy batch of new jobs in April for the third straight month, allaying fears of a stall in hiring due to higher oil prices and concerns about an economic slowdown.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers last month added 244,000 new net jobs across a broad spectrum of industries. That was similar to the payroll growth numbers in March and February.

But the unexpectedly strong report on hiring was clouded by the news that the jobless rate for April edged up to 9%, from 8.8% in March after dropping continuously since November's rate of 9.8%.

The unemployment rate is derived from a survey of households, whereas the payroll job figures come from a survey of employers.

The two surveys sometimes provide conflicting story lines, and in such cases, analysts tend to put more stock in the larger, more detailed survey of employers.

Economists and investors seemed to heave a sigh of relief after Friday's report as the stock market turned up after several days of weakening performance. Analysts were generally forecasting job gains of about 185,000 for April, and some had ratcheted down their expectations in recent days in the wake of other reports showing the economy may have hit a soft patch at the start of spring, as it did last year at this time.

It was reported earlier that U.S. economic output expanded in the first quarter at an anemic 1.8% annual rate, and unemployment claims have been surging in recent weeks amid sharply higher fuel prices and concerns about the economic outlook with uncertainties surrounding the Middle East, Japan and Europe.

"Headwinds remain, but not enough to derail the recovery or set us back momentarily," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago, in a note Friday.

At the same time, Swonk remained cautious about the outlook. Apart from the lingering effects of global shocks, she noted that the jump in new unemployment claims recently were reported in the weeks after the April jobs surveys were conducted. And job losses in the public sector could intensify, she said, with more teachers getting pink slips as the school year winds down and local governments try to deal with budget shortfalls.

What's more, even though the job gains over the last three months were solid, averaging 233,000 a month, those numbers are still modest compared to what's needed to recover the more than 8.8 million jobs lost between the end of 2007 and early 2010. Since February 2010, the economy has regained about 1.8 million jobs.

The number of officially unemployed stood at 13.75 million in April. And that was up 205,000 from March, according to the Labor Department's household survey.

"At this point, coming out of a recession this deep, we should be getting unambiguously huge growth, of 300,000 to 400,000 [new jobs] a month," said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "And it's just nowhere near that." She concluded: "We're still in a rocky place."

It's unclear whether the unemployment rate will go up in the coming months. Theoretically it should as the job market improves and more of the millions of people who had dropped out of the job market during the recession return to looking for jobs as their prospects improve. The Labor Department doesn't count jobless people who aren't looking for work as unemployed.

Friday's report suggests that many employers may have little choice but to add workers if they want to grow sales. Many companies had cut to the bone during the recession, and many also spent heavily on new equipment and computers to boost productivity to make up for the reduced work force.

But that can only go so far. Last month the retail industry added 57,100 to its payrolls, about half of them at general merchandise stores.

Manufacturing continued to strengthen, taking on 29,000 more workers in April. Since December 2009, factory payrolls have risen by 250,000, the Labor Department said.

Business and professional services, which generally pay higher-than-average wages, increased by 51,000, with consulting businesses, computer services and architectural firms all showing solid growth.

Educational and health services, and the leisure industry, each also added nearly as many jobs. Even the hard-hit construction industry saw a small gain last month.

Government was the only major employment group that saw a decline; its payrolls shrank by 24,000, mostly because of cuts at state and public agencies.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-april-jobs-report-20110506,0,6724981.story

Al-Qaida confirma muerte de Osama bin Laden
http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2011/05/06/10/637-BIN_LADEN_OBAMA_IMAGEN.SFF.embedded.prod_affiliate.84.jpg

Barack Obama responde al saludo de un marine al descender de un helicóptero en la Casa Blanca el 5 de mayo del 2011. La operación en que murió Osama bin Laden le dio al presidente estadounidense una imagen de líder decisivo en el momento justo, cuando inicia su campaña en pos de la reelección. Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo
Contenido Relacionado



Cobertura especial sobre la muerte de Bin Laden (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/480)
Obama rinde homenaje a las víctimas del 9/11 (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/05/935998/obama-rinde-homenaje-a-las-victimas.html)

Por MAGGIE MICHAEL

The Associated Press

EL CAIRO -- Al-Qaida confirmó el viernes la muerte de Osama bin Laden en un comunicado publicado en cibersitios de milicianos y amenazó con cobrar venganza diciendo que la "felicidad" de los estadounidenses "se tornará en tristeza".
La confirmación aparece en cibersitios de los milicianos firmada por "el liderazgo general" de al-Qaida. El anuncio abre las puertas al nombramiento de un sucesor de bin Laden. Su lugarteniente Ayman al-Zauari es ahora la figura más prominente del grupo y muy probable candidato.
La declaración, fechada el 3 de mayo, es la primera del grupo terrorista desde que bin Laden fue muerto el lunes por comandos estadounidenses en un ataque a su refugio en Abotabad, Pakistán. Su autenticidad no pudo ser confirmada de manera independiente, pero aparece en cibersitios donde el grupo coloca tradicionalmente sus mensajes.
"Destacamos que la sangre del jeque y guerrero santo Osama bin Laden, Dios lo bendiga, es preciosa para nosotros y para todos los musulmanes, y no será derramada en vano", dijo la declaración. "Seguiremos, si Dios quiere, persiguiendo a los estadounidenses y sus agentes, siguiéndolos fuera y dentro de sus países".
"Pronto, Dios mediante, su felicidad se tornará en tristeza", agregó, y "su sangre se mezclará con sus lágrimas".
En la declaración, al-Qaida también instó al pueblo de Pakistán -"donde el jeque Osama fue muerto"- a rebelarse contra sus líderes. Agregó que un mensaje grabado por bin Laden una semana antes de su muerte será difundido pronto.
Bin Laden murió el viernes a manos de comandos navales de Estados Unidos en una incursión en Pakistán.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/06/936180/al-qaida-confirma-muerte-de-osama.html#ixzz1Lax5hYnS

Emergency Alert System Expected for Cellphones

By EDWARD WYATT (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/edward_wyatt/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: May 9, 2011

WASHINGTON — The emergency broadcast system is coming to cellphones.
Updating the national emergency alert system, federal officials planned to announce on Tuesday in Manhattan that some cellphone users in New York and Washington will soon be able to receive alerts by text message in the event of a national or regional emergency.
The service in those cities is scheduled to start late this year as a prelude to nationwide service next year, perhaps as early as April. To receive the alerts, users must have mobile phones with a special chip, which is currently included in some higher-end smartphones like the latest iPhones. The service will also require a software upgrade.
How quickly consumers are able to participate in the system depends on the rate of replacement of cellphones with the special chip and the software, officials said.
The emergency text messages (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/text_messaging/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) will include alerts issued by the president, information about public safety threats and Amber Alerts for missing children. Text messages will be sent to customers of participating cellphone companies who are in an area affected by the emergency. Users can opt out of any of the alerts except the presidential messages.
The alerts are designed to mimic the familiar radio and TV broadcast alerts that for decades — accompanied by a shrill whistle and, in most instances, the message “This is only a test” — have advised Americans where to tune in for an emergency message.
Known as the Personal Localized Alerting Network, or PLAN, the new system will be a free service for people in New York and Washington who have enabled phones and are customers of Verizon (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/verizon_communications_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org), AT&T (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/at_and_t/index.html?inline=nyt-org), Sprint or T-Mobile mobile phone systems.
“This new technology could become a lifeline for millions of Americans and is another tool that will strengthen our nation’s resilience against all hazards,” W. Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_emergency_management_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org), said in a statement.
Julius Genachowski (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/julius_genachowski/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_communications_commission/index.html?inline=nyt-org), said the system was designed to minimize the ability of hackers or spammers to send fraudulent messages. The alerts could appear directly on a cellphone screen, for example, rather than appear as a text message notification, and would probably be accompanied by a special vibration or other kind of signal.
“We don’t expect the alerts to be frequent,” Mr. Genachowski said. “They will be reserved for when they are truly needed, for tornadoes (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/tornadoes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) or for disasters like 9/11.”
Emergency authorities in several Asian and Pacific countries sent text messages warning of tsunamis after the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
Authorized government officials will be able to send emergency text messages to participating wireless companies, which will then use their cell towers to forward the messages to subscribers in the affected area. A New York City resident who is traveling in Chicago at the time of an emergency in New York would not receive a message; a Chicago resident who is a customer of the same phone company would see the text alert while in New York City, officials said.
The messages are also designed to avoid user congestion that often mars standard mobile voice and texting services.
Although cellphone companies in the United States are not required to participate in the system, officials said they expected that cellphone makers would promote the inclusion of the special chip as a selling point for new mobile phones.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/10safety.html?_r=1&hp

Rubio pide a Obama que actúe contra Siria (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/11/939707/rubio-pide-a-obama-que-actue-contra.html)


http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2011/05/11/22/B82733596Z.1_20110511225450_000+GUM2MV5O6.3-0.skyboxwide.prod_affiliate.84.jpg (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/11/939707/rubio-pide-a-obama-que-actue-contra.html)
El senador por la Florida Marco Rubio pidió el miércoles que el gobierno de Barack Obama aumente la presión sobre el presidente sirio Bashar Assad, cuyo régimen ha atacado a los manifestantes contra el gobierno.

LESLEY CLARK WASHINGTON -- El senador por la Florida Marco Rubio pidió el miércoles que el gobierno de Barack Obama aumente la presión sobre el presidente sirio Bashar Assad, cuyo régimen ha atacado a los manifestantes contra el gobierno.
El senador, que cumple su primer término, se unió a sus colegas Joe Lieberman, independiente por Connecticut., John McCain, republicano por Arizona, y Ben Cardin, demócrata por Maryland, en una conferencia de prensa en el Capitolio para develar una resolución que urge al Presidente a ampliar las sanciones contra el gobierno sirio y hablar de la situación “en forma directa y personal’’.
“Le pedimos que nos dirija para hacer de la causa del pueblo sirio la causa de Estados Unidos’’. Dijo Rubio, miembro de la Comisión de Relaciones Exteriores de Senado, en declaraciones dirigidas a Obama. En nuestras palabras y acciones debe quedar claro que EEUU está del lado del pueblo sirio y que respaldamos su derecho a buscar en forma pacífica un mejor futuro para su país. Debemos también enviar un importante mensaje al régimen sirio de que condenamos sus crímenes y que Bashar Assad no debe ser tratado más como el gobernante legítimo’’.
La rueda de prensa marca la primera mayor comparecencia de Rubio en el escenario de la política exterior, lo cual fue complementado con presentaciones en CBS y CNN.
“En cualquier momento en que un gobierno tenga que usar las fuerzas del gobierno y las fuerzas del ejército para matar a ciudadanos desarmados para afianzarse en el poder, eso lo hace ilegítimo y eso es lo que está pasando en Siria’’, dijo en CBS. “Espero que EEUU diga eso con voz clara’’.
La resolución declara que el gobierno de Assad – “a través de su campaña de violencia y franco abusos de los derechos humanos, ha perdido su legitimidad’’- una declaración que la Casa Blanca no ha hecho, como ha afirmado del líder libio Moammar Kadafi.
“Sé que hay algunos habrían deseado que cuando estas protestas se desataran que Bashar Assad siguiera el camino de la reforma en lugar de el camino de la violencia y la brutalidad’’, declaró Lieberman. Pero claramente no ha sido su elección. El no es un reformista. Es un rufián y un asesino, un líder totalitario al estilo de Kadafi, y espera salirse con la suya’’.
McCain dijo que tres funcionarios del régimen sirio enfrentan sanciones, “pero no es el individuo que da las órdenes. Es tiempo que formulemos cargos al individuo que está dando las órdenes. Y es tiempo de que el presidente de EEUU hable con fuerza y con frecuencia’’.
McCain destacó que los senadores no están presionando por ataques aéreos como los que han sido lanzados en Libia.
“Como sugestión práctica es casi imposible intervenir en forma alguna sino en las maneras por las que abogamos’’, afirmó McCain.

Florida Men Accused of Aiding Pakistani Taliban

By DON VAN NATTA (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/don_van_jr_natta/index.html?inline=nyt-per) Jr.

Published: May 14, 2011

MIAMI — Six people, including two imams at South Florida mosques, have been indicted on federal charges of providing financial support and encouraging violence by the Pakistani Taliban, the United States attorney here announced Saturday.
The indictment, which was handed up on Thursday, charged Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, the imam at the Miami Mosque (also known as the Flagler Mosque), the oldest mosque in Miami. The indictment also charged two of the imam’s sons: Izhar Khan, 24, the imam at the Jamaat Al-Mumineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla.; and Irfan Khan, 37, of North Lauderdale, Fla. All three men are American citizens who are originally from Pakistan, the authorities said.
The four-count indictment charges the Khans, and three others living in Pakistan, with conspiring to provide material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas, as well as with conspiring to provide about $45,000 in financial support to the Pakistani Taliban from 2008 to 2010.
“Despite being an imam, or spiritual leader, Hafiz Khan was by no means a man of peace,” Wilfredo A. Ferrer, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement. “Instead, as today’s charges show, he acted with others to support terrorists to further acts of murder, kidnapping and maiming.”
Hafiz and Izhar Khan are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Monday afternoon. Irfan Khan will be arraigned in Los Angeles on Monday. Each of the four counts in the indictment carries a maximum 15-year prison term.
Prosecutors said the indictment did not charge the mosques. They added that the defendants were charged “based on their provision of material support to terrorism, not on their religious beliefs or teachings.”
The Muslim Communities Association of South Florida announced that Hafiz Khan had been suspended indefinitely from his mosque.
“Our organizations, together through the Coalition of South Florida Muslim Organizations, has been working with the U.S. attorney’s office and the Miami F.B.I. office,” the association said in a statement released Saturday afternoon, “and appreciate the efforts of law enforcement to root out potential sources and supporters of terrorism.”
“We stand together with the U.S. attorney, Wilfredo Ferrer, and the men and women of the F.B.I., and have been and will be cooperating with law enforcement to our fullest ability,” the Muslim association added.
The charges of supporting the Pakistani Taliban but not actually carrying out operations are the most common types of terrorism prosecutions that American authorities have pursued since the Sept. 11 attacks. Of the 50 top terrorism cases since 9/11, about 70 percent have involved financing or other support to terrorist groups, according to the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law.
The Pakistani Taliban is closely allied with Al Qaeda and is responsible for attacks against Pakistani police and military targets in recent years. Pakistani authorities believe that a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban was responsible for the suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan on Friday that killed more than 80 cadets from a government paramilitary force.
The indictment comes at a tense moment in relations between the United States and Pakistan after Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid by the Navy Seals on May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
On Saturday, the Pakistani Parliament condemned the raid as a “unilateral action” and “a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty,” and demanded a formal review of the country’s relationship with the United States.
F.B.I. agents arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar in South Florida on Saturday, the authorities said. Irfan Khan was arrested in Los Angeles, they said.

The Flagler Mosque is a modest house located in a working-class Cuban neighborhood. Before dawn during Saturday morning prayers, two dozen F.B.I. agents arrived at the mosque, blocking streets and sidewalks. Shortly after 6 a.m., a rap on the mosque door by agents interrupted morning prayers, according to Sama Nassirnia, a member of the mosque for 19 years who was inside praying when the agents arrived. The agents waited until the prayers ended before entering the mosque, after removing their shoes, to arrest the imam, he said. “They were not respectful,” Mr. Nassirnia said. About the elderly imam, who he described as sickly and frail, he said, “He’s a pious man. This is the most peaceful man there is.”
Another of the imam’s sons, Ikram Khan, who is a cab driver, angrily left the mosque early Saturday evening and called the arrests “ridiculous.”
“They can do anything they want in America,” he said. “They want to scare more people.”
He said his father has sent money to a madrasa in Pakistan for charitable purposes only. “It only does good things for people,” he said, “and it only does the right thing.”
Neighbors of the mosque said they heard the call to prayer every Friday. “We saw the older man all the time but they are quiet,” said a neighbor, Alina Lahens.
Izhar Khan graduated from Darul-Uloom Al-Madania in Buffalo, which is the largest and oldest Darul-Uloom in the northeastern United States, according to the mosque’s Web site. In its description of Mr. Khan, the Web site said he “is a qualified mufti and has extensive experience in Islamic teachings.”
Rafiq Mahdi, the imam at the al-Iman Mosque in Fort Lauderdale, said he has met both imams who were indicted. He said he found the news “surprising” and “distressing.”
“I have not heard anything or known anything that would lead me to think this is the case,” said the imam, whose congregation includes nearly 400 people.
“I think as imams here in the United States, we are keenly aware of the scrutiny that we are receiving,” he said. “We have a big job to do to try to combat the prejudice that has been focused on Islam and Muslims in this country. We have to be careful in our assumptions.
“The indictment speaks for itself, but many of our immigrant brothers who are coming to the United States from other countries have ties to their home,” Mr. Mahdi said. “They may be sending money to family members for charitable purposes and that can possibly be misconstrued.”
Investigators began the inquiry after discovering several suspicious financial transactions in 2008, they said. Through November 2010, the defendants provided money, financial services and other support to the Pakistani Taliban. F.B.I. agents and investigators assigned to South Florida’s Joint Terrorism Task Force have recorded telephone conversations in which Hafiz Khan supported violence carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, the authorities said.
After hearing that seven American soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan in September 2010, Hafiz Khan “declared his wish that God kill 50,000 more” during a recorded phone conversation, the indictment says.
In another recorded phone conversation in July 2009, Hafiz Khan called for an attack on the Pakistani Assembly similar to the suicide bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Sept. 20, 2008, according to the authorities’ statement.
The indictment also charged the men with transferring money to Pakistan for use by the Pakistani Taliban. And it said that Hafiz Khan supported the Pakistani Taliban through a madrasa that he founded and controlled in Pakistan’s Swat region.
“Khan has allegedly used the madrasa to provide shelter and other support for the Pakistani Taliban and has sent children from his madrasa to learn to kill Americans in Afghanistan,” a press release from the Justice Department says.
The three in Pakistan who were indicted are Ali Rehman, also known as Faisal Ali Rehman; Amina Khan, also known as Amina Bibi, who the authorities said is the daughter of Hafiz Khan; and Alam Zeb, identified as Mr. Khan’s grandson.
The Miami mosque was established in 1974. The mosque in Margate was founded in 1995 and has a madrasa and youth programs, according to its Web site.
“Let me be clear that this is not an indictment against a particular community or religion,” Mr. Ferrer said. “Instead, today’s indictment charges six individuals for promoting terror and violence through their financial and other support of the Pakistani Taliban.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/us/15taliban.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Obama Shifts to Speed Oil and Gas Drilling in U.S.

By JOHN M. BRODER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: May 14, 2011

It was at least a partial concession to his critics at a time when consumers are paying near-record prices at the gas pump. The Republican-led House passed three bills in the last 10 days that would significantly expand and accelerate oil development in the United States, saying the administration was driving up gas prices and preventing job creation with antidrilling policies.
Administration officials said the president’s announcement, which included plans for expanded drilling in Alaska and the prospect of new exploration off the Atlantic coast, was intended in part to answer those arguments, signal flexibility and demonstrate his commitment to reducing oil imports by increasing domestic production.
But in fact the policies announced Saturday would not have an immediate effect on supply or prices, nor would they quickly open any new areas to drilling.
“These spikes in gas prices are often temporary,” Mr. Obama said, “and while there are no quick fixes to the problem, there are a few steps we should take that make good sense.”
The president’s turn to a domestic pocketbook issue comes after two weeks of intense focus on the killing of Osama bin Laden, terrorism more broadly and the multiple crises in the Middle East.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Mr. Obama said the administration would begin to hold annual auctions for oil and gas leases in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, a 23-million-acre tract on the North Slope of Alaska. The move comes after years of demands for the auctions by industry executives and Alaska’s two senators, Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat.
The administration will also accelerate a review of the potential environmental impact of drilling off the southern and central Atlantic coast and will consider making some areas available for exploration. The move is a change from current policy, which puts the entire Atlantic Seaboard off limits to drilling until at least 2018.
The president also said he would extend leases already granted for drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that had been frozen after the BP spill last year. The extension will allow companies time to meet new safety and environmental standards without having to worry about their leases expiring.
And the government will provide incentives for oil companies to more quickly exploit leases they already hold. Tens of millions of acres onshore and offshore are under lease but have not been developed.
The actions signal a return to a more industry-friendly approach to offshore operations that Mr. Obama had adopted early in his presidency, though they do not reverse some of the steps the administration made to slow drilling after the gulf disaster.
Hastening the review of drilling permits in Alaska and the possibility of offering parts of the Atlantic Coast for lease in the next few years, in particular, represent a significant change from the administration’s attitude toward drilling after the spill.
The moves come after the House passed a series of bills that would force the administration to move much further and faster to open public lands and waters to oil and gas development. The administration formally opposed the bills as written, but officials said Friday that the White House might accept some provisions in the bills, like extending the frozen leases in the gulf and in Alaska.
Responding to the shift by the administration, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, said, “The president just conceded what his party on Capitol Hill still denies: more American energy production will lower costs and create jobs. This reversal is striking, since his administration has consistently blocked American-made energy.”
Although Mr. Buck characterized the policy changes as “not terribly substantial,” he added that they should “pave the way for legislation, like the bills the House passed in the past two weeks, to reduce the damage from the restrictions he imposed in the past.”

Congressional Democrats, who are largely united in their opposition to the Republican “drill here, drill now” legislation, said the president’s proposals made sense as part of a broader policy that includes revoking tax breaks for the oil industry and encouraging companies to drill on the public land they already control.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, endorsed the measures Mr. Obama proposed Saturday but also advocated selling some part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/strategic_petroleum_reserve_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), which now contains 727 million barrels of crude oil. The administration has so far resisted tapping the reserve, saying that it would have only a small and temporary effect on prices and was intended for critical supply shortages, which the country is not now experiencing.
The president, in his address, said he supported increased domestic oil and gas development, if done safely and responsibly. “Last year, America’s oil production reached its highest level since 2003,” he said. “But I believe that we should expand oil production in America, even as we increase safety and environmental standards.”
The Alaskan petroleum reserve was set aside in the 1920s as a source of oil for the Navy. There have been fewer than a dozen lease sales there; the most recent one, in 2010, drew only modest industry interest. The government has lowered its estimate of recoverable oil under that vast tract, and the Obama administration is leaving large areas untouched because of their ecological and wildlife value.
Response from environmental advocates was muted. Eric Myers, Alaska policy director for the National Audubon Society, said conservationists were willing to see an increase in drilling in the Alaskan petroleum reserve as long as it did not threaten wildlife, waters or sensitive lands.
The more environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska will remain off limits to oil and gas drillers, administration officials said Friday.
The president noted in his address that the Justice Department had formed a task force to look into potential market manipulation or excessive speculation in oil, and he repeated his call for a repeal of the $4 billion a year in tax incentives that the oil industry receives.
“In the last few months, the biggest oil companies made about $4 billion in profits each week,” Mr. Obama said. “And yet, they get $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies each year. Four billion dollars at a time when Americans can barely fill up their tanks. Four billion dollars at a time when we’re trying to reduce our deficit.”
This week, the Senate will take up a Democratic bill to remove a portion of those subsides, but it is not expected to become law because of united Republican opposition in both chambers of Congress.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/us/politics/15address.html?pagewanted=2&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Acusan a familia de Miami de colaborar con el Talibán
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Hallan material porno en guarida de Bin Laden (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/14/941452/hallan-material-porno-en-guarida.html)
Tras liquidación de bin Laden, Pakistán lanza advertencia a EEUU (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/14/941201/explosion-de-autobus-mata-a-seis.html)
Obama acepta renuncia de enviado de EEUU a Medio Oriente (http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/13/940979/obama-acepta-renuncia-de-enviado.html)



JAY WEAVER, LAURA EDWINS Y MELISSA SANCHEZ

jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

Por más de una década, un imán anciano y frágil dirigió una devota congregación en la mezquita más antigua del sur de la florida.
Pero las autoridades dijeron que Hafiz Muhammad Sher Ali Khan llevaba una vida secreta como simpatizante de los terroristas en la Mezquita Flagler de Miami.
El sábado, agentes del FBI arrestaron al clérigo musulmán de 76 años de edad por cargos de conspirar con otros cuatro miembros de la familia Kahn y un paquistaní para financiar actividades terroristas de los miembros del Talibán en Pakistán, incluyendo enviar al menos $50,000 a través de bancos estadounidenses a los insurgentes para armas, escuelas de entrenamiento y otros recursos con el propósito de llevar a cabo ataques violentos contra fuerzas estadounidenses y sus aliados en la región.
El fiscal federal Wilfredo Ferrer dijo que aunque Khan era un "líder espiritual", no era "de ninguna forma un hombre de paz".
Pero uno de los hijos de Hafiz Khan, quien no está implicado en el caso, dijo que su padre estaba demasiado enfermo y demasiado viejo para estar involucrado en actividades tan extremistas.
"Nadie en mi familia apoya el Talibán", dijo Ikram Khan, un taxista de Miami, al agregar que su familia ha vivido desde 1994 en Estados Unidos. "Apoyamos a este país".
La acusación por conspiración presentada contra los seis acusados es el caso de terrorismo más significativo en el sur de la Florida desde que la procuraduría federal en Miami encontró culpable a José Padilla -ciudadano estadounidense y residente en el condado Broward- y a otros dos musulmanes por cargos similares relacionados con una confabulación para ayudar a Al Qaida en el 2007. Como en el caso de Padilla, la acusación contra la familia Khan se basa en el estatuto federal de apoyo material, que el Departamento de Justicia ha usado tradicionalmente en la era posterior al 9/11 para acusar a personas por suministrarle dinero y otros recursos a grupos en el exterior designados como terroristas por EEUU.
El caso contra Hafiz Khan y los otros -incluyendo a uno de sus hijos, Izhar Khan, imán en una mezquita en Margate, Florida y también arrestado el sábado- comenzó a finales del 2008, cuando bancos de EEUU comenzaron a informar de transacciones financieras sospechosas hechas por el padre a sus cuentas de banco en Paquistán, según las autoridades. No quedó claro si el padre o el hijo solicitaban donaciones en sus mezquitas para las supuestas transferencias al Talibán paquistaní.
Para formar su caso, los agentes del FBI grabaron conversaciones telefónicas durante dos años en las que Hafiz Khan y otros hablaban sobre transferir decenas de miles de dólares a los insurgentes de Pakistán para asaltos planeados contra el gobierno paquistaní e intereses de EEUU allí y en Afganistán.
De acuerdo con la acusación, Habiz Khan habló con otro hijo, Irgan Khan, el 25 de junio del 2009, y el padre pidió un ataque contra la Asamblea paquistaní que recordaría el ataque suicida con bomba del 2008 en el hotel Marriot en Islamabad, Paquistán.
En otra conversación grabada con una persona cuyo nombre no se dio a conocer, el 22 de septiembre del 2010, Hafiz Khan habló sobre los insurgentes paquistaníes en Karachi y elogió al Talibán en Afganistán por haber matado a siete soldados estadounidenses, declarando “su deseo de que Dios trajera la muerte a 50,000 más”, según la acusación.



“La acusación y los arrestos se basaron en las palabras, las acciones y las cuentas bancarias de los acusados”, dijo Ferrer el sábado a los reporteros en su oficina. “Ellos estaban brindando todo lo que el Talibán necesitaba en Pakistán para sostener sus esfuerzos”.
Esas alegaciones dejaron estupefactos a algunos musulmanes del sur de la Florida cuando escucharon la noticia el sábado.
“Yo nunca le escuché decir una palabra dura”, dijo Asad Ba-Yunus, portavoz de la Asociación de Comunidades Musulmanas, la cual es propietaria de la mezquita Flagler así como de otra mezquita en Miami Gardens.
“Él era una persona que hablaba siempre en voz baja, y de una naturaleza muy espiritual”, dijo Ba-Yunus. “Por eso es que esto es una sorpresa tan grande para nuestra comunidad”.
La Asociación de Comunidades Musulmanas y Coalición de Organizaciones Musulmanas del Sur de la Florida dio a conocer una declaración condenando todo acto o intento de apoyar, ya sea directa o indirectamente, la violencia o el terrorismo. No obstante, enfatizaron que los arrestados deben ser considerados inocentes hasta que se pruebe su culpabilidad.
Ferrer y el FBI hicieron hincapié en que el caso de terrorismo no se había basado en una operación encubierta. Subrayaron asimismo en que no se debía usar las supuestas acciones terroristas de un puñado de musulmanes en el sur de la Florida para condenar a toda la comunidad.
“No permitiremos que este país sea usado como base para financiar y reclutar terroristas”, dijo John V. Gillies, agente especial a cargo de la oficina de Miami del FBI. Pero agregó: “Le recuerdo a todos que los miembros musulmanes y árabeamericanos de nuestra comunidad no deben ser juzgados a la luz de las actividades ilegales de unos pocos”.
La acusación formal de cuatro cargos de conspiración para terrorismo, presentada el jueves, acusa a Hafiz Khan; su hijo Izhar Khan, de 24 años, imán de la mezquita Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen en Margate; y otro hijo, Irfan Khan, de 37 años, vecino de Miami. Irfan Khan fue arrestado en Los Angeles el sábado.
Todos son ciudadanos estadounidenses.
Los demás acusados están en libertad en Pakistán: Amina Khan, también conocida como “Amina Bibi”, hija de Hafiz Khan; el hijo de ella, Alam Zeb, nieto de Hafiz Khan; y Ali Rehman, también conocido como “Faisal Ali Rehman” .
Cada uno de los cargos conlleva una condena de hasta 15 años de cárcel.
El texto no acusa a las mezquitas en sí mismas de nada indebido.
De acuerdo con la acusación, el dinero del imán era enviado a los talibanes de Pakistán, quienes según las autoridades son responsables de la muerte de soldados de EEUU en Afganistán, el intento de atentado con bomba en Time Square de Nueva York el año pasado y los atentados suicidas con bombas que han matado a incontables ciudadanos, agentes de policía y funcionarios gubernamentales de Pakistán.
Además, la acusación alega que Khan dio apoyo al Talibán paquistaní a través de una madraza, o escuela islámica, fundada y controlada por él, en la región de Swat en Pakistán. Se alega que se usó la madraza para brindar a los miembros del Talibán refugio y ayuda, y para entrenar a niños como miembros de los mushandi, los combatientes musulmanes. Algunos de los niños han sido entrenados para matar a estadounidenses en Afganistán.
La acusación señaló $50,000 en transferencias bancarias entre Khan y los miembros paquistaníes de la conspiración, pero las autoridades dijeron que esa cantidad no incluye todo el dinero que se sospecha el imán y otros enviaron al extranjero.
Ferrer dijo que con ese dinero se pueden comprar muchas armas de fuego en Pakistán.
Allí, dijo, se puede comprar un arma de fuego por $10.
La reportera de The Miami Herald Julie K. Brown y el South Florida Sun-Sentinel también contribuyeron a este reportaje.

Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/14/941542_p2/acusan-a-familia-de-miami-de-colaborar.html#ixzz1MP7FKpId

NASA autoriza despegue del transbordador para el lunes

http://media.elnuevoherald.com/smedia/2011/05/14/17/300-TRANSBORDADOR_ESPACIAL.SFF.embedded.prod_affiliate.84.jpg

Una lancha de la Guardia Costera patrulla cerca del transbordador Endeavour el sábado 14 de mayo de 2011 en Cabo Cañaveral, Florida. El Endeavour y su tripulación de seis astronautas despegarán el lunes por la mañana rumbo a la Estación Espacial Internacional para una misión de 16 días. Terry Renna / AP foto

The Associated Press

CABO CAÑAVERAL, Florida, EE.UU. -- La nave Endeavour despegará el lunes por la mañana en el penúltimo vuelo del programa de los transbordadores espaciales de la NASA.
Los especialistas de la misión dieron el sábado la luz verde para la última salida del Endeavour al espacio. Las probabilidades de un clima aceptable rondan el 70%, según los meteorólogos.
El Endeavour viajará a la Estación Espacial Internacional y el comandante de la misión es el astronauta Mark Kelly, esposo de la representante federal Gabrielle Giffords.
La legisladora, que se recupera de un atentado, asistirá a este segundo intento de despegue de la nave en Cabo Cañaveral.
A finales de abril, se canceló la cuenta regresiva debido a un problema eléctrico en el compartimiento del motor del Endeavour. Fueron reemplazados un interruptor y un termostato descompuesto.
Seis astronautas veteranos viajarán en el Endeavour para una misión de 16 días alrededor de la Tierra.
Sólo resta una misión al programa de los transbordadores: la otra nave que sigue en funcionamiento, el Atlantis, efectuará en julio su último viaje al espacio.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/14/941278/nasa-autoriza-despegue-del-transbordador.html#ixzz1MP84sV56

Fed considers tighter credit as economy improves

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve last month began debating how it should start reversing policies that pumped billions of dollars into the economy during the recession. Some members said the Fed might need to start boosting interest rates this year to guard against inflation. Fed policymakers didn't commit to taking any action at the April 26-27 meeting, according to minutes released Wednesday. But they agreed the economy was improving and if that continued the Fed would need to remove its massive to prevent consumer prices from getting out of control.
A majority of participants said the best method for tightening credit would be to lift the federal funds rate, which is now at a record low near zero. The federal funds rate is the interest banks pay each other on overnight loans. Raising that rate would likely precede sales of mortgages or Treasury securities in its vast portfolio.
Some members thought the Fed would need to start signaling that record-low interest rates would need to rise. A few members believed the Fed might need to boost its key interest rate or start to sell some of the assets in its portfolio later this year. Both moves would lead to tighter credit and higher rates on consumer loans.
The Fed officials generally agreed that the first step should be for the central bank to stop reinvesting money earned off its holdings of mortgages and Treasury securities.
That's consistent with comments made by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at his first-ever news conference on April 27. Bernanke said halting such reinvestments would be the Fed's first move toward tightening credit. But that would have only a limited impact on the rates Americans pay on loans.
The minutes don't identify what the individual Fed policymakers said.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=57486&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

ESPAÑA (http://www.elmundo.es/america/estados_unidos.html) | Solidaridad con las protestas en España
La 'Spanish Revolution' llega a Estados Unidos

http://estaticos02.cache.el-mundo.net/america/imagenes/2011/05/20/estados_unidos/1305906889_2.jpgVista general de la Puerta del Sol, donde miles de personas se han concentrado. | AP



Se han convocado concentraciones en Washington, Nueva York y Miami
Las manifestaciones tendrán lugar en sitios emblemáticos este fin de semana
MÁS NOTICIAS DE AMÉRICA EN ELMUNDO.ES (http://www.elmundo.es/america/)


Ricard González | Washington
Actualizado viernes 20/05/2011 11:57 horas


La comunidad española que reside en Estados Unidos ha tomado buena nota de las protestas (http://www.elmundo.es/especiales/2011/15m/) que tienen lugar en las calles de las principales ciudades españolas, y está dispuesta a expresar su solidaridad este fin de semana.
De momento, y a través de Facebook, se han convocado concentraciones de apoyo al movimiento 15-M en cuatro de las principales ciudades del país: Washington, Nueva York, Chicago y Miami.
En las cuatro ciudades, las concentraciones se realizarán en lugares emblemáticos para la comunidad española. En Washington, tendrá lugar el sábado a las 12:30 en la céntrica plaza de Dupont Circle, donde la comunidad española festejó la victoria en el Mundial de Sudáfrica. En Nueva York, en Washington Square, un lugar de reunión habitual de la juventud neoyorquina, a esa misma hora.
En el caso de Chicago, se celebrará frente al consulado español a las 14:00 hora local. En Miami, el encuentro será en el Consulado de España a el sábado también a las 14:00 horas hora local.
"La idea surgió en un foro de Internet. Alguien sugirió que en Miami debíamos hacer algo, como en Nueva York y Washington. Así que me animé a crear un grupo de Facebook, y a partir de ahí la noticia empezó a correr entre la comunidad española", explica Felipe, un joven profesional de 27 años y originario de Alcalá de Henares que lleva un poco más de un año en la Ciudad del Sol.
Según Felipe, ya hay unas 36 personas, la mayoría jóvenes, que han respondido a la convocatoria asegurando que estarán el domingo en Española Way. Sin embargo, vista la rapidez con la que va creciendo las personas que entran en Facebook, es muy posible que acaben siendo muchas más.
"Nuestra voluntad es visualizar que no estamos aquí en Miami porque se está bien en la playita, sino porque en España no tenemos oportunidades. A muchos de los que hemos venido aquí a trabajar o con becas nos gustaría vivir en España, pero no podemos", explica Felipe.
Según Octavio Medina, el creador de la página web en Facebook para la concentración en Washington, en esta ciudad tanto el proceso de movilización como los objetivos son muy parecidos a los de Miami o Nueva York.
"La idea surgió en un grupo de Facebook que reúne a jóvenes españoles en Washington. Además de mostrar nuestra solidaridad, queríamos expresar una queja propia, la de los emigrados por la falta de oportunidades en España".
Los grupos que convocan las concentraciones en EEUU no tienen ninguna vinculación orgánica con los organizadores del 15-M en España, sino que más bien ha sido una respuesta espontánea ante las informaciones que llegaban desde la península a través de los medios de comunicación.
Sin embargo, existe la intención de ponerse en contacto con ellos, y coordinar propuestas. "Más allá de la concentración, queremos realizar propuestas específicas, y compartirlas con los compañeros que están en España. No se trata de protestar por protestar, sino de aportar también soluciones", comenta Octavio, un chico que realizó sus estudios universitarios en Yale y ha realizado unas prácticas en la Embajada española.
De momento, ya hay en la página de Facebook varias sugerencias que se deberán debatir durante los próximos días, como una reforma del mercado laboral, del sistema educativo, así como de la ley electoral.
http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/05/20/estados_unidos/1305906889.html

Five Media Myths That Perpetuate Car Culture (http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/05/23/five-media-myths-that-perpetuate-car-culture/)

Another day, another news story, another media outlet wielding an old saw like this one: high gas prices are a political problem for the president because Americans “love their cars.” American car culture, fed by everything from our sprawled out landscape to a daily bombardment of car ads, is kept alive by journalists’ use of a set of hackneyed narratives. Beyond clichés, these story lines represent a collection of myths that shore up an unhealthy, unequal, and ultimately unsustainable car system.

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Americans love their cars. A Google search for this statement returns 2.8 times as many hits as “Americans love their pets” and 6.3 times as many as “Americans love their guns”. Yes, there will always be automotive enthusiasts and drivers fond of their cars. But our car culture is both shifting and conflicted: The last time they were surveyed by Pew, Americans saying they saw their cars as “something special”, more than just a means of transportation, had dropped from 43 to 23 percent. Americans may need their cars in our transit-starved and poorly planned landscape, but with mind-numbing traffic and volatile gas prices, the luster is off the chrome.

Teens can’t wait to grab the car keys. The press persists in romanticizing a teen’s first trip to the DMV as the ultimate coming of age ritual. But it’s their middle-aged parents who are more likely to be champing at the bit, fed up with schlepping their kids and steeped in nostalgia about the freedom they felt when they first drove. But this generation is different. Already connected by smartphones and computers, and graduating into a terrible job market, young people are less car-happy than their parents were at the same age. Today’s teens are delaying getting their licenses and purchasing vehicles, and college students are more interested in living in urban centers where they can be less car-dependent.

The economy depends on the auto industry. The popular, business, and political media alike echo the fallacy that a healthy US economy depends on a healthy auto industry. This chorus helped justify the 2009 bailouts of GM and Chrysler. But the auto industry knows that the dependency is reversed: it needs economic growth, tax breaks and subsidies, and vibrant credit markets to sell cars. A nation more reliant on transit and active transportation would be one in which households had lower debt and more discretionary income to spend on housing, leisure, and other products, enriching a wide swath of industries. It would also be a nation, in the next downturn, less hostage to how a single industry’s fate might affect entire communities and supply chains.

The America car industry can return to its former glory. This theme, sounded in Eminem’s paean to the resurrection of Detroit in recent Chrysler ads, is a media favorite. It resounds in stories about car companies that succeed because they “build the cars that consumers want”. The reality is that profitability in an industry so mature, when most families already own multiple vehicles, requires money be made mostly on auto loans and extended warranties. Toyota, which rose to #1 in an era when the press blamed Detroit’s troubles on its having the wrong products, has been making more on car loans than on selling cars. The auto industry’s next heyday, if there is one, will be as a finance business, not a manufacturing or transportation business as it was at its, and the American economy’s, mid-20th century glory days.

We can’t fix the car system because poor people will suffer. Raise the gas tax? Institute congestion pricing? Eliminate oil subsidies? Limit risky offshore drilling? The news media regularly regurgitates the idea that these policies would make driving more costly and that this would necessarily hurt the working poor most of all. Of course, no group suffers under our current car system more than the poor, who devote a heftier chunk of their budgets to transportation than the rest of us and who are disproportionately victims of auto sales fraud, predatory lending, discriminatory insurance pricing, and racial profiling in traffic violations. Simple solutions like redirecting oil and auto subsidies to transit improvements and exempting the poor from new gas taxes would increase equality of mobility.

These myths about our car-dependent transportation system, and the industries that benefit from it, too often go unquestioned by journalists and opinion leaders. Advocates for transportation equity and for a modern transportation system must challenge these assumptions. Rather than let ourselves be paralyzed by these truisms or lulled into thinking these myths harmless, we must tackle these obstacles standing between us and a better transportation future.

:D

Más tormentas en el centro del país


Associated Press


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Poderosas tormentas volvieron a abrirse paso por el centro del país el miércoles, cuando tornados débiles tocaron tierra en zonas aisladas y tormentas severas amenazaban a varios estados.


Poderosas tormentas volvieron a abrirse paso por el centro del país el miércoles, cuando tornados débiles tocaron tierra en zonas aisladas y tormentas severas amenazaban a varios estados.
El Seervicio Nacional de Meteorología emitió avisos de vigilancia de tornados en una docena de estados, que abarcan desde el noroeste de Texas a través del valle del Mississippi hasta Ohio.
“Todo el mundo está trabajando lo más rápido y fuerte poosible’’, declaró Beverley Poole, principal meteoróloca del SNM en Kentucky, que cubrea al sudeste de Missouri y el sur de Illinois.
No había informes inmediatos de muertes por la nueva ola de tormentas, aunque las autoridades reportaon decenas de heridas menores por tornados que brevemente tocaron tierra en Missouri e Indiana.
El martes un tornado destructivo, un violento sistema de tormentas eléctricas y ventiscas azotó el centro de Estados Unidos y causó al menos 15 muertos en Oklahoma, Kansas y Arkansas, donde derribó árboles, dañó automóviles y destruyó una estación de bomberos.
Las tormentas azotaron la región desde el martes por la noche hasta el miércoles por la madrugada, apenas unos días después del enorme tornado que destruyó el pueblo de Joplin, en el suroeste de Missouri, y mató a 123 personas, dejando cientos de desaparecidos.
Las nuevas tormentas causaron ocho muertos y al menos 70 heridos en Oklahoma. Entre los muertos está un joven de 15 años. Su hermano de 3 años se reporta como desaparecido.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/05/25/948558/mas-tormentas-en-el-centro-del.html#ixzz1NTqR9fnA

U.S. government scores a discount on home-grown Chevy Volt

By Matthew Lynley at VentureBeat (http://venturebeat.com/green)
Wed May 25, 2011 7:14pm EDT

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The U.S. government is purchasing 116 plug-in electric and hybrid electric vehicles for its vehicle fleet — and it is picking up a nice discount on General Motors’ Chevy Volt, the same company it made a significant investment in to prevent the car manufacturer from failing.
The government is purchasing more than 100 Chevy Volts and is paying $38,500 for each one, which is under the car’s manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $41,000. Individual car buyers get a $7,500 tax credit for purchasing a Volt because it is a plug-in electric hybrid that has better fuel efficiency. That tax credit would bring the actual price down to $33,500 — slightly more than the cost of the pure plug-in electric Nissan Leaf. So the U.S. government is getting a slight discount for purchasing the 100 plus Volts.
In contrast, the government is actually paying slightly more than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the Nissan Leaf — which retails for $32,780. The government is paying $33,000 for each Leaf, which is also eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit. That means individual car buyers eligible for the tax credit could pay as little as $25,280 for a Nissan Leaf. The report did not indicate how many Leafs the U.S. government is buying.
The Volt has a traditional internal combustion engine and an engine powered by a battery jammed into the same vehicle. The car can run around 35 miles off battery power before the internal combustion engine kicks in, giving the car a total range north of 300 miles on a full charge and full tank of gas. It’s one of the cheaper electric cars on the market. The Nissan Leaf — another one of the cheapest electric cars on the market — is a pure electric car that can travel around 100 miles before it needs to recharge.
The purchase is part of the government’s ambitious plan to have more than 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015. The U.S. government expects GM to sell around 500,000 Volts by 2015 and Nissan to sell 300,000 Leafs by 2015. GM recently increased its sales target for the Chevy Volt and Opel Ampera, an international version of the Volt, to 16,000 total cars this year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/idUS36382618820110525

Mexican journalists urge US to grant them asylum

By : The Associated Press

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Three journalists facing death threats in Mexico want the U.S. government to speed up approval of their asylum petitions. Emilio Gutierrez Soto told the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on Wednesday he first received threats in 2005 after writing stories about alleged military involvement in drug trafficking in the state of Chihuahua. Two years later, his house was ransacked and he received more threats. He fled the country with his 15-year-old son.
Radio reporter Ricardo Chavez left after his nephews were killed, and he received repeated death threats for covering the drug wars in Ciudad Juarez.
Alejandro Hernandez was a TV cameraman kidnapped last July in Durango, Mexico, allegedly by one of the country's largest drug cartels. He was freed a week later and crossed the border in October.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=58539&ct_id=4

American Retailers Try Again in Europe

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Ed Alcock for The New York Times
The new Abercrombie & Fitch store on the Champs-Élysées in Paris has drawn big crowds since opening last month.

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/stephanie_clifford/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and LIZ ALDERMAN (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/a/liz_alderman/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: June 15, 2011

PARIS — On a recent Sunday afternoon, the Champs-Élysées was packed with people enjoying this city’s most famous boulevard — window shopping, sipping wine at sidewalk cafes and strolling toward the river with ice cream (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/ice_cream/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) cones.

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Ed Alcock for The New York Times

Shoppers at Abercrombie & Fitch in Paris enter through iron gates flanked by male models.

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Valerio Mezzanotti for The International Herald Tribune

The new Tommy Hilfiger store in Paris. Demand for American casual fashions has been spurred by TV shows and movies.


Then there were the 150 people waiting to get into an American retail chain store. And that was one of the shortest lines since the store, Abercrombie & Fitch, opened here last month.
Abercrombie is the latest in a stampede of American retailers opening in Europe. The expansion is based on a major shift in how young Europeans think about American fashion. In countries where protests against globalization were common a decade ago, American retailers are being welcomed by screaming fans and their credit cards.
“Young people here don’t think badly about America — we’re American in our heads,” said Mathilde Feuille, 17, who waited about four and a half hours the day the Abercrombie store first opened. “We watch all the U.S. television series: ‘Gossip Girl (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/gossip_girl/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier),’ ‘Glee,’ ‘Vampire Diaries.’ ”
Across Europe, tailored sweatpants and frayed oxfords — American casual — are replacing Chanel jackets and knotted scarves as the clothes many teenagers aspire to own, according to fashion and retail analysts. And while the European stores account for only a small percentage of sales, they tend to bring in higher profits, as discounting is not as expected, and the overall price of garments tends to be higher in Europe.
Banana Republic will open its first French store later this year. Gap (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/gap_the_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org) opened last year in Milan, and will open this year in Rome. Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors have built gigantic Paris flagship stores, while Tory Burch just opened its first Rome store. Even Victoria’s Secret is making the plunge, opening its first shop outside North America next year in London.
“The Internet helps break down some of the language barriers, and makes brands a little bit more transportable across borders,” said John D. Morris, a retail analyst with BMO Capital Markets.
This is not the first time Americans have tried to master European retailing. In the mid-1990s, American brands like Gap and Talbots expanded into Europe. But, said John Long, a retail strategist at the consulting firm Kurt Salmon, they found rent was too high, regulations were too onerous and the demand just wasn’t there. By the early 2000s, Gap had closed its German stores and Talbots got out of Europe altogether.
Now, many retailers believe they have too many stores in the United States, but still want to increase sales, so opening European locations is an obvious solution, Mr. Morris said. Europe is a relatively easy place to go — Asia, while also an attractive market, generally requires different store formats, sizes and designs, while American gear can typically be sold unaltered in Europe.
And the fierce loyalty to European brands no longer exists, especially among the newest generation of consumers.
“They are becoming more cosmopolitan because they are citizens of the world, living contemporary lives that are in tandem and no longer as a continuous fight among cultures,” said Armando Branchini, the president of InterCorporate, a Milan-based luxury goods and retail consultancy, of young Europeans.
Also, the long absence of many American brands has helped increase their allure, said Jean-Noël Kapferer, a professor at the HEC School of Management in Paris. It has been a sign of status, he said, that Europeans had to go to New York to shop at Abercrombie or Tommy Hilfiger.
Still, almost all of the American clothing can be ordered online. So retailers are going to great lengths to attract shoppers to their new European stores.
In early May, before Abercrombie’s store opened here, the Columbus, Ohio-based company flew in more than 100 male models to parade shirtless, jeans slung just above the groin, in front of the 31,000-square-foot store. While teenagers screamed, older, more soigné Parisians looked on with an air of disdain. Soon, authorities descended and ordered Abercrombie to clothe its models, citing regulations that bar partial nudity on the Champs-Élysées.
Even without bare-chested models, the Abercrombie store is a sight — “retail theater,” as Eric Cerny, an Abercrombie spokesman, described it; something that “anybody in retail has to see,” said Mr. Morris, the analyst.
Shoppers enter through iron gates that are flanked by male models, walk down a path of precisely raked butter-colored gravel lined with trees, and turn the corner to enter the building.
Inside, a four-story staircase serves as an artery connecting glass display cases stuffed with jeans, stacks of faded T-shirts, and a perfume bar for sampling fragrances. Abercrombie pumps its Fierce scent throughout the store, along with techno versions of ’80s songs, giving it the feeling of an underage dance club.
The walls, ceilings and floors are painted black. Pairs of dancing models are stationed inside, all dressed in a uniform (boys: checked shirt with the right shirttail tucked in, cuffed jeans, flip-flops; girls: flouncy top, thin cardigan, rolled-up jean-shorts, flip-flops.) Their speech, too, is uniform, as they are required to greet shoppers with the same phrase — on this Sunday, it was “Hey, what’s going on,” with a heavy French accent.
It was so crowded, especially around the fitting rooms, that sidling through each floor was difficult. Abercrombie would not disclose sales data, but an employee at the Paris store said sales had risen each week since the opening.
Nonetheless, there were still worries that globalization was erasing cultural heritage. Walking past the Abercrombie store on opening day, Anne Marie and Roland Pujol, a French couple in their late 50s, paused. “American culture is O.K., but we still must safeguard the French culture,” Mrs. Pujol said. “We have traditions that are very important.”
It was an attitude that did not extend to 17-year-olds like Eglantine Bonnet, who was waiting in line. “Globalization might have been an issue for our parents, but it is not a problem for us,” she said as she scrolled through an English-language Abercrombie blog on her iPhone (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/iphone/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).
As for Ms. Feuille, another young shopper, she seemed most interested in getting a photo with an American model. But she also said she was impressed by the clothes.
“But no flip-flops,” Ms. Feuille said, pointing to the brown thongs worn by the models. “We’re not ready for that yet. It’s still too casual.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/business/global/16retail.html?ref=us

FDA issues graphic cigarette labels

By : The Associated Press

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RICHMOND, Va. — Rotting teeth. Diseased lungs. A corpse of a smoker.Nine new warning labels that feature graphic images that convey the dangers of smoking will be required by the Food and Drug Administration to be on U.S. cigarette packs by 2012. Other images include a man with a tracheotomy smoking and a mother holding a baby with smoking swirling around them. The labels will include phrases like “Smoking can kill you” and “Cigarettes cause cancer.”
The labels, which the FDA released Tuesday, are a part of the most significant change to U.S. cigarette packs in 25 years. They’re aimed at curbing tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths in the U.S. a year.
The labels will take up the top half — both front and back — of a pack of cigarettes and each will include a national quit smoking hotline number. Warning labels also must appear in advertisements and constitute 20 percent of an ad. Cigarette makers have until the fall of 2012 to comply. labels are: a man with a tracheotomy smoking and a mother holding her baby with smoke swirling around them.
“These kind of graphic warning labels strengthen the understanding of people about the health risks of smoking,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We clearly have to renew a national conversation around these issues and enhance awareness.”
Mandates to introduce new graphic warning labels were part of a law passed in 2009 that, for the first time, gave the federal government authority to regulate tobacco, including setting guidelines for marketing and labeling, banning certain products and limiting nicotine. The announcement follows reviews of scientific literature, public comments and results from an FDA-contracted study of 36 labels proposed last November.
The legality of the new labels also is part of a pending federal lawsuit filed by Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc., parent company of America’s second-largest cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds; No. 3 cigarette maker, Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard Inc.; and others.
Tobacco makers in the lawsuit have argued the warnings would relegate the companies’ brands to the bottom half of the cigarette packaging, making them “difficult, if not impossible, to see.”
A spokesman for Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, said the company was looking at the final labels but would not comment further.
In recent years, more than 30 countries or jurisdictions have introduced labels similar to those being introduced by the FDA. The U.S. first mandated the use of warning labels stating “Cigarettes may be hazardous to your health” in 1965. Current warning labels — a small box with black and white text — were put on cigarette packs in the mid-1980s.
The FDA says the new labels will “clearly and effectively convey the health risks of smoking” aimed at encouraging current smokers to quit and discouraging nonsmokers and youth from starting to use cigarettes.
“These labels are frank, honest and powerful depictions of the health risks of smoking,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.
American Cancer Society CEO John R. Seffrin applauded the new labels in a statement, saying they have the potential to “encourage adults to give up their deadly addiction to cigarettes and deter children from starting in the first place.”
The new labels come as the share of Americans who smoke has fallen dramatically since 1970, from nearly 40 percent to about 20 percent. The rate has stalled since about 2004. About 46 million adults in the U.S. smoke cigarettes.
It’s unclear why declines in smoking have stalled. Some experts have cited tobacco company discount coupons on cigarettes or lack of funding for programs to discourage smoking or to help smokers quit.
While it is impossible to say how many people quit because of the labels, various studies suggest the labels do spur people to quit. The new labels offer the opportunity for a pack-a-day smoker to see graphic warnings on the dangers of cigarettes more than 7,000 times per year.
The FDA estimates the new labels will reduce the number of smokers by 213,000 in 2013, with smaller additional reductions through 2031.
Tobacco use costs the U.S. economy nearly $200 billion annually in medical costs and lost productivity, the FDA said. Tobacco companies spend about $12.5 billion annually on cigarette advertising and promotion, according to the latest data from the Federal Trade Commission.
The World Health Organization said in a survey done in countries with graphic warning labels that a majority of smokers noticed the warnings and more than 25 percent said the warnings led them to consider quitting.
While some have voiced concerns over the hard-hitting nature of some of the labels, those concerns should be trumped by the government’s responsibility to warn people about the dangers of smoking, said David Hammond, a health behavior researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who worked with the firm designing the labels for the FDA.
“This isn’t about doing what’s pleasant for people. It’s about fulfilling the government’s mandate if they’re going to allow these things to be sold,” Hammond said. “What’s bothering people is the risk associated with their behavior, not the warnings themselves,”
In places like Canada, Hammond said smokers offended by some of the images on cigarettes packs there started asking for different packs when they received ones with certain gory images, or used a case to cover them up. But smokers said those warnings still had an effect on them.
Canada introduced similar warning labels in 2000. Since then, its smoking rates have declined from about 26 percent to about 20 percent. How much the warnings contributed to the decline is unclear because the country also implemented other tobacco control efforts.
The legality of the new labels also is part of a pending federal lawsuit filed by Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc., parent company of America’s second-largest cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds; No. 3 cigarette maker, Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard Inc.; and others.
Tobacco makers in the lawsuit have argued the warnings would relegate the companies’ brands to the bottom half of the cigarette packaging, making them “difficult, if not impossible, to see.”
A spokesman for Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, said the company was looking at the final labels but would not comment further.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=58695&ct_id=3

Labrador raises voice on immigration

By CB Online Staff
cbnews@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

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U.S. Rep. Raúl Labrador, a Puerto Rico-born former immigration lawyer and Tea Party favorite, is working with fellow Republicans and conservative pundits to craft a “conservative consensus” on immigration reform. Labrador, a freshman lawmaker from Idaho, favors border enforcement, a credible guest worker program and punishing employers that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. He opposes a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million people living in the United States illegally.
Labrador appears willing to break with immigrants rights groups and his own conservative base on the hot-button issue.
“The left claims that Republicans hate Hispanics, which is just the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard, and the right just claims all we need to do is close the borders and do nothing else, which is also ridiculous,” Labrador told Politico.com.
Labrador quickly emerged among a handful of U.S. House Republicans poised to stand out after the GOP took control of the lower chamber of Congress in midterm elections last November.
Labrador, born and raised in Carolina, won a dark-horse race for Idaho’s 1st Congressional District.
The 43-year-old attorney pulled an upset primary victory against the Republican establishment’s anointed candidate, thanks to Tea Party support. He then rode the GOP wave to upset Democratic incumbent Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick to become the fourth stateside Puerto Rican member of Congress and the only one from the Republican Party.
Labrador has spoken of being born to a single mother who had considered having an abortion or giving him up for adoption. He said his mother was a huge fan of the Kennedys, but was inspired by Ronald Reagan to register as a Republican after moving to Las Vegas in 1981.
Labrador has credited his mother for teaching him the value of hard work, saying she shunned welfare despite tough financial straits.
Labrador earned a bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University in 1992 and a law degree from the University of Washington in 1995. He is the half-brother of Eric Labrador, a Republican who served in former Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rosselló’s Cabinet.
Labrador established a private Idaho law firm in 2000 with offices in Boise and Nampa. He was elected to the Idaho legislature in 2006 and served two terms before announcing his candidacy for the U.S. House in late 2009.
“His background and professional knowledge being an immigration attorney provides him with the credibility to make him as expert in this area,” Russ Smerz, president of Tea Party Boise, told Politico.com.
A National Public Radio report selected Labrador among a group of eight “rising stars” positioned to make an impact in the 112th Congress.
The NPR scorecard kicked off a list of factors that landed Labrador on its “rising star” list.
“He’s a hard-liner on the bread-and-butter party issues — anti-tax, anti-abortion and anti-amnesty for illegal immigrants, for instance. He’s got the support of the Tea Party, but he also draws support from Latinos, who make up about 10 percent of the state population and are growing in number at more than three times the rate of non-Hispanics. And he is one of a record six Hispanic Republicans elected to Congress during the midterms,” NPR reported.
With his upset win in the midterm election, Labrador joined the three incumbent stateside Puerto Rican members of Congress, all Democrats who breezed to new terms in the national elections in November.
The Republican Party’s capture of control of the House ended the leadership positions of the three sitting stateside Puerto Rican lawmakers — New York Democratic Party Reps. José Serrano and Nydia Velázquez and Illinois Democrat Luis Gutiérrez.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, the island’s nonvoting member of Congress, was elected to a four-year term in Puerto Rico’s 2008. He is a national Democrat.
Gutiérrez, a leading member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is among the most outspoken U.S. lawmakers on the left of the immigration debate.
He has taken aim at President Barack Obama for his failure to pass the DREAM Act, or any legislation that would address the immigration system, during his first two years in office.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=58701&ct_id=3

New York same sex marriage vote delayed

By Dan Wiessner ALBANY, New York | Fri Jun 17, 2011 3:50pm EDT

ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - New York state senators will not vote on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage before Monday, the senate majority leader said on Friday.
New York could become the sixth state to allow gay marriage if a bill introduced by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, is approved by the Senate. Only one more Republican senator needs to support the measure for it to pass.
The stakes are high because New York would become the most populous U.S. state to allow gay marriage approved by lawmakers, handing the gay rights movement a huge victory.
But with lawmakers set to break for summer recess on Monday, and with Republicans in the majority in the state Senate, it remained unclear if the measure would even be allowed to come to a vote.
When asked by reporters if there was any chance of the Senate voting on the issue before Monday, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos said: "No."
Two Republican senators have already publicly said they will back the proposal, while one Democrat senator opposes it -- leaving New York's 62-member Senate split.
Republican senators were discussing the gay marriage bill and other issues on Friday and would continue talks on Monday, Skelos said.
"There is a concern right now as to the unintended consequences of some of the religious clauses, carve-outs, protections, and we're reviewing that," Skelos said.
Skelos said Cuomo indicated to him on Friday that he would be open to amending the proposal to include more specific exemptions for religious groups.
The bill does not compel any member of the clergy to conduct same-sex marriages, but some Republican lawmakers are concerned the legal protection is not strong enough.
"Republicans need to understand, no one wants to force the Catholic church to marry gay couples. There are plenty of existing protections," said Richard Socarides, the head of national gay-rights group Equality Matters, referring to parts of the state Constitution that protect religious groups.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan, New York's top Catholic official, told a radio show Friday that Cuomo included the Church's lawyers in the drafting of the bill.
The state-by-state battle over gay marriage has become a contentious U.S. social issue ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. Five states and the District of Columbia allow gay marriage and four states have civil unions.
New York's Democrat-dominated Assembly voted 80 to 63 in favor of the bill on Wednesday.
In California, a judge last year overturned a ban on gay marriage, but no weddings can take place while the decision is being appealed. It could set national policy if the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.
Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, and Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey approved civil unions. But gay marriage is specifically banned in 39 states.
The first legal same-sex marriages in the United States took place in Massachusetts in 2004.
A recent Siena poll found 58 percent of New Yorkers support same-sex marriage.
If the bill passes, same-sex couples could start marrying in New York 30 days later.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/us-newyork-gays-idUSTRE75G4K320110617

Obama: 30,000-plus surge troops leaving Afghanistan by next summer

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/aftroops.jpg

WASHINGTON — Beginning to wind down a long and devastating war, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday night he was pulling home 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by next summer, withdrawing the “surge” of forces he had sent to rescue a flailing effort. Said Obama to a country eager for an exit: “The tide of war is receding.”A total of 10,000 troops will leave the war zone by the end of this year — fulfilling Obama’s promise for a withdrawal starting next month — and more than 20,000 additional forces will leave by the summer of 2012, shortly before the president will go before voters in search of a second term.
Still, almost 70,000 U.S. troops will remain in an unstable country, fighting in a war bound to see more Americans killed. Obama said they will leave at a steady pace, but the U.S. combat mission is not expected to end until December 2014 — and even then, a sizable and enduring contingent may remain in a different role.
Obama’s announcement from the White House came in a perilous political environment, with Americans soured on the war and the economy, many members of Congress pushing him to get troops home even faster, and his Republican presidential rivals taking shots at his leadership at every chance.
Plenty of disgruntled Democrats also took Obama to task, however politely, for not withdrawing more troops more quickly.
“I am glad this war is ending, but it’s ending at far too slow a pace,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Added the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California: “We will continue to press for a better outcome.”
At least 1,500 members of the U.S. military have died and 12,000 have been wounded since the war began in late 2001. The financial cost of the war has passed $440 billion and is on the rise, jumping to $120 billion a year. Those costs have risen in importance as a divided U.S. government struggles to contain its soaring debt.
Conceding the economic strain of waging war at a time of rising debt and fiscal constraint, Obama said it was time for America “to focus on nation building here at home.” The president’s chances for re-election rest largely on his ability to show faster job growth in a time of deepening economic pessimism.
The withdrawal is supported by the bold bottom-line claims of his security team: Afghanistan, training ground for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America, is no longer a launching pad for exporting terrorism and hasn’t been for years. But that could also fuel arguments for even greater withdrawals by voters wondering what the point of the war is after all these years, especially since the face of the enemy — al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden — was killed by American forces this spring during a raid in Pakistan.
Yet the White House insists the U.S. must maintain a strong fighting force in Afghanistan for now to keep the country from slipping back into a haven for al-Qaida terrorists.
The initial withdrawal is expected to happen in two phases, with 5,000 troops coming home this summer and an additional 5,000 by the end of the year.
Obama will visit troops Thursday at Fort Drum, the upstate New York Army post that is home to the 10th Mountain Division, one of the most frequently deployed divisions to Afghanistan.
He said materials recovered during the raid to get bin Laden showed that the al-Qaida terror network was under deep strain. He said bin Laden himself expressed concern that his organization would be unable to effectively replace senior leaders that had been killed.
The president declared, “We have put al-Qaida on a path to defeat, and we will not relent until the job is done.”
Even after the troops come home, the war will remain expanded on Obama’s watch. He approved 21,000 additional troops for Afghanistan shortly after taking office in 2009, bringing the total number to 68,000. That means he is likely to face re-election with more troops in Afghanistan than when he took office, although he has also dramatically reduced the U.S. footprint in Iraq.
The president spoke for just under 15 minutes from a silent East Room. It was a strategic moment for him to try to explain a turning point in the war effort without elevating it to a major Oval Office address — more of a stay-the-course case of progress and resilience.
“Of course, huge challenges remain,” the president said. “This is the beginning — but not the end — of our effort to wind down this war. We will have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we have made while we draw down our forces and transition responsibility for security to the Afghan government.”
Significant questions still loom, including whether an Afghan government marred by corruption will be up to enormous job ahead.
Regardless, Obama made clear the United States was ready to move on from a decade defined by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, at a cost at of thousands of lives lost and more than $1 trillion spent. “We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,” Obama said flatly.
Potential GOP presidential candidates were quick to weigh in with criticism of Obama’s plan — but they did not speak with one voice.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accused Obama of proposing an “arbitrary timetable” and said the decision on withdrawing troops “should not be based on politics or economics.” Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said the approach in Afghanistan should be focused on counterterrorism, “which requires significantly fewer boots on the ground than the president discussed tonight.”
Back on Capitol Hill, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, accused Obama of acting based on political considerations. “I am increasingly concerned by the lagging public support for the mission, and it was disappointing that the president failed to bring more clarity to the situation,” he said.
Obama argued that reinforcements he sent have accomplished their mission: eroding the capacity of Taliban insurgents, diminishing the al-Qaida network and providing time and training for Afghanistan’s forces to take charge.
Most Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan and are far more concerned about the teetering economic recovery at home.
Military commanders favored a plan that would allow them to keep as many of the 30,000 surge troops in Afghanistan for as long as possible, ideally through the end of 2012. That timeline would have given them greater troop strength through two crucial fighting seasons.
Obama overruled them.
Many Afghans are eager to see the Americans leave, yet there are big risks for the government there.
“There will be some battles, there will be suicide attacks and bomb attacks,” acknowledged Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi. “But we in the Afghan forces are prepared to replace the foreign forces, and I’m confident the army has enough capacity and ability.”
U.S officials have been saying for several years that al-Qaida’s safe havens had shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan. While there has been some success in degrading the terror network in Pakistan, there are still deep concerns among U.S. officials about Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism.
“So long as I am president,” Obama said of Pakistan, “the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us. They cannot elude us.”
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=58759&ct_id=3

Obama To Confront Two Gay Rights Factions At Thursday's Gala


http://i.huffpost.com/gen/295798/thumbs/r-GAYPROTEST-large570.jpg

NEW YORK -- There are two prisms through which to view President Obama's LGBT fundraiser on Thursday night. The first is presidential politics and, mainly, Obama's continued evolution on gay rights. New York is poised to pass a law legalizing same-sex marriage, making the president's reluctance to come out in favor of it (despite clear signs of support in the past) the source of obvious tension. The second, more telling prism, is the political potency of the gay rights movement itself.
In less than a decade, the LGBT community's sway over the political narrative in the country has grown as fast -- if not faster -- than its membership. Once shunned by politicians, gay rights leaders and donors are now courted by Democratic candidates (and even some Republicans). Advocacy groups have sprouted both locally and nationally. Coverage of LGBT-related issues has gotten front-page treatment in newspapers and top billing on blogs.
The combined effect has been incredibly beneficial to LGBT causes, casting them up the list of pressing political topics. But it also has produced a tension in its own right among gay rights groups. There is, on the one hand, the veritable old guard, who recalls the days when they were part of the national political sideshow. And then there is a new generation of activists -- not all of them young, per se -- far less willing to see their priorities addressed in incremental fashion.
"Years ago, I would absolutely defend politicians who didn't come out for marriage because I felt it was just falling on your sword," said John Aravosis, the gay rights activist, prominent blogger, and vocal critic of incrementalism. "Now … things have gone into hyperdrive in terms of advancement of the movement."
When Obama takes the stage on Thursday night he will be addressing both groups. But as long as he doesn't make an implicit endorsement of same-sex marriage, he will be welcomed far more warmly by the former than the latter.
"This is the third president in which I've been very focused on LGBT advancement in terms of Washington," said Elizabeth Birch, the former Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign who will be in attendance on Thursday. "The fact remains this is the very first president who has every broken through that thick congressional wall for our rights."
As Birch sees it, national politics is "like playing chess, underwater in a toxic swamp." To repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, codify employer protection benefits and hospital visitation rights, and begin down the path of doing away with DOMA is a slate of accomplishments worth praising. Marriage is the prize and purview of the next generation.

"I am so old that one of the biggest advantages of being a lesbian, when I figured it out, is that I didn't have to get married," Birch said. "Now it is sort of the hot thing. That is the absolute job of youth. It is to act as if all things should already exist and that it is possible and obtainable if the will is there."
Generational divides have long been a defining feature of the LGBT community, driving activists and advocacy groups to conduct their politics in demonstrably different ways -- be they chaining oneself to the White House fence or pushing for inclusion in the White House strategy meeting. Richard Socarides, president of Equality Matters, recalled how, not too long ago, gay rights activists were practically "giddy" at the prospect of being invited to a presidential event, let alone hosting a high-profile gala. It was President Bill Clinton who first reached out to the gay political community, getting longtime activist David Mixner to drum up support for his campaign (Mixner would later abandon Clinton over DADT and DOMA).
"It was breathtaking," recalled Socarides, who served in various positions in the Clinton White House, "because it was the first time anybody had ever sought our support. Up until that moment candidates didn't even want to be associated with us. Jimmy Carter famously went to San Francisco and didn't even want to be photographed with Harvey Milk."
Today, feeling comfortable taking a photo doesn't cut it. And Obama won't be absolved merely by attending a gala or hosting a Gay Pride event at the White House (as he is set to do next week). The administration, Socarides notes, has helped produce laudable achievements on LGBT issues. But "if there is a calculation on marriage, it is always that if people don't have any alternative, they can hang out in the middle without consequence," he said. "I would say to them there is a big downside to looking inauthentic, and right now they look inauthentic."
Indeed, despite improved relationships (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/14/obamas-relationship-with-gay-rights-advocates-2012_n_876671.html) with some of the very same gay rights activists who once protested (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/gay-rights-protesters-support-obama-democrats_n_882602.html) the president's fundraising events, Thursday's gala still risks being overshadowed by the singular issue of same-sex marriage.
The president is not expected to address the political developments in New York, and if he does it, will likely be through the rather stale construct of respecting the sovereignty of states. It won't necessarily be demoralizing for attendees. But it will prolong the often-intense debates among LGBT activists over how, exactly, they should exert their widening political clout.
"There are two different camps," said Mixner. "One is 'don't pressure him on marriage, we will get it eventually, it is okay, he has done more than any other president, let's not be hard.' Then there is a group that I include myself in, which will support the president's re-election but who will not let up on marriage. We feel this is not a political issue, it is a moral issue where he needs to exert moral leadership."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/23/obama-gay-rights-lgbt_n_883096.html

Obama: I Oppose Discrimination, "I Was Born That Way"


By Julie Bolcer (http://www.advocate.com/authors.aspx?searchterm=Julie%20Bolcer)
http://www.advocate.com/uploadedImages/ADVOCATE/NEWS/2011/2011-06/2011-06-24/1Obama.jpg
Click through the pages for more photos from the event.

President Barack Obama traveled to New York on Thursday for several fund-raisers with LGBT donors, where he celebrated his accomplishments to date but stopped short of an endorsement for marriage equality before asking for more support.

During his speech at the $1,250-a-plate Democratic National Committee LGBT Leadership gala in Midtown Manhattan, Obama said that he believes “that gay couples deserve the same legal rights as every other couple in this country,” but he did not explicitly say that marriage is one of those fundamental rights.

In the appearance before LGBT donors, Obama spoke to some 600 people, where he received a warm reception for work toward repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, issuing the directive not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, his order on hospital visitation rights, his comprehensive AIDS strategy, and appointing the first openly transgender person to federal office, which received the loudest applause.

The president was introduced by Jonathan Hopkins, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and by host Neil Patrick Harris, whom Obama jokingly called “openly terrific.”

Obama took the stage and spent more than 10 minutes discussing issues regarding the economy, education, and foreign policy before he pivoted to LGBT themes as he declared, “We’re all created equal.”

“Ever since I had a memory about what my mother taught me and my grandparents taught me, I believed that discriminating against people was wrong,” said Obama. “I had no choice, I was born that way. In Hawaii.”

Multiple times during his speech (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/23/remarks-president-dnc-event-1), shouts of “Marriage!” interrupted the president, whose visit coincided with deliberations in the New York State Senate about a marriage equality bill.

“Believe it or not, I anticipated that,” said Obama, who positioned his answer in terms of states’ rights.

“And right now I understand there’s a little debate going on here in New York -- about whether to join five other states and D.C. in allowing civil marriage for gay couples,” he said. “And I want to -- I want to say that under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, with the support of Democrats and Republicans, New York is doing exactly what democracies are supposed to do. There’s a debate; there’s deliberation about what it means here in New York to treat people fairly in the eyes of the law,” he said.

Obama said that the debate in the New York legislature on marriage equality represented “the power of the democratic system.”

Acknowledging that there would be “impatience” with him at times, Obama mentioned a teenager from a small town who came out to him in a letter last year. The president said he was “confident that we will achieve the equality that this young person deserves,” but he said that it would take time, and include “setbacks.”

Obama closed with an appeal for LGBT support in his reelection bid.

“And with your help, if you keep up the fight, and if you will devote your time and your energies to this campaign one more time, I promise you we will write another chapter in that story,” he said.
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/24/Obama_Makes_Appeal_to_LGBT_Donors/

Same sex marriage passes in New York!
:dance::dance::dance:

New York moves to become 6th state to legalize gay marriage

By Mary Snow, CNN
June 24, 2011 10:35 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS


The state Senate approves a same-sex marriage measure on Friday night
A deal was reached Friday to add language protecting religious institutions
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire also allow gay marriage
Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed the bill to give same-sex couples "hundreds of rights"



Albany, New York (CNN) -- New York legislators cleared the last major hurdle to legalize same-sex marriage on Friday with a 33-to-29 vote, sending the bill to the governor's desk for his expected approval.
A vote on the measure, which the state Assembly passed June 15, has been stalled in the Senate. But it turned a corner Friday, according to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, after lawmakers agreed on an amendment to protect religious groups from litigation that had been pushed by Republicans.
Earlier in the day, the Assembly passed a new version of the bill that included the amendment about religious institutions. The Friday night vote in the Senate means that the legislation's fate is now in the hands of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who proposed it in the first place.
Cuomo, a Democrat, says it would grant same-sex couples equal rights to marry "as well as hundreds of rights, benefits and protections that are currently limited to married couples of the opposite sex."
Currently, five states -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire -- and the District of Columbia grant same-sex marriage licenses.
Earlier this week, activists on both sides of the issue gathered in the state capitol, Albany. They chanted opposing slogans -- petitioning for either "marriage equality" or yelling "one man, one woman" in defense of the institution's traditional definition -- though they could also be seen occasionally mingling and even singing religious songs together.
Republicans, led by Skelos, had expressed concerns over the "unintended consequences" of a bill that redefines the legal parameters of marriage. The measure needed three Republicans' votes to pass the bill, which had the support of 31 Senators -- just one short of the number required for passage -- earlier this week.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/24/new.york.gay.marriage/

New York Lawmakers Approve Gay Marriage

By Rashed Mian, Timothy Bolger, Jaclyn Gallucci and Christopher Twarowski (http://www.longislandpress.com/author/christwarowski/) on June 24th, 2011

http://www.longislandpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/gay12-300x199.jpg (http://www.longislandpress.com/2011/06/24/new-york-lawmakers-pass-gay-marriag/supporters-2/)
Supporters of same sex marriage celebrate that the Senate members will vote on legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, during a session of the New York State Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., Friday, June 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink)

The New York State Senate approved a much-debated same-sex marriage bill late Friday evening, bringing the state one signature away from becoming the sixth and largest in the nation to legalize weddings between gay and lesbian couples.
Approved by a vote of 33 to 29, the legislation, which passed the state Assembly last week, came to a vote on the Senate floor at approximately 10 p.m. Following lengthy explanations from senators regarding their votes, the final tally was recorded at 10:30 p.m. The bill now heads to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk for his signature and ultimate approval to become law. Cuomo’s confirmation is all-but guaranteed; ensuring its passage has been one of his top priorities of his administration.
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The chamber erupted in applause following the Senate’s vote, with chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” and a lone woman’s voice stating “Thank you.”
Debate over the controversial legislation reached heightened levels in recent days as both opponents and advocates of same-sex marriage crowded the state Capitol’s hallways carrying signs and voicing their stances to lawmakers.
The Senate’s approval—let alone allowing it to reach the body’s floor for a vote—hinged since the Assembly’s passage on the Republican caucus, requiring just a single GOP member to vote in favor of the bill in order for it to pass. Gov. Andrew Cuomo had made securing its approval a top priority and had been working with Republican senators to ensure its passage.
At a fundraising event before gay and lesbian advocates in New York City Thursday, President Barack Obama publically expressed his support for gay rights but fell short of calling for approval of the controversial same-sex marriage bill.
Speculation continued throughout Friday whether there would even be a vote. The Senate’s regular legislative session ended Monday; with extended sessions each day since. An informal poll conducted by the Long Island Press last week of the Senate’s nine Republican from Long Island found that none would vote in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.
Definitive news of the vote was first announced by Skelos early Friday evening via a post on his Web page.
“After many hours of deliberation and discussion over the past several weeks among the members, it has been decided that same sex marriage legislation will be brought to the full Senate for an up or down vote,” he wrote. “The entire Senate Republican Conference was insistent that amendments be made to the Governor’s original bill in order to protect the rights of religious institutions and not-for-profits with religious affiliations. I appreciate the Governor’s cooperation in working with us to address these important issues and concerns.”
“This is a very difficult issue and it will be a vote of conscience for every member of the Senate,” he added.
The bill’s approval reverberated with waves of praise and joy throughout Long Island’s gay and lesbian community. At the Long Island GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) Community Center in Bay Shore, more than 50—both young and old, though mostly young—rallied throughout the afternoon and into the night, ushering in the long-awaited vote with shouts and cheers of support.
“Let them vote!” they chanted. “Let them vote!”
Music played so loud it shook the walls. Some danced as the Senate proceedings flashed across a television screen flanked by balloons; others simply sat in their chairs, or on the floor, and watched as the night unfolded. More than 40,000 people watched the Senate’s proceedings along with them, according to the chamber’s live video stream broadcasted on its website.
Blue, green, yellow and red lights splashed color across the floor and onto the jovial crowd. A collage of the Earth wrapped in a rainbow alongside the words “Empower” and “Transform” decorated one wall. American and gay pride flags dangled from nearby poles. Many held hands.
“What are we excited about?!” one woman screamed.
“Marriage!” shouted the group, many standing up and clapping.
Roy Schmitt, 63, of Lynbook, who had to travel to Canada in 2005 in order to wed his boyfriend of 25 years, told the Press there was no other place on Long Island he’d rather be to commemorate such a historic and joyous occasion.
“I have to be here to celebrate with the young people who are going to have the rights we never had,” he said. “[The passage] will send a message that it’s a civil rights issue, not a religious issue.”
Ronna Weiss, another supporter in attendance told the Press she has a straight and a gay daughter—and that her straight daughter is getting married this summer.
“My gay daughter is in a committed relationship and I want to see her be able to marry as well,” she said. “I want her to have the rights and responsibilities that my straight daughter has.”
Hempstead resident Patrick Young, who is straight and married, was another who attended to offer support.
“It struck me as crazy that the government could tell you who you could and couldn’t marry,” he said, adding that when he was growing up, African Americans and whites also couldn’t legally get married. “I think it’s important that their relationships be respected.”
As the vote approached, Dawn Castagna, 41, of Bay Shore, held hands with her girlfriend of 16 years, Pat Colao, 61, also of Bay Shore.
“My heart is going out of my chest,” she gasped. “My stomach is in my throat.”
http://www.longislandpress.com/2011/06/24/new-york-lawmakers-pass-gay-marriag/

Nueva York aprueba el matrimonio homosexual



Reuters | Albany
Actualizado viernes 24/06/2011 22:52 horas

(http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/06/25/estados_unidos/1308970376.html#comentarios)

Nueva York se convertirá en el sexto y más populoso estado de EEUU en permitir el matrimonio homosexual después de que este viernes por la noche los senadores de este estado aprobaran la norma por 33 votos a favor y 29 en contra.
Treinta días después de que el gobernador Andrew Cuomo sancione la ley (estampe su firme en ella), las bodas entre personas del mismo sexo podrán celebrarse en el estado de Nueva York. Sin embargo, las instituciones religiosas y las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro con afiliaciones religiosas no estarán obligadas a oficiar este tipo de ceremonias.
La Asamblea de Nueva York había aprobado la medida el viernes por la mañana, antes de su votación en el Senado, por 82 votos a favor y 47 en contra.
La batalla estado por estado del matrimonio homosexual se ha convertido en un contencioso social en EEUU, de cara a las elecciones presidenciales y al Congreso que se celebrarán en 2012.
http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/06/25/estados_unidos/1308970376.html

http://174.121.31.130/%7Evoceroc/openx2/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=77&campaignid=27&zoneid=21&loc=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vocero.com%2Fmundiales-es%2Flegislatura-de-ny-legaliza-matrimonio-gay&cb=d65fcdaf96
http://174.121.31.130/%7Evoceroc/openx2/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=21&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE&n=a66f77d6 (http://174.121.31.130/%7Evoceroc/openx2/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a66f77d6&cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE)

Legislatura de NY legaliza matrimonio gay

Por AP (http://www.vocero.com/author/ap) el 24 de junio de 2011


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El matrimonio gay se legalizará en el estado de Nueva York, después de que el senado, encabezado por los republicanos, votó para aprobarlo.
Los defensores de los derechos de los gays consideraron que este paso es histórico, pues si bien Nueva Yorkserá el sexto estado en legalizar el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo, es por mucho el más grande en hacerlo.
El gobernador demócrata Andrew Cuomo cabildeó decididamente en favor de la propuesta y ha prometido promulgarla con su firma. El voto en el Senado es considerado un triunfo en los esfuerzos por permitir los matrimonios gays en todo el país.
Llega un día después de que el presidente Barack Obama alentó a los legisladores a apoyar los derechos de los gays durante un acto para recaudar fondos de esa comunidad en la ciudad de Nueva York.

Nueva York aprueba el matrimonio homosexual

http://estaticos02.cache.el-mundo.net/america/imagenes/2011/06/25/estados_unidos/1308970376_0.jpgUna pareja de lesbianas celebran la norma aprobada por el Senado. | Efe



El voto definitivo a favor correspondió al republicano Stephen Saland
El Defensor del Pueblo de Nueva York: 'Me siento increíblemente orgulloso'
LEA MÁS NOTICIAS DE AMÉRICA EN ELMUNDO.ES/AMERICA (http://www.elmundo.es/america)


Efe | Reuters | Albany
Actualizado viernes 24/06/2011 22:52 horas




Comentarios (http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/06/25/estados_unidos/1308970376.html#comentarios) 3

El Senado de Nueva York ha aprobado, tras una semana de tensas negociaciones, la legalización de los matrimonios entre personas del mismo sexo, convirtiéndose así este estado en el sexto de Estados Unidos que permite tales uniones.
La norma fue aprobada por 33 votos a favor y 29 en contra, durante una tensa votación en la que senadores demócratas y republicanos explicaron su voto, mientras en el exterior de la Cámara esperaban partidarios y detractores de la medida.
Con este voto, considerado como "histórico" por las organizaciones defensoras de los derechos de los homosexuales, Nueva York se convierte en el estado más importante y con más población sobre el resto de Estados Unidos con leyes similares.
La batalla estado por estado del matrimonio homosexual se ha convertido en un contencioso social en EEUU

El voto definitivo a favor correspondió al republicano Stephen Saland, quien realizó una emotiva explicación de su voto y señaló a los legisladores que llegar hasta esa posición le había obligado a hacer "un viaje interior", en el que había concluido a favor de la igualdad.
"Lo correcto es tratar a todas las personas con igualdad y esa igualdad incluye al matrimonio", señaló Saland, que indicó a los legisladores que su voto era "de conciencia. Estoy en paz con mi voto, ha sido una lucha y un extraordinario proceso de decisión".
Con anterioridad otro senador republicano, Mark Grisanti, expresó su opinión favorable a la iniciativa, con lo que la legislación propuesta por el gobernador de Nueva York, el demócrata Andrew Cuomo, logró la mayoría.
Entre las filas demócratas la ley ha contado con la negativa en todas las ocasiones que ha sido propuesta del senador demócrata por El Bronx, el reverendo Rubén Díaz, que durante la explicación de voto señaló su oposición.
Pero su compañero de partido, el senador Gustavo Rivera, dijo tras la votación sentirse "orgulloso de que Nueva York haya enviado el mensaje alto y claro de que no tolera la desigualdad".
Eran necesarios 32 votos

La ley, propuesta la semana pasada por Cuomo y aprobada ya por la Asamblea Legislativa, controlada por los demócratas, necesitaba un mínimo de 32 de los 62 votos del Senado, de mayoría republicana, para ser aprobada.
"Me siento increíblemente orgulloso de ser neoyorquino. El estado que inició los movimientos nacionales en Seneca Falls y Stonewall ha dado un paso histórico para garantizar la igualdad para cada individuo, homosexuales y heterosexuales", señaló el Defensor del Pueblo de Nueva York, Bill de Blasio.
La aprobación de esta medida, que ya fue aprobada en 2009 por la Asamblea Legislativa del estado, pero no había obtenido la luz verde del Senado, ha tenido que superar el escollo de los temores de algunos republicanos indecisos sobre la protección a las instituciones religiosas para evitar que reciban demandas en el futuro por oponerse a celebrar este tipo de uniones.
Algunos republicanos, como el senador Greg Ball, estaban indecisos sobre ese aspecto y al considerar que no quedaban despejadas, votó en contra.
Sin embargo, las instituciones religiosas y las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro con afiliaciones religiosas no estarán obligadas a oficiar este tipo de ceremonias.
"El texto enmendado protege las libertades religiosas sin crear ninguna excepción especial que penalice a las parejas del mismo sexo o que no reciban un trato igualitario", afirmó en un comunicado la organización Neoyorquinos Unidos por el Matrimonio.
Obama respalda la medida

Entre las filas demócratas la ley ha contado con la negativa del senador demócrata por El Bronx

La posición hecha pública el jueves en Nueva York por el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, a favor de la igualdad entre las parejas ha supuesto un respaldo definitivo para la medida.
Obama, durante un acto para recaudación de fondos para su campaña electoral a la presidencia del próximo año y el primero entre la comunidad gay, dijo que las parejas homosexuales merecen tener "los mismos derechos" que cualquier otra pareja en el país.
"Nuestros legisladores nos han escuchado, han oído la voluntad de una mayoría de casi el 60% (de los neoyorquinos favorables a la ley)", dijo en un comunicado el director ejecutivo de la organización defensora de los derechos de los homosexuales 'Empire State Pride Agenda', Ross Levi.
El matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo tiene una consideración dispar en Estados Unidos pues mientras estados como Massachusetts, Nueva Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut y Iowa, además de Washington DC, y ahora Nueva York, permiten las bodas entre parejas del mismo sexo, California lo prohibió después de someterlo a referéndum.
Las uniones de hecho eran ya legales en la ciudad de Nueva York y San Francisco, al igual que en otras de los estados de California, Colorado, Hawai, Maine, Maryland, Nueva Jersey, Ohio, Oregón, Wisconsin y Washington.
La batalla estado por estado del matrimonio homosexual se ha convertido en un contencioso social en EEUU, de cara a las elecciones presidenciales y al Congreso que se celebrarán en 2012.
http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/06/25/estados_unidos/1308970376.html

Number of Venezuelans seeking asylum in US surges in past decade

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/veneza.jpg

MIAMI — Oliver Gaviria was driving along a highway in Caracas when two men dressed in black pulled up alongside him on motorcycles and told him to stop the car. One held a gun to his temple and they threatened to kill him, saying he was a traitor to President Hugo Chávez’s government.Gaviria never thought of himself as an influential adversary of Chávez, and he certainly did not expect to be singled out as enemy of the state. After all, he ran a business that organized parties for government officials including some powerful allies of Chávez.
“They told me they knew that I was against the regime and that I was a traitor, and because of that I’d pay with my life,” Gaviria said about the 2007 incident during a recent interview with The Associated Press. Fearing for his safety and that of his younger sister, who was also threatened, he soon moved into a friend’s apartment. He then headed to Miami, where he sought political asylum.
The 40-year-old is among thousands of Venezuelans who have left their homeland over the last decade, some of them citing political persecution and saying they have been targeted for their opposition to Chávez’s government.
At least 4,500 political asylum requests by Venezuelans have been granted between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The number of Venezuelans granted asylum could be higher because a single request can involve multiple people or an entire family.
That’s about five times more than the previous decade.
In Latin America, the number of Venezuelan asylum seekers was surpassed only by those from neighboring Colombia, which continues to struggle with a decades-long armed conflict involving Latin America’s largest rebel army.
Officials at Venezuela’s embassy in Washington declined to comment about the issue.
Chávez has repeatedly denied targeting his opponents. Chávez argues that human rights are fully respected in the country, and that some government foes have faced charges because they committed crimes.
Those who have sought asylum in United States are a small portion of a Venezuelan population that has grown steadily, from about 91,000 people in 2000 to about 215,000 in 2010, according to U.S. Census figures.
The new arrivals from Venezuela tend to be young professionals and business leaders, and many have moved into South Florida suburbs such as Weston, Doral, Pembroke Pines and Aventura. They have increasingly started cafes and restaurants that serve Venezuelan food such as arepas — corn cakes served with meat, chicken, cheese or other fillings.
Some of the Venezuelans who have moved to Florida say they left to escape rampant crime and a difficult economy.
Others who have sought asylum say they were forced to leave their homeland, and that they have no plans to return as long as Chávez remains in power.
Some government opponents have faced criminal charges that they say are trumped up, such as corruption charges that led former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales to seek asylum in Peru.
Critics accuse Chávez of using prosecutors and judges to crack down on dissent. Chávez denies it, saying the country’s prosecutors are fully independent.
Eduardo Gamarra, a Latin American politics expert at Florida International University, said there are increasing concerns that Chávez is using the judicial system to bring politically motivated charges in order to “silence and banish potential government opponents.”
Juan Fernández, a former executive of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, fled the South American nation in 2004 after he helped lead a two-month strike aimed at forcing Chávez’s ouster.
Venezuelan authorities have sought to prosecute leaders of the strike, which severely slowed the economy.
Fernandez said that in addition to facing rebellion and conspiracy charges, he was threatened and had gone into hiding fearing for his life. When he left, Fernández expected to return to Caracas before long.
But Chávez survived a 2004 recall referendum and was re-elected in 2006. The president’s repeated victories have dashed Fernández’s hopes. He said if he were to return, he would be arrested.
“You feel anguish because you can’t return to your home, especially when you feel persecuted,” said Fernández, who lived in Spain, Germany and the Caribbean island of Curacao before settling in Miami. “I can’t go home to see my family, my friends, and challenge Chávez’s power.”
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=58861&ct_id=3

US border security: Huge costs with mixed results

By : The Associated Press

HIDALGO, Texas — Perched 20 feet above a South Texas cabbage field in a telephone booth-sized capsule, a National Guardsman passes a moonlit Sunday night with a gun strapped to his hip, peering through heat detector lenses into an adjacent orange grove.Deployment of 1,200 National Guard soldiers for one year: $110 million.
This same night, farther west on the border, a haunting whistle blasts through the predawn quiet as a mile-long train groans to a heavy stop halfway across a Rio Grande River bridge. In a ritual performed nightly, a Customs and Border Protection agent unlocks a gate, a railroad policeman slides the heavy doors open, and they both wave flashlight beams under, over and in between the loads of cars, electronics and produce, before they pass through an X-ray machine searching for hidden people or drugs.
One rail cargo x-ray screening machine: $1.75 million.
On this night in southern Arizona, a screener examining tractor-trailer loads of charcoal spots something odd and asks for a closer look. Drug sniffing dogs bark. He finds 8,000 pounds of baled marijuana in several trucks.
Customs and Border Protection officer average annual salary: $75,000. Drug-sniffing dog: $4,500.
As Congress debates border funding and as governors demand more assistance, The Associated Press has investigated what taxpayers spend securing the U.S.-Mexico border.
The price tag, until now, has not been public. But AP, using White House budgets, reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and congressional transcripts, tallied it all up: $90 billion in 10 years.
For taxpayers footing this bill, the returns have been mixed: fewer illegal immigrants but little impact on the terrorism issue, and certainly no stoppage of the drug supply.
___
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists didn’t come from Mexico, but the attacks led politicians to re-examine border security. Ten days later, President George W. Bush announced a new Department of Homeland Security, with tasks including the security of the nation’s porous southern border.
Over the next 10 years, annual border spending tripled as the U.S. built an unprecedented network along the 1,900-mile border with Mexico: 165 truck and train X-ray machines; 650 miles of heavy duty fencing and sheer concrete walls; twice as many law enforcement officers along the entire stretch, and a small fleet of Predator drones. Also, remote surveillance cameras, thermal imaging devices and partially buried ground sensors that sound an alarm back at headquarters if someone steps on one in the desert.
“Our obligation to secure our borders involves a responsibility to do so in the most cost effective way possible, and we recognize that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to meet our border security needs,” said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler.
Over the years, the goals of the border security measures have shifted.
Early concerns that terrorists could sneak weapons into the U.S. from Mexico were later overshadowed by worries about violent drug cartels slaughtering people across the Rio Grande. As the U.S. economy faltered, preventing illegal immigrants from sneaking north for jobs became the focus.
“Border security is no longer just about responding to 9/11. It became very much a part of the immigration debate,” said Jena Baker McNeill, homeland security policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
Indeed, stopping immigrants at the border has become a bargaining tool for the last two administrations with Congress — fences and guards in exchange for reforming immigration laws, she said.
The buildup has dramatically reduced illegal immigration. Ten years ago, border agents caught 1.6 million illegal immigrants in one year. Last year they caught just 463,000. The drop is attributed in part to the U.S. recession which decreased jobs here, but it’s also an indication, according to federal officials, that fewer people are attempting to illegally cross the border.
But the spending has not worked to stop the flow of illegal drugs. Last year, border guards seized a record 254,000 pounds of cocaine, 3.6 million pounds of marijuana, and 4,200 pounds of heroin. In response, Mexico’s cartel bosses simply sent more: trainloads of marijuana, cocaine stuffed in fenders and dashboards, heroin packed into young men’s shoes.
An estimated 660,000 pounds of cocaine, 44,000 pounds of heroin and 220,000 pounds of methamphetamine are on American streets in a given year, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. A fraction of that amount is seized at the border, a small operating cost for Mexico’s drug lords, who will reap an estimated $25 billion this year from their U.S. sales.
Last month, a Justice Department study reviewing the total cost of illicit drug use in the U.S., using cost-of-illness studies, federal crime and caseload statistics, and economic models, came up with a figure of $193 billion per year.
“You can’t ever seal the border. You can never stop anything 100 percent. As long as there’s a market, as long as there’s a profit, there will always be someone taking a chance on getting that product through,” says Democratic U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, a former Border Patrol director.
Despite the surge of violence just a stone’s throw away — the death toll in Mexico’s crackdown on cartels is more than 35,000 — the Obama administration reports communities on the U.S. side of the border enjoy relative peace. Nor have terrorists typically crossed the border to enter the U.S., officials note.
Still, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, warns against complacency.
“There is a disagreement about the definition of spillover violence and the extent of such violence, but there should be no disagreement about the threat we face and what will happen if this Administration continues to downplay the threat,” he said. “So what should we do? For starters we should get out of our foxholes and lean forward against this growing threat. If we don’t, the cartels will eventually attempt to take over our cities.”
If Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano could talk to Mexico’s drug cartel bosses, here’s what she says she would tell them: “Don’t even think about bringing your violence and tactics across this border. You will be met by an overwhelming response.”
And if she could talk to would-be illegal immigrants, she’d say this: “There are more Border Patrol agents on that border than ever before. There are more customs officials. There is more technology. Do not throw in your lot with the cartels or the criminal organizations because the likelihood of getting caught, and the consequences of doing so are higher than ever before.”
For 2012, the Obama administration’s record high budget for border security proposes an additional $242 million to pay for high tech watch towers and movable screeners along the border, $229 million to raise border agents’ pay, and $184 million to identify and deport criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails. That’s on top of about $14 billion to support the ongoing infrastructure.
Over the years, budget allocations tell a story of a shifting border policy.
In 2002, as post-9/11 security checks created four-hour waits on the border, the Bush Administration sought $380 million to construct a state-of-the-art entry and exit visa system.
In 2006, the federal government ended an immigration “catch and release” policy in which local police had been releasing illegal immigrants if they hadn’t committed a local crime. Now they would be turned over to feds and face immigration charges. That year taxpayers spent $327 million for 4,000 new beds to hold the suspected illegal immigrants until they could be legally processed.
This January, the Obama administration dumped SBInet, an attempt to install a high-tech “virtual” border fence project that cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion but did little to improve security.
“From the start, SBInet’s one-size-fits-all approach was unrealistic,” said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “The department’s decision to use technology based on the particular security needs of each segment of the border is a far wiser approach, and I hope it will be more cost effective.”
___
Are border priorities now matched by spending? The answer depends on whom you ask.
“At some point we got the misconception that border security means securing the border,” said Andrew Selee, director of the Washington-based Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan think tank. “It’s actually about something much more comprehensive, from reducing drug use to reforming immigration laws, all the while facilitating legitimate trade. The spending needs to match the goals.”
Customs and Border Patrol’s main job is to protect the U.S. from terrorism. But it’s the U.S-Canada frontier — which taxpayers spent $2.9 billion securing last year — that is “the more significant threat” when it comes to terrorism, CBP head Alan Bersin told senators at a recent hearing.
Bersin said this is because the Canadian government won’t use the FBI’s no-fly terrorist watchlist. (Canada has its own.) “We are, more than we would like, confronted with the fact where a No-Fly has entered Canada and then is arrested coming across one of our bridges into the United States,” Bersin said.
Just over 6,000 people were arrested — for all reasons, not just for being on the no-fly lists — at the U.S.-Canada border last year, compared to 445,000 arrests at the Mexican border.
In Texas, El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar calls the $2.6 billion, 650-mile border fence that winds through the south side of her city, “a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junk-yard.” Even worse, the rows of 18-foot welded steel bars along the Rio Grande River don’t do anything to address El Paso’s costs from Mexico’s drug wars, she says.
“Border residents have seen their communities used as a convenient backdrop to heated debates and political posturing about immigration and drug policies,” she says.
For example, since 2008, when violence exploded across the border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, hundreds of near-dead victims have been rushed across the border to public emergency rooms where taxpayers have spent $4.9 million in trauma care for those victims to date. And local sheriffs are overwhelmed with policing transnational gangs. Jails, she said, are overcrowded. Prosecutors juggle cases that should be handled by feds.
“Where has some of the federal funding gone, if not to my trauma facility or increasing my law enforcement capacity?” Escobar asks, then answers her own question. “It’s gone to a wall.”
Nelson H. Balido, president of the Border Trade Alliance, questions whether federal border funding has shortchanged security at ports of entry, in favor of security between them.
“If there aren’t enough inspectors to open up all the lanes at a land border port during a period of peak traffic, then shipments can get stuck waiting in sometimes miles-long backups, stalling just-in-time manufacturing operations and increasing costs,” he said.
Nor does random vehicle inspection make sense, he said, comparing it to “a search for a needle in a haystack, often resulting in increased delays and congestion to residents and the trade.”
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=58857&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Reactions to N.Y. Vote Felt Around the World

By Winston Gieseke (http://www.advocate.com/authors.aspx?searchterm=Winston%20Gieseke)

http://www.advocate.com/uploadedImages/ADVOCATE/NEWS/2009/200909/2009-09-18/NEWSOMX390.jpg

Across the country and around the globe, the news of New York’s legalization of gay marriage dominated the wires. The impact of the Empire State’s vote was felt in newspapers like the U.K. Telegraph, which predicted that the news "will be the cause of huge celebrations in America at this weekend's annual gay pride festivities in New York," as well as the Belfast Telegraph, which labeled it "a breakthrough victory in the state where the American gay rights movement was born."
In Paris, where the city’s gay pride festivities drew many French notables, presidential hopeful Eva Joly said, "This is wonderful news from New York. Within the first 100 days of the new government, we will adopt that law [guaranteeing marriage equality]."
In nearby Germany, Berlin’s gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit, responded by calling for international acceptance of LGBT rights and other progressive advances. "The support of many people from all walks of life sends a strong sign against discrimination," he said as thousands filled the streets for the city’s 33rd annual Christopher Street Day festival.
Meanwhile Down Under, Australian Marriage Equality national convener Alex Greenwich praised the Empire State for holding out for full marriage rights and said the news gave Australian advocates renewed hope that change is possible. "The fact New York legislators rejected half measures like civil unions as a substitute for marriage equality sends a clear message to Australian legislators to do the same," he said.
In the U.S., California’s lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom (pictured), continued to voice his support of gay rights by tweeting, "Thank you to NY State Legislature & Governor Cuomo for recognizing that marriage is more than a word: it's about dignity & equality."
And while some gay advocacy groups have been disappointed by President Barack Obama’s lack of action on a federal level, the White House issued a statement to TheHuffington Post saying, “The President has long believed that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights and legal protections as straight couples. That's why he has called for repeal of the so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ and determined that his Administration would no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA in the courts. The states should determine for themselves how best to uphold the rights of their own citizens. The process in New York worked just as it should.”
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/25/Reactions_to_NY_Vote_Felt_Around_the_World/

Cheers for Cuomo at NYC Gay Pride March


By Julie Bolcer (http://www.advocate.com/authors.aspx?searchterm=Julie%20Bolcer)
http://www.advocate.com/uploadedImages/ADVOCATE/NEWS/2011/2011-06/2011-06-26/AndrewCuomoPride.jpg

An estimated two million people converged on Manhattan Sunday for the New York City gay Pride march, an annual event that took on an “extra special” meaning, in the words of the day’s star attraction, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who signed the marriage equality bill into law on Friday. Same-sex couples from anywhere will be able to marry in New York beginning on July 24.
The bill passed the senate (http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/24/New_York_Passes_Marriage_Equality_Bill/) on Friday by a vote of 33 to 29, including support from four Republicans. As the sixth and most populous state with marriage equality, and the first where a bill passed a Republican-controlled legislative body, New York is widely anticipated to energize the movement nationwide, a potential impact the governor highlighted in remarks prior to the march.
"I believe New York has sent a message to this nation loud and clear: It is time for marriage equality all across the country,” said Cuomo in Midtown before embarking on the nearly two-mile route down Fifth Avenue and into the West Village, where crowds along the way chanted his last name, sometimes at deafening volume. An MC introduced him as “the man who just signed marriage into law,” while the Lady Gaga soundtrack yielded to a rendition of “Here Comes the Bride” as the march reached Christopher Street, the location of the Stonewall Inn, regarded as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement.
The governor marched with elected officials including Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and Senator Tom Duane and Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell, the two openly gay sponsors of the bill in the state legislature. They were joined by members of the New Yorkers United for Marriage coalition, which carried out fieldwork, communications and lobbying for the $2 million campaign this year. The coalition included the Human Rights Campaign, Empire State Pride Agenda, Log Cabin Republicans, Marriage Equality New York, and Freedom To Marry.
Marchers and spectators on the sunny afternoon held signs that read “Thank You, Governor!” and “Promise Kept,” a reference to his campaign pledge last year to pass a marriage equality bill. The popular Democrat made the bill one of his three priorities this legislative session, and he personally lobbied lawmakers, who represent districts where the governor enjoys a high approval rating among voters.
“It’s one thing for me to go up to the state capital as a lesbian and ask for the rights that I deserve,” said Speaker Christine Quinn, who also lobbied senators in Albany. “It’s quite another thing for a heterosexual governor to make this one of his top three issues. And you could see that in people’s faces, that somebody who isn’t a member of our community put it all on the line for our community. That is really the definition of leadership and love, to do something for people whose community you aren’t a member of, who you will never meet, and to risk it all in a political sense, to make their lives better. That’s quite something,” she said.
Joined by longtime girlfriend Sandra Lee, whose brother is gay, the governor appeared to delight in the day. A former attorney general and veteran of Pride marches, he described the latest experience as “electric” in comments to reporters afterward, when he continued to talk about the potential for New York to open a national conversation and reclaim its reputation for progressive social legislation.
“I think you’re going to see this message resonate all across the country now,” he said. “If New York can do it, it’s okay for every other place to do it. If New York did it, every other place is now going to be posed with the question and I think that’s a good thing.”
Site of the Stonewall Uprising and home to the women’s suffrage and abolitionist movements, New York also is identified with moderate Republicans like the late Nelson Rockefeller. Republican donors with Wall Street ties contributed more than half the money raised to win marriage equality in New York this year, and coming battles will likely indicate whether the victory is unique to local conditions or can be replicated.
On Sunday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican in a state with a Democratic legislature, appeared on Meet The Press and said he was “not a fan” of same-sex marriage. He said his state, which borders New York, would continue with civil unions.
Asked how he thought New York could influence other places, Cuomo said, “I think the power of our example is going to be instructive to other states.”
Cuomo did not respond to a question about leadership from President Barack Obama, who appeared before gay Democrats at a high-dollar fund-raiser in Manhattan on Thursday and stopped short of endorsing marriage equality. The president said the state-level debate, then still unfolding in New York, represented “exactly what democracies are supposed to do.”
However, Cuomo said that he had no plans to travel the country to advocate for marriage equality. One sign along the march route read “Homo for Cuomo 2016,” but the governor, who has been mentioned as a prospective presidential candidate, deferred to his tasks in New York.
“I have a lot of work to do as governor,” he said. “I’m going to stay right here.”
Former governor David Paterson, who tried but failed to pass marriage equality in the state senate in 2009, also marched on Sunday. He predicted New York would inspire more state victories before President Obama would express his support.
“I don’t really know what presidents and presidential candidates can do when you have six states out of 50 that have ratified this,” he said. “The great movements in this country have not come from the federal level. They have come from the states. So I think what happened here in New York is a catalyst, to start working on Pennsylvania, start working on Ohio, start working on these other states so that you build a groundswell. Then I think you’ll see a response from national leadership.”
Cuomo has credited his predecessor for laying the groundwork for the marriage equality win, but Paterson insisted the victory was entirely Cuomo’s. He acknowledged this year’s campaign for its top-down management, discipline, and bipartisanship, in contrast to a sometimes fractious effort two years ago in the Democratic-controlled senate.
“He ran the whole process through his office, and that was nothing short of brilliant,” said Paterson about Cuomo.
Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller served as grand marshals of the 42nd annual Pride march, in addition to the Rev. Pat Bumgardner of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, and the Imperial Court of New York.
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/06/26/Cheers_for_Cuomo_at_NYC_Gay_Pride_March/

¿Veremos algún dia un gobernador/a luchar por los derechos LGBT en Puerto Rico?

tengo entendido que en el 2010 García Padilla dijo algo sobre eso y sobre crear una coalición LGBT para el 2012 y fue duramente atacado. Así que no creo que llegue eso pronto aunque sonó mas como oportunismo político to me.

Another tear in the airport security net

Federal authorities and Virgin America are trying to explain how Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi was able to get through layers of airport security — and then avoid arrest for five days after officials discovered he was a stowaway.


http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-06/62916771.jpg
Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, 24, pictured above in a 2008 Chicago arrest report, allegedly flew from New York to Los Angeles on an expired boarding pass in someone else's name. His Chicago arrest came after he allegedly refused to pay a $4.70 fare on a Metra train. (Chicago Police Department / January 3, 2008)


By Andrew Blankstein and Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times July 1, 2011

Virgin America (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/consumer-goods-industries/virgin-group-ltd.-ORCRP000017402.topic) Flight 415 from New York to Los Angeles was already two hours into its journey when some passengers in the upscale "Main Cabin Select" section complained that the man seated in 3E reeked of body odor.

A flight attendant asked Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi for his boarding pass and was surprised to see it was from a different fight and in someone else's name. She alerted authorities, and Noibi went back to sleep in his black leather airline seat. When the plane landed, authorities chose not to arrest Noibi, allowing him to leave the airport.


On Wednesday, Noibi was arrested trying to board a Delta flight out of Los Angeles. Once again, he had managed to pass undetected through security with an expired ticket issued in someone else's name. Authorities found at least 10 other boarding passes, none of which belonged to him. Law enforcement sources told The Times they suspect Noibi has used expired plane tickets to sneak on to flights in the past. On his website, Noibi describes himself as a "frequent traveler."

Now, federal authorities and Virgin America are trying to explain how the Nigerian American was able to get through layers of security — and then avoid arrest for five days after officials discovered he was a stowaway.

Aviation safety experts said they see several major breakdowns in security procedures. Transportation Security Administration (http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-law-justice/laws/law-enforcement/transportation-security-administration-ORGOV000000157.topic) and airline officials should have noticed the ticket was expired and not in Noibi's name when he boarded at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport (http://www.latimes.com/topic/travel/transportation/air-transportation/kennedy-airport-PLTRA0000041.topic), they said. He was allowed onboard by showing his expired university ID card, even though college identification cards are not on the TSA's list of valid IDs and federal transportation sources said that it alone should not have been accepted.

The experts were also perplexed at why officials allowed Noibi to leave LAX (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/transportation-industry/air-transportation-industry/los-angeles-international-airport-PLTRA0000070.topic) after the plane landed when he had clearly violated laws.

"Obviously the system did not work the way it was supposed to," said Brian Jenkins, a transportation security expert at the Mineta Transportation Institute in San Jose and the Rand Corp., the Santa Monica-based think tank. "Procedure was not followed."

The incident is another black eye for airport security officials, who are still dealing with the publicity surrounding the TSA's decision last week to force a 95-year-old woman in a wheelchair to take off her adult diaper when she went through a security check in Florida.

TSA officials said Thursday it was reviewing Noibi's case. But Virgin America acknowledged in a statement that its workers "may have missed an alert" in processing Noibi in New York.

"The airline maintains security and other screening systems [are] in place to prevent such an occurrence; however, in this case it appears staff may have missed an alert when the passenger presented a boarding pass from a prior flight," said Virgin America spokeswoman Patricia Condon. "We take security matters very seriously and are reviewing our training to ensure that this anomaly does not occur again."

The saga began June 24, when Noibi got on the plane at JFK.

Noibi was not on the list of passengers for the flight, which would be mandatory "for each paying passenger on every U.S. domestic flight," wrote Special Agent Kevin R. Hogg in an (http://documents.latimes.com/fbi-affidavit-on-airline-stowaway/)FBI (http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-law-justice/crimes/fbi-ORGOV000008.topic) affidavit. Virgin had no record of Noibi paying for his ticket.

Despite this, he was able to move past two checkpoints — at the security screening area and at the gate — with his expired ticket and university ID.

Investigators later determined the boarding pass belonged to a man identified in the affidavit only as "M.D."

The man told authorities he printed his boarding pass at home, folded it up and put it in his back pocket. But when he arrived at JFK after taking the subway, he couldn't find it. He said he did not know Noibi and printed a replacement boarding pass.

When the flight attendant approached Noibi two hours into the twin-jet Airbus A320 flight, Noibi produced a boarding pass for the day before. The attendant alerted Capt. Joseph Groff, who directed her to seek additional identification, according to the affidavit. Noibi initially hesitated but then produced a student ID from the University of Michigan (http://www.latimes.com/topic/education/colleges-universities/university-of-michigan-OREDU000044.topic). Noibi attended as an undergraduate student between 2006 and 2008, the college confirmed.

Groff noted that the names did not match, and the crew alerted authorities on the ground.

The crew kept the subject — who was asleep for much of the flight— under surveillance, but at no time felt there was any threat to the security of the flight, Condon said.

The five-hour, 23-minute flight landed in Los Angeles at 12:53 a.m. Saturday. Waiting officers let Noibi go after questioning him, and it's unclear how he spent his time in Southern California. But he returned to LAX on Tuesday, passed through security screening and waited for hours at the airport.

When he tried to board Delta Airlines (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/transportation-industry/air-transportation-industry/delta-air-lines-ORCRP002110.topic) Flight 46 to Atlanta using the expired ticket, authorities took him into custody Wednesday morning.

He tried to persuade Delta officials to let him on the plane, saying he had missed his flight the previous day. "The Delta agent told Noibi 'no' twice, and Noibi kept trying to hand her the boarding pass," the affidavit said.

Noibi, also known as Seun Noibi, proclaims himself a "storyteller, strategist and designer who is passionate about reaching the world for Jesus," according to his Facebook (http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/internet/social-media/facebook-ORCRP006023.topic) page. He was arrested in Chicago in 2008 after allegedly refusing to pay a $4.70 fare on a Metra (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/transportation-industry/railway-industry/metra-ORGOV0000006.topic) train. Those charges were later dropped.

Noibi faces stowaway charges and is scheduled to appear in federal court Friday.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0701-airport-security-20110630,0,2315584.story

Appeals court upholds health-care law’s individual mandate

By Jerry Markon (http://www.washingtonpost.com/jerry-markon/2011/03/02/ABFbf0M_page.html), Published: June 29


A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the most contentious provision of the health-care overhaul law (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/), ruling that Congress can require Americans to carry insurance coverage.
In backing the individual mandate, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati became the first appellate court to rule on President Obama’s signature domestic initiative. The decision also marked the first time a Republican-appointed judge has sided with the administration in evaluating the law’s constitutionality.

More on this Story


Appeals court upholds health-care law’s individual mandate (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/appeals-court-upholds-health-care-laws-individual-mandate/2011/06/29/AGXR6RrH_story.html)
OPINION: A blow to the conservative case (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/a-big-blow-to-the-conservative-legal-case-against-health-reform/2011/03/03/AGhgN1qH_blog.html)
Health-care law glossary (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/health-care-overhaul-lawsuits/glossary.html)
Archive: Health-care reform (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/)


“We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause,” Judge Boyce F. Martin Jr., a Democratic appointee, wrote (http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/11a0168p-06.pdf)for the majority. He was joined by Republican appointee Jeffrey Sutton.
The 2 to 1 ruling was hailed by the Justice Department and administration allies, who called it an important bipartisan test of the law’s ability to withstand numerous legal challenges. Opponents of the health-care act disputed the ruling’s significance, calling it one incremental step in a legal struggle widely expected to wind up at the Supreme Court.
“It’s an unfortunate decision,” said David Rivkin, a lawyer representing 26 states in a Florida-based lawsuit that also challenges the law. “By the time this gets to the Supreme Court, it’s not going to matter which decision was first or second,” added Rivkin, who predicted that the law will be overturned.
The differing interpretations reflected the deep divisions over a measure that has provoked vehement opposition (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/21/AR2011022104218.html)and equally strong support among the public and politicians alike. More than 30 lawsuits have been filed since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was pushed through Congress by Democrats in March 2010, resulting in several rulings by lower-court judges (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/02/AR2011020206536.html)that, until now, have cleaved along partisan lines.
As a result, the ultimate fate of the statute, which aims to bring about the broadest changes to the nation’s health-care system in several decades, may not be known for a year or more. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the 6th Circuit case said they will appeal directly to the Supreme Court but acknowledged that the justices probably will not take the case right away.
Most contested provision
The health-care law seeks to extend medical coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans and make major changes in public and private health insurance. By far the most contested provision (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020106616.html)is the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to purchase at least a minimum level of health insurance starting in 2014 and imposes a tax penalty if they don’t.
Like other legal challenges, the lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Law Center — a Christian-oriented law firm in Michigan — says Congress overstepped its constitutional authority to regulate commerce.
A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit disagreed. The mandate is constitutional, Martin wrote, because “Congress had a rational basis to believe” that the provision would affect interstate commerce and that it was “essential” to the law’s broader goals of reforming the health-care market.


Judge James Graham, a Republican appointee, dissented, but it was the concurrence of Sutton — a George W. Bush appointee and former law clerk for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — that was most noteworthy.
Sutton wrote that “the government has the better of the arguments” and that “Congress . . . did not exceed its power” in passing the individual mandate. But he also appeared to acknowledge that his word would not be final, writing, “The Supreme Court has considerable discretion in resolving this dispute.”

And in a phrase that heartened conservative opponents of the law, Sutton questioned whether the legislation will have other, perhaps unintended, consequences. “That brings me to the lingering intuition — shared by most Americans, I suspect — that Congress should not be able to compel citizens to buy products they do not want,” he wrote.
“If Congress can require Americans to buy medical insurance today, what of tomorrow? Could it compel individuals to buy health care itself in the form of an annual check-up or for that matter a health-club membership?”
Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said that the government welcomed the ruling “and its finding that Congress acted within its authority in passing this landmark health-care reform law.” She vowed that the department will continue to “vigorously defend” the law and said department officials believe that efforts to challenge it will fail.
Her words were echoed by a variety of Democrats and supporters of the law.
“Congress clearly has the authority to regulate the health insurance market, including protecting consumers from insurance industry abuses,” said Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now. “Every step of the way, the health-care debate has been polluted by partisan politics. Today’s decision, made by judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, is immune to that criticism.”
No ‘ringing endorsement’
But Rivkin, citing some of the wording in Sutton’s concurrence, said the decision is “not at all a ringing endorsement of the constitutionality of the individual mandate.” And David Yerushalmi, a lawyer for the Thomas More Law Center, said that while the ruling was “disappointing,” Sutton “essentially kicked this thing upstairs to the Supreme Court.”
Yerushalmi said he is already drafting a petition asking the high court to hear the case, though he acknowledged that the justices will probably “put it aside” until other appellate court decisions are issued.
Two other federal appellate courts — the Richmond-based 4th Circuit and the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta — recently heard oral arguments in lawsuits challenging various aspects of the health-care law’s constitutionality, and they are expected to issue decisions in the coming weeks or months. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has scheduled oral arguments for September.
Three U.S. district judges have ruled in favor of the administration on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, while two district court judges have said it is unconstitutional. Those decisions were all along partisan lines, with Democratic-appointed judges supporting the administration and Republican appointees opposing it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/appeals-court-upholds-health-care-laws-individual-mandate/2011/06/29/AGXR6RrH_story_1.html

Festivals, foot races and big-time BBQ

By : AURA N. ALFARO
aura@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/deadanim.jpg

Those yearning to do something this Fourth of July weekend beyond the traditional backyard cookout with family and friends — which we’re not knocking — can choose to attend any of a range of events from cultural and carnival to beach fests and sports fests, and of course, a major barbecue faceoff. The culturally inclined might like to swing by the town of San Sebastián, where La Casa Pepiniana de la Cultura will be celebrating its 31st National Hammock Festival Friday through Sunday on the grounds of the Juan Beníquez Stadium on PR-111.
More than 200 hammock makers will have a rich variety of their works on display and for sale. It wouldn’t be a festival without food and beverage kiosks and music.
One of the main attractions will be the knitting of the world’s largest hammock, which will be 60 feet long and wider than a regular volleyball court. Visitors will be able to participate in the knitting, said Rafael Marchese, president of the festival organizing committee.
This year’s festival is dedicated to veteran Las Piedras hammock maker Ana Méndez Rivera, and Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas for its long standing defense of the environment and the Puerto Rican nationality.
For more information call 787-598-1408, 787-896-5081 and 787-280-2988, or visit the festival’s Facebook page: Festival Nacional de la Hamaca.
Aibonito Flower Festival
For nature and garden lovers there’s the annual Aibonito Flower Festival, when the town of Aibonito hosts the biggest plant and flower show in Puerto Rico. The festival takes place around the Los Polluelos Coliseum through Monday.
Visitors can enjoy formal garden scene displays, with just about every type of plant imaginable, including orchids, heliconias, gingers, bromeliads, and bonsai. All types of plants are available for purchase, including herbs, vegetable seedlings and fruit trees.
Food kiosks with everything from typical local fare to pizza, ice cream and cotton candy can be expected, along with music. Live entertainment on Friday will include Trio Cielomar, and Zone D’Tombora.
On Saturday there will be music by Conjunto Saborinquen, and El Gran Combo, and on Sunday, Banda Los Caleños, and singer Elvis Crespo. On Monday, it will be Trio Cielomar and singer Oscar de León.
The festival opens from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Entrance fee to the festival is $7 per person. Parking is free. For more information call 787-735-3871.
El Yunque Carnival in Río Grande
Those who want to surround themselves with lively music, dancing, wild costumes and outdoor celebration should head northeast to the 25th El Yunque Carnival in Río Grande, that will include a 10K race on Saturday, and a colorful end-of-carnival parade on Sunday.

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/riocar.jpg

The town is decked out with colorful decorations, and most of the festivities are held at the Ovidio de Jesús Stadium grounds, near the intersection of PR-3 and PR-187R.
There will be the crowning of the new town queens and princesses on Saturday. Throughout the weekend visitors will be able to enjoy talent shows, typical amusement park rides and games, and food kiosks.
Río Grande’s 16th annual Ciudad del Yunque 10K Race will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, starting and ending at the stadium. Participants will include local top racers César Mercado, César Lam, Orlando Ceballos, Luis “Chino” Soto, Zenaida Maldonado, sisters Michelle and Giselle Coira, Carmen Vallés, Albert Colón, rising star Luis Collazo, plus Colombian native and the Inter University Games’ 5,000 and 10,000 meter races winner Johanna Rivero.
The parade kicks off at 1 p.m. and lasts about four hours on Sunday, highlighting dancing, music, sequined costumes and floats, high school bands, pom-pom girls and flag twirlers, pimped, classic and antique cars, and usually the Rio Grande unicycle team, and even a few vejigantes.
Many area towns and neighboring islands — Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, Aruba, and Panama — will also join the parade with their own bands, dancers, and floats.
For best viewing, visitors are advised to find a spot in the downtown area. The parade will wind its way through the town’s streets and ends at the stadium.
For more information call 787-887-2370.
Party on the beach in Manatí
For beach and sports lovers Manatí will host its annual Festival Playero at Los Tubos Beach, with sports competitions and music.
Visitors can expect beachside recreation and games, art exhibitions, several tournaments — dominoes, fishing, and volleyball — and more than 21 musical acts over the long 4th of July weekend, with performances by NG2, Ismael Miranda, Alexis and Fido, Límite 21, Don Omar, Ednita Nazario, and El Gran Combo.
For more details call 787-887-2695 or visit www.festivalplayero.com/index.html (http://www.festivalplayero.com/index.html).
Cook-off in the capital city
The perfect combination this weekend would be and outdoor celebration complete with an all-out barbecue, where all you have to do is enjoy and maybe knock back a few brews.
On Saturday and Sunday, the Caribbean BBQ Association will hold its fourth annual Cattleman’s Caribbean BBQ Competition & Outdoor Festival at the Puerto Rico Convention Center, where several teams will display their culinary skills while vying for the top prize.
Roast pork —“lechón asado a la varita” — teams will compete on Saturday, and Sunday’s competition will include grilling and slow smoking of beef, poultry and pork with sauces.
The event opens at noon on both days, ending after the awards presentations, at around 7 p.m. Parking at the Convention Center parking lot $5.
For more information call 787-319-9410.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=59097&ct_id=1&ct_name=1

L.A. Prepares for Worst and Hopes for Best in Freeway Shutdown

By ADAM NAGOURNEY (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/adam_nagourney/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: July 6, 2011

LOS ANGELES — You would think that Los Angeles, of all places, would know how to handle a catastrophe.

Enlarge This Image
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/07/07/us/07freeway_337/07freeway_337-articleInline.jpg
Monica Almeida/The New York Times

An eleven mile stretch of Interstate 405 will be closed down for 53 hours in July in Los Angeles.

Multimedia

http://graphics8.nytimes.com//images/2011/07/01/us/psa.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ANothNxBZrw)
Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ANothNxBZrw)
I-405 Closure With Erik Estrada (via YouTube) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ANothNxBZrw)

But in just over a week, 11 miles of Interstate 405 — the north-south spine of the West Side of Los Angeles, which carries 500,000 cars every weekend over the Sepulveda Pass into the San Fernando Valley — is going to shut down for 53 hours, from late Friday night to early Monday morning. No cars, trucks or motorcycles will be allowed, to make way for the latest phase in a $1 billion widening project for a highway that serves as an unhappy second home for commuters during rush hours.
And they are calling it Carmageddon.
City officials are warning of a traffic nightmare, urging people to stay home or get out of town with pronouncements that have taken on an increasingly alarming tone. “EXPECT BIG DELAY” reads the warning on electronic billboards on highways and streets from Bakersfield to San Diego. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has an official “Countdown to the Closure” clock (http://www.metro.net/projects/I-405/) on its Web site, ticking down to the weekend of July 16 and 17.
The Los Angeles Police Department, leaving no electronic stone unturned, asked Lady Gaga to post a warning on her Twitter feed, which has 11.4 million followers and is usually more concerned with promoting “Born This Way” than a highway. There is a Carmageddon Facebook page and an all-things Carmageddon (http://www.car-mageddon.com/cmg/Home.html) Web site, with maps, videos, a Twitter feed and local businesses offering deals to people who stay home. (The tagline: “The Price You Pay to Live in L.A.”) And there is an ever-growing list of hashtags to help Twitter account users track the impending crisis.
Kajon Cermak, the traffic reporter for KCRW in Santa Monica, said she was considering doing what any rational person would do on that weekend: leaving. “I was talking to my husband, and he said we should get out of here and go to Portland,” Ms. Cermak said. “The traffic is going to be bumper to bumper. Everybody is talking about it.”
Which is hardly a surprise considering how terrifying the warnings have sounded.
“If you think the 405 is gridlocked during the week, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said by telephone last week. “My message is to stay home. Or go on vacation. Walk. Go on a bike. But do not get in your car and go anywhere near the West Side. It’s going to be a mess.”
Bill Rosendahl, a City Council member from the area, said, “This is truly a potential paralysis moment.”
Of course, the big question is whether all this could end up being the Los Angeles equivalent of the Y2K crisis-that-never-came. There are plenty of people here who recall what took place after similarly alarming traffic warnings before the 1984 Summer Olympics.
“The message got out, and the freeway was never better,” said Leon Borja, the deputy mayor for transportation. “The traffic flow was incredible.”
But there are many more cars on the road here than 25 years ago. Ms. Cermak said she was struck by how the 405 is routinely gridlocked on weekends.
Preparations for this potential traffic catastrophe have been plentiful. Hospitals are lining up hotel rooms and dorm rooms for employees. The Los Angeles Emergency Operations Center, a high-tech command post built to manage emergency service responses during a natural disaster, will be in full operation, the mayor said.
The Getty Center — perched on a hillside overlooking the highway, and a top draw for tourists — is closing for the weekend, the first time it has done so since opening in 1997, said Ron Hartwig, its spokesman. Santa Monica is permitting farmers who come down for the Saturday farmers’ market to leave their trucks in parking lots through the weekend and is asking homeowners who have space to “host a farmer” through the closing.
One enterprising helicopter company is advertising trips from the Valley to the West Side — “Enjoy the ride over the Sepulveda Pass” — for $150 a person. Movie theaters near the 405 are promising free popcorn to draw nervous patrons through the door.
Los Angeles officials say they are only doing the responsible thing in issuing the ever-more-apocalyptic warnings of what lies in store. Local businesses are not so sure, worried that all this will do is drive away customers on what should be a busy summer weekend, while making it tougher for employees to get to work.
“We have elected officials standing up at the podium saying, ‘Get out of town, get away, don’t come here!’ ” said Jay Handal II, the manager of San Gennaro Cafe in Brentwood. “That’s probably the most business-unfriendly thing for them to be telling people. They should be promoting the local neighborhood, instead of telling people to get the hell away.”
The real fear is that come Monday morning, when the real crush of regular weekday traffic comes, the contractors will not be finished with the work. Though, perhaps fear is not the right word. “Oh, if that happens, it’s like, oh, L.A., we get our first snow day!” Ms. Cermak said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/us/07freeway.html?_r=1&ref=us

US Suspends $800 Million in Military Aid to Pakistan

July 10, 2011

William Ide | Washington

A top White House official says the United States is suspending some $800 million in military aid to Pakistan, a move some analysts say is being made to pressure the Pakistani military to step up cooperation. The decision comes as ties between the two countries are under intense strain in the wake of the U.S. raid on a compound in Pakistan that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

White House Chief of Staff William Daley says that while the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is difficult and complex, it must be made to work over time.

"They've been an important ally in the fight on terrorism. They've been the victim of enormous amounts of terrorism. But right now, they've taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid which we were giving to their military. And we're trying to work through that," he said.

Daley made his comments on ABC's This Week program on Sunday when asked about a New York Times article that first revealed the U.S. decision to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Pakistan military.

Daley did not say what steps Pakistan had taken that gave the U.S. reason to suspend funding. U.S. officials have been quoted as saying that the move is a response to Islamabad's decision to expel American military trainers and put limits on visas for U.S. personnel, among other actions.

Analysts say the suspension was also aimed at pressuring Pakistan to do more to cooperate with the U.S. to fight militants.

Ties between between Washington and Islamabad have become increasingly strained in recent months. Just last week, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, sparked a strong response from Pakistan when he commented on the murder of Pakistani reporter Saleem Shahzad, who was beaten to death in May. While Mullen said he could not tie the killing to a specific Pakistani government agency, he said he had not seen anything to counter reports that Islamabad approved the murder.

Pakistan's government denounced his comments, calling them "extremely irresponsible and unfortunate."

Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar in residence at the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Institute, says the administration's move is a "high-stakes gamble" that is unlikely to make Pakistan more cooperative. "The difficulty here is that there are within Pakistan's public but even within the military itself, there are many people whose attitude is we don't care for [the] U.S. military or any other assistance for that matter," he said.

Weinbaum says that the suspension of U.S. aid is likely to make it more difficult for Pakistan to fight militants along its borders. "All of the efforts that Pakistan has been putting into dealing with the militants and extremists at the border have gone to [fighting] those elements that are threatening Pakistan. And have been of limited value, in dealing with the insurgency in Afghanistan and that's what the United States is concerned about," he said.

Last year, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, the United States provided Pakistan with nearly four-and-a-half billion dollars in military and civilian aid. The military aid accounted for more than half of that total, or $2.7 billion.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/NY-Times-US-Suspends-Millions-in-Military-Aid-to-Pakistan-125281723.html

Ya era tiempo. :ohno:

Una turba del régimen sirio asalta las Embajadas de EE UU y Francia

Los diplomáticos habían visitado el viernes la asediada ciudad de Hama

Y. MONGE / A. J. BARCA - Washington / París - 12/07/2011


En clara respuesta a la visita la semana pasada de los embajadores de Estados Unidos y Francia en Siria a la simbólica ciudad de Hama, una multitud de leales al presidente Bachar el Asad asaltó ayer las legaciones diplomáticas de ambos países en Damasco, provocando daños materiales y heridas leves a tres agentes franceses. Hama, en el centro del país, es en la actualidad uno de los mayores focos de resistencia contra el régimen sirio, y su nombre retrotrae además a violentos episodios acaecidos hace 30 años.



http://www.elpais.com/fotos/paises/151_FRA.gif (http://www.elpais.com/todo-sobre/pais/Francia/FRA/)
Francia (http://www.elpais.com/todo-sobre/pais/Francia/FRA/)

A FONDO

Capital: París. Gobierno:República. Población:64,057,792 (est. 2008)

http://www.elpais.com/fotos/paises/151_SYR.gif (http://www.elpais.com/todo-sobre/pais/Siria/SYR/)
Siria (http://www.elpais.com/todo-sobre/pais/Siria/SYR/)

A FONDO

Capital: Damasco. Gobierno:Régimen Militar. Población:19,747,586 (est. 2008)

"Sin permiso oficial no hay matones", dice un diplomático basado en Damasco

El Gobierno asegura que los embajadores violaron convenios internacionales


Las informaciones que ayer llegaban de Damasco hablaban de una multitud enardecida que logró saltar la verja que protege la embajada y destrozar ventanas. Los asaltantes consiguieron colocar una bandera siria en la fachada del edificio y pintar sobre sus muros la palabra "perro" como insulto hacia el embajador, Robert Ford. El presidente El Asad dejó saber durante el fin de semana su descontento con la visita de Ford y su homólogo francés a la ciudad de Hama. Durante el sábado, simpatizantes del régimen lanzaron huevos, tomates y piedras contra la legación, mientras el embajador norteamericano se encontraba en su interior.
Como escribió el propio Ford en su página personal de Facebook, "qué irónico es que el Gobierno sirio permita que se desarrolle sin ningún problema una manifestación antinorteamericana mientras sus fuerzas de seguridad golpean a pacíficos ciudadanos que se manifiestan en otros lugares del país". Ford criticó duramente al régimen de El Asad por no haber hecho nada por proteger la Embajada de EE UU como obliga la ley internacional. Y resulta difícil creer que el ataque a las legaciones no estaba organizado. "No se traen autobuses cargados de matones desde la costa hasta el centro de Damasco sin el consentimiento del régimen", aseguró a Reuters un diplomático occidental.
En la sede diplomática francesa se repitió la escena. "Ante la pasividad de las autoridades sirias, los guardias de seguridad de la embajada se vieron obligados a efectuar tres disparos de intimidación para impedir que creciera el número de personas que ya habían entrado en el perímetro de la embajada", aseguró ayer el portavoz del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Bernard Valero.
El intento de asalto se produjo a las cuatro de la tarde. "Había personas con arietes que intentaron derribar las puertas de entrada, se rompieron ventanas y se destruyó el vehículo del embajador", describió el portavoz, para quien la reacción de las autoridades sirias "fue lenta e insuficiente". Un par de horas después, el ataque se repitió. "Con estas acciones las autoridades de Damasco intentan desviar la atención de lo esencial, que es que termine la represión de su pueblo y la puesta en marcha de una democracia", concluyó Valero.
El embajador estadounidense viajó el viernes a Hama junto a su homólogo francés, Eric Chevallier, y ambos se reunieron con muchos manifestantes en esta ciudad sitiada por el Ejército, a 210 kilómetros al norte de Damasco.
El Ministerio sirio del Interior acusó a Ford de haberse reunido con "saboteadores" y haberlos "incitado a manifestarse" contra la Administración. En 1982, el régimen del entonces presidente Hafez el Asad, padre de Bachar, ordenaba a su Ejército atacar a sangre y fuego la ciudad de Hama, donde la comunidad suní se había levantado contra su política represora. La gran mayoría de las víctimas fueron civiles, y las cifras se sitúan entre los 10.000 y los 30.000 muertos, dependiendo de las fuentes. Un millar de soldados del Ejército sirio perecieron en la operación, encabezada por el hermano más joven de Hafez, Rifaat.
Varios grupos de derechos humanos aseguran que al menos 1.400 civiles han muerto desde que comenzó el levantamiento en marzo contra el régimen autoritario de El Asad, en el mayor desafío a su liderazgo desde que sucedió a su padre hace 11 años.
En los últimos días ha habido un cruce de acusaciones entre Washington y Damasco con motivo de la visita de Ford a Hama. El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores sirio llamó el domingo a consultas a los embajadores estadounidense y francés en Damasco para protestar por sus visitas a Hama sin permisos previos, informó la agencia Sana.
El ministerio calificó las visitas de ambos embajadores de "una injerencia clara en los asuntos internos sirios y una confirmación de la existencia de un apoyo extranjero que quiere desestabilizar la seguridad y la estabilidad del país en el momento en el que comienza el diálogo nacional destinado a construir el futuro de Siria".
Ambos embajadores viajaron sin haber obtenido la autorización del ministerio para desplazarse a Hama, lo que se considera una violación del artículo 41 de la Convención de Viena sobre las Relaciones Diplomáticas, señaló la agencia de noticias estatal siria. "Estos acuerdos obligan a no intervenir en los asuntos internos de los países acreditados y a tratar los asuntos oficiales con el Ministerio de Exteriores", recordó Sana.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/turba/regimen/sirio/asalta/Embajadas/EE/UU/Francia/elpepiint/20110712elpepiint_5/Tes

Anthony’s Puerto Rican lawyer rises from obscurity to national legal fame

By : The Associated Press

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ORLANDO, Fla.— Three years ago, José Báez’s name was barely a blip in the legal community. This was a lawyer who made his way to the profession after dropping out of high school, getting a GED and going into the Navy. He tried several failed businesses — including two bikini companies — before he eventually enrolled at Florida State University and St. Thomas University School of Law. It took another eight years for him to be admitted to the bar.
Now he’s arguably one of the most recognizable attorneys in the country after his client Casey Anthony was acquitted in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in a case marked by a captivated national audience and searing scrutiny of every legal twist.
For the last three years since, Báez faced questions from other attorneys and TV commentators about his lack of criminal law experience and tactics. Now he’s a legal celebrity almost certain to be offered interviews, book offers and possibly movie deals that could bring hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“I think this is obviously life-altering for Jose Báez,” said Terry Lenamon, a former member of Anthony’s defense team, who left the case in 2008 after a disagreement over strategy.

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“It’s not as big as (the) OJ (Simpson verdict), but close to OJ and look at all what happened to those lawyers ... I’m sure he’s going to capitalize on it. The issue is: Was that always the plan?”
Báez, 42, took Anthony’s case pro bono in 2008, after getting a referral from a former client who shared a cell with Anthony following her initial arrest. He has handled the case since then, operating on state funds available to Anthony because of her indigent status, and from an early $200,000 she received from licensing photos and videos to ABC News.
The Associated Press attempted to contact Báez for this story, but those inquiries were not immediately returned.
In an interview with Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera the night of the verdict, Báez shrugged off a question about whether his success in this case will silence his detractors.
“I think their competence argument has fallen,” he said. “What they want to say about me, well, you know, they can say what they want.”
Báez, who was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York and Florida, had to take a winding path to becoming a criminal lawyer, even after he graduated law school. He passed the written test for the Florida Bar, but he was denied admission by the Florida Board of Bar Examiners because of a list of complaints about his personal and financial conduct.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld the bar’s decision in 2000 for not paying child support for a daughter he had with his first wife and for what it called “very serious doubts as to his respect for the rights of others and for the law,” like writing worthless checks.
He eventually was able to prove to the bar he was rehabilitated and he was admitted to practice law in 2005. He has had no disciplinary action taken against him by the bar since then.
Alfredo Garcia, the former dean at St. Thomas, didn’t know Báez when he was a student at St. Thomas and prior to his graduation in 1997. But he said he got to know him shortly after he took on Anthony’s case.
Garcia said the school gave Báez, who also ran a pair of non-profit organizations before he began his law practice, an alumni award in 2008 for providing disabled children in foreign countries with prostheses.
He said at the award dinner Báez showed him a yellowed copy of his acceptance letter to the law school. The letter had been signed by Garcia, ironically a law school classmate of Anthony prosecutor Jeff Ashton at the University of Florida.
“(Báez) said, ‘I’ve held on to this since I received this. This is the letter you wrote when you were associate dean and chair of the committee that admitted me into law school.’ He still had that with him,” Garcia said. “ ... Obviously, that meant a lot to him because he took time to show it to me and had it with him.”
Garcia said he also had lunch with Báez in Orlando last August as Báez was preparing for the trial.
They talked about the “emotional, personal and professional toll that the case had taken on him.”
“I think it was a rough emotional toll, to the extent that you get identified with your client typically by the members of the public,” Garcia said. “I gathered he wasn’t the most popular person in Orlando at the time. I think that was pretty tough.”
During his closing argument, Ashton likened the theories presented by Báez and the defense of how Caylee Anthony died in part as a fantasy “trip down the rabbit hole into a bizarre world.”
Ashton and Báez constantly sparred throughout the three-year case. Each accused the other of questionable legal maneuvering, and once during a pretrial hearing, Ashton even asked Judge Belvin Perry to hold Báez in contempt of court for what Ashton claimed was a blatant disregard of a court-ordered deadline.
Then there was the incident during Báez’s closing arguments, in which he angrily referred to Ashton as “this laughing guy” when he observed him chuckling behind his hand in full view of the jury.
But in his first comments after Anthony’s acquittal, Báez seemed to have put that bad blood behind him.
He referred to the prosecution team as a whole as “a fine group,” called Ashton “a fierce opponent” and lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick “an incredible adversary” and “one of the best lawyers I’ve ever seen.”
With constant objections that were overruled and motions denied, Báez’s legal skills were often maligned on cable television programs that sometimes depicted him as a sort of Barney Fife, the bumbling deputy on the 1960s TV sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show” who was only allowed to carry one bullet. Lenamon said any of those sentiments that the jury saw in court via the judge or prosecution — however small — could have played a role in the case’s outcome.
“They see things like the prosecutor snickering during the defense’s closing argument,” Lenamon said. “And little things like that can change everything. What they see is a lawyer that may not look to be super-experienced, fighting hard to save his client. That plays into the final formula. It’s not as simple and easy as everyone tries to make it out to be.”
Lenamon said he expects Báez’s star to continue rising.
“The bottom line is he pulled it off in a very favorable way,” he said. “I have to tip my hat to him on that and congratulate him. I really think people underestimated him.”
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=59461&ct_id=3

Space Shuttle Leaves Space Station for Last Time

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: July 18, 2011 Updated: July 19, 2011 at 2:30 AM ET


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A space shuttle (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/space_shuttle/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) has left the space station for the last time.
Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station early Tuesday. The two spacecraft were soaring nearly 250 miles above the Pacific when they parted company — forever.
The space shuttle and its crew of four are due back on Earth on Thursday. Their Florida homecoming will mark the end of NASA's 30-year shuttle era.
Atlantis left behind a year's worth of supplies, as well as a commemorative shuttle model and a U.S. flag that flew on the first shuttle mission in 1981.
Atlantis will join Discovery and Endeavour (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/space_shuttle/endeavour/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) in retirement after this 13-day journey, the 135th for the shuttle program. All three will become museum displays.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/07/18/us/AP-US-Space-Shuttle.html?ref=us

American orders 460 new planes from Boeing, Airbus

By : The Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines is buying at least 460 new planes over the next five years in what it calls the biggest airline order in history. And in a victory for Airbus, it's splitting the work between the European plane maker and Boeing. American said Wednesday it will buy 260 planes from Airbus and 200 from Boeing Co. It expects the new, better-mileage planes to provide much-needed savings on fuel costs. American's current fleet is among the least fuel-efficient in the industry.
AMR Corp., American's parent, also announced that it plans to spin off its American Eagle regional-flying subsidiary as a separate company.
The twin announcements overshadowed AMR's news that it lost $286 million in the second quarter, as rising fuel prices wiped out gains in revenue. The loss equaled 85 cents per share. Wall Street was expecting a loss of 77 cents, according to FactSet.
In recent weeks, the airline industry was riveted by the drama of Airbus and Boeing making competing bids to overhaul American's fleet. American currently flies and all-Boeing fleet.
In discussions that lasted long into Tuesday night, American decided to buy 200 planes from Boeing's 737 family of workhorse single-aisle planes, with deliveries starting in 2013. Half are expected to be equipped with updated, more fuel-efficient engines. The airline said it will take options for another 100 737s.
American also will buy 260 planes from Airbus's A320 series with deliveries starting in 2013, and take options and purchase rights for 365 more. Starting in 2017, American will get the first of 130 copies of a new Airbus plane called the A320neo — for new engine option — which Airbus claims will be 15 percent more fuel-efficient than current jets when it goes into service in late 2015.
American will also take options and purchase rights for up to 465 additional planes through 2025, mostly from Airbus.
Airbus CEO Tom Enders called American's decision "a strong vote of confidence in our product in the important North American market." Airbus is part of European Aeronautics Defence & Space Co.
With American paying more than $3 a gallon for fuel, the search for better mileage helped drive the company's plane-buying decision.
American's fleet of more than 600 planes averages about 15 years in age, among the oldest in the U.S. airline industry. One-third of the fleet consists of fuel-guzzling McDonnell Douglas MD-80 aircraft.
"The plan was to replace those MD-80s over seven or eight years," said Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant who studied American's fleet for its pilots' union. "Well, American can't wait that long, not with fuel over $3 a gallon. They've got to unload those MD-80s."
In a statement, AMR's Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey said American "expects to have the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleet among our peers in the U.S. industry within five years."
The need for fuel-efficiency was evident in AMR's second-quarter results. Revenue rose to $6.11 billion from $5.67 billion a year ago, thanks to higher fares and fees. But American's fuel bill rose 33 percent — an increase of $547 million from the same period last year, outstripping the gain in revenue. Fuel has overtaken labor as the airline's biggest expense.
American has used Airbus planes before, although only a few dozen of them — it grounded the last one in 2009. When American intensified plans to overhaul the fleet a couple of years ago, Chicago-based Boeing was seen as the favorite.
In recent months, Boeing has publicly debated whether to put a new engine on the 737 or take the more radical and costly but perhaps rewarding move of developing an entirely new plane. Airbus, meanwhile, was forging ahead by taking hundreds of orders for the A320neo.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=59785&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

14 arrests for alleged cyberattack on PayPal

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department says 14 people have been arrested for allegedly mounting a cyberattack on the Web site of PayPal in retaliation for suspending the accounts of WikiLeaks. The cyberattacks on PayPal's Web site by the group Anonymous followed the release by WikiLeaks last November of thousands of classified State Department cables.
Anonymous is a loosely organized group of hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks. It has claimed responsibility for attacks against corporate and government Web sites worldwide.
The group also claims credit for disrupting the Web sites of Visa and MasterCard in December when the credit card companies stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.
The 14 were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=59770&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Heat 'dome' traps much of US in pressure cooker

By : The Associated Press

CHICAGO — For millions of people enduring this week's extreme heat and humidity, it feels like they're living in a pressure cooker. And in a sense, they are. Much of the United States is trapped under a heat "dome" caused by a huge area of high pressure that's compressing hot, moist air beneath it, leading to miserable temperatures in the mid-90s to low 100s and heat-index levels well above 100 degrees. The oppressive conditions extend from the northern Plains states to Texas and from Nebraska to the Ohio Valley. And they're expanding eastward.
"It's hot no matter what you're doing or where you are," said Tim Prader, a 50-year-old construction worker who was taking a break Tuesday at a job site in St. Louis. Although his huge Caterpillar excavator has air conditioning, he couldn't entirely escape. "When you're done for the day, you're ready to eat, drink and hit the couch."
When a high pressure system develops in the upper atmosphere, the air below it sinks and compresses because there's more weight on top, causing temperatures in the lower atmosphere to heat up, said Eli Jacks, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Silver Springs, Md.
The dome of high pressure also pushes the jet stream and its drier, cooler air, farther north — it's now well into Canada — while hot, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico circulates clockwise around the dome, traveling farther inland than normal.
Combined with generally clear skies and the sun's higher summertime angle, "it gets really hot," Jacks said.
That also explains why temperatures in, say, North Dakota this week aren't all that different from temperatures in Houston, he said. The big difference is that people in Houston are accustomed to hot weather, while those in the north are not.
"In places where the highest temperature you ever expect is in the 80s and you're at 102, there are big health concerns," because fewer people have air conditioning or fans, Jacks said. "Heat is the No. 1 killer out of all weather hazards."
What's more, because of the humidity, even nighttime brings little relief.
"It's been 100 degrees at 11 o'clock, lately, at night," said Curtis Mark, who was servicing air conditioners Tuesday at the Greer County Courthouse in Mangum, Okla., where the temperature was 106 degrees at noon. "Stay indoors is about all I do."
Fellow Oklahoman Norma Lauer of Granite said she puts cold water on her hands and arms before going to bed and then lies down "without covering up on the bed, under the fan" and with the air conditioner running.
Thunderstorms can develop around the perimeter of the dome — called the "ring of fire" — bringing temporary relief to some areas, said Kevin Birk, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Illinois. But this dome is so large that the heat rebuilds quickly, Birk said.
While heat domes aren't uncommon, this one is unusual because of its size and duration. It began three days ago and may last seven to 10 days in some locations. And it's moving eastward, with temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees in Washington by Thursday.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records show that the United States broke 25 local high records for the date on Monday, including 103 degrees in both Edgemont S.D., and Victoria, Texas.
On Tuesday, it was 102 in Manhattan, Kan., and Valentine, Neb. The mercury rose to 100 in Joplin, Mo., and Rockford, Ill. — which tied that city's record for the date set in 1930. And in some cities it will be even hotter Wednesday: Chicago reached 93 degrees Tuesday, with 97 forecast for Wednesday.
But relief is on the way. Cooler air should begin moving into the Plains states this weekend, as a strong pool of air from the jet stream begins to push hot air out of the way in the Dakotas and into Minnesota before making its way east. By Monday, temperatures will drop into the mid-80s in the north, while they still could be sweltering in the East, he said.
"This is really an exceptional event, I think it's fair to say ... in terms of scope and duration," he said.
Sweet corn grower Ron Deardorff of Adel, Iowa, is ready for a break in the weather.
The 64-year-old spent Tuesday morning helping his crew of 24 pick corn in the field and by noon was driving the harvest to a grocery store in Des Moines — with a temperature of 95 degrees, a heat index of 105 and no air conditioning.
"Sometimes I have to change shirts in the middle of the day or middle of the afternoon and get a dry one, " said Deardoff, who kept his truck vents wide open and the windows rolled down. "It's no fun and nobody likes it, but the season is only so long and when the corn's ready, it's ready. You just have to go after it and do what you've got to do."
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=59776&ct_id=3

Space shuttle comes to 'final stop' after 30 years

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/11/28/alg_space_shuttle_atlantis.jpg

By : The Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Atlantis and four astronauts returned from the International Space Station in triumph Thursday, bringing an end to NASA's 30-year shuttle journey with one last, rousing touchdown that drew cheers and tears. A record crowd of 2,000 gathered near the landing strip, thousands more packed Kennedy Space Center and countless others watched from afar as NASA's longest-running spaceflight program came to a close.
"After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle's earned its place in history. And it's come to a final stop," commander Christopher Ferguson radioed after a ghost-like Atlantis glided through the twilight.
"Job well done, America," replied Mission Control.
With the space shuttles retiring to museums, it will be another three to five years at best before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil, as private companies gear up to seize the Earth-to-orbit-and-back baton from NASA.
The long-term future for American space exploration is just as hazy, a huge concern for many at NASA and all those losing their jobs because of the shuttle's end. Asteroids and Mars are the destinations of choice, yet NASA has yet to settle on a rocket design to get astronauts there.
Thursday, though, belonged to Atlantis and its crew: Ferguson, co-pilot Douglas Hurley, Rex Walheim and Sandra Magnus, who completed a successful space station resupply mission.
Atlantis touched down at 5:57 a.m., with "wheels stop" less than a minute later.
"The space shuttle has changed the way we view the world and it's changed the way we view our universe," Ferguson radioed from Atlantis. "There's a lot of emotion today, but one thing's indisputable. America's not going to stop exploring.
"Thank you Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour, and our ship Atlantis, thank you for protecting us and bringing this program to such a fitting end."
Difficult to see in the darkness, Atlantis was greeted with cheers, whistles and shouts from the astronauts' families and friends, as well as shuttle managers and NASA brass, who had gathered near the runway. Soon, the sun was up and provided, finally, a splendid view. Within an hour, Ferguson and his crew were out on the runway and swarmed by well-wishers.
"The things that we've done have set us up for exploration of the future," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., a former shuttle commander. "But I don't want to talk about that right now. I just want to salute this crew, welcome them home."
Nine-hundred miles away, flight director Tony Ceccacci, who presided over Atlantis' safe return, choked up while signing off from shuttle Mission Control in Houston.
"The work done in this room, in this building, will never again be duplicated," he told his team of flight controllers.
At those words, dozens of past and present flight controllers quickly streamed into the room, embracing one another, wiping their eyes and snapping pictures.
Born with Columbia in 1981, the shuttle was NASA's longest-running space exploration program.
The five shuttles launched, saved and revitalized the Hubble Space Telescope; built the space station, the world's largest orbiting structure; and opened the final frontier to women, minorities, schoolteachers, even a prince. The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn, became the oldest person ever in space, thanks to the shuttle. He was 77 at the time; he turned 90 this week.
"I haven't cried yet, but it is extremely emotional," said Karl Ronstrom, a photographer who helps with an astronaut scholarship fund. He witnessed the first shuttle launch as a teenager and watched the last shuttle landing as a middle-aged man.
It was truly a homecoming for Atlantis, which first soared in 1985. The next-to-youngest in NASA's fleet will remain at Kennedy Space Center as a museum display.
This grand finale came 50 years to the day that Gus Grissom became the second American in space, just a half-year ahead of Glenn.
Atlantis — the last of NASA's three surviving shuttles to retire — performed as admirably during descent as it did throughout the 13-day flight. A full year's worth of food and other supplies were dropped off at the space station, just in case the upcoming commercial deliveries get delayed. The international partners — Russia, Europe, Japan — will carry the load in the meantime.
It was the 135th mission for the space shuttle fleet, which altogether flew 542 million miles and circled Earth more than 21,150 times over the past three decades. The five shuttles carried 355 people from 16 countries and, altogether, spent 1,333 days in space — almost four years.
Two of the shuttles — Challenger and Columbia — were destroyed, one at launch, the other during the ride home. Fourteen lives were lost. Yet each time, the shuttle program persevered and came back to fly again.
The decision to cease shuttle flight was made seven years ago, barely a year after the Columbia tragedy. President Barack Obama nixed President George W. Bush's lunar goals, however, opting instead for astronaut expeditions to an asteroid and Mars.
Last-ditch appeals to keep shuttles flying by such NASA legends as Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Mission Control founder Christopher Kraft landed flat.
It comes down to money.
NASA is sacrificing the shuttles, according to the program manager, so it can get out of low-Earth orbit and get to points beyond. The first stop under Obama's plan is an asteroid by 2025; next comes Mars in the mid-2030s.
Private companies have been tapped to take over cargo hauls and astronaut rides to the space station, which is expected to carry on for at least another decade. The first commercial supply run is expected late this year, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launching its own rocket and spacecraft from Cape Canaveral.
None of these private spacecraft, however, will have the hauling capability of NASA's shuttles; their payload bays stretch 60 feet long and 15 feet across, and hoisted megaton observatories like Hubble. Much of the nearly 1 million pounds of space station was carried to orbit by space shuttles.
Astronaut trips by the commercial competitors will take years to achieve.
SpaceX maintains it can get people to the space station within three years of getting the all-clear from NASA. Station managers expect it to be more like five years. Some skeptics say it could be 10 years before Americans are launched again from U.S. soil.
An American flag that flew on the first shuttle flight and returned to orbit aboard Atlantis on July 8, is now at the space station. The first company to get astronauts there will claim the flag as a prize.
Until then, NASA astronauts will continue to hitch rides to the space station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft — for tens of millions of dollars per seat.
After months of decommissioning, Atlantis will be placed on public display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Discovery, the first to retire in March, will head to a Smithsonian hangar in Virginia. Endeavour, which returned from the space station on June 1, will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
Ferguson said the space shuttles will long continue to inspire.
"I want that picture of a young 6-year-old boy looking up at a space shuttle in a museum and saying, 'Daddy, I want to do something like that when I grow up.' "
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=59849&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

NASA selects landing site for Mars rover

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/07/22/Health-Environment-Science/Images/Gale-Crater004.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/gale-crater-next-landing-site-for-mars-rover/2011/07/22/gIQAnPZeTI_gallery.html)

View Photo Gallery — Gale Crater next landing site for Mars rover: NASA’s next Mars rover will land at the foot of a mountain inside a 96-mile-wide crater named Gale. The space agency selected Gale Crater over another crater named Eberswalde. The mountain in Gale Crater is layered, and scientists believe it is the surviving remnant of an extensive sequence of deposits. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/gale-crater-next-landing-site-for-mars-rover/2011/07/22/gIQAnPZeTI_gallery.html)

By Marc Kaufman (http://www.washingtonpost.com/marc-kaufman/2011/03/04/ABwSBvN_page.html), Friday, July 22, 12:45 PM

A large Martian crater that once featured running water and now has a three-mile high mountain in the middle of it was selected as the landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory (http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/) rover Curiosity, NASA officials said Friday.
The long-debated decision was based on the wide range of features the rover can explore in Gale Crater — ranging from a fan that was likely once a river delta, to layers of clay and additional areas where minerals were created in the presence of water.
In addition, the rover — which can travel as far as 14 miles — will explore what may well have once been a river gorge like the Grand Canyon and will climb hundreds of yards up the central mountain.
“At Gale, we’ll be able to see a long history of ancient Martian environments,” said Dawn Sumner of the University of California at Davis and co-chair of the committee that selected Gale Crater out of 160 other possible sites. “It has so many environments that could once have been habitable.”
The Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in November, was described Friday as the first astrobiology mission to Mars since the Viking landers went there in 1976.
While the mission is not designed to look for life, per se, the 10 major instruments on the rover will search for the kind of organic material needed for life as we know it, and will assess whether Mars once had features that made it “habitable.” It will also try to determine if the makeup of the planet would allow for remnants of ancient life to be preserved.
Although the surface of Mars is now very cold and dry, NASA and European missions over the past decade have collected information that strongly suggest the planet was once wet and considerably warmer (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090306186.html). These findings have led scientists to conclude that Mars may once have supported life, and that remnant microbes may still be alive deep below the surface.
The Mars Science Lab, with its rover the size of a small car, is scheduled to land on Mars in August 2012. Twice as long and five times heavier than any previous Mars rover, and considerably more sophisticated , it will be placed down using a unique method. With its mother spacecraft hovering over the surface, the rover will be lowered with the help of straps that will allow for a soft landing.
The announcement was made at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on the occasion of its annual “Mars Day,” but the timing could not have been better for NASA. With the final landing of a space shuttle (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/atlantis-comes-in-for-its-final-landing-video/2011/07/21/gIQAwJVcRI_blog.html) Thursday, many have doubted the agency’s plans for an innovative future. As several speakers remarked, the Mars Science Laboratory shows that NASA is continuing to conduct dramatic and scientifically important missions.
In further explaining their decision, mission project scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology said: “One fascination with Gale is that it’s a huge crater sitting in a very-low-elevation position on Mars, and we all know that water runs downhill.”
“Follow the water” has long been NASA’s motto for Mars exploration because water is seen as essential for life. The rover will also have instruments that can test for organic carbon — which is also present in all life as we know it. But even finding ancient organic carbon on Earth is difficult, so the scientists were cautious in their predictions.
“Gale gives us attractive possibilities for finding organics, but that is still a long shot,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at agency headquarters.
“What adds to Gale’s appeal is that, organics or not, the site holds a diversity of features and layers for investigating changing environmental conditions, some of which could inform a broader understanding of habitability on ancient Mars,” he said.
When the Viking missions flew to Mars 35 years ago, their mission controllers had to search for a landing site as they approached because NASA didn’t have the satellite capability to map out and really understand the Martian surface. Now it does, and the scientists today said all four of the finalists as landing sites were approved by engineers as suitable.
The Viking missions went to Mars with great anticipation that life would be found, and some early tests appeared to support that hypothesis. Over time, however, the Viking team generally concluded they had not detected life, although the principle investigator of one of the experiments has fought ever since to convince his colleagues that microbial life had indeed been detected.
The upcoming mission will not be directly testing for life, but rather for signs that life could have once existed on Mars.
The rover Curiosity and other pars of the MSL spacecraft are undergoing final testing. The mission is targeted to launch from Cape Canaveral between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-selects-landing-site-for-mars-rover/2011/07/22/gIQAb8sfTI_story.html

It's a deal: Obama, Congress will avert default

By : The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — Ending a perilous stalemate, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders announced agreement Sunday night on an emergency deal to avoid to avert the nation's first-ever financial default. The arrangement would cut more than $2 trillion from federal spending over a decade.The dramatic agreement, with scant time remaining before Tuesday's deadline, "will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest of America," Obama said. Default "would have had a devastating effect on our economy," the president said at the White House, relaying the news to the nation and to financial markets around the world. He thanked the leaders of both parties.
House Speaker John Boehner telephoned Obama at mid-evening to say the agreement had been struck, officials said.
No votes were expected in either house of Congress until Monday at the earliest, to give rank-and-file lawmakers time to review the package.
But leaders in both parties were already beginning the work of rounding up votes.
In a conference call with his rank and file, Boehner said the agreement "isn't the greatest deal in the world, but it shows how much we've changed the terms of the debate in this town."
Obama underscored that point. He said that, if enacted, the agreement would mean "the lowest level of domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president" more than a half century ago.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid provided the first word of the agreement.
"Sometimes it seems our two sides disagree on almost everything," he said. "But in the end, reasonable people were able to agree on this: The United States could not take the chance of defaulting on our debt, risking a United States financial collapse and a world-wide depression."
In his remarks, Obama said there will be no initial cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. But he said both could be on the table along with changes in tax law as part of future cuts.
That was a reference to a special joint committee of lawmakers that will be established to recommend a second round of deficit reductions, to be voted on by Congress before year's end as part of an arrangement to raise the debt ceiling yet again. That is expected to be necessary early next year.
Pending final passage, the agreement marked a dramatic reach across party lines that played out over six months and several rounds of negotiating, interspersed by periods of intense partisanship.
A final stick point had concerned possible cuts in the nation's defense budget in the next two years. Republicans wanted less. Democrats pressed for more in an attempt to shield domestic accounts from greater reductions.
Details apparently included in the agreement provide that the federal debt limit would rise in two stages by at least $2.2 trillion, enough to tide the Treasury over until after the 2012 elections.
Big cuts in government spending would be phased in over a decade. Thousands of programs — the Park Service, Labor Department and housing among them — could be trimmed to levels last seen years ago.
No Social Security or Medicare benefits would be cut, but the programs could be scoured for other savings. Taxes would be unlikely to rise.
Without legislation in place by Tuesday, the Treasury will not be able to pay all its bills, raising the threat of a default that administration officials say could inflict catastrophic damage on the economy.
If approved, though, a compromise would presumably preserve America's sterling credit rating, reassure investors in financial markets across the globe and possibly reverse the losses that spread across Wall Street in recent days as the threat of a default grew.
Officials familiar with the negotiations said that McConnell had been in frequent contact with Vice President Joe Biden, who has played an influential role across months of negotiations.
In the first stage under the agreement, the nation's debt limit would rise immediately by nearly $1 trillion and spending would be cut by a slightly larger amount over a decade.
That would be followed by creation of the new congressional committee that would have until the end of November to recommend $1.8 trillion or more in deficit cuts, targeting benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, or overhauling the tax code. Those deficit cuts would allow a second increase in the debt limit.
If the committee failed to reach its $1.8 trillion target, or Congress failed to approve its recommendations by the end of 2011, lawmakers would then have to vote on a proposed constitutional balanced-budget amendment.
If that failed to pass, automatic spending cuts totaling $1.2 trillion would automatically take effect, and the debt limit would rise by an identical amount.
Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps would be exempt from the automatic cuts, but payments to doctors, nursing homes and other Medicare providers could be trimmed, as could subsidies to insurance companies that offer an alternative to government-run Medicare.
Officials describing those steps spoke on condition of anonymity, citing both the sensitivity of the talks and the potential that details could change.
The deal marked a classic compromise, a triumph of divided government that would let both Obama and Republicans claim they had achieved their objectives.
As the president demanded, the deal would allow the debt limit to rise by enough to tide the Treasury over until after the 2012 elections.
But it appeared Obama's proposal to extend the current payroll tax holiday beyond the end of 2011 would not be included, nor his call for extended unemployment benefits for victims of the recession.
Republicans would win spending cuts of slightly more than the increase in the debt limit, as they have demanded. Additionally, tax increases would be off-limits unless recommended by the bipartisan committee that is expected to include six Republicans and six Democrats. The conservative campaign to force Congress to approve a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution would be jettisoned.
Congressional Democrats have long insisted that Medicare and Social Security benefits not be cut, a victory for them in the proposal under discussion. Yet they would have to absorb even deeper cuts in hundreds of federal programs than were included in Reid's bill, which many Democrats supported in a symbolic vote on the House floor on Saturday.
As details began to emerge, one liberal organization, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, issued a statement that was harshly critical.
"Seeing a Democratic president take taxing the rich off the table and instead push a deal that will lead to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefit cuts is like entering a bizarre parallel universe — one with horrific consequences for middle-class families," it said.
While politically powerful business groups like the Chamber of Commerce are expected to support the deal, tea party organizations and others have looked disapprovingly on legislation that doesn't require approval of a balanced-budget amendment.
If they keep to that position, it could present Boehner a challenge in lining up enough votes to support a compromise, just as Obama may have to stand down rebels within his own party.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=60233&ct_id=3

New White House plan to fight violent extremism

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Local communities, not Washington, are best suited to counter violent extremism, according to a new national strategy the Obama administration took more than a year to produce. The strategy pointedly does not focus on threats from Muslim extremism.When it comes to stopping violent attacks that kill innocent people, the federal government is not in a good position to step in where radical ideas evolve into violence, according to an unclassified draft of the strategy obtained by The Associated Press in advance of its official release, expected Wednesday.
"Communities are best placed to recognize and confront the threat because violent extremists are targeting their children, families and neighbors," the strategy said.
The unclassified draft includes broad statements about protecting civil rights, American values and the importance of partnerships with local stakeholders and the private sector. The federal government's job is to act in a support role, it said, bringing people together and sharing information about threats and concerns and "community-based solutions." The focus cannot be on a single ideology.
"Any solution that myopically focuses on a single, current form of violent extremism, while blind to other threats, will fail to secure our country and communities," the document said.
The strategy does not include specifics for achieving these goals.
Instead it points to federal outreach programs by the Homeland Security and Justice departments and FBI that have been initiated in the years since the 2001 terror attacks. It also refers to the nation's approach to countering criminal gangs as a model to embrace for countering violent extremism, involving police, schools, probation officers, youth agencies, government and local grassroots organizations.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The psychological aspects of radicalization have been studied for years, and while there are some similarities among terrorism cases, there is not a single profile of a violent extremist in the U.S. Complicating the challenge is that the threat is often rooted in an ideology protected by the Constitution.
The Bush administration also sought ways to counter violent ideologies, but the problem became more pressing for President Barack Obama, as there have been more attempted attacks and plots against the U.S. during his time in office.
Americans are now a targeted audience for recruitment to the cause and not just a target for attack. English-speaking radical Islamic clerics appeal to Westerners on the Internet and recruit Americans to join their holy war. The need to travel to terror camps in far-away places has diminished now that there are instructions for how to carry out an attack that are easily available online.
"While there is no shortage of ideas about the causes and implications of radicalization in the public conversation, what is generally lacking are proposals for specific action the government or American citizens can take to combat radicalization," Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., said during a congressional hearing last week on ways to address and combat the threat.
One of Myrick's former constituents is a young man, Samir Khan, who is now believed to be in Yemen, working with al-Qaida and recruiting Westerners to the cause.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=60329&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Stocks Plunge on Fears of Global Turmoil (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/markets.html?hp)


Investors Cite Slow U.S. Recovery and Europe’s Debt Crisis (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/markets.html?hp)


By GRAHAM BOWLEY 48 minutes ago

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What began as a weak day in the stock markets ended in the worst rout in more than two years, as investors dumped stocks amid anxiety that both Europe and the United States were failing to fix deepening economic problems.

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TimesCast | Stocks Tumble

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Related



High & Low Finance: Learning to Live With Debt (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/learning-to-live-with-debt.html?ref=business) (August 5, 2011)
News Analysis: Time to Say It: Double Dip May Be Happening (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/economy/double-dip-recession-may-be-returning.html?ref=business) (August 5, 2011)
Nervous Investors Chase Low-Risk Assets (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/nervous-investors-chase-low-risk-assets.html?ref=business) (August 5, 2011)
Markets Drop in Asia as Worries Multiply (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?ref=business) (August 6, 2011)
European Central Bank Buys Bonds to Reassure the Markets, to Little Avail (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/global/european-central-bank-buys-bonds-to-calm-the-markets-but-to-little-avail.html?ref=business) (August 5, 2011)
Joining Switzerland, Japan Acts to Ease Currency’s Strength (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/business/global/japan-moves-to-weaken-the-yen.html?ref=business) (August 5, 2011)
Economix Blog: Stocks Are Still Expensive (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/stocks-are-still-expensive/?ref=business) (August 4, 2011)


Related in Opinion



Room For Debate: Can Manufacturing Fuel a U.S. Recovery? (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/08/04/can-manufacturing-fuel-a-us-recovery?ref=business)


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Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Traders worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

With a steep decline of around 5 percent in the United States on Thursday, stocks have now fallen nearly 11 percent in two weeks. Markets have been plunging as investors sought safer havens for their money — including Treasury bonds (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/treasury_department/treasury_securities/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), which some had been avoiding during the debate over extending the nation’s debt ceiling (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/national_debt_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).
Sparking the drop was an unsuccessful effort by the European Central Bank to reassure the markets, which instead ended up spooking investors. The bank intervened with a show of support to buy bonds of some smaller countries, but not Italy and Spain, whose mounting troubles have come into the spotlight. This was taken as a sign that the recent rescue packages by Europe could soon be overwhelmed by the huge debt burdens in those two countries.
Investors were further unnerved by a candid remark by José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, who seemed to confirm fears about the sense of political paralysis. Rather than play down the problems, as European officials have done since the debt crisis (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/european_sovereign_debt_crisis/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) began last year, he said, “Markets remain to be convinced that we are taking the appropriate steps to resolve the crisis.”
With investors in the United States already focusing anew on fragile economic growth and high unemployment, waves of selling of stocks began in Europe and continued throughout the day in the United States. Analysts said the market still might have further to fall, as investors reassess the dimming economic prospects. In the short run, attention will be focused on critical unemployment numbers for July to be released on Friday morning. And some in the markets are already questioning whether the Federal Reserve has done enough to mend the economy and whether it could soon take further steps to stimulate growth.
On Thursday, more than 14 billion shares changed hands, the heaviest selling in more than a year. In addition to being unnerved by weaker economic data reported in recent days, investors appeared to lose their optimism about the strength of corporate profits that had driven increases in the stock market in the first half of this year.
At the close, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 60.27 points, or 4.78 percent, to 1,200.07. The Dow Jones industrial average was off 512.76 points, or 4.31 percent, to 11,383.68, and the Nasdaq was down 136.68, or 5.08 percent, to 2,556.39.
The S.& P. 500 has now fallen 10.7 percent from 1,345 on July 22, underlining the new negative investment sentiment about the economy and about Europe.
“We are now in correction mode,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor’s. “We could have another couple of weeks to go before it bottoms.”
The last time the market was in a correction was last summer, when it fell 16 percent before recovering.
Analysts said credit markets were still healthy and the United States was now stronger than just a few years ago so that a repeat of the financial crisis was unlikely.
“There is a huge difference — during the financial crisis the banking sector broke down. Right now it’s a crisis of confidence based on weak economies but the banking sector is not broken,” said Reena Aggarwal, professor of finance at Georgetown University.
The Vix, which measures the implied volatility of options on the S.& P. 500 index, and is called the fear index by traders, spiked on Thursday, though it is still much lower than during the depths of the financial crisis in 2008.
Washington’s reaction to the market’s tumble was muted. The Treasury Department said it did not plan to issue any statements or provide officials to comment.
“Markets go up and down,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney. “We obviously are monitoring the situation in Europe closely.”
As the prospects for economic growth dimmed, several commodities, including oil, silver and palladium, fell by more than 5 percent, perhaps producing some good news for consumers.
With oil prices dropping below $87 a barrel, wiping out the rise caused by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa earlier in the year, drivers can expect sharply lower gasoline prices just in time for the Labor Day weekend and back-to-school shopping.

Agricultural crops and most industrial metals fell somewhat less drastically, with copper falling 1.9 percent, aluminum by 1.7 percent, corn by 1.9 percent, wheat by 3.4 percent and soybeans by 1.8 percent.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/08/05/business/05markets-chartb/05markets-chartb-thumbWide.jpg
Graphic
S.& P. Since January

Taken together, the drops should mean lower input costs for manufacturers and give the Federal Reserve more policy options should the economy continue to slow.
A closely-watched survey of American investor attitudes provided by the American Association of Individual investors on Thursday showed the biggest increase in bearish sentiment for five years in the latest week. As investors fled assets like stocks, they piled into the perceived safety of United States Treasuries where 10-year interest rates fell to 2.41 percent, recording the biggest one day fall since March 2009.
Yields on one-month United States notes actually fell into negative territory before closing at zero.
Besides piling into Treasuries, institutional investors are also seeking out the safety of cold, hard cash, pouring billions into commercial bank accounts backed up by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Investors had also been buying Swiss francs and Japanese yen. But earlier this week, Switzerland unexpectedly cut interest rates in an effort to weaken the franc. Japan on Thursday also intervened to weaken its currency, raising the specter that more nations could take similar steps to try to protect their economies.
Around the world, markets from Brazil to Turkey were battered.
In Britain, stocks closed down 3.43 percent. In Germany, the DAX index dropped 3.4 percent. In France, the CAC 40 closed down 3.9 percent.
“It really is Europe today,” said Barry Knapp, head of United States equity strategy at Barclays Capital. “The market feels that European leaders are one step behind, and they are.”
Asian markets quickly followed suit in trading lower. In midday trading on Friday, the Nikkei 225 in Japan was down 3.46 percent to 9,334.26 while the S.& P./ASX 200 index in Australia fell 3.75 percent to 4,116.30. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong opened sharply lower as well, down 4.3 percent to 20,943.93 in the morning.
With some warning signs that weaker European banks are struggling to fund themselves, the central bank moved to help weaker banks by expanding its lending to institutions in the euro (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/currency/euro/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) zone. Bank stocks nevertheless fell sharply in Europe.
In the United States, as the stock market fell, it broke through critical support levels, leading to more selling as traders rushed to reduce exposure to plummeting prices. That included computerized program traders, one analyst said.

NASA’s Jupiter probe will peer back to beginning of solar system

By Brian Vastag (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/brian-vastag/2011/06/02/AGMEARHH_page.html), Thursday, August 4, 1:26 PM


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Next stop for NASA: Jupiter (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Jupiter).
With the space shuttle retired, the agency’s marquee missions now feature robots, not astronauts. And so on Friday morning, the agency is set to launch a $1.1 billion probe that will give the solar system’s largest planet a good, long look after a looping five-year journey of 1.7 billion miles.



Juno (http://missionjuno.swri.edu/), a four-ton, solar-powered craft, will peer deep below Jupiter’s swirling clouds when it arrives in July 2016, seeking clues to the giant planet’s formation, searching for a hard core and mapping Jupiter’s intense magnetic field and radiation belt.
Juno will even listen for lightning amid Jupiter’s raging storms and gather unprecedented views of the planet’s sparkling auroras.
Planetary scientists say Jupiter was the first planet in the solar system to form, about 4.5 billion years ago. As a great cloud of hydrogen and helium gas coalesced, it spun into a giant ball about 1,300 times larger than Earth. But the ingredient list for this gas giant remains incomplete, its deep structure unknown.
“We don’t know if there’s a core of heavy elements in the middle or if it’s just gas all the way down,” said the mission’s chief scientist, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute (http://www.swri.org/) in San Antonio.
To find out, scientists will use Juno — the entire craft — as a gravity probe. As Juno repeatedly zooms past Jupiter, ground stations on Earth will detect the tiny changes in the craft’s velocity. When Juno passes an especially dense region, it will speed up a smidge, tugged by stronger gravity. “If Jupiter is really massive in the middle, it will be clear from this map of the gravity field,” Bolton said.
At the same time, Juno’s microwave detector will peer about 300 miles beneath the top of Jupiter’s colorful surface, mapping the planet’s deep clouds while searching for water and, by proxy, oxygen.
Oxygen is the third-most-abundant element in the universe — after hydrogen and helium — but previous missions have failed to detect much of it inside Jupiter. “It’s the water we’re really after,” Owen said. “That will be very important” for testing theories of how Jupiter — and the other planets — formed.
Owen said that because Jupiter has changed very little since its formation, piecing together its composition will be like looking back in time to the beginning of the solar system.
Other instruments on Juno will map Jupiter’s magnetic field — by far the strongest in the solar system — and probe its stunning auroras, which, like those on Earth, girdle Jupiter’s north and south poles. Jupiter’s auroras are “truly spectacular,” said mission scientist Jack Connerney of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html) in Greenbelt, but their source is unknown.
Jupiter is the biggest of the planets, and so it’s fitting that Juno enjoys its own list of superlatives. After swinging past Earth for a speed boost in 2013, Juno will be flung outward at 160,000 mph, making it the fastest man-made object in history.
Juno will dive closer to Jupiter — within 3,100 miles of the surface on each of its 30 planned orbits — than any previous spacecraft.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasas-jupiter-probe-will-peer-back-to-beginning-of-solar-system/2011/08/04/gIQAtjrSuI_story.html?hpid=z6

México y otros 15 países objetan ley de inmigración de Alabama http://www.elexpresso.com/templates/city_portal/images/emailButton.png (http://www.elexpresso.com/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&link=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5lbGV4cHJlc3NvLmNvbS9ub3RpY2lhcy9lc3RhZG9zLXVuaWRvcy8xMDU5NS1tZXhpY28teS1vdHJvcy0xNS1wYWlzZXMtb2JqZXRhbi1sZXktZGUtaW5taWdyYWNpb24tZGUtYWxhYmFtYQ%3D%3D)

Viernes 05 de Agosto de 2011 12:49 BIRMINGHAM, Alabama. (AP) — México y 15 naciones de Centro y Sudamérica solicitaron a un tribunal federal que considere sus peticiones en apoyo a demandas que tratan de revocar la nueva ley migratoria de Alabama.

Según el diario Birmingham News, la petición de México sostiene que la ley, que debe entrar en vigencia el 1 de septiembre, socava las relaciones con Estados Unidos. El gobierno mexicano solicita en su pedido "amicus curiae", o tercero interesado, que el tribunal federal declare inconstitucional la ley de Alabama.

El pedido de México fue presentado el miércoles. Los gobiernos de Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Perú, República Dominicana y Uruguay también presentaron una moción adhiriéndose al pedido mexicano.http://www.elexpresso.com/noticias/estados-unidos/10595-mexico-y-otros-15-paises-objetan-ley-de-inmigracion-de-alabama

Can America still lead?

By E.J. Dionne Jr. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ej-dionne-jr/2011/02/24/ABhJNkM_page.html), Published: August 7

LONDON
The first week of August 2011 will be remembered as a singularly irrational, wasteful and shameful moment in the political and economic history of the United States. It reflected much of what is wrong with the priorities of our political elites and the obsessions of those who now hold effective veto power over our government.

More on this Topic


Dionne: Can America still lead? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-america-still-lead/2011/08/07/gIQAPeuE1I_story.html)
Samuelson: The welfare state wins the budget fight (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-welfare-state-wins-this-budget-war/2011/08/07/gIQA4fuE1I_story.html)
Capehart: S&P downgrade a kick in the pants (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-sandp-downgrade-is-a-much-needed-kick-in-the-pants/2011/03/04/gIQAs9T21I_blog.html)
Serwer: Blame the GOP for the downgrade (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/downgrade-blame-gop-gets-it/2011/08/08/gIQA00FQ2I_blog.html)

It began with the world hanging on to every development in the debt-ceiling negotiations (http://www.washingtonpost.com/runninginthered?hpid=z2)as it fretted over whether Washington’s dysfunction would lead to American default and global calamity. Even robustly pro-American commentators and politicians wondered aloud if the United States could still govern itself.
Yet by Thursday, even though default was averted through a deal that largely capitulated to Republican demands, calamity arrived anyway. Around the world, markets imploded. The debt-ceiling crisis artificially created by right-wing American politicians didn’t matter nearly as much as the dangerous fragility of the global economy and Europe’s far more profound debt crisis (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/debt-woes-drag-down-european-markets-add-to-worries-over-italy-spain/2011/08/03/gIQAhX7RrI_story.html).
And to complete this portrait of fecklessness, Standard & Poor’s, which once happily and profitably stamped triple-A ratings on rip-off mortgage-backed securities, ended the week by downgrading the federal government’s creditworthiness (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sandp-considering-first-downgrade-of-us-credit-rating/2011/08/05/gIQAqKeIxI_story.html?hpid=z1). S&P once caved to pressure (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-13/moody-s-s-p-caved-to-mortgage-pressure-by-goldman-ubs-levin-report-says.html) from Goldman Sachs in its rating of private securities, yet it refused even to pause in its dissing of American creditworthiness despite the Obama administration’s successful challenge to some of its numbers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/treasury-sandp-wrangle-minutes-before-a-historic-downgrade/2011/08/06/gIQAFlvOzI_story.html?hpid=z2). We need to learn far more about what forces pushed S&P to this outlandish and highly politicized decision.
In our fixation with a deeply ideological debate over government spending, we have lost track of what really matters. Washington, acting in concert with other nations, should be focused on creating jobs and restoring growth. It needs to deal with a housing mess and personal debts that have destroyed the balance sheets of millions of households. It needs to increase consumer purchasing power. And it should be expanding public investments in the nation’s future, not cutting them.
Yet the world is looking to the United States to help power a recovery and provide leadership at a time when we are suffocatingly inward-looking — and when ultra-conservatives are so dogmatic about slashing government that they are prepared to boot away our nation’s influence. Default? No problem.
“We weren’t kidding around, either,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told The Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/origins-of-the-debt-showdown/2011/08/03/gIQA9uqIzI_print.html). “We would have taken it down.” He said it with pride, yet the “it” involved the American economy and America’s standing around the globe. This is patriotism?
Watching the week that was from abroad has been sobering, and you wonder if President Obama fully grasps how much disappointment there is among the tens of millions around the world once so hopeful that he would restore the United States to a position of responsible global leadership.
America’s friends overseas know that the debt crisis was instigated by Obama’s opponents. Yet they worry now about how strong Obama is, whether he will draw lines and if he can seize back the initiative.
On Friday, I met with a leading British Conservative, a rising member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s cabinet who spoke of his liking for Obama. His take on the politics of the debt fight perfectly captured the ambivalence of those who genuinely wish Obama well.
“As a political strategist, he is often underestimated,” this shrewd politician said of Obama. “He’s playing a longer game.” While “the Republicans have allowed the Tea Party tail to wag the dog . . . Obama will be able to say, ‘I believe in spending cuts, but I also believe that the richest in the country should pay a little more.’ ” Republicans will counter by arguing for steep cuts in Medicare and other popular programs, but he noted that where public opinion is concerned, this will give Obama the high ground.
Then came the downside: that Obama “seems to be a passive figure at a time when the world needs a leader.” Obama and his advisers should pay heed to this quietly devastating observation. Even if they’re right about where Obama is positioned politically, they have to worry whether all the concessions and maneuvering undercut a president’s most important asset: an earned image of strength rooted in principle.
The central question is whether the United States is still capable of leading the world out of economic turmoil. Obama’s response to this challenge will have far more impact on both the country’s future and his own reelection than all the sloganeering, polling and positioning put together.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-america-still-lead/2011/08/07/gIQAPeuE1I_story.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews

Bueno dejame quotearme de el thread the Noticias Mundiales, porque aquí iría mejor hehehe.


Ugh, ahora fué con el double-dip recession. Me molesta tanto la incompetencia que tenemos en el congreso. Ahora con más razón voy a ver que puedo hacer para quedarme en Chile cuando me vaya de intercambio. Es un lástima, un país como EEUU, que fue tan tremendo back in the day, tenga que llegar a esto.

Shopper Receipts Join Paperless Age

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/08/08/business/jpRECIEPTS/jpRECIEPTS-articleLarge.jpg
Stuart Isett for The New York Times
A salesman at a Nordstrom store in Seattle ringing up a sale using a custom iPod Touch.

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/stephanie_clifford/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: August 7, 2011

At an Old Navy store in Manhattan the other day, Fabienne Michel made a routine purchase of khaki shorts. But she left the store without something equally routine: her receipt.

The sales clerk had sent it to Ms. Michel by e-mail. “It’s easier,” said Ms. Michel, a 30-year-old nurse. “You can reprint it, save it, make folders in your e-mail.”
To the rubbish pile that the Internet is creating, alongside the road maps, newspapers and music CDs, add one more artifact of consumer life, the paper receipt.
Major retailers, including Whole Foods Market, Nordstrom, Gap Inc. (which owns Old Navy and Banana Republic), Anthropologie, Patagonia, Sears and Kmart, have begun offering electronic versions of receipts, either e-mailed or uploaded to password-protected Web sites. And more and more customers, the retailers report, are opting for paperless.
“As consumers, we’re changing the way we shop,” said Jennifer Miles, who oversees retail systems at VeriFone, which makes checkout technology. “Customers are starting to want electronic receipts.”
Many people like keeping searchable records on a computer — e-receipts come in handy during tax season, make some returns a snap and are a tidy addition to the e-purchases already stored on countless hard drives. Others see the paper versions as an anachronism, wasteful of resources and as irrelevant as printed bank statements and mutual fund (http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/investments/mutual-funds-and-etfs/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) reports.
And face it, paper receipts can be annoyances, burrowing into the bottoms of purses, getting lost in glove compartments or fattening up wallets — only to be pulled out and puzzled over long after their usefulness has expired.
“I throw them out,” said Francesca Joseph, 29, who was shopping with Ms. Michel at the Old Navy store.
Retailers first considered e-receipts in the late 1990s, but the dot-com crash stopped most efforts, said Birame N. Sock, who runs an e-receipt company.
In 2005, Apple introduced electronic receipts at its stylish retail stores. More mainstream retailers found the checkout system difficult to replicate and, Ms. Miles said, worried that most shoppers were not quite ready for such a technological leap.
Now, though, the rush to imitate Apple’s success is in full force, and paperless receipts have become a rite of passage for retailers trying to integrate the digital experience into their brick and mortar stores.
Ms. Sock said that once cellphones were widely used for payments, as with Google Wallet (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/coming-soon-make-your-phone-your-wallet.html) and other efforts (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/waiting-for-the-new-mobile-payments-frontier/), e-receipts would become standard. “A lot of these retailers are looking into mobile payments, and with mobile payments, you have to talk about the digital receipt,” she said.
This year, Nordstrom introduced devices in many of its stores so roving clerks could check out shoppers on the spot. The devices can print receipts via wireless Internet when a customer asks, but the goal is to provide digital receipts.
“As the technology has started to evolve, we saw the opportunity to create a better experience for the customer, wherever they are in a store,” said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom’s direct-sales division. “A customer’s in a dressing room, they try on a bunch of things, they say, ‘I want to buy this and that.’ Now, we’ve got to take them out of the dressing room, wrap all that stuff at the wrap desk, use the cash register somewhere else.”
Mr. Nordstrom said Nordstrom was also thinking about ways to make its e-receipts more appealing, perhaps by adding a picture of the item to the receipt so a shopper could post it to a Facebook wall.
Beyond the cost savings and environmental benefit (an estimated 9.6 million trees are cut each year for receipts in the United States, according to allEtronic (http://www.alletronic.com/tenreasons.aspx), a digital receipt company), the e-receipts present marketing opportunities for retailers. Gap, Nordstrom and many other stores, for example, add the customer’s e-mail address to a mailing list for follow-up offers.
That marketing potential is a drawback to some customers, said Robert Cohen, vice president of retail at Patagonia, which began offering e-receipts nine months ago. “People are very protective of their e-mail in-box,” he said, so only about one-third of Patagonia’s customers choose an electronic receipt.
Ms. Sock’s service, MyReceipts, tries to sidestep e-mail objections by offering other electronic delivery options. The company is working with retailers like Whole Foods to upload purchase information to a password-protected site. Customers can search their receipts and soon, Ms. Sock said, review tallies of how much they spend on ice cream or shampoo.
All that data helps the retailers, too, who can send customers coupons based on the purchases history. Ms. Sock said retailers would see only a customer ID number, not personal information, unless the shopper elected to share personal information.
As paper receipts disintegrate, some people are a bit wistful.
Chris Otto runs a Web site called Papergreat, which analyzes abandoned bits of paper including old receipts, like a 1907 receipt from L.B. Hantz (http://papergreat.blogspot.com/2011/07/old-receipt-from-lb-hantz-contractor-of.html), a repairman in York, Pa., that included detailed drawings of a furnace and a stove.
“It’s going to make it interesting for future historians,” said Mr. Otto, who has kept the receipt for the first meal he bought the woman who is now his wife — a hot dog at a Sheetz convenience store. “They’re going to have to be more into the computer forensics things if they want to find out what people spent money on, and how they lived.”
Jesse Billin could not care less about such nostalgia. An entrepreneur in Chocorua, N.H., Mr. Billin said he was eager for the day when all receipts were digital. “I don’t think I’ve ever held on to a receipt thinking, ‘That was a really great pair of chinos. I want to remember those babies forever,’ ” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/technology/digital-receipts-at-stores-gain-in-popularity.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Bert and Ernie should not get married

By Petula Dvorak (http://www.washingtonpost.com/petula-dvorak/2011/02/24/ABVDhOJ_page.html), Updated: Thursday, August 11, 5:45 PM


Absolutely not.
As fun as it would be to pick their colors and their cake and release a flock of pigeons, Bert and Ernie should not get married.



Fueled by the sea change in states across the nation legalizing same-sex marriage and boosted by this week’s census report that gay households (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/census-shows-surge-in-gay-couples-in-dc-area-officials-cite-more-honesty-on-forms/2011/08/10/gIQATYub7I_story.html) are increasingly going on the record, there is a cheeky but earnest (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/bert-and-ernie-should-be-married-at-long-last-on-sesame-street-says-petition/2011/08/10/gIQAsxwc6I_blog.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews)movement (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/bert-and-ernie-should-be-married-at-long-last-on-sesame-street-says-petition/2011/08/10/gIQAsxwc6I_blog.html) afoot urging the producers of Sesame Street to let the inseparable guy Muppets finally tie the knot.
It’s as obvious as a Scooby-Doo pot joke that these “roomies” — wink, wink — are really a gay couple, right?
And it stands to reason that the PBS program,which has been in the vanguard on social issues for 40 years, should step up and give children a positive example of a kind of couple that, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at UCLA, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gay-people-count-so-why-not-count-them-correctly/2011/04/07/AFDg9K4C_story.html) lives in 99 percent of the nation’s counties.
Sorry, but I’m not into hearing wedding bells for these two googly-eyed guys.
Just because Bert and Ernie live together, have a sweet bedtime cookie ritual and accept each other’s oddball, pigeon-oatmeal-bottle-caps-rubber-ducky quirks doesn’t mean they are a gay couple.
(Anyhow, then we’d be going back to the silly days of Lucy and Ricky in twin beds. Who wants that?)
Kids don’t need us to label that Muppet relationship.
What next? We diagnose Oscar the Grouch as bipolar, manic-depressive; explain Big Bird as a Muppet with Marfan syndrome; and tell kids that Grover’s mommy is never around because she’s the CEO of a major multinational corporation and always traveling?
The lessons of Bert and Ernie are about getting along, sharing, finding beauty in another’s flying dumpster rats and eating the mushy oatmeal because it’s good for you.
Think of them as the Muppet equivalent of Felix and Oscar, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy or Penn and Teller. Those partnerships, without marriage, were okay, too.
Sesame Street Workshop responded to the marriage campaign on its Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&note_id=10150290119497855&id=13759741267)Thursday, explaining that Bert and Ernie “remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.” I agree.
Besides, we shouldn’t rely on puppets to acknowledge our country’s historic progress on same-sex relationships.
And that brings us to a campaign I’d really like to see.
It is time for Sesame Street to add a same-sex human couple to the show.
These are flesh-and-blood, genuine and increasingly legal unions. It’s not something that should be represented by foam creatures.
That’s tempting for some of the folks who are fumbling for a cute storybook way of teaching kids about same-sex relationships. You can read about Tango the penguin (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/16/AR2008021600749.html) or hope that Bert and Ernie have a lovely wedding, but a more powerful lesson is simply seeing Sylvia and Sandra at school pickup, PTA meetings and the park every day, doing what all parents do.
Preschoolers will get this.
And even if same-sex marriage isn’t supported by your religion or values, it’s time to stop pretending that these couples don’t exist. Six states — New York, Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont — and the District of Columbia issue licenses for same-sex unions.With the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Pentagon will allow gays to serve openly in the military.
Attitudes toward gay people are being transformed at an almost dizzying rate. In 2006, a poll showed that 58 percent of Americans opposed same-sex unions and that 36 percent supported them. By early this year, a Washington Post-ABC Poll found a slim, 51 percent, majority supported same-sex marriage. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/18/AR2011031806545.html)
Just this week, 2010 Census data showed sharp increases in the number of same-sex households in the Washington area (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/census-shows-surge-in-gay-couples-in-dc-area-officials-cite-more-honesty-on-forms/2011/08/10/gIQATYub7I_story.html), probably because more gay couples feel comfortable identifying themselves. There are 17,000 same-sex couples in Maryland and 20,500 in Virginia, according to the census.
Whether you live in Topeka or Takoma Park, Birmingham or Beltsville, you and your family probably live near gay male and lesbian couples. They are simply people, not political statements or something to be hidden or forgotten.
In a tasteful, sensitive and caring way, Sesame Street has taught generations of children about race, ethnicity, deafness, adoption, HIV/AIDS, death and military deployment.
Sesame Street has even been touted as a way to champion American democratic values in Afghanistan (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032402918.html).
Introducing a same-sex human couple — without political fanfare, wedding bells, surprises or sweeping anthropological explanations — would do the same thing.
The relationship needs to be as unremarkable as Susan and Gordon’s race or Luis and Maria’s ethnicity.
As for Bert and Ernie, do we really want to see two of our favorite Muppets slip into the ennui of marriage? A life without pigeons and bubble baths and oatmeal? Absolutely not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ernie-and-bert-should-not-get-married/2011/08/11/gIQArVqT9I_story.html?hpid=z5

This time, US fears a financial crisis from abroad

August 14, 2011
Print by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)

http://www.fourmilab.ch/evilempire/noEU/figures/noEU_320.png (http://www.prdailysun.com/images/6b2c0d681170f72415c5c665ee84b9f3jpgw)

by CHRISTINA REXRODE, DANIEL WAGNER & PAUL WISEMAN
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON
Three years ago, a financial crisis triggered by bad mortgage investments spread from U.S. banks to Europe. Panicky financial markets tanked.
Now, fear is running in the opposite direction. Worries about toxic government debt held by European banks have hammered U.S. stocks and threaten to freeze credit on both sides of the Atlantic.
And traders are wondering: Could Europe's government-debt crisis spread through the U.S. financial system?
No one's sure because no one knows how much toxic debt European banks hold — or how much risk that debt poses to U.S. banks. But investors are worried.
The 2008 financial crisis left countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal holding huge debts. The three have required bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund totaling $520 billion. Italy and Spain, which are much bigger economies, might need bailouts, too.
As the crisis has intensified, Spanish and Italian interest rates have surged. Escalating rates could throw their economies back into recession — which would worsen their debt loads. This week, the European Central Bank started buying Italian and Spanish debt to try to drive rates back down.
Should Italy or Spain default, European banks that hold their bonds would suffer. Wall Street's fear is that the contagion would imperil U.S. banks that do business with those European banks.
French banks, with huge amounts of Italian and Greek government debt, are especially vulnerable. Shares in Societe Generale, France's No. 2 bank, plunged nearly 15 percent Wednesday on rumors it was teetering under the weight of debts tied to troubled Eurozone economies. The bank rejected the rumors as unfounded.
French regulators on Thursday banned short-selling of bank and insurance company stocks, preventing speculators from betting against them and driving their prices down when rumors flare. Societe Generale's stock recovered 3.7 percent Thursday. But most other European banks fell sharply.
Using data from European Union stress tests on 91 European banks, Fitch Ratings said losses of 50 percent on Greek bonds and 25 percent on Portuguese and Irish bonds wouldn't have made any of four big French banks flunk the test.
Still, investors were rattled this week by rumors that a credit rating agency was about to downgrade French government debt. Without France's AAA credit rating, Eurozone countries might be unable to raise enough money to bail out their weaker neighbors.
What most frightens investors is the worst-case scenario — the one that struck Wall Street in 2008: That banks would stop lending to each other because they're worried about each other's solvency. Since July 21, JPMorgan Chase's stock price has dropped 13 percent. Citigroup's has sunk 25 percent.
Major international banks are so intertwined that once they lose confidence in each other, fear spreads rapidly. And once it does, investors tend to panic and send stock markets plunging.
Rumors like the ones that pummeled Societe Generale and raised concerns about France's creditworthiness are "what panics are made of," says William Longbrake, former chief financial officer at Washington Mutual and now executive in residence at the University of Maryland.
In 2008, "Banks were suddenly afraid to lend to each other because they had no trust in ... other institutions," Longbrake said. "What happened yesterday in France is indicative of the same situation."
"It's starting to feel like it did in 2008," says Peter Tchir, who runs the hedge fund TF Market Advisors. "Someone says something about a bank, and boom — shares are down ... and people are panicking."
That said, 2011 isn't 2008. U.S. banks are sturdier now. They're holding more capital than in 2008, when collapsing home prices and mortgage-backed securities crushed Lehman Bros. and forced the government to rescue insurance giant American International Group. The toxic investments that are spooking markets this time are straightforward government debts, not exotic mortgage investments.
And U.S. banks have limited direct exposure — $39 billion — to the riskiest European countries, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, according to first-quarter U.S. government data analyzed by SNL Financial. That figure, a small fraction of U.S. banks' total assets, includes holdings of government debt and loans to banks and corporations.
But many worry that European governments aren't prepared to solve their crisis. Germany and other healthy countries, for instance, are balking at putting enough money in the European Union's rescue fund to rescue one of the larger countries.
The broader fear is that one of them, such as Italy, will default and damage European banks whose reach extends to the United States.
All that "could trigger a chain reaction whose final repercussions would be very difficult to predict," says Domenico Lombardi, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Complicating the problem is that indebted European countries have tried to reduce debt by cutting spending. Those spending cuts tend to weaken their economies. The result is that their debt can get bigger, not smaller. White House spokesman Jay Carney expressed confidence Thursday that "Europe's institutions have the capacity to handle this situation."
Still, the vulnerability of U.S. banks goes beyond their direct holdings of European debt, said Christopher Whalen, managing director at Institutional Risk Analytics. U.S. banks also rely on fees from European bank and corporate clients. And they run the risk they won't be able to collect on financial bets they've entered into with European banks.
Similar fears contributed to the panic that engulfed Wall Street in the fall of 2008.
Troubles with money-market mutual funds also worsened Wall Street's crisis three years ago. Investors withdrew their money once they realized the funds were exposed to losses on Lehman Brothers. Short-term credit markets that corporations rely on froze up.
Large U.S. money-market funds had 49.6 percent of their holdings in certificates of deposits, commercial paper and other instruments from European banks at the end of June, according to Fitch.
U.S. money market funds have been slashing their exposure to banks in the Eurozone. Their holdings of Eurozone bonds declined about 10 percent in July, to $340 billion from $378 billion, according to research from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC.
The Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund trade group, says U.S. funds have no holdings in the three bailed-out countries — Greece, Portugal, Ireland — and little exposure to Spain and Italy.
"Fund managers have been aware of these issues and have been taking actions for a long time to reduce their exposures to potential risks in Europe," said Sean Collins, senior director at the investment institute.
But Fitch has warned that if credit froze up, money market funds would find it difficult to avoid losses.
http://www.prdailysun.com/news/This-time-US-fears-a-financial-crisis-from-abroad

U.S. Aides Believe China Examined Stealth Copter

By MARK MAZZETTI (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mark_mazzetti/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: August 14, 2011

WASHINGTON — In the days after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/pakistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo)’s intelligence service probably allowed Chinese military engineers to examine the wreckage of a stealth American helicopter that crashed during the operation, according to American officials and others familiar with the classified intelligence assessments.

Enlarge This Image
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/08/15/world/COPTER/COPTER-articleInline.jpg
Reuters

Part of a damaged helicopter at Osama bin Laden's compound after the Navy Seals killed the Qaeda leader on May 2.

Related

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2011/05/mh-x3.jpg


Attack on Bin Laden Used Stealthy Helicopter That Had Been a Secret (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/asia/06helicopter.html?ref=asia) (May 6, 2011)

Such cooperation with China (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) would be provocative, providing further evidence of the depths of Pakistan’s anger over the Bin Laden raid, which was carried out without Pakistan’s approval. The operation, conducted in early May, also set off an escalating tit-for-tat scuffle between American and Pakistani spies.
American spy agencies have concluded that it is likely that Chinese engineers — at the invitation of Pakistani intelligence operatives — took detailed photographs of the severed tail of the Black Hawk helicopter equipped with classified technology (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/asia/06helicopter.html) designed to elude radar, the officials said. The members of the Navy Seals team who conducted the raid had tried to destroy the helicopter after it crashed at Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, but the tail section of the aircraft remained largely intact.
American officials cautioned that they did not yet have definitive proof that the Chinese were allowed to visit to Abbottabad. They said that Pakistani officials had denied that they showed the advanced helicopter technology to other foreign governments. One military official said Sunday that Pakistani officials had been directly confronted about the American intelligence.
One person with knowledge of the intelligence assessments said that the American case was based mostly on intercepted conversations in which Pakistani officials discussed inviting the Chinese to the crash site. He characterized intelligence officials as being “certain” that Chinese engineers were able to photograph the helicopter and even walk away with samples of the wreckage. The tail has been shipped back to the United States, according to American officials.
Pakistan has a close military relationship with China, and large numbers of Chinese engineers work at military bases inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials have even suggested that the Chinese Navy might eventually have its own base along Pakistan’s coastline.
Several Pakistani officials reached on Sunday declined to comment. The American assessments were disclosed Sunday by The Financial Times. The newspaper cited Pakistani officials who denied the accusations.
When pictures of the helicopter’s tail emerged in the days after the Bin Laden raid, defense experts said it bore little resemblance to a standard Black Hawk helicopter. They said that the helicopter in Abbottabad appeared to have a special coating designed to elude air defenses, and that the Black Hawk’s sharp edges seemed to have been replaced with curved parts that could further confuse ground radar systems.
Pakistan’s anger about the Bin Laden operation was so intense that officials in Islamabad, the capital, hinted in news reports in May that they might allow the Chinese to see the helicopter wreckage, but it was unclear at the time whether Pakistan’s government might follow through on the veiled threats. Pakistani officials also made a high-profile trip to Beijing shortly after the Abbottabad raid, part of a not-so-subtle campaign to show the strength of Pakistan’s alliance with China amid faltering relations between Washington and Islamabad.
Meanwhile, the intelligence services of the two countries have quietly carried out their own spy games. Pakistan’s military spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/interservices_intelligence/index.html?inline=nyt-org), or ISI, arrested a group of Pakistani citizens in May who the agency suspected were working with the Central Intelligence Agency (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in the months leading up to the Bin Laden raid.
One of those arrested was a Pakistani doctor who had helped the C.I.A. set up a phony vaccination program in Abbottabad. The doctor had set up the vaccination scheme in the hope of gaining access to the Bin Laden compound and getting hard evidence that Bin Laden was hiding there. The doctor remains in Pakistani custody, according to American officials.
The C.I.A., for its part, has continued to carry out missile strikes inside Pakistan using armed drone aircraft (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/unmanned_aerial_vehicles/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), a campaign that has been tacitly blessed by Pakistani leaders but that has further aggravated relations between the C.I.A. and the ISI.
The relationship between the spy services began fraying in the months before the Bin Laden raid, after a C.I.A. contractor was charged with murder and jailed in Lahore. The contractor, Raymond A. Davis (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html), killed two men at a crowded traffic stop in Lahore in January, in what American officials described as an act of self-defense after the two men tried to rob Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis was eventually released from jail, but American relations with Pakistan declined steadily in subsequent weeks and sank even lower after the Bin Laden raid.
However, amid the recriminations and threats by members of Congress to cut all military aid to Pakistan, some senior members of the Obama administration have tried to dial back tensions before they do permanent damage to the shaky alliance.
Despite the headaches of an alliance marked by mutual distrust and competing agendas, the officials argue, the prospect of Washington permanently severing ties with a nuclear-armed country as volatile as Pakistan would be far more dangerous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/world/asia/15copter.html?_r=1&hp

Obama to Congress: Work together to aid jobless

By : The Associated Press

President Barack Obama says members of Congress should put country before politics, set aside their differences and find ways to get people back to work.The president is vacationing on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, but he recorded his weekly Saturday radio and Internet address earlier in the week while in Alpha, Ill., during an economy-focused Midwestern bus tour.
He said lawmakers in Washington could learn something from the people in small towns in Illinois and Iowa. Obama said there are some things they could get done right away, such as passing a road construction bill or extending a reduction in the payroll tax that pays for Social Security.
"These are common-sense ideas - ideas that have been supported by both Democrats and Republicans," Obama said. "The only thing holding them back is politics. The only thing preventing us from passing these bills is the refusal by some in Congress to put country ahead of party. That's the problem right now. That's what's holding this country back. That's what we have to change."
Obama has promoted those ideas and others for weeks and didn't offer any new proposals or rhetoric Saturday. He's saving that for a jobs package he's to unroll in a post-Labor Day speech once he returns to Washington. Instead, Obama repeated familiar themes Saturday about working to recover from the recession.
"We're coming through a terrible recession; a lot of folks are still looking for work. A lot of people are getting by with smaller paychecks or less money in the cash register," Obama said. "So we need folks in Washington _ the people whose job it is to deal with the country's problems, the people who you elected to serve _ we need them to put aside their differences to get things done."
In the Republican address, Ohio Gov. John Kasich boasted of reducing Ohio's budget shortfall and cutting taxes in that state and said it should be a model for the federal government.
He said the federal government should get out of the way and let states succeed without raising taxes or imposing regulations, but he also called on Republicans to work with Democrats without compromising their principles.
"It's my hope President Obama will listen to the people and partner with Republicans to get our economy back to creating jobs and producing growth," Kasich said. "And it's just as important that Republicans not be stiff-necked about working across the aisle when important work must be done. It's OK to compromise on policy, as long as you don't compromise on your principles."
"The playbook we're following here in Ohio is simple: to grow more, you have to tax less, spend less and regulate less," Kasich said. "If we can do it here in Ohio, Washington can - and should - do it also."
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=61043&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Obama sending jobs bill to Congress Monday

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is seeking to build public support for his $447 billion jobs plan before formally sending the bill to Congress Monday. The president will promote the jobs plan, which focuses on tax cuts and new spending, during an event in the Rose Garden Monday at 10:40 a.m. He will send the bill to Congress later in the day.
Obama will be joined in the Rose Garden by teachers, police officers and firefighters, all of whom the White House says would benefit from the bill's passage.
Obama will also be traveling across the country to rally support for the package he unveiled last week. He will visit Ohio Tuesday and North Carolina Wednesday to ask voters to pressure lawmakers to pass the bill.
http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=62018&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Aquí la noticia depresiva del día... Sorry. No fui yo el que lo escribió.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LI_LST_FB

Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade’

"Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.

And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1996.

Economists pointed to a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard.

“This is truly a lost decade,” Mr. Katz said. “We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.”

Lean el resto de la noticia en el enlace.

Obama takes jobs pitch to bridge on top Republicans' turf

The president, visiting a substandard span between Ohio and Kentucky, challenges House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to pass his plan to create construction work. http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-09/64951842.jpg “Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge!” President Obama shouted while visiting the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP / September 23, 2011)




By Peter Nicholas, Washington Bureau September 22, 2011, 5:39 p.m.

Reporting from Cincinnati—
No fewer than 70,000 bridges across the country need repair, but the example President Obama (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408.topic) highlighted Thursday stands out in one convenient political respect: It connects the states of the two Republican lawmakers who have the power to bottle up his jobs package.

Obama stood before the Brent Spence Bridge and issued a challenge to House Speaker John A. Boehner (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/john-a.-boehner-PEPLT007549.topic) of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/mitch-mcconnell-PEPLT004312.topic) of Kentucky, prodding them to pass a jobs bill meant to create work for idle construction workers.

"Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge!" Obama shouted.

Having made the $447-billion jobs bill the centerpiece of his agenda, Obama is taking a more combative approach in trying to get Congress to approve it.

The visit to Boehner's and McConnell's home turf was driven by a White House (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/executive-branch/white-house-PLCUL000110.topic) realization that direct negotiations with Republican leaders often have been fruitless. Rather than hole up with GOP (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic) lawmakers in private meetings in Washington, Obama hopes to build a grass-roots following to press Republican lawmakers to support it.

"We know how the inside game works out," said David Axelrod (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/david-axelrod-PEPLT007514.topic), a former senior White House advisor. "We've seen that. The only thing that's going to bring about progress here is the determination of the American people to force action. And so he is traveling the country and enlisting people in that cause."

Democrats (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/democratic-party-ORGOV0000005.topic) who've complained about Obama's past concessions to GOP lawmakers like the confrontational face the president is showing. Earlier this week, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/antonio-villaraigosa-PEPLT007500.topic) met with senior White House aides and told them Obama would never pass the jobs package by giving speeches in the Rose Garden.

Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said in an interview: "There's no question this is exactly what lots of Democrats were waiting for. Not just because they see it as good politics, but because they see the country at this fork in the road. And they want the president to be the one who frames the choices for the country in pretty clear and stark terms."

The bridge spanning the Ohio River, built in 1963, has been deemed "functionally obsolete" by transportation officials. It was designed to carry 85,000 vehicles a day, but gets nearly twice that number. Federal officials said the plan is to replace it with a new bridge at a cost of $2.4 billion.

Replacing the bridge isn't a solution to the nation's jobs crisis, Republicans countered, pointing out that it is not a "shovel-ready" project. Construction would not begin until 2013 at the earliest, meaning that unemployed workers wouldn't be picking up paychecks soon, with or without the White House jobs plan.

McConnell, in a speech on the Senate floor hours before Obama's appearance, said: "So I would suggest, Mr. President, that you think about ways to actually help the people of Kentucky and Ohio, instead of how

you can use their roads and bridges as a backdrop for making a political point."

The White House said the bridge, apart from its political utility, is a symbol of a larger need. Obama's jobs bill sets aside $50 billion to update bridges, roads, airports and transit systems as a way to boost construction employment.

In his speech, Obama described Boehner and McConnell as "the two most powerful Republicans in government. They can either kill this jobs bill, or they can pass this jobs bill."

"I know these men care about their states. They care about businesses. They care about workers here. I can't imagine that the speaker wants to represent a state where nearly 1 in 4 bridges are classified as substandard. One in four," Obama said.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Boehner, said in a statement: "The speaker, like everyone in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, knows how important this bridge is. That's why a replacement project is already underway. But, due in part to bureaucratic and environmental requirements, it's at least four years away from being 'shovel-ready' — which begs the question: Why is the president suggesting it can create jobs now?"

Obama invited Boehner and McConnell to attend the event. Both chose to stay in Washington, where Congress was in session. They might not have felt welcome in a pro-Obama crowd.

At the point when Obama mentioned that the bridge was "functionally obsolete," someone in the crowd shouted: "Like Boehner."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-jobs-20110923,0,3269973.story

More than 2,900 convicted criminal immigrants arrested, ICE says

By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 1:32 PM EST, Wed September 28, 2011

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/110928041430-operation-cross-check-story-top.jpg
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents take part in Operation Cross Check in September 2011.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS


NEW: There are still 1 million convicted criminal immigrants in U.S., ICE says
The latest operation spanned all 50 states and four U.S. territories
Nearly 1,300 had multiple convictions, ICE officials say
"Cross Check" operations have taken in more than 7,400 criminal aliens

Washington (CNN) -- In a huge, seven-day operation covering all 50 states and four U.S. territories, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 2,901 convicted criminal immigrants as part of the "Cross Check" enforcement operation, ICE officials announced Wednesday.
ICE officials trumpeted the arrests at a news conference designed to highlight "the Obama administration's ongoing commitment to prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens and egregious immigration law violators."
ICE Director John Morton said all those arrested had prior criminal convictions, including 1,282 who had multiple convictions. More than 1,600 of those arrested had felony convictions including manslaughter, attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors and aggravated assault. Forty-two of them were gang members and 151 were convicted sex offenders, officials said.
ICE officials acknowledged that despite the large number of arrests, there were still an estimated 1 million convicted criminal aliens in the United States. Morton said one of the issues ICE is trying to deal with is the lack of notification to immigration authorities when offenders are released from jail.
Most of the people detained -- 2,642 -- were men. Those arrested came from 115 countries, with immigration fugitives accounting for 681 of those detained in the operation, Morton said. Of the people arrested, 386 were illegal re-entrants.
"The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE's ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation's immigration system," Morton in a statement released before the news conference. "Because of the tireless efforts and teamwork of ICE officers and agents in tracking down at large criminal aliens and fugitives, there are 2,901 fewer criminal aliens in our neighborhoods across the country."
ICE began conducting large-scale operations to target convicted criminal aliens in December 2009 and since then, nine regional and national Cross Check operations -- including last week's -- have resulted in the arrest of more than 7,400 convicted criminal aliens.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/28/us/immigration-sting/

Hmm. ¿ A cuantos habrán cojido en Puerto Rico?

EEUU: Inicia intrépida inspección al Monumento a Washington

The Associated Press | Fecha: 09/28/2011




http://s0.uvnimg.com/feeds/feeds/photo/2011-09-28/eeuu-inicia-intrepida-inspeccion-al_323x216.jpg

WASHINGTON (AP) — En lo que parecía una escena de una película de acción de Hollywood, un equipo de ingenieros descendieron el miércoles a rapel por los costados del Monumento a Washington para inspeccionar el daño causado al exterior del obelisco de mármol de 169 metros de altura (555 pies) por el sismo que sacudió en agosto la capital del país.
Mientras turistas entrecerraban los ojos para mirar a la distancia las pequeñas figuras humanas, dos hombres y dos mujeres salieron por las escotillas y ventanas de observación en la cima del monumento y comenzaron a descender lentamente con cuerdas y arneses desde la punta piramidal de la estructura, donde se ubicaba una grieta larga de 2,5 centímetros (1 pulgada) de ancho y donde esperan encontrar el mayor daño.
Desde el suelo, sus movimientos parecían metódicos y deliberados, pero eso era suficiente para poner nerviosos a familiares y curiosos.
"Es monstruoso. Me aterran las alturas. Apuesto a que allá arriba todo se ve revuelto", dijo Brandon Guy, de 14 años y residente de Windsor, California.
Ingenieros dijeron que el monumento erigido en 1884 está bien estructuralmente, pero que necesitan catalogar cada defecto para poder determinar cuánto tiempo tomará repararlo y reabrirlo al público.
Para realizar eso, llamaron a un equipo "difícil de conseguir" de especialistas certificados tanto en ingeniería estructural como en escalada. El equipo era supervisado por un guardabosques con amplia experiencia en alpinismo en el Parque Nacional Denali de Alaska, donde se encuentra el pico más alto de Norteamérica.
Durante la atrevida inspección, la cual se espera que dure varios días, los intrépidos escaladores subirán y bajarán por los costados de todo el monumento, tomarán fotografías con una cámara digital y golpearán ligeramente las piedras con un mazo suave, escuchando en busca de indicaciones de daño.
Tienen herramientas de albañilería para remover piedra o mezcla suelta. Cada uno porta además un radio bidireccional y un iPad con datos de la restauración realizada al monumento en 1999.


http://feeds.univision.com/feeds/article/2011-09-28/eeuu-inicia-intrepida-inspeccion-al?refPath=/noticias/estados-unidos/noticias/

Hundreds of energy bills stalled in committee

Fortuño touts administrative progress on cost cutting

September 29, 2011

By Daily Sun staff & news services

Now that the voters have spoken out against the cost of electricity and elections are just around the corner, proposals from politicians about how to cut costs are coming fast and furiously.
However, in the past year the legislature has approved only a handful of measures submitted in 2009 and 2010. House speaker Jenniffer González and Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz, have presented their legislative proposals on some matters, but they have not followed up on the important House Bill 3039.
Gov. Fortuño, however, says he has been busy at work on the matter for at least a year.
A report on the measure, which stipulates that the Puerto Rico Energy and Power Authority not pay taxes on fuel used to generate energy, has been issued by the Senate Consumer Affairs Committee, headed by Sen. Lornna Soto, but no decision has been made.
The same committee also sat on House Bill 2394 (which gives government retirees fixed rates for water and electricity). Nor did the committee approve House Bill 2121 to make common areas in housing developments and condominiums pay residential rates and 565, a plan to orient subscribers how to read the meter so they can contest their billing.
The creation of a Public Service Oversight Board for corporations and the establishment of special fees for cooperatives are also stuck in the Senate,
The House voted down House Bill 118, which sought to limit the per diems of the PREPA Government Board, and the governor gave a pocket veto to a measure which would give a 5 percent credit to subscribers who pay their bills on time.
Out of 203 bills and resolutions, only four were voted into law, one which would include an announcement in the PREPA monthly bill about the use of renewable energy and another to establish fixed rates in public housing projects.
The governor also signed into law a bill to establish fines of up to $10,000 for anyone who tampers with a meter and steals electricity and another bill which gives consumers representation on the PREPA Board.
Fortuño, who claims he welcomes any new ideas, despite having already entertained several, noted that legislative efforts have already yielded bills to promote “alternate energy and gas projects” as well as creating a renewable energy plan through 2020.
He said he had “signed an executive order declaring an energy emergency for any Mid East problems that would cause an increase in gas prices, which has in fact, happened.”
The idea is “to streamline permissions for [renewable energy] projects and construction will begin on them before the year is over,” he said Wednesday.
Fortuño said the decision by the [PREPA] board of trustees on a formula to establish electricity rates has not been taken, despite having received several proposals.”
He said the participation of representatives from the Public Accountants Association and the Engineers and Surveyors Association will ensure “total transparency in the proposal review process.”
Meanwhile, PREPA Executive Director Miguel Cordero insisted he will not receive two pensions from the Retirement System of the corporation he will head until Friday.
Cordero, who resigned this week after many criticisms of his handling of the finances of his agency, said that when he begins to receive benefits from the system — which is unique and independent from the Puerto Rico Government Retirement System — he will receive only one payment for 36 years of service, as do all corporation employees who retire.
Cordero said that under the last administration, three months after Edwin Rivera Serrano retired with a pension as director of PREPA’S Electric System, he was appointed executive director and when he retired again in 2006, he received a higher pension.
Cordero reiterated that his annual salary, $170.000, the same that Jorge Rodríguez received, a $40,000 bonus twice yearly for productivity and a Christmas bonus, the same as all employees in Puerto Rico receive by law.
Cordero said that when he retires, the same dispositions of the Retirement System Regulations will be applied to him as to any employee who returns to PREPA after retiring. “Everything will be done legally and according to the regulations,” he said.

http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Hundreds-of-energy-bills-stalled-in-committee

Police Arrest More Than 700 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge

By AL BAKER (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/al-baker/) and COLIN MOYNIHAN (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/colin-moynihan/)PREV




http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-BX8X/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-BX8X-blog480-v2.jpg (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp)
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-8VSU/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-8VSU-blog480-v2.jpg (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp)
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-GZLR/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-GZLR-blog480-v2.jpg (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp)
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-RC0P/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-RC0P-blog480.jpg (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp)
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-8FLN/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-8FLN-blog480.jpg (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp)
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-C9MY/20111002_PROTEST_337-slide-C9MY-blog480-v2.jpg (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp)
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Marchers claimed a roadway on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Updated, 11:55 p.m.

| In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested more than 700 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon.
The police did not immediately release precise arrest figures, but said it was the choice of those marchers that led to the swift enforcement.
“Protesters who used the Brooklyn Bridge walkway were not arrested,” said the head police spokesman, Paul J. Browne. “Those who took over the Brooklyn-bound roadway, and impeded vehicle traffic, were arrested.”
But many protesters said that they thought the police had tricked and trapped them, allowing them onto the bridge and even escorting them across, only to surround them in orange netting after hundreds of them had entered.
“The cops watched and did nothing, indeed, seemed to guide us onto the roadway,” said Jesse A. Myerson, a media coordinator for Occupy Wall Street who was in the march but was not arrested.
Things came to a head shortly after 4 p.m., as the 1,500 or so marchers reached the foot of the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the bridge, just east of City Hall.
In their march north from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan — headquarters for the last two weeks of a protest movement against what demonstrators call inequities in the economic system — they had stayed on the sidewalks, forming a long column of humanity penned in by officers on scooters.
Where the entrance to the bridge narrowed their path, some marchers, including organizers, stuck to the generally agreed-upon route and headed up onto the wooden walkway that runs between and about 15 feet above the bridge’s traffic lanes.
But about 20 others headed for the Brooklyn-bound roadway, said Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who accompanied the march. Some of them chanted “take the bridge.” They were met by a handful of high-level police supervisors, who blocked the way and announced repeatedly through bullhorns that the marchers were blocking the roadway and that if they continued to do so, they would be subject to arrest.
There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way. The Chief of Department Joseph J. Esposito, and a horde of other white-shirted commanders, were among them.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/01/nyregion/20111002_PROTEST-slide-UP67/20111002_PROTEST-slide-UP67-blog480.jpg
Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesPolice secured some protesters’ hands with plastic ties.

After allowing the protesters to walk about a third of the way to Brooklyn, the police then cut the marchers off and surrounded them with orange nets on both sides, trapping hundreds of people, said Mr. Dunn. As protesters at times chanted “white shirts, white shirts,” officers began making arrests, at one point plunging briefly into the crowd to grab a man.
The police said that those arrested were taken to several police stations and were being charged with disorderly conduct, at a minimum.
A freelance reporter for The New York Times, Natasha Lennard, was among those arrested. She was later released.
Mr. Dunn said he was concerned that those in the back of the column who might not have heard the warnings “would have had no idea that it was not O.K. to walk on the roadway of the bridge.” Mr. Browne said that people who were in the rear of the crowd that may not have heard the warnings were not arrested and were free to leave.
Earlier in the afternoon, as many as 10 Department of Correction buses, big enough to hold 20 prisoners apiece, had been dispatched from Rikers Island in what one law enforcement official said was “a planned move on the protesters.”
Etan Ben-Ami, 56, a psychotherapist from Brooklyn who was up on the walkway, said that the police seemed to make a conscious decision to allow the protesters to claim the road. “They weren’t pushed back,” he said. “It seemed that they moved at the same time.”
Mr. Ben-Ami said he left the walkway and joined the crowd on the road. “It seemed completely permitted,” he said. “There wasn’t a single policeman saying ‘don’t do this’.”
He added: “We thought they were escorting us because they wanted us to be safe.” He left the bridge when he saw officers unrolling the nets as they prepared to make arrests. Many others who had been on the roadway were allowed to walk back down to Manhattan.
Mr. Browne said that the police did not trick the protesters into going onto the bridge.
“This was not a trap,” he said. “They were warned not to proceed.”
In related protests elsewhere in the country, 25 people were arrested in Boston for trespassing while protesting Bank of America’s foreclosure practices, according to Eddy Chrispin, a spokesman for the Boston Police Department. The protesters were on the grounds and blocking the entrance to the building, Mr. Chrispin said.
Natasha Lennard, William K. Rashbaum and Elizabeth A. Harris contributed reporting.


http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp

Protests against Wall Street and joblessness spread nationwide, fueled by arrests in New York

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/10/02/National-Economy/Images/APTOPIX_Wall_Street_Protest_09f97.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wall-street-protest-continues-for-third-day/2011/09/19/gIQAKqbffK_gallery.html)
View Photo Gallery —  The movement is seeking to gather 20,000 people to set up beds, kitchens and peaceful barricades in order to occupy Wall Street for a few months in an effort to end corporate greed, according to the group’s Web site. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wall-street-protest-continues-for-third-day/2011/09/19/gIQAKqbffK_gallery.html)

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, October 3, 8:12 PM


NEW YORK — Protests against Wall Street spread across the country Monday as demonstrators marched on Federal Reserve banks and camped out in parks from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine, in a show of anger over the wobbly economy and what they see as corporate greed.
In Manhattan, hundreds of protesters dressed as corporate zombies in white face paint lurched past the New York Stock Exchange clutching fistfuls of fake money. In Chicago, demonstrators pounded drums in the city’s financial district. Others pitched tents or waved protest signs at passing cars in Boston, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo.

Video
http://img3.wpdigital.net/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/10/02/National-Economy/Videos/10022011-17v/10022011-17v.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/nypd-warns-brooklyn-bridge-protesters/2011/10/02/gIQA7DMmFL_video.html)
The NYPD has released video of protesters from the group Occupy Wall Street as they attempted to march across Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday. More than 700 were arrested during a tense confrontation with police. (Oct. 2)

More on this Story


Four Loko will relabel cans (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/four-loko-to-relabel-cans-to-show-alcohol-content-after-pressure-from-ftc/2011/10/03/gIQAPf2WHL_story.html)
U.S. seeks to import shoppers to boost economy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/to-boost-flagging-economy-us-wants-to-import-more-shoppers/2011/09/30/gIQA8P2OGL_story.html)
Wonkblog: What does ‘Occupy Wall Street’ want? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-what-does-occupy-wall-street-want/2011/10/03/gIQAgCLgHL_blog.html)
Wall Street protesters urged to dress as corporate zombies (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/anti-wall-street-campaign-enters-third-week-100s-of-protesters-remain-resolute/2011/10/03/gIQAxs6AHL_story.html)

The arrests of 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend galvanized a slice of discontented America, from college students worried about their job prospects to middle-age workers who have been recently laid off.
Some protesters likened themselves to the tea party movement — but with a liberal bent — or to the Arab Spring demonstrators who brought down their rulers in the Middle East.
“I’ve felt this way for a long time. I’ve really just kind of been waiting for a movement to come along that I thought would last and have some resonation within the community,” said Steven Harris, a laid-off truck driver in Kansas City.
Harris and about 20 other people were camped out in a park across the street from the Kansas City Federal Reserve building, their site strewn with sleeping bags, clothes and handmade signs. Some passing drivers honked in support.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started on Sept. 17 with a few dozen demonstrators who tried to pitch tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, hundreds have set up camp in a park nearby and have become increasingly organized, lining up medical aid and legal help and printing their own newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal.
About 100 demonstrators were arrested on Sept. 24 and some were pepper-sprayed. On Saturday police arrested 700 on charges of disorderly conduct and blocking a public street as they tried to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Police said they took five more protesters into custody on Monday, though it was unclear whether they had been charged with any crime.
Wiljago Cook, of Oakland, Calif., who joined the New York protest on the first day, said she was shocked by the arrests.
“Exposing police brutality wasn’t even really on my agenda, but my eyes have been opened,” she said. She vowed to stay in New York “as long as it seems useful.”
City bus drivers sued the New York Police Department on Monday for commandeering their buses and making them drive to the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday to pick up detained protesters.
“We’re down with these protesters. We support the notion that rich folk are not paying their fair share,” said Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen. “Our bus operators are not going to be pressed into service to arrest protesters anywhere.”
The city’s Law Department said the NYPD’s actions were proper.
On Monday, the zombies stayed on the sidewalks as they wound through Manhattan’s financial district chanting, “How to fix the deficit: End the war, tax the rich!” They lurched along with their arms in front of them. Some yelled, “I smell money!”

Reaction was mixed from passers-by.
Roland Klingman, who works in the financial industry and was wearing a suit as he walked through a raucous crowd of protesters, said he could sympathize with the anti-Wall Street message.

“I don’t think it’s directed personally at everyone who works down here,” Klingman said. “If they believe everyone down here contributes to policy decisions, it’s a serious misunderstanding.”
Another man in a suit yelled at the protesters, “Go back to work!” He declined to be interviewed.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who made his fortune as a corporate executive, has said the demonstrators are making a mistake by targeting Wall Street.
“The protesters are protesting against people who make $40- or $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the bottom line. Those are the people who work on Wall Street or in the finance sector,” Bloomberg said in a radio interview Friday.
Some protesters planned to travel to other cities to organize similar events.
John Hildebrand, a protester in New York from Norman, Okla., hoped to mount a protest there after returning home Tuesday. Julie Levine, a protester in Los Angeles, planned to go to Washington on Thursday.
Websites and Facebook pages with names like Occupy Boston and Occupy Philadelphia have also sprung up to plan the demonstrations.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched from a tent city on a grassy plot in downtown Boston to the Statehouse to call for an end of corporate influence of government.
“Our beautiful system of American checks and balances has been thoroughly trashed by the influence of banks and big finance that have made it impossible for the people to speak,” said protester Marisa Engerstrom, of Somerville, Mass., a Harvard doctoral student.
The Boston demonstrators decorated their tents with hand-written signs reading, “Fight the rich, not their wars” and “Human need, not corporate greed.”
Some stood on the sidewalk holding up signs, engaging in debate with passers-by and waving at honking cars. One man yelled “Go home!” from his truck. Another man made an obscene gesture.
“We lean left, but there have been tea party people stopping by here who have said, ‘Hey, we like what you’re doing,’” said Jason Potteiger, a media coordinator for the Boston protesters.
In Chicago, protesters beat drums on the corner near the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In Los Angeles, demonstrators hoping to get TV coverage gathered in front of the courthouse where Michael Jackson’s doctor is on trial on manslaughter charges.
Protesters in St. Louis stood on a street corner a few blocks from the shimmering Gateway Arch, carrying signs that read, “How Did The Cat Get So Fat?,” ‘’You’re a Pawn in Their Game” and “We Want The Sacks Of Gold Goldman Sachs Stole From Us.”
“Money talks, and it seems like money has all the power,” said Apollonia Childs. “I don’t want to see any homeless people on the streets, and I don’t want to see a veteran or elderly people struggle. We all should have our fair share. We all vote, pay taxes. Tax the rich.”
___
Verena Dobnik, Karen Matthews, Cristian Salazar and Jennifer Peltz in New York; Jim Suhr in St. Louis; David Sharp in Portland, Maine; Mark Pratt in Boston; Patrick Walters in Philadelphia; Bill Draper in Kansas City, Mo.; Carla K. Johnson in Chicago, and Christina Hoag and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/anti-wall-street-campaign-enters-third-week-100s-of-protesters-remain-resolute/2011/10/03/gIQAxs6AHL_story_1.html

Occupy Wall Street's message

It is far too early to suggest that the protesters represent a resurgence of the left. Yet it would be a mistake to write off the movement before it gets started.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-10/65189482-04090120.jpg At L.A. City Hall, activists stage an "occupation" as part of an economic protest. Like their Manhattan counterparts, the L.A. protesters said they plan to camp out by City Hall indefinitely or until they draw enough attention to their cause. (Los Angeles Times)




http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-09/65118984-29175745.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wall-street-protest-20110930,0,6859500.story) Occupy Wall Street protesters driven by varying goals (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wall-street-protest-20110930,0,6859500.story)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-10/65172233-02204204.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest-20111003,0,7866460.story) Downtown L.A. becomes a stage for protest and performance art (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest-20111003,0,7866460.story)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-10/65160113-02082328.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bridge-protest-20111002,0,4138102.story) Hundreds of protesters arrested on Brooklyn Bridge (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bridge-protest-20111002,0,4138102.story)




October 4, 2011

The pundit class has largely ignored, dismissed or mocked the Occupy Wall Street protest (the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, for example, calls the protesters "a collection of ne'er-do-wells raging against Wall Street, or something"). We too find it hard to get especially worked up over a series of small demonstrations in a handful of cities, including Los Angeles, (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest-20111003%2C0%2C7866460.story) involving mostly disaffected people who have trouble expressing what it is they're against. But isn't that how the "tea party" (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/tea-party-movement-ORCIG000068.topic) started out?

The political left has been searching for the last couple of years to find an answer to the tea party. Some hoped last year's rally (http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com/) in Washington led by TV comedians Jon Stewart (http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/television/jon-stewart-PECLB004184.topic) and Stephen Colbert (http://www.latimes.com/topic/entertainment/television/stephen-colbert-PECLB005418.topic), a response to right-wing rallies (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/28/AR2010082801106.html) attended by such conservative media celebrities as Glenn Beck (http://www.latimes.com/topic/arts-culture/mass-media/news-media/glenn-beck-PECLB00177647.topic), would spark a national movement. That didn't happen. Now they're pinning their hopes on Occupy Wall Street, (http://occupywallst.org/) which in many ways is a mirror image of the tea party. Both groups are motivated by frustration over the rotten economy and are vague about causes and solutions, though if their positions could be summed up in a one-line manifesto, it might be: The tea party, dominated by elderly conservatives, blames government overspending and overreach for our economic problems and would therefore like to cut federal spending, while Occupy Wall Street, dominated by young liberals, blames corporate greed and would therefore like to tax the rich and decrease corporate political power.

It is, of course, far too early to suggest that Occupy Wall Street represents a resurgence of the left. But we do seem to recall that in its initial days the tea party was similarly dismissed by pundits, especially those on the left who preferred to see the protesters as kooks rather than the vanguard of a political shift. What matters isn't the size of the protest, the attire of the demonstrators or the misspellings on their signs; it's whether the relatively tiny number of people who can be bothered to show up and march can inspire and energize other like-minded people enough to get them to the polls.

Photos: Protest and parade in downtown Los Angeles (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest-pictures,0,6080193.photogallery)

By that measure, the tea party has been a phenomenal success. Republican voters turned out in big numbers in the 2010 elections while the Democratic vote was depressed, leading to the GOP (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic) takeover of the House of Representatives. A Gallup poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/149759/democrats-dispirited-voting-2012.aspx) last week found Democratic enthusiasm for voting in 2012 is at its lowest level in a decade, trailing Republicans' net enthusiasm by 27%. No one can say whether Occupy Wall Street will change that. But it would be a mistake to write off the movement before it gets started.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-protest-20111004,0,6359372.story

4 airports try limited low-hassle security checks

By : The Associated Press

ATLANTA — A small group of frequent fliers began using lower-hassle security lines Tuesday in exchange for sharing more personal information with the government in a trial program at four U.S. airports. The "PreCheck" program represents a big attempt by President Barack Obama's administration to move away from a one-size-fits-all security approach and toward a model that tailors passenger checks to what the government knows about them. It is being implemented after a public backlash and protest campaign last year over sometimes invasive pat-downs for travelers who refused to step inside full-body scanners.
The new program requires a basic trade-off. Passengers allow airlines or other government agencies to share their personal information with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration so they can be pre-screened before arriving at the airport. In return, passengers get a chance — not a guarantee — that they can move through faster lines and avoid removing their shoes, belts or light coats while keeping laptop computers and liquids in their travel bags.
If successful, the pilot program could spread beyond a small sliver of travelers and airports in Atlanta, Miami, Detroit and Dallas-Fort Worth.
The system's opening run in Atlanta earned positive reviews from several of the passengers who used it, but it also illustrated that they won't be immune to all traditional security procedures. They came to the same security checkpoint as other passengers, but were ushered to a specialized line. Rodney Berry of Atlanta praised the new system even though his bag got searched by hand at the end.
"It seems like it was faster, even though I got stopped," said the 42-year-old who typically flies at least once a week.
TSA Assistant Administrator Chris McLaughlin said the benefits of the program are twofold.
"This program allows us to focus on individuals that we know a great deal about," he said during a news conference at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. "... At the same time, it frees up resources for us to apply to individuals that we know less about and potentially pose a greater risk to aviation."
The voluntary test program covers travelers enrolled in Delta Air Lines' and American Airlines' frequent-flier programs or three government-run traveler programs — called Global Entry, NEXUS and SENTRI — at the four airports. Participants in the existing government programs undergo background checks and are interviewed by customs officials to get cards that allow them to pass through customs more quickly.
The new PreCheck program is very small. TSA officials estimate that somewhere from 5,000 to 8,000 travelers could eventually be ushered through the specialized security lines daily. That's less than 1 percent of the average number of passengers screened daily at domestic airports. No one in the program is guaranteed an expedited screening, and the TSA says they're still subject to random and unpredictable security steps.
McLaughlin said he could not disclose for security reasons exactly how the TSA will screen passengers in the pilot program before they check in.
The government already pre-screens all U.S. passengers, typically checking their full names, birthdates and genders against government databases of potential terrorists. But frequent-flier programs and the government traveler programs collect more data. For instance, personal information provided in Delta's frequent-flier program includes the traveler's home address, email address or phone number, and preferred language.
On Monday, the federal agency also announced it will spend $3.2 million on new technology intended to automatically spot fake government identity documents and airport boarding passes. It's expected to be tested early next year and will be incorporated into the pilot program.
Brad Childress, 59, was among the first passengers to breeze through the specialized security line in Atlanta. He set off the metal detector when he forgot to remove a money clip from his pocket, but he called the process "a piece of cake."
He wears leather loafers without shoelaces to the airport since he usually has to take them off as part of a normal security screening. On Tuesday, his shoes stayed on his feet. He said he never believed that the traditional security screening made the country safer.
"I always thought that was a false sense of security anyhow," he said.
The frequent traveler on Delta was unaware he had enrolled in the program, though airport officials say he may have authorized the airline to share his information on an electronic form without realizing it.
Childress said he would have to learn more about the information he was sharing with the government before deciding whether he objected.
"They already know where I'm traveling, they know where I live, they know what my credit card number is," he said. "So they know a lot about me."


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=62929&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

US OKs $196.5M for high-speed Chicago-Detroit rail

The Associated Press 3:50 p.m. CDT, October 5, 2011

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Transportation (http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/travel/transportation/u.s.-department-of-transportation-ORGOV000000148.topic) has approved $196.5 million for part of a high-speed Amtrak passenger rail link between Chicago and Detroit, Michigan U.S. Sens. Carl Levin (http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics/carl-levin-PEPLT003901.topic) and Debbie Stabenow said Wednesday.

The funds now being obligated cover work from Kalamazoo in western Michigan to Dearborn in suburban Detroit, the Democratic lawmakers said.
The grant to the Michigan Department of Transportation will cover track and signal improvements.

“This is an important investment that will reduce travel time, improve reliability and on-time performance, and attract more passengers,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “We are creating jobs in Michigan, building our rails with American-made materials and growing the regional economy.”

Officials say the rail line improvements will allow trains to reach110 miles per hour on 135 miles of the route. The Transportation Department says that will shave 30 minutes off travel on Amtrak's Wolverine and Blue Water services between Detroit and Chicago. The line runs through Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

“This effort will not only boost our economy, it will provide residents with more transportation options,” said Stabenow. “With gas prices as high as they are it is critically important that travelers have more choices in addition to driving.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-us-oks-1965m-for-highspeed-chicagodetroit-rail-20111005,0,6690857.story

Obama acknowledges Wall Street protests as a sign

October 7, 2011
Print by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)

by VERENA DOBNIK
The Associated Press
NEW YORK

Concerns over Wall Street practices and economic inequality that have led to sit-ins and rallies in New York and elsewhere reverberated up to the White House on Thursday, with President Barack Obama saying the protesters are expressing the frustrations of the American public.
Thousands of protesters, including many in union T-shirts, marched the day before in lower Manhattan, joined by labor leaders who say they will continue to support the protests with manpower and donations of goods and services.
The protests have slowly grown in size and attention over more than two weeks, with the president’s acknowledgment at a news conference a sign they might be jelling into a political movement.
Obama said he understood the public’s concerns about how the nation’s financial system works and said Americans see Wall Street as an example of the financial industry not always following the rules.
“It expresses the frustrations that the American people feel that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street,” the president said. “And yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.”
He said, though, that the U.S. must have a strong and effective financial sector for the economy to grow, and that the financial regulation bill he championed ensures tougher oversight of the financial industry.
Among some protesters, reaction to Obama’s acknowledgment was less than enthusiastic.
“His message is that he’s sticking to the party line, which is, ‘We are taking care of the situation.’ But he’s not proposing any solutions,” said Thorin Caristo, a 37-year-old antique store owner from Plainfield, Conn.
The protesters have varied causes and no apparent demands, but have spoken largely about unemployment and economic inequality, reserving most of their criticism for Wall Street. “We are the 99 percent,” they chanted Wednesday, contrasting themselves with the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.
“The great thing about Occupy Wall Street is that they have brought the focus of the entire country on the middle class majority,” said George Aldro, 62, a member of Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, as he carried the union’s blue flag over his shoulder through lower Manhattan.
“We’re in it together, and we’re in it for the long haul.”
Ed Figueroa, a janitor in a public school in the Bronx and a shop steward with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, said the march was “the first time in these weeks that unions have shown their face.”
“But it won’t be the last time,” he said.
The unions were donating food, blankets and office space to the protesters, said Dan Cantor, head of the Working Families Party. But he said the young protesters would continue to head their own efforts. The movement lacks an identified leader and decisions are made during group meetings.
“They’re giving more to us than we’re giving to them. They’re a shot in the arm to everybody,” Cantor said.
Victor Rivera, a vice president for the powerful 1199 Service Employees International Union, which represents health care workers, said the union had donated “all the food they need for this entire week” to the protesters. Union leaders had also assigned liaisons from their political action committee to work with demonstrators.
“We are here to support this movement against Wall Street’s greed,” he said. “We support the idea that the rich should pay their fair share.”
The Occupy Wall Street protests started Sept. 17 with a few dozen demonstrators who tried to pitch tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, hundreds have set up camp nearby in Zuccotti Park and have become increasingly organized, lining up medical aid and legal help and printing their own newspaper.
On Saturday, about 700 people were arrested and given disorderly conduct summonses for spilling into the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge despite warnings from police. A group of those arrested filed a lawsuit Tuesday, saying officers lured them into a trap before arresting them. Video shows officers using bullhorns to try and tell the group to get off the road.
Activists have been showing solidarity with the movement in many cities, including Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and Providence, R.I.
Several Democratic lawmakers have expressed support for the protesters, but some Republican presidential candidates have rebuked them. Herman Cain called the activists “un-American” Wednesday at a book signing in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“They’re basically saying that somehow the government is supposed to take from those that have succeeded and give to those who want to protest,” the former pizza-company executive said. “That’s not the way America was built.”
On Tuesday, CBS reported that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney called the protest “class warfare” at an appearance at a Florida retirement community.

http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Obama-acknowledges-Wall-Street-protests-as-a-sign

BofA debit card fee prompts animosity from coast to coast

The new $5 monthly charge has become a focal point for anger and frustration about the flailing economy and Washington's attempts to help the nation recover from the financial crisis.
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-10/65276904.jpg
One of 11 demonstrators is arrested Thursday during a sit-in in the lobby at the Bank of America at 7th and Figueroa streets in downtown Los Angeles as part of a protest called "Refund California." (Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times / October 8, 2011)

http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-10/65233112-05162449.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-fees-20111006,0,2689068.story)
Bank fees prompt call for more disclosure on checking accounts (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-fees-20111006,0,2689068.story)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-10/65209466-04155519.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-debit-backlash-20111005,0,6743272.story)
Democrats encourage BofA customers to close accounts (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-debit-backlash-20111005,0,6743272.story)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-09/65140920-30181046.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1001-citi-checking-fees-20111001,0,5755568.story)
Citibank is next with a new banking fee (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1001-citi-checking-fees-20111001,0,5755568.story)
http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2011-09/65119359-30161530.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-fees-20110930,0,4196401.story)
BofA to charge customers $5 for debit card use (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-fees-20110930,0,4196401.story)


By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times October 7, 2011, 7:55 p.m.
Reporting from Washington—
In the volatile political air ignited by the nation's economic struggles, $5 buys a lot more controversy than it used to.

The announcement by Bank of America Corp. (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/bank-of-america-corp.-ORCRP001609.topic) last week that it would charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards has rung up animosity from coast to coast.

Coming amid growing anti-Wall Street protests, BofA's new fee has become a focal point for anger and frustration about the flailing economy and Washington's attempts to help the nation recover from the financial crisis.

Some banks are testing similar, though lower, debit card fees. But BofA was the first major player to take the plunge. And since it is the nation's largest bank — as well as the beneficiary of one of the biggest taxpayer bailouts — the move has put a target on its red-white-and-blue logo.

"It's one example of why I'm here and outraged," said Julia Lum, 25, of Oakland, a law student and intern at a Washington firm who joined protests this week against large banks.

A BofA customer herself, Lum said she was ditching the bank because of the fee.

In Los Angeles, police arrested 11 protesters who marched into a BofA branch Thursday and refused to leave after trying to cash a giant check for $673 billion made out to the "People of California." Protesters continued their efforts Friday with a march through downtown L.A.

"This frankly is just an incredible marketing and PR debacle," said Bert Ely, an independent banking analyst. "They roll this thing out with no testing, make it nationwide, it's higher than anybody else. What kind of reaction do they expect?"

Probably not what they've seen over the last week.

President Obama (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408.topic) and Vice President Joe Biden (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/joe-biden-PEPLT007548.topic) both publicly criticized the fee, which BofA said was triggered by revenue losses from a new federal limit on what banks can charge retailers to process debit card transactions.

Sen. Dick Durbin (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/richard-durbin-PEPLT007474.topic) (D-Ill.), who championed the limits on so-called swipe fees, urged BofA customers to "get the heck out of that bank." And Rep. Brad Miller (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/brad-miller-PEPLT004511.topic), a Democrat from the bank's home state of North Carolina, introduced legislation to make it easier for customers to close an account.

When BofA Chief Executive Brian Moynihan appeared on stage Wednesday at the Washington Ideas Forum, the first question from interviewer Larry Kudlow of CNBC (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/media-industry/cnbc-%28tv-network%29-ORCRP0000017186.topic) was about the fee.

"It's the most famous five bucks in the history of this country," Kudlow said.

Moynihan defended the fee, which he said was an attempt by BofA to be transparent about what it charges its customers for services. He said many customers won't pay the fee, which takes effect next year, because it will be waived for those with a BofA mortgage or at least $20,000 in their combined accounts.

Customer reaction has been mixed, said BofA spokeswoman Anne Pace.

"For the most part, there's questions: 'What does this mean? What is included in the fee? How does it impact me? How can I avoid it?'" she said.

Despite the administration's response, politicians in Washington had mixed reactions as well.

Many Democrats (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/democratic-party-ORGOV0000005.topic) said the debit card fee showed the need for more rules to keep banks from taking advantage of their customers. But some Republicans (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic) said it showed the negative ramifications that can be caused by regulations.

Miller had been working on his Freedom and Mobility in Banking Act for months. But when BofA's new fee landed, he decided the time was right to introduce the bill.

"I think the public is reacting to a sense of entitlement by the biggest banks — that they are entitled to whatever fees they charge, and if they get in trouble, they're entitled to have the government rescue them," Miller said.

BofA received $45 billion in bailout money in 2008 and 2009, as did Citigroup Inc. (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/finance/citigroup-incorporated-ORCRP003330.topic), the most of any bank. BofA repaid the money in late 2009, and the government ended up making a $4.6-billion profit from dividend payments and stock warrants, according to the Treasury Department (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/economy/u.s.-department-of-the-treasury-ORGOV000051.topic).

But resentment remains.

"There's this overwhelming gut reaction to Bank of America putting in a $5 fee," Biden said this week, citing the bailout as a main reason. "At a minimum, they are incredibly tone-deaf.… And at a maximum, they are not paying their fair share of the bargain here."

Obama said the fee justified the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make sure customers are treated right. He said banks "don't have some inherent right just to, you know, get a certain amount of profit, if your customers are being mistreated."

Republicans pounced on that comment. They said government "price-fixing" of debit card swipe fees was the reason BofA had to institute the new charge.

"At the end of the day, it is the consumers who are going to be paying the price, and we are already seeing that play out," said Sen. Bob Corker (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/bob-corker-PEPLT007804.topic) (R-Tenn.).

But as for BofA, he quickly noted, "I am not here to defend them."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bofa-fees-20111008,0,198698.story

American Economists Share Nobel Prize

By CATHERINE RAMPELL (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/catherine_rampell/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: October 10, 2011

The Nobel in economic science was awarded Monday to Thomas J. Sargent at New York University and Christopher A. Sims at Princeton University for their research on the cause and effect of government policies on the broader economy, a major concern of countries still struggling to address the aftermath of the recent financial crisis.


Enlarge This Image
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/11/business/11nobel-inline/11nobel-inline-articleInline.jpg
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Nobel laureates Christopher A. Sims, left, a professor at Princeton University, and Thomas J. Sargent, a professor at New York University.

Back in the 1970s, Dr. Sargent and Dr. Sims were interested in figuring out how a new policy, like a tax cut or an interest rate hike, might affect the economy. But economists cannot run controlled experiments in real life to see what happens when a policy is executed and compare the results to when it is not. Instead, they have to study whatever history is available to them, with all the complicated conditions that happened to coincide with the policy change.
Dr. Sargent and Dr. Sims developed statistical methods to organize historical data and disentangle these many variables.
Their new methodologies are used to figure out whether a policy change that happened in the past affected the economy or whether it was made in anticipation of events that policymakers thought would happen later. The methods also help decipher how regular people’s expectations for government policies can affect their behavior.
“For both Sims and Sargent, their research is fundamental,” said Mark Watson, an economics professor at Princeton. “They figured out what it is you need to know to answer this cause and effect question, and then they developed methods for actually measuring the effects of causes.”
Dr. Sims said that his research was relevant for helping countries decide how to respond to the economic stagnation and decimated budgets left by the financial crisis.
“The methods that I’ve used and that Tom has developed are central for finding our way out of this mess,” he said. But asked for specific policy conclusions of his research, he responded, “If I had a simple answer, I would have been spreading it around the world.”
Dr. Sims, 68, who is president-elect of the American Economic Association, has primarily looked at temporary policy changes, such as a surprise in government finances or a change in interest rates. For example, his methods have been used to determine whether a central bank’s decision to raise rates affected inflation, or whether bank officials raised the interest rate precisely because they expected that inflation change later on.
His research that was honored on Monday developed a systematic method for distinguishing between unexpected shocks to the economy, such as a change in oil prices or government finances, and expected changes, the prize committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.
His methodology, developed in the 1970s, has been influential in subsequent decades among all flavors of economists. Research using his methodology, for example, has helped lend credence to New Keynesianism, the theory that says that an economy can go into recession (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) because there is not enough demand.
“The idea that there could be an aggregate demand failure is a very old idea, but it had been completely banished in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s,” said Lawrence Christiano, a professor at Northwestern University. “Really the center of gravity of macro was very much in places like Chicago and Minneapolis. That was bumped away in part by results of applying this new methodology, and Sims is the one who originated that.”
Dr. Sims’s work has also been the basis of important papers by Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and Olivier Blanchard, the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Dr. Sargent, on the other hand, focused on longer-run structural changes in the economy, such as setting a new inflation target. His research has analyzed historical data to better understand how these types of policy changes affect the economy over time. He has also conducted experiments in a sort of laboratory setting to examine how new policies might affect the economy.
Dr. Sargent’s body of work is somewhat eclectic. For example, he spent the early part of his career building up the “rational expectations theory (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RationalExpectations.html)” — the idea that people make choices based on what they rationally expect to happen, and so expectations can affect outcomes — and then spent subsequent decades critiquing it.

While the prize committee chiefly cited Dr. Sargent’s contributions to modeling and methodology, he has also done a number of influential empirical studies. He has studied historical episodes of hyperinflation, for example, and helped show how expectations for monetary policy can affect price changes.
“He looked at countries that were having inflation of hundreds of percent for months, like the European countries after world wars,” said Robert Lucas, a Nobel laureate and economics professor at the University of Chicago. “He wanted to know how you get out of inflation like that without causing a big recession. It’s a mix of economics and historical analysis.”
A more controversial line of Dr. Sargent’s research has examined how the generous welfare state in many European countries might be causing higher unemployment rates.
The two economists were awarded for work that they did independently of each other but that the prize committee said was complementary. They did collaborate once, in 1977, when they were colleagues at the University of Minnesota.
Their academic pedigrees have other similarities: Both received their Ph.D.s from Harvard University in 1968, and both spent time studying at the University of California at Berkeley before receiving their doctorates. Dr. Sargent received his bachelor’s from Berkeley, and Dr. Sims did post-graduate work at Berkeley after receiving a bachelor’s from Harvard College.
Coincidentally, the two winners are jointly teaching a graduate course in macroeconomics at Princeton this semester.
The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not one of the original Nobel prizes (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/nobel_prizes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). It was created in 1968 and is awarded annually “according to the same principles as for the Nobel Prizes,” first begun in 1901.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/business/american-economists-share-nobel-prize.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Delay of NYC park cleanup heartens protesters

October 15, 2011
Print by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)

by COLLEEN LONG & KAREN MATTHEWS
The Associated Press
NEW YORK

The owners of a New York plaza where protesters have camped out for a month decided Friday to put off cleaning it, sending up cheers from demonstrators who feared the plan was merely a pretext to evict them and said the victory emboldened their movement.

Protesters were already scrambling to scrub the park where they’ve been sleeping and eating for weeks when, under pressure from local officials, the owners of the park decided to call off their own cleanup.
“It’s really a victory for freedom of speech and for democracy,” said Liane Nikitovich, 44, a fitness instructor. “This is one moment. It shows that our support is growing worldwide.”

In an emailed statement, Brookfield said Friday that it had deferred cleaning the park for a short period while it negotiates with protesters.
“At the request of a number of local political leaders, Brookfield Properties has deferred the cleaning of Zuccotti Park for a short period of time while an attempt is made to reach a resolution regarding the manner in which Zuccotti Park is being used by the protesters,” the company said.

The protesters declared their decision a boon to their movement, which blames Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown. Since starting a month ago in New York, the movement has spread to cities across the U.S. and the world.
“This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street,” New York organizers said in a statement.

In Denver early Friday, police in riot gear herded hundreds of protesters away from the Colorado state Capitol, arresting about two dozen and dismantling their encampment. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment near a war memorial.
New York police arrested 14 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street, and others who tuned over trash baskets, knocked over a police scooter and hurled bottles.
A few blocks south of the park, about two dozen demonstrators screamed “Pigs!” and hurled obscenities at a dozen officers in riot gear, who showed no visible reaction. The officers left the area, trailed by protesters with cameras.
Protesters have had some previous run-ins with police, including mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed.

Several protests are planned this weekend in the U.S., Canada and Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa, and the official capitulation in New York could buoy those events. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is on Brookfield’s board of directors, said his staff was under strict orders not to pressure the company one way or the other. He noted that the company can still go ahead with the cleanup at some point.
“My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying ... ‘We’re going to make your life more difficult,’” he said on his weekly radio show.
The company’s rules, which haven’t been enforced, have all along prohibited tarps, sleeping bags and storing personal property on the ground. Though the park is privately owned, it is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
Brookfield, a publicly traded real estate firm, had planned to power-wash the New York plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back — but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there. The company called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe. The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were broken. But the deputy mayor’s statement indicated that “for the time being” Brookfield was withdrawing its request for police assistance in cleaning the park.

A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been feared. Many protesters had said the only way they would leave was by force, and organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to “defend the occupation from eviction.”
Supporters including union members streamed into the plaza in the early morning darkness in a show of solidarity in a show several hundred strong. Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowd as the announcement of the cleaning postponement circulated, and a small group soon marched away with brooms, saying they were going to clean up Wall Street, a few blocks away.
Some protesters scrubbed the park’s marble and pavement with brooms and soapy water and picked up trash as others unfurled tarps on the rain-dampened concrete and ate potluck breakfast off paper plates. One man practiced his yoga sun salutation despite the dark clouds.
“I think it’s really a prophetic moment,” said Annie Gonzalez, a student at Union Theological Seminary who wore a sign identifying her as an Occupy Wall Street chaplain. She likened the protesters to “the prophets of the Old Testament, crying out that there’s no justice.”

The demand that protesters clear out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a reference to the protests in a speech Friday at The Economic Club of New York.
“The protests happening just a few miles from here ought to be reminder to all of us that we have a great deal of work to do to live up to the expectations of the American people,” she said.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — wrote a letter to Brookfield saying the company’s request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatened “fundamental constitutional rights.”

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Occupy Wall Street reaches 1-month birthday

October 18, 2011
Print by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)
by VERENA DOBNIK
The Associated Press

NEW YORK
The month-old Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, with nearly $300,000 in the bank and participants finding satisfaction in the widening impact they hope will counter the influence on society by those who hold the purse strings of the world’s economies.
The expanding occupation of land once limited to a small Manhattan park in the shadow of the rising World Trade Center complex continued through the weekend, with hundreds of thousands of people rallying around the world and numerous encampments springing up in cities large and small.
For the most part, the protest action remained loosely organized and there were no specific demands, something Legba Carrefour, a participant in the Occupy D.C. protest, found comforting on Sunday.
“When movements come up with specific demands, they cease to be movements and transform into political campaign rallies,” said Carrefour, who works as a coat check attendant despite holding a master’s degree in cultural studies. “It’s compelling a lot of people to come out for their own reasons rather than the reasons that someone else has given to them.”
The demonstrations worldwide have emboldened those camped out at Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, the epicenter of the movement that began a month ago Monday. But there is conflict too. Some protesters eventually want the movement to rally around a goal, while others insist that isn’t the point.
“We’re moving fast, without a hierarchical structure and lots of gears turning,” said Justin Strekal, a college student and political organizer who traveled from Cleveland to New York to help. “... Egos are clashing, but this is participatory democracy in a little park.”
Even if the protesters were barred from camping in Zuccotti Park, as the property owner and the city briefly threatened to do last week, the movement would continue, Strekal said.
Wall Street protesters are intent on building on momentum gained from Saturday’s worldwide demonstrations, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in the U.S. and Europe.
Nearly $300,000 in cash has been donated through the movement’s website and by visitors to the park, said Bill Dobbs, a press liaison for Occupy Wall Street. The movement has an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as “the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States.”
The movement has become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race and beyond, with politicians from both parties under pressure to weigh in.
President Barack Obama referred to the protests at Sunday’s dedication of a monument for Martin Luther King Jr., saying the civil rights leader “would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there.”
Many of the largest of Saturday’s protests were in Europe, where those involved in long-running demonstrations against austerity measures declared common cause with the Occupy Wall Street movement. In Rome, hundreds of rioters infiltrated a march by tens of thousands of demonstrators, causing what the mayor estimated was at least €1 million ($1.4 million) in damage to city property.
U.S. cities large and small were “occupied” over the weekend: Washington, D.C., Fairbanks, Alaska, Burlington, Vt., Rapid City, S.D., and Cheyenne, Wyo. were just a few. In Cincinnati, protesters were even invited to take pictures with a couple getting married; the bride and groom are Occupied Cincinnati supporters.
Activists around the country said Saturday’s protests energized their movement.

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Social Security recipients to get 3.6% COLA

By : The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — Some 55 million Social Security recipients will get a 3.6 percent increase in benefits next year, their first raise since 2009, the government announced Wednesday.The increase, which starts in January, is tied to a measure of inflation released Wednesday morning.
About 8 million people who receive Supplemental Security Income will also receive the 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, meaning the announcement will affect about one in five U.S. residents.
There was no COLA in 2010 or 2011 because inflation was too low. Those were the first two years without a COLA since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.
Monthly Social Security payments average $1,082, or about $13,000 a year. A 3.6 percent increase will amount to about $39 a month, or just over $467 a year, on average.
Advocates for seniors said the raise will provide a much-needed boost to the millions of retirees and disabled people who have seen retirement accounts dwindle and home values drop during the economic downturn. Economists say the increase should provide a modest boost to consumer spending, which should help the economy.
Still, many seniors feel like they have been falling behind.
Nancy Altman, co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, said she is pleased Social Security recipients will get a raise next year. But, she added, “The COLA is still not enough to keep up with health care costs.”
“Despite the absence of a Social Security COLA, over the last two years out-of-pocket health care costs rose 14.1 percent for seniors and people with disabilities, effectively reducing the value of Social Security benefits,” Altman said.
Some of the increase in January will be lost to higher Medicare premiums, which are deducted from Social Security payments. Medicare Part B premiums for 2012 are expected to be announced next week, and the trustees who oversee the program are projecting an increase.
Most retirees rely on Social Security for a majority of their income, according to the Social Security Administration. Many rely on it for more than 90 percent of their income.
“For people at that income level every dollar makes a difference, particularly coming in this economic downtown,” said David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP. “None of them feel as if their cost of living was not increasing in the last couple of years.”
Federal law requires the program to base annual payment increases on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). Officials compare inflation in the third quarter of each year — the months of July, August and September — with the same months in the previous year.
If consumer prices increase from year to year, Social Security recipients automatically get higher payments, starting the following January. If price changes are negative, the payments stay unchanged.
Social Security payments increased by 5.8 percent in 2009, the largest increase in 27 years, after energy prices spiked in 2008. But energy prices quickly dropped and home prices became soft in markets across the country, contributing to lower inflation in the past two years.
As a result, Social Security recipients got an increase that was far larger than actual overall inflation. However, they can’t get another increase until consumer prices exceed the levels measured in 2008. Wednesday’s announcement shows that prices have exceeded those measured in 2008, said Polina Vlasenko, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, based in Great Barrington, Mass.


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Analysis: Parts of the jobs bill will pass

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Congress will almost certainly approve the parts of President Barack Obama’s jobs bill that extend the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits. But his calls for new spending and a surtax on millionaires seem doomed. It’s a legislative reality largely missing in the furious political debate now unfolding along all-or-nothing lines, in which Obama tries to assign Republicans part of the blame for a dismayingly weak economy while the GOP tries to avoid it.
“Last week, all the Republicans in the Senate got together and blocked the jobs bill,” the president said this week after his bus rolled, campaign-style, into Millers Creek, N.C. “They refused to even debate it.”
He cited a poll that said about 63 percent of Americans “support the ideas in this jobs bill,” then he asked, “So why is it that 100 percent of Republicans in the Senate voted against it?” He added, “It doesn’t make any sense.”
The morning after, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell rebutted.
“He’s trying to change the topic,” the Kentucky senator said of Obama. “He wants to deflect attention from that 1.5 million job loss” since he took office. “For two years, the president got everything he wanted from the Democrats in Congress,” McConnell added.
In the political argument, both sides play loose with the facts.
Despite Obama’s rhetoric, it was Senate Democrats who forced a rewrite of the jobs bill last week. And even now, it’s unlikely he has enough support within his own party to assure a majority.
And despite McConnell’s claim, Obama settled for less than he wanted from Congress in an economic stimulus bill early in 2009, agreeing to a concession in exchange for Republican votes critical to passage.
Political debate aside, significant parts of the legislation seem on track to pass by year’s end, when payroll tax cuts enacted a year ago and unemployment benefits are scheduled to expire.
The proposed renewal of the payroll tax cut, at $179 billion over a decade, is the largest single item in the legislation and has drawn no significant opposition from Republicans.
A proposal to give employers a break on payroll taxes, a $69 billion provision, could pass, as well.
An extension of unemployment insurance, likely to pass, carries a price tag of $48.5 billion.
Far less likely to become law, given Republican opposition, are the president’s requests for $50 billion over a decade for transportation projects, $35 billion to help the states hire teachers and first responders, $30 billion for school modernization and $15 billion for a neighborhood stabilization fund.
Nor do Republicans show any interest in accepting the millionaires’ surtax that would pay the entire cost of the measure.
The parts that draw bipartisan support and the parts that do not all generate significant support in public opinion polls. That explains why Democrats maneuver constantly to force Republicans to vote on them, requiring them to choose between what is politically popular on the one hand, and their aversion to tax increases and higher federal spending on the other.
As an example, 75 percent of the public support the use of federal funds to let states hire teachers and first responders, according to a CNN/ORC survey released Tuesday and cited instantly by Democrats.
Yet there is ample polling that shows the country is suspicious of more spending and larger government. In the survey that Democrats cited, a 59-36 majority said the president’s policies are more likely to fail than to succeed.
While the legislative maneuvering grinds on, Obama travels widely, sometimes aboard Air Force One and occasionally along roads that lead to towns rarely visited by presidents.
With the exception of Texas, his itinerary consists of states he won in 2008. In all cases, unemployment is higher than when he took office.
North Carolina, where the president spoke on Monday, had joblessness of 10.4 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 9.7 percent in January 2009.
Virginia, where the president had two speeches on Tuesday, had unemployment of 6 percent when Obama took office, 6.3 percent in August.
The other states include Pennsylvania: unemployment at 7 percent in January, 2009 but 8.2 percent now. Ohio: 8.8 percent then, 9.1 percent now. Colorado, 6.6 percent then, 8.5 percent now; Washington, 7.8 percent then, 9.3 percent now; California 10.1 percent then, 12.1 percent now and Florida, 8.6 percent then and 10.7 percent now.
Confronting numbers like that, Obama on Tuesday offered what he called a comparison.
Republicans, he said, “want to gut environmental regulations. They want to roll back Wall Street reform so that we end up with the same financial system we had that got us into this mess in the first place. And they want to repeal health care reform so that 30 million people won’t have health insurance.
“That is what they call their ‘Real American Jobs Act.’ It’s inspiring stuff,” he taunted.
Not at all, of course, which is why McConnell insisted otherwise.
“The president I think has become convinced that the economy is not likely to be much better a year from now. So he has started the campaign 13 months early, and he’s trying to convince the American people that it’s anybody else’s fault but his.”


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Leading indicators edge up in September

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A gauge of future economic activity edged up in September, signaling modest economic growth in coming months.The Conference Board says its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.2 percent in September. It was the fifth consecutive gain but was weaker than increases of 0.3 percent in August and 0.6 percent in July.
The increase reflected that five of the 10 indicators that make up the index showed gains in September.


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Poll: Hope weak for economy, Obama remedies

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A new AP-GfK poll shows that the dark funk that appeared to settle over the country this summer has eased slightly, but the American public remains gloomy about the economy and more than half say President Barack Obama does not inspire confidence in a recovery. The pessimism is not a good sign for the nation's recovery hopes and presents a more urgent challenge for Obama as he mounts his re-election bid.
Fewer than a quarter of those surveyed say they think the economy worsened in the past month. That's down sharply from the nearly half who felt that way in August. Only 41 percent say the government can do much to create jobs, and less than 40 percent say the main elements of Obama's jobs proposal would increase employment significantly.


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Poll: More than one-third back protests

By CB Online Staff
cbnews@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

WASHINGTON — More than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protests, and even more — 58 percent — say they are furious about America's politics.The number of angry people is growing as deep reservoirs of resentment grip the country, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll.
Some 37 percent of people back the protests that have spread from New York to cities across the country and abroad, one of the first snapshots of how the public views the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. A majority of those protest supporters are Democrats, but the anger about politics in general is much more widespread, the poll indicates.
"They've got reasons to be upset, they've got reasons to protest, but they're protesting against the wrong people," Jan Jarrell, 54, a retired school custodian from Leesville, S.C., says of the New York demonstrators. "They need to go to Washington, to Congress and the White House. They're the ones coming up with all the rules."
"Occupy Wall Street" has been called the liberal counterpoint to conservative-libertarian tea party, which injected a huge dose of enthusiasm into the Republican Party and helped it win the House and make gains in the Senate last fall.
While the troubled economy is at the root of anger at both government and business leaders, there's a key difference. Tea party activists generally argue that government is the problem, and they advocate for free markets. The Wall Street protesters generally say that government can provide some solutions and the free market has run amok.
Of the Americans who support the Wall Street protests, 64 percent in the poll are Democrats, while 22 percent are independents and just 14 percent are Republicans. The protest backers are more likely to approve of President Barack Obama and more likely to disapprove of Congress than are people who don't support the demonstrations.
More generally, many more Americans -- 58 percent -- say they are furious about the country's politics than did in January, when 49 percent said they felt that way. What's more, nearly nine in 10 say they are frustrated with politics and nearly the same say they are disappointed, findings that suggest people are deeply resentful of the political bickering over such basic government responsibilities as passing a federal budget and raising the nation's debt limit.
This wrath spreads across political lines, with about six in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents saying politics makes them angry.
Fewer are hopeful about politics than when the year began, 47 percent down from 60 percent. Only 17 percent of respondents say they feel proud or inspired.
Since January, Congress and the White House have engaged in repeated standoffs over federal spending and the size of government as the economy has struggled to recover from recession.
In the past month, fury over all that has spilled into New York's financial district, and groups of mostly young people have camped out in a park.
The protesters cite the economic crisis as a key reason for their unhappiness. The unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent nationally. Many homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. Foreclosures are rampant. And many young people -- the key demographic of the protesters -- can't find jobs or live on their own.
Alexandria, Va., resident Alice Dunlap said she was stunned at a 2009 family reunion to find that more than half of her four children and their spouses were out of work.
"They all have college educations, and some have advanced degrees, and they're unemployed?" says Dunlap, 62, a retired speech language pathologist. She supports the protests because, she says, anger lingers at those who profited while the nation's economy tanked.
"We all got ripped off by Wall Street, and we continue to be ripped off by Wall Street," she says. "You can look at my portfolio, if you like."
The poll found that most protest supporters do not blame Obama for the economic crisis. Sixty-eight percent say former President George W. Bush deserves "almost all" or "a lot but not all" of the blame. Just 15 percent say Obama deserves that much blame. Nearly six in 10 protest supporters blame Republicans in Congress for the nation's economic problems, and 21 percent blame congressional Democrats.
Six in 10 protest supporters trust Democrats more than Republicans to create jobs.
Most people who support the protests -- like most people who don't -- actually report good financial situations in their own households.
Still, protest supporters express more intense concern than non-supporters about unemployment at the moment and rising consumer prices in the coming year.
Norton Shores, Mich., retiree Patsy Ellerbroek, 65, is among those who have little empathy for the Wall Street protesters.
"Everybody ought to own their own business before they start complaining," Ellerbroek says.
Eight years ago, she and her husband sold "The Fun Spot," a roller rink they owned for three decades. Now she's a member of neither political party, and she gets frustrated when she sees politicians like the Republican candidates for president being disrespectful. Or Obama "flying around the county on our taxpayer dollars, politicking."
"With all the politicians, it's like, the heck with the people who put them there. We need another Mr. Smith goes to Washington," she said.
The poll was conducted Oct. 13-17, 2011, by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The poll included 384 respondents who said they were supporters of the Wall Street protests. Among that group, the error margin was 6.5 points.


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Obama taking on student loan relief

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is outlining a plan Wednesday to allow millions of student loan recipients to lower their payments and consolidate their loans, in hopes of easing the burden of the No. 2 source of household debt. The move to assist struggling graduates and students could help Obama shore up re-election support among young voters, an important voting bloc in his 2008 campaign, and appeal to their parents, too. Student loan debt also is a common concern among Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The loans have become particularly painful for many amid the nation's economic woes, high unemployment and soaring tuition costs. They are second only to mortgages as a portion of Americans' debt, coming in ahead of credit cards.
Obama's planned announcement in Denver comes the same day as a new report on tuition costs from the College Board. It shows average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose $631 this fall, or 8.3 percent, compared with a year ago. Nationally, the cost of a full credit load has passed $8,000, an all-time high.
The White House said Obama will use his executive authority to provide student loan relief in two ways.
First, he will accelerate a measure passed by Congress that reduces the maximum required payment on student loans from 15 percent of discretionary income annually to 10 percent. The White House wants it to go into effect in 2012, instead of 2014. In addition, the White House says the remaining debt would be forgiven after 20 years, instead of 25. About 1.6 million borrowers could be affected.
Second, he will allow borrowers who have a loan from the Federal Family Education Loan Program and a direct loan from the government to consolidate them into one loan. The consolidated loan would carry an interest rate of up to a half percentage point less than before. This could affect 5.8 million more borrowers.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters on a conference call that the changes could save some borrowers hundreds of dollars a month.
"These are real savings that will help these graduates get started in their careers and help them make ends meet," Duncan said.
The White House said the changes will carry no additional costs to taxpayers.
Last year, Congress passed a law that lowered the repayment cap and moved all student loans to direct lending by eliminating banks as the middlemen. Before that, borrowers could get loans directly from the government or from the Federal Family Education Loan Program; the latter were issued by private lenders but basically insured by the government. The law was passed along with the health care overhaul with the anticipation that it could save about $60 billion over a decade.
The law change was opposed by many Republicans. At a hearing Tuesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who chairs a subcommittee with oversight over higher education, said it had resulted in poorer customer service for borrowers. And Senate Republicans issued a news release with a compilation of headlines that showed thousands of workers in student lending, including those form Sallie Mae Inc., had been laid off because of the change.
Today, there are 23 million borrowers with $490 billion in loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Last year, the Education Department made $102.2 billion in direct loans to 11.5 million recipients.
Increases in federal aid have helped ease the burden on students dealing with tuition increases, the White House Council of Economic Advisers said in a report Wednesday.
"Despite large increases in the published price of college over the past four years, the average student has not seen commensurate increases in the net price of college, defined as the published price minus grants, scholarships and tax benefits," the report said.
Meanwhile, the Education Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a project Tuesday to simplify the financial aid award letters that colleges mail to students each spring. A common complaint is that colleges obscure the inclusion of student loans in financial aid packages to make their school appear more affordable, and the agencies hope families will more easily be able to compare the costs of colleges.
Separately, James Runcie, the Education Department's federal student aid chief operating officer, told Foxx's congressional panel that the personal financial details of as many 5,000 college students were temporarily viewable on the department's direct loan website earlier this month.
Runcie said site was shut down while the matter was resolved, and the affected students have been notified and offered credit monitoring.


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US economy grew 2.5% in Q3 as consumers rebound

By : The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — A summer of modest economic growth is helping dispel lingering fears that another recession might be near. Whether the strength can be sustained, though, is far from clear. Buoyed by a resurgent consumer and strong business investment, the economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the July-September quarter, the government said Thursday.
The expansion, the strongest quarterly growth in a year, came as a relief after anemic growth in the first half of the year and weeks of wild stock market shifts.
The economy must grow at nearly double the third-quarter pace to lower high unemployment, which has been near 9 percent for the more than two years since the recession officially ended.
And though consumer spending was triple the level of the second quarter, Americans earned less, on an inflation-adjusted basis, in the July-September period. That meant that many people financed their spending binges by cutting back on savings. Few economists think that can continue.
Economists believe that growth in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity, will be restrained until incomes start growing at healthier levels. That is unlikely until hiring picks up.
Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics, predicts that growth will cool off in the fourth quarter and next year.
Nonetheless, the report on U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, sketched a more optimistic picture for an economy that only two months ago seemed destined for another recession.
And it was delivered on the same day that European leaders announced a deal in which banks would take 50 percent losses on Greek debt and raise new capital to protect against defaults on sovereign debt.
Stocks surged on the European deal and maintained their gains after the report on U.S. growth was released.
“This has been a morning of encouraging news,” said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist for BMO Capital Markets. “The fourth quarter may see some pullback in U.S. economic growth ... but the positive details underlying the GDP report should help ease fears of a U.S. recession..somewhat.”
Consumers helped drive much of the growth. They spent at an annual rate of 2.4 percent. Many bought more furniture and clothing.
And spending on services rose 3 percent, the most in more than five years. Much of the gain was due to consumers paying more for health care and to cool their homes during an unseasonably hot summer.
Still, after-tax incomes adjusted for inflation fell at a rate of 1.7 percent in the summer. It was the biggest decline since the third quarter of 2009 — just as the recession was ending.
Businesses also helped boost third-quarter growth by stepping up their investment in equipment and software. That category surged 17.4 percent — nearly three times the rate from spring. They also invested more in building, a sign that some businesses could be expanding despite the sluggish economy.
The GDP report measures the country’s total output of goods and services. It covers everything from bicycles to battleships, as well as services such as haircuts and doctor’s visits.
In August, many feared the economy was destined for another recession after the government said growth fell to less than 1 percent for the first six months of the year.
High gas prices, the growing debt crisis in Europe and wild fluctuations in the stock market also contributed to those fears, which have receded in recent weeks after reports showed improvements in hiring and consumer spending.
Economists project an annual growth rate of 2.5 percent to 3 percent for the October-December quarter and for all of next year — just enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising.
For the 14 million people who are out of work and want jobs, that’s discouraging news. And it’s an ominous sign for President Barack Obama, who will be facing voters next fall.
There have been some encouraging signs.
A measure of business investment plans rose in September for the second straight month and by the most in six months, according to a government report Wednesday on orders for longer-lasting manufactured goods.
And consumers stepped up their spending on retail goods in both July and September. The main reason for the September gain was more people bought new cars, a purchase people typically make when they are confident in their finances.
Economists warned that even their modest assessment of growth of around 2.7 percent for next year will fall short if the European debt crisis isn’t resolved. And the outlook could dim further if U.S. lawmakers allow a Social Security tax cut and extended unemployment benefits to expire at the end of this year.


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Wall Street protesters prepare for winter weather

By : The Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Wall Street protesters around the country who are vowing to stand their ground against the police and politicians are also digging in against a different kind of adversary: cold weather. With the temperature dropping, they are stockpiling donated coats, blankets and scarves, trying to secure cots and military-grade tents, and getting survival tips from the homeless people who have joined their encampments.
"Everyone's been calling it our Valley Forge moment," said Michael McCarthy, a former Navy medic in Providence. "Everybody thought that George Washington couldn't possibly survive in the Northeast."
More than a month and a half into the movement, Occupy Wall Street activists from New York to Colorado have pledged to tough out the snow, sleet and cold as they protest economic inequality and what they call corporate greed.
But the dangers of staying outdoors in some of the country's harsher climes are already becoming apparent: In Denver, two protesters were hospitalized with hypothermia this week during a storm that brought several inches of snow.
The activists also know full well that the number of demonstrators is likely to drop as the weather gets colder.
Some movements are scouting locations indoors, including vacant buildings or other unused properties, possibly even foreclosed homes, though some question the wisdom of holding a protest outside the public eye.
Lighting campfires is probably out of the question in most places because of safety regulations.
Boston's Occupy movement, which has roughly 300 overnight participants and could face some of the most brutal weather of any city with a major encampment, has set up a winterization committee that will try to obtain super-insulated sleeping bags and other winter survival gear. Activists from the movement's flagship encampment, consisting of hundreds of people in New York City's Zuccotti Park, are sorting through packages arriving daily that include coats and jackets.
In Providence, where city officials are threatening to go to court to evict hundreds of campers from a park across from City Hall, a core group said it will remain through the winter months — if not there, somewhere else. Rhode Island's capital has an average low temperature in the 20s from December through February and recorded nearly 3½ feet of snow last year. Many of the more than 100 tents are not built to withstand harsh conditions.
Temperatures were expected to drop into the 30s across much of the Northeast by Friday morning, and forecasters said snow is possible in some places over the weekend. Boston got its first dusting late Thursday night.
In Denver, as protesters prepared for this week's snow, a few dozen sympathizers stopped by to drop off blankets, gloves, chili and hot chocolate. Police refused to let activists erect a tent. That left some sleeping on the wet ground, covered by snowy tarps.
"I welcome the challenge of this cold weather," said Dwayne Hudson, a landscaper who has been living at the Occupy Denver site for nearly two weeks. "This is like war. You know, soldiers do it when they occupy a place. I'm sure the mountains of Afghanistan get pretty cold."
But after the first snowfall, he admitted: "It's getting tough."
Eric Martin, who is on Occupy Boston's winterization committee, said the group had raised about $35,000, which could help buy winter supplies. Various ideas are being discussed to keep tents warm without using combustion-based heaters, which are forbidden. Another proposal: igloos.
"We're looking at ideas from military vets to survivalists, to the homeless community to indigenous peoples," Martin said.
Activists in Philadelphia are also researching sturdier, warmer structures that could replace the 300 to 400 tents set up on the concrete plaza surrounding City Hall.
Chris Goldstein of Riverside, N.J., owns one of the tents, though he sometimes sleeps at home. He learned the hard way during the first rainfall that the site has poor drainage: "I occupied a puddle." The self-employed writer and activist put pallets under the tent to lift it off the ground, and outfitted it with small carpets for insulation.
In the meantime, he and other activists have access to a Quaker community center two blocks away where they can shower and thaw out in common rooms.
In Chicago, where winters are famously bitter, protesters living in Grant Park are working to secure several indoor locations to get them through to spring. A church nearby is letting some demonstrators sleep overnight. Activists in Portland, Ore., likewise said that moving the protest inside is the only realistic option.
Patricia Phelan and her fiancee, Savanah Kite, have been camping in the Providence park in a $20 tent from Walmart. As temperatures dipped into the 40s in the morning this week and people could see their breath, they hadn't yet employed their hand warmers or a down comforter Phelan had in the car just in case.
Their plan is to add layers as necessary.
The trick will be keeping morale up, Phelan said, "and not letting the climate get to us."


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=63974&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

USDA: $405K for housing upgrades

By CB Online Staff
cbnews@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded a total of $405,000 in grants to five Puerto Rico municipalities to make critical repairs and improve housing conditions for low- and very-low-income rural residents. The funding announced for recipients in all 50 states and Puerto Rico is being provided through USDA Rural Development’s Housing Preservation Grants program. Funds are provided to intermediaries such as town or county governments, public agencies, federally recognized Indian Tribes, and nonprofit and faith-based and community organizations. These organizations then distribute the grants to homeowners and owners of multi-family rental properties or cooperative dwellings who rent to low- and very-low-income residents.
The following Puerto Rican towns were awarded grants: Moca ($45,312) Manatí ($90,000), Jayuya ($90,000), Canóvanas ($90,000) and Barceloneta ($90,000).
“Providing safe housing to rural residents is a key to maintaining stable communities and creating jobs,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. “Across America, USDA works in partnership with Tribes, community organizations and nonprofit groups to improve living conditions for thousands of rural residents.”
Grants may be used to make general repairs, such as installing or improving plumbing or providing or enhancing access to people with disabilities. Funds may also be used to weatherize and make homes more energy efficient.



http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=63998&ct_id=1

3M powerless as October snow surprises Northeast

By : The Associated Press

SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. — When winter's white mixes with autumn's orange and gold, nature gets ugly.A freak October nor'easter knocked out power to more than 3 million homes and businesses across the Northeast on Sunday in large part because leaves still on the trees caught more snow, overloading branches that snapped and wreaked havoc. Close to 2 feet of snow fell in some areas over the weekend, and it was particularly wet and heavy, making the storm even more damaging.
"You just have absolute tree carnage with this heavy snow just straining the branches," said National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro.
From Maryland to Maine, officials said it would take days to restore electricity, even though the snow ended Sunday.
The storm smashed record snowfall totals for October and worsened as it moved north. Communities in western Massachusetts were among the hardest hit. Snowfall totals topped 27 inches in Plainfield, and nearby Windsor had gotten 26 inches by early Sunday. It was blamed for at least three deaths, and states of emergency were declared in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of New York.
Roads, rails and airline flights were knocked out, and passengers on a JetBlue flight were stuck on a plane in Hartford, Conn., for more than seven hours. And while children across the region were thrilled to see snow so early, it also complicated many of their Halloween plans.
Sharon Martovich of Southbury, Conn., said she hoped the power will come back on in time for her husband's Halloween tradition of playing "Young Frankenstein" on a giant screen in front of their house. But no matter what, she said, they will make sure the eight or so children who live in the neighborhood don't miss out on trick-or-treating.
"Either way we will get the giant flashlights and we will go," she said.
More than 800,000 power customers were without electricity in Connecticut alone — shattering the record set just two months ago by Hurricane Irene. Massachusetts and New Jersey had more than 600,000 outages each, and parts of Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Maryland and Vermont also were without power.
"It's going to be a more difficult situation than we experienced in Irene," Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said. "We are expecting extensive and long-term power outages."
Thirty-two shelters were open around the state, and Malloy asked volunteer fire departments to allow people in for warmth and showers. At least four hospitals were relying on generators for power.
Around Newtown in western Connecticut, trees were so laden with snow on some back roads that the branches touched the street. Every few minutes, a snap filled the air as one broke and tumbled down. Roads that were plowed became impassible because the trees were falling so fast.
One of the few businesses open in the area was a Big Y grocery store that had a generator. Customers loaded up on supplies, heard news updates over the intercom, charged up their cell phones, and waited for a suddenly hard-to-get cup of coffee — in a line that was 30 people deep and growing.
Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey's Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.
"I'm starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we've been getting spanked by her for about a year now," he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store.
It wasn't just the trees that weren't fully ready for a wintry wallop.
Kerry McNiven said she was "totally unprepared" for the storm that knocked out her water and power and sent tree limbs crashing into her Simsbury, Conn., home. She was buying disposable plates and cups in a darkened supermarket, a setting that she said resembled "one of those post-apocalyptic TV shows."
"They didn't hype this one as much" and Irene, she said. "I didn't think it was going to be as bad."
In Concord, N.H., Dave Whitcher's company had yet to prep its sanding equipment before the storm dropped nearly 2 feet of snow. His crews were plowing and shoveling parking lots Sunday, and would be back Monday to salt sidewalks and walkways.
"It was a bit of a surprise, the amount and how heavy it was. We should've probably come out and got a little earlier start, but we did all right," Whitcher said. He held up his shovel and added, "Me and this guy are going to get to know each other real well today."
Vaccaro, the weather service spokesman, said the snowstorm "absolutely crushed previous records that in some cases dated back more than 100 years." Saturday was only the fourth snowy October day in New York's Central Park since record-keeping began 135 years ago.
There usually isn't enough cold air in the region to support a nor'easter this time of year, but an area of high pressure over southeastern Canada funneled cold air south into the U.S., Vaccaro said. That cold air combined with moisture coming from the North Carolina coast to produce the unseasonable weather.
Though the fact that leaves were still on the trees worsened storm damage inland, the nor'easter did less damage in coastal areas than it would have in winter because warm ocean temperatures limited snowfall, Vaccaro said.
A few businesses enjoyed the early snow: Ski resorts in Vermont and Maine opened early. But it was more commonly an aggravation.
Many residents were urged to avoid travel altogether. Speed limits were reduced on bridges between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A few roads closed because of accidents and downed trees and power lines, said Sean Brown, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The JetBlue passengers stranded at Hartford's Bradley International Airport were on a flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Newark, N.J., that had been diverted. Passenger Andrew Carter, a football reporter for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, said the plane ran out of snacks and bottled water, and the toilets backed up.
JetBlue spokeswoman Victoria Lucia said power outages at the airport has made it difficult to get passengers off the plane, and added that the passengers would be reimbursed.
In 2007, passengers in JetBlue planes were stranded for nearly 11 hours at New York's Kennedy Airport following snow and ice storms.
There were other flight delays in the region over the weekend, and commuter trains in Connecticut and New York were delayed or suspended because of downed trees and signal problems. Amtrak suspended service on several Northeast routes, and one train from Chicago to Boston got stuck overnight in Palmer, Mass. The 48 passengers had food and heat, a spokeswoman said, and they were taken by bus Sunday to their destinations.
In southeastern Pennsylvania, an 84-year-old man was killed when a snow-laden tree fell on his home while he was napping in his recliner. In Connecticut, the governor said one person died in a Colchester traffic (http://g.ajc.com/r/GT/) accident that he blamed on slippery conditions.
And a 20-year-old man in Springfield, Mass., stopped when he saw police and firefighters examining downed wires and stepped in the wrong place and was electrocuted, Capt. William Collins said.
The snow was a bone-chilling slush in New York City, and was a taste of what's to come for demonstrators camping out at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for the Occupy Wall Street protest.
Nick Lemmin, of Brooklyn, spent his first night at Zuccotti in a sleeping bag in a tent, wearing thermals, a sweatshirt and a scarf.
"I slept actually pretty well," he said. "It was pretty quiet."
Lemmin said he thought the early snow was actually "a good test," giving protesters a chance to deal with such weather before it sets in more permanently.
The weather was too much for protester Adash Daniel, who had already been in the park for three weeks. "I'm not much good to this movement if I'm shivering," he said as he left.
The snow was relatively light in Manhattan, as it was farther north in Albany, where a couple of dirt- and leaf-caked snowmen stood about the protesters waving "We are the 99 percent" signs for passing cars.
In Concord, 9-year-old Nate Smith had more than enough snow to make a proper snowman with his brother, but he was worried about Halloween. He wasn't sure he'd be able to go trick-or-treating, and even if he did, his werewolf costume could end up looking a little different than he had imagined.
"I might have to put on snow pants," he said.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=64036&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Thanksgiving travel: Expect full flights

By : The Associated Press

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Passengers may have to compete with slightly fewer people getting to the airport this Thanksgiving, but flights will be as full as ever, airline industry officials said Thursday. The Air Transport Association’s annual Thanksgiving travel forecast predicts 37,000 fewer passengers per day — about a 2 percent drop — over the holiday period compared to last year.
But U.S. carriers have reduced capacity to match demand and offset higher costs, the association said. That means few empty seats.
About 23.2 million air travelers will fly on U.S. carriers’ domestic and international routes during a 12-day period surrounding the holiday, down from the 23.6 million people who flew over the Thanksgiving period in 2010, said the association, which represents leading carriers.
The busiest air-travel days for the period are expected to be Sunday, Nov. 27 and Monday, Nov. 28, followed by Friday, Nov. 18.
The 2011 forecast anticipates that total air travel volumes for the period will be 12 percent less than the peak volumes reached in the same period in 2006.
“While demand is down from last year and remains well below the 2006 peak, passengers still should expect full flights during the Thanksgiving holiday travel season as airlines have begun to reduce capacity and limit the number of seats available for sale due in part to rising cost pressures,” John Heimlich, the association’s chief economist, said. The cuts are expected to continue through the winter, he said.
A tally of publicly reporting U.S. passenger airlines shows a net income of $913 million for the first nine months of 2011, the association said. While operating revenues rose $11.7 billion, or 12.7 percent, operating expenses also rose $13.8 billion, or 16 percent. That reduced net income 66 percent from the same period in 2010, and resulted in a slender profit margin of .9 percent, the association said.
A key factor was a 38 percent rise in fuel costs during the period, Heimlich said.
“Higher costs have outpaced higher revenues thus far this year, and the industry’s razor-thin profit margin means that airlines are keeping less than one penny in profit for every dollar in revenue,” he said.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=64243&ct_id=1&ct_name=1

Police, Occupy protesters head for Oregon showdown

By : The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — Anti-Wall Street protesters and their supporters flooded a city park area in Portland early Sunday in defiance of an eviction order, and authorities elsewhere stepped up pressure against the demonstrators, arresting nearly two dozen.Crowds converged on two adjacent downtown Portland parks after city officials set a midnight Saturday deadline to disperse.
But nearly four hours later, the protesters were still there, backed by many supporters. Throngs spilled out into the streets adjacent to camp, tying up traffic.
At one point, protesters and their supporters swelled to thousands but those numbers started to thin in the early morning hours.
Organizers said they hope enough people will join them to make it difficult if not impossible for police to carry through on any eviction.
"Occupy the street," one organizer said through a bull horn. "Remain peaceful and aware. We have strength in holding the streets."
Some of the protesters referred to police in a chant: "Do not attack. We're not violent."
Clusters of police with nightsticks and helmets were on hand, including some on horseback, but they weren't taking any immediate action.
"We'll take action that's appropriate, when it's appropriate," police spokesman Lt. Robert King told The Associated Press.
"We are not going to engage in confrontation for a misdemeanor," he said, noting that is the legal violation for remaining in the park after midnight.
It appeared earlier that about 200 campers planned to get arrested. But police action seemed less likely after the crowds swelled the parks in the early morning hours.
In the hours leading up to midnight, protesters held general assembly meetings where they talked about what to do when the deadline came. The also repeated the main message of Occupy Wall Street movement and discussed demonstrations to come. They stressed that Occupy Portland would not cease if and when the downtown camp was cleared.
As those speeches were going on, the mood turned festive at times inside the encampment with people snacking on coffee and burritos as others sang protest song and beat drums.
On Saturday, Occupy Portland protesters dismantled large sections of their encampment, but dozens of tents remained after midnight.
Mayor Sam Adams ordered the camp shut down, citing unhealthy conditions and the encampment's attraction of drug users and thieves.
Demonstrators rallied Saturday evening as organizers said they hope radical elements don't use violence to overshadow the movement's message of peaceful resistance to income inequality and what they see as corporate greed.
But police prepared for a possible clash, warning that dozens of anarchists may be planning a confrontation with authorities. Officers seized pieces of cement blocks Friday, saying they were told some demonstrators had plans to use them as weapons against police. They said they believe some demonstrators are building shields and trying to collect gas masks.
For the second time in as many days, Oakland city officials warned protesters Saturday that they do not have the right to camp in the plaza in front of City Hall and face immediate arrest.
The eviction notices come as officials across the country urged an end to similar gatherings in the wake of three deaths in different cities, including two by gunfire.
Demands for Oakland protesters to pack up increased after a man was shot and killed Thursday near the encampment site.
"Your activities are injurious to health, obstruct the free use of property, interfering with the comfortable enjoyment of (Frank Ogawa Plaza), and unlawfully obstruct the free passage or use of a public park or square," the notice read.
Oakland officials first issued the eviction notice Friday after first pleading with protesters to leave the encampment.
Police officials have said a preliminary investigation suggested the shooting resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the encampment. Investigators do not know if the men in the fight were associated with Occupy Oakland, but protesters said there was no connection between the shooting and the camp.
The shooting occurred the same day a 35-year-old military veteran apparently committed suicide in a tent at a Burlington, Vt., Occupy encampment. Police said a preliminary investigation showed the veteran fatally shot himself in the head. They said the death raised questions about whether the protest would be allowed to continue.
In Salt Lake City, police arrested 19 people Saturday when protesters refused to leave a park a day after a man was found dead inside his tent at the encampment.
The arrests came after police moved into the park early in the evening where protesters had been ordered to leave by the end of the day. About 150 people had been living in the camp there for weeks.
Authorities in Denver forced protesters to leave a downtown encampment and arrested four people for interfering with officers who removed illegally pitched tents, said police spokesman Sonny Jackson.
Jackson said police had advised protesters since Wednesday that their tents in Civic Center Park and on a nearby sidewalk were illegal.
Violence marked the protest in San Francisco Saturday where police said two demonstrators attacked two police officers in separate incidents during a march.
Police spokesman Carlos Manfredi said a protester slashed an officer's hand with a pen knife while another protester shoved an officer, causing facial cuts. He said neither officer was seriously hurt, and the assailants couldn't be located.
Meanwhile, in Southern California a small group of protesters braved soggy weather on Saturday to gather for the first time under the banner of Occupy Inland Empire. Members of Occupy movements in Fontana, Redlands, Riverside, and other nearby towns marched past banks and in front of San Bernardino City Hall in what they called a "visibility action," The Sun newspaper reported.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=64674&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Shifting to College Campuses

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Rick Bowmer/Associated Press
Police officers in Portland, Ore., pushed people away from a park encampment on Sunday. The protesters were later driven out.

By MALIA WOLLAN and ELIZABETH A. HARRIS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/elizabeth_a_harris/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: November 13, 2011

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Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Students on Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley, on Thursday, a day after an encampment there was broken up.

As city officials around the country move to disband Occupy Wall Street (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/occupy_wall_street/index.html?inline=nyt-org) encampments amid growing concerns over health and public safety, protesters have begun to erect more tents on college campuses.
“We are trying to get mass numbers of students out,” said Natalia Abrams, 31, a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and an organizer with Occupy Colleges, a national group coordinating college-based protesters.
Though only a handful of colleges have encampments, tents went up last week at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and here at the University of California, Berkeley (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_california/index.html?inline=nyt-org). Additionally, protesters in California have vowed to occupy dozens of other campuses in the coming days.
Last Wednesday at Berkeley, about 3,000 people gathered on Sproul Plaza to protest tuition increases, and many then set up a camp. Demonstrators linked arms to protect their tents, but police officers broke through and took down more than a dozen tents, arresting about 40 protesters.
University officials said they had watched city governments struggle to deal with expanding campsites and decided to take a stricter line: no tents, no sleeping, period.
“The present struggles with entrenched encampments in Oakland, San Francisco and New York City led us to conclude that we must uphold our policy,” the university chancellor, Robert J. Birgeneau, said in a statement.
“Our experience with these encampments is that they are never temporary,” said Claire Holmes, a university spokeswoman. “We’ve had a long-term encampment at People’s Park for 43 years.”
Over the weekend, local governments across the country moved to keep Occupy protesters from establishing that sort of tenure.
In Salt Lake City, permits that allowed people associated with the movement to camp in a downtown park, Pioneer Park, were revoked on Friday after a man was found dead. Demonstrators were given about 24 hours to clear out, according to Lt. Scott White of the Salt Lake City Police Department, before the officers moved in on Saturday night to remove those who remained. The police said that 19 people had been arrested.
The same night, protesters in Denver were forced out of their encampment, the second park they have had to leave since demonstrations began. Seventeen people were arrested, the police said.
A police crackdown at Kiener Plaza in St. Louis ended with 27 arrests on Friday night, the local police said, and The Associated Press reported that 24 people were arrested in Albany on Saturday for remaining in a state-owned park past an 11 p.m. curfew.
But protesters in Oakland, Calif., managed to outlast a threat of eviction on Saturday, defying the city’s second demand in two days that they clear out. Those calls began after a man was shot near the protest area on Thursday. On Sunday, demonstrators received a third notice from the city demanding they stop camping in city parks.
The mood in Oakland has been tense and angry since Scott Olsen (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/veterans-injury-at-occupy-protest-prompts-outrage.html), 24, an Iraq war veteran, was critically injured at a protest in October. Friends confirmed Sunday that Mr. Olsen was released from the hospital last week. Dottie Guy of Iraq Veterans Against the War told The A.P. that he can now read and write, but that he still has trouble talking.
Demonstrators in Portland, Ore., staved off eviction on Saturday with the help of hundreds of supporters who poured into two city parks near each other, Lownsdale Square and Chapman Square, and a nearby street as a midnight eviction deadline passed. About 60 people on bicycles circled the area, while drumming, dancing and juggling lent a festive air.
On Sunday, however, The A.P. reported that the number of protesters there had thinned tremendously, and that police officers in riot gear had moved in to empty the parks, surrounding protesters and shoving some of them with nightsticks. At least one officer said through a loudspeaker that anyone who resisted arrest might be “subject to chemical agents and impact weapons,” The A.P. said.
By midafternoon, the area was cleared of protesters and fenced off, while crews cleaned up debris inside. The Portland Police Department’s spokesman said that more than a dozen had been arrested.



In Berkeley, the history of encampments stretches back to 1969, when student protesters seized a plot of university land now known as People’s Park. In the violent mayhem that followed, the police shot dozens of demonstrators, killing one man.

In the decades since, efforts by the university to develop or alter the park — now used mostly by the homeless — have met with protests.
Despite that combustible history, the zero-tent policy and the campus police’s apparent willingness to enforce it with batons (as they did Wednesday), the Berkeley protesters say camping is an integral part of their strategy.
Over the weekend, members of the protest group Occupy Cal gathered tents and tarps to rebuild their camp. They have called for a general strike and a mass camp-out at all 10 University of California campuses, 23 state university campuses and 112 community college campuses, starting Tuesday.
“Encampment is one of the most powerful forms of peaceful civil disobedience,” said Marco Amaral, 20, a third-year student majoring in political science and political economics who said he was involved in the protests in part because his parents lost their Las Vegas home to foreclosure.
On campuses elsewhere, officials have been more hospitable.
At Duke University in Durham, N.C., Shreyan Sen, 19, a senior physics major, pitched his tent on a university lawn more than two weeks ago. Between classes, Mr. Sen goes to the four-tent bivouac to run teach-ins. So far, campus administrators have been very accommodating, he said.
Campuses offer amenities not available to protesters inhabiting parks, like hot showers, indoor pools and cafeterias. “We have restrooms right here, so that’s not an issue,” Mr. Sen said.
The Harvard encampment, much like the university itself, is highly exclusive. After protesters set up about 30 tents in Harvard Yard last week, university officials closed the gates to the yard, allowing only students with IDs to enter.
“Securing access to the Yard is necessary for the safety of the freshmen and others who live and work there, for the students who will be sleeping outdoors as part of the protest, and for the overall campus,” the university’s provost, Alan M. Garber, said in a statement.
Harvard protesters set up their tent city a week after a student walkout of Economics 10, an undergraduate course taught by N. Gregory Mankiw (http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/mankiw), a professor and former economic adviser to President George W. Bush.
“We think that Harvard is complicit in propagating the ideology that made the current crisis possible,” said Amanda Haziz-Ginsburg, a camper who is a student at Harvard Divinity School.
Back in Berkeley, Mr. Amaral worried that Occupy Cal would have a hard time rounding up enough tents. “It’s a hard thing to donate your tent knowing the police are going to take it,” he said.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/us/occupy-wall-street-protests-shifting-to-college-campuses.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=us&src=me

Protesters and Officers Clash Near Wall Street and in Zuccotti Park

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/matt-flegenheimer/), COLIN MOYNIHAN (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/colin-moynihan/) and ROB HARRIS (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/author/rob-harris/)



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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

After attempting to reach the stock exchange, where they were met by police, Occupy Wall Street protesters moved to Zuccotti Park where they clashed again with officers.

Updated, 3:11 p.m. | Hundreds of protesters from Zuccotti Park marched on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning and were met by officers, many in helmets and wielding batons. At least 175 people were arrested, the police said.
The marchers then returned to the park, where they yanked out barricades that had been placed there on Tuesday in order to create single-file entrances. Officers could be seen shoving and hitting protesters and journalists. Later, an officer was cut in the hand with glass by a protester, and a protester was led away by the police with a bloodied head.
The protests were part of an Occupy Wall Street “Day of Action (http://occupywallst.org/action/november-17th/)” Thursday, the two-month anniversary of the movement. It is to include demonstrations at subway stations throughout the city at 3 p.m. and a gathering at Foley Square downtown at 5, followed by marches across Lower Manhattan bridges.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/protesters-and-officers-clash-near-wall-street/?ref=us

‘Al-Qaida sympathizer’ accused of NYC bomb plots; immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic

By : The Associated Press

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NEW YORK — An “al-Qaida sympathizer” accused of plotting to bomb police and post offices in New York City as well as U.S. troops returning home remained in police custody after an arraignment on numerous terrorism-related charges.Jose Pimentel of Manhattan was described by Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a Sunday news conference announcing Pimentel’s arrest as “a 27-year-old al-Qaida sympathizer” who was motivated by terrorist propaganda and resentment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said police had to move quickly to arrest Pimentel on Saturday because he was ready to carry out his plan.
“He was in fact putting this bomb together,” Kelly said. “He was drilling holes and it would have been not appropriate for us to let him walk out the door with that bomb.”
Ten years after 9/11, New York remains a prime terrorism target. Bloomberg said at least 14 terrorist plots, including the latest alleged scheme, have targeted the city since the Sept. 11 attacks. No attack has been successful, however. Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad is serving a life sentence for trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010.
Kelly said Sunday that Pimentel was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida’s U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
“He decided to build the bomb August of this year, but clearly he jacked up his speed after the elimination of al-Awlaki,” Kelly said.
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Unemployed, originally from the Dominican Republic, Pimentel was “plotting to bomb police patrol cars and also postal facilities as well as targeted members of our armed services returning from abroad,” Bloomberg said.
He also talked of bombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., Kelly said.
New York police had him under surveillance for at least a year and were working with a confidential informant; no injury to anyone or damage to property is alleged, Kelly said. In addition, authorities have no evidence that Pimentel was working with anyone else, the mayor said.
“He appears to be a total lone wolf,” the mayor said. “He was not part of a larger conspiracy emanating from abroad.”
At Pimentel’s arraignment, his lawyer Joseph Zablocki said his client’s behavior leading up to the arrest was not that of a conspirator trying to conceal some violent scheme. Zablocki said Pimentel was public about his activities and was not trying to hide anything.
“I don’t believe that this case is nearly as strong as the people believe,” Zablocki said. “He (Pimentel) has this very public online profile. ... This is not the way you go about committing a terrorist attack.”
Pimentel, also known as Muhammad Yusuf, was denied bail and remained in custody. The bearded, bespectacled man wore a black T-shirt and black drawstring pants and smiled at times during the proceeding. His mother and brother attended the arraignment, Zablocki said.
Pimentel is accused of having an explosive device Saturday when he was arrested, one he planned to use against others and property to terrorize the public. The charges accuse him of conspiracy going back at least to October 2010, and include first-degree criminal possession of a weapon as a crime of terrorism, and soliciting support for a terrorist act.
Bloomberg said at the news conference that Pimentel represents the type of threat FBI Director Robert Mueller has warned about as U.S. forces erode the ability of terrorists to carry out large scale attacks.
“This is just another example of New York City because we are an iconic city ... this is a city that people would want to take away our freedoms gravitate to and focus on,” Bloomberg said.
Kelly said a confidential informant had numerous conversations with Pimentel on Sept. 7 in which he expressed interest in building small bombs and targeting banks, government and police buildings.
Pimentel also posted on his website trueislam1.com and on blogs his support of al-Qaida and belief in jihad, and promoted an online magazine article that described in detail how to make a bomb, Kelly said.
Among his Internet postings, the commissioner said, was an article that states: “People have to understand that America and its allies are all legitimate targets in warfare.”
The New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division was involved in the arrest. Kelly said Pimentel spent most of his years in Manhattan and lived about five years in Schenectady. He said police in the Albany area tipped New York City police off to Pimentel’s activities.
Asked why federal authorities were not involved in the case, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said there was communication with them but his office felt that given the timeline “it was appropriate to proceed under state charges.”
About 1,000 of the city’s roughly 35,000 officers are assigned each day to counterterrorism operations. The NYPD also sends officers overseas to report on how other cities deal with terrorism. Through federal grants and city funding, the NYPD has spent millions of dollars on technology to outfit the department with the latest tools — from portable radiation detectors to the network of hundreds of cameras that can track suspicious activity.
Alexis Smith, 22, who lives in an apartment in the same building as Pimentel, said she was shocked that he was a suspect in a terrorist plot. “He was always very courteous to us,” she said, adding that Pimentel helped her carry groceries and luggage into the building.
“It’s nice to know he was only working alone,” she said.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=65002&ct_id=3

Arrestan a sospechoso de plan terrorista en Nueva York

Por Servicios Combinados (http://www.vocero.com/author/servicios-combinados) el 20 de noviembre de 2011

NUEVA YORK- Un simpatizante de al-Qaida de origen dominicano que conspiró para plantar bombas en edificios de la policía y oficinas de correos en Nueva York fue arrestado por varios cargos, informó el domingo el alcalde Michael Bloomberg en conferencia de prensa.

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José Pimentel haciendo una bomba. Foto AP

José Pimentel, de 27 años, fue arrestado el sábado, dijo Bloomberg. Pimentel, también conocido como Muhammad Yusuf, es acusado de poseer una sustancia explosiva que planeaba usar contra propiedades y otras personas para sembrar terror en la ciudadanía.
En la conferencia de prensa se confirmó que el hombre había comprado materiales y había comenzado a construir las bombas. Pimentel estaba bajo la mirilla de la Policía hace un año, reportó The New York Times en su edición cibernética.
Según la cadena de televisión CNN, que cita fuentes cercanas a la investigación, el detenido aprendió a construir el material explosivo gracias a una revista online de la red terrorista Al-Qaeda llamada “Inspire”, reportó la agencia de noticias EFE.
La Policía había asignado un encubierto, quien dio a conocer que el hombre no tenía un blanco específico. Unos días pensaba a atacar a soldados que regresaran de Afgnaistán, otros a la Policía. También había hablado de bombardeos a oficinas de correos en los alrededores de Washington Heights y autos de policía en la ciudad de Nueva York, así como una estación de policía en Nueva Jersey.
“No podíamos esperar a ver qué quería hacer con esas bombas”, dijo un oficial enterado de la investigación a The New York Times.
Bloomberg dijo que aparentemente el hombre actuaba solo, sin el respaldo de ninguna organización terrorista.
Tanto era su afán por el terrorismo que “él hablaba de cambiar su nombre a Osama Hussein, para conmemorar a sus héroes, Osama bin Laden y Saddam Hussein”, dijo Raymond Kelly, comisionado de la Policía durante la conferencia.
Los cargos incluyen conspiración, posesión criminal de un arma para un crimen de terrorismo y solicitar apoyo para un acto terrorista.
Pimentel es originario de República Dominicana y vive en Manhattan.

En la conferencia de prensa se mostró un video sobre una explosión controlada en un vehículo que la Policía realizó con un artefacto similar al que tenía pensado fabricar el sospechoso.

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Materiales con que construía las bombas. Foto AP

La división de inteligencia del Departamento de Policía de Nueva York estuvo involucrada en el arresto y el diario estadounidense aseguró que hay grabaciones de audio en las que el hombre se incrimina.

http://www.vocero.com/mundiales-es/arrestan-a-sospechoso-de-plan-terrorista-en-nueva-york

Dominicano detenido el sábado acusado de atentado frustrado en Nueva York


Por Brigitte Dusseau

AFP

Por Brigitte Dusseau
Un dominicano nacionalizado estadounidense, supuesto “simpatizante de Al Qaida”, continuaba detenido este lunes después de que las autoridades lo acusaran de fabricar bombas para atacar a la Policía y a militares estadounidenses que regresan de misiones en el exterior.
El alcalde Michael Bloomberg dijo que José Pimentel, de 27 años y convertido al Islam, “preveía utilizar bombas contra coches de la Policía, equipamientos de correos y militares que regresaron del extranjero”.
El dominicano-estadounidense está formalmente acusado de posesión de armas con fines terroristas, complot terrorista, apoyo a un acto terrorista y posesión de sustancias explosivas.
“Podría haber matado a mucha gente”, dijo Bloomberg, y añadió que antes de esta detención “hubo al menos 13 complots terroristas contra Nueva York desde el 11 de septiembre”.
El jefe del Departamento de Policía de Nueva York, Raymond Kelly, afirmó que el sospechoso, que fue vigilado durante dos años, había fabricado en los últimos meses tres bombas artesanales en su apartamento, después de comprar los componentes en varios sitios y de haber aprendido a hacerlas en un sitio de internet del clérigo radical yemení-estadounidense Anwar al-Aulaqi, muerto en una operación estadounidense en setiembre de este año.
Pero estas bombas no estaban completamente terminadas cuando fue detenido el sábado, según el acta de acusación.
“Él hablaba de cambiar su nombre por el de Osama Husein, en honor a sus héroes, Osama bin Laden y Sadam Husein”, agregó.
Pimentel era un “lobo solitario”, movido por su odio contra las tropas estadounidenses que invadieron Irak y Afganistán, e inspirado por la propaganda de Al Qaida, explicó el alcalde. “No formaba parte de un complot mayor de origen extranjero”, añadió.
“Habló de matar a militares de Estados Unidos que regresan de Irak y Afganistán, en particular del Ejército y del Cuerpo de Marines. Habló de poner bombas en oficinas de correos en los alrededores de Washington Heights y autos de policía en la ciudad de Nueva York, así como una estación de policía en Nueva Jersey”, dijo el jefe de la Policía.
“Creemos que lo que le llevó a actuar fue la eliminación de Al-Aulaqi”, agregó Kelly.
El clérigo, sospechoso de estar involucrado en varios ataques en Estados Unidos y de reclutar estadounidenses para su causa, fue muerto en una incursión aérea en Yemen a fines de setiembre. Algunos catalogaron la operación de ejecución extrajudicial.
Las autoridades explicaron que decidieron intervenir el sábado para evitar riesgos.
“Siempre tuvimos planificado detenerlo antes de que pudiera detonar una bomba. No queríamos provocarlo, incluso accidentalmente y que pudiera poner a vecinos en riesgo. Por eso pusimos a funcionarios a vigilarlo, dispuestos a tirar la puerta abajo si era necesario”, dijo.
Bloomberg dijo que éste era “otro caso más en el que las precauciones valieron la pena”.
El alcalde recordó otros planes de atentado contra la ciudad de Nueva York desde el 11 de setiembre de 2001.
Por ejemplo, en 2004 dos residentes locales, disgustados por el tratamiento dado a los prisioneros en Irak y Afganistán, tenían previsto colocar una bomba en la estación de metro Herald Square.
Uno de los más sonados fue organizado por Faisal Shahzad, un inmigrante paquistaní, detenido inmeditamente después de que el 1 de mayo de 2010 fallara el artefacto explosivo colocado en Times Square. Dijo que quería vengar las muertes provocadas por Estados Unidos en Pakistán. Fue condenado a cadena perpetua.


Read more: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/11/21/1069638/dominicano-detenido-el-sabado.html#ixzz1eLsWCMD2

NASA launches super-size rover to Mars

By : The Associated Press

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A rover of "monster truck" proportions zoomed toward Mars on an 8½-month, 354 million-mile journey Saturday, the biggest, best equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet.NASA's six-wheeled, one-armed wonder, Curiosity, will reach Mars next summer and use its jackhammer drill, rock-zapping laser machine and other devices to search for evidence that Earth's next-door neighbor might once have been home to the teeniest forms of life.
More than 13,000 invited guests jammed the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday morning to witness NASA's first launch to Mars in four years, and the first flight of a Martian rover in eight years.
Mars fever gripped the crowd.
NASA astrobiologist Pan Conrad, whose carbon compound-seeking instrument is on the rover, wore a bright blue, short-sleeve blouse emblazoned with rockets, planets and the words, "Next stop Mars!" She jumped, cheered and snapped pictures as the Atlas V rocket blasted off. So did Los Alamos National Laboratory's Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist in charge of Curiosity's laser blaster, called ChemCam.
Surrounded by 50 U.S. and French members of his team, Wiens shouted "Go, Go, Go!" as the rocket soared into a cloudy sky. "It was beautiful," he later observed, just as NASA declared the launch a full success.
A few miles away at the space center's visitor complex, Lego teamed up with NASA for a toy spacecraft-building event for children this Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The irresistible lure: 800,000 Lego bricks.

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The 1-ton Curiosity — 10 feet tall, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall at its mast — is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and with unprecedented skill, analyze them right on the spot.
It's as big as a car. But NASA's Mars exploration program director calls it "the monster truck of Mars."
"It's an enormous mission. It's equivalent of three missions, frankly, and quite an undertaking," said the ecstatic program director, Doug McCuistion. "Science fiction is now science fact. We're flying to Mars. We'll get it on the ground and see what we find."
The primary goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to see whether cold, dry, barren Mars might have been hospitable for microbial life once upon a time — or might even still be conducive to life now. No actual life detectors are on board; rather, the instruments will hunt for organic compounds.
Curiosity's 7-foot arm has a jackhammer on the end to drill into the Martian red rock, and the 7-foot mast on the rover is topped with high-definition and laser cameras.
With Mars the ultimate goal for astronauts, NASA will use Curiosity to measure radiation at the red planet. The rover also has a weather station on board that will provide temperature, wind and humidity readings; a computer software app with daily weather updates is planned.
No previous Martian rover has been so sophisticated.
The world has launched more than three dozen missions to the ever-alluring Mars, which is more like Earth than the other solar-system planets. Yet fewer than half those quests have succeeded.
Just two weeks ago, a Russian spacecraft ended up stuck in orbit around Earth, rather than en route to the Martian moon Phobos.
"Mars really is the Bermuda Triangle of the solar system," said NASA's Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator for science. "It's the death planet, and the United States of America is the only nation in the world that has ever landed and driven robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, and now we're set to do it again."
Curiosity's arrival next August will be particularly hair-raising.
In a spacecraft first, the rover will be lowered onto the Martian surface via a jet pack and tether system similar to the sky cranes used to lower heavy equipment into remote areas on Earth.
Curiosity is too heavy to use air bags like its much smaller predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, did in 2004. Besides, this new way should provide for a more accurate landing.
Astronauts will need to make similarly precise landings on Mars one day.
Curiosity will spend a minimum of two years roaming around Gale Crater, chosen from among more than 50 potential landing sites because it's so rich in minerals. Scientists said if there is any place on Mars that might have been ripe for life, it may well be there.
The rover should go farther and work harder than any previous Mars explorer because of its power source: 10.6 pounds of radioactive plutonium. The nuclear generator was encased in several protective layers in case of a launch accident.
NASA expects to put at least 12 miles on the odometer, once the rover sets down on the Martian surface.
McCuistion anticipates being blown away by the never-before-seen vistas. "Those first images are going to just be stunning, I believe. It will be like sitting in the bottom of the Grand Canyon," he said at a post-launch news conference.
This is the third astronomical mission to be launched from Cape Canaveral by NASA since the retirement of the venerable space shuttle fleet this summer. The Juno probe is en route to Jupiter, and twin spacecraft named Grail will arrive at Earth's moon on New Year's Eve and Day.
Unlike Juno and Grail, Curiosity suffered development programs and came in two years late and nearly $1 billion over budget. Scientists involved in the project noted Saturday that the money is being spent on Earth, not Mars, and the mission is costing every American about the price of a movie.
"I'll leave you to judge for yourself whether or not that's a movie you'd like to see," said California Institute of Technology's John Grotzinger, the project scientist. "I know that's one I would."


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How much crazier can Black Friday get?

By : The Associated Press

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NEW YORK — Pepper-sprayed customers, smash-and-grab looters and bloody scenes in the shopping aisles. How did Black Friday devolve into this?As reports of shopping-related violence rolled in this week from Los Angeles to New York to San Juan, experts say a volatile mix of desperate retailers and cutthroat marketing has hyped the traditional post-Thanksgiving sales to increasingly frenzied levels. With stores opening earlier, bargain-obsessed shoppers often are sleep-deprived and short-tempered. Arriving in darkness, they also find themselves vulnerable to savvy parking-lot muggers.
Add in the online-coupon phenomenon, which feeds the psychological hunger for finding impossible bargains, and you've got a recipe for trouble, said Theresa Williams, a marketing professor at Indiana University.
"These are people who should know better and have enough stuff already," Williams said. "What's going to be next year, everybody getting Tasered?"
Across the country on Thursday and Friday, there were signs that tensions had ratcheted up a notch or two, with violence resulting in several instances.
A woman turned herself in to police after allegedly pepper-spraying 20 other customers at a Los Angeles-area Walmart on Thursday in what investigators said was an attempt to get at a crate of Xbox video game consoles. In Kinston, N.C. a security guard also pepper-sprayed customers seeking electronics before the start of a midnight sale.
In New York, crowds reportedly looted a clothing store in Soho. At a Walmart near Phoenix, a man was bloodied while being subdued by police officer on suspicion of shoplifting a video game. There was a shooting outside a store in San Leandro, Calif., shots fired at a mall in Fayetteville, N.C. and a stabbing outside a store in Sacramento, N.Y.
"The difference this year is that instead of a nice sweater you need a bullet proof vest and goggles," said Betty Thomas, 52, who was shopping Saturday with her sisters and a niece at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh, N.C.
Authorities in Puerto Rico responded to several incidents, including the fatal heart attack of a 56-year-old Levittown man who was shopping at Kmart in Bayamon. A disruption also broke out at Best Buy in Hato Rey when throngs of shoppers lined up outside grew angry and pushed their way into the store as management tried to control the flow of customers.
The wave of violence revived memories of the 2008 Black Friday stampede that killed an employee and put a pregnant woman in the hospital at a Walmart on New York's Long Island. Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter said Black Friday 2011 was safe at most of its nearly 4,000 U.S. stores despite "a few unfortunate incidents."
Black Friday — named that because it puts retailers "in the black" — has become more intense as companies compete for customers in a weak economy, said Jacob Jacoby, an expert on consumer behavior at New York University.
The idea of luring in customers with a few "doorbuster" deals has long been a staple of the post-Thanksgiving sales. But now stores are opening earlier, and those deals are getting more extreme, he said.
"There's an awful lot of psychology going on here," Jacoby said. "There's the notion of scarcity — when something's scarce it's more valued. And a resource that can be very scarce is time: If you don't get there in time, it's going to be gone."
There's also a new factor, Williams said: the rise of coupon websites like Groupon and LivingSocial, the online equivalents of doorbusters, which usually deliver a single, one-day offer with savings of up to 80 percent on museum tickets, photo portraits, yoga classes and the like.
The services encourage impulse buying and an obsession with bargains, Williams said, while also getting businesses hooked on quick infusions of customers.
"The whole notion of getting a deal, that's all we've seen for the last two years," Williams said. "It's about stimulating consumers' quick reactions. How do we get their attention quickly? How do we create cash flow for today?"
To grab customers first, some stores are opening late on Thanksgiving Day, turning bargain-hunting from an early-morning activity into an all-night slog, said Ed Fox, a marketing professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Midnight shopping puts everyone on edge and also makes shoppers targets for muggers, he said.
In fact, robbery appeared to be the motive behind the shooting in San Leandro, about 15 miles east of San Francisco. Police said robbers shot a victim as he was walking to a car with his purchases around 1:45 a.m. on Friday.
"There are so many hours now where people are shopping in the darkness that it provides cover for people who are going to try to steal or rob those who are out in numbers," Fox said.
The violence has prompted some analysts to wonder if the sales are worth it, and what solutions might work.
In a New York Times column this week, economist Robert Frank proposed slapping a 6 percent sales tax on purchases between 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving and 6 a.m. on Friday in an attempt to stop the "arms race" of earlier and earlier sales.
Small retailers, meanwhile, are pushing so-called Small Business Saturday to woo customers who are turned off by the Black Friday crush. President Barack Obama even joined in, going book shopping on Saturday at a small bookstore a few blocks from the White House.
"A lot of retailers, independent retailers, are making the conscious decision to not work those crazy hours," said Patricia Norins, a retail consultant for American Express.
Next up is Cyber Monday, when online retailers put their wares on sale. But on Saturday many shoppers said they still prefer buying at the big stores, despite the frenzy.
Thomas said she likes the time with her sisters and the hustle of the mall too much to stay home and just shop online.
To her, the more pressing problem was that the Thanksgiving weekend sales didn't seem very good.
"If I'm going to get shot, at least let me get a good deal," Thomas said.


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NASA lanzó el mayor explorador en búsqueda de señales de vida en Marte

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Imagen artística de Curiosity, el cual explorará el suelo de Marte. La misión comenzará el sábado 26 de noviembre de 2011 cuando la NASA lance al espacio el cohete no tripulado Atlas V que llevará a Curiosity al planeta rojo. NASA / Foto AP

AFP

Cabo Cañaveral, EEUU -- El explorador espacial estadounidense Curiosity despegó este sábado para un viaje de casi nueve meses hacia Marte, en búsqueda de señales de vida en el planeta rojo.
El vehículo robotizado es el mayor que se haya construido y es parte del Laboratorio Científico de Marte (MSL por sus siglas en inglés) de la NASA, con un costo de 2.500 millones de dólares, que despegó de Cabo Cañaveral (Florida, sureste) a las 10H02 locales (15H02 GMT) impulsada por un cohete Atlas V.
“Despegue del Atlas V con Curiosity, buscando señales del rompecabezas planetario sobre la vida en Marte”, dijo el comentarista de la NASA, George Diller, cuando el cohete blanco se elevaba en el cielo de Florida hacia el espacio.
Si el proyecto avanza como está planeado, el Curiosity aterrizará dentro de nueve meses, el 5 de agosto de 2012, y será capaz de enviar informes a los científicos sobre sus hallazgos sin traer físicamente las muestras de roca a la Tierra.
Curiosity es un aparato de elite de seis ruedas propulsado por combustible nuclear y es el más grande y avanzado vehículo robotizado que se haya construido para explorar Marte, en una misión para identificar los lugares donde pudo existir o exista vida en el planeta rojo.
Para hacer esto, el dispositivo del tamaño de un vehículo utilitario, equipado con un brazo robótico, cuenta con un perforador y una serie de 10 instrumentos científicos que incluyen dos videocámaras de color, un rayo láser capaz de destruir rocas, y una caja de herramientas para analizar sus contenidos.
La NASA ve Curiosity como un punto medio en el largo camino de descubrimiento del planeta, que podría culminar con una misión de exploración humana en 2030.
La exploración de Marte por parte de la NASA comenzó en 1976 con el aterrizaje del vehículo espacial Viking y ha continuado, más recientemente, con los vehículos robotizados Spirit y Opportunity que comenzaron a recorrer la superficie marciana en 2004. Spirit dejó de funcionar el año pasado, pero Opportunity todavía está trabajando.


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Drilling in 2012: Production up; fewer leases

By : The Associated Press

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PITTSBURGH — Marcellus Shale natural gas production is expected to keep rising in 2012, yet landowners may find that signing lease deals isn't as easy as in years past.Though still in its early stages, industry experts say that the business of Marcellus Shale gas drilling is starting to change, as new forces emerge.
Among them: lawmakers putting regulations in place that will create more drilling opportunities in shale states other than Pennsylvania; Shell's coming decision on where to build a massive processing plant; and the great unknown, the market prices for natural gas.
Drillers have swarmed in recent years to the lucrative Marcellus Shale region primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned. Critics say a drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could poison water supplies, while the natural-gas industry says it's been used safely for decades.
2012 could lessen the spotlight on Pennsylvania. Other states are moving toward updating laws to regulate drilling, and the industry is starting to explore a new gas resource — the Utica shale, which lies under the Marcellus formation.
"New York will see a regulatory package; I think West Virginia will probably be in a situation where there's more certainty," said Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group based in Pennsylvania.
There's one variable that impacts the industry everywhere it operates, Klaber said.
The biggest unpredictable for 2012 is wholesale natural gas prices, she said. They've stayed low for a few years, and that's helped boost demand from some areas, such as gas-fired electric power plants. But with more and more gas entering the market, no one knows just where the balance of supply and demand will lead.
If prices drop further, drilling could slow. But if they rise, the boom could speed up even more.
Klaber said it will become clearer next year just how economically viable the Utica Shale is. Some companies have reported promising results from wells in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.
"The wells drilled to date have made a lot of folks optimistic. But I think it's still too early to tell how the Utica will play out," she said.
Officials from three of the shale states — Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia — are all competing to land the a huge new multibillion-dollar Shell Oil Co. petrochemical processing plant. Known as cracker plants in the industry, such plants take a liquid form of natural gas and turn it into other commercial compounds, such as plastics.
Shell expects to choose a location for the plant soon and announce the decision early in January, spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh told The Associated Press.
Another coming change will be in leases for land to drill on, experts said.
The past few years saw what seemed at times to be a mad rush by the industry to persuade property owners to sign deals. But now many of the big drilling companies have tens of thousands of acres under lease, said Brian Pitell, a representative for the National Association of Royalty Owners in northwestern Pennsylvania.
"The land grab, like the gold rush, is kind of over. You don't have two, three or four different companies" all competing to offer leases in the same region, he said.
That means landowners have fewer options, and less power to demand certain lease terms.
"There's a muting, to some degree, of competition," Pitell said. Sometimes it's the fine print that changes, he said, noting that one recent lease from a big company removed the landowner's right to audit royalty statement payments.
And if a landowner doesn't like that?
"If you think you're just going to hold out, that may not work out all that well for you," Pitell said.
That's because when many surrounding landowners have already signed leases with one company, others will have little use for the remaining isolated parcels.
But Pennsylvania still has some significant advantages in the marketplace, Pitell added. While it's true that companies could move some drilling operations to New York, West Virginia or Ohio, they'd have to build up infrastructure there to do so.
Pennsylvania has significant infrastructure in place now, in terms of well pads and a growing network of pipelines and processing stations.
"Once they have that infrastructure in place, they want to feed that infrastructure," Pitell said of drilling companies, noting that to justify moving a drilling rig "the geology is going to have to prove that it makes sense for them to potentially abandon development in a given area, and move to New York" or some other state.
Klaber agreed that the growth of pipeline networks and mergers in that industry will create more ways to deliver gas to customers. But she noted that some widely discussed possibilities, such as the Shell plant, will take years to permit and build.
But there's no question the quantity of gas produced from the Marcellus is increasing rapidly. In 2010, the industry estimated Marcellus production to be the equivalent of 1.3 billion cubic feet per day. By the end of 2012 it is projected to be more than 6 billion cubic feet per day.


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Poll: It can only get better in 2012

By : The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — Americans are hopeful for what 2012 will bring for their families and the country, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, though most say 2011 was a year they would rather forget.Nearly seven in 10 say the year gone by was a bad one, more than double those who consider it a success, according to the poll. But 62 percent are optimistic about what 2012 will bring for the nation, and more, 78 percent, are hopeful about the year their family will have in 2012.
Jeff Wolfe, 33, of Farmington, W.Va., said 2011 treated him well because he was able to find steady work as a lineman. But for the rest of the nation, things were “pretty rough,” with so many Americans looking for jobs, he noted.
“For the first time since 2009, I worked all year,” he said. Wolfe said he lost work in 2008 and again in 2010. But in 2011, the father of two school-age children said he was able to catch up on bills, buy his wife a new car and renovate his home.
Overall, the poll found 68 percent of Americans described 2011 as a bad year, compared with 29 percent who felt it was a good one.
A partisan divide, much like the one that ruled Washington this year, seems the only split in public opinion on 2011. Democrats were most likely to view 2011 positively (40 percent called it good), while independents and Republicans were less effusive. Beyond that, the poll found general agreement that 2011 is best left in the past.
Mary Burke, 57, of Ridgeland, S.C., felt economic pain in 2011. She saw prices rise for all of her expenses, from her light bill to groceries. “Paying $5 for a jar of mayonnaise is outrageous,” she said.
Food and gas prices surged in 2011, but the most recent Consumer Price Index shows inflation leveling off. November statistics from the government showed a year-over-year inflation rate of 3.4 percent, the smallest such rise since April.
The AP-GfK poll found consumers are sensing the change. Just 18 percent of adults expect consumer prices to rise at a faster pace in the coming year, the lowest share to say so since the poll first asked the question in March. Most (51 percent) expect prices to rise at the same rate or more slowly.
And as the nation’s economic fortunes overall appear to be tilting slightly positive, the public’s expectations for the economy in the coming year are at their highest point since spring. According to the poll, 37 percent expect economic improvement in the next 12 months, compared with 24 percent who think the economy will slide downhill. That’s the first time since May that significantly more people said things will get better than get worse.
On a personal level, 36 percent think their household’s financial situation will improve over the next 12 months, while 11 percent think it will worsen. Americans’ financial ebbs and flows affect their personal outlook for 2012. Those whose households have faced a job loss in the past six months or who describe their current financial situation as poor are less optimistic about what 2012 holds for them and their families than others, though that does not carry over to their forecast for the nation in 2012.
Optimism about the nation’s path varies with views of the economy’s direction. Those who say things have looked better in the past month are generally optimistic (79 percent), while just half of those who say things are getting worse feel positive about what 2012 holds for the country. And about 6 in 10 of those who distrust the two major political parties to handle the economy or job creation are pessimistic about how 2012 will turn out for the nation.
Burke said she is angered by politicians in Washington who she believes fail to look out for the interests of the American people.
“They don’t care about me and you,” she said. “They only care how they are going to line their pockets.” As for the economy and nation improving in 2012, she said, “I pray and hope.”
The partisan divide in impressions of 2011 persists in the outlook for 2012, with Democrats more optimistic than either Republicans or independents. But expectations for next year’s presidential contest appear not to be a factor. Most partisans on both sides foresee victory for their side in the November 2012 presidential election: Three-quarters of Democrats say they think President Barack Obama will win re-election; three-quarters of Republicans say he will not.
The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted Dec. 8-12 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66361&ct_id=3

NASA probe circled the moon on New Year's Eve

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/rendeer4.jpg

PASADENA, California — As planet Earth rang in the new year, a different kind of countdown was happening at the moon.After a 3½-month journey, a NASA spacecraft flew over the moon's south pole, fired its engine and dropped into orbit Saturday in the first of two back-to-back arrivals over the New Year's weekend.
Mission control at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory erupted in cheers and applause after receiving confirmation that the probe was healthy and circling the moon. An engineer was seen on closed-circuit television blowing a noisemaker to herald the New Year's Eve arrival.
"Everything went just as we hoped. The burn was spot-on," chief scientist Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a post-mission interview with The Associated Press.
The team toasted sparkling cider, but the celebration was brief. Despite the successful maneuver, the work was not over. Its twin still had to enter lunar orbit on New Year's Day.
The Grail probes — short for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory — have been cruising independently toward their destination since launching in September aboard the same rocket on a mission to measure lunar gravity.
Hours before revelers in Times Square celebrated the New Year, Grail-A approached the moon and fired its engine for about 40 minutes to get captured into orbit. Deep space antennas in the California desert and Madrid tracked every move and fed real-time updates to ground controllers
About 270 family members and friends of the mission team descended on the NASA campus to watch the drama unfold on a live feed.
"This is great, a big relief," deputy project scientist Sami Asmar told the jubilant crowd.
Grail is the 110th mission to target the moon since the dawn of the Space Age including the six Apollo moon landings that put 12 astronauts on the surface. Despite the attention the moon has received, scientists don't know everything about Earth's nearest neighbor.
Why the moon is ever so slightly lopsided with the far side more mountainous than the side that always faces Earth remains a mystery. A theory put forth earlier this year suggested that Earth once had two moons that collided early in the solar system's history, producing the hummocky region.
Grail is expected to help researchers better understand why the moon is asymmetrical and how it formed by mapping the uneven lunar gravity field that will indicate what's below the surface.
Previous lunar missions have attempted to study the moon's gravity — which is about one-sixth Earth's pull — with mixed results. Grail is the first mission devoted to this goal.
Once in orbit, the near-identical spacecraft will spend the next two months refining their positions until they are just 34 miles above the surface and flying in formation. Data collection will begin in March.
The $496 million mission will be closely watched by schoolchildren. An effort by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, will allow middle school students to use cameras aboard the probes to zoom in and pick out their favorite lunar spots to photograph.
Despite the latest focus on the moon, NASA won't be sending astronauts back anytime soon. The Obama administration last year nixed a lunar return in favor of landing humans on an asteroid and eventually Mars.
A jaunt to the moon is usually speedy. It took the Apollo astronauts three days to zip there aboard the powerful Saturn V rocket. Since NASA wanted to economize by launching on a small rocket, it took Grail a leisurely 3 1/2 months to make a roundabout trip.
NASA's last moonshot occurred in 2009 with the launch of a pair of spacecraft — one that circled the moon and another that deliberately crashed into the surface and uncovered frozen water in one of the permanently shadowed lunar craters.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66409&ct_id=3

Lights Out For Incandescent Bulbs - Hoarding Begins

By bohus

http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e20162fe781e66970d-800wi (http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e20162fe781e66970d-pi)

Reports are coming in that folks are snapping up remaining stocks of incandescent bulbs before the end of the year. January 1st marks the start of the Federal phaseout of traditional light bulbs in the United States. While many are unaware of the upcoming ban, 13% of U.S. residents are reportedly stocking up on the 130 year old symbol of American ingenuity and invention.

http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e2015438f7146f970c-800wi (http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e2015438f7146f970c-pi)

Home Depot has reported higher than normal sales in these last few weeks as they blow out their back stocks. I'll admit, I picked up a couple dozen bulbs myself. Yes, I too have joined the Incandescent Underground. I have mostly replaced the lights around my apartment with CFL and LED lights, but there are a couple of old lamps that just don't look right with new style bulbs. There's also a fixture in a dark and cold corner of the apartment (where I tend to write Retro Thing posts, coincidentally) where I actually rely on the little bit of extra heat kicked off by the bulb.

There are those who are turning this into a political issue, unhappy that the government is regulating what they can and cannot stick into their sockets. The Republican House has blocked the funds that were originally allotted for enforcing the January 1st ban (make of that what you will), and enterprising bulb sellers have come up with all kinds of strategies to keep you filled with filament fired light. One outfit has gone so far as to relabel their incandescent bulbs as mini-heaters. Yup - that's how we'll save the planet... why address a problem head-on when we can just relabel it?

I'm sure that the news will feature those outliers who will only defy the darkness with old fashioned bulbs, and we will certainly hear many stories of folks who have their garages packed to the ceiling with old fashioned bulbs. Maybe we'll see an inflated future market for light bulbs the same way as we've seen for high flush toilets (Hard to believe, but yes... I recently read about an older high flush toilet changing hands [ewww] for $600 on Ebay).

http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e20162fe784342970d-800wi (http://retrothing.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452989a69e20162fe784342970d-pi)

Here's another question that no one seems to be addressing. A lightbulb floating over someone's head has ong been the symbol of a bright idea. What'll it be now? A CFL? An LED? I'm going to look pretty weird walking around with a diode floating over my head.


http://www.retrothing.com/

Three Kings a hit with Connecticut kids

By : CB ONLINE STAFF
cbnews@caribbeanbusinesspr.com

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/reyes.jpg

HARTFORD, Conn. — Thousands of Connecticut students are getting a long weekend as several communities with large Puerto Rican populations have canceled school Friday to recognize Three Kings Day. School boards in Hartford, East Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Windham, and some other districts have designated Friday as a vacation day. Some said even if classes were held, attendance would have dipped as many children celebrated at home with their families.
Three Kings Day is popular in Puerto Rico and many Spanish-speaking countries. It commemorates the arrival of three wise men bearing gifts for the baby Jesus.
State officials did not know how many schools are closing for Three Kings Day, but districts have latitude to set their own vacation days as long as they satisfy state laws requiring at least 180 days of classes.
Puerto Ricans account for more than 7 percent of Connecticut’s population, the highest of any state. The state includes four of the 10 U.S. mainland cities with the highest concentrations of Puerto Rican residents, including Hartford, which is first at more than 30 percent, according to Census Bureau data.
Connecticut is also the state where Puerto Ricans constitute the highest percentage of the Hispanic populations at more than 55 percent.
There are more Puerto Ricans living in the states than on the island.
Puerto Rico’s population was pegged at 3,725,789 in the 2010 Census, down from the 3,808,610 registered in the 2000 Census. It marked the first time the island population had declined between census counts.
The 2010 Census also showed there were 4.7 million Puerto Ricans living in the states, marking the first time more Puerto Ricans lived stateside than on the island. Nearly a third of Hispanics of Puerto Rican origin in the 50 states and D.C. were born in Puerto Rico, according an analysis of 2009 American Community Survey data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66562&ct_id=1&ct_name=1

U.S. adds 200,000 jobs in Dec.; unemployment drops to 8.5%

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/09/01/Others/Images/2011-09-01/AugustRR03_1314909362.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/on-recession-road/2011/04/18/AFyDpj5D_gallery.html)
View Photo Gallery —  Photocasting across America with Michael S. Williamson: A Washington Post photojournalist has spent the year traveling around the country, meeting people whose lives have been altered by the flattened economy. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/on-recession-road/2011/04/18/AFyDpj5D_gallery.html)

By Michael A. Fletcher, The nation’s gloomy jobs picture continued to brighten in December as employers added 200,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate down to 8.5 percent, the Labor Department reported (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) Friday.
Private employers added 212,00 jobs, moving the total of private-sector jobs created in 2011 to 1.9 million. Governments, particularly at the local level, cut jobs — 12,000 last month — holding overall job growth for the year to 1.6 million.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/01/06/Web-Resampled/2012-01-06/w-Jobs7296new--296x178.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-employment-picture/2012/01/05/gIQAtw9oeP_graphic.html) http://www.washingtonpost.com/rw/sites/twpweb/img/bkgds/overlay-for-296-graphics.png (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-employment-picture/2012/01/05/gIQAtw9oeP_graphic.html)

A closer look at the December unemployment figures.

Video
http://img2.wpdigital.net/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/01/06/National-Economy/Videos/01062012-38v/01062012-38v.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-economy-moving-in-right-direction/2012/01/06/gIQA64rJfP_video.html)
Welcoming positive economic news in an election year, President Barack Obama said Friday the new monthly jobs report shows the U.S. economy is starting to rebound, even though some people are still struggling. (Jan. 6)

Still, the jobless rate has declined by 0.6 percent since August, and it now stands at its lowest level in nearly three years.
The improvement in the labor market is welcome news for President Obama, who has been widely criticized for the nation’s poor labor market. With the 2012 presidential campaign intensifying, Obama has struggled to win public approval for his handling of the economy, and steady job creation can only boost his political standing.
Speaking at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while introducing Richard Cordray as the new director, Obama used the report to promote the payroll tax cut extension as a factor in job creation.
“This morning we learned that American businesses added another 212,000 jobs last month. All together more private-sector jobs were created in 2011 than any year since 2005,” Obama said. “There are a lot of people that are still hurting out there, after losing more than 8 million jobs in the recession. Obviously, we have a lot more work to do. But it is important for the American people to recognize we added 3.2 million new private-sector jobs in the last 22 months, nearly 2 million new jobs last year alone....
“One of reasons is the tax cut we put in place last year,” Obama said. “When Congress returns, they should extend the payroll tax cut all year. There should not be delay, there should not be a lot of drama.”
The report showed solid gains across employment sectors, with the hard-hit construction industry adding 17,000 jobs, retailers adding nearly 28,000, transportation firms hiring 50,000 workers, and manufacturers adding 23,000 jobs.
The nation’s factories have added 334,000 jobs since December 2009 — about 13 percent of what was lost during the recession — marking the first sustained increase in manufacturing employment since 1997, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The upbeat jobs report capped an up-and-down 2011 for the U.S. labor market.
After brisk growth in the beginning of the year, job growth stalled in the wake of higher energy prices, the Japanese earthquake and the political fight over raising the nation’s debt limit. But the job market improved significantly in the final months of the year.
Even with the positive report, stubborn problems remain. Some 5.6 million Americans — 42.5 percent of the unemployed — have been jobless for more than six months, a figure that was unchanged in December.
Also, minority joblessness remained at catastrophic levels: The black unemployment rate was 15.8 percent in December, and the jobless rate for Hispanics was 11 percent.


“This is a step in the right direction,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “However, it is important to note the context: The jobs deficit left from losses in 2008/2009 remains well over 10 million jobs; even at December’s growth rate, it would still take about seven more years — until around 2019 — to fill the gap.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) cheered the report, even as he noted that the nation’s labor market remains troubled.


“It’s good news that more Americans found work last month despite a sluggish economy, but both parties must come together and do more to address the ongoing uncertainty that small businesses face,” he said in a statement. “Today marks the 35th consecutive month of unemployment above eight percent, and too many Americans continue to struggle to find their next job.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) echoed the president in using the report to push for extending the payroll tax cut through 2012.
“Creating jobs must continue to be Congress’s top priority. While the economy has shown signs of improvement, that is no consolation for the millions of Americans who are out of a job and struggling to make ends meet in Nevada and across the country,” Reid said. “The first thing the Senate must do to strengthen our economy is extend the payroll tax cut for the remainder of this year. This middle-class tax cut is vital for 160 million American workers who count on this money to help them put food on the table and heat their homes this winter.”
U.S. markets opened mostly lower despite the strong labor report. But in Europe, the major indexes were up.
The report revised the November unemployment rate to 8.7 percent from an initial report of 8.6 percent, while adjusting the number of new jobs added that month from 120,000 to 100,000.
The jobs report builds on a several new indicators pointing toward an economy on the upswing.
The government reported Thursday that claims for unemployment benefits declined in the final week of December, moving the average during the past four weeks to its lowest level in more than three years.
Auto sales in December were up, continuing their substantial improvement from the summer. And for all of 2011, vehicle sales rose 10 percent.
On Thursday, several analysts cautioned not to make too much of the good news too soon.
Bernard Baumohl, chief economist for the New Jersey-based Economic Outlook Group, said that regardless of what happens with the December unemployment number, the economy faces major hurdles in 2012.
Europe’s economy is teetering on the edge of recession, and China’s roaring economy is beginning to cool, he said, developments that pose substantial risk to U.S. economic and employment growth. In addition, he said, oil prices are likely to rise next year as tension increases in the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East.
Meanwhile, he added, business and individual consumers are likely to cut back, after a relative spending binge that helped increase economic growth by an estimated three percent in the final months of 2011. “The recent uptick in shopping, while cathartic, is simply unsustainable,” the firm wrote in its 2012 economic forecast.
Any or all of those factors could slow job growth in the early months of 2012.
“I have my concerns that the pace of job growth will likely slow in the first half of this year as the economy slows,” Baumohl said. “We just do not have a basis for optimism that the economy or job market has turned the corner.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-adds-220k-jobs-in-dec-unemployment-rate-drops-to-85percent/2012/01/05/gIQAjFVreP_story_1.html

Rape redefined for FBI to include male victims

The Obama administration on Friday expanded the FBI's definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers.
By Jerry Markon (http://search.nwsource.com/search?searchtype=cq&sort=date&from=ST&byline=Jerry%20Markon)
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday expanded the FBI's more than 80-year-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers.
Justice Department officials said the revision would make reporting the crime more accurate and provide a better understanding of its effects on victims.
Since 1929, rape has been defined as "the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will."
That definition, which included only men having sex with women without their consent, excluded other forms of sexual assault, such as oral penetration and rape of men.
The new wording, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, covers those and several other forms of sexual assault. It will be used in the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report, which draws on data submitted by local police departments, and probably will prompt a rise in reported rapes nationwide, law-enforcement officials said.
Although most states' rape statutes already contain a broader definition of the crime, officials said the federal revision holds deep significance because the FBI's reports are often synonymous in the public mind with crime rates. The FBI data are also used by policymakers to analyze crime and propose anti-crime initiatives.
"This sends a powerful message," Susan Carbon, director of the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women, said in a conference call, adding: "... It's rape even if you're a man. It's rape even if you are raped with an object, and even if you were too drunk to consent."
Administration officials said the change, which will take several years to fully implement, was driven primarily by Vice President Joseph Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act when he was in the Senate, and the White House Council on Women and Girls.
Valerie Jarrett, who chairs the council and is a senior adviser to President Obama, said the revised definition is "a major policy change that will lead to more accurate reporting and a far more complete understanding of this devastating crime."
An FBI police-advisory board recently recommended the change; FBI Director Robert Mueller signed off on it last month.
The revised FBI definition says rape is "the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object," without the consent of the victim. Also constituting rape under the new definition is "oral penetration by a sex organ of another person" without consent.
In 2010, an estimated 84,767 rapes under the FBI's current definition were reported nationwide. Officials could not specify how much they expect the reporting of rapes to increase.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017180020_rape07.html

Consumer watchdog Cordray called smart, tough

By : The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray's contentious tumble onto the national stage has been anything but typical for the intelligent, mild-mannered public servant who occasionally pads about his office in sock feet.President Barack Obama named Cordray, 52, as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a recess appointment during a visit last week to suburban Cleveland.
Republicans critical of the new agency had managed to block the appointment since July, saying the agency has too much power with too little input from Congress. Despite Cordray's background of bipartisan appeal, Senate Republicans blocked his confirmation in December.
The bureau was created as part of the 2010 overhaul of the nation's financial regulations, to defend consumer rights with banks, mortgage companies, the credit-card industry, payday lenders and others.
Perhaps not since Cordray's days as an undefeated five-time champion on Jeopardy! has he been at the center of such heated push back. The soft-spoken Cordray tends to keep his head down and his media controversies to a minimum.
"He's a very serious person," said David Leland, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, who's known Cordray for more than two decades. "But this is a very serious job, and these are serious times."
His smarts are usually the first thing people notice about Cordray, who earned a law degree from the University of Chicago (where he edited the law review) and a master's in economics from the University of Oxford. He interned for then-U.S. Sen. John Glenn, the astronaut, native Ohioan and Democrat; as well as clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee. That built the beginnings of a resume that would make him acceptable to either party.
Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Andy Douglas, a Republican, said he's never known Cordray to allow his actions to be dictated by partisan concerns.
"I haven't agreed with what they've been putting him through," Douglas said. "If we really profess that we want the brightest and the best in public service, then he is that. And to not jump at the chance to have people like that in public service is a political shortcoming that I see governing us that's opposed to good sense."
A quartet of highly respected Ohio business leaders, some routinely generous to Republican campaigns, also backed Democrat Cordray's selection for the new post in a July letter to the Senate Banking Committee. Limited Brands' Leslie Wexner, Procter & Gamble's retired CEO John Pepper Jr., American Election Power's Michael Morris and Forest City Enterprises' co-chairman emeritus Albert Ratner called him "the epitome of the judicious and fair-minded public servant. He has impressed us with his intelligence, pragmatism, integrity, and service-oriented mindset."
Cordray was Ohio's first solicitor general, and first stepped into politics in earnest with a successful run for the Ohio House in 1990. He lost re-election in a redrawn district after one term in what would begin a string of ups and downs at the ballot box — including a failed bid for Congress in 1992. He ultimately secured stints as a county treasurer, state treasurer, and attorney general.
Cordray got the job in a special election called to finish the unfulfilled term of fellow Democrat Marc Dann, after a sexual harassment scandal ended in Dann's resignation.
Cordray brandished the unblemished personal history, work ethic and intellect that Democrats wanted at the time to repair their reputation with voters — and, indeed, he headed into the 2010 election perhaps their strongest candidate. That made his defeat all the more humbling.
Ahead in polls and fundraising, he was widely favored to win re-election over former Republican U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, but lost by just over a percentage point as GOP candidates swept state office.
He graciously conceded and comforted his team of "Cordrarians," then hinted to the press that he would consider a run for governor in 2014. When questioned about that by senators in September, Cordray said he had "no plans to run for any political office."
Also during confirmation hearings, Cordray disputed suggestions the new agency would go unchecked. He said there are "a mosaic of interlocking pieces in the law that create accountability for the bureau."
He said legislative oversight, internal audits, and the rules written to govern the bureau all play a part, adding "the most important thing in any federal independent agency is to follow the law, follow it carefully, follow it closely."
Cordray's consumer orientation began years earlier as treasurer of Franklin County, home to Columbus, but his first big national splash in the arena came in 2009 amid the national financial crisis. That September, as attorney general, he filed a class-action lawsuit against Bank of America Corp. and its executives, arguing improper concealment of billions of dollars in losses and billions in bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch before a shareholder vote on the companies' proposed merger.
Soon after, he sued the nation's three major credit rating agencies, arguing they gave mortgage-backed securities unjustifiably high ratings in return for lucrative fees. In 2010, he took on GMAC Mortgage and Ally Financial over potentially illegal foreclosure practices.
That history led consumer interests as diverse at the Ohio Bankers League and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio to back Obama's appointment of Cordray to lead the consumer protection bureau.
"He is genuine, thoughtful and smart, and will lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with unwavering fairness on behalf of everyday hardworking Americans," said coalition director Bill Faith in commending Obama's recess appointment.
Cordray's record has not been entirely without negatives.
In 2008, while serving as Ohio treasurer, Cordray returned a $10,000 campaign contribution he had received within two weeks of taking his first state office, donated by the stepdaughter of a salesman for St. Louis, Mo.-based Wachovia Securities. In the first year of Cordray's administration, reports found Wachovia saw a 37 percent increase in its share of state bond-trading business.
The salesman, Montford Will, his wife and two stepchildren were fined $125,000 in 2009 in what was believed to be the biggest case in state history of disguising campaign contributions to circumvent contribution limits. Cordray was among a host of both Democrats and Republicans who had received money from the family in the scheme.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66617&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

DOJ says recent recess appointments legal

By : The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is defending the legality of President Barack Obama's recent recess appointment of a national consumer watchdog and other officials from criticism by Republicans. The department released a 23-page legal opinion Thursday summarizing the advice it gave the White House before the Jan. 4 appointments. Assistant attorney general Virginia Seitz writes that the president has authority to make such appointments during a congressional recess of the current length. Seitz argues the Senate's periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is conducted have not enabled the chamber to advise and consent to nominations.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says Obama has endangered the nation's systems of checks and balances and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch says the appointments are a very grave decision by an autocratic White House.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66768&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Obama promotes 'insourcing' of jobs back to US, government downsizing

By : The Associated Press

http://propresobama.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/insourcing_american_jobs.jpg

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is promoting new initiatives to make the government leaner and more efficient and bring jobs back to the U.S. from overseas.He rolled out both election-year ideas this past week and used his radio and Internet address Saturday to talk them up and call on Congress and the private sector to get on board.
"Right now, we have a 21st century economy, but we've still got a government organized for the 20th century," Obama said. "Over the years, the needs of Americans have changed, but our government has not. In fact, it's gotten even more complex. And that has to change."
On government reorganization, Obama wants a guarantee from Congress that he could get a vote within 90 days on any idea to consolidate federal agencies, provided it saves money and cuts the government. His first order of business would be to merge six major trade and commerce agencies into one -- eliminating, among others, the Commerce Department.
The proposal is in part a challenge to congressional Republicans since it embraces the traditional GOP goal of smaller government, and Obama called on Congress to back him.
"These changes will make it easier for small-business owners to get the loans and support they need to sell their products around the world," he said.
Obama is also promising new tax incentives for businesses that bring jobs to the U.S. instead of shipping them overseas, and he wants to eliminate tax breaks for companies that outsource.
"You've heard of outsourcing - well, this is insourcing," said Obama. "And in this make or break moment for the middle class and those working to get into the middle class, that's exactly the kind of commitment to country that we need."
Obama went so far as to bring several U.S.-made products to display in his weekly video -- a padlock, a candle, some socks and a pair of boots -- to demonstrate his commitment to made-in-America manufacturing.
Republicans used their weekly address to promote the Keystone XL project to carry oil from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. Under a GOP-written provision Obama signed into law just before Christmas as part of an unrelated tax bill, the president faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether the $7 billion pipeline is in the national interest.
The GOP is pounding Obama over the issue, saying it's a question of whether he wants to create jobs and import energy from a close friend and ally -- or lose jobs and see Canadian oil go to Asia instead.
"If the Keystone XL pipeline isn't built, Canadian oil will still be produced and transported," said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. "But instead of coming to our refineries in the United States, instead of creating jobs for our people, instead of reducing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and keeping down the cost of fuel for American consumers -- that oil will be sent to China."
Obama had sought to delay the project and the State Department has warned the deadline doesn't leave it enough time for necessary reviews. Hoeven accused Obama of turning his back on American workers if he fails to approve it.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66832&ct_id=3

Wikipedia darkens over anti-piracy bill

By : The Associated Press

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Can the world live without Wikipedia for a day?Wikipedia’s English-language site shut down at midnight Tuesday to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress. The foundation behind the popular community-based online encyclopedia said it would stay down for 24 hours.
Instead of encyclopedia articles, visitors to the idled site saw a stark black-and-white page with the message: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” It carried a link to information about the two congressional bills and details about how to reach lawmakers.
It is the first time the English site has been blacked out. Wikipedia’s Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The bill did not advance.
The shutdown adds to a growing body of critics who are speaking out against the legislation. Google has blacked out the logo on its home page as it joins other sites in protesting legislation pending in Congress that’s aimed at shutting down sites that share pirated movies and other content. Clicking the blacked-out logo on Google.com takes surfers to a page where they can add their names to a petition against the bills.
However, the shutdown of Wikipedia, one of the Internet’s most-visited sites, is not sitting well with some of its volunteer editors, who say the protest could threaten the credibility of their work.
“My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that’s a slippery slope,” said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. “Before we know it, we’re blacked out because we want to save the whales.”
Some editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site’s decision to fighting censorship with censorship.

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One of the site’s own “five pillars” of conduct says that Wikipedia “is written from a neutral point of view.” The site strives to “avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them.”
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues.
“The encyclopedia will always be neutral. The community need not be, not when the encyclopedia is threatened,” he tweeted.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which administers the site, announced the blackout late Monday, after polling its community of volunteer contributors and editors and getting responses from 1,800 of them. The protest is aimed at the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate.
“If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” the foundation said.
Both bills are designed to crack down on sales of pirated American products overseas, and they have the support of the film and music industry. Among the opponents are many Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and AOL. They say the bills would hurt the industry and infringe on free-speech rights.
Social news website Reddit.com is shutting down for 12 hours on Wednesday, but most companies are staying up. Google Inc. said it will display its opposition to the bill on its home page in some fashion.
Dick Costollo, CEO of Twitter, said he opposes the legislation as well, but shutting down the service was out of the question.
“Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish,” Costollo tweeted.
Since Wikimedia depends on a small army of volunteers who create and update articles, it’s particularly concerned about a lack of exemptions in the bills for sites where users might contribute copyrighted content. Today, it has no obligation under U.S. law except removing that content if a copyright holder complains. But under the House version of the bill, it could be shut down unless it polices its own pages.
The plans for the protest were moving forward even though the bill’s prospects appeared to be dimming. On Saturday, Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said the bill would not move to the House floor for a vote unless consensus is reached. However, Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said work on the bill would resume next month.
The White House raised concerns over the weekend, pledging to work with Congress to battle piracy and counterfeiting while defending free expression, privacy and innovation in the Internet. The administration signaled it might use its veto power, if necessary.
That the bill seems unlikely to pass is another reason Lawton opposes the blackout.
“I think there are far more important things for the organization to focus aside from legislation that isn’t likely to pass anyway,” he said. He’s been contributing to Wikipedia for eight years.
Danny Chia, another contributor to the site, said he had mixed feelings about the blackout. The neutrality applies to the content, but a lot of people interpret it as being about the site as a whole, said the Los Altos, Calif., software engineer.
In an online discussion, others raised the same point about the blackout: Appearances matter, and if the audience sees Wikipedia taking a stand, it might not believe the articles are objective, either.
Wikipedia has seen a small decline in participation, from a peak of 100,000 active editors a year ago to about 90,000 now. Wikimedia Foundation blames this mainly on outdated editing tools, and believes it can get the number growing again with software upgrades.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=66952&ct_id=1

Obama calls for expanded use of natural gas

In Nevada, President Obama declares the U.S. the 'Saudi Arabia of natural gas' and encourages shipping companies and others to power their fleets with the fuel resource.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-01/168979620-26162526.jpg
President Obama speaks at a UPS freight facility in Las Vegas. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images / January 26, 2012)

http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2012-01/67648876-26064313.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-domestic-energy-at-vegas-stop-20120126,0,5676269.story)

Obama to focus on domestic energy at Vegas stop (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-domestic-energy-at-vegas-stop-20120126,0,5676269.story)

http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2012-01/67655352-26105709.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-las-vegas-energy-20120126,0,2213353.story)

Pushing energy plan, Obama calls U.S. 'Saudi Arabia of natural gas' (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-las-vegas-energy-20120126,0,2213353.story)

http://www.latimes.com/media/thumbnails/story/2012-01/67636730-25231604.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-manufacturing-20120126,0,6943421.story)

On the road, Obama pushes plan to boost manufacturing (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-manufacturing-20120126,0,6943421.story)

By Christi Parsons January 26, 2012, 4:25 p.m.
Reporting from Las Vegas—
Washington Bureau
Declaring the United States the "Saudi Arabia (http://www.latimes.com/topic/intl/saudi-arabia-PLGEO00000070.topic) of natural gas," President Obama (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408.topic) began pushing Thursday for greater use of the fuel resource under domestic soil as he continued to pitch his economic plan on a tour of battleground states.

Speaking to a crowd of United Parcel Service (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/ups-inc.-ORCRP015929.topic) workers at a facility here, Obama said the government should encourage U.S. shipping companies and other large users to reduce reliance on foreign oil to power their fleets.

Tapping natural gas sources in the U.S. could "power our cars and our homes and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way," Obama said. "We, it turns out, are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We've got a lot of it."

The president rolled out a plan that offers tax incentives for companies that buy natural-gas-powered trucks. He promoted the idea in a visit to a UPS hub because company officials were, he said, among the first to respond to his call for increased use of natural gas vehicles.

"We only have about 2% of the world's oil reserves," Obama told the crowd. "So we've got to have an all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every source of American energy."

Obama made his remarks as part of a five-state tour to promote the economic blueprint he unveiled in his State of the Union address Tuesday. He is selling his energy strategy as an "all of the above" approach that he says would promote the use of domestic sources. After visiting Iowa and Arizona on Wednesday, the second day of the tour took him to Nevada and Colorado. By day's end he was scheduled to travel to another election battleground state, Michigan.

Obama is promoting incentives as one of several proposed changes to the tax code. The changes would require the approval of Congress, including the GOP (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic)-controlled House, which most observers think is unlikely to support major initiatives from the president in an election year. But Obama's team believes it will be difficult for Republicans to reject proposals that prove popular with the public, or at least that they run the risk of angering voters if they do.

Some industry advocates argue that the Obama administration hasn't put a high enough priority on expediting fuel projects. Obama recently delayed the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline project while developers come up with an alternative route around environmentally sensitive areas.

The president's own jobs council recommended a week ago that the government act quickly on energy projects in the interests of encouraging more of them. Republicans complained this week that Obama didn't address the Keystone XL project in his State of the Union address.

On Thursday, Obama announced that his Interior Department (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/u.s.-department-of-the-interior-ORGOV000095.topic) was preparing to open up 38 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for more energy exploration and development. The lease sale is the final one scheduled as part of a five-year plan for drilling in the central gulf.

Some industry advocates have suggested the administration is holding back offshore drilling by taking its time reviewing permit applications. Administration officials say drilling in the gulf is on a healthy rebound, nearly two years after the BP oil spill.

Later in the day, Obama visited Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., which has tested jets that operate on advanced biofuels.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-energy-20120127,0,5852352.story

I hope it is a bluff to please people for now until he gets re-elected.

¡MUCHO OJO!

For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/01/27/business/jpReviews1/jpReviews1-articleLarge.jpg
John Gress for The New York Times
Bing Liu, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is trying to devise mathematical models that can unmask fake product endorsements. “The incentives for faking are getting bigger,” he said. “It’s a very cheap way of marketing.”

By DAVID STREITFELD (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_streitfeld/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: January 26, 2012

In the brutal world of online commerce, where a competing product is just a click away, retailers need all the juice they can get to close a sale.

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Some exalt themselves by anonymously posting their own laudatory reviews. Now there is an even simpler approach: offering a refund to customers in exchange for a write-up.
By the time VIP Deals ended its rebate (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/286364-vip-deals.html) on Amazon.com (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/amazon_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org) late last month, its leather case for the Kindle Fire was receiving the sort of acclaim once reserved for the likes of Kim Jong-il. Hundreds of reviewers proclaimed the case a marvel, a delight, exactly what they needed to achieve bliss. And definitely worth five stars.
As the collective wisdom of the crowd displaces traditional advertising, the roaring engines of e-commerce are being stoked by favorable reviews. The VIP deal reflects the importance merchants place on these evaluations — and the lengths to which they go to game the system.
Fake reviews are drawing the attention of regulators. They have cracked down on a few firms for deceitful hyping and suspect these are far from isolated instances. “Advertising disguised as editorial is an old problem, but it’s now presenting itself in different ways,” said Mary K. Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s associate director for advertising practices. “We’re very concerned.”
Researchers like Bing Liu, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, are also taking notice, trying to devise mathematical models to systematically unmask the bogus endorsements. “More people are depending on reviews for what to buy and where to go, so the incentives for faking are getting bigger,” said Mr. Liu. “It’s a very cheap way of marketing.”
By last week, 310 out of 335 reviews of VIP Deals’ Vipertek brand premium slim black leather case folio cover were five stars and nearly all the rest were four stars. The acclaim seemed authentic, barring the occasional indiscretion. “I would have done 4 stars instead of 5 without the deal,” one man bluntly wrote.
VIP Deals, which specializes in leather tablet cases and stun guns (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/stun_guns/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), denied it was quietly offering the deals. “You are totally off base,” a representative named Monica wrote in an e-mail.
But three customers said in interviews that the offer was straightforward. Searching for a protective case for their new Kindle Fire, they came upon the VIP page selling a cover for under $10 plus shipping (the official list price was $59.99). When the package arrived it included a letter extending an invitation “to write a product review for the Amazon community.”
“In return for writing the review, we will refund your order so you will have received the product for free,” it said.
Anne Marie Logan, a Georgia pharmacist, was suspicious. “I was like, ‘Is this for real?’ ” she said. “But they credited my account. You think it’s unethical?”
While the letter did not specifically demand a five-star review, it broadly hinted. “We strive to earn 100 percent perfect ‘FIVE-STAR’ scores from you!” it said.
The merchant, which seems to have no Web site and uses a mailbox drop in suburban Los Angeles as a return address, did not respond to further requests for comment. As of last week, the company (as opposed to its products) had received 4,945 reviews on Amazon for a nearly perfect 4.9 rating out of five.
Amazon is expected to sell 20 million Kindle Fire tablets this year, making the market for cases potentially enormous. But it is also bitterly competitive, with dozens of models in Amazon’s Kindle showroom. With a modest investment (http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/investments/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), VIP pushed its product far above the competition, none of which had so much enthusiasm with so little dissent. Customers like Ms. Logan, who got something they had genuinely wanted for only a small shipping charge, were of course thrilled. And Amazon racked up more revenue.
Even a few grouches could not spoil the party. “This is an egregious violation of the ratings and review system used by Amazon,” a customer named Robert S. Pollock wrote in a review he titled “scam.”
He was promptly chastised by another customer. This fellow, himself a seller on Amazon, argued that he had both given and gotten free items in exchange for reviews. “It is not a scam but an incentive,” he wrote.
Under F.T.C. rules, when there is a connection between a merchant and someone promoting its product that affects the endorsement’s credibility, it must be fully disclosed. In one case, Legacy Learning Systems, which sells music instructional tapes, paid $250,000 (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/legacy.shtm) last March to settle charges that it had hired affiliates to recommend the videos on Web sites.
Amazon, sent a copy of the VIP letter by The New York Times, said its guidelines prohibited compensation for customer reviews. A few days later, it deleted all the reviews for the case, which itself was listed as unavailable. Then it took down the product page itself.
Asked why Amazon did not seem to notice that at least a few consumers called into question the VIP deal on its own site, a spokeswoman declined to comment. Nor would she say exactly what happened to VIP’s other products, like the Vipertek VTS-880 mini stun gun, which also disappeared from the retailer.
The gun, like the Kindle case, received nearly all five-star reviews. “I bought one for my wife and decided to let her try it on me,” one man wrote in a typical display of the sort of effusiveness that VIP inspired. “We gave it a full charge and let me just say WOW! Boy do I regret that decision.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/technology/for-2-a-star-a-retailer-gets-5-star-reviews.html?_r=1&hp

Economy grew modest 2.8% in Q4, best in 201

By : The Associated Press

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year, the fastest growth in 2011.Americans spent more on cars and trucks, and companies restocked their shelves at the strongest pace in nearly two years. But growth in the October-December quarter — and all of last year — was held back by the biggest annual government spending cuts in four decades.
The Commerce Department said Friday that the economy grew just 1.7 percent last year, roughly half of the growth in 2010 and the worst since the recession.
Most economists expect businesses to ease up on restocking in the first three months of the year. That should slow first-quarter growth. And consumers may cut back on spending if their wages continue to lag inflation.
In the final three months of last year, consumer spending grew at a 2 percent annual rate. That’s up modestly from the third quarter.
Much of the growth was powered by a 14.8 percent surge in sales of autos and other long-lasting manufactured goods.
Incomes, which have been weak all year because of high unemployment, grew at a modest 0.8 percent annual rate. That followed two straight quarters of declining incomes.
Consumer spending is important because it makes up 70 percent of economic activity.
Business restocking, which can vary widely from quarter to quarter, was the greatest contributor to growth in the October-December period. It added nearly 2 percentage points to the gross domestic product, or GDP.
Government spending at all levels fell at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 2.1 percent for the year — the biggest decline since 1971. Sweeping federal defense cuts at the beginning and end of 2011 were a major factor.
The economy is measured by GDP, which covers everything from haircuts to hotel bookings to jet fighter planes. Friday’s estimate was the first of three for the fourth quarter.
Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, said growth is likely to slow in the first three months of this year to below 2 percent. That’s largely because businesses will ease up on restocking.
“Overall, the pickup in growth doesn’t look half as good when you realize that most of it was due to inventory accumulation,” Ashworth said.
But not all economists agree that the first quarter of this year will be weak.
Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics, said business investment in capital goods should be stronger, consumer spending firmer and government activity less of a drag.
Other data show the economy ended 2011 on a strong note. Companies invested more in equipment and machinery in December. The unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent last month — the lowest level in nearly three years — after the sixth straight month of solid hiring.
People are buying more cars, and consumer confidence is rising. Even the depressed housing market has shown enough improvement to make some economists predict a turnaround has begun.
Still, many economists worry that a recession in Europe could dampen demand for U.S. manufactured goods, which would slow growth. And without more jobs and better pay, consumer spending is likely to stagnate.
The Federal Reserve signaled this week that a full recovery could take at least three more years. In response, it said it would probably not increase its benchmark interest rate until late 2014 at the earliest — a year and a half later than it had previously said.
The central bank also slightly reduced its outlook for growth this year, from as much as 2.9 percent forecast in November down to 2.7 percent. The Fed sees unemployment falling as low as 8.2 percent this year.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=67347&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

U.S. deficit to top $1 trillion, smallest since ’09

By Lori Montgomery (http://www.washingtonpost.com/lori-montgomery/2011/03/04/ABffwuN_page.html), Updated: Tuesday, January 31, 12:10 PM
The federal deficit will approach $1.1 trillion this year, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday, down substantially from the worst days of the Great Recession.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the gap between government spending and tax collections would narrow even more dramatically in 2013 unless lawmakers head off controversial changes in tax policy and government spending that are now on the books. These changes, slated to take effect in January, would increase taxes for virtually every American and make deep cuts at the Pentagon and other federal agencies.


Gallery
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2011/05/15/National-Economy/Images/father2.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-us-is-in-debt-sell-something-economists-say/2011/05/15/AF0IvQ4G_gallery.html)


  The United States may have run up a huge debt, but it is not a poor country by any stretch of the imagination. The federal government owns roughly 650 million acres of land, a million buildings, electrical utilities and an interstate highway system. What could it sell? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-us-is-in-debt-sell-something-economists-say/2011/05/15/AF0IvQ4G_gallery.html)

Video
http://img3.wpdigital.net/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/01/23/Business/Videos/01232012-41v/01232012-41v.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/buffett-says-donations-insufficient-for-deficit/2012/01/23/gIQAwO75KQ_video.html) [/URL]
Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett, the billionaire who promised to match lawmakers' voluntary contributions to the U.S. Treasury, said donations are insufficient to solve the budget deficit.

The policies, however, are hugely unpopular in both parties. Although they would improve the government’s financial status, the CBO said the nation could pay a steep economic price. Unemployment, which has drifted down to 8.5 percent, could rise to 8.9 percent by this fall and jump back up to 9.2 percent by the end of next year, the CBO said.
“The amount of higher revenue and lower spending that would occur under current law is really quite sharp,” CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told reporters, putting the impact of scheduled austerity at $400 billion in 2013 alone. “We think that will be pushing down the economy as other factors are starting to push the economy up.”
Policymakers are already talking about ways to short-circuit the changes, or at least postpone them until a new Congress — and perhaps a new president — gets settled after the November elections. But doing so could raise fresh threats to the nation’s financial health, the CBO said. Simply preventing the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts would slash revenues by $5.4 trillion through 2022, forcing Treasury to increase the rising national debt by a similar sum.
Despite a series of high-stakes showdowns over the debt last year, the new CBO report underscores how little progress President Obama and Republicans in Congress made toward solving the nation’s biggest budget problem: how to care for an aging population. Although they have agreed to ratchet agency budgets down toward historic lows, Elmendorf said they will be unable to tame the debt unless they raise taxes well above historic levels or make “large changes” in popular social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
“The gap that’s opened between what we are used to getting from the government . . . and the revenue we’re used to giving to the government has widened a great deal,” he said.
The White House and Republican lawmakers quickly blamed each other for the continuing fiscal mess. Noting that 2012 will mark the fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) urged voters to change course.
“We know that President Obama’s policies have failed to produce the economic growth needed to pay down these massive deficits that are creating uncertainty, preventing economic recovery, and harming job creation,” Cantor said in a written statement. “When something doesn’t work, you change it. Let’s try something new.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney fired back that Cantor and other Republicans had decided to “walk away” from negotiations with Obama over a “grand bargain” to reduce borrowing that would have raised taxes and cut spending on government retirement programs.
“That deal remains available,” Carney said. “What has been lacking thus far is any willingness to deal with revenue in any meaningful way by the Republicans.”
Obama is scheduled to unveil his latest budget blueprint on Feb. 13.
The CBO takes stock of the federal budget three times each year: in January, upon receipt of the president’s budget and again in August. The agency’s projection for the 2012 deficit has increased slightly since the summer, primarily because of weaker-than-expected tax receipts on corporate profits and the decision to extend a cut in the Social Security payroll tax through the end of this month.
Lawmakers in both parties want to extend the tax break through the end of 2012. Unless they come up with a plan to replace the lost revenue, however, the new extension would add an additional $75 billion to this year’s budget gap.
The accumulation of large deficits in the wake of the Great Recession has required the nation to borrow heavily, and the portion of the debt held by outside investors has doubled since 2007.
The CBO projects that it will rise to 72 percent of the economy by the end of this year — the highest since World War II — and begin to drift downward if the Bush tax cuts expire and other austerity measures take effect as scheduled.
Without those changes, however, the national debt would continue to soar, the CBO said, with the portion held by outside investors rising to 94 percent of the economy by 2022.


[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-deficit-to-top-1-trillion-for-4th-year-in-a-row/2012/01/31/gIQAWmKweQ_story.html?hpid=z5 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/buffett-says-donations-insufficient-for-deficit/2012/01/23/gIQAwO75KQ_video.html)

Obama details broader housing plan

February 2, 2012
by The Associated Press (http://www.prdailysun.com/index.php?page=news.journalist&id=1256787160)

by BEN FELLER & JIM KUHNHENN
The Associated Press

FALLS CHURCH, Va.

President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to make it easier for millions of additional homeowners to refinance their mortgages at lower interest rates even if they owe more than their homes are worth. He conceded that his administration’s housing plans so far have not lived up to their promise.
Calling the housing problem “massive in size and in scope,” Obama detailed a proposal he outlined in his State of the Union speech last week, tackling an issue of vital concern in states key to his re-election.
“This housing crisis struck right at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America: our homes,” Obama said, speaking at a northern Virginia community center.
Obama’s proposal would give homeowners with privately held mortgages a shot at record low rates though a new government program, for an annual savings of about $3,000 for the average borrower.
The program is the latest administration effort to help homeowners in the face of a massive number of foreclosures and plunging house values that have left millions of borrowers owing more than their homes are worth. The administration plan aims to ease the way toward refinancing for borrowers, who despite good credit have been unable to take advantage of lower rates because they are underwater on their loans or because banks fear they will be left taking losses.
The administration has rolled out housing programs before with the hope of helping millions of struggling homeowners. But those initiatives have fallen short.
“I’ll be honest, the programs we’ve put forward didn’t work at the scale we’d hoped,” Obama said. “Not as many people have taken advantage of it as we wanted.”
The housing issue, while national in scope, resonates particularly in election battlegrounds like Nevada and Florida which have faced record foreclosures. Obama himself drew attention to the politics surrounding the issue with an indirect jab at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, now the front-runner in the Republican presidential contests. Romney in October suggested the foreclosure process should “run its course and hit the bottom.”
Without naming Romney, Obama said: “It is wrong for anyone to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom. I refuse to accept that, and so do the American people.”
The administration proposal faces a major hurdle in Congress. The program would cost between $5 billion and $10 billion, depending on participation, and the administration proposes to pay for it with a fee on large banks. The administration has tried unsuccessfully before to win support for such a tax on large banks. Administration officials, however, said Obama would consider other ways to pay for the program.
The plan would expand the administration’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, which allows borrowers with loans backed by government-affiliated mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance at lower rates. About 1 million homeowners have used it, well short of the 4 million to 5 million the Obama administration had expected. Moreover, many “underwater” borrowers ― those who owe more than their homes are worth ― couldn’t qualify.
The administration estimates that 3.5 million borrowers with privately-held mortgages have high enough interest rates that they would have incentive to refinance under the new plan. That’s in addition to 11 million borrowers who have Fannie- or Freddie-guaranteed loans who could be eligible for refinancing under the administration’s proposed changes.
About 11 million Americans ― roughly 1 in 4 with a mortgage ― are underwater, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data firm.
Half of all U.S. mortgages ― about 30 million home loans ― are owned by nongovernment lenders.

http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Obama-details-broader-housing-plan

OMG!!! :puke:

McDonald’s Announces End to ‘Pink Slime’ in Burgers
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Health/agb_mcdonalds_dm_120201_main.jpg

McDonald’s has announced that it will be discontinuing the use of the controversial meat product known as boneless lean beef trimmings in its burgers.
The product was recently brought to the attention of the public by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who derisively referred to it as “pink slime” on an episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/home),
These trimmings, which consist of what’s left of the meat after all the choice cuts of beef are taken, are banned for human consumption in the U.K, where they are instead used for dog and chicken food. They are legal for consumption in the United States, however, where they are treated with ammonium hydroxide in order to kill off bacteria such as E. coli and make it safe for human consumption.
Beef Products Incorporated, the company that had previously supplied McDonald’s with boneless lean beef trimmings, denied that Oliver’s show had anything to do with decision, saying it was made long before the show aired and was based on BPI’s inability to supply McDonald’s on a global basis. BPI also pointed to its recent placement on food safety advocate Bill Marler’s nice list (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/12/the-2011-food-safety-news-naughty-and-nice-list/)and numerous food safety awards (http://beefproducts.com/awards_recognition.php) as evidence of its commitment to food safety.
McDonald’s also issued a statement confirming that this decision was long in the works.
“At McDonald’s, the quality and safety of the food we serve our customers is a top priority,” the company wrote. “At the beginning of 2011, we made a decision to discontinue the use of ammonia-treated beef in our hamburgers. This product has been out of our supply chain since August of last year. This decision was a result of our efforts to align our global standards for how we source beef around the world.”
Burger King and Taco Bell have also discontinued the use of boneless lean beef trimmings in their food.


http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/02/01/mcdonalds-announces-end-to-pink-slime-in-burgers/

Unemployment drops to 8.3 pct. after hiring burst

February 4, 2012
by CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON
In the most impressive surge for the job market since early last year, the United States added 243,000 jobs in January, far more than economists expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.
Hiring accelerated across the economy and up and down the pay scale. The high-salary professional services industry added 70,000 jobs, the most in 10 months. Manufacturing added 50,000, the most in a year.
“This is a very positive employment report from almost any angle,” said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Amherst College.
The report could enhance President Barack Obama’s hopes for re-election, which is turning on the health of the economy. The unemployment rate is the lowest since February 2009, one month after Obama took office.
Obama got a fresh talking point in the report as he works to persuade voters that his solutions for the nation’s job woes are working and to give him four more years to turn the economy around completely.
His Republican foes were quick to use the new numbers to argue that the pace of change wasn’t swift enough.
“We can do better,” said GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, who added: “These numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama’s policies have prevented a true economic recovery.”
Money poured into the stock market, already off to its best start in 15 years because of improving confidence in the economy, and out of more conservative investments in bonds.
The Dow Jones industrial average shot 150 points higher to 12,855 and appeared headed for its highest close since the spring before the 2008 financial crisis. The Nasdaq composite index was within reach of its highest close since 2000.

The 243,000 jobs added far exceeded the estimate by economists of 155,000, according to FactSet, a provider of financial data. Other economist estimates were even lower.
It was the most jobs created since April of last year, when 251,000 jobs were created. Before last spring, the last month with stronger hiring, excluding temporary hiring for the census, was March 2006 — almost two years before the Great Recession.
Hiring was stronger in November and December by 60,000 jobs than first estimated. It was also stronger over the past two years than previously thought. The economy added 1.82 million jobs last year, nearly twice as many as in 2010.

The unemployment rate came down two notches from the 8.5 percent in December. It was also the fifth consecutive month the rate has fallen, the first time that has happened since late 1994.
The government uses a survey of mostly large companies and government agencies to determine how many jobs were added or lost each month. It uses a separate survey of households to determine the unemployment rate.
The household survey had more encouraging news: 631,000 people said they found work in January. That pushed the number of unemployed down to 12.8 million, the fewest in three years.
And a quarter-million people streamed back into the work force and started looking for jobs. Because people are counted as unemployed only if they are looking for work, that makes the drop in the unemployment rate all the more impressive.

Economists said it was probably less likely that the Federal Reserve would take additional steps to help the economy anytime soon, as some investors have expected. The Fed has already held interest rates near zero for three years and bought almost $2 trillion in government bonds and other securities to keep long-term rates low.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the central bank planned to keep rates near zero at least until late 2014. But if the unemployment rate keeps coming down, that date could be moved up, several economists said.
In Arlington, Va., Obama pointed out that the economy had added 3.7 million private sector jobs over the past 23 months. He acknowledged there were still too many Americans out of work, or working only part-time.
“But the economy is growing stronger,” Obama said. “The recovery is speeding up. We’ve got to do everything in our power to keep it going. We can’t go back to the policies that led to the recession, and we can’t let Washington stand in the way of the recovery.”
The president called on congressional Republicans to extend a 2-percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax. The cut, put in place at the beginning of 2011, will expire Feb. 29 unless Congress acts.
Eleven million people are either working part-time but would prefer full-time work, or have stopped searching for jobs. When those people are added to the 12.8 million unemployed, nearly 24 million are considered “underemployed.” The so-called “underemployment” rate edged down in January to 15.1 percent, from 15.2 percent.
Employers have added an average of 201,000 jobs a month in the past three months. That’s 50,000 more jobs per month than the economy averaged in each month last year.

The Labor Department’s January jobs report was filled with other encouraging data and revisions. The economy added 200,000 more jobs in 2011 than first thought.
The unemployment rate is nearly a percentage point lower than over the summer, when many feared a recession was imminent.
Impressively, the job gains last month were spread across the economy. Even the beleaguered construction sector added 21,000 jobs, its second month of strong gains. That figure has probably been helped by unseasonably warm weather this winter.
The leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants and hotels, added 44,000 jobs. Retailers added nearly 11,000. Government cut 14,000 jobs, while the private sector added 257,000.
More jobs and higher incomes should help consumers boost spending and increase economic growth.
Even with the gains, the job market faces a long way back to full health. The nation has about 5.6 million fewer jobs than it did when the recession began in late 2007.
There was other good economic news Friday. A private trade group said U.S. service companies, including retailers, hotels and restaurants, expanded at the fastest pace in nearly a year in January. The survey’s employment index soared to its highest level in nearly six years.
Another report showed that factory orders rose in December by 1.1 percent, driven higher by big increases in spending on industrial machinery and autos.
They follow several reports signaled this week that the economy is steadily improving. Manufacturers expanded at the fastest pace in seven months in January, a private survey showed.
And fewer people sought unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said. The four-week average of applications fell to its second-lowest level since June 2008. The drop shows that companies are cutting fewer jobs, which usually leads to more hiring.
Americans spent more at big chain retail stores last month compared with a year earlier. And automakers began 2012 with a strong sales gain in January. Healthier auto sales can boost a range of companies, from steel makers to parts suppliers to shippers.
Some analysts are getting more optimistic about growth this year. Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, says she now expects the economy to expand at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the first quarter, up from an earlier estimate of 2 percent.
The economy expanded at a 2.8 percent annual pace in the October-December quarter, a full percentage point higher than in the previous quarter.
Growth could still slow later this year. Much of the fourth quarter’s expansion was due to companies ordering more goods to restock their warehouses. Restocking is likely to slow in the first three months of this year. That would drag on growth.
Europe’s financial crisis could also slow demand for U.S. goods. And average wages failed to keep up with inflation last year. That leaves consumers with less spending power, which can hamper growth.

http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Unemployment-drops-to-83-pct-after-hiring-burst

#Valentine's Day: A hit with the ladies, not with the fellas


http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-02/279647840-13154633.jpg
Boxes of Valentine's Day chocolates at Ye Olde Pepper Companie in North Andover, Mass. (Elise Amendola / Associated Press)

By Deborah Netburn

Roses are red
Violets are blue
On Twitter, men don't like Valentine's Day
But the ladies sure do!

And we've got a study (http://www.nmincite.com/?p=6404) to prove it.
Ladies are twice as likely to tweet about Valentine's Day as men, according to NM Incites, a Nielsen McKinsey company that tracks social media trends.
The company also reports that women are twice as likely as men to have positive things to say about the holiday.
No major surprises there, but let's take a close look at the numbers.
NM Incites says in an analysis of more than 70,000 tweets between Feb. 10 and 12 it found that 66% of the people tweeting about Valentine's Day were women, while only 34% were men.
The female tweets broke down like this: 36% were on the subject of not having a date, 32% were about realizing that Valentine's Day is coming and 10% were about buying a gift.
For the tweets generated by men, 25% were about not having a date, 14% were about sharing advice and 9% were about disliking the holiday period.
We did our own mini-survey of Valentine's Day tweets, and here's what we found: Lots of Valentine's Day deals from places like Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria Secret and CVS (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/cvs-corp.-ORCRP004225.topic).
And also this joke retweeted all over the place: "Valentine's Day is cancelled! Mathematical proof: 14-02-12 = 0"


http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-valentines-day-twitter-20120213,0,3076780.story

GM posts its highest profit ever: $7.6B

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/gmrec.jpg

DETROIT — General Motors earned its largest profit ever in 2011, two years after it nearly collapsed into financial ruin.Strong sales in the U.S. and China helped the 103-year-old carmaker turn a profit of $7.6 billion, beating its old record of $6.7 billion in 1997 during the pickup truck and SUV boom.
GM is a vastly different company than it was back then. It’s smaller, has less debt and its contract with the United Auto Workers is less costly. But it took a government bailout and a trip through bankruptcy protection in 2009 to cut its bloated costs. The company made record money last year even though U.S. auto sales were near historic lows at 12.8 million cars and trucks.
But problems surfaced in its latest results. GM lost $700 million before taxes in Europe, and its South American operations lost $100 million. Sales growth slowed in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, even as more Americans bought cars and trucks.
GM’s stock price fell 43 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $24.50 in pre-market trading.
The U.S. government still owns 26.5 percent of the company and is waiting for the share price to rise before selling in an effort to recoup the bailout money.
Last year, GM made the bulk of its income in North America, where its pretax profit totaled $7.2 billion. International Operations, which includes Asia, made $1.9 billion before taxes, but that was down.
During the year, GM’s global sales rose 7.6 percent to 9.03 million vehicles to help it reclaim the title of world’s largest automaker from Toyota Motor Corp.
“We will build on these results as we bring more new cars, crossovers and trucks to market,” CEO Daniel Akerson said.
The company wants to keep expenses down by freezing its underfunded U.S. pension plan, and it hinted at factory and job cuts to restore profitability in Europe.
The 2011 profit of $4.58 per share was 62 percent higher than a year earlier. Full-year revenue rose 11 percent to $150 billion.
But GM’s fourth-quarter profit fell 8 percent to $468 million, or 28 cents per share. Revenue rose 3 percent to $38 billion. Before one-time items that totaled 21 cents, GM earned 40 cents per share.
Analysts expected earnings of 42 cents on revenue of $37.9 billion.
GM also said Thursday that its 47,500 blue-collar workers in the U.S. will get $7,000 profit-sharing checks in March. The checks are based on North American performance and are a record for the company.
The company has placed Vice Chairman Steve Girsky in charge of the European management board and is adding executives in preparation for restructuring. Factory closures and layoffs are likely but could provoke a fight with powerful labor unions.
Girsky has said GM intends to fix the European unit, made up of the Opel and Vauxhall brands, and keep it in the company. GM came close to selling the unit in 2009.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=68149&ct_id=3

Dow average closes within 50 points of 13,000

By : The Associated Press

NEW YORK — The Dow edged teasingly close to the 13,000 marker on Friday, a milestone it hasn't reached since before the financial crisis brought the U.S. economy to its knees. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 45.79 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 12,949.87, its highest close for the year so far. That followed a 123-point surge the day before, when it also set a closing record for 2012.
The rest of the market struggled for direction on what turned out to be a quiet news day as traders prepared for the long Presidents' Day weekend. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 3.19 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,361.23, also setting a record close for 2012. The Nasdaq composite, after surging Thursday, fell 8.07 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,951.78. Greek debt talks idled and a key economic indicator, U.S. consumer prices, came in at about what analysts were expecting.
The Dow hasn't closed above 13,000 since May 19, 2008, a time when the Bush administration was still in charge, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch still existed, and unemployment was just 5.4 percent, compared to the current 8.3 percent.
Though 13,000 in some ways would be just a number on a board, with no direct bearing on the fundamentals of the economy, its psychological effect could still be important. People and businesses tend to spend based on how they feel about the economy, and big round numbers can affect feelings just as much as money in the wallet.
"It's not an insignificant psychological barrier," said Marc Scudillo, managing officer at EisnerAmper in New Jersey. "People still need to have that vote of confidence that investing in U.S. companies is still the right direction to go long-term."
On the other hand, popping up to 13,000 could also have a contradictory effect on the Dow. It would almost certainly trigger requirements in some investment firms to sell off some of their stocks, which could briefly push the index back down.
By some accounts, the market is stalling out under the weight of conflicting headlines about the U.S. economy and about Greece, which is trying to secure rescue loans from other European countries so it won't default on debt due next month.
Though recent news about jobless claims and housing starts have been incrementally better, they're still far below where they need to be for a full recovery. Greece and its lenders no sooner hammer out one portion of a debt deal before they find something else to disagree on. In the 33 trading days of 2012 to date, the Dow has risen on 19 and fallen on 14.
"Today is just waiting to see what's next," said Sanjeev Bhojraj, an accounting professor at Cornell's Johnson business school. "You don't know which way to go — you're hoping the news will help you figure it out."
For the most part, the market has moved higher this year, despite worries that the rally is being driven just by emotion rather than economic fundamentals. The Dow is up 6 percent in the first seven weeks of this year. In all of 2011, it rose 5.5 percent.
Some of that could be an early-year pop. Last year, all three major indexes rose in the first quarter before giving up at least some of those gains by year's end.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.01 percent from 1.99 percent late Thursday. That's a sign that investors are moving money out of safe-haven government bonds and into riskier investments like stocks.
Major European indexes rose, including a 5 percent surge in Greece's ATHEX. The euro rose slightly to $1.32, indicating confidence in Europe.
There were some encouraging signs that Greece could secure its bailout deal next week. The finance ministers of the euro zone countries are meeting Monday to finalize the terms. A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she as well as the leaders of Greece and Italy are "optimistic" that a deal can be reached.
Among stocks making big moves:
— Campbell Soup rose 3 percent after beat analysts' expectations for quarterly earnings. The company is in the midst of a turnaround plan that includes adding more expensive, higher-quality soups and broadening offerings in its snack, beverage and other categories
— H.J. Heinz rose 5 percent after beating expectations for quarterly earnings and revenue. The ketchup maker was helped by a big sales increase in emerging markets like China, Russia and Latin America.
— Madison Square Garden jumped in afternoon trading after reports circulated that it had reached an agreement with Time Warner Cable to let Time Warner customers view MSG sports programming. That ends a blackout that infuriated customers anxious to watch New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. Madison Square Garden was flat for most of the day before rising to close up 3 percent.
— Gilead Sciences plunged 14 percent after the drugmaker said a promising hepatitis C treatment it recently acquired may have to be used with other drugs in patients with the disease. The company said some patients in a small part of a mid-stage study relapsed within a month of completing the treatment.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=68254&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Whitney Houston remembered by stars, fans

By : The Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J. — Clapping hands and swaying to gospel hymns in the church where Whitney Houston's powerful voice once wowed her congregation, the biggest names in entertainment sang along with the choir to remember the pop superstar at her hometown funeral Saturday."We are here today, hearts broken but yet with God's strength we celebrate the life of Whitney Houston," the Rev. Joe A. Carter told the packed New Hope Baptist Church after the choir behind him sang "The Lord is My Shepherd."
Mourners including singer Jennifer Hudson and Houston's mother, gospel singer Cissy Houston, stood, swayed and clapped along in the aisles as gospel singers BeBe Winans and the Rev. Kim Burrell joined with pop stars like Alicia Keys in paying tribute to the 48-year-old pop superstar who first began singing in the Newark church.
"You wait for a voice like that for a lifetime," said music mogul Clive Davis, who shepherded Houston's career for decades.
Others were more mournful; singer Ray J., who spent time with Houston during her last days, broke down crying. His sister, singer Brandy, put her arm around him. Cissy Houston and Houston's daughter, 18-year-old Bobbi Kristina, clutched each other in the front of the row.
Actor Kevin Costner, her co-star in "The Bodyguard" that spawned her greatest hit, remembered a movie star who was uncertain of her own fame, who "still wondered, 'Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me?'"
"It was the burden that made her great and the part that caused her to stumble in the end," Costner said.
Filmmaker Tyler Perry praised Houston's "grace that kept on carrying her all the way through, the same grace led her all the way to the top of the charts. She sang for presidents."
Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey were among the biggest names gathered to mourn Houston, along with Hudson, Monica, Brandy and Jordin Sparks — representing a generation of big-voiced young singers who grew up emulating her. Houston's voice, a recording of "I Will Always Love You," was to close the funeral.
Houston's cousin Dionne Warwick presided over the funeral, introducing speakers and singers and offering short comments about Houston between them.
Houston's mother was helped by two people on either side of her as she walked in and sat with her granddaughter and other family to begin the service. Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, briefly appeared at her funeral, walking to the casket, touching it and walking out. Security guards said Brown was upset that he would have to sit separately from the people he arrived with, and left. A Brown representative didn't immediately comment.
Mourners fell quiet as three police officers escorted Houston's casket, draped with white roses and purple lilies. White-robed choir members began to fill the pews on the podium. As the band played softly, the choir sang in a hushed voice, "Whitney, Whitney, Whitney."
Close family friend Aretha Franklin, whom Houston lovingly called "Aunt Ree," had been expected to sing at the service, but she was too ill to attend. Franklin said in an email to The Associated Press that she had been up most of the night with leg spasms and sent best wishes to the family. "May God bless and keep them all," she wrote.
A program featuring a picture of Houston looking skyward read "Celebrating the life of Whitney Elizabeth Houston, a child of God." Pictures of Houston as a baby, with her mother and daughter filled the program.
"I never told you that when you were born, the Holy Spirit told me that you would not be with me long," Cissy Houston wrote her daughter in a letter published in the program. "And I thank God for the beautiful flower he allowed me to raise and cherish for 48 years."
"Rest, my baby girl in peace," the letter ends, signed "mommie."
The service marks one week after Houston, one of music's all-time biggest stars, was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel in California. A cause of death has yet to be determined.
To the world, Houston was the pop queen with the perfect voice, the dazzling diva with regal beauty, a troubled superstar suffering from addiction and, finally, another victim of the dark side of fame.
To her family and friends, she was just "Nippy." A nickname given to Houston when she was a child, it stuck with her through adulthood and, later, would become the name of one of her companies. To them, she was a sister, a friend, a daughter, and a mother.
"She always had the edge," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said outside church Saturday. "You can tell when some kids have what we call a special anointing. Aretha had that when she was 14. ... Whitney cultivated that and took it to a very high level."
A few fans gathered Saturday morning hours before the service as close as they could get to the church, some from as far away as Washington, D.C., and Miami. Bobby Brooks said he came from Washington "just to be among the rest of the fans."
"Just to celebrate her life, not just her death," said Brooks, "just to sing and dance with the people that love her."
Others were more entrepreneurial, setting up card tables to sell silk-screened T-shirts with Houston's image and her CDs. But only the invited would get close to the church; streets were closed to the public for blocks in every direction. But their presence was felt around the church, with a huge shrine of heart-shaped balloons and personal messages that covered the street corner around the church entrance.
Houston's death marked the final chapter for the superstar whose fall from grace while shocking was years in the making. Houston had her first No. 1 hit by the time she was 22, followed by a flurry of No. 1 songs and multi-platinum records.
Over her career, she sold more than 50 million records in the United States alone. Her voice, an ideal blend of power, grace and beauty, made classics out of songs like "Saving All My Love For You," ''I Will Always Love You," ''The Greatest Love of All" and "I'm Every Woman." Her six Grammys were only a fraction of her many awards.
But amid the fame, a turbulent marriage to Brown and her addiction to drugs tarnished her image. She became a woman falling apart in front of the world.
Her last album, "I Look To You," debuted on the top of the charts when it was released in 2009 with strong sales, but didn't have the staying power of her previous records. A tour the next year was doomed by cancellations because of illness and sub-par performances.
Still, a comeback was ahead: She was to star in the remake of the movie "Sparkle" and was working on new music. Her family, friends and hard-core fans were hopeful.
The funeral is for invited guests only. Houston is to be buried next to her father, John Houston, in nearby Westfield, N.J.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=68265&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Obama: Manufacturing rebounding after painful time

February 19, 2012

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama says the painful restructuring of America’s manufacturing base means a lot of jobs are gone forever, but not that Americans must “settle for a lesser future.”
In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said American manufacturers are reinventing themselves with new technology and new efficiencies that have helped lead to what the administration claims are 3.7 million new jobs created over the past two years.
“Factories where people thought they’d retire have left town. Jobs that provided a decent living have been shipped overseas” and will not return, Obama said. “But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for a lesser future.”
He recorded the address while visiting a massive Boeing Co. manufacturing plant near Seattle on Friday. He toured a modern factory floor and the inside of one of the aircraft maker’s new flagship Dreamliner passenger jets.
“Companies like Boeing are realizing that even when we can’t make things cheaper than China, we can make things better,” Obama said in the weekly address. “That’s how we’re going to compete globally.”
Delivering the Republican address, Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers accused Obama of overspending that will set the country up for a financial implosion like the one in Greece.
“Instead of leading the effort to bring down our debt and make tough choices, the president is proposing that we spend more and more,” she said.
While at Boeing on Friday, Obama announced steps to offer financing to U.S. companies to match help their foreign competitors get, with the goal of helping American industries compete.
Obama called on Congress to extend the Export-Import Bank’s authorization. White House officials said the bank will reach its lending limit at the end of March and Obama pointed to it as a key player in helping promote U.S. exports.
At the same time, the White House announced that Boeing will participate in an Export-Import Bank program that helps companies advance money to suppliers on export-related contracts. Administration officials said Boeing would be committing to more than $700 million in short-term credit this year. Officials said the arrangement would help Boeing compete for foreign clients against European jet maker Airbus.
Facing re-election, Obama has pointed to a decline in unemployment and trumpeted a recent boost in manufacturing jobs as an indicator of an economy on the mend. Republicans seeking the White House have accused Obama of failing to steer the economy out of a deep recession.

http://www.prdailysun.com/news/Obama-Manufacturing-rebounding-after-painful-time

Rising sales point to better year for housing

By : The Associated Press

http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/fotos/homesalescropL.jpg

WASHINGTON — The housing market is flashing signs of health ahead of the spring-buying season. Sales of previously occupied homes are at their highest level since May 2010. More first-time buyers are making purchases. And the supply of homes fell last month to its lowest point in nearly seven years, which could push home prices higher.
Sales have now risen nearly 13 percent over the past six months. While they are still well below the 6 million that economists equate with a healthy market, the gains have coincided with other changes in the market that suggest more sales are coming.
“The trend is clearly upward,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that re-sales increased 4.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million.
Single-family home sales rose 3.8 percent. And the number of first-time buyers, who are critical to a housing recovery, increased slightly to make up 33 percent of all sales. That’s still below 40 percent, which tends to signal a healthy market.
One concern is the market is still saturated with homes at risk of foreclosure, which lower broader home prices. Those increased to make up 35 percent of sales.
But the supply of homes on the market has plunged to 2.3 million, the lowest level since March 2005. At last month’s sales pace, it would take more than six months to clear those homes, consistent with a healthy housing market. Fewer homes on the market could help boost prices over time.
Most economists said the January report was encouraging, especially when viewed with other recent positive housing data.
Mortgage rates have never been lower. Homebuilders are slightly more hopeful because more people are saying they might be open to buying this year — and they responded in January to that interest by requesting more permits to construct single-family homes.
“The rise in existing home sales in recent months adds to the indication from housing starts, building permits, and homebuilder sentiment that the sector has improved modestly since the middle of 2011,” said John Ryding, an economist at RDQ economics.
Much of the optimism has come because hiring has picked up. More jobs are critical to a housing rebound. In January, employers added 243,000 net jobs — the most in nine months — and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, the lowest level in nearly three years.
Analysts caution that the damage from the housing bust is deep and the industry is years away from fully recovering. Since the bubble burst, sales have slumped under the weight of foreclosures, tighter credit and falling prices.
Many deals are also collapsing before they close. One-third of Realtors say they’ve had at least one contract scuttled over the past four months. That’s up from 18 percent in September.
Realtors say deals are collapsing for several reasons: Banks have declined mortgage applications. Home inspectors have found problems. Appraisals have come in lower than the bid. Or a buyer suffered a financial setback before the closing.
Sales rose across the country in January. They rose on a seasonal basis by nearly 9 percent in the West, 3.5 percent in the South, 3.4 percent in the Northeast and 1 percent in the Midwest.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=68378&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Obama: Opponents are ‘rooting for bad news’ on gas prices

http://img2.wpdigital.net/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/02/23/National-Politics/Videos/02232012-55v/02232012-55v.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-drilling-is-not-an-energy-plan-214/2012/02/23/gIQALOX8VR_video.html)
Video: President Obama says simply calling for more drilling is just a "bumper sticker," not a real plan for bringing down rising gas prices. Obama says his administration's "all-of-the-above strategy" is the "only real solution." (Feb. 23)

By David Nakamura (http://www.washingtonpost.com/david-nakamura/2011/03/02/AByo4sM_page.html) and Steven Mufson (http://www.washingtonpost.com/steven-mufson/2011/03/09/ABX9PoP_page.html), Published: February 23
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — President Obama said Thursday that there are no “quick fixes” for rising gasoline prices that are threatening the economic recovery (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-adds-243k-jobs-in-january-unemployment-rate-drops-to-83percent/2012/02/03/gIQAhV3mmQ_story.html)and providing fodder for attacks from his political rivals.
Gas prices have risen 29 cents per gallon since December, with regular-grade gas now averaging $3.64 a gallon in the Washington region at a time of year when consumers usually enjoy a respite from price hikes.

http://img.wpdigital.net/rf/image_296w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/02/22/National-Politics/Videos/02222012-50v/02222012-50v.jpg (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/carney-obama-appreciates-impact-of-gas-prices-208/2012/02/22/gIQABrZlTR_video.html)
As gas prices continue to increase, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that President Obama is fully aware of the impact that high gas prices have on average Americans. (Feb. 21)

During a Friday speech in Detroit, Mitt Romney made another statement that could draw him some unwanted attention.

The high cost at the pump could turn into an election-year mess for the president, whose approval ratings have surged recently as the economy improved. Republicans, sensing an opportunity, have blamed Obama for not giving oil companies greater freedom to drill for new U.S. supplies that might ease prices.
The political dynamics are muddied by the Iran factor. In their debate Wednesday, the leading GOP presidential candidates vowed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Yet the rise in oil prices recently has been augmented by the tightening of U.S. and European sanctions on Iran and its oil exports (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-halts-oil-shipments-to-britain-france/2012/02/19/gIQAnLtUNR_story.html).
Some Democrats are also urging Obama, who has pressured other nations to curtail purchases of Iranian oil, to protect consumers by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-allies-to-release-60m-barrels-from-oil-reserves/2011/06/23/AGhcVKhH_story.html), as he did during the Libyan conflict last summer. Most presidents are reluctant to tap the reserve without a dire emergency, and many experts believed the release last year had a fleeting impact on gas prices.
The recent climb in pump prices resembles the 2008 oil spike, when, as a presidential candidate, Obama used the increase to rally support for a renewable-energy agenda. Since then, oil prices have collapsed with the economy and then soared again with the recovery. U.S. oil and gas production has begun increasing substantially for the first time in more than two decades. But the United States still imports about half of its petroleum needs.
In an appearance Thursday at the University of Miami, where he toured an engineering program for energy efficiency, Obama told a crowd of hundreds of students (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/23/remarks-president-energy) that his GOP rivals who are pledging to slash prices are “rooting for bad news” to win political points.
“Since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is drill, step two is drill, and step three is keep drilling,” Obama said. “Well, the American people aren’t stupid. You know that’s not a plan. . . . It’s a strategy to get politicians through an election. You know there are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can’t just drill our to lower prices.”
Obama argued that his “all of the above” energy policy — promoting increased domestic production, improved fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles and greater investment in clean energy innovation — is the smartest way to insulate the United States from the vagaries of the global oil market.
“There is no silver bullet. There never has been,” Obama said. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to make phony election-year promises about lower gas prices.”

Many oil experts say Obama has altered his tone since 2008. “There has been an evolution in his energy thinking,” said Frank A. Verrastro (http://csis.org/expert/frank-verrastro), director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “He can still pick up the transformative, clean, green theme, but there is a recognition that oil and gas has been a big economic driver.”
Obama’s position reflects the White House’s belief that gasoline prices are subject to cyclical spikes due to forces largely outside its control, including the rise in Chinese and Indian oil demand.

During a Friday speech in Detroit, Mitt Romney made another statement that could draw him some unwanted attention.

That view hasn’t stopped Obama’s rivals from trying to exploit the matter on the campaign trail. This week, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum blamed Obama’s “radical environmental policies” for the higher prices, suggesting Obama purposely aims to keep prices high (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/santorum-blames-obama-for-high-gas-prices/2012/02/21/gIQAlC8KSR_blog.html) to stave off global warming by discouraging people from driving. Newt Gingrich said the president “has been outrageously anti-American-energy.”
And the Republican National Committee released a Web video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_rFYbQJBTg) Thursday that features a clip of Obama’s impromptu singing of “Sweet Home Chicago” during a White House blues concert behind a chart showing gas prices rising from $1.85 per gallon when he took office in 2009 to $3.59 this month. The ad is titled “Obama’s Got America Singing the Blues.”
Domestic oil and gas companies also are unhappy. Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said Wednesday that Obama’s corporate tax reform plan, which proposes cuts in tax breaks for oil and natural gas companies, would dampen domestic production.
Gerard cited the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, which would have carried oil from Canada to refineries in Texas, as evidence that the White House is more interested in placating environmentalists.
“When the president talks about ‘all of the above’ to describe his policy, unfortunately he leaves out the oil and natural gas industry,” Gerard said. “If you look at the policies he’s advanced for oil and natural gas, everything has been done to discourage domestic production.”
But energy experts say many Republican proposals, such as building the Keystone pipeline, would have little near-term impact on gasoline prices. Companies producing in Canada’s oil sands area and pipeline companies say that there is enough spare pipeline capacity to last until 2016, or longer.
The Obama administration notes that domestic production has increased every year the president has been in office. During his State of the Union speech last month, Obama said American oil production “is the highest that it’s been in eight years.”
On Thursday, he reiterated calls for new investments in clean energy innovation.
Administration officials said Obama plans to highlight other accomplishments Friday, including an historic fuel efficiency standards agreement (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/obama-administration-auto-industry-strike-deal-on-vehicle-fuel-efficiency/2011/07/27/gIQA72mKdI_story.html) reached last summer with the auto industry that would require cars to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which the administration estimates will save 12 billion barrels of oil.
Obama chose the University of Miami for his speech because it offers an industrial energy-efficiency program for engineers. He also planned to hold four fundraisers in Miami and Orlando after his appearance.
Jay Hakes, who worked on energy policy in the Carter and Clinton administrations, has studied how past administrations have responded to gas price hikes. While oil output has boosted by policies put in place before Obama took office, Hakes said, “I do not know how you could make the point that he somehow restrained production when both onshore and offshore [output] have a lot of momentum behind them.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/taking-heat-on-gas-prices-obama-to-defend-energy-policy-but-offer-no-quick-fixes/2012/02/22/gIQAkuxCVR_story_1.html

NYC Hispanic museum seeks to make itself known

By : The Associated Press

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NEW YORK — Situated behind a wrought-iron gate on an attractive brick terrace in upper Manhattan, the Hispanic Society of America is an imposing museum and research library.It has a world-class collection of Iberian art that includes works from such masters as Goya, Velázquez and El Greco, and monumental sculptures by Anna Hyatt Huntington, the wife of the society's founder.
Yet the 104-year-old institution in Washington Heights, just blocks from the Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X was assassinated, is not high on the itinerary of many tourists — or even New Yorkers. Some don't even know it exists.
The Society had briefly contemplated abandoning the area for more tourist-accessible locations downtown like some of its former neighbors: the American Numismatic Society and the Museum of the American Indian. But it has resolved to stay.
It has a new advisory board and marketing strategy and a magnificent renovated gallery dedicated to 14 huge paintings by revered Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla, canvasses founder Archer Huntington commissioned in 1911 specifically for the room. Executive director Mitchell Codding said the institution's Sorolla collection is the largest outside of Spain.
Staying put in a neighborhood that over time has gone from pastoral to gritty and is now a Latin-flavored urban mix has come at a cost of visitors, revenue and recognition. But the Hispanic Society of America is fighting to make itself and its treasures known to a wider audience, even selling Huntington's coin collection to raise money for new acquisitions.
Tourists from Spanish-speaking countries "make a beeline to come up there," said Michael Mowatt-Wynn, the Society's community outreach advocate. But New Yorkers and other U.S. tourists are far less likely to be aware of it. School groups make up half of the Hispanic Society's attendance.
The museum, which is entered through an elaborately decorated courtyard featuring Moravian floor tiles, averages only 20,000 visitors a year, down from about 50,000 annually in the mid-1950s.

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It is easy to walk past the museum tucked behind gates along Broadway's bustling commercial strip because its landmark status prevents it from placing large signs on the facade.
Deborah Miller of Wilton, Conn., who was visiting the museum on a recent Saturday, said she knew about it only because her daughter had worked there as an intern.
“The building is gorgeous,” she said. “It is off the beaten track but it's worth the visit.”
College student Anita McCollough found out about the museum online while looking for a Spanish cultural organization for a school assignment.
“I live five blocks away and I never knew it was here,” she said. “It's like a whole new world here. It looks like a section of the Met.”
The museum's neighborhood runs from 155th Street to above 190th Street and from the Hudson to the Harlem rivers. It was one of the last areas of Manhattan to be developed and was largely rural when the Hispanic Society opened in 1908 on land once owned by naturalist John James Audubon across from Trinity Cemetery, the burial grounds for New York's social elite.
Huntington lived in a mansion along Manhattan's Museum Mile but wanted his own institution away from the hubbub of Fifth Avenue.
The extension of the subway line to 157th Street in 1906 was one of the primary reasons Huntington chose to build the museum between 155th and 156th streets, said Codding. Huntington soon invited other institutions he was associated with onto his museum's street, Audubon Terrace. Now only the Academy of Arts and Letters remains. Boricua College occupies the former American Geographical Society building.
Mowatt-Wynn said the museum became mired in the changing demographics and economic downturn that struck New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s.
“But now the economic pendulum has swung the other way,” and the area's predominantly Dominican and Mexican population is becoming more gentrified, he said.
“We're trying to make the community aware of the treasure we have,” said Mowatt-Wynn, who is CEO of the Harlem & the Heights Historical Society. “Until recently, it's been considered sort of as an ivory tower ... a formidable institution that people felt was unapproachable.”
The Hispanic Society is in the process of selling off as one lot Huntington's collection of nearly 38,000 coins dating to the ancient world through Sotheby's in a sealed bid auction that ends March 8. Estimated to bring up to $35 million, it had been on long-term loan at the Numismatic Society although never exhibited.
Codding said there are plans to name the museum — but not the institution — the Archer M. Huntington Museum of Art to better reflect the collections' unparalleled scope of artifacts related to the Spanish-speaking world.
It has 6,800 paintings and drawings, 1,000 sculptures, including pieces from the first millennium B.C., thousands of decorative arts objects, including ceramics, textiles and furniture, and 175,000 photographs. The library has 250,000 books, including 15,000 printed before 1701, plus 200,000 manuscripts from the 12th century to the present.
While its permanent collection is unsurpassed in the areas of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American artifacts, the museum lacks space for temporary exhibitions.
To raise its cultural profile, it loans works to major institutions throughout the U.S., Europe and Mexico. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for example, has 20 objects from the Society on display at its new galleries for Islamic art. The Society is collaborating with the Meadows Museum in Dallas for a Sorolla exhibition in 2013, and it recently loaned works to the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art for an exhibition on Colonial Latin America.
“The more your works are seen in major exhibitions, the more people come to realize that we're a major institution with major holdings,” said Codding.
“It's bigger than anything anyone in the U.S. has in Spanish material,” he added.
Mowatt-Wynn said he's working with area residents, officials and other cultural institutions “to bring awareness to the jewel within our midst.”
The Society is piggybacking on the fame of the Cloisters, a branch of the Met farther north. Fliers inform visitors there of the Hispanic Society, and buses regularly run between the two museums and also from Columbus Circle in mid-Manhattan.
It also is emphasizing the community's cultural and Latin flavor and working to bring more restaurants to the area.
The Society is planning improvements in phases and over time. Eventually, it hopes to build a wing on an undeveloped lot on the terrace that would provide more storage and temporary exhibition space. Work on the facade and roof is scheduled for this year.
“But the hardest problem is creating a greater awareness in the U.S.,” said Codding. “It's also a matter of people's attitudes within New York City of going to areas that are above Central Park and getting them to come on a regular basis.”
“Everyone who comes up who hasn't been up here, they're amazed,” he said.
Other sites to visit in the neighborhood of the Hispanic Society of America:
— Trinity Cemetery, between 165th and 164th streets and Riverside Drive and Amsterdam Avenue. It occupies two city blocks on either side of Broadway on land that was once part of naturalist John James Audubon's estate. The monuments feature neo-Gothic, Victorian and American Vernacular designs. New York's social elite, including Astor family members and two New York City mayors, are interred here. The eastern end, where Audubon's grave is found, sits behind The Church of the Intercession, one of the finest examples of Neo-Gothic architecture in New York City constructed in 1911-14.
— Morris-Jumel Mansion, 160th Street and Jumel Terrace. This Palladium-style home was built in 1765 on the second-highest point in Manhattan. George Washington chose it as his headquarters for two months in 1776 because of its commanding views. In 1810, the house was purchased by wine merchant Stephen Jumel and his wife Eliza, whose second husband was Aaron Burr, vice president under Thomas Jefferson.
— 555 Edgecombe Ave., just south of the Morris-Jumel Mansion. Better known as 555 or Triple Nickel, this landmarked 13-story apartment building constructed from 1914-16, was home to such African-American luminaries as Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Lena Horne.
— 16 Jumel Terrace. Robeson later moved from 555 to this limestone row house.
— Sylvan Terrace. This delightful cobble-stoned street next door to Jumel Terrace features colorful 19th-century wood row houses with raised stoops and wrought-iron bannisters.
— Malcolm X Museum at the Audubon Ballroom, 3940 Broadway at 166th Street. This former vaudeville and movie theater featured the neighborhood's first “talkies” in 1927. The upstairs ballroom was where activist Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 while giving a speech. Open by appointment only.
— The National Track & Field Hall of Fame at The Armory, 216 Fort Washington Ave., at 168th Street. This interactive museum features a miniature floor replica of the 26.2-mile New York City Marathon course and a 40-foot-long glass Wall of Fame.
— Hamilton Grange, 414 W. 141st St., in St. Nicholas Park (14 blocks south of Washington Heights). The Federal-style home of founding father Alexander Hamilton. Open Wednesday through Sunday year-round.
— City College, between 141st and 130th streets along Convent Avenue. This hilltop campus boasts magnificent neo-Gothic architecture. The centerpiece is Shepard Hall, which was modeled after a Gothic cathedral. Some of the buildings loom over Hamilton Grange.


http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=68471&ct_id=3&ct_name=1

Photo of Marine kissing boyfriend receives flood of support

Homecoming shot goes viral

By Philip Caulfield (http://www.nydailynews.com/authors?author=Philip%20Caulfield) / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, February 27, 2012, 3:12 PM

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Marines via Facebook

Sgt. Brandon Morgan and his partner Dalan Wells sharing a welcome home kiss in Hawaii.

A photo of a Marine locked in a passionate welcome home kiss with his boyfriend has gone viral, sparking a groundswell of support from backers of the military's policy of allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.
The photo, which shows Sgt. Brandon Morgan (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Brandon+Morgan) locking lips with partner Dalan Wells (http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Dalan+Wells) during a recent homecoming in Hawaii, was posted to a Gay Marines Facebook page on Saturday.
Since then, the shot has received tens of thousands of "likes," shares and comments, prompting the young soldier to send a grateful message to all of his supporters.
"To everyone who has responded in a positive way. My partner and I want to say thank you," the blog Joe. My. God. quoted Morgan as saying.
"We didn't do this to get famous, or something like that we did this cause after 3 deployments and four years knowing each other, we finally told each other how we felt."
"As for the whole PDA and kissing slash hugging in uniform...it was a homecoming…the Sergeants Major, Captains, Majors, and Colonels around us didn't care..." he wrote, before singing off with a "Semper Fi," the Marine Corps motto.
"As a gay veteran that pic drew tears to my eyes," one commenter wrote on Facebook. "Never in my wildest dreams would I ever think I would see this lifetime."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/photo-gay-marine-kissing-boyfriend-receives-flood-support-article-1.1029426#ixzz1ndwxirOr

U.S. Rule Set for Cameras at Cars’ Rear

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Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
Consumer safety advocates say that requiring a rearview camera in automobiles is a big step in protecting people outside of a vehicle.

By NICK BUNKLEY

Published: February 27, 2012

On average, two children die and about 50 are injured every week when someone accidentally backs over them in a vehicle, according to KidsAndCars.org (http://kidsandcars.org/), a nonprofit group that pushed the government to begin tracking such tragedies. And more than two-thirds of the time, a parent or other close relative is behind the wheel.

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A rearview camera monitor in a Kia Sorento.

Now, auto safety regulators have decided to do something about it. Federal regulators plan to announce this week that automakers will be required to put rearview cameras in all passenger vehicles by 2014 to help drivers see what is behind them. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_highway_traffic_safety_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org), which proposed the mandate in late 2010, is expected to send a final version of the rule to Congress on Wednesday.
Cars are filled with safety features that have been mandated by government regulators over the years, including air bags and the Liddy Light, the third brake light named for Elizabeth Dole, who made it standard as secretary of transportation in the 1980s.
But the rearview camera requirement is one of the biggest steps taken to protect people outside of a vehicle.
“We haven’t done anything else to protect pedestrians,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. “This is one thing we can do and should do.”
A spokeswoman for the highway traffic safety agency declined to comment before the new rule was announced.
However, in a preliminary version circulated for public comment, regulators predicted that adding the cameras and viewing screens will cost the auto industry as much as $2.7 billion a year, or $160 to $200 a vehicle. At least some of the cost is expected to be passed on to consumers through higher prices.

But regulators say that 95 to 112 deaths and as many as 8,374 injuries could be avoided each year by eliminating the wide blind spot behind a vehicle. Government statistics indicate that 228 people of all ages — 44 percent of whom are under age 5 — die every year in backover accidents involving passenger vehicles. About 17,000 people a year are injured in such accidents.
“In terms of absolute numbers of lives saved, it certainly isn’t the highest,” Mr. Ditlow said. “But in terms of emotional tragedy, backover deaths are some of the worst imaginable. When you have a parent that kills a child in an incident that’s utterly avoidable, they don’t ever forget it.”
Automakers began offering backup cameras only about a decade ago, by using the in-dash navigation screens that had become popular on luxury models. The feature has become increasingly popular as companies found more inexpensive ways to display camera images to a driver, such as on a screen hidden in the rearview mirror.
For the 2012 model year, 45 percent of vehicles offer a rearview camera as standard equipment, according to the automotive research Web site Edmunds.com (http://edmunds.com/). It is an optional feature on 23 percent of models.
Safety advocates said a mandatory camera is long overdue. “We wouldn’t buy a car if we couldn’t see 30 or 40 feet going forward,” said Janette Fennell, the founder of KidsAndCars.org (http://kidsandcars.org/). “We’re taking this big lethal weapon going in reverse, and we can’t see.”
The new requirement stems from a 2008 law, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, named for a 2-year-old boy who died in 2002 when his pediatrician father was backing a sport utility vehicle into their driveway. The law required the N.H.T.S.A. to set standards for rear visibility, which had never been regulated.
In urging Congress to help reduce backover injuries, KidsAndCars created a public-service announcement showing that 62 children could fit behind a large S.U.V. without being visible to the driver in any of the mirrors.
Although they account for a small fraction of the deaths that result from automobile crashes, backovers are the most common cause of off-road deaths involving children and vehicles, according to KidsAndCars. The number of reported child fatalities attributed to backovers totaled 448 in the years 2006 through 2010, a sharp increase from 88 in a four-year period a decade earlier, the group said.

In many cases, the incidents involve a phenomenon that safety advocates call “bye-bye syndrome,” when a child runs outside to wave to someone driving away, without that person’s knowledge.
As vehicles have become larger and designed to better protect occupants, drivers’ ability to see any people or objects behind them has been reduced, said Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com (http://edmunds.com/).
“Over time, the beltlines have risen, and the glass has gotten a little smaller in the interest of safety,” Mr. Edmunds said. “There’s certainly been a lot of attention paid to safety, but visibility hasn’t necessarily been lumped in the same way.”
Edmunds now measures the size of the blind spot behind each new vehicle, based on how far back the driver can see a mannequin designed to resemble a small child. Although many backover incidents involve S.U.V.’s and trucks, Mr. Edmunds said some of the biggest blind spots are on passenger cars where the trunk has a high deck lid and the driver sits low to the ground.
For the Cadillac CTS-V (http://autos.nytimes.com/2010/Cadillac/CTS_V/237/2632/310068/researchOverview.aspx?inline=nyt-classifier) coupe, Edmunds measured a blind spot 101 feet long, compared with about 40 feet for minivans from Toyota and Honda.
Automakers have generally supported the requirement, while some took issue with technical aspects of the proposal and the added cost. “We’ve had longstanding support for efforts to increase the field of view for these vehicles,” said Wade Newton, of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of the 2014 mandate, automakers have been designing models with camera systems in mind. Instead of including a camera in a $2,000 navigation package, many have made it standard or a stand-alone option for