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Check Out the Skinniest House in the World

2011-07-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

As Washington struggles over debt crisis, Obama stays mum on veto threat

2011-07-26T07:20:00.001-07:00

By Major Garrett
National Journal

Washington may have become, as President Obama said on Monday, a place where "compromise has become a dirty word," but in the context of the menacing debt-limit crisis there was a far dirtier word he didn't utter.
Veto.
While Obama warned House Speaker John Boehner not to turn Americans into "collateral damage," he did not vow to veto the bill Boehner's now pushing to lift the debt ceiling by $1 trillion (good for six months). Boehner's two-step process would impose $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and establish a select congressional commission to propose an additional $1.8 trillion in savings by Thanksgiving.
If Republican leaders were sifting through Obama's speech for one word it was "veto." Its absence gives Obama, Boehner, and the Senate room to maneuver if, as now appears likely, Boehner's bill squeaks through the House and arrives in the Senate as a viable, though less-than-optimal, alternative to default.
MULTIMEDIA: 6 Costs of not raising the debt ceiling
Clearly, Obama prefers Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposal to extend the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion (enough to last until 2013) with the new credit line financed entirely by spending cuts that spare entitlements and impose no new taxes—even on easy political targets like corporate jets or oil companies. But Obama did not single Reid's bill out as the only option, just a preference. As Obama and every serious player in this tug-of-war knows, the time for preferences is dwindling and the time for least-best options is nigh.
Consider Obama's carefully worded description of the Reid bill and the way forward.
"I think that's a much better path, although serious deficit reduction would still require us to tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform," Obama said of the Reid bill, which may fail on a procedural vote on Wednesday. "Either way, I have told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of Congress—a compromise I can sign. And I am confident we can reach this compromise."

The compromise remains undefined and Obama made one last bid for a so-called "grand bargain," the elusive $4 trillion combination of discretionary and entitlement spending cuts and tax reform that represents the biggest possible down payment on long-term deficit reduction. Obama asked Americans made weary by the partisan strife to prod Congress with e-mails, phone calls, and social-media pokes.
POLL: Voters Fear Debt Deal Will Hurt Medicare
"The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn't vote for a dysfunctional government," Obama said in what may be the speech's most durable line. "So I'm asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message."
Notice that a "balanced approach" and "compromise" are no longer the same thing. By endorsing Reid's spending cut-only bill (even with proposals Republicans deride as gimmicks), Obama has given up on the grand bargain and so-called balanced approach. If the nation rallies behind that and tells Congress as much, it will be lobbying in a vacuum. If it calls on Congress to "compromise" it will be theoretically pushing for Reid's bill.
Either way, Obama's call for outside help to isolate Boehner and pressure Republicans into buckling is classic divide-and-conquer politics. Boehner is struggling to hold his conference together behind a proposal that's a retreat from the cut, cap, and balance bill passed only last week.
TEXT: Full comments from President Obama, House Speaker Boehner
Boehner's taking flak on his right. Now, Obama's depicting House Republicans as stubborn, small-minded, and willing to risk default, higher interest rates, and stock market volatility just to block higher taxes. Obama must position himself against House Republicans—even if he ultimately has to cut a deal with Boehner.
Why? Because even though Obama retains more public confidence and support in this mess than Hill Republicans, this crisis has not elevated his stature. Last week Obama's Gallup weekly approval rating fell to 43 percent, the lowest level of his presidency and lower than Bill Clinton at a similar stage of his budget standoff with Republicans in 1995. The stalemate, as Obama called it, has taken a toll on all players and now the battle is one of short-term leverage.
If Obama can weaken Boehner so much that he can't pass a bill in the House, Reid's bill has a chance in the Senate. Significantly, the current timing (very fluid, to put in mildly) is for the House to vote late on Wednesday and the Senate to follow on Thursday. But if Boehner prevails and his method becomes a live option in the Senate and Reid's bill can't overcome an expected GOP filibuster, Obama's choices will dwindle to two: sign Boehner's bill or come up with something new on the fly.
DÉJÀ VU: Just What Congress Needed — Another Sex Scandal
That Obama didn't promise to veto Boehner's bill signals that Obama may already know the sweet spot between divided government and dysfunctional government. He may not sign the Boehner bill, but the absence of a veto threat is a tell-tale sign that, in the end, Obama may tolerate something much closer to it than Monday night's speech conveyed.
Visit National Journal for more political news.

Bad news for Social Security recipients

2011-07-18T04:23:00.000-07:00

NYC boy's gruesome killing shocks community

2011-07-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AP) — Walking home alone from day camp for the first time, 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky disappeared.
A day-and-a-half search led police to the Brooklyn home of a man seen on a surveillance video with the young Orthodox Jewish child. They asked: Where is the boy?
The man nodded toward the kitchen, authorities said, where blood stained the freezer door. Inside was the stuff of horror films — severed feet, wrapped in plastic. In the refrigerator, a cutting board and three bloody carving knives. A plastic garbage bag with bloody towels was nearby.
"It is every parent's worst nightmare," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday, following the arrest of 35-year-old Levi Aron on a charge of second-degree murder.
Leiby disappeared Monday afternoon while on his way to meet his mother on a street corner seven blocks from his day camp, the first time the young Hasidic child was allowed to walk the route alone. Authorities said he had evidently gotten lost after missing a turn, and had reached out to Aron, a stranger, for help.
The gruesome killing shocked the tight-knit Hasidic community in Borough Park, in part because it is one of the safest sections of the city and because Aron is himself an Orthodox Jew, although not Hasidic. The Hasidim are ultra-Orthodox Jews.
"This is a no-crime area," said state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area. "Everybody is absolutely horrified," he said. "Everyone is in total shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension ... to suddenly disappear and then the details ... and the fact someone in the extended community ... it's awful."
While the medical examiner's office said it was still investigating how the boy was killed, the body was released so that the boy could be buried Wednesday evening according to Jewish custom.
Thousands gathered around a Borough Park synagogue for the funeral service. Speakers broadcast over a loudspeaker, chanting and speaking in Yiddish and Hebrew. They stressed the community's resilience and unity after what one called an unnatural death.
"This is not human," said Moses Klein, 73, a retired caterer who lives near the corner where the boy was last seen.
The break in the case came when investigators watched a grainy video that showed the boy, wearing his backpack, getting into a car with a man outside a dentist's office. Detectives tracked the dentist down at his home in New Jersey, and he remembered someone coming to pay a bill. Police identified Aron using records from the office, and 40 minutes later he was arrested, shortly before 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Aron told police where to find the rest of the body; it was in pieces, wrapped in plastic bags, inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood, Kelly said.
Police said there was no evidence the boy was sexually assaulted, but they would not otherwise shed any light on a motive except to say Aron told them he "panicked" when he saw photos of the missing boy on fliers that were distributed in the neighborhood. Police were looking into whether Aron had a history of mental illness.
Police said Aron, who is divorced, lives alone in an attic in a building shared with his father and uncle.
Kelly said it was "totally random" that Aron grabbed the boy, and aside from a summons for urinating in public, he had no criminal record. A neighbor told authorities her son had said Aron had once tried to lure him into his car, but nothing happened and she didn't think much of it until the news of the killing, police said.
He lived most of his life in New York and worked as a clerk at a hardware supply store around the corner from his home, authorities said. Co-workers said Aron was at work on Tuesday.
"He seemed a little troubled," said employee Chamin Kramer, who added Aron usually came and went quietly.
Aron lived briefly in Memphis, Tenn., and his ex-wife, Deborah Aron, still lives in the area. She said he never showed signs of violence toward her two children from a previous relationship.
"It's utter disbelief," she said from the toy-littered backyard of her home in the Memphis suburb of Germantown. "This ain't the Levi I know."
Deborah Aron said the couple divorced about four years ago after a year of marriage. She described Levi Aron as a person who was shy until he got to know you and said he enjoyed music, karaoke and "American Idol." She said he attended Orthodox Jewish services in Memphis.
He was "more of a mother's boy than a father's boy," who lived at home until he met her, she said.
She said Levi injured his head when he was hit by a car while riding his bike at the age of 9 and suffered problems stemming from that accident.
___
Associated Press Writers Karen Matthews and Karen Zraick in New York and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report.

Mila Kunis Accepts Marine's Invite to Corps Ball

2011-07-12T05:24:00.001-07:00

Mila Kunis, reporting for duty!
When Sgt. Scott Moore posted a YouTube video last week inviting the Black Swan actress to accompany him to the Marine Corps Ball on Nov. 18, it probably seemed like a long shot. But at the urging of her Friends With Benefits costar, Justin Timberlake, Kunis agreed to head to Greenville, North Carolina to be Moore's date!
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In the video, Moore addressed the actress directly from Afghanistan. "Hi Mila, I just want to take a moment out of my day to invite you to the Marine Corps Ball with yours truly," he said. "So take a second to think about it, and get back to me."
When FOX411 asked the actress if she knew about the invitation, Timberlake, 30, made certain that Kunis would go. "Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?" he asked her. "You need to do it for your country!"
"I'm going to work on this, man," he said in a message to Scott. "This needs to go down!"
PHOTOS: Justin's many women
"I'll go. I'll do it for you," Kunis said, before asking Timberlake if he was going to attend as well.
"They don't want me!" he exclaimed. "They want you."
Check out Sgt. Scott Moore's invitation below:

Why Gas Prices Should Be Lower Soon

2011-06-24T05:35:00.001-07:00

Oil markets were roiled today when the United States and the International Energy Agency jointly announced that they would release a combined 60 million barrels of oil into international markets over the coming month.
Where is the oil coming from?
The U.S. said it will sell 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while other countries that are members of the International Energy Administration will provide the rest from their reserves.
But didn't President Obama tell you just a couple of weeks ago that he wasn't planning to do this?
Indeed he did. At a meeting with finance journalists on June 8, I specifically asked whether he was considering releasing oil from the SPR. His response:

"I won't make any news on that today. I will say that my general view is that the SPR is to be used where you don't have just short-term fluctuations in the market, but a significant disruption event. Libya has taken 1.25 m barrels per day off the market. We're examining broadly what that means in terms of the oil market."

So what's changed in the past two weeks?
A couple of things. First, the administration has apparently concluded that the situation in Libya isn't going to improve in the short term. As Energy Secretary Steven Chu put it today: "We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries, and their impact on the global economic recovery," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. While Libya accounts for only a tiny portion of global oil production, its oil is the most cherished (and easy to process) light, sweet crude.
Second, an OPEC meeting two weeks ago ended in disarray, with members disagreeing about higher production. That suggests that the production we're losing from Libya won't be replaced anytime soon.
But why release the oil now? After all, oil prices have been falling since May.
It's true that oil prices have been falling. Since peaking at $114 per barrel in May, oil prices had fallen about 16.7 percent before today's announcement. (For a longer term chart, go here) Meanwhile, gasoline prices have fallen in the last two weeks, from a nationwide average of $3.78 per gallon to $3.65 per gallon. But that's still up 91 cents per gallon from a year ago, and the peak summer driving season is about to begin. Simply put, higher gas prices hurt the economy more in the summer than they do in the spring.
Cynics would say that politics are also coming into play.
As I discuss with my colleagues Aaron Task and Jeff Macke in the accompanying video, you don't have to be cynical to think that. While the economy is slowing, there seems to be little hope of further aid or stimulus. In his press conference yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that the central bank was pretty much done with its efforts to boost demand. On Capitol Hill, talks are centering on anti-stimulative spending cuts and tax increases. And so releasing oil from the SPR is one way President Obama can stimulate the economy without action from the Fed or Congress. In theory, greater supplies of oil bring down the price. And cheaper oil functions as a tax cut for businesses and consumers.

Will gas prices come down as a result?
Yes. Crude oil prices have fallen more than 20 percent from their May peak. But don't expect a sharp decline in the price at the pump in the next few weeks. Gasoline station owners buy new supplies every couple of days. So when their costs rise, they feel compelled to pass along the higher prices to consumers instantly — as a matter of survival. The opposite dynamic takes hold when oil prices are falling. As wholesale gas falls in price, profit margins expand, and station owners are in no rush to ratchet down the price at the pump.
Of course, in the scheme of things, 60 million barrels isn't much. In 2010, the U.S. consumed about 19.15 million barrels per day, and the world ran through about 85.3 million barrels per day. Put another way, this 60 million barrels is about what the U.S. consumes in three days, or what the world consumes in 17 hours.
Even though it's a small amount, it seemed to have a big market impact. Why?
Right after the announcement, the price of oil fell about five percent, to below $90 per barrel.That's a pretty dramatic move. And it can be explained by a few factors. This represents new supply and takes away some of the worries about disruptions. In addition, speculation has played a role in keeping oil prices high. And some investors and analysts believe that this may be part of a concerted effort to fight speculators. The 30 million barrels the U.S. is releasing is equal to 4.2 percent of the total in the SPR, so there could be more to come. In addition, other economic news — the Fed ratcheting down its projection for economic growth in the second half of 2011 yesterday, and general concerns about a slowdown in China — point to lower prices.
Is this unprecedented?
No. When there are disruptions — a barge accident, a refinery explosion — the SPR lends out small amounts of oil to refineries, as it did in 2006. After Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005, the SPR offered to sell up to 30 million barrels to help keep the industry supplied. Ultimately, 11 million barrels were sold.
Will this move alone bring oil prices back to earth?
All things being equal, additional supply should lead to lower prices. But in the oil market, all things are never equal. The strength of the dollar, the pace of growth in China, politics in Iran, instability in the Middle East, new finds, OPEC decisions and more play into the ultimate price of oil.
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Follow him on Twitter: @grossdm. Email him at grossdaniel11@yahoo.com
You can find his columns here.
His most recent book is Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation.

FDA Unveils Graphic Images for Cigarette Packs

2011-06-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- In a dramatic bid to get more Americans to quit smoking, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday released nine graphic warning labels that will appear on all packs of cigarettes by no later than September 2012.
One image shows a man's face and a lighted cigarette in his hand, with smoke escaping from a hole in his neck -- the result of a tracheotomy. The caption reads "Cigarettes are addictive." Another image shows a mother holding a baby as smoke swirls about them, with the warning: "Tobacco smoke can harm your children."
A third images depicts a distraught woman with the caption: "Warning: Smoking causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers."
A fourth picture shows a mouth with smoked-stained teeth and an open sore on the lower lip. "Cigarettes cause cancer," the caption reads.
In addition to the images, the label on packs of cigarettes will include a phone number -- 1-800-QUIT-NOW -- so smokers will know where to go for help quitting.
By law, the labels must appear on every pack of cigarettes sold in the United States and on all cartons and in all cigarette advertising. The campaign marks the first major change to cigarette packaging in the last 25 years, the FDA said.
"President Obama is committed to protecting our nation's children and the American people from the dangers of tobacco use. These labels are frank, honest and powerful depictions of the health risks of smoking and they will help," U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a news release. "These labels will encourage smokers to quit, and prevent children from smoking. President Obama wants to make tobacco-related death and disease part of the nation's past, and not our future."
Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the new warnings the "most dramatic change in cigarette warnings in the history of the United States. For the first time the warnings are large enough to be seen and graphic enough to catch the attention of consumers."
The labels will fill the top half of all cigarette packs.
Myers said the images on the labels are exactly the kind of measure that has been shown to be effective in encouraging children not to smoke and getting adults to quit. But, to keep the message vibrant, the images need to be changed regularly because as people get used to them, the impact of the warning weakens, he added.
"For the first time we have labels that not only tell people that smoking is dangerous, but provide them the kind of information they need to now how dangerous it is," he said. "The warning labels have the potential to dramatically reduce the number of our kids who start, but they will be most effective if they are complemented by comprehensive tobacco-control programs in every state."
Many such programs have been curtailed in recent years as cash-strapped states have diverted funding from tobacco-control efforts to pay for constituent services or to hold down tax increases. In states that have maintained funding, the number of smokers continues to drop, Myers said.
The new labels are a part of the requirements of the new Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed into law in 2009 by President Barack Obama, who has struggled for many years to quit smoking. For the first time, the law gave the FDA significant control over tobacco products.
The FDA hopes these new warnings will have a "significant public health impact by decreasing the number of smokers, resulting in lives saved, increased life expectancy, and improved health status."
The agency said it chose the nine images from 36 originally proposed. The agency also said it reviewed the relevant scientific literature, analyzed the results from an 18,000-person study and reviewed more than 1,700 comments from a variety of groups, including the tobacco industry, retailers, health professionals, public health and other advocacy groups, state and local public health agencies, medical organizations and consumers.
Dr. Jonathan Whiteson, director of the Cardiac and Pulmonary Wellness and Rehabilitation Program at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, is concerned that the images may be too graphic.
"The 'fear factor' of the negative message can lose its potency -- we become immune to the negative warnings over time, and if too graphic, we often hide behind the denial wall stating, 'This just can't possibly happen to me.' The more graphic the image, the more likely the message will become marginalized and thrown out as too wild and extreme a possibility for the smoker," he said in a statement."
Whiteson thinks that to get kids not to take up smoking, messages have to convey the idea that smoking isn't cool.
Smoking is the leading cause of early and preventable death in the United States, resulting in some 443,000 fatalities each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and costs almost $200 billion every year in medical costs and lost productivity.
Over the last decade, countries as varied as Canada, Australia, Chile, Brazil, Iran and Singapore, among others, have adopted graphic warnings on tobacco products. Some are downright disturbing: in Brazil, cigarette packages come with pictures of dead babies and a gangrened foot with blackened toes.
Currently, the United States has some of the weakest requirements for cigarette package warnings in the world, David Hammond, an assistant professor in the department of health studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, told HealthDay. The text-only warnings on packages have changed little since 1984.
Elsewhere, graphic warnings seem to be helping to drive down smoking rates. In Canada, about 13 percent of the population smokes daily, a 5 percent drop since graphic warnings were adopted in 2000, according to Hammond.
More information
For more on the warning labels and to see the images, visit this FDA website.

U.S. intensifying covert war in Yemen: report

2011-06-09T07:18:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has intensified air strikes on suspected militants in Yemen in a bid to keep them from consolidating power as the government in Sanaa teeters, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
A U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that a U.S. strike last Friday killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel al Qaeda operative, which followed last month's attempted strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Citing U.S. officials, the Times said a U.S. campaign using armed drones and fighter jets had accelerated in recent weeks as U.S. officials see the strikes as one of the few options to contain al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
With the country in violent conflict, Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to Sanaa, the newspaper said.
Yemen's authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was wounded on Friday and is being treated in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. He appears to have been wounded by a bombing at a mosque inside his palace, not a rocket attack as first thought, U.S. and Arab officials told Reuters.
There were conflicting reports about his condition -- ranging from fairly minor, to life-threatening 40 percent burns.
There had been nearly a yearlong pause in U.S. airstrikes after concerns that poor intelligence had resulted in civilian deaths that undercut goals of the secret campaign.
U.S. and Saudi spy services have been receiving more information from electronic eavesdropping and informants about possible locations of militants, the newspaper said, citing officials in Washington. But there were concerns that with the wider conflict in Yemen, factions might feed information to trigger air strikes against rival groups.
The operations were further complicated by al Qaeda operatives' mingling with other rebel and anti-government militants, the newspaper said, citing a senior Pentagon official.
The U.S. ambassador in Yemen met recently with opposition leaders, partly to make the case for continuing operations in case Saleh's government falls, the newspaper said.
Opposition leaders have told the ambassador that operations against al Qaeda in Yemen should continue regardless of who wins the power struggle in the capital, the Times said, citing officials in Washington.
Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has been linked to the attempt to blow up a transatlantic jetliner on Christmas Day 2009 and a plot last year to blow up cargo planes with bombs hidden in printer cartridges.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Writing by Vicki Allen; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Plessy and Ferguson: Descendants of a divisive Supreme Court decision unite

2011-06-07T07:27:00.000-07:00

By Robert Barnes | The Washington Post – Mon, Jun 6, 2011

When Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson decided to start a new civil rights education organization that would bear their famous names, they sealed the deal in a fitting local spot: Cafe Reconcile.
They represent the opposing principals in one of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson , which upheld the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws mandating segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. It stood from 1896 until the court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.
The descendent of the man who tested Louisiana’s law requiring separate railroad cars for whites and blacks and the great-great-granddaughter of the judge who upheld it met in 2004.
The truth is, no reconciliation was required.
“The first thing I said to her,” recalled Plessy, “was, ‘Hey, it’s no longer Plessy versus Ferguson. It’s Plessy and Ferguson.’ ”
Her first reaction was to apologize.
“I don’t know why,” she said in an interview. “It’s just that I felt the burden of it, this great injustice.”
Plessy’s response?
“I said, ‘You weren’t alive during that time. I wasn’t either. It’s time for us to change that whole image.’ ”
So the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation was born, and on Tuesday it will celebrate another anniversary of Homer Adolph Plessy’s decision to buy a railroad ticket for the June 7, 1892, train trip from New Orleans to Covington, on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain.
The organization seeks to highlight the historic moments in New Orleans’s struggle for racial equality and hopes to remind the public of the story behind the famous case. It was, Plessy and Ferguson said, a forerunner of the legal strategies and civil disobedience that took root in the civil rights struggles of the 20th century.
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It was a setup from the start. New Orleans historian Keith Weldon Medley, in his book “We as Freemen,” describes how the Comite des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), an organization of freemen of color, planned the legal strategy for more than a year. They meant to challenge the segregation law using the post-Civil War 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.
Plessy, a shoemaker from the Treme neighborhood, volunteered for the job and was the perfect candidate. Seven-eighths white, he was “colored” in the eyes of the law. He bought a first-class ticket, sat in the white rail car, answered that he was colored when asked, refused to leave and was arrested by a private detective. It had all been worked out in advance.
John Howard Ferguson was a carpetbagger from New England, schooled by an abolitionist lawyer in the north and married into an abolitionist New Orleans family. He had been on the bench only months when the Plessy case arrived on his docket.
Despite his background, Ferguson upheld the segregation law. Plessy wasn’t deprived of equal accommodations, Ferguson wrote, but “simply deprived of the liberty of doing as he pleased.”
(SCHOOL CHOICE: Some African Americans are split on the issue)
The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed, and so eventually did the U.S. Supreme Court, 7 to 1.
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority,” wrote Justice Henry Billings Brown. “If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”
The lone objection came from Justice John Marshall Harlan, whose “Great Dissent” predicted the decision would join the infamy of the court’s Dred Scott ruling.
“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,” Harlan famously wrote.
The Comite des Citoyens closed shop; Plessy paid a $25 fine in lieu of jail time.
Phoebe Ferguson and Keith Plessy were both born in New Orleans generations later, in the year Brown was decided.
The daughter of a conservative Tulane-grad father and a “radical feminist” Sarah Lawrence mother, Ferguson said she had no idea she was connected to the case.
“If my mother had known, she certainly would have talked about it,” said Ferguson, who moved north and got the news years later when a man who had bought John Ferguson’s house tracked her down.
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She returned to New Orleans from New York “after the storm” — Hurricane Katrina — first with a 17-foot truckload of supplies and then later for good. She completed a film about the city’s oldest African American social club called “Member of the Club” and lately has become involved in the city’s schools.
“I’m a completely different person than I was in New York,” she said.
Plessy, whose great-grandfather was Homer Plessy’s first cousin, knew of his connection because of his fairly rare French name. He remembers grade school teachers calling him to the front of the class during a discussion of the case.
And his name has attracted attention from visiting civil rights luminaries who have passed through the downtown New Orleans hotel where he has made a career. He spoke with Muhammad Ali and was once called upstairs to meet Rosa Parks.
Plessy recalls rushing in to find Parks sitting in a chair, and he knelt before her.
“She said, ‘Get up, boy. Your name is Plessy. You got work to do,’ ” he said.
He said he found that work after meeting Medley, and because of the revival of interest around the centennial of the Plessy decision. The city and state first recognized “Homer A. Plessy Day” in 2005.
“I was not a great leader or a great scholar or any of those things,” Keith Plessy said. “I’ve been a 30-year employee of Marriott as a bellman and happy with that job.
“But I have an obligation and a privilege to keep my ancestor’s history alive. What my ancestors dreamt about, I’m able to live.”

More from the Washington Post:

Women are enthusiastic about Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

The African-American garments that are slated for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Unearthing African American history in Timbuctoo.

Full coverage of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

.Libya's Gaddafi: I will not leave my country

2011-05-31T07:38:00.001-07:00

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi is emphatic he will not leave Libya, South African President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday after talks with the Libyan leader that left prospects for a negotiated end to the conflict looking dim.
But new questions emerged over how long Gaddafi could hold on after a senior United Nations aid official said shortages of food and medicine in areas of Libya controlled by Gaddafi amounted to a "time bomb."
Within hours of Zuma's departure from Tripoli late on Monday, Libyan television reported that NATO aircraft had resumed attacks, striking what it called civilian and military sites in Tripoli and Tajoura, just east of the capital.
Zuma was in Tripoli to try to revive an African "roadmap" for ending the conflict, which started in February with an uprising against Gaddafi and has since turned into a war with thousands of people killed.
The talks produced no breakthrough, with Gaddafi's refusal to quit -- a condition the rebels and NATO have set as a pre-condition for any ceasefire -- still the sticking point.
"Col. Gaddafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue," Zuma's office said in a statement. "He emphasized that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties."
Zuma also said Gaddafi's personal safety "is a concern" -- a reference to NATO strikes which have repeatedly hit the Libyan leader's Bab al-Aziziyah compound and other locations used by the Libyan leader and his family.
Now in its fourth month, Libya's conflict is deadlocked on the ground, with anti-Gaddafi rebels unable to break out of their strongholds and advance toward Tripoli, where Gaddafi appears to be firmly entrenched.
Rebels control the east of Libya around the city of Benghazi, Libya's third-biggest city Misrata, and a mountain range stretching from the town of Zintan, 150 km (95 miles) south of Tripoli, toward the border with Tunisia.
Western powers have said they expect Gaddafi will be forced out by a process of attrition as air strikes, defections from his entourage and shortages take their toll.
Panos Moumtzis, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, told Reuters in Tripoli that some food stocks in areas under Gaddafi's control were likely to last only weeks.
"I don't think there's any famine, malnutrition. But the longer the conflict lasts the more the food stocks supplies are going to be depleted, and it's a matter of weeks before the country reaches a critical situation," Moumtzis said in an interview.
"The food and the medical supplies is a little bit like a time bomb. At the moment it's under control and it's ok. But if this goes on for quite some time, this will become a major issue," he said.
MISRATA FIGHTING
Gaddafi says his forces are fighting armed criminal gangs and al Qaeda militants, and has described the NATO intervention as an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya's plentiful oil reserves.
Libyan television broadcast footage of Gaddafi welcoming Zuma, his first public appearance since May 11. Speculation had been swirling in the past few weeks that Gaddafi was injured in a NATO strike or had fled Tripoli.
A Reuters photographer in Misrata said there was heavy fighting in the suburb of Dafniyah, in the west of the city, where the front line is now located after rebel fighters drove pro-Gaddafi forces out of the city.
Speaking from a field hospital near the front line, she said 14 rebel fighters had been injured so far on Tuesday, one of them seriously.
"Gaddafi's forces are firing Grad rockets," she said. "The rebels tried to advance, and Gaddafi's forces pushed back."
Rebel fighters, out of their familiar urban battleground and now in open ground, were being outgunned, one of their spokesmen said.
"The situation is getting more difficult for the revolutionaries because fighting is going on in open places. They do not have the same heavy weapons as the (pro-Gaddafi) brigades," the spokesman, Abdelsalam, said from Misrata.
There were reports too of clashes between rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi in the Western mountains.
A rebel spokesman in the town of Zintan told Reuters by telephone: "Fighting took place last night in (the village of) Rayayna, east of Zintan ... It continued until the early hours of this morning. Both sides used mortars."
"The revolutionaries do not want to intensify attacks in the area for fear of harming civilians still living there," said the spokesman, called Abdulrahman.
He urged NATO to take a more active role by targeting pro-Gaddafi forces from the air.
Using a makeshift system of citizens' band radios and Skype, local rebels have been passing on the positions of government forces to NATO via the rebel headquarters in Benghazi, eastern Libya.
"NATO's performance is still very weak. Its operations are very slow despite the fact that the local (rebel) military council has provided it with all necessary information about the brigades' positions," said Abdulrahman.
(Additional reporting by Zohra Bensemra in Misrata, Matt Robinson in Zintan and Marius Bosch in Johannesburg; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Beneath Jerusalem, an underground city takes shape

2011-05-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

JERUSALEM – Underneath the crowded alleys and holy sites of old Jerusalem, hundreds of people are snaking at any given moment through tunnels, vaulted medieval chambers and Roman sewers in a rapidly expanding subterranean city invisible from the streets above.
At street level, the walled Old City is an energetic and fractious enclave with a physical landscape that is predominantly Islamic and a population that is mainly Arab.
Underground Jerusalem is different: Here the noise recedes, the fierce Middle Eastern sun disappears, and light comes from fluorescent bulbs. There is a smell of earth and mildew, and the geography recalls a Jewish city that existed 2,000 years ago.
Archaeological digs under the disputed Old City are a matter of immense sensitivity. For Israel, the tunnels are proof of the depth of Jewish roots here, and this has made the tunnels one of Jerusalem's main tourist draws: The number of visitors, mostly Jews and Christians, has risen dramatically in recent years to more than a million visitors in 2010.
But many Palestinians, who reject Israel's sovereignty in the city, see them as a threat to their own claims to Jerusalem. And some critics say they put an exaggerated focus on Jewish history.
A new underground link is opening within two months, and when it does, there will be more than a mile (two kilometers) of pathways beneath the city. Officials say at least one other major project is in the works. Soon, anyone so inclined will be able to spend much of their time in Jerusalem without seeing the sky.
On a recent morning, a man carrying surveying equipment walked across a two-millennia-old stone road, paused at the edge of a hole and disappeared underground.
In a multilevel maze of rooms and corridors beneath the Muslim Quarter, workers cleared rubble and installed steel safety braces to shore up crumbling 700-year-old Mamluk-era arches.
Above ground, a group of French tourists emerged from a dark passage they had entered an hour earlier in the Jewish Quarter and found themselves among Arab shops on the Via Dolorosa, the traditional route Jesus took to his crucifixion.
South of the Old City, visitors to Jerusalem can enter a tunnel chipped from the bedrock by a Judean king 2,500 years ago and walk through knee-deep water under the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Beginning this summer, a new passage will be open nearby: a sewer Jewish rebels are thought to have used to flee the Roman legions who destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D.
The sewer leads uphill, passing beneath the Old City walls before expelling visitors into sunlight next to the rectangular enclosure where the temple once stood, now home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-capped Dome of the Rock.
From there, it's a short walk to a third passage, the Western Wall tunnel, which continues north from the Jewish holy site past stones cut by masons working for King Herod and an ancient water system. Visitors emerge near the entrance to an ancient quarry called Zedekiah's Cave that descends under the Muslim Quarter.
The next major project, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority, will follow the course of one of the city's main Roman-era streets underneath the prayer plaza at the Western Wall. This route, scheduled for completion in three years, will link up with the Western Wall tunnel.
The excavations and flood of visitors exist against a backdrop of acute distrust between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Muslims, who are suspicious of any government moves in the Old City and particularly around the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine. Jews know the compound as the Temple Mount, site of two destroyed temples and the center of the Jewish faith for three millennia.
Muslim fears have led to violence in the past: The 1996 opening of a new exit to the Western Wall tunnel sparked rumors among Palestinians that Israel meant to damage the mosques, and dozens were killed in the ensuing riots. In recent years, however, work has gone ahead without incident.
Mindful that the compound has the potential to trigger devastating conflict, Israel's policy is to allow no excavations there. Digging under Temple Mount, the Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg has written, "would be like trying to figure out how a hand grenade works by pulling the pin and peering inside."
Despite the Israeli assurances, however, rumors persist that the excavations are undermining the physical stability of the Islamic holy sites.
"I believe the Israelis are tunneling under the mosques," said Najeh Bkerat, an official of the Waqf, the Muslim religious body that runs the compound under Israel's overall security control.
Samir Abu Leil, another Waqf official, said he had heard hammering that very morning underneath the Waqf's offices, in a Mamluk-era building that sits just outside the holy compound and directly over the route of the Western Wall tunnel, and had filed a complaint with police.
The closest thing to an excavation on the mount, Israeli archaeologists point out, was done by the Waqf itself: In the 1990s, the Waqf opened a new entrance to a subterranean prayer space and dumped truckloads of rubble outside the Old City, drawing outrage from scholars who said priceless artifacts were being destroyed.
This month, an Israeli government watchdog released a report saying Waqf construction work in the compound in recent years had been done without supervision and had damaged antiquities. The issue is deemed so sensitive that the details of the report were kept classified.
Some Israeli critics of the tunnels point to what they call an exaggerated emphasis on a Jewish narrative.
"The tunnels all say: We were here 2,000 years ago, and now we're back, and here's proof," said Yonathan Mizrachi, an Israeli archaeologist. "Living here means recognizing that other stories exist alongside ours."
Yuval Baruch, the Antiquities Authority archaeologist in charge of Jerusalem, said his diggers are careful to preserve worthy finds from all of the city's historical periods. "This city is of interest to at least half the people on Earth, and we will continue uncovering the past in the most professional way we can," he said.

The Most Dangerous Cities in America

2011-05-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, the FBI trumpeted the news that violent crime dropped 5.5% in 2010 while reported property crimes fell 2.8% during the depths of the worst economic slowdown since the Great Depression. The news, though, is far from positive.

Though most regions of the U.S. saw declines, the Northeast saw an increase in murders (8.3%), forcible rapes (1.4%) and aggravated assaults (0.7%). Why that region was affected by crime more than others isn't clear. Perhaps it was because of the grinding poverty found in some of the area's cities and their high cost of living

The Police Executive Research Forum polled 233 local law enforcement agencies in 2009, and found that the link between poverty and crime was inextricable. A prolonged recession would only make matters worse, the research showed. After reviewing the data, PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler told Reuters, "We are not saying there is going to be a crime wave, but we are saying this is a wake-up call and we anticipate the situation will continue to deteriorate."

A 24/7 Wall St. review of 2010 FBI crime datashows violent crime rose in several of the largest and poorest cities in the U.S., particularly those which have been in decline for some time. Even when crime rates dropped, older urban areas still had more violent crime than other cities. Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo and Hartford finished high on the FBI's list but failed to make the final 24/7 Wall St. ranking.

The crime problem is not completely explained by crimes committed. Police forces are supposed to keep crime rates down, but officers have begun to disappear from the streets of some large cities. Pontiac, Mich., part of the corridor of high crime cities that runs from Detroit to Flint, recently turned over its police operations to the sheriff's office of Oakland Country, where Pontiac is located. Old industrial towns need to cut costs as populations fall and tax receipts recede, but the money trouble almost makes it certain that criminal activity will grow because it is mostly unchecked.

24/7 Wall St. looked at the ten most crime-plagued cities in the U.S. with populations of more than 100,000. We used a measurement of crimes per thousand people which is part of the new FBI database to determine the order. We compared these figures to unemployment rates and median income. The recession may have ended, but crime has not eased in these troubled cities nor will it anytime soon.

Our list is dominated by towns like Detroit, New Haven, and Baltimore. Parts of these cities are fortresses of crime. Much of the violent crime in Detroit is committed in the old Palmer Avenue section of the city, which is far from the shiny skyscrapers where GM has its headquarters. Baltimore's Front Street neighborhood is a world away from the new office towers of companies like financial giant T Rowe Price on Pratt Street. The crime-plagued Lamar Avenue section of Memphis is also far from the city's ritzy neighborhoods.

Unemployment will inevitably improve in these cities. The most hard-hit sections, however, may never completely recover. They failed to do so after the last economic upswing -- and the one before that. Some part of all the cities on this list will be home to high levels of violent crime permanently. And, if the money used to keep police on the streets falls in most of these municipalities, containing the problem to a few neighborhoods will be hard. It would be nice to believe that criminals sit out a recovery, but they don't.

These are America's 10 Most Dangerous Cities:

1. Flint, Mich.

Population: 109,245
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 22
2010 Murders: 53
Median Income: $27,049 (46.1% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 11.8% (2.8% above national average)

The number of violent crimes committed in Flint increased for all categories considered for this list between 2009 and 2010. Perhaps most notably, the number of murders in the city increased from 36 to 53. This moves the city from having the seventh highest rate of homicide to the second highest. The number of aggravated assaults increased from 1,529 to 1,579, a rate of 14.6 assaults per 1,000 residents, placing the city in the No. 1 rank for rate of assaults. Flint police chief Alvern Lock stated late last year that he believed the city's violence stemmed from drugs and gangs. Flint has a relatively small median income of about $27,000 per household. The city also has a poverty rate of 36.2%.

2. Detroit

Population: 899,447
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 18.9
2010 Murders: 310
Median Income: $26,098 (48% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 12.7% (3.7% above national average)

The city crippled the most in America's post-industrial era is almost certainly Detroit. The Motor City has suffered from high rates of unemployment, homelessness, and crime. The city has one of the ten highest rates for three of the four types of violent crime identified by the FBI. Detroit has the sixth highest murder rate, the fifth highest robbery rate, and the second highest rate of aggravated assault. In 2005, a major reorganization of the city's police department took place after a federal investigation identified inefficiencies within the system. According to an article in The United Press, opponents of Detroit Mayor David Bing called for further intervention by the Justice Department in several shootings that occurred last year.

3. St. Louis

Population: 355,151
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 17.5
2010 Murders: 144
Median Income: $34,801 (30.7% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 9.3% (0.3% above national average)

Violent crime in St. Louis fell dramatically between 2009 and 2010, and has decreased since 2007. Despite this, crime rates remain extremely high compared with other cities. In 2010, the city's murder rate and rate of aggravated assault were each the third worst in the country. With regards to both violent and nonviolent crime, St. Louis was rated the most dangerous city based on FBI data released six months ago. As of December 2010, the murder rate in St. Louis was 6.3 times that of the state of Missouri. The city's gunshot murder rate for residents between 10 to 19 years old is also the second highest in the country, behind only New Orleans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

4. New Haven, Conn.

Population: 124,856
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.8
2010 Murders: 22
Median Income: $38,279 (23.8% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 9.6% (0.6% above national average)

New Haven has historically had the highest rate of violent crime on the east coast. The impoverished, crime-ridden parts of the city stand in stark contrast to affluent Fairfield county to the West, and elite Yale University, which is located within the city itself. The number of murders in the city doubled last year. New Haven has the eighth highest rate of robbery and the fourth highest rate of assault in the U.S. The New Haven Police Department is considering adding cameras at every intersection in one of the neighborhoods where shootings are the most common.

5. Memphis, Tenn.

Population: 673,650
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.4
2010 Murders: 89
Median Income: $34,203 (31.8% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 9.9% (0.9% above national average)

Memphis has high rates for all the violent crimes considered for 24/7 Wall St.'s rankings. It has the sixth highest rate in the country. Incidents of violent crime in the city dropped slightly less than 15% between 2009 and 2010 though. Memphis Mayor AC Wharton attributes this decrease to Operation Safe Community, a citywide plan developed in 2005. The plan consists of a number of strategies meant to increase crime prevention, through toughening punishments for criminals, and the effectiveness of the city's legal system, through changes such as expanding court programs so that they operate consistently and at full capacity.

6. Oakland, Calif.

Population: 409,723
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.3
2010 Murders: 90
Median Income: $51,473 (2.4% above national average)
Unemployment Rate: 11% (2% above national average)

Oakland's violent crime dropped about 5.5% between 2009 and 2010, from about 6,800 to 6,260. The city nevertheless has the tenth-highest rate of rape, the ninth-highest murder rate, and the second highest robbery rate in the country. In 2010, there were 7.12 robberies for every 1,000 Oakland residents. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Mayor Jean Quan has attempted to combat break-ins and theft by creating programs to keep potential wrongdoers off the streets by starting late-night basketball programs. It it unclear if these policies have worked.

7. Little Rock, Ark.

Population: 192,922
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 15.2
2010 Murders: 25
Median Income: $38,992 (22.3% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 6.8% (2.2% below national average)

Little Rock has one of the highest rates of aggravated assault and forcible rape in the country. Since 2009, reported assaults has increased while reported forcible rapes have decreased. According to Lt. Terry Hastings of the Little Rock Police Department, quoted by local station FOX16, Little Rock was "down almost 12 percent across the board on crime" in 2010. This may be accurate for many crimes, and especially nonviolent crimes, however, according to FBI data, violent crime increased from 2009 to 2010.

8. Baltimore

Population: 639,929
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 14.6
2010 Murders: 223
Median Income: $38,772 (22.7% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 7.4% (1.6% below national average)

Baltimore had the eighth-highest rate of violent crime per capita in 2010 among cities with 100,000 or more residents, and the second-highest east of the Mississippi. The number of violent crimes has dropped slightly in the past year -- from 9,600 to 9,300 -- but the Maryland city has some of the worst rates of dangerous offenses in the country. This includes the tenth-worst aggravated assault rate -- and the fourth-worst murder rate in the country.

9. Rockford, Ill.

Population: 156,180
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 14.5
2010 Murders: 20
Median Income: $36,990 (26% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 13.3% (4.3% above national average)

Rockford has unusually high violent crime rates for a city of its size. Most notably, the city has the fourth highest rate of aggravated assault in the country, with 10.5 cases for every 1,000 citizens in 2010. During the same period, 20 murders occurred, almost double the number in 2000. Quoted by the Rockford Register Star in 2007, Winnebago County Sheriff Dick Meyers said that he believed the city's "location worked against [it,]" as Rockford receives traffic from the drug markets in Madison, Chicago, and Milwaukee, resulting in heightened rates of violence.

10. Stockton, Calif.

Population: 292,047
Violent Crime Per 1,000: 13.8
2010 Murders: 49
Median Income: $45,730 (8.9% below national average)
Unemployment Rate: 18.4% (9.4% above national average)

With a jobless rate of 18.4%, up from 18.1% a year ago, Stockton, California has one of the worst unemployment problems in the country. The huge percentage of unemployed residents may have contributed to horrible crime rates in the city, which is located 40 miles east of Oakland and San Francisco. Stockton was rated one of the most miserable cities to live in the country by Forbes in March, 2010. Violent crime was one of the chief measurements for its ranking. Of the 267 cities with populations over 100,000, Stockton has the 27th highest number of murders per 1,000 people and the 12th most aggravated assaults per 1,000. Last year, recognizing the crime problems in the city, the state temporarily diverted hundreds of California Highway Patrol officers to aid the city's overwhelmed police department

Obama's Mideast speech offers punishment, praise

2011-05-19T09:07:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON – In his first comprehensive response to revolts across the Arab world, President Barack Obama is doling out punishment and praise, targeting Syrian President Bashar Assad for attacking his people but also promising fresh U.S. aid to nations that support democracy. Obama is also trying to erase any doubt that the U.S. supports the call for change.
Obama was expected to use his Middle East speech Thursday to sharply defend new sanctions on Assad as the U.S. government toughens its message for the repressive leader: Embrace democracy or get out. In a primary thrust of his address, Obama also was announcing aid for Egypt and Tunisia, the two nations seen as models while protests for freedoms elsewhere have been crushed.
Collectively, Obama's economic proposals will account for much of what's new in a speech that, by design, is intended to look back and let him put his imprint on the massive change across the Middle East and North Africa over the last six months. The core of what Obama will argue is that the United States must help nations modernize their economies and give job opportunities to their young people so that democracy can take hold and thrive — the kind of regional stability that is deeply in the political interests of his government.
The president plans to forgive roughly $1 billion in debt owed by Egypt to free up money for job-creation efforts there. And he will reveal other steps to bolster loans, trade and international support in Egypt and in Tunisia, where uprisings led to dictators being overturned. Protesters in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and other nations have endured brutal setbacks.
Senior administration officials offered some details of the speech in advance only on condition of anonymity. The president was speaking Thursday morning at the State Department.
Obama also was expected to recalibrate the U.S. position on the flailing Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He will warn both sides that they face greater risks by not coming together on a peace deal than by going their own ways. It is an effort in which he has sunk his own political capital and will spend more before his heavy week of Mideast diplomacy ends.
Overall, Obama will try to convince American audiences that the fate of countries in the region is worth the money and attention of the United States even during weak economic times at home. To his global audience, Obama wants to leave no doubt that the U.S. stands behind those seeking greater human rights even as it has had to defend its responses to crises.
Obama's speech was expected to be roughly split into thirds: a review of the political changes across the region for better and worse, country by country; the economic aid package; and the push for better security in the region, which will include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It will all be presented in the context of a future with al-Qaida terrorist Osama bin Laden dead and gone.
The White House on Wednesday announced the sanctions on Assad and six senior Syrian officials for human rights abuses over their crackdown on anti-government protests.
It was the first time the U.S. personally penalized the Syrian leader for the actions of his security forces. More than 850 people have died since the uprising began in March.
Obama, in an executive order, said the Syrian government leaders were being held to account for "attacks on protesters, arrests and harassment of protesters and political activists, and repression of democratic change."
The Obama administration had pinned hopes on Assad, seen until recent months as a pragmatist and potential reformer who could buck Iranian influence and help broker an eventual Arab peace deal with Israel. But U.S. officials said Assad's increasingly ruthless crackdown left them little choice but to abandon the effort to woo Assad and to stop exempting him from the same sort of sanctions already applied to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.
Obama has not called on Assad to step down, but his government came close Wednesday.
"It is up to Assad to lead a political transition or to leave," the State Department said in talking points prepared for the announcement of sanctions.
The sanctions will freeze any assets Assad and the six Syrian government officials have in U.S. jurisdiction and make it illegal for Americans to do business with them. The U.S. had imposed similar sanctions on two of Assad's relatives and another top Syrian official last month but had thus far refrained from going after Assad himself.
The U.S. move came as Assad claimed the country's crisis is drawing to a close even as forces unleashed tank shells on opponents.
Obama's offering of economic help is intended to serve as an incentive for other peoples to keep pushing for democracy. Among the elements of his approach:
• The canceling of roughly $1 billion in debt for Egypt. The intention is that money freed up from that debt obligation would be swapped toward investments in priority sectors of the Egyptian economy, likely to focus on entrepreneurship and employment for younger people. Unemployment rates are soaring in Egypt and across the region.
• The guaranteeing of up to $1 billion in loans for Egypt through the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. government institution that mobilizes private capital.
• Promises by the U.S. to launch a new trade partnership in the Middle East and North Africa and to prod world financial institutions to help Egypt and Tunisia more.
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.

NATO helicopter attacks Pakistani army post

2011-05-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A NATO helicopter crossed into Pakistani territory and opened fire on a border post on Tuesday, wounding two soldiers and drawing return fire, local officials said, and Pakistan protested, further straining relations with the West following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
A Western military official in Afghanistan gave a different version of events, but he and a NATO spokesman said there was firing at the border. They did not confirm that Pakistani border troops were the target or had been hit.
The official said a NATO base in Afghanistan took intermittent direct and indirect fire from the Pakistani side of the border. Two helicopters flew into the area, and one fired across the border after twice taking fire from the Pakistani side, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The Pakistani army, facing internal criticism for failing to detect or stop the unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden, said it lodged a strong protest and demanded a meeting with NATO officials to discuss the incident. NATO said it would investigate.
A similar event last year in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed prompted the army to immediately close a key border crossing to NATO supplies heading from Pakistan into landlocked Afghanistan, dramatically exposing the vulnerability of the war effort.
NATO declined to say which coalition country was involved, but most of the helicopters that fly in that part of Afghanistan are American.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been tense since the Navy SEALs raid on May 2 that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only about 35 miles (55 kilometers) outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
The Pakistani government is outraged that the U.S. carried out the operation without telling Pakistan first, and many U.S. officials have expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for at least five years without the authorities' knowledge.
The border incident took place in the Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region, a known sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants that launch attacks inside Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. It has been targeted repeatedly by covert U.S. drone strikes.
NATO said it was still trying to determine whether the helicopter crossed in to Pakistani airspace.
"We're investigating the incident to determine a flight path by examining GPS waypoints in the helicopter computer, to construct a sequence of events and ultimately determine what led to the exchange of fire," said Dorrian, the NATO spokesman.
Dorrian said NATO will work with the Pakistani government to determine what happened, saying they expect it will reflect the same good cooperation seen in recent military operations along the border. In recent weeks, NATO and Pakistan have launched coordinated offensives against militants on their respective sides of the border.
"This is going to be transparently looked into," Dorrian said.
The Pakistani army said in a statement that its troops fired on the helicopter after it entered Pakistani airspace in the early hours of the morning. Two of its troops were injured when the helicopter returned fire, it said.
The helicopter attack came a day after U.S. Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a 24-hour visit to Islamabad in which he worked to salvage the relationship with Pakistan, but also warned the government that "actions, not words" were needed to get ties back on track. Kerry was the most high-profile American to visit Pakistan since the raid on bin Laden.
Kerry said Pakistan had agreed to immediately take several "specific steps" to improve ties, but did not say what they were. The only tangible signs of progress were a remark by Kerry that Pakistan had agreed to give America the tail of a classified stealth helicopter destroyed by U.S. commandos when it malfunctioned during the raid and an announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would soon announce a trip to the country.
But there have also been signs of Pakistan's anger.
The Pakistani government sent the United States a written request following the bin Laden raid, asking Washington to reduce the number of American military personnel in the country, said a U.S. military official Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
There are currently more than 200 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan, some of whom are tasked with training Pakistani troops, said the official. Pakistan has asked the U.S. to reduce the number of trainers in the country, but the official would not specify the numbers involved.
Also Tuesday, Pakistani security forces shot and killed four would-be suicide bombers, including three women, when they tried to attack an army checkpoint in the southwestern city of Quetta, said Daood Junejo, the city police chief. A fifth suicide bomber detonated his explosives but did not injure anyone, the police chief said.
Security forces stopped the five as they approached the checkpoint in a car, said Junejo. One of the men got out of the car and blew himself up. The other four, who were also wearing suicide vests, were shot when they tried to lob grenades, he said.
However, local TV footage showed what appeared to be security forces shooting at two of the women as they were laying on the ground, one of them with her hand raised over her head.
____
Vogt reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A NATO helicopter crossed into Pakistani territory and opened fire on a border post on Tuesday, wounding two soldiers and drawing return fire, local officials said, and Pakistan protested, further straining relations with the West following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
A Western military official in Afghanistan gave a different version of events, but he and a NATO spokesman said there was firing at the border. They did not confirm that Pakistani border troops were the target or had been hit.
The official said a NATO base in Afghanistan took intermittent direct and indirect fire from the Pakistani side of the border. Two helicopters flew into the area, and one fired across the border after twice taking fire from the Pakistani side, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The Pakistani army, facing internal criticism for failing to detect or stop the unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden, said it lodged a strong protest and demanded a meeting with NATO officials to discuss the incident. NATO said it would investigate.
A similar event last year in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed prompted the army to immediately close a key border crossing to NATO supplies heading from Pakistan into landlocked Afghanistan, dramatically exposing the vulnerability of the war effort.
NATO declined to say which coalition country was involved, but most of the helicopters that fly in that part of Afghanistan are American.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been tense since the Navy SEALs raid on May 2 that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only about 35 miles (55 kilometers) outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
The Pakistani government is outraged that the U.S. carried out the operation without telling Pakistan first, and many U.S. officials have expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for at least five years without the authorities' knowledge.
The border incident took place in the Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region, a known sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants that launch attacks inside Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. It has been targeted repeatedly by covert U.S. drone strikes.
NATO said it was still trying to determine whether the helicopter crossed in to Pakistani airspace.
"We're investigating the incident to determine a flight path by examining GPS waypoints in the helicopter computer, to construct a sequence of events and ultimately determine what led to the exchange of fire," said Dorrian, the NATO spokesman.
Dorrian said NATO will work with the Pakistani government to determine what happened, saying they expect it will reflect the same good cooperation seen in recent military operations along the border. In recent weeks, NATO and Pakistan have launched coordinated offensives against militants on their respective sides of the border.
"This is going to be transparently looked into," Dorrian said.
The Pakistani army said in a statement that its troops fired on the helicopter after it entered Pakistani airspace in the early hours of the morning. Two of its troops were injured when the helicopter returned fire, it said.
The helicopter attack came a day after U.S. Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a 24-hour visit to Islamabad in which he worked to salvage the relationship with Pakistan, but also warned the government that "actions, not words" were needed to get ties back on track. Kerry was the most high-profile American to visit Pakistan since the raid on bin Laden.
Kerry said Pakistan had agreed to immediately take several "specific steps" to improve ties, but did not say what they were. The only tangible signs of progress were a remark by Kerry that Pakistan had agreed to give America the tail of a classified stealth helicopter destroyed by U.S. commandos when it malfunctioned during the raid and an announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would soon announce a trip to the country.
But there have also been signs of Pakistan's anger.
The Pakistani government sent the United States a written request following the bin Laden raid, asking Washington to reduce the number of American military personnel in the country, said a U.S. military official Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
There are currently more than 200 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan, some of whom are tasked with training Pakistani troops, said the official. Pakistan has asked the U.S. to reduce the number of trainers in the country, but the official would not specify the numbers involved.
Also Tuesday, Pakistani security forces shot and killed four would-be suicide bombers, including three women, when they tried to attack an army checkpoint in the southwestern city of Quetta, said Daood Junejo, the city police chief. A fifth suicide bomber detonated his explosives but did not injure anyone, the police chief said.
Security forces stopped the five as they approached the checkpoint in a car, said Junejo. One of the men got out of the car and blew himself up. The other four, who were also wearing suicide vests, were shot when they tried to lob grenades, he said.
However, local TV footage showed what appeared to be security forces shooting at two of the women as they were laying on the ground, one of them with her hand raised over her head.
____
Vogt reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A NATO helicopter crossed into Pakistani territory and opened fire on a border post on Tuesday, wounding two soldiers and drawing return fire, local officials said, and Pakistan protested, further straining relations with the West following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
A Western military official in Afghanistan gave a different version of events, but he and a NATO spokesman said there was firing at the border. They did not confirm that Pakistani border troops were the target or had been hit.
The official said a NATO base in Afghanistan took intermittent direct and indirect fire from the Pakistani side of the border. Two helicopters flew into the area, and one fired across the border after twice taking fire from the Pakistani side, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The Pakistani army, facing internal criticism for failing to detect or stop the unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden, said it lodged a strong protest and demanded a meeting with NATO officials to discuss the incident. NATO said it would investigate.
A similar event last year in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed prompted the army to immediately close a key border crossing to NATO supplies heading from Pakistan into landlocked Afghanistan, dramatically exposing the vulnerability of the war effort.
NATO declined to say which coalition country was involved, but most of the helicopters that fly in that part of Afghanistan are American.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have been tense since the Navy SEALs raid on May 2 that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only about 35 miles (55 kilometers) outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
The Pakistani government is outraged that the U.S. carried out the operation without telling Pakistan first, and many U.S. officials have expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for at least five years without the authorities' knowledge.
The border incident took place in the Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region, a known sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants that launch attacks inside Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. It has been targeted repeatedly by covert U.S. drone strikes.
NATO said it was still trying to determine whether the helicopter crossed in to Pakistani airspace.
"We're investigating the incident to determine a flight path by examining GPS waypoints in the helicopter computer, to construct a sequence of events and ultimately determine what led to the exchange of fire," said Dorrian, the NATO spokesman.
Dorrian said NATO will work with the Pakistani government to determine what happened, saying they expect it will reflect the same good cooperation seen in recent military operations along the border. In recent weeks, NATO and Pakistan have launched coordinated offensives against militants on their respective sides of the border.
"This is going to be transparently looked into," Dorrian said.
The Pakistani army said in a statement that its troops fired on the helicopter after it entered Pakistani airspace in the early hours of the morning. Two of its troops were injured when the helicopter returned fire, it said.
The helicopter attack came a day after U.S. Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a 24-hour visit to Islamabad in which he worked to salvage the relationship with Pakistan, but also warned the government that "actions, not words" were needed to get ties back on track. Kerry was the most high-profile American to visit Pakistan since the raid on bin Laden.
Kerry said Pakistan had agreed to immediately take several "specific steps" to improve ties, but did not say what they were. The only tangible signs of progress were a remark by Kerry that Pakistan had agreed to give America the tail of a classified stealth helicopter destroyed by U.S. commandos when it malfunctioned during the raid and an announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would soon announce a trip to the country.
But there have also been signs of Pakistan's anger.
The Pakistani government sent the United States a written request following the bin Laden raid, asking Washington to reduce the number of American military personnel in the country, said a U.S. military official Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
There are currently more than 200 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan, some of whom are tasked with training Pakistani troops, said the official. Pakistan has asked the U.S. to reduce the number of trainers in the country, but the official would not specify the numbers involved.
Also Tuesday, Pakistani security forces shot and killed four would-be suicide bombers, including three women, when they tried to attack an army checkpoint in the southwestern city of Quetta, said Daood Junejo, the city police chief. A fifth suicide bomber detonated his explosives but did not injure anyone, the police chief said.
Security forces stopped the five as they approached the checkpoint in a car, said Junejo. One of the men got out of the car and blew himself up. The other four, who were also wearing suicide vests, were shot when they tried to lob grenades, he said.
However, local TV footage showed what appeared to be security forces shooting at two of the women as they were laying on the ground, one of them with her hand raised over her head.
____
Vogt reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

.Schwarzenegger reveals he had child with staffer

2011-05-17T07:32:00.001-07:00

LOS ANGELES – Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has acknowledged that he fathered a child with a member of his household staff, a revelation that apparently prompted wife Maria Shriver to leave the couple's home before they announced their separation last week.
Schwarzenegger and Shriver jointly announced May 9 that they were splitting up after 25 years of marriage. Yet, Shriver moved out of the family's Brentwood mansion earlier in the year after Schwarzenegger acknowledged the child is his, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger told the Times in a statement that also was sent to The Associated Press early Tuesday. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.
"I ask that the media respect my wife and children through this extremely difficult time," the statement concluded. "While I deserve your attention and criticism, my family does not."
Schwarzenegger's representatives did not comment further. A spokesman for the former first lady told the Times she had no comment.
The Times did not publish the former staffer's name nor that of her child but said the woman worked for the family for 20 years and retired in January.
In an interview Monday before Schwarzenegger issued his statement, the former staffer said another man — her husband at the time — was the child's father. When the Times later informed the woman of the governor's statement, she declined to comment further.
The child was born before Schwarzenegger began his seven-year stint in public office.
Shriver stood by her husband during his 2003 gubernatorial campaign after the Los Angeles Times reported accusations that he had a history of groping women. Schwarzenegger later said he "behaved badly sometimes."
In his first public comments since the couple announced their breakup, Schwarzenegger said last week that he and Shriver "both love each other very much."
"We are very fortunate that we have four extraordinary children and we're taking one day at a time," he said at a Los Angeles event marking Israeli independence. Their children range in age from 13 to 21.
Since his term as California governor ended in early January, Schwarzenegger, 63, has hopscotched around the world, his wife nowhere in sight. While the "Terminator" star appeared confident about the future since exiting politics, cutting movie deals and fashioning himself as a global spokesman for green energy, Shriver, known for her confidence, seemed unsettled.
Shriver, 55, maintained her own identity when her husband entered politics, though she gave up her job at NBC. Their union was often tested in Sacramento, where the former action star contended with a rough seven years of legislative gridlock, a budget crisis and lingering questions about his fidelity

Paparazzi debate flares over royal bridesmaid pics

2011-05-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

AP Photo/Andrew Milligan/Pool, File

LONDON – As Prince William and Kate Middleton honeymoon in a secluded spot, the paparazzi who stalk them are back in the spotlight.
There's a brewing legal battle over publication of 5-year-old photographs of bridesmaid Pippa Middleton sunbathing topless, and anger about gruesome photographs of the late Princess Diana in the moments after her 1997 car crash appearing in a documentary about her death.
The publication of the Pippa pictures — showing the 27-year-old on a powerboat with older sister Kate (in a revealing bikini) and William (in a red and white bathing suit) — prompted the Middleton family to file a formal petition to Britain's independent Press Complaints Commission.
That complaint is seen as the first salvo in what is expected to be a conflict between the monarchy and the press as both sides try to establish boundaries in a new royal era defined by William and Middleton, now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and their determination to live a normal life.

The prince and his bride jetted off this week to a secret honeymoon spot that royal watchers believe was chosen specifically to keep them out of the lenses of the paparazzi.
"That and security would have been of primary importance," said Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine. "We've known for a long time William would not stand for any nonsense regarding his new wife and her family."
Many Britons — mindful of how Princess Diana was tracked by the paparazzi in the moments leading to her fatal car crash — want the new royal couple, and the rest of the Middleton clan, to be able to move about without facing a constant barrage of flashing cameras.
"I think they should be left alone to be honest, after what happened to Lady Diana," said Marla Quinn, a 43 year-old receptionist from Surrey.

[Photos: Pippa Middleton's best looks]

The nation has been astir with news that "death photos" of Diana moments after her high-speed crash in a Paris tunnel will be shown in a new film about her death, "Unlawful Killing," premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Middleton family's complaint cites four British tabloids — the News of the World, Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mirror — for publishing photos that violated family privacy, including those of the sisters and William on the luxury boat off the coast off the Mediterranean island of Ibiza.
Other pictures of Pippa Middleton have also received wide exposure on the Internet and in various publications, including one of her dancing suggestively in a lavender bra and a flimsy white skirt with an unidentified man wearing boxer shorts. Sensitive pictures of younger brother James Middleton have also circulated on the Internet.
The independent press commission will determine whether the newspapers have violated the Middletons' privacy and whether there are any "public right to know" issues that might justify publication of the photos.

[Photos: Pippa Middleton's early years]

While freedom of speech is protected in the United States by the First Amendment, European law protects privacy as well as free expression, often leaving it to judges to balance the two competing concerns.
A key European Court of Human Rights judgment in 2004 bolstered privacy protection by ruling that three German magazines infringed on Princess Caroline of Monaco's privacy by publishing photos of her and her children at a Monaco beach club.
The recent British newspaper coverage, including front-page photos of Pippa Middleton in a bikini, reflects her status as a surprise star of the royal wedding.
Her appearance in a figure-flattering Alexander McQueen gown at the wedding has sparked a flurry of interest, including the establishment of a Pippa Middleton appreciation page on Facebook.
Experts believe her newfound fame offers a raft of commercial opportunities — but could be undone if more embarrassing photos surface.
Katrina Kutchinsky, managing director of KK Communications, which represents luxury restaurants and bars, said Pippa Middleton is in high demand on the London nightlife scene.
"She's definitely the hot ticket at the moment, my venues are trying to reach her, but she's very well protected," Kutchinsky said. "Everyone is talking about her."

Schwarzenegger, Shriver separating after 25 years

2011-05-10T10:09:00.001-07:00

LOS ANGELES – It was a storybook marriage in 1986 on a spring weekend on Cape Cod that united a princess of an American political dynasty, Maria Shriver, and the gap-toothed muscle-clad movie star famous enough to be known by one name, Arnold.
In many ways, it was a pairing of opposites: Her uncle was a U.S. president; his father was an Austrian policeman. She was the rising star of a network TV news show; he was the pot-puffing star of "Pumping Iron." He was a Republican with a soft spot for Richard Nixon; her family was a pillar in the nation's Democratic establishment.
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Shriver announced their separation late Monday, cleaving a sometimes-turbulent 25-year relationship after "a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us," the couple said in a joint statement.
The breakup comes about four months after Schwarzenegger ended a bumpy, two-term run as California governor, a job his wife never wanted him to pursue. Since then, Schwarzenegger, 63, has been fashioning a role as an international advocate for green energy, giving speeches and lining up work in Hollywood. Shriver, 55, has guest-edited an edition of Oprah Winfrey's magazine but also talked about the stress of changing roles after serving as California's first lady.
The joint statement said the two were working on the future of their relationship while living apart and they would continue to parent their four children — Katherine, 21, Christina, 19, Patrick, 17, and Christopher, 13.
"After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion, and prayer, we came to this decision together," the statement said.
Shriver moved out of the couple's gated estate in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood, but they remain on speaking terms. They had brunch with their children on Mother's Day in a tony restaurant in Santa Monica, and met privately on their wedding anniversary last month.
Prior to the announcement, there were hints of a rift. The former governor tweeted frequently during his recent travels to Brazil, Nigeria and France, but Shriver was not mentioned in his online updates from the road. Shriver, also active on social networks, posted three updates on her Twitter page on the day of their 25th wedding anniversary, April 26, but did not mention the milestone.
About a month before the anniversary, Shriver wrote on her Facebook page that she was going through a transition in her life.
"As you know, transitions are not easy. I'd love to get your advice on how you've handled transitions in your own life," she said in a video posted on YouTube.
"It's so stressful to not know what you're doing next. People ask you what are you doing and then they can't believe that you don't know what you're doing," she said.
Schwarzenegger has often said that Shriver, who is keenly attuned to the risks of a life in politics, initially was very upset about his plan to run for governor. But when Schwarzenegger announced his decision on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in August 2003, he said his wife stood by his decision.
During Schwarzenegger's time in office, Shriver and the couple's children never moved to Sacramento, preferring their secluded estate a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. Schwarzenegger never settled in Sacramento, choosing instead to commute by private jet between his home and the state capitol.
Schwarzenegger and Shriver long presented a gilded partnership that crossed politics, Hollywood and media. They are known for charitable work, and he also founded a committee with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell to encourage road, bridge and other infrastructure development.
Shriver, the daughter of the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, left her job as an NBC News correspondent after Schwarzenegger took office.
In a May 2009 commencement speech at the University of Southern California, Schwarzenegger alluded to the powerful influence Shriver had on his life. He said when people ask him the secret to success, "I say, number one, come to America. Number two, work your butt off. And number three, marry a Kennedy."
As the state's first lady, Shriver ran an annual women's conference that attracted a long list of business, political and entertainment luminaries, along with an audience of thousands. She also was credited with overhauling the California Museum in downtown Sacramento, and, with Schwarzenegger, starting the California Hall of Fame.
In 2007, Shriver said she wouldn't resume a TV news career after the media circus surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's accidental drug overdose.
"It was then that I knew that the TV news business had changed and so had I," she said at the time. In a 2009 interview with The Associated Press, she said "I'm too much of a free spirit" to consider running for elective office.
Shriver stood by her husband during his campaign after the Los Angeles Times reported accusations that he had a history of groping women; Schwarzenegger later said he "behaved badly sometimes."
The breakup comes months after the death of Shriver's father, Peace Corps founder and former vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver, in January.
___
Associated Press writer Daisy Nguyen contributed to this report.

.Moon Microbe Mystery Finally Solved

2011-05-07T02:51:00.001-07:00

There has been a long-lived bit of Apollo moon landing folklore that now appears to be a dead-end affair: microbes on the moon.
The lunar mystery swirls around the Apollo 12 moon landing and the return to Earth by moonwalkers of a camera that was part of an early NASA robotic lander – the Surveyor 3 probe.
On Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean made a precision landing on the lunar surface in Oceanus Procellarum, Latin for the Ocean of Storms. Their touchdown point was a mere 535 feet (163 meters) from the Surveyor 3 lander -- and an easy stroll to the hardware that had soft-landed on the lunar terrain years before, on April 20, 1967. [Video: Apollo 12 Visits Surveyor 3 Probe]
The Surveyor 3 camera was easy pickings and brought back to Earth under sterile conditions by the Apollo 12 crew. When scientists analyzed the parts in a clean room, they found evidence of microorganisms inside the camera.
In short, a small colony of common bacteria -- Streptococcus Mitis -- had stowed away on the device.
The astrobiological upshot as deduced from the unplanned experiment was that 50 to 100 of the microbes appeared to have survived launch, the harsh vacuum of space, three years of exposure to the moon's radiation environment, the lunar deep-freeze at an average temperature of minus 253 degrees Celsius, not to mention no access to nutrients, water or an energy source. [Photos: Our Changing Moon]
Now, fast forward to today.
NASA's dirty little secret?
A diligent team of researchers is now digging back into historical documents -- and even located and reviewed NASA's archived Apollo-era 16 millimeter film -- to come clean on the story.
As it turns out, there's a dirty little secret that has come to light about clean room etiquette at the time the Surveyor 3 camera was scrutinized.
"The claim that a microbe survived 2.5 years on the moon was flimsy, at best, even by the standards of the time," said John Rummel, chairman of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection. "The claim never passed peer review, yet has persisted in the press -- and on the Internet -- ever since." [Coolest New Moon Discoveries]
The Surveyor 3 camera-team thought they had detected a microbe that had lived on the moon for all those years, "but they only detected their own contamination," Rummel told SPACE.com.
A former NASA planetary protection officer, Rummel is now with the Institute for Coastal Science & Policy at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.
Rummel, along with colleaguesJudith Allton of NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Don Morrison, a former space agency lunar receiving laboratory scientist, recently presented their co-authored paper: "A Microbe on the Moon? Surveyor III and Lessons Learned for Future Sample Return Missions."
Poor space probe hygiene
Their verdict was given at a meeting on "The Importance of Solar System Sample Return Missions to the Future of Planetary Science," in March at The Woodlands,Texas, sponsored by the NASA Planetary Science Division and Lunar and Planetary Institute.
"If 'American Idol' judged microbiology, those guys would have been out in an early round," the research team writes of the way the Surveyor 3 camera team studied the equipment here on Earth. Or put more delicately, "The general scene does not lend a lot of confidence in the proposition that contamination did not occur," co-author Morrison said.
For example, participants studying the camera were found to be wearing short-sleeve scrubs, thus arms were exposed. Also, the scrub shirt tails were higher than the flow bench level … and would act as a bellows for particulates from inside the shirt, reports co-author Allton.
Other contamination control issues were flagged by the researchers.
In simple microbiology 101 speak, "a close personal relationship with the subject ... is not necessarily a good thing," the research team explains.
All in all, the likelihood that contamination occurred during sampling of the Surveyor 3 camera was shown to be very real.
A cautionary tale
On one hand, Rummel emphasized that today’s methods for handling return samples are much more effective at detecting microbes.
However, the Surveyor 3 incident back then raises a cautionary flag for the future.
"We need to be orders of magnitude more careful about contamination control than was the Surveyor 3 camera-team. If we aren't, samples from Mars could be drowned in Earth life upon return, and in all of that 'noise' we might never have the ability to detect Mars life we may have brought back, too," Rummel said. "We can, and we must, do a better job with a Mars sample return mission."
Winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award, Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Bin Laden's wife spent 5 years in Pakistani house

2011-05-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

ISLAMABAD – One of three wives living with Osama bin Laden told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the al-Qaida chief's hideout for five years, and could be a key source of information about how he avoided capture for so long, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.
In its first confirmation of bin Laden's death, al-Qaida warned of retaliation in an Internet statement, saying Americans' "happiness will turn to sadness."
Bin Laden's wife, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, said she never left the upper floors of the house the entire time she was there.
She and bin Laden's other two wives are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following Monday's American raid on bin Laden's compound in the town of Abbottabad. Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there after the U.S. commandos left.
Given shifting and incomplete accounts from U.S. officials about what happened during the raid, testimony from bin Laden's wives may be significant in unveiling details about the operation.
Their accounts could also help show how bin Laden spent his time and managed to stay hidden, living in a large house close to a military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half hours' drive from the capital, Islamabad.
The Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody. Already tense military and intelligence relations between the United States and Pakistan have been further strained after the helicopter-borne raid, which many Pakistanis see as a violation of their country's sovereignty.

The proximity of bin Laden's hideout to the military garrison and the Pakistani capital has also raised suspicions in Washington that bin Laden may have been protected by Pakistani security forces while on the run.

Click image to see photos of the compound where bin Laden was killed

Reuters/Stringer

Risking more tensions, missiles fired from a U.S. drone killed 15 people, including foreign militants, in North Waziristan, an al-Qaida and Taliban hotspot close to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. Such attacks were routine last year, but their frequency has dropped this year amid opposition by the Pakistani security establishment.
Pakistan's army, a key U.S. ally in the Afghanistan war, on Thursday threatened to review cooperation with Washington if it stages anymore attacks like the one that killed bin Laden.
The Pakistani intelligence official did not say Friday whether the Yemeni wife has said that bin Laden was also living there since 2006. "We are still getting information from them," he said.
Another security official said the wife was shot in the leg during the operation and did not witness her husband being killed. He also said one of bin Laden's eldest daughters had said she witnessed the Americans killing her father.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give their names to the media.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's intelligence agency has concluded that bin Laden was "cash strapped" in his final days, according to a briefing given by two senior military officials. Disputes over money between the terror leader and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, led al-Qaida to split into two factions five or six years ago, with the larger faction controlled by al-Zawahri, they said.
The officers spoke to a small group of Pakistani reporters late Thursday. Their comments were confirmed for The Associated Press by the same security official who spoke about the shooting of bin Laden's wife and who was present at Thursday's briefing.
The officer didn't provide details or elaborate on how his agency made the conclusions about bin Laden's financial situation or the split with his deputy, al-Zawahri. The al-Qaida chief apparently had lived without any guards at the Abbottabad compound or loyalists nearby to take up arms in his defense.
The image of Pakistan's intelligence agency has been battered at home and abroad in the wake of the raid that killed bin Laden. Portraying him as isolated and weak could be aimed at trying to create an impression that a failure to spot him was not so important.
Documents taken from the house by American commandos showed that bin Laden was planning to hit America, however, including a plan for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The confiscated materials reveal the rail attack was planned as of February 2010.
Late Thursday, two Pakistani officials cited bin Laden's wives and children as saying he and his associates had not offered any "significant resistance" when the American commandos entered the compound, in part because the assailants had thrown "stun bombs" that disorientated them.
One official said Pakistani authorities found an AK-47 and a pistol in the house belonging to those inside, with evidence that one bullet had been fired from the rifle.
"That was the level of resistance" they put up, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account is roughly consistent with the most recent one given by U.S. officials, who now say only one of the five people killed in the raid was armed and fired any shots, a striking departure from the intense and prolonged firefight described earlier by the White House and others in the administration.
U.S. officials say four men were killed alongside bin Laden, including one of his sons.
Reflecting the anger in Pakistan, hundreds of members of radical Islamic parties protested Friday in several Pakistan cities against the American raid and in favor of bin Laden. Many of the people chanted "Osama is alive" and blasted the U.S. for violating the country's sovereignty.
The largest rally took place in the town of Khuchlak in southwestern Baluchistan province, where about 500 people attended.
"America is celebrating Osama bin Laden's killing, but it will be a temporary celebration," said Abdullah Sittar Chishti, a member of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party who attended the rally in Khuchlak. "After the martyrdom of Osama, billions, trillions of Osamas will be born."
___
Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS that bin Laden's wife lived in house for five years).)
ISLAMABAD – One of three wives living with Osama bin Laden told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the al-Qaida chief's hideout for five years, and could be a key source of information about how he avoided capture for so long, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.
In its first confirmation of bin Laden's death, al-Qaida warned of retaliation in an Internet statement, saying Americans' "happiness will turn to sadness."
Bin Laden's wife, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, said she never left the upper floors of the house the entire time she was there.
She and bin Laden's other two wives are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following Monday's American raid on bin Laden's compound in the town of Abbottabad. Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there after the U.S. commandos left.
Given shifting and incomplete accounts from U.S. officials about what happened during the raid, testimony from bin Laden's wives may be significant in unveiling details about the operation.
Their accounts could also help show how bin Laden spent his time and managed to stay hidden, living in a large house close to a military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half hours' drive from the capital, Islamabad.
The Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody. Already tense military and intelligence relations between the United States and Pakistan have been further strained after the helicopter-borne raid, which many Pakistanis see as a violation of their country's sovereignty.

Click image to see photos of the compound where bin Laden was killed

Reuters/Stringer

Al Qaeda member surrenders, Saudi Arabia says

2011-05-04T10:23:00.001-07:00

By Laura Rozen laura Rozen – 1 hr 18 mins ago

In the wake of Osama bin Laden's demise, is al Qaeda falling apart?
The Saudi Interior Ministry said today that a senior al Qaeda member on Riyadh's most-wanted list named Khaled al-Qahtani called from abroad and turned himself in.
"Interior Ministry's spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki said in a statement Wednesday that Khaled Hathal Abdullah al-Atifi al-Qahtani contacted the security authorities from an undisclosed country and expressed his wish to come home," the Associated Press reports.
"Al-Qahtani was reunited with his family and his surrender will be taken into consideration while looking into his case, Al-Turki said."
The Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman did not indicate when Khaled al-Qahtani gave himself up, but many members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have recently fled from Yemen, the AP writes.
It wasn't immediately possible to ascertain whether Khaled Al-Qahtani is the brother of Mohammed al-Qahtani (pictured at right), a Saudi-born al Qaeda militant detained at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after being picked up in the battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan from which bin Laden is believed to have escaped. Mohammed al-Qahtani, 32, was reportedly subjected to severe U.S. torture at the facility, the senior official in charge of the U.S. office of military commissions told the Washington Post's Bob Woodward.
Of note is that Mohammed al-Qahtani flew to Orlando, Florida from Dubai in August 2001, a month before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but was sent back to Dubai by U.S. immigration authorities dubious about whether he intended to be an illegal immigrant to the country. U.S. interrogators later said they found airport video surveillance showing the car of lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta waiting to pick al-Qahtani up at the Orlando airport.
But the United States dropped charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani in May 2008, for reasons it did not disclose, but presumably related to the inadmissability of evidence obtained under torture. Al-Qahtani is still detained at Gitmo, but his habeas corpus case was reinstated after a Supreme Court ruling in 2008.
(Photo: Wikipedia)

America's most polutted cities

2011-05-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

Remember the fog that lingered over Beijing during the 2008 Summer Olympics? It wasn't fog. It was dirty air. Yes, China faces a world-class air quality problem. But before you get too smug about its smog, consider this: 154.5 million Americans, just over half the nation's population, live in areas where air pollution levels are often dangerous to breathe. That's according to the American Lung Association's (ALA) just-released report 2011 State of the Air.
The cities ranked worst in air quality? California metros like Los Angeles, Visalia, Hanford and Fresno. Bakersfield, Calif., ranked the worst in terms of short-term and year-round particle pollution. It also ranked second-worst, behind Los Angeles, for smog levels, known formally as ozone pollution.
California metros "really have made great strides to try to clean up, but they have a lot of sources--a lot of people driving, a lot of ships coming into the port, especially ocean-going vessels," explains Janice Nolen, lead author of the report and an assistant vice president of national policy and advocacy at the ALA. "Plus, California has the warm, sunny climate that encourages pollutants to form and the geography that helps trap them."
Behind The Numbers
The American Lung Association's study ranks the air quality of 900 counties and more than 200 U.S. Census-defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas and Combined Statistical Areas--cities and their surrounding suburbs--where an air pollution monitor is present.
The ALA analyzed data from 2007 to 2009 that had been collected daily through monitors operated by federal agencies, states and Native American tribes. The data was reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The ALA analyzed the data based on ozone pollution, short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. Its report grades cities using, in part, the EPA's color-coded Air Quality Index, as well as its own weighting system that ranks the severity of pollution on a daily basis.
The EPA defines particle pollution as "a complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets ... made up of a number of components, including acids (such as nitrates and sulfates), organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles." Year-round air pollution is an average of the daily levels of particle pollution on all 365 days. Short-term particle pollution measures the number of times in a year when levels spike above healthy standards for several days to several weeks. Ozone pollution has adverse effects on health as well, but is not as dangerous in the short-term.
"All three can kill people, and all three can cause asthma attacks," asserts Nolen. "But short-term and year-round particle pollution are more deadly than ozone."
For that reason Forbes focused on the metros most affected by year-round particle pollution for this list. The ALA compiled a list of the 10 worst culprits. (A total of 11 metros made the list due to a tie in the data.)
Many major urban hubs in the Golden State ranked high on the list, but one other southwestern U.S. city tied Los Angeles for second place: Phoenix, Ariz. Like California's hardest-hit cities, the foreclosure mecca's climate and geography serve as incubators for airborne toxins. But one of the biggest reasons for Phoenix's high pollution levels is actually cattle ranches found south of the city, in Pinal County and vicinity. "Those cattle ranches are contributing a lot of fine particle pollution to the small communities near them that are part of the Phoenix metro area, but also to the tribe adjacent to it," says Nolen. "It's also being blown into other parts of the city."
Closer to the east coast, Pittsburgh, Pa., has long been associated with coal, and it shows in the numbers. The Steel City ranks seventh on the list of most polluted, followed by another metro chock-full of coal-fired power plants: Birmingham, Ala.
Nolen says air pollution can cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, lung conditions and difficulty breathing for some people. California, for example, estimates that 9,000 people die each year from air pollution-related illnesses.
"We have a lot of folks that see this report and call up and ask 'where should I go?'" says Nolen. "We want people to do things like check the Air Quality Index. If it's going to be a very unhealthy day, you can take steps to avoid exercising outside or working outdoors strenuously." She also adds that people should avoid running within 300 to 500 meters of major roads, which tend to have elevated levels of air pollution.
The good news is that most metros and counties around the country have been improving their air quality, thanks in part to support from the EPA and the implementation, albeit slow, of the 1990 Clean Air Act. Most cities that topped the ALA's most polluted lists for particle and ozone pollution have seen their levels decrease. The only city in the top 10 to actually get worse in terms of year-round particle pollution levels was Bakersfield.
Here are the nation's five most polluted cities:
No. 5 Hanford, Calif.

Hanford is the nation's fifth most polluted metro area

MSA: Hanford-Corcoran, Calif.
Worst county: Kings County
PM2.5 annual design value (2007-2009): 17.3
Total population: 148,800 people potentially exposed

No. 2 (tie) Visalia, Calif.

Visalia is tied for the nation's second most polluted metro area

MSA: Visalia-Porterville, Calif.
Worst county: Tulare County
PM2.5 annual design value (2007-2009): 18.8
Total population: 429,700 people potentially exposed

No. 2 (tie) Phoenix, Ariz.

Phoenix is tied for the nation's second most polluted metro area
Photo: iStock

MSA: Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Ariz.
Worst county: Pinal County
PM2.5 annual design value (2007-2009): 18.8
Total population: 4.36 million people potentially exposed

No. 2 (tie) Los Angeles, Calif.

Los Angeles is tied for the nation's second most polluted metro area
Photo: iStock

CSA: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, Calif.
Worst county: Riverside County
PM2.5 annual design value (2007-2009): 18.8
Total population: 17.82 million people potentially exposed

No. 1 Bakersfield, Calif.

Bakersfield is the nation's most polluted city
Photo: David Jordan

MSA: Bakersfield, Calif.
Worst county: Kern County
PM2.5 annual design value (2007-2009): 22.6
Total population: 807,400 people potentially exposed

USA v UN: Who Best To Win the Future?

2011-05-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

The protests were sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010, and continued until the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali 28 days later, on January 14, 2011. This was the beginning of the Jasmine Revolution – still struggling to come to its feet – that has not only rocked north Africa, but set off a chain of uprisings that extended further into Africa and the middle East, mirroring in many ways the mounting class warfare throughout Europe and North America.
Four months later that promise of hope has met with not only the surmountable, practical, challenge of establishing responsible, democratic governance, but the harsh reality of having conflicting interests with a global economic system that supported the dictator they are trying to depose, and desperately fears the democratic will of the people they represent whom the Empire has been exploiting for so long.
There is a new, divergent, direction to the script of the drama that is unfolding. What started out as organic revolutions, and became popularly supported international humanitarian interventions under the UN, have been hi-jacked and are now the propagandized counter-revolutions (dressed up to look like revolutionary support) and non-UN, regionally controlled, USA dominated, expansions of empire through NATO. The British, American, and French governments seem to be competing to see who can whip out the biggest guns and therefore command either more in the inevitable division of the spoils, privatization, and war debt, or earn more political capital as the saviors of the Arab uprising and inadvertently aid in the possible, potential, emancipation of the Arab people.
The UN was right to be the body under which aid and support to the Libyan people in their struggle for emancipation and democratic self-governance was organized and executed. This action, in response to the request of the Libyan people, and in defense of their rights under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, from the international community, was correct. This entire operation, for the sake of the Libyan revolutionaries, and for the sake of all revolutionaries throughout North Africa and the Middle East, needed to stay under the supervision and authority of the United Nations. The United Nations is far from perfect. It could stand a lot of reform; for instance, getting rid of the Security Counsel and exploring a more representative, equal, just, global, federated approach to governance. But, it does provide a little more protection from thorough exploitation at the hands of global financiers, profiteers, and Empire expansionists in this situation.
The UN has abdicated its responsibility. It has lost an opportunity to strengthen its position and it has provided individual nations, as well as corporate and financial interests, the chance to exploit the situation. The Arab League has effectively relinquished power in North Africa to NATO, through UN brokerage, and at the behest of America’s favorite Monarchy, the Sauds. In exchange for Saudi Arabia’s support for the Libyan intervention, the United States had to agree to tacitly support the Saudi invasion of Bahrain.
America had no business making this trade, and Saudi Arabia had no business asking for it. Under a democratic UN, global federation, or government of the people, both issues should have been handled separately, and justly, with respect to the lives of the individuals residing in those countries rather than those that would rule over them and exploit their resources.

To date, there have been revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; a civil war in Libya; major protests in Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Oman, Yemen, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Western Sahara, Kuwait, and the one one you’d think Americans would be hearing the most about, Iraq. Few of these have received any news coverage at all. Apparently there are too many for western, and particularly the American, media to keep up with, or too much global discontent to risk sharing with an increasingly disgruntled global population. The 48 hour news cycle has left Tunisia and Algeria in the distant past. Egypt is last month’s story, and Libya is rapidly sliding off the front page. Military juntas are the new dictators. Libyan rebels have lost their novelty and have been tarnished with corporate media driven doubt and fear. As public attention is diverted, international human rights intervention has been outsourced.
Reports suggest that Libyan rebels are forced to endure stoppages in NATO air support, ushering in advancements from Quaddafi’s forces, as concessions are extracted from them and deals are struck. These terms of support, and what favors, allowances, and contracts are coerced in return, no longer resemble the international humanitarian intervention that gained popular global support. The human rights that the people of north Africa and the middle east are fighting for, as enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human rights, have been subverted by the interests of western expansionism that now combine NATO with AFRICOM for the first time.

Four months later, the Revolution that the western media forgot is still alive and well and suffering under the weight of entrenched dictators, fascist military regimes, greedy corporate interests, exploiting financiers, and power-hungry, bought-and-paid-for, politicians. The celebrated courage of the Tunisian people has been traded in for the next big ‘Arab Spring’ spectacle ( a unhelpful term that puts a time limit on this uprising and avoids the nature of this ‘revolution’), particularly one where the military didn’t back the revolutionaries as is the case with both Egypt and Libya.
International support for the people of Libya, as well as for the peoples of Bahrain, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, et al, must revert to the UN under full transparency without regional, hegemonic, corporate, capitalist, or industrialist influence. Corporate and global financial interests can work easier through NATO than the UN. NATO and the western allied countries are far more likely to ensure IMF and World Bank involvement to keep Libya in a state of over-burdened debt like the rest of the third world countries and Banana Republics they’ve created through neo-colonialism than the UN general assembly would.
For the sake of all the people of our planet, and the planet itself, expansionist powers that exploit the southern hemisphere, and much of the northern hemisphere, like the United States, cannot be trusted to dictate the direction for the planet. An empowered and reformed United Nations is our only hope of surviving the gluttonous rise, and cannibalistic fall, of this latest empire, and protect us from repeating the cycle so that we stand a chance to win the future.

Osama Bin Laden Dead

2011-05-02T10:36:00.001-07:00

With chants of "USA, USA," revelers celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden, the man behind the attacks, have spilled into the street, bringing traffic to a standstill.

"It's like the World Series down here," CBS News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts reported from the celebration.

Osama Bin Laden is dead

For Ashley Smith, the news of Bin Laden's death brings a bit of closure. She worked two blocks from Ground Zero on the day of the attacks and was forced to run from her office for safety when the buildings collapsed. She joined the impromptu rally in lowerManhattan.

Key dates in the hunt for Osama bin Laden

She was skeptical of the U.S.'s response initially but now says it was all worth it. "I felt like we had all of our money fighting this endless war over there, now it totally validates it," said Smith.

Diane Massaroli lost her husband, Michael, nearly 10 years ago on 9/11. She only comes to Ground Zero once a year on the anniversary of the attacks but felt compelled to come tonight.

"We can never celebrate ever since this happened. [Tonight] is sad also but it's a celebration," Massaroli said.

President Barack Obama said in an address from the White House late Sunday night that a small team of Americans carried out the operation to kill bin Laden in Pakistan, and that cooperation from Pakistani authorities was crucial.

"Shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda," Mr. Obama said. "Tonight, we can say to those who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror, justice has been done."

Osama Bin Laden is killed in Pakistan

Sony issues PlayStation Network warning

2011-04-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

Six days after a security breach of its PlayStation Network, Sony said Tuesday that the incursion was much worse than expected and hackers had obtained personal information on 70 million subscribers.
The company, in a blog entry posted Tuesday afternoon, added it is still unsure if the intruder also obtained credit card data for members who have that on file with the service, which provides online functionality for the PlayStation 3.
"Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID," wrote Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications for Sony Computer Entertainment America. "It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address ... and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. ... While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility."

Sony (SNE) says the attack has led it to begin rebuilding the system. It expects to restore some services within a week.
The company is urging subscribers to be on alert for identity theft attempts as well as email, telephone and postal scams. (Users can contact the three major U.S. credit bureaus - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion - and have their accounts put in "high alert" status for no charge.) It is also advising them to change their password when service is ultimately restored.
Sony's stock was down just one percent in after-hours trading. Analysts say they don't believe investors will punish the company substantially, given that this was an external attack and not the result of an internal error.
"Any time you have a break of fidelity like that, it's an issue," said Mike Hickey of Janco Partners. "It's pretty clear that someone has taken an illegal action to make a point. So do I hold Sony to blame for that? No. But should Sony have better security to protect their subscribers personal information? Probably."
So far, no hacker group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The rogue group known as Anonymous, which has famously launched attacks on both Gene Simmons and Hustler Magazine, was initially suspected, after it vowed in early April to target Sony after the company's legal action against a hacker who dismantled the PS3's security.
The group managed to disrupt the service with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack earlier this month. (Anonymous attackers, using software known as "Low Orbit Ion Cannons," repeatedly pinged the company's servers. When done simultaneously by enough users, this can bring the site down - usually quickly and without warning.)
However, Anonymous denies responsibility for this incident, saying on its site, "While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves, AnonOps was not related to this incident and does not take responsibility for whatever has happened."
While consumers impacted by the hack are Sony's first priority, the continued outage of the PlayStation Network is also impacting its developer partners (both internal and external).
The company released "SOCOM 4," a multiplayer focused action game that is traditionally one of its biggest franchises, last week. Additionally, the eagerly anticipated "Portal 2," which comes with a co-operative mode, also hit store shelves last week - with an integration of Valve's Steam online service into the PlayStation Network being touted as one of the chief reasons to opt for the PS3 version of the game, rather than the Xbox 360 version.
The company has reportedly vowed to help some of the game makers who are seeing their revenues dry up.
"Sony will be helping us retain key focus [PSN store promotion] for a few extra weeks as they understand how something like this can affect a small dev studio like ours," Paddy Murphy, CEO of Open Emotion, told IGN.
The outage and data breach could give Microsoft (MSFT) an advantage in the online gaming space, as its Xbox Live service has never suffered such a compromise. Unlike Microsoft, which requires a $60 annual subscription fee for access to most features of its Xbox Live service, Sony does not charge most users for access to the PlayStation Network. (A PlayStation Plus program is available, giving early access to demos, priority invitations to game beta tests and discounts on products in its online store.)

Beijing removes controversial 'Confucius'

2011-04-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

A large statue of ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, controversially erected outside a Communist Party museum incentral Beijing, has quietly been removed from its plinth following an online uproar about its location. The 9.5-metre (30 foot), 17-tonne statue had pride of place in front of the north gate of the recently renovated National Museum Of China, just off Tiananmen Square and not far from the gaze of...