Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Polls: Most support Obama's economic plan

Approval ratings high as president moves to stem recession woes

WASHINGTON - Large majorities of Americans support President Barack Obama's plans to revive the economy and his efforts to work across party lines, according to a pair of public opinion polls released Monday.

One month into his presidency, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found 68 percent of Americans approve of Obama's job performance.

Sixty-four percent of respondents supported the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus package and the same percentage backed his proposal to prevent housing foreclosures, the Washington Post reported.

Read full story MSNBC

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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Stocks slide, Dow ends at lowest in 6 years

Outlook for economy, banking and corporate earnings dims

NEW YORK - An important psychological barrier gave way on Wall Street Thursday as the Dow Jones industrials fell to their lowest level in more than six years.

The Dow broke through a bottom reached in November, pulled down by sharp declines in key financial shares. It was the lowest ending for the Dow since Oct. 9, 2002, when the last bear market bottomed out.

The move below that level dashed hopes that the doldrums of November would mark the ending point of a long slump in the market, which is now nearly halfway below the peak levels reached in October 2007.

Read full story MSNBC

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Bush-era offshore drilling plan is set aside

Obama team eyes renewables, seeks more input on Atlantic, Pacific coasts

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Tuesday overturned another Bush-era energy policy, setting aside a draft plan to allow drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

"To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside" the plan "and create our own timeline," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced in a statement.

Alleging that the Bush administration "had torpedoed" offshore renewable energy in favor of oil and natural gas, Salazar said he was extending the public comment period by 6 months.

Read full story MSNBC

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Senate passes $838 billion stimulus bill

Democratic leaders vow to deliver legislation to president within days

President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan has passed the Senate and is on its way to difficult House-Senate negotiations.

Just three Republicans helped pass the plan on a 61-37 vote and they're already signaling they'll play hardball to preserve more than $108 billion in spending cuts made last week in Senate dealmaking. Obama wants to restore cuts in funds for school construction jobs and help for cash-starved states.

Those cuts are among the major differences between the $819 billion House version of Obama's plan and a Senate bill costing $838 billion. Obama has warned of a deepening economic crisis if Congress fails to act. He wants a bill completed by the weekend.

Read ful lstory MSNBC

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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Cash-strapped states mull new seat belt laws

Changing rules to allow cops to stop drivers opens door to federal money

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Drivers better buckle up or pay the price: More cash-strapped states want to give law enforcement officers the authority to pull over motorists just for not wearing their seat belts.

More than a dozen states that are considering making the switch to primary seat-belt enforcement laws need to do so before July to be eligible for millions in federal money.

Read full story MSNBC

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Obama announces cap on executive pay

The president says annual senior-executive pay must top out at $500,000, one of the new restrictions he announced for financial institutions receiving bailout cash.

Reporting from Washington -- President Barack Obama unveiled new restrictions on pay for executives at financial institutions receiving federal bailout money today, slamming corporate leaders for "narrow self-interest" in enriching their paychecks with taxpayer money.

"For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis isn't just bad taste -- it's a bad strategy -- and I will not tolerate it as president," Obama said during a White House appearance with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. "We're going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid -- so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won't find them up to the same old tricks."

Read full story Los Angeles Times

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Debt may do what rain, heat, gloom can’t

Postal service considers cutting one day of mail delivery due to deficit

WASHINGTON - Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery per week, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday.

Postmaster General John E. Potter asked lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week.

Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year and, “if current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year,” Potter said in testimony for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

Read full story MSNBC

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House passes Obama economic stimulus plan

President: 'Perilous moment' requires swift action to kick-start economy

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled House approved $819 billion in spending increases and tax cuts at the heart of President Barack Obama's economic recovery program Wednesday evening, despite Republicans' charges that the bill is wasteful.

"We don't have a moment to spare," Obama declared earlier Wednesday at the White House as Democrats hastened to do his bidding.

A mere eight days after Inauguration Day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi heralded a new era. "The ship of state is difficult to turn," said the California Democrat. "But that is what we must do. That is what President Obama called us to do in his inaugural address."

Read full story MSNBC

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Byrd, Kennedy stricken at Obama luncheon

Two senators taken away from event for medical attention

BREAKING NEWS
NBC News
updated 9 minutes ago


Sens. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., were stricken Tuesday at an inauguration luncheon for President Barack Obama.

A Capitol police officer stood up at the luncheon and said medical attention was needed.

Kennedy collapsed and was wheeled out on a stretcher from the Capitol luncheon following the inauguration of the 44th president, NBC's Mike Viquiera said. Kennedy reportedly suffered convulsions.

Read full story MSNBC

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Friday, January 16, 2009

Obama's stimulus plan promises new jobs

Engineering, accounting, nursing and IT among likely growth fields

In his weekly radio address on Jan. 10, 2009, Barack Obama said the No. 1 goal of his economic stimulus plan is to create 3 million new jobs in the next two years. Less than 20 percent of them will be government jobs.

What exactly, then, will these jobs be?

Career Web site Jobfox has analyzed Obama's plan and come up with five areas of likely job growth over the next two years, with 22 specific job titles among them. Engineering, accounting, nursing and information technology will all fare particularly well, Jobfox predicts.

Read full story MSNBC

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Napolitano to review controversial REAL ID plan

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama's pick to oversee Homeland Security told senators Thursday the agency needs to focus on transportation security and securing biological and chemical facilities in the private sector.

Janet Napolitano, a twice-elected governor of Arizona, said aviation security has improved since the 2001 terror attacks, but more needs to be done to secure transit systems and other modes of ground transportation.

Testifying in her Senate confirmation hearing, Napolitano defended her work on homeland security issues in Arizona and pledged to revisit a controversial and costly program to enhance the security of driver's licenses.

Read full story AZ Central

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Friday, January 9, 2009

Jobless rate jumps to 7.2 percent in Dec

Caps year with most annual job losses in the post-World War II era

WASHINGTON - The U.S. unemployment rate bolted to 7.2 percent in December, the highest level in 16 years, as nervous employers slashed 524,000 jobs. The labor market is expected to remain weak as mass layoffs continue.

The Labor Department's report, released Friday, underscored the terrible toll the deepening recession is having on workers and companies, and highlights the hard task President-elect Barack Obama faces in resuscitating the flat-lined economy.

For all of 2008, the economy lost a net total of 2.6 million jobs. That was the most since 1945, when nearly 2.8 million jobs were lost. Although the number of jobs in the U.S. has more than tripled since then, losses of this magnitude are still being painfully felt.

Read full story MSNBC

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Thursday, January 8, 2009

As His Inmates Grew Thinner, a Sheriff’s Wallet Grew Fatter

DECATUR, Ala. — The prisoners in the Morgan County jail here were always hungry. The sheriff, meanwhile, was getting a little richer. Alabama law allowed it: the chief lawman could go light on prisoners’ meals and pocket the leftover change.

And that is just what the sheriff, Greg Bartlett, did, to the tune of $212,000 over the last three years, despite a state food allowance of only $1.75 per prisoner per day.

In the view of a federal judge, who heard testimony from the hungry inmates, the sheriff was in “blatant” violation of past agreements that his prisoners be properly cared for.

“There was undisputed evidence that most of the inmates had lost significant weight,” the judge, U. W. Clemon of Federal District Court in Birmingham, said Thursday in an interview. “I could not ignore them.”

Read full story New York Times

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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Small quakes continue to rattle Yellowstone

The national park has quakes for a third straight day. Scientists don't know what to think about the unusual occurrence.

Reporting from Cheyenne, Wyo. -- Yellowstone National Park was jostled by small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger.

Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it is unusual for so many quakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.

"They're certainly not normal," Smith said. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."

Smith directs the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which operates seismic stations around the park.

He said the quakes ranged in strength from barely detectable to one of magnitude 3.8 on Saturday. A magnitude-4 quake is capable of producing moderate damage.

Read full story Los Angeles Times

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Blagojevich Prosecutors Seek Ruling on Tapes

CHICAGO — Federal prosecutors who recorded the telephone conversations of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich as part of a criminal investigation are asking a judge whether they may turn over four recordings to state lawmakers who are conducting an impeachment inquiry against him.

The recordings, parts of which prosecutors described in an affidavit made public on Dec. 9 when Mr. Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges, have emerged as a focal point in the problems surrounding him.

Read full story New York Times

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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Denver crash baffles aviation experts

The co-pilot of the Continental Airlines jet that veered off a Denver runway Saturday has told investigators that the takeoff acceleration was normal until the plane made "a sudden left turn," investigators said Monday.
The unnamed pilot said that he noticed that the Boeing 737-500 jet began to turn away from the center of the runway as it reached about 100 mph, according to Robert Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Sumwalt revealed new data at an evening briefing in Denver that appeared to rule out several possible causes. Evidence at the charred wreckage and from the data recorder shows the engines and brakes were fine, Sumwalt said. The jet was also properly set for takeoff, he said.

Read full story USA Today

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Terrorism drill to be part of passing torch

WASHINGTON — What would happen if terrorists attacked the United States at the start of Barack Obama's presidency?

The Bush administration doesn't want to wait to find out. It's planning to test the incoming government's readiness next month in a series of tabletop exercises involving top Bush and Obama officials.

Concerned about the first handoff of presidential power since Sept. 11, 2001, the White House also is preparing briefing books and office manuals designed to bring the incoming Obama administration up to speed in a hurry.

"This is the first wartime transition in 40 years, and it's probably the first transition in a couple of centuries in which our homeland itself has been under threat," says White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who's supervising the effort. The goal is to "make sure that those who are coming in are as well prepared as they can be to deal with an actual threat here in this country."

Read full story USA Today

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Foreigners gave millions to Clinton foundation

Donor list heavy with international business leaders and billionaires

WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton's foundation has raised at least $46 million from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments that his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton may end up negotiating with as the next secretary of state.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave $10 million to $25 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit created by the former president to finance his library in Little Rock, Ark., and charitable efforts to reduce poverty and treat AIDS. Other foreign government givers include Norway, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Italy and Jamaica. The Dutch national lottery gave $5 million to $10 million.

Read full story MSNBC

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Fed sets new target range for overnight rate

Rate will range from zero to 0.25 percent for what banks charge each other

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve has cut its target for a key interest rate to the lowest level on record and pledged to use “all available tools” to combat a severe financial crisis and prolonged recession.

The central bank on Tuesday said it had reduced the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, to a range of zero to 0.25 percent. That is down from the 1 percent target rate in effect since the last meeting in October. Many analysts had expected the Fed to make a smaller cut to 0.5 percent.

Read full story MSNBC

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Thursday, December 11, 2008

Obama expected to discuss Illinois scandal

Gov. Blagojevich has ignored president-elect's call for him to resign

CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday was expected to address the corruption charges against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a day after Blagojevich refused to heed the advice of Obama and others that he resign.

Blagojevich is clinging defiantly to power despite his arrest on accusations he tried to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Obama was expected to take questions about the scandal at a press conference to announce his pick for health secretary, former Sen. Tom Daschle.

Read full story MSNBC

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