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2008-07-24U.S. Existing Home Sales Fell Sharply In JuneIn Germany, Obama Urges Joint Fight Against TerrorismEditorial: A Lesson Not LearnedDutch Trading Firm Said To Manipulate Oil MarketCommentary: Paying Doctors To Ignore PatientsCredit Suisse Earnings Fall 62 PercentFord Posts $8.7 Billion 2nd-Quarter LossBush Threatens To Veto Bill To Sell Government OilSallie Mae's Profit Nose-Dives 72 Percent In 2nd QuarterIOC Bars Iraq From Olympic GamesIs L.A. Attorney Facing Federal Charges Or Political Witch Hunt?Dolly's Deluge Rakes Coasts Of Texas, Mexico2008-07-23Oil Spill Could Close Parts Of Mississippi River For DaysAt Least 91 Injured As Strong Earthquake Jolts Northern JapanHurricane Dolly Slams South Texas, But Levees HoldPentagon Pressured Auditors To Skew Reports On Contractor's WorkHurricane Dolly Lashes Texas With 120 m.p.h. WindsSlower Growth, Rising Prices Slam U.S. EconomyEx-EPA Official: Bush Administration Ordered California Emissions Plan QuashedBush Drops Opposition To Housing BillObama Meets Israeli, Palestinian Leaders, Vows Focus On Mideast PeaceColumnist Bob Novak Hits Pedestrian In Washington, D.C.San Diego Sues Bank Of America Over Home Foreclosures2008-07-22Officials Fear Hurricane Dolly Could Break Rio Grande LeveesRussian Bombers Could Be Deployed To CubaRescue Of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Could Cost Taxpayers $25 BillionRecord Number Of Californians Default On Home Mortgages In 2nd QuarterAnalysis: Why The Oil Crunch May Grow WorseWachovia Loses $8.9 Billion In 2nd Quarter, To Slash 6,300 JobsRules Still Unclear For Guantanamo Bay ProceedingsFeedjit Live Website Statistics U.S. Existing Home Sales Fell Sharply In June Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:25:21(7 hours ago) [Read 34 times || 0 comments]
Sales of existing homes fell more sharply than expected in June as
the housing industry continued to be bruised by the worst slump in more
than two decades.
The National Association of Realtors reported
that sales dropped by 2.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted
annual rate of 4.86 million units. That was more than double the
decline that had been expected and left sales 15.5 percent below where
they were a year ago.
The downward slide in sales depressed
prices, too. The median price for a home sold in June dropped to
$215,100, down by 6.1 percent from a year ago. That was the fifth
largest year-over-year price drop on record.
The drop in sales
pushed inventories of unsold single-family homes and condominiums to
4.49 million units, up by 0.2 percent. That represented a 11.1 month
supply at the June sales pace, the second highest level in the past 24
years.
On Wall Street, stock prices fell Thursday as investors
fretted over the steeper-than-expected drop in home sales and a big
loss reported by Ford Motor Co. (Intellpuke: You can read a
separate article on Ford's problems elsewhere on today's Free Internet
Press mainpage.) The Dow Jones industrial average was down 145
points in early afternoon trading.
In another troubling sign for housing, Freddie Mac's nationwide
survey of mortgage rates showed a big jump, reflecting
elevated market fears about the financial health of Freddie and Fannie
Mae, the two giant players in mortgage markets. The rates on 30-year
mortgages surged to 6.63 percent this week, the highest level in nearly
a year and up from 6.26 percent last week.
Continue Reading Story Editorial: A Lesson Not Learned Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:24:59(7 hours ago) [Read 31 times || 0 comments]
Intellpuke: This editorial appeared in the New York Times edition for Thursday, July 24, 2008.
After the controversy over Palm Beach County’s infamous “butterfly
ballot” in 2000, there was a lot of earnest talk about improving ballot
design so that voters do not miscast their votes. Two election cycles
later, a study has found that ballots around the country are still far
too confusing and that poor design and instructions have
disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in the last several
federal elections.
The problem of badly designed ballots - which affects all kinds of
voting technology, from paper ballots to electronic machines - is
likely to be particularly acute this fall. There will be many
first-time voters, and many jurisdictions have introduced new voting
technology.
In the short term, states and localities need to
give as much guidance as they can to help voters. In the long term,
Congress and the states need to start requiring uniform, well-designed
ballots so Americans can be sure that the candidates they choose
actually get their vote.
Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot
was one of the great debacles in election history. It was so confusing
that it was hard to tell which hole to punch to cast a vote for a
particular candidate. Many people intending to vote for Al Gore
accidentally punched the hole for Patrick Buchanan or punched holes for
both Gore and Buchanan, which disqualified their votes.
Continue Reading Story Commentary: Paying Doctors To Ignore Patients Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:24:27(7 hours ago) [Read 42 times || 0 comments]
In
contrast, the doctor-patient visit, which involves no expensive
equipment, offers no significant profit opportunity. So the best way
for a doctor to make money in his practice is not to spend time with
patients but to use equipment as much as possible. That means moving
the maximum number of patients through the practice, and spending the
minimum amount of time with each one.
From 2000 to 2005, the
number of Medicare patients seen by doctors increased by 8.5 percent,
while the number of services each one received was up 14 percent,
according to the Government Accountability Office.
It’s not
only Medicare that pays doctors on a fee-for-service basis; most
private insurers do also. This is part of the reason that spending on
physician services nationwide has risen every year since 2000 by about
$25 billion. This year the tab will exceed $500 billion.
Doctors
who do their own CT scanning and other imaging order roughly two to
eight times as many imaging tests as those who do not have their own
equipment, a 2002 study by researchers at the University of North
Carolina found. Altogether, doctors are ordering roughly $40 billion
worth of unnecessary imaging each year - which adds up to nearly 2
percent of the total Americans pay for health care.
No wonder
the Government Accountability Office last month urged Medicare to find
a way to constrain doctors’ use of imaging tests.
Continue Reading Story Ford Posts $8.7 Billion 2nd-Quarter Loss Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:23:30(7 hours ago) [Read 58 times || 0 comments]
Ford Motors Thursday reported a $8.7 billion loss for the second
quarter,
the worst quarterly performance in the company's history, and announced
a raft of changes meant to ramp up its production of small cars.
The company attributed $8 billion of the losses to the reduced
value
of its assets, such as the sport-utility vehicle and pickup truck lines
for which consumer demand has evaporated. Ford's American sales are
down 14 percent from last year, with its light trucks taking an 18
percent hit.
Overall, the company was off $3.88 per share - 62 cents per share
not counting its shrinking asset value. The loss compares with a net
profit of $750 million, or 31 cents per share, in the same quarter a
year ago.
Either way, the performance was worse than Wall Street expected.
Analysts had predicted a 27-cents-a-share loss, according to a survey
from Smartmoney.com.
Ford stock Thursday opened down and was trading off nearly 10
percent,
at $5.44 shortly before 1 p.m. Ford said in a statement that it does
not expect a U.S. economic recovery to start until early 2010. Chief
Executive Alan Mullaly said he could not promise that the company would
be profitable by then, however, because the global economic outlook was
still too uncertain. "It really goes with the economy, both in the
United States and World-Wide," said Mullaly.
Continue Reading Story Sallie Mae's Profit Nose-Dives 72 Percent In 2nd Quarter Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:22:35(7 hours ago) [Read 45 times || 0 comments]
Sallie Mae, the U.S.' largest student lender, Wednesday reported that
second-quarter profit fell 72 percent, but indicated that business was
improving from a dismal start of 2008.
The company, based in
Reston, Virginia, said in a statement that it experienced "strong growth" and
"solid performance" in its student loan businesses in the three months
ending June 30. It added that it had started to obtain financing to
make loans at more favorable rates, aided by a new Department of Education program to buy securities composed of student loans.
In a statement, Albert L. Lord, vice chairman and chief executive, called the results "encouraging."
Sallie
Mae makes both private student loans and loans that are guaranteed by
the government. It raises money by pooling student loans into
securities and then selling them to investors. It sold $7 billion in
securities during the quarter, "clearly a good sign for Sallie Mae and
a good sign for the continued availability of student lending," said
Luke Swarthout, higher education advocate for U.S. Public Interest
Research Group.
Despite the improved outlook, SLM Corp., as it is officially called, is not without challenges given the tight
credit markets. Rates to borrow have come down from their heights, but
"our funding costs" have been "extraordinarily high," said Lord.
Continue Reading Story Is L.A. Attorney Facing Federal Charges Or Political Witch Hunt? Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:21:54(7 hours ago) [Read 46 times || 0 comments]
In a high-stakes legal drama that stretches from Los Angeles, California, to
Washington, D.C., federal prosecutors are poised to file criminal
campaign finance charges against a prominent L.A. attorney, but his
lawyers are fighting back, questioning whether his outspoken criticism
of the Bush administration has made him the target of a political
prosecution.
A federal grand jury has been secretly probing whether attorney Pierce
O'Donnell violated federal campaign laws by asking employees of his law
firm to contribute to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Edwards
and then reimbursing those who did, according to several sources,
including a member of O'Donnell's legal team.
O'Donnell, 61, has indicated that he is willing to plead to a
misdemeanor charge and pay a large fine, but prosecutors in the U.S.
attorney's office in Los Angeles have been insisting that any deal
would require him to plead guilty to a felony, which would end his
legal career in California, according to several sources who asked not
to be named because of the sensitivity of ongoing negotiations.
Members of O'Donnell's legal team are questioning whether the veteran
Democratic attorney is being threatened with a felony because he
represents victims of Hurricane Katrina in a lawsuit against the
government and has been openly critical of President Bush's policies on
civil rights in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said a source close to
O'Donnell.
Continue Reading Story Oil Spill Could Close Parts Of Mississippi River For Days Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 21:00:38(1 days ago) [Read 232 times || 0 comments]
The U.S. Coast Guard closed nearly 60 miles of the Mississippi River
from New Orleans southward after a fuel barge and a tanker collided
early Wednesday, spilling more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil.
The closure - on what is a major shipping route between the
Midwest and the Gulf of Mexico - could last days and the cleanup could
take weeks, said Capt. Lincoln Stroh, the Coast Guard chief in New
Orleans.
The collision between the Liberian-flagged chemical
tanker Tintomara and the barge pushed by the tug Mel Oliver happened
about 1:30 a.m. CT Wednesday, splitting the barge nearly in half and
dumping more than 419,000 gallons of oil into the river, said the Coast
Guard.
The accident happened just north of the massive bridges connecting
downtown New Orleans to the west bank of the Mississippi, said the
Coast Guard. The tanker was undamaged.
The Coast Guard said Wednesday evening that the tug had no properly
licensed crew on board at the time of the collision. No injuries were
reported, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it has
dispatched investigators to probe the cause of the accident.
Continue Reading Story Hurricane Dolly Slams South Texas, But Levees Hold Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 21:00:18(1 days ago) [Read 85 times || 0 comments]
Hurricane Dolly barreled into South Texas on Wednesday, lashing the
coast with winds up to 100 mph and dumping heavy rain that threatened
to flood low-lying areas but spared levees along the heavily populated
Rio Grande Valley.
Authorities had feared the first hurricane to
hit the U.S. since last September could produce up to 20 inches of rain
in some areas, possibly breaching levees in the heavily populated Rio
Grande Valley. But shortly before coming ashore, the Category 2 storm
meandered 35 miles north of the border, veering away from the flood
walls.
"The levees are holding up just fine," said Johnny
Cavazos, emergency coordinator for Cameron County. "There is no
indication right now that they are going to crest."
Although the
system weakened after striking land on the resort area of South Padre
Island, one official cautioned that the danger had not passed.
"It's still very early in the storm," said Sally Spener, a spokeswoman with the International Boundary and Water Commission.
Continue Reading Story Hurricane Dolly Lashes Texas With 120 m.p.h. Winds Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:21:09(1 days ago) [Read 140 times || 0 comments]
Hurricane Dolly
churned into a Category 2 storm as its eye neared the Texas-Mexico
border Wednesday, bringing fierce winds of up to 120 m.p.h. and heavy rains that blew down
signs, damaged an apartment complex and knocked out electricity to
thousands.
Forecasters
warned of up to 15 inches of rain that could produce flooding and
breach levees in the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley. Thunderstorms
were attributed to Dolly as far away as Houston, 400 miles up the Texas
coastline. In Mexico, fields were filling with water,
palm trees were bent over in the wind and beaches were closed to the
public. Maria Miguel, 102, and seven family members fled
their wooden shack in the Mexican fishing community of Higuerilla and
spent the night at a convention center-turned-shelter in Matamoros. "I
don't know if my poor house will withstand the rain and wind," said Miguel.
Continue Reading Story Ex-EPA Official: Bush Administration Ordered California Emissions Plan Quashed Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:19:49(1 days ago) [Read 102 times || 0 comments]
A former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official Tuesday contradicted EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson's congressional testimony on one of the administration's key global warming decisions, saying the White House ordered Johnson to block California's bid to regulate vehicles' tailpipe emissions.
On Jan. 24, Johnson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under oath that he had made the decision on his own after determining
there was no compelling evidence to justify California's plans. "The
responsibility for making the decision for California rests with me and
solely with me," Johnson said at the time. "I made the decision. It was
my decision. It was the right decision."
Tuesday, however,
former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett - who
resigned last month and has since divulged key details about how President Bush and his deputies have influenced the agency's decisions on climate
policy -- testified before the committee that Johnson had concluded
that California's request was legally justified - until White House
officials ordered him to reverse the decision.
California had
sought a waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement rules aimed at
cutting greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by 30 percent between
2009 and 2016. Johnson announced in late December that he would not
grant the waiver, effectively blocking 17 other states that had either
adopted or pledged to implement California's proposed rules.
Burnett
told the panel that Johnson had concluded that California had met the
legal requirement for a waiver by showing it faced "compelling and
extraordinary circumstances" in light of the threat that climate change
poses to the state.
Continue Reading Story Obama Meets Israeli, Palestinian Leaders, Vows Focus On Mideast Peace Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:18:32(1 days ago) [Read 108 times || 0 comments]
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) stood before a backdrop of spent
rocket shells in this southern Israeli town on Wednesday and proclaimed
his "unshakable commitment" to the protection of the Jewish state,
emphasizing at the same time the importance of forging an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that includes a negotiated resolution on
the status of Jerusalem.
On the sixth day of his international
trip, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee shuttled between
Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem and the West Bank and
visited Israel's iconic Holocaust msueum. He then boarded a helicopter for the short ride to Sderot, which
borders the Gaza Strip and has been the frequent target of Qassam
rockets fired by Palestinian militants there.
After meeting with
local officials and hearing about the damage caused by the rockets,
Obama told assembled reporters it is in "Israel's strong national
interest to have a lasting peace with the Palestinians."
"The threats to Israel's security begin in Sderot, but they don't
end there," Obama said, citing Tuesday's tractor attack in downtown
Jerusalemand the ongoing possibility of nuclear weapons in Iran. "A nuclear Iran would be a game-changing situation, not just in the Middle East but around the world."
Obama
reiterated his willingness to both pressure and negotiate with Iran,
using what he called a series of "big sticks and big carrots." That
stance worries Israeli leaders across the political spectrum at a time
when Iran's nuclear ambitions are viewed here as an existential threat.
But Israeli opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu told Israel Radio that
he and Obama found common ground when they met Wednesday morning.
Continue Reading Story San Diego Sues Bank Of America Over Home Foreclosures Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:17:59(1 days ago) [Read 110 times || 0 comments]
San Diego, California, City Attorney Michael
Aguirre said on Wednesday he had filed a lawsuit against Bank
of America Corp. and its Countrywide unit to prevent the
mortgage lenders from foreclosing on homes in his city, which
he aims to make a "foreclosure sanctuary."
Aguirre said he plans to file similar lawsuits against Washington Mutual Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Wachovia Corp. in an effort to make the lenders negotiate
with mortgage borrowers facing foreclosure.
"We would like to see San Diego become a foreclosure
sanctuary," said Aguirre.
Continue Reading Story Russian Bombers Could Be Deployed To Cuba Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:42:19(2 days ago) [Read 163 times || 0 comments]
Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba
in response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in
Eastern Europe, a Russian newspaper reported Monday, citing an unnamed
senior Russian air force official.
The report in Izvestia, which
could not be confirmed, prompted memories of the 1962 Cuban missile
crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink
of nuclear war after Nikita Khrushchev put nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island. The weapons were
eventually withdrawn in an apparent Soviet climb-down, but President John F. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.
A
spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the
report Monday, but did not deny it. Izvestia is often a forum for
strategic leaks by Kremlin and other officials.
"While
they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic,
our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba," Izvestia quoted
the source as saying.
It was unclear if the source was suggesting that Russia would reopen a base in Cuba or merely use an airfield there for
stopovers by the bombers, Tu-160s and Tu-95s, which are already capable
of reaching the United States from bases in Russia.
Continue Reading Story Record Number Of Californians Default On Home Mortgages In 2nd Quarter Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:41:54(2 days ago) [Read 135 times || 0 comments]
A record number of California homeowners defaulted on mortgages last
quarter, a real estate information service reported Tuesday.
Mortgage servicers recorded "notices of default" on 118,020 homes
from April to June, up 125% from the same period in 2007, according to
DataQuick Information Systems. That total was the highest since the
firm began recording foreclosure statistics in 1992.
Most of those homeowners will likely have their homes repossessed, likely prolonging the current foreclosure crisis.
The pace of defaults slowed in the second quarter, however, with
the total rising 6.6% from the first three months of the year. By
contrast, first-quarter foreclosures had shot up 39% from the last
quarter of 2007.
DataQuick president John Walsh said the relatively small quarterly
increase may show "some lenders are starting to prioritize workouts
with homeowners instead of grinding things through the foreclosure
process," but also noted banks "may just be swamped and can't handle
processing any paperwork."
Continue Reading Story Wachovia Loses $8.9 Billion In 2nd Quarter, To Slash 6,300 Jobs Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:41:14(2 days ago) [Read 177 times || 0 comments]
Wachovia Corp. lost a staggering $8.9 billion in the second quarter of this year,
leading the nation's fourth-largest bank to cut its dividend and slash
6,350 jobs in response to mortgage-related losses.
Wachovia is being hurt by its $25 billion acquisition of California's Golden West Financial Corp. in 2006, a California lender known for novelty mortgages that are now
defaulting at a higher rate than more traditional mortgages.
Shares
of Charlotte-based Wachovia dropped at the market's opening today but
later rose. The market as a whole mirrored Wachovia, diving at the
opening bell on earnings from American Express Inc., Apple Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc., all of which failed to meet analysts' expectations.
A
further drop in oil prices helped boost the market back into positive
territory in late-morning trading and it moved sharply up shortly
before the close. The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day up 135 points, about 1.2 percent, at 11,603. The Standard
& Poor's 500 stock index rose nearly 1.4 percent with a 17 point
increase to 1,277. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index climbed more
than 24 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2,304.
Crude oil settled today down $3.09 at $127.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Wachovia stock gained $3.61 to close at $16.79, a 28 percent increase.
Continue Reading Story In Germany, Obama Urges Joint Fight Against Terrorism Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:25:08(7 hours ago) [Read 39 times || 0 comments]
Before an enormous crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack
Obama Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror
and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they
conquered communism a generation ago.
"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot
stand," said Obama, speaking not far from where the Berlin Wall once
divided the city.
"The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least
cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and
immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand," he said.
Obama said he was speaking as a citizen, not as a president, but the
evening was awash in politics. His remarks inevitably invited
comparison to historic speeches in the same city by Presidents John F.
Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and he borrowed rhetoric from his own
appeals to campaign audiences in the likes of Berlin, New Hampshire, when he
addressed a crowd in one of the great cities of Europe.
"People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time," he said.
Continue Reading Story Dutch Trading Firm Said To Manipulate Oil Market Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:24:47(7 hours ago) [Read 38 times || 0 comments]
Commodity regulators in Washington, D.C., have accused a Dutch trading company
of making roughly $1 million in illegal profits by manipulating the
prices of crude oil, heating oil and gasoline over an 11-day period
last year.
In audiotapes uncovered in their investigation, regulators said one
defendant described the scheme as an effort to “bully the market” by
making a massive number of trades at or near the end of the trading day
to move closing prices.
The lawsuit is certain to resonate loudly
in Washington, D.C., where the Senate is in the midst of debating proposals
to tackle high oil prices by curbing market speculation and where
lawmakers have repeatedly demanded tougher enforcement measures.
Moreover,
unlike many manipulation cases, this one accuses the defendants of
actually succeeding in moving prices that are used as benchmarks for
consumer markets - a remarkable claim in markets widely considered too
big to be bullied.
The complaint, announced Thursday, is the first fruits of a broad
investigation that was announced two months ago by the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission,which oversees the futures exchanges that help determine global benchmark prices for energy and agricultural commodities.
Continue Reading Story Credit Suisse Earnings Fall 62 Percent Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:23:58(7 hours ago) [Read 38 times || 0 comments]
Credit Suisse posted a smaller-than-expected fall in second-quarter earnings on
Thursday as it managed more cash for the world’s wealthy and its
investment banking unit returned to profit.
The Swiss bank’s earnings easily beat analysts’ forecasts, despite
falling 62 percent to 1.2 billion Swiss francs ($1.16 billion), because
of smaller asset write-downs than expected and as its investment bank,
private bank and asset management business all posted profits.
A Reuters poll of analysts had forecast profit of 526 million francs.
A reduction in risk exposure, the small write-down and strong inflows for private banking were all positive, analysts said.
The
first results from a big European bank for the second quarter also
backed up signs from American rivals that banks could be through the
worst of the write-downs ignited by the subprime mortgage crisis and
subsequent credit squeeze.
Continue Reading Story Bush Threatens To Veto Bill To Sell Government Oil Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:22:54(7 hours ago) [Read 47 times || 0 comments]
President George W. Bush on Thursday threatened to veto legislation that would require the
government to sell 10 percent of the oil in the nation's
emergency petroleum stockpile.
The House of Representatives was expected to vote on the
bill later on Thursday. Democrats hope the legislation will
lower oil prices by putting on the market more of the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve's light, sweet crude that is sought by
refiners.
"Drawing down our emergency oil reserve in the absence of a
severe energy disruption is counter to the purpose of the SPR,
and offers the nation a quick fix instead of much needed
long-term, responsible energy solutions," the White House said
in a statement.
The bill would require the government to sell 10 percent of
the emergency stockpile's oil, or 70 million barrels, in the
open market. About 40 percent of the stockpile's oil is light
sweet crude.
Continue Reading Story IOC Bars Iraq From Olympic Games Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:22:13(7 hours ago) [Read 64 times || 0 comments]
Iraqi athletes have been banned from competing in the Olympics in
Beijing because of a squabble between the Iraqi government and the
International Olympic Committee, making Iraq one of the few countries
to be barred from the games.
Iraqi
officials learned on Tuesday that its seven-member Olympic team would
not be allowed to participate this summer because of the dispute,
according to Haider Ali Lazim, a former member of the Iraqi National
Olympic Committee who represented Iraq in judo in the 2004 Olympics in
Athens, Greece.
The dispute began when the government of Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki disbanded the Iraqi Olympic Committee in May, accusing
its members of corruption and winning their seats through rigged
elections. Lazim, a member of the disbanded group, said the committee
denies the allegations.
The government appointed an interim
committee headed by the minister of sports, but the International
Olympics Committee refused to recognize it, citing Olympic Charter
rules that bar government interference in national Olympic committee
activities. On June 4, it suspended Iraq's Olympic committee, giving
the Iraqi government a deadline of Wednesday - the deadline for the
submission of rosters in all sports but track and field.
"I feel
sad for sports in Iraq and I feel angry at our government because it
caused all this," said Lazim. "But there is no doubt that the decision
of the International Olympics Committee is correct and legal."
Continue Reading Story Dolly's Deluge Rakes Coasts Of Texas, Mexico Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-24 15:21:39(7 hours ago) [Read 40 times || 0 comments]
Hurricane Dolly rolled into South Texas and northern Mexico on Wednesday, deluging the Rio Grande Valley with rain, knocking out
power to tens of thousands of people and ripping roofs off resorts on
South Padre Island.
The worst fears of local officials did not materialize. The
levees along the Rio Grande held and no major flooding was reported,
state and local officials said. The brunt of the storm surge did not
flow up the river.
“The levees are holding up just fine, and the river level hasn’t
risen too much,” said Johnny Cavazos, the emergency management
coordinator for Cameron County, at the state’s southern tip. “We got
lucky.”
Some officials still worried about the enormous amount of rain the
storm would dump - up to 20 inches in some places - which could swell
the river and breach levees in the coming days.
The storm, the first to affect the United States mainland this year,
first raked across South Padre Island, a tourist resort, in the early
afternoon. A few hours later, it hit the coast about 30 miles north of
Port Isabel, churning inland and losing power slowly, said the National
Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
Continue Reading Story At Least 91 Injured As Strong Earthquake Jolts Northern Japan Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 21:00:28(1 days ago) [Read 83 times || 0 comments]
A strong earthquake jolted northern Japan
early on Thursday, injuring at least 91 people, trapping
hundreds in halted trains and temporarily cutting off electric
power to thousands of homes.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said there was no
threat of a tsunami from the quake, which struck at 00:26
(10:26 a.m. EDT Wednesday) and had a preliminary magnitude of
6.8 and could be felt as far away as Tokyo.
A National Police Agency official said that 91 people were
confirmed injured, 15 of whom were seriously hurt. Many were
injured in falls or suffered cuts from broken glass.
The focus of the quake was 108 kilometers (67 miles) below the
surface of the earth in Iwate prefecture, a mountainous,
sparsely populated region.
The JMA initially put the focus at a depth of 120 kilometers.
"I woke up immediately. It felt like it was shaking for a
long time. Books and other things that were piled up fell on
the floor. All the doors were open and things were shattered,"
Sho Koseki, a city official in Hachinohe, about 550 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, told Reuters by telephone.
Continue Reading Story Pentagon Pressured Auditors To Skew Reports On Contractor's Work Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:21:19(1 days ago) [Read 121 times || 0 comments]
Auditors at an oversight agency of the Pentagon were pressured by
supervisors to skew their reports on a major defense contractor's work,
hiding wrongdoing and charges of over billing, according to an 80-page
report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The Defense
Contract Audit Agency, which is charged with overseeing contractors for
the Defense Department, made an upfront agreement with "a major
aerospace company" to limit the scope of work and basis for an audit,
the report said.
When the contractor, who is not named in the
report, objected to the draft findings of the DCAA audit, managers at
the audit agency assigned a new supervisor to the case and threatened
the senior auditor with personnel action if "he did not delete findings
from the report and change the draft audit opinion to adequate,"
according to the GAO report.
Supervisors at DCAA attempted to
intimidate auditors, prevented them from speaking with GAO
investigators and created a "generally abusive work environment," said the
report.
GAO said it launched the investigation on its own
after receiving complaints on a hotline about 14 DCAA audits. It
conducted more than 100 interviews of more than 50 people involved in
the audits at two DCAA locations in California. The report details
three of the audits the GAO looked into but does not name any of the
contractors.
Continue Reading Story Slower Growth, Rising Prices Slam U.S. Economy Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:20:58(1 days ago) [Read 115 times || 0 comments]
The country slogged through slower economic growth and rising prices
during the summer, packing a double whammy to people and businesses
alike.
The Fed's new snapshot of business conditions, released
Wednesday, also underscored the challenges confronting Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues as they try to get the economy
back on track.
For now, many economists predict the Federal Reserve will
probably leave a key interest rate alone when it meets next on Aug. 5 -
given all the economic crosscurrents. Boosting rates to fend off
inflation would hurt the fragile economy and the already crippled
housing market. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve isn't inclined to lower
rates because that would aggravate inflation.
Growth and
inflation barometers turned worse in the summer, according to the Federal Reserve
report. Some worry that the country may be headed for a bout of
stagflation, that toxic combination of stagnant growth and stubborn
inflation last seen in the 1970s.
Bernanke has said, however, that he doesn't believe the economy will suffer from stagflation.
Continue Reading Story Bush Drops Opposition To Housing Bill Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:19:34(1 days ago) [Read 107 times || 0 comments]
Congress is moving quickly to
pass a housing package that aims to help 400,000 strapped homeowners
avoid foreclosures and prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from
collapsing.
Momentum for passage picked up mightily after President Bush earlier
Wednesday dropped his opposition to the bill just hours before a
scheduled vote in the House. That put the legislation on track toward
enactment as early as the end of the week. Bush's decision to sign the
election-year bill came despite his strong resistance to including $3.9
billion in the measure for neighborhoods hit hardest by foreclosures.
The administration and lawmakers in both parties teamed to
negotiate the election-year measure, which pairs Democrats' top
priorities - federal help for homeowners facing foreclosure and $3.9
billion for devastated neighborhoods - with Republicans' goal of
reining in mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while reassuring
financial markets of their stability.
In a policy statement on the bill, the White House said that parts of
it "are too important to the stability of our nation's housing market,
financial system, and the broader economy not to be enacted
immediately."
Bush had objected to the neighborhood grants, which would be for buying
and fixing up foreclosed properties, saying that they would help
bankers and lenders, not homeowners who are in trouble; but Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, told reporters
in a conference call that a showdown with Congress over the funds would
be ill-timed.
Continue Reading Story Columnist Bob Novak Hits Pedestrian In Washington, D.C. Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-23 16:18:09(1 days ago) [Read 103 times || 0 comments]
Syndicated columnist and TV political pundit Robert D. Novak said he
was issued a $50 citation by D.C. police this morning after he hit a
pedestrian while driving his sports car in downtown Washington.
Witnesses said the collision occurred in slow-moving traffic about
10 a.m. as Novak, 77, was headed north on 18th Street NW near K Street
in his black 2004 Chevrolet Corvette. Washington, D.C., fire department spokesman
Alan Etter said the victim is a man in his 60s who was taken to George
Washington University Medical Center with "very minor injuries."
"He's complaining about some pain in his arm, but there are no visible injuries," said Etter.
Continue Reading Story Officials Fear Hurricane Dolly Could Break Rio Grande Levees Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:42:30(2 days ago) [Read 192 times || 0 comments]
Coastal officials
worried Tuesday that Tropical Storm Dolly may bring so much rain that
flooding could break through the levees holding back the Rio Grande River.
Officials
urged residents to move away from the levees because if Dolly continues
to follow the same path as 1967's Hurricane Beulah, "the levees are not
going to hold that much water," said Cameron County Emergency
Management Coordinator Johnny Cavazos.
Forecasters say Dolly was expected to dump 15 to 20 inches of rain and
bring coastal storm surge flooding of 4 to 6 feet above normal high
tide levels. Hurricane warnings
were in effect from Brownsville, Texas, north to Corpus Christi, and in Mexico,
from Rio San Fernando north to the U.S. border. Tropical storm warnings
were issued for surrounding areas and the governor has declared 14
counties disaster areas, allowing state resources to be used to send
equipment and emergency workers needed to the areas in the storm's
path. Forecasters said Dolly was
expected to make land late Tuesday or early Wednesday as a hurricane
with sustained winds of 74 to 95 mph. The storm combined with levees
that have deteriorated in the 41 years since Beulah swept up the Rio
Grande pose a major flooding threat to low-lying counties along the
border. Beulah spawned more than 100 tornadoes across Texas and dumped
36 inches of rain in some parts of South Texas, killing 58 people and
causing more than $1 billion damage.
Continue Reading Story Rescue Of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Could Cost Taxpayers $25 Billion Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:42:06(2 days ago) [Read 135 times || 0 comments]
A federal rescue of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
could cost taxpayers as much as $25 billion, Congress' top budget
analyst said Tuesday.
Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office,
predicted in a letter to lawmakers that there's a better than 50
percent chance the government will not have to step in to prop up the
companies by lending them money or buying stock.
Congress is expected to vote this week on a housing measure that
would give the Treasury Department authority to throw Fannie and
Freddie a temporary lifeline.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, who has been pressing for the
power, says it's intended as a backup plan to help calm investors and
stabilize financial markets.
Paulson said in a New York speech Tuesday that Congress needs to
quickly approve a support package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -
which guarantee or own almost half of the home mortgages in the country
- to make sure they maintain their critically important role in
housing finance. He said their continued operations were "central to
the speed with which we emerge from this housing correction."
Continue Reading Story Analysis: Why The Oil Crunch May Grow Worse Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:41:40(2 days ago) [Read 189 times || 0 comments]
With gasoline and oil costing once-unthinkable barrels of cash, the
notion that things in our petroleum-addicted world soon will get worse - maybe much, much worse - is spreading fast.
Fear pushed oil to $131.04 a barrel in New York futures trading Monday,
closing $2.16 higher after tumbling more than $16 last week. Supply
concerns drove the increase as the market fretted about the potential
for Tropical Storm Dolly to harm Gulf of Mexico oil operations.
Behind today's oil mania lies a deeper dread: that the world has
found all the easy-to-reach oil, and the daily supply of the essential
black goo will fall further and further behind escalating global demand.
"As much as you're uncomfortable with today's oil prices, these
are going to be the good old days," oil expert Robert L. Hirsch told a
recent Santa Barbara gathering of policymakers and environmentalists. "We're talking about pain here that is unimaginable."
The day-to-day cost of oil reflects a sharply weaker dollar, market
speculation and geopolitical events such as unrest in Nigeria and other
oil-exporting countries. At the same time, producers are barely slaking
the world's energy thirst, and the market increasingly is fixated on
the long-term supply picture.
Continue Reading Story Rules Still Unclear For Guantanamo Bay Proceedings Posted By: Intellpuke 2008-07-22 18:40:34(2 days ago) [Read 130 times || 0 comments]
More than six years after the Bush administration sent hundreds of
foreign prisoners to Guantanamo Bay, the rules for deciding just who
can be held and for how long remain unclear.
Comments Monday by the attorney general and congressional Democrats
suggest such issues will not be resolved soon - and not before a new
administration takes power.
Roughly 270 prisoners remain at Guantanamo, of whom about 20 are slated
to be tried as war criminals. No one is sure what will happen to the
rest of them, even if the prison itself is closed.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court said judges could hear appeals from
the detainees and, in theory, order some of them released.
Yet the justices did not spell out who would qualify as an "unlawful
enemy combatant," as the prisoners at Guantanamo are designated, nor
did they say what proof would be needed to show that someone captured
years ago remained a danger today.
Continue Reading Story 
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