2 Pakistani Taliban sows doubt over leader's death
By Zeeshan Haider, Reuters
Sat Aug 8, 6:40 am ET
| ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A fellow commander in the Pakistani Taliban insisted that Baitullah Mehsud, the movement's leader, was alive, the BBC reported on Saturday, rejecting government claims he had been eliminated in a U.S. drone strike.
Hakimullah Mehsud, one of the most powerful commanders in the tribal region, described reports of Mehsud's death as "ridiculous" and said it was "the handiwork of the intelligence agencies," the BBC Urdu service website said.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Friday the government was "pretty certain" that Mehsud perished in the missile blitz on Wednesday that also killed his second wife, a brother, seven bodyguards and destroyed his car. |
3 Protesters disrupt town-hall healthcare talks
By Matthew Bigg and Nick Carey, Reuters
Sat Aug 8, 12:17 am ET
| BOILING SPRINGS, S.C./OCONTO FALLS, Wisc. (Reuters) - At scattered events across the United States, protesters are confronting members of Congress whose summer "town hall" meetings aim to get a sense of how Americans feel about overhauling healthcare.
Boiling Springs in South Carolina -- population 4,500 -- was true to its name on Thursday, giving U.S. Representative Bob Inglis a taste of rising anger among conservative voters toward President Barack Obama's reform plan.
"There is no way, shape or form we need to have a national healthcare system. No! Nothing! None! It's got to stop now," said one man who addressed the audience of 300 people to sustained applause. |
4 Fla. senator to resign, clear path for Crist
By BRENT KALLESTAD, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 8, 6:58 am ET
| TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Republican Sen. Mel Martinez announced Friday he would step down 16 months early, saying he was making good on a promise to voters that he wouldn't stay just to keep the seat warm.
The move presents Gov. Charlie Crist with the challenge of selecting a solid replacement - almost certainly a fellow Republican - but somebody who will agree not to run for a full term in 2010 so Crist himself can win the seat.
Martinez, the only Hispanic Republican in the Senate, said he would serve until his replacement was named. Crist promised to try to make his selection before the Senate returns from its summer break after Labor Day. |
5 Drug industry helping Obama overhaul health care
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
Sat Aug 8, 6:16 am ET
| WASHINGTON - The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail Obama's top domestic priority.
The White House and allies in Congress are well aware of the effort by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a somewhat surprising political alliance, given the drug industry's recent history of siding with Republicans and the Democrats' disdain for special interests.
The campaign, now in its early stages, includes television advertising under PhRMA's own name and commercials aired in conjunction with the liberal group, Families USA. |
6 Palin says Obama's health care plan is 'evil'
By MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 8, 4:07 am ET
| ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called President Barack Obama's health plan "downright evil" Friday in her first online comments since leaving office, saying in a Facebook posting that he would create a "death panel" that would deny care to the neediest Americans.
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care," the former Republican vice presidential candidate wrote.
"Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote on her page, which has nearly 700,000 supporters. She encouraged her supporters to be engaged in the debate. |
7 SC first lady, sons move out of state residence
By JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 8, 6:48 am ET
| COLUMBIA, S.C. - The wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford moved out of the official governor's residence with their four sons Friday, a little more than a month after he admitted to a yearlong affair with an Argentine woman he called his "soul mate."
First lady Jenny Sanford and several other women moved bags of clothes, a suitcase and armloads of suits and dresses on hangers from the governor's mansion in Columbia before departing in a caravan of sport utility vehicles. Three of the four boys were present, carrying tote and duffel bags.
Before departing, she hugged several of the women who helped her carry belongings out. In a statement, Jenny Sanford said she was heading to the family residence on Sullivans Island, some 120 miles southeast, for the upcoming school year. |
8 Fewer lawsuits possible benefit of forest pact
By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press Writer
31 mins ago
| FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Long on opposing sides when it comes to forest use, timber interests and environmental groups have agreed on how thinning and prescribed burns should be done on nearly 1 million acres of Arizona's ponderosa pine forest.
The upfront agreement could take tough disputes out of the courtroom and lead to fewer delays in implementing projects, U.S. Forest Service officials say. Some 170 lawsuits over the past 5 1/2 years have been filed challenging timber harvest and fuels reduction on national forests, according to the agency.
"We are looking for more opportunities to replicate this," said Faye Krueger, deputy forester for the Southwest region that includes Arizona and New Mexico. |
9 Go-to guy on foreclosure cleanouts sees it all
By TODD LEWAN, AP National Writer
1 hr 58 mins ago
| GROVELAND, Fla. - 393 Ed Douglas Road was a hot potato now, not a home - just another ghost property in the resale pipeline with curtainless windows, a yard populated by fire ants and weeds, and the telltale flier taped to the front door: "U.S. Government Property."
Nick Hazel shoved a key in the lock.
"Don't look now, but we got company." Above his head, and along the eaves, dangled nests in plump, grapelike clusters. "Hornets," he muttered, then with a forced grin, "I looooove hornets." |
10 NY's Gillibrand gets clearer path to 2010 election
By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 8, 12:21 pm ET
| ALBANY, N.Y. - Kirsten Gillibrand didn't have the pedigree of a Kennedy, Clinton or a Cuomo. She was not, her critics said, up to the challenge of winning a tough, New York brawl for the U.S. Senate seat Gov. David Paterson handed her.
But on Friday, the last of the established threats to her candidacy backed away from a promised Democratic primary showdown, leaving Gillibrand a smoother ride to a full, six-year term when she faces election next year. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who just last month raised $300,000 at a dinner that featured former President Bill Clinton, said there was too much to do in Congress to spend the next year campaigning.
In less than seven months, Gillibrand went from vulnerable and criticized to a prohibitive favorite. A primary election fight is the biggest threat to Gillibrand in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1. No Republican has emerged as a general election opponent. |
11 Colo. judge sends message with prison rape penalty
By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 8, 12:12 pm ET
| DENVER - A federal judge was so appalled that a former Colorado prison guard accused of raping an inmate was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor that he imposed $1.3 million in damages in the inmate's civil lawsuit - a message advocates hope will pressure corrections officials nationwide to protect prisoners from sexual misconduct.
"It sends a strong message to the agency and also individual correctional officers that there's not going to be immunity to violating the constitutional rights of people they're required to safeguard," said Brenda Smith, a member of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.
The Denver Women's Correctional Facility inmate said the former guard coerced her into a five-month sexual relationship, and sodomized her when she began refusing his advances, according to court documents. |
12 Record number of organic farmers expected in Mass.
By MARK PRATT, Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 8, 4:24 am ET
| BOSTON - Barbara Wefing has been growing fruits and vegetables organically for nearly 60 years, ever since she kept most of the seed packets she was supposed to sell for her elementary school's fundraiser.
But despite decades of experience, the 65-year-old Morristown, N.J., woman readily acknowledges she still has plenty to learn as she looks forward to this weekend's Northeast Organic Farming Association conference in Amherst.
The three-day conference that starts Friday is expected to draw a record 1,500 people, continuing a pattern of growth that prompted the nonprofit organization to move the 35-year-old event from Hampshire College two years ago to the more spacious University of Massachusetts across town. |
13 Free Manson 'family' members haunted by horror
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent
Sat Aug 8, 2:28 am ET
| LOS ANGELES - Forty years ago, they were kids. Vulnerable, alienated, running away from a world wracked by war and rebellion. They turned to a cult leader for love and wound up tied to a web of unimaginable evil.
They were part of Charles Manson's "Family" and now, on the brink of old age, they are the haunted.
"I never have a day go by that I don't think about it, especially about the victims," says Barbara Hoyt who was 17 the summer of the Sharon Tate-LaBianca murders. "I've long ago accepted the fact it will never go away." |
14 FBI sting sheds negative light on NJ development
By SAMANTHA HENRY, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 7, 7:18 pm ET
| NEWARK, N.J. - Federal authorities couldn't have picked a more fertile target than New Jersey's Manhattan-facing waterfront towns for a fake cash-for-development undercover sting, longtime observers say.
The majority of those arrested in a sweeping FBI bust that netted 44 people on corruption and money laundering charges had ties - real or feigned - to development along the Hudson River.
The criminal complaints paint a picture of building and zoning departments where influence, connections and payoffs determine who gets a prompt hearing and a smooth approval process on their applications and who is left at the mercy of a process so seemingly dysfunctional that developers sometimes budget for bribes. |
15 Conn. youth group evicted from KC hotel
By DAVID TWIDDY, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 7, 6:48 pm ET
| KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Dozens of children with a Connecticut youth group and their parents were kicked out of a Kansas City hotel in the middle of the night this week after hotel officials said they had gotten tired of fielding noise complaints from other guests.
But members of the Nation Drill Squad and Drum Corps, based in New Haven, claim their eviction from the Sheraton Kansas City Sports Complex Hotel culminated several days of what they called prejudicial treatment because they are black.
"Everyone should be respected regardless of your skin color," said Douglas Bethea, director of the group of 32 drummers and dancers, ages 4 to 17. |
16 Nevada renews push to poach businesses from Calif.
By MICHELLE RINDELS, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 7, 6:30 pm ET
| LAS VEGAS - Talk about kicking a neighbor while he's down: Nevada is spending $250,000 for an ad campaign that compares California legislators to talking chimps and tells business owners they can "kiss their assets goodbye" if they stay put.
It's the latest salvo in a generally friendly rivalry that's taken on a harder edge with both states among the recession's hardest-hit areas and desperately fighting to stay afloat - California recently had to issue more than $1 billion in IOUs to survive a prolonged budget crisis while trying to slash a $26.3 billion debt.
Nevada leaders paint their clever but biting campaign - aimed at California business owners considering a move - as simply a matter of helping the Silver State fight high unemployment and diversify an economy heavily dependent on struggling casinos and tourism. Nevada business advocates are pitting their state's low taxes against rising workers' compensation rates and fears of bankruptcy in California. |
17 Sotomayor vote could impact Fla. Senate race
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, AP Hispanic Affairs Writer
Fri Aug 7, 5:45 pm ET
| MIAMI - If there is one place where any bad feelings from the hearings on Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination could have lasting consequences, it's Florida, the pesky swing state that the second-largest Puerto Rican community outside the island calls home.
Although Sen. Mel Martinez, who announced Friday that he would leave his seat a year early, broke ranks to vote in favor of Sotomayor and urged fellow Republicans to do likewise, both major GOP candidates to replace him came out against her.
Whether they or other Republicans will pay a price for opposing the nomination of Sotomayor, whose parents are from Puerto Rico, could prove critical in the race to replace Martinez and other statewide campaigns on the horizon. |
18 Ga. governor deals with water battle at home, too
By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 7, 4:53 pm ET
| ALBANY, Ga. - The age-old tension between rural Georgia and its sprawling metropolis may only intensify because of a federal ruling that could keep essential reservoir water from trickling into Atlanta.
That tension meant Gov. Sonny Perdue had a delicate task during trip this week to rural Albany in southwest Georgia: Convince communities that the water crisis threatening Atlanta also imperils the entire state.
After all, many rural residents have long feared that metro Atlanta could stick its giant straw into water sources that supply their towns, fuel utilities and feed their agricultural irrigation systems. |
19 Thousands find bargains at sprawling yard sales
By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 7, 2:08 pm ET
| BUCKHANNON, W.Va. - Disabled mom Shawna Eddy hopes the mounds of clothing covering her front lawn will generate enough cash to take three adolescent daughters to the Shoe Show before school starts.
Unemployed massage therapist Sue Smith is turning unwanted antiques into traveling money for her grandson's trip to the World Yo-Yo Contest in Florida next week.
For reasons as varied as the contents of their closets, more people than ever are selling goods during a three-day event that proclaims itself West Virginia's Largest Yard Sale. More than 15,000 people from as far away as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky are expected to travel here through Saturday on a bargain-hunting extravaganza that spans two counties. It coincides with what's billed as the World's Longest Yardsale, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands across a swath of the nation. |
20 Long lines of clunkers await deaths at scrap yards
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 7, 1:39 pm ET
| SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill. - They were waiting down at Gibson Chevrolet near Chicago for a couple of five-gallon cans of sodium silicate - liquid glass, they call it - to poison and kill the clunkers when the latest condemned car pulled up.
The 1999 Ford Explorer with 140,000 miles was still sturdy. It had some body damage, including a mangled front bumper, but nothing that couldn't be fixed.
Gabrielle Pulce wasn't thinking about that. She wasn't sentimental about all the trips taken in the Explorer or about how in a few days the SUV will be squished until it's about as tall as a toaster. |
21 Georgia leaders to face 'retribution' for war: Medvedev
by Amelie Herenstein, AFP
2 hrs 43 mins ago
| TSKHINVALI, Georgia (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Saturday that Georgia's leadership would face "retribution" over the war in South Ossetia a year ago and criticised US backing of the ex-Soviet state.
"I am certain that, in time, just and severe punishment, severe retribution, will come to those people who issued the criminal orders" to attack South Ossetia, he said, referring to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
He also warned in remarks aired on television that a new conflict in the volatile Georgian rebel region could not be ruled out due to Tbilisi's actions and implicitly accused the United States of ratcheting up tensions. |
22 47 Iraqis killed in Shiite holy day attacks
by Mujahid Mohammed, AFP
Fri Aug 7, 3:33 pm ET
| MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) - A powerful car bomb killed at least 37 Shiite Muslims in Iraq's main northern city of Mosul on Friday in a wave of attacks that also killed 10 people in the capital Baghdad.
A further 276 people were wounded in the Mosul suicide bombing, Nineveh province Governor Athel al-Nijafi said, in the latest in a spate of deadly attacks against Shiites which have stoked fears of a return to the sectarian conflict which swept the country in 2006 and 2007.
The bomb targeted a Shiite mosque used by members of the Turkmen minority in the mainly Sunni Muslim city 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad, a police official told AFP. |
23 Fresh tension marks anniversary of Georgia-Russia war
by Michael Mainville, AFP
Fri Aug 7, 4:41 pm ET
| TBILISI (AFP) - Georgia and Russia traded fierce accusations Friday as they marked the first anniversary of the war over breakaway South Ossetia that shook the Caucasus region and re-ignited Cold War-era tensions.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia had suffered a "complete diplomatic defeat" since the conflict and said his ex-Soviet republic remained on track to join the NATO military alliance and forge closer ties with Europe.
Russia meanwhile insisted it had been right to fight a war with Georgia, accusing Tbilisi of seeking to "eliminate" the people of South Ossetia, the rebel province at the heart of the conflict. |
24 US and SAfrica pledge work for 'free' Zimbabwe
by Shaun Tandon, AFP
Fri Aug 7, 4:06 pm ET
| PRETORIA (AFP) - The United States and South Africa pledged joint action Friday to induce reforms in Zimbabwe as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed a new spirit of cooperation between the two democracies.
Clinton, visiting Africa's largest economy on a seven-nation tour of the continent, said she did not come seeking promises but believed that South Africa had a strong role to play in Zimbabwe and other African hotspots.
"We're working together to realise the vision of a free, democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe," Clinton said after talks with South African International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. |
25 Manson murders back in spotlight 40 years on
by Rob Woollard, AFP
Fri Aug 7, 9:43 am ET
| LOS ANGELES (AFP) - They were the crimes that drew a blood-soaked line under the 1960s hippy era of peace and love, terrorized Hollywood and made headlines around the world.
Yet 40 years after the horrific killing spree by Charles Manson's "family" in Los Angeles on August 9-10 1969, the macabre fascination with the murders remains as intense as ever.
Several of the murderers have their own Internet pages, books on the killings are being reprinted and a Hollywood tour dedicated to the crimes is doing brisk business. |
26 Pro-Georgian blogger target of massive Internet attacks
by Glenn Chapman, AFP
Fri Aug 7, 5:14 pm ET
| SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A pro-Georgian blogger was the target of cyber attacks that disrupted Twitter and hampered services at Facebook and LiveJournal, Internet security company F-Secure said on Friday.
Massive distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks intended to silence a blogger known as "Cyxymu" hammered Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LiveJournal, F-Secure researcher Mikko Hyponnen said in a message at the firm's website.
"Launching DDoS attacks against services like Facebook is the equivalent of bombing a TV station because you don't like one of the newscasters," Hyponnen wrote. |
27 Kepler passes first test - ready to hunt for other Earths
By Peter N. Spotts, The Christian Science Monitor
Thu Aug 6, 5:00 am ET
| NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has passed its first "spot that planet" test, detecting a giant Jupiter-like orb hurtling around a star roughly 1,000 light-years away.
The test run clearly demonstrates that Kepler will have little trouble performing its primary mission: detecting Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars.
In the process, Kepler has given astronomers a detailed look at the planet - its temperature and how its atmosphere operates. |
28 China on offensive as US weighs tire import curb
By Simon Montlake, The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Aug 7, 5:00 am ET
| Beijing - China's tire producers are pushing back against a US threat to curb imports in the latest sign of China's increasing assertiveness on global trade.
The row over tires has stoked concerns in China that major trading partners are resorting to protectionism as they struggle to rebuild their economies and safeguard jobs. And Chinese tire producers have undertaken an aggressive lobbying campaign in Washington that underscores both China's increasing global reach and its reliance on exports of manufactured goods.
Last week, Beijing filed complaints at the World Trade Organization against the US and the European Union over restrictions on poultry and screws, respectively. |
29 Brazil oil giant, Petrobras, in corruption spotlight
By Andrew Downie, The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Aug 7, 5:00 am ET
| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Brazil's congressional inquiry into corruption inside the state-controlled oil company promises sleepless nights for those involved, any number of scandals, and months of political theater that threaten to taint Petrobras, the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the woman he hopes will replace him as president.
The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, known by its Portuguese-language acronym CPI, kicked off Thursday and comes at an annoying time for Petrobras, one of Brazil's biggest and best-known companies. In 2007 and 2008 it discovered huge new fields that contain estimated reserves of between 8 and 12 billion barrels of oil. The finds were the biggest in the world for almost a decade.
The oil is stuck below more than 5,000 meters of water, rock, and salt. It is expensive and logistically problematic to extract, but the sheer volume of the fields - and their presence in a country that is stable and has not nationalized petroleum and gas firms - has turned Petrobras into the oil world's new darling. |
|
