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Jobless claims rise more than expected last week
By Reuters
July 22, 2010
| (Reuters) - New claims for jobless benefits climbed more steeply than anticipated last week, the latest sign that the moribund labor market is struggling to recover.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 464,000 in the week ended July 17, the Labor Department said on Thursday, more than erasing a decline in the prior week.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 445,000 from the previously reported 429,000 in the July 10 week, which was revised slightly down to 427,000 in Thursday's report. |
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Ships ready to leave leaky well as storm brews
By Harry Weber and Colleen Long
July 22, 2010
| ON THE GULF OF MEXICO - Crew members aboard dozens of ships in the Gulf of Mexico prepared Thursday to evacuate as a tropical rainstorm brewing in the Caribbean brought the deep-sea effort to plug BP's ruptured oil well to a near standstill.
Though the rough weather was hundreds of miles from the spill site and wouldn't enter the Gulf for at least a few more days, officials ordered technicians trying to plug BP's well to stand down because they needed several days to clear the area, where about 65 ships are tending to the spill.
"It's a controlled chaos out there," Lt. Patrick Montgomery told an Associated Press reporter aboard the Coast Guard cutter Decisive heading to the spill site from Pascagoula, Miss. |
NKorea warns US exercises threaten region
By Jim Gomez
July 22, 2010
| HANOI, Vietnam - North Korea warned the United States and South Korea on Thursday to call off military exercises scheduled for this weekend and to back off any new sanctions against the communist country or risk placing the entire region in danger.
The warning issued on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian nations in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, came as tensions on the peninsula simmer over the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. The North was blamed for the attack, but has denied any responsibility.
"Amid growing concerns by the international community, South Korea and the United States have announced they would hold joint naval exercises," said Ri Tong Il, a North Korean spokesman, according to Yonhap news agency. "Such a move presents a grave threat to the peace and security not only to the Korean peninsula, but to the region." |
Sherrod says she'd love to talk race with Obama
By Mary Clare Jalonick and Ben Evans
July 22, 2010
| WASHINGTON - Former Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod says she wants to discuss racial issues with President Obama, but there's no need for him to apologize for her wretched week.
Making appearances on network news shows, Sherrod repeats she isn't certain she'll return to the Agriculture Department, which forced her out earlier this week and then invited her back. Sherrod got in trouble over comments she made in a speech indicating she didn't give a white farmer as much help as she should have 24 years ago.
Sherrod got apologies from press secretary Robert Gibbs and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, but says, "I can't say the president is fully behind me." She says Obama is not a person who "has experienced some of the things I've experienced in life." |
Legacy of nuke drilling site in Colorado lingers
By Catherine Tsai
July 22, 2010
| PARACHUTE, Colo. - It may go down as one of the most bizarre nuclear experiments ever tried.
In 1969, the government detonated a subterranean nuclear bomb to break loose natural gas deposits from tight sandstone formations more than 8,000 feet below ground on a Colorado mountain. The bomb was twice as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.
The scheme worked - to an extent. The gas was unlocked by the blast but was deemed too radioactive for commercial use. |
Obama to sign 'improper payments' legislation
By Darlene Superville
July 22, 2010
| WASHINGTON - Federal agencies would have to redouble their efforts to identify and recover billions of dollars lost annually to wasteful spending under a bill President Barack Obama was signing into law Thursday.
He also was expected to announce a goal of reducing improper payments by $50 billion by 2012.
With the federal debt and people's worries about government red ink mounting, the bill marked the latest effort by the Obama administration to get a tighter handle on Washington spending. |
Archaeologists find new structure at Stonehenge
By Nina Chestney
July 22, 2010
| LONDON (Reuters) - Archaeologists have discovered a wooden version of British prehistoric monument Stonehenge at the same site, the project's leader told Reuters on Thursday.
Using radar, the archaeologists found a circular ditch less than one kilometer away from the iconic stone circle, which is thought to date back to the Neolithic period 2,000 to 4,000 years ago.
"This finding is remarkable," said project leader Vince Gaffney, professor of archaeology at the University of Birmingham. |
Judge hears arguments on Arizona immigration law
By Jacques Billeaud and Paul Davenport
July 22, 2010
| PHOENIX - A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday from lawyers for the governor, the federal government and civil rights groups over whether Arizona's new immigration law should take effect in a week.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton will consider a request by the U.S. Justice Department to block enforcement of the law. She also will hear arguments in a challenge by civil rights groups over whether the law should be put on hold and whether that lawsuit should be thrown out of court.
The judge has said she wasn't making any promises on whether she would make those rulings before the law takes effect on July 29. |
6 dead in California Greyhound bus crash
By AP
July 22, 2010
| FRESNO, Calif. - A Greyhound bus carrying 35 people and traveling to Sacramento from Los Angeles crashed on a highway in California's Central Valley on Thursday, killing six and injuring many others.
California Highway Patrol Officer Michelle Sigmond said the bus driver swerved to avoid another crash involving an overturned minivan and slammed into the concrete center divider and then hit another vehicle and a tree at about 2 a.m. just outside downtown Fresno.
She said six people died; early reports say there are multiple injuries, but Sigmond did not know exactly know how many. She said at least some of the injured passengers are being taken to Fresno Community Regional Medical Center. |
Pipeline repaired as China works to contain spill
By Cara Anna
July 22, 2010
| BEIJING - China and environmental observers said cleanup efforts on the country's largest reported oil spill were progressing Thursday, but the environmental and economic damage was clear.
The cleanup - marred by the drowning of a worker this week, his body coated in crude - continued over a 165 square mile (430 square kilometer) stretch of the Yellow Sea off the northeastern city of Dalian, one of China's major ports and strategic oil reserve sites.
China National Petroleum Corp. said Thursday that the pipeline that exploded and caused the oil spill last Friday had resumed operations. The blast had reduced oil shipments from part of China's strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. The cause of the explosion that started the spill was still not clear. |
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