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by KYW’s Michelle Durham
Chester County officials are now dealing with a rash of arsons that were started early on Saturday and they were just a short distance away from Coatesville, a town that has been plagued with a series of arson fires as well.
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| Serena Williams of the United States poses with her Australian Open trophy after her straight sets victory over Russia's Dinara Safina in the Women's singles final at the Australian Open Tennis Championship in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009. |
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Serena Williams always selects a special outfit to bring to Australia for a victory celebration. Every second year, she gets to wear it.
Williams' 6-0, 6-3 rout of Dinara Safina on Saturday earned her a 10th Grand Slam title, a fourth Australian title - coming each odd-numbered year since 2003 - and the No. 1-ranking.
"I actually forgot until the end when I was saying hi to my box. They're like, 'Hey, you're No. 1.' I was like, 'Oh, yeah,'" she said.
Not that a number means everything.
"I always believe I'm the best, whether I'm No. 1 or 100," she said. "Just having that extra bonus is pretty cool."
Williams set aside a stylish black top to wear for the big occasion this time. In between the match, doping tests and media commitments, she changed into it.
"I always bring an outfit for the championships," she said. "I always try to think positive, and I think it helps me be able to win."
Williams was so dominant that Safina, a 22-year-old Russian playing in her second major final, didn't feel worthy of being on the same court.
"It was first time for me to play not only for the Grand Slam, but also for No. 1 spot," said Safina, the 2008 French Open runner-up. "I never been through this situation, and she was already.
"Serena was too good ... I was just a ballboy on the court today," added Safina, apologizing to the Rod Laver Arena crowd after the 59-minute match.
After Melbourne's hottest three-day heat wave on record, conditions were a relatively mild 79 degrees for the tournament's first women's final at night.
Safina had been hoping to emulate two feats her brother, Marat Safin, achieved. He won the 2005 Australian Open - the day after Serena won her second title here - and held the No. 1 ranking.
"She played exactly the way she had to play and she was much more aggressive and she just was taking time out of me," Safina said.
"She didn't give me a chance."
Williams' win at the U.S. Open in September gave her the No. 1 ranking for the following four weeks, her first stint at the top since a 57-week stretch from July 2002.
She started this year at No. 2 and slowly worked her way through the tournament. She was struggling with her serve at times and had to fend off Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals when the Russian was serving for the match.
"I was playing lazy tennis in the beginning and I was doubting myself," she said. "I'll thank my mom for hanging in there this week. The first week was tough, but we got through it."
She lifted herself in the semis to snap Olympic champion Elena Dementieva's 15-match winning streak and was overpowering from the first game of the final, losing only eight points and winning 18 of the last 20 in the 22-minute first set.
Williams finished with 23 winners and just seven unforced errors, winning more than twice as many points as Safina.
In '07, when Williams was ranked No. 81, she beat six seeded players en route to the final, where she beat top-ranked Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-2.
In her two earlier runs to the Australian title, she'd had to save at least two match points in the semifinals. This was more straightforward.
"It was definitely one of my most dominant performances, especially considering it was a final," Williams said. "I was able to just lift the level of my game."
The first set was only the third 6-0 scoreline in the Australian Open final in 47 years. On the court after the match, Williams commended Safina for never giving up and being a good advertisement for women's tennis.
In a news conference later, she was asked if fans should be surprised or worried about a 6-0 set in a final.
"Uhm, hmm. I don't know ... You should never be surprised by anything that I do."
Williams win here gave her back-to-back majors for the first time since winning the Australian title in 2003 to complete her "Serena Slam" of four consecutive majors. The only other woman since then to win back-to-back majors was now-retired Justine Henin, who won the 2003 U.S. Open and 2004 Australian title.
Williams still remains far away from the women's record for Grand Slam singles titles. Margaret Court Smith had 24 and Steffi Graf 22.
But by making the singles and doubles finals, she already had become the all-time leading money winner in women's sports. And her $1.3 million for the singles title lifted her career earnings above $23.5 million.
She planned to spend a little of it in a double celebration with men's doubles champions Bob and Mike Bryan. She and sister Venus won the women's doubles final Friday - their eighth Grand Slam doubles title.
American twins Bob and Mike Bryan won their seventh Saturday, beating Mahesh Bhupathi of India and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas 2-6, 7-5, 6-0 to regain the No. 1 ranking.
"All I know is Serena usually picks up the bill," Mike Bryan said of the impending, co-celebrations.
Williams took less than one-fifth of the time to beat Safina than top-ranked Rafael Nadal needed to fend off fellow Spanish left-hander Fernando Verdasco to reach the men's final.
Nadal won 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (1), 6-4 in 5 hours, 14 minutes Friday, the longest match in the tournament's history, to reach Sunday's final against Roger Federer.
Federer, seeking to equal Pete Sampras' record 14 Grand Slam singles titles, beat American Andy Roddick in straight sets on Thursday.
On Sunday, they'll be meeting for the seventh time to decide a Grand Slam. Nadal, the four-time French Open champion, has a 4-2 edge highlighted by last year's epic five-set win at Wimbledon. He also ended Federer's 237-week stretch at No. 1 last August.
"This is where I won the Grand Slam to become No. 1 in the world, back in 2004," Federer said. "The stage is set for a great match. I hope we can live up to them.
"Hopefully, (I'll) equal Pete's record."
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| Dressed in a suit and with resume in hand, Chris Adams, 29, an unemployed salesman, tries to find a job on a busy corner in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, Jan. 30, 2009. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- No matter the color of your work shirt, this recession is sparing few.
From blue collar construction workers to white collar financial sector employees, the economic crisis has dragged a growing swath of American workers into joblessness.
Economic downturns predominantly used to hit blue-collar and young workers. But in this recession, layoffs and business closings are affecting bankers, middle managers, even scientists and journalists.
White collar unemployment jumped 1.6 percentage points - to 4.6 percent - from December of 2007 to December of 2008. But blue-collar workers are still bearing the largest brunt of unemployment, at 11.3 percent.
The shared pain helps explain the varied priorities in the $800 billion-plus rescue package put together by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. The $50 billion for building roads, bridges and schools addressed the hardest hit of the unemployed first - hardhat workers.
But there are also piles of wage-producing money for college-educated workers: $62 billion in the House version for health information and renewable energy technology, improving the nation's power grid and scientific research. Getting it all to them will take longer.
Policymakers are also counting on greater public acceptance for social spending - on the likes of food stamps, unemployment and health insurance - because the victims of the collapse in housing and credit markets cross socio-economic levels.
"The intensity of where we are right now creates a much larger scale of interest by the public," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. "You need many more sectors to recover and broad-based policies for that are a new challenge."
Republicans complain that too much is being directed to expanding the safety net for assisting victims and argue that tax cuts, particularly those addressed at businesses, will produce more sustainable jobs over the long term.
The one thing both sides agree on is that more jobs are paramount. A Pew Research Center poll shows 76 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Republicans now rate jobs as the nation's top priority.
The White House economic team, in an analysis this month, concluded the spending would directly create nearly 1.5 million jobs by the end of the fourth quarter of 2010. It also determined the indirect effects - the pass-along benefits of newly employed workers spending more - would create more than 2.2 million jobs.
Included are 305,000 in direct energy jobs and 166,000 in direct health care jobs. Those jobs would, in turn, indirectly produce another 230,000 jobs, according to the analysis.
Mark Anderson, President of ExecuNet, a Connecticut-based firm that provides recruitment services, said executive recruiters are beginning to show more confidence in the market than they had in November.
"The big industry winners are environmental technologies, IT technologies, health care and hospitals and pharmaceutical and bio-tech firms," Anderson said.
But the White House's 3.5 million job projection by the end of 2010 could be more optimistic than the spending patterns for the stimulus would suggest.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates $525.5 billion of the $816 billion in the House stimulus bill would be spent in the first two years. That's a lower spending rate than the 75 percent White House officials want to spend in the first 18 months after the stimulus becomes law.
A CBO analysis cautioned that federal agencies in many instances are not equipped to handle a large influx of money and will be forced to put off billions in spending by one, two or more years.
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| President Barack Obama speaks prior to signing an executive order dealing with the Middle Class Working Families Taskforce, Friday, Jan. 30, 2009, in the East Room at the White House in Washington. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Saturday promised to lower mortgage costs, offer job-creating loans for small businesses, get credit flowing and rein in free-spending executives as he readies a new road map for spending billions from the second installment of the financial rescue plan.
The White House is deciding how to structure the remaining half of the $700 billion that Congress approved last year to save financial institutions and lenders. An announcement was possible as early as this coming week on an approach that would use a range of tools to unfreeze credit, helping families and businesses.
At the end of a week that saw hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs, Obama also used his Saturday radio and Internet address to tell that nation that "no one bill, no matter how comprehensive, can cure what ails our economy."
During the final three months of 2008, the economy recorded its worst downhill slide in a quarter-century, stumbling backward at a 3.8 percent pace, the government reported Friday. It could get worse.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is trying to finish a plan to overhaul the bailout program begun in the Bush administration. Geithner has said the administration is considering using a government-run "bad bank" to buy up financial institutions' bad assets. But some officials now say that option is gone because of potential costs.
Many ideas under consideration could end up costing hundreds of billions beyond the original price tag. Aides would not rule out the possibility that the administration would seek more than the $350 billion already set aside.
Obama said Geithner soon would announce a new strategy "for reviving our financial system that gets credit flowing to businesses and families. We'll help lower mortgage costs and extend loans to small businesses so they can create jobs. We'll ensure that CEOs are not draining funds that should be advancing our recovery."
His administration "will insist on unprecedented transparency, rigorous oversight and clear accountability so taxpayers know how their money is being spent and whether it is achieving results."
Obama's message, largely repackaged from a week of White House statements, was as much for the country as it was for lawmakers: Pass the separate American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan or things are going to get worse.
"Rarely in history has our country faced economic problems as devastating as this crisis," the president said. "Now is the time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities."
Obama last week won passage of a separate $825 billion economic stimulus plan in the House without a single Republican vote. It now heads to the Senate, where Vice President Joe Biden predicts the measure will fare better among GOP lawmakers.
Republicans pledged to work with Obama. But they cautioned against treating government spending like a "trillion-dollar Christmas list" and renewed their opposition to much in the bill.
"A problem that started on Wall Street is reaching deeper and deeper into Main Street. And the president is counting on members of Congress to come together in a spirit of bipartisanship to act," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in the GOP radio address. "Unfortunately, the plan that Democrats in Congress put forward this week falls far short of the president's vision for a bill that creates jobs and puts us on a path to long-term economic health."
Obama has signaled his willingness to compromise. His chief spokesman said the president hoped to "strengthen" the bill as it headed toward a Senate vote in the week ahead.
Republicans said they hope the administration takes into account their wishes.
"Every day brings more news of layoffs, home foreclosures and shuttered businesses," McConnell said. "And across the country, employers are cutting to the bone even at businesses that most Americans never thought were vulnerable."
Republicans, however, kept putting forward their own plans. McConnell promoted a mortgage program for creditworthy borrowers, offering fixed-rate 4 percent loans designed to increase housing demands and lending.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Sen. Judd Gregg is the leading candidate to become commerce secretary and a decision could come as soon as Monday, an Obama administration official said Saturday.
Gregg's appointment to the post could give Obama and his Democratic Party a victory in the Senate, clearing the way for them to pass legislation without fear of a Republican filibuster. It also would provide the administration a strong ambassador to the business community in Gregg, who devised the $700 billion banking bailout package last year.
No firm decision had been made, said the administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss administration deliberations. The official also said there was no word on who New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, would appoint to replace Gregg.
Lynch, a political moderate, could easily appoint a Republican, senior Democrats have told supporters in private conversation. They fret that independent-minded Lynch is likely to appoint a "placeholder" senator who would not permanently seek the office in 2010.
Gregg faces a tough re-election in 2010. His state has shifted toward Democrats in recent years and his role in the banking rescue plan would complicate a re-election bid in the "Live Free or Die" state the proudly rebukes government spending and has no state income taxes.
New Hampshire Democrats have taken two House seats, a Senate seat and control of the state's Executive Council, House and Senate since 2004. Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans on voter rolls, but the vaunted independent voters - or "undeclared," as they are known in the Granite State - lead both. Lynch won re-election last year with 70 percent of the vote.
Democrats already have eyed Gregg's seat as vulnerable for the right candidate. His appointment to the Cabinet could make it more difficult for the GOP to defend.
Democrats hold a 56-41 majority in the 100-member Senate, and two independents caucus with them. The Senate seat from Minnesota remains undecided, with Sen. Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken in a close, court-based contest.
Gregg on Friday confirmed he was under consideration as Republicans urged him to think carefully about what it would mean to the GOP. Gregg's spokeswoman did not have immediate comment on Saturday.
A member of a New Hampshire political family and a policy wonk, Gregg rose through the Senate ranks to serve as chairman of the powerful Budget Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee that funds homeland security. Now in the minority, he is the ranking Republican member on the Budget Committee but still has large sway in the GOP's response to Obama's legislative agenda.
But as commerce secretary, Gregg would also have huge sway over the 2010 Census that lawmakers will use to redraw congressional districts to reflect states' populations. States such as New York and Ohio anticipate losing House seats; those Census numbers also will determine how many electoral votes states have in future president contests.
He would be Obama's second choice to run the Commerce Department. His first pick, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, dropped out of consideration amid a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors.
Obama has spoken with his party's leadership on Capitol Hill about the move, which aides say could be a lost opportunity if the administration allows a Republican replacement to be named.
During the state's first-in-the-nation presidential primary, Lynch attended events for Republican John McCain. He also named GOP star Kelly Ayotte his attorney general as part of a centrist governing style that has given him a careful coalition.
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by KYW's Pat Loeb
Philadelphians are once again being invited to turn in their guns in exchange for a $100 grocery certificate.
A gun turn-in this Saturday at the YMCA at Broad and Master Streets in North Philadelphia will launch the third year of the "Goods for Guns" program.
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A Delaware County, Pa. businessman has been sentenced to life behind bars without parole, plus 94 months, for strangling a company intern from North Dakota in September of 2006.
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| Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, leaves the White House after a meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, in Washington |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with top government officials Friday to refine the administration's plan for overhauling the $700 billion bailout program and improve regulation of the financial system.
The administration is working on proposals for how it will use the last $350 billion from the rescue program. But the measures being considered could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars beyond the original $700 billion.
Geithner previously said the administration is weighing the possibility of using a bad bank to buy up toxic assets that are weighing on the books of financial institutions.
However, some suggested Friday that the administration may be re-examining that idea because of the costs of such an approach.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the issue of how much more money to ask Congress to commit beyond the current $700 billion is a key item the administration is debating.
"Do you guarantee the bad assets or do you buy them? Do you guarantee all the bad assets or just the housing assets? There are a lot of unanswered questions," Schumer said.
Geithner met throughout the day with senior Treasury Department officials and had a meeting scheduled with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair and John Dugan, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC regulates the country's biggest banks.
Meanwhile, congressional auditors released a new report saying it may never be known whether the initial $700 billion plan accomplished its objectives because it will be difficult to separate the impact of the rescue program from the effects of other economic forces.
The Government Accountability Office said the Treasury Department had made progress in implementing about half of the nine reforms it suggested in an earlier report, including improving communication about the bailout and hiring more staff to run it.
But the department had not fully addressed eight of the recommendations, according to the GAO. "The lack of a clearly articulated vision has complicated Treasury's ability to effectively communicate to Congress, the financial markets, and the public on the benefits of TARP," the report said.
Geithner said earlier this week that the administration would announce its new proposals "relatively soon." Many expect decisions as early as next week.
The administration is trying boost confidence that it can get control of the worst financial crisis to hit the country since the 1930s. However, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson quickly committed the first $350 billion from the bailout program in an effort that so far has not yielded the expected results of stabilizing the situation and getting banks to resume more normal lending to consumers and businesses.
The bailout program has generated a huge amount of controversy. Critics charge that the Bush administration failed to impose enough restrictions on banks to make sure the billions they were receiving went to boost lending.
President Barack Obama on Thursday called it "shameful" and the "height of irresponsibility" that Wall Street had paid out $18.4 billion in bonuses last year.
The Treasury statement on Friday said that Geithner, who was sworn into office Monday night after being confirmed by the Senate, had spent part of this week in telephone conversations with the finance ministers of France, Germany and Australia on the joint efforts that will be needed to stabilize the global economy and restore growth.
Treasury said the discussions with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde involved a review of France's proposals to overhaul the global financial architecture and the progress being made by the Group of 20 major industrial and developing countries.
Those talks are in preparation for a G-20 leaders' meeting in April that will be a follow-up to an initial summit chaired by former President George W. Bush in November.
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| In this Sept. 3, 2008 file photo, Michael Steele speaks at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. After losing the presidency and seats in both the House and Senate, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan is trying to hold onto his job against five challengers all calling for change - including Steele. |
"As a little boy growing up in this town, this is awesome," said Steele, the most moderate candidate in the field and considered an outsider because he's not a committee member.
In a brief acceptance speech, the new GOP chairman struck a tone of inclusiveness.
"We're going to say to friend and foe alike: We want you to be a part of us, we want you to with be with us, and for those who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over," Steele said.
He won 91 votes out of a possible 168 in the sixth round. A simple majority of 85 was needed, but it took six rounds for Steele to win.
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| President Barack Obama listens as Vice President Joe Biden speaks prior to the president signing an executive order dealing with the Middle Class Working Families Task Force, Friday, Jan. 30, 2009, in the East Room at the White House in Washington. |
Union officials say the new orders by Obama will undo Bush administration policies that favored employers over workers. The orders will:
-Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
-Reverse a Bush administration order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
-Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
"We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests," Obama said during a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
"I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution," he said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."
Signing the executive orders was Obama's second overture to organized labor in as many days. On Thursday, he signed the first bill of his presidency, giving workers more time to sue for wage discrimination.
"It's a new day for workers," said James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who attended the ceremony with other union leaders. "We finally have a White House that is dedicated to working with us to rebuild our middle class. Hope for the American Dream is being restored."
Of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families, Obama said, "We're not forgetting the poor. They are going to be front and center, because they, too, share our American Dream."
He said his administration wants to make sure low-income people "get a piece" of the American pie "if they're willing to work for it."
"With this task force, we have a single, highly visible group with one single goal: to raise the living standards of the people who are the backbone of this country," Biden said.
Obama set several goals for the task force, including expanding opportunities for education and training; improving the work-family balance; restoring labor standards, including workplace safety; and protecting retirement security.
The president and vice president said the task force will include the secretaries of commerce, education, labor, and health and human services because those Cabinet departments have the most influence on the well-being of the middle class. It also will include White House advisers on the economy, the budget and domestic policy.
Biden pledged that the task force will conduct its business in the open, and announced a Web site, http://www.astrongmiddleclass.gov , for the public to get information. He also announced that the panel's first meeting will be Feb. 27 in Philadelphia and will focus on environmental or "green jobs."
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The Guardian Angels will begin patrolling the streets of Coatesville, Thursday night, as the community combats a rash of suspicious fires.
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| Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, top, talks to quarterback Ben Roethlisberger while he stretches before football practice at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. The Steelers face the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday in Tampa |
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- A small group gathered for a closed-door meeting at NFL headquarters two years ago in December, as it had regularly since 2003. The topic: identifying minority candidates for coaching jobs.
The session was led, as always, by Steelers owner Dan Rooney. The hottest name during the discussions - Mike Tomlin.
Soon after, Tomlin was hired as Pittsburgh's coach.
It was a classic case of the "Rooney Rule" in action, even if it wasn't intended that way.
And on Sunday, Tomlin could deliver the ultimate reward to Rooney: A Super Bowl championship won by a black coach for a team owner whose very name has become synonymous with diversity hiring.
The Rooney Rule requires any team with a head coaching vacancy to interview at least one minority candidate. Tomlin is one of 11 black coaches hired in the NFL since the rule has been in place, finally addressing an embarrassing lack of diversity in America's most popular sports league. There were two in 2002.
Tomlin credits his hiring to the Rooney Rule.
"I have no question it helped me get this job," Tomlin said this week. "Anything that brings a group of people an opportunity is a policy worth having. But I also thought that eventually I'd get an opportunity, Rooney Rule or not."
The rule was born after two lawyers, Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran Jr., threatened to sue the NFL in October 2002 if it didn't open up more opportunities for minorities. Then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who had been pushing minority hiring for the 13 years he had been in office, immediately appointed Rooney to head a committee on the subject.
He was the perfect choice - a humble man who cares deeply about his team, the game and the people involved with it.
Now 76, Rooney eats daily in the cafeteria at the Steelers' facility with the rest of the team's employees - from players to secretaries.
Politically, he's to the left of most of the NFL's conservative owners. He endorsed Barack Obama during the Pennsylvania Democratic primary last April and campaigned for him and with him, notably in Steelers strongholds in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
At the Super Bowl, he has kept a low profile, preferring to talk to Pittsburgh reporters and others he knows. On media day, he walked the field, slightly hunched, wearing a windbreaker and brown pants with suspenders, a phalanx of cameras trailing him.
The son of the Steelers founder Art Rooney, he's more comfortable working out of the public eye, as he did when Tagliabue put him on the diversity committee. Two months after his group got the assignment, they came up with the rule.
"It wasn't as easy to get done as some people now seem to think it was," Rooney said. "A lot of people thought the league was meddling in team business. We got comments like, 'Why should you be involved in telling us who to hire?'"
But it has undeniably had an impact.
During the second half of this season, after Mike Singletary got the San Francisco 49ers job, there were seven black coaches - an all-time high. There are six now, with vacancies in Kansas City and Oakland yet to be filled.
The current group includes Raheem Morris, who at just 32 was picked this month to lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
While the NFL hasn't achieved the coaching diversity of other sports leagues - the NBA has had double-digit numbers of black coaches for a decade, Major League Baseball has nine black, Hispanic or Asian managers for 30 teams - the Rooney Rule seems to have inspired minority hires not only on the sidelines but in the front offices.
The rule does not apply to top executive hires, but the number of black general managers has increased from one in 2002 to five now. Just as important is the success of minority coaches and GMs: five of the six teams in the last three Super Bowls have had either black coaches or general managers.
The group includes Tomlin and general manager Rod Graves of the Arizona Cardinals, who will play the Steelers on Sunday; Jerry Reese, general manager of the New York Giants, who beat New England last year; recently retired Colts coach Tony Dungy; and Lovie Smith of Chicago. In 2007, the latter two were the first black coaches in a Super Bowl.
"To me, that's remarkable," Mehri said this week. "To go from a situation two decades ago when the only minorities in the NFL were on the field to having people of color in the forefront of all but one of the Super Bowl teams is the kind of progress we've never thought we'd get so quickly."
Mehri, a Washington-based civil rights lawyer, has gone from being an outsider to an insider under the Rooney Rule.
Another participant is John Wooten, a guard for Cleveland and Washington from 1959-69 and chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an organization named after the man who in 1921 became the NFL's first black head coach.
Pollard was a player-coach in an era where many teams were pickup squads that changed from week to week. He was an exception, however. By the 1930s, the NFL wouldn't even sign black players, a practice that lasted until 1946, a year before Jackie Robinson integrated baseball.
Wooten and Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson, the Pollard Alliance's executive director, are among the participants in those annual December meetings. They help league officials keep track of potential minority candidates.
Rooney plays down his role as a pioneer in race relations - just as he plays down the role of the Rooney Rule in the hiring of Tomlin.
He said he chose Tomlin as only the third Steelers coach in nearly 40 years without considering his race. He had heard of him during the league office meetings and also got a strong recommendation from Dungy, who played and coached for the Steelers and hired Tomlin when he was in Tampa.
"He was NOT a Rooney Rule candidate," Rooney insisted this week, noting that before the Steelers interviewed Tomlin, they had spoken to Ron Rivera, who was then Chicago's defensive coordinator. "We already had talked to Rivera, which met the requirement. We chose the man we thought was best for the job."
Still, without the rule, it would have taken longer for Tomlin to get into the pipeline.
Job candidates themselves don't always appreciate the Rooney Rule.
In 2003, five minority candidates declined to interview with the Detroit Lions when it was clear that the job would go to Steve Mariucci. The Lions hired Mariucci without interviewing a minority. Matt Millen, then the team president, was fined $200,000 by Tagliabue, infuriating Lions president William Clay Ford, who claimed the rule had never been approved by the owners and thus was invalid.
Before he was promoted in Tampa, Morris was interviewed by the Denver Broncos for the job that went to Josh McDaniels, New England's offensive coordinator. He said he would have gone to the interview in any event.
"I'm not at a point to judge whether it's a Rooney Rule interview or not," he said.
Dungy recommends that potential candidates go on the interview, because they have nothing to lose.
"I was probably the fourth or fifth choice when I got my first head coaching job," he said. "You never know what will happen or how an owner will react to you."
Owners shy from criticizing the rule publicly these days, especially with the success of such minority coaches as Dungy, Smith and Tomlin.
"The bottom line is winning," said Mehri, who says he's delighted with the progress the NFL has made. "Tell me one owner who won't concur with that."
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| Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Tommy Irvin works at his desk in Atlanta Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009. Georgia's top agriculture official is urging federal prosecutors to criminally investigate a peanut processing plant linked to a nationwide salmonella outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration said this week that the Peanut Corp. of America plant in southwest Georgia repeatedly shipped products that they knew tested positive for salmonella. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A lab company president called to testify before Congress in the salmonella outbreak investigation said Thursday that manufacturers "can't retest away a positive result."
Charles Deibel, whose labs conducted tests for Peanut Corp. of America, said that if 100 containers were tested and only one or two turned up salmonella, the company should "throw the whole lot out."
Federal health officials say Peanut Corp. shipped tainted peanut products from its Blakely, Ga., facility after retesting them and getting a negative result for salmonella.
Peanut butter, peanut paste and other goods from the plant are being blamed for an outbreak that has sickened more than 500 people, triggered a massive international recall and raised doubts about the food industry's safety practices.
Deibel said his company - Deibel Labs Inc. - did not conduct day-to-day testing for the Blakely plant, but was asked on occasion to carry out certain tests. He said the company has turned over bacterial cultures to federal investigators.
Deibel and the president of another lab, J. Leek Associates Inc., have been called to testify Feb. 11 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The Deibel firm has been in existence since the 1960s and has its main lab in Chicago.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the panel conducting a hearing into the outbreak, said the investigation shows "major gaps" in the nation's food safety system.
"I am extremely troubled by reports that the plant tested positive for salmonella numerous times but nothing was done to ensure that the product did not go on the market," Waxman said.
Peanut Corp., based in Lynchburg, Va., said in a statement it "categorically denies any allegations that the company sought favorable results from any lab in order to ship its products."
Deibel said his firm is still poring over records to determine what kind of testing was done, and at what times, for Peanut Corp.'s plant.
He said his lab tested some salmonella cultures that came from the J. Leek lab and identified the specific variety of the bacteria that was present. Those cultures have been turned over to investigators from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control.
Darlene Cowart, president of the J. Leek lab, was not available Thursday.
Deibel his lab also tested samples of peanut products sent directly from the Blakely facility, but that he did not have the results of those tests available.
Salmonella can exist in a dormant state in products like peanut butter, isolated in pockets of a big batch. So experts say it's possible to get positive and negative results from the same batch.
"The benefit of using multiple labs is you increase your chances of finding it," said Deibel.
"Our recommendation to clients is that you can't retest away a positive result," he added. "We call it 'testing into compliance,' and that is frowned upon."
Meanwhile, the Army joined the peanut recall Thursday. It's removing some peanut butter items from warehouses in Europe.
In the civilian world, more than 430 kinds of cakes, cookies and other goods have been pulled off store shelves in what the FDA is calling one of the largest product recalls in memory. The Army's recall does not affect Meals-Ready-to-Eat, but another kind of military grub called Unitized Group Rations-A, which provide a complete 50-person meal.
Nationwide, at least eight people may have died of illnesses linked to the outbreak.
The recall covers peanut butter, peanut paste, peanut meal and granulated products, as well as all peanuts - dry and oil roasted - shipped from the factory. FDA officials could not quantify the amount of products being recalled.
Officials recommend that consumers check the FDA web site, which lists all the products being recalled. Consumers who find any such products in their cupboards should toss them away. If they're uncertain about eating a particular product, they should check it out first.
Army leaders said they were doing everything they could think of to curb the deaths and appealed for more mental health professionals to join and help out.
At least 128 soldiers committed suicide in 2008, the Army said Thursday. And the final count is likely to be even higher because 15 more suspicious deaths are still being investigated.
"Why do the numbers keep going up? We cannot tell you," said Army Secretary Pete Geren. "We can tell you that across the Army we're committed to doing everything we can to address the problem."
It's all about pressure and the military approach, said Kim Ruocco, 45, whose Marine husband was an officer and Cobra helicopter pilot who hanged himself in a California hotel room in 2005. That was one month before he was to return to Iraq a second time.
She said her husband, John, had completed 75 missions in Iraq and was struggling with anxiety and depression but felt he'd be letting others down if he sought help and couldn't return.
"He could be any Marine because he was highly decorated, stable, the guy everyone went to for help," Ruocco said in a telephone interview. "But the thing is ... the culture of the military is to be strong no matter what and not show any weakness."
Ruocco, of Newbury, Mass., was recently hired to be suicide support coordinator for the nonprofit Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. She said she feels that the military has finally started to reach out to suicide survivors and seek solutions.
"Things move slowly, but I think they're really trying," Ruocco said.
At the Pentagon on Thursday, Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general, made a plea for more professionals to sign on to work for the military.
"We are hiring and we need your help," she said.
Military leaders promised fresh prevention efforts will start next week.
The new suicide figure compares with 115 in 2007 and 102 in 2006 and is the highest since current record-keeping began in 1980. Officials expect the deaths to amount to a rate of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers, which is higher than the civilian rate - when adjusted to reflect the Army's younger and male-heavy demographics - for the first time in the same period of record-keeping.
Officials have said that troops are under unprecedented stress because of repeated and long tours of duty due to the simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yearly increases in suicides have been recorded since 2004, when there were 64 - only about half the number now. Officials said they found that the most common factors were soldiers suffering problems with their personal relationships, legal or financial issues and problems on the job.
But the magnitude of what the troops are facing in combat shouldn't be forgotten, said Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., a former Navy vice admiral, who noted he spoke with a mother this week whose son was preparing for his fifth combat tour.
"This is a tough battle that the individuals are in over there," Sestak said. "It's unremitting every day."
Said Dr. Paul Ragan, an associate professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and a former Navy psychiatrist: "Occasional or sporadic visits by military mental health workers are like a Band-Aid for a gushing wound."
The statistics released Thursday cover soldiers who killed themselves while they were on active duty - including National Guard and Reserve troops who had been activated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the suicide rate for U.S. society overall was about 11 per 100,000 in 2004, the latest year for which the agency has figures. But the Army says the civilian rate is more like 19.5 per 100,000 when adjusted.
An earlier report showed the Marine Corps recorded 41 possible or confirmed suicides in 2008 - about 19 per 100,000 troops.
The military's numbers don't include deaths after people have left the services. The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks those numbers and says there were 144 suicides among the nearly 500,000 service members who left the military from 2002-2005 after fighting in at least one of the two ongoing wars.
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| President Barack Obama speaks about the economy as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner looks on in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it "the height of irresponsibility" for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from taxpayers. "It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."
The president's comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, came in swift response to a report that employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. The figure, from the New York state comptroller, drew prominent news coverage.
Yet Obama's stand also came just one day after he surrounded himself with well-paid chief executives at the White House. He had pulled in those business leaders and hailed them for being on the "front lines in seeing the enormous problems in our economy right now."
The executives who appeared with Obama are not leaders of the Wall Street financial companies that the president targeted, but rather heads of such well-known manufacturing and technology giants as IBM, Motorola, Xerox and Corning. Still, they get paid handsomely.
Most of those who stood with Obama earned a total 2007 compensation package of between $8 million and $21 million, according to a review by The Associated Press. Those calculations include the executives' salary, bonus pay, incentives, perks, the estimated value of stock holdings and other compensation.
Lashing out at Wall Street bonuses, Obama said the public dislikes the idea of helping the financial sector dig out of a hole, only to see it get bigger because of lavish spending. The comptroller's report found such bonuses were down 44 percent, but at about the same level they were during the boom time of 2004.
Vice President Joe Biden also chimed in, saying the level of bonuses "offends the sensibilities."
"I mean, I'd like to throw these guys in the brig," Biden said in an interview with CNBC.
Obama said he and Geithner will speak directly to Wall Street leaders about the bonuses, which threaten to undermine public support for more government intervention as the economy keeps reeling.
The House just approved an economic stimulus plan that would cost taxpayers more than $800 billion; the Senate is considering its own version.
Separately, Congress passed a $700 billion plan last year to shore up the financial sector, one that drew howls of criticism about a lack of transparency.
Said Obama about Wall Street leaders: "There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time."
Obama said Geithner has already had to step in to stop one company from taking delivery of a new corporate jet it planned to buy even after receiving billions of dollars of support from the government. That bank, Citigroup, canceled the deal earlier this week.
Obama's strong words overshadowed the other part of his message, that he wants to roll out, in the coming weeks, new plans to regulate Wall Street and get more credit flowing to consumers again. The president considers such steps to work in tandem with the economic stimulus measures unfolding in Congress.
One idea under consideration by the Obama administration is the creation of a "bad bank" that could take over soured debt, like defaulting mortgages, that have corroded the balance sheets of banks and helped choke off lending. The president did not discuss that proposal or any others.
The administration may seek approval from Congress for another round of money, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars, to help banks get out of trouble and get credit flowing again. But in his CNBC interview, Biden said any moves depend first on how the remaining $350 billion in financial-sector bailout money is spent.
"It's got to be transparent, it's got to be accountable," Biden said. "Once we do that and see whether or not we can get this system kick-started, the credit system flowing more, that's when we'll make the judgment whether or not anything else is necessary."
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| Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich looks up at Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald before delivering his closing argument at his impeachment trial Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, in Springfield, Ill. |
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich was thrown out of office Thursday without a single lawmaker rising in his defense, ending a nearly two-month crisis that erupted with his arrest on charges he tried to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.
Blagojevich becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment.
After a four-day trial, the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to convict him of abuse of power, automatically ousting the second-term Democrat. In a second, identical vote, lawmakers further barred Blagojevich from ever holding public office in the state again.
"He failed the test of character. He is beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois. He is no longer worthy to be our governor," said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.
Blagojevich's troubles are not over. Federal prosecutors are drawing up an indictment against him on corruption charges.
Outside his Chicago home Thursday night, Blagojevich vowed to "keep fighting to clear my name," and added: "Give me a chance to show you that I haven't let you down."
"I love the people of Illinois today more than I ever have before," he said.
Democratic Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn, one of Blagojevich's critics, was promptly sworn in as governor.
Blagojevich, 52, had boycotted the first three days of the impeachment trial, calling the proceedings a kangaroo court. But on Thursday, he went before the Senate to beg for his job, delivering a 47-minute plea that was, by turns, defiant, humble and sentimental.
He argued, again, that he did nothing wrong, and warned that his impeachment would set a "dangerous and chilling precedent."
"You haven't proved a crime, and you can't because it didn't happen," Blagojevich (pronounced blah-GOY-uh-vich) told the lawmakers. "How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?"
The verdict brought to an end what one lawmaker branded "the freak show" in Illinois. Over the past few weeks, Blagojevich found himself isolated, with almost the entire political establishment lined up against him. The furor paralyzed state government and made Blagojevich and his helmet of lush, dark hair a punchline from coast to coast.
Many ordinary Illinoisans were glad to see him go.
"It's very embarrassing. I think it's a shame that with our city and Illinois, everybody thinks we're all corrupt," Gene Ciepierski, 54, said after watching the trial's conclusion on a TV at Chicago's beloved Billy Goat Tavern. "To think he would do something like that, it hurts more than anything."
In a solemn scene, more than 30 lawmakers rose one by one on the Senate floor to accuse Blagojevich of abusing his office and embarrassing the state. They denounced him as a hypocrite, saying he cynically tried to enrich himself and then posed as the brave protector of the poor and "wrapped himself in the constitution."
They sprinkled their remarks with historical references, including Pearl Harbor's "day of infamy" and "The whole world is watching" chant from the riots that broke out during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They cited Abraham Lincoln, the Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus as they called for the governor's removal.
"We have this thing called impeachment and it's bleeping golden and we've used it the right way," Democratic Sen. James Meeks of Chicago said during the debate, mocking Blagojevich's expletive-laden words as captured by the FBI on a wiretap.
Blagojevich did not stick around to hear the vote. He took a state plane back to Chicago.
The verdict capped a head-spinning string of developments that began with his arrest by the FBI on Dec. 9. Fderal prosecutors had been investigating Blagojevich's administration for years, and some of his closest cronies have already been convicted.
The most spectacular allegation was that Blagojevich had been caught on wiretaps scheming to sell an appointment to Obama's Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum job for himself or his wife.
"I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden, and I'm just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I'm not gonna do it," he was quoted as saying on a government wiretap.
Prosecutors also said he illegally pressured people to make campaign contributions and tried to get editorial writers fired from the Chicago Tribune for badmouthing him in print.
Obama himself, fresh from his historic election victory, was forced to look into the matter and issued a report concluding that no one in his inner circle had done anything wrong.
In the brash and often theatrical style that has infuriated fellow politicians for years, Blagojevich repeatedly refused to resign, reciting the poetry of Kipling and Tennyson and declaring at one point last month: "I will fight. I will fight. I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong."
Even as lawmakers were deciding whether to launch an impeachment, Blagojevich defied the political establishment and stunned everyone by appointing a former Illinois attorney general, Roland Burris, to the very Senate seat he had been accused of trying to sell. Top Democrats on Capitol Hill eventually backed down and seated Burris.
As his trial got under way, Blagojevich launched a media blitz, rushing from one TV studio to another in New York to proclaim his innocence. He likened himself to the hero of a Frank Capra movie and to a cowboy in the hands of a Wild West lynch mob.
The impeachment case included not only the criminal charges against Blagojevich, but allegations he broke the law when it came to hiring state workers, expanded a health care program without legislative approval and spent $2.6 million on flu vaccine that went to waste. The 118-member House twice voted to impeach him, both times with only one "no" vote.
Seven other U.S. governors have been removed by impeachment, the most recent being Arizona's Evan Mecham, who was driven from office in 1988 for trying to thwart an investigation into a death threat allegedly made by an aide. Illinois never before impeached a governor, despite its long and rich history of graft.
Blagojevich grew up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, the son of a Serbian immigrant steelworker. He married the daughter of a powerful city alderman and was schooled in the bare-knuckle, backroom politics of the infamous Chicago Machine, winning election to the Illinois House in 1992 and Congress in 1996.
In 2002, he was elected governor on a promise to clean up state government after former GOP Gov. George Ryan, who is serving six years in prison for graft. But he battled openly with lawmakers from his party, and scandal soon touched his administration.
Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a former top fundraiser for Blagojevich, was convicted of shaking down businesses seeking state contracts for campaign contributions. Witnesses testified that Blagojevich was aware of some of the strong-arm tactics. Rezko is said to be cooperating with prosecutors.
Quinn, the new governor, is a 60-year-old former state treasurer who has a reputation as a political gadfly and once led a successful effort to cut the size of the Illinois House.
"I want to say to the people of Illinois, the ordeal is over," Quinn said. "In this moment, our hearts are hurt. And it's very important to know that we have a duty, a mission to restore the faith of the people of Illinois in the integrity of their government."
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by KYW's Mike Dunn
The Mayor is retreating a bit on his controversial and stalled plan to close 11 library branches.
A judge has already stopped the Mayor from carrying out his plan to shutter 11 branches to save $8 million. Since that ruling all branches have been open with reduced hours. Now, with an appeal still pending, the administration decided to put the branch closure plan on the back burner until at least the end of the fiscal year on June 30th.
For full story go to:
http://www.kyw1060.com/
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| This photo obtained Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009 from Ervin Antonio Lupoe's Facebook Web page shows their five children, Brittney, center, twin girls Jaszmin and Jassely, rear, and twin boys Benjamin and Christian. The exact identification of the sets of twins is not known. Lupoe fatally shot his wife and children and himself Tuesday , Jan. 27, 2009. |
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Awash in debt, behind on his mortgage and recently fired from his job at a hospital, Ervin Lupoe was planning on leaving California. The 40-year-old father of five pulled his children out of school, packed his SUV with snow chains and winter clothing for him and his family and appeared ready for the trip to his brother-in-law's home in Garden City, Kan.
It's not yet known if he was planning on leaving for good in a bid to flee his mounting money problems or if the trip would have only been temporary.
Whatever his intention, Lupoe never got to Kansas.
Instead, police say, he shot his five children and wife to death before turning the gun on himself.
"Something happened in the last 48 hours that made him snap," said Detective David Cortez of the Los Angeles police department, the lead investigator in the case. "(He saw) no other way, no other direction."
Investigators found evidence of spiraling financial woes, including a bounced check to the Internal Revenue Service. Lupoe owed at least $15,000, as well as thousands of dollars on a home equity line of credit.
He also was at least one month behind on a mortgage for his home in Wilmington, near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Cortez said.
But Cortez said it was Lupoe, not the stagnant state of the economy, that was to blame.
"Being there and walking through the crime scene, it's a lot easier to see him as the suspect that did this to other people than the economy did this to him," Cortez said. "It's how he chose to respond to the circumstances; he had options."
Police found the bodies of Lupoe, his wife and five children Tuesday morning. The bodies of 2-year-old twin boys, Benjamin and Christian, were beside their dead mother, Ana. In another bedroom, the bodies of 5-year-old twin girls, Jaszmin and Jassely, and their 8-year-old sister Brittney lay on a mattress pad next to their lifeless father.
He appeared to have attempted to muffle the sound of gunfire by shooting a semiautomatic handgun through a pillow.
"It looked like they were all caught by surprise," Cortez said.
Neighbors' reports of firecracker sounds indicated the family might have been killed the evening before and Lupoe shot himself the next day, Cortez said.
Lupoe and his 38-year-old wife both were recently fired from their jobs as hospital technicians at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center West Los Angeles. They had lied about their income to try to get cheaper child care, Cortez said.
Lupoe phoned his brother-in-law Monday morning saying he was on his way to Kansas, Cortez said. Caesar Ramirez asked to speak to his sister but Lupoe declined. The next he heard from Lupoe was a phone call Tuesday morning saying he'd just killed his family and he left everything, including a small settlement from a traffic accident, to his brother-in-law.
Ramirez called Garden City police who contacted Los Angeles police, Garden City police Sgt. Michael Reagle said.
Lupoe had faxed a bitter, two-page letter to a local TV news station the morning he killed himself, saying a hospital administrator told him he "should not even have bothered to come to work" and "should have blown (his) brains out."
Investigators interviewed the hospital administrator, who said Lupoe's characterization of their conversation was an out-of-context misrepresentation and denied using the words Lupoe said she did.
In his letter, Lupoe went on to suggest it was his wife's idea to end the family members' lives.
"He had one of those victim mentalities," Cortez said. "There is nothing yet that suggests his wife was a willing party.
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| Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich smiles as he reads the New York Times front page story on him before making an appearance on the television program 'The Early Show' Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009 in New York. |
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich has asked to make a statement at the impeachment trial he has so far avoided, but still refuses to answer questions from the lawmakers who will decide whether to remove him from office, the Illinois Senate president announced Wednesday.
A buzz swept through the Senate chambers during the surprise announcement, which interrupted the third day of the unprecedented trial. The prosecution later rested its case against Blagojevich, who is accused of trying to sell President Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, among other corruption charges.
"It's my understanding that the governor wishes to file an appearance to give a closing argument, not to testify or to submit himself to cross-examination," Senate President John Cullerton said. "Just to give a closing argument."
Closing arguments are expected Thursday, and the Senate could decide Blagojevich's fate later that day.
The Democratic governor has refused to take part in the proceedings. Instead, he appeared on one news show after another to proclaim his innocence and declare the trial unconstitutional, saying he wouldn't dignify it by participating.
Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero said he didn't know what the governor planned to say but that he decided to go to Springfield because he wants a chance to make his argument.
"I don't think he's going down there to resign; I think he's going down to make his appeal to the senators," Guerrero said.
Making a closing statement would be different from testifying, which would have allowed senators and the impeachment prosecutor to question Blagojevich.
Sen. Dan Cronin, R-Elmhurst, called the governor's request "cowardly, but consistent with the way he has governed."
The two-term governor has denied any wrongdoing since being arrested last month on a variety of corruption charges, including scheming to benefit from appointing Obama's Senate replacement and demanding campaign contributions in exchange for state services.
Cullerton recommended Wednesday that senators agree to Blagojevich's unusual request. He said the governor would be given 90 minutes to make a closing statement - in effect, acting as his own attorney. His recommendation was backed by Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont.
Cullerton said senators won't make a formal decision on the request until after the governor arrives in Springfield on Thursday and formally files a motion to appear.
Earlier Wednesday, Cullerton challenged Blagojevich to show up and explain himself and objected to the governor's tour of national media. Blagojevich has put up no defense at the trial, but says wiretapped conversations released when he was arrested on federal corruption charges are being taken out of context.
"If he wants to come down here instead of hiding out in New York and having Larry King asking questions instead of the senators, I think he's making a mistake," Cullerton said. "He should come here and answer the questions and provide the context he claims that these statements are being taken out of."
Meanwhile, impeachment prosecutor David Ellis rested his case after saying he would call fewer witnesses than originally planned because much of the material was covered Tuesday by the testimony of an FBI agent.
Republicans objected, saying they wanted to hear from everyone possible, even if they're just summarizing the conclusions of the Illinois House impeachment probe.
"I'll sit here on Super Bowl Sunday, if I have to, to make sure the governor of the great state of Illinois gets a fair trial," said Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale.
The senators weighing Blagojevich's political fate listened Tuesday to the governor's voice captured on a secret government wiretap and heard an FBI agent say the recordings caught one corrupt scheme after another.
Blagojevich, 52, doesn't deny making the comments. But he says they were taken out of context and don't amount to anything illegal.
No other Illinois governor has been impeached, let alone convicted in a Senate trial.
If Blagojevich is convicted, he will be removed from office and replaced by Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn, a fellow Democrat.
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| A vehicle lies on its side in a ditch Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009 in Mountain Home, Ark. Ice and snow pelted northern Arkansas making driving hazardous. |
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Well over a million people shivered in ice-bound homes across the country Wednesday, waiting for warmer weather and for utility crews to restring power lines brought down by a storm that killed 23 as it took a snowy, icy journey from the Southern Plains to the East Coast. But with temperatures plunging, utility officials warned that it could be mid-February before electricity is restored to some of the hardest-hit places. The worst of the power failures were in Kentucky, Arkansas and Ohio.
Just getting to their source was difficult for utility crews. Ice-encrusted tree limbs and power lines blocked glazed roads, and cracking limbs pierced the air like popping gunfire as they snapped.
In Kentucky, National Guard soldiers were dispatched to remove the debris. Oklahoma, already struggling to restore power there, planned to send crews to help in Arkansas later in the week.
"It looks like a tornado came through, but there wasn't a path; it was everywhere," said Mel Coleman, the chief executive officer of the North Arkansas Electric Cooperative in Salem. The power is out at his house, too, and he spent Tuesday night in a chair at his office.
The storm was "worse than we ever imagined," he said.
In Arkansas - where ice was 3 inches thick in some places - people huddled next to fireplaces, wood-burning stoves and portable heaters powered by generators. When it got too cold, they left for shelters or relatives' homes that weren't hit as badly.
"We bundled up together on a bed with four blankets. It's freezing," said Pearl Schmidt of Paintsville, in eastern Kentucky. Her family endured 32-degree weather Wednesday morning before leaving their house for a shelter.
Kyle Brashears' family rode out the storm in their Mountain Home, Ark., home before fleeing to relatives after half an ice-caked oak tree fell into their home.
"It caved the roof in and ripped the gutter off, although it didn't penetrate inside," he said. "I was walking around outside until about 1 a.m. and it was just a nonstop medley of tree limbs cracking off."
The number of homes and businesses without power totaled around 1.4 million Wednesday evening, in a swath of states from Oklahoma to West Virginia. Arkansas had more than 350,000 customers in the dark; Kentucky had about a half-million. The actual number of people affected the power failures could be much higher.
In Kentucky, the power outages produced by the ice storm were outdone only by the remnants of Hurricane Ike, which lashed the state with fierce winds last year, leaving about 600,000 customers without power. Gov. Steve Beshear said he was seeking a federal emergency disaster declaration, a key step in securing federal assitance for storm victims.
"We've got lots of counties that do not have any communication, any heat, any power," he said.
Various charities opened shelters across the region, but with the power out nearly everywhere - including at some radio stations - it was difficult to spread the word. Some deputies went door to door and offered to drive the elderly to safety.
Meanwhile, some community leaders buckled down for a long haul. Kentucky Public Protection Cabinet spokesman Dick Brown urged people to conserve water because power failures could limit supplies in some areas.
Since the storm began building Monday, the weather has been blamed for at least six deaths in Texas, four in Arkansas, three in Virginia, six in Missouri, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Indiana and Ohio. Some parts of New England were expected to see well over a foot of snow as the storm kept moving northeast, but because it turned to snow, ice-related power failures weren't as big of a concern.
That didn't mean a trouble-free day for commuters. Delays or cancellations were reported at airports including those serving Columbus, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Commuters on highways encountered a slushy mess.
Tracey Ramey of Waynesville, Ohio, a village about 20 miles southeast of Dayton, said her husband left for his job as a plow operator late Monday with an overnight bag and hasn't been able to return. He did call her Wednesday morning to caution her not to go to her data-entry job.
"He said, 'There's 2 inches of ice on the road and there's no way you're going to make it to work,'" she said.
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| President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, left, and service chiefs listening, talks with reporters during a visit to the Pentagon, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009, in Washington. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a swift victory for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House approved a historically huge $819 billion stimulus bill Wednesday night with spending increases and tax cuts at the heart of the young administration's plan to revive a badly ailing economy. The vote was 244-188, with Republicans unanimous in opposition despite Obama's frequent pleas for bipartisan support.
"This recovery plan will save or create more than three million new jobs over the next few years," the president said in a written statement released moments after the House voted. Still later, he welcomed congressional leaders of both parties to the White House for drinks as he continued to lobby for the legislation.
Earlier, Obama declared, "We don't have a moment to spare" as congressional allies hastened to do his bidding in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The vote sent the bill to the Senate, where debate could begin as early as Monday on a companion measure already taking shape. Democratic leaders have pledged to have legislation ready for Obama's signature by mid-February.
A mere eight days after Inauguration Day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the events 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."
With unemployment at its highest level in a quarter-century, the banking industry wobbling despite the infusion of staggering sums of bailout money and states struggling with budget crises, Democrats said the legislation was desperately needed.
"Another week that we delay is another 100,000 or more people unemployed. I don't think we want that on our consciences," said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the leading architects of the legislation.
Republicans said the bill was short on tax cuts and contained too much spending, much of it wasteful, and would fall far short of administration's predictions of job creation.
The party's leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, said the measure "won't create many jobs, but it will create plenty of programs and projects through slow-moving government spending." A GOP alternative, comprised almost entirely of tax cuts, was defeated, 266-170.
On the final vote, the legislation drew the support of all but 11 Democrats, while all Republicans opposed it.
The White House-backed legislation includes an estimated $544 billion in federal spending and $275 billion in tax cuts for individuals and businesses. The totals remained in flux nearly until the final vote, due to official re-estimates and a last-minute addition of $3 billion for mass transit.
Included is money for traditional job-creating programs such as highway construction and mass transit projects. But the measure tickets far more for unemployment benefits, health care and food stamp increases designed to aid victims of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Tens of billions of additional dollars would go to the states, which confront the prospect of deep budget cuts of their own. That money marks an attempt to ease the recession's impact on schools and law enforcement. With funding for housing weatherization and other provisions, the bill also makes a down payment on Obama's campaign promise of creating jobs that can reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
The centerpiece tax cut calls for a $500 break for single workers and $1,000 for couples, including those who don't earn enough to owe federal income taxes.
The House vote marked merely the first of several major milestones a for the legislation, which Democratic leaders have pledged to deliver to the White House for Obama's signature by mid-February.
Already a more bipartisan - and costlier - measure is taking shape in the Senate, and Obama personally pledged to House and Senate Republicans in closed-door meetings on Tuesday that he is ready to accept modifications as the legislation advances.
Rahm Emanuel, a former Illinois congressman who is Obama's chief of staff, invited nearly a dozen House Republicans to the White House late Tuesday for what one participant said was a soft sales job.
This lawmaker quoted Emanuel as telling the group that polling shows roughly 80 percent support for the legislation, and that Republicans oppose it at their political peril. The lawmaker spoke on condition of anonymity, saying there was no agreement to speak publicly about the session.
In fact, though, many Republicans in the House are virtually immune from Democratic challenges because of the makeup of their districts, and have more to fear from GOP primary challenges in 2010. As a result, they have relatively little political incentive to break with conservative orthodoxy and support hundreds of billions in new federal spending.
Also, some Republican lawmakers have said in recent days they know they will have a second chance to support a bill when the final House-Senate compromise emerges in a few weeks.
Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, sought to strip out all the spending from the legislation before final passage, arguing that the entire cost of the bill would merely add to soaring federal deficits. "Where are we going to get the money," he asked, but his attempt failed overwhelmingly, 302-134.
Obey had a ready retort. "They don't look like Herbert Hoover, I guess, but there are an awful lot of people in this chamber who think like Herbert Hoover," he said, referring to the president whose term is forever linked in history with the Great Depression.
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Middle East meets West at a Israeli Dance Maraton in center city Philadelphia this Saturday night.
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Four Septa workers and five passengers were slightly injured in a collision on Tuesday morning between a work train and a commuter train in North Philadelphia's Logan section.
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If you’ve been looking for one of those digital converter boxes for your television ahead of next month’s transition to all-digital TV, you might soon get a reprieve. The Senate voted unanimously to delay the switch until June 12th.
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| This undated photo released by Sheryl Ann Sawyers shows her granddaughter Riley Ann Sawyers, 2, whose body washed ashore in a storage bin in Galveston Bay, Texas, on Oct. 29, 2007. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday, Jan. 26, 2009, where Riley Ann's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, will defend herself against charges she and her husband beat and tortured the child before putting her lifeless body out to sea. |
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) -- A slain toddler tried to stop her mother and stepfather from beating her to death by reaching out to her mother and saying, "I love you," a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. The pleas from 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers didn't stop her mother, Kimberly Trenor, from continuing to brutalize her, assistant district attorney Kayla Allen said in her opening statement at Trenor's murder trial.
But defense attorney Tommy Stickler Jr. told the jury that Trenor, 20, never intended to kill her daughter in 2007 and that things just "spun out of control."
The toddler was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators who worked to identify her decomposed remains after the body was found in a plastic container in October 2007 on a tiny island in Galveston Bay.
Trenor's 25-year-old husband, Royce Zeigler II, is to be tried separately on murder charges. His attorney points the finger at Trenor.
Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty because they didn't think they could prove that either one would be a future danger, as required.
During her opening statement, Allen detailed for jurors the day that she said Riley Ann died for forgetting to say "please" and "yes, sir."
Allen said that on July 25, 2007, Trenor and Zeigler disciplined Riley by whipping her with a belt, pushing her head against a pillow and holding her head under water. She said Zeigler grabbed Riley and tossed her across the room, fracturing her skull. An autopsy concluded the skull fractures caused her death.
"To the very end, Riley said, 'I love you' to her mom. She's reaching out," Allen said. "That's her lifeline, to her mother. What does Kim do after hearing her say I love you? She starts beating her."
Allen said the adults did nothing to help even as Riley lay dying.
She said the pair bought a plastic container, stuffed Riley's body inside and stored it in a shed for a month or two before setting it out to sea, prosecutors said.
Stickler portrayed Trenor as a scared 19-year-old girl who had moved to Texas from Ohio to marry a man she met while playing an online game. She said Riley's father, her former boyfriend, had assaulted her and Zeigler was her "knight in shining armor, her Texas cowboy."
"I don't want to use the word accident, but this wasn't something that was intentional," Stickler said.
Trenor could receive an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. The jury could also convict her of a lesser charge.
Riley's remains were unidentified for weeks until an Ohio woman, Sheryl Sawyers, saw an artist's sketch and told authorities she believed the girl was her granddaughter. Sawyers' son is Trenor's ex-boyfriend.
