Category: News

Eldridge Cleaver, civil rights leader, said this: “Americans think of themselves collectively as a huge rescue squad on 24-hour call.”

Toby Keith, populist country singer, said this: “This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage – and you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A.”

A graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, came across the tusk while working in a canyon on the island’s remote north shore earlier this month. Nearby were several rib bones and possible thigh bones, said Lotus Vermeer, the Nature Conservancy’s Santa Cruz Island project director.

“We’ve never discovered mammoth remains in this particular location on this island before,” Vermeer said.

“We can regain the confidence of both Congress and the American people in that this is not just money that is being given to banks without any strings attached and nobody knows what happens, but rather that it is targeted very specifically at getting credit flowing again to businesses and families,” the president-elect said in an interview aired Sunday.

Obama’s economic team has been talking with the Bush administration about having Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ask Congress as early as this week for access to the rest of the bailout fund. If Congress rejected such a request, a presidential veto could still free up the money, unless Congress overrode the veto.

Morgan Stanley is likely to pay Citigroup between $2 billion to $3 billion for a 51 percent stake in the brokerage Smith Barney, a person close to the negotiations said.

Morgan Stanley would then have the option to buy Smith Barney over the next three to five years, the person said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the ongoing talks.

Over a billion people are expected to join in Internet voting that will nominate 77 semifinalists for the top natural wonders, which will share in the glory already enjoyed by the seven man-made wonders chosen 18 months ago.

“We are calling on people all over the world to actively show their appreciation for our … natural world by joining together to celebrate the most extraordinary sites on our planet,” said Tia Viering, spokeswoman of the New 7 Wonders campaign.

The suicide attack, the most recent in a series that has killed more than 60 people in less that a week, was the latest to mar the transfer of many security responsibilities from the U.S. military to Iraqi forces.

Iraqi security forces have deployed thousands of troops in Baghdad and in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, just south of the capital, to safeguard against attacks during the ceremonies. Attacks by al-Qaida in Iraq, Sunni insurgents and even a Shiite cult have killed hundreds of people in recent years.

For eight years, the nation has been led by a guy who relaxes by clearing brush in scorching heat and taking breakneck bike rides through the woods. He dishes out nicknames to world leaders, and even gave the German chancellor an impromptu, perhaps unwelcome, neck rub. He’s annoyed when kept waiting and sticks relentlessly to routine. He stays optimistic in even the most dire circumstances, but readily tears up in public. He has little use for looking within himself, and only lately has done much looking back.

Bush’s style and temperament are as much his legacy as his decisions. Policy shapes lives, but personality creates indelible memories – positive and negative.

Warren did not answer directly when asked whether he would dedicate his prayer to Jesus. In a statement Tuesday to The Associated Press, Warren would say only that, “I’m a Christian pastor so I will pray the only kind of prayer I know how to pray.”

“Prayers are not to be sermons, speeches, position statements nor political posturing. They are humble, personal appeals to God,” Warren wrote. His spokesman would not elaborate.

But as the anniversary approaches of the Jan. 1, 1999, arrival of the euro, economists say the new currency is finally fulfilling its promise as a way to lower borrowing costs, ease trade and tourism, boost growth and strengthen the European community.

And doing it amid a global financial crisis that, for the moment, underlines the safety in numbers that comes from joining one, big currency.

The interviews with Obama, along with incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett, were disclosed Tuesday in an internal report produced for Obama on contacts with Blagojevich. The report supported Obama’s insistence last week that there had been no inappropriate contact with the governor’s office by Obama or his staff.

Obama delayed releasing his report until U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s staff had completed the interviews with Obama and his two top aides, incoming White House attorney Greg Craig said in the review he wrote for Obama.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.