DETROIT — The new chief executive of General Motors, Frederick A. Henderson, said Tuesday that bankruptcy was “more probable” than ever for the automaker but that he still hoped to successfully restructure the company out of court.I'm surprised and glad that they aren't getting bailed out. If the American automakers aren't willing to make better cars, their industry deserves to die. Hopefully the big three will get their act together so the employees can keep their jobs.
Maureen Trickett, an event organizer for 8minuteDating.com, had an idea based on all the hype surrounding younger men dating older women. She decided last year to plan an event specifically for that demographic - a night of speed dating for women-of-a-certain-age and the boyish men who love them.Understandable...it's not like they all look like Demi Moore.
Trickett posted the event online, and women quickly signed up. But the men - they were slow to show interest.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - New Haven officials say a smoky fire has forced the evacuation of an elementary school.Luckily everyone got out alive.
A city spokeswoman says the small fire Tuesday morning at the Lincoln-Bassett School prompted the city to use buses to take the children to the Celentano School.
Jessica Mayorga says while the fire was minor, it was smoky. She says four people did complain of asthma symptoms and were taken to a city hospital.
Acclaimed actress Natasha Richardson, the wife of actor Liam Neeson and daughter of acting legend Vanessa Redgrave, died Wednesday of a critical head injury resulting from a skiing accident; she was 45.
CNN) -- As the tide of outrage over AIG bonuses continued unabated Wednesday, a congressional committee became the epicenter of the issue as Edward Liddy, CEO and chairman of the troubled insurer, prepared to answer questions about executive bonuses.I'd love to see the government rip AIG a new one.
On Wednesday's "American Morning," Rep. Barney Frank, who chairs the House Finance Committee, shared what was legally and legislatively within the government's power on recovering the AIG bonuses and reforming the whole financial incentive system.
Kiran Chetry, CNN anchor: When he appears before your committee today, what type of assurances are you guys seeking from Mr. Liddy with regard to these bonuses?
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts: Well, I don't have a lot of confidence in Mr. Liddy's view at this point. When he said that first he couldn't get the money back because they had contractual rights but also that he was worried about not retaining them, it left me unconvinced he's really going to be trying.
The notion that we want to retain these people, that we want to pay the people who messed it up in the first place so they don't leave, is just backward to me. I think we would probably be better off if they did leave.
We are going to ask him to fully be cooperative in our effort, but I think the federal government has to take the lead on the lawsuits. We own this company in effect, and we're not asking that these bonuses be rescinded because we have lent money to the company.
Tens of thousands of marchers proceeded up Fifth Avenue on Tuesday for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, the festive mood of the procession — believed to be the 248th — tempered by the deteriorating economy in both the United States and Ireland.My plan for today is, of course, to get drunk, go to South Boston carrying a boom box playing "I'm Shipping Up to Boston", walk into a bar and punch the first guy I see.
New York City ranks behind Boston, Philadelphia, Tampa, Cleveland, Baltimore, Chicago and other cities in the proportion of residents who list Irish as their primary ancestral group, but the St. Patrick’s Day parade is nonetheless a political rite of passage for politicians and notables.
Even as the parade began at Fifth Avenue and 44th Street at 11 a.m., a group of lesbian and gay Irish organizations demonstrated 13 blocks away, at 57th Street, criticizing the organizers for their policy barring gay groups (though not individuals) from marching.
The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who is the city’s most prominent openly gay official, has stayed away from the parade since being told she could not wear even a pin, button or sash indicating gay pride. She plans to take part in a large St. Patrick’s Day reception in Washington on Tuesday evening, at the invitation of President Obama.
For many spectators, the attention was on the sacrifice of service members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Seventy-three employees were paid more than $1 million in the newly minted bonuses at the insurance giant, American International Group, according to the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.THAT's where your tax money is going.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday that American International Group Inc's payment of $165 million in bonuses is an "outrage" and ordered the treasury secretary to take all legal measures to block them.FINALLY! Finally the government stops taking...spit...from A.I.G.
Reporting from Sacramento — You could have cut the tension with some really sharp repartee, this being a room full of very smart people.Congratulations, but come on, perennial champ? Nobody likes an overachiever.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the theater?" tried emcee Amy Lewis after some technical glitches threatened to gum up the finale of the state Academic Decathlon on Sunday night.
That didn't entirely soothe the more than 500 competitors from 60 California high schools, or their coaches and parents, who half-filled the cavernous Sacramento Memorial Auditorium for the last event in a grueling two-day match to select the brainiest team of high schoolers in the state.
"Amateur hour," groused Marshall High coach Larry Welch.
But after discarding a rogue PowerPoint presentation that was displaying the wrong answers to quiz questions, the competition went on. ("We do truly apologize," state director Ken Scarberry said later.)
The unofficial winner of Sunday night's Super Quiz Relay, the only portion of the Decathlon waged in public, was no surprise. Perennial champ El Camino of Woodland Hills scored 58 of a possible 60 points.
Cape Canaveral, Fla. -- Space shuttle Discovery and its crew of seven rocketed into orbit Sunday evening, setting off on a mission cut short by launch delays that dragged on for more than a month.To the moon, Alice. TO THE MOON.
Discovery rose from its seaside pad at 7:43 p.m. EDT just as the sun was setting. As the shuttle sped away from Kennedy Space Center like a brilliant star, part of the launch plume glowed a brilliant mix of pink, peach and gold. Clear skies allowed the shuttle to be visible for several minutes.Correction: To the International Space Station, Alice. TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION. It just doesn't have the same ring.
A hydrogen leak prevented Discovery from lifting off Wednesday. Before that, the shuttle was grounded for weeks in February as NASA ran tests to determine whether newly installed valves would cause serious damage if they broke during liftoff. Launch pad repairs took care of the leak.
Commander Lee Archambault and his crew, which includes two former schoolteachers, should reach the International Space Station on Tuesday.
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — The Sri Lankan cricket team ambush shows the security system has collapsed in Pakistan since the pro-Western government took office a year ago, a leading opposition politician charged Thursday.Huh?
The fallout from Tuesday's attack is adding to political problems facing the shaky government just as Washington wants it to stay focused on the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban.Oh. Well, you do know bin Laden is in Pakistan, right?
Under intense pressure to show progress in the investigation, authorities claimed to have identified the heavily armed terrorists and were questioning several people, but appeared to have made no major arrests. The gunmen escaped into the teeming city of Lahore following the ambush.
The country's cricket chief, meanwhile, dismissed as "totally fabricated" claims by British referee Chris Broad that police abandoned him and other match officials during the ambush by between 12 and 14 gunmen close to a stadium in Lahore in eastern Punjab province.
With a punishing economic slowdown and a looming political showdown on the horizon, some commentators have taken the brazen assault as fresh evidence the nuclear-armed nation is on a path to becoming a failed state.
Opposition parties and other critics used outrage over the ambush as ammunition against the government.
"The security system in Pakistan under this regime has collapsed because this government is too busy doing other things, they are too busy in their quest for power," opposition politician Mushahid Hussain told a televised news conference.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday the Obama administration would this week send two senior U.S. officials to Damascus to work on bilateral ties, in a further sign of thawing U.S.-Syria relations.Syria, huh?
"We're going to dispatch a representative of the State Department, a representative of the White House, to explore with Syria some of these bilateral issues," Clinton said, announcing another step that could help Damascus improve its standing in the West after years of tensions.Oh. Iran. That's what this is about.
"We have no way to predict what the future with our relations concerning Syria might be," she told a news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
U.S. officials said the two emissaries would be Jeffrey Feltman, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and now acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and Dan Shapiro of the White House's National Security Council.
The administration of President Barack Obama has been reviewing U.S. policy toward Syria, including whether to return an ambassador to Damascus, a move the former Bush administration had been considering in the final months in office.
The move also indicates a wish to lessen Iran's influence over Syria as part of broader regional peace plans and follows up on a campaign promise by Obama to talk to U.S. enemies rather than isolate them.
As President Barack Obama prepares to convene a health-care summit at the White House later this week, Administration officials are signaling that he intends to pursue a very different strategy for getting reform passed from the one used by his Democratic predecessor in office. Unlike the failed effort of 1994, when Bill and Hillary Clinton presented Congress with a detailed blueprint for reform — and never saw a bill reach the floor of either the House or Senate — Obama is outlining broad principles, with a bottom line of universal coverage, and leaving it up to lawmakers to fashion a plan for meeting them.I'm split on Obama's health care stance just as I am on his economic policy. "Sicko" made a great argument for universal health care, but there are also arguments out there for keeping the system we have, or for other alternatives.
What this means is that the next few months will see a wide range of options under consideration, including ideas that go well beyond the health-care plan Obama proposed in his campaign, which centered on effort to expand coverage by requiring employers to provide health insurance to their workers. "Everything has got to be on the table — everything," says Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, who will be one of the key figures leading the effort on Capitol Hill. (See who's who in Obama's White House.)
At a breakfast with reporters on Tuesday morning, Baucus predicted that his committee could have legislation on the Senate floor as early as June, adding, "The conversation is going great guns." Among the ideas the six-term Montana Senator said he is willing to consider is one that has significant support among Republicans: changing the tax treatment of employer-provided health benefits, so that they might not be fully deductible for companies that provide them, and would be treated as income for the workers who receive them. Health-care experts say this would have the effect of encouraging more people to buy their insurance individually, rather than getting it where they work. This approach has been criticized by many Democrats — including Obama, when John McCain embraced a version of it during the election campaign — who contend that relying on the individual market would put health-care consumers at a disadvantage to big insurance companies.
But one proposal apparently not on his table is the dream of many liberals — a government-run system known as single-payer.
If the prognosticators are correct, the International Criminal Court will issue its first arrest warrant for a sitting head of state on Wednesday afternoon. That's when the court will announce whether Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir ought to be brought to trial on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his alleged role in orchestrating the Darfur conflict. Regardless of what one makes of the idea of international justice, the arrest warrant, if it comes, will be a historic move that many human rights experts believe will further erode that sense of impunity shared by dictators the world over.
As a result, it is perhaps no surprise that Sudanese officials have become more bellicose about the prospect of an arrest warrant.
JERUSALEM - Embarking on her first trip to the region as secretary of State, Hillary Clinton pledged that the Obama administration will unshakably support Israel's security and vigorously pursue the creation of a Palestinian state.I'm sure the administration will do just that...once it takes care of its priorities.
