WASILLA, Alaska (AP) – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement Friday that she is resigning from office at the end of the month without explaining why she plans to step down, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.
The former Republican vice presidential candidate hastily called a news conference Friday morning at her home in suburban Wasilla, giving such short notice that only a few reporters actually made it to the announcement. State troopers blocked late-arriving media outside her home, and her spokesman, Dave Murrow, finally emerged to confirm that Palin will step down July 26. He refused to give details about the governor’s future plans.
The significance of the move was debatable, but it could be interpreted as a message to Iran and a demonstration of strengthening ties between Egypt and Israel.
After a long hiatus, the Israeli Navy has returned to sailing through the Suez Canal, recently sending one of its advanced Dolphin-class submarines through the waterway to participate in naval maneuvers off the Eilat coast in the Red Sea.
IDF sources said the decision to allow navy vessels to sail through the canal was made recently and was a definite “change of policy” within the service. In 2005, then OC Navy Adm. David Ben-Bashat decided to stop sending Israeli ships through the canal due to growing threats in the area.
However, the Dolphin-class submarine sailed through last month to get from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Israeli officials said it passed through the canal above water, and that it was not done covertly.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Thursday hurled criticism at technology experts who claim that City Hall’s missing e-mail was intentionally removed by someone with top-drawer access to the computer system.
Assigning blame “is not their charge, ” Nagin said Thursday, a day after two computer experts hired by the city said that an unknown tech-savvy person apparently removed the mayor’s e-mail inbox from the server.
In a WWL-TV interview, Nagin dismissively described the unknown individual as “some phantom employee.”
Nagin also implied that the Louisiana Technology Council, the company hired to find the data, not only was eager for “15 minutes of fame, ” but also was in over its head.
“The system is designed to tell us, A, where it’s coming from, and roughly where it’s going,” he said. “And if that where-it’s-going piece begins to threaten U.S. land mass, whether we know it’s a live or training [warhead], the system will allow us to engage it.
COLORADO SPRINGS | U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times.
“The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I’m very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I’ve got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory,” said Air Force Gen. Victor E. “Gene” Renuart, Northcom commander.
The general said the United States won’t activate its missile defenses if the North Korean missile appears it will fall safely into the water as the country’s last test missile did.
Lawmakers say that the trips are a good use of government funds because they allow members of Congress and their staff members to learn more about the world, inspect U.S. assets abroad and forge better working relationships with each other.
WASHINGTON — Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.
The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.
The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.
When President Obama announced on June 9 that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government. “It is worth noting that in the first round of repayments from these [TARP recipients], the government has actually turned a profit,” the president said. Indeed, TARP supporters have long held out the hope that the program might be profitable.
But now Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the “TARP for Main Street Act of 2009,” a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.
NEW ORLEANS – Technology experts say they can’t recover Mayor Ray Nagin’s e-mail from 2008 because the data was professionally removed from the server intentionally.
This all began when WWL-TV sued the Nagin administration after it failed to comply with a public-records request.
In March, after a judge found Nagin’s administration violated the public-records law by not keeping or handing over all of Nagin’s calendar or e-mails from the second half of 2008, a minimal number of e-mail were publicized.
Many think the jobless rate could rise as high as 10.7 percent by the second quarter of next year before it starts to make a slow descent. Some think the rate will top out at 11 percent.
WASHINGTON – Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy.
The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.
June’s payroll reductions were deeper than the 363,000 that economists expected and average weekly earnings dropped to the lowest level in nearly a year.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – The California governor’s office says federal officials are threatening to seize six state parks if they are closed to help balance the state’s budget.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 220 state parks.
But the National Park Service warned in a letter to Schwarzenegger that six of those parks are on former federal land that could revert to the U.S. government if they are not kept open as parks.
BOGOTA – The regime that ousted Manuel Zelaya in Honduras claimed Tuesday that the deposed president allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States.
“Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds … and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking,” its foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, told CNN en Espanol.
“We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it,” he added.
Nearly two weeks after the ship left North Korea, officials said Tuesday they still don’t know where it is going. But it was some 250 miles south of Hong Kong on Tuesday, one official said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Tuesday that a North Korean ship has turned around and is headed back toward the north where it came from, after being tracked for more than a week by American Navy vessels on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons.
The move keeps the U.S. and the rest of the international community guessing: Where is the Kang Nam going? Does its cargo include materials banned by a new U.N. anti-proliferation resolution?
The ship left a North Korean port of Nampo on June 17 and is the first vessel monitored under U.N. sanctions that ban the regime from selling arms and nuclear-related material.
Barney Frank: Let's spend TARP profits before taxpayers can get them Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.
Nagin's e-mail box intentionally removed from server, group says LTC said they discovered that 22 gigabytes of information was intentionally removed from that e-mail server on the day they started work on the project. They also found that Nagin's e-mails on the new server only started in February of this year. The other 58 e-mail boxes go back much further.
Feds Threaten To Seize California Parks The California governor’s office says federal officials are threatening to seize six state parks if they are closed to help balance the state’s budget.
Ahmadinejad says enemies' "soft overthrow" failed "The enemies were not able to reach their objectives for the soft overthrow of the system," he said, according to the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA. "The enemy is pursuing the objective of undermining the nation's capabilities after the 85% turnout at the polls."
Comments
Press grills Gibbs over prepackaged questions
By The Fox on July 2, 2009, 9:03 am
Of course it’s all pre-packaged. That’s always the first step on the road to socialist/communist/fascist governmental control. The only way he stays in power, and the only way he...
Ahmadinejad says enemies’ “soft overthrow” failed
By claire on July 1, 2009, 3:22 pm
where there are proud people being oppressed, disenfranchised or otherwise compromised, there will be revolution as for moldova, we should know soon enough: “The...
Louisiana legislature at its finest
By The Fox on June 30, 2009, 11:49 am
Always a pleasure to see my tax dollars at work. Funny, it’s always a question as to why people won’t stay in the state…gee I DO wonder.
Holocaust a ‘big lie’: Iran govt spokesman
By claudia on June 29, 2009, 5:40 pm
how on earth can you accept that its a myth? the holocaust DID indeed happen, it killed 6 million innocent, men women and children. its inhumane what went on and its just total...
New Orleans Times-Picayune, “
Washington Examiner, “
WWL-TV, “
Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats. 
LTC said they discovered that 22 gigabytes of information was intentionally removed from that e-mail server on the day they started work on the project. They also found that Nagin's e-mails on the new server only started in February of this year. The other 58 e-mail boxes go back much further. 
The California governor’s office says federal officials are threatening to seize six state parks if they are closed to help balance the state’s budget. 
"The enemies were not able to reach their objectives for the soft overthrow of the system," he said, according to the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA. "The enemy is pursuing the objective of undermining the nation's capabilities after the 85% turnout at the polls."