It was still dark on Thursday when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan left his aging apartment complex to attend 6 a.m. prayers at the brick mosque near Fort Hood. Afterward, he said goodbye to his friends there and asked forgiveness from one man for any past offenses.
“I’m going traveling,” he told a fellow worshiper, giving him a hug. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”
Six hours later, Major Hasan walked into a processing center at Fort Hood where soldiers get medical attention before being sent overseas. At first, he sat quietly at an empty table, said two congressmen briefed on the investigation.
Then, witnesses say, he bowed his head for several seconds, as if praying, stood up and drew a high-powered pistol. “Allahu akbar,” he said — “God is great.” And he opened fire. Within minutes he had killed 13 people.
“I’m going traveling,” he told a fellow worshiper, giving him a hug. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”
Six hours later, Major Hasan walked into a processing center at Fort Hood where soldiers get medical attention before being sent overseas. At first, he sat quietly at an empty table, said two congressmen briefed on the investigation.
Then, witnesses say, he bowed his head for several seconds, as if praying, stood up and drew a high-powered pistol. “Allahu akbar,” he said — “God is great.” And he opened fire. Within minutes he had killed 13 people.
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New York Times
A moderate Republican whose candidacy for an upstate New York Congressional seat had set off a storm of national conservative opposition, abruptly withdrew on Saturday, emboldening the right at a time when the Republican Party is enmeshed in a debate over how to rebuild itself.The candidate, Dede Scozzafava, said she was suspending her campaign in the face of collapsing support and evidence that she was heading for a loss in a three-way race on Tuesday involving Douglas L. Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line, and Bill Owens, a Democrat.
Ms. Scozzafava had been under siege from conservative leaders because she supports gay rights and abortion rights and was considered too liberal on various fiscal issues.
New York Times
House Democrats on Thursday unveiled an $894 billion package to remake the health care system, and celebrated by holding an outdoor rally at the Capitol where they asserted that tens of millions of Americans would soon gain affordable insurance.The 1,990-page measure, which was months in the making, would broadly expand Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, by offering subsidies to moderate-income Americans to buy insurance either from private carriers or a new government-run plan.
“It is with great pride and with great humility that we come before you to follow in the footsteps of those who gave our country Social Security and then Medicare — and now universal, quality, affordable health care for all Americans,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a crowd of several hundred people.
The 83-year-old dean of the House, Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, stole the show with a combative speech in which he assailed insurance companies and Republicans, who have been warning that the legislation would slash Medicare.
By expanding coverage and reining in health costs, Mr. Dingell said, the bill would meet “the greatest humanitarian need this country confronts, and the greatest economic problem.”
“The only citizens who will have to worry about their participation in Medicare being cut are the insurance companies,” Mr. Dingell said.
In January 2000, in his fourth year as New York City’s Board of Education president, William C. Thompson Jr. tired of living in wartime. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had just claimed the scalp of another schools chancellor, and now the mayor vowed to impose his own candidate on the school system.
Under heavy international pressure, President Hamid Karzai conceded Tuesday that he fell short of a first-round victory in the nation’s disputed presidential election, and agreed to hold a runoff election with his top challenger on Nov. 7.
Flanked at a news conference in Kabul by Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said he would accept the findings of an international audit that stripped him of nearly one-third of his votes in the first round, leaving him below the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff and declare victory over his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
Flanked at a news conference in Kabul by Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said he would accept the findings of an international audit that stripped him of nearly one-third of his votes in the first round, leaving him below the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff and declare victory over his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
NEW YORK TIMES
As the Senate prepares to tackle global warming, the nation’s energy producers, once united, are battling one another over policy decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars in coming decades.Producers of natural gas are battling their erstwhile allies, the oil companies. Electrical utilities are fighting among themselves over the use of coal versus wind power or other renewable energy. Coal companies are battling natural gas firms over which should be used to produce electricity. And the renewable power industry is elbowing for advantage against all of them.
While TD Bank works to resolve a computer problem that has left customer accounts out of date, local competitors say they have benefited from frustrated people willing to switch banks.
Citizens Bank said that “thousands” of people had taken them up on a promotion last Friday aimed at luring new customers. Under the offer, which started Saturday, customers who open a new checking account with Citizens get $100 automatically deposited into their new account.
The bank said that the number of new accounts was seven times normal volume but would be no more specific than that.
Citizens Bank said that “thousands” of people had taken them up on a promotion last Friday aimed at luring new customers. Under the offer, which started Saturday, customers who open a new checking account with Citizens get $100 automatically deposited into their new account.
The bank said that the number of new accounts was seven times normal volume but would be no more specific than that.
On a rainy, wind-whipped morning that bore little resemblance to the crisp and glass-clear dawn of Sept. 11, 2001, politicians and survivors of that day’s attack gathered early on Friday to observe the eighth anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
They gathered near the pit where the twin towers once stood. Politicians spoke, a choir of students sang, and the name of each victim was read aloud, one at a time, 2,752 in total, one more than last year. At the end, taps was played, and the relatively small group that lasted for the entire three-and-a-half-hour ceremony — much of if buffeted by fierce winds and lashing rain — dispersed, some into Lower Manhattan, some to a reflecting pool where flowers were tossed to remember those who died.
They gathered near the pit where the twin towers once stood. Politicians spoke, a choir of students sang, and the name of each victim was read aloud, one at a time, 2,752 in total, one more than last year. At the end, taps was played, and the relatively small group that lasted for the entire three-and-a-half-hour ceremony — much of if buffeted by fierce winds and lashing rain — dispersed, some into Lower Manhattan, some to a reflecting pool where flowers were tossed to remember those who died.
A Coast Guard training exercise in the Potomac River near the Pentagon sparked confusion amid Friday's commemorations of the Sept. 11 anniversary. Media reports that shots were being fired in the river sent FBI agents scrambling to the scene and led the nearest airport to briefly ground flights.
No shots were fired as part of the exercise, Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said later Friday.
No shots were fired as part of the exercise, Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said later Friday.
After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
Shares of LTX Credence Corp. climbed Friday after a Needham Co. analyst upgraded the chip testing equipment maker to “strong buy,” saying its fiscal fourth-quarter results were strong and it is poised to see revenue growth going into 2010.
The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials said.
The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript, gray outfit. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier's dog tag up to the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting on a bed.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier.
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The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript, gray outfit. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier's dog tag up to the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting on a bed.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier.
Click To Continue
The nation’s Social Security numbering system has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual’s date and location of birth.
The findings, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are further evidence that privacy safeguards created in the era before powerful computers and ubiquitous networks are increasingly failing, setting up an “architecture of vulnerability” around personal digital information, the researchers said.
The findings, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are further evidence that privacy safeguards created in the era before powerful computers and ubiquitous networks are increasingly failing, setting up an “architecture of vulnerability” around personal digital information, the researchers said.
Dara O’Rourke created GoodGuide to evaluate products, sometimes searching via the bar code.
These days, every skin lotion and dish detergent on store shelves gloats about how green it is. How do shoppers know which are good for them and good for the earth?
It was a similar question that hit Dara O’Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley, one morning when he was applying sunscreen to his young daughter’s face.
He realized he did not know what was in the lotion. He went to his office and quickly discovered that it contained a carcinogen activated by sunlight. It also contained an endocrine disruptor and two skin irritants. He also discovered that her soap included a kind of dioxane, a carcinogen, and then found that one of her brand-name toys was made with lead.
WASHINGTON — CIA Director Leon Panetta says former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's approach to terrorism almost suggests “he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”
Panetta told The New Yorker for an article in its June 22 issue that Cheney “smells some blood in the water” on the issue of national security.
Panetta told The New Yorker for an article in its June 22 issue that Cheney “smells some blood in the water” on the issue of national security.
GE Healthcare has opened a new $165 million factory to build state-of-the-art digital mammography machines in upstate New York.
Company officials joined state and local leaders for an opening ceremony Friday at the 230,000 square-foot plant at the Rensselaer Technology Park just outside Albany.
They say the new facility will bring 150 high-paying manufacturing jobs to the area. This is GE Healthcare's first expansion of high-tech medical equipment manufacturing in New York. The digital X-ray technology used in mammography was developed at GE Global Research in nearby Niskayuna.
General Electric Co. is based in Fairfield, Conn.
Company officials joined state and local leaders for an opening ceremony Friday at the 230,000 square-foot plant at the Rensselaer Technology Park just outside Albany.
They say the new facility will bring 150 high-paying manufacturing jobs to the area. This is GE Healthcare's first expansion of high-tech medical equipment manufacturing in New York. The digital X-ray technology used in mammography was developed at GE Global Research in nearby Niskayuna.
General Electric Co. is based in Fairfield, Conn.
First came bylines for once-anonymous journalists. Then came their photos, particularly as news shifted online, and blogs began to carry mug shots of their writers.
Now, the journalist is about to continue that evolution from off-stage to center stage as a new Web site promotes the concept of the “entrepreneurial journalist.”
Founded by a veteran of traditional media, Lewis Dvorkin, True/Slant wants its writers to be more than just a name and a mug shot.
Contributors are encouraged to think of themselves as individual brands and to build a community of readers around their writing.
Now, the journalist is about to continue that evolution from off-stage to center stage as a new Web site promotes the concept of the “entrepreneurial journalist.”
Founded by a veteran of traditional media, Lewis Dvorkin, True/Slant wants its writers to be more than just a name and a mug shot.
Contributors are encouraged to think of themselves as individual brands and to build a community of readers around their writing.
JERUSALEM — Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”
The complaint was the latest in a growing rift between the Obama administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to move forward to achieve peace in the Middle East. Mr. Obama was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and is scheduled to address the Muslim world from Cairo on Thursday.
The complaint was the latest in a growing rift between the Obama administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to move forward to achieve peace in the Middle East. Mr. Obama was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and is scheduled to address the Muslim world from Cairo on Thursday.
worldnetdaily.com
told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting last week the U.S. foresees the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, according to a top PA official speaking to WND.
“The American administration was very friendly to the position of the PA,” said Nimer Hamad, Abbas' senior political adviser.
“Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest,” Hamad said.
“Our new Overnight Home Delivery service provides consumers with an easy and convenient way to send money on a card,” said Jorge Consuegra, senior vice president U.S. Product Management, Western Union.
