AP News in Brief
Obama savors big legislative victory, calls stimulus passage ‘major milestone’ toward recovery
WASHINGTON (AP) — Savoring his first big victory in Congress, President Barack Obama on Saturday celebrated the newly passed $787 billion economic stimulus bill as a “major milestone on our road to recovery. “
Officials said he would sign the measure on Tuesday in Denver.
Speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said, “I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we’ll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done.”
At the same time, he cautioned, “This historic step won’t be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning. The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task.”
The bill passed Congress on Friday on votes split mostly along party lines, allowing Democratic leaders to deliver on their promise of clearing the legislation by mid-February. The decision to sign it Tuesday in Denver, where Democrats held their national convention last summer, was disclosed by officials on condition of anonymity. They said they were not authorized to discuss the plans.
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NTSB: Plane didn’t dive, but landed flat on house and pointing away from airport
CLARENCE, N.Y. (AP) — A commuter plane that smashed into a house was pointed away from the airport it was trying to reach, investigators said Saturday, noting that it apparently fell flat.
Flight data showed the plane’s safety systems warned the pilot that the aircraft was perilously close to losing lift and plummeting from the sky. The ensuing crash killed 49 people on the plane and one in the house.
Continental Connection Flight 3407 didn’t nose-dive into the house, as initially reported by some witnesses, said Steve Chealander, a National Transportation Safety Board member.
The Newark, N.J.,-to-Buffalo flight was cleared to land on a runway pointing to the southwest, but it crashed with its nose pointed northeast, Chealander said. It will take as many as four days to remove human remains from the site, which he called an “excavation.”
“Keep in mind, there’s an airplane that fell on top of a house, and they’re now intermingled,” he said.
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Pakistan officials: Suspected US missile strike kills 27 militants in al-Qaida stronghold
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Dozens of followers of Pakistan’s top Taliban commander were in a compound when a suspected U.S. missile attack hit Saturday, killing 27 militants in an al-Qaida stronghold near the Afghan border, officials said.
The strike appeared to be the deadliest yet by the American drone aircraft that prowl the frontier, and defied Pakistani warnings that the tactic is fueling extremism in the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.
In an interview unrelated to the attack, President Asif Ali Zardari said the Taliban had expanded their presence to a “huge amount” of Pakistan and were even eyeing a takeover of the state.
“We’re fighting for the survival of Pakistan. We’re not fighting for the survival of anybody else,” Zardari said, according to a transcript of his remarks that CBS television said it would air Sunday.
Many Pakistanis believe the country is fighting Islamist militants, who have enjoyed state support in the past, only at Washington’s behest.
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Person briefed on UAW-GM concession talks says union walks away over retiree health care
DETROIT (AP) — Negotiators for the United Auto Workers walked out of concession talks with General Motors Corp. Friday night in a dispute over payments to a union-administered retiree health care fund, a person briefed on the talks said Saturday.
The breakdown comes at a critical time as GM races against a Tuesday deadline to submit a plan to the government showing how it can become viable.
The Detroit-based auto giant is living on $9.4 billion in government loans, and the Treasury Department must approve its viability plan for GM to get $4 billion more. Chrysler LLC, which has received $4 billion in government loans and wants an additional $3 billion, faces the same deadline.
At GM, UAW negotiators walked away because the company made demands that were “detrimental to retirees and the ability to provide health care,” according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Under terms of the loans to GM and Chrysler laid down by the Bush Administration, both companies must gain concessions from unions and debtholders. Among targets for concessions is GM’s cash contribution to a trust fund that will take over the obligation for retiree health care starting next year.
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Burris confirms request for Blagojevich donation in affidavit, but says he didn’t pay
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Sen. Roland Burris admitted in a document released Saturday that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother asked him for campaign fundraising help before the governor appointed Burris to the Senate.
The disclosure is at odds with Burris’ testimony in January when an Illinois House impeachment committee specifically asked if he had ever spoken to Robert Blagojevich or other aides to the now-deposed governor about the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.
State Rep. Jim Durkin, the impeachment committee’s ranking Republican, told The Associated Press that he and House Republican Leader Tom Cross would seek an outside investigation into whether Burris perjured himself.
Burris issued a statement Saturday saying he voluntarily gave the committee a Feb. 4 affidavit disclosing the contact with Robert Blagojevich because “there were several facts that I was not given the opportunity to make during my testimony to the impeachment committee.”
The affidavit, released Saturday by Burris’ office, said Robert Blagojevich called him three times — once in October and twice after the November election — to seek his fundraising assistance.
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Congress goes further than Obama in limiting executive pay for failing banks’ executives
CHICAGO (AP) — President Barack Obama’s economic team tried to keep Democratic allies negotiating the stimulus bill from limiting paychecks for executives at banks in need of a bailout. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and economic aide Lawrence Summers failed.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, inserted strict rules into the $787 billion economic stimulus package over the White House’s objections. Dodd’s limits on bankers’ bonuses are significantly more aggressive than those sought by Obama or Geithner in recent days, with much fanfare.
Dodd, D-Conn., said the restrictions — an executive making $1 million a year in salary could receive only $500,000 in bonus money, for example — are necessary if Obama plans to ask Congress for more money to save the financial sector.
“It will never happen as long as the public perceives that there are people getting rich,” Dodd said in an interview. “Save their pay or save capitalism.”
That tone among Democrats flavored much of the discussion about how to write the stimulus bill, which the president could sign as early as Monday. Despite direct appeals from Geithner, Summers and White House officials, Democrats didn’t budge, according to administration officials.
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Greenhouse gases continue to rise in atmosphere despite climate worries
CHICAGO (AP) — Despite widespread concern over global warming, humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s, researchers warned Saturday.
Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate.
Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“It is now outside the entire envelope of possibilities” considered in the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change, he said. The IPCC and former vice president Al Gore received the Nobel Prize for drawing attention to the dangers of climate change.
The largest factor in this increase is the widespread adoption of coal as an energy source, Field said, “and without aggressive attention societies will continue to focus on the energy sources that are cheapest, and that means coal.”
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When Earth looks bleak, NY Fashion Week designers look to space for inspiration
NEW YORK (AP) — The present looks bleak for the fashion industry, so designers at Fashion Week have a solution: the future.
Space-age materials and clothes with jutting hips and shoulders made a Jetsons-like splash on Saturday at New York Fashion Week.
Even Barbie, celebrating her 50th birthday, got in on the act. A fashion show with 50 designs inspired by the doll closed with a series of futuristic dresses including a white Calvin Klein dress with cut-out shoulders. Heidi Klum sat in the front row, looking a bit like the plastic muse.
Georges Chakra used liquidy, high-tech fabrics with sharp Jane Jetson shapes, continuing a trend seen in the early going of New York Fashion Week.
BCBG relied on asymmetrical necklines and shoulder pads — yes, they may be back — and put models in metallic tights, which at the right angle on their ultra-thin legs could remind an observer of C-3PO from “Star Wars.”
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Guilty plea by Ohio woman accused of exercising 73-year-old husband to death in swimming pool
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — A woman has pleaded guilty to reckless homicide for exercising her 73-year-old husband to death in a swimming pool, repeatedly refusing to let him leave the water.
Surveillance video showed Christine Newton-John, 41, pulling James Mason around the pool by his arms and legs, said Middlefield police Chief Joseph Stehlik
The chief said he counted 43 times in which Newton-John prevented her husband from leaving the water, and Mason rested his head on the side of the pool several times while gasping for breath.
“The video is bone-chilling,” Stehlik said. “The whole case is very sinister.”
Mason had a heart attack on June 2 after the extended swim session. An officer who had investigated previous complaints that Mason was being abused pursued the case because he suspected there was more to the death, Stehlik said.
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Tony Stewart holds on to win Daytona Nationwide race just hours after wrecking 500 car
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It took Tony Stewart just five hours to go from brooding over his battered Daytona 500 car to celebrating a victory in the season-opening NASCAR Nationwide Series race.
The two-time Cup champion held off a last-lap challenge from Kyle Busch to win the Nationwide race Saturday at Daytona International Speedway.
“After this morning, it’s great,” said Stewart, who lost his Daytona 500 car and that of teammate Ryan Newman to wrecks during morning practice. “This is a good way to rebound.”
Stewart passed 23 cars in 11 laps to get back into contention after pitting with 30 laps to go in the 120-lap Camping World 300, then hung onto the lead as Busch, Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer fought for position.
It was Stewart’s fourth Daytona victory. He also won the second-tier series’ season opener last year in another late-race battle with Busch.
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