More blogs about news.
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Vice President Cheney just administered the oath of office to Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill.
Burris, a former state attorney general, was appointed to fill the vacancy left by President-elect Barack Obama. Gov. Rod Blagojevich is facing federal charges that he tried to sell the seat and other favors.
The former head of faith-based programs in Ohio was arrested Wednesday on charges he promoted prostitution, local news organizations report.
WCMH-TV reports that Robert McFadden, director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland until October 2007, faces seven felony charges, including promotion of prostitution.
He is accused of operating a rate-a-prostitute website, among other things.
Keith Dailey, Strickland's press secretary, tells the Dayton Daily News that "this is a very sad, shocking and appalling situation."
"Police said they believe McFadden was 'Toby,' the man they have been looking for during the past two months after busting up a prostitution ring from a home on Front Street in which prostitutes were raffled off on Craig’s List," the station says.
Investigators tell the Dispatch that McFadden is also accused of posting photographs of a 17-year-old prostitute on the Internet. "McFadden, who told police yesterday that he is unemployed, was laid off by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in March because of budget cuts," the paper says.
Kim Jong Il has named his youngest son to succeed him as leader of North Korea, a South Korean news organization reports, citing anonymous sources.
Yonhap News says Kim Jong Un, 25, was educated in Switzerland. "After his return to Pyongyang in his late teens, the North has kept him under a shroud of secrecy and very little is known about his character," the news agency says.
Kim, 66, has run the so-called Hermit Kingdom since his father, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994.
Here's our wire story with the latest news from North Korea. The older Kim's health has been questioned in recent months, but there's no reason to believe that we'll see a regime change anytime soon.
Hamas says Interior Minister Said Siam was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip, according to Reuters and the Associated Press.
The 50-year-old was a top member of the Hamas-led government. The Jerusalem Post says he was in charge of "various security apparatuses" in the territory.
"Siam's brother Ayad and the head of Hamas' security organization in Gaza, Salah Abu Sharah, were also killed in the strike. Palestinian sources reported that 20 other people were injured in the attack," Ynetnews reports on its website.
(Photo of Palestinians looking at the crater taken by Khalil Hamra, AP.)
USA TODAY's Donna Leinwand says Attorney General-designate Eric Holder just told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of the first things he needs to do is make a "damage assessment" of what harm has been done to the Justice Department during the Bush administration.
Holder, noting the criticisms contained in recent investigative reports, says the department's reputation has been hurt.
(Photo by Jonathan Ernst, Reuters.)
If you live in Lithuania, please be sure to pay your bills.
We offer this bit of sage advice because one of that country's debt-collection firms has hired a witch to help pursue deadbeats.
"There are certain people, who are using this crisis situation and refuse to pay back banks or other companies," Amantas Celkonas, director of the Skolu Isieskojimo Biuras, tells the Associated Press. "Our new employee will help them to understand the situation, reconsider what is right and wrong and act accordingly. We will also help those who are in real trouble, suffering from psychological impact of bankruptcy and depression."
A former FBI agent was sentenced this morning to 40 years in prison for his role in a 1982 murder, The Boston Globe reports.
The paper says John Connolly Jr., 68, was convicted in October of second-degree murder after prosecutors convinced a jury that he had shared information with a mob boss that led to the execution of a potential witness.
"Mr. Connolly, as you befriended murderers like James 'Whitey' Bulger and Stevie Flemmi, you left, as the jury found, law enforcement and you forfeited that badge that so many people wear proudly and you became part of this criminal organization," Judge Stanford Blake said, according to the paper.
The Miami Herald has more on today's sentencing.
Three Red Cross workers were kidnapped today in the Philippines, reports say.
AFP says three employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross were seized during a humanitarian mission on Jolo island. A military spokesman tells the Associated Press that the gunmen "were probably Abu Sayyaf." (Reuters has more on this Islamist group.)
GMA News says the government ordered military forces to mount "all-out operations" to rescue the trio, which includes Swiss and Italian nationals, along with one Filipino.
"There will be no work stoppage. Our humanitarian work on the ground will continue," ICRC spokesman Roland Bigler tells AFP.
The Los Angeles Police Department is reviewing the fingerprint analysis that was used in nearly 1,000 cases because of "critical errors" that six examiners made in other cases, the Times reports.
"Our goal is to go through all of [the cases] within about three months, starting with the D.A.'s priorities," Deputy Chief Charlie Beck tells the newspaper.
We told you in October that at least two innocent people had been arrested because of mistaken identifications by the LAPD's fingerprint analysis unit. Since then, the Times says, one analyst has been fired and others have been disciplined.
Hatem Moussa of the Associated Press took this photograph of U.N. workers and Palestinian firefighters trying to extinguish fires that were ignited after Israeli forces shelled a United Nations building that was used to store food aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon expressed "outrage" over the incident. Israel's defense minister reportedly described it as a "grave mistake."
The Associated Press quotes an anonymous Israeli military official who says his country's troops came under fire from Hamas militants who were inside the compound. AP reports "the officer says troops opened fire after militants inside the compound shot anti-tank weapons and machine guns. He says the troops used 155 mm artillery shells."
Reuters says about 700 Palestinians had sought refuge inside the U.N. Relief Works Agency compound.
Good morning. It's Thursday. Here's what's making news right now:
Gaza: Israel shelled a United Nations building in the Gaza Strip, setting fire to humanitarian supplies, CNN reports. "It's a very big fire, and we're not able to get it under control at the moment," John Ging, head of local operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, tells the news channel.
Security: The New York Times, like USA TODAY, describes the "security net" that federal and local law-enforcement agencies are placing over Washington next week for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president.
“We worry about normal criminal activity, we worry about terrorism and we worry about medical issues,” U.S. Park Police Chief Salvatore Lauro tells the Times. “But what keeps me up at night is the weather. It could be very uncomfortable for everyone. We’re just hoping for a nice January day.”
Transition: The Wall Street Journal says Timothy Geithner, Obama's pick for Treasury secretary, "was repeatedly advised in writing by the International Monetary Fund that he would be responsible for any Social Security and Medicare taxes he owed on income he earned at the IMF between 2001 and 2004."
His failure to pay those taxes when they were due has become an issue during the confirmation process.
"Stuart Levey, currently a Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, will effectively run the department until a successor for current Secretary Henry Paulson is confirmed," the paper says.
Thursday's busy horizon:
• Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 80th birthday of the slain civil rights leader. The federal holiday will be marked on Monday.
• President Bush delivers a televised farewell to the nation at 8 p.m. ET.
• The U.S. Climate Action Partnership announces what's billed as a "landmark" climate-protection initiative. Business and enviornmental leaders will be there.
• The Labor Department releases the weekly jobless claims and the producer price index for December.
• Confirmation hearings: The Senate Judiciary Committee vets Eric Holder to be attorney general. The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee takes up the nominations of Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christina Romer to head the Council of Economic Advisers and Daniel Tarullo to be a member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors.
• The Senate Budget Committee holds a hearing on the national debt.
• The outgoing President of the U.S. Senate — Vice President Cheney — and his replacement — Vice President-elect Joe Biden — deliver their respective goodbyes to senators.
• At the White House, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice preside over a ceremony highlighting what the administration's cites as its foreign policy achievements since 2001.
• Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney discusses counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia.
• Life on Mars? NASA discusses an analysis of the Martian atmosphere that raises the possibility of life or geologic activity.
Two notable Hollywood deaths announced today:
Ricardo Montalban, best remembered as the white-suit-wearing, wish-fulfilling Mr. Roarke in TV's Fantasy Island, died at home this morning of "complications related to old age," his son said. He was 88. The Los Angeles Times writes that Montalban, who starred in MGM musicals, was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood. He also was known for 1970s commercials pitching the Chrysler Corboda and its "Corinthian leather" interior.
Here he is dancing with Cyd Charisse, who died last year:
Also in L.A., Patrick McGoohan, the star of the 1960s cult show The Prisoner, was 80 when he died yesterday after "a short illness." He won Emmy awards for his work on the TV detective series Columbo, which starred Peter Falk.
He first starred in the mid-1960s British spy series Secret Agent (cue up the famous theme song), but gained larger notoriety a few years later in The Prisoner. In the dystopian tale of espionage, government surveillance and imprisonment, McGoohan's character, Number Six, spends the entire series trying to escape "The Village" and learn the identity of his jailer, Number One. At the beginning of each episode, McGoohan's character shouts at an all-seeing camera eye, "I am not a number, I am a free man!"
Behold The Prisoner's opening:
Read the obituaries from the Los Angeles Times and Wired.
In a victory for law enforcement, the Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors can, in some instances, use evidence obtained from illegal police searches.
USA TODAY's Joan Biskupic explains the ruling on the exclusionary rule, which upheld an Alabama man's conviction on drug and weapon charges:
When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search arise from "negligence … rather than systematic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements," evidence need not be kept from trial, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. Roberts was joined by the four other conservative justices.The four liberals dissented. They said that because the search violated the Fourth Amendment, the evidence should have been excluded.
"The most serious impact of the court's holding will be on innocent persons wrongfully arrested based on erroneous information carelessly maintained in a computer database," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for dissenters.
The New York Times writes that the decision will most likely please those who complain about criminals going free on “technicalities” and alarm those who fear that the high court is looking for ways to narrow the reach of the exclusionary rule.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bank of America is close to receiving billions more from the U.S. Treasury so it can complete its acquisition of Merrill Lynch. BofA, the nation's largest bank, already has received $25 billion from the $700 billion taxpayer-funded bank bailout program.
Citing "people familiar with the situation," the Journal says BofA told Treasury last month that it was unlikely to complete the deal because of Merrill's larger-than-expected losses in the fourth quarter.
More fallout from the drought in consumer spending: Motorola will be cutting 4,000 jobs this year as mobile-phone sales slump. That's on top 3,000 job cuts announced last year
Co-Chief Executive Officers Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha also cut executive pay and froze U.S. pension plans.
Bloomberg and MarketWatch have details.
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs says he will go on leave, citing "more complex" health problems.
The medical leave is to last through June, though he will remain involved in major decisions, the company said.
Last week he announced he was suffering from a hormone imbalance but had no plans to leave the company. Here's what he said:
As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.
The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.
Here's what he said in an e-mail to employees today, according to News.com:
Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.
Information Week now wonders, "Did Apple Lie About Steve Jobs's Health?"
Update at 5:16 p.m. ET: Here's the full text of his announcement.
In after-hours trading, Apple shares have dropped more than 7%. They had been down more than 10%.
(AP file photos.)
A blood-red day on Wall Street ended with deep losses across the board — stocks, bond yields, oil, precious metals, the dollar. Any guesses why?
The Dow Jones lost 2.9% (248 points) to close at 8,200. The S&P 500 dropped 3.3% (29 points) to 842. The Nasdaq tumbled 3.6% (56 points) to 1,489. The Russell 2000 swooned 4.3% (20 points) to 453.
Briefing.com noted with an hour to go that roughly 93% of the companies in the S&P 500 were in the red, as were all 30 components of the Dow.
The day's pile driver? The Commerce Department's report showing retail sales in December dropped 2.7%. Analysts had predicted a 1.2% decline. It was the sixth-straight monthly decline, a record. Don't forget the main pillar of our way of life: "Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity."
Another daily downer for investors was the growing worry that Citigroup is still foundering and might not survive. Recall that yesterday Citi sold a controlling share of its Smith Barney brokerage to Morgan Stanley for $2.7 billion.
“The economy is going to feel really bad and we’ll continue to get negative headline news,” Eric Green, director of research at Penn Capital Management, told Bloomberrg. “There’s massive stimulus that we’ve never seen before coming. That will help the consumer.”
Will it? What do you think?
The police in Mobile, Ala., say they hope to identify a man suspected of breaking into cars through the "homemade sex tape he left behind in an abandoned sport utility vehicle," according to the Press-Register.
The paper says Lt. Mike "Morgan said investigators do not believe the man on the tape owns the SUV, but that he has been using it without permission."
Ismail Taxta of Reuters took this photograph of a militant holding a machine gun today at a site that Ethiopian troops vacated in Mogadishu, Somalia.
AFP reports that 14 civilians died today in clashes in the capital of this war-torn country. "The violence comes a day after neighboring Ethiopia handed over security duties following a two-year deployment in Somalia. The Ethiopian army, one of Africa's largest, was viewed by many Somalis as abusive and heavy-handed," AP reports. "But few expect the Somali government can ensure security even with the help of the Islamist faction with which it has agreed to share power."
A man shot up a school bus this morning in Chicago, the Tribune reports. The paper quotes a fire department spokesman who says two children have minor injuries, "possibly from shattering glass."
We'll update this posting as we learn more about the incident.
Update at 1:51 p.m. ET: AP says no students were shot.
More than a thousand Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched it military operations in the Gaza Strip, Reuters and AP report.
The fighting, preceded by Hamas rocket fire, has claimed the lives of 13 Israelis, according to the news agencies.
The U.S. Postal Service wants to fire a letter carrier because she left her route last month after a bank robbery suspect shot her fiance in the neck, The Greenville News reports.
Tammy Rochester tells the paper that she received a "notice of removal" earlier this month that says she will be on the street in 30 days because of her actions after the shooting. "The mail was not secured properly. It was abandoned in the vehicle and left out in the public," the notice says, according to the paper.
The News reports that postal officials wouldn't comment on the personnel action. The union says it plans to fight to save Rochester's job.
Her boyfriend, David Dill, is recovering from his wounds. The paper says a suspect is in custody.
(Photo by Bart Boatwright, The Greenville News.)
Update at 2:17 p.m. ET: AP is once again reporting that two people died after the 18-foot boat capsized.
Update at 1:19 p.m. ET: AP just moved an alert that changes a key fact about this story.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- Virginia Beach police say 1 dead, not 2, after boat capsizes in Chesapeake Bay; 5 rescued.
We have changed the headline to conform to the latest report.
Original posting at 11:31 a.m. ET: Two people died when a boat capsized this morning, sending six people into the frigid waters off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va., the U.S. Coast Guard tells the Associated Press. WTKR-TV says it confirmed the fatalities.
Today's tip: If you find an extra $177,250 in your bank account, don't start living the high life.
That's what a Pennsylvania couple is accused of doing after FNB Bank mixed up a $1,772.50 check they deposited last summer.
"When the big balance showed up investigators say the two wrote checks to another account, bought a new vehicle and were buying a house in the Orlando area when the mistake was traced," AP reports.
They're now facing criminal charges.
Alexander Demianchuk of Reuters took this photograph of two women holding up a painting by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that will be auctioned off Saturday for a charity in St. Petersburg.
Pravda says participants were asked to paint something based on Gogol’s Christmas Eve.
"Putin took hand to brush at the end of December when he visited a Christmas fair in his hometown, painting a 'U' and the word uzor, or pattern, and a window with curtains with a red pattern on them," The Moscow Times reports. "How much Putin painted of the artwork is unclear, as they were then finished by a professional artist."
Update at 2:32 p.m. ET: Prosecutors say they've filed murder charges against the police officer who shot Oscar Grant., AP reports.
Update at 1:02 p.m. ET: We just received an update from our corporate cousins at the Reno Gazette-Journal:
A former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer waived extradition to California on a murder charge during an appearance this morning in East Fork Justice Court in Minden.
Johannes Mehserle, 27, was ordered returned to California by noon on Friday to answer to a murder charge stemming from an unarmed man being shot New Year's Eve as he lay face down on a subway platform.
Mehserle surrendered without incident Tuesday night to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office when he walked out of a home in the 1000 block of Skyland Drive in Zephyr Cove, the sheriff's office said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Tom Gregory said this morning he did not know why Mehserle was in Zephyr Cove. He is being held in a segregated area of the jail on a health and welfare watch, the sheriff's office said.
Original posting at 10:10 a.m. ET: The transit officer who was caught on tape shooting an unarmed man in Oakland, Calif., has been arrested on suspicion of murder, the Chronicle reports. The paper says Johannes Mehserle, a 27-year-old who resigned from the transit police department after shooting Oscar Grant, was detained yesterday in Nevada.
The shooting sparked protests.
"This is terrific. This is a very important step in healing the community," John Burris, a lawyer for the Grant family, tells the Oakland Tribune.
(Booking photo via Reno Gazette-Journal.)
This video, uploaded to YouTube last month, is said to show Marcus Schrenker flying under a bridge in the Bahamas. Schrenker is accused of crashing a plane Sunday in order to fake his own death and thereby avoid fraud charges in Indiana. Investigators say Schrenker, an accomplished pilot, reported an emergency and then parachuted out of the Piper Malibu before it crashed in the Florida panhandle.
The U.S. Marshals Service tells CNN he was found yesterday in Florida with "deep cuts on his wrists." Schrenker may end up facing federal charges in connection with the crash, in addition to the state charges, the Marshals Service says. Here's more about the case.
Osama bin Laden says in a new audio message that Israel attacked Gaza because of the "great and swift decline in America's influence," CBS News reports.
"Israelis are in a rush to get rid of their enemies in Gaza, and replace them with [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas and his administration, in order for him to protect their backs," the network quotes bin Laden as saying. "They thus carried out this horrific butchery before the end of Bush's term in office before the American weakness shows even more."
Bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, has been in hiding since the United States invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The network says it downloaded the unauthenticated 22-minute-long message from an Islamist website.
The Associated Press says bin Laden criticized governments in the region for keeping Arabs from fighting to "liberate Palestine."
"There is only one strong way to bring the return of Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God," the terrorist leader says, according to AP. "The duty is to urge people to jihad and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades."
"Muslim nation, you are capable of defeating the Zionist entity with your popular capabilities and your great hidden strength -- without the support of [Arab] leaders and despite the fact that most of [the leaders] stand in the barracks of the Crusader-Zionist alliance," he says.
Update at 12:40 p.m. ET: Here's what State Department spokesman Sean McCormack has to say about the latest message from bin Laden:
I think it’s just another propaganda effort. The fact that he releases it in the form that he does, and with the message that he has in which he criticizes Muslim clerics, he criticizes Israel, he criticizes the United States, he criticizes the President-elect. I’m not sure there’s anybody in there that he doesn’t criticize except for himself, which I take as a sign of his very real isolation. I also take it as a sign that al-Qaida has largely been driven from the heart of the Middle East, Iraq, in that fight. Yet, it is also an indication that al-Qaida and bin Ladin are still out there, and that continued vigilance from the – to protect against the threat that still exists is required.
