Daily News Clips for Thursday, January 6, 2010
HEADLINES
The Washington Post
Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane
The House and the Senate have a split personality by design, but Wednesday's debut of the 112th Congress revealed a stark contrast between the two chambers that could define the direction of every major debate over the next two years.
Felicia Sonmez
The new 112th Congress has already made a little bit of history, but on Thursday it looks to make some more with the first-ever reading of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor.
Felicia Sonmez
The new congress convenes for the first time Wednesday with a full schedule of events. We have full coverage the first day of the new Congress, complete with live video of the swearing in ceremony and what you're saying on Twitter.
Amy Goldstein
The nation's expenditures on health care in 2009 grew by 4 percent, the smallest increase in at least a half-century, according to new federal figures that suggest Americans stinted on medical services as they lost jobs and insurance in the recent recession.
Steven Mufson
The presidential oil spill commission on Wednesday blamed the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year on "missteps and oversights" by oil giant BP, rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton, saying those errors were "rooted in systemic failures" and could happen again.
Nia-Malika Henderson
It's official --first lady Michelle Obama has a new chief of staff, the White House announced Wednesday.
Ed O’Keefe
The deral Emergency Management Agency hasn't recouped about $643 million in federal disaster relief funds that were potentially improperly distributed to about 160,000 victims of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters improperly, according to a watchdog report.
David S. HIlzenrath
The Internal Revenue Service's increasing use of "hard-core" collection tactics "is inflicting unnecessary harm on financially struggling taxpayers," an in-house critic at the IRS said Wednesday.
Lyndsey Layton and John Wagner
Joshua M. Sharfstein, the second-in-command at the Food and Drug Administration, is leaving that post after less than two years to become Maryland's top public health official, Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday.
Steve Hendrix
In the early 1960s, the varsity basketball team and the fraternities at George Washington University were all-white clubs, but change was in the air.
LONDON -- The first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on the widely discredited research.
The New York Times
William Yong and Alan Cowell
TEHRAN — Iranian authorities have arrested a 55-year-old American woman on suspicion of spying, state-controlled media said on Thursday. The reports said she had espionage equipment concealed in her teeth.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Passengers aboard a Turkish Airlines flight from Oslo overpowered a would-be hijacker as the plane landed at Istanbul airport on Wednesday, fellow passengers told Turkish media.
William Neuman
World food prices continued to rise sharply in December, bringing them close to the crisis levels that provoked shortages and riots in poor countries three years ago, according to newly released United Nations data.
Julia Preston
Conservative legislators from five states opened a national campaign on Wednesday to end the automatic granting of American citizenship to children born in the United States of illegal immigrants.
Matthew Saltmarsh and David Jolly
PARIS — The French government said Thursday that it would seek to bolster secrecy rules for industrial companies after the automaker Renault suspended at least three executives who are suspected of compromising its electric car technology.
LONDON (AP) — The first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on the widely discredited research. Robert Mackey
According to a leaked United States diplomatic cable sent to Washington from the American embassy in Tel Aviv in late 2008, Israeli officials told American diplomats “on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge.”
Roni Caryn Rabin
Many people tend to think that all obese people have to do to solve their problems is eat less and move more. Alcoholics, on the other hand, need treatment.
Duff Wilson
Federal regulators informed the tobacco industry on Wednesday how to disclose, for the first time, any changes to product ingredients, a crucial regulation under the tobacco law President Obama signed in June 2009.
CNN
Paul Steinhauser
A warning Thursday from a Tea Party movement leader to new House Speaker John Boehner. "As you get down to work, there are a few things to remember. You did not become Speaker because America suddenly fell in love with you or the Republican Party.
Ed Henry
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is stepping down as chairman of President Obama's outside economic advisory panel, according to Democratic sources familiar with the move, as the reshuffling of the White House's economic team continues.
Jessica Yellin and Kevin Bohn
Holly Petraeus, the wife of the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, is getting a high profile role of her own.
Abby Livingston
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), the brand-new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform, defended comments he had previously made that President Obama is "one of the most corrupt presidents of modern times."
CNN Political Unit
While new House Speaker John Boehner received the gavel from the new House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Wednesday, President Obama shot back at the Republican agenda saying:
USA Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates is announcing the latest round of cost-cutting measures for the military, including a plan to do away with a new amphibious vehicle that can ferry troops to shore while under fire.
Alan Gomez
Most of the 112 freshman legislators who were sworn into Congress on Wednesday were Republicans, and they weren't shy about what they think that means.
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — The man who attacked the French embassy here by setting alight a small gas cylinder claims he is a member of the al-Qaeda terror network and a Tunisian citizen, police said Thursday.
Kathy Chu
TOKYO — The neon-lit streets of Akihabara, Tokyo's famous electronics district, beckon shoppers with iconic Japanese brands such as Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba.
ATHENS (AP) — A Greek radical anarchist group has threatened to blow up judges officiating over the trial of suspected group members as it claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a powerful blast outside an Athens courthouse.
Elizabeth Weise
It wasn't a secret government spraying program, Martians or gas seeping out of the New Madrid fault that killed the 5,000 or so blackbirds that died New Year's Eve in Beebe, Ark.
Mary Brophy Marcus
Alzheimer's disease, already a national epidemic according to experts, got a lift this week. On Tuesday, President Obama signed the National Alzheimer's Project Act (NAPA) into law.
NEW YORK (AP) — New research found two weeks of treatment with an antibiotic relieves symptoms for some sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome, a poorly understood and painful condition that especially afflicts younger women.
LA Times
Richard Winton
In what authorities are calling a huge credit card fraud scheme, detectives said they have identified nearly 250 victims who used their cards at a Sierra Madre gas station.
Duke Helfand
Another big California health insurer has stunned individual policyholders with huge rate increases — this time it's Blue Shield of California seeking cumulative hikes of as much as 59% for tens of thousands of customers March 1.
Rick Rojas
The Census Bureau, which has expanded its definition of poverty, has calculated that 15.7% of Americans, many of them elderly, are poor and struggling because of rising medical costs and other expenses.
Tracy Wilkinson
La Santa Muerte is cherished by the marginalized, impoverished and sometimes-criminal sector. David Romo, a self-appointed bishop of the church, is accused of kidnapping and money laundering.
A paramedic who was called to the scene of Michael Jackson’s final moments testified Wednesday that he had a “gut feeling” the singer’s physician was not telling the truth as emergency personnel worked to revive the pop icon.
CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers have offered a job to a homeless Ohio man with a golden radio voice.
Politico
Jennifer Epstein
The number of voters who identify themselves as Democrats has plunged to its lowest point in over two decades, according to Gallup polling.
Kim Hart
K Street is descending on the Las Vegas Strip. Tech and telecom lobbyists are flocking to the Nevada desert this week for the International Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest gathering of gadget-makers and geeks, where 2,700 companies will tout their newest products starting Thursday.
Jake Sherman
Just hours after taking control of the House, Republicans passed a sweeping set of rules promising transparency and reform.
Josh Gerstein
Just a year or two ago, a lukewarm glass of water and a stern talking-to from President Barack Obama was the most a bank executive could hope for when visiting the White House. Now Obama may ask one to run the place.
Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman
On defense and on its heels after the Republican takeover of Congress and key statehouses, a divided labor movement is coming together for a new campaign that will attempt to go on offense against corporate America.
The Huffington Post – Most Popular
Glenn Beck has been dropped by New York radio station WOR due to poor ratings, the New York Daily News reports.
A Facebook spokesperson has contacted HuffPostTech with the following statement regarding Simone Back's suicide
Americans are rude. I say this not to preach, which is neither my right nor my intention, but as a scientist, a developmental neuroscientist.
President Obama may have sported a commander-in-chief first while in Hawaii, the New York Post reports: flip flops.
What a difference two weeks makes! "The Daily Show" returned last night after a two-week holiday break with a starkly different view of the Obama administration.
TBD
Bruce Depuyt
Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett says Pepco officials have finally come to realize that they face “a real problem” with reliability and communication – and the utility appears committed to improving its performance.
Ryan Kearney
Hannah Bull of Junction City, Kansas: You're not off the hook yet for allegedly pirating the schlocky action flick Far Cry.
Amanda Hess
Drag City DC: Hair and Paint Make a Man What He Ain't, District drag queen Shi-Queeta-Lee's in-the-works reality show, will begin filming this Friday, Jan. 7.
Slate
Jack Shafer
Julian Assange gives everybody headaches. Not just the U.S. Department of State.
Christopher Beam
When it came to serial killing, Stephen Griffiths did everything by the book. He targeted prostitutes in the slums of Bradford, a city in Northern England.
Jacob Weisberg
Gene Sperling, the leading candidate to replace Larry Summers as head of the National Economic Council, has run into a spot of trouble.
David Weigel
The promise tour typically began with sit-downs in 2009 at Tea Party meetings and town halls, where conservative activists put you on the record about the 16th Amendment, the Federal Reserve, and about 100 other things you had to study up on.
David Weigel
The phrase of the day is "power grab." This is not a reference to the prying of the speaker's gavel away from Nancy Pelosi by John Boehner. There's no outrage there.
