Officials: Obama to call for more spending on roads, railways, airports to stimulate economy
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vowing to find new ways to stimulate the sputtering economy, President Barack Obama will call for long-term investments in the nation's roads, railways and airports that would cost at least $50 billion, administration officials said.
The infrastructure investments are one part of a package of targeted proposals the White House is expected to announce in hopes of jump-starting the economy ahead of the November election. Obama will outline the infrastructure proposal Monday at a Labor Day event in Milwaukee.
While the proposal calls for investments over six years, officials said spending would be front-loaded with an initial $50 billion to help create jobs in the near future. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proposals ahead of the president's announcement.
The goals of the infrastructure plan include: rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads; constructing and maintaining 4,000 miles of railways, enough to go coast-to-coast; and rehabilitating or reconstructing 150 miles of airport runways, while also installing a new air navigation system designed to reduce travel times and delays.
Obama will also call for the creation of a permanent infrastructure bank that would focus on funding national and regional infrastructure projects.
Tropical Storm Hermine forms in Gulf; tropical storm warning issued for south Texas coast
MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Hermine has formed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas.
A new tropical storm warning has been issued early Monday for the south Texas coast from the mouth of the Rio Grande to Baffin Bay. A tropical storm warning was already in effect for the coast of Mexico from Tampico to the mouth of the Rio Grande.
Hermine's maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph (65 kph) with some additional strengthening expected before the storm makes landfall.
Heavy rain is predicted with northeastern Mexico into south Texas getting 4 to 8 inches with as much as a foot in some places. It could cause flash floods and mudslides.
The storm is located about 235 miles (375 kilometers) southeast of La Pesca, Mexico, and is moving north near 8 mph (13 kph).
Suicide attack on police station in NW Pakistan kills 17 officers and civilians
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A Taliban suicide bomber detonated a car in an alley behind a police station in a strategically important town in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 17 police and civilians in an explosion that shattered the station and neighboring homes.
About 40 people were wounded in the attack in Lakki Marwat, which sits on the main road between Punjab province, Pakistan's largest and most prosperous, and the North and South Waziristan tribal regions. A Pakistani army offensive pushed many militants out of South Waziristan in October. The militants still control much of North Waziristan, where U.S. drone aircraft have been conducting a campaign of targeted killings.
Rescue workers and police officials were digging through rubble at the station in the town of Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police official Ghulam Mohammad Khan said. Nine police officers, four adult civilians and four children going to school were slain in the attack.
Police official Liaquat Ali said 45 police were in the building when the bomber struck.
Local TV footage showed emergency workers using heavy machinery to move the rubble of the mostly destroyed police station. Books and a schoolbag could be seen in the wreckage and the twisted frames of a motorcycle and a car sat nearby. A neighborhood shop and mosque also were partly destroyed.
Israeli FM says his party will block extension of settlement slowdown, threatening talks
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's hard-line foreign minister said Sunday that his party will try to block any extension of Israel's settlement slowdown, a move that could derail the recently launched Mideast peace negotiations.
Avigdor Lieberman said the Israeli government must keep its explicit promise to voters that the 10-month slowdown, declared under U.S. pressure in order to draw the Palestinians to the negotiating table, will end as scheduled at the end of September.
The Sept. 26 deadline is a challenge for the fragile talks launched in Washington last week. The Palestinians say they will quit the talks if the slowdown ends, but extending it could potentially bring down the Israeli government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to say how he will handle the deadline.
"A promise is a promise," Lieberman told Israel Radio. "We will not agree to any extension."
Massive earthquake sets back NZ's economic recovery; residents rescued from sinking houses
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's prime minister warned Monday that the country's economic recovery will be hurt by the weekend's powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake that smashed buildings and wrecked roads and rail lines in the city of Christchurch.
The aftereffects of the temblor are still coming to light. Residents in a new subdivision in a southern suburb were evacuated Monday from their houses, which became mired in deep layers of silt that spewed from the soft ground as it turned to liquid under pressure from the quake.
"We thought we were having a tsunami," said homeowner Lalita Sharma. "We stepped outside into knee-high liquid. We thought the house would sink."
Mounds of sand covered front lawns and driveways, and some houses had been ripped from their foundations. A driveway that had sloped upward from the road was now flat, the rose garden buried in sand.
Army troops have taken control of central Christchurch to help police secure streets and badly damaged businesses in the worst-hit center of the city. The area remained cordoned off and under nighttime curfew, with only building and business owners allowed access.
Officials say at least 38 die in Guatemala mudslides; 2 buses buried on highway
NAHUALA, Guatemala (AP) — Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud.
In the village of Nahuala, about 200 rescue workers suspended the search for bodies Sunday afternoon after heavy rain fell in the area, Civil Protection spokesman David de Leon said.
Two slides in the same spot in the town of Nahuala killed at least 20 along a highway leading northwest of the capital toward Mexico. Another slide closer to Guatemala City killed at least 12.
"We will return when the rain ceases," De Leon said. "It is difficult and dangerous to continue with the search."
Suagustino Pascual Tuy, a Nahuala police officer, said he and several others rushed to the highway with picks and shovels after hearing radio reports of the fallen earth, which had buried two pickup trucks and a bus at kilometer 171 of the Inter-American highway.
Despite formal end to combat, US forces help battle attackers at Baghdad military headquarters
BAGHDAD (AP) — Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.
It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.
The attack also made plain the kind of lapses in security that have left Iraqis wary of the U.S. drawdown and distrustful of the ability of Iraqi forces now taking up ultimate responsibility for protecting the country.
Sunday's hour-long assault was the second in as many weeks on the facility, the headquarters for the Iraqi Army's 11th Division, pointing to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security.
Two of the four attackers even managed to fight their way inside the compound and were only killed after running out of ammunition and detonating explosives belts they were wearing.
Future hiring will generate mainly high-skilled or low-paying jobs in service industries
Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job-seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay — or none at all.
Job creation will likely remain weak for months or even years. But once employers do step up hiring, some economists expect job openings to fall mainly into two categories of roughly equal numbers:
— Professional fields with higher pay. Think lawyers, research scientists and software engineers.
— Lower-skill and lower-paying jobs, like home health care aides and store clerks.
And those in between? Their outlook is bleaker. Economists foresee fewer moderately paid factory supervisors, postal workers and office administrators.
Va.'s Black Widow gobbles up 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes to win NY contest, set record
NEW YORK (AP) — The Black Widow of eating contests gobbled up nearly 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes, devouring the national championship record in Buffalo on Sunday.
"I'm so happy!" said Sonya Thomas, who ate 4.86 pounds of chicken wings to win the contest, besting world eating marvel Joey Chestnut at the ninth annual National Buffalo Wing Festival.
Buffalo, about 300 miles northwest of New York, is said to be the birthplace of the wings, typically fried and covered in tangy vinegar and hot sauce.
Chestnut, America's No. 1 professional eater, was favored to win Sunday's competition. He came in second after eating 169 chicken wings, or 4.55 pounds.
This was the first time Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., and Chestnut, of San Jose, Calif., faced off in a chicken wing eating contest. They went at it "neck and neck," said Drew Cerza, the founder of the festival, which was inspired by the 2001 Bill Murray comedy "Osmosis Jones," about a compulsive eater.
Age, rankings 'just a number' for American players at US Open
NEW YORK (AP) — Venus Williams says 30 is the new 20. Sam Querrey likes to think 20 could be No. 1.
Thirty-year-old Williams is talking about age, and No. 20 Querrey is talking about seeding, but both are talking about the same thing when it comes to the U.S. Open.
They'd like to be the ones to put America back on top at its own national championship.
"The average sports fan basically watches the Grand Slams," Querrey said after his third-round win over No. 14 Nicolas Almagro on Sunday. "If you don't have a guy in the finals or winning one of those, in tennis, you really don't get a lot of recognition."
Querrey and 19th-seeded Mardy Fish, who plays No. 3 Novak Djokovic on Monday, are still long shots — but the only two remaining hopes for the United States to break a seven-year drought without a men's champion.
World stock markets climb as fears of US slowdown and double-dip recession ease
LONDON (AP) — World stock markets advanced modestly Monday as investors rode momentum from Friday, when an upbeat U.S. jobs report eased fears that the global economy could slip back into recession.
With Wall Street closed for a holiday, however, trading was expected to remain light.
Markets took heart after official data last week showed private employers in the U.S. added 67,000 jobs in August, more than analysts expected.
The figure bolstered optimism that the U.S. will maintain a slow but steady recovery from last year's recession and avoid another economic contraction later this year.
In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 index was up 0.2 percent at 5,437.95, Germany's DAX was 0.2 percent higher at 6,144.08 and France's CAC-40 was up 0.1 percent at 3,676.74.
Who will define ground zero? 9 years after 9/11, tug of war over 'sacred ground' grows heated
NEW YORK (AP) — It is a place of sacrifice. A place of mourning. A place people pass by on their way to grab lunch. It's a place where tourists crane their necks to snatch a glimpse around barriers walling off an enormous construction site — which is also what it is.
Ground zero.
Depending on whom you talk to, it's a scar on this city where horror still lingers, a bustling hive symbolizing the resilience of a nation, or simply, for those who live and work nearby, a place where life goes on.
In recent weeks, as debate has raged over the placement of a planned Islamic cultural center and mosque a couple of blocks from the construction, Americans have been reminded of just how many people lay claim to this place, the focal point for all those who have a stake in the legacy of Sept. 11.
Almost everyone has a stake.
'Censoring' of Craigslist's adult services section only drives online prostitution underground
NEW YORK (AP) — Craiglist's "adult services" section has been shut down in the U.S., but prostitution on the Internet is alive and well — even, quite possibly, on Craigslist.
Users of the website and its CEO grouse that the Internet is still full of sites where people can find prostitutes. As for the massive online classifieds site itself, many personal ads, which remain on the site, appear to be thinly veiled solicitations of sex for sale.
State attorneys general had pressed Craigslist to do more to block potentially illegal ads promoting prostitution, and hailed the company's decision to take down its adult services section on Saturday. But like other illegal online activities targeted with prosecution or lawsuits, including gambling, child pornography and unauthorized music downloads, shutting down one outlet simply sends many users running to others.
John Palfrey, a Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said the move from Craigslist was still a victory because it moved the ads off a highly visible location.
"Will people be able to find these ads online? The answer is almost certainly," he said. "Will they be able to find these on legitimate sites? I think the answer is probably not."
Congo boat safety questioned as 2 unrelated boat capsizes leave 70 dead, 200 feared dead
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Two boats capsized over the weekend in separate incidents on Congo's vast rivers, leaving 70 people dead and 200 others feared dead, and both vessels were heavily loaded and operating with few safety measures, officials said Sunday.
Early on Saturday, a boat on a river in northwest Equateur Province hit a rock and capsized, provincial spokeswoman Ebale Engumba said Sunday. She said more than 70 people are believed dead among 100 estimated passengers. She said officials are investigating why the boat was traveling through the darkness without a light.
In a separate incident in Kasai Occidental Province, 200 people were feared dead after a boat loaded with passengers and fuel drums caught fire and capsized in southern Congo, a survivor said Sunday. Another survivor confirmed the account and said local fishermen refused to help drowning passengers who jumped off the crowded boat.
The incident in southern Congo would be the deadliest boat accident in the Central African nation this year, and among the worst in Africa this year.
The boats that traverse Congo's rivers are often in poor repair and filled beyond capacity. The industry is not well-regulated and boat operators are known to fill boats to dangerous levels.
If you want cheapskates to pull out their wallets, tell them gadget will save them money
NEW YORK (AP) — How do you get penny pinchers to spend these days? Pitch products that promise to save them money.
Demand is rising for kitchen and bath gadgets that squeeze out that last blob of toothpaste and help get the suds out of tiny slivers of soap.
Marketers of these gizmos tout how the pennies they save by reducing waste can add up. Retailers are stocking up.
During the Great Recession, penny pinchers got even cheaper, while showing the newly frugal how it's done. Cheapskate gadgets may be a sign of the times, but they're also a sign of how product makers and retailers are trying to get people back in the spending habit.
Big companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and The Container Store and a longtime "As Seen on TV" pitchman are stocking up on items claiming to help people save a buck, such as:
