News Headlines
Down to the wire: Republican lawmakers insist on big oil pipeline in year-end tax-cut measure
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House backed away from a critical veto threat Friday as top Republicans in Congress served noticed they will extend expiring Social Security payroll tax cuts only if President Barack Obama swiftly decides the fate of a proposed oil pipeline that promises thousands of jobs.
With Republicans talking tough and lawmakers from both parties anxious to leave for the holidays, Obama spokesman Jay Carney declined several times to repeat Obama’s earlier statement that he would reject any attempt to link the tax cuts and the Canada-to-Texas pipeline. “There’s a process at work. I’m not going to analyze what language would be acceptable and what wouldn’t,” Carney told reporters.
He made his comments as Republican and Democratic leaders sought a compromise on legislation to renew the tax cuts and long-term jobless benefits that are at the heart of the jobs program that Obama submitted to Congress last fall.
Racing to adjourn for the year, lawmakers moved swiftly to clear separate legislation avoiding a partial government shutdown threatened for midnight — focusing attention on the final disputed issue in a tempestuous year of divided government in an era of high joblessness and public dissatisfaction with Congress.
Obama has said extensions of the tax cuts and unemployment benefits are necessary to help nurture an economic recovery while also sustaining victims of the recession. Republicans injected the pipeline project into the legislation after the president postponed a decision on the long-studied project until after the 2012 elections.
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Penn St. coach says he saw Sandusky molest boy in shower, told Paterno and school officials
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — As soon as he walked into the Penn State locker room, Mike McQueary heard running water and rhythmic, slapping sounds of “skin on skin.” He looked in a mirror and saw a naked Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant coach, holding a young boy by the waist from behind, up against the wall in the campus shower.
“I just saw Coach Sandusky in the showers with a boy and what I saw was wrong and sexual,” McQueary recalled telling his father that night in 2002. He repeated it the next morning to coach Joe Paterno, who slumped deep into his chair at his kitchen table.
“He said, ‘I’m sorry you had to see that,'” McQueary said.
McQueary’s testimony Friday at a preliminary hearing for two Penn State officials accused of covering up the story was the most detailed, public account yet of the child sex abuse allegations that have upended the university’s football program and the entire central Pennsylvania campus. Paterno and the university president have lost their jobs, and officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz are accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them.
A Pennsylvania judge on Friday held Curley, the university’s athletic director, and Schultz, a retired senior vice president, for trial after the daylong hearing.
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6 ex-Fannie, Freddie executives charged with civil fraud over risky subprime mortgages
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former CEOs at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Friday became the highest-profile individuals to be charged in connection with the 2008 financial crisis.
In a lawsuit filed in New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil fraud charges against six former executives at the two firms, including former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron.
The executives were accused of understating the level of high-risk subprime mortgages that Fannie and Freddie held just before the housing bubble burst.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives told the world that their subprime exposure was substantially smaller than it really was,” said Robert Khuzami, SEC’s enforcement director.
Khuzami noted that huge losses on their subprime loans eventually pushed the two companies to the brink of failure and forced the government to take them over.
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A torrent of bad financial news flows out of Europe; 6 nations face possible downgrade
DUBLIN (AP) — Alarming financial news flowed out of Europe in a torrent Friday, just a week after the EU leaders struck a deal they thought would contain the continent’s debt crisis.
The bombardment shredded hopes of a lasting solution to the turmoil that is endangering the euro — the currency used by 17 European nations — and threatening the entire global economy.
In quick succession:
— The Fitch Ratings agency announced it was considering further cuts to the credit scores of six eurozone nations — heavyweights Italy and Spain, as well as Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland and Slovenia. It said all six could face downgrades of one or two notches.
— Ireland’s economy shrunk again much deeper than had been expected, with its third-quarter gross domestic product falling 1.9 percent. Ireland is one of three eurozone nations kept solvent only by an international bailout.
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Commission says thousands suffered abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions, archbishop apologizes
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — As many as 20,000 children endured sexual abuse at Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials failed to adequately address it or help the victims, according to a long-awaited investigative report released Friday.
The findings detailed some of the most widespread abuse yet linked to the Roman Catholic Church, which has been under fire for years over abuse allegations in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
Based on a survey of 34,000 people, the report estimated that 1 in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of sexual abuse — a figure that rose to 1 in 5 among children who spent part of their youth in an institution such as a boarding school or children’s home, whether Catholic or not.
“Sexual abuse of minors,” it said bluntly, “occurs widely in Dutch society.”
The findings prompted the archbishop of Utrecht, Wim Eijk, to apologize to victims on behalf of the Dutch church, saying the report “fills us with shame and sorrow.”
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Suspected hazing death of Florida A&M drum major ruled homicide by blunt force trauma
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida A&M University drum major whose death revealed a culture of hazing within the school’s famed marching band died from shock caused by internal bleeding after suffering blunt force trauma, officials said Friday.
Robert Champion, 26, had bruises to his chest, arms, shoulder and back and suffered bleeding from soft tissues, causing him to go into shock, the medical examiner’s office in Orlando said. The autopsy said Champion was vomiting before becoming unresponsive Nov. 19 aboard a band bus outside an Orlando hotel after the school’s football team lost to rival Bethune-Cookman.
The drum major’s death led to the suspension of longtime band director Julian White and the end of band performances for the near future. Four students suspected of involvement in hazing were briefly expelled from the school. They were reinstated after state police asked the school to stop any disciplinary action until a criminal investigation is finished.
Champion’s death also triggered a criminal investigation by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Any death involving hazing is a third-degree felony in Florida, but so far no charges have been filed.
Another band member suffered a broken thigh bone in early November after she says she was beaten during a hazing ritual. Three former band members have been arrested in that case.
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AP IMPACT: ‘I’m being punished for living right’: Background check system is haunted by errors
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A clerical error landed Kathleen Casey on the streets.
Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, Casey applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.
It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.
There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.
Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.
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Take that Icarus: Comet shows you can get really close to sun and survive, amazing astronomers
WASHINGTON (AP) — A small comet survived what astronomers figured would be a sure death when it danced uncomfortably close to the broiling sun.
Comet Lovejoy, which was only discovered a couple of weeks ago, was supposed to melt Thursday night when it came close to where temperatures hit several million degrees. Astronomers had tracked 2,000 other sun-grazing comets make the same suicidal trip. None had ever survived.
But astronomers watching live with NASA telescopes first saw the sun’s corona wiggle as Lovejoy went close to the sun. They were then shocked when a bright spot emerged on the sun’s other side. Lovejoy lived.
“I was delighted when I saw it go into the sun and I was astounded when I saw something re-emerge,” said U.S. Navy solar researcher Karl Battams.
Lovejoy didn’t exactly come out of its hellish adventure unscathed. Only 10 percent of the comet — which was probably millions of tons — survived the encounter, said W. Dean Pesnell, project scientist for NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which tracked Lovejoy’s death-defying plunge.
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Christopher Hitchens, militant pundit, essayist and author dies after long battle with cancer
Cancer weakened but did not soften Christopher Hitchens. He did not repent or forgive or ask for pity. As if granted diplomatic immunity, his mind’s eye looked plainly upon the attack and counterattack of disease and treatments that robbed him of his hair, his stamina, his speaking voice and eventually his life.
“I love the imagery of struggle,” he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. “I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.”
Hitchens, a Washington, D.C.-based author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes left and right, died Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Vanity Fair magazine. He was 62.
“There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar,” said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. “Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls.”
He had enjoyed his drink (enough to “to kill or stun the average mule”) and cigarettes, until he announced in June 2010 that he was being treated for cancer of the esophagus.
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Britney Spears engaged to marry her longtime boyfriend and former agent Jason Trawick
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears is ready to walk down the aisle for the third time. The 30-year-old pop star has agreed to marry her longtime boyfriend and former agent Jason Trawick.
Trawick announced Friday on “Access Hollywood” that he and Spears are engaged. The two have been dating since 2009.
Spears hinted at the big news with a tweet Friday morning that read, “OMG. Last night Jason surprised me with the one gift I’ve been waiting for. Can’t wait to show you! SO SO SO excited!!!!”
Spears was previously married to Kevin Federline, with whom she has two sons: 6-year-old Sean Preston and 5-year-old Jayden James. The couple divorced in 2006. Spears also briefly wed childhood friend Jason Alexander in 2004, but the marriage was annulled after 55 hours.
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