heraldsun.com: nation/world

Fed sees economic woes persisting into next year
WASHINGTON -- Pounded by a fierce financial crisis, the country is sinking deeper into economic despair that has pushed the number of newly laid-off workers to a 16-year high, with problems likely to stretch well into next year.

The New Frugality: Americans return to thriftiness
Frugality is making a comeback. Fearful that economic conditions could get worse and stay that way, Americans are showing an enthusiasm for thriftiness not seen in decades.

AP/Seth Wenig

Shoppers look over the merchandise at the discount department store T.J. Maxx in New York on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008. Call it The New Frugal. By necessity _ and out of fear that economic conditions could get even worse and stay that way for a while _ thriftiness is making a comeback in America.


National	Africa
Washington	Asia
Elections	Latin America & Caribbean
Canada	Middle East
Europe	Australia & New Zealand

•	Dems: Napolitano emerges for Homeland Security job
	Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, an early Barack Obama supporter from the southwestern part of the country, is the likely choice for the job of secretary of homeland security, a top Obama adviser said Thursday.

•	Hillary Clinton weighing secretary of state post
	Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to publicly disclose the names of most donors to his presidential foundation and library, a significant concession aimed at helping smooth the path for his wife to become the next secretary of state.

•	Waxman, Dingell face off for energy panel chair
	House Democrats are deciding a bruising intraparty battle on whether to topple veteran Rep. John Dingell as chairman of the committee with oversight of energy and global warming and replace him with liberal Rep. Henry Waxman.

•	Minnesota Senate recount gets tedious, pretty fast
	As the manual recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race began, one volunteer judge asked the city election director what to do if she spotted a questionable ballot and no one else did.

•	Obama seeks reforms in talk with UN chief
	President-elect Barack Obama is urging the United Nations chief to embark on "far-reaching reform" of the world organization to help it address pressing global issues.

•	Calif. Supreme Court to take up gay marriage ban
	California's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear several legal challenges to the state's new ban on same-sex marriage but refused to allow gay couples to resume marrying before it rules.

•	Who's in the running for Obama administration jobs
	It's Washington's favorite parlor game during a presidential transition: trying to figure out who'll land a top spot in the new administration. President-elect Barack Obama is weighing an array of Washington insiders and outsiders, including some Republicans, for Cabinet and other top positions, according to Democratic officials.

•	Ga. Democrat gets campaign help from Bill Clinton
	Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday appealed to Georgians to send Democrat Jim Martin to Washington arguing the state's hotly contested Senate runoff must provide a "bridge not a firewall" to the progress promised by President-elect Barack Obama.

•	Will the Obamas turn the White House green?
	Michelle Obama says she wants the White House to feel full of energy. And while hanging new drapes isn't high on the Obamas' list of priorities as they prepare to move into the White House, design experts wonder if the first family will use the nation's most famous house as a way to back a serious agenda: going green.

•	McCain wins Missouri in close race against Obama
	Republican John McCain has defeated President-elect Barack Obama in Missouri -- the last state to be decided in the 2008 presidential election.

•	Bruni-Sarkozy would welcome Michelle Obama advice
	Carla Bruni-Sarkozy thinks she could learn a thing or two from Michelle Obama. In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, France's first lady said she'd rather take Michelle Obama's advice than the other way around.

•

Finger-pointing begins as Senate nixes auto vote

A Democratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit's Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers' fate to a lame-duck Republican president. Caught in the middle of a who-blinks-first standoff are legions of manufacturing firms and auto dealers -- and millions of Americans' jobs -- after Senate Democrats canceled a showdown vote that had been expected Thursday. President George W. Bush has "no appetite" to act on his own.

•	Bailout with a price: Chapter 11 bankruptcy
	Mention a corporate bailout in the nation's capital these days and chances are someone will offer a harsh condition to go along with it. Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

•	Shift in bailout plan raises oversight questions
	The radical shift in the focus of the $700 billion economic bailout package led one senator Wednesday to question what the young prosecutor tapped to be the program's inspector general will be investigating.

•	Financial crisis to be top agenda item at APEC
	President George W. Bush doesn't see his final Asia-Pacific summit this week as a farewell but rather a chance to enlist more nations in the battle against a financial crisis that threatens to pull the world economy into a severe economic recession.

•	Meltdown 101: What's deflation, and why is it bad?
	Deflation might sound like a good thing. Yet it can be even rougher on the economy than the more familiar phenomenon of inflation, because it's harder to get rid of.

•	AU chief warns against rise in Somali piracy
	The African Union urged the United Nations on Thursday to quickly send peacekeepers to Somalia, as piracy off the east African nation's sprawling coast spiraled out of control.

•	Congo rebels report clash with army north of Goma
	Congolese rebels said Thursday they had fended off an attack from the army, pro-government Mai Mai militias and Rwandan Hutu rebels but remained committed to keeping troops pulled back from the front lines.

•	Dems look to stop endangered species rule changes
	With the Bush administration on the verge of relaxing regulations protecting endangered species, Democratic leaders are looking at ways to overturn any last-minute rule changes.

•	Dead teen's mom testifies in cyberbullying trial
	Tina Meier often sat with her daughter while she was online to ensure nothing fishy was happening. Lori Drew wanted to find out what kind of nasty rumors were being spread about her daughter.

•	Drug suspect's wife charged in FBI agent's death
	An FBI agent trying to arrest a cocaine-dealing suspect at a home near Pittsburgh was killed Wednesday by the man's wife, who might have thought she was shooting an intruder, authorities said.

•	Mammoth task: Scientists map DNA of ancient beast
	Bringing "Jurassic Park" one step closer to reality, scientists have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth, a feat they say could allow them to recreate the shaggy, prehistoric beast in as little as a decade or two.

•	Ark. seizes 20 more children from Alamo group
	Stories of alleged beatings and sexual abuse prompted Arkansas child-welfare officials to take custody of 20 more children associated with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, an official said Wednesday.

•	Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama with racial epithet
	Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites. The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.

•	Gates, Rice defend US-Iraq security agreement
	The security agreement between U.S. and Iraq provides both the time and authority needed for American troops to train Iraqi forces and pursue terrorists, senior Bush administration officials said Wednesday.

•	Alaska Sen. Stevens concedes in re-election race
	Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens conceded defeat Wednesday in a re-election bid shadowed by his federal felony conviction, a bitter end to a four-decade career in which he held a commanding place in state politics and on some of the most influential congressional committees in Washington.

•	Insurers make pitch for health coverage mandate
	The health insurance industry said Wednesday it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions -- but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage.

•	IAEA: Syrian site could have been nuclear reactor
	The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Wednesday that a Syrian site bombed by Israel in 2007 had the characteristics of a nuclear reactor. It also admitted that its investigation into Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program is deadlocked.

•	Young murder suspect can spend holiday with mother
	An 8-year-old boy accused of killing his father and another man in eastern Arizona will be allowed to spend Thanksgiving with his mother, a move that drew criticism from the family of the second victim.

•	Pakistan summons US ambassador to protest missiles
	Pakistan summoned the U.S. ambassador Thursday to protest a suspected American missile strike deep inside its territory as militants threatened revenge attacks unless the cross-border raids stop.

•	Shouting and pounding, Iraqis fight over US pact
	Opposition lawmakers shouted and pounded their desks in protest Thursday in a second day of emotional debate in parliament over a proposed agreement with the U.S. that would allow American forces to stay in Iraq for three more years.

•	Teen lives 4 months with no heart, leaves hospital
	D'Zhana Simmons says she felt like a "fake person" for 118 days when she had no heart beating in her chest. "But I know that I really was here," the 14-year-old said, "and I did live without a heart."

•	Astronauts vow remaining tool bag won't drift away
	Astronauts vowed to double-check, even triple-check, to make sure a bag of tools is properly tied down during a spacewalk Thursday so it doesn't float away like one did earlier this week.

•	Herod may have been buried among lavish artwork
	King Herod may have been buried in a crypt with lavish Roman-style wall paintings of a kind previously unseen in the Middle East, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The scientists found such paintings and signs of a regal two-story mausoleum, bolstering their conviction that the ancient Jewish monarch was buried there.

•	Arraignment set for Cheney, Gonzales in Texas
	A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

•	Bush reopens renovated American history museum
	The Star-Spangled Banner is so threadbare you can see through tattered sections of its broad stripes and bright stars to the table where it rests at the overhauled National Museum of American History opening this week.

•	Upstate NY dad drowns saving 2 sons after crash
	A man whose car slid off a snowy road and into a 12-foot-deep pond saved the two sons he had been driving home but could not save himself, police said.

•	US says it fired at insurgents in Pakistan
	U.S. troops in Afghanistan launched a barrage of artillery at insurgents attacking their position from inside Pakistan's volatile tribal region, in a cross-border strike coordinated with Pakistan's military, U.S. and NATO officials said Tuesday.

•	Governors pledge to fight global warming together
	Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his counterparts in 12 states and regional leaders from four other countries signed a declaration Wednesday pledging to work together to combat global warming, a move Schwarzenegger said will help push heads of state to curb their nations' greenhouse gas emissions.

•	Scientists find new penguin, extinct for 500 years
	Researchers studying a rare and endangered species of penguin have uncovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years ago.

•	Hugh Jackman crowned People's `Sexiest Man Alive'
	Hugh Jackman says wife Deborra-Lee Furness teased him after finding out he'd been named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive." Recalling Furness' reaction, Jackman says: "God bless her, she said, `I could've told them that years ago! And then she said, `Obviously Brad (Pitt) wasn't available this year.' And I said, `That was a joke, right?'"

•	Panel urges revised warning on facial filler risks
	Cosmetic surgery patients who think facial fillers are a magical antidote to aging must be better informed of possible risks, government health advisers said Tuesday.

•	Ginkgo fails to prevent Alzheimer's in large study
	The dietary supplement ginkgo, long promoted as an aid to memory, didn't help prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease in the longest and largest test of the extract in older Americans. "We don't think it has a future as a powerful anti-dementia drug," said Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who led the federally funded study.

•	Joint Chiefs head says war stresses may be growing
	Stress on U.S. troops from repeated combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan is "extraordinary" and may be worsening even as fighting eases in Iraq, the military's top officer says.

•	Jonestown memorial unveiled on 30th anniversary
	On the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown disaster Tuesday, organizers of an annual memorial service displayed the first panels of a 36-foot-long stone wall that is to be inscribed with the names of more than 900 victims of the violence in Guyana.

•	No fooling: Experts bemoan loss of kids' play time
	In one classroom, a group of preschool teachers squatted on the floor, pretending to be cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers. Next door, another group ended a raucous musical game by placing their tambourines and drums atop their heads.

•	Doctors transplant windpipe with stem cells
	Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.

•	30-day age limit for Neb. safe-haven law advances
	A 30-day age limit in the Nebraska safe-haven law appears headed for final approval. The state Legislature voted 41-6 Wednesday to give second-round approval to the limit. A final vote is expected Friday and then the bill will go to Gov. Dave Heineman, who has said he would support a 30-day age limit.

:: Privacy Statement ::

:: Terms of Use ::



	VIEW FORECAST >>

Go to forums >>

NOW READ THE PRINT EDITION ONLINE!!! *

_{* (7-day home subscription required)}

Special Publications