What to do in the Europe
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26.03.2009. u 16:50 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^Crunch time: Final stimulus details in the works
Congress is set to send a $789 billion economic stimulus package to President Obama's desk by Monday after lawmakers worked around a disagreement over education funding in the package.
The stimulus deal was struck Wednesday after another furious day of negotiations on Capitol Hill involving House and Senate leaders, Obama administration officials and a trio of moderate Republicans.
The agreement represents a deal that everyone can live with, Democratic leadership sources said.
Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said it is possible the House of Representatives could take up the bill as early as Thursday and the Senate possibly Friday, meeting Obama's timetable of having the bill on his desk by Presidents Day, which is Monday.
The exact language of the compromise bill is still being drafted, but here's how it's expected to affect individuals:
• Most individuals will get a $400 tax credit, and most couples will get an $800 credit. That amounts to an extra $13 a week in a person's paycheck, starting in June.
• Many students will get $2,500 tuition tax credit.
• First-time home buyers may qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000.
• People who receive Social Security will get a one-time payment of $250.
Senate staffers worked overnight trying to write the final legislation. Democratic sources said 35 percent of the bill deals with tax cuts and 65 percent with spending. CNNMoney: How the stimulus will affect your wallet
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, reported a deal had been struck between the House and Senate early Wednesday afternoon. A short time later, aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that although Pelosi knew Reid was planning an announcement, the two were meeting again to iron out differences over education spending.
Senators had slashed direct funding for school construction -- a top priority for some Democrats -- and instead set aside money for governors to use on school modernization and rehabilitation. House Democrats did not think that would ultimately be targeted enough to school districts in need. iReport.com: Share your thoughts on the stimulus
In the Senate's compromise version, $10 billion was added to the $44 billion allocated toward "state stabilization" to boost school infrastructure.
Using the state stabilization vehicle, the money is given to governors to parcel out. But aides said House members would rather the $10 billion go through Title I, which would allocate the money based on need.
"I want to thank the Democrats and Republicans in Congress who came together around a hard-fought compromise that will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track," Obama said in a statement.
But four Democratic sources said that Pelosi was angry when Reid called to tell her he was making his first announcement that the deal was done. One administration official said House leaders didn't like the idea that Senate Republicans were effectively dictating the terms of the proposal.
"The bills were really quite similar, and I'm pleased to announce that we've been able to bridge those differences," Reid said. "Like any negotiation, this involved give and take, and if you don't mind my saying so, that's an understatement."
He praised the three "brave" GOP senators who broke ranks to the support the bill -- Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Of the 219 Republicans in Congress, they were the only three who backed the bill.
"Today we have shown that, working together, we can address the enormous economic crisis facing our country," Collins said. The $789 billion price tag for the compromise bill is less than both the House and Senate versions of the package.
Reid said that middle ground creates more jobs than the original Senate bill and spends less than the original House bill.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, summed it up as a "jobs bill."
"Today you might call us the 'jobs squad,' " said Nelson, one of the key negotiators on the compromise. "Because that's what we're attempting to do: to make sure that people will have the opportunity to hang on to their jobs that they have today, and they'll be able to get jobs if they lose their jobs."
Senate Democrats must hold on to at least two Republican votes to get the 60 votes needed to keep GOP opponents from blocking the bill. Not a single Republican voted in support of the House version of the bill, but House Democrats had enough votes to pass it despite 11 Democrats voting against it.
The agreement is hardly bipartisan, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.
"You couldn't pick up one Republican in the House, and you lost 11 Democrats. You've lost more Democrats than you've picked up Republicans. That's not bipartisanship," he said Wednesday on CNN's "The Situation Room."
The three Republican senators who voted in favor of the package indicated Wednesday that they were pleased with the agreement.
Obama greets stimulus deal, pounds Republican ideas
With a successful U.S. Senate vote on his economic stimulus bill in sight, President Barack Obama warned on Saturday that quick action was needed to avoid catastrophe and blamed Republican policies for pushing the country into crisis.
Senate Democrats agreed late on Friday to trim spending proposals and support tax cuts in a roughly $800 billion bill that was to go to a vote on Tuesday.
They rolled back an earlier $937 billion proposal by culling what critics, mostly Republicans, called billions of dollars in unwarranted spending. [ID:nN05403943]
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, predicted Obama would have a finished product to sign by mid-February.
Obama praised the group of moderate senators from both political parties for coming up with the deal.
"Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands," he said in his weekly radio address.
"In the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people were hoping that Congress would begin to confront the great challenges we face. That was, after all, what last November's election was all about."
The president's emphasis on the 2008 election, which he won over Republican rival John McCain, continued a more aggressive posture in which Obama has sought to hit back at naysayers and wield the political capital that his robust victory gave him.
Obama poured scorn on Republican critics who said the stimulus bill lacked enough tax cutting measures and pointed his finger at the polices of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush for dragging the country into recession.
"We can't expect relief from the tired old theories that, in eight short years, doubled the national debt, threw our economy into a tailspin, and led us into this mess in the first place," Obama said.
"We can't rely on a losing formula that offers only tax cuts as the answer to all our problems while ignoring our fundamental economic challenges."
MORE HELP FOR BANKS
To further help U.S. banks battered by the financial crisis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to unveil steps on Monday that will include government insurance of bad assets, a plan to shift toxic securities off bank balance sheets and money to modify homeowner mortgages.
Estimates of the banking system's potential capital needs top $1 trillion, far above the $350 billion the government has left in the Troubled Asset Relief Program set up in October.
But some experts cautioned that the new plan for banks will be difficult to get through Congress, tough to implement and may ultimately fail.
More evidence that the United States was in its worst economic crisis in more than 70 years came in Friday's report that nearly 600,000 jobs were lost in January. [ID:nN06435445]
Despite Friday's compromises on the stimulus plan, the bill is expected to garner support from only a handful of the Senate's minority Republicans.
The new chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, promoted tax cuts and accused Democrats of seeking to spend too much with the stimulus package.
"Democrats have controlled both branches of government for less than a month, and you have to wonder if all that power has gone to their heads," he said in the Republican radio address.
"American families are doing their best to balance their own budgets and pay their mortgages. The fastest way to help those families is by letting them keep more of the money they earn."
Once the Senate passes the stimulus bill, differences with the version approved by the House will have to be ironed out.
Pelosi acknowledged potential resistance in the House to parts of the Senate bill, especially the scaling back of some expanded aid to states, but said she expected the final package to be on Obama's desk by his desired deadline of Feb. 16.
"I am certain that the president will be signing before Presidents' Day a bill that will create 3 million to 4 million new jobs, will cut taxes for the middle class and build infrastructure in America," Pelosi told reporters at a Democratic meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Obama said the legislation deserved scrutiny but that speed trumped perfection.
"The scale and scope of this plan is right, and the time for action is now," Obama said in the radio address. "If we don't move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe." (Additional reporting by Rick Cowan in Williamsburg; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
North Texans in Tampa for Super Bowl help
Sunday’s Super Bowl game in Tampa, Fla., may be all about the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers, but a group of North Texans are using the day to look ahead to 2011.
That’s when Super Bowl XLV will be held in Arlington at the home of the Dallas Cowboys.
A contingent from North Texas, led by Roger Staubach, NFL Hall of Famer and president of the local host committee, is in Tampa to see how planning translates into reality. They made a similar trip to the Super Bowl last year in Arizona.
“We’re laying the foundation ... that will give us a chance to hopefully do things other Super Bowls haven’t done,” Staubach said in Sunday’s editions of The Dallas Morning News.
Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck already has one thing he wants to concentrate on when he gets back. Cluck promises a renewed emphasis on traffic control after getting stuck in traffic in Tampa and missing an awards ceremony Thursday night. What should have been a 30-minute trip took 2˝ hours.
“Traffic was almost stopped. We have to really find a way to move traffic efficiently into and out of the stadium area,” Cluck said.
Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief says the area has to develop a “Plan B” for transportation should weather — an uncontrollable force — become a factor during Super Bowl week.
Staubach said bad weather can hurt a host city’s chances for securing another game.
“We sure wouldn’t want an ice storm,” he said. “That happened in Atlanta (in 2000), and that hurt them.”
Staubach said he doesn’t believe that weather would be a deal-breaker for North Texas.
An ice storm caused travel problems in North Texas last week but temperatures can be as high as 80 in February in the region.
The committee hopes to put on a Super Bowl show that will keep the game coming back to the new Dallas Cowboys stadium with some regularity.
The Cowboys hope to have a record crowd, which would have to top 103,985.
Bill Lively, North Texas host committee chief executive officer, said they also want to raise more for charities than other Super Bowls.
The host committee plans to spend at least $20 million to cover the costs of events associated with the game. Arizona’s committe raised $17 million and the host committee in Tampa worked with $7.2 million.
The North Texas committee already has eight $1 million donors committed to the effort, the newspaper reported.
The trip has been helpful, committee members say.
“You clearly see the things that are done right and hopefully see a couple of things that we could do better,” Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert said.
Dallas police Deputy Chief Julian Bernal said he would like North Texas to take an approach similar to Tampa where there is a lot of cooperation among all levels of law enforcement, from local to federal.
Obama faces tough choice on Cape Cod wind farm (AP)
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's enthusiasm for alternative energy is being buffeted by two political forces on opposite sides of plans to build the nation's first offshore wind farm off Cape Cod. A leading foe of the $1 billion project is Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., an early and influential backer of Obama's presidential bid. A strong proponent is Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a close friend of Obama and a source for some of his best campaign speech lines. The plan to erect 130 giant turbines across 25 miles of federal waters in Nantucket Sound poses an early test of the president's energy policy, on stark display Monday with Obama's order to re-examine whether California and other states should be allowed to have tougher auto emission standards to combat a build up of greenhouse gases and his directive for the government to get moving on new fuel-efficiency guidelines for the auto industry. In the final days of George W. Bush's tenure, the Minerals Management Service issued a report saying the wind farm project poses no major environmental problems, clearing the way for the Obama administration to make a final decision on whether to issue a lease for the project. Reviews by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Interior Department's inspector general are still pending. During the campaign, Obama had expressed strong support for wind power and indicated he wanted to double renewable energy production over the next three years. But deciding the fate of...
27.01.2009. u 03:04 | 0 Komentara | Print | # | ^In Gaza, a family wonders how to rebuild
While several thousand Palestinians remain homeless or otherwise displaced, the competition for hearts and minds that has plagued and propelled Palestinian politics over the past 20 years is palpably shaping how quickly Gaza will be rebuilt – and by whom.
As average people struggle to pick up the pieces and survive the winter, their leaders are scrambling for the right to put this shell-shocked coastal strip on the road to reconstruction. A shaky cease-fire – which will be a week old on Sunday - looked likely to hold.
Hamas, which says it is ready to take charge of reconstruction, plans to begin distributing $35 million to $40 million in assistance this Sunday to Gazans affected by the war, a spokesman said.
But Israel argues that international assistance must go through aid agencies and that the local partner in this effort should be the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority (PA), which Hamas overthrew 1-1/2 years ago.
Ashraf Ziad, who fled his home in Bet Lahiya in the northern...
Nicole Kidman In A Boatload Of Trouble
Nicole Kidman is angering former neighbors in an apartment block in Sydney with her abandoned yacht Hokulani. Kidman, who spends large amounts of time now in Nashville with husband Keith Urban and baby Sunday, used to have an apartment in a waterfront complex called Pier 6/7, before selling it last year. Despite moving herself, she left her boat.
Now, the Independent reports, she is breaking some bylaws with the abandoned ship:
The bylaws also state that only residents can park their yachts in the adjacent marina. So why is Kidman's large boat, Hokulani, still moored there, nearly a year after she moved out? Favouritism, mutter disgruntled locals, who accuse the committee of turning a blind eye to its presence...
The star, who still owns a waterside mansion in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs, is apparently well aware that Hokulani is breaching regulations. A spokesman for Kidman told the Sydney Morning Herald that the boat had been left at the marina because she ha...
What to do in December in the Europe
All the month long the Europe prepares for Christmas, the markets of christmas gifts everywhere are opened, there are concerts, sales, street actors and musicians become more active – and the December poster of events is devoted almost exclusively to a christmas theme. However it is not necessary to forget and about other interesting actions – for example, about opening a season on mounting skiing resorts of Austria.
Opening of a season « New winter », on December, 8-11th, Kitcibell. Opening of a new winter season in « paradise of skiing » – the Tyrolean Alpes, - is celebrated some days in a big way. The season fireworks as organizers joyfully promise, « above mountain and around of mountain » will open, then will pass comic ski competitions, drivings on sledges, thus lifts will work till deep evening. Serious ski competitions, and in the evening - romantic parties in the afternoon are expected at candles and concerts of alive music. As all this time ski schools for beginners will work.
Christmas parade, on December, 23rd, Egls. Every year in small mountain-skiing small town Igls passes in fancy-dress children's parade. Shepherds, angels, Maria, Joseph and the baby the Christ heading procession, pass on city streets, and in end of procession alive bible pictures are played. Anybody already also does not remember, how many centuries of this tradition in Egls, but every year parade passes with constant success - participants, a tinsel and spangles vary only.
Imperial ball (Kaiserball), on December, 31st, the Vein. Imperial ball in palace Hofburg, a former imperial winter residence, the season of the well-known Viennese balls opens. New Year's ball passes with observance of ancient court ceremony and etiquette. It begins solemn changing of the guard of guards and a greeting of an imperial couple. In the ballrooms of a palace decorated by real flowers, sounds of a waltz from everywhere are heard, submit a salutatory cocktail, livery footmen present ladies small souvenirs.
At midnight the traditional ring of the main Viennese bell on a tower of a cathedral Sacred Stefan, new year announcing the beginning is distributed. After a New Year's banquet dances in the big banquet hall begin, and elegant pairs dance not only a waltz and polka, but even a tango and a rock-and-roll. In breaks between dances on imperial to ball actors of the Viennese opera and ballet act. Participants of ball will meet new 2006 Mozart's music, as coming year - anniversary year Mozart.
Christmas skating rink, on December, 3rd - on January, 2nd, Bruxelles. A symbol of the present winter and christmas revelry in Bruxelles becomes the huge open skating rink on one of the ancient Bruxelles areas, Marche aux Poissons, the former Fish market. Ice shows of professionals involve city dwellers, even those who is not able to skate, well and for fans to drive is present expance for the skating rink is huge, the fur-tree in the center of a skating rink is decorated by toys and small lamps, music and mulled wine cheer up. And skates can be taken for rent.
Festival of a snow and ice sculpture, on November, 25th - on January, 8th, Brugge. In Brugge within December the festival of a snow and ice sculpture will proceed. A theme of festival - « the Ice palace » (read about it in our previous to " the European poster »).
Christmas show of horses, on December, 26-30th, Meshelen. These christmas horse competitions are spent in Meshelen since 1980 and collect from year to year nearby 100 thousand spectators. Equestrians of all levels participate in them, and the program develops of traditional types of competitions (show jumping, dressage, triathlon) and original shows-programs, including with participation of young equestrians. Here 25 years the Christmas in Meshelen ass
