| Chicago's mayoral runoff challenger releases fiscal plan Posted: 13 Mar 2015 12:03 PM PDT  Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's challenger in next month's runoff election offered a plan on Friday to address the city's financial woes that seeks cost-savings through intergovernmental collaboration and creates a committee to examine revenue options. Mounting pension pressures led Moody's Investors Service to lower Chicago's credit rating by five notches since July 2013, with the last downgrade to Baa2 occurring on Feb. 27.
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| CIA chief says social media 'greatly amplifies' terror threat Posted: 13 Mar 2015 11:09 AM PDT  Social media and other technology are making it increasingly difficult to combat militants who are using such modern resources to share information and conduct operations, the head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency said on Friday. CIA Director John Brennan, in a speech in New York, said such communications only add to the difficulty of dealing with diffuse threats and attacks across the world from groups like Islamic State, known also as ISIL, and others. "New technologies can help groups like ISIL coordinate operations, attract new recruits, disseminate propaganda, and inspire sympathizers across the globe to act in their name," Brennan said, using an acronym for the militant group that has taken hold in Syria and Iraq.
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| Weak profit margins dampen U.S. producer inflation Posted: 13 Mar 2015 08:33 AM PDT  U.S. producer prices fell in February for a fourth straight month, pointing to tame inflation that could argue against an anticipated June interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve. The Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand declined 0.5 percent as profit margins in the services sector, especially gasoline stations, were squeezed, and transportation and warehousing costs fell. The PPI had dropped 0.8 percent in January. In the 12 months through February, producer prices fell 0.6 percent, the first decline since the series was revamped in 2009.
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| Obama administration to start new group to advise on veterans issues Posted: 13 Mar 2015 05:28 AM PDT  President Barack Obama's administration on Friday will announce the creation of a new advisory group made up of public officials and leaders from the private sector to advise on improvements to the government agency tasked with helping U.S. veterans. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald will announce the formation of the new committee during an event with President Barack Obama at the Phoenix VA facility, where long waits for medical care sparked a political crisis for the administration. "The members of this new advisory committee have experience in customer service, large-scale organizational change and advocacy for veterans and include business leaders, Veteran Service Organizations members, and health sciences and academic professionals," the official said.
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| Jurors to question woman at center of Silicon Valley discrimination suit Posted: 13 Mar 2015 04:23 AM PDT  By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Jurors will have an opportunity to pose their own questions on Friday to the ex-partner who filed a sexual discrimination case against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which could reveal their impressions in the third week of trial. Ellen Pao has answered questions on the stand for the past four days, saying a lawsuit was her only way to help women advance at the venture capital firm. At least 37 states, including California, permit jurors to pose their own questions in civil cases once the lawyers are done, according to the American Judicature Society. For witnesses in the Pao case, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn has asked jurors to submit questions to him in writing.
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| Medical helicopter crashes in Oklahoma, three believed on board Posted: 13 Mar 2015 03:11 AM PDT (Reuters) - A medical helicopter crashed late on Thursday in Oklahoma, the Federal Aviation Administration said, but there was no immediate word on any casualties. The aircraft, registered to EagleMed LLC, was believed to be carrying three employees when it went down around 11:25 p.m. local time near Eufala, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said in an emailed statement. Lunsford could not comment on the condition of those on board. City and county authorities also could not provide any details. ... |
| Obama reads 'Mean Tweets' about himself Posted: 13 Mar 2015 02:19 AM PDT  The president has some laughs at his own expense during a visit with Jimmy Kimmel.
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| Calm prevails in Ferguson after shooting of police officers Posted: 13 Mar 2015 12:10 AM PDT  Protesters call for calm but vow to keep pushing for change in Ferguson.
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| Obama says doesn't text, tweet, or have a smart phone that records Posted: 12 Mar 2015 09:13 PM PDT  By Jeff Mason LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Barack Obama doesn't send text messages, rarely composes his own tweets, and isn't allowed to have a smart phone that contains a recording device, he said on Thursday. "I do not physically tweet in general," the president said in an interview on the ABC program "Jimmy Kimmel Live." "I don't text. Obama said his teenaged daughters had smart phones and exchanged text messages with their friends, but he was limited for security reasons from having the latest technology. In a reference to the email controversy that has dogged Obama's former secretary of state, host Jimmy Kimmel asked the president if he had Clinton's new email address.
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| Transit police shoot man dead in Washington, D.C., subway tunnel Posted: 12 Mar 2015 08:37 PM PDT (Reuters) - Transit police in Washington, D.C., fatally shot a man they encountered in a subway tunnel without authorization on Thursday, officials said. Washington Metro Transit police responded to a report of a man on the tracks from a subway operator shortly before 9 p.m. local time, Metro spokeswoman Morgan Dye said. The transit police said on Twitter the suspect was killed inside the tunnel just east of the Potomac Avenue station in Southeast Washington. Further details were not immediately available, and authorities did not say what the man might have been doing in the subway tunnel. |
| Ex-Marine freed from Mexico jail accused of drunk driving in Georgia Posted: 12 Mar 2015 08:00 PM PDT By Marty Graham SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A former U.S. Marine jailed in Mexico last year on weapons charges but freed seven months later so he could seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder has been arrested in Georgia on suspicion of drunken driving and other traffic offenses. Andrew Tahmooressi, 26, was taken into custody on Wednesday morning after a traffic stop. He was charged with driving under the influence, driving with an open container of an alcoholic beverage, reckless driving and improper passing, according to the Emanuel County Sheriff's Office in Georgia. Tahmooressi, who left the Marines in 2012 after two tours of duty in Afghanistan, was detained in Mexico after arriving at the border from California last March with three guns in his pickup truck. |
| U.S. Army helicopter crash off Florida kills 11; most bodies recovered Posted: 12 Mar 2015 07:42 PM PDT  Search teams found the wreckage of an Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed off Florida's Gulf Coast and have recovered the bodies of most of the seven Marines and four soldiers on board, authorities and local media said on Thursday. The Louisiana National Guard said on Thursday that two of the soldiers' bodies had been recovered and the other two were likely still in the submersed aircraft. The remains of the seven Marines also were recovered, the Pensacola News Journal reported, citing the Guard.
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| Carjack victim describes harrowing ride with Boston bombers Posted: 12 Mar 2015 07:09 PM PDT  BOSTON (AP) — A carjacking victim on Thursday described his harrowing ride at gunpoint with the Boston Marathon bombers three days after the attack and the moment he made the terrifying decision to bolt from the car.
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| Police hunt for suspects after officers shot in Missouri city Posted: 12 Mar 2015 05:57 PM PDT  By Kate Munsch FERGUSON, Mo. (Reuters) - The shooting of two police officers during a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked a sweeping manhunt for suspects on Thursday and ratcheted up tensions in a city at the center of a national debate over race and policing. U.S. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the attack on the officers, who were treated for wounds at a local hospital and released. Demonstrators had gathered to demand sweeping changes in the St. Louis suburb after the release of a scathing U.S. Justice Department report that found that deep-rooted racial bias within its mostly white police force. The report grew out of the shooting in August of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.
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| Union says tentative deal reached to end U.S. refinery strike Posted: 12 Mar 2015 04:05 PM PDT  By Erwin Seba HOUSTON (Reuters) - The United Steelworkers union and oil companies have reached a tentative deal to end the largest U.S. refinery strike in 35 years, the labor group and people familiar with the negotiations said on Thursday. "We salute the solidarity exhibited by our membership," said USW International President Leo Gerard. "There was no way we would have won vast improvements in safety and staffing without it." Tesoro Corp told employees in a letter seen by Reuters it was "supportive of the agreement" and would try to quickly settle local issues "to enable our employees return to work." Lead industry negotiator Royal Dutch Shell Plc did not comment.
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| North Dakota's job landscape shifting (for now) away from Big Oil Posted: 12 Mar 2015 03:46 PM PDT  By Ernest Scheyder WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) - Halliburton Co, Schlumberger NV and other large energy companies were conspicuously absent from a major North Dakota job fair this week, a telling sign as employers in the No. 2 U.S. oil-producing state grapple with sliding crude prices. Instead of roustabouts, the state's oil industry wants pump technicians, gas-processing plant operators and truck drivers to help sustain existing production of 1.2 million barrels of oil per day - not to necessarily grow production. "When a well is out, you still have to service it," said Cindy Sanford of Job Service North Dakota, which helped organize the two-day job fair in Williston, capital of the state's oil boom. Halliburton was a key participant in last year's Williston job fair.
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| American Ebola patient to be treated near US capital Posted: 12 Mar 2015 03:08 PM PDT  An American healthcare worker who has tested positive for Ebola will be treated at a government hospital near the US capital, Washington, officials said Thursday. The person, whose identity was not revealed, is expected to be admitted on Friday to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, said a statement from the NIH. The man, Thomas Eric Duncan, died. Earlier Thursday, the World Health Organization announced that the death toll from the world's largest Ebola outbreak had topped 10,000.
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| #BlueLivesMatter reignites debate following police shooting in Ferguson Posted: 12 Mar 2015 02:33 PM PDT  The hashtag #BlueLivesMatter has found new life following a shooting that injured two cops outside the Ferguson Police Department late Wednesday night
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