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Black Friend Defends Shooter of Florida Teen March 25, 2012 SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - George Zimmerman cried for days in remorse after shooting dead a black Florida teenager, a family friend of Zimmerman said on Sunday, offering a sympathetic portrayal of the man at the focal point of a national uproar. Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic, shot Trayvon Martin, 17, in what he said was self defense during an altercation in the gated community Zimmerman was watching on February 26 in Sanford, Florida. After barely going noticed for weeks, the case has since galvanized the country and renewed a national...

Energy: The economist at the newspaper of record defends the president's energy policy of Solyndra, Chevy Volts and algae while dismissing the oil boom on private lands as a small-town hiccup with no impact on price. New York Times columnist and Keynesian economist Paul Krugman asks in a recent column why gas prices are rising if we are in the middle of a domestic oil boom. Doesn't the "drill, baby, drill" crowd claim, he argues, that prices will drop "if only we would stop protecting the environment and let energy companies do whatever they want"? Without our domestic oil boom,...

Apple gave an exclusive interview with CEO Tim Cook to The Wall Street Journal instead Apple is not a huge fan of The Big Apple's main newspaper right now. The New York Times blasted Apple's ego and reputation hard last month with its second installment of the iEconomy series, which focused on the poor treatment and harsh working conditions of employees at Apple's suppliers' factories in China. Now, the Times is paying the price. Apple is currently preparing for the release of its latest operating system, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. With such a release comes previews of the OS,...

IN the most recent Gallup poll on abortion, as many Americans described themselves as pro-life as called themselves pro-choice. A combined 58 percent of Americans stated that abortion should either be “illegal in all circumstances” or “legal in only a few circumstances.” These results do not vary appreciably by gender: in the first Gallup poll to show a slight pro-life majority, conducted in May 2009, half of American women described themselves as pro-life. But if you’ve followed the media frenzy surrounding the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision — which it backpedaled from, with an apology, after a...

You did not misread the headline; and it’s not just a truism about Mr. Gingrich’s political orientation, I mean he’s correct—that Florida’s winner-take-all primary system isn’t fair. According to Republican National Committee guidelines, all contests held prior to April 1 must allocate delegates proportionally. But Florida, not wishing to change procedures or fall behind other states, decided to flout the RNC rule, which means that Mitt Romney will get all 50 of its delegates. Mr. Gingrich—who came in second—will get none. Under a proportional system, Mr. Romney would receive 23 and Mr. Gingrich 16. Not only that, NPR has calculated...

The New York Times Company reported its Q4 earnings today, and they lost $39.7 million in 2011, or 27 cents a share, after making $107.7 million in 2010. Q4 profit is down 12.2% y/y thanks to the continuing decline of print advertising and a 67.4% decline in the About Group's operating profit, which also saw a 25.7% decrease in quarterly ad revenues y/y. The NYT also missed analysts' estimates — quarterly net income of 39 cents a share was lower than expectations of 42 cents a share. The fourth quarter income also reflects a $4.5 million payout to departed CEO...

WASHINGTON — Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday are expected to publish a report on the disputed gun trafficking investigation called Operation Fast and Furious, concluding that agents in Arizona — not Obama administration officials — were responsible for the tactics used in the inquiry and for providing misleading information relayed to Congress. In an 89-page report, titled “Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gun-walking in Arizona,” the Democratic staff portrays Fast and Furious as the fourth investigation, dating back to 2006, in which Arizona-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives employed...

The New York Times Company is still seeking a replacement for CEO Janet Robinson who departed last month, and Wall Street isn’t too happy, reports Bloomberg. A new leader is needed to bring up revenue, shore up profits and restore the Times Company’s dividend, Bloomberg writes. The company, which announces fourth-quarter results next week, is projected to report that its 2011 revenue was $2.33 billion, a decline from 2010 and the sixth straight year of declining sales. “The stock is kind of stuck in no-man’s land,” and the absence of a CEO is part of what’s keeping it there,” one...

Highlights: * The New York Times cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a credible source, while continuing its policy of never mentioning that CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and operates as a Hamas support group. * NYT also suppressed the facts that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator 2007 Holy Land Foundation conspiracy trial, which resulted in the FBI cutting off all formal contact with the group and that an FBI official has described CAIR as a "front for Hamas." * NYT primarily relies on two sources for comments: Zead Ramadan of CAIR-NY, and Faiza Patel,...

In the Times of January 24 is an article headlined, "2 Palestinian Legislators Are Arrested in East Jerusalem Protest." The article reported, "Israel arrested two Palestinian legislators affiliated with Hamas as they staged a protest in the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in East Jerusalem on Monday, an act criticized by the Palestinian leadership as a blow to the first direct meetings between the Israeli and Palestinian sides in more than a year now underway in Jordan." Actually there were three men protesting: Muhammad Totah, a member of the Palestinian legislative council, Khaled Abu Arafeh, a...

A former staffer for Bay State Sen. John F. Kerry has been charged with leaking the names of CIA operatives, including one who was involved in the interrogation of terror suspects held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and Kerry’s office.

GRIDLOCK in Congress implies that there won’t be any collective decision to spend more as a nation to get out of our slump. Increases in deficit spending seem unlikely, and so does the balanced-budget stimulus I’ve been advocating in this column. For now, we must pin our hopes for a robust recovery on the willingness of millions of consumers to spend substantially more. But what really drives consumer spending? Economists are reasonably good at divining how consumers tend to react to changes in government policy, but in the absence of such policy, and when the economy is in the doldrums,...

EDITORIAL What They Don’t Want to Talk About January 14, 2012 Ever since Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry started criticizing Mitt Romney’s actions at Bain Capital — and talking about the thousands of people laid off as a result of Bain’s investments — party leaders have essentially told them to shut up. That response is a pretty good indication of how deeply party elders fear the issue of economic inequality in the campaign to come. “What the hell are you doing, Newt?” Rudolph Giuliani asked Thursday on Fox News. “This is what Saul Alinsky taught Barack Obama, and what you’re...

The New York Times picks up where I left off, reporting on Team Romney’s reaction to the attacks from Mitt’s rivals on his tenure at Bain Capital. The news is not particularly reassuring: Although the advisers had always expected that Democrats would malign Mr. Romney’s work of buying and selling companies, they were largely unprepared for an assault that came so early in the campaign and from within the ranks of their own party, those involved in the campaign discussions said. Even as Mr. Romney coasted to victory in New Hampshire, they worry that the critique could prove more potent...

7:02 p.m. | Updated The New York Times mistakenly sent an e-mail on Wednesday to more than eight million people who had shared their information with the company, erroneously informing them that they had canceled home delivery of the newspaper. The Times Company, which initially mischaracterized the mishap as spam, apologized for sending the e-mail.

Labor unrest is simmering just below the surface at the New York Times Co., and the unions appear to be gearing up for a protracted fight. Sources say that the Communications Workers of America, the parent union of the Newspaper Guild and others, has earmarked a $350,000 war chest and hired the politically connected public relations firm of BerlinRosen to advise in what seems to be shaping up as a pivotal battle among several unions. The Newspaper Guild, which claims to represent about 1,000 journalists and photographers at the flagship, and the smaller Mailers Union Local 6, with about 170...

The New York Times Company said on Monday it was in advanced talks to sell 16 regional newspapers, another indication the company was divesting itself of assets to concentrate on its core newspaper business. Halifax Media Holdings of Daytona Beach, Fla., is currently negotiating the purchase of the Times Company’s Regional Media Group, a division that includes newspapers across the country like The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida; The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif.; The Star-News in Wilmington, N.C.; The Gainesville Sun, also in Florida; and The Tuscaloosa News in Alabama. Combined, the papers have a Monday-through-Friday circulation of 433,251...

...The Times Co gave no explanation for Robinson's sudden departure, which caught analysts as well as company insiders by surprise. Speculation among industry observers and the analyst community centered on the company's faltering stock price, which has declined more than 80 percent since Robinson was appointed CEO in December 2004....

If you want to understand the Islamic forces that are gaining strength in Egypt and scaring people here and abroad, let me tell you about my dinner in the home of Muslim Brotherhood activists. First, meet my hostess: Sondos Asem, a 24-year-old woman who is pretty much the opposite of the stereotypical bearded Brotherhood activist. Sondos is a middle-class graduate of the American University in Cairo, where I studied in the early 1980s (“that’s before I was born,” she said wonderingly, making me feel particularly decrepit). She speaks perfect English, is writing a master’s thesis on social media, and helps...

Article II of the Constitution grants Congress the power to impeach “the president, the vice president and all civil officers of the United States.” The phrase “civil officers” includes the members of the cabinet (one of whom, Secretary of War William Belknap, was impeached in 1876). *snip* A cabinet officer, like a judge or a president, may be impeached only for commission of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But as the Nixon and Clinton impeachment debates reminded us, that constitutional phrase embraces not only indictable crimes but “conduct ... grossly incompatible with the office held and subversive of that office and...