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Democrat Backs Supplemental Social Security Accounts (Update1) Check out - Bloomberg Omaha On Bush AgendaBush To Make 6th Visit President plans sixth stop in metro Details are slowly emerging about the president's trip to Nebraska next week. He's expected to be in downtown Omaha, at a location yet to be announced. This will be President Bush's sixth visit to the metro since taking office. The president was here three times in 2001. First, to push his tax cut, next to throw out the first pitch of the College World Series, and he was then briefly at Offutt Air Force Base...

Endorsing a controversial deal brokered by Mayor Ron Gonzales four years ago, the San Jose City Council on Tuesday approved spending $11.3 million to cover labor increases for the city's largest waste hauler in order to avert a potential garbage strike. The approval to pay Norcal Waste Systems came despite warnings from several council members who said the city was not obligated to bail Norcal out of its labor problems. ``I'm not comfortable protecting Norcal's profits on the backs of the ratepayers,'' said Councilwoman Linda LeZotte, who along with councilmen Chuck Reed and David Cortese voted against the increase in...

SEANC backs Ballantine, who backs raises Published: Sep 1, 2004 By AMY GARDNER, Staff Writer The State Employees Association of North Carolina's political committee endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick Ballantine on Tuesday -- the first time ever the group has supported a Republican for statewide office. The endorsement is a rebuke to Democratic Gov. Mike Easley, who led state government through a three-year budget crisis during which state workers received paltry pay increases. "Patrick has a clear desire to have us at the table when he puts together his budget and when he develops policy and procedure," said Dana Cope,...

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq (news - web sites) on Wednesday, rejecting complaints that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner. Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon (news - web sites) lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also noted that the rules require prisoners to be treated humanely at all times. But Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. said some of the...

<p>WASHINGTON – The House voted Friday to relieve companies from paying an extra $80 billion into their pension plans, a step supporters said would stave off a financial crunch for businesses while protecting workers' retirements.</p> <p>House Republicans said they hoped the decisive 336-69 vote gives the bill enough momentum to pass the Senate next week. Companies want Congress to finish before April 15, when the next quarterly pension payments are due.</p>

<p>BURLINGAME – The state Republican Party gave its approval Sunday to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15 billion plan to rescue the state budget after a personal appeal from the governor and behind- the-scenes lobbying by supporters.</p> <p>The endorsement, on a voice vote on the final day of a three-day GOP convention, was eagerly sought by Schwarzenegger, who has been selling the plan in a string of TV ads and speeches. To take effect, the twin proposals - Proposition 57 and Proposition 58 - must be approved by voters March 2.</p>

WELLINGTON (AP) - New Zealand livestock farmers can breathe easy again. The government has dropped plans to impose a tax on their animals' flatulence. Farmers and opposition members of Parliament claimed victory Friday in their battle against a government plan to impose levies on "emissions" from sheep, cattle and deer herds. The levy would have raised about the equivalent of about $6 million Cdn a year for research aimed at cutting the methane output of farm animals, which makes up more than one-half the total greenhouse gas produced by New Zealand each year. Under a new research plan put forward...

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Aug. 19 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a one-day visit to Colombia, said today that the United States would support Colombia in resuming a policy that allows Colombian fighter pilots to shoot down planes suspected of ferrying drugs or force them to land. Such a policy, which has been criticized by human rights groups, was suspended in Colombia and Peru after a Peruvian jet fighter mistakenly shot down a private plane carrying American missionaries, killing two people, one an infant, in 2001. A White House statement said President Bush had determined that Colombia had since "put...

<p>LOS ANGELES - Gov. Gray Davis got a key boost in his fight for political survival Tuesday as California's powerful AFL-CIO labor federation released a letter to elected Democrats urging them not to run in the Oct. 7 recall.</p> <p>"We are united against the recall of Gov. Davis and urge all potential Democratic candidates to stay off the recall ballot and join with us in support of the governor," said a three-paragraph letter sent to Democrats in Congress and the state Legislature, as well as statewide elected officials.</p>

<p>Gov. Gray Davis is vowing to sign legislation that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses -- a move that could energize Latinos to oppose his recall but anger other voters.</p> <p>"You put that bill on my desk, and I will sign it in a heartbeat," Davis declared at a labor union barbecue in Los Angeles on Saturday.</p>

Former US first lady Hillary Clinton has said she admires the inquiry being carried out over Britain's role in the war on Iraq. Speaking to Sky News' Julie Etchingham, Mrs Clinton said: "I think it is admirable that your Parliament is having an investigation." Mrs Clinton said she wanted to see a similar process in the United States, and said: "Many of us have been asking for an independent inquiry into what the intelligence really was and how it was used." Mrs Clinton said that Tony Blair had shown great conviction by standing by George Bush during the Iraq conflict,...

<p>Bill Simon says that recalling an elected official for anything short of a high crime or misdemeanor may not be the best idea.</p> <p>But the rules in California aren't that stringent. So he's supporting the current recall effort against Gov. Davis.</p>

Why Bush backs a blitz on Hamas June 13 2003 at 10:37AM The White House squarely blamed resurgent Middle East violence on the extremist group Hamas, as American diplomats scrambled to salvage the tattered road map to Israeli-Palestinian peace. The administration also signalled support for a crackdown on Hamas after reviewing Israeli intelligence and criticism from pro-Israeli groups, those involved in the talks said on Thursday. Israel drew a stern public rebuke from President George Bush after Tuesday's helicopter strike on Palestinian militant leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi. That sparked a backlash from Israel's supporters in the United States, who defended its...

<p>Gay partners would enjoy many of the rights and responsibilities of marriage under hotly contested legislation approved Wednesday by the California Assembly.</p> <p>The vote represents a major coup for gay-rights activists who have battled for years to increase recognition for more than 18,000 homosexual couples registered with the state as domestic partners.</p>

Wednesday, 4 December, 2002, 00:12 GMTIranian conservative backs US ties Larijani said Iran should be more brave in its foreign policy A prominent Iranian conservative official has criticised the country's foreign policy, saying that opportunities for restoring ties with the United States have been missed. Larijani said that the severing of Iran-US relations had "disadvantages" In comments in the Iranian press, Muhammad-Javad Larijani, deputy chief of the judiciary's international affairs department, said he also regretted the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, and the religious decree calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie. He added that...

Powell backs British line over Saddam By David Rennie, Charles Clover and Andy McSmith (Filed: 02/09/2002) Colin Powell, the Bush administration's leading sceptic over a war with Iraq, tried to ease tensions between American hawks and European allies yesterday by declaring that the US supported the return of United Nations weapons inspectors. Breaking months of near-silence on the argument that has raged in Washington all summer, the secretary of state also signalled that it was time to release intelligence on Iraq's development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. His comments, a rebuke to hawks who are against the return of...

Hundreds of US troops back up Royal Marines By Alex Spillius in Kabul (Filed: 02/05/2002) HUNDREDS of American troops and attack helicopters were despatched to mountains in eastern Afghanistan yesterday to support British Royal Marines pursuing al-Qa'eda and Taliban fighters, US officials said yesterday. A senior official said US soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division based in Afghanistan had joined several hundred Marines already operating near the city of Khost, close to the border with Pakistan. Another official confirmed that Apache attack helicopters had been moved to the US forward base close to the city as part of the operation...