Free Republic

In Washington these days, an 11-figure expenditure barely attracts notice. With Congress preoccupied with the massive, $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have finally secured Part One of their own federal rescue plan. A bill set to be passed by Congress and signed by President Bush as early as this weekend—separate from the controversial Wall Street bailout plan—includes $25 billion in loans for the beleaguered Detroit automakers and several of their suppliers. "It seemed like a lot when we first started pushing this," says Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, one of the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush, under pressure to provide more help to Africa ahead of a Group of Eight summit next week, proposed on Thursday that Washington take on a greater role in combating malaria in sub-Saharan Africa as part of what he called a doubling of U.S. aid. With Africa a top agenda item for G8 leaders meeting July 6 to 8 in Gleneagles, Scotland, Bush said he would ask Congress to spend $1.2 billion through 2008 to help fight malaria, which claims an estimated 1.2 million people a year worldwide, 95 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In...

Seven people have killed themselves within hours of each other in Japan in the latest round of suicides committed after pacts made on the internet. Four people in their 20s and 30s were found dead in a car in a mountainside parking lot in Tochigi prefecture late on Monday. Shortly before 10am yesterday, the bodies of three people, including a 14-year-old girl, were found 30 miles away inside a car parked on a dry riverbed. All seven had apparently died from carbon monoxide poisoning after sealing themselves in the vehicles and inhaling the fumes from charcoal stoves. Police said suicide...