NewsAndPolicy.com

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Kenya government agrees in principle to PM post
2008-02-21 14:44:00
Kenya's government said on Thursday it agreed in principle to creating a prime minister's post demanded by the opposition, a possible breakthrough in a political crisis some worry could explode into violence again. Local and international pressure has grown for a deal to end the standoff over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election on December 27. The opposition has threatened to resume street protests next week if its demands are not met. Though the east African nation has been relatively calm for the last two weeks, the protest threat stoked fears of a resumption of the post-poll violence that killed at least 1,000 people and forced more than 300,000 out of their homes. The unrest has damaged Kenya's reputation as a trade and tourism hub and one of Africa's most stable nations, usually the host of peace talks rather than the subject of them. The African Union's new chairman, Jean Ping, flew into Kenya on Thursday to add his diplomatic weight to the crisis talks led ...
More About: Government , Kenya , Post , World News , Today

Clinton attacks Obama as all talk, little substance
2008-02-21 14:37:00
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton criticized rival Barack Obama as a big dreamer with little substance on Wednesday as she sought to slow his momentum from 10 straight victories in the race for the party's U.S. presidential nomination. "We need to dream big, but you know, dreams alone won't make anything," Clinton said while courting Hispanics at a noisy rally in this south Texas town on the Mexican border. "We've got to have solutions to the problems that face us." The New York senator and former first lady sharpened her message against Obama before the March 4 Democratic nominating contests in Texas and Ohio, which have become critical to her presidential aspirations after losses to Obama in Wisconsin and Hawaii. But support mounted for the first-term Illinois senator, whose "yes we can" message and powerful speaking style has propelled him to the front-runner's position. The 1.25 million member Teamsters union formally endorsed him on Wedn...
More About: Today , Talk , Attacks

McCain: Reports on Lobbyist a "Smear"
2008-02-21 14:33:00
Sen. John McCain, responding to published reports about his relationship with a lobbyist, says he "will not allow a smear campaign" to distract from his presidential campaign. The New York Times quoted anonymous aides as saying they had urged McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman to stay away from each other prior to his failed presidential campaign in 2000. In its own follow-up story, The Washington Post quoted longtime aide John Weaver, who split with McCain last year, as saying he met with lobbyist Iseman and urged her to stay away from McCain. Weaver told the Times he arranged the meeting after "a discussion among the campaign leadership" about Iseman. Aides said McCain, now on the verge of securing the Republican nomination, would address the allegations at a news conference Thursday morning. The published reports said McCain and Iseman each denied having a romantic relationship. Neither story asserted that there was a romantic relationship and offered no evidence that there was...
More About: Today , Lobbyist

Twilight of the Dictators: A Chance for Pakistan ? and the U.S.
2008-02-20 11:31:00
After years of American enabling and billions in American aid, Pakistan ?s Pervez Musharraf, was ? to put it delicately ? trounced in Monday?s parliamentary elections. The results are much better than the United States could hope for, and more than President Bush deserved after overinvesting in the former general and his anti-democratic excesses. The White House has long insisted that there was no choice but to look the other way as Mr. Musharraf jailed journalists and lawyers, dismissed the Supreme Court and declared emergency rule. Islamist extremists, we were told, would win any fair democratic fight. Instead, even with a rigged system, the moderates managed to win. Now the question is whether the Bush administration can take this opportunity and develop a sensible policy that focuses both on building stable democratic institutions in Pakistan and winning popular support for combating Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Even with all that American money ? and the advice of an American pu...
More About: Editorials , World News , Chance , Today

McCain Hauls in Nearly $12M in January
2008-02-20 11:25:00
Republican Sen. John McCain raised nearly $12 million in January , propelled by victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina that solidified his place as the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission late Tuesday, McCain had $5.2 million cash on hand at the start of February and $5.5 million in debts, including a loan of nearly $4 million. The month marked a turnaround for the Arizona senator, whose presidential campaign had once been considered all but dead. His fundraising also sealed his decision not to accept public financing during the primary. McCain was the first of the major party candidates to submit a January financial report to the FEC. The deadline for filing is Wednesday. Buttressed by a loan and a strategy that focused all of his efforts on New Hampshire, McCain spent $10.4 million in January in fending off a better financed Mitt Romney and establishing himself as the front-runner in the Republi...
More About: Today

Obama Wins Wis. Primary, Hawaii Caucus
2008-02-20 11:22:00
Barack Obama cruised past a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in a Democratic presidential race for the ages. The twin triumphs made 10 straight for Obama, and left the former first lady in desperate need of a comeback in a race she long commanded as front-runner. "The change we seek is still months and miles away," Obama told a boisterous crowd in Houston in a speech in which he also pledged to end the war in Iraq in his first year in office. "I opposed this war in 2002. I will bring this war to an end in 2009. It is time to bring our troops home," he declared. Sen. John McCain, the Republican front-runner, won a pair of primaries, in Wisconsin and Washington, to continue his march toward certain nomination. In a race growing increasingly negative, Obama cut deeply into Clinton's political bedrock in Wisconsin, splitting the support of white women almost evenly with her. According to polling place ...
More About: Today , Primary , Wins

Pelosi's Wiretap Offensive
2008-02-19 16:28:00
For the next 9/11 Commission, we nominate the first witness: Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He's the man now telling everyone to chill out, take it easy, there's nothing to worry about, after his fellow Democrats last week scuttled a bipartisan compromise on warrantless wiretapping of al Qaeda. "It is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to say that we will be vulnerable unless we grant immunity for actions that happened years ago," Mr. Reyes wrote in a letter to President Bush. By "actions" he means the cooperation with U.S. intelligence by private telecom companies after 9/11, for which the companies now face more than 40 lawsuits. Mr. Reyes's letter is a political keeper -- all the more so because it is so divorced from intelligence reality. Nearly every other professional says that Friday night's expiration of the wiretap law will do significant security harm. Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat, on the Senate ...

Wisconsin Will Test Clinton's Support
2008-02-19 16:22:00
Wisconsin is almost the kind of state Hillary Rodham Clinton would have invented to win a Democratic presidential primary, brimming with whites and working class voters who usually support her. A poor performance there Tuesday would raise big questions about her candidacy. Clinton needs to do something to break Barack Obama's momentum. Her rival has won in eight straight states, including decisive victories last week in Virginia and Maryland, and has begun to diminish her edge with core supporters like women and the elderly. The Illinois senator also has established a small lead in the crucial hunt for delegates who will pick the party's nominee at this summer's convention in Denver, and he continues to raise more money than Clinton. Clinton's campaign has focused on March 4 contests in Ohio and Texas as the next major opportunity to revive her hopes. But that's a long way off, and a poor showing in Wisconsin may underscore the New York senator's problems holding on to her ...
More About: Politics , Democrats , Today , Support , Wisconsin

Democrats accuse Bush of fanning terrorism fears
2008-02-17 16:58:00
Democrats accused President Bush on Saturday of fanning terrorism fears shamelessly as he was about to lose certain authority to wiretap foreign suspects without a court warrant. Bush, for his part, flailed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for what he called putting U.S. security at risk for political motives in an election year. The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, responding to a Republican blitz on the issue, said there should be no question in anyone's mind that U.S. intelligence agencies retained the right to take "all actions necessary to protect" U.S. security. "For anyone to suggest otherwise is irresponsible and totally inaccurate," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said in a joint statement. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, in the Democratic Party response to Bush's weekly radio address, added, "We know this president dislikes compromise, but this time he has taken his stubb...
More About: Terrorism , Democrats , Fears

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Victim
2008-02-17 16:27:00
On Monday, some six years after 9/11, military prosecutors filed charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , al Qaeda's foreign-operations chief, along with five of his conspirators. They will stand before a military tribunal, and if convicted they could face execution. And as if to prove that the U.S. has lost its seriousness and every sense of proportion, now we are told not that KSM is a killer, but a victim. The victim, supposedly, of President Bush. Opponents of military commissions (including Barack Obama) want KSM & Co. turned over to the regular civilian courts, or at least to military courts-martial; anything else is said to abridge American freedoms. This attitude is either disingenuous or naïve, or both, because it is tenable only by discounting the nature of the attacks and the enemies who carried them out. KSM himself has made plain the extent and ambition of his world war. "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," he admitted during a hearing in March las...
More About: Victim , Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

McCain's Sharp Tongue: an Achilles Heel?
2008-02-17 16:24:00
Temper, temper. Republican John McCain is known for his. He's been dubbed "Senator Hothead" by more than one publication, but he's also had some success extracting his hatchet from several foreheads. Even his Republican Senate colleagues are not spared his sharp tongue. "F--- you," he shouted at Texas Sen. John Cornyn last year. "Only an a------ would put together a budget like this," he told the former Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, in 1999. "I'm calling you a f------ jerk!" he once retorted to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley. With Cornyn, he smoothed things over quickly. The two argued during a meeting on immigration legislation; Cornyn complained that McCain seemed to parachute in during the final stages of negotiations. "F--- you. I know more about this than anyone else in the room," McCain reportedly shouted. Cornyn chuckled at the memory of what he called McCain's "aggressive expressions of differences." The Texan has endorsed McCain. "He almost immediately...
More About: World News , Today , Sharp , Tongue , Heel

Clinton Again Calls on Obama to Debate
2008-02-17 16:15:00
Hillary Rodham Clinton renewed her call Saturday to debate Democratic rival Barack Obama in Wisconsin before Tuesday's primary, even as she acknowledged she would cease campaigning in the state a full day before voters go to the polls. "This is what happens when you've got the kind of schedules that we're all trying to keep up with," she said. "I care deeply about what happens here in this election." Clinton advisers have downplayed Clinton's chances in Wisconsin even as polling indicates the race could be close here. While the state is home to many liberal, college-educated Democrats who have typically favored Obama, it also boasts a large population of white working-class voters who form the core of Clinton's electoral base. Obama, a senator from neighboring Illinois, has spent the better part of the week campaigning here while Clinton has focused on Ohio and Texas, both of which hold primaries March 4. The New York senator is counting on those states to pull her out of a ...
More About: Politics , Today , Debate , Calls

Sidelined home buyers frozen by fears
2008-02-17 16:08:00
Home prices have plunged by 10 percent or more in some parts of the United States and interest rates on mortgages are at enticing levels, but many potential buyers are waiting for prices to fall further. This psychology is helping prevent the hard-hit home market -- suffering one of its worst downturns in history -- from recovering, just as the spring, the peak home buying season, gets underway. Rochelle Getzler, a housewife in Nassau County, outside New York city, and her husband, Abraham, have been on the fence for nearly a year, waiting for an opportune time to buy. "I think it is too risky to buy right now," she said. "Yes, prices have come down, but they have come down from extremely high levels." As is the case with a growing number of Americans, the Getzlers are also feeling the pinch of a weak U.S. economy: Abraham lost his job of over 20 years as a computer technician due to his company's efforts to cut costs. Sharply higher gas and oil prices are also taking a toll o...
More About: Business , Home Buyers , Home , Today , Buyers

Clinton Aide Wants Mich., Fla. Delegates
2008-02-17 16:05:00
Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's campaign who voted for Democratic Party rules that stripped Mich igan and Florida of their delegates, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass. In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised - before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions. Campaigning in Wisconsin after Ickes' remarks, Clinton echoed his contention that a suitable arrangement could be worked out to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations. "The rules provide for a vote at the convention to seat contested delegations," she said. "This goes back to the 1940s in my memory. There is nothing unusual about this. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination until June. Usually it takes awhile...
More About: Politics , Today , Delegates

Democrats in standoff over Florida
2008-02-15 16:48:00
As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battle to be the Democratic presidential nominee, the winner could be determined by primaries held weeks ago in Florida and Michigan, even though the party decided to ignore their results. Both contests have been ruled unofficial because the states violated Democratic Party rules by moving their elections forward in a bid to have more influence in selecting the nominee. Now Michigan and Florida's 366 suspended delegates could prove decisive if neither candidate lands a knockout blow in the states remaining before the party's August convention. Party officials are trying to avoid an ugly standoff that could linger through the summer and anger the 2.4 million voters who participated in the two primaries, both swing states that may be crucial in the November election. "The party is certainly concerned that some voters feel their votes didn't count," said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski. So far neither state has agreed to stag...
More About: Democrats , Today

Sarkozy defends Holocaust proposal amid uproar
2008-02-15 16:40:00
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy , facing a tide of criticism over his call for schoolchildren to "adopt" Jewish child victims of the Holocaust , hit back on Friday saying France had to raise children "with open eyes". In a speech praising faith that also drew fire from secularists, Sarkozy told France's Jewish community on Wednesday that every 10-year-old schoolchild should be "entrusted with the memory of a French child victim of the Holocaust". The proposal unleashed a storm of protest from teachers, psychologists and his political foes who said it would unfairly burden children with the guilt of previous generations and some could be traumatized by identifying with a Holocaust victim. More than 11,100 French Jewish children were deported from France to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps in eastern Europe during the German World War Two occupation. "The emotional burden can have negative consequences for a child who is developing," Gilles Moindrot, general ...
More About: Proposal

McCain's Focus Is on General Election
2008-02-15 16:15:00
John McCain is wasting no time running a general election campaign as he settles into his newfound role as the Republican Party's presidential nominee-in-waiting. "Both of them lack experience," the Arizona senator said Thursday about Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, now focusing entirely on his Democratic rivals and emphasizing his qualifications to be commander in chief. McCain's stepped-up faulting of the pair marks an effort to take advantage of a window afforded him by essentially wrapping up the GOP nod nine months before the election, while Clinton and Obama continue to battle it out. Throwing stones at the Democrats keeps him in the mix as they seize the headlines, and, he hopes, might allow him to set the tone for the fall campaign. The Democratic Party, for its part, is trying to keep that from happening and is casting McCain's candidacy as a continuation of President Bush's policies. A frequent Democratic refrain: "A vote for John McCain is a vote for...
More About: Politics , General , Today , Election , General Election

States of Opportunity: Americans Relocating in Record Numbers
2008-02-13 04:21:00
An old adage says high taxes don't redistribute income, they redistribute people. For new evidence look no further than migration patterns within the United States, as documented in a new survey by the moving company United Van Lines. A record eight million Americans -- some 20,000 people every day -- relocated to another state last year. So where are these families headed and why? The general picture is this: Americans are continuing to flee the Northeast and Midwest, while the leading destinations continue to be Southern and Western states. The United Van Lines study finds that the biggest population loser last year was Michigan, where two families moved out of the state for every new family that moved in. Americans are also fleeing New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Without interviewing the departed, it's impossible to know the reasons for this outward migration. No doubt overall economic prospects, climate, quality of life and housing prices play a role. ...
More About: Editorials , Today , Opportunity , Numbers

Clinton Hopes for Texas Rebound
2008-02-13 04:14:00
Trying to overcome a string of losses and a staff shake-up, Hillary Rodham Clinton sought new energy Tuesday night from a boisterous crowd of about 12,000 in a state she hopes will provide a rebound in her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton, whose rallies had been overshadowed by rival Barack Obama's huge crowds, arrived at the packed University of Texas at El Paso basketball arena as voters were giving Obama victories in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. But her sights were set on the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries and on President Bush. "I'm tested, I'm ready, let's make it happen," she yelled to cheering supporters. She slipped into a "you all" and criticized Bush, the former Texas governor. "There's a great saying in Texas," she said, "all hat and no cattle. Well after seven years of George Bush, we need a lot less hat and lot more cattle." Clinton did not mention Tuesday's results, but there were lingering signs of the disquiet in her ...
More About: Politics , Hopes , Today

Obama Rolls to Three Big Wins
2008-02-13 04:09:00
ASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama easily won three more Democratic nominating contests on Tuesday, extending his winning streak over rival Hillary Clinton and building momentum in a hard-fought U.S. presidential race. Obama rolled to decisive victories in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, running his hot streak to eight consecutive wins and expanding his lead in pledged convention delegates who select the party's nominee. Republican front-runner John McCain defeated his last major challenger, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia as he moved closer to clinching the party's nomination for the November election. The wins for Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, followed big weekend triumphs in Maine, Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands. All three of Tuesday's contests occurred in fertile territory for Obama, with large populations of the highly educated, high-income and black vote...
More About: Politics , Today , Wins

Head Scarves and Liberty
2008-02-11 07:41:00
When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited us in New York a few years ago, he said his daughters chose to study in the U.S. in part because it was illegal to wear head scarves at Turkish universities. Saturday, Turkey's Parliament voted to lift that ban. There's probably no more contentious issue in Turkish public life, and thousands of secularists took to the streets in protest. The debate goes back to the founding of modern Turkey, when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk banned the fez, veil and head scarf in many public places. When the military outlawed head scarves at public universities after a 1980 coup, it said the move was necessary to push back against Islamists. Our own view is that lifting the ban is a sign of Turkey's democratic maturity. Mr. Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamic roots, rightly argued that the restriction violated freedom of religion. The vote to amend the constitution and permit head scarves on campus passed by 411 to 103, and...
More About: Liberty , Editorials , World News , Today , Scarves

Abortion clinics operator is charged
2008-02-11 07:35:00
By the time paramedics arrived, the patient was lying in a pool of her own blood, her pulse racing and her blood pressure dangerously low. The woman, identified only as Angela P. in records of the Medical Board of California, had gone to the Clinica Medica Para la Mujer de Hoy in Santa Ana in the summer of 2004 for an abortion. Dr. Phillip Rand, then in his early 80s, performed a vaginal suction procedure, despite having determined that Angela was about 20 weeks pregnant, well into her second trimester. She was given no anesthesia or painkillers. According to the National Abortion Federation, vacuum aspiration procedures are normally performed on women who are up to 14 weeks pregnant. After 14 weeks, a more complicated procedure, known as dilation and evacuation, is standard. "A suction abortion is not appropriate at 20 weeks," said Vicki Saporta, president of the federation. Angela P.'s experience was cited in a 2004 medical board accusation against Rand as "barbaric" and a "...
More About: Today , Operator , Clinics

Chavez Threatens to Halt Oil Sales to US
2008-02-11 07:32:00
President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an "economic war" if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets. Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government. A British court has issued an injunction "freezing" as much as $12 billion in assets. "If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello, President.""Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger." Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which is Venezuela's No. 1 client, if Washington tries to oust him. Chavez's warnings on Sunday appeared to extend that threat to attempts...
More About: Business , Sales , World News , Today

Huckabee Looks Ahead but Questions Wash. Caucus Results
2008-02-11 07:20:00
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is crying foul after John McCain's apparent victory in the Wash ington caucuses on Saturday. Huckabee's campaign released a statement Sunday saying it will be exploring all available legal options regarding the "dubious final results." Arizona Sen. McCain was announced as the victor in the caucuses with 26 percent of the vote to Huckabee's 24 percent. But Huckabee's campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, said Luke Esser, Washington's Republican Party chairman, chose to call the race too quickly for McCain. Rollins said Huckabee was losing by 242 votes with 87 percent of the vote counted. He said there were another 1,500 or so votes that were apparently not counted. "That is an outrage," Rollins said. Rollins said the Huckabee campaign's lawyers will be on the ground in Washington soon to see why the count took so long, and why the vote-counting was stopped prematurely. "It would be a disservice to every voter in Washington state to ...
More About: Politics , Questions , Results , Today

Losing Steam Clinton Shuffles Campaign Team
2008-02-11 02:58:00
As she struggles to blunt Barack Obama's growing momentum, Democrat Hillary Clinton shuffled her campaign staff's leadership on Sunday ahead of this week's U.S. presidential nominating contests, while her rival celebrated a victory in the Maine caucuses. Clinton replaced her campaign manager after a string of losses on Saturday, though aides played down any notion the move was a sign of trouble for the New York senator in her tight state-by-state fight with Obama to be the Democratic nominee for the November 4 election. Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black president, won in Maine after easy victories on Saturday in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state, and is rolling confidently into Tuesday's so-called Potomac primaries in Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia. John McCain, an Arizona senator who became the likely Republican nominee last week when his chief rival dropped out, lost two of three state contests on Saturday but got a vote of confidence fr...
More About: Today , Campaign , Team , Steam

Buffett: Bank woes are "poetic justice"
2008-02-09 03:08:00
TORONTO (Reuters) - The woes in the U.S. financial sector are "poetic justice" for bankers who designed and sold complex investments that have since gone sour, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said on Wednesday. The head of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc group of companies also played down worries about a credit crunch by saying that recent interest rate cuts mean low-cost funds are readily available. But he warned that the U.S. dollar will continue to slide unless the country can rein in its yawning trade deficit -- the "biggest factor" behind the decline. Still, he said, the U.S. economy will "do very well over time." Buffett, one of the world's wealthiest people, appeared to see irony in the fact that many of the banks who marketed complex investments which have now crashed are bearing much of the fallout. "It's sort of a little poetic justice, in that the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end," he said. Buffett, a legendary...
More About: Business , Justice , World News , Today

Obama Leads Clinton by Only 2 Delegates
2008-02-09 02:44:00
hree days after the voting ended, the race for Democratic delegates in Super Tuesday's contests was still too close to call. With nearly 1,600 delegates from Tuesday contests awarded, Sen. Barack Obama led by two delegates Friday night, with 91 delegates still to be awarded. Obama won 796 delegates in Tuesday's contests, to 794 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton , according to an analysis of voting results by The Associated Press. In the Republican contest, Sen. John McCain had a commanding lead in the race for delegates. Nearly a third of the outstanding delegates are from Colorado, a state where Obama won the popular vote. California, a state that Clinton carried, had 20 Democratic delegates still to be awarded. Neither state expected to have complete results before next week. Obama won the popular vote in 13 states Tuesday, while Clinton won in eight states and American Samoa. In the overall race for the nomination, Clinton has 1,055 delegates, including separately chosen party...
More About: Politics , Leads , Today

Ted Turner Becomes Largest Private Landowner in the United States
2008-02-09 02:34:00
CNN founder Ted Turner, the largest private landowner in Nebraska and the United States and the nation's largest bison rancher, said Wednesday that he is about done buying new ranches. He said he would like to reach 2 million acres nationwide before he dies ? about 40,000 acres more than he currently owns. "I'm almost done. I've got enough," said Turner, who was visiting Omaha for the reopening and renaming of one of his 54 bison restaurants, now called Ted's Nebraska Grill. The 69-year-old billionaire, philanthropist and conservationist said he isn't interested in free-standing ranches anymore, only "reasonably priced" parcels adjacent to his current operations, which include five ranches in Nebraska near Gordon, Oshkosh and Mullen. The ranches cover 425,221 acres, an area larger than Douglas and Sarpy Counties combined. "You know what 2 million acres is?" Turner asked over a plate of bison miniburgers and transfat-free onion rings. "If my land was all connected, in one lo...
More About: Business , Today , Private

Clinton dips into pocket to keep up with Obama
2008-02-07 17:39:00
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton looked ahead on Wednesday to a long and bruising presidential battle, and Clinton said she loaned $5 million of her own money to the costly fight to keep pace. Republican John McCain, still facing conservative opposition, promised to unite his party as his coast-to-coast "Super Tuesday" wins in key states put him on the verge of clinching the nomination and capping a stunning political comeback. "I do hope that at some point we would calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party," the Arizona senator told reporters in Phoenix before a speech on Thursday to a conference of conservative activists in Washington. Obama and Clinton battled to a draw on "Super Tuesday," with Obama winning 13 states and Clinton eight, including the big prizes of California and New York. Their delegate tally was almost even, propelling the fight toward the next round of seven Democratic co...
More About: Politics , Today , Pocket

Obama Raises $7M Post Super Tuesday
2008-02-07 17:33:00
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has raised $7.2 million for his presidential campaign since the first polls closed on Super Tuesday night, his campaign said Thursday, a remarkable figure that is causing concern among supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Meanwhile Thursday, the Clinton campaign asked Obama to debate once a week, but he demurred. Obama, riding a wave of fundraising from large donors and small Internet contributors, also raised $32 million in January. Clinton acknowledged Wednesday that she loaned her campaign $5 million late last month as Obama was outraising and outspending her heading into Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests. Some senior staffers on her campaign also are voluntarily forgoing paychecks as the campaign heads into the next round of contests. Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said she also got substantial donations since Super Tuesday but did not provide a specific number during a telephone interview with MSNBC. Obama and Clinton outpaced all candidate...
More About: Post , Today