AP News in Brief

By The Associated Press | Clanton Advertiser

Published Thursday, November 20, 2008

Familiar Democrats fill out fledgling candidate, Daschle to be Obama's health secretary

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.

Obama is enlisting former Senate leader Tom Daschle as his health secretary. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a well-known Washington personality, seemed more likely than ever to be his secretary of state. Clinton is deciding whether to take that post as America's top diplomat, her associates said Wednesday

Obama is ready to announce that his attorney general will be Eric Holder, the Justice Department's No. 2 when Clinton's husband was president. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, is another veteran of the Clinton White House.

Daschle's selection to head the Health and Human Services Department — confirmed Wednesday but not yet announced — isn't at the same level of Cabinet prestige as the top spots at the State and Justice departments. But the health post could be more important in an Obama administration than in some others, making Daschle a key player in helping steer the president-elect's promised health care reforms.

Daschle could push Obama for quick action on health care reform next year, if he follows his own advice.

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Fed sees country lurching deeper into economic despair, driving up unemployment

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pounded by a fierce financial crisis, the country is sinking deeper into economic despair and is likely to be in the hole well into next year, forcing more Americans into the ranks of the unemployed.

The gloomy outlook from the Federal Reserve came as hopes dimmed that Congress could secure a fresh $25 billion rescue package for the tottering U.S. auto industry before lawmakers quit for the year.

With economic troubles cutting into customers' appetites, businesses will remain in a cost-cutting mode, keeping layoffs high.

Although economists predict a government report out Thursday will show that the number of newly laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits last week dipped to 505,000, that figure would still point to an ailing jobs market, they say.

In the prior week, new applications filed for jobless benefits zoomed to 516,000, the most since right after the September 2001 terror attacks.

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Detroit automakers multibillion-dollar rescue plan stuck in neutral in Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to give troubled U.S. automakers billions of dollars in government-backed loans is on life support, leaving the fate of hundreds of thousands of workers and Detroit's once-venerable car companies hanging in the balance.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled plans Wednesday for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new auto industry loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans have rejected Democrats' plan to dip into that pot of money.

Warning of economic disaster, a bipartisan group of senators from auto industry states are trying to reach a deal on an alternative package. If an agreement can be reached, Reid said, the Senate still could vote on it as part of a measure to extend jobless benefits.

But Reid acknowledged that was "not going to be easy."

With all sides sensing doom for a Big Three automaker rescue, the finger-pointing began. White House press secretary Dana Perino said that if Congress "leaves for a two-month vacation without having addressed this important issue ... then the Congress will bear responsibility for anything that happens."

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Asian, European markets extend rout as Japanese exports plunge; Nikkei sinks 6.9 percent

HONG KONG (AP) — World stock markets tumbled Thursday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Seoul losing almost 7 percent each, after recession fears sent Wall Street plunging and Japan suffered its biggest drop in exports in seven years.

The slide in Asian and European shares extended a global sell-off that accelerated overnight amid lowered projections for U.S. economic activity next year from the Federal Reserve and worries over the fate of America's Big Three automakers, which are pleading for emergency loans from Washington.

The uncertainty facing companies around the world was evident after U.S. consumer prices fell 1 percent last month, the largest amount in the past 61 years. While beneficial to consumers, lower prices hurt corporate profits and raise the threat of deflation.

The rout continued as trading opened in Europe, where Britain's FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and France's CAC-40 all fell more than 2 percent early in the session. Oil and other commodities were also down.

"We've gone past the poor sentiment stage," said Miles Remington, head of Asian sales trading at BNP Paribas Securities in Hong Kong.

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Democratic leaders looking at ways to overturn changes to endangered species rules

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the Bush administration on the verge of relaxing regulations protecting endangered species, Democratic leaders are looking at ways to overturn any last-minute rule changes.

The Bush administration has until Friday to publish new rules in order for them to take effect before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in. Otherwise, Obama can undo them with the stroke of a pen.

A rule eliminating the mandatory, independent advice of government scientists in decisions about whether dams, highways and other projects are likely to harm species looked likely to meet the deadline, leaving the only chance for a quick reversal to Congress.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House will be looking at ways to overturn the final endangered species rules and other one-minute-to-midnight regulations.

"The House, in consultation with the incoming administration and relevant committees, will review what oversight tools are at our disposal regarding this and other last-minute attempts to inflict severe damage to the law in the waning moments of the Bush administration," Hammill said.

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Astronaut: 'You're not going to see us lose another bag' of needed tools as spacewalk nears

HOUSTON (AP) — Astronauts vowed to double-check, even triple-check, to make sure a bag of tools is properly tied down during a spacewalk Thursday so it doesn't float away like one did earlier this week.

"We're definitely not going to do it again. You're not going to see us lose another bag," lead spacewalker Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper said in an interview from the international space station with The Associated Press. "We're going to double- and triple-check everything from here on out."

During Tuesday's spacewalk, the mission's first, the tool tote floated out of a larger bag as Stefanyshyn-Piper tried to clean grease from a leaking grease gun. Tethered to the lost briefcase-sized tool bag were a pair of grease guns used to lubricate a jammed joint that controls the space station's rotating solar wing. The bag was one of the largest items ever lost by a spacewalking astronaut, and NASA put a price tag on it of $100,000.

The mishap left Stefanyshyn-Piper and her fellow spacewalkers, Stephen Bowen and Robert "Shane" Kimbrough, with only a single pair of grease guns for three more spacewalks during space shuttle Endeavour's nearly two-week visit at the space station, 220 miles above Earth.

Thursday's spacewalk is almost identical to the earlier one, except Stefanyshyn-Piper will have Kimbrough as a partner instead of Bowen. The spacewalkers plan to clean and lubricate the troublesome joint, as well as relocate a railcar used on the space station's exterior rail track and lubricate the end of the station's robotic arm.

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Chinese government says it will overhaul dairy industry, from breeding cows to milk sales

BEIJING (AP) — China announced a complete overhaul of its dairy industry Thursday to improve safety at every step — from cow breeding to milk sales — saying its worst food quality scandal in years had revealed "major problems" in quality control.

Changes will be made within the next year in production, purchasing, processing and sales, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The crisis has put China's dairy industry in peril and exposed major problems existing in the quality control and supervision of the industry," it quoted an official at China's top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, as saying.

Milk and milk products tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical, have been blamed in the deaths of at least three infants and have sickened more than 50,000 others. The government has detained dozens of people in the scandal, but there have been no court cases so far.

The State Council, China's Cabinet, said the Health Ministry will issue new quality and safety standards for dairy products, while the Agriculture Ministry will draft inspection standards for melamine and other toxins in animal feed. The flow and delivery of dairy products will also be tracked, it said in a statement.

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Peter Matthiessen wins National Book Award fiction prize for 'Shadow Country'

NEW YORK (AP) — The economy hung like a cloud over the 59th annual National Book Awards. Barack Obama was the silver lining.

"It's a good time to be alive," announced author, Obama fan and fiction committee chair Gail Godwin, as she gracefully pulled out an envelope Wednesday night— in stated emulation of the president-elect — and revealed that Peter Matthiessen had won for "Shadow Country," a thorough revision of a trilogy of novels released in the 1990s.

As the book industry faces a holiday season that Barnes & Noble Inc. head Len Riggio has said could be the worst in memory, it gathered on Wall Street, of all places, under the 70-foot ceiling and Wedgewood dome of Cipriani, dining on baked tagliolini and roast filet of beef, referring nervously to a ruinous stock market.

"Wall Street is not at the moment a street of riches, but of ruin and broken dreams," attendee Ron Chernow, the business historian and former book award winner, told The Associated Press before the ceremony. "We're having cocktails and wearing tuxedos and it doesn't feel completely right."

In his opening monologue, awards host Eric Bogosian joked about the gilded venue: "This was a bank once, and they built banks like this because banks never fail."

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Indiana inmates remove metal ceiling panels to pass their time behind bars by having sex

BLOOMFIELD, Ind. (AP) — Three male and three female inmates at a southern Indiana jail face charges that they devised a way to sneak between cell blocks to help pass their time behind bars by having sex.

The inmates figured out how to remove metal ceiling panels in the Greene County Jail and used the passageway more than a dozen times in September and October, according to court documents.

The men — ages 44, 38 and 17 — and the women — ages 27, 26 and 21 — crawled through the ceiling after midnight, having sexual encounters and drinking homemade alcohol that was found hidden in the male cell block, a police affidavit said.

One male inmate who was not charged said the female inmates would "hang-out, play cards or have sex with some of the male inmates" in their cell block, the affidavit said.

The inmates were able to find a security camera "blind spot" where they could remove ceiling tiles and create a passage between the cell blocks, Sheriff Terry Pierce said Tuesday.

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NFL reinstates troubled Cowboys cornerback Adam 'Pacman' Jones, who can return on Dec. 7

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The NFL is giving Adam "Pacman" Jones another chance. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday the suspended cornerback has been reinstated by league commissioner Roger Goodell, but he must miss two more games — this Sunday and the following game on Thanksgiving. He'll be back Dec. 7 at Pittsburgh.

"He much appreciates the Cowboys and Jerry Jones for standing behind him and encouraging him, and he's grateful to the commissioner," said Worrick Robinson, Adam Jones' Nashville-based attorney.

Jerry Jones would not reveal any conditions the commissioner may have imposed and the league office said it would not have any immediate comment. However, Robinson, said, "He knows what he has to do. It's very clear."

"He's a long way, a long way from having clear sailing," Jerry Jones said.

Adam Jones was suspended from the entire 2007 season because of multiple incidents while with the Tennessee Titans. Over the offseason, he was traded to Dallas and then given another chance by Goodell. The Cowboys gave him a security team to help keep him in line, but on Oct. 7, Jones got into an alcohol-related scuffle with one of the bodyguards during a private party at a Dallas hotel.