World Briefly

By The Associated Press | Clanton Advertiser

Published Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Obama tells GOP he'll consider changes on eve of big House vote on $825B stimulus plan

WASHINGTON (AP) — On the eve of a key vote, President Barack Obama privately promised Republican critics he stands ready to accept changes in $825 billion economic stimulus legislation, and urged lawmakers to "put politics aside" in the interest of creating badly needed jobs.

"The American people expect action," Obama said Tuesday as he shuttled between closed-door meetings with House and Senate Republicans on a trip to the Capitol that blended substance with political symbolism.

Republicans who attended the sessions said the president did not agree to any specific changes but did pledge to have his aides consider some that GOP lawmakers raised dealing with additional tax relief for businesses.

Prodded to budge on another point, Obama said that despite Republican opposition, he will insist on giving relief to wage-earners who pay Social Security taxes but do not earn enough to owe income tax.

In a measure of the complicated political dynamic in Congress, one Republican quoted the president as saying any changes would have to come after the House gives what is expected to be largely party-line approval Wednesday to the Democratic-backed bill. The measure includes about $550 billion in spending and roughly $275 billion in tax cuts.

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Illinois senators hear FBI recordings of Gov. Rod Blagojevich at impeachment trial

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Gov. Rod Blagojevich was hundreds of miles away but his voice boomed through the Illinois Senate's chambers Tuesday as his impeachment jurors listened to FBI wiretaps of conversations in which he seems to demand campaign contributions in exchange for signing legislation.

One person on the recordings assures Blagojevich that a horse-racing track owner "is good for it" and just has to decide "what accounts to get it out of." Another assures him the track owner knows he must keep his "commitment" soon.

Blagojevich replies with comments like "good" and "good job." Legislation sought by the racing industry had been sent to the governor's desk, and on the tapes, he says to reassure a racing lobbyist he hopes "to do this so we can get together and start picking some dates to do a bill-signing."

Senators conducting the trial, which Blagojevich is boycotting though it could remove him from office within days, listened intently as the fuzzy, indistinct conversations echoed through the room — the heating system, reporters typing on laptops and the occasional cough accounting for the only other noise.

Neither the governor nor the others on the call — the governor's brother and chief fundraiser Robert Blagojevich and former chief of staff Lon Monk, officials say — specifically mentions money or any amounts.

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Documents: Bill Clinton earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees from foreign sources

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, almost all of it from foreign companies, according to financial documents filed by his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that $4.6 million of the former president's reported $5.7 million in 2008 honoraria came from foreign sources, including Kuwait's national bank, other firms and groups in Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Portugal and a Hong Kong-based company that spent $100,000 on federal lobbying last year.

Executives at many of the firms that paid honoraria to Bill Clinton have also donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation, according to documents it released last year as part of an agreement with Congress on Hillary Clinton's nomination as secretary of state. That agreement was aimed at preventing the appearance of any conflict of interest between the ex-president's charitable organization and his wife's new job as the United States' top diplomat.

In addition to Bill Clinton's income from speaking fees, Hillary Clinton reported joint holdings of between $6.1 million and $30.3 million in a blind trust as well as cash, insurance and retirement accounts worth between $1 million and $5.2 million.

Hillary Clinton made between $50,000 and $100,000 in royalties from her 2003 memoir "Living History." Bill Clinton earned between $100,000 and $1 million in royalties for his 2004 autobiography "My Life," the documents show. The Clintons reported no liabilities.

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Citigroup bails out of plan to take delivery of jet after pressure from Obama administration

NEW YORK (AP) — Citigroup won't be getting a new corporate jet after all. Under pressure from President Barack Obama, one of the nation's largest banks reversed course, announcing that it will not take delivery of the jet it had planned to purchase before the credit crisis unfolded.

The canceled deal came as many politicians voiced concern about how banks are spending government bailout money.

The White House reached out to Citigroup on Monday to reiterate Obama's position that such jets are not "the best use of money at this point," calling them "outrageous" spending for a company getting taxpayer dollars, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was describing private conversations.

In a statement late Monday, Citigroup Inc. said it paid a deposit in 2005 to acquire the jet. The New York-based bank said it did not plan to use government money for the purchase, and it noted that any cancellation of the deal would probably lead to multimillion-dollar penalties.

On Monday, the New York Post reported that Citi was set to take possession of the jet even after receiving $45 billion from the government.

The government is also providing guarantees on hundreds of billions of dollars of Citi investments in mortgages and other troubled investments.

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Wife tells Oprah Winfrey that Haggard told her of struggles with same-sex attraction years ago

CHICAGO (AP) — Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard's wife says she knew about his struggles with same-sex attraction for years and felt he was "winning the battle" before a scandal involving a male prostitute triggered his downfall in late 2006.

Gayle Haggard makes the remarks in an appearance with her husband on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to air Wednesday. She said she was shocked when Haggard first told her the truth about the allegations against him.

"The first words out of my mouth were, 'Who are you?'" she said, according to a publicity release issued Tuesday by Harpo Productions.

However, Gayle Haggard also said her husband told her early in their 30-year marriage that he "struggled with some thoughts."

"I felt it was the thing that could destroy Ted if he gave in to it," she said. "So I prayed for him and I felt as though he was winning the battle."

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Texas prosecutor recounts toddler's last moments; defense says mother didn't intend to kill

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — A slain toddler tried to stop her mother and stepfather from beating her to death by reaching out to her mother and saying, "I love you," a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

The pleas from 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers didn't stop her mother, Kimberly Trenor, from continuing to brutalize her, assistant district attorney Kayla Allen said in her opening statement at Trenor's murder trial.

But defense attorney Tommy Stickler Jr. told the jury that Trenor, 20, never intended to kill her daughter in 2007 and that things just "spun out of control."

The toddler was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators who worked to identify her decomposed remains after the body was found in a plastic container in October 2007 on a tiny island in Galveston Bay.

Trenor's 25-year-old husband, Royce Zeigler II, is to be tried separately on murder charges. His attorney points the finger at Trenor.

Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty because they didn't think they could prove that either one would be a future danger, as required.

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Rare, miniature 1,800-year-old male bust found in Jerusalem excavation

JERUSALEM (AP) — An 1,800-year-old figurine believed to have originated from the eastern stretches of the Roman Empire has been discovered by archaeologists outside the walls of the old city, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said. The 2-inch marble bust depicts the head of a man with a short curly beard and almond-shaped eyes who may portray a boxer, the authority said.

"The high level of finish on the figurine is extraordinary, while meticulously adhering to the tiniest of details," Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, directors of the excavation, said in a joint statement released Monday. Nothing similar has ever been uncovered in Israel, they said, calling it a "unique find."

Carved from pale yellow marble, archeologists think the figurine was most likely carried to Jerusalem by a merchant.

Archaeologists believe the figurine was used as a weight for a hanging scale of a type common in the Roman period. Tiny holes drilled in its neck were likely used to attach it to the scale, and remnants of metal remain.

The miniature bust was found in the ruins of a building destroyed by an earthquake in the fourth or fifth century. The same dig outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City also recently yielded a well-preserved gold earring inlaid with pearls and a trove of more than 250 gold coins.

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John Updike, prize-winning writer of 'Rabbit' novels, dies of lung cancer at age 76

NEW YORK (AP) — John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.

Updike, best known for his four "Rabbit" novels, died of lung cancer at a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass., according to his longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

A literary writer who frequently appeared on best-seller lists, the tall, hawk-nosed Updike wrote novels, short stories, poems, criticism, the memoir "Self-Consciousness" and even a famous essay about baseball great Ted Williams.

He released more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s, winning virtually every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest," and two National Book Awards.

Although himself deprived of a Nobel, he did bestow it upon one of his fictional characters, Henry Bech, the womanizing, egotistical Jewish novelist who collected the literature prize in 1999.

His settings ranged from the court of "Hamlet" to postcolonial Africa, but his literary home was the American suburb, the great new territory of mid-century fiction.

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Scientists say presumed mammoth tusk on Santa Cruz Island is actually a whale jawbone

SANTA CRUZ ISLAND, Calif. (AP) — Earlier this month, a graduate student photographed what some thought was a remarkable find: A complete tusk of a prehistoric pygmy mammoth.

Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be a mammoth — it was something even far older.

A team of researchers spent two days on Santa Cruz Island excavating and determined it was a jawbone from an extinct whale species.

Lotus Vermeer of the Nature Conservancy says the bone was found in a rock formation estimated to be between 9.5 million to 25 million years old — long before mammoths roamed the Channel Islands.

The team dug out the bone and cast it in plaster. The bone, about 3 feet in length, then was airlifted out via a helicopter.

A number of other bones were found nearby that could be even older and may include an intact whale skull.

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