NATO warships and helicopters pursued Somali pirates for seven hours after they attacked a Norwegian tanker, NATO spokesmen said Sunday, and the high-speed chase only ended when warning shots were fired at the pirates’ skiff. (snip) NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates.
Man with information about the accessing of presidential candidates’ passport files shot to death.
A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday. (snip) The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.
All those thousands of tea party people were absolutely correct.
As Tea Parties ensued from coast to coast last week, the Obama administration and their media minions depicted attendees as not understanding that the new president has decreed taxes will be going down for 95 percent of Americans. On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein let the cat out of the bag: Tea Partiers are right. Taxes are going up. This revelation occurred after host David Gregory said to the Post’s Pulitzer Prize winner, “There may be doubts about President Obama, but he is cutting taxes.” (snip) And one of the things that everyone has to get sort of comfortable with is it’s going up. And Dick [Armey] is right about that, it’s going up. It has to go up.
The Obama administration is watching more than just pirates in Somalia. Officials have been tracking a Somali terrorist group and are weighing whether to strike some of its training camps. The fear is that the group, al-Shabab, could join forces with al-Qaida and target the U.S. A senior government official tells NPR that because the U.S. military is worried about al-Shabab, all options are on the table — including a military strike. The official said the most likely scenario would be an attack from the air, not boots on the ground.
RUDY GIULIANI is declaring war on gay marriage — vowing to use his strong opposition of it against the Democrats if he runs for governor next year. The former mayor, in an extended interview with The Post, also predicted that Gov. Paterson’s high-profile effort to legalize gay marriage would anger many New Yorkers and spark a revolt that could help sweep Republicans into office in 2010.
Rosie O’Donnell and Michael Moore are killing our planet!
Overweight people eat more than thin people and are more likely to travel by car, making excess body weight doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “When it comes to food consumption, moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a gas guzzler,” and food production is a major source of greenhouse gases, researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in their study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Sponsors... article continues below...
Oracle makes $7.4 billion offer for Sun Microsystems.
Oracle made a surprise $7.4 billion (£5.1 billion) offer for Sun Microsystems today, filling the gap left by IBM after its rival abandoned an earlier bid to buy one of Silicon Valley’s most troubled companies. The deal will give Oracle ownership of the Java programming language, which runs on more than one billion devices around the world. It will transform the company, analysts said, turning the database software company into an all-round systems company, and making it a direct competitor of IBM and Hewlett Packard.
President Barack Obama promised to eliminate dozens of government programs that have been shown to be “wasteful or ineffective” and said he will call on his cabinet to search their budgets for more. “There will be no sacred cows, and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it’s time their government did the same,” Mr. Obama said Saturday in his weekly address.
The top rate of tax will encourage rich people to leave Britain or use accounting rules to avoid paying income tax on more of their wealth, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The IFS calculations have embarrassed Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, who last year announced plans to impose the 45p rate on people earning more than £150,000, starting next year.
100 year old woman throwing strikes, picking up spares.
A 100-year-old woman from New Jersey has become the oldest competitor in the history of the United States Bowling Congress Women’s Championships. Emma Hendrickson of Morris Plains, N.J., was presented Saturday night with a plaque and a medallion to commemorate her 50th consecutive appearance in the tournament. She also received a pendant with her birthstone in recognition of her status as the tournament’s oldest participant.
GM set to cut loose 1600 employees.
About 1,600 white-collar workers at General Motors Corp. will lose their jobs in the next few days as the troubled automaker accelerates cost cuts in order to qualify for more government aid. GM North America President Troy Clarke said Monday in an e-mail to employees that the layoffs are needed to ensure the company’s long-term viability.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s second-in-command, has urged Muslims not to be fooled by Barack Obama’s policies – which he insisted were no different from those of George Bush. “America came to us with a new face, with which it is trying to fool us,” Osama bin Laden’s deputy said in a video message posted on a Jihadi website. “He is calling for change, but he aims to change us so that we abandon our religion and rights.
Captured pirate’s mom begs Obama to release him.
The mother of a teenage alleged pirate held over the hostage-taking of a US sea captain this month has appealed to US President Barack Obama to free him. Adar Abdurahman Hassan told the BBC her son, Abde Wale Abdul Kadhir Muse, was innocent and just 16 years old. He was held over the seizure off Somalia of Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship. While her son was allegedly negotiating on a US warship, naval snipers shot dead three pirates holding the captain.