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Hissyspit's JournalBreaking: 2013 Deficit to Shrink to $642 Billion, Much Less Than Prior Estimate
Source: Associated Press / Reuters
@BreakingNews: RT @breakingpol: 2013 deficit to shrink to $642 billion, much less than prior estimates, Congressional Budget Office says - @AP
CBO says rising revenues shrink U.S. deficit by $203 bln
WASHINGTON | Tue May 14, 2013 2:22pm EDT
WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. budget deficit this year will be $203 billion lower than previously estimated, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday, citing rising tax revenues and higher contributions from government-run mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The CBO, updating forecasts made in February, said it now forecasts a $642 billion deficit for fiscal 2013 compared with a previous estimate of $845 billion.
Read more: http://www reuters.com/article/idUSL2N0DV33V20130514
Dr. Joyce Brothers Has Died at 85
Source: Associated Press
@AP: BREAKING: Popular psychologist Joyce Brothers has died in New York at age 85 -RJJ
POPULAR PSYCHOLOGIST JOYCE BROTHERS DEAD AT 85
May. 13 6:20 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Popular psychologist, columnist, and television and film personality Joyce Brothers has died. She was 85.
Longtime publicist Sanford Brokaw says Brothers died Monday in New York City.
She was a pioneer of the television advice show.
Her celebrity took off after she entered a television quiz show called "The $64,000 Question." She became the only woman to ever win the show's top prize.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/popular-psychologist-joyce-brothers-dead-85
Tom Tomorrow: Thomas Friedman - Private Eye
Daily Kos Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/13/1207960/-Thomas-Friedman-private-eye
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Newtown Panel Recommends Tearing Down Sandy Hook Elementary, Rebuilding on Same Site.
Source: Associated Press
@AP: BREAKING: Newtown panel recommends tearing down Sandy Hook elementary, rebuilding on same site. -MM
Sandy Hook school to be demolished, new school built on same site
Published: Friday, May 10, 2013
NEWTOWN — A taskforce in Newtown has voted to demolish the current Sandy Hook school building and build a new school on the same site.
The panel of 28 elected officials had narrowed the choices to three: renovating Sandy Hook Elementary School, tearing it down and building a new school on the same site or tearing it down and building a new school on nearby property.
The taskforce struggled last Friday to move toward a recommendation before a crowd of more than 90 people, as members discussed options that weren't among the finalists. The town consultant, Richard Harwood, president of The Harwood Institute in Bethesda, Md., said the panel will likely make a decision Friday night.
The panel's recommendation would then go to the local school board and ultimately go before voters as a referendum.
Read more: http://nhregister.com/articles/2013/05/10/news/doc518cf38355f9c515124674.txt
Greenhouse Gas Milestone; CO2 Levels Set Record (Highest in Human History)
Source: Associated Press
@AP: Carbon dioxide levels are the highest they've ever been in human history, federal scientists say: http://t.co/NZwn7KYnA4 -SS
GREENHOUSE GAS MILESTONE; CO2 LEVELS SET RECORD
SETH BORENSTEIN
— May. 10 8:17 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said Friday.
Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station which is in Hawaii sets the global benchmark. The last time the worldwide carbon level was probably that high was about 2 million years ago, said Pieter Tans of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That was during the Pleistocene Era. "It was much warmer than it is today," Tans said. "There were forests in Greenland. Sea level was higher, between 10 and 20 meters (33 to 66 feet)."
Other scientists say it may have been 10 million years ago that Earth last encountered this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The first modern humans only appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
The measurement was recorded Thursday and it is only a daily figure, the monthly and yearly average will be smaller. The number 400 has been anticipated by climate scientists and environmental activists for years as a notable indicator, in part because it's a round number — not because any changes in man-made global warming happen by reaching it.
MORE[p]
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/greenhouse-gas-milestone-co2-levels-set-record
Taibbi: Stop the Koch Brothers From Buying the Tribune
http://www.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/38069/pn/1/p/0/?KSID=bc1bff6dd5d5ce4e2a231cff1c9b5332Politics: Who Can Stop the Koch Brothers From Buying the Tribune Papers? Unions Can, and Should
BY MATT TAIBBI
MAY 10, 2013 | 11:30AM EDT
A few weeks ago, we did a story about hedge fund king Dan Loeb's plans to address a conference of institutional investors and perhaps solicit new clients among the public retirement funds in attendance, despite his involvement with a political lobbying group that campaigns against those very types of defined benefit plans. When stories by Rolling Stone, Washington Monthly and the New York Post came out about Loeb's affiliations, Loeb canceled his scheduled speech at the Conference of Institutional Investors and fled the event, reinforcing the simple idea that powerful interests can be forced to choose between taking the public's money and involving themselves in regressive politics.
We have another one of those situations brewing now, only it's a much bigger deal this time – the much-talked-about, much-dreaded potential sale of the Tribune newspaper group to the odious Koch brothers. As first reported in the Times a few weeks ago, the Kochs, after years of working through the media with relentless lobbying and messaging, are exploring the idea of skipping the middleman and becoming media themselves, with the acquisition of one of the biggest media groups in the country.
- snip -
It should go without saying that the sale of this still-potent media empire to the cash-addled Koch brothers duo – lifetime denizens of a sub-moronic rightist echo chamber where everything from Social Security to Medicare to unemployment benefits to the EPA are urgent threats to national security, and even child labor laws are evidence of an overly intrusive government – would be a disaster of epic proportions. One could argue that it would be on par with the Citizens United decision in its potential for causing popular opinion to be perverted and bent by concentrated financial interests.
Of course, conservatives will argue that people like myself are only talking that way because the potential buyers of these people are conservatives.
- snip -
The potential conflict comes from the fact that two of the major stakeholders at Tribune Co. are investment management firms that manage billions of dollars of public pension funds. One is called Oaktree Capital, a Los Angeles-based group that owns 23.5 percent of Tribune Co. Another is called Angelo Gordon & Co., which is based here in New York and owns 9.4 percent of Tribune. J.P. Morgan Chase, another major Tribune stakeholder, also manages public-sector funds.
This sale really can't happen, obviously, without the assent of these companies. Yet these companies are financially dependent upon public pension funds.
MORE
West, Texas, Paramedic Arrested, Unclear if Related to Blast: Source
Source: Reuters
West, Texas, paramedic arrested, unclear if related to blast: source
Filed 14 minutes ago
Updated 3 minutes ago
AUSTIN, Texas - A paramedic in West, Texas, has been arrested by federal officials for possession of an explosive device, but it was unclear whether there was a connection to the explosion last month at a fertilizer plant in the town, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
"I don't know that they're making that connection," said the source, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.
The April 17 fire and blast at West Fertilizer Co killed 14 people dead and injured about 200 others. The state fire marshal's office has said that ammonium nitrate stored at the plant detonated in the explosion but that the cause of the fire and blast were still being investigated.
(Reporting By Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)
RELATED TOPICS Texas Plant Explosion United States
Read more: http://preview.reutersnext.com/2013/5/10/west-texas-paramedic-arrested-unclear-if-related-1
BREAKING: Female Bangladeshi Garment Factory Worker Pulled Alive from Rubble After 17 Days
Source: Associated Press
@AP: BREAKING: Bangladesh rescuers confirm they have freed survivor of building collapse after 17 days -MM
@CBSNews: BREAKING: Female Bangladeshi garment factory worker apparently pulled alive from rubble after 17 days trapped
BANGLADESH WORKERS SEE POSSIBLE SURVIVOR IN RUBBLE
By JULHAS ALAM
— May. 10 6:13 AM EDT
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Rescue workers in Bangladesh said Friday they may have found a female survivor buried amid the wreckage of a garment factory building that collapsed 17 days ago.
Army officials ordered workers to stop clearing the site with bulldozers and cranes as they tried to free a woman they said might still be alive. A soldier at the scene said rescuers found a woman in the debris and she waved her hand in response to them.
Rescuers used a handsaw, welding and drilling equipment to try to cut through iron rod and debris to free her. They asked for a small oxygen cylinder to be brought to the site.
Workers at the site had been clearing the rubble since the collapse April 24. More than 2,500 people were rescued in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. However, no survivors have been found in the wreckage since the days after the collapse.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bangladesh-factory-collapse-death-toll-hits-1038
Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse Death Toll Reaches 1,000
Source: Bloomberg
Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse Death Toll Reaches 1,000
By Arun Devnath
May 09, 2013 5:12 PM EDT
The death toll from the collapse of the Bangladesh garment factory building two weeks ago has risen to 1,000, Shahnewaz Mohammad Golam Zakaria, an army captain in control room supervising the rescue operation, said by phone.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-09/bangladesh-garment-factory-collapse-death-toll-reaches-1-000.html
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