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The Associated Press has obtained and published a graphic rendering of a pressure structure that may prove Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The drawing is believed to have come from inside the Parchin military site near Tehran. It shows a cylindrical explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests. "Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a chamber," AP said. The news agency received the image from "an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program who said the drawing proves the structure exists, despite Tehran's refusal to acknowledge...

The Associated Press has obtained an image of an explosives containment chamber, used to test nuclear weapons, from Iran. An IAEA inspector has confirmed the image's authenticity. The image was provided to The Associated Press by an official of a country tracking Iran's nuclear program who said the drawing proves the structure exists, despite Tehran's refusal to acknowledge it. The official said he could not discuss the drawing's origins beyond that it was based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site, adding that going into detail would endanger the life of that...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Earlier this week our beloved Dear Leader showed up at the American Society of News Editors to make a speech at lunchtime. This was the annual Associated Press luncheon, and Obama shows up and he was introduced by a guy by the name of Dean Singleton. Dean Singleton is the chairman of the Associated Press. What is the Associated Press? The Associated Press is a news wire predominantly. They do have audio networks, radio news networks, and on their websites they have video. But they're predominantly a wire service. They are responsible for 90% of the national...

The city’s Department of Education says it has found money to pay for the Advanced Placement exams this spring for low-income students, despite a cut in the federal subsidy for the exams. The Education Department will use $462,000 in its budget to cover the cost of the exams. “We made it a priority to identify funding so that all of our students have the opportunity to take their A.P. exams,” said a department spokeswoman, Barbara Morgan. The city alerted principals about the financing availability this week. Last month, it warned that the financing was in jeopardy for low-income students after...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: This is why I have been saying it: More drilling doesn't cut gas price. It's story. And it's a fact-check from the AP. AP's done a fact-check story: "More US drilling didn't drop gas price -- It's the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show. A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes...

<p>WASHINGTON — It's the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show.</p> <p>A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.</p>

America's Party ratified its 2012 Platform in national convention yesterday, making an already-great conservative document even better, with the expansion of its solid property rights plank and the addition of the Equal Protection for Posterity Resolution as its primary pro-life language. Text included below for your consideration.

The Associated Press opened its newest bureau here Monday, becoming the first international news organization with a full-time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures and video. In a ceremony that came less than a month after the death of longtime ruler Kim Jong Il and capped nearly a year of discussions, AP President and CEO Tom Curley and a delegation of top AP editors inaugurated the office, situated inside the headquarters of the state-run Korean Central News Agency in downtown Pyongyang. The bureau expands the AP's presence in North Korea, building on the breakthrough in 2006...

An unbylined item appearing at the Associated Press shortly after midnight (captured in full as a graphic here due to its brevity; for fair use and discussion purposes) crowed about how President Barack Obama "is looking to boost summer job prospects for kids," has "gotten commitments for nearly 180,000 youth employment opportunities for next summer," and only says that "Many of the positions would be unpaid training opportunities." How many? Well, most, according to the Hill's Eric Wasson: Obama to launch summer-jobs initiative President Obama on Thursday will unveil a summer-jobs initiative that the White House says is already on...

Associated Press reported that on Sunday, a Mount Rainier National Park ranger was murdered by a man whom authorities suspect had earlier shot four people at a house party near Seattle. The story’s fairly well written until the conclusion, which is where writers place the message they want readers to take with. After writing about how sad this situation is — and it is – AP wrote: It has been legal for people to take loaded firearms into Mount Rainier since 2010, when a federal law went into effect that made possession of firearms in national parks subject to state...

“The killing of Osama bin Laden during a raid by Navy SEALs on his hideout in Pakistan was the top news story of 2011, followed by Japan's earthquake/tsunami/meltdown disaster, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors,” David Crary of the Associated Press reported, presenting the news agency’s top 10 stories for the year. Fair enough. They were huge stories. The other stories selected were all noteworthy in their own ways as well, but there is one more that is remarkable in its absence from inclusion: Fast and Furious. Officials of the United States government...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In mid-1970 an unusual job application landed in the stack of resumes at West Georgia College. A young man finishing up his Ph.D. and looking for his first teaching job ditched the standard resume-and-cover-letter approach and instead wrote about his travels abroad, what it meant to grow up as the son of an Army colonel, the 100-plus books he'd read in the past year. "We were all very impressed," recalls Mel Steely, one of the history professors who culled applications. Thus did Newt Gingrich become Professor Gingrich. It was Step 1 in a carefully laid plan that...

From Accuracy in Media’s Logan Churchwell: An internal memo penned by the Associated Press’ Managing Editor Mike Oreskes was leaked and featured on sites such as The Huffington Post and Gawker this morning. As an effort to keep up with the rapidly changing news cycle, Oreskes is now offering a new direction for the wire service. The new plan of action is called “The New Distinctiveness.” But why the change? The AP defines the problem: “AP wins when news breaks, but after an hour or two we’re often replaced by a piece of content from someone else who has executed...

ATLANTA (AP) — Republican Herman Cain criticized President Barack Obama for canceling the space shuttle program — a decision actually made by President George W. Bush — as NASA shifts its focus on travel farther from Earth's orbit.

Herman Cain sought to ride out the sexual harassment scandal engulfing his embattled presidential campaign by projecting a business-as-usual façade. But there were growing signs of unease in conservative circles as a fourth accuser — Sharon Bialek — provided a name and a face to what had been anonymous harassment allegations against the GOP front-runner. Bialek's detailed and lurid accusations — that Cain groped her in a car after she asked for his help finding a job — spun his already embattled campaign into an uncertain new territory. "He deserves a fair chance. But that doesn't mean he gets a...

He is the man with the mustache who takes a rebellious drag on a cigarette in the Herman Cain Internet ad gone viral. "We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen," he says before taking a puff. "But then America's never seen a candidate like Herman Cain." Meet Mark Block, Cain's unorthodox campaign manager. Perhaps no one is more responsible for the Georgia businessman's meteoric rise in the presidential polls than Block, a Republican strategist and tea party

WASHINGTON - The richest 1 percent of Americans have been getting far richer over the last three decades while the middle class and poor have seen their after-tax household income only crawl up in comparison, according to a government study. After-tax income for the top 1 percent of U.S. households almost tripled, up 275 percent, from 1979 to 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found. For people in the middle of the economic scale, after-tax income grew by just 40 percent. Those at the bottom experienced an 18 percent increase. "The distribution of after-tax income in the United States was substantially...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I think these people at AP are in business to make me look like Nostradamus. "Senate Republicans have voted to kill the $447 billion White House jobs bill despite weeks of campaign-style barnstorming by President Barack Obama across the country." What a headline. Just as we predicted. It didn't take a Nostradamus to see it coming. This headline is the whole purpose of Obama's jobs bill. It was never intended to pass. This was the objective. Now, they didn't get this headline everywhere. They didn't get this headline at the New York Times. The New York Times...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: From the Associated Press: "President Barack Obama’s jobs bill, facing a critical test in the Senate, appears likely to die at the hands of Republicans." It was never meant to live, you people at the AP. But, see, this is exactly -- I hate being right sometimes -- this is exactly what I told you the purpose of that whole jobs bill was. It is the Democrats who can't pass this bill. It's the Democrats who don't have the votes. It was Mitch McConnell's idea to push for a quick vote on this. He wanted to illustrate...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Barack Obama's sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality: The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington. When Obama accuses Republicans of standing in the way of his nearly $450 billion plan, he ignores the fact that his own party has struggled to unite behind the proposal.

EXCERPT When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents in still other cases may have allowed guns to "walk" rather than seizing them. Federal law enforcement officials familiar with the matter say Operation Wide Receiver began in 2006 after the agency received information about a suspicious purchase of firearms. The investigation concluded in 2007 without any charges being filed....

By most accounts, President Obama gave a fiery speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, telling blacks to "quit crying and complaining" and support him in the fight for jobs, according to the Associated Press. But was the AP transcription of Obama's remarks racist? That's the subject currently being debated after the issue was raised on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show on Sunday. On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama's speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did--specifically including the "dropped g's." Via the AP version:...

MADISON, Wis.—Nearly one-in-five of the jobs listed on a state website touted by Gov. Scott Walker as a resource for unemployed Wisconsin residents are actually located in neighboring states, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. More than 32,000 job openings were posted on the Job Center of Wisconsin's website as of Tuesday, but about 18 percent of them were in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Michigan. It was unclear how many of those roughly 6,000 jobs could be filled through telecommuting, though many appeared to require on-site work. Walker ran on a promise to add 250,000 private sector jobs...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama makes it sound like there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries. "Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said Monday. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

Original (thanks Google cache!)the revision...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Federal agents raided a southern New Mexico gun store Tuesday morning and arrested the owner, his wife and their two sons on a 30-count indictment accusing them of smuggling guns across the border with Mexico.

BRANCHVILLE, N.J. – Two juveniles sustained minor injuries after a black bear attacked their campsite in northwestern New Jersey Wednesday.

PHOENIX (AP) - Ten days before Christmas, ATF agent John Dodson awoke, got his morning coffee, switched on the TV news—and heard the words he had dreaded every day of every month he had been a member of the gun-trafficking investigative team called the Group VII Strike Force. A Border Patrol agent had been shot dead in a gun battle with suspected bandits. The agent was 40, only months older than Dodson himself, another ex-military man who chose to serve his country by working for the U.S. government. An all-too familiar feeling returned to the pit of Dodson's stomach, an...

Associated Press reporting on the Gunwalker (“Fast and Furious”) scandal has been sporadic but fair. However, not many newspapers around the country have picked up the AP’s stories on Gunwalker, apparently because they would rather cover up than expose scandals that originate in the Obama administration. (That’s only my theory, but if anyone can think of a better one, feel free to propose it.) Today, the AP released its longest and most thorough story on the scandal so far. Written by Pauline Arrillaga, the AP article is “based on interviews with ATF agents, past and present; gun dealers who cooperated...

In an unbylined update of the latest developments in the budget-tax-spending-debt ceiling discussions in Washington this morning, the Associated Press committed several blunders in attempting to explain what's going on and how we got to where we are. First and foremost was its list identifying "contributors" to the $8.5 trillion growth in the national debt since 2001. Here's the AP's you-can't make-this-up, Comedy Central-worthy list of debt contributors: Q: How did the debt grow from $5.8 trillion in 2001 to its current $14.3 trillion? A: The biggest contributors to the nearly $9 trillion increase over a decade were: - 2001...

Farewell and good riddance to the first half of 2011 -- six months that are ending as sour for the economy as they began. Most analysts say economic growth will perk up in the second half of the year. The reason is that the main causes of the slowdown -- high oil prices and manufacturing delays because of the disaster in Japan -- have started to fade. "Some of the headwinds that caused us to slow are turning into tail winds," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. For an economy barely inching ahead two years after the Great...

JERUSALEM (AP) -- The Israeli prime minister's 19-year-old son - a military spokesman - posted derisive comments about Arabs and Muslims on his Facebook page, drawing a slap on the wrist from his superiors and focusing new attention on the controversial first family. Earlier this year, Yair Netanyahu posted that Muslims "celebrate hate and death," the Haaretz daily newspaper reported Friday. In the same post, written after Palestinian assailants entered a West Bank settlement and stabbed five members of an Israeli family to death, he wrote that "terror has a religion and it is Islam."

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) dodged questions Sunday about releasing papers from his eight years as an Illinois state senator, and his campaign has not answered records requests from the state’s two largest newspapers. [snip] In the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia on Oct. 30, Obama said to Clinton: "We have just gone through one of the most secretive administrations in our history, and not releasing, I think, these records at the same time, Hillary, as you're making the claim that this is the basis for your experience, I think, is a problem." [snip] On Nov. 3, the Obama campaign sent...

The Post & Email has spoken with someone working for the Associated Press whose title does not indicate that he is a lawyer but who nevertheless admitted to being one. He was responding to an email which this writer had sent to Mr. Mark Niesse, Associated Press reporter in Honolulu, HI, on Saturday, May 21, 2011. Our email to Niesse reads as follows: Hello, Mr. Niesse, are you aware that your name has come up as a possible accomplice in forging the “long-form birth certificate” for Obama presented to the public on April 27, 2011? http://obamareleaseyourrecords.blogspot.com/2011/05/jerome-corsi-to-release-details-on-key.html Do you have a...

The post-mortem photos of Osama bin Laden are must-haves. News organizations, interest groups and now, one presidential hopeful, are pining to peek at the “grisly” fare in the name of public transparency. Politico, the Associated Press, Fox News, Judicial Watch and Citizens United are among those who have dutifully filed Freedom of Information Act requests with defense and intelligence agencies... Andy Martin, a conservative presidential hopeful known for his combative “birther” stance, has also filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Navy. He’s added an aggressive political agenda, however.

DALLAS (AP) -- Former President George W. Bush decided not to join President Barack Obama at a Thursday ceremony at ground zero because he feels that acting presidents alone should preside over such official ceremonies, the former first lady said. Laura Bush told The Associated Press on Thursday that she and her husband were out to dinner Sunday night when they received word that Obama wanted to speak with him.

Today, class, we will discuss matters like The Associated Press Stylebook (APSB) and such. Considered a veritable bible for all things journalistic, the ASPB has been around for more than 30 years. It says, on the cover, that the book is "the industry's best-selling reference, essential for journalists, students, editors and writers in all professions." I know the APSB and I use it as a tool in a writing class I teach at Johns Hopkins University. I fastidiously follow ASPB procedure, except in those instances when I don't. Such instances number exactly two. Readers learned of one in my last...

I say the word text because several websites focus on the 2004 AP article originally saying in the headline Illinois' Jack Ryan Drops Senate Bid, and say that the original title to this article does not say "Kenyan-Born." It seems though that the words "kenyan born" were supposedly within the text of the original AP article. Am I wrong here? I post this because I am wondering if the AP is the origin of the BC issue and if the MSM is trying to shield the AP from criticism.

Reversing a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, President Barack Obama announced an expansive new policy that could put oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the Atlantic coastline, the Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska...

General Electric called an earlier media report Wednesday that it would repay a $3.2 billion tax refund to the Treasury Department a "hoax." Members of an activist group calling themselves the "Yes Men" claimed responsibility for the hoax, according to a report from Reuters. Earlier Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. conglomerate—using "a series of foreign tax havens"—would repay the "enormous" refund it received for the 2010 tax year. "It's a hoax and GE did not receive a refund," said Deirdre Latour, a GE spokeswoman.

I heard Ramona Kitzinger, the Democratic observer at the Waukesha County canvass, say on Friday that the numbers announced by county clerk Kathy Nickolaus at the end of the canvass “jibed.” Now, by all appearances, she’s lawyered-up, and released a statement largely recanting her Friday comments and sowing doubt about what Nickolaus may or may not have done with the 15,000 missing votes. The whole thing is worth a read, but this is my favorite part: “. . . with the enormous amount of attention this has received over the weekend, many people are offering my statements at the press...

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports: The latest vote count in the state Supreme Court race in Winnebago County indicates incumbent David Prosser is leading Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in votes. A tally compiled by The Associated Press Wednesday and used by news organizations statewide, including the Journal Sentinel, indicated Kloppenburg was leading the race by 204 votes. Figures on Winnebago County's website are now different from those collected by the AP. Winnebago County's numbers say Prosser received 20,701 votes to Kloppenburg's 18,887.

FAIRLESS Hills, PA At an event at a Spanish windmill firm in Pennsylvania, President Obama suggested Americans consider selling their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient cars. The president chided one questioner, saying: "If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know,you might want to think about a trade-in." The Associated Press reported that Mr. Obama made the comment "laughingly." However, the quote has been scrubbed from the original linked page. Fortunately, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit captured a screenshot:

AP bias: Jihad attack in Jerusalem, AP slideshow shows "Palestinian victims"

The Federal Reserve is sticking with its $600 billion Treasury bond-purchase program to strengthen the economy as Japan's nuclear crisis raises worries around the globe. The Fed made no changes Tuesday to the program. The decision was unanimous. The Fed says the economic recovery is on "firmer footing" and the jobs market is gradually improving. But the housing market remains depressed. The Fed downplays inflation risks. It said higher energy prices is increasing inflation, but that the pickup in prices will be "transitory." The Fed made no mention of Japan's crisis, which caused stocks to plunge. But the Fed's stimulative...

An NBA referee is taking the Associated Press to court. Bill Spooner, a 22-year veteran NBA official, is suing Minnesota Timberwolves beat reporter Jon Krawczynski for tweeting during a game that Spooner promised coach Kurt Rambis that he'd get the Wolves two points in the form of a make-up call, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reports.

Oregon residents and news followers nationwide can be forgiven for shaking their heads over the Associated Press's latest item on the misadventures of Congressman David Wu. All of a sudden he's apparently not a Democrat -- well, at least he's not identified as such by the wire service's Jonathan J. Cooper. (Snip) The theory here is that now that Wu's woes have become a more prominent national story, the AP has decided that the party identification of Wu should came to a halt, lest readers get their minds polluted with the craaaaazy idea that politicians in various forms of trouble

This Associated Press report on events in Wisconsin is interesting. For example, we read, “As Republicans tried to begin Senate business Thursday, observers in the gallery screamed ‘Freedom! Democracy! Unions!’” That’s what you want in the gallery, right? Screaming. How democratic and civilized. We also read, “Protesters clogged the hallway outside the Senate chamber, beating on drums, holding signs deriding Walker and pleading for lawmakers to kill the bill.” “Beating on drums”? Beating on drums? These were public-school teachers, right? In any case, they were public employees. Beating on things is what little kids do when they’re not getting their...

NEW YORK (AP) - Your sweetheart or your pet. Who would you choose to dump if one had to go? Most current pet owners said they would hold on to their spouse or significant other (84 percent), but a sizable 14 percent picked their pet, according to an AP-Petside.com poll. Put Sally Roland, 53, of Omaha, Neb., down in the dog-first column. "I'm divorced, so that might explain it," she joked. The unmarried, like Roland, are more apt to choose their pet over their mate—25 percent among unmarried pet owners versus 8 percent among the married. Count Fidel Martinez, 30,...

A widely reprinted AP story, based on a recent AP/GfK poll, is entitled, "Opposition to health care law eases." Don't believe it. What has eased isn't the level of opposition to Obamacare, but rather the level of effort that AP/GfK has made to ensure that its polling sample is representative of American voters. When the AP/GfK poll screened for likely voters a couple of weeks before the election, it estimated that 48 percent of voters leaned Republican and that 42 percent leaned Democratic (which the election showed to be about right). In its latest survey -- the one that serves as the...