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Sen. Joe Manchin offered to support a $1.8 trillion version of President Biden’s Build Back Better spending package that included 10 years of universal pre-K, an expansion of ObamaCare and billions to fight climate change, according to a report. However, the proposal from Manchin (D-WV) was rejected because it did not include an expansion of the federal child tax credit that the White House has touted as greatly reducing the child poverty rate and has made a linchpin of its economic agenda, the Washington Post reported Monday. The West Virginian’s offer was made just days before a massive falling-out between...

t is the never ending bubble. Federal Reserve official, Daniel Tarullo, stated in a speech late last week that the Federal Reserve should begin to purchase long term mortgage backed securities as a way of driving down the interest rates, which are already at historic lows, even further. He said that it would have the added benefit of...

Winchester, Va. - On Thursday night -- sometime around 8 o'clock -- 130 years after Thomas Edison commercialized the incandescent light bulb, Dwayne Madigan helped make the last such bulb Edison's company, General Electric, would make in the United States. (Snip) GE supported the regulations. Many Winchester workers, noting that the CFLs are made in China by lower-wage workers, say GE wanted to force the higher profit-margin bulbs on consumers, and Winchester is collateral damage.

OCTOBER 2, 2006 NEWS & INSIGHTS Bad Blood Over Bad Loans Mortgage defaults are rising. Wall Street thinks banks should mop up the mess Everyone involved in the mortgage business got rich during the housing boom, including Wall Street. The biggest firms bought all the loans they could get their hands on, repackaged them, and sold them for a fee to hedge funds and other investors. Mortgage-backed securities issuance soared from $184.5 billion in 2000 to nearly $1 trillion in 2005, generating more than $1 billion in fees last year. But now that the real estate tide is ebbing, trash...

Dilmun calendar theory backed By GEOFFREY BEW A SAUDI archaeologist who has been trying for nine years to prove his theory that the Dilmun civilisation celebrated New Year on June 21 - the first day of summer - has finally received some official recognition.Information Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Khalifa Al Khalifa is said to have endorsed his judgement after visiting the 4,000-year-old Saar settlement to observe the phenomenon last month. Archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh says an ancient temple at the settlement, which features an oddly positioned triangular room, was used as an astronomical...

WASHINGTON – In college, Samuel Alito led a student conference that urged legalization of sodomy and curbs on domestic intelligence, a sweeping defense of privacy rights he said were under threat by the government and the dawning computer age. President Bush's choice for the Supreme Court, in a report written years before ubiquitous personal computers made electronic privacy the everyday concern it is now, warned of the potential for abuses by officials and companies collecting data on individuals. Three decades before the Supreme Court decriminalized gay sex, Alito declared on behalf of his group of fellow Princeton students that "no...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is poised to throw his star power, and political clout, behind tax breaks for the entertainment industry aimed at keeping film productions in the state. ``It is extremely important that we continue supporting our motion picture industry and that we, as a state, do everything that we can,'' he told a mostly entertainment-industry crowd at a glittery, Hollywood-style premiere Tuesday night. To help the state create jobs for everyone from caterers and janitors to make-up artists and gaffers, Schwarzenegger said, ``we are working right now through the legislators on a bill to give tax credits,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s defense minister on Wednesday accused neighboring Iran and Syria of supporting terrorists in his country and charged that a senior Iraqi Shiite was leading a "pro-Iranian" coalition into next month's national elections. Concerns have been raised over rising Iranian influence in the political future of Iraq, where the majority Shiites are expected to dominate elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Campaigning for the vote began Wednesday. Hazem Shaalann, who has previously accused Tehran of interfering in Iraq's affairs, said that Iranian and Syrian intelligence agents, plus former operatives from Saddam Hussein (news...

<p>A Senate committee voted Wednesday to send a deficit bond proposal to the full Senate that differs significantly from the one presented by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.</p> <p>The Senate's version calls for the $15 billion bond to be paid off in about seven years, instead of as long as 30 years in Schwarzenegger's plan.</p>

Iran will not stand in way of UN-backed war on IraqTehran minister hints at softening opposition By Leonard Doyle Foreign Editor 25 October 2002 Iran will not stand in the way of a US-led war on Iraq if it has the backing of the United Nations Security Council, the country's foreign minister said yesterday. Although Iran has been branded by President George Bush as being part of an "axis of evil" that includes Iraq and North Korea, its reformist government can see many benefits from ending the regime of Saddam Hussein from which it suffered chemical attacks during an eight-year...