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Jeffrey Zients will serve as President Obama's new acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), but the president's decision might undercut attacks on Republican Mitt Romney's career as a venture capitalist, because Zients and Romney are both alumni of Bain & Company. "I'm pleased to designate Jeff Zients to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Since day one, Jeff has demonstrated superb judgment and has provided sound advice on a whole host of issues," Obama said in a statement accompanying the announcement today.

COLOGNE, Germany – A court in Tehran has rejected Jafar Panahi’s attempt to appeal his prison sentence for allegedly making propaganda films against the Iranian government. The court confirmed the original sentence handed Panahi in December last year: a six-year prison term and a 20-year-ban from making films. But Panahi has not given up yet. The director’s lawyer told Iranian Student News Agency Isna he would appeal the ruling to Iran’s supreme court. Panahi is one of Iran’s most acclaimed film directors, having won honors in the Berlin, Cannes and Venice Film Festivals. His features - such as The Mirror...

Jack Lew today couldn’t say how an additional tax on millionaires and billionaires will create jobs — and barely confirmed that he thinks such a tax will at least contribute to deficit reduction. The director of the Office of Management and Budget appeared this morning on Fox News’ “Happening Now” to defend the president’s just-announced proposals to trim the deficit — proposals that are a part of his overall jobs plan. Fox’s Jenna Lee asked Lew how the tax will reduce the nation’s high rate of unemployment. “Today’s plan puts into place a balanced, fair approach to doing the $4...

Here’s Rupert Wyatt, director of the blockbuster movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes in a recent interview: “(The script) had become very different and much more exciting to me. It became less a story of domesticization of a pet and more about an uprising and a Che Guevara story.” Here’s the Associated Press review of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”: “Raised much like a human child by a researcher, with help from a veterinarian, Caesar becomes a Che Guevara-style revolutionary, leading a rebellion of apes against their human oppressors.” Ground control to Director Wyatt:

<p>Reza Badiyi, a prolific television director whose credits included "Get Smart" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and who set a Directors Guild of America record for directing the most hours of episodic series television, has died. He was 81.</p>

A proposed federal health insurance regulation set to take effect next year requires insurers to provide consumers with explanatory summaries of their plans, but the insurance industry contends this could be costly to enrollees, and offer little benefit. The new rule – part of the $1 trillion Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare – was announced Wednesday by Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointee to be director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has never been confirmed or subjected to a confirmation hearing by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Nothing else just thought I'd post the breaking news.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, goes on Fox News to discuss the ongoing investigation of who in the Justice Department and ATF were aware of and authorized the deadly Operation Fast & Furious, as well as protecting the rights of federal whistle-blowers.

This confounds all human decency. Islamic Jew-hatred is the leading cause of the worldwide record levels of anti-semitism. From Europe to the Middle East to Latin America and now America. And nothing is being said or being done to address the religious mandate of Islamic Antisemitism (Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud!) Or retribution for the Muslim world's evil role in the Holocaust. The Jews are allowing this to happen again. It doesn't matter who this Muslima is. What matters is the message. The first holocaust didn't happen overnight either. Israel suffers from these subversives, too. It's a drip, drip, drip, and...

Excerpt - British-born Tim Hetherington, co-director of the documentary "Restrepo" about U.S. soldiers on an outpost in Afghanistan, was killed inside the only rebel-held city in western Libya, said his U.S.-based publicist, Johanna Ramos Boyer. The city has come under weeks of relentless shelling by government troops.

It’s a bit like a supermarket manager dying of starvation or a bottled-water distributor dying of thirst: In the U.K., a former National Health Service (NHS) director died while waiting for medical care — at her own hospital. The Daily Mail reports:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has named his department's first director of the new Federal Insurance Office (FIO). Michael McRaith, currently Illinois's insurance director, will be the first person to head the new office, which was created as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Geithner announced the pick at Thursday's meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a special panel also created by Dodd-Frank that gathers the heads of all major financial regulators to discuss broad issues affecting the financial sector. McRaith's appointment comes after Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate had called the administration out...

Members of an African American Student Union were left open-mouthed and outraged after a white, freshman was hired for a top job within the group. Torey McCleskey, a first year student at University of North Florida, was handed the coveted assistant director role, after a unanimous decision from the institution's Senate. However AASU members argue that Mr McCleskey, an athletic training and sports medicine student, has never actually set foot in the AASU's office.

A spokesman for Blake Edwards says the filmmaker has died in Southern California at age 88. Publicist Gene Schwam says Edwards died from complications of pneumonia at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica. His wife, Julie Andrews, and other family members were at his side. Edwards directed "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "The Pink Panther" and many other popular films. He also was a screenwriter, producer and actor.

Though the 1983 movie “Christmas Story” did not make much of an impression when it was initially released, it has since become a perennial holiday favorite with families across the country, as we are not only treated to Ralphie’s hilarious quest to obtain a Red Ryder BB gun, but as the film reminds all of us of our own childhood memories of Christmases past. While most of us are familiar with the cult classic, many may not know the tragic way in which the director of “Christmas Story,” Bob Clark, died…He was killed by an illegal alien drunk driver. On...

Dr. Donald Berwick—whom President Barack Obama made director of the Medicare system without a Senate confirmation vote after a national controversy sparked over statements Berwick had made including one in which he insisted that a just health-care system must redistribute wealth—says he is satisfied with Obamacare on that score. “I don’t think I’ve seen a law with more help in it, more sense of responsibility than the Affordable Care Act--not in my time," Berwick told CNSNews.com in response to question about whether Obamcare does enough to redistribute wealth

An UNRWA director has apologized after his comments on the “right of return” led to a backlash. Andrew Whitley, the outgoing head of UNRWA's New York office, had said that the Arab world's focus on “return” to Israel was a “cruel illusion.” On Wednesday, Whitley said he had realized his previous statements were “inappropriate and wrong.” The statements do not reflect UNRWA's views, he said. He sent a written apology to UNRWA headquarters, saying, “I wish to put this letter on the public record out of concern that what I said in Washington could be interpreted in ways that negatively...

(CNSNews.com) – Writing in the London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, general manager of Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV, said that a nuclear Iran would seek to dominate the Gulf States in the Middle East and said he supported a military attack against Iran before it produces nuclear weapons. Al-Rashid was writing in support of statements made by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ambassador to the United States Youssef Al-Otaiba, indicating approval for a U.S. attack on Iran. The U.A.E. deputy foreign minister, Tareq Al-Haidan, later said that the ambassador’s comments "were taken out of context.”

Ex-Planned Parenthood Director Was Pressured to Meet Abortion Goals Bryan, TX (LifeNews.com) -- The former Texas-based Planned Parenthood director who recently quit after seeing an ultrasound video of an abortion says high Planned Parenthood officials wanted her center to meet quotas for the number of abortions done. Abby Johnson had been the director of the Planned Parenthood in Bryan/College Station. http://www.lifenews.com/state4548.html

The director of the Planned Parenthood abortion center in Bryan/College Station, Texas has resigned her job. Abby Johnson had worked at the clinic for eight years, but departed from the facility following a profound change of heart about abortion. The Planned Parenthood clinic was the location of the first-ever 40 Days for Life campaign in the fall of 2004, and the prayer and fasting initiative has been held outside the doors of Johnson's former workplace five additional times since 40 Days for Life began its rapid spread to 282 cities across all 50 states and several other countries.

The former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in southeast Texas says she had a "change of heart" after watching an abortion last month — and she quit her job and joined a pro-life group in praying outside the facility. Abby Johnson, 29, used to escort women from their cars to the clinic in the eight years she volunteered and worked for Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. But she says she knew it was time to leave after she watched a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed out of a patient's uterus in September.

LAS VEGAS -- Testimony has begun before a judge hearing allegations that the political advocacy group ACORN illegally paid canvassers to register voters in Nevada during last year's presidential campaign. The judge will decide after an evidentiary hearing whether to bind the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and former regional supervisor Amy Busefink over for trial on felony charges. They are accused of paying bonuses to canvassers who turned in at least 21 voter registration cards per day in the summer of 2008. Prosecutors said that violates state law banning voter signup quotas. Former ACORN organizer Christopher Edwards...

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2009 – The director of the White House Military Office has submitted his resignation in the wake of an April 27 aerial photo shoot with a presidential aircraft over New York City. Louis Caldera, who served as secretary of the Army during the Clinton administration, resigned his office effective May 22. “I have concluded that the controversy surrounding the Presidential Airlift Group’s aerial photo shoot over New York City has made it impossible to effectively lead the White House Military Office,” Caldera wrote in his letter of resignation. President Barack Obama has accepted the resignation, White House...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Lawyers for fugitive director Roman Polanski lost a bid to have the Los Angeles Superior Court disqualified from hearings stemming his decades old rape case. Polanski's defense team had filed a motion on Monda seeking the removal of Los Angeles Superior Court judges from hearings involving the Oscar-winning film-maker, who fled to France in 1978 before his case was concluded. However judge Peter Espinoza said in a written decision lawyers had given "no legal grounds for disqualification" and was therefore "ordered stricken." Polanski's lawyers said last month they had new evidence that the film-maker, 75, was...

Washington, DC -- Barack Obama told voters during the presidential election that he wanted to work with both sides of the abortion debate to reduce the number of abortions. Yet, over the weekend, he picked a top staffer for one of the biggest pro-abortion groups to become his communications director. The selection of Ellen Moran, the executive director of Emily's List, to become the White House communications director makes it clear that the only agenda Obama plans to communicate as president is more abortions.

LOS ANGELES - A federal judge sentenced Hollywood director John McTiernan to four months in prison Monday after refusing to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea to charges of lying to the FBI about his association with disgraced private eye Anthony Pellicano. Judge Dale S. Fischer gave the director of such films as "Die Hard" and "The Thomas Crown Affair" until Jan. 15 to turn himself in to authorities. McTiernan's attorney said he would appeal. McTiernan was also ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. When he entered his plea last year, McTiernan said he lied when he told an...

Universal Health names ex-Sen. Rick Santorum to board By Gabriel Madway Last Update: 5:06 PM ET Apr 16, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Universal Health Services Inc. said late Monday former Senator Rick Santorum has been appointed as a director. Santorum, who served in the Senate from 1995 until 2007, becomes the King of Prussia, Pa.-based hospital operator's ninth board member.

James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, told IsraelNationalRadio's Alex Traiman that a Palestinian state should wait "many decades" until they stop teaching their children to hate and murder. Traiman asked about Woolsey's choice of terminology in calling the present conflict between the West and Islam as World War Four. Woolsey explained that shortly after 9/11, "I saw an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University where he wrote that the Cold War was World War III, and that the war against what I call Islamist totalitarianism is World War IV... We have a...

Call it a Hollywood shocker: Mel's Apocalypto will have a bigger weekend opening than his Braveheart. Despite scandal, an R-rating, subtitles because of an ancient dialect, no stars, and direct competition from movieland AAA-listers Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, Gibson's Mayan epic won Friday's matinees and evenings, I'm told. At first, box office gurus were warning me that the weekend victor among three very competitive films all opening against each other would be too close to call. cameron_jude.jpgBut now I've learned it looks certain that Apocalypto will win the weekend -- bearing out my reporting back on December 1st when...

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2006 – President Bush today announced Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden as his choice to replace Porter Goss as next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "Mike knows our intelligence community from the ground up," Bush said from the Oval Office today. "He's been both a provider and consumer of intelligence." Hayden currently serves as the deputy to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte. Before that, he directed the National Security Agency. Bush said throughout his military career, Hayden has demonstrated an ability to adapt U.S. intelligence services to the new challenges of the war on...

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Porter Goss has resigned, a senior administration official said. President Bush, who has been making staff changes at the White House to reinvigoriate his second term, was making another personnel announcement Friday. Bush's new chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, has made several changes since taking over last month. Recently, longtime Bush adviser and confidant Karl Rove had the policy-making portion of his portfolio taken away so he could focus on the midterm elections and White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation. McClellan has been replaced by Fox News commentator Tony Snow. McClellan's last briefing...

Two weeks after a Defense Information Systems Agency official was arrested on a charge of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s office handling the case dropped the charge. But a spokeswoman in the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the investigation is continuing. “This is an ongoing investigation, so we don’t have any comments,” the spokeswoman said. Charles Lynch, director of DISA’s IP version 6 transition program, was arrested March 8 and indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia the next day on one count of possessing child pornography. According to a statement by the DOD Inspector General’s...

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (AFP) - An Indian movie director said he hopes to persuade Paris Hilton to play the role of Nobel laureate and prospective Catholic Saint, Mother Teresa, in an upcoming film. "Her features resemble Mother Teresa," director T. Rajeevnath told AFP from the southwestern coastal state of Kerala. The filmmaker said Hilton is on his shortlist after a computer-generated image showed a close facial match between the hotel heiress and the Albanian-born nun. Mother Teresa, who died in 1997, worked among the poor in the teeming slums of Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, with the Missionaries of Charity. She was beatified...

WASHINGTON (AP) - With an eye toward the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona has hired one of President Bush's top re-election advisers to help run his political action committee. Terry Nelson, political director of the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, will be senior adviser to Straight Talk America, according to several official familiar with the hiring. They spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt an announcement by McCain's committee. McCain is using the PAC to raise money and organize his travel on behalf of Republicans running in November's midterm elections. The PAC is also...

Some women still party as if invulnerable It's midnight at Pravda, a trendy Manhattan bar where graduate students from nearby New York University are jammed into leather booths. A group chants, ''Another vodka! Another vodka!" A young woman named Jovana is in the corner, kissing a young man she met hours earlier. Days after the brutal rape and murder of a 24-year-old graduate student from Boston who had been drinking at a bar two blocks away, the scene is notable for an absence of fear. ''It happens here," Barbara Klen, a 24-year-old NYU student, said of the slaying. ''It happens...

LOS ANGELES - Film director Lee Tamahori pleaded no contest to criminal trespass in return for two prostitution charges against him being dropped, authorities said Thursday. The plea deal stemmed from Tamahori's Jan. 8 arrest for allegedly soliciting an undercover police officer in Hollywood and offering to perform a sex act for money. The two dropped charges, said city attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan, were misdemeanor counts of solicitation and loitering with the intent to commit prostitution. Tamahori, who was not present at the hearing in Superior Court, was placed on three years probation, ordered to attend an AIDS education course...

Patrick Dorinson, a former fundraiser in Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and former member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, has been selected as the new communications director of the California Republican Party. There was no official confirmation from the party, which will hold its statewide convention this weekend in San Jose. Capitol sources said the decision to tap Dorinson, a Republican who served as the chief spokesman of the state's electricity grid during California's energy crisis, was reached several days ago. The party's official announcement was expected as early as Tuesday, but Dorinson confirmed his hiring today. Dorinson, 54, currently a...

US indicts 11 environmental, animal activists Fri Jan 20, 2006 03:05 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eleven environmental and animal rights activists have been indicted in a series of attacks in the U.S. West on targets that included the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado, the Justice Department said on Friday. The defendants, based in Portland, Oregon, and acting on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, were named in a 65-count indictment that included charges of arson and destruction of an energy facility, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news conference. A Justice Department...

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - Herbert L. Strock, a television producer and director who directed such B-movies as "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein," "How to Make a Monster" and "The Crawling Hand," has died. He was 87. Strock died Wednesday of heart failure at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley following a car accident, according to his daughter, Leslie Mitchner. In a television career that began in the 1940s, Strock worked on series including "Highway Patrol," "Sky King," "Sea Hunt," "Maverick" and "77 Sunset Strip." His creature features included "Blood of Dracula" and "Gog," shot in 3-D. "He was...

MOH MOOD RAQI, Afghanistan (Army News Service, Nov. 3, 2005) – Various women from Combined Joint Task Force 76 met with the director of the Kapisa Provincial Women’s Center in the village of Moh Mood Raqi, Oct. 25. “We wanted to discuss ways that the Coalition could help the center,” said Col. Joyce Stevens, base operations commander, 111th Area Support Group, Texas National Guard. “The Parwan Provincial Reconstruction Team helped them build the center and supply them with some items, but more is needed.” After introductions, the women discussed the daily activities offered by the center and major needs with...

WASHINGTON - A Texas prosecutor has subpoenaed the head of a liberal activist group and records of political contributions from mostly Republican state judges in advance of a hearing Tuesday to decide who should preside over former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's criminal case. Prosecutor Ronnie Earle on Friday subpoenaed Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org, a liberal group that took an active role in the last presidential campaign and generally opposes Republicans and their policies. DeLay's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, requested the removal of state Judge Bob Perkins because the judge has made 34 contributions since 2000 to Democratic and...

LOS ANGELES -- Robert Wise, who won four Oscars as producer and director of the classic 1960s musicals "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music," has died. He was 91. Wise died Wednesday of heart failure after falling ill and being rushed to the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, family friend and longtime entertainment agent Lawrence Mirisch told The Associated Press. Mirisch said Wise had appeared in good health when he celebrated his 91st birthday Saturday. Wise was nominated for seven Oscars, including the four he won, during a career that spanned more than 50 years. The...

FEMA director arrives in BR Monday, August 29, 2005 FEMA Director Mike Brown arrived at the state Office of Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge shortly before 11 a.m. and joined a conference call with Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other federal and state officials. Brown will hold a press briefing with Blanco at 3:30 p.m., although state officials could also provide more information after a noon conference call with local officials who are tracking the storm damage. Researchers watching the storm from Baton Rouge have gotten reports of 6 feet of water at Jackson Barracks in the Lower 9th Ward, as...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An internal CIA report reportedly criticizes ex-CIA chief George Tenet and several other former and current CIA officials for not dealing effectively with Al-Qaeda before the September 11 attacks. Tenet, who resigned in July 2004 after seven years at the top, was censured for failing to develop and carry out a strategic plan to take on Al-Qaeda in the years before the attacks, two people familiar with the report told The New York Times. The highly classified report, put together by Central Intelligence Agency inspector general John Helgerson, described systemic problems at the CIA before the 2001...

Swiss honour for Iranian director Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami has been honoured at Switzerland's Locarno film festival as "the greatest director in contemporary Iranian film-making". Organisers gave Kiarostami its Leopard of Honour, referring to him as "one of the great names in film". He won the festival's prestigious Bronze Leopard in 1989 for Where is the Friend's Home? His 1997 film Taste of Cherry won the Palme D'Or at Cannes. The 10-day Locarno film festival ends on 13 August. Clashed with censors Unlike many Iranian filmmakers who fled following the 1979 Islamic revolution, Kiarostami has stayed in Iran, often saying...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Bridgett Luther Thompson to head the state Department of Conservation Friday. Thompson, 50, was previously a regional development director for Hands on Bay Area, which matches its network of volunteers to local charities. Prior to that, she was national development director for Republicans for Environmental Protection. "Bridgett shares my dedication to protecting our environment and ensuring our natural resources are wisely conserved," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. Thompson, a member of both the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, has also served as program director for the Trust for Public Land in Charlotte,...

Michael Kinsley shook up the editorial staff of The Los Angeles Times recently, transferring four of his eleven writers, letting one go, and outsourcing some editorials to freelancers. "Michael Kinsley is not unaccustomed to controversy as an editor." But many on the newspaper's staff knew what was coming because Mr. Kinsley, who was hired to oversee the newspaper's editorial and opinion pages last spring, accidentally left a Power Point document describing his plans on a Xerox machine in their office in early May. He said he had intended to share his ideas at a company management retreat. "We had a...

In its extensive coverage of "Deep Throat's" identity, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that former Deputy FBI Director Mark Felt has been conflicted all along -- about his major, anonymous and possibly criminal role in leaking confidential details of the Watergate scandal to the Washington Post in the early 1970s. As the Post put it on Wednesday, Felt wondered if he was a "hero for helping the truth come out" -- or a "turncoat who betrayed his government, his president, and the FBI he revered." The Washington Post reported that Felt "may have had a personal motivation" in leaking...

WENATCHEE, Wash. - The state elections director testified Tuesday that he believes the problems in Washington's incredibly close 2004 gubernatorial election were innocent mistakes. "I saw inadvertent mistakes and errors of human beings who were working their hearts out," said Nick Handy, who was appointed to the post. He said he disagrees with his boss, Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, who has called the problems in heavily Democratic King County "appalling." Handy testified as a trial to determine whether the results of the election should be thrown out entered its second week. Democrats are trying to defend the...

``I can't tell you,'' Paul Wolfowitz says with justifiable asperity, ``how much I resent being called a Wilsonian.'' As he retires as deputy secretary of defense and becomes head of the World Bank, the man most responsible for the doctrinal justification of the Iraq War, and who has been characterized as representing Woodrow Wilson's utopian, rather than the realist, strain in American foreign policy, begs to differ. The question, he says, is who has been realistic for almost four decades. The sprouting of freedom through the fissures in the concrete of dictatorships began, he recalls, in Greece, Spain and Portugal...