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Iranian Nuclear Program Grows by 74% Since Obama Took Office Iran added over 14,000 nuclear centrifuges since Barack Obama took office.They always like to blame Bush, but here’s the truth… The Iranian nuclear program grew by 74% since Barack Obama took office.

A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent. The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013. Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico says the country's economy expanded by 3.7 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period of 2010. Preliminary estimates by Mexico's Treasury Department show formal-sector employment grew by 4.2 percent.

In the midst of the current economic downturn, there is one group that seems to be prospering: public employees. While the private sector is struggling to grow and create new jobs, federal government jobs are doing quite well. This week’s chart by Mercatus Center Scholar Veronique de Rugy shows the growing number of federal government employees. Using the latest data for annual government employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the chart shows that relentless growth in public sector employment largely overshadows private sector employment. In 2010, there were 22,482,000 government employees. That’s an increase of 1,692,000 employees since 2000....

DALLAS -- Southwest Airlines is looking more and more like the big airlines it loves to needle. ... Now comes Southwest's boldest move, its $1 billion purchase of AirTran Airways, completed Monday. .. By acquiring AirTran, Southwest increases passenger traffic by 25 percent. It gains AirTran's hub in Atlanta, .. It gains a toehold at Washington's Reagan National and adds gates at New York's LaGuardia,..

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government's budget deficit grew by $50 billion in January and is expected to finish the year as the highest in history. The Treasury Department said Thursday the deficit was one of the highest ever for the month of January, second only to the $63 billion deficit recorded two years ago. For the first four months of this budget year, the deficit totaled $418.8 billion, 2.7 percent lower than the same period a year ago. However, this improving trend is expected to reverse in coming months. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting a record deficit of...

Irvine consultant Joe Vranich, who has been compiling a list of companies leaving California because of the state’s anti-business environment, is now up to 144 companies that have departed in 2010, including 34 in Orange County. In addition, he lists 51 companies (8 from Orange County) that left in 2009. That three-fold increase, Vranich says, is the tip of the iceberg that is California’s financial woes. “Quite clearly, the exodus of businesses out of California continues. It makes sense for companies to reduce their California footprint considering the ample supply of attractive, lower-cost alternative locations. Unless California reduces its hostility...

Kota Kinabalu (AsiaNews) - Catholic community in the Archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu, capital of Sabah, is growing where the faithful are now more than 180 thousand, nearly 10% of the population. Sabah is one of 13 states of Malaysia and is situated in the northern part of Borneo.Many churches have increased the number of Sunday Masses, to cope with the influx of the faithful. The church of Stella Maris, for example, decided to celebrate on Sunday a third function in Bahasa Melayu, the local language, along with two others in English.Leonard Chin, faithful of the parish, told AsiaNews that "the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by militant and hate groups grew by almost 20 percent in the past year, a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center found on Monday. The study, using research by the center and tips from the public, found more than 11,500 social networks, websites, forums and blogs promoting violence, anti-Semitism, homophobia, hate music and "terrorism," an increase from 10,000 last year. "The numbers are probably, at the end of the day, multiples of that," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean who has been...

SACRAMENTO -- The state Department of Finance reportedly has increased the estimate of the state budget shortfall to $14 billion over the next 18 months, up from a $10 billion estimate by the Legislative Analyst last month. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is briefing legislative leaders on the new calculation made by Finance as the administration works on a proposed budget for the new fiscal year beginning on July 1. "I am not confirming or denying anything," said H.D. Palmer, the Finance spokesman. "We are not going to comment until the governor has had the opportunity to brief legislative leaders and hear...

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans pushed back Monday against President Bush's decision to deploy additional troops in Iraq, some voicing opposition while others called for the administration and Iraqi government to be held accountable. In the Senate, three GOP lawmakers joined one Democrat in unveiling nonbinding legislation expressing disagreement with Bush's plan and urging him to "consider all options and alternatives" to the planned increase of 21,500 troops. In the House, members of the leadership drafted a series of what they called "strategic benchmarks," and said the White House should submit monthly reports to Congress measuring progress toward meeting them. The...

CAIRO, Egypt - When terrorists blew themselves up in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula this week, the radical Palestinian group Hamas quickly joined Arab governments and Western leaders in condemning a "criminal attack against all human values." Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood called the bombings "aggression on human souls created by God." The denunciations were unexpectedly harsh from the Islamic fundamentalist groups — Hamas has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, and the Brotherhood is determined to impose an Islamic government — but experts agree that radical Muslim organizations want to distance themselves from al-Qaida. The widening rift largely has not...

WASHINGTON - State tax receipts jumped nearly 10 percent last year as a strong national economy increased individual earnings and corporate profits. Most states showed increases without raising tax rates, meaning the gains were caused primarily by an expanding economy, said Corina Eckl, fiscal program director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. "It's absolutely attributable to an improving national economy," Eckl said. "Very few, very modest tax changes happened last year." Nationally, states collected a total of $649 billion in taxes in the 2005 budget year, which ended in June for most states, according to a report Thursday by...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The public has become deeply pessimistic that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature can work together since a massive public works plan failed to make the June ballot, according to a new poll. The Legislature's approval rating has fallen to 25 percent — its lowest point since 2000 — the survey released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California shows, while the governor's popularity has changed little since January, with 37 percent giving him a positive rating. In January, Schwarzenegger proposed a $222 billion, 10-year plan to improve the state's highways, levees, schools and public transit...

MIAMI (March 17) - A growing scandal over teachers who paid to get credit for courses they never took has cost nearly three dozen educators their jobs, and hundreds of others were being investigated. The Miami-Dade County School Board voted 5-4 on Wednesday to fire six teachers and accept resignations from 26 others. The punishments stem from a scam run by former high school teacher William McCoggle, who claimed to offer continuing-education classes through a private company. McCoggle pleaded guilty to fraud in November, admitting he did little more than sell transcripts, requiring no tests, homework or other academic work....

With the number of whites shrinking as immigrant populations soar, a "racial generation gap" is opening in Los Angeles and cities nationwide, a study released today says. The report by The Brookings Institution said Los Angeles led all metropolitan areas and Riverside-San Bernardino ranked second in population gains by Latinos, Asians and blacks - increases attributed to higher birth rates among immigrants. In addition, 30 percent of Latinos nationwide live in Los Angeles and New York, the study said. And metropolitan Los Angeles, which includes Long Beach and Santa Ana, has 5.6 million Latinos, about 43 percent of its total...

A wildfire that extended from Mexico into Southern Arizona had grown to about 1,000 acres by Monday night, officials said. Montezuma One is burning along the border west of the Coronado National Monument, close to Montezuma Pass in Cochise County. The larger part of the fire is burning across the border in Mexico, said Teresa Ann Ciapusci, acting public affairs officer with the Coronado National Forest. The fire is south of Sierra Vista and Fort Huachuca. It's the largest wildfire this year in the national forest, although officials Monday did not have ...

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) - Giant windmills are popping up on farms, scenic mountain ridges, prairie grass and now an Indian reservation, dramatically changing the nation's landscape and spinning a debate about where they belong. Wind power grew rapidly in 2005, becoming more competitive as natural gas prices jumped and crude oil prices reached record highs. Improved technology, a federal tax credit and pressure on utilities to use clean energy sources helped fuel the growth from coast to coast. Officials in Atlantic City, N.J., in December dedicated the nation's first coastal wind farm. And last week, General Electric Co. announced a...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30, 2005 – Burgeoning reconstruction activity is now evident in and around Baghdad while terrorist attacks in the Iraqi capital city have weakened since the Dec. 15 elections, a senior U.S. military officer in Baghdad told reporters here today. "When I fly around Baghdad these days, I see the city expanding in large numbers of houses being built on the edges of the city in nearly every direction," Army Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., commander of Multinational Division Baghdad, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite news conference broadcast from Iraq. This activity, Webster said, indicates Baghdad's residents...

The county pension fund's debt has ballooned from $1.2 billion to nearly $1.4 billion in the past year, according to a new report that goes to the county retirement board today. County officials are downplaying the increase, noting that the retirement system's assets could still cover 80 percent of what is owed if all its bills came due. By contrast, the city of San Diego has a deficit of at least $1.4 billion, but a funded ratio of just 65 percent. At least one man says the county system's worsening condition is directly attributable to a 2002 decision that raised...