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Italy: Gaddafi fails to show up at top-level meeting in Rome Rome, 12 June (AKI) - The speaker of Italy's lower house cancelled a top-level conference in honour of Muammar Gaddafi in Rome on Friday after the Libyan leader failed to arrive. "The conference with Gaddafi has not been held due to the delay by Libyan (leader) Gaddafi," said Gianfranco Fini, a senior ally of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. "The two-hour delay is not justified." Gaddafi was scheduled to meet Fini late Friday and take part in a conference with the speaker and former Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema....

Lawmakers Chide Automakers Over Dealership Cuts GM Issues State-by-State Closings List By Dan Eggen and Kendra Marr Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, June 13, 2009 Out of the 1,323 General Motors dealers targeted for elimination, the most will come from Pennsylvania. Ninety dealerships will be forced to wind down in the state. Pennsylvania is followed by Ohio with 79, Illinois with 66, California with 65 and New York with 60. GM, which has declined to name individual dealers, released the state-by-state list for the first time yesterday to a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. And lawmakers vented their frustration, demanding...

The new independent ethics panel created to help the House police itself has started 10 reviews of lawmaker misconduct, but hasn't gotten to the point of deciding whether to refer any matters to the House ethics committee. The information was contained in the first quarterly report of the Office of Congressional Ethics, issued Wednesday. The report says that 37 people have contacted the office, but doesn't make clear how many were filing complaints versus simply seeking information. So it's not clear if the board has declined to review any complaints. The OCE, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, is looking at...

WASHINGTON – House lawmakers on Wednesday accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of impeding their probe into the agency's failure to uncover the alleged $50 billion Bernard Madoff fraud. The clash between lawmakers and high-ranking SEC officials at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing came after the man who waged a decade-long campaign to alert the regulators to problems in Madoff's operations denounced the agency for its inaction. ... In loud, angry exchanges, lawmakers threatened to issue subpoenas to SEC officials to compel their testimony in the case.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The Alaska lawmaker leading an investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's dismissal of her public safety commissioner should be removed because he appears to be manipulating the probe to damage her vice presidential candidacy, a Republican legislator says.

MPs too scared to talk about forced marriage 'in case they lose Muslim votes' Politicians are too scared to speak out against forced marriage in case they lose valuable Muslim votes, according to a veteran Labour MP. By Martin Beckford Religious Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 12:46AM BST 02 Sep 2008 Ann Cryer said politicians in areas with high Muslim populations, many of which are Labour heartlands, should be at the forefront of the campaign to stop young couples being made to wed against their will by their families. But she claimed that some politicians are afraid to speak out on...

Democrat State Rep. Mark DeSimone was arrested outside his home after police found evidence that his wife had been assaulted.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri legislator was charged with a felony Thursday for allegedly driving away after hitting a pedestrian with his pickup truck. Authorities say state Rep. Brad Robinson was driving the truck that hit a 46-year-old man south of St. Louis in the early hours of New Year's Day. His wife, Tara, had told police she was driving, but authorities say a high school's surveillance camera captured the couple switching seats in the truck moments after the accident. The Democratic lawmaker from Bonne Terre was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, and could get up...

SAN FRANCISCO - Federal authorities on Thursday charged a rookie San Francisco lawmaker with fraud, accusing him of attempting to extort $80,000 from a group of fast-food franchisees who had business permit troubles with the city. During an FBI sting earlier this year, the tapioca drink shop owners delivered a $40,000 payment to Supervisor Ed Jew in marked $100 bills and promised to pay the rest later, authorities said. Jew has acknowledged taking the money, but said he did so at the businessmen's insistence and on behalf of a consultant he recommended they hire to help with their permit problems....

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — At the Arkansas Legislature, it's against the rules for a lawmaker to have even a cup of water sitting on his or her desk. That cup of spittle with a day's worth of tobacco juice is fine, though. A state representative disgusted by the expectorate wants a state law that would rid the House and Senate of Styrofoam spittoons. "It's gross," said Rep. Pam Adcock, a Little Rock Democrat who plans to file legislation that would ban all tobacco products, not just cigarettes, from the House and Senate chambers. Gov. Mike Beebe, a former state senator,...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Keith Ellison, Congress' only Muslim, made a weekend trip to Iraq, where a pair of sheiks urged him to help counter al-Qaida's vision of Islam. Ellison, D-Minn., said he met in Ramadi with the two sheiks, who oversee several hundred thousand congregants. "They were very upset and concerned that al-Qaida is misrepresenting Islam," Ellison told reporters Monday during a conference call from Germany on his way back to the U.S. "And they were talking to me about what I can possibly do to work with them to give a clearer, more accurate picture of what Islam is...

BALTIMORE - Former state Sen. Thomas Bromwell, a powerful figure in Annapolis during his nearly 20 years in the legislature, has agreed to plead guilty to taking bribes from a construction company executive, his attorney said Friday. Bromwell, 58, will plead guilty to racketeering conspiracy and filing a false tax return, said attorney Barry Pollack. Sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of about 6 1/2 years to 8 years for the former Senate Finance Committee chairman, Pollack said. "It was a very difficult decision for him, but taking into account what's best for him, what's best for his wife,...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The last of five lawmakers indicted in an undercover public corruption probe dubbed Tennessee Waltz pleaded guilty Monday to bribery. Former state Sen. Kathryn Bowers, 64, a Memphis Democrat, pleaded guilty to one federal count accusing her of splitting $11,500 with an accomplice who served as a go-between with FBI agents posing as dishonest businessmen. She had insisted for two years that she was innocent. "I needed to go on and admit that I'd made some mistakes so that I can go on and try to move on with my life," Bowers said outside court. In exchange...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- An Iowa lawmaker is switching parties. Representative Dawn Pettengill, a Democrat from Mt. Auburn, announced today she's switching to the G-O-P. Pettengill, who was elected to the House in 2004, says she's pro-business, pro-taxpayer, fiscally conservative and dedicated to representing her constituents. She says House Democrats pursued an agenda that "veered far from the principles" for which she and her constituents stand. This year, lawmakers expanded stem cell research at the University of Iowa, approved a one-dollar-a-pack pack cigarette tax increase and added sexual orientation to the protections of the state's civil rights laws. Democratic...

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine wants California to turn off the incandescent light bulb. The Sherman Oaks Democrat has introduced a bill that would bar sales of the high-energy bulbs starting in 2012. It's scheduled to be considered Monday by the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, which Levine chairs. Replacing incandescent bulbs with the more efficient compact fluorescent lights would produce a "huge energy savings" and reduce pollution generated by power plants, Levine said. "It's the equivalent of taking 400,000 cars off the road," he added. The typical compact fluorescent light costs up to six times more than the standard incandescent bulb,...

A Republican lawmaker proposed a political reform measure Monday that would alter term limits, legislative redistricting and campaign fundraising, saying his all-in-one approach would have the best chance of winning voter approval. But it didn't please Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who called Sen. Roy Ashburn's legislation "an unworkable and unconstitutional crap shoot that is simply window dressing for term limits and redistricting reform." "We need to be straight with Californians and let them weigh each of these reforms on their own merits," the Los Angeles Democrat added in a statement. Ashburn, a Bakersfield Republican, introduced a four-part constitutional revision, part...

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi troops found a huge stash of weapons in a raid on the home of a Sunni lawmaker and detained at least a dozen men for questioning, officials said Sunday. Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, said the raid targeted a house of legislator Khalaf al-Ilyan — one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats in parliament. "During the search, we discovered many weapons and explosive materials," al-Moussawi said at a news conference. He did not say when the raid took place, but a U.S. military...

A Republican lawmaker who co-authored a bill that would give every child born in California a $500 savings account has withdrawn his support following a backlash within his own party. Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, who had promoted the measure as a good investment, announced Friday he no longer supported the bill he had introduced two days before with Democrat Sen. Darrel Steinberg. The surprise move came after fellow Republicans questioned the measure's $285 million cost and inclusion of children of illegal immigrants. In a press release, Dutton said that thousands of Californians had asked him "what I was thinking"...

PHOENIX - A veteran Republican lawmaker is accusing President Bush of pushing a behind-the-scenes agenda that will result in the United States being merged with Mexico and Canada. State Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa, said she believes the Security and Prosperity Partnership, being run out of the White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce, is little more than a secret plan to end U.S. sovereignty by 2010. And she said Congress is being kept in the dark until the point that it becomes a done deal. Johnson, who will head the Senate Education Committee this coming session, said the signs...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A state senator said he is evaluating whether to continue his bid for a second term after a Charleston television station aired revealing pictures of him last week. "My family has urged me not to withdraw from the election and I will work with them to make a decision in the immediate future," State Sen. Randy White, a Webster County Democrat, said in a letter to newspapers in his district. An apologetic White also wrote that he was "shocked" and "horribly embarrassed" after WCHS-TV aired photos depicting him and at least two other men wearing only body...