Monday, September 22, 2008

Headlines

NATIONAL:

All eyes continue to be on Wall Street and D.C. to see if the bailout proposal becomes law.

The Bush administration and the Federal Reserve are moving on multiple fronts in an effort to calm financial markets that have been roiled by the biggest upheavals on Wall Street since the Great Depression.

Another seismic shift occurred late Sunday night when Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the country's last two major investment banks, were granted approval from the Fed to change their status to bank holding companies.

That change will allow the two venerable institutions to set up commercial banks that will be able to take deposits, significantly bolstering the resources of both institutions. It will also grant them permanent access to emergency loans supplied by the Fed rather than the temporary loan status they have had since last March when the Fed moved to prop up investment banks following the forced sale of Bear Stearns.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke kept up their outreach with Congress, holding meetings over the weekend aimed at convincing lawmakers to move quickly to approve a $700 billion package. It would allow the government to buy up a mountain of bad mortgage loans that have been weighing down financial companies since they became engulfed in a severe credit crisis 14 months ago.


So far details are still limited and so it's yet to be seen if the bailout will have opposition. It also remains to be seen if Democrats attempt to add anything to the bailout.

The last game at Yankees Stadium was played last night.

Derek Jeter missed the entire one-hour pregame ceremony in which the Yankees said their ceremonial goodbyes to Yankee Stadium. The captain, afterall, was busy getting himself ready to play a baseball game. He took treatment in the trainers' room for his badly bruised hand, took extra batting practice in the indoor batting cage and stretched on the floor of the Yankee clubhouse. By the latter stage of the ceremony, Jeter looked up from his stretching and discovered that he and Bernie Williams, his former teammate, were the only ones left in the room. Williams, the graceful former centerfielder, was still in the clubhouse because he would be the last Yankee introduced, the headliner on a program that included Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson.

Notably absent from the festivities was one Roger Clemens.

Sarah Palin drew about 60,000 at a rally in Florida.

The Villages, a vast, upscale planned community north of Orlando, has about 70,000 mostly adult residents — many of them military retirees — who vote reliably Republican in statewide races. Tens of thousands inched along roads into the picturesque town square of the complex, where they stood in sweltering heat for about four hours as local GOP officials and a country band revved up the crowd.

"Sa-Rah! Sa-Rah!” they chanted at every mention of her name, applauding loudly and waiving tiny American flags that were distributed — along with free water bottles — by local volunteers. The fire chief estimated the crowd at 60,000.

Admiring throngs mobbed the Palin family’s arrival and departure, snapping souvenir pictures. Autograph seekers thrust campaign signs, caps with the McCain-Palin logo and copies of magazines with her face on their covers, and the Palins responded warmly.

A bomb scare has forced an emergency evacuation of a Jet Blue plane in Kennedy Airport.

Search warrants were served at the University of Tennessee in the case of hacking of Sarah Palin's email.

The FBI is stepping up its investigation into the possibility that a University of Tennessee student hacked into the personal e-mail of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

A person who identified himself as a witness tells 10 News that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning. Kernell lives in the Commons apartment complex at 1115 Highland Ave.

David Kernell is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis.A Department of Justice spokesperson confirmed there has been "investigatory activity" in Knoxville regarding the Palin case, but she said there are no publicly available search warrants, and no charges have been filed.


INTERNATIONAL:

World markets were generally positive in anticipation of the bailout in D.C.

Chinese officials moved quickly to limit the damage from contaminated milk.

Chinese officials have ordered an all-out effort to save babies made ill by contaminated milk products.

A cabinet statement said all affected children should get free check-ups and treatment and called for more screening in remote areas, state media reported.

Four children have died and more than 6,000 are ill owing to milk products contaminated with melamine, a chemical used in the manufacturing of plastics.

So far more than fifty thousand have gotten sick.

Violence claimed dozens in fighting in Mogadishu.

At least 33 people have been killed as fighting rages in the volatile Somali capital of Mogadishu, residents and media reports said on Monday.

The violence began in the early hours as Islamic insurgents struck African Union bases and pounded a city market with mortar shells.

"I have never seen such a carnage in my life, it was really hell," said Osmanli Ali Kofi, a local cameraman. "I have personally seen 20 dead bodies."

Islamic insurgents attacked two AU army bases, according to a local Shabelle Radio journalist.AU spokesman, Col. Berigy Bohuko said his forces defended themselves, but there were no AU casualties.


Mogadishu is familiar to all Americans for obvious reasons. Somalia has been running without a government since the early 1990's.

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