WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is pressing his case for changes in how the Senate does business, hoping to ease the partisan gridlock, and he wants to bar lawmakers from profiting from their service.
In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said many people he met during his five-state tour after his State of the Union address were optimistic but remained unsure "that the right thing will get done in Washington this year, or next year, or the year after that."
"And frankly, when you look at some of the things that go on in this town, who could blame them for being a little cynical?" Obama said.
The president reiterated his calls for government reform made in Tuesday's address, saying he wants the Senate to pass a rule that requires a yes-or-no vote for judicial and public service nominations after 90 days. Many of the nominees, he said, carry bipartisan support but get held up in Congress for political reasons.
Obama noted that "a senator from Utah" said he would hold up nominations because he opposed the recess appointment of the head of the new consumer protection agency and three members of the National Labor Relations Board. Obama put the officials in their post during the Senate's holiday break; many Republicans have called that move unconstitutional. Obama said the American people deserve "better than gridlock and games."
"One senator gumming up the works for the whole country is certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned," the president said.
Obama was referring to Utah GOP. Sen Mike Lee who asserted on Thursday that Obama's "blatant and egregious disregard both for proper constitutional procedures and the Senate's unquestioned role in such appointments, I find myself duty-bound to resist the consideration and approval of additional nominations until the president takes steps to remedy the situation."
On Saturday, Lee issued a statement standing by his decision.
"Sadly, the president has sought to make this a partisan issue; but the Constitution is not partisan," he said. "The Constitution does not allow any president, Republican or Democrat, to circumvent the Senate in making appointments, and I will resist, just as vigorously, members of my own party who would attempt to do the same thing."
In his address, Obama said he also wants Congress to pass legislation to ban insider trading by lawmakers and prohibit lawmakers from owning securities in companies that have business before their committees.
In addition, the president is seeking to prohibit people who "bundle" campaign contributions from other donors for members of Congress from lobbying Congress. Obama urged the public to contact their member of Congress and tell them "that it's time to end the gridlock and start tackling the issues that really matter."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., delivering the GOP address, said Obama's address to Congress lacked much discussion of the president's achievements "because there isn't much."
"This president didn't talk about his record for one simple reason," Rubio said. "He doesn't want you to know about it. But you do know about it, because you feel the failure of his leadership every single day of your life."
Rubio accused the president of driving up the national debt, failing to reduce high unemployment across the country and offering divisive economic policies.
The Florida senator said there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor but the best way to solve the problem is by embracing the American free enterprise system. Rubio said he hopes 2012 "will be the beginning of our work toward a new and prosperous American century."
___
Online:
Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research in Motion's Thorsten Heins plans to waste no time in his new job. The BlackBerry maker's chief executive said he will present the board with his plan for company's future in just a matter of weeks.

The German-born executive, who took over from two longstanding co-CEOs on Saturday, said his plans for RIM would be "significant" though he did not divulge details in an interview with Reuters.

"I will have time with the board in two weeks to present my ideas and changes," Heins said.

But the executive, who was promoted from the role of chief operating officer, said he has already done groundwork to tackle his company's most pressing problem - persuading the U.S. market to covet the BlackBerry again.

While RIM is growing in other countries, Heins conceded that its U.S. business is in need of a major revival after losing out to rivals like Apple Inc's iPhone at U.S. service providers and corporations, where it once had a clear advantage among employees heavily dependent on its email service.

"In general I wouldn't consider RIM as a turnaround candidate. It is a turnaround candidate in the U.S.," he said. "We lost market share in this market quite substantially. That is something that we have to address."

While U.S. operators such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc have helped BlackBerry with heavy advertising and promotions in the past, these operators have been much more focused in the last few years on devices like iPhone and smartphones based on the Google Inc operating system.

Heins' quest to regain ground with these operators has been complicated by the fact that RIM had to announce in December that it is delaying the launch of phones based on BlackBerry 10 - its next-generation software - until the later part of 2012 as it is awaiting the availability of a high-powered chip.

The executive would not say when exactly these phones would hit the market but implied that they would arrive in time for the year-end holiday-shopping season in the fourth quarter.

So in the meantime, Heins will concentrate on getting the most current BlackBerrys into more consumers hands. He noted that only 20 percent of U.S. BlackBerry users have the company's latest phones, which he says are competitive with rival smartphones.

The rest of RIM's U.S. customers have devices with older RIM software, some of which are "two generations behind," he said.

To overcome this, RIM has devised a new upgrade plan with U.S. operators to promote phones with the BlackBerry 7 system, which was launched in August last year.

"All the plans are ready. The carrier agreements are all ready. Now we have to get off the starting grid. Now we need to execute that upgrade program," Heins said.

While he did not want to disclose specifics about the new agreements, Heins said RIM could look at new ways of bundling different devices together or offering carriers smartphones with a package of pre-loaded applications.

He is also betting on the company's PlayBook tablet to compete with the Apple iPad tablet. This spring, Heins said that RIM will launch a version of the Playbook, with a high-speed wireless connection based on LTE - a technology that the top three U.S. operators are building into their networks.

Verizon Wireless and AT&T are already promoting LTE devices including smartphones and tablets from RIM's rivals. RIM's first smartphones with LTE connections will be in the company's BlackBerry 10 line-up, Heins said.

MOMENT OF SURPRISE

In his first presentation to Wall Street as CEO earlier this week, Heins said he did not think the company needed drastic change, causing some analysts to worry that the executive would not do enough to reverse the company's fortunes.


But the executive said on Friday that he was merely telling Wall Street that he does not want to change the core of RIM.


"Is RIM up for sale, is RIM up for a split-up?" He rejected those possibilities as "a drastic, seismic change because it would tear the company apart."


Heins, who has been with RIM for four years after spending over two decades at German engineering group Siemens, was became COO responsible for software and products seven months ago.


He explained that RIM had succession plans for co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in place for some time and that he had an inkling that he was being groomed to follow in their footsteps when he was named COO.


"The moment they tell you it's still a surprise," Heins said, smiling broadly and adding that he immediately said yes.


Lazaridis and Balsillie, who turned the BlackBerry maker into a global company and a household name, stepped down last week but will remain on the board.


Some analysts have worried whether these executives would have too much of a say in the future strategy of the company because of their position on the board.


Heins said, it would be an advantage to be able to tap into the experience and company knowledge of RIM founder Lazaridis, but he made it clear that he would be the one calling the shots.


"What I do with the company is my decision. The CEO runs the company."


(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Peter Lauria; Editing by Gary Hill)

CAIRO (Reuters) – A Frenchman was killed when armed men raided a currency exchange office Saturday in the Egyptian tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, security officials and the French embassy said.

South Sinai Governor General Khaled Fouda told Reuters that a German national had also been wounded but was in a stable condition in hospital.

The French embassy confirmed a Frenchman had been killed without giving further details.

Sharm el-Sheikh is on the Sinai Peninsula, home to many popular tourist resorts. However, many people own weapons in inland areas of the peninsula, and analysts say the region has become more lawless since an uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak last year.

(Reporting by Yusry Mohamed in Ismailia; Writing and additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Cairo; editing by David Stamp)

WASHINGTON – NBC asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Saturday to pull a campaign advertisement made up almost entirely of a 1997 "Nightly News" report on Newt Gingrich's ethics committee reprimand.
The "History Lesson" ad started running in Florida on the weekend, when it is harder for stations to switch ad traffic even if they want to. Broadcast days before Tuesday's primary, the ad shows former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw saying that some of Gingrich's House colleagues had raised questions about the then-speaker's "future effectiveness."
Under Brokaw's image is a line that reads — "Paid for by Romney for President, Approved by Mitt Romney."
The footage was used without permission and the extensive use of the broadcast "inaccurately suggests that NBC News and Mr. Brokaw have consented to the use of this material and agree with the political position espoused by the videos," NBC's vice president of media law, David N. Sternlicht, wrote Romney's campaign manager, Matt Rhoades.
"Aside from the obvious copyright issues, this use of the voice of Mr. Brokaw and the NBC News name exploits him and the journalistic credibility of NBC News," the letter said. The network asked for the campaign to stop running the ad immediately and revise any other videos or commercials to remove at NBC material.
"As a news organization, NBC News objects to any use of NBC News journalists and our copyrighted material that suggests to the public that we or our journalists are taking sides with any individual or organization involved in a political campaign or dispute, and we request that your organization respect that concern," the letter said.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said the campaign isn't likely to stop running the ad.
"We just received the letter. We are reviewing it, but we believe it falls within fair use," he said. "We didn't take the entire broadcast; we just took the first 30 seconds."
NBC spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said a similar request went to other campaigns that "have inappropriately" used material from "Nightly News," "Meet the Press," "Today" and MSNBC. Kapp said she was not aware of such uses by other campaigns.
Brokaw said in a statement released by NBC that he was "extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad. I do not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign."
Brokaw stepped down in 2004 after 21 years as anchor and managing editor of "Nightly News," but continues to report for the network, including on the 2012 presidential campaign.
Asked about Brokaw's concern, Fehrnstrom said only, "We respect him as a newsman who has a lot of credibility, but we believe this falls within fair use standards."
The House ethics panel investigated Gingrich's use of tax-exempt organizations. The case ended in January 1997 with a reprimand by the House and a $300,000 penalty against Gingrich for misleading the committee and prolonging its investigation.
Romney has sought the release of all records from the probe. The committee did make public its final report as well as exhibits — which amounted to a comprehensive account of its findings. The head of the ethics committee during the Gingrich investigation, former Republican Rep. Nancy Johnson, said the committee traditionally does not publicly release investigative documents.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – European companies owed oil by Iran could lose out if Tehran imposes a ban on crude exports to the European Union next week, the head of Iran's state oil company said on Saturday.

Iran's parliament is due to debate a bill on Sunday that would cut off oil supplies to the EU in a matter of days, in revenge for a decision last Monday by the 27 EU member states to stop importing crude from Iran as of July 1.

"Generally, the parties to incur damage from the EU's recent decision will be European companies with pending contracts with Iran," Ahmad Qalebani, head of the National Iranian Oil Co. told the ISNA news agency.

"The European companies will have to abide by the provisions of the buyback contracts," he said. "If they act otherwise, they will be the parties to incur the relevant losses and will subject the repatriation of their capital to problems."

By turning the sanctions back on the EU, Iranian lawmakers hope to deny Europe the six-month window it had planned to give those countries most dependent on Iranian oil - including some of the most economically fragile - time to adapt.

The EU banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran's nuclear development programme.

Under buyback contracts, a common feature of the Iranian oil industry, investments in oil field projects are paid back in oil, often over many years.

Italy's Eni says it is owed $1.4-1.5 billion in oil for contracts in Iran dating from 2000 and 2001 and has been assured by EU policymakers its buyback contracts will not be part of the European embargo but the prospect of Iran acting first may put that into doubt.

The EU accounted for 25 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the third quarter of 2011.

(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by David Stamp)

Try as you might to avoid it, the “blogging is dead” narrative is inescapable. The debate rages on, with both sides refusing to let it go: Opponents of the blog argue that Internet readers have gotten savvy enough to pick the real experts from the crowd and prefer connecting with them on social sites – and that Web marketing has ruined the medium. Defenders say that more than ever the Internet has put tools into our hands, and that the blog is our personal showcase for displaying them.

Whichever side you agree with, one thing is certainly true: The blog has evolved. The likes of Posterous and Tumblr have snuck in and turned the platform on its head, with their visual-heavy formats and unending streams of chatter. Pinterest and its clones have done the same, taking these a step further by nearly forsaking words altogether. And sites like Flavors.me are blurring the lines between personal and professional content in one space.

The emerging trend seems to be that we’re all critics or propagators instead of actual creators, and collectives for this pursuit are the new way to “blog” (which, for some people, means the form itself is dead). But one outlet, for all intents and purposes and for better or for worse, is still a home for the blog and marches on in all its traditional, open source, Perl glory — LiveJournal.

A Redwood among saplings
While the platform has undergone change since its introduction in 1999, its updates could be described as incremental at best. If you’re anything like me, then you haven’t visited the site much since you were 16, still using AIM, and trying to squeeze as much as you could into your allotted hour (two hours if you could go unnoticed) of Internet time on the family computer. For a lot of people, LiveJournal was a first experience with self-publishing on the Web.

And at the time, it was enough. There were HTML controls and simple text editors. You could upload photos. There were a handful of preset themes. But everywhere else, things have undeniably gotten flashier, which has made LiveJournal look like something of a dinosaur. And it’s okay with that, because it has survived.

“We have no plans to change what LiveJournal is,” says general manager Anjelika Petrochenko. “We just want to feature and showcase what we have, and we don’t want to reinvent what we have.”

Not everyone wants flash. A very subtle redesign that focused on the comment system launched in December, and dissent followed. The new system implemented more visual icon selection tools, and was largely put into place to solve technical problems. “It makes the site run more efficiently,” says Petrochenko.

The general feedback from unsatisfied users was that they liked their outdated format. “[The new visual icon system] doesn’t work for most of your userbase,” wrote user haircurl in response. “Seriously, everyone was quite happy with your old form. Yeah, messy, but like I said it worked for everybody.”

“Some reacted badly,” Petrochenko admits. “But we’re working with them to fix things.”

Connecting the dots
Of course users so dedicated to a platform that they (generally) shirk at change instead of lobby for it are a good problem to have — just ask Facebook. In LiveJournal’s case, that means sticking with the bare-bones blogging style it’s always been known for. “We are a site where you can actually go and read and talk — not just ‘post,’” says Petrochenko. “Those sites are awesome but if you want to talk, the discussions are here and we want to keep it that way.”

But everyone wants to be bigger and better, and that includes LiveJournal. The site’s plan to get there, however, won’t be to adopt the popular “blogging” styles that have flooded the Web. Instead, LiveJournal is going to start promoting the communities within its site.

“The whole idea is to surface the amazing content that we already have,” says Petrochenko. And niche audiences have found homes here. Popular celebrity blog OhNoTheyDidn’t rakes in more than 300,000 page views a day, Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin’s account at NotABlog has gotten quite a bit of attention, and artist Audrey Kawasaki. Petrochenko also tells me that a variety of entertainment, gaming, fan fiction, gay and female rights blogs are thriving.

Now, popular and populated communities will be featured on the homepage and in the news posts, and we can expect press coverage for specific verticals LiveJournal is promoting from here on out. New widgets will indicate these selected sites, and a new advertising revenue model will introduce interactive ad campaigns as well.

The enduring weight of words
There’s something to this scheme — and the fact that it’s not schemey at all. LiveJournal isn’t just going to “Instagram” or “Pinterst” itself. Interactive design and intuitive, rich visuals can overwhelm the landscape of personal-use applications, often overshadowing how useful or enriching the product actually is. And words, more than anything, have been sacrificed. LiveJournal might be riddled with angsty rants and attention-seekers, but there are plenty of gems in the rough, and plenty of valuable dialogue to be found. You just have to look for it; and that’s exactly what the site is going to try and help readers do.

But it’s the battle between the old and the new that plagues LiveJournal’s progress. Regarding the proposed changes, user Kit Rathenar says it seems like the site is moving away from what it’s formerly focused around: blogging and semi-private conversations.Â

“I haven’t yet left LiveJournal, but at the moment the only thing keeping me there is that i have years’ worth of conversations, friendships, and journaling stored on there and don’t want to lose either my data or my friends,” she says. “Much as I appreciate the fact that LiveJournal isn’t the site I originally joined — my first account on there dates back to 2001 — and I understand that change is inevitable, especially on the Internet, I can’t understand the current LJ owners’ seeming desire to alienate their existing userbase to make room for newcomers.”Â

LiveJournal hasn’t subjected its users to much change, and thus striking a new pace is unsurprisingly met with resistance. It’s been a haven for users that appreciate its old school consistency, and naturally an evolution isn’t being welcomed with open arms.Â

Even still, you could argue it’s one of the only true blogging platforms left. This site, thanks in part to its popularity in Russia after being bought by media company SUP, has been able to maintain a strong if underground following. Now it just has to toe the line between staying fresh while remaining a santuary for supporters of blogging 1.0.




This article was originally posted on Digital Trends






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BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany is pushing for Greece to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters on Friday.

"There are internal discussions within the Euro group and proposals, one of which comes from Germany, on how to constructively treat country aid programs that are continuously off track, whether this can simply be ignored or whether we say that's enough," the source said.

The source added that under the proposals European institutions already operating in Greece should be given "certain decision-making powers" over fiscal policy.

"This could be carried out even more stringently through external expertise," the source said.

The Financial Times said it had obtained a copy of the proposal showing Germany wants a new euro zone "budget commissioner" to have the power to veto budget decisions taken by the Greek government if they are not in line with targets set by international lenders.

"Given the disappointing compliance so far, Greece has to accept shifting budgetary sovereignty to the European level for a certain period of time," the document said.

Under the German plan, Athens would only be allowed to carry out normal state spending after servicing its debt, the FT said.

"If a future (bail-out) tranche is not disbursed, Greece cannot threaten its lenders with a default, but will instead have to accept further cuts in primary expenditures as the only possible consequence of any non-disbursement," the FT quoted the document as saying.

The German demands for greater control over Greek budget policy come amid intense talks to finalize a second 130 billion-euro rescue package for Greece, which has repeatedly failed to meet the fiscal targets set out for it by its international lenders.

CHAOTIC DEFAULT THREAT

Greece needs to strike a deal with creditors in the next couple of days to unlock its next aid package in order to avoid a chaotic default.

"No country has put forward such a proposal at the Eurogroup," a Greek finance ministry official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the government would not formally comment on reports based on unnamed sources.

The German demands are likely to prompt a strong reaction in Athens ahead of elections expected to take place in April.

"One of the ideas being discussed is to set up a clearly defined priorities on reducing deficits through legally binding guidelines," the European source said.

He added that in Greece the problem is that a lot of the budget-making process is done in a decentralized manner.

"Clearly defined, legally binding guidelines on that could lead to more coherence and make it easier to take decisions - and that would contribute to give a whole new dynamic to efforts to implement the program," the source said.

"It is clear that talks on how to help Greece get back on the right track are continuing," the source said. "We're all striving to achieve a lasting stabilization of Greece," he said. "That's the focus of what all of us in Europe are working on right now."

(Reporting By Noah Barking; Additional reporting by George Georgiopoulos in Athens and; Adrian Croft in London; writing by Erik Kirschbaum; editing by Andrew Roche)

NEW YORK – The Rev. Jesse Jackson is entering the fray over The Recording Academy's cuts to its Grammy categories: He's asking to meet with the president of the organization and has raised the possibility of protests with the awards less than two weeks away.
The civil rights activist sent a letter to Neil Portnow, the president and CEO of the Academy, and expressed his dismay over the Academy's decision last April to cut its categories from 109 to 78, the biggest overhaul in its then 53-year history. In the letter, Jackson said he had been talking to members of the entertainment community and asked that his organization, the Rainbow Push Coalition, "meet with you urgently to express our concerns and to see if we might help resolve this conflict ... and allow the Grammys to do what they do best."
In a statement to The Associated Press on Friday, Portnow said he was willing to talk with Jackson.
"We are receptive to meeting with the Rev. Jackson to explain how our nomination process works and to show the resulting diverse group of nominees it produced for the 54th Grammys — many in the musical genres he cited in his letter," Portnow said. "We also agree with the Rev. Jackson that the Grammys are about music, not sales. They have, and always will, stand for excellence in music and celebrating the impact all music has on our culture."
In an interview with the AP on Thursday night, Jackson said he wanted "cooperation, not confrontation" with the Academy. However, he did raise the possibility of a protest of the Feb. 12 Grammys, to be held in Los Angeles, if his talks with the Academy did not go well.
"We are prepared to work with artists and ministers and activists to occupy at the Grammys so our appeal of consideration of mercy really might be heard," he said.
The Academy decided last year to shrink its voluminous categories after a yearlong examination of the awards structure. Among the changes: elimination of some of the instrumental categories in pop, rock and country; traditional gospel; children's spoken-word album; Zydeco or Cajun music album; and best classical crossover album. In addition, men and women compete head-to-head in vocal performance categories instead of separate categories for each sex.
Some musicians in the Latin jazz community have filed a lawsuit against the Academy, claiming the reductions in categories caused them irreparable harm. While there haven't been widespread protests against the cuts in the industry, there have been small but vocal protests, and artists including Carlos Santana have spoken against them.
The Academy contends the changes simply make the awards more competitive but don't prevent people from entering into competition.
But Jackson said he's concerned that they limit participation of those who have been disenfranchised.
"Music of all arts should be expansive and inclusive," he said. "So much talent comes from the base of poverty and those in the margins. You limit the base, you miss too much talent."
Jackson said he became involved because he had been contacted by people in the music industry, though he would not name them. He said he became involved after hearing concerns of those affected.
Princeton professor and activist Cornel West also expressed his concerns in a statement on Friday, saying: "I believe the
elimination of the ethnic Grammy categories is unjust and unfair."
Jackson has confronted the entertainment industry over concerns over diversity before: In 1996, he urged a boycott of the Academy Awards because of the industry's treatment of minorities.
While some have gone so far as to call the Grammy cuts racist, Jackson said he did not believe that.
"I don't think that we have to prove that to make our point," he said. "We're talking about expansion."
He added: "Sometimes inclusion is inconvenient but it's the right thing to do."

___

Online:

Grammys: http://www.grammys.com

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration, in an election-year bid to help distressed homeowners, on Friday expanded its main foreclosure prevention program, and pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive mortgage debt.

The administration said it would extend the life of the Home Affordable Mortgage Program by a year through 2013 and widen it to reach more heavily indebted homeowners.

It also said it would provide incentives to encourage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled mortgage finance providers, to write down loans, an idea which their regulator has worried would unnecessarily add to the cost of taxpayer bailouts for the two firms.

The regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, withheld final judgment on the proposal, saying it would study it further.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee about half of all U.S. home loans, and their participation in principal reduction under HAMP could greatly expand the reach of the $29.9 billion program.

Nearly 11 million Americans are underwater on their mortgages - meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. With some key electoral swing states among the hardest hit by the housing crisis, the sector's health could become an important factor in November's elections.

President Barack Obama made clear in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that he would continue to press for aggressive action to help homeowners, and Friday's announcement was just the first of several on housing initiatives that are expected in coming weeks.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives last year sought to shut down HAMP, arguing it was ineffective, but the bill died in the Democratic-led Senate.

The HAMP program, which draws from the Treasury Department's financial bailout fund, pays mortgage servicers to rewrite loan terms to reduce monthly payments.

When the administration launched the program in 2009, it expected as many as 4 million loans would be modified. So far, only about 900,000 households have permanently won new loan terms.

As of the end of last year, only about $3 billion had been spent of the $29 billion set aside for HAMP.

EXPANDING ITS REACH

As part of its effort to reach more Americans, both the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said they would seek to aid homeowners pinched by other types of debt, including credit cards and medical bills.

In addition, the administration said it was tripling the incentives paid to investors when they reduce loan balances. Investors who rent out properties would also be able to access mortgage aid under the revamped program.

FHFA's acting director, Edward DeMarco, has argued that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could provide equal relief to homeowners through loan forbearance at less cost to taxpayers than slashing mortgage debt.

Treasury has notified the FHFA that it "will pay principal reduction incentives to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac if they allow servicers to forgive principal in conjunction with a HAMP modification," Treasury Assistant Secretary Timothy Massad said.

By offering taxpayer money to cover the costs of write-downs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Obama administration is seeking to overcome DeMarco's objections.

"DeMarco said he is willing to reconsider principal reduction for mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie, if, in his words, 'a source of funds outside the enterprises emerge to cover some portion of the costs associated with reducing principal,'" Senator Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee, said in a statement.


"The administration has now made those funds available," Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said. "I expect FHFA to promptly reconsider their analysis and help more Americans avoid foreclosures."


Reed has been urging the administration to tap HAMP for principal reductions on loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


The administration did not specify how much it would pay Fannie and Freddie to participate in HAMP.


(Reporting By Margaret Chadbourn; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann, Andrew Hay, Leslie Adler)

CINCINNATI – A floor collapsed into a V shape Friday at the construction site of a new Ohio casino, sending workers sliding to the ground, leaving one worker with serious injuries and hurting at least a dozen others.
The collapse occurred shortly before 8 a.m. as a crew was pouring a section of concrete floor at the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati site, Steve Rosenthal, of co-developer Rock Gaming LLC, said Friday. It came just weeks after a similar accident at a Cleveland casino with the same developers.
The male worker with serious injuries was downgraded from fair condition at a Cincinnati hospital Friday night, several hours after the collapse. Authorities had said earlier that there were no life-threatening injuries.
Shouts could be heard on a 911 call right after the collapse as the caller told the dispatcher "we've got one guy that's in desperate position."
"There's about 20 guys just fell through the floor pour. You've got to get down here as quick as possible. ...They fell about 15, 20 foot. Hurry," he said.
"We've got men under a beam as well. We got to get this beam off of them."
Rosenthal told reporters at a news conference that it was too soon to determine what caused the collapse.
Fire Chief Richard Braun, who was one of the first on the scene after the collapse, said that a beam supporting the floor "sheared away" and the floor came down while the workers were on top of it.
"They basically rode the V down," Braun said. No one was underneath the 60-foot-by-60-foot section of floor.
The injured were sent to hospitals with what appeared to be mostly bruises and bumps, and possibly some broken bones, the fire chief said. All workers were accounted for, according to Rosenthal.
The man in serious condition is at Bethesda North, and the only worker from the collapse at the hospital, said Joe Kelley of the TriHealth system. The system's Good Samaritan Hospital treated and released two workers.
Ten workers were treated at University Hospital, said spokesman Matt Kramer, with seven released and three that stayed overnight for monitoring of non-life-threatening injuries.
Neither Kelley nor Kramer had details about the injuries.
Jo Ann Davidson, who chairs the Ohio Casino Control Commission, said she knew of one worker having a broken elbow and another, a broken hip.
Jessie Folmar, a spokeswoman for Cincinnati-based Messer Construction Co., said the company was trying to learn what happened.
"Our top priority is to ensure everyone at our jobsites can return home safely to their families at the end of each day," Messer's president and chief executive Tom Keckeis said in a statement. "We have stringent safety processes and protocols in place to ensure our jobsites remain safe and our structures secure."
Messer has a clean safety record with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 2006, according to information from the agency's database. Its last Ohio incident was that year, when it was penalized for four serious violations and paid a penalty of $3,125. One involved a lack of adequate fall protection for workers.
OSHA inspectors, as well as investigators from the state, were looking into the accident. The developers said work won't resume until the construction team and authorities say it is safe.

The collapse occurred on what will be the casino's second floor, said Jason Mullins, business manager for a union representing ironworkers on the project, but not the workers who were hurt. The framework was more than one-third complete, Mullins said.

Mullins said some of the union's workers were at the site and saw at least part of the collapse.

"They were shaken up, but they were not injured and they worked to help those who were," he said. "No one was underneath the floor, or there could have been lives lost."

The casino is being developed by Rock Gaming in partnership with Caesar's Entertainment. The same team is behind a casino project in downtown Cleveland where a garage partially collapsed on Dec. 16. A 60-foot-by-60-foot second-level section of the parking deck gave way while concrete was being poured. No one was injured.

There is "absolutely zero connection" between the collapse in Cincinnati and the accident in Cleveland, Rosenthal said. "These are two different construction management companies, two different contractors, two different sites, two different areas."

Rock Gaming spokeswoman Jennifer Kulczycki said the concrete work being done Friday was "a regularly scheduled pour."

"There was absolutely no acceleration of the work schedule," Rosenthal said.

Davidson said she sees no link between the two accidents and does not believe casino construction is being rushed in Ohio.

"They're not working overtime shifts. Actually, they're on a regular work schedule, they have a well-known local construction company ... which has done significant work in the Cincinnati area," she said.

The commission plans to closely follow the investigation into the accident, she said.

Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati is a $400 million development under construction in the northeast corner of the city's center and is expected to open in spring 2013, an official with the company told an Ohio House panel at a hearing this week.

The casino is expected to attract 6 million visitors a year and create 1,700 jobs, said Lee Dillard, vice president of finance for the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland. It will feature three outward-facing restaurants, about 2,000 slot machines, 85 table games and a 31-table World Series of Poker room.

Casino development was touted during a statewide legalization campaign in 2009 for the immediate boost it would give to Ohio's economy, particularly through the temporary construction jobs needed to build the four new facilities in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo. According to a recent report from the Associated General Contractors of America, construction jobs rose in Ohio this past year — from 163,400 in December 2010 to 168,600 last month.

Nationwide, OSHA statistics show there were nearly 196,000 job-related injuries in 2010 in the construction industry, almost four injuries for every 100 fulltime workers. In Ohio, there were 21 fatal injuries in the construction industry in 2010, the agency said.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press reporters Doug Whiteman, Julie Carr Smyth and Ann Sanner in Columbus, John Seewer in Toledo and Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland.

As detailed by a Sophos Security post earlier today, the IT security blog conducted a poll of over 4,000 Facebook users in order to determine a general consensus regarding Facebook’s new Timeline feature rolling out to profiles over the next few weeks. Over 50 percent of respondents claimed to be worried about Facebook Timeline and an additional 32 percent responded “I don’t know why I’m still on Facebook.” Only 8 percent declared positive emotions towards Timeline and another eight percent stated that they will have to get used to it.

However, it’s extremely likely that respondents within the poll are “more conscious of privacy and security-related issues than the average man in the street” according to Sophos’ senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley. In addition, responses have been collected since Mark Zuckerberg announced the upcoming launch of Facebook Timeline during late September 2011. This reaction does correspond to a similar negative poll around the same time of the original announcement

Beyond the lighthearted responses included within the poll, Sophos Security raises a concern regarding the amount of information that Facebook users share on the service. Detailed on the BBC’s College of Journalism blog earlier this month, Cluley explains his thought process regarding his decision to delete his Facebook account. After attempting to tweak the security options, Cluley still wasn’t satisfied with the amount of his information available on the profile. He ended up downloading approximately 48MB of photos and other information from his Facebook profile before going through the deletion process.Â

Deleting a Facebook account is relatively straightforward, but the social network requires that a user goes through a 14-day deactivation period before allowing deletion of the account. Specifically designed to attract users back into reactivating the account, any action on a third-party site using a feature such as Facebook Connect for automatic login or Facebook Like to share interesting content with friends will automatically reactivate the account. Assuming the user can avoid any interaction with a Facebook function over the 14-day period, the account is deleted permanently.Â

According to a recent report from AllFacebook, brand pages may also receive the Facebook Timeline makeover at the end of February 2012. Potentially being announced at the Facebook Marketing Conference event in New York on February 29, Facebook officials would likely announced a date for the rollout of Timeline for brand pages as all standard Facebook users should have the new design activated by that date. Applying the new Timeline design to brand pages would allow companies and public figures to utilize the large widescreen format for pictures and high definition video clips.

While privacy experts and security gurus appear to be shunning the launch of Facebook Timeline, graphic designers are embracing the new format and using the top banner to show off creative designs. Design blogs such as Inspiration Feed and HongKiat have featured many Facebook users that customize the header of the Timeline profile with a stylish or funny image. Images usually incorporate the main profile picture in the left, bottom corner of the header.

According to Facebook’s head product developer, Timeline was inspired by the works of infographic artist Nicholas Felton. In particular, Facebook employees were admiring Felton’s yearly annual reports regarding his life. As explained by Co.Design, these reports detail encounters with friends and family members, countries and states visited, statistics about his relationships and activities, methods of transportation, changes in mood, popular conversation topics, food and drink consumed as well as a compendium of various important moments throughout the entire year. This incredibly detailed account of his activities over each year presented in a visually pleasing, informative manner sparked the fire that lead to the development and launch of Facebook Timeline.



This article was originally posted on Digital Trends





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SADADA, Libya (Reuters) – A militia commander whose troops were driven out of the Libyan tribal stronghold of Bani Walid this week said on Friday that his forces were massing to recapture the town but were holding back at the government's request.

"It is our right to reenter Bani Walid and nobody can prevent us," Imbarak al-Futmani said in an interview with Reuters at his desert camp near Sadada, 30 miles east of Bani Walid.

Futmani's troops were pushed out by angry townsmen who he accuses of being the remnants of loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi, the former dictator who was overthrown then captured and killed in October.

Eight hundred of his men were now massed along the eastern flank of the town awaiting his orders to enter by force, said the elderly warrior, who was dressed in an ornate black and gold waistcoast, a skullcap and a white blanket over his shoulder.

Bani Walid, 90 miles south of Tripoli, was one of the last towns to surrender to the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year.

Hundreds of fighters loyal to the interim government have surrounded the isolated town after hearing word that a pro-Gaddafi uprising had broken out.

Futmani said he faced a couple of hundred "criminals" nostalgic for Gaddafi's time in power, rather than large battalions of organized loyalists.

"We have all the revolutionary fighters with us and we can take Bani Walid in a matter of hours."

"If they don't hand themselves in, they will face what they cannot imagine," he added, his eyes hidden by thick-rimmed, amber Ray-Ban sunglasses.

GADDAFI SUPPORT ALLEGATIONS

On Monday, armed residents surrounded Futmani's brigade, who named themselves the "28th of May," after the date last year when Gaddafi loyalists executed a number of pro-democracy protesters in Bani Walid.

After a battle in which Futmani lost six fighters, his men fled the barracks in the dark of the night.

"Once the Gaddafis broke through the gate and entered the barracks, all they cared about was stealing our tanks. We just walked right out," said one of Futmani's men.

Echoing complaints by residents that the 28th of May Brigade had been harassing people and abusing prisoners, the town elders said they were dismissing the government-backed local council on which Futmani sits and appointing their own local government.

They said they were not Gaddafi supporters but just tired of the militia pushing its weight around their town.

Futmani says the elders profited from Gaddafi and were trying to reclaim their town from its rightful rulers, the western-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) government.

WAITING ON THE PRIME MINISTER

With hundreds of fighters waiting at the gates of Bani Walid, drinking tea and oiling their weapons in the cold desert, why have they have not pushed forward?


Sitting in his base, a former Gaddafi holiday mansion on the top of a rocky hill, Futmani said the prime minister had asked him to hold off to allow civilians to leave the town and, hopefully, for the assailants to surrender.


"The prime minister called me and asked me not to move and I accepted," he said.


"(Prime minister Abdel Rahim) El Keib promised that the government would use force to maintain security, if necessary."


Troops from the nascent National Army, composed of revolutionary fighters who have signed up to the government force, had joined the militias around Bani Walid.


The NTC has been unable to fully establish control over armed revolutionary groups in Libya and has only incorporated a few brigades into a national security force. All of the militias claim loyalty to the government but most are still unwilling to disarm. Instead, they adopt a wait-and-see approach to who comes to power, and if they like them.


Futmani's men cruise around the base in dirty pick-up trucks with machineguns mounted on the back.


He is skeptical of any peaceful solution and saw more violence ahead.


"These pro-Gaddafis, they see us a rats, like Gaddafi did," he said. "They are murderers and criminals, they will never integrate into the new Libya because they know they will face justice now."

(Reuters) – Civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday urged Grammy organizers to reinstate 31 ethnic and minority musical categories that have been cut from the music industry's top awards.

In a letter to Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, sent three weeks before the February 12 Grammy Awards show, Jackson said the elimination of awards for Native American and Hawaiian musicians, and cuts in Latin Jazz, R&B and other categories were ill-considered and unfair.

Jackson said some of the categories dropped by the Recording Academy in a major overhaul last year "constitute the very heart of the music that nourishes and inspires minority communities."

Writing on behalf of the Rainbow Push Coalition of U.S. civil rights groups, Jackson called for an urgent meeting with Portnow to try and resolve the conflict that has spurred months of protests and a lawsuit by leading musicians.

Portnow said on Friday he was "receptive to meeting with the Rev. Jackson to explain how our nomination process works and to show the resulting diverse group of nominees it produced" for this year's Grammy Awards.

Paul Simon, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Bobby Sanabria are among dozens of musicians who have protested the decision, announced last April, to slash the number of Grammy categories to 78 from 109 for the 2012 Grammy Awards.

Some categories, such as Hawaiian and Native American albums were dropped completely, while others including Latin music and R&B saw the number of award categories halved.

Portnow said at the time the changes were necessary to maintain "the prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music."

Sanabria and three other Latin Jazz musicians filed a lawsuit in New York in August saying the cuts would harm their careers financially. They have also called for a boycott of the CBS network, which broadcasts the annual Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles.

The 2012 Grammy Awards take place on February12. Rapper Kanye West leads the field of contenders with seven nominations followed by British singer Adele, Bruno Mars and alternative rock band Foo Fighters.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Corrects Jackson name in paragraph 1.