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Israeli officials say new UN report props up warnings on Iran’s nuclear program
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli officials said on Friday that a new United Nations report adds credibility to their warnings about Iran, as tensions grow between the Jewish state and its allies over how to tackle Tehran’s suspect nuclear program.
The report by the U.N. nuclear agency, which emerged on Thursday, concluded that Iran had stepped up the installation of centrifuges capable of making weapons-grade material in an underground bunker at its Fordo underground facility, safe from most aerial attacks.
The U.N. report also said Iran has effectively shut down inspections of a separate site -- the Parchin military complex -- suspected of being used for nuclear weapons-related experiments, by shrouding it from spy satellite view with a covering.
It drew rapid criticism from Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who said Friday the assertion about Parchin "does not make any technical sense." Iran denies the West’s claims that it is seeking to develop weapons but its government makes no secret that it sees expansion of its nuclear program as a right.
An Israeli official said that the U.N report "confirms what Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu has been talking about for years now, that the Iranian nuclear program is designed to achieve a nuclear weapon." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
Bernanke: Fed will do more if conditions don’t improve, points to unemployment
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (AP) -- Chairman Ben Bernanke sent a clear message Friday that the Federal Reserve will do more to help the still-struggling U.S. economy.
His remarks left two questions: What exactly will the Fed do? And when?
Bernanke described the U.S. economy’s health as "far from satisfactory" and noted that the unemployment rate, now 8.3 percent, hasn’t declined since January.
He stopped short of committing the Fed to any specific move. But in his speech to an annual Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Bernanke said that even with interest rates already at super-lows, the Fed can do more.
He acknowledged critics’ arguments that further Fed action could fan inflation and inject other risks. Yet after raising such arguments, Bernanke proceeded to knock them down.
Harvard considers honor code after cheating; colleges find they work in the right culture
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- Harvard University, whose motto "Veritas" means "truth," has never had a student honor code in its nearly 400-year history -- as far as it knows. But allegations against 125 students for improperly collaborating on a take-home final in the spring are leading to renewed consideration of the idea.
Though widely associated with college life, formal honor codes are hard to implement and fairly rare on American campuses. But some would argue they’re especially important at places like Harvard that are wellsprings of so many future leaders in government and business.
Cheating and plagiarism are serious rule violations at Harvard, just like anywhere else. But Donald McCabe of Rutgers University, an expert on academic cheating, puts the number of schools that go beyond such rules with some sort of formal honor code at no more than about 100. Details vary, but the commonalities are a pledge signed -- and largely enforced -- by students not to cheat. Some require students also to report any cheating they witness.
At a few places, such as the military academies, the University of Virginia and some tradition-bound liberal arts colleges, honor codes extend far beyond academic misconduct and cover any lying and cheating. Many such schools are clustered in the South. William & Mary, in Virginia, claims to have had the first student honor code, dating to 1779 at the behest of Thomas Jefferson, an alumnus and the state governor at the time.
"You have surveys showing between two-thirds and three-quarters of college students cheat, and higher ed leaders don’t care, or at least not enough to do anything about it," said David Callahan, senior fellow at Demos, a think tank, and author of the book "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead."
Self-described Mich. ‘hillbilly’ claims $337M Powerball prize, vows to still eat fastfood
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Donald Lawson decided to have a little bit of fun with his mother two weeks ago.
"I called her and said, ‘I got a surprise for you. I won $200,000 in the Powerball.’ She goes: ‘Oh my god. Yay!’ I said, ‘All right. Are you ready, Ma? Well, the truth is, I won $337 million and $4 in the Powerball. Ha, ha."
Ha, ha indeed.
The 44-year-old father of two and self-described "hillbilly" from Lapeer, Mich., claimed his prize Friday -- the third largest in the game’s history -- in a lump-sum, $224.6 million payment that works out to $158.7 million, after taxes.
Scheduled to work the midnight shift at the railroad, where he was an engineer, Lawson informed his boss that he wouldn’t be in that night, or any other, for that matter. He told his immediate family members that they too should "retire."
Isaac’s floodwaters recede in Louisiana leaving a sopping mess
BELLE CHASE, La. (AP) -- Floodwaters from Isaac receded, power came on and businesses opened Friday ahead of the holiday weekend, the beginning of what is certain to be a slow recovery for Louisiana.
Newly-nominated Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney visited flood-ravaged communities, and President Barack Obama said he would arrive Monday, appearances this part of the country is all too familiar with after Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.
Meanwhile, the leftovers from the storm pushed into the drought-stricken Midwest, knocking out power to thousands of people in Arkansas. At least six people were killed in the storm in Mississippi and Louisiana.
In Lafitte, a fishing village south of New Orleans, Romney saw soaked homes, roads covered with brown water and debris-littered neighborhoods. The GOP-friendly community is outside of the federal levee system that spared New Orleans and it lay on an exposed stretch of land near the Gulf.
Romney met along a highway with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and they talked about challenges facing the stricken area, which relies on fishing for its livelihood. He also spoke to town officials and emergency workers.
Worker in military clothing kills 2
co-workers, self in N.J.
OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) -- An ex-Marine wearing desert camouflage opened fire at a New Jersey supermarket early Friday, killing two of his co-workers and himself as other terrified store employees ran for cover, authorities said.
Terence Tyler, 23, left his shift at a Pathmark store in Old Bridge Township around 3:30 a.m., drove off and returned 20 minutes later to the closed store with a handgun and an assault rifle similar to an AK-47, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said. About 12 to 14 workers were still there.
He first fired outside the store at an employee, who ran inside and warned co-workers as Tyler kept firing and entered the store, Kaplan said. Tyler stopped at one of the supermarket aisles and fired at five other workers, killing 18-year-old Christina LoBrutto and a 24-year-old Bryan Breen as other workers hid, officials said.
"I do not believe that they were specifically targeted. I believe everybody in the store was a target," said Kaplan.
After firing at least 16 shots, the gunman then drew his handgun and killed himself, the prosecutor said.
Celebs and pols: When star power overtakes the alliance
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the aftermath of Clint Eastwood’s perplexing and ridiculed "invisible Obama" monologue at the Republican National Convention, conservative blogger Moe Lane summed up what many on both sides of the political divide are thinking.
"The term ‘surfing on the edge of the catastrophe curve’ comes to mind," Lane wrote at RedState, concluding the bit that had the 82-year-old Hollywood icon talking to an empty chair did work but, "I would not recommend that the GOP make it a habit."
Celebrities have courted politicians, and vice versa, since the dawn of Hollywood, but what happens when the alliance backfires, when the two worlds are suddenly speaking different languages?
The crowd Thursday night at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, just ahead of Romney’s "speech of a lifetime," greeted the Eastwood Moment with hearty laughter and applause, a welcome break of levity on the last day of a tightly choreographed convention.
But behind the scenes, Romney’s campaign staff didn’t find it so humorous. Asked about it immediately after the convention concluded, a half-dozen staffers said little. The campaign quickly went into damage control.
