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Friday, June 21, 2013

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Obama: Spying Programs 'Transparent' (ABC News)

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Hoffa mystery still fascinates after 4 decades

Law enforcement officials from the Michigan State Police help search the area in Oakland Township, Mich., Tuesday, June 18, 2013 where officials continue the search for the remains of Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa who disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Members of an FBI evidence response team look over an area being cleared in Oakland Township, Mich., Tuesday, June 18, 2013 where officials continue the search for the remains of Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

FILE - In this Sept. 30, 1957 file photo, Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters vice president and leading candidate to succeed Dave Beck as the IBT's new president, waves to delegates at the opening of the Teamsters Union convention at Miami Beach, Fla. Hoffa?s mysterious disappearance, assumed death and myriad searches for his body have been the stuff of urban legends for more than three decades and continue with the most recent report that the former Teamsters chief?s remains are buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in a field in suburban Detroit. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this June 3, 1974 file photograph, teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa is shown in Washington. The Teamsters leader was last seen in July 1975 at a restaurant in Oakland County's Bloomfield Township in Michigan. Federal agents revived the hunt for the remains of Jimmy Hoffa on Monday June 17, 2013, digging around in a suburban Detroit field where a reputed Mafia captain says the Teamsters boss' body was buried. (AP Photo, File)

OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) ? The latest possible resting place of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa is an overgrown farm field where the normal calm of chirping crickets is being drowned out by a beeping backhoe, the chop of an overhead news helicopter and the bustle of reporters and onlookers.

Over nearly four decades, authorities have pursued multiple leads into Hoffa's death that yielded nothing. Yet the mystery endures, fueled by a public fascination with mobsters and murder.

"It's one of those things you've always heard about," said Niki Grifka, who, at 37, was just an infant when Hoffa vanished.

Over the past day and a half, Grifka and a few dozen other Oakland Township residents gathered a couple of hundred yards from where FBI agents wearing hard hats and carrying shovels sifted through about a half-acre of red dirt for the remains of a man who became as large in death as he was leading one of America's most powerful labor unions.

Hoffa's rise in the Teamsters, his 1964 conviction for jury tampering and his presumed murder are Detroit's link to a time when organized crime, public corruption and mob hits held the nation's attention.

Hoffa was last seen July 30, 1975, outside an Oakland County restaurant where he was supposed to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain. His body has never been found.

But over the years, authorities have received various tips, leading the FBI to possible burial sites near and far.

In 2003, a backyard swimming pool was dug up 90 miles northwest of Detroit. Seven years ago, a tip from an ailing federal inmate led to a two-week search and excavation at a horse farm in the same region. Last year, soil samples were taken from under a concrete slab garage floor north of the city. And detectives even pulled up floorboards from a Detroit house.

No evidence of Hoffa was found.

Other theories have suggested he was entombed in concrete at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, ground up and thrown in a Florida swamp or obliterated in a mob-owned fat-rendering plant.

Detroit's long tradition of organized labor and auto manufacturing means the Hoffa saga still resonates with countless Michigan families.

"Everyone has a connection with Hoffa and the unions," said 47-year-old George Newton, of Oakland County's Rochester. "I was in high school when he got abducted, and my grandfather was in the union."

To Newton, it would be exciting if Hoffa's remains are finally found, but he doubts that ever will happen.

"I just think it's a tightly held secret," Newton said. "I do want closure, first for Hoffa's family and, I think, in a way for Michigan."

The latest tip about Hoffa's remains came from a reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli, who, through his lawyer, said Hoffa was buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in the Oakland Township field.

The barn is gone, but FBI agents pored over the field Tuesday for a second day. Forensic anthropologists from Michigan State University were bought in to help, along with state police dogs, which were led through the high grass in hopes that their sensitive noses might sniff out a clue.

Authorities suspended the search late Tuesday afternoon, but expected to resume their efforts Wednesday.

Zerilli, now 85, was in prison for organized crime when Hoffa disappeared. But he told New York TV station WNBC in January that he was informed about Hoffa's whereabouts after his release. His attorney, David Chasnick, said Zerilli is "intimately involved" with people who know where the body is buried.

Details are in a manuscript Zerilli is selling online, $7.99 for a mailed copy and $4.99 for an electronic version.

Zerilli's mob connections give his story more credibility than tips that spawned past searches, according to Keith Corbett, a former federal prosecutor.

"You have a witness who is in a position to know, who says he has specific information," Corbett said Monday.

"Anytime you look for somebody and don't find the body, it is embarrassing. The thing the public isn't aware of but police know is there are a lot of dead ends in an investigation."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-06-18-Hoffa%20Search/id-ee7509a397c249cbb9f2323bbfb2904d

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Sen. Cornyn Reveals Not One, Not Two, but Three Public Pensions Atop His Salary

Texas Republican John Cornyn supplemented his Senate salary with a trio of public pensions last year from his days as a Texas judge and elected official?a practice some fiscal watchdog groups have attacked as ?double dipping.?

Cornyn, who is the minority whip and the No. 2 ranking Republican in the Senate, reported collecting $65,383 in public retirement benefits in 2012 in addition to his $174,000 salary as a U.S. senator. ?

Cornyn?s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Elected to the Senate in 2002, Cornyn is a former district judge, Texas Supreme Court justice, and state attorney general. In 2012, he collected pensions from three separate state retirement programs.

The biggest of Cornyn?s pensions?$48,807? is from the Judicial Retirement System of Texas. He served on the state Supreme Court from 1991 to 1997.

He reported another $10,132 in retirement benefits last year from the Employees Retirement System of Texas?the pension fund for state elected officials and workers. Cornyn served as Texas attorney general from 1999 to 2002.

In a series of financial-disclosure amendments that he began filing last July, Cornyn disclosed that he had actually been collecting that $10,132 annual pension as far back as 2006. He had not listed it on his original disclosure reports from 2006 to 2010.

Cornyn also reported a $6,444 retirement distribution from the Texas County and District Retirement System. He was a state district judge from 1985 to 1989, according to his official bio, when the governor appointed him presiding judge for the Fourth Administrative Judicial Region of Texas, where he oversaw judicial administration for a 22-county region.

Cornyn, 61, is not the first or only prominent Texas Republican to draw both a public pension and a public salary. In December 2011, it was revealed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was supplementing his $150,000 governor?s salary with a state pension of more than $92,000.

?I think it would be rather foolish to not access what you?ve earned,? Perry said in the midst of the 2012 presidential primary.

Cornyn, unlike Perry, is drawing his pensions and salary from different levels of government. His salary is supported by the federal government, while his pensions come from state and local government.

Cornyn is up for reelection in 2014.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sen-cornyn-reveals-not-one-not-two-three-151115404.html

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World looks to Bernanke to clarify stimulus plans

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Is the era of ultra-low interest rates nearing an end?

That's the question ? and the fear ? Chairman Ben Bernanke will face this week when he takes questions after a Federal Reserve policy meeting.

Financial markets have been gyrating in the 3? weeks since Bernanke told Congress the Fed might scale back its effort to keep long-term rates at record lows within "the next few meetings"? earlier than many had assumed.

Bernanke cautioned that the Fed would slow its support only if it felt confident the job market would show sustained improvement. And earlier in the day, he said the Fed must take care not to prematurely reduce its stimulus for the still-subpar economy.

Yet investors were left puzzled and spooked by a mixed message. Fear spread that the Fed would soon slow its $85 billion-a-month in bond purchases. Those purchases have been intended to hold down long-term borrowing rates to spur spending. Many worried that a pullback in the bond purchases could boost long-term rates, trigger a stock selloff and perhaps weaken the economy.

On Wednesday, when the Fed ends a two-day policy meeting with a Bernanke news conference, the financial world will be looking to the chairman to settle the confusion. What, Bernanke will likely be asked, would show sustained improvement in the job market? And when will the Fed most likely slow the pace of its bond purchases?

Last month, the U.S. economy added a solid 175,000 jobs. But the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Economists tend to regard the job market as healthy when unemployment is between 5 percent and 6 percent.

Since Bernanke's vague public comments May 22, the Dow Jones industrial average has fluctuated sharply and shed about 3 percent of its value. But the bigger shock has been in the bond market. The rate on the benchmark 10-year Treasury has jumped from a low of 1.63 percent in early May to 2.13 percent.

Higher rates ripple through the economy by making mortgages and other loans costlier. The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage, which tends to track the 10-year Treasury yield, reached 3.98 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac. That's its highest level since April 2012.

Just as cheap mortgages have helped feed a housing recovery, higher rates might slow it. Refinancings have declined since Bernanke's comments led to higher mortgage rates: Refinancings are 36 percent below their recent peak at the start of May, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Compounding the confusion stirred by Bernanke's remarks have been comments from other members of the Fed's policy committee. Minutes of the previous meeting suggest a sharp division: Some, like Bernanke, still stress the need to fight high unemployment with low rates. Others warn that rates kept too low for too long raise the risk of high inflation and financial instability later.

The Fed's investment purchases have swollen its portfolio to $3.4 trillion ? a four-fold increase since before the 2008 financial crisis. Eventually, the Fed will need to gradually sell its portfolio. Doing so would likely lead to higher rates. Yet some think it would also defuse some risks to the financial system.

Alan Greenspan, who preceded Bernanke as Fed chairman for nearly two decades, said in a recent interview on CNBC, "The sooner we come to grips with this excessive level of assets on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve ? that everybody agrees is excessive ? the better."

Economists say Bernanke will seek to clarify the Fed's message Wednesday. Yet they're unsure what he'll say.

Some think he could spell out the Fed's likely timetable for curtailing its bond purchases. The earliest the Fed is expected to announce a pullback is at its September meeting ? and only then if unemployment has declined and the economy is growing faster than its current sluggish annual pace of around 2 percent.

Other analysts think the economy will not have recovered enough by September. They believe the earliest the Fed will reduce its stimulus is at its final meeting of the year in December. Until then, they think Bernanke will seek to reassure investors that the Fed will make sure the economy has strengthened before it acts.

"The Fed has worked very hard to get stock prices and home prices rising to help the economy, and I don't think they want to back away from that in any way," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "I think Bernanke will deliver a strong message that the Fed is not going to taper until the job market is improving in a consistent way."

Some in this camp say the economy will continue to be held back by a Social Security tax increase that kicked in in January and by federal spending cuts that began taking effect March 1.

"There is nothing in the underlying economy that would suggest the Fed needs to change policy any time soon," said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Gordon College in Massachusetts. "There is considerably slower growth on the radar screen and absolutely no inflation to worry about."

Indeed, the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation tied to consumer spending rose just 0.7 percent in the 12 months that ended in April? far below the Fed's 2 percent target.

Some think Bernanke will want to signal to investors on Wednesday that the Fed is moving toward at least the start of a reduced pace of bond purchases in the second half of the year. Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University, suggested one possible approach: The Fed could reduce its $85 billion a month in purchases to about $60 billion in September, then to about $35 billion early next year, then stop the purchases altogether by spring.

Even when the Fed stops buying bonds, it's expected to maintain its current holdings, which would continue to exert downward pressure on long-term rates.

Whatever guidance Bernanke offers Wednesday could help steady markets for a key reason: It will reduce uncertainty.

Margie Patel, a portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Capital Management, thinks investors will remain calm even after the Fed slows its stimulus. She noted that the economy has been improving, however gradually.

"There's no sector you can look at that's extremely dependent on the low rates for growth, even housing," she said. "If rates went up modestly, housing is still more affordable than it has been in years."

___

AP Business Writers Christina Rexrode and Matthew Craft in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-17-Federal%20Reserve%201st%20Ld-Writethru/id-3df1165f2f4441529fa90adab86996be

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Monday, June 17, 2013

EU, US agree to start free trade talks at G-8

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) -- The European Union and the United States will open negotiations next month on a long-sought deal to create free trade between the world's two mightiest economic regions ? an effort that could create millions of jobs but that could also take years to transform from dream to reality.

EU and U.S. leaders announced the plans Monday while in Northern Ireland for the G-8 summit of wealthy nations.

"America and Europe have done extraordinary things before and I believe we can forge an economic alliance as strong as our diplomatic and security alliances, which of course are the most powerful in history," U.S. President Barack Obama declared alongside EU leaders and the British host, Prime Minister David Cameron.

At stake is a vision of boosting the value of trans-Atlantic trade in goods and services that Obama said already exceeds $1 trillion annually, as well as $4 trillion annually in investment in each side's economies.

EU and U.S. officials agreed at the start of the Group of Eight summit that these already colossal trade figures could be much higher if only both sides agreed to dismantle high tariff walls and bureaucratic hurdles that block the competitive export of many products.

"The whole point is to fire up our economies and drive growth and prosperity around the world ? and there is no more powerful way to achieve that than by boosting trade," Cameron said against a backdrop of Northern Ireland's lush Fermanagh lakeland.

Cameron said a tariff- and barrier-free trade environment could generate an extra $150 billion annually for the 27-nation European Union, perhaps $120 billion for the United States, and provide a similar growth jolt for the rest of the world.

The British leader said these figures would mean, in practical terms, "2 million extra jobs, more choice and lower prices in our shops. We're talking about what could be the biggest bilateral trade deal in history. ... This is a once-in-a-generation prize, and we are determined to seize it."

A White House statement said the EU-U.S. talks could start the week of July 8. Both sides hope to reach agreement by late 2014.

Yet the French government of President Francois Hollande has already illustrated the many speed bumps on the road to such a deal as each nation seeks to preserve tariff barriers and other shields of red tape for its own potentially uncompetitive industries.

When discussing its negotiating position Friday before meeting Obama, European Union chiefs gave France an advance concession that its state-subsidized TV and movie industry would not be cut adrift to compete directly with Hollywood. At least, not yet.

The head of the EU's executive arm, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, stressed that the negotiations would repeatedly confront such issues and each nation would have to be persuaded that a level playing field was in everyone's long-term self-interest.

He said money currently wasted in overcoming other nations' obstacles could be spent "to invest in new innovative products and services and job creation."

"Our regulators need to build bridges faster and more systematically. The current economic climate requires us to join forces and to do more with less," Barroso said. "More importantly, in doing so, we will remain strong global players who set the standards for the 21st century."

The official launch of talks to achieve a free trade deal came just ahead of the opening of the summit of Group of Eight leading industrial nations: The U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia, plus the European Union.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland's police commander, Chief Constable Matt Baggott, said the summit, which ends Tuesday, could prove one of the most peaceful in G-8 history, as the selection of the remote Lough Erne resort on a hard-to-reach peninsula proved an obstacle too far for Europe's cadre of professional protesters.

The major anti-capitalist demonstration planned for the summit departed from central Enniskillen with far fewer than the 2,000 that police were expecting.

About 500 people marched several miles (kilometers) to one section of the steel fences and razor wire preventing access to the 300-acre golf resort. Some chanted "We will fight! We will win! What we want is socialism!" Others carried a giant mock rocket emblazoned with the slogan "Drop debt not bombs." Police reported no arrests.

Police had deployed some 7,000 officers, half of them imported from Britain, to blanket Enniskillen with armored-car units at every intersection and side street in this town of barely 15,000 residents. But a central park earmarked for the potential invasion of thousands of anti-G-8 campers contained barely a dozen tents Monday.

Associated Press writers Cassandra Vinograd and Vladimir Isachenkov in Enniskillen contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-us-agree-start-free-195136730.html

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