Soldier suspected in WikiLeaks case moved from Kuwait to Virginia military jail

Posted in News, Video on July 30th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

WASHINGTON —

The Army intelligence specialist charged with leaking U.S. military secrets to the WikiLeaks website has been moved from Kuwait to a military jail in Virginia.

In a statement Friday, the Army said Pvt. Bradley Manning was flown Thursday to Quantico Marine Base where he will be held while awaiting trial for leaking top-secret military intelligence to WikiLeaks.

The 22-year-old intelligence analyst is accused of leaking a classified helicopter cockpit video of a 2007 firefight in Baghdad that left a Reuters photographer and his driver dead.

3 Americans killed in Afghanistan, making July deadliest month of war for U.S.

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KABUL, Afghanistan —

Three U.S. troops died in blasts in Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for July to at least 63 and surpassing the previous month’s record as the deadliest for American forces in the nearly 9-year-old war.

The three died in two separate blasts in southern Afghanistan the day before, a NATO statement said Friday. The statement gave no nationalities, but U.S. officials say all three were Americans. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity pending notification of kin.

U.S. and NATO commanders had warned that casualties would rise as the international military force ramps up the war against the Taliban, especially in their southern strongholds in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. President Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan last December in a bid to turn back a resurgent Taliban.

Disney agrees to sell Miramax Films to investor group led by Ron Tutor

Posted in Entertainment, News, economy on July 30th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

After months of negotiations with various buyers that failed to bear fruit, Walt Disney Co. finally reached a deal to sell its Miramax Films unit in a deal that severs the independent movie pioneer’s 17-year association with the Burbank studio.

Disney late Thursday signed a definitive agreement to sell Miramax to Filmyard Holding, an investor group led by Los Angeles construction magnate Ron Tutor, for more than $660 million, putting the future of the company with a long string of award-winning films into the hands of a Hollywood outsider.

Tutor and his partners, including Los Angeles private equity firm Colony Capital, delivered a nonrefundable down payment of $40 million to Disney on Thursday, which will be held in escrow until they secure all the financing by a closing date of no later than Dec. 3. Tutor and Colony Capital will each put up about $100 million of the purchase price, while minority investor Jerome Swartz, a retired engineer and philanthropist, is expected to contribute an additional $25 million to $50 million in equity.

1,500 L.A. homes threatened

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Three wildfires broke out in northern Los Angeles County on Thursday, the worst of which was threatening at least 1,500 homes in Leona Valley, near Palmdale.

Some structures have been lost to the so-called Crown fire, officials said, but they will not be able to determine whether those were homes or outbuildings on the many ranches in the area until sometime Friday.

Capt. Sam Padilla, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said the Crown fire has burned nearly 6,000 acres and there was zero containment. In addition to Leona Valley, evacuation orders were issued for the nearby community of Ana Verde and the fire was moving east toward Quartz Hill, leaving the possibility of more evacuations overnight.

A man way, way outside Beltway

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A man way, way outside Beltway

Toyota recalls 412,000 cars in U.S. over steering problems

Posted in News, economy on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment
TOKYO —

Toyota is recalling 412,000 passenger cars, mostly the Avalon model, in the U.S. for steering problems in which three accidents have been reported, the automaker said Thursday.

The 373,000 Avalons being recalled range from the 2000 model year through to 2004 and have improper casting of the steering lock bar — a component for the steering system — causing cracks to develop on the surface.

In some cases, the crack can cause the lock bar to break, potentially leading to a crash if the steering wheel locks, the world’s No. 1 automaker by car sales said. No injuries have been reported from the accidents that may be caused by the defect, it said.

South Korean prime minister offers resignation

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SEOUL —

South Korea’s prime minister offered to resign Thursday after parliament shot down his efforts to scrap a plan that would relocate several government ministries outside of the capital.

Chung Un-chan, an academic appointed in September, has led the charge to abandon the project, thought up by the previous liberal administration.

President Lee Myung-bak has said the plan to move more than half of the 15 government ministries from Seoul and a nearby city would waste taxpayer money and create inefficiencies.

California Republicans shunning one traditional path to victory: the environment

Posted in News, Politics, Science, Tech, economy, what on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment

For decades, Republicans who won statewide office in California found success, at least in part, by showing sensitivity to voters’ commitment to protecting the environment. But with state unemployment hovering at more than 12%, the two GOP candidates at the top of the ticket this year are betting that voters’ concerns about jobs and economic uncertainty will trump any desire for environmental crusades.

Republican Senate nominee Carly Fiorina has spent months charging Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer with driving an extreme environmental agenda instead of tending to jobs. She has been sharply critical of national and state climate change legislation — deriding Boxer’s concern as being about “the weather” — and has argued that the state should expand oil drilling off its shores.

Gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman has been more equivocal than Fiorina, but she also has cast the state’s landmark climate change measure as one that kills jobs. She favors delaying its execution for a year to allow further study of its effect.

Jewish banker’s heirs sue Hungary for return of looted art

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The heirs of the Budapest-based Jewish banker Mor Lipot Herzog have filed a lawsuit in U.S. courts against Hungary and its leading national museums, seeking the return of what they have identified as more than 40 works of art looted from Herzog’s collection during the Holocaust. The lawsuit values the artworks, including well-known paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, El Greco, Francisco de Zurbaran and Gustave Courbet, at more than $100 million.

“This is one of the largest — if not the largest — restitution claims ever filed in U.S. courts by a single family against another nation,” says Michael S. Shuster, the New York attorney representing the family.

Shuster, who says the lawsuit will be translated and delivered to Hungarian authorities according to the Hague Service Convention, calls it a last resort “to get the Hungarian government, which has been much less cooperative and consensual than Germany or Austria on these issues, to do the right thing.”

Schwarzenegger vetoes overtime for farmworkers

Posted in News, Politics, economy, what on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Be the first to comment
Reporting from Sacramento —

Saying he didn’t want to damage California’s agricultural economy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday vetoed a first-in-the-nation bill that would have given farmworkers the same rights to overtime pay enjoyed by all other hourly workers in California.

Applying the eight-hour day to agriculture would be burdensome to business and reverse longstanding labor practices, Schwarzenegger wrote in a veto message.

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