A man way, way outside Beltway
Posted in News on July 30th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
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A man way, way outside Beltway
Archive for July, 2010
Toyota recalls 412,000 cars in U.S. over steering problems
Posted in News, economy on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffTOKYO —
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
Posted in News, Politics, Science on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
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 – Comments OffFor 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
Posted in News, Politics, what on July 29th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThe 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 – Comments OffReporting 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.
Ansel Adams negatives revealed? Fresno man makes his case
Posted in Celeb, News, what on July 28th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffA wall painter for the Fresno school district who bought a cache of antique glass-plate photographic negatives at a garage sale 10 years ago laid out his case Tuesday that they were created by Ansel Adams early in his career, offering affirmations from photographic and forensic experts he had hired.
In a Beverly Hills gallery packed with reporters and photographers, Rick Norsigian and the Beverly Hills law firm that is helping him market prints made from the negatives (and promote a documentary about his find) said the negatives of Yosemite, the San Francisco waterfront, and Carmel’s mission and nearby Point Lobos were taken by Adams from 1919 to the 1930s, before he became famous as the visual bard of America’s natural landscape.
According to David W. Streets, the gallery owner who hosted the news conference and was part of a team of appraisers, the eventual yield from selling prints struck from Norsigian’s find could amount to more than $200 million.
Jet carrying 152 crashes in Pakistan
Posted in Islam, News on July 28th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffReporting from Islamabad —
A Pakistani passenger jet with 152 people aboard crashed Wednesday in a forested ridge outside Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. It was not known whether there were any survivors.
The Airblue airliner, on its way from Karachi to the capital, had been flying through heavy fog and rain when it lost contact with air traffic control and crashed about 10 a.m. local time in the Margalla Hills region, authorities said.
Rescuers were trying to reach the scene amid heavy rain and difficult roads.
