Stainless Steel Tank

NEW YORK – The new Navy assault ship USS New York, built with World Trade Center steel, arrived in its namesake city Monday with a rifle volley salute near the site of the 2001 terrorist attack.
First responders, families of Sept. 11 victims and the public gathered Monday at a waterfront viewing area, where they could see the crew standing at attention along the deck of the battleship gray vessel.
The big ship paused. Then the shots were fired, with a cracking sound, in three bursts.
The bow of the $1 billion ship, built in Louisiana, contains about 7.5 tons of steel from the fallen towers.
"It's a transformation ... from something really twisted and ugly," said Rosaleen Tallon, who lost her firefighter brother, Sean, on 9/11. "I'm proud that our military is using that steel."
Tallon said her brother, who was a Marine, would have been proud.
JoAnn Atlas, of Howells, N.Y., who lost her husband, fire Lt. Gregg Atlas, draped a flag-themed banner along the fence. The names of emergency workers who died were written on the red stripes.
"We have to remember. It's a way to honor them," she said.
Members of the public included Nancy DiGiacomo, who came from Huntington, N.Y., with her husband, 9-year-old son, mother and sister.
"I just thought it was important to see" the transformation of the tragedy's wreckage, said DiGiacomo. "From that, something else can come of it."
Lt. Cmdr. Colette Murphy, a Navy spokeswoman, said she was excited for those serving on board to see the city's "awe-inspiring" welcome.
At a short ceremony later at Pier 88 near the site of the aircraft carrier, the USS Intrepid, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the USS New York couldn't have a more fitting name, representing freedom, courage and resilience.
"This ship is actually a physical representation of that spirit with steel from the World Trade Center built into its bow so every friend that sets foot on it and every foe that dares challenge it will feel its power and know that it is literally made from the heart and soul of the city that has sacrificed so much," the mayor said.
Of the 361 sailors serving aboard the ship, around 13 percent are from New York state, which is higher than would normally be the case, Murphy said. There were many requests from Navy personnel to serve on the ship, which will carry some 250 Marines.
After the ground zero stop, the ship — escorted by about two dozen tugboats and other vessels — headed up the Hudson River toward the George Washington Bridge. After a U-turn there, it headed south to Pier 88. An official commissioning ceremony is scheduled for Saturday.
The New York will remain in the city through Veterans Day and then head to Norfolk, Va., for about a year of crew training and exercises, Murphy said.
The ship is 684 feet long and can carry as many as 800 Marines. Its flight deck that can handle helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
It was scheduled to be built before the terrorist attacks. About a year later, the announcement came that the ship would bear the name New York to honor the city, state, and those who died.

It's the latest in a line of Navy ships to bear that name. The others included a Spanish-American War-era cruiser, a battleship that served in World Wars I and II and a nuclear submarine retired from the fleet in 1997.

The ship is technically known as a San Antonio-class amphibious dock vessel. Four vessels in that class are in service, the USS San Antonio, USS New Orleans, USS Mesa Verde and USS Green Bay. Four others are being built. Of those, two also have been named in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

The USS Arlington was named to honor the attack on the Pentagon. The USS Somerset was named after the county in Pennsylvania where United Airlines flight 93 crashed.

Carom billiards, referring to games played on tables without pockets, including among others balkline and straight rail, cushion caroms, three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards

Snooker, which while technically a pocket billiards game, is generally classified separately based on its historic divergence from other games, as well as a separate culture and terminology that characterize its play.

Pool Sticks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
An outbreak of food-borne illness, linked to dangerous bacteria in ground beef, sickened 28 people and may have caused two deaths in the U.S. Northeast, health officials said on Monday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said all but three of the illnesses were in the Northeast and 18 were in the six New England states. A common strain of E. coli bacteria was involved so tests were under way to see if all of the reported cases have the same cause.

State officials said a death in New Hampshire was linked to the ground beef that is being recalled by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York. The New York State Health Department said a death in the Albany area from E. coli O157:H7 bacteria was being investigated to see if it is linked.

New Hampshire officials did not release information about the death in their state. The death in New York state last month involved an adult with underlying medical conditions, said the CDC. Two people were hospitalized in New Hampshire.

Fairbank Farms announced the recall on Saturday of 545,699 lbs (248,450 kg) of fresh ground beef products. The beef was produced in mid-September and probably was labeled for sale by the end of the month, said USDA.

The Agriculture Department, which oversees meat safety, said an investigation led it to conclude "there is an association between the fresh ground beef products and illnesses in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts." USDA worked with state and federal officials in examining a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses.

A potentially deadly bacteria, E. coli can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and, in severe cases, kidney failure. The very young, the elderly and people with weak immune systems are the most susceptible to foodborne illness.

USDA said it would examine Fairbank Farms' food safety plan this week.

A string of food-borne safety scares led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass legislation this summer to require more inspections and oversight of food manufacturers and would give the government new authority to order recalls.

The Fairbank Farms beef went to retailers including Trader Joe's, Price Chopper, Lancaster and Wild Harvest, Shaw's, a unit of Supervalu, BJ's, Ford Brothers and Giant, a unit of Ahold, in eight states -- Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

A complete list of products is available at:

http://link.reuters.com/vyx27f

The beef was produced September 14-16, and the company urged consumers to check their freezers for products listed in the recall. Labels of the recalled packages will say EST 492 inside the USDA seal.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Christian Wiessner)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The U.S. Agriculture Department should tighten regulations for the transport and slaughter of veal calves to ensure they are not treated cruelly, the Humane Society of the United States said on Monday.

The group petitioned the USDA to expand an existing regulation to ban the slaughter of veal calves that cannot stand on their own, and also said it wants the USDA to put a new ban on transportation of calves younger than 10 days.

Federal inspectors also need more training and should spend more time ensuring animals are treated humanely, the group said after releasing more video footage from an undercover investigation at a Vermont veal plant.

The Bushway Packing Inc plant in Grand Isle, Vermont, was shut down on Friday by federal and state officials because of the footage, which showed calves repeatedly shocked with electric prods and kicked to try to get them to stand up.

Veal calves, which produce beef prized for its tenderness, are typically slaughtered when they are about 500 pounds. But the Vermont plant specialized in "bob veal" from calves as young as a few days old.

The Humane Society alleges some animals at the Vermont plant were not adequately stunned before slaughter. It said their footage shows a plant owner participating in the abuse.

"We have him on tape wielding the (prod) with recklessness and repetition, and setting an example of cruelty and callousness for the rest of his employees," said Michael Markarian, the group's chief operating officer.

The group said their footage shows a USDA inspector turning a blind eye to the abuse.

"This is animal abuse of the most sickening kind and it should not be tolerated at any federally inspected slaughter plant," Markarian said.

Officials from the plant did not return calls on Monday.

The USDA said its Food Safety and Inspection Service took "immediate action with respect to its employee," but a spokesman declined further comment.

Government officials are now conducting their own investigation into the plant.

CLOSE "DOWNER" LOOPHOLE

The United States finalized a ban on downer cattle from the meat supply earlier this year after a 2008 Humane Society investigation showing workers at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing plant in California mistreating cattle.

But the regulation allows plants to set apart and treat veal calves that are tired or cold, under USDA supervision -- an exception the Humane Society said should end.

"These regulations inadvertently incentivize slaughterhouses to move downed calves by inhumane methods," the Humane Society said in its petition to the USDA.

"USDA will consider any petition it receives," said spokesman Caleb Weaver. "Protecting animal welfare and ensuring a safe food supply are critical priorities for the department."

The Humane Society also plans to petition USDA to ban transport of calves younger than 10 days old. "We're going to ask the industry to join with us in urging a cessation of this industry practice," said Wayne Pacelle, the group's president.

The American Veal Association said in a statement that it believes the USDA investigation will determine if additional action should be taken in the wake of what it called "deplorable and unacceptable treatment of animals" at the Vermont plant.

(Editing by David Gregorio)

KABUL (AFP) –
Election organisers on Monday declared Hamid Karzai president of Afghanistan for another five years, cancelling a run-off which threatened to descend into farce and further destabilise the country.

The announcement followed intense diplomatic pressure and sought to draw a line under two months of political chaos in a war-torn nation where 100,000 NATO and US troops are battling an increasingly virulent Taliban insurgency.

"We declare that Mr Hamid Karzai, who won the majority of votes in the first round and is the only candidate in the second round, is the elected president of Afghanistan," Independent Election Commission (IEC) chairman Azizullah Ludin said.

The president's only challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, quit the contest on Sunday charging there were no safeguards to prevent a repeat of massive fraud that threw out nearly a quarter of votes cast in August.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon met Karzai and Abdullah amid a concerted diplomatic push to bring a quick end to chaos that has undermined Western efforts to cultivate democracy in Afghanistan eight years after a US-led invasion.

Ludin, a Karzai appointee who oversaw a fraud-riddled first round, said the decision had been made in line with the provisions of Afghan electoral law and the constitution and was "consistent with the high interest of the Afghan people".

The commission also wanted to save money, given "the huge expense that the election requires" and cited security reasons as motives to cancel the poll, which had been scheduled to take place this Saturday.

US President Barack Obama said he had told Afghan President Hamid Karzai to step up efforts "to eradicate corruption" and called for a "new chapter" in cooperation between their countries.

In a telephone call with Karzai, Obama congratulated the Afghan leader but told him to make "a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption".

"This has to be point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter based on improved governance," Obama said he had told Karzai.

Earlier the White House declared Karzai the "legitimate leader of the country" but said it would begin "hard conversations" with the new president as it mulls whether to deploy thousands more troops. Reactions: World powers stick by Karzai, US says fight corruption

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose country is the second biggest contributor of foreign troops in Afghanistan, telephoned Karzai to urge him to plot a course of national unity.

"They discussed the importance of the president moving quickly to set out a unifying programme for the future of Afghanistan," said a spokesman for Brown.

NATO powers France and Germany urged Karzai to work with his defeated rival to end the political strife.

A senior European diplomat said there was great unease about staging a second round at a time when a Taliban insurgency is gathering pace.

The diplomat said a second round would have been akin to "a 15-round boxing match when after 12 rounds one of the two fighters says for one reason or another, 'I am leaving'", and yet the contest still goes on.

The IEC's deputy chief electoral officer Zakria Barakzai said the commission would have been in breach of article 61 of the constitution -- which states two candidates must contest a run-off -- had they allowed the contest to go ahead without Abdullah.

First-round turnout was as low as five percent on August 20 in areas worst hit by the Taliban insurgency and with the militia threatening fresh attacks. Analysts said Karzai, already tainted by the first-round fraud, would struggle to proclaim his legitimacy in such circumstances.

After Karzai snubbed a series of demands promoted by his rival as a chance to avoid a repeat of the fraud, Abdullah said Sunday that he saw no point in standing, but stopped short of calling for a boycott.

The IEC initially said the run-off would take place as scheduled on Saturday, saying the deadline for Abdullah to withdraw had passed.

Insistent that first round fraud had been overstated, Karzai only agreed to a run-off under extensive diplomatic pressure.

After the August fraud, Abdullah demanded Karzai sack Ludin and suspend ministers who campaigned for the incumbent -- conditions that were stonewalled.

Karzai's share of the vote in the first round fell to 49.67 percent after around a quarter of all votes were deemed fraudulent. Abdullah won just over 30 percent.

WASHINGTON – He's not president, a Cabinet member or ambassador, but Sen. John Kerry has ascended to the unofficial role of President Barack Obama's global adviser on key issues that could reshape the nation's image around the world.
Mediating Afghanistan's presidential election vaulted Kerry from the already prominent chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee into the most exclusive circle around a new president who is juggling but has not resolved a variety of domestic and foreign policy matters. Beyond policy, Kerry knows how Washington works.
Kerry and Obama also share a political pedigree. Both were mentored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who died in August.
"Obviously, Sen. Kerry is somebody who has a broad range of experience and an in-depth knowledge of issues, ranging form energy and climate change to health care to foreign policy," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "I think it's that experience and insight that (Obama) certainly greatly values."
That cannot be overstated. Obama made his debut on the national stage at the 2004 presidential convention at which Democrats nominated Kerry to challenge George W. Bush's bid for a second term. Obama's speech electrified the party and the convention. It was the first time many Americans had heard of the young Illinois state senator.
"I'm here because of you," Obama wrote Kerry on the January day he was sworn in as the nation's first black president. The note is framed and hangs on Kerry's Senate office wall.
And now, Obama is leaning on Kerry to help shape his foreign policy. The two men met at the White House on Wednesday just hours after Kerry returned from Afghanistan, where he played a crucial role in persuading President Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff vote after a fraud-plagued presidential election.
"I really tried to be the utility, you know, hitter or fielder at the time," the 65-year-old senator, his voice hoarse and hip sore after an overnight flight home, said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in his Senate office.
The meetings with Karzai, he said, were intensely emotional and played out over "a lot of days, a lot of evenings, a lot of meals, a lot of tea."
Karzai, Kerry said, felt deeply that he had won the election and that he was being insulted for trying to have a democratic process. Kerry could relate.
"Do I understand the day after an election where you think you've won, or you have votes that weren't counted or something? Been there, done that," Kerry said. He talked to Karzai about his own loss to George W. Bush in 2004 and about the 2000 election, in which the Supreme Court called the contested election for Bush.
"It helped him see that ... every country's gone through its difficult races," Kerry said.
Kerry's plane touched down at home around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. By lunchtime, he was advising Obama at the White House. Kerry says he advised the president to know the outcome of the Afghan elections before sending more troops there.
"I mean, who's your defense minister?" Kerry said. "Do you have a good defense minister who's going to help coordinate the Afghan forces with your troops or do you have a political appointee who doesn't know anything about what he's doing? These things matter."
Kerry declined to say whether or when Obama should send more troops and said he'd elaborate on that point Friday during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Kerry brushed off a questions about how it felt to be the de facto secretary of state, saying he and the woman who holds that position worked together as a team the whole time. Hillary Rodham Clinton talked to Karzai by phone while Kerry spent face time with him.
Still, observers said, Kerry's role as a presidential adviser on so many major domestic and foreign policy issues is unusual. Earlier this year, for example, Kerry helped reopen talks with Syria in a meeting in Damascus for President Basher Assad. He'll lead a delegation to Copenhagen in December for climate talks and sponsored the Senate bill to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. Then there's his hefty role on Obama's top legislative priority — rewriting the nation's health care policy.
David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, said traditionally the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "stays at home and goes quietly on fact-finding missions.

"It's extremely rare that any president calls on an individual outside the executive branch to do as much representative work and diplomacy as Sen. Kerry," said Gergen, who served as an adviser to four presidents.

If Clinton leaves her position during the Obama administration, Gergen added, Kerry "would be on everyone's short list and probably right at the top of it as a potential successor."

So would Kerry be interested if Clinton leaves the post while Obama is still in office? Fatigue and three rounds of questions did not knock Kerry off his answer, three times, that he's "very happy" as a committee chairman in a Democratic-run Congress under a Democratic president "that I worked very hard to help get into office."

If he ever had any doubts about his Senate role, an old mentor may have set them aside. Aboard the Mya, Kennedy's sailboat, in August 2008, the stricken older senator noted that Kerry stands at the same point in his career as Kennedy, when he bowed out of the 1980 presidential race and returned to the Senate.

According to a Senate official with knowledge of the conversation, Kennedy told Kerry that he has decades of Senate service ahead of him if he wants it, and that without presidential ambition, no one can question Kerry's motives.

Still, Kerry has his hands in so many international issues that it's easy for some to forget that he's not part of the Obama administration.

Earlier Wednesday, Gibbs slipped during an off-camera briefing and called Kerry, "Secretary Kerry." Gergen did the same thing during a telephone interview.

"I'm famous for making one or two slips in my public life," Kerry said with a weary smile. "So I wouldn't take that too seriously."

___

Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS location of Friday's speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.)

WASHINGTON – The White House on Thursday forcefully rejected criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans that President Barack Obama's Afghanistan decision is taking too long.
"What Vice President Cheney calls dithering, President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously."
Obama is nearing a decision on whether to significantly expand the U.S. war posture in Afghanistan by honoring a military request for thousands of additional forces. The decision had been expected as early as mid-August, when Obama's new war commander prepared a harsh assessment of deteriorating conditions in the 8-year-old conflict, and now is expected in what Gibbs calls "the coming weeks."
Obama is also weighing with his national security team whether to focus more narrowly on al-Qaida terrorists believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
Top commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's still-secret troop request outlines three options — from as many as 80,000 more troops to as few as 10,000 — but favors a compromise of 40,000 more forces, officials have told The Associated Press. There now are 67,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and 1,000 more are headed there by the end of December.
The previous top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, submitted a request for more troops that went unfulfilled by former President George W. Bush. Obama partly granted that request in March when he ordered an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to go to Afghanistan this year.
Cheney said in a speech Wednesday night that Obama needs to "do what it takes to win" and that "signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries."
Taking a similar tack on Thursday, former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized the administration during a speech in Fort Worth, Texas, suggesting Obama has projected confusion onto the Afghanistan conflict in his public statements.
Gibbs said such comments were curious "given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March."
Other Democrats chimed in to defend the president, despite opposition among congressional Democrats to a major expansion of the U.S. war effort.
"Republicans have developed a troubling pattern of blaming President Obama for trying to fix all the problems that they created," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., also defended Obama, when asked about Cheney's criticism. "I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan," he said on MSNBC. "I want him to take the time to get it right."
Cheney had also taken issue with statements out of the White House that the Obama administration had to start from scratch to develop a strategy for a conflict begun in 2001, the first year of the Bush presidency.
The Bush administration presented to Obama's transition team the review of the Afghanistan war that it undertook just before leaving office and was asked to keep it under wraps, Cheney said. A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, later disputed that characterization and said the report was not kept under wraps.
Meanwhile, Obama worked Thursday on a strategy to prevent fraud from occurring in Afghanistan in its runoff presidential election set for Nov. 7.
In an hourlong videoconference from the White House Situation Room, Obama and other top advisers heard a briefing and recommendations from the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Gibbs would not specify what steps the U.S. is taking with Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission to avoid the problems that marred the original election on Aug. 20.
President Hamid Karzai faces his main challenger, ex-Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, in the runoff.
Obama is not necessarily going to put off his decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan until after the run-off election, as some — including Democratic Sen. John Kerry — have strongly suggested he do.

"It could be before the runoff. It might be after the runoff," Gibbs said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he will prod NATO allies this week for more economic and security aid to Afghanistan while trying to sidestep the debate over more troops.

NATO nations have supplied 36,000 troops, and NATO officials have signaled they won't ask their nations to send more until Obama makes a move.

Gates said there are enough other topics to discuss with NATO allies during a defense chiefs' gathering in Bratislava, Slovakia, this week.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the allies must do more to enable Afghan forces to eventually assume responsibility for security in their country.

NATO currently has 59 training teams working with the Afghan army. Alliance officials say they need the allies to come up with nine more to fulfill present plans that call for an expansion of the Afghan forces from the present 94,000 to 134,000. But if a future expansion plan boosting the Afghan army to 400,000 troops is approved, NATO will need a total of 103 training teams on the ground.

___

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes contributed to this report from Bratislava, Slovakia.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) –
Delays in competing in the smartphone market hit third-quarter results at mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson which reported on Friday a sharply wider net loss and a 42-percent sales plunge.

The joint Japanese-Swedish enterprise formed in 2001 said that net earnings came to 164 million euros (244 million dollars) in the July-September period after a shortfall of 25 million euros in third quarter 2008.

Third quarter sales fell 42 percent to 1.62 billion euros from 2.80 billion a year earlier. Compared with the second quarter sales were down 4.0 percent.

From July to September the company sold 14.1 million mobile phone units, a 45 percent fall from the 25.7 million sold in the year-earlier period.

But the company pointed to a 2.0 percent gain in sales from the second quarter. The average third quarter sales price was 114 euros against 122 euros in the second quarter.

Sony Ericsson estimated its third-quarter market share at 5.0 percent, unchanged from the second, and forecast a 10-percent contraction in the global mobile phone market this year.

The company has suffered from delays in its operations on the smartphone market, currently dominated by Apple's iPhone and the Blackberry by Research in Motion.

But outgoing head Dick Komiyama said: "Having refreshed our brand we are now better positioned to support the launch of new products ... in fourth quarter 2009."

Komiyama was replaced on Thursday by Bert Nordberg.

Sony Ericsson is not quoted on the stock exchange and its accounts remain integrated with those of Sony and Ericsson.

In early trade on the Stockholm exchange Ericsson was showing a gain of 1.5 percent to 72.30 kronor on an overall market that was 0.8 percent stronger.

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. – An Alabama woman has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child after police say she let her daughter ride in a cardboard box on top of their van. Albertville Police spokesman Sgt. Jamie Smith said the 37-year-old woman was arrested Sunday after police received a call about a minivan on a state highway with a child riding on top.
Smith said the woman told police the box was too big to go inside the van, and that her daughter was inside the box to hold it down.
Smith said the mother told officers it was safe because she had the box secured to the van with a clothes hanger.
The 13-year-old daughter wasn't harmed and was turned over to a relative. A jail worker said the mother was out on bond Monday.
___
Information from: The Huntsville Times, http://www.al.com/hsvtimes/hsv.html

Guidance exists for insurers and reinsurers, whose CEO's and CFO's attest annually as to the reinsurance agreements their firms undertake. The American Academy of Actuaries, for instance, identifies three categories of contract as outside the requirement of attestation:

* Expatriate insurance provides individuals and organizations operating outside of their home country with protection for automobiles, property, health, liability and business pursuits.

Georgia Health Insurance

NEW YORK – President Obama's decision to travel to Copenhagen to boost Chicago's chances of winning the 2016 Olympics has drawn criticism from some Republicans, who call it a boondoggle for Obama's hometown allies and evidence the president has blurred his priorities.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele denounced the visit on a conference call with reporters Tuesday. Calling it "noble for the president to pitch his home city, Chi-town," before the International Olympic Committee Friday, Steele said it nonetheless was a distraction from more pressing issues such as health care, job creation and other urgent demands on Obama's time.
However, Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and 2008 Republican presidential contender, said Obama was right to make an appearance.
"In the current environment, the presence of a head of state is important to get the Games," Romney, who headed the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, said, noting that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had set a new standard by personally lobbying for his country's succesful 2012 Olympic bid.
Steele said it raised questions about Obama's priorities.
"Where is the focus?" Steele asked. "At a time of war, at a time of recession ... I think this trip is nice but not necessary for the president. The goal should be creating job opportunities not seven years from now, but job opportunities today."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs laughed when told of Steele's criticism of Obama's trip.
"Who's he rooting for?" Robert Gibbs said. "Is he hoping to hop a plane to Brazil and catch the Olympics in Rio? I don't know. Maybe it's Madrid."
Steele's comments echoed those of Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking GOP member of the House Intelligence Committee, who told reporters Obama should focus on the escalating conflict in Afghanistan.
Just last week Obama said he wouldn't make the trip to Copenhagen, citing his need to press for health care reform legislation instead. White House officials mentioned the economic benefits the U.S. would receive from a winning Olympics bid in explaining the president's sudden change of heart.
First Lady Michelle Obama was originally slated to represent Chicago before the IOC but will now share the duties with her husband.
The city's bid is competing with bids from Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Spain and Tokyo, and the heads of state from Brazil, Spain and Japan are appearing in person to make their countries' pitch.
Indeed, Curt Hamakawa, director of the Center for International Sport Business at Western New England College in Massachusetts, said Chicago would likely lose the bid if Obama had chosen not to go.
"For the president not to attend would send a signal, and it would not be helpful to Chicago's bid. Almost certainly it would result in Chicago not having a chance," Hamakawa said, adding that if Obama had stayed home and Chicago wasn't selected, "Republicans would have been crabbing that he didn't do enough."
GOP strategist John Feehery said it was important for Republicans to pick their battles in deciding how and when to criticize Obama.
But Feehery, a Chicago native who said he is rooting for the city to win the Games, said GOP complaints about Obama's trip were well-founded.
"He's taking a bunch of Chicago cronies on an all expense paid trip to Copenhagen for just one reason, to get the Olympics," Feehery said. "For me it makes him seem unserious and look slightly desperate."
Grumbling about Obama's trip began to bubble up on conservative blogs and Web sites soon after the White House announced Obama's trip Monday.

"It's not like the president doesn't have anything to do, nothing important on his plate at the moment, right?" the blog Rightwing Nuthouse.com asked, while the conservative Drudge Report posted a television news story about a Chicago teen beaten and murdered in gang warfare there last week.

"Olympic Spirit," the Drudge Report declared in a headline.

ATLANTA – Less than 10 percent of U.S. high school students are eating the combined recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables, a finding that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called "poor" in a report Tuesday.
The report based on 2007 data found that only 13 percent of U.S. high school students get at least three servings of vegetables a day and just 32 percent get two servings of fruit. Less than 1 in 10 get enough of both combined.
Some states — including Arkansas and North Carolina — were significantly below those averages. But some New England states, particularly Vermont, were notably better.
The CDC said the report was the first to give such detailed information on adolescents' fruit and vegetable consumption. The information comes from a national survey of about 100,000 high school students in 2007.
CDC officials said the findings indicate a disheartening gap between how people should be eating and what they're actually doing in an era of rampant obesity.
Federal nutrition goals for 2010 call for at least 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruit each day and at least 50 percent to eat three vegetable servings.
"This is a call for states, communities, schools and families to support increased fruit and vegetable consumption," said Heidi Blanck, a CDC senior scientist who worked on the report.
The CDC also released data on a survey of adults. It found fruit and vegetable consumption was basically unchanged from when a similar survey was done in 2005: About 27 percent got at least three servings of vegetables a day, and 33 percent got two servings of fruit.
People who participated in the survey were asked, essentially, how many times a day they had fruit or vegetables. Fruit juice counted but pieces of fruit are considered preferable, because they're more filling alternatives to fatty, processed snacks, Blanck said.
Vermont and other states that had higher rates of fruit and vegetable consumption also have more farmers markets per 100,000 people than the national average. And schools in those states were more likely to stock pieces of fruit in vending machines or at snack shops, Blanck said.
The report did not have numbers for every state. For twelve of them, high schooler survey samples were not considered large enough to provide a statistically reliable number.
___
On the Net:
CDC report: http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/indicatorreport

A bench is a piece of furniture, which mostly offers several persons seating. As a rule, benches are made of wood, but one can also find stone benches and benches made of synthetic materials. Many benches have arm rests. In public areas, benches are often donated by persons or associations, which may then be indicated on it, e.g. by a small copper plaque.

Various types of benches are specifically designed for and/or named after specific uses, such as a Bench (weight training) is used for fitness exercises, such as the bench press which is named after its use of a bench a Communion bench is not used as a seat Piano benches offer usually one person seating and are height adjustable. a spanking bench, such as a caning bench, is specifically designed for a spankee to lie upon, possibly strapped down, while submitting to paining of the posterior Swing seats are independently movable, suspended benches, used for play or as a relaxing porch swing. a courting bench (or kissing bench, or tête-à-tête): a two-seater with the seats pointing in opposite directions, thus almost facing each other. A friendship bench in a school playground is where a child can go when they want someone to talk to. The bench in a courtroom, behind which the judge is seated.

Park Benches

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) –
A suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired two missiles Tuesday at a Taliban commander's house in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, killing five militants, intelligence officials said.

The strike took place about 60 km (40 miles) northeast of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, the Pakistani officials said. South Waziristan is on the Afghan border and a sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

"The house of the commander has been completely destroyed and five dead bodies, three Pakistanis and two Uzbeks, have been recovered," one of the intelligence officials, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

He identified the commander as Irfan Mehsud.

Residents said six militants were wounded and that Pakistani Taliban fighters had cordoned off the area and were not letting people approach.

The United States stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones on militants in northwestern Pakistani border sanctuaries last year as the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan intensified.

There have been nearly 60 such strikes since the beginning of 2008, including one in early August that killed Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

About 500 people, most of them militants, have been killed in the strikes since early last year, according to a tally of reports from Pakistani security officials and residents.

Pakistan officially objects to the drone strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and the civilian casualties they sometimes inflict inflame public anger.

U.S. officials say the strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to decry the attacks in public.

Late Monday, a drone fired a missile at the house of a Taliban supporter in the North Waziristan region, which is also on the Afghan border, but it missed and caused no casualties, Pakistani security agents in the region said.

COPENHAGEN – Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Games could be an environmental model for future Olympics — and the entire world.
Tokyo organizers touted their bid Tuesday, saying the compact plan shows that even the world's largest cities can make environmental sustainability a reality. Tokyo will use several renovated venues from the 1964 Olympics, and its Olympic stadium would be the world's first to be powered by solar energy.
To emphasize the impact environmental problems have on the entire world, Tokyo's organizers brought along an interactive globe that shows the spread of pollutants and possible effects of global warming.
Tokyo is in a tight contest with Chicago, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro ahead of the IOC's vote Friday to select a host for the 2016 Olympics.