October snow tricks Northeast, leaves 3M powerless

A man walks near a tree down on a power line a day after a snow storm in Glastonbury, Conn., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

A man walks near a tree down on a power line a day after a snow storm in Glastonbury, Conn., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

A downed tree limb lies across power lines in Belmont, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. A snowstorm with a ferocity more familiar in February than October socked the Northeast over the weekend, knocking out power to 2.3 million, snarling air and highway travel and dumping more than 2 feet of snow in a few spots as it slowly moved north out of New England. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

A car drives on Route 2 in Belmont, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. A snowstorm with a ferocity more familiar in February than October socked the Northeast over the weekend, knocking out power to 2.3 million, snarling air and highway travel and dumping more than 2 feet of snow in a few spots as it slowly moved north out of New England. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

A house is surrounded by fall foliage colors covered with heavy wet snow in Williamstown, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)

Deran Muckjian clears downed tree branches from his yard in Belmont, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. A snowstorm with a ferocity more familiar in February than October socked the Northeast over the weekend, knocking out power to 2.3 million, snarling air and highway travel and dumping more than 2 feet of snow in a few spots as it slowly moved north out of New England. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. (AP) ? When winter's white mixes with autumn's orange and gold, nature gets ugly.

A freak October nor'easter knocked out power to more than 3 million homes and businesses across the Northeast on Sunday in large part because leaves still on the trees caught more snow, overloading branches that snapped and wreaked havoc. Close to 2 feet of snow fell in some areas over the weekend, and it was particularly wet and heavy, making the storm even more damaging.

"You just have absolute tree carnage with this heavy snow just straining the branches," said National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro.

From Maryland to Maine, officials said it would take days to restore electricity, even though the snow ended Sunday.

The storm smashed record snowfall totals for October and worsened as it moved north. Communities in western Massachusetts were among the hardest hit. Snowfall totals topped 27 inches in Plainfield, and nearby Windsor had gotten 26 inches by early Sunday.

It was blamed for at least 11 deaths, and states of emergency were declared in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of New York.

Roads, rails and airline flights were knocked out, and passengers on a JetBlue flight were stuck on a plane in Hartford, Conn., for more than seven hours. And while children across the region were thrilled to see snow so early, it also complicated many of their Halloween plans.

Sharon Martovich of Southbury, Conn., said she hoped the power will come back on in time for her husband's Halloween tradition of playing "Young Frankenstein" on a giant screen in front of their house. But no matter what, she said, they will make sure the eight or so children who live in the neighborhood don't miss out on trick-or-treating.

"Either way we will get the giant flashlights and we will go," she said.

More than 800,000 power customers were without electricity in Connecticut alone ? shattering the record set just two months ago by Hurricane Irene. Massachusetts had more than 600,000 outages, and so did New Jersey ? including Gov. Chris Christie's house. Parts of Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Maryland and Vermont also were without power.

"It's going to be a more difficult situation than we experienced in Irene," Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said. "We are expecting extensive and long-term power outages."

Thirty-two shelters were open around the state, and Malloy asked volunteer fire departments to allow people in for warmth and showers. At least four hospitals were relying on generators for power.

Around Newtown in western Connecticut, trees were so laden with snow on some back roads that the branches touched the street. Every few minutes, a snap filled the air as one broke and tumbled down. Roads that were plowed became impassible because the trees were falling so fast.

One of the few businesses open in the area was a Big Y grocery store that had a generator. Customers loaded up on supplies, heard news updates over the intercom, charged up their cell phones, and waited for a suddenly hard-to-get cup of coffee ? in a line that was 30 people deep and growing.

Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey's Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.

"I'm starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we've been getting spanked by her for about a year now," he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store.

It wasn't just the trees that weren't ready for a wintry wallop.

Kerry McNiven said she was "totally unprepared" for the storm that knocked out her water and power and sent tree limbs crashing into her Simsbury, Conn., home. She was buying disposable plates and cups in a darkened supermarket, a setting that she said resembled "one of those post-apocalyptic TV shows."

"They didn't hype this one as much" as Irene, she said. "I didn't think it was going to be as bad."

In Concord, N.H., Dave Whitcher's company had yet to prep its sanding equipment before the storm dropped nearly 2 feet of snow. His crews were plowing and shoveling parking lots Sunday and would be back Monday to salt sidewalks and walkways.

"It was a bit of a surprise, the amount and how heavy it was. We should've probably come out and got a little earlier start, but we did all right," Whitcher said.

Vaccaro, the weather service spokesman, said the snowstorm "absolutely crushed previous records that in some cases dated back more than 100 years." Saturday was only the fourth snowy October day in New York's Central Park since record-keeping began 135 years ago.

There usually isn't enough cold air in the region to support a nor'easter this time of year, but an area of high pressure over southeastern Canada funneled cold air south into the U.S., Vaccaro said. That cold air combined with moisture coming from the North Carolina coast to produce the unseasonable weather.

A few businesses enjoyed the early snow: Ski resorts in Vermont and Maine opened early. But it was more commonly an aggravation.

Many residents were urged to avoid travel altogether. Speed limits were reduced on bridges between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A few roads closed because of accidents and downed trees and power lines, said Sean Brown, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

The JetBlue passengers stranded Saturday at Hartford's Bradley International Airport were on a flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Newark, N.J., that had been diverted. Passenger Andrew Carter, a football reporter for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, said the plane ran out of snacks and bottled water, and the toilets backed up.

JetBlue spokeswoman Victoria Lucia said power outages at the airport has made it difficult to get passengers off the plane, and added that the passengers would be reimbursed. In 2007, passengers in JetBlue planes were stranded for nearly 11 hours at New York's Kennedy Airport following snow and ice storms.

There were other flight delays in the region over the weekend, and commuter trains in Connecticut and New York were delayed or suspended because of downed trees and signal problems. Amtrak suspended service on several Northeast routes, and one train from Chicago to Boston got stuck overnight in Palmer, Mass. The 48 passengers had food and heat, a spokeswoman said, and they were taken by bus Sunday to their destinations.

Five people died in Pennsylvania because of the storm, two each in car accidents in suburban Philadelphia. An 84-year-old Temple man was killed Saturday when a snow-laden tree fell on his home while he was napping in his recliner.

Storm-related traffic accidents also killed people in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. A New Jersey man died Saturday in a house fire sparked by a downed power line, and a man in Springfield, Mass., was electrocuted by downed wires.

The snow was a bone-chilling slush in New York City, and a taste of what's to come for demonstrators camping out at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for the Occupy Wall Street protest.

Nick Lemmin, of Brooklyn, spent his first night at Zuccotti in a sleeping bag in a tent, wearing thermals, a sweatshirt and a scarf.

Lemmin said he thought the early snow was actually "a good test." But it was too much for protester Adash Daniel, who had already been in the park for three weeks.

"I'm not much good to this movement if I'm shivering," Daniel said as he left.

There was much more snow in Concord, where 9-year-old Nate Smith and his brother had fun making a snowman. But Nate wasn't sure he'd be able to go trick-or-treating Monday. Even if he did, his werewolf costume could end up looking a little different than he had imagined.

"I might have to put on snow pants," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Noreen Gillespie-Connolly in Newtown, Conn.; Ron Todt in Philadelphia; Verena Dobnik, Deepti Hajela and Candice Choi in New York; Mary Esch in Albany, N.Y.; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; and Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-30-US-October-Snow/id-edc75a07ed9a49ab8d2b8f7e0e327175

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Italy under market pressure as new focus of crisis (AP)

ROME ? Market pressures grew on Italy, the debt crisis' new front, on Monday due to fears Premier Silvio Berlusconi might be unable to enact economic reforms he promised to fellow European leaders in exchange for help to protect his country from financial turmoil.

The fate of Italy is crucial to the wider 17-nation eurozone because it is the region's third-largest economy and would be too expensive to bail out if its borrowing rates rose so high as to block it out of bond markets.

On Monday, Italy's benchmark 10-year bond yield rose above 6 percent, almost three times as high as Germany's and an indication of waning investor confidence in the country's financial prospects.

European leaders agreed last week to boost the firepower of their bailout fund to make it able to protect the bond markets of countries like Italy. The fund would insure a part of the country's bond issues to make them attractive to investors. In exchange, Berlusconi had to promise Italy would pull its own weight to fix the debt crisis, and promised much-needed measures to revive growth.

The fact that Italy's bond yields are rising again is a worrying sign that Berlusconi lacks the confidence of international markets. Crucially, it could already undo the optimism created by the European plan.

"Investors that enable Italy to live beyond its means are increasingly turning away from funding the country (or at least demanding more interest)," Louise Cooper, markets analyst at BGC Partners, wrote in a note to clients.

"This is leaving Italian interest rates at unsustainably high levels given that the country has a debt to GDP ratio of 120 percent and a euro1.6 trillion ($2.2 trillion) debt mountain. Time to forget Greece, Italy is the most scary guest at this eurozone Halloween party."

Some investors worry that the European Central Bank may want to slow down further its government bond-buying program, which had been keeping Italy's borrowing rates down this year. The central bank has been reluctant to keep the program going because it does not like being seen as propping up profligate governments. But with the details still pending on how the eurozone bailout fund will take over the job of protecting sovereign bond markets, the ECB appears stuck with the program for now.

Above all, the market fears center on Italy's domestic problems, with Berlusconi facing an increasingly divisive political climate.

A major rally planned for Saturday in Rome is expected to draw tens of thousands to protest plans to make it easier to fire workers ? a plank in Berlusconi's strategy to help business meet international competition by loosening rigid labor laws.

Berlusconi's welfare minister Maurizio Sacconi was bitterly criticized by unions Monday after suggesting on a TV show that attempts to change the labor laws could bring on a new wave of terrorism from left-wing fringe groups. He cited the 2002 assassination by left-wing gunmen of a government labor adviser who had been working on reforms.

"The country is tired, workers, businesses and families want to be able to plan their futures with hope and instead are forced to pay an ever-higher `Berlusconi tax,'" said Marina Sereni, vice president of the opposition Democratic Party.

Italy has in the past been able to meet its overall debt, which stands at 120 percent of gross domestic product but could be dragged into crisis should markets loose all faith and send interests rate up.

Berlusconi has set a time frame to begin rolling out the measures promised European leaders last week and in an earlier austerity package approved over the summer, which aimed at reducing the deficit by more than euro54 billion ($70 billion) over three years through budget cuts, tax hikes and changes to Italy's costly pension system.

He will go before Parliament on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10 to present "the commitments made with Europe and the measures for growth."

Over the next few months, the government is promising to help young people obtain mortgages, fight youth unemployment and liberalize the services sector.

By the end of June the government will present an amendment to the constitution requiring a balanced budget ? a key Berlusconi promise. This is a long process, requiring a second approval by parliament six months later.

The road ahead is filled with pitfalls. Involved in three trials for alleged corruption, tax fraud and the embarrassing accusation of paying for sex with a minor, the 75-year-old Berlusconi faces repeated calls to resign by the opposition. He denies the charges, claiming he is a target of leftist prosecutors.

Already Berlusconi's parliamentary majority is thin and he has been forced to resort to confidence votes to enforce party discipline among his increasingly restive coalition partners.

His chief ally Umberto Bossi, the charismatic leader of the Northern League, openly questioned Berlusconi's promises to the European leaders to raise the retirement to 67 to put it in line with Germany. The media speculated last week that the government was about to fall.

Berlusconi went on TV to deny that and insisted he would govern until his term ends in 2013.

"Bossi is a faithful ally. He thinks like I do. Everything else is a dream," he told Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Sera.

But even Italy's industrialists, once big backers of media mogul Berlusconi, have openly said they have soured on his leadership, and claim his center-right government, in office since spring of 2008, has done little to encourage economic expansion.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111031/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_financial_crisis

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13 Dead in Afghanistan Attack (TIME)

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No anthrax vaccine testing on children _ for now

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Should the anthrax vaccine be tested in children? It will be a while longer before the government decides.

An advisory board said Friday that ethical issues need to be resolved ? but if that can be accomplished the vaccine can be tested in children to be sure it's safe and to learn the proper dose in case it's needed in a terrorist attack.

Because of concerns that terrorists might use the potentially deadly bacteria, the government has stockpiled the vaccine. It has been widely tested on adults but never on children.

The question is whether to do tests so doctors will know if children's immune systems respond to the shots well enough to signal protection. The children would not be exposed to anthrax.

The National Biodefense Science Board said Friday a separate review board should look into the ethical issues of doing such tests in children. If that is completed successfully, the panel, said, the Department of Health and Human Services should develop a plan for a study of the vaccine in children.

How to protect young people after an anthrax attack is a challenging issue, said Dr. Nicole Lurie, a member of the board and assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Public Health Service. "Protecting children still stands, for me, among the most important responsibilities that we have as a nation."

The board gives advice to the Department of Health and Human Services on preparations for chemical, biological and nuclear events. Its vote was 12-1.

There is no deadline for the government to decide whether to go along. And if it does agree, it's not clear how much time it would take to find money for such research and get clearance from review boards at medical centers that would conduct studies.

Another big question is whether parents would sign up their children to test a vaccine when there is no immediate threat. It's not possible to get anthrax from the vaccine, but there are side effects. In adults, shot-site soreness, muscle aches, fatigue and headache are the main ones, and rare but serious allergic reactions have been reported.

Anthrax is among several potential bioterror weapons and is of special interest because it was used in letters sent to the media and others in 2001, claiming five lives and sickening 17. That prompted extensive screening of mail and better ventilation and testing at postal facilities and government agencies.

The FBI has blamed the attacks-by-mail on Bruce Ivins, a scientist at an Army biodefense laboratory, who committed suicide before he could be charged.

Anthrax can be difficult to treat, especially if someone has breathed anthrax spores. Millions of doses of antibiotics have been stockpiled since the 2001 episode, and two experimental toxin-clearing treatments also are being stored.

U.S. troops deploying to Iraq, Afghanistan and some other countries are required to get anthrax shots. Since 1998, more than 1 million have been vaccinated. After lawsuits objecting to the requirement, a federal judge suspended the program in 2004, finding fault in the Food and Drug Administration's process for approving the drug. The next year, the FDA reaffirmed its finding that the vaccine was safe.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2011-10-28-Anthrax%20Vaccine/id-01354491e230425e8caa9e8a8ca8fabe

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Morocco court issues death sentence in cafe attack

Polices officers stand next to an entrance as relatives of suspects in the Marrakech Argana cafe bombing react at the Sale court, near Rabat, Morocco, Friday Oct. 28, 2011. A Moroccan court on Friday found the chief suspect, Adel al-Othmani, guilty in the April bombing of a Marrakech cafe that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, and sentenced him to death. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil)

Polices officers stand next to an entrance as relatives of suspects in the Marrakech Argana cafe bombing react at the Sale court, near Rabat, Morocco, Friday Oct. 28, 2011. A Moroccan court on Friday found the chief suspect, Adel al-Othmani, guilty in the April bombing of a Marrakech cafe that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, and sentenced him to death. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil)

Jacques Sombret, father of a victim of the Marrakech bombing reacts outside the Sale court, near Rabat, Morocco, Friday Oct. 28, 2011. A Moroccan court on Friday found the chief suspect, Adel al-Othmani, guilty in the April bombing of a Marrakech cafe that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, and sentenced him to death. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Nadine Asnar and Christophe Asnar, mother and brother of a Eric Asnar, a victim of the Marrakech bombing react outside the Sale court, near Rabat, Morocco, Friday Oct. 28, 2011. A Moroccan court on Friday found the chief suspect, Adel al-Othmani, guilty in the April bombing of a Marrakech cafe that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, and sentenced him to death. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Fran?is Gautier and his wife Martine Gautier, parents of a victim of the Marrakech bombing react outside the Sale court, near Rabat, Morocco, Friday Oct. 28, 2011. A Moroccan court on Friday found the chief suspect, Adel al-Othmani, guilty in the April bombing of a Marrakech cafe that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, and sentenced him to death. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Fran?is Gautier and his wife Martine Gautier, parents of a victim of the Marrakech bombing react outside the Sale court, near Rabat, Morocco, Friday Oct. 28, 2011. A Moroccan court on Friday found the chief suspect, Adel al-Othmani, guilty in the April bombing of a Marrakech cafe that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, and sentenced him to death. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

RABAT, Morocco (AP) ? A Moroccan court on Friday convicted all defendants for their role in a cafe bombing that killed 17 people, mostly tourists, sentencing the chief suspect to death.

The court erupted into chaos with the reading of the verdicts following five hours of deliberation. Families of the defendants shouted that they were unjust while the relatives of the victims wept and hugged each other.

Prosecutors had accused Adel al-Othmani of dressing like a tourist and planting the bomb in the Argana cafe, before setting it off with his mobile phone. He was convicted of premeditated murder and building explosives, among other charges.

The April 28 blast killed eight French tourists in addition to British, Swiss, Moroccan and Portuguese victims.

The court handed down a life prison term for al-Othmani's associate, Hakim Dah, and gave four-year terms for four other defendants charged with having knowledge of the crime. Three were given two-year prison terms.

Police cleared the court of the families of the accused, who then demonstrated outside the courtroom. The sister of al-Othmani began banging her head against the windows of the courthouse in grief and had to be restrained by her relatives.

"We saw our brother the morning of April 28," screamed al-Othmani's brother hysterically as he ran out of the courtroom. "Morocco is a country that kills, it wants to kill my brother," he yelled at people walking by along the busy street.

Before the verdict was issued, al-Othmani and the other defendants were given a last chance to address the court. All protested their innocence.

"They've arrested an innocent man to sort out their own political problems," said al-Othmani, wearing a New York Yankees sweatshirt and Adidas sweatpants, to the judge. The arrests came as Morocco was swept by a wave of pro-democracy protests demanding political reform.

Abdel Hamid Bettar, the spokesman for the defendants' families, said they would appeal the sentence.

"It is an injustice, my brother did nothing, neither did the others," he said as other relatives shouted around him outside the courthouse.

Relatives of the victims were present for all the court sessions and some burst into tears, in apparent relief, over the verdict. Others, however, expressed anger over the lesser sentences.

"In four years it will be them taking up the jihad and killing Europeans," shouted Jacques Sombret. "This is not justice, this is clemency."

He was echoed by Eric Bedier, who said while he was satisfied with the penalties for the two main defendants, the other's got off too lightly.

"If you know about a crime, it's as bad as committing it," he said.

The families of the victims, however, have said they were against the death penalty. Morocco has not executed anyone since 1993, but there are 107 people on death row.

The two sets of families were separated in the court by a line of police and would often exchange harsh words during the recesses of the trial.

The attack shook relatively peaceful Morocco, a staunch U.S. ally that drew nearly 10 million tourists last year to its sandy beaches, desert and mountain landscapes and historic sites.

Moroccan authorities moved swiftly in the aftermath of the blast, eventually rounding up what they said was a nine-person cell inspired by al-Qaida, but not necessarily with direct links to the group.

Defense attorneys countered that the case against their clients was based on confessions coerced through torture and lacked hard evidence.

"In the absence of evidence, the sentence is very severe," said Mohammed Sadko, one of the defense attorneys. "We hope the court of appeals overturns it."

Morocco has been spared attacks by organized militant groups like al-Qaida, which has a strong presence in neighboring Algeria, but is plagued by so-called "lone-wolf" attacks of small cells inspired by extremist ideology.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-28-ML-Morocco-Bombing-Trial/id-09433a8bbb87486aa26879add4c73074

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Need a speaker? President Obama may be available (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Looking for a big-name speaker?

Now may be the time to send President Barack Obama an invitation, especially if your group represents a key political constituency.

Obama has been making the rounds of Washington's awards dinners and black-tie galas this fall, donning a tuxedo or dark suit and heading to ballrooms across the nation's capital to speak to organizations representing blacks, Hispanics, Jews, women and gays. This weekend, he adds Italian- Americans to that list.

With the 2012 campaign picking up steam and Obama struggling to recapture the enthusiasm of 2008, the president's role as headline speaker has plenty of political undertones. He needs the well-connected, politically active leaders of these groups to help him motivate their members, raise money for his re-election and get people to show up to vote in next year's election.

And the president's remarks give him a chance to address specific criticism from some supporters, and tout lesser-known administration actions that target their needs.

Since September, Obama has been the featured speaker at dinners for the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a forum on American Latino Heritage, and the annual gala for the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights group. The president will speak Saturday at a black-tie dinner for the National Italian American Foundation, and in early November, at an awards dinner for the National Women's Law Center. The Union for Reform Judaism also says Obama will speak at its December conference.

Obama is following the path of many of his predecessors, who have also tried to curry favor with influential Washington-based organizations, particularly those with similar political leanings.

The president has also sent out his own invitations, bringing influential constituencies to the White House for Tribal Nations conferences, for Passover Seders, for Iftars.

With a presidential election just about a year away, the outreach to key voting blocs is more critical than ever. The president's approval ratings have dipped into the mid to low forties amid persistently high unemployment. And with sagging enthusiasm among some core supporters, Obama's campaign could face challenges in getting the first-time voters who helped him win the White House, particularly blacks, Hispanics and young people, back to the polls next November.

White House officials won't say exactly how aides decide which events the president attends. But it's little surprise that Obama rarely finds himself in front of anything less than a supportive audience.

The president often shows up just before he's scheduled to speak, and rarely stays for dinner. His speeches, sometimes delivered before a crowd of thousands, pull from his day-to-day messages on the economy and jobs, but are typically tailored to his audience.

During a fiery speech earlier this month at the annual gala for the Human Rights Campaign, Obama heralded his role in ending the military's ban on openly gay service members and his administration's decision to stop enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. He also used the opportunity to jab Republican presidential candidates for failing to stand up for a gay service member who was booed by an audience at a GOP debate.

"You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient," Obama said.

Rich Galen, a Republican strategist, said Obama would be better served spending more time working with Congress to bring down the nation's 9.1 percent unemployment rate than in trying to boost his political base.

"Doing all of these things is doing nothing to foster any meaningful legislation," he said.

White House officials insist the economy, not politics is the president's primary focus. Trying to show action on the economy in any way possible, they've launched a new campaign dubbed "We Can't Wait" to highlight action the president is taking without waiting for Congress.

The White House announced two minor actions Friday, with Obama directing government agencies to shorten the time it takes for federal research to turn into commercial products in the marketplace, and calling for creation of a centralized online site for companies to easily find information on federal services

At a Congressional Hispanic Caucus dinner in September, the president touted the impact the jobs bill he had recently proposed would have for Hispanic workers. But he also took on criticism of his administration's lack of progress on immigration, saying it couldn't all fall on his shoulders.

"We live in a democracy, and at the end of the day, I can't do this all by myself under our democratic system," he said.

The president took a similar approach later that month at the Congressional Black Caucus. Aware of rumblings from some members of the group that he hadn't done enough to address unemployment among African-Americans, Obama told blacks to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

The president's comments left some at the event a bit unsettled, including Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who said she found the president's language "a bit curious."

Democratic strategist Karen Finney said it's just as important for Obama to trumpet his accomplishments when he meets with supporters as it is to acknowledge the areas where there is frustration.

"I think it takes a certain amount of courage to do that," she said. "He gets a lot of respect for showing up."

.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111028/ap_on_el_ge/us_obama_invite_me

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Sony buys Ericsson out of mobile phone venture (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Sony Corp is to take over its mobile phone joint venture with Ericsson for 1.05 billion euros ($1.5 billion), as it seeks to exploit its music and video to help it catch smartphone leaders such as Apple Inc.

The deal to buy out its Swedish partner will enable Sony to better integrate smartphones and other devices with its array of content, from its music label whose stars include Beyonce and Britney Spears, its movie studio whose current hits include Spider Man and Anonymous and its Playstation video games such as Legends of Norrah.

"Its the beginning of something which I think is quite magical," Sony Chairman Sir Howard Stringer told a news conference in London. "We can more rapidly and more widely offer consumers smartphones, laptops, tablets and televisions that seamlessly connect with one another and open up new worlds of online entertainment".

Until now Sony's tablets, games and other consumer electronics devices have been kept separate from the phones sold and created by Sony Ericsson.

"Sony is looking to do the same as Apple and meet users' demands through linking various devices with similar interfaces and operating systems," said analyst Nobuo Kurahashi of Mizuho Investors' Securities in Tokyo.

"Smartphones look to become more important products for Sony ... and they will probably become the main device people use to connect to the Internet."

Smartphone sales have been surging since Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007 and despite a slowdown in the overall consumer electronics market, strong demand is set to continue.

"More and more people are watching content on smartphones. TV is not going to go away, but they watch it on smartphones and they watch it on tablets," Stringer said.

STRUGGLES AHEAD

The deal will give Sony ownership of certain handset patents held by Ericsson and will enable it to cut costs in the Sony Ericsson business, with Stringer pointing to savings in operations, R&D and marketing.

The takeover of Sony Ericsson by the Japanese group had long been talked of and a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters this month a deal was in the offing.

"Sony now has all the components to compete with Samsung and Apple. The big question now is ... can it execute?," said Pete Cunningham of consultancy Canalys, adding Japanese company takeovers in Europe and the United States had often struggled.

"Based on history I am sceptical, but I would not say it cannot be done," he added.

Founded in 2001, Sony Ericsson employs some 7,500 and last year took around 2 percent of the global cellphone market with sales of 6.3 billion euros. Initially it thrived with an array of camera and music phones but it lost out in the smartphone race.

"Sony had to make this deal as it had run out of options, but integration challenges could prove to be a major hurdle," said Ben Wood, head of research at consultancy CCS Insight.

"As a major consumer electronics player, lack of mobile assets had become a liability for Sony, particularly when compared with Samsung, whose telecommunication business creates nearly half of its profits," he said.

Ericsson said the deal provides Sony with a broad intellectual property cross-licensing agreement covering all the Japanese company's products and services, as well as ownership of five essential patent families relating to wireless handset technology.

Shares in Ericsson, which as a result of the deal increases its focus on the wireless network business in which it is the world's largest manufacturer, were up 5 percent at 70 crowns by 1153 GMT. The STOXX Europe 600 technology index was up 3.4 percent.

Ericsson Chief Executive Hans Vestberg told Reuters the company would use the cash payment to strengthen its balance sheet and had no plans to pay it out to shareholders. ($1=0.724 euros)

(Additional reporting by Veronica Ek, Olaf Swahnberg and Patrick Lannin in Stockholm, with James Topham in Tokyo; Editing by Greg Mahlich and David Holmes)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/digitalmusic/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111027/tc_nm/us_sonyericsson

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Tough times for momentum investing | James Saft

James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

It has been a tough few weeks for momentum investors.

One time darlings like Amazon, Netflix and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters have taken serious tumbles, dealing losses.

Meanwhile, the financial industry, the sector which arguably hasn?t produced positive returns since the 1980s, are on a bit of a tear, bolstered by the latest European rescue and some reassuring U.S. economic data.

There are several intriguing reasons to believe that momentum investing has seen its best days. Momentum investing, beloved by day traders and some hedge funds, is the strategy of riding hot stocks higher while selling laggards.

While the tactic itself is probably as old as the stock market, momentum investing attracted increasing interest in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in a number of academic studies, which seemed to show that it added value.

Those former go-go stocks are on the retreat for a variety of reasons.

Amazon warned Tuesday that it could slide into the red in the fourth quarter due to heavy spending on medium-term development projects. Amazon shares fell more than 10 percent that day. Even after a rally on Thursday, its stock remains more than 20 percent down from October peaks.

Netflix famously misjudged its customers willingness to accept price hikes and its shares are now more than 35 percent down from its summer high.

Green Mountain Coffee has lost about a third of its value since hedge fund manager David Einhorn announced he was shorting the stock and raised concerns about its accounting practices.

There is more of a coherent theme when it comes to the banks. The KBW bank share index, which fell more than 30 percent year-to-date through Oct. 1, is up more than 20 percent since then. Fears of a round of financial contagion have eased as euro zone officials appeared to get to grips with their debt crisis, and many economists have reduced their odds of a U.S. recession.

All of that is positive for bank earnings, and, frankly, for their ability to remain as going concerns.

So, some momentum investors will have had their fingers burnt, but so what? Surely stock markets go through periodic transitions in which hot stocks go cold and vice versa.

All true, but some recent research indicates that something more fundamental may have changed. And, in fact, the conditions that made momentum investing successful may be long gone.

HEDGE FUNDS AND MARKET EFFICIENCY

Debarati Bhattacharya, Raman Kumar and Gokhan Sonaer, all of Virginia Tech, looked at 44 years of momentum returns up to 2009 and found something startling: momentum returns went missing sometime in the late 1990s.

While you could generate excess returns of more than 0.75 percent a month following momentum strategies between 1965 and 1998 ? a really fantastic result ? since then that alpha has disappeared. It?s no longer a winning way to beat the market.

To understand why you have to recognize that momentum investment is essentially a behavioral phenomenon, not a fundamental one. Anyone who has ever watched a herd of wildebeests react to a lion should understand why. The wildebeests flee as a group not because they?ve all seen the lion, but because the ones who did not see the predator know how to interpret the reactions of the ones who did.

That sort of instinctive reaction carries over to the greed or fear that news causes among investors. Good news brings its own upward momentum as people pile in, and the reverse is true for bad news.

A run of good or bad developments can take on a weight of its own as trend followers join the party. Pretty soon you are looking at Apple, or perhaps Bear Stearns.

The authors of the study suggest that the growth of hedge funds may be behind the death of momentum. Hedge funds have learned to exploit over and under-reactions to momentum.

Now, having become big enough and quick enough, hedge funds have in essence eaten the fields bare. They eat volatility, and have perhaps improved market efficiency to the stage where the low hanging fruit that was momentum investing is all gone.

Clearly, there were still manias, bubbles and overshoots in the past decade: just look at subprime or European government bonds. That, at least on the surface, would imply that buying what is hot and selling what is not should have some remaining potential. But that would be done as a tactic rather than as a strategy.

Free lunches sometimes exist, but they don?t persist forever. Investors, and hedge fund managers, are going to have to work a bit harder for their supper.

(At the time of publication James Saft did not own any direct investments in securities mentioned in this article. He may be an owner indirectly as an investor in a fund.)

Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/james-saft/2011/10/27/tough-times-for-momentum-investing/

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FCC unveils rules for rural broadband fund

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Federal regulators have unveiled a plan for overhauling the $8 billion fund that subsidizes phone service in rural areas and for the poor. It redirects the money toward broadband expansion.

The Federal Communications Commission's plan, adopted Thursday, establishes a new "Connect America Fund" for mobile telephone and broadband in rural communities and needy areas.

The money will continue to come from a surcharge on consumers' and businesses' monthly phone bills. Rates should stay flat or decline for most consumers, FCC officials said. The size of the fund will be capped at $4.5 billion annually. To receive money for network expansions into designated areas, telecommunications companies will be required to enter a bidding competition.

The FCC also approved new rules for the complex system that governs how phone companies pay each other for phone calls.

The changes represent the Obama administration's most significant overhaul of telecommunications regulations.

The administration has identified universal broadband as critical to driving economic development, producing jobs and expanding the reach of cutting-edge medicine and educational opportunities.

Overhaul of the system has been held up for years by competing interests.

The new fund will underwrite the cost of building and operating high-speed Internet networks in places that are too sparsely populated to justify costly corporate investments. It will include a $500 million "mobility fund" earmarked to help build mobile broadband networks in areas where businesses won't invest.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski called the action "a momentous step in our efforts to harness the benefits of broadband for every American." It will enhance the U.S. position in a "fiercely competitive" global economy, he said before the 4-0 vote.

The agency estimates that the program will bring high-speed Internet access to about 7 million people living in rural areas over the next six years and will create some 500,000 jobs.

In addition, Genachowski said, changing the system governing how phone companies pay each other for calls will eliminate billions of dollars in "hidden subsidies" in phone bills and put millions back in consumers' pockets.

The current system, virtually everyone in the industry agrees, is outdated and leads to perverse schemes by carriers to stimulate certain kinds of phone traffic.

"I don't expect that overall consumer rates will go up as a result of this" action, Genachowski told reporters after the meeting.

The agency estimates that the curbs on fees the phone companies pay each other will save consumers $2.2 billion a year. That assumes that the companies will pass on a substantial portion of their savings to consumers, FCC staff said.

Some consumers may pay on average an additional 10 to 15 cents a month on their bills, the agency said. No additional charges will be imposed on low-income consumers or anyone whose phone bill is $30 a month or more.

The Universal Service Fund was created to ensure that all Americans have access to a basic telephone line. It assumed its current form in 1996, but the idea of it has been around since the early 20th century. The program subsidizes phone service for the poor and pays for Internet access in schools, libraries and rural health clinics. But more than half the money goes to pay phone companies that provide phone service in rural places where lines are supposedly unprofitable.

Charles McKee, a Sprint vice president for regulatory affairs, said that by curbing the "wasteful traffic-pumping schemes" among carriers, the FCC plan will help foster a robust and efficient market for voice and broadband services.

Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group, said it was concerned that the new program "will lead to higher prices at a time when the average American is watching every penny."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-10-27-TEC--Rural%20Broadband/id-0d2c1b5d878b42d4a65132879f043499

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Coroner: Winehouse died from alcohol

LONDON?? A coroner says Amy Winehouse died as the unintended consequence of drinking too much alcohol.

Coroner Suzanne Greenaway gave a verdict of "death by misadventure," saying the singer had voluntarily consumed alcohol and risked the consequences.

Story: Amy Winehouse's father is writing book

The singer, who had fought drug and alcohol problems for years, was found dead in bed at her London home on July 23 at age 27.

Slideshow: Amy Winehouse: 1983-2011 (on this page)

Pathologist Suhail Baithun told the singer's inquest Wednesday that Winehouse had consumed a "very large quantity of alcohol" and was more than five times over the legal drunk-driving limit when she died.

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The singer, who had fought drug and alcohol problems for years, was found dead in bed at her London home on July 23 at age 27.

An initial autopsy proved inconclusive, although it found no traces of illegal drugs in her system.

Story: Tony Bennett: Winehouse knew alcohol would kill her

Winehouse's doctor, Dr. Christina Romete, said the singer had resumed drinking in the days before her death after a period of abstinence.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45045102/ns/today-entertainment/

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Smithsonian shows 100 years of electric car's past

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The history of electric cars is going on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History with two "electrifying cars" from the early 20th century.

A 1904 Columbia electric runabout went on display Thursday with a 1913 Ford Model T touring car. The cars and other objects, including a battery charger for General Motors' EV1 electric car from the 1990s, are on view through January.

The Columbia was the best-selling U.S. car at the turn of the century, while the Model T was a gasoline car equipped with an electric starter and electric headlights.

A rare EV1 was displayed in the past. It was pulled from view in 2006, weeks before the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

Last year, electric cars were reintroduced to the market.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2011-10-28-Smithsonian-Electric%20Cars/id-8d08ce6d4bde4873981eee3c8f809155

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AP sources: Supercommittee Dems outline offer (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Congressional officials say Democrats on the so-called supercommittee are offering to slow the growth in future Social Security benefits as part of a multitrillion-dollar deficit-reduction package of increased tax revenue and cuts in spending.

The plan also envisions using a part of the savings to fund measures to create jobs, as President Barack Obama has called for.

The proposal was outlined on Tuesday in a closed-door meeting of the special congressional committee that has until late next month to recommend at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings. Republicans presented a counter-plan Wednesday. Details are unknown.

In all, officials say Democrats proposed to raise revenue by about $1.3 trillion over a decade and cut spending by the same amount.

They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing committee confidentiality rules.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111026/ap_on_go_co/us_supercommittee_debt

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China sees fuel shortages, warns against hoarding (AP)

SHANGHAI ? China's chronic fuel shortages are worsening with the onset of winter, as output lags behind surging demand following price cuts that are worsening refiners' losses.

The shortfalls are worst in eastern and central China, where some filling stations have run out of diesel fuel and authorities are warning against hoarding.

A surge in demand due to the end-of-year rush of construction projects and factory deliveries, the autumn harvest and transport of coal suppliers for winter heating has been worsened by stockpiling following a recent cut in the government's wholesale price for fuel products, analysts and government reports said Thursday.

"Some companies expect supplies to be tight and they are storing the oil to boost profits because they know demand will be stronger in this season," said Lin Boqiang, an energy professor at Xiamen University.

In a notice on its website Thursday, the government in Hunan province called on local authorities to prevent illegal sales and hoarding of fuel to ensure "orderly supplies."

"Short supplies persist and the number of filling stations that have suspended sales has increased," the notice said. The last three months of the year account for nearly a third of annual fuel demand, according to the Hunan government.

In Fujian province, in the southeast, filling station operators are being pushed to buy gasoline and diesel in equal amounts, though they lose money on gasoline.

"We haven't bought fuel since Oct. 9. We were just told there is none," said Chen Yongxiao, who runs Kuixing Petro Ltd. Fuqing, a city in Fujian.

"We've had the same problems the last few years and it's hard to say if it's more serious now since it's just beginning," Chen said.

The persistent shortages reflect the limitations of China's system of centralized control of fuel prices. Because individual producers don't set their own prices, many often cut production to limit losses when domestic fuel prices are lower than what they must pay for imported oil.

In 2009, the government began changing domestic refined oil prices to reflect trends in international prices. In its first price cut in over a year, earlier this month the government announced a reduction in wholesale prices for diesel and gasoline, by 300 yuan ($47) per ton, about 3 percent.

The shift was expected to aid the government's effort to cool inflation. But since then, prices for crude oil have rebounded, to above $92 a barrel Thursday from about $75 two weeks earlier.

Refiners are now under pressure to raise output at a time when rising costs are once again forcing them to produce at a loss.

State-owned PetroChina, China's biggest oil and gas producer, raised refining output 10 percent and reported a 41.5 billion yuan ($6.5 billion) loss in its refining sector in the third quarter of the year, though its overall profit rose nearly 8 percent thanks to higher prices in its much larger oil and gas segment.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, posted a 23.1 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) refining loss in July-September, though its overall profit climbed 3 percent, helped by increased efficiency, it said.

Sinopec, Asia's largest refiner by capacity, has been operating at full capacity trying to keep up with demand. It plans to raise output by 2.8 percent in November, processing 18.3 million tons of crude oil.

But China's entire energy sector suffers periodic shortages due to price controls and other distortions. Utilities have tended to curb power output when coal prices surge while their electricity tariffs remain static. That in turn aggravates fuel shortages when manufacturers turn to diesel generators to make up for power outages.

Apart from goading refiners into raising output, "The government needs to guarantee enough power in the winter ... to push power plants to work hard and produce enough electricity," Lin said.

It said it was adjusting its production mix and postponing planned maintenance in some refineries to ensure higher capacity for diesel production.

Sinopec says it sells an average 413,000 tons of refined fuel a day, with a record high 284,000 tons going to its own filling stations and the rest going to other operators, who reportedly have been complaining they are unable to get supplies.

"We do sell to the other gas stations," Huang Wensheng, a Sinopec spokesman, said Thursday.

But China's independent refiners have more leeway to cut production when prices fall and are holding back, waiting for fuel prices to be adjusted upward again.

"Some private oil companies are not so willing to produce since imported crude oil is getting expensive, so they are just using 40 percent of their capacity," said Han Xiaoping, chief information officer of the energy website China5e.com.

"It's just because some companies expect to make more money when prices are raised again soon, so they are hoarding oil," said Han.

"The supply shortage will be solved when the next adjustment, which I expect within about a half a month," he said. "Once the price is raised, the problem will be solved."

___

Associated Press researcher Fu Ting contributed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111028/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_fuel_shortages

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Muammar Qaddafi's son and one-time heir apparent reportedly poised for surrender

Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the last of deceased Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's sons still at large, has reportedly asked to be transported to the International Criminal Court.

? A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

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Libya's National Transitional Council says that Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the last of Muammar Qaddafi's sons remaining at large and the late leader's one-time heir apparent, has requested safe passage out of the country so that he can turn himself over to the International Criminal Court.

Former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, who is also the subject of an international warrant, also reportedly wants to turn himself in. The surrender of both men could help the new Libya make a clean break with the Qaddafi era and ease the transition to a new political order.

According to an NTC official, Saif al-Islam is being sheltered by the nomadic Tuareg tribe that calls the border region home, Reuters reports. Others in his family escaped to Libya's southern neighbors through the same area. But taking refuge in another country is more difficult for Saif al-Islam because he is the subject of an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity during the early stages of Libya's uprising.

If Saif al-Islam's willingness to surrender is confirmed, it would mark yet another reversal in his behavior. At the outset of Libya's uprising, he shocked the international community when he transformed from "an internationally well-connected philanthropist and liberal reformer" to "a soldier ready to die rather than capitulate," according to a separate Reuters report.

Previous to the uprising, he had been perceived as a reformer and "the acceptable, Western-friendly face of Libya," Reuters notes. Indeed, the dissertation he wrote while at the London School of Economics was titled, "The role of civil society in the democratization of global governance institutions."

In a New York Times profile of Saif al-Islam from 2010, he is credited with guiding the country toward nuclear disarmament and mending ties with the West. He made repeated calls for a democracy in Libya and rejected an offer to take over leadership of a group of local leaders.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/LTdZfIe46Uw/Muammar-Qaddafi-s-son-and-one-time-heir-apparent-reportedly-poised-for-surrender

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Watch: Rep. Lankford: Dems Floating Same Budget Old Deal (ABC News)

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ViewSonic rolls out $200 ViewPad 7e Android tablet

We've already seen it available for pre-order at Amazon and spent a bit of time with it ourselves last month, but ViewSonic's only just now officially getting its ViewPad 7e Android tablet out the door. It'll be available by the end of the month if it hasn't hit retailers already and, as expected, it will set you back an even $200. That unfortunately only buys you Android 2.3 (with an SPB shell on top) and not Honeycomb, but the specs are otherwise somewhat decent for the price, including a 1GHz ARM A8 processor, dual cameras, a "RiteTouch" 7-inch capacitive display, 4GB of storage with a microSD card slot for expansion, and HDMI output. As is often the case with low-end tablets, however, one key omission is official support for the Android Market, but you do at least get access to Amazon's Appstore, as well as plenty of pre-loaded apps including Twitter, Kindle, and TuneIn Radio.

Continue reading ViewSonic rolls out $200 ViewPad 7e Android tablet

ViewSonic rolls out $200 ViewPad 7e Android tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AP IMPACT: NYPD shadows Muslims who change names

FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2011, file photo, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly listens during his testimony about NYPD intelligence operations to the New York City Council public safety committee in New York. Three months ago, one of the CIA?s most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. Since The Associated Press revealed the assignment in August, federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this CIA officer, a seasoned operative who handled foreign agents and ran complex operations in Jordan and Pakistan, was assigned to a municipal police department. Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas." He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn?t have access to any of our investigative files." (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2011, file photo, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly listens during his testimony about NYPD intelligence operations to the New York City Council public safety committee in New York. Three months ago, one of the CIA?s most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. Since The Associated Press revealed the assignment in August, federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this CIA officer, a seasoned operative who handled foreign agents and ran complex operations in Jordan and Pakistan, was assigned to a municipal police department. Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas." He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn?t have access to any of our investigative files." (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The NYPD monitors everyone in the city who changes his or her name, according to internal police documents and interviews. For those whose names sound Arabic or might be from Muslim countries, police run comprehensive background checks that include reviewing travel records, criminal histories, business licenses and immigration documents. All this is recorded in police databases for supervisors, who review the names and select a handful of people for police to visit.

The program was conceived as a tripwire for police in the difficult hunt for homegrown terrorists, where there are no widely agreed upon warning signs. Like other NYPD intelligence programs created in the past decade, this one involved monitoring behavior protected by the First Amendment.

Since August, an Associated Press investigation has revealed a vast NYPD intelligence-collecting effort targeting Muslims following the terror attacks of September 2001. Police have conducted surveillance of entire Muslim neighborhoods, chronicling every aspect of daily life, including where people eat, pray and get their hair cut. Police infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups and investigated hundreds more.

Monitoring name changes illustrates how the threat of terrorism now casts suspicion over what historically has been part of America's story. For centuries, immigrants have Americanized their names in New York. The Roosevelts were once the van Rosenvelts. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz. Donald Trump's grandfather changed the family name from Drumpf.

David Cohen, the NYPD's intelligence chief, worried that would-be terrorists could use their new names to lie low in New York, current and former officials recalled. Reviewing name changes was intended to identify people who either Americanized their names or took Arabic names for the first time, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to messages left over two days asking about the legal justification for the program and whether it had identified any terrorists.

The goal was to find a way to spot terrorists like Daood Gilani and Carlos Bledsoe before they attacked.

Gilani, a Chicago man, changed his name to the unremarkable David Coleman Headley to avoid suspicion as he helped plan the 2008 terrorist shooting spree in Mumbai, India. Bledsoe, of Tennessee, changed his name to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad in 2007 and, two years later, killed one soldier and wounded another in a shooting at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark.

Sometime around 2008, state court officials began sending the NYPD information about new name changes, said Ron Younkins, the court's chief of operations. The court regularly sends updates to police, he said. The information is all public, and he said the court was not aware of how police used it.

The NYPD program began as a purely analytical exercise, according to documents and interviews. Police reviewed the names received from the court and selected some for background checks that included city, state and federal criminal databases as well as federal immigration and Treasury Department databases that identified foreign travel.

Early on, police added people with American names to the list so that if details of the program ever leaked out, the department would not be accused of profiling, according to one person briefed on the program.

On one police document from that period, 2 out of every 3 people who were investigated had changed their names to or from something that could be read as Arabic-sounding.

All the names that were investigated, even those whose background checks came up empty, were cataloged so police could refer to them in the future.

The legal justification for the program is unclear from the documents obtained by the AP. Because of its history of spying on anti-war protesters and political activists, the NYPD has long been required to follow a federal court order when gathering intelligence. That order allows the department to conduct background checks only when police have information about possible criminal activity, and only as part of "prompt and extremely limited" checking of leads.

The NYPD's rules also prohibit opening investigations based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment. Federal courts have held that people have a right to change their names and, in the case of religious conversion, that right is protected by the First Amendment.

The NYPD is not alone in its monitoring of Muslim neighborhoods. The FBI has its own ethnic mapping program that singled out Muslim communities and agents have been criticized for targeting mosques.

The name change program is an example of how, while the NYPD says it operates under the same rules as the FBI, police have at times gone beyond what is allowed by the federal government. The FBI would not be allowed to run a similar program because of First Amendment and privacy concerns and because the goal is too vague and the program too broad, according to FBI rules and interviews with federal officials.

Police expanded their efforts in late 2009, according to documents and interviews. After analysts ran background checks, police began selecting a handful of people to visit and interview.

Internally, some police groused about the program. Many people who were approached didn't want to talk and police couldn't force them to.

A Pakistani cab driver, for instance, told police he did not want to talk to them about why he took Sheikh as a new last name, documents show.

Police also knew that a would-be terrorist who Americanized his name in hopes of lying low was unlikely to confess as much to detectives. In fact, of those who agreed to talk at all, many said they Americanized their names because they were being harassed or were having problems getting a job and thought a new name would help.

But as with other intelligence programs at the NYPD, Cohen hoped it would send a message to would-be bombers that police were watching, current and former officials said.

As it expanded, the program began to target Muslims even more directly, drawing criticism from Stuart Parker, an in-house NYPD lawyer, who said there had to be standards for who was being interviewed, a person involved in the discussions recalled. In response, police interviewed people with Arabic-sounding names but only if their background checks matched specific criteria.

The names of those who were interviewed, even those who chose not to speak with police, were recorded in police reports stored in the department's database, according to documents and interviews, while names of those who received only background checks were kept in a separate file in the Intelligence Division.

Donna Gabaccia, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, said that for many families, name changes are important aspects of the American story. Despite the myth that officials at Ellis Island Americanized the names of people arriving in the U.S., most immigrants changed their names themselves to avoid ridicule and discrimination or just to fit in, she said.

The NYPD program, she said, turned that story on its head.

"In the past, you changed your name in response to stigmatization," she said. "And now, you change your name and you are stigmatized. There's just something very sad about this."

As for converts to Islam, the religion does not require them to take Arabic names but many do as a way to publicly identify their faith, said Jonathan Brown, a Georgetown University professor of Islamic studies.

Taking an Arabic name might be a sign that someone is more religious, Brown said, but it doesn't necessarily suggest someone is more radical. He said law enforcement nationwide has often confused the two points in the fight against terrorism.

"It's just an example of the silly, conveyor-belt approach they have, where anyone who gets more religious is by definition more dangerous," Brown said.

Sarah Feinstein-Borenstein, a 75-year-old Jewish woman who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was surprised to learn that she was among the Americans drawn into the NYPD program in its infancy. She hyphenated her last name in 2009. Police investigated and recorded her information in a police intelligence file because of it.

"It's rather shocking to me," she said. "I think they would have better things to do. It's is a waste of my tax money."

Feinstein-Borenstein was born in Egypt and lived there until the Suez Crisis in 1956. With a French mother and a Jewish religion, she and her family were labeled "undesirable" and were kicked out. She came to the U.S. in 1963.

"If you live long enough," she said, "you see everything."

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org

Read AP's previous stories and documents about the NYPD at: http://www.ap.org/nypd

Follow Apuzzo and Goldman at http://twitter.org/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.org/goldmandc

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-10-26-NYPD%20Intelligence/id-220141393bdd4441b9379fa7e17dcb30

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