President Obama and the first lady determination travel to the south this morning, following the deadly storms that left more than 300 dead across six states this week. Obama will visit the hardest hit state, Alabama, where at least 210 people were killed. Elsewhere in the region, Mississippi report 32 fatalities, Tennessee had 34, Georgia with at least 15, Virginia had 5 and Arkansas with 13.
"In a matter of hours, these deadly tornadoes took mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, even entire communities," Obama said Thursday. Obama is expected to tour the debris while on his way to Cape Canaveral for the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour in Florida. He pledge full federal government support on behalf of all those affected by the storms and signed a disaster declaration for Alabama to assist in recovery and clean up pains from the tornado destruction.
Parsing Rhetoric on Government Spending, Savings from Budget Deal Will the bipartisan deal with the intention of shaved $38.5 billion as of the central budget for 2011 immediately affect the soaring deficit so many Americans say they're worried about. The answer is not really, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a group of accountants along with analysts who study the plans. The agency says the much-touted deal, approved Thursday, will only set aside $352 million through the end of the fiscal year a tiny division of the $1.4 trillion the U.S. has spent beyond its means.
As the high cost of gasoline takes a toll on politics and pocket books, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he be calling on major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia to increase their oil supplies to help stabilize prices, warning starkly that lack of relief would harm the global economy.
"We are in a lot of conversations with the major oil producers like Saudi Arabia to let them know that it's not going to be good for them if our economy is hobbled because of high oil prices," Obama told a Detroit TV station. His annotations signaled a broad new appeal in the face of skyrocket gasoline prices in the United States and they came as he reiterated a call for Congress to repeal oil industry tax breaks.
At least seven deaths have been reported in connection with a series of tornadoes and severe weather with the intention of ripped through several states from Kentucky to Tennessee Monday, authorities said. Forecasters anticipate more rain and storms today to slam across the Midwest, as the system moves east.
In Arkansas, three people were killed in rising floodwaters and two died in a town where a possible tornado barreled through Monday, according to the Associated Press. In Vilonia, Ark., north of Little Rock, where a possible whirlwind killed two people, Caroline Thompson recalled taking cover seeing that the storm approached. "We all ended up in the closet. And then you possibly will just hear crashing and stuff being knocked around and blown around. And it tore us up," Thompson said.
Taliban militants dug a long-lasting tunnel underground and into the main jail in Kandahar city and whisked out more than 450 prisoners, most of whom were Taliban fighters, officials and insurgent said Monday.
The massive overnight jailbreak in Afghanistan's second-largest city underscores the Afghan government continuing weakness in the south despite an influx of international troops, funding and advisers. Kandahar city, in particular, has be a focus of the intercontinental effort to establish a strong Afghan government presence in former Taliban strongholds.
A year after the disastrous Gulf oil spill, the prospect of a major accident in oil's next frontier - the icy waters off Alaska's north coast - has experts even more concerned.
With no roads connecting remote coastal towns, storms and fog that can ground aircraft, no deepwater ports for ships and the nearest Coast Guard station about 1,000 miles away - it would be nearly impossible to respond on the scale that was needed last year to stop the runaway oil well and clean up the mess. That means the burden to respond would rest to an even greater degree on the company doing the drilling.
Iraq's prime minister has told the top U.S. military officer that Iraqi forces are able to maintain safekeeping in their own country, as discussions intensify larger than whether to keep any U.S. forces in Iraq past this year.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made the remark during a late Thursday meeting with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. combined Chiefs of Staff. Mullen’s visit comes as U.S. and Iraqi officials are trying to decide what, if any, U.S. troop presence be supposed to remain in Iraq subsequent to the end of this year.An agreement between both countries stipulates that all American forces are to leave by Dec. 31.
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