Obama makes 11th hour push for stimulus package

Taking no chances, President Obama is exerting last-minute pressure on Congress to approve his stimulus plan by highlighting stories of people affected by the economic downturn. The Democratic National Committee and Obama’s Organizing for America are using Obama’s vast e-mail list Friday to contact the president’s political supporters and point them to a new Web page, where several of these stories can be viewed

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A Better Bank Fix: Cut Every Mortgage’s Principal

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled a new plan to combat the financial crisis: convincing private financial institutions to buy up “toxic assets” with the government’s backing. While this is a step up from former Secretary Henry Paulson’s original bailout plan—in which the government itself would buy up the bad securities—it is still not the right approach. Instead, there is a better, cheaper, less risky, more direct way to improve banks’ balance sheets and restore confidence

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9/11 widow apparently on Buffalo flight

Friends, relatives and acquaintances were shocked to hear news reports that Beverly Eckert, the widow of a September 11 victim, was aboard the Continental flight to Buffalo, New York, that crashed Thursday night. “I am horribly saddened by this news,” said Valerie Lucznikowska, a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Lucznikowska said she, Eckert and another woman traveled to Washington last Friday for a meeting between 9/11 family members and President Barack Obama

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Review: ‘Shopaholic’ is a big winner

Playing Rebecca Bloomwood, the blissfully clothes-crazy heroine of "Confessions of a Shopaholic," Isla Fisher walks around with the mad gleam of a true believer. She’s utterly rational as well (you can’t talk her out of buying things — she’s too busy trying to talk herself into them), and it’s that flaky combination that makes her an addict for our times

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Russian warship apprehends Somali pirates

A Russian heavy missile cruiser stopped three pirate ships off the coast of Somalia, and detained 10 pirates, according to a statement released Friday by Russian Navy headquarters in Moscow. The cruiser, Peter the Great, halted two small high-speed motor boats and a mid-size, support vessel on Thursday, the Russians said. “Ten pirates have been detained

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Plane Crashes into House in Suburban Buffalo, 50 Dead

A Continental commuter plane coming in for a landing nose-dived into a house in suburban Buffalo, sparking a fiery explosion that killed all 49 people aboard and a person in the home. It was the nation’s first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in 2 1/2 years. Witnesses heard the twin turboprop aircraft sputtering before it went down in light snow and fog around 10:20 p.m

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35 women, children killed near Iraq festival

A female suicide bomber detonated in a crowd of primarily women and children on their way to a religious festival Friday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 45 others, an Interior Ministry official said. Two children were also killed in a separate incident when an old and unexploded mortar round exploded Friday morning just south of Baghdad

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