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NTSB: Plane rolled violently before crash

Only a few pieces of the Continental Connection Dash 8 turboprop were recognizable after the crash.
A commuter airliner that crashed Thursday in upstate New York, killing 50 people, underwent violent pitching and rolling seconds before impact, with passengers experiencing twice the normal force of gravity, a federal investigator said Sunday.

The plane’s final 800-foot fall took five seconds, Steve Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board said. The aircraft crashed into a home in Clarence Center, New York, near Buffalo, on Thursday night, killing all 49 people aboard. A 61-year-old man in the house died also, but his wife and daughter survived. Final motions of the aircraft were so drastic that the plane’s autopilot automatically disengaged and warnings sounded, Chealander said, citing information from the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Also, a “stick-shaker” device, which noisily vibrates an airplane’s controls to warn the pilot of imminent stall, kicked in, he said. The flight crew of Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, discussed “significant” ice buildup on the aircraft’s windshield and wings before the crash, and icing has become a focus as a possible cause. Follow the plane’s path » Chealander said the plane’s de-icing system was turned on 11 minutes after the flight left Newark, New Jersey, for Buffalo, and remained on for the entire flight. He said the pilots were told before departure from Newark that there was “light to moderate icing” in the Buffalo area but that no other pilots had reported problems with their landings at the Buffalo airport. “It was really not a bad-weather day, and they chose to launch [from Newark],” Chealander said of the pilot and the first officer.

Airline information
Continental Airlines’ statements

Relatives helpline: 800-621-3263

The plane was on autopilot during its approach to the Buffalo airport, Chealander said. As to questions about whether the autopilot should have been turned off, Chealander said using it even in bad weather situations “is normal.” “You’re encouraged to use the autopilot to help you with the workloads of these high intense weather situations that we fly into all the time,” he said. He said the NTSB in the past has recommended to the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees civil aviation including commercial airlines, that in severe icing conditions, “it might be best to disconnect autopilot so that the pilot might have a better feel” for the aircraft’s conditions. However, severe icing is “not what we saw here,” Chealander said, adding that the FAA has no such disengagement rule in effect.

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“To say that they should not have been flying on autopilot is not correct,” Chealander said. The pilots’ recorded remarks about “significant” icing did not indicate “severe” icing, he said. The NTSB has said problems for the 74-seat Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 occurred when the pilots lowered the landing gear and tried to set the wing flaps to slow the aircraft for landing. Offering more details, Chealander said Sunday that the plane’s nose pitched up 31 degrees, then down 45 degrees. The aircraft rolled left 46 degrees then right 105 degrees, or past the 90-degree vertical point, he said. Inside the cabin, he said, conditions went from lower than normal gravitational force to twice the normal force as the plane rocked through the sky. Chealander said the NTSB’s investigation of the crash site indicated that the two propellers on the turboprop aircraft were in place when the crash occurred. “The airplane hadn’t lost anything prior to impact. It came down intact,” he said. Meanwhile, local authorities working to recover remains of the victims said Sunday that a federal team of more than 40 people using some $2.8 million worth of scientific equipment would begin on Monday to help establish positive identification of the victims. But because of the intensity of the crash and a subsequent fire, “whether we can identify everybody or not remains to be seen,” Erie County Health Commission Anthony Billittier said. Authorities had recovered 15 bodies as of Saturday night, but Billittier announced Sunday that numbers of recovered bodies will no longer be released “out of respect for the families.”

Saudi activist: Female minister ‘first step’ but more needed

Saudi King Abdullah has appointed a woman to his council of ministers for the first time.
The appointment of a woman to Saudi Arabia’s influential council of ministers is a "first step" for women’s rights in the country, but it’s unclear if she will have any real power, an outspoken advocate said Sunday.

“It is something really great, and we are very proud of our king that he took this decision,” said Wajeha al-Huwaider, a prominent Saudi activist and writer. “And I think it’s going to be the first step toward the reform that he promised.” King Abdullah on Saturday appointed Norah al-Faiz to serve as the newly created deputy minister for women’s education as part of a major Cabinet reshuffling. It is the first time a woman has been appointed to the council. “I’m very proud to be nominated and selected for such a prestigious position,” al-Faiz said. “I hope that other ladies, females, will follow in the future.” Al-Faiz said she’s confident she won’t be a token member of the council. “I think by being the second person after the minister, I think I have enough power to work in the improvement of girls’ education,” she said. But al-Huwaider said it is unclear if al-Faiz will have any real power, or if she will follow the path of other Saudi women who had been appointed to lower councils but were never heard from.

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She noted that Saudi women still do not have the right to drive and are recognized under Saudi law as the property of men. “Even this minister now … she is not really in control of her life,” al-Huwaider said. “It is not up to her; it’s up to her male guardian.” She said the “guardianship system” is the first thing that should be removed by the new Saudi government. “This is the main thing that is controlling our life,” al-Huwaider said. “We want to be able to drive our cars, you know, to feel like we are just like the rest of the world.” Other positions that were replaced were the head of Saudi Arabia’s influential Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice as well as the ministers of health, justice, culture and education. Khaled al-Maeena, editor in chief of Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia, said that the entire Cabinet reshuffling “sends a clear signal that the king means business.” “King Abdullah has always been saying this for quite some time, that he would like to see the country progress,” al-Maeena told CNN. “He has taken many initiatives, reforms, enhanced the power of women. … “And right now, by getting these people who are young — some of them — who have the right ambition and the right knowledge, to go ahead, I think it means that there is going to be a march toward progress.” Al-Maeena said that King Abdullah has “always been on the side of women and this stems from his pure and ideal Islamic values, which gives rights to women. …” “But unfortunately,” he said. “Over the past few decades, there had been some, you know, backrolling of women’s participation.”

Texans report fireball in sky, sonic booms

Video captured in Austin, Texas, shows a meteor-like object in the sky Sunday morning.
Sonic booms and at least one fireball in the sky were reported in Texas on Sunday, less than a week after two satellites collided in space and a day after the Federal Aviation Administration asked U.S. pilots to watch for "falling space debris," authorities said.

There were no reports of ground strikes or interference with aircraft in flight, FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said. Herwig told CNN the FAA received no reports from pilots in the air of any sightings but the agency recieved “numerous” calls from people on the ground from Dallas, Texas, south to Austin, Texas. Video shot by a photographer from News 8 TV in Austin showed what appeared to be a meteor-like white fireball blazing across a clear blue sky Sunday morning. The photographer caught the incident while covering a marathon in Austin. On Saturday, the FAA told pilots through its routine notification system that “a potential hazard may occur due to re-entry of satellite debris into the earth’s atmosphere.” The notice did not specify a time or location. Watch video of meteor-like fireball » Herwig said most of the reports the FAA received came in about midday Sunday in an area of Texas from Dallas south to Austin. He said he was not certain where the information that sparked the FAA notification came from, but it was “probably from NORAD,” or the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which tracks man-made objects in space. Calls to NORAD headquarters in Colorado were not immediately returned. Lisa Block, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said her agency had received calls from residents surprised by sonic booms about 11 a.m. She said calls came from an area from Dallas to Houston.

Last week, the Russian and U.S. space agencies said two satellites, one Russian and one American, collided about 496 miles (800 kilometers) above Siberia, Russia. The collision on Tuesday produced two large debris clouds, NASA said. The satellites collided at 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) per second, producing 500 to 600 pieces of space debris, the U.S. Strategic Command said.

Japan’s Booming Sex Niche: Elder Porn

Japans Booming Sex Niche: Elder Porn

Besides his glowing complexion, Shigeo Tokuda looks like any other 74-year-old man in Japan. Despite suffering a heart attack three years ago, the lifelong salaryman now feels healthier, and lives happily with his wife and a daughter in downtown Tokyo. He is, of course, more physically active than most retirees, but that’s because he’s kept his part-time job — as a porn star.

Shigeo Tokuda is, in fact, his screen name. He prefers not to disclose his real name because, he insists, his wife and daughter have no idea that he has appeared in about 350 films over the past 14 years. And in his double life, Tokuda arguably embodies the contemporary state of Japan’s sexuality: in surveys conducted by organizations ranging from the World Health Organization to the condom-maker Durex, Japan is repeatedly found to be one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world. A WHO report released in March found that 1 in 4 married couples in Japan had not made love in the previous year, while 38% of couples in their 50s no longer have sex at all. Those figures were attributed to the stresses of Japanese working life. Yet at the same time, the country has seen a surge in demand for pornography that has turned adult videos into a billion-dollar industry, with “elder porn” one of its fastest-growing genres.

Tokuda is rare among Japanese porn stars in that his name has become a brand. The Shigeo Tokuda series he has just completed portray him as a tactful elderly gentleman who instructs women of different ages in the erotic arts, and he boasts a body of work far more impressive than most actors in their prime.

Tokuda’s exploits have proved to be a goldmine for Glory Quest, which first launched an “old man” series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led the company to follow up with Tokuda starring in Forbidden Elderly Care in August 2006. Other series followed, and soon elder porn had revealed itself as a sustainable new revenue stream for the industry. “The adult-video industry is very competitive,” says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. “If we only make standard fare, we cannot beat other studios. There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new. A relationship between wife and an old father-in-law has enough twist to create an atmosphere of mystery and captivate viewers’ hearts.”

Director Gaichi Kono says the eroticism of elders is captivating to younger viewers. “I think that, as a subject, there is this something that only an older generation has and the young people do not possess. It is because they lived that much more. We should respect them and learn from them,” says Kono passionately.

But Tokuda stresses the appeal of his work to an audience of his peers:
“Elderly people don’t identify with school dramas,” he says. “It’s easier
for them to relate to older-men-and-daughters-in-law series, so they tend to watch adult videos with older people in them.” The veteran porn star plans to keep working until he’s 80 — or older, as long as the industry will cast him. Given the bullish market for his work, he’s unlikely to go without work.

“People of my age generally have shame, so they are very hesitant to show
their private parts,” Tokuda says. “But I am proud of myself doing something they cannot.” Still, he says, laughing, “That doesn’t mean that I can tell them about my old-age pensioner job.”

Japan’s adult-video industry is believed to be worth as much as $1 billion a year, according to industry insiders, with the largest video-store chain Tsutaya releasing about 1,000 new titles monthly, while the mega adult mail-order site DMM releases about 2,000 titles each month. Although films featuring women in their teens and 20s are the mainstay of the industry, a trend toward “mature women” has become evident over the past five years. Currently, about 300 of the 1,000 adult videos on offer at Tsutaya, and 400 out of the 2,000 at DMM, are “mature women”
films.

Ryuichi Kadowaki, director of Ruby Inc., which specializes in mature-women titles, says that when the company started offering the genre a few years ago, the term referred to actresses in their late 20s, and that last year it was expanded to those in their 70s. The company believes the advantage of mature titles is their enduring appeal. “Adult videos with young actresses sell well only in the first three months after the release,” Kadowaki explains. “On the other hand, mature-women films enjoy a steady, long-term popularity, which after 10 years or so might lead to a best seller.” And then there are the cost savings. A popular young
actress can earn up to $100,000 per film, while a mature actress is paid only $2,000.

The market for elder porn has doubled over the past decade, according to Kadowaki. “In view of [Japan’s] aging society,” he adds, “I think that in the future, we will see a steady increase in demand.”

‘Friday the 13th’ slashes records

With $42.2 million, the biggest opening gross thus far in 2009, "Friday the 13th" easily won the record-breaking Presidents Day weekend box office race, beating out Valentine’s Day favorites "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "He’s Just Not That Into You," as well as solid holdovers "Taken" and "Coraline." (All totals listed here are according to early three-day estimates from Media by Numbers; rough figures for the four-day holiday weekend will be out tomorrow.)

That $42.2 million sum is the top first-weekend figure for any movie in the nearly 30-year-old “Friday the 13th” series — including the 2003 mashup, Freddy vs. Jason, which premiered with $36.4 million. In fact, the original “Friday the 13th” movie, from 1980, grossed just $39.7 million during its entire run, not adjusted for inflation. In addition, this marks the best bow ever for a horror remake, besting “The Grudge’s” $39.1 million debut gross. And it arrives despite a weak B- CinemaScore review from an audience that skewed male. In other words, great as this first frame was for “Friday the 13th,” expect a big drop next weekend. Second place went to hearty holdover “He’s Just Not That Into You,” which banked an expected $19.6 million on a 29 percent drop. “Taken” came next at No. 3, with $19.3 million in its third frame, a mere 6 percent decline from its previous outing. In three weeks, the out-of-nowhere Liam Neeson juggernaut thriller has grossed nearly $78 million.

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Audiences were just not that into freshman flick “Confessions of a Shopaholic” (No. 4), however. The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced farce opened with an okay $15.4 million and drew a similarly okay CinemaScore grade of B from a crowd that was 75 percent female. “Coraline” rounded out the top five with $15.3 million, another teensy decline of just 9 percent from last weekend. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” (No. 6) brought its five-week sum to $110.5 million, making it the first-ever non-sequel January release to hit the century mark. And new movie “The International” (No. 7) stumbled with just $10 million — and a poor CinemaScore grade of C+ from mostly older men. Overall, it was the best Presidents Day weekend ever: The total gross of all movies playing during this frame was about $190 million, which trumps the previous benchmark of $157 million in 2007 (and is up more than 38 percent from last year). No doubt, Washington and Lincoln would be proud.

Superb Inter claim thrilling derby victory

Dejan Stankovic celebrates scoring Inter's second goal in the superb 2-1 victory over city rivals AC Milan.
Inter extended their lead at the top of Serie A to nine points after beating AC Milan 2-1 in a thrilling San Siro derby on Sunday, dealing a fatal blow to their city rivals’ Serie A title hopes in the process.

Jose Mourinho’s side, who were the home team in the 150th league meeeting between the two Italian giants, should have taken an 18th minute lead when a fine flowing move resulted in Esteban Cambiasso crossing from the left for Dejan Stankovic to score. However, the Serbian midfielder just delayed his shot on goal, allowing Masssimo Ambrosini to come back and produce a goal-saving challenge in the area. Inter did eventually take the lead in the 29th minute, but the goal was shrouded in controversy. Maicon’s cross from the right was met by the head of fellow-Brazilian Adriano, but the effort clearly brushed off the striker’s arm before finding its way into the net. Milan were struggling to cope with the pace of Inter’s attacks and it was no surprise when the league leaders doubled their advantage two minutes before half-time. A long free-kick out of defense was headed down by Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Dejan Stankovic was on hand to crack home a superb shot on the half-volley. Inter were inches from making it 3-0 in the 47th minute when Milan again failed to deal with a long ball. Georgian defender Kakha Kaladze slipped over when trying to deal with the danger, allowing Adriano a free run on goal. However, the striker fired just wide with Ibrahimovic unmarked in the area begging for the ball.

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David Beckham had a quiet match for Milan and the England midfielder was eventually substituted in the 55th minute for Filippo Inzaghi, seemingly holding a hamstring injury. The chances kept coming for Inter. On the hour mark the superb Ibrahimovic was denied by a brilliant reflex save from goalkeeper Christian Abbiati. However, against the run of play, Milan gave themselves hope with a 71st minute strike. Ronaldinho produced some Brazilian magic to lay a delightful ball through for Marek Jankulovski on the left — and the Czech layed a simple pass square for Alexander Pato to find the corner of the net. That goal brought Milan to life. Inzaghi had a shot well saved by goalkeeper Julio Cesar and the same player then headed home a Pato cross, but the linesman correctly flagged for offside. The longer the game went on, Pato began to have more influence, and the teenager nearly levelled for Milan in the 78th minute but Cesar did well to save with his feet. Then, in the final minute, Inzaghi again went desperately close, producing another fine save from Cesar as Inter held on for a classic and vital victory. Meanwhile, Juve’s title hopes were dealt another blow as they were held to a 1-1 home draw by Sampdoria — meaning Claudio Ranieri’s side have now won just one of their last four matches. The visitors took a 10th minute lead when Giampaolo Pazzini was left unmarked to score from a pass from Antonio Cassano. The home side dominated proceedings but could only score once when Amauri headed home a Sebastian Giovinco cross in the 62nd minute. Despite plenty of chances, the hosts could not find the winning goal, with Pavel Nedved (twice) and Alessandro Del Piero hitting the woodwork. Elsewhere, Fiorentina held on to fourth spot and the final Champions League qualifying position as they remarkably came back from 3-0 down at Genoa to snatch a 3-3 draw with Adrian Mutu’s equalizer deep into injury time. Roma, who had won 10 of their previous 13 matches, drop to sixth after they were well beaten 3-0 at Atalanta, for whom Cristiano Doni scored twice.

Chris Brown says he’s sorry ‘for what transpired’

Singer Chris Brown broke his silence Sunday, a week after allegedly attacking his girlfriend, fellow performer Rihanna, on a street in Los Angeles, California.

“Words cannot begin to express how sorry and saddened I am over what transpired,” the 19-year-old said in a statement released by his spokesman. “I am seeking the counseling of my pastor, my mother and other loved ones and I am committed, with God’s help, to emerging a better person.” He added, “Much of what has been speculated or reported on blogs and/or reported in the media is wrong. While I would like to be able to talk about this more, until the legal issues are resolved, this is all I can say except that I have not written any messages or made any posts to Facebook, on blogs or any place else. Those posts or writings under my name are frauds.” Police are investigating the incident. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday the office needed more information before deciding on whether to charge Brown. Brown was arrested February 8 — the day of the Grammy Awards, where he was scheduled to perform — and booked on suspicion of making criminal threats, the spokeswoman said. Brown, who did not appear at the awards show, was released from jail that night on $50,000 bail and given a March 5 court date.

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Brown’s lawyer did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Police said Brown and a woman were in a vehicle near Hollywood’s Hancock Park early February 8 when they became involved in an argument. The woman “suffered visible injuries and identified Brown as her attacker,” police said. Police did not identify the woman, but sources close to the couple told CNN the alleged victim was his girlfriend, the 20-year-old singer Rihanna, whose full name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty. She has made no public comment. Her spokesman issued only a short statement on the evening of February 8, when she canceled her performance at that night’s Grammy Awards. “Rihanna is well,” her spokesman said at the time. “Thank you for concern and support.” Police have refused media requests to hear the 911 call that led to their investigation.

Russia’s Artisanal Moonshine Boom

Every August, Nikolai Gusev juices hundreds of unwashed apples which grow at his dacha, west of Moscow. For a month he waits patiently for the juice to ferment and turn into a wine. He then distills the mixture, and stores the remaining liquid in a barrel for several months. The result is a highly potent drink , with an apple aftertaste which is the favorite tipple of his friends. “I had too many apples at my dacha and instead of throwing them away I wanted to do something with them, for me making moonshine is just a little bit of fun,” Gusev says.

It is a far cry from what most Russians think of moonshine, a time-dishonored pastime in a country where alcohol poisoning has helped lead to a population decline. In January, The Moscow Times reported that the reason for so many deaths is that 300 million liters of substances never intended for human consumption are drunk annually — these include perfume, aftershave, and cleaning liquids. Many shops sell contraband vodka which is made from a combination of those liquids and water.

Gusev is a completely different kind of moonshiner. He is one of Moscow’s best-known guitar makers. His underground workshop is a short walk from Red Square and is filled with pieces of elegantly curved wood from disassembled instruments. The tiny bottle of moonshine sits on a shelf not far from his tools. Unlike the stereotypical moonshine , Gusev distills boutique and artisanal spirits, joining the country’s homebrew renaissance. He doesn’t need to do it. He is educated employed and has access to high-quality alcohol. “I don’t do this to get drunk, for me it’s a craft, it’s an annual project,” Gusev said. “The trick is not to wash the apples, there is natural yeast on their skin, which makes them ferment better.”

Russia is in the middle of a revival in moonshine not as a cheap way to drink, but as a hobby and craft. Actors and musicians have revealed their recipes to magazines. Indeed, Russian liquor store shelves and supermarkets now stock a product that uses the appeal of bootleg as its selling point. “I talked to my friends about my idea for sometime and we came to the conclusion that making samogon, would be a great business model,” says Nikolai Poluetkov the manager of Kosogorov Samogon, which calls itself the first moonshine to have a license. “We spent 2003 looking for recipes. We found one that worked made from grape and in 2004 we launched our product.” Kosogorov, which is bottled in a factory and tested by safety authorities, is sold in most supermarkets for $40. It is, however, made to look like the moonshine sold in Soviet times with it’s label printed crookedly in a handwritten font. “It’s a nice product with a good brand image,” Poluetkov says.

Samogon, which literally means self distilled, had its heyday in the mid 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev enforced his alcohol reforms which, among other things, restricted sales to certain stories and prohibited restaurants from serving drinks before 2 p.m. It was a mini-Prohibition and, to get their lips on hooch, people were making alcohol with anything they had. One popular recipe suggested putting yeast, sugar and milk into a washing machine, switching it on a two hour cycle and then distilling the result. In rural Russia, peasants drank heart medication because they believed it contained alcohol.

The artisanal samogon that are all the rage today emerged from that period. And while it has become fashionable to make samogon, it is still illegal to sell homebrew — though many people do it for a little bit of extra income.

Good quality samogon, however, is unlikely to do anything for Russia’s epidemic of alcoholism. Says Poluetkov, “If people want to drink window cleaner and aftershave, and sniff glue, nothing will stop them. Because window cleaner, aftershave and glue will always be on sale. An addiction is a psychological problem, not just a financial one.”

There are 2.5 million alcoholics in the country according to Russia’s chief epidemiologist Gennadi Onishchenko. Just last year 19,000 people died of alcohol poisoning; and while this number is less than previous years, alcoholism is still a large factor in Russia’s declining population and is responsible for the large gender gap in the mortality rates. To cut down on deaths from poisonous substances, the Russian Government plans to introduce a set minimum price for vodka, which will be 100 rubles for half a liter.

“In Moscow this won’t make a difference,” explains Vadim Drobiz the director of the Federal and Regional Center of Alcohol Market Research. “Moscow is the only city where people can afford to regularly buy high quality alcohol. But in the regions this will be a big problem.” He explains, “In rural Russia 100 rubles for a bottle of vodka is expensive, and they will drink something else, what I don’t know.” According to Drobiz 45% of the vodka on sale is contraband and retails below 50 rubles for half a liter. “I hope that for their sake villages will resort to making samogon, because at least people will know what they are drinking.”

GOP senators say Obama off to bad start

Top Republican lawmakers Sunday called on President Obama to change his political strategy, arguing that the passage of a massive stimulus bill on a party-line vote showed he has failed to deliver the "change" he promised.

“If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country’s screwed,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told ABC’s “This Week.” “I know bipartisanship when I see it.” Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said Obama was off to “a bad beginning,” out of step with the vow of bipartisanship both men made after Obama beat out the Republican presidential nominee for the White House in November. “It was a bad beginning because it wasn’t what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people, that we would sit down together,” McCain told CNN’s “State of the Union With John King.” The $787 billion bill made it through Congress with the support of three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Obama is expected to sign the bill Tuesday in Denver, Colorado. Watch Democratic and GOP analysts debate bipartisanship » “This is not ‘change we can believe in,’ ” Graham, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told ABC. He said Democrats “rammed it through the House” after starting out “with the idea, ‘We won — we write the bill.’ ” But Obama’s spokesman insisted the stimulus is a bipartisan success. Speaking to CBS’ “Face the Nation,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “We’re happy that Congress, in a bipartisan way, took steps to make whatever happens in this recession easier to take for the American people.”

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And on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Gibbs said, “I think what you saw from this president was an unprecedented effort to reach out to Republicans. Not just in meetings at the White House, but you had the president drive up to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans where they work.” McCain fired back. “Look, I appreciate the fact that the president came over and talked to Republicans,” he said. “That’s not how you negotiate a result. You sit down together in a room with competing proposals. Almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote.” When the next major piece of legislation aimed at helping the economy recover reaches Congress, McCain said that he hopes “we will sit down together and conduct truly bipartisan negotiations. This was not a bipartisan bill.”

McCain added, “Republicans were guilty of this kind of behavior. I’m not saying that we did things different. But Americans want us to do things differently, and they want us to work together.” Gibbs described things differently. “This president has always worked in a bipartisan fashion,” he told King. “He will continue to reach out to Republicans. John, we hope that Republicans will decide they want to reach back.”

Israel expects pope to visit in May

Pope Benedict XVI meets with members of an American Jewish delegation at the Vatican on Thursday.
Pope Benedict XVI will visit Israel in May, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Sunday.

Benedict’s visit to the region has been the subject of speculation for months, but Olmert’s statement at the beginning of his weekly Cabinet meeting was the first official confirmation. The pope mentioned Thursday that he was “preparing to visit Israel,” but the Vatican has not officially said when the trip will take place. Israel will appoint a government minister to coordinate the trip, Olmert said. “A papal visit to the Holy Land is always an exceptionally significant event, and we hope that it will be this time as well,” he said. Pope John Paul II was the last pontiff to visit Israel in a March 2000 trip that also included stops in Bethlehem and Nazareth in the Palestinian territories. Olmert did not say where else Benedict would visit. Olmert’s announcement that Benedict will come to Israel follows on the heels of a controversy about Holocaust denial within the Roman Catholic Church.

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The pope last month lifted the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson days after the broadcast of an interview in which Williamson doubted the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Williamson said that no Jews were murdered in gas chambers. Williamson’s excommunication and its reversal were not related to his views on the Holocaust. But his Holocaust denial prompted outrage from Jewish leaders, Israel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and many others within the church. The Vatican demanded that Williamson “distance” himself from his views and said that Benedict had not been aware of them when Williamson was welcomed back into the church. The pope met Jewish leaders on Thursday in Rome and reiterated his position on the Nazis’ Final Solution. “The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity,” Benedict said, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust.