Five Lessons from the AIG Bonus Blowup

Last week, outlets reported that “the clock was ticking” for “embattled” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, with a few members of Congress openly calling for his ousting. His boss, President Barack Obama, was criticized for not engaging in the congressional furor over the $165 million in bonuses paid out to top executives at AIG — the insurance giant that has received more than $180 billion in federal money. This week Obama remains relatively untouched in the polls, and Geithner is basking in his best week of media coverage yet

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Obama defends budget as essential to recovery

President Obama said Tuesday "there are no quick fixes" to pull the economy out of recession, but he insisted the country will recover. In his second prime time news conference, Obama called on Americans to look to the future with a “renewed confidence that a better day will come.” “We will recover from this recession,” the president said.

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Possible contamination at VA facilities sparks call for inquiry

Thousands of veterans in South Florida may have been exposed to hepatitis and HIV because of contaminated equipment after getting colonoscopies at the Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, officials announced Monday. Two Florida lawmakers are asking for an inspector general’s inquiry.

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Obama calls for global economic cooperation

President Obama reached out to citizens of the world Tuesday, saying in an op-ed piece that ran in 31 newspapers around the globe that there is an urgent need for worldwide economic cooperation. Obama’s move comes ahead of next week’s Group of 20 meeting in London, England, in which leaders of the world’s richest nations will discuss the global economic downturn. “My message is clear,” Obama wrote

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Obama highlights need for more clean-energy funding

President Obama turned his attention to the need for more clean-energy funding Monday, arguing that an expanded investment is needed to lay the foundation for long-term economic growth, cut dependence on foreign oil and slow the process of global warming. Obama, speaking to a group of renewable-energy company owners and investors, said the country has “known the right choice for a generation (and that) the time has come to make that choice.” In the years ahead, the United States “can remain the world’s leading importer of foreign oil, or we can become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy,” Obama argued. “We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc, or we can create jobs preventing its worse effects

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Economy causing horse crisis: People ‘giving up their animals’

The sound of pounding hooves thunders in the high desert air. A cloud of dust marks the trail of a herd of wild horses as they race across the arid plain. This is Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue, a shelter for wild mustangs and unwanted horses near Lancaster, California.

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New video of Briton seized in Iraq in 2007

The British Embassy in Baghdad has received a new video of one of five British hostages kidnapped about two years ago. “Regarding the transfer of troops, soldiers, we are positive on that issue,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking through an interpreter. In an exclusive interview with CNN at the headquarters of his Justice and Development Party, Erdogan indicated he had not yet received an official request from his American ally for permission to move troops across Turkish soil.

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