Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/149943331?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, October 20, 2011
Pope names US envoy (AP)
VATICAN CITY ? Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday named an Italian prelate who has served in Vatican diplomatic missions in Iraq, Britain and Nigeria as the new papal ambassador to the United States.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, 70, who has been serving as secretary-general of the Vatican city-state, takes the place of Archbishop Pietro Sambi who died in July of complications from surgery.
The Washington post is a key one in the Vatican diplomatic corps both for the importance of the U.S. in world affairs and for its large Catholic population, which is counted on for its financial help to the Holy See and its contributions to papal charities.
The appointment comes during the sensitive time of an election year. Catholics make up about a quarter of the American electorate, but they don't vote as a bloc.
Under Benedict the Vatican has maintained cordial relations with the Obama administration despite deep differences over its support for abortion rights. Some American bishops have taken a harder public stand toward Obama than the Vatican.
Earlier this month, Roman Catholic bishops in the United States released a voter guide for the 2012 election that repeatedly calls abortion "evil" without making revisions that some conservatives had demanded for an even tighter focus on the issue.
Sambi, the late envoy, had helped arrange a meeting between clerical sex abuse victims and Benedict that was one of the focuses of the pope's 2008 visit to the United States.
The Vatican maintains diplomatic relations with 178 countries, most of which maintain two embassies in Rome: one for Italy and one for the Vatican. In addition to normal diplomatic duties, the Vatican envoy to a country plays an important role in the selection of bishops.
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Pernilla August wins Nordic film prize (AP)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark ? Sweden's Pernilla August has won the Nordic Council Film Prize for "Beyond," her feature debut as a director.
August and co-writer Lolita Ray on Monday accepted the 350,000 kroner ($65,200) award ? the biggest film prize in the Nordic region ? from British actress Dame Helen Mirren, the jury's honorary chairwoman.
The film, which tells the story of woman tormented by childhood memories of growing up with alcoholic parents, is also Sweden's candidate for Best Foreign Language Film at next year's Oscars.
As an actress, August is best known for playing the mother of Swedish movie great Ingmar Bergman in his biographical movie "Best Intentions." She also made an appearance in "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace."
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Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Obama basks in Southern hospitality on bus tour (AP)
GREENSBORO, N.C. ? For President Barack Obama, the bus is back.
That's the sleek, million-dollar, Secret Service-approved bus that's been carrying Obama along North Carolina's winding mountain roads, giving the president a chance to take in the fall foliage and bask in some small-town Southern hospitality.
"Saw the mountains, saw some lakes, saw all the wonderful people in this part of the country," Obama said Monday during a speech in rural Millers Creek.
"Even the folks who don't vote for me are nice," he added.
At the heart of Obama's three-day bus trip through North Carolina and Virginia is a sales pitch for elements in the jobs bill he wants Congress to pass.
But the president is also selling himself, an incumbent candidate running for re-election, trying to re-energize voters whose enthusiasm may have waned. That's particularly important in North Carolina, a state Obama wrested from Republicans in 2008, but which could slip out of his grasp next November.
To try to recapture some of his electoral appeal, Obama turned to campaign staples: barbecue, babies and barrels of candy.
Obama spent more than four hours Monday driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains, which were bright with red and orange fall leaves. The president stopped off in Marion, population 8,075, for lunch at Countryside Barbeque. The president ordered at the counter ? he got the barbecue platter and sweet tea ? then spent more than half an hour shaking hands and having his picture taken with the lunchtime crowd.
The tech-savvy president even helped one woman figure out how to take a photo on her smartphone.
Obama had a close encounter with one baby boy: "I think you got some biscuit on me," the president said as he handed the child back to his mother.
And he made personal appeals for his economic policies, telling one table of local businessmen about his call for $50 billion more in new infrastructure spending. He said, "We're going to have to do it eventually, so why not do it now?"
Obama's unscheduled stops aren't wholly impromptu. White House staffers typically scope out areas in advance and Secret Service officers arrive well ahead of the president.
But they're about as spontaneous as it gets for the president, and afford him the freedom of personal, retail politics that's often missing in the highly scripted White House.
Obama's bus, as well as the staff and press vans that followed behind, passed crowds of people lined up on the sidewalks of small towns and residents sitting on lawn chairs in their front yards. A group of schoolchildren gathered outside their classrooms, waving small American flags. A man pulled his car over to the side of the road and saluted as the commander-in-chief sped by.
One woman held a sign reading "We believe. We voted. Now What?" That message underscored the challenge Obama faces as he seeks to rally his supporters ahead of next November's election.
Key to Obama's 2008 success in North Carolina was his campaign's ability to boost voter turnout among young people. And there were plenty of them in Boone, home to Appalachian State University, when Obama stopped Monday for a shopping trip at Mast General Store.
The store was filled with barrels of candy, which Obama started grabbing by the handful ? to help the White House prepare for Halloween, he said.
"On Halloween, the first lady doesn't mind," Obama said of his health-conscious wife.
Day two of Obama's bus trip was to start at a community college near Greensboro and end in Hampton, Va. Hours of drive time was scheduled in between, giving Obama plenty more chances for unscheduled stops.
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Tuesday, October 18, 2011
On the road again, Obama pitches jobs plan (Reuters)
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama sought on Monday to turn up the heat on Republicans blocking his jobs package in Congress as he embarked on a campaign-style bus tour across states vital to his 2012 re-election chances.
Hitting the road again, this time in the swing states of North Carolina and Virginia, Obama attempted to rally public support in pressuring lawmakers to pass at least parts of his $447 billion jobs agenda, even after the plan as a whole was defeated last week.
"We're going to give members of Congress a chance to step up to the plate and to do the right thing," Obama told a cheering crowd at the airport in Asheville, North Carolina, the starting point for his slow-rolling, three-day trek through small Southern towns in a jet-black armored bus.
As Obama spoke, a senior party aide in Washington said Senate Democrats planned to force a vote this week on a portion of the jobs bill. The aide said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is crafting a proposal to provide about $35 billion to help states hire and prevent layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers.
Obama's strategy is to force Republicans to give ground or else be painted as obstructionists impeding his drive to revive the stagnant U.S. economy and reduce high unemployment as voters focus more on looming presidential and congressional election races.
With anti-Wall Street protests gaining momentum across the country, Obama was also expected to try to harness public anger at corporate greed against Republicans he accuses of trying to shield millionaires and billionaires from higher taxes he wants them to pay to help fund his jobs plan.
Obama, whose poll numbers have fallen over public discontent with his economic stewardship, has voiced sympathy with the grievances of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement but has done so cautiously, not least because of his own economic team's ties to the financial industry.
He made no direct mention of the protests in his speech on the airport tarmac, but criticized Republicans for trying to roll back sweeping Wall Street financial reforms that he championed early in his term.
DEADLOCK IN CONGRESS
Republicans say Obama's original jobs package was laden with wasteful spending and counterproductive tax hikes for wealthier Americans. His opponents have accused him of demonizing them and promoting "class warfare" instead of working with them to find areas of agreement.
The deadlock has raised concerns that political dysfunction in Washington will prevent any major steps to spur hiring before the November 2012 elections.
Obama sought to step up pressure on Republicans as his fellow Democrats prepared efforts to push his jobs package piece by piece through Congress.
At Asheville's one-runway airport, he also touted a proposal to spend tens of billions of dollars repairing and modernizing the country's air and ground transportation networks.
Republicans have shown little enthusiasm for either idea, though they have expressed a willingness to consider some other components of Obama's plan.
Obama said, "We can't do nothing. Too many folks out there are hurting right now for us to do nothing."
The White House billed Obama's trip -- his second bus tour through small-town America since he visited the rural Midwest in August -- as a chance to reconnect with ordinary citizens.
While Obama's aides insist his journey is about jobs, not politics, his itinerary takes in two traditionally conservative states he won in the 2008 presidential election but which polls show he is in danger of losing in his bid for a second term.
The bus trip takes place well over a year before the election during a period when incumbent presidents generally are spending their campaign time raising money.
Obama's focus on retail politicking at this stage suggests he realizes he has a tough road in 2012 and has to start early to hammer home his message that Republicans are refusing to join with him in finding ways to fix the U.S. economy.
Though bus tours have become a ritual of presidential campaigning, the White House said Obama's trip was official business with all costs covered by taxpayers, not from his campaign coffers.
His visits to Virginia and North Carolina come against the backdrop of protests against Wall Street excess and economic inequality that began weeks ago in New York and have spread to other cities, inspiring global "Day of Rage" demonstrations against the world financial system over the weekend.
Polls show taxing the rich resonates not only with anti-Wall Street protesters but with many middle-class voters struggling to stay afloat financially in a difficult economy.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Steve Holland; Editing by Deborah Charles and Will Dunham)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111017/pl_nm/us_obama
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Monday, October 17, 2011
?Twilight? Star Nikki Reed & Paul McDonald Married!
“Twilight” Star Nikki Reed & Paul McDonald Married!
Paul McDonald and Nikki Reed were married today in an intimate ceremony at a private ranch in Malibu. The former American Idol contestant Paul McDonald [...]
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