Help with mortgages?

Help with mortgages?

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration announced new steps Wednesday to help more homeowners head off foreclosure. The Senate, in the meantime, worked to complete a bipartisan housing bill the White House says would worsen the mortgage mess.

Scrambling to counter Democratic calls for a broader federal housing rescue, the administration said it would use a Federal Housing Administration program to enable more low- and moderate-income homeowners to refinance into government-insured mortgages with monthly payments they can afford.

Study: Most with mumps in 2006 got 2 vaccines

Most of the college students who got the mumps in a big outbreak in 2006 had received the recommended two vaccine shots, according to a study that raises questions about whether a new vaccine or another booster shot is needed.

The outbreak was the biggest in the U.S. since shortly before states began requiring a second shot for youngsters in 1990.

Nearly 6,600 people became sick with the mumps, mostly in eight Midwest states, and the hardest-hit group was college students ages 18 to 24.

54 workers suffocate

BANGKOK, Thailand — Fifty-four migrant workers from Myanmar suffocated in the back of a seafood truck in southern Thailand while being smuggled to the popular resort island of Phuket, police said today.

An additional 47 workers survived the incident late Wednesday in Ranong province and flagged down police for help, police Col. Kraithong Chanthongbai said. Twenty-one were hospitalized while the rest were detained for questioning, he said.

Of the dead, 37 were women and 17 were men. Police did not immediately know what jobs they were heading for, but illegal Myanmar immigrants in that region generally work in the fishing and construction industries or as maids.

Text messages OK’d for nationwide alert system

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators Wednesday approved a plan to create a nationwide emergency alert system using text messages delivered to cell phones.

Text messages have exploded in popularity in recent years, particularly among young people. The wireless industry’s trade association, CTIA, estimates more than 48 billion text messages are sent each month.

The plan stems from the Warning Alert and Response Network Act, a 2006 federal law that requires upgrades to the nation’s emergency alert system. The act tasked the Federal Communications Commission with coming up with new ways to alert the public about emergencies.

Adoptions from China are taking much longer

NEW YORK — China remains the country of choice for thousands of Americans seeking to adopt a child, but the time frame for new applications is now often triple what it was a few years ago and many families are enduring uncertain, emotionally draining waits.

The longer waits — projected at three or four years for many new applicants — officially are attributed to the large number of foreigners trying to adopt from China coupled with a smaller pool of available children and a slower review process.

Infant girls by the thousands are abandoned every year in China, which has been America’s top source of foreign adopted children since 2000.

Al-Qaida terrorist dead

WASHINGTON — An Egyptian al-Qaida boss believed to be the planner behind the foiled 2006 terrorist plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic is dead of natural causes, U.S. counterterrorism officials said Wednesday.

One official said the strategist, Abu Obeida al-Masri, was also responsible for attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and is linked to the July 7, 2005, attacks on the London transit system.

He is believed to have died of hepatitis in late 2007, a second counterterrorism official said.

Deadly clashes in Nepal

KATMANDU, Nepal — An outburst of bloodshed that killed eight people cast a shadow on an election today meant to cement Nepal’s peace deal with communist insurgents, stoking fears of more violence on voting day.

The voting for a new assembly is meant to usher in sweeping changes.

But with one candidate gunned down, a protester shot dead by police and six former rebels slain in a clash with police, it was clear that fashioning a lasting peace in this largely impoverished, often ill-governed and frequently violent country won’t be easy.

Associated Press