Sunday, July 19, 2009
Costs of health overhaul
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told the nation Saturday his health-care overhaul is financially sound, but a new analysis by congressional budget experts of emerging House legislation said it would increase deficits by $239 billion over a decade.
It was the sixth consecutive day Obama sought to keep the focus on his chief domestic priority in the face of mounting resistance on Capitol Hill, including from conservative Democrats. Republicans also renewed their criticism.
The president’s remarks were released late Friday, a few hours before an update by the Congressional Budget Office said the overall cost of the House bill would “result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period.”
Bombing investigation
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The mangled faces of two suspected suicide attackers may be the main clue linking the bombings of two luxury American hotels in the Indonesian capital with a notorious al-Qaida-linked militant network that has struck many times before.
Investigators worked with medical teams Saturday to reconstruct the remains of the culprits believed to have set off explosions that tore through the restaurants of the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton at breakfast time the day before. Seven were killed, plus the two suspected attackers, and 50 wounded, many of them foreigners.
The method, target and type of bombs used in Friday’s attacks immediately raised suspicions of involvement by the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group and Noordin M. Top, the fugitive Malaysian national who heads a particularly violent offshoot of the network.
Clinton visits India
MUMBAI, India — Off the injured list and back on the world stage, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday gave an impassioned defense of American demands that India and other countries do more to tackle terrorism and global warming.
Opening a three-day visit to India, Clinton sought to emphasize common interests, symbolized by the terrorist attacks in this seaside city last November that killed 166 people. “It must be stopped,” she said, adding that the United States cannot do it alone.
Part of the backdrop to Clinton’s visit is a sense of unease among Indians that the Obama administration is focusing more on its anti-terror campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the expense of attention to the world’s largest democracy.
Clinton is the highest-ranking administration official to stop in India, where she has been widely popular since visiting as first lady in the 1990s.
Captured soldier on video
WASHINGTON — The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials confirmed.
The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript gray outfit. Early in the video, one of his captors holds the soldier’s dog tag up to the camera. His name and Social Security number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting on a bed.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier’s family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban.
5 found slain in Tennessee
FAYETTEVILLE, Tenn. — Five people were found slain in two homes in southern Tennessee on Saturday, some of whom were related, and a sixth person at a Huntsville, Ala., business, said authorities who have a suspect in custody.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm said in an e-mail that 30-year-old Jacob Shaffer, of Huntsville, was being questioned, but no charges have been filed. She said he was sitting on the front porch of one of the homes in Lincoln County when deputies arrived and that he was being held by local authorities.
Intelligence unit pondered
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle key terror suspects, focusing on intelligence-gathering rather than building criminal cases for prosecution, a government official said Saturday.
The recommendation is expected from a presidential task force on interrogation methods that plans to send some findings to the White House on Tuesday.
Associated Press