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Staggered by losses despite two federal rescues, Citigroup is accelerating moves to dismantle parts of its troubled financial empire in an effort to placate regulators and investors.
Shiver Me Timbers
After a seemingly benign start to the winter, the snow started flying just before Christmas and has really piled up around these parts. The shivering and shoveling will continue as another storm arrives on our doorstep tomorrow afternoon. Albeit, this storm will minor compared to its predecessors as it will move through fast and contribute at most a couple more inches to the snowpack.
Criticism of Ex-Official in Hiring at Justice Department
A former senior official at the Justice Department routinely hired Republicans, Federalist Society members and “RTA’s” — “Right-Thinking Americans” — for what were supposed to be nonpolitical posts and gave them plum assignments on civil rights cases, an internal department report released Tuesday found.
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Allergan, the company that turned an obscure muscle paralyzer for eyelid spasms, Botox, into a blockbuster wrinkle smoother, hopes to perform cosmetic alchemy yet again. At the end of the month, the company plans to introduce Latisse, the first federally approved prescription drug for growing longer, lusher lashes.
Russia Cuts Gas And Europe Shivers
Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, halted nearly all its natural gas exports to Europe on Tuesday, sharply escalating its pricing dispute with neighboring Ukraine. The cutoff led to immediate shortages from France to Turkey and underscored Moscow’s increasingly confrontational posture toward the West.
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Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said Tuesday that he would not run in 2010 for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez, ending speculation about whether he could renew the Bush brand in Congress.
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The advertisement on the bus was fairly mild, just a passage from the Bible and the address of a Christian Web site. But when Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, looked on the Web site in June, she was startled to learn that she and her nonbelieving friends were headed straight to hell, to “spend all eternity in torment.”
Obama Seeks Support for His Plan for the Economy
Two weeks before assuming power, President-elect Barack Obama took his economic recovery package to Capitol Hill on Monday and worked to build a bipartisan coalition to endorse his plan of tax cuts and new spending with an urgent appeal “to break the momentum of this recession.”
Anomalously Snowy Winter?
With both winter and 2009 barely underway, Boston has already accumulated over 25 inches of snow. We are well ahead of a normal winter season’s pace of 9 inches up to this point. Interestingly, the 2007-08 winter season started at a similar pace, with about 28 inches reported by early January. That winter tallied over 50 inches, compared to the 40-inch average.
Israeli Shells Kill 40 At Gaza U.N. School
Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a U.N. school in Gaza on Tuesday where they were taking refuge from 11 days of fierce fighting. The Israeli military contended that Hamas fighters had fired mortars from the school compound, and U.N. officials called for an independent inquiry into the incident.
Venture Investors Struggle To Sell Their Start-Ups
In 2008, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists had difficulty cashing out of start-ups, underscoring just how much the financial crisis has pummeled the technology sector.
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Tribune Co., the newspaper and television chain that publishes The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday.
Car Dealers, Hoping for a Bailout, Brace for Closings
As Denny Fitzpatrick, a Chevrolet-Hummer dealer near Oakland, Calif., has watched the top Detroit auto executives plead for money from Congress, he has been rooting for them — but with no great conviction.
Pakistan Raids Militant Camp Impliciated in Mumbai Attacks
After mounting pressure from the United States and India, Pakistani authorities raided a camp run by the militant group suspected of carrying out the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani and U.S. officials said Monday.
Plea by Blackwater Guard Helps U.S. Indict Five Others
In the first public airing of an investigation that remains a source of international outrage, the Justice Department on Monday unsealed its case against five private security guards, built largely around the chilling testimony of a sixth guard about the 2007 shootings that left 17 unsuspecting Iraqi civilians dead at a busy Baghdad traffic circle.
Riots Continue in Greece Over Police Killing of Teen
Violence by youths angry over the killing of a teenager by the police raged across Greece for a third day on Monday as thousands of police officers failed to contain some of the worst rioting in recent years.
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Microsoft offered Monday to abide by a European privacy panel’s request that it reduce the length of time it kept records of Web searches if its rivals, Yahoo and Google, did the same.
Five Charged in 9/11 Attacks Seek to Plead Guilty
The five Guantanamo detainees charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks told a military judge on Monday that they wanted to confess in full, a move that seemed to challenge the government to put them to death and injected new complications in the Bush administration’s military commission system here.
Standard Deviation Forecast: High
As you’re recovering from Monday morning’s low of 14°F (normal low: 30°F), take comfort in the fact that Wednesday’s high temperature is forecasted to approach 60°F (normal high: 43°F). Often the media quotes the climatological average highs and lows as part of their statistics, but an often overlooked piece of information is the standard deviation, especially in mid-latitude climates like Boston. You may have noticed that the variation in temperature during the winter season is quite high. For example, in January of this year, the lowest temperature for the month was 7°F, and just five days later, the high temperature was 67°F! Yet during the summer, the temperature stays within a narrower range. This difference between the season has to do with the temperature gradient that exists between the equator and the poles. During the winter, the gradient is the strongest in a tight band that weaves across the U.S. Depending on the north-south position of that band near Boston, we may see very cold weather (if it is south of us), or very warm weather (if it is north of us).
Putin Questioned as Russian Economy Falters
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin spent much of his annual question-and-answer televised exchange on Thursday seeking to reassure Russians that the effects of the global economic crisis on the country would be minimal. He also denied increased speculation that he might seek an early return to the presidency.