PRESSCONNECTS: At least twelve people are dead after a gunman went on a shooting spree inside the American Civic Center in Binghamton, [New York] according to preliminary information from state police. A federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press the shooter has been found dead in the building. The law enforcement official said the gunman entered the building through the front while firing. He had already blocked the back door with his car. At one point more than 40 hostages were being held in the building at 131 Front Street — 15 in […]

TIMESONLINE: This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taleban in February. A local Taleban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local r More..eporters. But some residents of Matta have accused the commander of ordering the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage. “Please! Enough! […]

FINANCIAL TIMES: Markets surged on Thursday as world leaders agreed a sweeping package of measures to fight the global recession, including a $250bn increase in the international money supply. Gordon Brown, UK prime minister and host of the G20 summit in London, claimed that the deal marked the emergence of a “new world order” as he announced a range of moves, including a pledge to give a $500bn boost to International Monetary Fund to help struggling emerging economies. In Asia, stocks surged ahead of the summit, with Hong Kong shares’ seeing their biggest daily advance in four months.The rallies continued […]

LOS ANGELES TIMES: A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba. Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said. A Senate news conference Tuesday and one in the House set for Thursday reflect new attempts to lift the travel ban, a key part of the U.S. trade embargo imposed after Fidel Castro took power in Havana in 1959. The broader trade embargo would remain […]

[CLICK TO ENLARGE] DETROIT FREE PRESS: President Barack Obama took charge of Detroit’s auto industry Monday, vowing to transform it into a world leader in fuel-efficient vehicles — but demanding a plan of action within two months. Obama compared the decline of Detroit to a natural disaster, saying it deserved the same kind of emergency attention. But he warned that, within 60 days, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC would either be on a path to independence or on their way out. MORE NEW YORK TIMES: President Obama struck an acceptable compromise on Monday between two unappealing options: letting General Motors […]

ATLANTIC: In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September […]

  CBS NEWS: As CBS News’ Chief Political Correspondent Marc Ambinder points out, the top-rated questions in the “budget” and “fiscal stability” sections of the submissions page concerned the legalization of marijuana. (Here’s one: “With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?”) Hotsheet did not expect President Obama to address the pot questions during the town hall, particularly after the event opened with a […]

TELEGRAPH: Tsutomu Yamaguchi had already been a certified hibakusha, or radiation survivor, of the Aug 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki. But officials have now confirmed that he also survived the attack on Hiroshima three days earlier. Mr Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug 6, 1945, when a US B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He then returned to his home in Nagasaki just in time for the second attack, officials said. “As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognised as a survivor of atomic bombings in both […]

NEW YORK TIMES: For just under an hour on Tuesday night, Americans saw not the fiery and inspirational speaker who riveted the nation in his address to Congress last month, or the conversational president who warmly engaged Americans in talks across the country, or even the jaunty and jokey president who turned up on Jay Leno. Instead, in his second prime-time news conference from the White House, it was Barack Obama the lecturer, a familiar character from early in the campaign. Placid and unsmiling, he was the professor in chief, offering familiar arguments in long paragraphs — often introduced with […]