Obama seeks $634B over 10 years for health care

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is asking Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy and cut Medicare costs to provide health care for the uninsured while making the just-enacted $400 tax cut for most workers permanent. In his first budget blueprint, Obama proposes setting aside $634 billion over the next decade to expand government subsidized health coverage — a little more than half the money needed to ensure that every American gets medical care.

Obama is also expected to ask Congress for an additional $75 billion to cover the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.

The disclosures came from three administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget won't be made public until Thursday.

Obama's budget proposal would effectively raise income taxes and curb tax deductions on couples making more than $250,000 a year, beginning in 2011. By not extending former President George W. Bush's tax cuts for such wealthier filers, Obama would allow the marginal rate on household incomes above $250,000 to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, said an administration official.

The plan also contains a contentious proposal to raise hundreds of billions of dollars by auctioning off permits to exceed carbon emissions caps Obama wants to impose on users of fossil fuels to address global warming. Some of the revenues from the pollution permits would be used to extend the "Making Work Pay" tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples beyond 2010 as provided in the just-passed economic stimulus bill.

About half of what officials characterized as a $634 billion "down payment" toward health care coverage for every American would come from cuts in Medicare. That is sure to incite battles with doctors, hospitals, health insurance companies and drug manufacturers.

Some of the Medicare savings would come from scaling back payments to private insurance plans that serve older Americans, which many analysts believe to be inflated. Other proposals include charging upper-income beneficiaries a higher premium for Medicare's prescription drug coverage.

To raise the other half, Obama wants to reduce the rate by which wealthier people can cut their taxes through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, local taxes and other expenses to 28 cents on the dollar, rather than the 35 cents they can claim now. Even more money would be raised if the top rate reverts to 39.6 percent as Obama wants.

That proposal is deeply controversial, particularly with colleges and nonprofit institutions that depend on wealthy donors and with lawmakers representing high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey.

And Obama's promise to phase out direct payments to farming operations with revenues above $500,000 a year is sure to cause concerns among rural Democrats.

Even after all those difficult choices — cutting about $2 trillion from the budget over 10 years, administration officials say — Obama's budget still would leave the federal government heavily in the red, with deficits remaining above $500 billion over the second half of the decade.

The budget for 2009 will exceed $1.5 trillion and gradually ease to $533 billion by 2013, administration officials say. That's about 3 percent of the size of the economy, a level the administration says it can maintain through the second half of the decade.

"I think they make pretty good progress the first five (years) given where we are," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "Then they kind of are stuck at 3 percent of GDP."

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, called Obama's proposal to tax the wealthy to finance health care reform a starting point. But he wants to also examine taxing as people's income some of health insurance benefits provided by employers — an idea rejected by Obama in last year's presidential campaign.

Obama's $634 billion head start on health care could easily double as lawmakers flesh out details in coming months on how to provide medical coverage to all of the 48 million Americans now uninsured while also trying to slow increases in health care costs. Those costs now total $2.4 trillion a year and keep rising even as the economy is shrinking.

Independent experts say providing coverage for all could easily cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years, a figure the Obama administration does not dispute.

But the administration also is demanding that any further costs be offset with tax hikes or further spending cuts under stricter pay-as-you-go budget rules.

Budget documents provided to The Associated Press show that Obama will not lay out a detailed blueprint for a health care overhaul, but a set of broad policy principles and some specific ideas for how to raise a big chunk of the money.

The principles include guaranteeing people a choice of insurance plans and doctors and continuing employer-based coverage. Americans also should be able to take their health care benefits with them when they change jobs, an administration official said.

The budget plan also recommends a long-term fix to update the alternative minimum tax for inflation. That could add $150 billion to the deficit by 2013, according to congressional estimates. The AMT was originally designed to make sure the wealthy paid at least some taxes, but it threatens to ensnare some 24 million middle- to upper-income taxpayers next year.

The budget would freeze the estate tax at current levels rather than allowing it to permanently expire next year. That would exempt individuals' estates of $3.5 million or less from the 45 percent estate tax rate, with a $7 million exemption for couples.

Obama is also expected to seek about $534 billion for the Defense Department, administration officials said, an increase over this year's base figure of $513 billion.

Neither figure includes the full cost of fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rolls Royce - will debut a smaller, leaner, less formal car at the Geneva Auto Show on March 3:

will debut a smaller, leaner, less formal car at the Geneva Auto Show on March 3: The 200EX concept is a near-production version of the saloon that will begin production in 2010.

So, is this a smaller Rolls for leaner times? Is the car's gross tonnage some kind of index of global economy?

Not really. The fact is, sales of the Phantom, extended-wheelbase Phantom, Coupe and Drophead Coupe have been brisk, despite the $400,000 to $560,000-plus price tag. The 200EX -- the development of which predates the current financial China Syndrome -- is about extending the brand to compete in the suburban grocery-getter segment. That's a price point in the $230,000 to $300,000-plus range, somewhere just above the coming Aston Martin Rapide and Porsche Panamera.

It's also about amortizing parent BMW's engineering costs in the new 7-series. The 7-series and 200EX will be mechanical first cousins.

But a smaller Rolls? How will that work?

This is a delicate matter. The visual language of Rolls-Royce cars is one of grandeur and monumentality, a kind of enduring classicism and formality somehow outside the stream of time: the long, proud prow, the Parthenon grille, the high shoulders and sweeping contours, the sheer dizzying size of the thing. A Hooper-bodied Phantom from the 1950s looks like it should have its own airport.

Call it the Audacity of Scope.

The marque made a succession of more modestly sized two-doors from the early 1970s to early 2000s called Corniche -- "modest" being relative, since the cars were over 5 meters long. Hard-core enthusiasts have argued that the smaller Rolls precipitated the decline of RR that ultimately ended with the ignominious acquisition by the Germans. (Actually, the cars sold very well, but you can't reason with enthusiasts.) The argument ran that the smaller cars lacked the aristocratic hauteur of the big cars.

Perhaps when it comes to Rolls, size -- avoirdupois, scale, mass, dimension -- matters.

he point was underscored in 2003 when BMW rolled out the frighteningly massive Phantom. Designed by Marek Djordjevic as the first car under German ownership, the car seemed to overcompensate with a spectacular, dreadnought-class grandiosity.

Now Rolls-Royce seems to be getting more comfortable in its own skin: The grilles are smaller (as a percentage of frontal area) and more streamlined and contemporary. The single-bow through line is more windswept, converging at a tapering tail. The glass-to-body ratio is more typical of a modern saloon (in the older cars, the windows are narrow and high above the cliffs of sheet metal).

Judging by the 200EX -- a gracious 5.4 meters long -- Rolls isn't exactly abandoning its road-going arrogance. Note the sweet coach doors (the rear doors have the hinges at the rear, like the larger Phantom).

The question remains: Is a more reasonable, rational car still a Rolls?

NASA satellite crashes near Antarctica

$280-million mission to study global warming fails

A rocket carrying a NASA satellite designed to study global warming crashed near Antarctica, failing to reach orbit after it was launched this morning, according to officials.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite never reached orbit after it took off about 2 a.m. Pacific Standard Time from Vandenberg Air Force Base, NASA said in a posting on its website.

"The spacecraft did not reach orbit and likely landed in the ocean near Antarctica," said John Brunschwyler, the program manager. An investigation into the cause of the launch failure will be started.

"Preliminary indications are that the fairing on the Taurus XL launch vehicle failed to separate," according to the posting on the NASA website. "The fairing is a clamshell structure that encapsulates the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere."

The 986-pound satellite was supposed to observe carbon emissions from its perch about 400 miles in orbit above the plant. The project, which has been planned for nine years, was supposed to last two years.

"Certainly for the science community it's a huge disappointment," said Brunschwyler, Taurus project manager for Orbital Sciences Corp., which built the rocket and satellite. "It's taken so long to get here."

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, based in La Cañada Flintridge, is part of the carbon-monitoring satellite program.

The observatory would have been NASA's first dedicated to monitoring global carbon dioxide problems. Measurements collected from the $280-million mission were expected to help in the study of greenhouse gases and their impact. Carbon dioxide, which has been increasing in the atmosphere, is the leading greenhouse gas.

81st Annual Academy Awards

Actress Kate Winslet poses in the 81st Annual Academy Awards press room

Actress Penelope Cruz poses in the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Slumdog Millionaire - Win 8 Oscars

• Best Adapted Screenplay
• Best Director - Danny Boyle
• Best Sound Mixing
• Best Original Song
• Best Original Song
• Best Original Score
• Best Editing
• Best Picture
• Best Cinematography
• Best Sound Editing

In this groundbreaking rags-to-riches fantasy, 18-year-old orphan Jamal Malik stuns the audience of India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"-style game show by answering every question correctly. The show has to take a break from shooting before it reaches the final 20-million-rupee question, and in the meantime, Jamal finds himself under arrest. How could an unschooled street rat know so much without cheating? The police demand to know, but the answer to that question is neither simple nor multiple-choice.

Obama’s Economic Stimulus Bill Most Ambitious Since Roosevelt

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama today signs into law one of the largest pieces of legislation in U.S. history, a $787 billion behemoth that combines massive tax breaks and government spending designed to resuscitate the moribund U.S. economy.

The size of the new law and its speed moving through Congress -- it was approved within weeks of Obama’s inauguration -- place it among the most significant legislative accomplishments since President Franklin Roosevelt overhauled the U.S. government in his first 100 days, historians and political analysts say.

“We have plenty of big, complicated pieces of legislation that come down the pike, but this bill is unprecedented,” said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst in Washington.

The package contains roughly $300 billion in tax breaks for individuals and businesses, more than $250 billion in direct aid to distressed states and individuals, and almost $200 billion to modernize and improve the nation’s infrastructure. Obama, who will sign the legislation in Denver, the city where he accepted his party’s nomination in August, said it will save or create about 3.5 million jobs.

The measure is just one part of Obama’s three-pronged strategy to revive the U.S. economy. His administration has already revamped a $700 billion financial rescue, passed under George W. Bush, designed to stabilize shaky banks and restart lending to businesses and consumers. Tomorrow Obama will announce extraordinary measures to stem record home foreclosures and arrest the rapid erosion in housing values.

FDR Comparison

“No one’s going to have 100 days like Franklin Roosevelt again, with 15 major pieces of legislation,” said Allan Lichtman, a political history professor at American University in Washington. “But leaving aside that impossible comparison, Obama’s accomplishments stack up very well.”

Even with the size of the stimulus and other measures, Obama, 47, is seeking to temper expectations about how quickly the economic slump can be brought to a conclusion.

“This historic step won’t be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning,” Obama said in his weekly address on Feb. 14. “The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task.”

Payroll Tax Cut

The stimulus plan’s costliest item is a $400 payroll tax cut for individuals and $800 for couples, at an overall cost of $116 billion. Retirees, disabled veterans and others who don’t pay payroll taxes will get a $250 payment. The bill also includes a one-year fix to the alternative minimum tax, costing $70 billion, which will prevent some taxpayers from having to pay extra income taxes this year.

There are $10 billion in breaks for businesses, as well, including faster write-offs for equipment purchased in 2009 and incentives for companies that produce and invest in renewable energy resources such as solar and wind power. A business tax break pushed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will ease near-term tax burdens on companies and buyout firms that restructure debt without entering bankruptcy.

The stimulus plan provides a half-trillion dollars for jobless benefits, renewable energy projects, highway construction, food stamps, broadband Internet access, Pell college tuition grants, high-speed rail projects and scores of other programs.

Debt Limit

To fund itself, the bill raises the nation’s debt limit to about $12 trillion. The cost of the legislation will be spread over 10 years, increasing the budget deficit by $185 billion in fiscal 2009, which ends Sept. 30, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office. The biggest impact, about $400 billion, will come in fiscal 2010.

“There are few times members of Congress are asked to vote for a bill of this size,” said Stan Collender, a former House and Senate Budget Committee analyst. “This is not something you see every day in American history.”

Another unprecedented aspect of the bill is new restrictions on Wall Street pay. They go well beyond the $500,000 cap announced by Obama last month, by restricting bonuses for senior executives and the next 20 highest-compensated employees at companies that receive or have received more than $500 million from the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Bonuses and other incentive pay at companies that took less money will be limited on a sliding scale.

Curbing Bonuses

That may curb bonuses at companies such as Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., each of which received $25 billion from TARP, though the administration will have roughly a year to determine how the pay restrictions are implemented. It’s unclear what will happen at companies like Merrill Lynch, now a unit of Bank of America Corp., which awarded $3.6 billion in bonuses in December.

The Obama administration has expressed reservations about the new pay limits on concerns they will prevent some banks from participating in government stabilization programs or make others rush to exit them, potentially hampering efforts to unfreeze credit markets. So far TARP has injected $195.6 billion in more than 330 U.S. financial institutions.

Pay caps aside, Obama’s administration is touting the bill’s historical significance.

“We’ve passed the most comprehensive sweeping legislation as it relates to economic activity, ever, in a three-week period of time,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told reporters last week.

Energy Tour

Obama will sign the bill at approximately 1 p.m. Denver time, just before the close of the financial markets. Before the signing ceremony at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Obama will tour the solar panel instillation on the building’s roof, highlighting the $37.5 billion investment in energy.

The stimulus measure’s size and scope are matched only by the crisis it was designed to address.

Denver’s unemployment rate is 6.3 percent, up from 4.4 percent one year ago. Home values in the Denver-Aurora area are down 19 percent compared with a year ago, and 1,023 homes were foreclosed in the month of December, according to data provided by the White House.

The U.S. labor market has lost 3.6 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, while the unemployment rate has soared to 7.6 percent from 4.4 percent two years ago, with many economists expecting it to rise to near 10 percent.

Companies from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to General Motors Corp., have announced cuts to their payrolls, underscoring the broad reach of the recession. FedEx Corp., the second-largest U.S. package-delivery company, said it will eliminate 900 jobs in its freight unit.

Working in Phases

Economists say the best scenario is that the stimulus plan will work in phases, first providing relief to cash-strapped consumers, businesses and states, followed by a job-creating lift from the spending on roads, schools, utilities and public transit.

“The hope is, with the stimulus, that we actually stop losing jobs by the end of this year,” said Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington research group aligned with labor unions.

Still, he and other economists say the recession is likely to grow worse through 2009. All of Obama’s programs will need to work in concert, they say, to bring it to an end.

The economy and the financial system need help in tandem, said Alan Blinder, a Princeton University economist and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. “If we don’t do both, we’re cooked.”

For Related News and Information: Treasury stories: NI TRE Credit crunch page: WWCC Government relief programs: GGRP Winners, Losers in TARP: BTCPP MRR4 U.S. Economic Forecasts: ECFC Federal Reserve monetary policy: FOMC

UN: 5 tons of bombs stolen under Hamas guard

ERUSALEM – Five tons of unexploded Israeli bombs stored in the Gaza Strip under Hamas police guard have been stolen, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

U.N. spokesman Richard Miron said the explosives were being stored in Gaza until a U.N. team of disposal experts could disarm them, but they disappeared.

The bombs were dropped on Gaza during Israel's offensive there last month, according to another U.N. official. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said three one-ton bombs and eight quarter-ton bombs were taken from the warehouse in northern Gaza.

"It's clearly extremely dangerous and needs to be disposed of in a safe manner," Miron said. The material was under guard by Hamas police between Feb. 4 and 14 when it was stolen, he said.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner told The Associated Press that the explosives were probably taken by Hamas. He said Israel had been informed by the U.N. about the missing ordnance.

Hamas officials in Gaza contacted by the AP said they had no knowledge of the matter.

The Israeli Haaretz daily reported that a U.N. bomb disposal team has been working in Gaza for the past three weeks, but it has been hindered by Israeli refusal to allow some of its equipment into Gaza or approve an area for neutralizing the explosives.

The paper said several other warehouses hold unexploded ordnance in Gaza, some close to residential areas. There have been no reports of thefts from other locations.

During the 23-day offensive, Israeli aircraft dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza and fired artillery and tank shells, aiming at Hamas strongholds but also leveling apartment buildings in areas said to be under Hamas control. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian figures.

How will the government stimulus plan affect you?

An examination of how the economic stimulus plan will affect Americans.

___ Graphic shows latest breakdown of spending in the congressional stimulus bill agreement

Taxes:

The recovery package has tax breaks for families that send a child to college, purchase a new car, buy a first home or make the ones they own more energy efficient.

Millions of workers can expect to see about $13 extra in their weekly paychecks, starting around June, from a new $400 tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples would get up to $800. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.

The $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don't make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.

Middle-income and wealthy taxpayers will be spared from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy taxpayers pay at least some tax, but was never indexed for inflation. Congress fixes it each year, usually in the fall.

First-time homebuyers who purchase their homes before Dec. 1 would be eligible for an $8,000 tax credit, and people who buy new cars before the end of the year can write off the sales taxes.

Homeowners who add energy-efficient windows, furnaces and air conditioners can get a tax credit to cover 30 percent of the costs, up to a total of $1,500. College students — or their parents — are eligible for tax credits of up to $2,500 to help pay tuition and related expenses in 2009 and 2010.

Those receiving unemployment benefits this year wouldn't pay any federal income taxes on the first $2,400 they receive.

___

Health insurance:

Many workers who lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs will find it cheaper to keep that coverage while they look for work.

Right now, most people working for medium and large employers can continue their coverage for 18 months under the COBRA program when they lose their job. It's expensive, often over $1,000 a month, because they pay the share of premiums once covered by their employer as well as their own share from the old group plan.

Under the stimulus package, the government will pick up 65 percent of the total cost of that premium for the first nine months.

Lawmakers initially proposed to help workers from small companies, too, who don't generally qualify for COBRA coverage. But that fell through. The idea was to have Washington pay to extend Medicaid to them.

COBRA applies to group plans at companies employing at least 20 people. The subsidies will be offered to those who lost their jobs from Sept. 1 to the end of this year.

Those who were put out of work after September but didn't elect to have COBRA coverage at the time will have 60 days to sign up.

The plan offers $87 billion to help states administer Medicaid. That could slow or reverse some of the steps states have taken to cut the program.

___

Infrastructure:

Highways repaved for the first time in decades. Century-old waterlines dug up and replaced with new pipes. Aging bridges, stressed under the weight of today's SUVs, reinforced with fresh steel and concrete.

But the $90 billion is a mere down payment on what's needed to repair and improve the country's physical backbone. And not all economists agree it's an effective way to add jobs in the long term, or stimulate the economy.

___

Energy:

Homeowners looking to save energy, makers of solar panels and wind turbines and companies hoping to bring the electric grid into the computer age all stand to reap major benefits.

The package contains more than $42 billion in energy-related investments from tax credits to homeowners to loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and direct government grants for makers of wind turbines and next-generation batteries.

There's a 30 percent tax credit of up to $1,500 for the purchase of a highly efficient residential air conditioners, heat pumps or furnaces. The credit also can be used by homeowners to replace leaky windows or put more insulation into the attic. About $300 million would go for rebates to get people to buy efficient appliances.

The package includes $20 billion aimed at "green" jobs to make wind turbines, solar panels and improve energy efficiency in schools and federal buildings. It includes $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects as well as tax breaks or direct grants covering 30 percent of wind and solar energy investments. Another $5 billion is marked to help low-income homeowners make energy improvements.

About $11 billion goes to modernize and expand the nation's electric power grid and $2 billion to spur research into batteries for future electric cars.

___

Schools:

A main goal of education spending in the stimulus bill is to help keep teachers on the job.

Nearly 600,000 jobs in elementary and secondary schools could be eliminated by state budget cuts over the next three years, according to a study released this past week by the University of Washington. Fewer teachers means higher class sizes, something that districts are scrambling to prevent.

The stimulus sets up a $54 billion fund to help prevent or restore state budget cuts, of which $39 billion must go toward kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education. In addition, about $8 billion of the fund could be used for other priorities, including modernization and renovation of schools and colleges, though how much is unclear, because Congress decided not to specify a dollar figure.

The Education Department will distribute the money as quickly as it can over the next couple of years.

And it adds $25 billion extra to No Child Left Behind and special education programs, which help pay teacher salaries, among other things.

This money may go out much more slowly; states have five years to spend the dollars, and they have a history of spending them slowly. In fact, states don't spend all the money; they return nearly $100 million to the federal treasury every year.

The stimulus bill also includes more than $4 billion for the Head Start and Early Head Start early education programs and for child care programs.

___

National debt:

One thing about the president's $790 billion stimulus package is certain: It will jack up the federal debt.

Whether or not it succeeds in producing jobs and taming the recession, tomorrow's taxpayers will end up footing the bill.

Forecasters expect the 2009 deficit — for the budget year that began last Oct 1 — to hit $1.6 trillion including new stimulus and bank-bailout spending. That's about three times last year's shortfall.

The torrents of red ink are being fed by rising federal spending and falling tax revenues from hard-hit businesses and individuals.

The national debt — the sum of all annual budget deficits — stands at $10.7 trillion. Or about $36,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

Interest payments alone on the national debt will near $500 billion this year. It's already the fourth-largest federal expenditure, after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense.

This will affect us all directly for years, as well as our children and possibly grandchildren, in higher taxes and probably reduced government services. It will also force continued government borrowing, increasingly from China, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia and other foreign creditors.

___

Environment:

The package includes $9.2 billion for environmental projects at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The money would be used to shutter abandoned mines on public lands, to help local governments protect drinking water supplies, and to erect energy-efficient visitor centers at wildlife refuges and national parks.

The Interior Department estimates that its portion of the work would generate about 100,000 jobs over the next two years.

Yet the plan will only make a dent in the backlog of cleanups facing the EPA and the long list of chores at the country's national parks, refuges and other public lands. It would be more like a down payment.

When it comes to national parks, the plan sets aside $735 million for road repairs and maintenance. But that's a fraction of the $9 billion worth of work waiting for funding.

At EPA, the payout is $7.2 billion. The bulk of the money will help local communities and states repair and improve drinking water systems and fund projects that protect bays, rivers and other waterways used as sources of drinking water.

The rest of EPA's cut — $800 million — will be used to clean up leaky gasoline storage tanks and the nation's hazardous waste sites.

___

Police:

The stimulus bill includes plenty of green for those wearing blue.

The compromise bill doles out more than $3.7 billion for police programs, much of which is set aside for hiring new officers.

The law allocates $2 billion for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, a program that has funded drug task forces and things such as prisoner rehabilitation and after-school programs.

An additional $1 billion is set aside to hire local police under the Community Oriented Policing Services program. The program, known as COPS grants, paid the salaries of many local police officers and was a "modest contributor" to the decline in crime in the 1990s, according to a 2005 government oversight report.

Both programs had all been eliminated during the Bush administration.

The bill also includes $225 million for general criminal justice grants for things such as youth mentoring programs, $225 million for Indian tribe law enforcement, $125 million for police in rural areas, $100 million for victims of crimes, $50 million to fight Internet crimes against children and $40 million in grants for law enforcement along the Mexican border.

___

Higher Education:

The maximum Pell Grant, which helps the lowest-income students attend college, would increase from $4,731 currently to $5,350 starting July 1 and $5,550 in 2010-2011. That would cover three-quarters of the average cost of a four-year college. An extra 800,000 students, or about 7 million, would now get Pell funding.

The stimulus also increases the tuition tax credit to $2,500 and makes it 40 percent refundable, so families who don't earn enough to pay income tax could still get up to $1,000 in extra tuition help.

Computer expenses will now be an allowable expense for 529 college savings plans.

The final package cut $6 billion the House wanted to spend to kick-start building projects on college campuses. But parts of the $54 billion state stabilization fund — with $39 billion set aside for education — can be used for modernizing facilities.

There's also an estimated $15 billion for scientific research, much of which will go to universities. Funding for the National Institutes of Health includes $1.5 billion set aside for university research facilities.

Altogether, the package spends an estimated $32 billion on higher education.

___

The Poor:

More than 37 million Americans live in poverty, and the vast majority of them are in line for extra help under the giant stimulus package. Millions more could be kept from slipping into poverty by the economic lifeline.

People who get food stamps — 30 million and growing — will get more. People drawing unemployment checks — nearly 5 million and growing — would get an extra $25, and keep those checks coming longer. People who get Supplemental Security Income — 7 million poor Americans who are elderly, blind or disabled — would get one-time extra payments of $250.

Many low-income Americans also are likely to benefit from a trifecta of tax credits: expansions to the existing Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, and a new refundable tax credit for workers. Taken together, the three credits are expected to keep more than 2 million Americans from falling into poverty, including more than 800,000 children, according to the private Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The package also includes a $3 billion emergency fund to provide temporary assistance to needy families. In addition, cash-strapped states will get an infusion of $87 billion for Medicaid, the government health program for poor people, and that should help them avoid cutting off benefits to the needy.

Kisses unleash chemicals that ease stress levels

CHICAGO – "Chemistry look what you've done to me," Donna Summer crooned in Science of Love, and so, it seems, she was right. Just in time for Valentine's Day, a panel of scientists examined the mystery of what happens when hearts throb and lips lock. Kissing, it turns out, unleashes chemicals that ease stress hormones in both sexes and encourage bonding in men, though not so much in women.

Chemicals in the saliva may be a way to assess a mate, Wendy Hill, dean of the faculty and a professor of neuroscience at Lafayette College, told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Friday.

In an experiment, Hill explained, pairs of heterosexual college students who kissed for 15 minutes while listening to music experienced significant changes in their levels of the chemicals oxytocin, which affects pair bonding, and cortisol, which is associated with stress. Their blood and saliva levels of the chemicals were compared before and after the kiss.

Both men and women had a decline in cortisol after smooching, an indication their stress levels declined.

For men, oxytocin levels increased, indicating more interest in bonding, while oxytocin levels went down in women. "This was a surprise," Hill said.

In a test group that merely held hands, chemical changes were similar, but much less pronounced, she said.

The experiment was conducted in a student health center, Hill noted. She plans a repeat "in a more romantic setting."

Hill spoke at the session on the Science of Kissing, along with Helen Fisher of Rutgers University and Donald Lateiner of Ohio Wesleyan University.

Fisher noted that more than 90 percent of human societies practice kissing, which she believes has three components — the sex drive, romantic love and attachment.

The sex drive pushes individuals to assess a variety of partners, then romantic love causes them to focus on an individual, she said. Attachment then allows them to tolerate this person long enough to raise a child.

Men tend to think of kissing as a prelude to copulation, Fisher said. She noted that men prefer "sloppy" kisses, in which chemicals including testosterone can be passed on to the women in saliva. Testosterone increases the sex drive in both males and females.

"When you kiss an enormous part of your brain becomes active," she added. Romantic love can last a long time, "if you kiss the right person."

Lateiner, a classical scholar, observed that kissing appears infrequently in Greek and Roman art, but was widely practiced, despite the spread of skin disease at that time by facial kissing. And there was a potential for social faux pas by kissing the wrong person at the wrong time.

Overall, the science of kissing — philematology — is under-researcherd

Baby-faced boy is father at 13

BOY dad Alfie Patten yesterday admitted he does not know how much nappies cost — but said: “I think it’s a lot.”

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.

He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.

for more details

Baby-faced boy is father at 13

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2233878.ece

Deadliest-ever Australian wildfires kill 128

The deadliest wildfires in Australia's history burned people in their homes and cars and wiped out entire towns, officials discovered Sunday as they reached farther into the fire zone. The death toll rose to 128 by Monday.

Blazes have been burning for weeks in the southeastern state of Victoria but turned deadly Saturday when searing temperatures and wind blasts created a firestorm that swept across a swath of the region. A long-running drought in the south — the worst in a century — had left forests extra dry and Saturday's fire conditions were said to be the worst ever in Australia.

Police declared crime scenes Monday in the towns destroyed by wildfire; officials suspect some of the more than 400 fires were deliberately set.

Police have sealed off at least two towns — Marysville and Kinglake — where dozens of deaths occurred — setting up roadside checkpoints and controlling access to the area.

Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said specialist fire investigators were on the ground at one fire site, in Churchill, east of Melbourne, and would go to others.

Kinglake is "where the most deaths are, but wherever a death has occurred we investigate that as a crime," Nixon told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Anyone found guilty of lighting a wildfire that causes death faces 25 years in prison in Victoria.

From the air, the landscape was blackened as far as the eye could see. Entire forests were reduced to leafless, charred trunks, farmland to ashes. The Victoria Country Fire Service said some 850 square miles (2,200 kilometers) were burned out.

Only five houses were left standing out of about 40 in one neighborhood of the hard-hit Kinglake district that an Associated Press news crew flew over. Street after street was lined by smoldering wrecks of homes, roofs collapsed inward, iron roof sheets twisted from the heat. The burned-out hulks of cars dotted roads. A church was smoldering, only one wall with a giant cross etched in it remained standing.

All the deaths occurred in Victoria state, where at least 750 homes were destroyed.

On Sunday, temperatures in the area dropped to about 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) but along with cooler conditions came wind changes that officials said could push fires in unpredictable directions.

Thousands of exhausted volunteer firefighters were battling about a dozen uncontrolled fires Monday in Victoria, officials said. But it would be days before they were brought under control, even if temperatures stayed down.

Residents were repeatedly advised on radio and television announcements to initiate their so-called "fire plan" — whether it be staying in their homes to battle the flames or to evacuate before the roads became too dangerous. But some of the deaths were people who were apparently caught by the fire as they fled in their cars or killed when charred tree limbs fell on their vehicles.

"It does appear that people have been taken by surprise by how fast this fire has come," Victoria police Sgt. Creina O'Grady told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Police and fire officials reached on Sunday the town of Marysville and several hamlets in the Kinglake district, both about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Melbourne. They found the area utterly devastated.

At Marysville, a picturesque hilly district that attracts hikers and tourists and is home to about 800 people, up to 90 percent of buildings were in ruins, witnesses said. Police said two people died there.

"Marysville is no more," Senior Constable Brian Cross told The Associated Press as he manned a checkpoint on a road leading into the town at Healesville.

At least 29 of the deaths were from the Kinglake area. Many residents in hard hit areas said the fires were moving so fast that they hit without warning, something that could have contributed to the unusually high death toll.

But so far officials said they were at a loss to explain why so many people have died. The sheer intensity of the firestorm Saturday may have caused panic among even veterans of wildfires.

Mandy Darkin said she was working at a restaurant in Kinglake "like nothing was going on" until they were suddenly told to go home.

"I looked outside the window and said: 'Whoa, we are out of here. This is going to be bad,'" Darkin said. "I could see it coming. I just remember the blackness and you could hear it, it sounded like a train."

Some fire crews in the same area filled their trucks from ponds and sprayed down spot fires. There were no other signs of life.

On Sunday the prime minister, on a tour of the fire zone, paused to comfort a man who wept on his shoulder, telling him, "You're still here, mate."

When conditions were at their worst on Saturday, the skies rained ash and trees exploded in the inferno as temperatures of up 117 F (47 Celsius) combined with blasting winds to create furnace-like conditions, witnesses said.

Police said they were hampered from reaching burned-out areas to confirm details of deaths and property loss.

Police spokeswoman Marika Sengler in Victoria said Monday that 128 deaths had been confirmed. At least 80 people were hospitalized with burns.

"Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said. "It's an appalling tragedy for the nation."

Rudd announced immediate emergency aid of 10 million Australian dollars ($7 million), and government officials said the army would be deployed to help fight the fires and clean up the debris.

Australia's worst fires before these were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia state.

Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Government research shows about half of the roughly 60,000 fires each year are deliberately lit or suspicious. Lightning and people using machinery near dry brush are other causes.

Dozens of fires were also burning in New South Wales state, where temperatures remained high for the third consecutive day. But there was no immediate threat to property.

Climate change may reshuffle western weeds

Climate change will likely shuffle some of the West's most troublesome invasive weeds, adding to the burden faced by farms and ranchers in some areas and providing opportunities for native plant restoration in others, according to a new study.

In many cases, a warming climate will provide more welcoming conditions for invasive plants to get a foothold, spread quickly and crowd out native species, the study by Princeton University researchers said.

But some invasives may retreat from millions of acres in the West — at least briefly — and offer an opportunity for land managers to re-establish native plants, the study said. The window for action, though, will probably be limited.

"We're going to have to be in the right place at the right time before something else gains a foothold," said Bethany Bradley, a biogeographer at Princeton and lead author on the study.

Nonnative weeds and plants followed in the footsteps, sometimes literally, of European settlers as they spread across the West. Even one of the West's most famous symbols — the tumbling tumbleweed, also known as Russian thistle — isn't from these parts. Its origins are in Russia.

Today, nonnative plants across the West cost millions of dollars in damage to farms and ranches, alter the flow of water and function of ecosystems, provide fuels for fast-burning wildfires, and force government agencies to spend millions in response.

"Every county that I know of in the West has got nonnative or invasive weeds in it," said Steve Dewey at Utah State University's extension office. "My advice to county weed departments is to give new invaders high priority, to stop them before they get out of hand."

Bradley and two other Princeton scientists wanted to look at how changing climate conditions would effect the spread of weeds.

They used 10 atmospheric models predicting how the West's climate will change by 2100. Then they compared predicted changes in precipitation and temperature with the most hospitable conditions for five of the West's most obnoxious noxious plants: cheatgrass, spotted knapweed, yellow starthistle, tamarisk and leafy spurge.

The results were published in the latest edition of the scientific journal Global Change Biology.

Cheatgrass, for instance, will likely retreat from strongholds in southern Nevada and Utah and make further inroads into Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The wispy grass that dominates vast stretches of the Intermountain West, might struggle in some places with warmer temperatures and less water, the study said.

Yellows starthistle may expand in California and Nevada as the climate changes while spotted knapweed moves toward higher elevations and spreads in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, the study showed.

Leafy spurge will probably fade from portions of Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and Oregon. Tamarisk is likely to be unchanged.

The models take into account many of the possible scenarios of a warming climate, but it's still difficult to predict changes at a local level. That's especially true for precipitation, including when it will fall and how much.

"It's a big wildcard out there," Bradley said. "Even small changes in precipitation can have big impacts on invasive and native plants in the western U.S."

And just because climate may drive out one invasive weed, it doesn't mean another won't quickly set up shop, she said. That's why it's important to find viable native plants — even those that are only native regionally, not locally — that can get established before the arrival of another invader, she said.

"The question for policy makers and land managers is, 'What do we want these lands to be?' " David Wilcove, one of the researchers on the study, said in a statement. "These lands will change, and we must decide now — before the window of opportunity closes — whether we do nothing or whether we intervene."

Models like those in the study should play a part in managing weeds in the West in the coming decades, said Dave Burch, Montana's weed coordinator and, until December, chairman of the Western Weed Coordinating Committee.

In many cases, the predictions will help weed managers know which plants to be on the lookout for and prepare for their arrival. Reacting to weed infestations gets expensive. Montana, for instance, spends $21 million a year on fighting weeds and needs to be spending $58 million just to deal of 5 percent of the weeds it already has, Burch said.

"Prevention is the cheapest way to go with weed control," Burch said. "Once you get something here, it's usually too late."

TV stations to end analog signal

Television viewers who use antennas and were expecting a few more months to prepare for digital TV may not have much time left before their sets go dark: Many stations still plan to drop analog broadcasts in less than two weeks.

When Congress postponed the mandatory transition to digital TV until June, it also gave stations the option to stick to the originally scheduled date of Feb. 17.

That means the shutdown of analog signals, which broadcasters had hoped would happen at nearly the same time nationwide, could now unfold in a confusing patchwork of different schedules.

Lawmakers wanted to address concerns that many households that receive TV signals through an antenna are not prepared for the switch. They were also mindful that a government fund has run out of money to subsidize digital converter boxes for older TVs.

Dozens of stations around the country now say they are going to take advantage of the option to drop analog broadcasts this month.

Many others are on the fence. The total number is likely to be in the hundreds, a substantial chunk and maybe even a majority of the country's 1,796 full-power TV stations.

The House voted Wednesday to delay the mandatory shutdown until June 12. The Senate passed the measure unanimously last week, and the bill now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The legislation means analog signals could vanish entirely in some areas but persist in neighboring regions. In rural areas, low-power stations will continue to broadcast in analog even beyond June 12.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission ordered stations that still plan to turn off analog signals on Feb. 17 to notify the FCC by Monday.

Acting Chairman Michael Copps said the commission could prohibit stations from making the switch if doing so is not in the public interest. For instance, if all stations in a market want to turn off early, that would draw FCC scrutiny, he said at a commission meeting.

For many broadcasters, delaying the shutdown is inconvenient and expensive. Many of them have scheduled engineering work on their equipment to make the transition on Feb. 17.

The Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the public broadcasting network in the state, said Thursday that it planned to cease analog transmission from its full-power antennas at 1 p.m. on Feb. 17.

"We have four full-power stations all with 30-year-old-plus analog transmitters that are costly to maintain, putting out less than a quality signal," said Mark Norman, deputy director of technology at OETA.

"Sitting right alongside them are brand-new digital transmitters that have been running now for a few years. We just think it's counterproductive to continue to put money into the old ones."

Keeping the analog equipment in operation until June would cost the station about $200,000 at a time when the state is considering cutting its contribution to the budget, Norman said.

PBS spokeswoman Lea Sloan said about half of the 356 public broadcasting stations across the country will make the switch on Feb. 17. Many will do it for financial reasons. PBS said last month that if all its stations had to delay the switch, it would cost an estimated $22 million.

The Utah Broadcasters Association said the commercial stations in the state still plan to shut down analog on Feb. 17, while the public ones will wait until June.

In Wisconsin, at least two stations in Madison and five in the La Cross-Eau Claire plan to flip the switch on Feb. 17. In Minnesota, at least four stations plan to keep that date, along with five in Iowa.

Copps, the acting FCC chairman, said CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC and Telemundo had committed to keeping the stations they own broadcasting analog until June 12.

Together, they own 85 full-power stations, mainly in large cities. The rest of the stations that carry these networks are affiliates not owned by the network. ABC spokeswoman Julie Hoover said some of its stations may still go early if all other stations in their market do so.

Gannett Co. and Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. also pledged to maintain the vast majority of their stations on analog, Copps said. They own or operate 52 stations.

"These broadcasters deserve our gratitude. I encourage other broadcasters to join them," Copps said.

The transition to digital TV is being mandated because digital signals are more efficient than analog ones. Ending analog broadcasts will free up valuable space in the nation's airwaves for commercial wireless services and emergency-response networks.

In a few areas, including Hawaii, stations have already abandoned analog broadcasting.

TVs connected to cable or satellite services are not affected by the analog shutdown. But that still leaves a lot of people who could see channels go dark on Feb. 17. According to research firm MRI, 17.7 percent of Americans live in households with only over-the-air TV.

Most of them are ready for the analog shutdown, according to the National Association of Broadcasters and analysts at the Nielsen Co. Nielsen said Thursday that more than 5.8 million U.S. households, or 5.1 percent of all homes, are not ready.

At the Oklahoma public broadcasting association, Norman believes viewers are ready for the switch. The network has invited viewers to call in with transition questions on several nights. Each time, the number of callers has been smaller, Norman said.

"We really don't think it's going be as major of an issue as people anticipated," he said.

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder

Recession sending more students to comm. colleges

CONCORD, N.H. – College freshman Elizabeth Hebert's choice of a four-year school suddenly got too expensive. George Haseltine already has a business degree, but he concluded after several layoffs that he needed more training to get work.

Students at New Hampshire Technical Institute walk top class in Concord, N.H., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. Across the country, community colleges report unprecedented enrollment increases driven by students looking for a bigger, or quicker, bang for their buck and by laid-off older workers.

So, in the middle of this school year, both landed at New Hampshire Technical Institute, which like other community colleges across the country has suddenly grown a lot more crowded.

The two-year schools are reporting unprecedented enrollment increases this semester, driven by students from traditional colleges seeking more bang for their buck and by laid-off older workers.

But community colleges aren't exactly cheering in this down economy: Tuition doesn't come close to covering costs, and the state funds used to make up the difference are drying up.

Final figures aren't in for this semester, but a national group representing community colleges says the average increase from spring-to-spring is dramatic, and similar to what New Hampshire is reporting at its seven schools — a range of 4 percent to 19 percent.

The figure is 20 percent in Maine and South Carolina. One school in Idaho has more than twice the number of students this spring over last.

Last fall, Hebert, of Antrim, began her first semester at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts. But as the economy fell, she began rethinking the thousands of dollars in loans she was carrying — at age 18.

"It was the realization of paying $30,000 a year for four years, and then to take that in loans, it was just way too much," said Hebert, who is now paying $3,000 a semester at NHTI.

Haseltine, 25, of Rochester, said he was tired of being laid off from various jobs, so he drives almost an hour for his two-year criminal justice program. He hopes to become a police officer.

"The economy being in shambles pretty much; being constantly laid off; and not having lucrative job offers," he said. "They are three reasons why."

Nationwide, the average annual cost of community college is $2,402, compared to $6,585 in tuition and fees at in-state public four-year schools, according to the College Board. Average tuition and fees for private four-year schools: $25,143.

Factoring in financial aid, the College Board estimates the average net cost at community colleges is only about $100.

"We have seen it even more and more, mom and dad saying 'Come back home, we can't afford it,'" said Jim McCarthy, admissions director at Pennsylvania's Northampton Community College, where spring enrollment is 10.4 percent higher than a year ago — and for the first time is higher than it was in the fall semester.

New Hampshire is marketing the transfer trend.

"I was going to a much larger school out of state and paying $45,000 a year to go there," straight-A business major Elizabeth Leone says in a TV ad. "I am getting a better experience here at NHTI and it's more affordable and closer to home."

Leone transferred last fall after racking up $20,000 in loans and putting $5,000 more on credit cards for her first year at college in Pennsylvania. She couldn't imagine how much more she would have had to borrow to return.

Going to a community college doesn't require giving up on hopes for a bachelor's degree, since credits often transfer to four-year schools. States including New Hampshire, Maryland and New Jersey have made it easier for students to begin their higher education at a community college and end it at a university.

Several community colleges can trace a bump in enrollment to area layoffs. In Boise, Idaho, after semiconductor maker Micron Technology laid off 1,500 workers, 243 students enrolled at the Larry Selland College of Applied Technology for this spring, more than double last spring's enrollment.

Northampton waives a semester's tuition for people laid off in the last 12 months because of the economy. This semester, 260 students enrolled through the program, more than twice what the school expected.

So why, with enrollment skyrocketing, are many community colleges hurting?

"I get that every place I go," said John Fitzsimmons, president of Maine's community college system. "People can't understand, with more customers, why that isn't good news."

Tuition covers just 25 percent of the cost of education in Maine's system. Other community colleges vary, but all depend on counties or states that in many cases are cutting their funding.

Maine reported spring enrollment increases of 20 percent, after laying off employees and leaving vacant positions open to cope with a $2.9 million state cut. At Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina, the president and two vice presidents are teaching classes because of a $2.3 million cut last fall.

Arizona community colleges have absorbed $19.3 million in cuts and may lose all remaining state aid, said Norma Kent, spokeswoman at the American Association of Community Colleges. Some systems have had to reject thousands of applicants, she said.

"Community colleges are built on access, so for us to turn someone away is like a surgeon saying 'I won't operate on someone who is having a heart attack,'" Kent said.

Community colleges hope the impending federal economic stimulus plan will help keep the doors open. Competing House and Senate versions include billions of dollars for Pell Grant financial aid, long-delayed facility improvements and expansions and job retraining programs.

Maine's Fitzsimmons is all for it, saying "intellectual infrastructure" deserves as much stimulus as roads and bridges.

"Taking people out of the unemployment lines and putting them in school is a great way to take pressure off the economy," he said, "and when we come out (of the recession) we will have people with higher skills and better opportunities waiting for them."

financial crisis

BEIJING (Reuters) – Millions of migrant workers may be out of a job and China's once booming economy may be locked in a downward spiral as the global economic crisis bites, but for a particular Chinese brand of humor it's been a boon.

Many of the jokes have been circulating online, or via text message in a country whose population is obsessed with their mobile phones.

A bank worker calls a colleague, goes one joke on the tiexue.net bulletin board.

"Hey, how's it been going?"

"Not so bad."

"Oh, sorry, I've definitely called the wrong number."

Others adopt a similar tone, but riffing off Communist propaganda slogans.

"In the face of the financial crisis, I have bravely stood up and am marching forward! That's because ... I can't pay back my loans and the bank has repossessed my car."

Internet use has exploded in recent years, but the government keeps a close tab on what appears, removing offensive comments or detaining those who criticize too much on certain sensitive topics, such as human rights.

This hasn't stopped people taking to the Internet to laugh about the crisis, or crack witticisms.

Other Chinese have been messing around with word games, albeit not to everyone's taste, the tonal Chinese language being a gift to jokers and wits alike because a single pronunciation can have several wildly different meanings.

A posting on popular Chinese website sina.com.cn cautions people about sending text message greetings for the Lunar New Year, which was marked last week, lest their meanings be misinterpreted.

The website has published a list of greetings not to send.

"Wealth surging in" is out, as it has the same pronunciation as "Lay-offs surging in."

Likewise, the website cautions people not to wish friends or family "May you have everything you wish for," fearing it could be interpreted as "Pay cut by 40 percent."

The issue has struck an especially raw nerve in China, where superstitions attached to the new year period are strong.

"The atmosphere in the office is very tense, and texts which in past years may have meant good luck are now being seen as a stroke of bad luck," the website paraphrased one worker as saying.

Another joke circulated by text message pokes fun at the fake money which is becoming a worry as incomes start to falter amid what the government calls the "financial tsunami."

"Two people produce fake 15 yuan notes," it starts, already unlikely in itself as there is no such thing as a 15 yuan bill in China.

"They decide to go to a remote mountain area to spend it and buy a candied melon slice for 1 yuan. They burst into tears when they get two 7 yuan notes in change," it ends, the joke being there is also no such thing as a 7 yuan note.