The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 3
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
WASHINGTON
Bush, Congress
agree to some
bailout terms
Scrambling for a swift deal on
the $700 billion bailout for fail-
ing financial firms, key Democrats
and Bush administration officials
agreed Monday to include mort-
gage help for beleaguered hom-
eowners but wrangled over other
issues, including "golden para-
chutes" for executives who benefit
from the unprecedented rescue.
Democrats demanded that the
measure limit pay packages for
executives of companies helped by
the biggest financial rescue since
the Great Depression. The admin-
istration was balking at that, and
also at a proposal by Democrats
to let judges rewrite mortgages
to lower bankrupt homeowners'
monthlypayments.
GALVESTON, Texas
After Ike, Texas
governor seeking
$2.3 billion in aid
As repair crews work to make
this hurricane-ravaged island
city inhabitable for the thousands
of residents set to return this
week, the mayor is seeking more
than $2 billion in emergency fed-
eral aid.
Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, along
with officials from the Port of
Galveston and the University of
Texas Medical Branch will meet
with a Senate ad hoc committee
in Washington today. They, will
seek $2.3 billion in emergency ap-
propriations: nearly $1.2 billion for
Galveston; about $600 million for
the city's hospital; and about $500
millionforthe port.
MOGADISHU, Somalia
50 killed in clashes
in Somali capital
Somalia'swarringsidespounded
the capital with mortar rounds and
gunfire yesterday, killing 30 people
- including a family of seven - as
Islamic insurgents who want to
topple the government gain signifi-
cant power.
Monday's fighting pitted insur-
gents against government forces
and their Ethiopian allies, who
come under regular attack in
Mogadishu, one of the most vio-
lent cities in the world. The vio-
lence left bodies in city streets.
When the blasts calmed, young
men ventured out to transport the
gravely wounded to hospitals in
rickety wheelbarrows.
BEIJING
Head of China's
product watchdog
program resigns
The head of China's food safety
watchdog resigned yesterday for
failing to stop the widespread
contamination of baby formula as
the number of children sickened
in the scandal soared to nearly
53,000, including four infants
who died.
The shake-up came as investi-
gators revealed that China's big-
gest producer of powdered milk,
Sanlu Group Co., had received
complaints as early as December
2007 linking its infant formula to
illnesses in babies. Months later,
tests revealed the milk was taint-
ed with the industrial chemical
melamine, which causes kidney
stones and can lead to kidney fail-
ure.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
-U.S. DEATHS
4,169
Number of American service
members who have died in the
war in Iraq, according to The
Associated Press. The following
service members were identified
by the Department of Defense
yesterday:
Chief Warrant Officer Corry A.
Edwards, 38, Kennedale, Texas,
Sgt. Daniel M. Eshbaugh, 43,
Norman, Okla.,
Staff Sgt. Anthony L. Mason,
37, Springtown, Texas,
Sgt. Julio C. Ordonez, 54, San
Antonio,
Chief Warrant Officer Brady J.
Rudolf, 37, Oklahoma City,
Cpl. Michael E. Thompson,
23, Harrah, Okla.
Capt. Robert Vallejo II, 28,
Richland Hills, Texas
Councilvotes to let food
vendors stay on sidewalks
THREE DOGS WALK UP TO A BAR
Under new rules,
carts cannot be
driven or attached
to generators
By SARA LYNNE THELEN
Daily StaffReporter
Score one for the vendors of
sidewalk curry, tamales to go or
convenient between-class hot
dogs.
The Ann Arbor City Coun-
cil approved an amendment to
city code yesterday allowing
sidewalk food vendors to keep
their vending permits and stay
in operation on the city's side-
walks. The council passed the
proposal 10-1, with Marcia
Higgins (D-Ward 4) the only
member to vote against it.
The amendment had been in
the works since March, when
city officials threatened to
revoke vending permits, cit-
ing a 1947 city ordinance that
banned vehicles from public
sidewalks.
The new code allows vend-
ing carts on sidewalks as long as
they aren't driven, attached to
generators or left out for more
than 24 hours at a time.
"We don't need our sidewalks
turned into a county fair food
court," councilmember Stephen
Kunselman (D-Ward 3) said.
Kunselman, the council mem-
ber who pushed to revive the
1947 ordinance, has since been
working with city officials to
redraft the ordinance language
to accommodate vendors while
avoiding problems like loud gen-
erators, obstructed public signs,
tire damage to curbs and vend-
ing carts that don't get cleaned
after every 24 hours of use.
"This provides for clean and
safe activity," he said.
Anxiety over bailout sends stocks
tumbling, drives up oil prices
Dollar drops as
worries spread over
rescue package cost
NEW YORK (AP) - Elation
in the financial markets over the
$700 billion bank bailout plan
evaporated Monday and was
replaced by all-too-familiar
anxiety, pummeling stocks and
sending oil prices to their big-
gest one-day gain.
Worries that the rescue pack-
age would cost too much, drive
up inflation, swell the already-
bloated deficit and hurt the ailing
economy also led global investors
to flee the U.S. dollar.
The Dow Jones industrials
lost 372 points, wiping out the
gains the index made Friday
after administration officials
and congressional leaders prom-
ised swift action to get bad debt
off the books of banks and end
the financial crisis.
"Investors had a weekend
to look at the news that was
streaming out, and they are now
finding fault in it," said Joseph
Battipaglia, market strategist
in the private client group at
the investment firm Stifel Nich-
olaus.
Oil prices briefly spiked more
than $25 a barrel before fall-
ing back to settle at $120.92, up
$16.37, on the New York Mercan-
tile Exchange. That shattered
the previous record for a one-
day jump in crude oil, $10.75.
Monday was also the last day
for investors to trade the Octo-
ber oil futures contract, adding
fuel to the rally. But the Novem-
ber contract also saw a sharp
gain, up $6.62 to $109.37.
The government agency that
regulates commodities mar-
kets said it was working with
Nymex to "ensure that no one
is taking advantage of the cur-
rent stresses facing our finan-
cial marketplace for their own
manipulative gain."
The Commodity Futures
Trading Commission said in a
statement it was "closely moni-
toring today's large movement
in the price of crude oil."
Analysts said some of the
gain could have come from large
investors trying to cover short
positions, or bets that prices
would fall.
Four days after word of a
massive governmentrescue plan
began to hit the market, inves-
tors had little by way of details.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paul-
son introduced the plan Satur-
day in a document that ran less
than three full pages.
By Monday, investors still
knew little about how the Bush
administration would pay for
mopping up the bad debt, how
the process would work, who
would run it and what the Dem-
ocratic-controlled Congress
would ask for to approve the
plan.
The Bush administration is
already forecasting that the
federal deficit will hit a record
$482 billion next year. Analysts
say the bailout costs mean a $1
trillion annual deficit is not out
of the question.
"When you try to print $1 tril-
lion, that will kill your currency,
lifting oil prices, which then in
turn will not help the stock mar-
ket," said Gary Kaltbaum, who
runs the money management
firm Kaltbaum and Associates
in Orlando, Fla. "It is a vicious
cycle, and we are seeing that
right now."
Lacking specifics, many
investors - especially foreign-
ers - sold U.S. dollars on wor-
ries that paying for the plan
would increase the federal
deficit and exacerbate inflation.
Over the past year, overall infla-
tion is at 5.4 percent.
(JENNIFER KRON/DAILY)
Jennifer Peck, of Toledo, sits outside of Ashley's on Monday with her dogs Gus and
Buzz, and her friend Stephanie's dog, Shadow.
Biden C zscritczes a
mockingMcCain
WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack month, part of an aggressive push
Obama's running mate says a to slow McCain's rise in the polls
campaign ad that mocked Repub- after he chose Alaska Gov. Sarah
lican presidential candidate John Palin to be his running mate. It
McCain as an out-of-touch, out- included unflattering footage of
of-date computer illiterate was Sen. McCain at a hearing in the
"terrible" and would not have early '80s, wearing giant glasses
been done had he known about and an out-of-style suit, inter-
it. spersed with shots of a disco ball,
Obama, McCain's Democratic a clunky phone, an outdated con-
rival, launched the ad earlier this puter and a Rubik's Cube.
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