The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 3A The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS NEW YORK Pain meets her first world leaders Sarah Palin met her first world leaders yesterday. It was a tightly controlled crash course on foreign, policy for the Republican vice presidential can- didate, the mayor-turned-governor who has been outside North Amer- ica just once. Palin sat down with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. The conversations were private, the pictures public, meant to build her resume for voters concerned about her lack of experience in world affairs. "I found her quite a capable woman," Karzai said later. WASHINGTON Dems to allow offshore drilling ban to expire Democrats have decided to al- low a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer. House Appropriations Commit- tee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters yesterdaythat apro-. vision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Con- gress recesses for the election. Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after' * gasoline prices spiked this sum- mer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July. SACRAMENTO, Calif. Schwarzenegger- signs Calif. budget 85 days late Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the most overdue state bud- get in California history yesterday, skipping the usual fanfare because he said the Legislature's efforts on the $144.5 billion spending plan were nothing to celebrate. Nearly a quarter of the way through its fiscal year, the state finally has freed up billions of dol- lars to pay medical clinics, nursing homes, daycare centers and con- tract vendors. The 85-day impasse stemmed from a partisan legisla- tive standoff over how to close Cal- ifornia's $15.2 billion deficit. UNITED NATIONS Iranian president: American empire nearing collapse Iran's president addressed the U.N. General. Assembly yester- day declaring that "the American empire" is nearing collapse and should end its military involve- ment in other countries. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said terrorism is spreading quickly in Afghanistan while "the occupiers" are stillin Iraq nearly six years after Saddam Hus- sein was ousted from power in Iraq. "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit their interference to their own bor- ders," Ahmadinejad said. He accused the U.S. of starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to win votes in elections and blamed a "few bullying powers" for trying to undermine Iran's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad's hardline rheto- ric came as no surprise and offered little in the way of compromise at the U.N., where he faces a new round of sanctions if no agreement is reached on limiting Iran's nucle- ar capabilities. - Compiled from Daily wire reports 4,17 Number of American service mem- bers who have died in the war in Iraq, according to The Associated Press. The following service mem- bers were identified by the Depart- ment of Defense yesterday: Sgt. Matthew J. Taylor, 25, Charleston, S.C. Stocks keep falling as lawmakers weigh bailout Congress working on $700-billion financial fescue plan NEW YORK (AP) - Financial mar- kets extended their declines yesterday as investors worried that lawmakers were beginning to doubt the necessity of a broad government bailout for financial institu- tions as a way to revive ailing credit mar- kets. Top economic officials updating Con- gress about efforts to work out a $700 bil- lion financial rescue plan faced a greater degree of second-guessing from lawmakers than some investors had expected. The Dow Jones industrials, which had been higher for the first half of the session ended at the lows of the day, tacking a 161-point loss onto a steep drop from Monday. Still, trading appeared more orderly than Monday, when investors rushed into hard assets like oil and gold. Meanwhile, demand remained high for 3-month Treasury bills, considered the safest short-term finan- cial asset, while the dollar regained some ground after being hard hit Monday. After days of intense gyrations in finan- cial markets, investors are anxious about whether the, plan to absorb bad mortgages and othe' risky assets will help steer the economy onto more solid footing - and also Bernanke told the Senate Banking Com- mittee Congress risks triggering a recession if it doesn't act on the plan. He said inaction could leave a range of businesses unable to borrowthe money while consumers could find it impossible to finance big purchases like cars and homes. While financial markets showed uneasi- ness as investors listened to the testimony, there wasn't the level of fear and volatility that dominated Monday's trading. Demand for short-term Treasurys remained high. The yield on the 3-month T-bill fell to 0.79 percent from 0.88 percent on Monday; last week, it was around zero after investors flooded money into T-bills as the credit markets seized up. That spurred government officials to propose a debt buy- out plan. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which trades opposite its price, fell to 3.80 percent from 3.85 percent late Monday. The dollar, 'whose decline Monday drove some of the frenetic trading in other markets, regained some of its lost ground against the euro, while gold prices declined after starting the week with a big advance. The Dow fell 16L52, or 1.47 percent, to 10,854.17 after having risen more than 125 points in the early going and then falling by more than 180. With Monday's 370-point decline, the blue chips are down 534 points, or 4.69 percent, for the week. Stocks dropped yesterday as Wall Street investors became increasingly concerned that lawmakers may back out of a plan that would help bail out financial institutions. The Dow Jones index has dropped 161 points-since Monday. about resistance to the plan in Congress. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox testified before lawmakers, who are working alongside oth- ers in the Bush administration to complete 'the details of the bailout. Traders grew nervous, and sent the stock marketlower, as the officials faced questions about whether the government's planned response was appropriate. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for example, asked wheth- er $150 billion might be adequate to get the program started if investors were told more money could be added if necessary. The market remains uncertain about how long it will take for the bailout plans to take effect, and assuming they do, how effective they will be.. "There's skepticism about whether the $700 billion number is the right number," said Jim Herrick, manager and director of equity trading at Baird & Co. Poll: Obama hasn't won over Clinton supporters WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama's support from backers of Hillary Rodham Clinton is stuck smack where it was in June, a poll showed yes- terday, a stunning lack of prog- ress that is weakening him with fellow Democrats in the close presidential race. An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll shows that among adults who backed his rival during their bitter primary campaign, 58 percent now sup- port Obama. That is the same percentage who said so in June, when Clinton ended her bid and urged her backers to line up behind the Democratic senator from Illinois. The poll shows that while Obama has gained ground among Clinton's supporters -69 percentviewhim favorablynow, up 9 percentage points from June - this has yet to translate into more of their support. In part, this is because their positive views of Republican presidential nominee ' John McCain have also improved during this period. The share of Clinton supporters sayingthey'll vote for McCain edged up from 21 percent to 28 percent, with the number of undecided stay- ing constant, according to the survey, conducted by Knowl- edge Networks. Clinton backers' reluctance to support Obama helps explain why he is having a tougher time solidifying partisan support- ers than McCain. Overall, 74 percent of Democrats say they will vote for Obama, compared with 87 percent of Republicans behind the Arizona senator. About nine in 10 Clinton sup- porters are Democrats. The problem that supporters of Clinton, the New York sena- tor, have with Obama seems to flow from their measure of him as a candidate not from issues. From establishing a timeline for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq to abortion to canceling tax cuts on the rich, their views of the importance of issues are virtu- ally identical to Democrats in general. Yet they find Obama less lik- able, honest, experienced and inspiring than Democrats over- all do, and have a better view of McCain. And while majori- ties of Clinton supporters say Obama shares their values and understands ordinary Ameri- cans, they're less likely to say so than Democrats overall. "It's just a gut feeling, my gut tells me he's not it," Leslye Burgess, 53, a federal Treasury Department manager and Clin- ton supporter from Fairfax, Va., said of Obama. The GOP's selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate has had no net impact on Clin- ton loyalists - a group Repub- licans were hoping to lure by picking the Alaska governor. Twenty-one percent in the poll said Palin on the ticket makes them likelier to back McCain, 21 percent said it makes them less likely, and 58 percent said it had no impact. \ vertonwireless # b Grab hold of one of these full QWERTY keyboard messa I- Samsung Glyde 1799 Bea texting machine. $129.99 2-yr price -$50 mail in rebate debitcard. 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