Riots Erupt at Penn State After Legendary Coach Paterno Fired
Published November 10, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Western Black Rhino Declared Extinct
GENEVA — The Western Black Rhino of Africa was declared officially extinct Thursday by a leading conservation group.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature said that two other subspecies of rhinoceros were close to meeting the same fate.
The Northern White Rhino of central Africa is now "possibly extinct" in the wild and the Javan Rhino "probably extinct" in Vietnam, after poachers killed the last animal there in 2010.
A Northern White Rhino seen at the Czech Zoo Kralove Dvur. The species is now considered "possibly extinct" in the wild.
A small but declining population survives on the Indonesian island of Java.
IUCN said Thursday that a quarter of all mammals are at risk of extinction, according to its updated Red List of endangered species.
Phone-hacking scandal: James Murdoch insists he didn't mislead British lawmakers
Senior News Corp. executive blames colleagues for not telling him more about potential evidence of widespread wrongdoing at UK tabloid
News International Executive Chairman James Murdoch gives evidence to a British parliament committee inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal at the company's defunct News of the World tabloid.
LONDON — Senior News Corp. executive James Murdoch insisted Thursday he told the truth when he said he knew nothing of the widespread culture of phone hacking at its British newspaper division.
The News International chairman was being quizzed for a second time in Britain's parliament on Thursday over the scandal that has shaken his father Rupert's media empire.
Murdoch, 38, repeated his earlier assertion that he wasn't told of widespread wrongdoing at the News of the World tabloid when he took over at News International in 2008.
He also blamed other senior News Corp executives for not telling him more about potential evidence of widespread phone-hacking at the title, which was forced to close in July amid public outrage over the practice.
'Clean things up' Murdoch, who is fighting to keep his place in his father Rupert's media empire, said he was ill-informed by then-editor Colin Myler and should have been told more when he approved a large payoff to a hacking victim.
"This was the job of the new editor who had come in... to clean things up, to make me aware of those things," said Murdoch, appearing confident under tough interrogation by lawmakers.
News Corp. long maintained that the hacking was the work of a lone, "rogue" reporter and a private detective who both went to jail for the offence in 2007. Murdoch approved the payoff to hacking victim and soccer boss Gordon Taylor in 2008.
Although James Murdoch has long insisted he knew nothing of the culture of criminality whose exposure has been called "Britain's Watergate," mounting evidence suggests otherwise.
Dems make secret offer to cut deficit by $2 trillion
Democrats generally downbeat, but one describes a GOP offer as 'a breakthrough'
By ANDREW TAYLOR, DAVID ESPO
WASHINGTON — Democrats on Congress' supercommittee secretly presented Republicans with a revised deficit-cutting proposal earlier this week that calls for a blend of $1 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in higher tax revenue over the next decade, officials in both parties said Wednesday night, adding that compromise talks remain alive though troubled.
The previously undisclosed offer scaled back an earlier Democratic demand for $1.3 trillion in higher taxes, a concession to Republicans.
At the same time it jettisoned a plan to slow the growth in future cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits, a provision liberal Democrats oppose.
The one-page proposal was handed to Republicans at a meeting Monday night attended by some but not all members of the supercommittee.
At the same session, GOP lawmakers in attendance advanced a revised proposal of their own that signaled for the first time they would be willing to accept higher revenues as part of a plan to cut deficits over the next decade.
Given the unusual secrecy of the meeting and the committee's Nov. 23 deadline to produce at least $1.2 trillion in savings, it appeared that the pace of activity on the panel was accelerating.
Enormous differences Less clear was whether there was still time to bridge enormous differences on priorities, or whether each side was laying the groundwork for trying to blame the other in case gridlock triumphs.
Super Committee Democrats Reject GOP Tax Proposal
With just two weeks left to craft a deficit reduction package, members of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction remain far from a deal, this according to both Democratic and Republican aides close to the negotiations.Two days after Republicans on the so-called super committee, led by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, offered a $1.5 trillion package that included, for the first time, new tax revenue to the tune of about $300 billion, Democrats are rejecting the offer.
"We have a big gap with respect to where we are on revenue," panel Democrat John Kerry told a handful of reporters Wednesday morning. "The Toomey approach will not work. We've told them that very directly. We have to find a different way to come at it."
The senior Massachusetts senator met behind closed doors in his third floor Capitol office Tuesday night with a key bipartisan core group from the committee, including Toomey, Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Dave Camp, R-Mich., Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
"This is not complicated. They've got to put real revenue on the table that helps us get the job done," Kerry said, adding that he is "still hopeful" a deal can be reached by November 23.
In reality, that deadline will hit even sooner, though. The budget crunchers at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) must get a complete product soon, in order to have time to analyze and score a bill for floor consideration. Super committee aides say CBO must then publish that score by November 21.
Rank and file Republican members, as well as anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, have balked at the GOP offer of new tax revenue, indicating rough sledding ahead, even if the super committee can craft a final product that would garner the approval of a majority of its members.
Toomey and his GOP colleagues on the panel put about $600 billion in total revenue on the table, including auctioning broadcast spectrum space, the sale of excess federal land, Medicare premium increases for wealthier seniors, and modifying tax write-offs for mortgage interest and charitable giving. Some of that total figure, according to one senior GOP aide, was to come from "growth" as a result of predicted improvements in the economy. In exchange, Republicans sought to lower Bush-era tax rates, in particular the top rate from 35% to 28%, as well as, making all of the current marginal income tax rates permanent.
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/11/09/super-committee-democrats-reject-gop-tax-proposal#ixzz1dJiab2AW
Washington Nationals Catcher Ramos Reportedly Kidnapped in Venezuela
Published November 09, 2011
| FoxNews.com
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