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McCain credits Bush for drop in oil price

By Carolyn Kaster (AP)

Republican John McCain is crediting the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

The cost of oil and gasoline is "on everybody's mind in this room," McCain told a town-hall meeting Wednesday.

He criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for opposing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Ten days ago, Bush lifted a 1992 presidential ban on offshore drilling and urged Congress to do likewise. McCain said, "The price of oil dropped...

By OMAR RASHIDI (AP)

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama donned a Jewish skullcap at Israel's Holocaust memorial on Wednesday and vowed to preserve America's close ties with Israel in a dramatic visit to the Holy Land in which he also promised the Palestinians to push vigorously to win them a state.

Obama clearly was trying to allay fears on both sides on how he would tackle their stubborn conflict.

Many Israelis are concerned that Obama _ a first-term U.S. senator with little foreign policy experience _ would push Israel too hard in negotiations with the Palestinians. His family's Muslim roots hav...

By Chris Carlson (AP)

The rules in the Obama household for Malia and Sasha are clear-cut:

_"No whining, arguing or annoying teasing," their mother, Michelle Obama, told People Magazine.

_Make the bed. "Doesn't have to look good, just throw the sheet over it," said the mother of 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha.

_Set your own alarm clock. "They get themselves up, get their own clothes," said their grandmother Marian Robinson.

_And the allowance from Dad for doing chores is $1 a week. Barack Obama conceded that "I'm out of town for weeks at a time, so Malia will say, 'Hey yo...

By Sebastian Scheiner (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama toured Israel's Holocaust memorial Wednesday, laying a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews who died and saying, "Ultimately, this is a place of hope."

Obama toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on a Jerusalem hillside as he moved through a busy day of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Democratic nominee-in-waiting is on a tour of the Mideast and Europe, a journey financed by his campaign and designed to reassure skeptic...

By Dan Balilty (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama toured Israel's Holocaust memorial Wednesday, laying a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews who died and saying, "Ultimately, this is a place of hope."

Obama toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on a Jerusalem hillside as he moved through a busy day of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Democratic nominee-in-waiting is on a tour of the Mideast and Europe, a journey financed by his campaign and designed to reassure skeptic...

By OLIVIER FITOUSSI (AP)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to tell Barack Obama on Wednesday that he must immediately turn his attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if he is elected U.S. president, or risk losing gains made in peace talks with Israel.

Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is touring the Mideast and has scheduled to meet with Abbas for 45 minutes at Palestinian government headquarters in the West Bank.

Palestinians are hoping the visit means that he will focus on the conflict immediately once in office and push whatever gains that have already been made....

By Dan Balilty (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama held a breakfast meeting Wednesday with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the first event in a day packed with meetings and travel across Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Neither man spoke to reporters as they posed for news cameras at the plush downtown King David Hotel before sitting down to a breakfast of smoked salmon and local cheeses.

After the Barak meeting, Obama met opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. He was also scheduled to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and call on President Shimon...

By Paul Beaty (AP)

Charles T. Payne was 20 years old and, like any good Midwesterner, he knew how to listen.

He was making conversation, in pieced-together English and German, with a freed prisoner of Ohrdruf, the Nazi work camp Payne's infantry regiment had just liberated at the end of World War II.

"With great difficulty we conversed and, if I got what it was he was telling me about, it was that the Germans had killed a million Jews and that the world didn't really know this yet," Payne, 83, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday as, on the other side of the world, his great-nephe...

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Is there anything new a presidential candidate can say about the absence of peace in the fragile Middle East?

Anything beyond a promise to work at it hard?

Barack Obama is not offering a sure-to-work formula to bring Israel and its Arab neighbors together.

The Democratic candidate for president is speaking of the security needs of Israel and the economic hardships of the Palestinians.

But the bottom line is, and will always be, it is up to the parties and not the American president to make peace.

"It's unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can...

By (AP)

It was long past sunrise and still no clue: Where's Barack Obama?

Was he having breakfast with soldiers? No reply from the military. A market visit perhaps? No sign of that. Then word trickled in Tuesday that he was spotted west of Baghdad having tea with Sunni tribal leaders who have joined the fight against insurgents.

Obama's tour through America's war zones became an international game of hide-and-seek.

No event by the Democratic presidential contender was announced in advance during his swing through Afghanistan and Iraq with two breathers in Kuwait. News dripped o...

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama stepped into the thicket of Mideast politics Wednesday, declaring that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are strong enough internally to make the bold concessions necessary for peace.

Obama said he would work to bring the two sides together "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office." But he cautioned it is "unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region."

He made his comments within a few hours of stepping off a military aircraft _ a presidentia...

By Carolyn Kaster (AP)

Yet another town-hall meeting isn't doing the trick. Neither is dropping in on a former Republican president. So just what can John McCain do to draw attention away from his showy Democratic rival?

Pick a running mate, perhaps.

Speculation swirled Tuesday that McCain might name his vice presidential partner within the next few days _ right in the middle of Barack Obama's overseas tour.

McCain aides were not helping tamp down the speculation with their comments, often made late in the afternoon, of "no announcement today."

But what about tomorrow? Or where? On Tue...

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Jordan, Israel and Germany aren't normally known as swing states in a presidential campaign. But Barack Obama's off to a fast start in his attempt to change that with an election-season tour designed to show him as a potential commander in chief, equally comfortable sitting down _ presidential style _ with kings and other foreign leaders.

"The objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people ... who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years," he said recently, evidently looking beyond this fall's election to a second term in the White House...

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama is vowing to work for a breakthrough in Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office."

He said he would continue to regard Israel as a valued ally. "That policy is not going to change," he said.

Obama told a news conference, "What I think can change is the ability of the United States government and a United States president to be actively engaged with the peace process and to be concerned and recognize the legitimate difficulties that the Palestinian people are experiencing right now....

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says that security in Iraq has improved but now the country's needs must be addressed politically and diplomatically.

The Illinois senator was speaking in Amman, Jordan, during the first news conference of his highly publicized trip abroad. Obama summarized what he saw in Iraq this way: "There is security progress, but now we need a political solution."

Obama and his two traveling Senate companions, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, emphasized the need to turn U.S. attention to Afghanistan. Obama say...

By (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama traveled to a former hotbed of the Sunni insurgency on Tuesday for talks with tribal leaders who joined the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq and now seek a deeper role in Iraq's political future.

Obama, wrapping up his stop in Iraq, gathered with leaders of the so-called Awakening Council movement in Ramadi, one of the main cities of the western Anbar Province where al-Qaida once had the upper hand against embattled U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Tribal sheiks last year began an uprising against insurgents that is credited with uprooting...

By WATHIQ KHUZAIE (AP)

Europe is about to give Barack Obama one of the grandest of stages for statesmanship.

In this city where John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all made famous speeches, Obama will find himself stepping into perhaps another iconic moment Thursday as his superstar charisma meets German adoration live in shadows of the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. He then travels to Paris and London where he can expect to be greeted with similar adulation.

It's not only Obama's youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic. For Europeans, there have...

By SSG Lorie Jewell (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama intends to visit a southern Israeli town that is a frequent target of rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, campaign aides accompanying him on his Mideast trip said Tuesday.

The stop in Sderot is part of a crowded day of events on Wednesday in which the Illinois senator has also arranged to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank and with Israeli leaders.

Obama is on a weeklong trip of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe. He was due in Jordan later Tuesday for talks with King...

By SSG Lorie Jewell (AP)

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama intends to visit Sderot, a southern Israeli town that is a frequent target of rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, on Wednesday as part of his Mideast trip, campaign aides said Tuesday.

The Illinois senator also intends to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank on Wednesday, as well as with Israeli leaders.

Obama is on a weeklong trip of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe. He was due in Jordan later Tuesday for talks with King Abdullah.

Aides said Obama wanted to visit...

By Jeff Chiu (AP)

A top foreign policy adviser to John McCain has lobbied the National Security Council, Congress and the State Department on behalf of Stephen Payne, the Texas businessman and longtime Republican fundraiser caught up in a controversy over whether he sought to sell access to the Bush White House.

According to records on file with Congress, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann lobbied the Senate and House on behalf of Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners Inc., in 2002.

Scheunemann also lobbied the National Security Council and the State Department regarding...

By Carolyn Kaster (AP)

The New York Times defended its decision not to publish an op-ed article as submitted by Republican John McCain about the Iraq war on grounds it customarily reviews such pieces with the author.

McCain's presidential campaign sent the newspaper the op-ed on Friday. In it, the Arizona senator describes how the buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq has helped curb violence. He also chides his Democratic rival Barack Obama for outlining his plan for Iraq before his current meetings with commanders and Iraqi leaders on the ground.

In an e-mail to the campaign on Friday, David Shipley, an...

By Carolyn Kaster (AP)

Republican John McCain worked on Monday to wrestle the spotlight from rival Barack Obama's tour of Iraq by insisting he was right and the Democrat was wrong about the war and releasing a new critical ad blaming higher gas prices on his opponent.

As Obama toured the war zones trailed by U.S. network TV anchors, McCain ridiculed him from afar during a visit with the first President George Bush at his summer home on the Atlantic. At the same time, the Republican contender released an eyebrow-raising new ad flatly blaming the Illinois senator for higher gasoline prices.

The...

By Carolyn Kaster (AP)

Republican John McCain worked on Monday to wrestle the spotlight from rival Barack Obama's tour of Iraq by insisting he was right and the Democrat was wrong about the war and releasing a new critical ad blaming higher gas prices on his opponent.

As Obama toured the war zones trailed by U.S. network TV anchors, McCain ridiculed him from afar during a visit with the first President George Bush at his summer home on the Atlantic. At the same time, the Republican contender released an eyebrow-raising new ad flatly blaming the Illinois senator for higher gasoline prices.

The...

By SSG LORIE JEWELL (AP)

Face to face with Iraq's leaders, Barack Obama gained fresh support Monday for the idea of pulling all U.S. combat forces out of the war zone by 2010. But the Iraqis stopped short of actual timetables or endorsement of Obama's pledge to withdraw American troops within 16 months if he wins the presidency.

The Democratic presidential contender also got a military briefing _ and a helicopter tour _ from the top U.S. commander in the region, Gen. David Petraeus, and he met with a few of the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops now well into the war's sixth year.

Back in the U.S., Republica...

AP News

 

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Obamas great-uncle recalls liberating Nazi camp By Paul Beaty (AP)

Charles T. Payne was 20 years old and, like any good Midwesterner, he knew how to listen.

He was making conversation, in pieced-together English and German, with a freed prisoner of Ohrdruf, the Nazi work camp Payne's infantry regiment had just liberated at the end of World War II.

"With great difficulty we conversed and, if I got what it was he was telling me about, it was that the Germans had killed a million Jews and that the world didn't really know this yet," Payne, 83, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday as, on the other side of the world, his great-nephew, Barack Obama, prepared to visit the Yad Vashem national Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Read More...

Rescue of mortgage giants could hit $25 billion By RICHARD DREW (AP)

A federal rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost taxpayers $25 billion, congressional budget experts said Tuesday, as lawmakers put finishing touches on legislation that would tap the troubled mortgage giants' profits to help save homeowners from foreclosure.

A costly rescue is just a worry, not a fact at this point. Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, predicted in a letter to lawmakers that there's a better than even chance the government will not have to step in to prop up the companies by lending them money or buying stock.

But Congress is expected to vote as early as Wednesday on a housing measure that would give the Treasury Department authority to throw Fannie and Freddie a temporary lifeline.     Read More...

 

 

 

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