Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - Sunday, September 07 2008 - Index

McCain and Palin present
themselves as eager reformers
CEDARBURG, Wis. — John McCain said
Friday the sagging economy has brought
“tough times all over America” as he made a
splashy debut with Sarah Palin in critical
Midwestern states as the newly crowned
Republican presidential ticket.
A crowd of thousands cheered the Arizona
senator and Alaska governor as they presented
themselves as a team of reformers eager to
challenge Washington’s political establishment.
“John McCain doesn’t run with the
Washington herd,” said Palin, the 44-year-old
Alaska governor and surprise pick as McCain’s
running mate.
“It’s over. It’s over. It’s over for the special
interests,” McCain promised. “We’re going to
start working for the people of this country.”
Twelve hours after leaving the Republican
convention in Minnesota, McCain and Palin
were cheered and applauded by a throng of
thousands that wound down several streets of
Cedarburg, a traditional Republican enclave
within Democratic-leaning Wisconsin.
FDA posts its first online list
of drugs under investigation
WASHINGTON — The government on Friday
began posting a list of prescription drugs
under investigation for potential safety problems
in an effort to better inform doctors and
patients.
The first list is a bare-bones compilation
naming 20 medications and the potential issue
for each. It provides no indication of how widespread
or serious the problems might be, leading
some consumer advocates to question its
usefulness, and prompting industry worries
that skittish patients might stop taking a useful
medication if they see it listed.
Food and Drug Administration officials said
they are trying to walk a fine line in being
more open to the public while avoiding needless
scares. Congress, in a drug safety bill
passed last year, ordered the agency to post
quarterly listings of medications under investigation.
“My message to patients is this: Don’t stop
taking your medicine,” said Dr. Janet
Woodcock, who heads the FDA’s Center for
Drug Evaluation and Research. “If your doctor
has prescribed a drug that appears on this list,
you should continue taking it unless your doctor
advises you differently.”
At least five of the drugs on the list had
problems that already have been publicized.
These included the blood thinner heparin,
recalled earlier this year, and immune-suppressing
medications being studied for a link
to cancer in youngsters.
Sunday, September 7, 2008 • Page 2-A
WATER TALK
Phila. police officer dies in
cruiser crash, another injured
A crash involving a police cruiser killed a
Philadelphia police officer and seriously
injured another, as well as the driver of another
vehicle.
The officers were reportedly pursuing another
vehicle when they collided with an SUV
shortly after 9 p.m. Friday in the Mantua section
north of the city center.
The officers were rushed to the nearby
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
— KYW contributed to this report
Hanna could hit Philly area
with heavy rain, winds
PHILADELPHIA — Tropical Storm Hanna’s
northward march is expected to be felt in the
Philadelphia area, where a forecast of heavy
rain and high winds could result in power outages.
The projected track jumped westward as the
front moved toward Pennsylvania, meaning a
swath of the state’s eastern region, from
Monroe County through the Lehigh Valley and
into Philadelphia, could get up to 7 inches of
rainfall.
Dave Ondrejik, a meteorologist with the
National Weather Service in State College, said
heavy rains and expected winds of more than
40 mph could be a potent combination.
“Once you get your third or fourth inch of
rain, that wets the ground pretty well and
loosens the soil,” Ondrejik said. “And then, if
you start getting 50 mph winds, you could
start seeing trees come down.”
Rainfall totals are expected to be lighter west
of Philadelphia, with the Harrisburg-York-
Lancaster region in store for about 3 inches,
and State College likely to get less than an
inch.
Philadelphia officials said they would activate
the city’s emergency operations center late
Saturday morning to monitor the storm and
coordinate delivery of any needed services.
Pa. dentist charged with
dumping medical waste
CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, N.J. — A
Pennsylvania dentist has been charged with
dumping medical waste that sullied a New
Jersey beach at the height of vacation season.
Authorities said Friday that Thomas
McFarland took his motorboat to Townsend
Inlet near Avalon on Aug. 22 and dumped a
bag full of some 300 dental-type needles, along
with 180 cotton swabs and other materials
Melissa Stockwell, right, of the United States, chats with coach Jimi Flowers during a U.S. team
training session for the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, at the National Aquatics Center, known
as the Water Cube, in Beijing on Friday. Stockwell is one of two U.S. veterans competing in
Beijing who were injured in Iraq. — AP PHOTO/GREG BAKER
Rice meets Gadhafi
on historic visit to Libya
TRIPOLI, Libya — The United States and
Libya sealed a historic turnaround after
decades of terrorist killings, American retaliation,
suspicions and insults with U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s peacemaking
visit Friday with Moammar Gadhafi,
Libya’s mercurial strongman.
“The relationship has been moving in a good
direction for a number of years now and I
think tonight does mark a new phase,” Rice
said after a traditional Ramadan dinner — the
evening meal that breaks the day’s fast during
the Muslim holy month — at Gadhafi’s official
Bab el-Azizia residence. It is the same compound
hit by U.S. airstrikes in 1986 in retaliation
for a deadly Libyan-linked terrorist attack
in Germany. The attack killed Gadhafi’s baby
daughter.
“We did talk about learning from the lessons
of the past,” Rice said. “We talked about the
importance of moving forward. The United
States, I’ve said many times, doesn’t have any
permanent enemies.”
Rice is the highest-ranking American official
to visit Libya in a half-century. The United
States considers Gadhafi rehabilitated since
the days when former U.S. President Ronald
Reagan called him the “mad dog of the Middle
East,” because of the Libyan’s surprise decision
in 2003 to renounce terrorism and give
up weapons of mass destruction. His govern-
ment has also agreed to resolve legal claims
from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and
other alleged terror attacks that bore Libyan
fingerprints.
U.S.: Mugabe-named
Cabinet would be ‘sham’
MBABANE, Swaziland — Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe should focus on
power-sharing talks, not appointing a Cabinet
unilaterally, the top U.S. envoy to Africa said
Friday.
Jendayi Frazer, the assistant U.S. secretary
of state for African affairs, was asked by
reporters during a visit to southern Africa
about reports in Zimbabwe’s state media that
Mugabe was prepared to name a Cabinet without
input from the opposition. The oppositions
says that would undermine talks aimed at
forming a coalition government.
A Mugabe Cabinet would be seen by the U.S.
government as a “sham,” Frazer said, adding
that members of such a Cabinet could be subject
to U.S. sanctions. Washington has been
among Mugabe’s sharpest critics, accusing
him of trampling on democracy and ruining
his country’s economy.
“We believe that instead of trying to appoint
a Cabinet, they should negotiate on the basis
of the will of the people that was expressed in
the March elections,” Frazer said.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai came
in first in a field of four in the first round of
from his Wynnewood, Pa., medical office.
McFarland, 59, is charged with unlawfully
discharging a pollutant and unlawful disposal
of regulated medical waste. Each charge carries
a maximum prison term of five years.
Fines could total $125,000 if he is convicted
on both counts.
New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram
said a complaint was served on his lawyer
Friday. Milgram said authorities know where
McFarland is, but would not disclose his location.
Phone messages left at McFarland’s
Pennsylvania and Jersey shore homes were not
returned on Friday. An assistant to his lawyer,
Joseph Rodgers, said Rodgers would not discuss
the case. A man on the property Friday at
McFarland’s New Jersey house declined to
answer questions and told an AP reporter to go
away.
Bush tours Gettysburg
battleground site
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — President Bush
brushed up on his Civil War history Friday,
touring the battleground of Gettysburg, the
site of one of the deadliest battles of the Civil
War.
Normally for a $55 fee, visitors to the
Gettysburg National Military Park can tour the
area along with a licensed guide. But Friday,
Bush had with him Gabor Boritt, an Abraham
Lincoln scholar and director of the Civil War
Institute at Gettysburg College, who could
explain chronological events of the war to
match each site of the battleground.
The president began his mid-afternoon tour
at the Virginia Memorial, one of 1,300 monuments
on the park’s grounds.
He also was treated to a sneak peek of the
park’s Museum and Visitor Center, which has
its grand opening Sept. 26.
At the museum, Bush had the opportunity
to check out various artifacts in the galleries,
view a film on the Gettysburg battle and see
the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting, an
immense circular canvas depicting scenes from
the battle.
Compiled from The Associated Press
FRIDAY NIGHT
Daily Number
7-3-7
Big 4
0-6-0-5
Cash 5
4-6-16-17-33
FRIDAY MIDDAY
Daily Number
1-0-6
Big 4
1-7-1-1
Treasure Hunt
1-3-19-7-17
presidential voting in March, and has based
his claim to a senior position in any coalition
on that result.
Government may soon back
Fannie, Freddie mortgage giants
WASHINGTON — The government is expected
to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
as soon as this weekend in a monumental
move designed to protect the mortgage market
from the failure of the two companies, which
together hold or guarantee half of the nation’s
mortgage debt, a person briefed on the matter
said Friday night.
Some of the details of the intervention,
which could cost taxpayers billions, were not
yet available, but are expected to include the
departure of Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd
and Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron, according
to the source, who asked not to be named
because the plan was yet to be announced.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke,
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and James
Lockhart, the companies’ chief regulator, met
Friday afternoon with the top executives from
the mortgage companies and informed them of
the government’s plan to put the troubled
companies into a conservatorship.
Stocks mostly rise as investors
snap up financials
NEW YORK — Wall Street wrestled with
intensifying economic worries Friday, extending
sharp losses after a disheartening jobs
report and then grudgingly engaging in some
mild bargain hunting that gave the market
some modest gains. The major indexes ended
the week with big declines, a sign that
investors, who not long ago expected the economy
to improve, are now growing increasingly
discouraged.
The government said payrolls shrank by
84,000 last month, more than the 75,000
economists predicted, and higher than the
51,000 jobs lost in July. The unemployment
rate rose to a five-year high of 6.1 percent from
5.7 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 32.73
to 11,220.96. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index
rose 5.48 to 1,242.31, and the Nasdaq composite
index fell 3.16 to 2,255.88.
Friday’s moves follow a dismal performance
on Thursday in which all three major indexes
moved back into bear market territory, defined
as a 20 percent drop from a recent peak.
Wall Street again found little comfort from
falling oil. Crude dropped to nearly $105 a
barrel in Friday’s session as the dollar continued
to gain on the euro and investors waited
to see whether OPEC would move to restrict
output next week following a two-month
plunge in prices. The Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to
meet early next week in Vienna and has indicated
it may take action to defend the $100-abarrel
level.
Compiled from The Associated Press