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Get that carrot nose ready for a snowman—residents of the Mid-Atlantic states will be enjoying a snow day on Wednesday as a storm moving in from the Midwest, where it has been blamed for three Michigan traffic deaths, dumps a foot or more of white stuff on Maryland, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, before heading North. In D.C., about 230,000 federal workers, who have been off since a massive blizzard hit the area on Friday, will continue their impromptu vacations. Thousands in western Pennsylvania and Maryland are still without power after the weekend storm, and many flights out of New York's three airports have been cancelled. The luckiest snow-day recipients are New York City's school children, who have received just their third snow day in six years.
Another filibuster and another one bites the dust: The Senate failed to confirm union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, falling short of the 60 votes necessary to break a Republican filibuster with just 52 yay votes. The pro-labor nominee was not helped by the fact that Democratic Senator Ben Nelson came out against him. Now, even The Wall Street Journal is reporting on “whether the institution [the Senate] is broken.” President Obama announced on Monday that he is considering “recess appointments”—a move that, by making appointments while the Senate is in recess, will allow nominees to serve for up to a year without official confirmation.
The United States is planning new sanctions on Iran, targeting specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and its network of companies, banks, and other institutions. White House officials are calling it a “systematic” effort to drive a wedge between the Guards and the Iranian people. The U.S. believes the Guards head up Iran’s nuclear program.
President Obama surprised the White House press corps on Tuesday by dropping by. He had tough words for the Senate, where several of his appointments have been stalled due to GOP holds. “In our meeting I asked the congressional leadership to put a stop to these holds in which nominees for a critical job are denied a vote for months," Obama said. "If the Senate does not act, and I made this very clear. I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess because we can't afford to let politics stand in the way of a well-functioning government." A recess appointment is when the president fills a position while the Senate is in recess; the nominee can then serve until he is approved by the Senate by the end of the next session of Congress.
Pakistan has offered to help mediate with the Taliban as the U.S. seeks to wind down the Afghan war and leave the country. Pakistan has been reluctant to engage the Taliban, which uses territory in its tribal areas to attack U.S. and allied forces, and for the most part, the U.S. has only encouraged Pakistan to attack the insurgent group. The offer could be a mixed blessing. It was made by Pakistan’s army chief at a meeting last month at NATO headquarters; he said he interpreted President Obama’s lack of focus on the war during his State of the Union address as a sign that the U.S. is looking to leave Afghanistan quickly. The Pakistani military and intelligence agencies have long held ties to Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani, who lead a Taliban network that also works with al Qaeda. Pakistan would be looking for a way to influence Afghanistan with a friendly government that would limit the presence of India there.
It didn't seem possible, but this week may actually get worse for Toyota, as federal officials announced plans to investigate complaints of faulty steering on 2009 and 2010 Toyota Corollas. The company has so far recalled 8.5 million cars, including, most recently, 2010 Priuses. After receiving around 80 complaints about the Corolla models, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has made plans to determine whether the problem requires a full-scale investigation, but tout the current inquiry as standard procedure for any complaint.
For days, rumors have been swirling that New York Governor David Paterson will resign thanks to an impending—and supposedly devastating—newspaper article that has yet to materialize. But on Tuesday, Paterson flatly denied he’d be leaving the governor’s mansion: "The only way I'm not going to be governor next year is at the ballot box and the only way that I'll be leaving office before is in a box." (He acknowledged that exit could be via ballot box.) "The more frustrated I get, the more I know I am going to be running," Paterson said, and he's expected to announce his re-election campaign February 20. The governor added that he felt he was the victim of an intentional smear campaign.
Googled unveiled a new social networking feature called Buzz on Tuesday; all Gmail users will be automatically signed up to share information with the 40 people they email the most. Buzz is designed to avoid the "noise" of other social networking sites, and will essentially add a news feed to Gmail that shows the information, photos, and videos that friends have posted. Features include a custom photo viewer, the option for information to be marked as private or public, the option for users to automatically follow people they correspond with and drop those they don't want to see, and updates posted in a user's inbox.
House Minority Leader John Boehner and Whip Eric Cantor may be threatening to pull out of President Obama’s health-care summit, but apparently it’s a bluff: Greg Sargent says that, after talking to senior Republican aides and advisers, “the chatter in GOP circles is that it’s unlikely that Republicans will pull out of the health-care summit.” Republicans are sticking it out because they’re worried that pulling out will make their stubbornness, and not the health-care bill they hate, the story. One strategist says Boehner and Cantor threatened to withdraw in the hope that the White House will alter conditions somewhat in their favor.
Evidence of the gas pedal problem that caused Toyota cars to accelerate suddenly, leading sometimes to deadly high-speed crashes, first emerged six years ago. The automaker knew that the problem, long blamed on the pedals getting stuck on heavy floor mats, was due to a plastic part in the pedal mechanism, The Wall Street Journal reports. Toyota’s secretive culture limited its communications with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which started looking into acceleration complaints in 2004. The regulator regrettably focused only on incidents involving short bursts of acceleration, which slowed detection of the problem. Over the next two years, Toyota pushed back against the complaints, arguing operator error was to blame. A survey in 2007 of 1,986 car owners found 59 complaints of unexpected acceleration, and the floor mats got the blame. Then, in 2008, the European division of the car maker found that the gas pedal had a faulty plastic part—the same part used in models sold in the U.S. Toyota still didn't alert regulators to the problem. By the time Toyota went to the NHTSA last month, the regulator was “steamed.” Toyota didn’t have enough parts to do repairs on all the affected cars, and often NHTSA gives car makers extra time on a recall to get extra parts. Not this time. Toyota had to stop selling.
Tom Cruise will star in the fourth installment of Mission: Impossible, according to Paramount Pictures, and will also produce the film with J.J. Abrams and Abrams' production company. No director has been named yet, but the film is scheduled to be released Memorial Day weekend of 2011. The sequel will finally backed in part by Skydance Productions, which recently made Taylor Lautner the highest-paid teen actor of his generation. The Mission: Impossible franchise has already grossed $1.4 billion globally.
