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At least one person was killed and five more wounded after a shooting at an office building in Orlando, Florida. (All are in stable condition and one is believed to have suffered a heart attack.) Police have arrested Jason Rodriguez, 40, a former employee at Reynolds, Smith, and Hills engineering and architecture firm who was let go from his job in 2007. He was found at his mother's apartment—apparently, she is the one who tipped off cops to his location. The attack took place at 11 a.m. at 1000 Legion Place. As he was escorted into the police station, a reporter asked him why he did it. "Cause they left me to rot," he said.
For the first time since 1983, the U.S. unemployment rate has risen above 10 percent. According Labor Department figures released this morning, the jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent in October from 9.8 percent in September. Payrolls lost a higher-than-anticipated 190,000 workers. The ranks of the "underemployed"—part-time workers who want to work full-time and people who have given up looking for work–also spiked to a record 17.5 percent, up half a point from September. This week, federal policy makers said they would keep borrowing costs low for an "extended period" because they expected the economy to "remain weak for a time."
On Thursday morning, Major Nidal Malik Hasan gave most of his belongings to his neighbor. Awhile later, a security-camera video showed him at a convenience store on Thursday morning buying snacks in a white robe and skullcap—traditional Muslim garb. Now, investigators are looking into the motive of the alleged Fort Hood shooter. The son of Palestinian immigrants, Hasan reportedly resented other soldiers who harassed him for being a Muslim and was distraught about his upcoming six-month deployment to Afghanistan. The death toll of his rampage rose to 13 on Friday, after a hospitalized victim died.
Words you don’t hear every day from a banker: “I’m sorry,” said John S. Reed, who served as the CEO of Citigroup when it was created in 1998, for his role in building the financial behemoth. “These are people I love and care about. You could imagine emotionally it’s not easy to see what’s happened.” Asked what he would do to fix the financial sector, Reed said “I would compartmentalize the industry for the same reason you compartmentalize a ship. If you have a leak, the leak doesn’t spread and sink the whole vessel. So generally speaking you’d have consumer banking separate from trading bonds and equity.” Reed also said lawmakers were wrong to overturn the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, a move that he supported at the time.
The U.S. Treasury prevented Fannie Mae from selling nearly $3 billion in low-income housing tax credits Friday because it concluded the sale would be too expensive for taxpayers. Fannie had made a deal to sell about half its $5.2 billion in tax credits to Goldman Sachs and Berkshire Hathaway and had gotten the go-ahead from its federal regulator. Because Fannie doesn’t have taxable income to offset, the credits are worthless to the company, and every quarter it must write them down as they lose value. A day earlier, Fannie had announced $520 million in losses related to the credits in the third quarter, and that more were coming unless the credits were sold. But Treasury concluded that the government would lose more tax dollars than it saved if the sale went through.
Sarah Palin may believe in a right to life, but she does not, apparently, think there is a right to cellphones: Attendees of Sarah Palin’s speech on Friday night to the Wisconsin Right to Life will be unable to carry cellphones, cameras, laptops, or recording devices. The press will also be barred from attendance. Tickets to the event cost $30. “You know, for someone who claims to be a rogue and isn’t afraid of what other people think, it really is sort of hypocritical to not let the media, the press cover your event,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate. The state’s Republican chairman said he was excited for Palin’s visit, but stressed his party has nothing to do with the limitations.
Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis was sentenced by a federal judge Friday to 301 days already served and a year of probation, after Francis pleaded guilty to filing false income-tax returns and bribing jail workers. Francis, who turned his simple idea of filming drunken ladies on spring break into a soft-core empire, was also ordered to pay the IRS $250,000 in restitution. The judge accepted Francis’ deal on the grounds that an important witness withheld information from prosecutors.
Sgt. Kimberley Munley put a quick end to the shooting at Fort Hood in Texas yesterday, gunning down suspected shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan in spite of her own injuries. Friends of the police officer are saying that this kind of bravery is standard for Munley. "She was born and bred to be a police officer. If you were ever to be in a fight, she'd be the first person to stand up next to you and back you up,” said a longtime friend of Munley’s. “She's a tough cookie." Munley arrived within four minutes of being called in to respond to the shooting. She fired at Hasan from close range in what officials are calling “an amazing and an aggressive performance,” which friends credit to her training as a former member of the armed services. Munley is in stable condition and spent the rest of Thursday checking in with family and fellow police officers. She is married with two daughters. "I live a good life....a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone's life," Munley wrote on her Twitter page.
While the media cheers the new movie Precious from director Lee Daniels, Armond White of the New York Press has a few objections. The critic says that the story of an African-American teenager who is raped by her father and abused by her mother is a vehicle of “exploitation and opportunism” for Daniels and executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. Daniels, according to White, is a “shrewd pathology pimp” whose film is an “orgy of prurience.” “Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious,” White writes. White's final complaint is the film tricks white audiences into believing that it portrays an authentic African-American existence. “Some people,” he concludes, “like being conned.”
One Japanese and two Canadian reporters covering anti-government protests have been arrested in Iran on charges of “unauthorized reporting,” along with the detention of a number of other journalists. The protests came on the 30th anniversary of the U.S. embassy takeover, an occasion for which Iranian authorities also temporarily blocked use of Gmail and Yahoo to prevent news and images of the protests from spreading. Iran has made a habit of blaming foreign media for inciting riots, and journalists were for the most part banned after riots during elections last June—journalists this week were told to limit their reporting to the official demonstration. According to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, claims of the arrests are “under investigation.”
As independent voters get more and more frustrated with President Obama, New York magazine’s John Heilemann recognizes the same zeitgeist that gave rise to Ross Perot, whom Heilemann describes as “a peculiar little bat-eared billionaire.” Perot’s former demographic is stronger than ever in the form of disgruntled independents who take issue with, among other things, Obama’s health-care plan and handling of the deficit—his approval ratings with independent voters have dropped from over 60 percent to somewhere in the mid-40s. These voters had a big hand in Republican victories Tuesday, and in order to win back the swing votes, experts say Obama should take a page from Perot’s playbook, presenting a speech with “Perot-style charts and graphs” explaining the ins and outs of the deficit, and justifying further stimulus to angry voters.
Rihanna has slowly been revealing the details of her abusive relationship with Chris Brown, and on 20/20 Friday she speaks about the assault itself, saying, "He had no soul in his eyes. Just blank. He was clearly blacked-out. There was no person when I looked at him." Of the origins of their notorious fight, the singer said, "I couldn't take that he kept lying to me, and he couldn't take that I wouldn't drop it. ... It escalated into him being violent toward me. ... I was battered, I was bleeding, I was swollen in my face." Since the very public conflict, Rihanna has been speaking out against domestic violence and has split from Brown. "He didn't accept that very well. Obviously he didn't want us to be apart. But I had to make a decision for me," she said.
After 27 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, a man in Florida is seeking restitution from the system in the form of a large sum of cash. William Dillon was released last November when a DNA test proved his innocence in a bludgeoning death he was convicted of nearly three decades ago, and is one of more than 200 inmates in the U.S. who have been cleared of their charges as a result of DNA testing. "Everything that was out here had completely changed to me," Dillon said of life after prison. "It was like I was Fred Flintstone that came out." Under Florida's compensation laws, Dillon could potentially receive more than $1 million for his time behind bars—that's $50,000 per year of imprisonment, though a previous felony drug-possession charge may prevent him from receiving any of the money.
After several months, is the House of Representatives finally ready to pass health-care reform? A vote is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Saturday, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is warning that it could be pushed back, saying that they do not yet have the 218 Democratic votes needed to pass the bill. “We’re very close,” Hoyer said. If it does not pass Saturday night, the House would reconvene Sunday at noon. Monday and Tuesday are also “available,” Hoyer said. According to The Hill, the biggest hangup is illegal immigration. A last-minute threat within the Democratic Caucus to bolster immigration restrictions in the bill has congressional Hispanics threatening to vote against it.
A Kentucky Census worker found dead in September in an apparent lynching may have taken his own life, the Associated Press reports. Bill Sparkman was found on Sept. 12 hanging naked from a tree with his hands bound and the word "FED" scrawled in his chest. His death led some to speculate he may have been killed by anti-government extremists, but authorities are reportedly doubtful of a political motive and are actively exploring whether the case was a suicide instead. According to the Associated Press, officials are focusing on a lack of defensive wounds and a relatively light amount of duct tape used to bind his hands together. His adopted son has insisted the case is a murder and associates have told the press that he had not appeared depressed or distraught.
He can shoot webs, swing between buildings, and punch through brick walls, but Spider-Man's fundraising powers are another story. Six years, tens of millions of dollars, and music by U2 have yet to bring the superhero to Broadway, where a planned musical is still short as much as $24 million of its projected $52 million budget. According to the Los Angeles Times, the production would easily be the most expensive in history and would feature pyrotechnics, giant sets, and a Spider-Man who swings directly over the audience. "The visuals and the music are amazing, and that's what will matter," Bono told the Times.
Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood turned the tables on the town as people in battle zones tried to reach loved ones in Texas, instead of the other way round. The identities of the dead had not been released by Thursday night, further fueling worry. It is known that one of the dead was a civilian police officer, and the mother of 19-year-old Amber Bahr had been told that her daughter had been shot in the belly, but "nothing more." Another area resident reported that his friend had texted to say "I've been shot," adding, "I don't know if he's alive or dead." Eyewitnesses reported heroic acts by those who were wounded. A man in uniform warned Rev. Greg Schannep, who was about to enter a graduation ceremony, for example, that someone had opened fire. As the man ran past him into the theater, Schannep said he could see a wound on his back. Town residents weren't entirely surprised by the attack. As one woman put it, "I kind of thought after 9/11, it was only a matter of time before there was a terrorist attack here. I almost wish it had been."
Plans to rapidly transition Afghanistan's security to a homegrown police and military force may be a pipe dream, according to American reviews of training programs. While Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recommended the Afghan Army be expanded to 134,000 from 90,000 in just one year, training is slow going and marred by corruption, illiteracy, and incompetence, the New York Times reports. Other problems include difficulty building barracks to house new recruits thanks to a lack of engineers. “Nothing in our experience over the last seven to eight years suggests that progress at such a rapid pace is realistic,” Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security, told the Times.
Despite rowdy protests on Thursday in the Capitol led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), health-care reform scored a major victory the same day with a pair of crucial endorsements. The AARP, one of the nation's largest advocacy groups, and the American Medical Association each announced they would back House Democrats' bill, lending new momentum to the effort. President Obama said he was "extraordinarily pleased and grateful" to have their support. House Democrats now have to hammer out a final version of the bill, with some expressing concern about issues relating to abortion and illegal immigration.
The International Atomic Energy Agency—the UN's nuclear watchdog—has compiled a report suggesting that Iranian scientists may have tested advanced components of nuclear design that would allow them to put nuclear warheads on missiles. The technology in question, a "two-point implosion" device, once mastered, reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to add one to a missile. In the U.S. and Britain, the very existence of the technology is kept secret. A European government adviser said, "it is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material," while a nuclear weapons expert called it "remarkable, that before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five." The IAEA has asked Iran to explain the evidence that they are tampering with advanced nuclear design, as well as separate evidence suggesting that a Russian weapons expert helped Iranian technicians master synchronized high-explosive detonations.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced Thursday that he wouldn't seek reelection, endangering hopes of progress in Middle East peace talks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to the area sparked Palestinian ire when she applauded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise to slow down, but not halt, the building of settlements in the West Bank. The move portends bad news for the Obama administration, which had pledged to redouble peace efforts in the region. It could also lead voters come election time to lean toward Hamas, which the U.S. defines as a terrorist organization. Clinton vowed to continue to work with Abbas, no matter his title or position.
Raymond Jessop, a polygamist belonging to the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a West Texas sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was handed a guilty verdict Thursday for sexually assaulting an underage girl. Arrested in the raid last year, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. Jessop, who maintained that he had a "spiritual marriage" with the underage girl, allegedly has nine wives. The victim, who is now 21, was traded between Jessop and his brother, and impregnated at 16 years old. Jessop is likely the father.
To celebrate the Berlin Wall coming down, another one was erected in its place. At the MTV Europe Music Awards Wednesday night, revelers who came out to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the wall were met with an unpleasant surprise. Event organizers had thrown up a barrier to prevent non-ticketholders from getting views of U2, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z performing. Some 10,000 free tickets were made available for the open-air concert celebrating the historic moment.
A day after defending moderates in his party, RNC Chairman Michael Steele has apparently changed his mind. “Candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you’re crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles, because we’ll come after you,” Steele told ABCNews.com. “You’re gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you’re arguing for the president’s stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi’s health plan.”
What's the state of the secretary of State? Time magazine's Joe Klein takes a look at the first 10 months of Hillary Clinton's tenure and finds a "mixed record." Clinton has three traits that could make her term "memorable," Klein writes: Her "vision of departmental reform," her political acumen, and, "most important," her "international celebrity." Those assets combined for a knockout trip to Pakistan, where Clinton made herself available to hostile lines of questioning and gave candid and honest answers to her audiences. But her overly blunt recent pronouncements on Israeli settlements are "perplexing," says Klein, and at this point it's still unclear whether the White House's foreign-policy goals are being advanced. Hillary, Klein writes, "will have to become a more sure-handed negotiator, and, most important, a trusted adviser to a president who knows where he wants to go in the world but hasn't quite figured out how to get there."
Michele Bachmann's "Super Bowl of Freedom" is off to a good start: The 4,000 or so protesters who showed up at the Capitol Building Thursday were greeted by 45 to 60 members of the GOP. Speaking to the crowd, House Minority Leader John Boehner called the Democrats’ health-care bill “the greatest threat to freedom that I’ve seen in the 19 years I’ve been in Washington.” Michele Bachmann told the crowd, “It was Thomas Jefferson who said a revolution every now and then is a good thing.” Rep. Pete Hoekstra said that the Democrats “wanna take your freedoms away.”
With cap-and-trade legislation to combat climate change the next big-ticket item in Congress after health care, environmental groups are gearing up to rally the public to their cause. But activists are divided over how best to present their case. Some large organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, have done away with previous ads warning of apocalyptic consequences for unchecked climate change and featuring threatened children in favor of new optimistic commercials showcasing potential job growth thanks to green sources of energy. The economic argument may fit the recession, but some are worried that letting up on the urgency of turning back climate change may weaken the public's resolve for tough measures. "It's a lack of faith in the American public," one activist told the Washington Post. "If the scientists, the environmentalists in our country do their jobs, and explain the test of climate change, the public will come along." The House passed a climate bill earlier this year while the Senate has begun to take the issue up this week.
Fourteen people, including Roomy Khan, the informant whose tip led to the arrest of Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam last month, were arrested Thursday and charged with insider trading and conspiracy. Nine of the 14 individuals—many associated with trading firm Incremental Capital—were charged with three criminal complaints alleging that Incremental Capital founder and former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer managed an "insider-trading network" that obtained and acted on confidential information—some of it, such as the Blackstone Corp. acquisition of Hilton Hotels, similar to the information received by Rajaratnam. Khan is said to have used familial connections to a Moody's analyst, Deep Shah, to acquire information; she and Shah are being charged with a separate criminal complaint. As with the Galleon case, law-enforcement officials have said that wiretaps and recorded conversations were essential to the pursuit and eventual arrest of the accused individuals. Galleon and Incremental Capital declined to comment.
President Obama gave an ad hoc speech about Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood during an appearance at the Department of the Interior's Tribal Nations Conference. The president's speech did not enumerate details beyond those already made public, but expressed sympathy and "thoughts and prayers" for those killed or wounded in the "horrific outburst of violence." Noting that he had already spoken to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, Obama said the Pentagon, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security were working to secure the base. "It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas," the president said. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."
The queen of daytime television is reportedly abdicating her syndication throne in favor of her own cable fiefdom, according to Nikki Finke. Winfrey, whose syndicated talk show is viewed by an estimated 7 million people, is expected to announce the launch date of the long-delayed Oprah Winfrey Network later this week. Soon afterward, Finke reports Winfrey will make public her intention to end her show, moving the Chicago-based program to Los Angeles as soon as 2011. CBS Television Distribution, which syndicates Oprah and some of her spinoffs, will be hit especially hard by the Discovery Channel-partnered OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), which will launch in place of Discovery Health in 70 million homes. Though the show is still the highest-rated daytime talk show, its high syndication fees and falling viewer numbers mean that some stations may welcome Oprah's move to cable; even so, Winfrey, the richest African-American woman on the planet, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.3 billion and controls an extensive media empire with stakes in book and magazine publishing.
Britney may soon be facing some trouble Down Under: The Australian government is investigating whether Spears will lip-sync during an upcoming concert there. If she won’t give an entirely live performance, Virginia Judge, the minister for Fair Trading for New South Wales, wants to warn fans before they buy pricey tickets to any of Brit’s concerts. “It is Britney’s ‘prerogative’ to lip-sync, and it is my job to make sure consumers know what they are paying for up front,” Judge said in a statement obtained by People magazine. Still, it appears her fans might not care whether or not portions of the show are pre-recorded: Spears has sold out a number of shows already, and some tickets are priced at over $1,300, the magazine reports. “Personally I would rather see a live set from a local artist," Judge added, "but I am sure Britney's fans will be treated to a spectacular show.”
At least 13 people were killed and 30 more wounded in a shooting at Ford Hood in Texas on Thursday, and authorities are piecing together a troubling portrait of the man thought responsible. The Army says the gunman is Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist born in Virginia and raised in the United States. Hasan, who is alive but in a coma and on a ventilator, allegedly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before starting his shooting rampage, which is Arabic for "God is Great." Hasan, who officials now say acted alone, allegedly carried two weapons, one of them semi-automatic, which explains the high casualty count. The Marine Corps. Times cited a Pentagon source as saying Hasan, 39, is "a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to work with soldiers at Darnall Army Medical Center on Fort Hood." His cousin said at Walter Reed, Hasan treated soldiers returning from war with combat stress and PTSD and was afraid of his own impending deployment to Afghanistan. Hasan told relatives in Virginia he was having second thoughts about his military career when soldiers teased him for being Muslim, The New York Times reports. Hasan reportedly drew the attention of federal law enforcement six months ago for online posts about suicide bombings and other threats including "a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades." An imam at a Maryland mosque he attended said that Hasan was a lifelong Muslim, but showed little sign of political or religious zealotry.
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