The charges against Nagin are the product of a City Hall corruption investigation that already has resulted in guilty pleas by two former city officials and two businessmen and a prison sentence for a former city vendor.
But its Obamas inaugural address that will be the centerpiece of the three-day afir. The president will seek to turn the page on a first term consumed by economic turmoil and set an optimistic tone for four more years that will help define his legacy.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- One worker strips mirrored paneling off the ceiling, as another pries up the fiberglass shell of a whirlpool bath. A third man takes a sledgehammer to a life-size statue of Venus de Milo posing topless with a swirl of plaster robes hanging from her waist.
The federal indictment alleges that city contractors paid Nagin more than $200,000 in bribes and subsidized his trips to Hawaii, Jamaica and other places in exchange for his help securing millions of dollars in work for the city.
We need to tell our members of Congress that theyve got to stand up for sensible gun laws, and if they do that, we will stand up for them, and if they dont we will stand up for whoever runs against them, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the U.S. Conference of Mayors Friday. Because thats exactly what the NRA is trying to do.
With next years World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Olympic Games arriving in this seaside city, local officials are scrambling to solve a chronic hotel bed shortage so severe that during a UN conference here last year, the mayor had to appeal to residents to open their apartments to visitors.
The similarity of the burned battery from the All Nippon Airways flight to the burned battery in a Japan Airlines 787 that caught fire Jan. 7 while the jet was parked at Bostons Logan International Airport suggests a common cause, Japan transport ministry investigator Hideyo Kosugi said.
Baltimore actor Robert Chew dies at 52; played Proposition Joe on The Wire TV series
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The legislation wouldnt require immediate spending cuts as earlier promised by GOP leaders like Speaker John Boehner of Ohio. Instead, its aimed at forcing the Democratic-controlled Senate to join the House in debating the federal budget.
The Transportation Security Administration says the scanners that used a low-dose X-ray will be gone by June because the company that makes them cant fix the privacy issues. The other airport body scanners, which produce a generic outline instead of a naked image, are staying.
He will take the oath of office Sunday in an intimate White House ceremony witnessed by mily, and then again Monday at the Capitol before a crowd of hundreds of thousands on the National Mall. Washington will also play host to the traditional inaugural parade and formal balls Monday, as well as a day of service Saturday that kicks off the festivities.
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BALTIMORE (AP) -- Robert Chew, who played Proposition Joe on the HBO series The Wire, has died. He was 52.
Overcharging of batteries likely culprit in Boeing 787 incidents, experts say
GOP leader says House to vote next week on 3-month debt limit increase tied to Congress pay
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For anti-doping officials, Lance Armstrongs admission of cheating was only a start. Now they want him to give details -- lots of them -- to clean up his sport.
Armstrongs much-awaited confession to Oprah Winfrey made for riveting television, but if the disgraced cyclist wants to take things further, it will involve several long days in meetings with anti-doping officials who have very specific questions: Who ran the doping programs, how were they run and who looked the other way.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supporters of President Barack Obamas gun-control proposals are planning a methodical, state-by-state campaign to try to persuade key lawmakers that its in their political interest to back his sweeping effort to crack down on firearms and ammunition sales and expand criminal background checks.
In Washington, Insurance knowledge U.S. officials said one American -- a Texan -- was known to have died.
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The government rapidly stepped up its use of body scanners after a man snuck explosives onto a flight bound for Detroit on Christmas day in 2009.
Three days into the crisis at a natural gas plant deep in the Sahara, it remained unclear how many had perished in the ceoff between Africas most uncompromising militant group and the regions most ruthless military.
Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin charged with taking bribes, travel perks from city contractors
Republicans hadnt settled on full details, but the measure would give the government about three more months of borrowing authority beyond a deadline expected to hit as early as mid-February,Free insurance info. No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia said Friday.
Nagin, a former cable television executive, Online Higher Education took office with an image as a largely apolitical businessman ready to root out corruption. The media bought into that 100 percent. They used the term crackdown on corruption, Laborde said Friday.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has been looking to historians for guidance on how to shape his second inaugurals words into a speech for the ages, eager to make good use of his twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity to command the worlds attention.
The government said 12 workers, both foreign and Algerian, were confirmed dead. But the extremists have put the number at 35. And the government attack Thursday on the convoy -- as pieced together from official, witness and news media accounts -- suggested the death toll could go higher.
An investigator in Japan, where a 787 made an emergency landing earlier this week, said the charred insides of the planes lithium ion battery show the battery received voltage in excess of its design limits.
In the 90-minute interview Thursday night with Winfrey -- the first of two parts broadcast on her OWN network -- Armstrong said he started doping in the mid-1990s, using the blood booster EPO, testosterone, cortisone and human growth hormone, as well as engaging in outlawed blood doping and transfusions. The doping regimen, he said, helped him in all seven of his Tour de France wins.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Its likely that burning lithium ion batteries on two Boeing 787 Dreamliners were caused by overcharging, aviation safety and battery experts said Friday, pointing to developments in the investigation of the Boeing incidents as well as a battery fire in a business jet more than a year ago.
His sister, Clarice Chew, said he suffered a heart attack and died at his Baltimore home Thursday.
He didnt name names, World Anti-Doping Agency President John Fahey told The Associated Press in Australia. He didnt say who supplied him, what officials were involved.
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The National Rifle Association is confident that argument wont sell. But with polls showing majorities supporting new gun laws a month after the Connecticut shooting deaths of 20 schoolchildren and six adults, gun-control activists say the political calculus has changed. Their goal in coming weeks is to convince lawmakers of that, too, and to counter the NRAs proven ability to mobilize voters against any proposals limiting access to guns.
The idea got a frosty reception from House Democrats but a more measured response from the White House and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
His openness about his own transgressions, however, did not extend to allegations about other people. I dont want to accuse anybody, he said.
TSA to drop X-ray airport scanners by June because of privacy concerns; other scanners staying
At first, both types of scanners showed travelers naked. The idea was that security workers could spot both metallic objects like guns as well as non-metallic items such as plastic explosives. The scanners also showed every other detail of the passengers body, too.
If we compare data from the latest case here and that in the U.S., we can pretty much figure out what happened, Kosugi said.
Those airport scanners with their all-too revealing body images will soon be going away.
Those in cycling, anti-doping circles say Armstrong must do more to earn his way back
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republican leaders Friday offered President Barack Obama a three-month reprieve to a looming, market-rattling debt crisis, backing off demands that any immediate extension of the governments borrowing authority be accompanied by stiff spending cuts.
The gun-control advocates are focused first on the Senate, which is expected to act before the House on Obamas gun proposals. How Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., proceeds will depend in part on what he hears from a handful of Democrats in more conservative states where voters vor gun rights. These include some who are eyeing re-election fights in 2014, such as Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max Baucus of Montana.
The president has been working on his speech since early December, writing out draft after draft on yellow legal pads, aides say. Hes read several second-term inaugural addressed delivered by his predecessors. And last week, he invited a small group of historians to the White House to discuss the potential -- and the pitlls -- of second-term inaugurals.
The TSA defended the scanners, saying the images couldnt be stored and were seen only by a security worker who didnt interact with the passenger. But the scans still raised privacy concerns. Congress ordered that the scanners either produce a more generic image or be removed by June.
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- The militants had filled five jeeps with hostages and begun to move when Algerian government attack helicopters opened up on them, leaving four in smoking ruins. The fifth vehicle crashed, allowing an Irish hostage inside to clamber out to safety with an explosive belt still strapped around his neck.
By Friday, around 100 of the 135 foreign workers on the site had been freed and 18 of an estimated 30 kidnappers had been slain, according to the Algerian government, still leaving a major hostage situation centered on the plants main refinery.
Heading into his speech, Obama does have history on his mind, particularly two of the great American leaders he most deeply admires, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. The start of Obamas second term coincides with the 150th anniversary of Lincolns Emancipation Proction and the 50th anniversary of Kings March on Washington, and he has chosen to take the public oath with his hand on both their bibles stacked together.
The plan? Slash property taxes for love hotels, known as motels in Portuguese, that agree to tone down the decor and free up 90 percent of their rooms for the tens of thousands of visitors expected to flood the city.
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Algerias hardline militarys clash with al-Qaida militants leaves many casualties
The retreat came with a caveat aimed at prodding Senate Democrats to pass a budget after almost four years of iling to do so: a threat to cut off the pay of lawmakers in either House or Senate if their chamber ils to pass a budget this year. House Republicans have passed budgets for two consecutive years.
The case also punctuates the reversal ofaviation law The State Journal political and personal fortune for Nagin, who had what New Orleans Magazine editor Errol Laborde called rock star status soon after his election in 2002.
Obama supporters laying plans to defeat NRA, push his gun control proposals through Congress
To succeed will require overturning two decades of conventional wisdom that gun control is bad politics.
Fellow Americans: Obama seeks to turn the page on economic turmoil in second inaugural address
Robert Chew grew up in Baltimore and studied music at Morgan State University for two years. His sister said he worked as music director for the Arena Players community theater.
The Shalimar love hotel is going mily-friendly.
With Olympic Games approaching, Rios love hotels clean up for tourists
Like about a third of the citys 180 hotels that rent rooms by the hour, mostly for amorous rendezvous, the Shalimar is trading its oversized round beds and bondage-ready chairs for proper couches, functional desks and other businesslike furnishings. The goal is reinvention as a standard pay-by-the-day tourist hotel.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- More than a decade ago, Ray Nagin was elected mayor of New Orleans on a vow to root out corruption in a city plagued by decades of it. On Friday, the former mayor was indicted on charges he lined his pockets with bribe money, payoffs and gratuities while the chronically poor city struggled to recover from Hurricane Katrinas punishing blow.
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He also appeared in TV shows The Corner and Homicide: Life on the Street and the 2004 TV movie Something the Lord Made.
The character Prop Joe was a highly intelligent and ruthless yet polite and diplomatic Baltimore drug lord. Another sister, Maureen Brown, said strangers would approach Chew on the street in Baltimore and tell him what a great job he did in that role.
In the case of the 787 in Boston, the battery in the planes auxiliary power unit had recently received a large demand on its power and was in the process of charging when the fire ignited, a source miliar with the investigation of the 787 fire in Boston told The Associated Press. The plane had landed a short time earlier and was empty of passengers, although a cleaning crew was working in the plane.
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