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Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Paris Hilton prefers Letterman to Leno. She doesn't pay her own cell-phone bills. And, oh yeah, “she's the single busiest person on the planet.”
Such have been the revelations to emerge in the legal battle pitting the celebutante against the producer of the 2006 flop Pledge This, who are claiming that they lost buckets of cash because Hilton shirked her duties to promote the National Lampoon-branded bomb.
The details of a deposition Hilton gave in the case emerged this week and feature a glimpse into Hilton's world.
“Any chance I got, any red carpet, any press, if I was doing something for another product…I would just bring it up, 'Oh, my new sorority film, it's going to be sexy, it's going to be really hot girls'—like I really, you know, did my best,” she said when asked what she did to pimp the film.
Hilton starred as the snobbish president of Gamma Gamma Gamma house in the nominal comedy. She also served as an executive producer…at least in title. “I'm not sure what a producer does,” she said. “I don't know, help get cool people in the cast.”
Pledge This!'s investors, led by Miami's Michael Goldberg, are seeking to recoup losses of more than 8 million. Per IMDb.com, the film grossed just 1.5 million worldwide.
The depo Q&A portrays the 28-year-old hotel heiress as someone so caught up in her other sponsorships, party appearances and TV gigs that she's never even seen her own cell-phone bill. Asked who pays the bills, she replied: “I don't know. I'm assuming, like, whoever pays my bills…I never ask about that stuff.”
Her attorney came to her defense during a hearing on Tuesday. “She's the single busiest person on the planet,” said lawyer Michael Weinstein.
Hilton also acknowledged she refuses to go on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno because the host veered off script once and asked her things she took offense to, and didn't follow guidelines concerning what she was there to plug. Instead, she prefers the cozy confines of the Late Show With David Letterman as a promotional venue, even if he cracked wise about her 2007 jail stint.
Speaking to E! News today, Hilton tried a little damage control—and worked in a plug.
“Although I think Leno is a nice guy and very funny, David Letterman and I have a special connection,” Hilton said. “I think he's adorable, charming, hysterical and I always have a fun time with him on the show. I go back on next month to see him again to promote season two of BFF. I look forward to it—I miss Dave!”
Presumably the Letterman stop won't interfere with another, more ignominious appearance. Hilton is due in court June 8 for the start of the Pledge This! trial.
—Additional reporting by Whitney English
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WASHINGTON – The fuse that could ignite an explosion of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is burning so fast that the Obama administration is scrambling to keep pace.
As Pakistan’s army finally opened a belated offensive against the advance of extremist Taliban fighters, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his key security ministers huddled Wednesday with their Afghan and U.S. counterparts in all-day meetings in Washington.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai started the day on a solemn note, acknowledging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s expressions of regret for the deaths of dozens of Afghan civilians killed during Monday’s battle between U.S. forces and the Taliban.
President Barack Obama demanded the meetings as part of his complex, costly and far-reaching strategy for Afghanistan that now links success there with stability in neighboring Pakistan.
It’s a huge undertaking in distant lands where fiercely independent people have a long history of outlasting foreign militaries and refusing to change their ways. The Washington sessions represent an early test of whether a U.S. president at the start of the 21st century has sufficient leverage and power to succeed where great empires have failed.
But the first of the two days of meetings, evinced — on the surface at least — none of the drama or urgency gripping both countries, especially the potential threat to Pakistan’s weak government and fears its nuclear weapons could fall into militant hands.
Administration officials brought the promised carrots to the difficult task, assurances of significant additional aid for Pakistan and 21,000 additional U.S. troops for Afghanistan.
In return, the White House demanded that Karzai get serious about eradicating corruption and boosting a government criticized as ineffective. Zardari was questioned about his seemingly lackadaisical response to the Taliban sweep through the Swat Valley within 60 miles of Islamabad, the capital.
National Security Adviser James Jones said Zardari had “assured the president he was properly focused on it (the Taliban threat),” noting that was “very encouraging.”
Most foreign policy analysts applaud Obama’s new strategy — an acceptance that defeating Taliban militants and their al-Qaida allies is only possible if those groups are rejected by the broader populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
To that end, Obama’s national security team wants to focus not only on military operations but on broader nation building to make life better for the beleaguered people in both nations.
Can Obama, Karzai and Zardari keep a lid on spiraling violence, sustain sufficient peace for his new policy to work?
The Taliban has significantly stepped up attacks on both sides of the forbidding, mountainous border that separates the South Asian neighbors.
Acknowledging that “the road ahead will be difficult,” Obama said he has made a “lasting commitment” to not only defeat extremism in both countries but to salvage their shaky democracies.
“No matter what happens we will not be deterred,” Obama said Wednesday with Zardari and Karzai standing at his side in the White House.
Earlier, as the summit began, Clinton called the gathering a “breakthrough meeting,” telling reporters the sessions covered trade, water sharing, military training and anti-corruption drives among other issues.
“We are facing a common enemy, and we have, therefore, made common cause together,” Clinton said at a ceremonial opening, also flanked by Karzai and Zardari in her department’s ornate Benjamin Franklin Room.
While encouraged, the Obama team faces an extended and costly task in both countries. It has a solid plan for success, but there is no certainty the America people will sustain the patience needed, nor that the U.S. Treasury has sufficient dollars.
___
EDITOR’S NOTE — Steven R. Hurst, who has covered foreign policy for 30 years, reports from the White House for The Associated Press.

Is China a rich or poor country?
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Shanghai
The year 2009 could turn out to be a good one for China.
Recent economic data prompted some analysts to suggest it might already have reached the bottom of the current economic cycle. Many are expecting a recovery in the second half of the year.
If China’s economy starts to recover earlier than those in other countries, it could challenge the assumptions we make about the world economic order.
Chinese companies, which are more cash rich than big corporations in some other countries, and with financial support from the government, have been scouring the globe for resources for some time now.
The global economic turmoil has offered them new opportunities to pick up under-valued assets elsewhere.
And yet this is a country that still receives hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from Western countries.
How should it be treated by the rest of the world then, as a “rich” country or a “poor” country, as one that needs to be helped or one whose economic strength we should fear?
Huge contrasts
From the top of Shanghai’s tallest building, the World Financial Centre, tourists – most of them Chinese – gaze down on the city below them.
Rapid development in the past few years has created a skyline to rival that of Hong Kong’s, New York’s or Tokyo’s.
Viewed from this height, Shanghai seems to be a rich, sophisticated, modern metropolis – and to a certain extent it is.
But at the foot of the tower it’s a different story. You notice the pollution and the noise, the dirt and the traffic congestion.
Close up, Chinese cities are not always so pleasant. This country is in a hurry to remake itself, and laws to control construction and development are sometimes not well enforced here.
Watching this rapid change, it’s hard to judge how far this country has come.
Andy Tsieh, who describes himself as an “independent” economist, argues that China is no longer a poor country.
“In terms of trade, China is the largest trading nation in the world today,” he points out.
“In terms of gross domestic product (GDP), China is likely to surpass Japan as the number two world economy either this year or next year.”
But he accepts that China’s size complicates matters, making it harder to judge how to deal fairly with the Chinese.
“China’s not a normal country – it’s a huge empire, it’s like the first world, the second world and the third world co-exist together inside China.
“China is many things at the same time.”
Endemic poverty
In big cities like Shanghai, first-world China and third-world China don’t just coexist, they collide.
At the foot of the World Financial Centre a woman kneels on the pavement begging, a hat in front of her, her forehead on the floor. She’s ignored by most of the passers-by in their business suits.
Officials in China agonise over how to deal with poorer “out-of-towners” who come to cities like this looking for work, or just a better life. They cannot afford to help everyone.
Li Wei, an economist from Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai, says that even though the country is getting richer, there are hundreds of millions who really struggle to get by.
The burden of caring for them is sometimes ignored by economists or politicians from overseas, when they ask China to pay more to support bodies such as the International Monetary Fund.
“If you live in the west or the centre of China, then you don’t really see why the global community is demanding so much from us,” he says.
“To them this may not even be a question, their mind is on how to make a living every day not how to help the world.”
There are other reasons, too, why China might not be able to contribute more on the world stage, according to Prof Shen Dingli from Shanghai’s Fudan University.
He argues that even as the country has gained more wealth, it has lost a lot in other ways.
“We have amassed a huge amount of money, but we’ve caused a huge amount of ecological damage,” he says.
“We have not had balanced, sustainable development, so I would conclude that China is still a poor country environmentally, ecologically and philosophically.”
Challenge and opportunity
The World Bank groups China among lower to middle income countries like Bolivia, India and Syria.
At the moment, though, China’s economy is in much better shape than those of many Western countries, which fear China’s biggest corporations are now in a stronger position than ever before to take control of valuable assets, like mines, or other strategic assets, because the companies that own them are desperate for cash.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said recently that “challenge and opportunity always come together”.
As we in the West fall more into debt, and our economies become weaker than they were before, questions about whether China is a behemoth that should be tamed, or a developing country that still needs our help, become less abstract and more pressing.
Judging what’s fair, though, is almost impossible, depending as it does on what side of the negotiating table you’re sitting on.

Source:BBC

EU reaches out to troubled East
By Oana Lungescu
BBC News, Prague
As the European Union welcomes six former Soviet republics to Prague, the summit is given added spice by instability in the region and the delicate question of relations with Russia.
The EU’s “Eastern Partnership” initiative aims to forge closer ties with countries that Russia still sees as part of its sphere of influence – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
It was proposed last year by Poland and Sweden, not only to boost the EU’s fairly ineffectual “neighbourhood” policy, but also to act as a counterweight to the Mediterranean Union, launched with great fanfare by France last year to bring countries like Morocco and Egypt closer to the EU.
One word increasingly mentioned by diplomats when they talk about the EU’s eastern neighbours is “instability”. The war between Russia and Georgia last summer and the Russia-Ukraine energy row, which led to gas cuts to Europe in the depth of winter, have fuelled EU concern about events on the bloc’s eastern borders.
More recently there was violent anti-government unrest in Moldova after a disputed election, and just this week an attempted army mutiny in Georgia.
The economic crisis, currently hurting the former Soviet Union as much as any other region in the world, only compounds those concerns.
German angst
To signal Germany’s growing alarm, Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to attend the summit in Prague.
Last week, Germany and Poland called for the EU to co-ordinate financial assistance to Ukraine and send an EU mission there as soon as possible.
The German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, described Ukraine’s economic situation as “worsening by the day”.
The crisis, he said, was heightened by “the blockade at the top levels of the government” – a reference to the debilitating rivalry between Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – which made reforms very difficult, as well as tensions with Russia.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is also coming, but the absentees include the leaders of France, Britain and Spain.
France will be represented by Prime Minister Francois Fillon and Britain by Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
“It’s a bad signal,” said an EU official. “We shouldn’t give the impression that only Eastern European countries support this policy.”
Czech political woes
To add to the embarrassment, the Czech government fell earlier this year, so Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who hosts the meeting, has to step down just hours after the summit.
And confusion over the guest list does not end there.
While there is little to stop Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko from flying to Prague – after the EU suspended a travel ban last year as a reward for the release of political prisoners – few EU leaders would be prepared to shake the hand of a man often dubbed “Europe’s last dictator”.
Azerbaijan stands to gain from big energy deals with the EU
So the First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, Vladimir Semashko, will be despatched instead.
Moldova’s Communist President Vladimir Voronin, whom the opposition accuses of rigging the recent election, will also stay away.
The Czechs pointedly addressed their invitations to the states of Belarus and Moldova.
The leaders of the other four ex-Soviet countries – who received personal invitations – confirmed they would attend. But in a further twist, Ukraine may be represented not just by Mr Yushchenko, but also by Ms Tymoshenko.
The offer on the summit table is also disputed. The EU wants to show it cares, but is afraid of giving away too much. It has earmarked more than 600m euros (530m; 800m) for the Eastern Partnership until 2013, but just over half (350m euros) is new money.
There is the prospect of more energy co-operation and better trade conditions, but not of eventual EU membership – disappointing for Ukraine and Moldova.
Germany and others also oppose any promise of getting rid of visa requirements in the next few years.
“All the six countries would like visa-free travel tomorrow,” said an official, “but no one in the EU wants to talk about more than visa facilitation” for certain categories of people, such as students and researchers.
Yet Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the EU of trying to carve out a new sphere of influence in what Moscow defines as its region of “privileged interest”. Last week he said the EU had given him assurances that the initiative was not directed against Russia and he wanted “very much to believe” them.
The EU insists that the Eastern Partnership is not an anti-Russia alliance or a sphere of influence.
“We’re responding to the demands of these countries,” said one official, “and the economic reality is that most of their trade is done with the EU”.
The political reality, though, is that most ex-Soviet republics seem divided between Moscow and Brussels and are playing one off against the other.

Source:BBC

MIAMI, FloridaAn internationally known Catholic priest sometimes called “Father Oprah” has been removed from his posts in Florida after published photos showed him lying down bare-chested in an embrace with a woman on a beach.
The photos of the Cuban-American priest appeared on the cover of this week’s TV Notas magazine.
The Rev. Alberto Cutie (pronounced koo-tee-AYE)who got the nickname “Father Oprah” because of the advice he gives on Spanish-language mediaremains a priest. But he was relieved Tuesday of his duties at St. Francis De Sales Church in Miami Beach, Florida, and at the Radio Paz and Radio Peace networks, said a “deeply saddened” Miami, Florida, Archbishop John C. Favalora. The photos of the Cuban-American priest appeared on the cover and on eight inside pages of this week’s TV Notas magazine. The cover says in Spanish: “Sainted God. Padre Alberto. First photos of a priest ‘in flagrante’ with his lover.” In a message posted on the Miami archdiocese Web page, the archbishop apologized to parishioners and radio listeners for what he called a “scandal.” “Father Cutie made a promise of celibacy and all priests are expected to fulfill that promise with the help of God,” Favalora said. “Father Cutie’s actions cannot be condoned despite the good works he has done as a priest.” Cutie apologized in an online statement Tuesday, saying he “wants to ask for forgiveness if my actions have caused pain and sadness. … I assure you that my service and dedication to God remain intact.” Watch pictures that led to priest’s dismissal. »
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Other media outlets throughout Latin America, including the official Notimex news agency in Mexico, picked up the story on Tuesday, and it became an Internet sensation. Cutie has millions of followers in the Spanish-speaking world. “We got a bunch of calls from sobbing women,” said Miami archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta. Archdiocese officials declined to say where Cutie was Tuesday or what his new assignment might be. A woman who answered the telephone Wednesday at St. Francis De Sales said, “He is no longer here.” The identity of the woman in the photos remained publicly unknown Wednesday. Cutie was ordained in May 1995 and was the first Catholic priest to host a daily talk show on a major secular television network, his information on the LinkedIn online professional network says.
In addition to his TV and radio appearances, he has written newspaper advice columns and a self-help book, “Real Life, Real Love.” He was president and general director of Pax Catholic Communications, home of Radio Paz and Radio Peace in Miami.
Source:CNN

‘Troops and rebels clash’ in Chad
By Celeste Hicks
BBC News, N’Djamena
Rebels have clashed with government troops in the volatile east of Chad, government sources have told the BBC.
They said the fighting took place between the army and rebels of the UFR movement and aid workers were evacuated from several displaced people’s sites.
Formed in January this year, the UFR has so far been unsuccessful.
Many observers believe this is a last-ditch attempt to prove their relevance before the arrival of June rains makes any movement in the east impossible.
Chad’s government claimed on Tuesday that Sudan had sent the rebels over the border from Darfur, just days after the two countries signed an agreement saying they would end hostilities.
A ministerial source in N’Djamena told the BBC that fighting broke out between the national army and rebels in the region south of Goz Beida on Wednesday morning, but that there was no word yet on casualties.
He added that the rebels were moving slowly and the government did not feel threatened by the advance.
Amid concern about rebels passing through the area, Irish troops working for the UN peacekeeping mission Minurcat have evacuated about 50 workers from non-government organisations from a camp for displaced people south of Goz Beida.
Estimates of the number of rebel vehicles in Chad range from 50 to 200, and UN sources say there appear to be two separate groups on the move – around Goz Beida and also further south in the forested, unpopulated area that borders the Central African Republic.
A rebel communique issued on Wednesday said that their ultimate goal was to reach N’Djamena, but the mood in the capital remains calm with most people going about their business as normal.

Source:BBC

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) on Wednesday said it is freezing its cash-balance pension plan for all employees, and has issued layoff notices to 548 workers in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, the former home of Wachovia Corp.
The moves will reduce costs, spokeswoman Mary Eshet said. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia for $12.5 billion at the end of 2008, and has said it expects about $5 billion of annual cost savings related to the merger, with job cuts beginning this quarter. It has not said how many jobs it plans to cut.
Wells Fargo said it will maintain its 401(k) retirement plan, under which the San Francisco-based bank matches employee contributions for up to 6 percent of total pay. Many other large companies have also cut back traditional pension plans.
A significant number of the 548 layoffs are in investment banking, a smaller unit of the former Wachovia that Wells Fargo has been reducing in size. These job cuts began in February, and will continue through late July, the bank said.
The government is expected on Thursday to say Wells Fargo needs billions of dollars of capital to cope with a potentially deep economic downturn. Results of government “stress tests” on 19 large U.S. banks are due for release that afternoon.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing Bernard Orr)

WASHINGTON – Trying to curb home foreclosures, the Senate voted on Wednesday to make it easier for homeowners with risky credit to switch to a lower-cost mortgage backed by the government. The bill, passed 91-5, also would give banks a break by encouraging reduced fees they must pay for the government to insure deposits.
While both steps put taxpayer money on the line, lawmakers say the legislation is needed to prevent the economy from getting worse.
“Given the size and scope of the struggles too many Nevadans and Americans endure, it will take more time before housing normalizes again,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “But with this bill, we are working to hasten that day so that no family will ever accept losing its home as the way it is.”
Absent from the measure was a bankruptcy provision that President Barack Obama had promised to push through Congress, but backed down amid stiff opposition from banks. The provision, rejected by the Senate last week in a 45-51 vote, would have allowed bankruptcy judges to lower a person’s mortgage payment.
While the House included the provision when it passed its version of the bill in March, lawmakers said it didn’t have enough support to insist it be included in the final compromise bill. The two chambers have to iron out their differences in the legislation before it can be sent to Obama to sign.
“That issue is a dead letter,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Banking Committee.
Also on Wednesday, the House agreed to a Senate-passed bill that would hire hundreds more FBI agents and prosecutors to investigate mortgage fraud. The legislation, expected to reach the president’s desk soon, also would establish a 5 million, independent commission to investigate the cause of the financial crisis and chart a path forward.
The Senate housing bill would expand an existing 300 billion program called “Hope for Homeowners,” which encourages lenders to write down an individual’s mortgage if the homeowner agrees to pay an insurance premium. The program, which is set to expire in 2011, is intended to swap out a homeowner’s high-interest rate for a 30-year fixed loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration.
So far, the program has been a dud.
When it was established last year, Congress envisioned helping some 400,000 troubled homeowners. But because eligibility requirements were so strict, one borrower has completed the refinancing process and only 51 more are in the works, according to statistics released last week.
The Senate bill would expand eligibility. For example, the program currently bans participants who intentionally defaulted on the mortgage or other substantial debt. The Senate bill would narrow that prohibition to defaults within the last five years.
Republicans swung behind the proposal to expand the program using 2 billion from the 700 billion Wall Street bailout fund. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, co-sponsored the bill with Dodd.
Still, some Republicans warned that increasing the burden of the government to insure risky mortgages — even if it saves people from foreclosure — could backfire. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who called the Federal Housing Administration a potential “ticking time bomb,” proposed letting the administration suspend any programs that threaten its solvency.
His effort was defeated 36-56.
Another issue is whether Hope for Homeowners will be enough to keep people in their homes, considering other voluntary efforts haven’t provided homeowners steep discounts. According to a report released last month by federal regulators, fewer than half of the loan modifications made by lenders at the end of last year reduced payments by more than 10 percent.
The Senate housing bill also would permanently increase the borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 30 billion to 100 billion. Increasing the FDIC’s credit would allow the agency to reduce large new premiums it has begun charging banks to insure deposits.
In addition, the bill extends through 2013 an increase in deposit insurance by the FDIC from 100,000 to 250,000.

NEW YORK – Bernard Madoff’s longtime secretary said Wednesday that she believes the disgraced financier is not cooperating with authorities in order to protect others, and that he was a flirtatious boss who frequented massage parlors.
Eleanor Squillari, Madoff’s secretary of more than 20 years, told The Associated Press she thinks her former boss carefully orchestrated his arrest and that he’s protecting others who might have been involved in his multibillion-dollar scheme by not cooperating with investigators. She declined to speculate as to whom he might be protecting.
Squillari said that if she had a chance to speak to Madoff, she would ask him “to do the right thing and to let us know this happened.”
“I just can’t imagine why he’s not cooperating, why he’s saying he did it himself,” she said. “It’s not humanly possible, in my opinion.”
Squillari spoke with the AP after she appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America” to promote an account of her time working for Madoff that she co-wrote for Vanity Fair. The 59-year-old Squillari spent two months helping the FBI gather evidence against the former money manager.
In the article, Squillari said her married former boss was flirtatious and made sexually suggestive remarks. She said she once saw him perusing the escort ads in the back of a magazine and said he frequented massage parlors.
“Once, I looked in his address book and found, under M, about a dozen phone numbers for his masseuses,” she wrote. “If you ever lose your address book and somebody finds it, they’re going to think you’re a pervert, I said.”
Squillari said Madoff often made sexually suggestive remarks.
“‘Oh, you know you’re crazy about me,’ he would say to me. Sometimes when he came out of his bathroom, which was diagonal to my desk, he would still be zipping up his pants. If he saw me shaking my head disapprovingly, he would say ‘Oh, you know it excites you,’” she wrote.
But Squillari told ABC she had a nice relationship with Madoff, despite his ways toward women.
“So, what one person might perceive as inappropriate, I didn’t,” Squillari said. “So, if he made suggestive remarks, I knew it was only meant to be funny.”
Squillari wrote about a conversation she had with Madoff years ago, after a client’s secretary had been arrested for embezzlement.
“You know, (he) has to take some responsibility for this,” Madoff said, according to Squillari. “He should have been keeping an eye on his personal finances.”
She wrote that Madoff said he always had his wife, Ruth, watch the books and that “nothing gets by Ruth.”
Squillari said she was surprised when he added: “Well, you know what happens is, it starts out with you taking a little bit, maybe a few hundred, a few thousand. You get comfortable with that, and before you know it, it snowballs into something big.”
Madoff, 70, pleaded guilty in March to charges that his secretive investment advisory operation was a multibillion-dollar fraud. The former Nasdaq chairman faces up to 150 years in prison.
Madoff’s attorney, Ira Sorkin, said Wednesday he has no comment on any of the secretary’s allegations.
Squillari said the Madoff who was arrested was not the same man she knew. She said she was shocked and then angry after his arrest.
“I’m having a hard time getting past the person that I did know, who was so kind and generous, and I admired him,” she told NBC. “I can’t seem to get it in my head that he did this. It’s like it’s somebody else.”
And she decided to help the FBI.
“I was so incredibly angry, and the only way I could work through it was to try to help,” she told the AP. “And even though I didn’t think I had much to contribute, I felt that whatever I could do might be helpful, and I just kept researching through all of my files and my calendars going back and I started to realize that I was feeling better.”
Squillari said Madoff was preoccupied in the weeks before his arrest, and his health deteriorated.
“Bernie was developing high blood pressure,” she said. “He was taking medication. He was having a lot of back pain. … He would have to lie on the floor to give himself relief.”
When the arrest became public, Squillari and a co-worker took turns fielding calls from distraught investors.
“You couldn’t do it for more than 15, 20 minutes at a stretch,” she said. “The people were so devastated, they were so scared, they were crying. … You didn’t know what to tell them. There was no information to give. It was very frustrating, and it made you feel sick.”
Squillari said she invested years ago but pulled her money out in the 1990s because as a single mother with two children and a “very limited income,” she needed to supplement her earnings.

WASHINGTON – Trying to curb home foreclosures, the Senate voted on Wednesday to make it easier for homeowners with risky credit to switch to a lower-cost mortgage backed by the government.
The bill, passed 91-5, also would give banks a break by encouraging reduced fees they must pay for the government to insure deposits.
While both steps put taxpayer money on the line, lawmakers say the legislation is needed to prevent the economy from getting worse.
“Given the size and scope of the struggles too many Nevadans and Americans endure, it will take more time before housing normalizes again,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “But with this bill, we are working to hasten that day so that no family will ever accept losing its home as the way it is.”
Absent from the measure was a bankruptcy provision that President Barack Obama had promised to push through Congress, but backed down amid stiff opposition from banks. The provision, rejected by the Senate last week in a 45-51 vote, would have allowed bankruptcy judges to lower a person’s mortgage payment.
While the House included the provision when it passed its version of the bill in March, lawmakers said it didn’t have enough support to insist it be included in the final compromise bill. The two chambers have to iron out their differences in the legislation before it can be sent to Obama to sign.
“That issue is a dead letter,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Banking Committee.
Also on Wednesday, the House agreed to a Senate-passed bill that would hire hundreds more FBI agents and prosecutors to investigate mortgage fraud. The legislation, expected to reach the president’s desk soon, also would establish a 5 million, independent commission to investigate the cause of the financial crisis and chart a path forward.
The Senate housing bill would expand an existing 300 billion program called “Hope for Homeowners,” which encourages lenders to write down an individual’s mortgage if the homeowner agrees to pay an insurance premium. The program, which is set to expire in 2011, is intended to swap out a homeowner’s high-interest rate for a 30-year fixed loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration.
So far, the program has been a dud.
When it was established last year, Congress envisioned helping some 400,000 troubled homeowners. But because eligibility requirements were so strict, one borrower has completed the refinancing process and only 51 more are in the works, according to statistics released last week.
The Senate bill would expand eligibility. For example, the program currently bans participants who intentionally defaulted on the mortgage or other substantial debt. The Senate bill would narrow that prohibition to defaults within the last five years.
Republicans swung behind the proposal to expand the program using 2 billion from the 700 billion Wall Street bailout fund. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, co-sponsored the bill with Dodd.
Still, some Republicans warned that increasing the burden of the government to insure risky mortgages — even if it saves people from foreclosure — could backfire. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who called the Federal Housing Administration a potential “ticking time bomb,” proposed letting the administration suspend any programs that threaten its solvency.
His effort was defeated 36-56.
Another issue is whether Hope for Homeowners will be enough to keep people in their homes, considering other voluntary efforts haven’t provided homeowners steep discounts. According to a report released last month by federal regulators, fewer than half of the loan modifications made by lenders at the end of last year reduced payments by more than 10 percent.
The Senate housing bill also would permanently increase the borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 30 billion to 100 billion. Increasing the FDIC’s credit would allow the agency to reduce large new premiums it has begun charging banks to insure deposits.
In addition, the bill extends through 2013 an increase in deposit insurance by the FDIC from 100,000 to 250,000.

LOS ANGELES, CaliforniaMiss California USA Carrie Prejean has assured pageant officials that a lingerie modeling photo published online this week is the only one she posed for, the state pageant director said.
Miss California USA Carrie Prejean may lose her crown because of some semi-nude photos she appeared in.
But the Web site that published the first picture said it has several more that it will “slowly roll out” starting Wednesday afternoon. The possibility that racier images could emerge prompted “closed-door meetings” Tuesday to consider stripping Prejean of her beauty queen title, pageant spokesman Ron Neal said. Although Neal said Prejean “breached her contract” by keeping the semi-nude photo or photos a secret, the only picture published so far appears about as revealing as the bikini Prejean wore in the pageant’s swimsuit competition. “We have been told by Carrie Prejean there are no other photos other than the one circulating in existence. She should know better than anyone,” Miss California USA Director Keith Lewis said Wednesday. The 21-year-old Miss USA contestant has been the center of controversy since she declared her opposition to same-sex marriage in a response to a question on the national pageant stage last month. She finished as runner-up to Miss USA. In a statement given to CNN Tuesday, Prejean said the photosand she did use the pluralwere being used in a “vicious and mean-spirited” effort to silence her for “defending traditional marriage.” While she vowed to “continue to support and defend marriage as the honorable institution it is,” Prejean may be doing so without the Miss California USA title.
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State pageant officials met Tuesday with lawyers and representatives of Donald Trump, who owns the international competition, to consider if they had grounds to take the crown away from Prejean, according to Neal. “When you compete for Miss California, you’re supposed to disclose whether you posed for nude or semi-nude photos because it’s grounds for disqualification,” he said. CNN obtained a copy of the pageant contract Prejean signed last year in which she agreed that the discovery of semi-nude photos could mean disqualification. The only photo made public shows Prejeanwho said she was 17 at the timewearing pink panties and no top. She is turned away from the camera, with her arm hiding most of her breast. It was unclear if pageant officials would consider this a semi-nude photo, in light of their standard requirement that contestants parade across stage wearing a bikini that arguably shows more bare skin. But the other shoeor other garmentmay be yet to drop. Nik Richieof TheDirty.comsaid he has waited for an upgrade of his Web site’s servers to handle the flood of traffic he expects will come after he posts the additional photos. “I will slowly roll these out,” Richie said. The next image will likely be published Wednesday afternoon, he said. “We’ll see what happens with those and we want to know who’s releasing them,” Neal said. Shanna Moakler, the co-executive director of the Miss California USA organization, will meet with Tami Farrell, the runner-up for the title, “to discuss the possible next steps,” Neal said. Prejean defended the photos, which she said were taken when she was a teenager aspiring to be a Victoria’s Secret model. “I am a Christian, and I am a model,” she said. “Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos.” She said the photos “have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith.” “I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be,” she said. “But these attacks on me and others who speak in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive. While we may not agree on every issue, we should show respect for others’ opinions and not try to silence them through vicious and mean-spirited attacks.” Her publicist, Melany Ethridge, confirmed a comment she gave to celebrity Web site TMZ in which she said Prejean was just 17 when she posed for the photos, hoping they would land her a modeling job. “In her naivete, an agent convinced her to pose for this photo to submit to a lingerie company, claiming they could make her the next Victoria’s Secret model,” Ethridge told TMZ. “She has since learned what a lie that was, and what a mistake it was to have the photo taken.” Prejean announced last week that she would star in a new 1.5 million ad campaign supporting what she termed “opposite marriage” (marriage between a man and a woman) funded by the National Organization for Marriage. “Marriage is good,” Prejean said at a news conference announcing the ad campaign. “There is something special about unions of husband and wife. Unless we bring men and women together, children will not have mothers and fathers.”
Source:CNN

A stunning last-gasp strike from Andres Iniesta put 10-man Barcelona in the Champions League final on the away goals rule, giving the Catalan giants a 1-1 draw at Chelsea on a night of high drama at Stamford Bridge.
Andres Iniesta (right) celebrates his stunning last-gasp strike as Barcelona reached the Champions League final.
With the clock showing two minutes gone out of an extra four minutes at the end of the game, Spanish international Iniesta fired in a sublime shot from the edge of the area to break Chelsea’s hearts and take Pep Guardiola’s side through to a dream final against holders Manchester United in Rome on May 27. Following last week’s cagey goalless draw at the Nou Camp, all the talk before the match was whether Barca’s stunning attacking prowess could pierce Chelsea’s solid defense. As Barca had hit Real Madrid for six last Saturday, their hopes were high. However, the loss of Thierry Henry through injury proved a major setback for the Catalan giants anddespite dominating possession for the majority of the matchthey failed to seriously trouble the Chelsea goal until Iniesta’s strike. The opening goal of another tight match came in the ninth minute and what a superb strike it was. Frank Lampard’s cross from the left was deflected off a Barca defender and, from a full 30 yards out, Michael Essien fired a spectacular volley that left goalkeeper Victor Valdes clutching thin air.
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Barcelona’s first effort on goal came in the 20th minute with a Dani Alves free-kick, which flew just wide. Then, just two minutes, Didier Drogba seemed set to run onto a long pass from Lampard, but Valdes saw the danger early and sprinted out of his goal to just beat the Ivorian to the ball. There was controversy in the 24th minute when Alves pulled back Florent Malouda on the left-hand edge of the area. Norwegian referee Tom Henning awarded a free-kick to the home side, but TV replays clearly showed the offense occured just inside the area, which should have handed Chelsea a chance to double their lead from the penalty spot. Drogba eventually took the free-kick from an acute angle and only another fine stop from Valdes prevented a second goal. Despite Barcelona enjoying the bulk of possession they failed to trouble Petr Cech in the Chelsea goaland the second half began in a similar vein when Drogba wasted a great opportunity for the home side. Nicolas Anelka burst through the Barca defense before finding Drogba, who cut inside before firing in a shot which Valdes did superbly to keep out his with legs.
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Barca knew an equalizer would see them reach the final on the away goals rule, but their task was made that much harder in the 65th minute when French defender Eric Abidal was unluckily sent off for clipping Nicolas Anelka when his compatriot was through on goal. As the last man, Abidal had to walk, and in doing so he became the first Barcelona player to be sent off in the Champions League since current coach Guardiola was dismissed 11 years ago. From then on, Chelsea appeared to be cruising towards the final and they really should have had a chance to kill the match off from the penalty spot, but again the referee failed to give the decision when Gerald Pique clearly appeared to handle the ball with nine minutes left. But, with Chelsea’s fans dreaming of a chance to avenge last year’s final defeat by Manchester United, Iniesta’s late intervention broke 40,000 hearts. On the final whistle, Chelsea’s angry players surrounded referee Henning, believing the non-award of two clear penalties deprived them of a final place. Michael Ballack appeared to man-handle Henning and Didier Drogba, who had been substituted with a late injury, completely lost his temper, coming back onto the pitch to remonstrate with the referee. European football’s governing body UEFA are certain to take action against Drogba, and possibly Chelsea, following the ugly scenes. The only sour note for Barcelona was a yellow card for Alves which means the Brazilian, along with Abidal, will join Manchester United’s Darren Fletcher in being suspended for the final.
Source:CNN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
President Barack Obama will unveil on Thursday details of his fiscal 2010 budget proposal that contains $17 billion in funding reductions, an administration official said on Wednesday.
Asked by Reuters whether the budget document will contain other major new policy initiatives, the official, who asked not to be identified, said, “That's pretty much the news.”
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Editing by Sandra Maler)

Doctors chose a woman who survived a shotgun wound to her face as the first recipient of a face transplant after treating her for nearly four years.
This image projects what Connie Culp, 46, may look like two years after the face transplant.more photos »
Connie Culp knew of the Cleveland Clinic’s interest in face transplants and approached the medical staff, doctors said at a news conference Tuesday. Dr. Maria Siemionow, the Cleveland, Ohio, hospital’s director of plastic surgery research and head of microsurgery training, had more than 20 years of experience in complex transplants. By 2004, Siemionow was looking for the right candidate for a face transplant who wasn’t doing it for vanity. “They are not looking to go out on the street and be beautiful,” Siemionow told CNN in a 2006 interview. “Some of these patients, when they were interviewed just said ‘I want to walk on the street and just make sure I am not sticking out.’ They just want to have a normal face.” The doctors examined the patient’s history, motivation and ability to understand the risks of the transplant. And they found Culp to be an ideal candidate. Five years after a gun blast shattered her nose, cheeks and upper lip, she had a band of scar tissue extending across her face. “The most devastating of all was the fact that society had rejected her and children were afraid of her,” said Siemionow, who led the December 10 transplant operation. See before and after photos of Culp » Culp, a mother of two and a grandmother, told her doctors she could understand that some adults would shun her.
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“But what really bothered her the most were childrenthe children that shied away from her,” said Dr. Frank Papay, the chairman of Institute of Dermatology and Plastic Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. “That sense of innocence, and her not being able to see that innocence really, really affected her.” The shooting In September 2004, Culp’s estranged husband shot her in the face in an attempted murder-suicide outside a restaurant in Hopedale, Ohio, according to CNN affiliate WTOV in Steubenville, Ohio. Culp was 8 feet away from her husband, Thomas Culp, when he pulled the shotgun’s trigger. He then turned the weapon on himself, according to local news reports. They both survived. Thomas Culp was sent to prison. Despite her wounds, she told WTOV in 2008, “I’ll always love him. He was my first love.” At the same time, Culp said, she felt angry. “I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. I forgive him, but I have to go on, you know?” After the shooting, Culp recuperated in a hospital and in a personal care home for two years. Culp told WTOV she had vision problems and was learning Braille. Her approach to life was to “keep motivated. Don’t sleep your life awaythat could have happened. I could be depressed. I’m not.” As she spoke, her breaths emitted a small whistle from her tracheotomy tube, which protruded from a surgical opening in her neck. “I cannot smell. I will never be able to smell,” she said in the interview. Culp was wrong. How doctors transplanted a face The doctors at the Cleveland Clinic analyzed Culp’s injuries using CAT scans and developed plastic models of her skull. They practiced face transplant operation on cadavers several times. Culp met with the hospital’s surgeons, ethical committee members and psychiatry and psychology specialists who determined that she was an ideal candidate for the surgery. Then, the wait for the right donor began in 2008. “We thought we were going to wait a long time because we had to find a Caucasian female in her mid 40s to match Connie, so we expected a year before we were able to find a donor,” said Papay, who is also head of craniofacial surgery. “Well, three to four months later, I got a call at around midnight from Dr. Siemionow saying ‘I think we have a donor.’” The family of a brain dead woman granted permission to use her face. He likened the preparation for the December transplant to a rocket launch, saying, “Everything was prepared beforehand very, very, very carefully.” Surgeons sheared out the donor’s mid-facial area including the lower eyelids, cheekbones, the nose, some of the sinus and the whole upper jaw, with the blood vessels. Watch CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta discuss the face transplant » When it came time to move the donor’s parts to Culp, they had to see that the donor and recipient parts aligned. “One of the ways you can tell that is how your upper teeth fit to the lower teeth,” Papay said. “We knew it was like a hand in a glove, exactly where we needed to be.” They secured the bones into Culp’s face using titanium plates and screws. Then the microvascular surgeons attached the vessels. They tucked the scars around Culp’s ears or underneath her eyelid, where they would not be visible. How the doctors operated » Doctors added more skin than needed in case of tissue rejection. After monitoring Culp’s progress, doctors say they will remove the excess tissue and tighten her jawline in future surgeries. Contrary to science fiction and movies, the surgery did not make Culp look like the donor. “If you just took the skin and transplanted it to the other patient, the bony structure is different,” Papay said. “If you took the bony structure and transplanted it on the other side, it ends up being a composite. So, it doesn’t look like the donor. It doesn’t look like the recipient. It ends up looking like someone new.” Recovery At this point, all the transplanted parts of Culp’s face are functioning except for her facial nerves, which are growing about an inch a month. Doctors anticipate Culp will be able to have full facial functionand more expression by this winter. In physical therapy, she learns to train her nerves, make facial expressions, smile and purse her lips, doctors said.
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“If you cry or you laugh or you smile, it’s not like you think about it. You just emotionally do it. So that’s a wait and see for us,” Papay said. “As far as the emotional one, that’s really the key issue. A far as when she laughs, cries and grimaces and gets angry at you…what’s her face going to look like? That’s the exciting part about it.” Five months after the first face transplant in the United States, Culp lives at home. She has checkups with the medical staff once or twice a month and will do so for the next year, her doctors said.
Initially, Culp used immunosuppressants that transplanted kidney, liver or heart patients would normally take. Transplant patients must take immune-suppressing drugs throughout their lifetime to prevent tissue rejection. But she showed improvements that enabled the doctors to reduce her regimen to one medication, doctors said. “She’s taking her medications,” Siemionow said. “We know she is compliant. She cares about how she looks. She has her hair done in a new color…She is full of life. She does her push-ups. She’s on the treadmill. What else can I say?”
Source:CNN

WASHINGTON President Obama said Wednesday that the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States are meeting “as three sovereign nations joined by a common goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in Washington Wednesday, pledged to work with the United States to stabilize his country.
To do so, Obama said, the three nations have to deny extremists space to operate and bring a better life to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama delivered the remarks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the White House. Karzai and Zardari are in Washington for two days of talks with the United States. Obama said the security of the three countries is linked, and that al Qaeda and its allies are responsible for killing innocent civilians and challenging the democratically elected governments in the nations. The United States has made a “lasting commitment [that it] will not waiver” in efforts to defeat extremists and support the Afghan and Pakistani governments, he said. Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the talks by saying the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan face a “common enemy” in extremism and urging the leaders of the southern Asia countries to work together to defeat it. “We have made this a common cause because we face a common threat, and we have a common task and a common challenge,” Clinton said. “We know that each of your countries is struggling with the extremists who would destabilize and undermine democracy.”
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The talks are being attended by the foreign, defense, intelligence and agriculture ministers from Afghanistan and Pakistan and a number of heavyweights from the Obama administration, including U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, Gen. David Petraeus, CIA director Leon Panetta, FBI director Robert Mueller and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Watch Clinton say U.S., Afghanistan, Pakistan face a common threat » The meetings are a continuation of a trilateral process started by Clinton in February, when she invited the foreign ministers of both countries to discuss Obama’s strategy for stabilizing the region. In addition to sending 21,000 more troops and trainers to Afghanistan, Obama has committed to a surge in U.S. civilian personnel and aid to boost domestic support for both leaders, both considered weak and unpopular back home. By inviting the leaders to meet with Obama, the administration hopes to enlist them as full partners working with the United States in a regional alliance to combat terrorism. Clinton said the talks would address “concrete initiatives” on improving security, boosting economic development and trade and increasing opportunities for both populations. Clinton said she “deeply regretted” the killing of Afghan civilians during fighting on Tuesday in western Afghanistan and pledged to both leaders the United States “will work very hard with your governments and with your leaders to avoid the loss of innocent civilian lives.” U.S. probing Afghan civilians’ deaths Karzai thanked her for her comment and said he hopes the two countries can work together to avoid civilian casualties “as we move ahead in our war on terrorism.” The talks come amid growing U.S. frustration with the lack of progress by both countries in fighting extremists. In particular, the Obama administration has voiced increased concern about recent Taliban and al Qaeda gains across much of southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan. The U.S. military has carried out airstrikes against militant targets in Pakistan, after Zardari’s government was criticized for not cracking down on militants along the Afghan border. The unmanned drone attacks have rankled relations between Pakistan and Washington. Pakistan’s government recently signed a deal that would allow Islamic law, or sharia, in the Swat Valley, in exchange for an end to fighting. The government began a military offensive after Taliban militants moved into the Buner district and refused to disarm, in violation of the agreement. See map of region » Last week, Obama said Pakistan’s government appears to be “very fragile” and argued that the United States has “huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable” and doesn’t end up a “nuclear-armed militant state.” The United States has also accused Karzai’s government of being ineffective and corrupt. Karzai further angered the United States this week when he named Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a powerful warlord accused of violating human rights, as his vice presidential running mate, despite warnings from Clinton that Fahim would be a polarizing choice. “We are not perfect,” Clinton told the leaders. “No human being is. We will make mistakes, but we need to have the kind of open dialogue where we express our concerns about those mistakes.” Zardari and Karzai pledged to work together with the United States to combat extremists and stabilize their two countries. “While we will need high levels of support in days to come, we will also be far more transparent in our actions,” Zardari told the group. “Here, me, my friend, President Karzai, and the United States assure the world, that we will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the world to fight this cancer and this threat.” Pakistani democracy, he added, will defeat terrorism and “avenge the death” of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in late 2007. Clinton called Bhutto an “extraordinary leader” and acknowledged the couple’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who attended the talks. He is the chairman of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and heir apparent to the Bhutto dynasty. Calling the United States his country’s “most valued” strategic ally, Karzai said, “I’m certain, through the implementation of the strategy outlined earlier by President Obama, will bring us the needed relief toward better, more peaceful life in both of our countries.” He promised Afghanistan will work hard to “do the right thing” to build confidence and trust with Pakistan to “wage a more effective struggle against the menace of terrorism and the violence that radicalism causes both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan and the danger that they pose to you in America and the rest of the world.”
The two leaders signed a trade and transit agreement aimed at increasing commerce and foreign investment in the two countries and will also be visiting key congressional leaders and policymakers about U.S. efforts to boost both countries’ economies. A bill called the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, introduced by Sens. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and Dick Lugar, R-Indiana, would authorize 7.5 billion in nonmilitary aid to Pakistan over the next five years to foster economic growth and development, and another 7.5 billion for the following five years.
Source:CNN

Chelsea 1-1 Barcelona (agg 1-1)
Andres Iniesta’s injury-time strike stunned Chelsea and sent 10-man Barca into the Champions League final.
Chelsea took an early lead through Michael Essien’s thunderous volley.
Barca’s hopes took a blow when Eric Abidal was sent off but Iniesta arrowed a sensational shot into the top corner to send his side through on away goals.
Chelsea, who had four penalty appeals turned down, surrounded the referee at the final whistle as their frustrations boiled over.
More to follow.

Source:BBC

ATLANTA – There were more signs Wednesday that those hardest-hit by swine flu are the young.
U.S. health officials said the median age for confirmed hospital cases in the United States is 15. And in Mexico, new figures showed that almost half of the 42 confirmed swine flu deaths were of people 29 and younger.
Some experts have speculated that older people exposed to more flu strains in the past have built up greater immunity.
At a briefing on Wednesday, Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control, said older people’s immunity might be one possible explanation. Or he said it might just be that younger people have tended to get sick first in the outbreak.
During the regular winter flu season, elderly people and those with chronic health conditions are the most likely to be sent to a hospital.
The age range of those in U.S. hospitals with swine flu is eight months to 53 years. There are 35 people hospitalized with confirmed cases of the new flu in 14 states, the CDC says.
Besser said the CDC has little information on other medical conditions of hospitalized patients that might have made them more vulnerable. So far, no single health problem has emerged as a dominant factor, he said.
On Tuesday, Mexico’s Health Department released figures showing Mexicans 19 and younger accounted for more than half of those confirmed ill from the virus.

NEW YORK – Generally speaking, a fashion show and a runway go hand in hand. But for TV audiences, they’ll now be rivals.
Bravo is debuting “The Fashion Show” on Friday to fill the void left by “Project Runway,” which bolted to rival Lifetime. Bravo recruited designer Isaac Mizrahi, singer Kelly Rowland and IMG Fashion vice president Fern Mallis, the force behind much of New York Fashion Week, for its new reality show.
There are a few tweaks to “The Fashion Show,” which debuts Friday: Each week a winning garment is to be manufactured and sold to the public via an online store; all the designers are professionals; and the winner at the end of the season will have his or her own line available at retail.
However, the similarities to the Heidi Klum-helmed show are striking, too. There are few fashion personalities who could rival the wit and openness of Michael Kors, but Mizrahi probably can. Rowland brings the celebrity element to the show, and Mallis probably has had her share of front-row catwalk seats next to Nina Garcia.
And there is, of course, the weekly challenge.
There’s room for multiple fashion-themed reality shows because it’s an industry that average Joes and Janes are mesmerized by and understand, says Mizrahi, who didn’t name his obvious competitor. The sixth season of “Project Runway” — which has already been taped — will air this summer on Lifetime.
“As a judge, I am looking first for integrity. I can’t tell yet about niches that people will fit into, but we have to train them to think properly and then think about the marketplace aspect. The difference with our show from other shows is that we have an audience that votes every week and they say some brutal things,” Mizrahi says.
Rowland is looking for a spark — and an outfit she’d wear — among the 15 participants, while Mallis says she is eyeing both creativity and practicality. “You have to be able to walk in it, step up a step in it,” Mallis says.
Rowland thinks it’s the judges’ collective perspective that will benefit the wannabe style stars the most.
“We’re all very honest,” she says. “Firm Fern and Honest Isaac, that’s what I call them.”
And her nickname? “Classy Kelly,” says Mallis.
“We taught a lot of tough love,” Mizrahi says. “It was hard for me. As a judge I couldn’t tell them the polka dots were god awful.”
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Republicans believe they've finally found a winning issue: Guantanamo.
While Democrats struggle over the money for the prison's closure and debate the future of Guantanamo Bay, Republicans are having no such nuanced debate.
On Wednesday, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) announced that he would be pitching an Appropriations amendment that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to transport the prisoners to U.S. soil.
“My first plan is to have an up-or-down vote in the Appropriations Committee tomorrow,” Tiahrt told reporters. “They are known, dangerous criminals who have vowed to destroy our way of life.”
Republicans have pounced on the decision by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) earlier this week to withhold the 81 million in federal funds Obama had requested to relocate the prisoners. Obey said the White House had not provided sufficient details about his plan for closing the detention facility.
“We understand that over on the House side they've deleted the money. That doesn't eliminate the issue. The issue remains: What will be done with these prisoners?” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.
“The American people do not support the release of these terrorists at Gitmo. And the administration, in asking for money, needs to tell us exactly what it would spend that money for, or I predict to you that the Congress will not support the appropriation that has been requested,” added Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).
Tiahrt said that any prisoners released to U.S. soil would present a danger, and he insisted that he wasn’t arguing on hypothetical terms.
“I think it’s pretty factual that we have known enemies who we would be turning loose on our streets,” he said.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss has said he plans to introduce a bill in the Senate similar to Tiahrt’s.

MEXICO CITY – Deep inside a heavily guarded military warehouse, the evidence of Mexico’s war on drug cartels is stacked two stories high: tens of thousands of seized weapons, from handguns and rifles to AK-47s, some with gun sights carved into the shape of a rooster or a horse’s head.
The vault nestled in a Mexican military base is the government’s largest stash of weapons — some 88,537 of them — seized from brutal drug gangs. The Associated Press was recently given rare and exclusive access to the secure facility.
The sheer size of the cache attests to the seemingly hopeless task of ever sorting and tracing the guns, possibly to trafficking rings that deliver weapons to Mexico. And security designed to keep the guns from getting back on the streets is so tight that even investigators have trouble getting the access they need.
The warehouse — on a main drag in northeastern Mexico City near the horse racing track — is surrounded by five rings of security. There are two military guards at the door and five more are in the lobby. Inside, another 10 soldiers sort, clean and catalog weapons. Some are dismantled and destroyed, a few assigned to the Mexican military.
The guns are stacked to the two-story ceiling in a warehouse the size of a small Wal-Mart. The rifles lie on 22 metal racks; the pistols hang from metal poles by their triggers.
The cavernous warehouse is impeccably clean, the only smell coming from the coffee the soldiers prepared for their rare visitors. The clash of metal and sounds of the soldiers at work echo off the walls.
The security, bolstered by closed-circuit cameras and motion detectors, makes the warehouse practically impenetrable, said Gen. Antonio Erasto Monsivais, who oversees the armory.
In all, the military has 305,424 confiscated weapons locked in vaults, just a fraction of those used by criminals in Mexico, where an offensive by drug cartels against the military has killed more than 10,750 people since December 2006. But each weapon is a clue to how the cartels are getting arms, and possibly to the traffickers that brought them here.
The U.S. has acknowledged that many of the rifles, handguns and ammunition used by the cartels come from its side of the border. Mexican gun laws are strict, especially compared to those in most U.S. border states.
The Mexican government has handed over information to U.S. authorities to trace 12,073 weapons seized in 2008 crimes — particularly on guns from large seizures or notorious crimes.
But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which handles the U.S. investigations, is at the mercy of local Mexican police for the amount and quality of the information.
“Many of these rural municipalities that may come into a gun seizure … may not even know anything about tracing guns,” ATF spokesman Thomas Mangan said.
A police officer in Mexico submits a description, serial number and distinctive markings of the gun. The weapons are then turned over to the military for storage in one of a dozen armories such as the one in Mexico City.
When U.S. investigators need additional details, as they often do, the request goes back to the original police officer, who must retrieve the gun from a military vault — sometimes hundreds of miles away.
Mexican police must ask permission each time they need to look at a stored gun, Monsivais said. Even if that permission is granted, the investigator cannot go past the metal fencing separating a reception desk and the shelves holding the guns. A soldier has to bring out the requested weapons.
The security, language differences and bureaucracy add up to a painstaking process, said J. Dewey Webb, special agent in charge of the ATF’s Houston Field Division.
“The military does a very good job when the weapons come into their custody of securing them,” he told the AP. “Because of the systems in Mexico, it’s very difficult for us to get in.”
Webb said recent talks between the two countries were beginning to ease access, but also noted other problems.
Many mistakes are made because of difficulty translating technical terms about firearms, Webb said. A Spanish-language version of eTrace, the Web-based method of submitting tracing information, won’t be available until next year.
About a third of the guns submitted for tracing in 2007 were sold by licensed U.S. dealers.
U.S. agents need the information to track the gun back to the manufacturer and determine when it was made and what wholesaler it was shipped to, ATF spokeswoman Franceska Perot said. Agents follow the gun to the local licensed dealer who sold it and determine the buyer.
ATF offices around the U.S. are swamped with tracing requests, trying to determine who actually bought the weapons and whether they were part of a firearms trafficking scheme. The ATF has sent an extra 100 agents to Houston to help unclog the 700-weapon backlog as part of its Project Gunrunner.
The seized weapons are kept in the vaults as long as they are needed as evidence, Monsivais said. Most have been there for years, an indication of how slow criminal investigations proceed and how few crimes are ever solved.
Indeed, the ATF gave the AP data showing the average “time to crime” — the time between when a gun was sold and when it was seized in a crime — is 14 years.
That’s an average of four years longer than guns in American crimes, the ATF said. The older the street age, the harder it can be to track how the gun wound up at a crime scene.
When the criminal investigations are complete, most of the weapons are destroyed and melted down. Some of the more powerful arms, such as M16 machine guns and sniper rifles, are added to the military’s own arsenal. Showpieces are destined for museums.
Most of the guns traced were originally sold by U.S. dealers in border states, with more than half purchased in Texas. Not only does Texas have the most gun dealers of any state, it makes up 1,200 miles of the 2,100-mile U.S.-Mexico border, with many of the established drug and trafficking routes.
Details on the 2008 tracing requests are not yet available.
It’s less clear how cartels are getting military-grade weapons. Amid the shelves of pistols and rifles, there is a 9 mm grenade launcher and a portable shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launcher.
Such military-grade weaponry represents a tiny fraction of the seized weapons. But Monsivais said he’s most worried about the rising caliber of assault rifles and semi-automatic guns that have been found.
“There are weapons that have a lot of firepower and great penetration, like the .50-caliber Barrett … which can penetrate armored vehicles, body armor, and that normally only militaries use,” Monsivais said.
Thirty percent of AK-47 assault rifles seized have been modified to become fully automatic. He said about three of every 1,000 AR-15 assault rifles have been modified to take .50-caliber bullets, the kind of high-powered ammunition designed for sniper rifles.
“In my experience, I had never seen a modified AR-15 rifle,” Monsivais said. “It’s something new, and it is to a certain extent worrisome that they can have and use this type of weapon.”
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Roberts reported from San Antonio. Associated Press writers Alexandra Olson in Mexico City and Juan A. Lozano in Houston contributed to this story.