Shutdown Diary: More Talk But No Deal

Republican senators after their meeting with President Obama which was described by one as inconclusive.

Charles Dharapak/AP

As the partial government shutdown drew to the end of its 11th day, Friday found Democrats and Republicans continuing to talk. But there was no breakthrough to reopen the government and keep the United States from defaulting on its debt obligations.

Obama Rejects House GOP Proposal

The central hangup remained House Republicans' insistence that Democrats agree to conditions before Republicans agree to hike the debt limit and reopen the government.

Republicans' initial proposal was that they would agree to end the debt-ceiling and shutdown crises if President Obama and congressional Democrats agreed to future negotiations to slow the growth of entitlement spending.

Obama and congressional Democrats continued to reject that notion, saying that neither ending the shutdown nor preventing a potentially catastrophic default should be subject to "ransom."

White House press secretary Jay Carney told journalists Friday afternoon:

"The president did call and speak with the speaker of House this afternoon, not long ago, had a good conversation. And the two of them agreed that all sides need to keep talking on the issues here that are confronting us that have led to a shutdown of a government and to the situation that has put us on the precipice of, you know, potential default or at least reaching that line beyond which the United States government does not have borrowing authority."

Obama Meets Senate GOP

Obama met with Senate Republicans Friday, a day after House GOP leaders sat down with the president. Some senators seemed optimistic after their White House meeting, if not sensing an imminent solution.

"It was a good exchange, but it was an inconclusive exchange," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) of the nearly two-hour meeting. Collins has been working with a bipartisan group of senators to resolve the standoff, and she said she had a chance to describe for Obama her complicated proposal. Besides reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling for several months, her plan would repeal the Affordable Care Act's medical device tax and add income verification to the health insurance exchanges.

Obama listened carefully and said there were certainly aspects the two sides could work on in the future, she said, but he endorsed none of it.

Cruz Attacks Obamacare

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the health care law's fiercest and most vocal Republican foes, told reporters that he informed the president at the meeting that he wanted "substantial" changes to Obamacare to relieve burdens he has repeatedly alleged the law is placing on many individuals and companies.

Reporters asked Carney, the president's spokesman, for his description of the encounter. He declined.

Cruz Heckled

Before going to the White House with his Republican Senate colleagues, Cruz was targeted by hecklers Friday morning. The anti-Cruz protesters had sprinkled themselves through the pro-Cruz audience at the conservative Family Research Council's Values Voters annual conference and repeatedly interrupted his red-meat speech. Several were forced to leave, and those who remained were drowned out by Cruz fans chanting U-S-A.

Looking Ahead

Both the House and Senate are scheduled to be in session over the weekend. House Republicans are expected to meet Saturday morning for an update on where matters stand.

Congress was scheduled to be on recess next week for the Columbus Day holiday, but now both chambers are scheduled to be in session.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/10/11/232302926/shutdown-diary-more-talk-but-no-deal?ft=1&f=1003
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Berlin museum seeks return of ancient gold tablet

A renowned Berlin antiquities museum is trying to get back an ancient gold tablet excavated from an Assyrian temple that a Holocaust survivor somehow obtained after World War II.

Who gets it is up to New York's top court, which is set to hear arguments Tuesday.

The 9.5-gram tablet, about the size of a credit card, was excavated a century ago by German archaeologists from the Ishtar Temple in what is now northern Iraq. It went on display in Berlin in 1934, was put in storage as the war began and later disappeared.

Riven Flamenbaum brought it to the U.S. after surviving the Auschwitz concentration camp and settling on Long Island. Family lore says he had traded two packs of cigarettes to a Russian soldier for the tablet in the chaotic days at the end of the war.

Flamenbaum's family is trying to keep the 3,200-year-old relic, arguing the museum forfeited any claim to ownership by waiting 60 years to seek its return.

Lawyers for the Vorderasiatisches Museum, a branch of the Pergamon Museum, said it didn't know Flamenbaum had the tablet until 2006, three years after he died.

Steven Schlesinger, the lawyer representing the estate, said any claim is complicated by the passage of so much time and Flamenbaum's death. He said he believes Flamenbaum was trading Red Cross packages and anything else he could get for silver and gold.

The tablet is now in a safe deposit box in New York. One recent estimate put its value at $10 million, he said, and the family wants to donate it to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

Lower courts were split on the decision, leading to the latest appeal.

According to court documents, the tablet dates to 1243 to 1207 B.C., the reign of King Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria. Placed in the foundation of the temple of a fertility goddess, its 21 lines call on those who find the temple to honor the king's name.

The tablet was excavated by German archaeologists from about 1908 to 1914 in what was then the Ottoman Empire, with Germany giving half the found antiquities to Istanbul, Raymond Dowd, the museum's lawyer, said. The modern state of Iraq has declined to claim it, he said.

In 1945, the Berlin museum's premises was overrun, with many items taken by Russia, others by German troops and some pilfered by people who took shelter in the museum, Dowd said. The museum director was not in a position to say who took it, only that it disappeared.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berlin-museum-seeks-return-ancient-gold-tablet-051519395.html
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Hajj pilgrims set for Eid al-Adha feast

Muzdalifah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - Throngs of Muslim pilgrims converged Monday on Muzdalifah to prepare for Eid al-Adha feast after a day of prayer on Mount Arafat for an end to disputes and bloodshed.

The faithful will spend the night in Muzdalifah to collect stones which they will use a symbolic ritual of stoning the devil in nearby Mina on Tuesday, the first day of the feast of sacrifice.

Most of the pilgrims taking part in the annual hajj to Islam's holiest sites in Saudi Arabia travelled from Arafat to Muzdalifah on foot, while others took buses and trains, some riding on the roofs.

Thousands of security men were deployed to organise the traffic flowing into Muzdalifah, which only comes to life during the five days of the hajj.

Earlier in the day men, women and children from across the Muslim world flooded the roads to Arafat chanting "Labaik Allahum Labaik" (I am responding to your call, God), as they observed the peak of the hajj.

Helicopters hovered overhead and thousands of Saudi troops stood guard.

Many pilgrims camped in small colourful tents or took shelter under trees to escape temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Special sprinklers were set up to ward off the heat.

In his annual sermon, top Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh urged Muslims to avoid divisions, chaos and sectarianism, without explicitly speaking of the turmoil unleashed by the Arab Spring.

"Your nation is a trust with you. You must safeguard its security, stability and resources," he said.

"You should know that you are targeted by your enemy... who wants to spread chaos among you... It's time to confront this."

The cleric did not speak specifically of the deadly war wracking Syria, where Sunni-led rebels backed by Saudi Arabia are at war with a regime led by Alawites -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam -- and closely allied with Shiite Iran and Hezbollah.

The cleric insisted that Islam prohibits killing and aggression and said there is "no salvation or happiness for the Muslim nation without adhering to the teachings of the religion."

Attendance is sharply down from last year, due to fears of the MERS virus which has killed 60 people worldwide, including 51 in Saudi Arabia, and to expansion work at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Prince Khaled al-Faisal, the governor of Mecca province who heads the central hajj committee, said 1.38 million pilgrims had come from outside the kingdom while 117,000 permits were issued for locals.

This puts the total number of pilgrims at almost 1.5 million, less than half of last year's 3.2 million, after Riyadh slashed hajj quotas.

Prince Khaled said authorities had turned back 70,000 nationals and expatriates for not carrying legal permits and had arrested 38,000 others for performing the hajj without a permit.

Authorities have also seized as many as 138,000 vehicles for violating the hajj rules, and owners would be penalised, he said.

Saudi health authorities have stressed that no cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus have been detected so far this pilgrimage.

Prayers for peace in troubled times

Many pilgrims said they were praying for peace in Muslim nations mired in sectarian and political strife.

"I will pray the whole day for God to improve the situation for Muslims worldwide and for an end to disputes and bloodshed in Arab countries," said 61-year-old Algerian pensioner Saeed Dherari.

"I hope that God will grace all Muslims with security and stability," said 75-year-old Ahmad Khader, who hails from the southern Syrian province of Daraa, where the country's uprising began.

"The regime is tyrannical and I pray for God to help the oppressed people," he said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's embattled government.

Egyptian Ahmad Ali, who is performing hajj for the first time, prayed for peace in his country where hundreds have been killed in fighting between security forces and Islamist supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

"I pray for Egypt to enjoy security and stability and for the people to reach understanding and reconciliation," Ali said.

The hajj, which officially ends on Friday, is one of the five pillars of Islam that every capable Muslim must perform at least once.

The pilgrims started the hajj journey on Sunday, moving out of the holy city of Mecca to nearby Mina, where most of them spent the night following the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed, who performed the rituals 14 centuries ago.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-pilgrims-throng-mount-arafat-hajj-climax-065848537.html
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Social Security raise to be among lowest in years

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the second straight year, millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees can expect historically small increases in their benefits come January.

Preliminary figures suggest a benefit increase of roughly 1.5 percent, which would be among the smallest since automatic increases were adopted in 1975, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Next year's raise will be small because consumer prices, as measured by the government, haven't gone up much in the past year.

The exact size of the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, won't be known until the Labor Department releases the inflation report for September. That was supposed to happen Wednesday, but the report was delayed indefinitely because of the partial government shutdown.

The COLA is usually announced in October to give Social Security and other benefit programs time to adjust January payments. The Social Security Administration has given no indication that raises would be delayed because of the shutdown, but advocates for seniors said the uncertainty was unwelcome.

Social Security benefits have continued during the shutdown.

More than one-fifth of the country is waiting for the news.

Nearly 58 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children get Social Security benefits. The average monthly payment is $1,162. A 1.5 percent raise would increase the typical monthly payment by about $17.

The COLA also affects benefits for more than 3 million disabled veterans, about 2.5 million federal retirees and their survivors, and more than 8 million people who get Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for the poor.

Automatic COLAs were adopted so that benefits for people on fixed incomes would keep up with rising prices. Many seniors, however, complain that the COLA sometimes falls short, leaving them little wiggle room.

David Waugh of Bethesda, Md., said he can handle one small COLA but several in a row make it hard to plan for unexpected expenses.

"I'm not one of those folks that's going to fall into poverty, but it is going to make a difference in my standard of living as time goes by," said Waugh, 83, who retired from the United Nations. "I live in a small apartment and I have an old car, and it's going to break down. And no doubt when it does, I'll have to fix it or get a new one."

Since 1975, annual Social Security raises have averaged 4.1 percent. Only six times have they been less than 2 percent, including this year, when the increase was 1.7 percent. There was no COLA in 2010 or 2011 because inflation was too low.

By law, the cost-of-living adjustment is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education.

The COLA is calculated by comparing consumer prices in July, August and September each year to prices in the same three months from the previous year. If prices go up over the course of the year, benefits go up, starting with payments delivered in January.

This year, average prices for July and August were 1.4 percent higher than they were a year ago, according to the CPI-W.

Once the September report, the final piece of the puzzle, is released, the COLA can be announced officially. If prices continued to slowly inch up in September, that would put the COLA at roughly 1.5 percent.

Several economists said there were no dramatic price swings in September to significantly increase or decrease the projected COLA. That means the projection shouldn't change by more than a few tenths of a percentage point, if at all.

Polina Vlasenko, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, projects the COLA will be between 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent.

Her projection is similar to those done by others, including AARP, which estimates the COLA will be between 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent. The Senior Citizens League estimates it will be about 1.5 percent.

Lower prices for gasoline are helping to fuel low inflation, Vlasenko said.

"In years with high COLA's, a lot of that had to do with fuel prices and in some cases food prices. Neither of those increased much this year," Vlasenko said. "So that kept the lid on the overall increase in prices."

Gasoline prices are down 2.4 percent from a year ago while food prices are up slightly, according to the August inflation report. Housing costs went up 2.3 percent and utilities increased by 3.2 percent.

Advocates for seniors say the government's measure of inflation doesn't accurately reflect price increases older Americans face because they tend to spend more of their income on health care. Medical costs went up less than in previous years but still outpaced other consumer prices, rising 2.5 percent.

"This (COLA) is not enough to keep up with inflation, as it affects seniors," said Max Richtman, who heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "There are some things that become cheaper but they are not things that seniors buy. Laptop computers have gone down dramatically but how many people at 70 are buying laptop computers?"

The cost of personal computers dropped by 10.6 percent over the past year, according the CPI-W.

That's a small consolation to Alberta Gaskins of the District of Columbia, who said she is concerned about keeping up with her household bills.

"It is very important to get the COLA because everything else you have in your life is on an upward swing, and if you're on a downward swing, that means your quality of life is going down," said Gaskins, who retired from the Postal Service in 1989.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

___

Online:

Social Security COLA: http://www.ssa.gov/cola/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/social-security-raise-among-lowest-years-122713809.html
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Broadcasters Denied Injunction Against Aereo in Massachusetts

Aereo has won an important ruling in a Massachusetts federal court.

U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton has denied an injunction request made by Hearst Station, owner of ABC affiliate WCVB-TV.

The broadcaster had argued in its copyright lawsuit that Aereo's system of capturing over-the-air TV signals and delivering them to subscribers' digital devices constituted a violation of its public performance rights. But according to the judge's opinion, Hearst was not persuasive in convincing the court that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its public performance claim nor its argument that Aereo is unlawfully distributing copyrighted works. The judge also wrote that "Hearst has made a minimal showing of irreparable harm that is an insufficient basis for entering a preliminary injunction in its favor."

Here's the full ruling.

The timing of the ruling happens as TV broadcasters are reportedly set to take a New York judge's denial of an injunction against Aereo up to the Supreme Court.

Here, Judge Gorton notes that the 1st Circuit (which covers Massachusetts, among other states in the Northeast) hasn't addressed the issue at hand.

Hearst argued that section 106 of the Copyright Act, giving copyright owners the exclusive rights to “perform the copyrighted [audiovisual] work publicly" was being violated. Aereo responded that it is transmitting private rather than public performances.

"Aereo’s interpretation is a better reading of the statute because the 'canon against surplusage' requires this Court to give meaning to every statutory term if possible," writes the judge in the ruling. "In short, while the Transmit Clause is not a model of clarity, the Court finds at this juncture that Aereo presents the more plausible interpretation."

The judge notes that "it is possible that WCVB will be irreparably harmed in its ability to negotiate retransmission fees with cable providers," before adding, "While the prospect of harm is real, Hearst has not shown that WCVB will suffer the 'full magnitude' of the claimed harm before the Court disposes of the case on the merits. Instead, it seems more likely that the harm will take several years to materialize."

Aereo's expansion from New York to across the country has set off multiple rounds of litigation, most recently in a lawsuit that was filed earlier this week in Utah. As the controversy lingers, a question has arisen as to what is the proper venue to hear the dispute between broadcasters and Aereo.

The digital service backed by Barry Diller has argued that disputes should be heard in New York, where the first case was filed. But Judge Gorton's refused Aereo's motion to transfer the case, saying, "Hearst’s decision to limit the scope of the suit to WCVB’s local programming and Aereo’s local activities also weighs in favor of resolving the suit here rather than in New York."

Aereo made that transfer request partly in the hopes of gaining favorable jurisdiction in the 2nd Circuit (which covers New York). But now, Aereo has succeeded for the first time in convincing a judge in a new circuit that the broadcasters are unlikely to prevail in their copyright claims. It's an important step for the company as broadcasters hold out hope that rulings concerning Aereo's competitor, FilmOn, in two other circuits, provide the necessary circuit split to bring the case to the highest court in the country.

A WCVB-TV spokesperson comments, "The court was right to keep this case in Boston, the home of WCVB-TV.  We will immediately appeal the court’s decision that allows Aereo to continue to engage in a commercial business that unlawfully profits by using WCVB’s copyrighted broadcasts and shows. We expect to prevail in this case.“

Chet Kanojia, chief executive at Aereo, says, "Today’s victory belongs to the consumer and today’s decision, makes clear that that there is no reason that consumers should be limited to 1950s technology to access over-the-air broadcast television."

E-mail: Eriq.Gardner@THR.com

Twitter: @eriqgardner

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHollywoodReporter-Technology/~3/6Bk3MPc3CrY/story01.htm
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Denny's Commercial Mentioning Second Amendment Earns Conservative Praise

We are always amazed (and sometimes delighted) by the inability to recognize irony. In what appears to be an enthusiastic, if potentially misguided response to brand-messaging, conservative groups across America are throwing their support behind Denny's for an ad for their "Tour of America" campaign. They seem to think the ad shows that Denny's believes the right to bear arms is "what makes America the greatest country in the world."

As AdWeek notes, this sudden swell of support seems to be rooted in the same soil as this week's widespread conservative criticism of Oreo's nod to Pride Week. Offended commenters went ballistic with threats to boycott Oreo and its parent companies for supporting something they didn't agree with. Which makes right-wing blog Conservative Refocus News' commentary on the matter stand in pretty hilariously stark ironic contrast:

It probaby won't be long before a bunch of radical, Obama loving, America hating Liberals begin protesting this particular All-American Restaurant for actually celebrating what makes America great.

Over on DefensiveCarry.com, a firearm enthusiast forum, there seems to be debate raging over whether Denny's mention of the Second Amendment is a pro or a con, considering that they were sort of joking about it. This polarizing discussion currently has forum members split between "Pro" (42%) and "Who Cares?" (32%).

We are certainly not suggesting that Denny's doesn't believe America is a great country, but rather that the man in the commercial was probably going to say that what makes America great is "the fact that there are meat, potatoes AND cheese in the sandwich I'm about to shove in my face." That is, before his patriotic (and highly articulate) children and fellow patrons made him feel sheepish.

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Google Adds Movie Purchases, TV Shows, And Magazines To Google Play

The Google Play store already had thousands of movies for rent, as well as millions of songs from major labels available for purchase. It also had a pretty extensive collection of e-books -- the largest in the industry, Google claims. But it's bringing even more content to its Google Play store, with the added availability of movie purchases, TV shows, and magazines on Android devices. That includes the ability to purchase movies -- not just rent them -- and have them available whenever users want to view them. In addition to movies, Google Play is adding TV shows, allowing users to purchase individual episodes or even full seasons of their favorite shows. While e-books have been popular, Google Play didn't previously offer access to magazine titles, but it's changing that through partnerships with some major magazine publishers.

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