Signs of waste? $1 million used to tout stimulus funds at work in Ohio

A state senator from Ohio says his state is spending $1 million on road signs to advertise the use of stimulus money for road projects. In other words, the state is using your money to tell you it's spending your money.
State Sen. Tim Grendell, R-Ohio, calls it a waste of taxpayer dollars. The road signs he's concerned about display words such as "Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" Some road projects have two signs, and some don't have any at all, but the signs aren't cheap.
The bigger signs can cost as much as $3,000 each, according to Grendell, who says this is just a big "thank you" to the Obama Administration.
He told CNN, "Send a fruit basket if you want to say 'thank you.' Don't waste a million dollars saying 'thank' you to Washington for giving us back our tax money."
Grendell says the message here is that stimulus dollars are "being spent stupidly."
Ohio's Department of Transportation says that criticism misses the point -- that this is all about transparency.
Scott Varner, a spokesperson for the department said, "the president made a commitment to have these symbols of stimulus projects; we think it's important. What better way to let the taxpayer know where stimulus money is being spent?"
While Varner says the $1 million price tag on signs is "on the high side," he was unable to provide the department's own tally for money spent on the signs.
He said, "it is not typical for any state DOT to have the exact cost on every single construction sign. It is a challenge to have that exact figure."
Ohio was given nearly $1 billion of stimulus money for roadwork. The money used for the signs is only about one-tenth of 1 percent of that money.
But critics argue that stimulus money -- all of it -- was designed to finance projects, not advertise them.
Although the Obama administration promised the stimulus package would create jobs, there is no evidence that putting up these road signs created any jobs.
Ted Andrzejewski, the mayor of Eastlake, Ohio, and a Democrat, is also angry about the signs.
He says for a bit more than what the road signs cost, he could've fixed a road in his community and created more than two dozen jobs. The mayor says all of his stimulus requests were turned down.
"The problem is sometimes our politicians don't understand what a million dollars is," Andrzejewski said.
Grendell first noticed the signs last fall. He had to pass one every day on the way to get his morning coffee.
It made him so angry he'd return home mumbling under his breath. He says even after the road project was finished, the sign remained up for some time. He's so furious about this he introduced a bill to stop the signs and wrote a letter to Ohio's Democratic governor, Ted Strickland. He never heard back.
The governor's spokesman told CNN, "It's common practice on public works projects to demonstrate how tax dollars are spent."
And Ohio isn't the only state turning taxpayer dollars into road signs.
CNN found most states are spending stimulus money on signs and that could cost taxpayers nationwide about $3.8 million. At least 16 states, however, are skipping the signs and putting the money toward road projects instead.
Vermont is letting residents track where the stimulus money is spent on a Web site created by the state, for a lot less money than the signs being used in Ohio. Grendell thinks that's a great idea.
"At the end of the day as a public official, we're accountable for 100 cents on the dollar. We shouldn't waste one penny, not five pennies. We should use it where it will best benefit the taxpayers," he says.

First stimulus project nears completion, job questions remain

A town with a population of 218 sitting more than three hours from St. Louis would seem like an unlikely place for the nation's first stimulus project.
Yet the progress is apparent on a new $9 million bridge over the Osage River, and the span is scheduled to receive its first automobile and truck traffic sometime in midsummer. It's replacing a bridge built when Franklin Roosevelt was president on what the Missouri Department of Transportation says is the most direct link between Missouri's capitol, Jefferson City, and a large U.S. Army installation, Fort Leonard Wood.
The earth-moving equipment kicked in only minutes after President Obama signed the economic stimulus bill his administration pushed through Congress 11 months ago. Missouri's Democratic governor, Jay Nixon, was present at the first shovel turning and the state paid for a satellite truck to beam images of the ceremony to every resident of the state who wanted to see it.
State and federal officials said at that time that the bridge would create about 30 direct jobs and spin off another 220 "indirect" jobs -- supplying the steel, pouring the concrete and boosting the local community's economy.
But at the time, some politicians in Missouri's biggest cities complained that the Obama administration should have sent stimulus construction money to urban projects, rather than to an isolated bridge in a county with a very small population base. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told CNN it was an "insult" that rural projects were at the head of the line.
When CNN cameras were there in March 2009, nearly all the work was moving dirt, creating on and off ramps and raising the level of the roadway. When CNN returned to the bridge construction site in January, three new giant supports had been embedded in the riverbed, with two more left to be finished.
Local politics seemed to have cooled down as well. The director of the Missouri Department of Transportation, Pete Rahn, told CNN that he and Slay had held "many" conversations in the past year and both are now more or less seeing eye to eye.
But the real issue is exactly how many jobs were created or saved. A year ago, the number was around 30. Today, according to Recovery.gov, the actual number is 24.69 -- a number calculated by the government based on worker time sheets.
But Rick Zimmerman, the area manager for contractor APAC-Kansas, told CNN that many of those jobs were not really "created," just transferred from another project to the Osage River bridge. Zimmerman put the number of "saved" jobs at about 10.
As for the "indirect" jobs, Rahn said his number was 240.
"It ripples out," he said. "These people all receive a paycheck. They buy from grocery stores, they eat at restaurants, they buy gasoline. And so it ripples throughout the economy."
But only a few hundred yards from where he was standing, there was a very different story.
Wes Horton owns the Red Oak Inn, the only local restaurant near the bridge. He said the town and the region needed a new bridge, no question about it. But he added that the project had provided little economic boost that he could see.
"Precious little of it rubbed off on us -- no great amount," Horton said. "You know, anytime you got people around, they always spend a little bit of money with somebody. But there sure as hell ain't no land boom around here or nothing like that."
Michael Sykuta, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri, told CNN that a single construction job normally spins off two or perhaps three indirect jobs at most. He said the 240 spinoff jobs estimated at Tuscumbia are "nowhere near" the jobs that would have been indirectly created, even in a busy area like St. Louis.
Everyone seems to agree that the new bridge needed to be built. But to say it jump-started an economic boom in the area appears to be a bridge too far.

Famed panda to leave U.S. capital

It feels like it went by in the blink of an eye. Tai Shan, the giant panda cub so many people have come to know and love, is about to board a flight to China.
"It's very bittersweet. We love him. We love having him here," said Erika Bauer, curator at the National Zoo in Washington.
Tai Shan was born in the nation's capital, so you can confidently call him a Washingtonian. But he is to be sent to China, under an agreement between the two nations, to help replenish the endangered species' numbers in the wild.
At 4½ years old, Tai Shan is more of a panda adolescent than a cub, but to Tai Shan fans, he will always be their baby.
"We watched him as he grew up and it's kind of sad to see him go," said Kathleen Ryland of Highland, Maryland.
Ryland brought her two children to say their goodbyes to Tai Shan at a farewell party at the National Zoo Saturday. Despite the snow falling on the panda exhibit, there were plenty of warm and fuzzy feelings about Tai Shan.
"He's so cute. I'll miss him," said Claire Ryland, 7.
It's often said that a visit to Washington is not complete without a stop at the zoo to see Tai Shan. Over the years, some have even gone as far to say that Tai Shan was Washington's No. 1 resident -- even getting top billing over the president.
Tai Shan will leave for China on Thursday via the "FedEx Panda Express." He'll be joined by Mei Lan - a 3-year-old panda born at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia. Eventually, they will take part in a breeding program aimed at increasing the panda population. Giant pandas are currently on the endangered list. The National Zoo estimates that about 1,600 giant pandas are currently in the wild.
Bauer says that's all the more reason to say goodbye to Tai Shan.
"It's very important to get Tai Shan into the breeding population to help conserve the species in general. This is a very good day for him," she said.

U.S. military: Evacuations of injured Haitians suspended

Flights transporting critically injured Haitians into the United States have temporarily been suspended because of logistical issues, including a lack of space, a White House spokesman said Saturday in response to reports of a dispute over who would pay for patients' care.
"There has been no policy decision by anyone to suspend evacuee flights -- this situation arose as we started to run out of room," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Saturday. "Agencies across the [U.S. government] are working on solutions such as standing up hospitals for the critically ill in Haiti."
But the U.S. military said Saturday that the flights were stopped Wednesday because "some states are unwilling to allow entry for Haitian nationals for critical care," according to Navy Capt. Kevin Aandahl, a spokesman for the U.S. Transportation Command.
He declined to say which states have objected to receiving injured Haitians.
Aandahl appeared to back off those statements later Saturday, saying, "All I do is move patients."
A story in Saturday's New York Times first reported the suspension of flights.
Vietor said the White House is working closely with states, international partners, nongovernmental organizations and the Haitian government to provide medical care to victims of the January 12 earthquake that devastated much of the country.
"States have been great partners in helping the response efforts and helping the people of Haiti," Vietor said, adding that officials are working to offload patients from the Navy's hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to free up space for the critically injured.
Earlier this week, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist formally asked the federal government to shoulder some of the cost of caring for Haitian patients.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday that CNN obtained, Crist asked that the federal government activate the National Disaster Medical System to provide reimbursement to Florida and other states for taking in these patients, who have no insurance.
In the letter, Crist said he had learned of a federal plan to evacuate between 30 and 50 critically ill patients per day from Haiti.
"Florida does not have the capacity to support such an operation," Crist wrote. "Additional factors complicate Florida's current healthcare system capacity and we are at a current peak from winter tourism and seasonal residence migration."
On Saturday, Florida officials said the state remains committed to assisting Haitian earthquake victims and denied it had asked that the airlift be stopped because of a dispute over costs.
"The Direction from Governor Crist to the state team since this terrible tragedy occurred has been very clear, to assist and provide any help necessary to our neighbors to the east in Haiti," said David Halstead, the Florida official coordinating the state's Haitian relief efforts, in a statement.
"However, there remains a delicate balance of providing assistance and also ensuring we maintain adequate medical capacity to service the needs of the residents and visitors currently in our state," said Halstead, who called Crist's request to Sebelius "prudent."
A spokesperson from HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Massive food distribution to begin Sunday in Port-au-Prince

Massive food distribution coordinated by the World Food Programme, international aid agencies and the Haitian government will begin Sunday in the quake-ravaged capital.
WFP will roll out food at 16 distribution points across Port-au-Prince, the United Nations agency said.
Each location will receive 42 metric tons of rice each for the next two weeks, and each family will receive a 25-kilogram ration of rice.
Only women will be allowed into the distributions sites to collect the food, WFP said. Women are receiving the food vouchers because they tend to be responsible for the household food supply, said WFP spokesman Marcus Prior.
"Our long experience in food distribution tells us that by delivering food into the hands of women, it is more likely to be redistributed equitably among the household -- including the men," Prior said.
The agency said it will work with its partners to ensure that men in need of assistance are not excluded.
The distribution sites will be set up with proper security, making it difficult for those not entitled to receive food to enter, he said. The WFP said the 16 fixed sites are a key step in establishing food security.

"It is the most complex challenge we have ever confronted, but this distribution system will not only allow us to reach more people, it will give us the qualitative step we need to facilitate the delivery of all kinds of humanitarian assistance in the weeks and months to come," WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a statement from Rome, Italy.
The food aid plan involves at least eight private humanitarian agencies: Samaritan's Purse, Catholic Relief Services, CARE, World Vision, ACTED, Save The Children, GOAL and ADRA.
"Together with our NGO partners we are working with the local authorities, churches and other civil society organizations to ensure that all male-headed households and others with special needs are not excluded from these distributions," Prior said.
Details of the plan were finalized at a meeting attended by WFP, the aid agencies and senior members of the Haitian government, said Ken Isaacs, vice president of programs for Samaritan's Purse.
He said those attending the meeting were given coupons, which are being handed out to needy families in the districts drawn up around each distribution point.
The distribution will begin early Sunday. The two-week effort aims to reach 2 million people in Port-au-Prince but does not expand to those living in other quake-devastated cities like Leogane.
Aid distributions to outlying areas will continue, Prior said.
"Up until now the nature of this emergency has forced us to work in a 'quick and dirty' way simply to get food out," Sheeran said. "This new system will allow us to provide food assistance to more people, more quickly through a robust network of fixed distribution sites."
Multinational troops, including the U.S. military, will help secure food convoys and the distribution sites, Prior said.

Winter storm hits mid-South hard

A storm has barreled into the Southeast and sections of the Northeast, coating power lines and roads with ice and leaving thousands without power.
More heavy snow was predicted for Mid-Atlantic cities, some of which already have record amounts, the National Weather Service said Saturday.
Asheville, North Carolina, recorded 11 inches of snow on Friday.
The weather service said less than a half-inch of snow should fall during the day, turning to freezing drizzle at night. There was an ice storm warning for the Carolinas until midnight.
"Ice accumulations of one-quarter to one-half inch are expected," forecasters said. "Elevated surfaces such as trees, power lines and highway bridges and overpasses will accumulate ice most easily."
North Carolina's Department of Transportation asked motorists to avoid all unnecessary travel.
The town of Cary, North Carolina, canceled its Winter Wonderland festival because of the storm.

A foot of snow was expected in parts of Virginia, where iReporter William Bernstein, Jr. said people are "just not used to this."
A typical snowstorm in Virginia Beach, located about 20 minutes from Norfolk, usually yields about 4 to 5 inches of snow, Bernstein said. But by 8 a.m., snowfall had well surpassed the norm.
"Nobody is really out on the roads," he said. "They've closed off ramps and on ramps in downtown Norfolk."
See pictures from Virginia Beach on iReport.com
Washington and Baltimore, Maryland, were expected to get 4 to 6 inches of snow. Motorists were being warned to stay off the roadways, D.C. officials said.
Forecasters warned that gusty winds in several states may topple ice laden trees and power lines.
A Home Depot store in Spartanburg, South Carolina, saw a run on generators, fire logs and ice-melting chemicals Friday, and Spartanburg County called in extra dispatchers to handle emergency calls, CNN affiliate WYFF reported.
Watch the snow pile up in Tennessee
Several inches of sleet covered the ground in the town of Travelers Rest, South Carolina, WYFF's Sean Muserallo reported.
Brian Wood of Marietta, South Carolina, told WYFF his car was "fish-tailing all the way" as he drove to work at a restaurant Saturday morning. "It's definitely not driving weather."
Tennessee's Transportation Department said highways statewide had patches of snow and ice, and trucks were spreading salt on roads across much of the eastern part of the state.
How's the weather where you are? Send photos, video
The storm moved north and east Friday from the Southern Plains of Oklahoma and Texas. Oklahoma City was coated with ice and shivering with a daytime high of 20 degrees, said CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis. In Dallas, Texas, it was 26 degrees.
Oklahoma's Corporation Commission said Saturday that more than 108,000 homes and businesses were without power. Gov. Brad Henry had declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, ahead of the storm.
President Obama signed a disaster declaration for Oklahoma on Saturday, authorizing federal aid to the hard-hit state.
In northern Georgia on Saturday, about 1,200 customers were without power, down from 5,000 earlier in the day, the Electric Membership Cooperatives said in a written statement. They said the outages were caused by trees falling on power lines, and that power should be restored by late afternoon.
School systems and communities in northeastern Georgia also canceled numerous weekend activities, CNN affiliate WNEG reported.
Some are determined not to let the weather keep them indoors. iReporter Katy Hawkins of Norman, Oklahoma, said she and her roommate went outside to play in the snow after spending most of the day inside.
"Oklahoma does not usually get enough snow to make a snowball, but yesterday we had at least 7 inches in the Norman area," she said.
In her apartment complex's parking lot, most cars had at least a half-inch of ice encasing the whole car and then snow on top of that, she said.
"I spent 30 minutes trying to pry my door open and finally just gave up and went to take pictures instead!"

Ex-Edwards' aide tells of politician's affair

A new book about former Sen. John Edwards paints him as a cold, calculating and reckless politician willing to deny fathering a daughter, risking his marriage and putting the Democratic Party in potential political jeopardy -- all in the name of trying to win the presidency.
In "The Politician," former Edwards' aide Andrew Young details his efforts to conceal an ongoing extra-marital affair and the birth of a child out-of-wedlock.
"The Politician" went on sale Saturday.
Young described an elaborate plan that allowed Edwards to maintain a mistress while he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. The plan was funded by two wealthy benefactors, the late trial lawyer Fred Baron and banking heir widow Bunny Mellon, but Mellon was unaware that her money was being used for the mistress.
A federal grand jury is investigating payments the former senator's campaign and supporters made to Rielle Hunter, who was a videographer as Edwards was preparing a bid for 2008 White House run.
In the book, Young writes that "the prosecutors pressed me for exact information about checks that were written, the way the money was used and the timing of events. They wanted names, dates, and amounts in very specific terms."
Young, who portrays himself as a one-time idealistic loyal aide, said he was the point person in arranging rendezvous for Edwards and Hunter and helped to keep the affair a secret.
And when Edwards impregnated Hunter, Young said he agreed to the senator's request to lie and say he was the father even though Young, himself, was married with three children.
Young said he told his wife about agreeing to Edwards' request as the couple drove through a McDonald's drive through to pick up food for their son.
"After I finally got to holler for Chicken McNuggets with chocolate milk and the right toy, I turned to Cheri and in the time it took us to reach window number one (where you give them the money), I said, 'Edwards wants me to say I'm the father of Rielle's baby, and then Fred's gonna fly us off to someplace where we can all hide,' " Young said.
His wife, Young recounted, was dumbfounded.
"Are you out of your mind? Why would you even tell me about this? Why didn't you just say no?"
Young said Hunter was also initially against the idea but warmed up to it after being told her financial needs would be met. His wife, Cheri, eventually agreed to the plan, setting in motion a chaotic time for the family as they uprooted their lives in North Carolina and criss-crossed the country with Hunter and their children in an effort to evade the media.
Edwards denied that he was the girl's father for more than a year, saying the affair was over before Hunter became pregnant. Last week, he acknowledged paternity.
"I am Quinn's father," Edwards said in a statement. "I have been able to spend time with her during the past year and trust that future efforts to show her the love and affection she deserves can be done privately and in peace."
John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have legally separated.
On Friday, John Edwards' lawyers released a statement saying that early reports about the book indicate there are problems with Young's account.
"While we have not had an opportunity to view the interview or read the book, we urge extreme caution by everyone involved," his attorneys wrote. "From media reports, it is obvious that there are many allegations which are simply false. It appears that Andrew Young is primarily motivated by financial gain and media attention."
Earlier in the week, Elizabeth Edwards also challenged accusations Young made in the book regarding her cancer and the couple's children.
"Elizabeth is moving on with her life and wants to put this difficult chapter behind her," her publisher Random House said in a statement.
"It was an excrutiatingly (sic) painful period for her and she (has) no interest in rehashing the past. Based on the limited portions of the book that have been made available, it is clear it contains many falsehoods and exaggerations.
"She will not engage in a dialogue on each of the false charges, but would like to set the record straight on two key points. First, the allegation that she sought to politicize her cancer is unconscionable, hurtful and patently false.
"Second, she believed Andrew Young to be the father of this child until her husband confessed his paternity (sic) to her this past summer. She will have nothing further to say."
In the book, Young accuses Elizabeth Edwards of engaging in a smear campaign to undermine his credibility.
Young said it wasn't until John Edwards privately expressed indifference about the birth of his daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, in February 2008, that he realized the former senator cared only about himself.
"After watching and hearing John Edwards practice a thousand little deceptions and tell a thousand different lies, ostensibly in the service of some greater good, I finally recognized that he didn't care about anyone other than himself," Young writes.
"A precious living, breathing human being -- his daughter -- had come into the world, and he wasn't inclined to even call the woman who had given birth to her. Instead, I had to prompt him to do the right thing, to do the most basic, human thing.
"My faith in him died almost instantly, and I felt both ashamed of my naïveté and very afraid for the future of my family."
Young also writes that:
• He has a sex tape of Edwards in his possession showing the senator with a "naked pregnant woman" that Young says is Hunter. Young said he found the damaged tape in "a box of trash that Rielle had left behind after she stayed with us for a few weeks" in the Raleigh, North Carolina, home his family was renting. Young writes that even though the woman's face is obscured "it was safe to assume it was Rielle."
• Despite Edwards' carefully crafted image as a champion for everyday people, he was "irritated by ordinary events. He especially hated making appearances at state fairs, where 'fat rednecks try to shove food down my face. I know I'm the people's senator, but do I have to hang out with them?'"
Edwards understood his audience and before appearing at a Service Employees International Union health care event in Las Vegas, Nevada, he instructed Young to take his Italian suit coat to a tailor to remove the label indicating it was Italian-made. In its place, Edwards had the tailor sew in a "Made in the USA" label that had been on Young's jacket.
• When Edwards was not on the Atkins diet, he "loved Cracker Barrel" restaurants as well as ribs.
• Edwards thought that 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry "just wasn't all that smart." Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, would later pick Edwards to be his vice presidential running mate.

10 arrested with 33 children at Haiti-Dominican border

Ten people, including Americans and Dominicans, carrying 33 children were arrested along the Haitian-Dominican Republic border Saturday, according to Mario Andresol, chief of Haitian National Police.
It was not immediately clear the reason behind the arrests.
"There are no indications this involves trafficking," said a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of the case who was not authorized to speak on the record. "It appears their orphanage was damaged and they were moving the children to their facility in the [Dominican Republic] but failed to obtain exit visas from Haiti."
Government approval is needed for any Haitian children to leave the country.
The U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince is seeking consular access to the group, which may include up to six Americans, the official said.
The Rev. Clint Henry, the senior pastor with the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, told CNN affiliate KIVI that the 10 are part of a group working to establish an orphanage in the Dominican Republic for the youngest victims of the January 12 earthquake that devastated much of the country.
Henry said some of the children had suffered physical injuries and need medical assistance.
"Our team was falsely arrested today and we are doing everything we can from this end to clear up the misunderstanding that has occurred in Port-au-Prince," a statement on the church's Web site said Saturday night.
The statement said the children were being rescued from "one or more orphanages" that had been damaged in the quake.
Jeanne Bernard-Pierre, general director for Haiti's Institute of Social Welfare, said the children will be interviewed in the coming days to determine whether they have any living relatives.
"When they arrived, some of the children were crying and saying 'I want to see my parents,'" Bernard-Pierre said.
She said the government's Ministry of Social Affairs will attempt to reunite the children with any family members and provide psychological assistance.
Many of the children said they are from Fort Jacques, a town about seven miles from Port-au-Prince, according to Bernard-Pierre.

Justice Dept. mulls antitrust probe of college football championships

The Obama administration is considering a probe into the legality and fairness of college football's Bowl Championship Series and "the current lack of a college football national championship playoff."
In a letter to U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch says the issue "raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties."
Hatch complained about the system to the Obama administration in October. The Justice official told Hatch on Friday the department is reviewing whether to launch an inquiry into the BCS system to see if any U.S. anti-trust laws are being violated. Hatch's office passed along the Welch letter to CNN.
"Importantly, and in addition, the Administration also is exploring other options that might be available to address concerns with the college football post-season," said Welch, who noted along with Hatch that President Obama says the sport should have an eight-game playoff.
The options include encouraging the NCAA to take control of the post-season as it does with other sports; "asking a governmental or nongovernmental entity or a commission to study the benefits, costs and feasibility of a playoff system;" requesting an examination by the Federal Trade Commission of the current system under consumer protection laws; looking into roles other agencies can play, and looking into legislative initiatives.
There are 11 BCS conferences and five bowls, including a national championship. The champions of six conferences automatically qualify for BCS bowls despite their national rankings. In contrast, only one team from outside those six can earn an automatic berth.
"Many believe the BCS is unfair to the conferences and schools that are not part of the automatically qualifying conferences," Welch said.
"The typical result of this selection system has been limited participation by schools outside the six automatic-qualifying conferences, with such teams typically securing at most one slot, although this year, for the first time, two such schools, TCU [Texas Christian University] and Boise State were selected for a BCS bowl game."
Hatch -- who has complained that the BCS system denies outsiders a fair chance to compete with major conferences -- was "encouraged" by the administration's response.
"The current system runs counter to basic fairness that every family tries to instill in their children from the day they are born. It is systematically unfair, jeopardizing students, players, education quality, ethics and true competition," Hatch said.

Derogatory 'Jeopardy' board launches TSA probe

The Transportation Security Administration has launched an internal investigation into an air marshal field office in Florida where supervisors are alleged to have used a crew assignment board to ridicule and keep score on women, gays and minorities, sources told CNN.
The board, resembling the TV game show "Jeopardy," includes categories such as "pickle smokers," "our gang" and "creatures," which sources said were names used by managers for gay men, African-Americans and lesbians.
A photograph of the board was sent to CNN. The Transportation Security Administration confirmed the investigation in a written statement but did not elaborate on when the board was in use, where it was displayed or how it was used.
"Following a referral from DHS Office of the Inspector General, TSA's Office of Inspection is conducting an ongoing investigation at the Orlando Field office," the statement said.
"The Transportation Security Administration is dedicated to ensuring all employees are treated in a fair and lawful manner," it said. "Accordingly, TSA takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. The Federal Air Marshal Service will continue to provide its full cooperation and support to the investigation."
TSA's Office of Inspection will present its findings to TSA's acting administrator for appropriate action, the agency said.

Could deal with Taliban fighters end war?

An Afghan-born American writer, is the author of "Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes" and "The Widow's Husband."
"Re-integrating the Taliban."
Could that be a way to end the war in Afghanistan? Representatives of 70 nations met in London, England, this week to discuss that very idea. The plan was first floated several weeks ago by a key adviser to Afghanistan President Harmid Karzai, Masoom Stanekzai, and it has two parts: One, lure low-level Taliban fighters out of the insurgency with economic incentives and two, co-opt Taliban leaders by offering them a role in governing Afghanistan.
Part one of the Stanekzai program makes sense because it might split rank-and-file fighters away from instigators of the insurgency (I prefer the word "instigators" to "leaders.") Part two, however, will only end up delivering the government of Afghanistan to a new Talibanist group and betray the millions of urban modernist Afghans who have sided with the West over the last decade.
So let's look at part one. Can the Taliban be "reintegrated" into Afghan society? Should they be? And most of all, who do we mean by "Taliban?"
The term used to mean an organization that ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, but that Taliban fragmented out of meaningful existence after U.S. bombing drove them from Kabul. Their cadre melted into the hills, their leaders fled back to Pakistan. "The Taliban" then metastasized into "Talibanism," which is an ideology and an attitude -- a vague mixture of Islamic ideas, apocalyptic jihadism, Afghan nationalism, xenophobic localism and resentment.
Jihadists from Pakistan and the Arab world have used Talibanism to stir the embers of xenophobic localism in Afghanistan, and that's the insurgency we're talking about now. And the predatory venality of the Kabul government has certainly fed the blaze.
Those who secured positions with the government saw it as a license to squeeze the locals, and those same officials were best situated to suck up foreign funds coming in for Afghan reconstruction, so they got rich, while reconstruction foundered.
Ordinary shopkeepers, farmers, traders, artisans and whatnot had no civil society to join and no neutral place to stand. Radical activists seeping across the border from Pakistan burned schools, firebombed mosques if the imams gave pro-government sermons and killed farmers who accepted Western development aid. Trapped between a hard place and harder places, many young men joined the anti-government insurgency. At least there was money in it.
The lower ranks of the Afghan insurgency are undoubtedly swelled by men such as these: Disaffected locals who have little to lose and no source of meaning in their lives, except Talibanism. Would they be open to setting down their guns if any good-looking alternatives opened up? Plenty might.
The leaders of the insurgency -- the instigators -- are another matter. Mullah Omar? The sinister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar? These guys think they have the West on the run. Conciliatory offers will only persuade them to dig in. Why accept a piece of a pie when you can have the whole thing?
Of course there are formidable problems with luring low-level fighters back into Afghan civil society. First of all, what civil society? Second, who will administer the program? Karzai's officials? Money is like DMSO to those guys. The moment it gets into their hands, it sinks into their palms. Third, donors are envisioning spending $500 million over five years to drain 30,000 fighters out of the insurgency. That comes to about $17,000 per man or about $3,300 a year. Those men could make more than that from drug-thuggery and Talibanist protection rackets.
Besides, a billion dollars distributed across southern Afghanistan thins out pretty quickly. What happens when some fighter joins the program, gets a bit of money and starts an auto repair shop, but his 25 first cousins don't? Will they not tar the one guy who profited from the program as a traitor who took foreign money to betray his own?
That said, part one of the Stanekzai program is worth a try. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothin' to lose, as the song says; and that's where Afghanistan stands. Half a billion dollars may sound like a lot to spend on an initiative that will probably achieve, at best, only a little. But compare that to the $30 billion it could cost to sustain an additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for one year.
If those troops' mission is not linked to some plan for restoring civil society, they will actually inflame the insurgency (as they have been doing). So it's $30 billion to achieve negative results versus another half-billion to achieve something. A little. Maybe.
And maybe a great deal more. Over the last three years, "Talibanist" attacks have tripled, and most see this as a sign of growing "Taliban" strength. But there may be some tipping point to people's patience for violence.
If ordinary Afghans see a glimmer of a way to escape the endless violence and restore a normal life on their own terms, and if Talibanists continue to sabotage those options, and if the United States stops dispatching drones to bomb homes supposedly harboring terrorists, and if the Kabul government stops predatory intrusions into rural life... then a moment may come when the insurgency actually turns against the jihadists themselves as the outsiders (which many of them actually are).
There was, after all, a moment in 2001 when the rhetoric on the street spontaneously painted the Taliban that way. People referred to them routinely as "the Arabs and the Punjabis" (meaning Pakistanis). A rumor made the rounds that in the heart of Taliban headquarters, above the door to the Mullah Omar's office, hung a sign, which read: "Inside this room, there is no God, there is no Qur'an, there is no Islam."
Such a sentiment might emerge again. It's not probable but it's not impossible, and any initiative that might make it happen is worth a try.

Iran puts 16 protesters on trial

Sixteen opposition protesters went on trial Saturday in Iran on charges that they tried to overthrow the government, state-run media said.
Their court appearance came two days after the government executed two dissidents -- an act that drew international condemnation.
There was no immediate word on the outcome of Saturday's court appearance.
The demonstrators face charges linked to anti-government protests during the December 27 observances of Ashura, a major Shiite Muslim holy day. They are accused of plotting against the establishment, rioting and conspiring against the ruling system, and violating security regulations, according to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency.
The Ashura clashes between security forces and anti-government demonstrators were the bloodiest since the post-election protests last summer.
The 16 also are accused of sending videos of the demonstrations to "foreign hostile networks," according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Five of the defendants, including two women, are accused of "moharebeh," or defying God, a charge that could carry the death penalty, the ISNA said.
Opposition protests were launched after the disputed June 12 presidential election that gave hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. The government denies accusations of fraud.

About 4,000 people have been arrested in the post-election crackdown. As of January 24, the government had confirmed the deaths of at least 37 people in the protests or in detention, seven of those deaths happening on Ashura.
On Thursday, authorities hanged Mohammed Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 20, who had been convicted of being enemies of God and plotting to topple the Islamic regime.
The two were convicted in mass trials of opposition supporters in August, but Rahmanipour's lawyer said the young man was arrested two months before the election.
In coming weeks, Iranians will hold mass rallies around the country to celebrate the 31st anniversary of "Revolution Day" on February 11, when the Islamic Republic of Iran was created.

Toyota adds 1 million vehicles to recall

Toyota announced Wednesday night that it is adding another 1.1 million vehicles to an an earlier 4.2 million vehicle recall originally announced in November.
The vehicles are being recalled to fix a problem in which the gas pedal can become caught on the edge of the removable floormat, causing the vehicle to accelerate uncontrollably.

The vehicles now being added to that recall are the 2008-2010 Highlander, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Venza 2009-2010 Matrix, 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibe.
General Motors' Pontiac car is included in the recall because the Vibe and Toyota's Matrix are similar vehicles that were produced under a partnership between the two companies.
The vehicles originally included in this recall were the 2007-2010 Toyota Camry, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2004-2009 Prius, 2010 Tacoma, 2007-2010 Tundra and the 2007-2010 Lexus ES350, 2006-2010 and the 2006-2010 IS250 and IS350.
This recall is separate from one announced last week regarding accelerator pedals that could stick on their own. That recall involved 2.3 million vehicles.
Most, but not all, of the vehicles involved in the more recent recall are also involved in the older recall. They are the 2009-2010 Toyota RAV4, Corolla and Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe; the 2005-2010 Avalon; 2010 Highlander; 2007-2010 Tundra and the 2008-2010 Sequoia; and some 2007-2010 Camrys.
In the more recent recall, Toyota has not yet announced a proposed remedy for the problem. Owners who experience sticking or slowness in the movement of their car's gas pedal should stop driving the car and call a Toyota dealer immediately.