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<title>Intense cold grips much of USA; Fla. races to save crops</title>
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<description><![CDATA[A stubborn cold wave locked freezing temperatures in place across the central and eastern USA Wednesday as far south as Florida, ...

]]></description>
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<title>Attorney: Fort Hood suspect to have mental exam   </title>
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<description><![CDATA[The attorney for the Fort Hood shootings suspect says his client will be evaluated next month to determine his mental status ...

]]></description>
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<title>Antiseptic bath for surgery patients could curb infections   </title>
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<description><![CDATA[Looks like doctors aren't the only ones who should scrub before surgery. Bathing patients with an antiseptic and squirting medicated ...

]]></description>
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<title>Terror suspect indicted in foiled airliner attack</title>
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<description><![CDATA[A federal grand jury indicted the suspect in a Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner.

]]></description>
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<title>3rd version of Va. Tech massacre report released</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/TUjjaB9bYwQ/2010-01-06-virginia-tech-shooting-report_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[A third version of a report about the Virginia Tech massacre was issued Wednesday after university officials said errors were ...

]]></description>
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<title>Accused Holocaust museum shooter dies</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/TJSH56aEn6E/2010-01-06-holocaust-suspect-dead_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[A U.S. government official says the 89-year-old man accused of a deadly shooting at Washington's Holocaust museum has died in ...

]]></description>
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<title>Rhode Island lawmakers back funeral rights for gays</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Rhode Island lawmakers have voted to allow same-sex and unmarried couples the right to plan the funerals of their late partners, ...

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/jtj88cnVf0A/2010-01-06-schwarzenegger-address-legislature_N.htm">
<title>Schwarzenegger urges fiscal reform in final year</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/jtj88cnVf0A/2010-01-06-schwarzenegger-address-legislature_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday acknowledged that more pain lies ahead for California as it confronts yet another massive ...

]]></description>
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<title>Missing Arizona baby&#x27;s mom&#x27;s car found in Texas   </title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/D6Nhgy6bsH0/2010-01-06-missing-arizona-baby_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[The car belonging to an Arizona mother who allegedly told her ex-boyfriend she'd killed their 8-month-old son was found Tuesday ...

]]></description>
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<title>Florida sheriff fears missing lottery winner killed   </title>
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<description><![CDATA[In 2006, Abraham Shakespeare a truck driver's assistant who lived with his mother won $30 million in the Florida lottery. His ...

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/ZTTyX67P1Y4/2010-01-05-bordercross_N.htm">
<title>Winter Olympics will highlight new U.S. border requirements</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/ZTTyX67P1Y4/2010-01-05-bordercross_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[When the 2010 Winter Olympic Games start in Vancouver on Feb. 12, they not only will draw athletes from across the globe but ...

]]></description>
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<title>Study: Most homegrown terrorists are U.S. citizens  </title>
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<description><![CDATA[A new study of homegrown terrorism in the United States says that the threat of radicalization among American Muslims has been ...

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/wEOauWx4vyM/2010-01-06-obesity-smoking_N.htm">
<title>Hazards of obesity now rival smoking in U.S.</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Obesity now poses as great a threat to Americans' quality of life as smoking, a new study shows.

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/jGvIzT1xXhI/2010-01-05-weather-homeless_N.htm">
<title>Cold snap &#x27;horrifying&#x27; for homeless</title>
<link>http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/jGvIzT1xXhI/2010-01-05-weather-homeless_N.htm</link>
<description><![CDATA[Homeless shelters are swamped as an extended cold snap in the eastern half of the country raises alarms about people living on ...

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/~3/DSYUPqaYTx4/2010-01-05-coldsouth_N.htm">
<title> South struggles with record-setting freeze </title>
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<description><![CDATA[Throughout the southeastern USA, where cold records are breaking from Arkansas to Florida, and residents and tourists alike are ...

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179568&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Health reform: The home stretch</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179568&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Democrats are one step from turning dreams of health reform into realityRONALD REAGAN would not be pleased by what is happening in Congress today. Over the past century many other presidents tried to expand health-care coverage to all Americans. But as far back as 1961 Reagan argued that this would lead to socialised medicine, from which &#8220;will come other government programmes that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country until one day&#8230;we have socialism.&#8221;Undaunted by such conservative fears of rationing and &#8220;death panels&#8221;, Barack Obama has pushed his party&#8217;s congressional leaders to draft a sweeping health-reform law. After much ugly bickering and bribing throughout 2009, the Democrats passed a version of reform through the House of Representatives in November by a vote of 220 to 215. The fight was bloodier and the pay-offs more brazen in the Senate, but on Christmas Eve the upper chamber passed a health-reform bill on a party-line vote of 60 to 39 (60 being the minimum number required to overcome Republican procedural obstacles). ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179528&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>House prices and mobility: Off the road</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179528&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[During this recession too many Americans are rooted to the spotWHEN the going gets tough, it&#8217;s said, the tough get going. Sadly, this does not seem to apply to unemployed Americans any more. A high degree of population mobility has traditionally been one of America&#8217;s great economic strengths, providing a flexibility that allows for more efficient labour markets and lower unemployment. However, during this recession Americans have been hunkering down, not moving on.  Declining mobility has in fact long been a feature of the post-war American economy, thanks to the ageing of its workforce and rising rates of home ownership. In the two decades after the second world war, the domestic migration rate hovered around 20%, but by 2000 it had fallen to under 15%. And amid the recent economic troubles mobility has declined even more. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179536&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Asian carp advance on Chicago: The invaders</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179536&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Desperate efforts to keep a piscine predator from the Great LakesTHEY came to America in the 1970s, where they were employed to eat up algae in the fish farms of Arkansas. Before long, however, they had found their way to the vast Mississippi River basin. Gobbling plankton and spawning fast, they competed with native species. Steadily they moved north, closer and closer to the Great Lakes, which hold 90% of America&#8217;s surface freshwater. And then, on November 20th 2009, federal and state agencies announced that DNA from Asian carp had been found about eight miles (13km) from Lake Michigan, in a canal near Chicago. Panic has reigned ever since. More than a dozen federal, state and local agencies are trying to fend off the invaders. Since November there have been poisonings and press conferences, announcements and legal manoeuvres. On December 21st, cheered on by environmentalists, Michigan&#8217;s attorney-general filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court, demanding that the waterways connecting Lake Michigan to the Mississippi be closed. In the battle of man versus carp, man seems thoroughly outmatched.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179544&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>America, al-Qaeda and home-made bombs: From shoes to soft drinks to underpants</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179544&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[The attempted bombing of an airliner highlights gaps in intelligence-sharing and airport securityTHE charred underpants of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tell the story of a terrorist attack averted only by luck. The 23-year-old son of a prominent Nigerian banker had hidden a fistful of high explosive in a package sewed into the crotch of his underwear. As Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day, with 290 people on board, he covered himself with a blanket and injected a chemical to detonate the explosive. Mr Abdulmutallab succeeded only in starting a fire, which was put out by passengers and the cabin crew as they wrestled him down.Al-Qaeda&#8217;s latest attempt to blow up an America-bound airliner&#8212;after Richard Reid&#8217;s failed shoe-bomb in 2001, and the arrest in 2006 of Britons planning to destroy several aircraft with liquid explosives in soft-drink bottles&#8212;will bring yet more misery for travellers. Security queues immediately lengthened. Despite worries about privacy, there were calls for the introduction of full-body scanners to identify items under clothing that cannot be found with metal-detectors. Some passengers were even being told to stay in their seats, without blankets or even books on their laps, for the last hour of their flight. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179552&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>The politics of rum: Sir Henry&#x27;s legacy</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179552&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[A dispute over Caribbean distillation has tempers flaring in Washington, DCSHREWD dealmaking or modern Caribbean piracy? That is the question surrounding a contract between Diageo, the world&#8217;s largest drinks company, and the government of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). The deal, signed in June 2008, provides Diageo with nearly $3 billion in tax breaks over the next 30 years&#8212;including marketing subsidies, a 90% reduction in corporate-income taxes, exemption from property taxes and a new distillery and warehouses to be paid for by government bonds, all to produce Captain Morgan, a swiftly growing brand of spiced rum currently made by the Serralles distillery in Ponce, Puerto Rico.The money for this exceptionally generous deal comes from excise-tax rebates. The federal government in Washington, DC, returns $13.25 of every $13.50 it collects per proof-gallon of rum to Puerto Rico and the USVI. Puerto Rico uses most of those funds for infrastructure, land conservation and to boost its general fund; it returns no more than 10% of its rebate to its rum industry. The USVI is proposing to return nearly half of its rebate to Diageo alone. Puerto Rico is now crying foul, pitting two American insular possessions against each other. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179560&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Tourism in Hawaii: Hoping for an Obama effect</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15179560&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[A fall in tourism has hit Hawaii hardBARACK OBAMA&#8217;s decision to spend Christmas in Hawaii was welcome news for an island state battered by the brutal waves of recession. The state needs all the media attention and tourism dollars it can get, and is eagerly linking itself to the presidential holiday. Its official tourism site has a page dedicated to Mr Obama&#8217;s favourite activities in Hawaii (where he was born and partly brought up), which quotes his wife as saying that &#8220;You can&#8217;t really understand Barack until you understand Hawaii.&#8221; Tour companies shuttle people between places Mr Obama used to frequent, including the building where he lived. Mr Obama&#8217;s occasional presence in Hawaii, however, has not been enough to lure people to America&#8217;s 50th state. Luxury holidays were one of the first things people gave up when the economy slid into recession, and travelling to Hawaii is expensive; the flight time is around five hours from California. Tourism declined by more than 10% in 2008, and probably slid by a further 5% or so in 2009. Visitors, when they do come, are staying fewer days and spending less. Last June, hotel-room occupancy hit a low of 61%. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127584&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>The Guant&#xE1;namo detainees: Ready and willing</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127584&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[A small town in Illinois opens its (prison) doorsVISITORS to Thomson, Illinois, are welcomed by one sign that announces the village&#8217;s population, 600, and two that proclaim its glory: the 2009 girls&#8217; softball team came fourth in its division, and another team came third in a state music competition. With the cold comes basketball season, when the village president referees local games. Snow blankets the cornfields. Soon the bald eagles will arrive, as they do each winter, to catch fish from the nearby Mississippi river. And if all goes according to plan, Thomson will prepare for another batch of visitors, too. On December 15th the White House announced that it would buy a prison in Thomson to house some of the detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Many Republicans are furious, claiming that Illinois will become a terrorist target. (A few saltier souls claim to relish the idea of forming armed posses to hunt the inmates down, should any escape.) But Democrats there, in Barack Obama&#8217;s home state, had lobbied for the move and greeted the news triumphantly. For Mr Obama, the promise to close Guantanamo by January seems as unlikely as ever, though the announcement marks progress of a sort. No one, however, is more thrilled than the residents of Thomson itself.  ...]]></description>
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<title>America&#x27;s foreign policy: Is there an Obama doctrine?</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127255&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Just war&#8221;, not just war. And affordable, pleaseBY HIS own admission, Barack Obama received his Nobel peace prize when his accomplishments were still &#8220;slight&#8221;. But he has big plans&#8212;including signing a new nuclear-arms reduction treaty with Russia and, eventually, ridding the world of atomic weapons altogether. When he collected his prize in Oslo on December 10th, he also gave a thought-provoking acceptance speech. To some it hit the rhetorical heights of Cicero (Simon Schama, a historian, in the Financial Times). For others (David Brooks, in the New York Times), there were echoes of Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian with a gloomy view of human nature. The question now obsessing America&#8217;s commentariat is whether this speech outlines an &#8220;Obama doctrine&#8221; in foreign policy. If so, what is it? Mr Obama has never claimed to be a pacifist. Yet his critics on the right seemed surprised, pleasantly, when he said in Oslo that &#8220;there will be times when nations&#8212;acting individually or in concert&#8212;will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.&#8221; Bill Kristol, the neoconservative editor of the Weekly Standard, praised his &#8220;hardheaded and pro-American tone&#8221;. Sarah Palin appeared to like his observation that &#8220;evil does exist in the world&#8221;. (She also reminded Americans that they could read her own musings on man&#8217;s fallen state in her new book.) John Bolton, on the other hand, remained in a grump. George Bush&#8217;s former ambassador to the United Nations took exception to Mr Obama&#8217;s acknowledgment that the world would &#8220;not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes&#8221;. End violence? Merely to entertain such a possibility, he huffed on television, &#8220;reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature&#8221;. ...]]></description>
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<title>Lexington: Bah, humbug</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127034&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[The virtues of pessimismIN AN odd footnote to the health-care debate, Christian Scientists are lobbying to make health insurers pay for &#8220;faith healing&#8221;. Mary Baker Eddy, the sect&#8217;s 19th-century founder, taught that sickness is a delusion and prayer the best medicine. Her followers sometimes pay others to pray for them instead of popping pills, and they think insurers should pick up the tab. This idea is unlikely to become law, but a former presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, thinks it respectable enough to merit his support. Two recent books, one from the left, one from the right, lament the American tendency towards mindless optimism. Barbara Ehrenreich&#8217;s &#8220;Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America&#8221; has a smiley-face balloon on its cover. John Derbyshire&#8217;s &#8220;We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism&#8221; has the most miserable-looking mugshot of an author that Lexington has ever seen. Both writers confront the upbeat and beat them down.  ...]]></description>
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<title>Direct democracy: The tyranny of the majority</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127600&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[The fourth branch of government has run amok in parts of AmericaAS 2009 draws to a close, the voter-initiative industry is already frantically busy. In two dozen states new propositions are being readied to go before voters in 2010. Soon &#8220;bounty hunters&#8221;, paid by the sponsors, will appear on the streets to gather signatures in order to place initiatives on ballots. In states such as California voters will probably have to consider more than a dozen next year.The lofty term for these initiatives, along with referendums and recalls (most famously of Gray Davis, California&#8217;s then-governor, in 2003), is &#8220;direct democracy&#8221;. They play the biggest and most excessive role in California, where voters have directly amended the state&#8217;s constitution or statutes in matters big and small, from how to spend to how to tax, from regulating how fowl should be kept in coops to banning gays from marrying. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127592&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Houston&#x27;s new mayor: Leading lady</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15127592&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Time for tight budgets and eating vegetables&#8220;SOMEHOW in the United States, we&#8217;re almost an afterthought,&#8221; said Annise Parker, the Houston city controller, the night before the city&#8217;s mayoral election. &#8220;I don&#8217;t care. I think our future is international.&#8221; That kind of blunt talk is central to Ms Parker&#8217;s appeal, and the next day, on December 12th, Houston elected her as its next mayor in a run-off. Houston, America&#8217;s fourth-biggest city, is now its largest ever to have elected an openly gay mayor. And Ms Parker is one of the two most prominent gay elected officials in the country alongside Barney Frank, an influential congressman from Massachusetts. But her victory is not that surprising. The controller is the second-most-powerful city office, and Ms Parker was elected to that post three times. Her sexuality was not much discussed until after the first round of the mayoral election, in November, which sent Ms Parker and Gene Locke, a former city attorney, into the run-off. At that point some right- wing groups circulated homophobic flyers, but voters seemed not to care. A more remarkable fact is that Ms Parker will become the only woman to lead one of America&#8217;s ten largest cities. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065809&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>George Bush speaks: The motivator</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065809&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Beer, hot dogs and an ex-presidentTHE former president looked healthy and well-rested, and happier than he has in recent years. He said that he had been enjoying walking his dog in his new neighbourhood in Dallas, although he misses being commander-in-chief. It was December 2nd, and George W. Bush was back on stage. Not the world stage, of course. The former vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been nipping at Barack Obama&#8217;s heels all year. But Mr Bush has let his successor forge ahead without second-guessing him. This was a temporary stage at the AT&amp;T Centre in San Antonio, Texas, and Mr Bush was the keynote speaker at an event called Get Motivated!, a day of inspirational speeches for personal and business success.Motivational seminars are an interesting corner of American life. They feel a bit like megachurch meetings, but with beer and hot dogs, and seem to be descended from the tent-revivals and circuses of the antebellum era. At the San Antonio event the speakers emphasised self-reliance, faith, and hard work and scoffed at government intervention, higher education, mainstream media and the cult of celebrity. &#8220;The world is going to hell in a handbasket and the UN can&#8217;t do a frickin&#8217; thing about it,&#8221; said Tamara Lowe, one of the founders of the series, before challenging the audience to tackle global poverty themselves. ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065782&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Banks and small businesses: For want of a loan</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065782&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[America&#8217;s best job creators are being hit by a credit crunchIT IS basically a second stimulus, though no one wants to call it that. On December 8th President Barack Obama announced a set of proposals to address unemployment and made it clear that he wanted to use some of the unspent TARP funds (money set aside to support failing banks) to help pay for them. No precise figure was given. Some $50 billion will be spent on infrastructure projects; there will also be new rebates for home insulation and other energy-saving incentives. But the linchpin of the administration&#8217;s effort is a broad push to support small businesses. That sounds reasonable. Small businesses (firms employing 500 workers or fewer) have accounted for 64% of net new job creation over the past 15 years, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA), an independent government agency. And a recent economic study found that cities with more small firms have done better at creating jobs over the past 20 years. But America&#8217;s most recent recession has hit small businesses hard. The very small, with fewer than 50 workers&#8212;employing almost one-third of working Americans&#8212;have suffered around 45% of the job losses of the downturn.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065801&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>The Texas governor&#x27;s race : White v right</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065801&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The mayor of Houston steps up to the plateHEAVY snow was falling on Houston when Bill White, the Democratic mayor, made his move. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be a governor who challenges Texans to lead, not leave, the United States,&#8221; he said on December 4th, announcing that he would run for governor in 2010. That was a shot at Rick Perry, the Republican incumbent, who got fired up at a tax protest this summer and suggested Texas might consider seceding rather than submit to Washington&#8217;s socialism. Observers expect a spirited campaign.  Mr White was expected to run. As a big-city mayor he has ample executive experience. But until last week he had focused on the Senate, as Texas will supposedly have an election for that job next year, too. The state&#8217;s senior senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, is challenging Mr Perry for the Republican nomination for governor, and insists that she will leave her seat in 2010 either way.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065606&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Lexington: Softly softly, charming Huckabee</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065606&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Don't underestimate the rocker of the religious rightSARAH PALIN may be the Republican Party&#8217;s rock star, but Mike Huckabee can actually play the bass guitar. While campaigning for the presidency last year, he would often whip it out and start jamming. Lexington heard him a few times. He was at least as good as that other former governor of Arkansas, the one who plays the saxophone. And his latest book has more about rock music in it than the title, &#8220;A Simple Christmas&#8221;, might suggest. As an eight-year-old boy in 1964, he watched the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show and immediately wanted to be one of them. He put &#8220;electric guitar&#8221; on his Christmas list, but his parents picked something cheaper. After two years, he drew up a list with only the guitar on it. Alarmed by the price, his parents urged him to reconsider. No, he said, it&#8217;s a guitar or nothing. They gave in. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know until years later&#8230;just how much money $99 was to my parents,&#8221; recalls Mr Huckabee. It took them a year to pay for it. The lesson? Christmas is about sacrifice. Several Christmases later, when he was a penniless father-to-be, he sold his precious guitars (he had two by then) to buy a washing machine.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065693&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Public-sector unions: Welcome to the real world</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065693&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[ For decades, America&#8217;s public-sector workers have been coddled and spoiled. The recession may change thatTHE American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 25, occupies a hulking building in downtown Detroit. Deep in its basement is the office of Local 207, one of the city&#8217;s most aggressive public-sector unions. John Riehl, its president, has taped a poster to the wall carrying an old war cry: &#8220;No Contract No Work&#8221;. The sign dates from a strike in 1986. Mr Riehl hopes to revive the old battle spirit. Detroit&#8217;s mayor, Dave Bing, is urging unions to make concessions. Several have agreed. Most have not. The trouble is, the city is broke. Mr Bing&#8217;s office sits high above Detroit&#8217;s barren streets. &#8220;We have not made the structural changes we should have made,&#8221; he explains. Few cities have such a sprawling workforce&#8212;50 bargaining units in all&#8212;or so little money to pay for it. But Detroit is not alone. Most cities and states will collect only meagre revenues for at least the next year. While politicians mull tax increases and service cuts, public-sector workers continue to gobble up money&#8212;in Philadelphia, they account for 61% of spending. The crisis, however, at least illuminates a simple fact. The status quo is unaffordable.  ...]]></description>
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<title>Health-care reform: Getting to 60</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065701&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Deal by deal, compromise by compromise, the Senate moves closer to a final vote&#8220;HEALTH care will pass: the president has his reputation on the line.&#8221; That declaration about the congressional prospects for health reform comes not from a Democratic booster, but from Senator Judd Gregg. The Republican budget hawk says this through gritted teeth, though, convinced that the flawed effort will prove fiscally &#8220;disastrous&#8221;. To prove his point, he announced a proposal this week&#8212;in agreement with Kent Conrad, the Democratic head of the Senate Budget Committee&#8212;to form a bipartisan commission of worthies to reform all &#8220;entitlements&#8221;, health-related or otherwise. His fiscal analysis may be contested, but several recent developments suggest that his political prediction may be correct. The Senate now looks likely to pass a health bill in the footsteps of the House.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065772&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>America in the world: Pay any price? Pull the other one</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065772&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Both the public and the experts are retreating from foreign involvementGENERAL STANLEY McCHRYSTAL, America&#8217;s commander in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, its ambassador there, turned up on Capitol Hill this week to tell congressmen how satisfied they were with Barack Obama&#8217;s decision to send 30,000 more American troops into the fray. But their enthusiasm is not widely shared. It is not just many of the Democrats in Congress who are troubled by their country&#8217;s entangling foreign wars. A poll of the foreign-policy attitudes held by Americans at large paints a bleak picture of an America that is no longer sure of its own pre-eminence and fast losing interest in causes such as promoting democracy or defending human rights in the rest of the world. The survey, &#8220;America&#8217;s Place in the World&#8221;, is conducted every four years by the Pew Research Centre and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It poses its questions not only to 2,000 members of the public but also to 642 members of the CFR, thus tracking both public opinion and the views of foreign-policy experts.  ...]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15019864&#x26;fsrc=rss">
<title>Rows over the Nativity: No crib for a bed</title>
<link>http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15019864&#x26;fsrc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[A Christmas mix of church and stateON A manicured lawn within the grounds of the Arkansas state capitol in Little Rock a Nativity scene is erected each Advent. It is causing all sorts of problems. Shouldn&#8217;t other religions (or, for that matter, those who reject organised religion altogether) get their chance to show off? Doesn&#8217;t the display amount to a violation of the canonical separation of religion and politics?  Arkansas&#8217;s Society of Freethinkers certainly thinks so. It has attempted to mount a winter solstice display at the capitol for the past two years. In 2008 its proposal was said to be too vague. So this year the group submitted a detailed plan with drawings, only to be rejected again. &#8220;We determined this display is inconsistent with the holiday tone that our office is striving to create on the capitol grounds during the holiday season,&#8221; says a spokesman for the Arkansas secretary of state. ...]]></description>
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