Resident's of capital stood in teeming traffic Wednesday as city hosted gala event in honor of new 118 meter high bridge designed by world-famous architect Calatrava. 'It look like giant crooked nail,' one bystander said
Associated Press
A ship's sail, a crooked nail, or a giant headache – Jerusalemites can't agree about how best to describe the newest landmark the capital city was inaugurating Wednesday. The $73 million bridge, designed by the Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, has suddenly become the most dominant shape on the historic city's skyline. 
Building of new Chords Bridge in capital's entrance enrages Jerusalem councilmen as final stages of construction reportedly performed on Shabbat with mayor's approval. Contractor says incident was 'severe mistake,' denies Lupolianski had prior knowledge  
The bridge, which curves across Jerusalem's western entrance and will eventually carry a new light rail line, is suspended from 66 white cables attached to a spire 118 meters high that towers over the surrounding rooftops and is visible from miles away.
The ceremony marking its opening hosted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem's Mayor Uri Lupolianski, and Traffic Minister Shaul Mofaz. Some embarrassment ensued when, during Olmert's speech, hundreds of participants called out "boo". This was ...   more »

 By MARK LAVIE,
Israel stepped back from the brink of political turmoil Wednesday after the two main parties in the ruling coalition hammered out a last-minute compromise to prevent the passage of a bill calling an election.
This gives Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a few more months to pursue peace talks with the Palestinians and to try to win release of three captured soldiers. But the price was agreeing to a primary election in September that is likely to end his reign.
Olmert's main coalition partner, Labor, was poised to vote in favor of a bill to dissolve the parliament and call elections Wednesday. Labor's support would have guaranteed approval, mostly symbolic at this stage because the bill would have needed to pass three more parliamentary votes to become law.
Olmert had threatened to fire Labor Cabinet ministers if they voted for the election bill. That would have removed his parliamentary majority and made elections inevitable.
An election campaign would put peace efforts far onto the back burner.
Instead, Olmert agreed to a Labor demand for primaries in his Kadima Party by Sept. 25 in exchange for Labor's dropping its support of the election bill.
Olmert has lost most of ...   more »

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
WMD: Only last fall, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear "watchdog" said Iran would need three to eight years to acquire an atomic bomb. Now he says six months to a year. Is he dishonest or incompetent — or both?
The new estimate by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), came in an interview with Al-Arabiya TV last week.
The interviewer followed up by asking the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner if he was asserting that "if Iran decides today to expel the IAEA from the country, it will need six months to produce weapons." To which ElBaradei replied: "It would need this period to produce a weapon, and to obtain highly enriched uranium in sufficient quantities for a single nuclear weapon."
Compare that with what ElBaradei told France's Le Monde newspaper last October: "Supposing that Iran does intend to acquire a nuclear bomb, it would need between another three and eight years to succeed."
And contrast it with what he said two years ago to the Monterey Institute of International Studies: "Our assessment is that there is no immediate threat . . . we still have lots of time to ...   more »

American Intelligence Analysts Work Overtime as Israel Sends Signals
By ELI LAKE
WASHINGTON — An attack on the U.S. 5th Fleet, exploding Saudi oil refineries, and a Hezbollah operation against a soft target in the Americas, Asia, or Europe. These are scenarios America's intelligence analysts are now poring over as Israel signals its preparedness to deal with Iran's race for the A-bomb.
Fuga jets from the Israeli Air Force fly over Tel Aviv during a the celebration of Israel's 60th Independence Day on May 8.
The disclosure Friday in the New York Times of Israel's aerial training mission earlier this month over the Greek Mediterranean prompted America's intelligence chiefs to task analysts with developing contingency plans — or what one called "nightmare scenarios" — if the Israelis were to send their F-15s and F-16s to Iran's known nuclear enrichment facilities. While the training exercise was known at the time to American intelligence, the fact that Israel and America chose to make the mission public escalated the already high tensions between Tehran and Jerusalem.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking on Al-Arabiya television over the weekend, said an Israeli attack on Iran's enrichment facilities would turn ...   more »

If Iran decides to expel IAEA inspectors and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the Isalmic nation could produce nuclear weapons in as little as six months. So says Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, whose recent comments on Iran's nuclear capabilities surprised many. Last year the IAEA chief said it would be several years before Iran would be able to build a nuke.
The most recent report by the IAEA on Iran's activities contains a number of disturbing details. The IAEA has asked for greater access and transparency, but Iran has refused. The IAEA has been denied access to various sensitive locations related to the manufacturing of centrifuges, as well as sites for research and development on uranium enrichment. The IAEA has also confronted Iran with documents it found detailing some of Iran's research activities. The documents have raised red flags concerning the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA report states:
"One aspect of the alleged studies refers to the conversion of uranium dioxide to UF4, also known as green salt. A second aspect concerns the development and testing of high voltage detonator firing equipment and exploding bridgewire (EBW) detonators including, ...   more »

By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A White House-backed spy bill to protect telecommunication companies from billions of dollars in possible privacy lawsuits passed a Senate test vote on Wednesday and headed toward final congressional approval.
On a vote of 80-15, mostly Republican supporters of the bipartisan measure, which would also implement the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. spy laws in decades, easily mustered the 60 needed to clear a Democratic procedural roadblock.
Overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives on Friday, the bill may win needed Senate concurrence before Congress begins a holiday break the end of this week.
President George W. Bush has promised to sign the measure, which would replace a temporary surveillance law that had expired in February.
In addition to providing a special court review of lawsuits against telecommunication companies, the bill would increase oversight of U.S. intelligence activities and bolster privacy protection -- but not as much as civil liberties groups and a number of lawmakers want.
"This bill is not a compromise. It is a capitulation," said Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.
Feingold has offered an amendment to strip out protection for telecommunication companies. But both Democrats and Republicans predict the amendment ...   more »

After two-day meeting, central bankers leave overnight rate at 2 percent
WASHINGTON - Worried about rising prices for gasoline, groceries and other things? Federal Reserve policymakers are, too.
With inflation moving higher on its list of troubles, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday, ending nearly a year of cuts to bolster the economy, and hinted that the next direction for rates could be up.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and all but one of his central bank colleagues agreed that the best course was to leave a key rate alone at 2 percent, as the country slogs through the crosscurrents of plodding economic growth and zooming energy and food prices that threaten to spread inflation.
That meant the prime lending rate for millions of consumers and businesses stayed at 5 percent. The prime rate applies to certain credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other loans.
The decision brought to a close a powerful series of rate reductions that started in September and extended through late April. It was the central bank’s most aggressive intervention in two decades to shore up an economy bruised by the trio of housing, credit and financial crises.
On Wall Street, stocks ended ...   more »

By Reuven Koret  
It is now a certainty that the "birth certificate" claimed by the Barack Obama campaign as authentic is a photoshopped fake.
The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document -- features that Obama's purported "birth certificate" clearly lack.
The image became increasingly suspect with Israel Insider's revelation that variations of the certificate image were posted on the Photobucket image aggregation website -- including one listing the location of Obama's birth as Antarctica, one with the certificate supposedly issued by the government of North Korea, and another including a purported photo of baby Barack -- one of which has a "photo taken" time-stamp just two minutes before the article and accompanying image was posted on the left-wing Daily Kos blog.
That strongly suggests that Daily Kos obtained the image from Photobucket, not the State of Hawaii, the Obama family, or the Obama campaign. Photobucket is not generally known as a credible supplier of official vital records for ...   more »

TV ad includes deli man as 'mum,' smooch before work
Perhaps the Heinz corporation is attempting to define one of its 57 varieties.
An advertisement run on British television for the company's New York Deli Mayo featured a man who children called "mum," a kiss between two men and the closing words – from one man to another – "Love ya! Straight home from work, sweet cheeks."
After receiving a reported 200 complaints about the commercial, Heinz pulled the ad from the airwaves, less than a week into its expected five-week run.
Nigel Dickie, the Heinz UK director of corporate affairs, told the London Times, "We recognize that some consumers raised concerns over the content of the ad and this prompted our decision to withdraw it."
"The advertisement, part of a short-run campaign, was intended to be humorous and we apologize to anyone who felt offended," he said.
The commercial (which you can see below) features a man in a white apron and deli hat making school lunches behind the kitchen counter for children who call him "mum." When the "father" in the family starts to leave for work, the deli man calls him back in a thick, New York ...   more »

Americans have worst view of economy since Feb. 1992
Ellen Simon,
NEW YORK | U.S. consumers are the gloomiest they've been since the tail end of the last prolonged recession. Inflation, sinking home values and soaring gas prices have pushed confidence to the lowest level since 1992. Consumers' view of the economic future has never been lower, raising worries that already weak consumer spending could deteriorate further.
"From a consumer perspective, this is the most troubling economy since the 1980s," said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wachovia Corp.
The Conference Board's consumer confidence index, released Tuesday, fell to 50.4 this month, the lowest reading since February 1992 and half what it was a year ago. The index dropped more steeply than expected from 58.1 in May. The consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR was for a more modest decline to 56.5 for June.
Separately, home prices continued to tumble. April's decline in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index was the steepest since its 2000 inception.
Inflation, political flux and job insecurity have created an "uncertainty more acute, perhaps, than any time since 9/11," said William Hummer, chief economist at Wayne Hummer Investments.
"I don't think this can be ...   more »

By GREG J. BOROWSKI and ANNYSA JOHNSON
Milwaukee police said they have restored order this morning but will remain outside of the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center after a crowd awaiting free food vouchers - which never were to be distributed - became unruly this morning.
Police Department spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Vliet St., between N. 12th and N. 13th streets, is blocked, and barricades have been installed so people are able to line up around the block of the building at 1220 W. Vliet St.
"That line is pretty huge," Schwartz said. "We are going to be here for the duration."
Police responded to the building about 7 a.m. after 2,500 people lined up on the sidewalk and eventually began to block traffic in the street. A number of people had rushed the door, and some people became caught in the crush; however, there were no serious injuries, according to Schwartz.
She did not think police had made any arrests, nor were people being asked to leave.
"We want to make sure people stay here in an orderly fashion so they can get what they came to get," she said. "We're still trying to figure out why ...   more »