Obama pushes health care overhaul

President: ‘The status quo is the one option that is not on the table’

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says the clear consensus from the White House health care summit is an immediate need for reform.

Wrapping up the nearly daylong session, Obama said the participants — doctors, lawmakers, insurers, even skeptics — were universal in agreement that the need for health care reform “is here and now.”

Obama entered the room with Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is battling a brain tumor. After brief remarks summarizing the participants’ observations, Obama called on Kennedy. The veteran Democratic senator said he looked forward to being a foot soldier in the push for health care reform and said: “this time we will not fail.”  The big Washington session — Obama called it a health care summit — and meetings to follow around the country show the new president’s push for universal health care coverage will be more open and inclusive than the Clinton administration’s failed attempt of 15 years ago.       Breaking News

Facebook removes 5,500 sex offenders

More than 5,500 removed between May 1, 2008, and Jan. 31, 2009

RALEIGH, North Carolina – Facebook has removed more than 5,500 convicted sex offenders from its social networking Web site since May, Connecticut’s attorney general said Thursday.

Richard Blumenthal said the world’s largest social networking site, which claims to have more than 175 million active members, reported to his office that 5,585 convicted sex offenders were found on the Web site and removed between May 1, 2008, and Jan. 31, 2009.  “The message in this number is Facebook has an equal stake in solving this problem of protecting children,” said Blumenthal, who along with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has led an effort remove sex offenders from the social networking Web sites.        Breaking News

Housing plan might help 9 million people

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration announced new plans Wednesday to make it easier for up to nine million people to rework or refinance their mortgages, as the White House began an aggressive effort to stabilize the U.S. housing market.

President Barack Obama, speaking in Phoenix, said the plan “will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild [and] prevent the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy. And by bringing down the foreclosure rate, it will help to shore up housing prices for everyone.”  A central element of the plan would allow up to five million people to refinance their mortgages into more affordable products through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to a summary of the plan.        Breaking News

Enduring recessions can leave permanent marks on our children

K. Esther Szabo was a small child when the recession of the early 1970s sent her family’s fortunes into a tailspin. Her father, an economist, struggled to find work, and her mother worried about paying the bills. The family eventually filed bankruptcy.

The tensions at home put a permanent mark on Ms. Szabo. To help her family, she started working at age 8, doing chores for neighbors, and has been working ever since. When a personal-finance class in college introduced her to the idea that calamities like the one that crippled her family could be avoided with careful planning, she found the idea “mind-blowing,” she says. She now co-owns a Los Altos, Calif., financial-planning firm.        Breaking News

Chimp shot dead after mauling woman

HARTFORD, Conn. – A 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee who once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola was shot dead by police after a violent rampage that left a friend of its owner badly mauled.

Sandra Herold, who owned the 15-year-old chimp named Travis, wrestled with the animal, stabbed it and hit it with a shovel after it inexplicably attacked her friend Charla Nash, 55.

Nash had gone to Herold’s home in Stamford on Monday to help her coax the chimp back into the house after he got out, police said. After the animal lunged at Nash when she got out of her car, Herold ran inside to call 911 and returned armed.        Breaking News

New Rollover Rules for 401(k) Heirs

A new tax law contains some good news for those who stand to inherit 401(k) accounts from someone besides a spouse.

As part of a recovery package enacted in December, Congress has given other heirs of qualified plans the same favorable tax treatment previously reserved for spouses — specifically, the ability to defer taxes on the money by rolling it over into an individual retirement account.

“It’s a pretty significant change,” says Blanche Lark Christerson, managing director at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management. “When it comes to how your 401(k) is treated at your death, there’s no longer a downside to keeping your money in one of these plans after retirement.”        Breaking News

There Goes Retirement

With their finances in shambles, many in the 60-plus crowd are looking for jobs. Here’s how some are finding work — and adjusting to new lives.

The advice in recent months — from financial planners, economists and educators — has been unvarying: Retirees whose nest eggs have cracked wide open should go out and find a job.

Easier said than done.

Across the country, retirees who never imagined themselves returning to the workplace are polishing résumés and knocking on employers’ doors.

The problem: Most are running smack into the worst job market in almost three decades. Nearly 5% of workers age 55 and older were unemployed in December, a 58% jump from a year earlier and the highest percentage since 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.          Breaking News

Kissing ban gets Mexico hot under the collar

A town famous for an Alley of the Kiss passes a law against public displays of affection, sparking a passionate outcry.

Reporting from Guanajuato, Mexico — Once upon a time, there was a city where people came from far and wide to kiss.

The place was blessed with gold and silver, but its kissing legend, passed down like an heirloom, made it rich beyond measure. It tells of a fair maid named Ana who fell in love with Carlos, a poor miner who lived across a narrow alley. The young lovers met on their balconies, stretching across the tiny gap to kiss in the moonlight.

But their love was star-crossed: Ana’s father forbade the romance and threatened to kill his daughter if he discovered the lovers together again. The next night, he caught them and, true to his warning, stabbed Ana with a dagger. Dying, Ana reached out and Carlos kissed her hand — the couple’s final kiss.        Breaking News

Peanut Corp of America Files for Bankruptcy

The peanut-processing company at the center of a salmonella outbreak linked to nine deaths and at least 637 illnesses filed for bankruptcy protection Friday.

Peanut Corp. of America’s bankruptcy lawyer said the company had “no alternative” but to stop operations and liquidate. Andrew S. Goldstein, , a partner at Magee, Foster, Goldstein & Sayers, a Roanoke, Va. law firm, said Peanut Corp. was “operating well” before the outbreak, but that changed after the U.S. Department of Agriculture banned it from doing business with the government and government contractors. “They basically were unable to conduct any business,” said Mr. Goldstein.        Breaking News

Peanut company officials spurn Congress’ questions

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The president of a peanut company and a plant manager accused of knowingly distributing contaminated food refused to answer questions posed by members of Congress on Wednesday, citing their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

The testimony of Stewart Parnell, president of the Peanut Corp. of America, and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the company’s Blakely, Georgia, plant, before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee lasted less than 10 minutes.  Neither man had an opening statement. Asked whether it was their intention to cite constitutional protection in refusing to answer all the questions posed by the committee, both men said it was.        Breaking News