William R. Meissner Is New President and CEO of Jones Soda

Jones Soda Company | Soda Company Jones | Jones President | CEO of Jones | New CEO of Jones Soda | President and CEO of Jones Soda CO. | Coca Cola | Soda Company | Jones Shares | Shares of Jones Soda Company

Jones Soda Co. said Wednesday it has named beverage industry veteran William R. Meissner as its new president and CEO, replacing Joth Ricci who has left the company to pursue other opportunities.

The transition comes as the soda company known for quirky flavors is losing money and after a deal to sell the company fell through.

Meissner was most recently president of the privately held Talking Rain Beverage. Before that, he was the chief marketing officer for Fuze Beverages, a division of Coca Cola North America. He joins Jones Soda effective Friday.

Late last month, Jones said announced that it lost $4.5 million, or 17 cents per share, for the three-month period that ended Dec. 31. That's steeper than the loss of $3.4 million, or 13 cents a share, the company reported for the period a year earlier.

Its revenue fell 30 percent to $4.3 million from $6.1 million. Sales at the company, which makes high-end sodas with sugar cane, have slumped during the recession as consumers seek cheaper drink options.

The company signed a letter of intent earlier this spring with premium soda maker Reed's Inc., which was to buy Jones for about $9.8 million in cash and stock. But Jones later said it dropped out of that deal to explore other options, and it said again last month that the search continues.

On Wednesday, executives made no mention of a buyout. But in a statement, Meissner said the drink maker was prepared for a "future of growth and profitability."

Shares closed up 2 cents at 68 cents.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5M4clWLK_XPIc0PuAgjp-Iej3SwD9EUF7I80

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U.S. President Obama: 'Wait and see what happens'

President Obama | U.S President | Nation Still Divided On Health Reform | US News | American Citizen | U.S Health | American Health News | Health Care Reform America | US health Care Reform | Senate Republican leader | Congressional Republicans | America Democratic National Committee

PORTLAND, Maine — President Obama urged Americans not to judge the nearly $1 trillion health care legislation he signed into law last week until the massive policy changes take hold.

During an enthusiastic, campaign-style appearance in Maine's largest city, Obama mocked the pundits and pollsters who say he isn't getting a boost from his year-long campaign to pass the sweeping legislation.

"Every day since I signed reform into law, there's another poll or headline that says, 'Nation still divided on health reform, no great surge in public support,' " Obama said. "It's been a week, folks. So before we find out if people like health care reform, we should wait to see what happens when we actually put it into place. Just a thought."

The law extends health coverage to 32 million people who are uninsured and will shape how almost every American receives and pays for medical treatment. Some aspects of the plan go into effect this year, but Obama has said it could take four years for all the changes to take hold "because we need to do it responsibly and we need to get it right."

Obama's trip to Portland took him to the home state of two moderate Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, whose votes for the legislation the president ardently sought but ultimately could not win. The White House said both senators were invited to attend the event, but neither did.

During the speech, one in a series of appearances to sell the health law, Obama focused on his plan's short- and long-term impact on small businesses, many of which have suffered during the economic downturn.

Under the plan, businesses that have 25 or fewer employees with average annual wages of less than $50,000 will receive tax credits this year if they provide health care coverage to their workers. Those credits are expected to increase by 2014, with 4 million small businesses benefiting, according to the White House.

"This health care tax is pro-jobs, it's pro-business, and it starts this year," Obama said.

Also starting in 2014, companies with up to 100 employees will be able to buy insurance through new state-based purchasing pools, or exchanges, with the goal of giving small businesses the same kind of purchasing power as larger companies. About 22 million self-employed Americans will also be able to buy insurance through the exchanges.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said employers already know the health law will create new mandates.

"The timing couldn't be worse for a bill that will make it even harder to create private-sector jobs, and harder for small businesses to comply with the dozens of new federal boards and a thicket of new rules and regulations," McConnell said.

Congressional Republicans were united against the law and many predict that Democrats who voted for it will be dragged down in the November elections. Some Republicans are calling for repeal, and Obama told opponents of the bill to "go for it."

"If these congressmen in Washington want to come here to Maine and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest," he said.

After speaking in Maine, Obama planned to travel to Boston to attend two fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee.

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The Largest Theft of Credit and Debit Card Numbers in U.S. | Computer Hacker From Miami

Computer Hacker | U.S. Computer Hacker | Credit and Debit Card Numbers Hacker | Computer Hacker from Miami US | Theft of Credit and Debit Card Numbers | OfficeMax | Gonzalez apologized | Gonzalez's computer servers | Internet Hacker | Hacker Apologized | Stolen of Credit & Debit Card Numbers | Internet Stolen | Gonzalez amassing $2.8 million | Computer Hacking Master | Hacking Master | Computer Hacker | American Computer Hacker

A computer hacker from Miami who orchestrated one of the largest theft of credit and debit card numbers in U.S. history was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison after he apologized for leading a scheme that cost companies, banks
and insurers nearly $200 million.

Albert Gonzalez, a one-time federal informant, pleaded guilty last year to breaking into the computer networks of major retailers, including TJX Cos., BJ's Wholesale Club, Barnes & Noble, OfficeMax, and the restaurant chain Dave & Buster's.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced Gonzalez to the middle of the 15- to 25-year range spelled out in a plea agreement Gonzalez reached with prosecutors.

Just before he was sentenced, the 28-year-old Gonzalez apologized as his mother, father and sister watched from the front row of the courtroom. His father wept softly and dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.

Gonzalez said he did it not out of greed, but instead "because of my inability to stop my pursuit" and "my (Internet) addiction."

"I blame nobody but myself," he said.

He said he did not give much thought to people whose credit and debit card numbers were stolen. "I always thought that they were being made whole by their financial institutions," he said.

Authorities said Gonzalez amassing $2.8 million he used to buy a Miami condo, a car, Rolex watches and a Tiffany ring for his girlfriend. They said Gonzalez and two foreign co-defendants would drive past retailers with a laptop computer, tapping into those with vulnerable wireless Internet signals. The trio would then install "sniffer programs" that picked off credit and debit card numbers as they moved through a retailer's computers before trying to sell the numbers overseas, authorities said.

Gonzalez, who was known online as "soupnazi," was a self-taught computer genius.

He was first arrested for hacking in 2003, but was not charged because he became an informant, helping the Secret Service find other hackers. But authorities said that over the next five years, he hacked into the computer systems of Fortune 500 companies even while providing assistance to the government.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann said Gonzalez led a group of professional hackers and identity thieves in three states, Ukraine and Russia. He said the group made money by selling numbers on the black market and by going to ATMs and taking "bundles of money" out of accounts.

Prosecutors estimate the group stole tens of millions of debit and credit card numbers, costing corporations and banks millions when they were forced to cancel accounts, open new accounts, monitor accounts for fraud, beef up their network security and invest in public relations to ensure they wouldn't lose customers. Authorities found more than 40 million distinct card numbers on two of Gonzalez's computer servers.

Prosecutors asked for the maximum, 25-year sentence under the plea deal, while Gonzalez's attorney, Martin Weinberg, asked for the low end of 15 years.

Weinberg said Gonzalez has "gained an understanding of the harm he's done" during the 22 months he's spent in jail since his arrest in May 2008, and has "genuine and deep remorse."

"He recognizes what he did was wrong," Weinberg said.

Weinberg also cited a report from a defense psychiatrist who said Gonzalez showed behavior consistent with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism, and Internet addiction. He said that for Gonzalez, a computer "is like a drug."

Saris sentenced Gonzalez to two 20-year terms -- to run concurrently -- one for a Massachusetts case that included the theft from Framingham-based TJX Cos., OfficeMax and other stores, and the other from a New York case that included Dave & Buster's.

Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced Friday by a different judge in Boston in a New Jersey case involving the theft of card numbers from the Scarsborough, Maine-based Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain, 7-Eleven and Heartland.
Saris also sentenced Gonzalez to three years of supervised release after he completes his prison term. During those three years, he cannot have any access to computers, Saris said.

The judge set a separate hearing for June 25 to determine the amount of restitution Gonzalez will be ordered to pay, although the judge acknowledged that Gonzalez will not likely be able to pay the large amount she is expected to order.

Under the plea deals, Gonzalez must forfeit more than $2.7 million of the $2.8 million that authorities say he stole. He also must give up his condo, car, a Tiffany ring that he gave to his girlfriend and Rolex watches he gave to his father and friends.

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Osama Bin Laden Threatened to Kill Any Americans Held By Al-Qaida | Bin Laden Denounced The United States for Imprisoning Qaida Members

Osama Bin Laden | Osama Bin Laden Terrorist | Terrorist Osama Bin Lade | Osama News | Leader of Al Qaida | Bin Laden Threatened Americans | Bin Laden message for U.S. | message for Americans | Bin Laden | Bin Laden Denounced | American Public | Al-Qaida Members | Bin Laden News for Unite States | Obama's election | U.S President Obama | Muslim world | American journalist | Taliban fighters | America News | U.S News Bin Laden

In a 74-second audio message released on Thursday, Osama bin Laden threatened to kill any Americans held by Al-Qaida if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, is executed.

US counterterrorism officials said they thought the recording, addressed to the American people and broadcast on Al-Jazeera television, was authentic.

Bin Laden denounced the United States for imprisoning Qaida members, "first and foremost among them the holy warrior and hero, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed," according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington.

"The White House declared that it wanted to execute them," bin Laden said. "The day the United States makes this decision, it will have made the decision to execute those of you who fall prisoner to us."

The message was undated, but it appeared to be referring to statements in recent months by Obama administration officials that Mohammed, who is awaiting trial on murder charges, is likely to be convicted and executed. The officials were defending the administration's initial plan, now under review, to give five accused Sept 11 conspirators civilian criminal trials.

Asked in an interview with NBC News in November about Americans who were offended that Mohammed would get the same rights as any other criminal defendant, President Barack Obama said such critics would not find it "offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him." He added that he was not trying to prejudge the outcome of any trial.

Attorney General Eric Holder and the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, have made similar statements.

Since January, when New York City officials objected to the disruption and cost of a trial for Mohammed in federal court in Manhattan, the administration has been considering its options. Opponents of a criminal trial have called for the accused plotters to face military commissions at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they are now being held.

In the new recording, bin Laden repeated a recurrent theme of Qaida messages since Obama's election: that he has not reversed the policies toward the Muslim world of former President George W. Bush. "Your master in the White House continues to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in many important matters, like his escalation of the war in Afghanistan," bin Laden said.

No Americans are currently known to be held directly by Al-Qaida, officials said, though Taliban fighters are believed to be holding Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, who was kidnapped after walking off his Army base in southern Afghanistan last summer.

A U.S. counterterrorism official who discussed the bin Laden statement on condition of anonymity called it the "height of absurdity" for Al-Qaida to threaten now to harm captives, given that the group's operatives have routinely tortured and beheaded prisoners, including the American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

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Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Osama Bin Laden Terrorist, Terrorist Osama Bin Lade, Osama News, Leader of Al Qaida, Bin Laden Threatened Americans, Bin Laden message for U.S., message for Americans, Bin Laden, Bin Laden Denounced, American Public, Al-Qaida Members, Bin Laden News for Unite States, Obama's election, U.S President Obama, Muslim world, American journalist, Taliban fighters, America News, U.S News Bin Laden, Terrorist News, News of Terrorism,

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Indonesian school gets statue of Barack Obama | Statue Of Barack Obama

A statue of Barack Obama as a boy was installed on Monday at the Indonesian primary school, which the US president attended in the late 1960s in the capital Jakarta.

More than six feet, the bronze statue has been placed in the compound of Menteng One school after it was removed from a nearby park last Sunday, vice-principal Akhmad Solikhin told AFP.


"We put the statue near the entrance gate of the school so everyone can see it when they pass by. Everyone is welcome to see it," he said.

"The children are also happy that we've moved it here. The costs from removing the statue from the park to putting it up again at the school were 3,200 dollars paid for by donors," Solikhin said.

More than 57,000 people had joined a page on the social networking website Facebook calling for the statue to be removed from the park and replaced by a memorial to an Indonesian figure.

But Ron Mullers, chairman of the group Friends of Obama, which paid for the statue, said the move was not a response to those objections. "We feel the school is the best place to be... because this was where he went to school and this is a memory for him," he said.

The statue of "Little Barry" -- as Obama was known to his Indonesian school friends -- was designed by Indonesian artists and depicts the boy Obama dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with a butterfly perched on his hand.

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Top Taliban commander captured, U.S. official says

Washington (CNN) -- The Taliban's top military leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has been captured, a senior administration official told CNN late Monday.

This is a "huge deal," CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said. "This guy ... is the number two political figure in the Taliban" to the group's founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar.

Baradar, an Afghan, was also a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden ahead of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Baradar was captured several days ago in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces in Karachi, Pakistan, according to American government officials, The New York Times reported.

The Times also reported that Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, the officials said. American and Pakistani intelligence officials are taking part in interrogations, they told the newspaper.

"The critical issue is how much will he talk and provide information on ... where the Taliban in Pakistan are and ... where Osama bin Laden is," said Robin Wright, a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Bergen said Baradar also would have been in regular contact with Omar.

The arrest comes as some 15,000 Afghan and NATO forces are battling the Taliban in Marjah in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province in Operation Moshtarak.

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American Human Rights Hero Howard Zinn Dies At 87 | American Human Rights Hero | Boston University Historian | Human Rights Defender Active

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable." Howard Zinn, 1922 - 2010

American human rights hero, Boston University historian, political activist, early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and leading faculty and critic of BU president John Silber, Dr. Howard Zinn died of a heart attack today in Santa Monica, California.

Dr. Zinn was a human rights defender active in the civil rights, civil liberties and anti-war movements in the United States, and wrote extensively on all three subjects.

Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe Staff wrote, "For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn's best-known book, A People's History of the United States (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers -- many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out -- but rather the farmers of Shays' Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s."

Dr Zinn wrote in his autobiography, 'You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train' (1994):

From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble."

Dr. Zinn opposed the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and wrote several books about it. He asserted that the U.S. will end its war with, and occupation of, Iraq when resistance within the military increases, the same way resistance within the military contributed to ending the U.S. war in Vietnam.

Dr. Zinn compared demand by a growing number of contemporary U.S. military families to end the war in Iraq to "the Confederacy in the Civil War, when the wives of soldiers rioted because their husbands were dying and the plantation owners were profiting from the sale of cotton, refusing to grow grains for civilians to eat."

Dr. Zinn argued that "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable."

Jean-Christophe Agnew, Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, told the Yale Daily News in May 2007 that Zinn’s historical work is "highly influential and widely used".[29] He observed that it is not unusual for prominent professors such as Zinn to weigh in on current events, citing a resolution opposing the war in Iraq that was recently ratified by the American Historical Association.[30] Agnew added, “In these moments of crisis, when the country is split — so historians are split.

Dr. Zinn authored more than 20 books. He died January 27, 2010 of a heart attack at age 87, traveling in Santa Monica, California. He is survived by his daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn.

Photo: Wikipedia

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The Recovery Act | Stimulus Bill | Recovery Act of 2009 | Stimulus Package | Stimulus | States improve transparency of Recovery Act spending | State

Recovery Act – State governments in Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota and Utah made the most dramatic progress in reporting their federal economic stimulus spending online in the last six months, according to a new report from the Good Jobs First nonprofit research group.

In comparison to a previous evaluation in July 2009, Kentucky rose to 2nd place from 47th, Illinois climbed to 7th place from 50th, Minnesota jumped to 4th place from 34th, and Utah went to 24th place from 50th, according to the report. Maryland topped the list for the second year.

The research group reviewed state Web sites that reported American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spending and graded them from 1 to 100. About $200 billion from the economic stimulus law was distributed to states.

The states with the highest scores in the new report are Maryland (87), Kentucky (85), Connecticut (80), Colorado (72) and Minnesota (72).

Eleven states scored below 20, including North Dakota (5), District of Columbia (6), Missouri (10), Alaska (13), Vermont (13), Louisiana (16), Mississippi (17), Idaho (18), Oklahoma (18), Texas (18) and South Carolina (19).

“Some states are making great strides in fulfilling President Obama’s promise that the Recovery Act would be carried out with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability,” said Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy in a news release.

The state Web sites are linked with Recovery.gov, which is the federal government’s Web site for tracking economic stimulus law spending. Congress and the Obama administration approved $787 billion in stimulus allocations a year ago to boost the economy; a portion of the money went for information-technology projects, including energy smart grids, broadband development and health IT.

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Yemen Attacks Involve U.S. Military | U.S. Military News | Yemeni troops | President Obama | U.S. President Obama | U.S. citizens specifically target

U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people, among them six of 15 top leaders of a regional al-Qaeda affiliate, according to senior administration officials.

The operations, approved by President Obama and begun six weeks ago, involve several dozen troops from the U.S. military's clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. The American advisers do not take part in raids in Yemen, but help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions. Highly sensitive intelligence is being shared with the Yemeni forces, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps and detailed analysis of the al-Qaeda network.

As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operations.

The broad outlines of the U.S. involvement in Yemen have come to light in the past month, but the extent and nature of the operations have not been previously reported. The far-reaching U.S. role could prove politically challenging for Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who must balance his desire for American support against the possibility of a backlash by tribal, political and religious groups whose members resent what they see as U.S. interference in Yemen.

The collaboration with Yemen provides the starkest illustration to date of the Obama administration's efforts to ramp up counterterrorism operations, including in areas outside the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.

"We are very pleased with the direction this is going," a senior administration official said of the cooperation with Yemen.

Obama has ordered a dramatic increase in the pace of CIA drone-launched missile strikes into Pakistan in an effort to kill al-Qaeda and Taliban members in the ungoverned tribal areas along the Afghan border. There have been more such strikes in the first year of Obama's administration than in the last three years under President George W. Bush, according to a military officer who tracks the attacks.

Obama also has sent U.S. military forces briefly into Somalia as part of an operation to kill Saleh Ali Nabhan, a Kenyan sought in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in Kenya.

Republican lawmakers and former vice president Richard B. Cheney have sought to characterize the new president as soft on terrorism after he banned the harsh interrogation methods permitted under Bush and announced his intention to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Obama has rejected those two elements of Bush's counterterrorism program, but he has embraced the notion that the most effective way to kill or capture members of al-Qaeda and its affiliates is to work closely with foreign partners, including those that have feeble democracies, shoddy human rights records and weak accountability over the vast sums of money Washington is giving them to win their continued participation in these efforts.

In the case of Yemen, a steady stream of high-ranking officials has visited Saleh, including the rarely seen JSOC commander, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven; White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan; and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command.

A Yemeni official briefed on security matters said Tuesday that the two countries maintained a "steadfast cooperation in combating AQAP, but there are clear limits to the U.S. involvement on the ground. Information sharing has been a key in carrying out recent successful counterterrorism operations." AQAP is the abbreviation for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate operating in Yemen.

Source: Washington Post

Tags: Yemen Attacks, U.A. Military, U.S. President, President Obama, U.S. Central Command, U.S. Involvement on the Ground, U.S. military forces, Anwar al-Aulaqi, Iraq and Afghanistan, Yemen's president, JSOC, U.S. citizen

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US President Barack Obama leaves for Copenhagen in last ditch effort on accord

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama departed for Copenhagen Thursday night for the last day of the UN-backed climate change summit with
questions still remaining about whether an international pact can be reached.

Obama was to arrive in the Danish capital Friday morning to join 120 world leaders in the negotiations that began December 7. The goal is to come up with an international agreement to sharply reduce greenhouse gases, the main cause of global warming.

Optimism nudged slightly upward after the US and China, the two largest greenhouse gas emitters and critical to any agreement, appeared to grow closer in their positions.

Obama plans to meet with several leaders Friday, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, according to the schedule released by the White House.

Agreement between China and the US, who together account for nearly half the world's carbon emissions blamed for global warming, is seen as crucial by negotiators from around the world to reach a deal
on fighting global warming.

Obama is also to meet separately with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Obama's return time to Washington was left open, and would be determined later, the White House said.

The prospects for a deal appeared grim early Thursday when the Chinese initially appeared to balk at a demand made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Beijing be transparent in demonstrating compliance with any accord.

In a positive turn, Hu Yafei, a senior official from the Chinese foreign ministry, later told reporters in Copenhagen that "we promise to make our actions transparent".

Analysts saw the move as a key step forward, but success will require intense diplomacy when talks resume Friday. The negotiations were also buoyed when Clinton, shortly after arriving in Copenhagen Thursday, said the US would back an international plan to provide $100 billion by 2020 to poor nations suffering from the effects of global warming.

Obama has been eager to show that the US is willing to clamp down on greenhouse gases after years of downplaying the issue.

Obama has embraced the issue and raised expectation even though his administration has been reluctant to go as far as the European Union wants. He has pledged to cut US emissions by 17 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020.

EU officials have set a 2020 target of slashing emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels, when emissions where even smaller.

Obama, coupled with his international popularity, is seen as a key broker in the discussions, and there are hopes that he will give the negotiations a badly needed boost.

At the same time, the White House expressed caution, saying no agreement is preferable to one that does little to tackle the problem.

"Coming back with an empty agreement would be far worse than coming back empty-handed," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Tags: US President, US President Barack Obama, Barack Obama, US President News, Obama News, Washington News, Political News, World News, Copenhagen News, US News, News of US

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