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CNN News Item 1
The U.S. government closes its embassy in the Middle Eastern country of Yemen, and that is because of
security concerns. One official says that a group called al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula might be planning
an attack against the facility. That same group said it was behind an attempted plot to set off an explosive
onboard a plane heading to Detroit, Michigan. That took place on Christmas day. The suspect allegedly
brought the explosives on the plane in his underwear. The plan failed when the device he tried to use didn’t
detonate correctly. Some people have asked how the suspect made it past security. One U.S. official says it’s
because of human error. President Obama has promised that everyone involved in the attack will be held
accountable for it. But some critics argue that the president’s response to the situation hasn’t been fast
enough, hasn’t been aggressive enough.
CNN News Item 2
It’s back to work for Indian government oil workers after a three-day strike that crippled Indian
commerce. Some 45,000 oil workers walked off the job after the government refused their demands for
higher pay. The labor standoff ended after days of intense government pressure, including threats of job loss
and even arrest to strikers. Meantime, talks with a second group of nationwide strikers may soon be
underway. The Indo-Asian News-Service says India’s transport minister is ready to discuss demands from
truckers. Many across India have parked their rigs, calling for reduction in diesel and tyre prices.
CNN News Item 3
Lawmakers in Nebraska have approved a big change to the state’s controversial safe haven law. Under
the new measure, children older than 30 days can not be dropped off at state hospitals. 35 children, many of
them, preteens or even teenagers, have been abandoned in hospitals since the original law took effect in July.
State lawmakers say it was intended to prevent newborns from being dumped in trash bins or even worse.
The new law is expected to go into effect at midnight.
CNN News Item 4
The nation of Iran marking a milestone later on this week. On Thursday, the country will celebrate the
anniversary of when it became an Islamic republic. This goes back to 1979, when supporters of the Ayatollah
Khomeini, a religious leader, overthrew the country’s government. Khomeini became the supreme leader of
Iran, and the nation officially became an Islamic state. The United States and the European Union are
worried about potential violence during Thursday’s celebrations. U.S. and European Union are urging the
Middle Eastern nation to “end its abuses against its own people.” Iranian leaders have denied any
accusations that the government has abused citizens.
CNN News Item 5
Iraqis put democracy into action today in elections held across the country. The polls have closed and a
vote-counting has begun. Voters went to 6,000 polling stations to pick from among 14,000 candidates
including 4,000 women. Security is very tight though, voters were searched before they entered the polls.
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The borders with Iran and Syria were sealed and a curfew has been put into place. Now even the United
Nations was involved in monitoring those elections.
CNN News Item 6
Iranian media reports former President Mohammad Khatami has announced he will run in the June
presidential elections. Today’s announcement ends weeks of speculation. Khatami is considered a reformist
and overwhelmingly won the presidency in 1997 but he couldn’t bring about religious and democratic
freedoms because of strong opposition from the country’s religious establishment. Khatami was succeeded
by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad four years ago.
CNN News Item 7
Meanwhile U.S. President Barack Obama is taking crisis talks to an international level. British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown is traveling to the United States on Monday to push for global solutions to the
economic crisis. He will be the first E.U. leader to meet the new president in Washington and Mr. Obama
will meet the remaining E.U. leaders at a special summit in Prague in April. That will be his first trip to
Europe since taking office. Also on that trip, the G20 summit on the economic crisis and a NATO meeting.
CNN News Item 8
Strike is off, the judge says plans for a walkout by a British Airway’s Cabin Crew cannot happen. As we
reported yesterday, this strike which would have last through the holidays could have effected a million
passengers’ holiday travel plans. But the judge has blocked it from happening. Now the airline says it hopes
the Cabin Crews Labor Union would take some time to think about its next steps. The union representatives
say this dispute is not over and unless the two sides can come to a solution, they could vote to strike again,
but after Christmas.
CNN News Item 9
Heading overseas to Thailand where grenade attacks in the capital city of Bangkok have killed at least
three people. A Thai official said the grenades came from an area where people who were protesting the
government were gathered together. The protesters say they are not responsible. They have been fighting
with police for a while here you can see them throwing rocks and other things at police. They support the
country’s former prime minister and they want the current leader to leave office. After these recent attacks,
Thailand’s prime minister called an emergency meeting to figure out how to deal with the situation.
CNN News Item 10
U.S. Supreme Court says that a memorial out in the Mojave Desert does not violate the U.S.
Constitution. The memorial is a large cross. It was put up in 1934 to honor fallen soldiers. But it’s located in
a national park, and some people argue that it’s a religious symbol that goes against the concept of separation
of church and state. The cross was boarded up because of the legal battle. Yesterday’s Supreme Court
decision was close: 5 to 4. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that this cross represents
“far more than religion.” But in opposition, Justice John Paul Stevens argued the government can’t lawfully
endorse a religious symbol as a way to pay tribute to veterans.
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CNN News Item 11
Freed at last after five years in captivity, three Americans held hostage by leftist rebels in Colombia are
back on U.S. soil and will be reunited with their families. Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith
Stansell were among those rescued during an incredible operation yesterday. Columbian secret agents tricked
leftist rebels into handing them over without a single shot being fired. The men are now undergoing tests at
an army medical center in San Antonio, Texas.
CNN News Item 12
Health care reform enters a new era in about two hours. President Obama is scheduled to sign that bill
into law. Then, he is going to travel around the country to sell the plan to skeptics. But Republicans say that
battle is on to get ready for legal challenges, nearly a dozen states plan to argue that it’s not constitutional. As
early as tomorrow, the debate moves to the Senate where lawmakers will consider a companion measure, and
Republicans plan, parliamentary objections that could change that bill and force it back to the House. Now,
even before the first votes were cast in the health care debate, Barack Obama’s overall approval rating
dropped to his lowest level ever recorded.
CNN News Item 13
Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will be meeting this month to put together a
final health care reform bill. The Senate passed its version on Christmas Eve. The House had already passed
its bill. But there are some pretty big differences between the two. One of them: cost. The Senate bill checks
in at $871 billion. The House version: Over $1 trillion. Another issue: the so-called public option, a
government-run health insurance program. House bill includes it; Senate bill doesn’t. So, some compromises
need to be made to come up with a final bill. And since that then has to be approved by both Houses of
Congress, there are some concerns about whether it will pass.
CNN News Item 14
Another day of international pressure levied against Zimbabwe’s embattled President Robert Mugabe.
British officials have announced they are stripping Robert Mugabe’s honorary knighthood title. Nobel Prize
winner Desmond Tutu is also speaking out about the election mess there. He’s urging the nations of the
world to intervene. The calls come after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the election,
citing violence against his party. The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission ruled today that the presidential
election will go on as planned.
CNN News Item 15
The Tea Party movement is getting ready for the mid-term elections coming up in November. The group
has released a list of heroes and targets. The heroes on the list are candidates that the Tea Party plans to
support in the elections. The targets are anyone that the group would like to see voted out of office. Of
course lists are not the only way that the Tea Party gets its message out. Rallies are the group’s bread and
butter. This one in Washington DC yesterday was a wrapping up of a three-week tour across the U.S. The
timing? No coincidence. Yesterday, of course, was tax day. And the group is opposed to what it sees as the
government overspending.
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CNN News Item 16
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis. And President Obama said that he wants
to move beyond the past and build a relationship with Iran based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
U.S.-Iran relations had been hostile since the day that Islamic students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran
and held 52 Americans hostage for more than 400 days. Iran’s government holds rally every year to celebrate
that event. Today there’s something different though, anti-government protesters are also on the streets. We
are also getting some reports of clashes with those police. No word about any injury yet.
CNN News Item 17
Senators are considering alternatives to part of their healthcare legislation, specifically, the so-called
public option, government-run health insurance program. Senate republicans and some democrats and
independents are against that plan. A group of Democratic Senators was working to come up with some other
ideas they could replace the public option. And late last night, they said they had reached an agreement. If
the Senate passes its healthcare bill, that does not make it law, would still need to be combined with Health
bill and then that final version would need to pass both the House and the Senate.
CNN News Item 18
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he refuses to borrow money to keep his state running, he wants
legislators to focus on the state's 24 billion dollar deficit or the state could be forced to cut thousands of jobs,
eliminate health care for a million low income children. Meanwhile lawmakers are debating hundreds of
other bills including creating a state blueberry commission. Banning toy cigarette lighters and mandating a
larger font size for medical worker name tags.
CNN News Item 19
Ray LaHood, the head of the U.S. Transportation Department, is weighing in on Toyota’s recall of
millions of vehicles due to a faulty gas pedal. But what Mr. LaHood is saying might be causing some
confusion. During a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, Secretary LaHood said that anyone who owns one of
the cars affected by the recall should “stop driving it and take it to a dealer.” That scared and frustrated a lot
of owners, and later in the day, LaHood corrected himself. Toyota released a statement thanking Secretary
LaHood for clarifying his remarks. They also said, “We want to make sure that our customers understand
that this situation is rare and generally does not occur suddenly. If you experience any issues with your
accelerator pedal, please contact your dealer without delay. If you are not experiencing any issues with your
pedal, we are confident that your vehicle is safe to drive.”
CNN News Item 20
Toyota says that a glitch in the electronic brakes could cause a delay when you step on the pedal. They
say it only affects 2010 models sold last year. And it’s those very same cars that are being credited with
Toyota’s cash cow. New numbers just out say they made $1.7 billion last quarter, but it won’t last for long.
For the first time, Toyota is admitting it’s going to take a huge beating due to this gas pedal nightmare. $2
billion for repairs and lost sales.
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CNN News Item 21
AIG is trying to prevent a new wave of backlash over paying out bonuses to its top executives. The
Washington Post reports the company has asked the Obama Administration to approve millions of dollars in
promised bonuses. The payments are scheduled to go out next week. AIG doesn’t actually need approval.
Because the payments were linked to contracts from last year before received aid from the federal bailout
funds. But the Post reports executives still are reluctant to pay without official approval. An earlier round of
2008 AIG employee bonuses drew widespread criticism earlier this year.
CNN News Item 22
The raw politics of health is heating up in the Senate. Just before air last night, Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid announced a group of 10 liberal and conservative Democrats had reached a deal to replace the
hotly debated public option with a package of alternatives. Senator Reid offered few details. But today,
President Obama praised the emerging compromise. Now, the public plan deal came just hours after the
Senate killed a controversial amendment to restrict abortion coverage in its health care bill to ensure that no
federal funds go toward covering any kind of abortion in this new reform. Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson had
introduced that amendment. He called it a deal-breaker. He’s also one of the 10 senators to hammer out the
deal to drop the public plan.
CNN News Item 23
Over in Europe, the financial outlook for a few countries isn’t looking too good. The investment ratings
for Spain, Portugal and Greece all went down this week. Greece might be the worst situation. Experts are
using the word “junk” to describe that nation’s investment rating. Basically, they’re saying that it’s very risky
to put your money there. Greece has a massive debt, nearly $400 billion. That’s bigger than the country’s
economy. Greece is developing ways to cut spending, but Greek workers aren’t too happy about some of
those plans, and they’ve been protesting about it. Greece is also asking for financial help from the European
Union: a bailout of more than $50 billion.
CNN News Item 24
Well moving around to the East of Asia now, Southeast of Asia, a gloomy forecast out of Singapore.
The government says its economy will likely shrink by between 6 and 9% this year. The announcement
comes as the city-state’s first quar