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| CIA |
Angry members of Congress questioned top administration officials Wednesday on why they weren't asked to authorize President Barack Obama's decision to commit U.S. forces to the Libya military mission. A number of hearings are also scheduled for Thursday.
RADIATION LEVELS IN SEAWATER OFF JAPAN PLANT SPIKE – The levels of radiation in ocean waters off Japan's embattled Fukushima Daiichi plantcontinue to skyrocket, the nation's nuclear safety agency said Thursday, with no clear sense of what's causing the spike or how to stop it.
The amount of radioactive iodine-131 isotope in the samples, taken Wednesday some 330 meters (361 yards) into the Pacific Ocean, has surged to 4,385 times above the regulatory limit. This tops the previous day's reading of 3,355 times above the standard - and an exponential spike over the 104-times increase measured just last Friday. Officials have downplayed the potential perils posed by this isotope, since it loses half of its radiation every eight days.
GIFFORDS FOR SENATE? – Representative Gabrielle Giffords is still in the hospital, but some of her most ardent backers are so enamored of the idea of her running for the Senate that they describe the inevitable campaign commercials: the deep-voiced narrator recounting what happened to her, the images of her wounded, then recovering and speaking into the camera alongside her astronaut husband to call on Arizonans to unite.
According to The New York Times, these supporters say they do not want to get too far ahead of themselves, and make clear that Ms. Giffords, who was shot in the head, is still relearning basic tasks and might emerge from the hospital with neither the same political abilities nor aspirations that she had before. And publicly, her closest aides say the only thing they care about is her health.
BUFFET HEIR APPARENT QUITS – David Sokol, widely regarded as being on the short list to replace Warren Buffett, has resigned as chairman of several Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries. Buffett's press release about the news Wednesday came in the form of an unusually candid letter in which he said Sokol's resignation was "a total surprise."
Buffett also revealed that Sokol pushed him in January to buy chemical company Lubrizol. Though Buffett said he was "skeptical" at first, Berkshire purchased Lubrizol earlier this month for $9.7 billion - one of the largest acquisitions in the company's history. After the purchase was announced on March 14, Buffett said he found out that Sokol had bought 2,300 shares of Lubrizol on Dec. 14 - which he then sold on Dec.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS FALL IN EQUALITY INDEX – African-Americans are faring slightly worse relative to their white counterparts than they did last year, according to an index released Thursday by the National Urban League. The group's 2011 Equality Index stands at 71.5%, compared to a revised index last year of 72.1%, the league said as it released its annual report, called The State of Black America. An equality index of less than 100% suggests blacks are doing worse relative to whites, while an index greater than 100% suggests blacks are doing better.
Sources: http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com
