GOP: Offsetting cuts must cover payroll tax relief (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republican congressional leaders stressed a willingness Wednesday to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut due to expire Dec. 31, setting up a year-end clash with Democrats over how to pay for a provision at the heart of President Barack Obama's jobs program.

"We just think we shouldn't be punishing job creators to pay for it," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, scorning a Democratic proposal to raise taxes on million-dollar income earners.

Instead, Senate Republicans called for a gradual reduction in the size of the federal bureaucracy, as well as steps to make sure that million-dollar earners don't benefit from unemployment benefits or food stamps. They also recommended raising Medicare premiums for individuals with incomes over $750,000 a year.

House Speaker John Boehner said flatly that any tax cut extension will be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget to avoid raising federal deficits. Numerous Republican officials noted that Obama had said the same thing was true of the plan he unveiled in a nationally televised speech to Congress in September.

The events in Congress, coupled with Obama's fresh appeal for renewal of the payroll tax cut while speaking Wednesday in Scranton, Pa., indicated that leaders in both parties want to seek a compromise less than a week after Congress' high-profile supercommittee failed to find common ground on a related economic issue, a plan to reduce deficits.

Yet nearly a full year before the 2012 elections, it also appeared that lawmakers in both parties are eager to compete for the political high ground before any compromise can be struck on the payroll tax or an extension of unemployment benefits that Republicans also said they might approve.

In a visit to blue-collar northeastern Pennsylvania, Obama warned of a "massive blow to the economy" if Republicans oppose his call for a renewal of the payroll tax cut approved a year ago as a way to stimulate economic growth.

"Are you going to cut taxes for the middle class and those who are trying to get into the middle class, or are you going to protect massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires?" he said, referring to Republicans.

"Are you going to ask a few hundred thousand people who have done very, very well to do their fair share or are you going to raise taxes for hundreds of millions of people across the country?"

Speaking later in New York City, Obama took a more conciliatory tone toward Republicans.

"For the last couple of days Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell have both indicated that it probably does make sense not to have taxes go up for middle class families, particularly since they've all taken an oath not to raise taxes," Obama said. "And so it's possible we'll see some additional progress in the next couple of weeks that can continue to help strengthen the economy."

Senate Democrats have set a vote for later in the week to pay for the tax cut renewal by imposing a permanent 3.25 percent surtax on individuals or couples earning more than $1 million a year, a political maneuver designed to cast Republicans as the protectors of the wealthy at a time when unemployment is at 9 percent nationally.

The proposal has no chance of gaining the 60-vote Senate majority needed for approval.

The Senate Republican alternative, unveiled in late afternoon, envisions extending an existing pay freeze for government workers through 2015 ? a provision that would apply to lawmakers. It also proposed gradually cutting the government workforce by 10 percent, or 200,000 positions.

Additionally, Republicans recommended taxing away the value of unemployment benefits and denying food stamps to any household with an income of $1 million or more, as well as raising the Medicare premium paid by individuals who earn more than $750,000 a year.

Republicans said their proposal would raise about $221 billion over a decade, covering the cost of a one-year extension of the existing payroll tax cut and leaving $111.5 billion left over for deficit reduction.

"The Democrats can say they just want some people to pay a little bit more to cover this or that dubious proposal," said McConnell, who also noted that there were misgivings inside his party over Obama's proposed tax cut extension.

"Think about that. The Democrats' response to the jobs crisis we're in right now is to raise taxes on those who create jobs. This isn't just counterproductive. It's absurd."

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the GOP plan as written won't pass. "Now that Republicans have reversed their position on this middle-class tax cut, we look forward to working with them to negotiate a consensus solution," he added.

The extension of unemployment benefits is also included in the jobs program Obama announced in the fall, at a cost of $48.5 billion over a decade.

The overall cost of Obama's plan was $447 billion over 10 years, and his recommendations concerning the payroll tax account for well half the amount.

Under bipartisan legislation Obama signed late last year, the 6.2 percent payroll tax paid by workers on incomes up to $106,800 was cut to 4.2 percent through the end of 2011. The president has proposed reducing that further, to 3.1 percent, for 2012.

In addition, he is asking lawmakers to grant a similar tax break to businesses by halving the 6.2 percent they pay on workers' wages, up to $5 million in payroll.

Those two changes carry a cost of $247.5 billion, according to the White House.

The millionaires' surtax was a late change in the president's proposal, insisted upon by Senate Democrats who balked at some of Obama's initial proposals.

Initially, Obama proposed higher taxes on family incomes over $250,000 and on the oil and gas industry.

The first request troubled Democratic senators from states like New York, New Jersey and California, where large numbers of families would be hit by the increase. The second drew opposition most prominently from Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, whose state is home to numerous oil and gas operations.

The president also proposed higher taxes on hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.

Those increases also disappeared, although supercommittee Republicans said they would be willing to accept the corporate jet increase as part of a deal that made big cuts in federal spending.

___

Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_payroll_tax

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Libya says ex-deputy PM suspect in general's killing (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) ? Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Monday a former NTC deputy prime minister was suspected of involvement in the killing of one of the rebel movement's most senior military commanders.

General Abdel Fattah Younes was killed by his own side in July, an incident that caused deep rifts inside the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi's rule. The naming of the suspects risks reviving those divisions.

At a news conference broadcast on Libyan television, NTC chief military prosecutor Yussef Al-Aseifr named Ali El-Essawi as chief suspect. Essawi served as the NTC's interim deputy prime minister until he stepped down earlier this year.

"The number one suspect in the investigation is the former deputy head of (the NTC) executive office Ali Abdelaziz Saad Al-Essawi," Aseifr said.

"There are seven people suspected of involvement in Abdel Fattah Younes's killing. Three have been arrested and security forces are looking for the others," said Aseifr, who was standing alongside NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

Essawi denied involvement in a phone call to the local Libya Awalen television station. "I never signed any decision relating to Abdel Fattah Younes," he said. "Everybody in Libya wants the truth."

Before he was made deputy prime minister, Essawi had acted as the NTC's de facto foreign minister and toured foreign capitals rallying support for the rebellion before Gaddafi was forced from power in August.

Younes was for years part of Gaddafi's inner circle. He defected at the start of the uprising against Gaddafi's rule in February and became the military chief of the rebellion.

The circumstances of his killing remain murky, but it is known that he was killed after NTC leaders summoned him back from the front line to Benghazi, the eastern city where at the time the council had its headquarters.

His death exposed splits within the anti-Gaddafi movement, especially between Islamists and secularists, with different factions accusing each other of involvement.

(Reporting by Ali Shuaib; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_libya_younes_suspects

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Venezuela receives first gold shipment from Europe

Soldiers stand guard as an armored truck containing gold reserves arrives to the Central Bank in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday Nov. 25, 2011. President Hugo Chavez's government began repatriating Venezuela's gold reserves from European banks Friday as the first shipment arrived on a flight from Paris. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Soldiers stand guard as an armored truck containing gold reserves arrives to the Central Bank in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday Nov. 25, 2011. President Hugo Chavez's government began repatriating Venezuela's gold reserves from European banks Friday as the first shipment arrived on a flight from Paris. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Soldiers stand guard as an armored truck containing gold reserves arrives to the Central Bank in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday Nov. 25, 2011. President Hugo Chavez's government began repatriating Venezuela's gold reserves from European banks Friday as the first shipment arrived on a flight from Paris. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Soldiers escort trucks containing gold reserves to the Central Bank in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday Nov. 25, 2011. President Hugo Chavez's government began repatriating Venezuela's gold reserves from European banks Friday as the first shipment arrived on a flight from Paris. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? President Hugo Chavez's government began repatriating Venezuela's gold reserves from European banks Friday as the first shipment arrived on a flight from Paris.

Troops guarded the shipment in a caravan of at least five armored trucks that carried the gold to the Central Bank in Caracas.

A group of government supporters cheered and waved flags as the caravan passed, with soldiers holding their rifles at the ready. Two light tanks escorted the shipment.

Chavez announced in August that his government would retrieve more than 211 tons of gold held in U.S. and European banks.

Chavez announced earlier Friday that the first of the gold was on its way.

"It's coming to the place it never should have left. ... The vaults of the Central Bank of Venezuela, not the bank of London or the bank of the United States," Chavez said. "It's our gold."

He said that previously the gold was held in Britain. He didn't specify the bank nor say how much was in the shipment.

The leftist president has said his decision to repatriate the gold reserves is aimed at helping to protect the oil-producing country from economic troubles in the United States and Europe.

Economist Pedro Palma, who is a professor at the Institute of Higher Studies of Administration, said he saw no economic justification for moving the gold.

"From the economic point view, it is the same to have it here as in England. The reserves will not change because of this," Palma said. He said it seemed to be an attempt to show the public "heroic actions" on the part of the government.

Chavez's opponents have called the plan costly and ill-advised.

Central Bank president Nelson Merentes said the gold has been held abroad since the late 1980s as backing for loans requested from the International Monetary Fund by prior governments.

With the gold in Venezuela, Merentes said, "it's a guarantee" for the country.

"If there's some problem in the international markets, here it's going to be safe," Merentes said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-25-LT-Venezuela-Gold/id-4e026da4976f4e989dfacd3cff1d4436

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Occupy movements nationwide celebrate Thanksgiving (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Most Americans spent Thanksgiving snug inside homes with families and football. Others used the holiday to give thanks alongside strangers at outdoor Occupy encampments, serving turkey or donating their time in solidarity with the anti-Wall Street movement that has gripped a nation consumed by economic despair.

In San Francisco, 400 occupiers at a plaza in the financial district were served traditional Thanksgiving fixings sent by the renowned Glide Memorial Church to volunteers and supporters of the movement fighting social and economic inequality.

"We are thankful that we are, first and foremost, in a country where we can protest," said the Rev. Cecil Williams, the founder of Glide and a fixture in the city's activist community. "And we are thankful that we believe that there are things that could be worked out and that we have a sense of hope. But we know that hope only comes when you make a stand."

While the celebration remained peaceful in San Francisco, an amplified version of a family Thanksgiving squabble erupted in New York when police ordered a halt to drumming by protesters at an otherwise traditional holiday meal.

About 500 protesters were digging into donated turkey and trimmings at lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park when police told a drummer to drop playing.

About 200 protesters surrounded a group of about 30 officers and began shouting in the park where the Occupy movement was launched Sept. 17.

"Why don't you stop being cops for Thanksgiving?" yelled one protester.

"Why don't you arrest the drummers in the Thanksgiving parade?" hollered another.

A van rolled up with more officers, but they stayed back as protesters eventually decided to call off the drumming and return to their food. Tensions have run high at the park since campers were evicted Nov. 15.

Protester Chris Coon wandered into Zuccotti in a Santa Claus suit with a list of "naughty" people that included former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"Bank of America foreclosed on the North Pole, then I flew here in my sleigh and the NYPD towed my sleigh," Coon said. "So now I'm here in Zuccotti Park protesting the 1 percent."

In San Diego, four Occupy protesters were arrested between midnight and 2 a.m. Thursday at an encampment at the City's Civic Center Plaza, said Officer David Stafford. Three were taken into custody for sleeping overnight in public, while the fourth was arrested for spitting on an officer, Stafford said.

Demonstrators nationwide say they are protesting corporate greed and the concentration of wealth in the upper 1 percent of the American population.

The movement was triggered by the high rate of unemployment and foreclosures, as well as the growing perception that big banks and corporations are not paying their fair share of taxes, yet are taking in huge bonuses while most Americans have seen their incomes drop.

Restaurants and individual donors prepared more than 3,000 meals for the gathering at Zuccotti.

Haywood Carey, 28, of Chapel Hill, N.C., helped serve the meals and said the Thanksgiving celebration was a sign of Americans' shared values.

"The things that divide are much less than the things that bind us together," he said.

In upstate New York, Danny Cashman, 25, an Afghanistan war veteran who works for a company that resells cellphones, said he sleeps at least three nights a week at an encampment in Rochester to show his solidarity with the movement.

"For today, this is my family," Cashman said as he dug into a chicken dinner at the 35-tent encampment in tiny Washington Square Park. "We have a great brotherhood, great friends, a great community."

Pat Mannix, 72, a longtime community activist, dropped off a vegetarian turkey and pies at the camp.

"I give thanks for these young people," she said. "The young people down here are sleeping out in spite of the cold, the wind, the soaking rains, and they are here trying to save democracy."

In Los Angeles, where more than 480 tents have been erected on the lawns of City Hall, activist Teri Adaju, 46, said she typically serves dinner to homeless people on Thanksgiving and knows that many at the Los Angeles encampment were just that.

Still, she added, "Everybody's in good cheer."

In Las Vegas, Occupy protesters had a potluck meal at their campsite near the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Organizer Sebring Frehner said he was happy to skip his traditional meal at home.

"Instead of hunkering down with five or six close individuals in your home, people you probably see all of the time anyway, you are celebrating Thanksgiving with many different families ? kind of like the original Thanksgiving," Frehner said.

Trisha Carr, 35, spent her holiday at the Occupy encampment at City Hall in Philadelphia. She has been out of work for more than two years and lost her car and home. She's been living in an Occupy tent for two weeks.

"Some days are harder than others," she said.

The sunny, crisp weather Thursday put her in a good mood, and she watched the annual Thanksgiving parade before coming back to the encampment for a plate full of turkey and fixings.

Carr said her job search has been fruitless, and the government needs to do more to help people like her.

"I had the benefits, I had money in my pocket, I had health care ? I had it all," Carr said. "There should be no reason why people aren't working."

___

Associated Press writers Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia; Chris Hawley in New York; Ben Dobbin in Rochester, N.Y; Alicia Chang in Los Angeles; and Cristina Silva in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_us/us_occupy_thanksgiving

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NBC apologizes to Bachmann for Fallon song choice (AP)

ST. PAUL, Minn. ? GOP Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann received an apology from an NBC executive after an off-color song was played during her appearance on Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night," her spokeswoman said late Wednesday.

The Minnesota congresswoman received a personal letter from NBC's vice president for late night programming, Doug Vaughan, a day after she appeared on the show. As Bachmann walked onstage, the show's band had played a snippet of a 1985 Fishbone song entitled "Lyin' Ass B----."

Vaughan wrote that the incident was "not only unfortunate but also unacceptable," Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart told The Associated Press. She said Vaughn offered his sincerest apologies and said the band had been "severely reprimanded."

Fallon also apologized to Bachmann when they spoke earlier Wednesday, she said. He'd tweeted earlier, saying he was "so sorry about the intro mess."

"He was extremely nice and friendly and offered his apology, and she accepted it," Stewart said, adding that the comedian said he was unaware the band planned to play the song. "It's just unfortunate that someone had to do something so disrespectful."

Bachmann lashed out earlier Wednesday at NBC for not apologizing or taking immediate disciplinary action. In her first comments on the flap, Bachmann said on the Fox News Channel that the Fallon show band displayed sexism and bias by playing the song.

"This is clearly a form of bias on the part of the Hollywood entertainment elite," Bachmann said. She added, "This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama. It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman either."

She went further on a national radio conservative radio show hosted by Michael Medved, calling the incident "inappropriate, outrageous and disrespectful."

On Fox, Bachmann expressed surprise that she's heard nothing from the TV network. She suggested that discipline for the show's band, The Roots, was in order. She said she believed Fallon's comments to be sincere.

One of Bachmann's congressional colleagues, New York Democrat Nita Lowey, had called on NBC to apologize for its "insulting and inappropriate" treatment of its guest.

An NBC spokeswoman didn't return a phone message from The Associated Press.

The Roots' bandleader, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, has said the song was a "tongue-in-cheek and spur-of-the-moment decision."

Bachmann, who is lagging in presidential polls, has spent the week promoting her new autobiography in national television interviews.

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York and Associated Press writer Erin Gartner in Chicago contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111124/ap_en_mu/us_bachmann_song_choice

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Mexico acknowledges 2nd Mayan reference to 2012 (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? Mexico's archaeology institute downplays theories that the ancient Mayas predicted some sort of apocalypse would occur in 2012, but on Thursday it acknowledged that a second reference to the date exists on a carved fragment found at a southern Mexico ruin site.

Most experts had cited only one surviving reference to the date in Mayan glyphs, a stone tablet from the Tortuguero site in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

But the National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a statement that there is in fact another apparent reference to the date at the nearby Comalcalco ruin. The inscription is on the carved or molded face of a brick. Comalcalco is unusual among Mayan temples in that it was constructed of bricks.

Arturo Mendez, a spokesman for the institute, said the fragment of inscription had been discovered years ago and has been subject to thorough study. It is not on display and is being kept in storage at the institute.

The "Comalcalco Brick," as the second fragment is known, has been discussed by experts in some online forums. Many still doubt that it is a definite reference to Dec. 21, 2012 or Dec. 23, 2012, the dates cited by proponents of the theory as the possible end of the world.

"Some have proposed it as another reference to 2012, but I remain rather unconvinced," David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a message to The Associated Press.

Stuart said the date inscribed on the brick "'is a Calendar Round,' a combination of a day and month position that will repeat every 52 years."

The brick date does coincide with the end of the 13th Baktun; Baktuns were roughly 394-year periods and 13 was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas. The Mayan Long Count calendar begins in 3114 B.C., and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.

But the date on the brick could also correspond to similar dates in the past, Stuart said.

"There's no reason it couldn't be also a date in ancient times, describing some important historical event in the Classic period. In fact, the third glyph on the brick seems to read as the verb huli, "he/she/it arrives."

"There's no future tense marking (unlike the Tortuguero phrase), which in my mind points more to the Comalcalco date being more historical that prophetic," Stuart wrote.

Both inscriptions ? the Tortuguero tablet and the Comalcalco brick ? were probably carved about 1,300 years ago and both are cryptic in some ways.

The Tortuguero inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.

However, erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible, though some read the last eroded glyphs as perhaps saying, "He will descend from the sky."

The Comalcalco brick is also odd in that the molded or inscribed faces of the bricks were probably laid facing inward or covered with stucco, suggesting they were not meant to be seen.

The Institute of Anthropology and History has long said rumors of a world-ending or world-changing event in late December 2012 are a Westernized misinterpretation of Mayan calendars.

The institute repeated Thursday that "western messianic thought has twisted the cosmovision of ancient civilizations like the Maya."

The institute's experts say the Mayas saw time as a series of cycles that began and ended with regularity, but with nothing apocalyptic at the end of a given cycle.

Given the strength of Internet rumors about impending disaster in 2012, the institute is organizing a special round table of 60 Mayan experts next week at the archaeological site of Palenque, in southern Mexico, to "dispel some of the doubts about the end of one era and the beginning of another, in the Mayan Long Count calendar."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_sc/lt_mexico_apocalypse2012

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Unusual anonymous jury deadlocks in New Jersey murder trial (Reuters)

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) ? A mistrial was declared on Wednesday in the murder trial of a lawyer and former federal prosecutor accused of encouraging drug dealers to kill a confidential witness who could testify against his client.

The unusual anonymous jury declared itself deadlocked after five days of deliberations in the federal trial of Paul Bergrin.

Bergrin, 55, was charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the killing of Kemo Deshawn McCray, who was gunned down on a Newark street in 2004.

During the trial, the jury of seven men and five women remained anonymous after prosecutors cited safety concerns. Bergrin was ordered to defend himself at a distance from the jury and the witness box, with the threat of an electric shock from a monitoring ankle bracelet if he stepped any closer.

"We have concluded, regrettably, that we are at an impasse," the jury wrote in a note read aloud by U.S. District Judge William Martini, who then granted a defense request for a mistrial.

In a statement, the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, said: "While it is disappointing the jury was unable to reach a verdict, we are fully prepared for the next trial."

But whether the government retries Bergrin on the murder charges, he faces at least one more trial, because Martini separated the murder charges from a 33-count indictment.

Among the remaining counts are allegations that Bergrin and others conspired to murder someone dubbed "Junior the Panamanian," a witness against Bergrin's client, an alleged drug trafficker.

Unlike the present case, the government has audio recordings from 2008 capturing Bergrin's conversations with a confidential informant the government dubbed "the Hitman." During those talks, the government said, Bergrin discussed killing the witness and told the hitman to make the murder look like a home invasion.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/us_nm/us_crime_newjersey_bergrin

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Parents of missing Madeleine tell of media pursuit (AP)

LONDON ? The parents of missing child Madeleine McCann called Wednesday for fundamental changes to Britain's media culture, saying they were left distraught by false stories and the publication of private information by a rapacious tabloid press.

Kate and Gerry McCann told a media ethics inquiry that they felt powerless in the face of stories, based on confected evidence, suggesting they had killed their daughter, who vanished during the British family's vacation in Portugal in 2007. The disappearance of the 3-year-old, and her parents' search for her, fueled a media frenzy.

"Lives are being harmed by these stories, and something has to change," Gerry McCann said. "A commercial imperative is not acceptable."

The couple appeared as witnesses at an inquiry set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in response to a scandal over phone hacking by journalists at the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid. A judge at London's Royal Courts of Justice has heard evidence from celebrities including actor Hugh Grant and comedian Steve Coogan, and from ordinary people like the McCanns left bruised by unwanted media attention.

The McCanns, both 43, said press coverage of Madeleine's disappearance was initially sympathetic but soon changed, with some articles implying the parents were hiding something. One story said the couple had sold their daughter into slavery, another that they had killed her and hid her body in a freezer.

Gerry McCann said such articles were "nothing short of disgusting."

His wife said they felt powerless to do anything about the coverage,

"These were desperate times," Kate McCann said. "When it's your voice against a powerful media, it just doesn't hold weight."

The couple successfully sued several British newspapers over suggestions that they had caused their daughter's death and then covered it up. Two, the Daily Express and the Daily Star, were forced to print front-page apologies to the McCanns.

Kate McCann described her dismay when extracts from her private diary ? in which she wrote to her missing daughter ? appeared in the News of the World in 2008. The couple is still unsure how the newspaper obtained the journal.

"I felt totally violated," she said. "There was absolutely no respect shown to me as a grieving mother or as a human being, or to my daughter.

"I just felt so worthless we'd been treated like that."

Gerry McCann said he and his wife did not think their phones had been hacked, but had volunteered to testify at the inquiry "for one simple reason ? we feel a system has to be put in place to protect ordinary people from the damage the media can cause."

They acknowledged seeking media coverage of the search for their daughter, but said it had triggered a wave of intrusion. Gerry McCann said that "by engaging, it was more or less open season" on them for the tabloid press.

It is still not clear what happened to Madeleine, despite her parents' far-reaching international campaign and numerous reported sightings from around the world.

The inquiry, led by Judge Brian Leveson, plans to issue a report next year and could recommend major changes to media regulation in Britain.

The hearings have heard allegations of media malpractice and intrusion that extend far beyond the News of the World, which has admitted illegally accessing the mobile phone voice mails of celebrities, politicians and crime victims and was shut down by owner Rupert Murdoch in July.

On Thursday the inquiry will hear from actress Sienna Miller, who won damages for phone hacking from the News of the World, and "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling, one of Britain's richest people, who has fought to keep her children out of the media glare.

A lawyer for several phone hacking victims told the inquiry Wednesday that illegal eavesdropping was not limited to the News of the World.

"It was a much more widespread practice than just one newspaper," said Mark Lewis, whose clients include the family of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, whose voice mails were accessed by the News of the World after she disappeared in 2002.

Milly Dowler's parents spoke Monday before the inquiry, saying the hacking gave them false hope their daughter was still alive during the investigation into her disappearance.

Lewis claimed that listening in on voice mails was so easy that many journalists regarded it as no more serious than "driving at 35 mph in a 30 mph zone."

He said the News of the World got caught because it hired a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, who kept detailed records of his snooping assignments. Mulcaire and News of the World reporter Clive Goodman were jailed in 2007 for hacking into the voice mails of royal aides.

"The fact that evidence doesn't exist in written form doesn't mean to say that the crime didn't happen," Lewis said.

More than a dozen News of the World journalists and editors have been arrested over allegations of illegal eavesdropping, and two top London police officers also lost their jobs, along with Cameron's media adviser.

Several senior Murdoch executives have resigned in the still-evolving scandal, which has fueled calls for the mogul's son James Murdoch to step down as head of the international branch of his father's News Corp.

On Wednesday the company confirmed that James Murdoch had resigned in September as a director of the companies that publish The Sun and The Times of London newspapers, although he remains chairman of News International, the British arm of News Corp.

___

Online:

Leveson Inquiry: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111123/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_phone_hacking

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Brian Greene Talks FTL Neutrinos

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Physicist Brian Greene, host of the NOVA series the Fabric of the Cosmos, addresses the question of faster-than-light neutrinos at a Q&A session after the debut of the PBS series.

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Physicist Brian Greene, host of the NOVA series the Fabric of the Cosmos, addresses the question of faster-than-light neutrinos at a Q&A session after the debut of the PBS series.???


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