Latest News and Politics from the U.S. - Huffington Post [May ‘11 Series]

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[attachimg=1 align=left] Read the Latest News and Political events from US. Get the most read news and happenings in the United States and the world through The Huffington Post.




John Paul's Beatification To Take Place Sunday In Rome

The beatification of the late Pope John Paul II will take place Sunday in Rome. The Vatican expects hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in the city for Sunday's event that marks the last major step prior to canonization in the process to make John Paul II a Catholic saint.

Source: John Paul's Beatification To Take Place Sunday In Rome

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CHICAGO -- Near the end of a two-day summit here that brought together mayors and federal officials to talk about city design, the mood turned confrontational.It started when Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, in the middle of a Friday discussion on the federal government's role in city development, turned toward the Washington officials who were sitting with him on stage and expressed his disappointment.More...

Source: Mayors To Washington: Stop Fooling Around, Help Us Create Jobs

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'Saturday Night Live' Weekend Update host Seth Meyers delivered a fiery speech Saturday at the White House Correspondents' dinner, ripping everyone from Washington players like President Barack Obama and members of Congress to media mavens like Katie Couric and Michael Bloomberg.Donald Trump served as perhaps Meyers' biggest victim of the night. The comedian taunted him for his potential presidential candidacy, saying, "Donald Trump has said he's running for president as a Republican -- which is surprising because I thought he was running as a joke." He also teased Trump for his involvement with the Miss USA pageant, sneaking in a subtle jab at Sarah Palin: "Donald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Republicans because it will streamline their search for a vice president." Trump, needless to say, did not appear to crack a smile.More...

Source: Seth Meyers White House Correspondents' Dinner Speech: Comedian Takes On Trump, Obama, GOP Hopefuls

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EXETER, N.H. -- Peter Cass could stand it no longer as he listened to the Republican congressman defend a plan to cut taxes and Medicare simultaneously."We pay much lower taxes than the rest of the industrialized world," Cass, an engineer from Durham, N.H., shouted from his seat at last week's town hall forum held by freshman Rep. Frank Guinta. America must protect its children, Cass said, and the legislation recently passed by House Republicans won't do it.More...

Source: Tax, Spending Divisions Laid Bare In Boisterous Town Hall Exchanges

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Marlice Van Der Merwe is simply incredible.The Namibian conservationist has been working with injured and orphaned animals for years, but is perhaps best known for her stunning work with cheetahs. As the video below suggests, Marlice has a special relationship with the large cats, even rendering them docile towards the end of the clip.More...

Source: Marlice Van Der Merwe Teases And Pets Wild Cheetahs (VIDEO)

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WASHINGTON -- Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Monday that Osama bin Laden had been living on the compound where he was killed for up to six years and expressed concern that the Pakistani government may have known."It appears that Osama bin Laden and his family could have lived there for up to six years," Feinstein told reporters at the Capitol. "This compound has been around [for up to six years] and that's the belief. I said up to six years."More...

Source: Dianne Feinstein: Bin Laden Was At Pakistan Compound For Up To Six Years

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by Eric K. Arnold, Media Consortium blogger

The proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger continues to dominate media policy headlines, but the wireless merger isn't the only game in town. AOL's recent buyout of the Huffington Post has raised intellectual property issues, rural communities still lack speedy broadband access, and a proposed Verizon antenna in Oakland has come under fire by neighborhood activists.

AT&T an Underdog?

Telecommunications giant AT&T is many things, and an underdog in need of federal assistance isn't one of them. Yet Colorlines.com's Jamilah King says that's exactly how the company is portraying itself in its proposed $39 billion dollar takeover of T-Mobile.

In its official filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), King reports, "AT&T spends nearly 90 pages describing T-Mobile's weaknesses, while detailing the roadblocks it says it'll face if federal regulators don't green light the deal." If federal regulators block the deal, AT&T argues, its customers "would face a greater number of blocked and dropped calls as well as less reliable and slower data connections. And in some markets, AT&T's customers would be left without access to more advanced technologies."

It's hard to feel sorry for AT&T, though, since the deal has raised concerns that consumers ultimately will pay more for cell phone service, which could adversely impact low-income, minority, and immigrant users who rely on the low-cost plans currently offered by T-Mobile. If the merger passes federal muster, King writes, "it'll likely mean the unheralded return to prominence of the former Ma Bell monopoly that ruled American telecommunications for most of the twentieth century."

Competition without Competitors

As Nancy Scola writes in The American Prospect, AT&T's 381-page FCC filing essentially comes down to this: "you can have the benefits of competition without actual competitors."

Scola traces the history of the telecommunications industry, touching on the 1982 antitrust case which resulted in the break-up of Ma Bell (aka AT&T) into seven Baby Bells, as well as analyzing current media policy in Washington:

As a powerful company that just announced $31 billion in revenues last quarter AT&T retains great sway. The FCC often defers to the company's role as the founders of American telecommunications. And Congress, a recipient of large sums of AT&T cash, often seems dazzled by the company's bright lobbyists who talk in confusing but exciting ways about 'spectrum synergies' and 'LTE deployment.'

The takeaway? Congress and federal regulators need to put consumers' needs ahead of the telecoms:

In 21st-century America, mobile phones are simply far too important a technology for Washington to give them the usual treatment. With a breathtaking nine out of 10 Americans now owning a cell phone, the wireless market is one that has to work for consumers.

HuffPo Lawsuit, Boycott Highlight IP Issues in New Media Era

The AT&T/T-Mobile merger has garnered a lot of media attention, but it's not the only merger worth scrutinizing. Truthout's Nadia Prupis takes a closer look at reactions to the class-action lawsuit recently filed on behalf of Huffington Post's unpaid bloggers. HuffPo was recently sold to AOL for $315 million. As Prupis reports, "the class-action suit, filed by freelance journalist Jonathan Tasini, alleges that the posts created by unpaid writers were worth an estimated $105 million, and that the profit should have been used as compensation."

HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington is quoted as saying, "The vast majority of our bloggers are thrilled to contribute - and we're thrilled to have them."

Yet the merger--and the lawsuit--highlight one of the biggest issues facing contemporary journalism: The devaluation of intellectual property. For that reason, a number of former bloggers have instituted a boycott of HuffPo. As Prupis notes, "The Newspaper Guild of America, the National Writers Union and the AFL-CIO have all endorsed the boycott, with many of their members refusing to contribute to the web site until Huffington agrees to talk with the unions about how best to approach the changing landscape of online journalism."

Rural Broadband Access Still Slow

Mark Scheerer of Public News Service tackles the issue of broadband access in rural communities - an important topic in a down economy, since faster connectivity could result in economic stimulus for small businesses, such as livestock farmers.

A new report (PDF at link) issued by the Center for Rural Strategies concludes that "communities without broadband service could be hobbled economically, losing the race to those with faster connections."

Farmers in places like Stamping Ground, Kentucky, Scheerer says, are paying for high-speed broadband, yet receiving dial-up download speeds, which hinders efforts to "streamline and economize their livestock sales."

The report essentially mirrors the FCC's 2010 findings: "broadband providers are not expanding their services in a timely and satisfactory fashion."

Activists Push Back Against Verizon Antenna

As Oakland Local's Dennis Rowcliffe reports, a proposal by Verizon to install a powerful cellular antenna close to two schools and several residential units has been met with opposition by community groups.

"The residents, school parents and teachers express concerns about the potential health effects of sustained nearby exposure to increased levels of the electromagnetic frequency, or EMF, radiation emitted by the antennas," Rowcliffe writes, adding that a group called East Bay Residents for Responsible Antenna Placement (EBR-RAP) has suggested several alternate sites, all of which were rejected by Verizon.

Verizon executive John Johnson is quoted as saying, "Please note that we intend to retain our rights to the city-approved location and to use it as the project site if we are unable to identify a viable alternative after further review."

However, EBR-RAP members say they intend to keep up the pressure on Verizon until an alternate site is found.

This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets. This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about media policy and media-related matters by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. To read more of the Wavelength, click here. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets, and is produced with the support of the Media Democracy Fund.More...

Source: Wavelength: "Underdog" AT&T Tells FCC That Eliminating Competitors Will Increase Competition

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A beloved Farmer's Market in the Logan Square neighborhood could lose its permit--allegedly because Alderman Rey Colon has a problem with one of the market's organizers.The City's Committee on Special Events will meet Tuesday at noon "to address Ald. Colon's opposition to the Farmer's Market being held in the 35th Ward," according to Gaper's Block.More...

Source: Alderman Colon Moves To Deny Logan Square Farmer's Market Permit

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The Los Angeles County coroner's office is conducting an autopsy today on "mummified" human remains that were found in a dilapidated Beverly Hills home. The remains are believed to belong to Yvette Vickers, a former Playboy pinup and movie actress who has not been seen for nearly a year, authorities said."The remains could have been there for weeks or months. We're not sure at this point," a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner told Weird News.More...

Source: Mummified Remains May Belong To Playboy Playmate Yvette Vickers

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She had been leaving messages of varying degrees of urgency on my answering machine for three decades, but this one from Phoebe Snow sounded particularly worrisome. "Something bad happened, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. Please call me a.s.a.p." I couldn't imagine what was wrong. Previously, I would have assumed some new problem had developed with Phoebe's beloved, disabled daughter, but Valerie Rose had passed away two years earlier, so this was a mystery.My longtime tradition was never to return a call from Phoebe until I had a free hour; short conversations were not part of this singer's repertoire. But this sounded dire, so I called immediately and asked what was wrong. "Here's the background," she began. "I got a call from a local magazine saying they were doing profiles of musicians who live here in Bergen County, New Jersey. I agreed to an interview, which I did over the phone, and they sent a photographer and makeup artist for the picture, and it was all very nice".More...

Source: Remembering Phoebe