A coalition of anti-abortion groups is set to open a new front against Democrats’ efforts to restructure American health care, claiming the plans open a back door to publicly financed abortions.
The groups, which are launching a broad campaign on the issue this week, claim that existing health care proposals constitute a stealth “abortion mandate” that will spend taxpayer money on abortions and require insurance companies to cover abortions — allegations that health care reform supporters call misleading.
“President Obama keeps on talking about common ground, and there is really, really common ground on funding issues,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the group organizing the planned three-week campaign on the issue. “Almost no one wants to fund abortion, regardless of their position on abortion as a whole.”
Yoest’s group plans to release a letter to Barack Obama on Thursday in which it cites, according to its reading of proposed legislation, “our belief that the bills are intended to include abortion.”
The noisy, contentious health care debate — which has grown pointedly acrimonious in recent days — has proceeded largely without reference to abortion. But the decision of these high-profile conservative groups to launch the new campaign under the rubric “Stop the Abortion Mandate” may change that and provide a new obstacle to the reform legislation.
The leaders involved include Christian conservatives such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Richard Land, who will be launching the push in a webcast Thursday evening.
“We just realized how urgent the situation was, what was at stake,” said David Bereit, the national director of 40 Days for Life, another group involved in the campaign, which will focus on generating pressure on members of Congress to insist on an explicit ban on abortion within the legislation.
Nineteen anti-abortion House Democrats last month wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to say they’d oppose any bill that would “mandate coverage for abortions, directly or indirectly.”
The groups are demanding that legislation formally exclude abortion, much as the Hyde Amendment bars Medicaid and federal employee health care plans from covering abortions, which many private plans currently cover.
The validity of the groups’ concerns, however, remains as uncertain as the final shape of the plans themselves. One issue is that under the leading Democratic alternatives, an independent panel of medical experts would establish a basic package of procedures that insurers would be required to cover. Abortion foes fear this will include abortion.
Abortion-rights advocates, however, say that although they think abortion should be in a basic package, they think it’s unlikely to wind up in the final array of covered procedures. “Abortion is not mandated any more than any other service or procedure in health reform. It would be left to the insurance companies to decide whether or not they want to offer it, which is the same as under current law,” said Laurie Rubiner, vice president for public policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood. 
A group of Democratic legislators sought Tuesday night to shape a compromise measure with an amendment say that abortion coverage could not be mandated as a part of insurance plans, but that insurance companies also couldn’t be prohibited from offering that coverage if they chose to.
"We clearly don't want any federal funding for abortions," said Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), the lead author of a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi proposing the measure, which is unlikely to satisfy conservatives. "I think this is where both sides can come together." 
The groups’ second complaint is that the new wave of subsidies for vast numbers of Americans’ health insurance would mean that, for some of them, taxpayer money would finance abortions. This appears likely to be the case if a far larger share of Americans receives federal subsidies for at least part of their health insurance.
On “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend, budget director Peter Orszag said he is “not prepared to rule ... out” taxpayer financing for abortions.
Planned Parenthood’s Rubiner said the alternative would be slashing benefits for millions of women who currently have coverage for abortions and cited polling suggesting such services have popular support.
The anti-abortion activists’ demand “violates the first principle of health care reform, which is: Don’t make people worse off under health care reform than they are today,” she said.
Read More Stories from POLITICOObama's top five PR tricksPOTUS WednesdayObama agenda gets a lift with F-22 winFlight 44: A little turbulence folks?Vulnerable Dems get a pass -- for now

BAGHDAD (Reuters) –
Bombs exploded across Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 16 people and wounding dozens, two of the blasts striking the crowded Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, security officials said.

In Iraq's usually quiet Anbar province, the country's largest, a rare two-day vehicle ban was imposed across the vast desert region after bombings in the provincial capital Ramadi.

The first Sadr City bomb, apparently targeting day laborers, killed four people and left 39 wounded, said Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.

Another bomb in the same area of northeastern Baghdad killed three civilians and wounded 15. The slum was once a haven for gunmen loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but the militia has now been largely disbanded and splintered.

In Husseiniya, just north of Baghdad, a series of blasts in a popular market killed five people and wounded 28, police said.

U.S. combat troops pulled out of Iraqi cities and towns on June 30, implementing the first stage of a security pact that requires all troops to leave by the end of 2012, raising doubts about whether Iraqi forces are ready to handle security.

A roadside bomb killed two civilians and wounded 13 others all from the same extended family as they made their way to a funeral in central Baghdad on Tuesday. And a car bomb exploded near a vegetable market, killing two civilians and wounding six others in south Baghdad's Doura district, police said.

Many Iraqis doubt whether their own forces can protect them against militants without backing from U.S. firepower.

But in an interview with Reuters on Monday, the commander of Iraqi forces in Baghdad, Major-General Abboud Qanbar, said he had not once had to call on U.S. troops now stationed on the city's outskirts to help keep security.

A major Shi'ite pilgrimage that drew millions to the Baghdad district of Khadhimiya, a favorite past target of Sunni Islamist militants, went by without any major bomb attacks over the weekend, he said.

"LAST CHANCE"

Militants are likely to step up attacks to test Iraqi security forces ahead of national elections scheduled for January, officials say. Some politicians will try to intimidate rivals or show the government is failing on security by backing militant groups who plant bombs, Qanbar said.

"This year is such an important year: it is the last chance for the enemy," he said.

"This is also an election year. Politicians will use attacks to try to gain advantage over rivals," he added.

Officials declared a state of emergency in Ramadi and police said a province-wide vehicle ban had been imposed after two bomb attacks on Tuesday. The previous day, an explosion killed two policemen.

A suicide bomber in a moving car and a bomb in a parked car detonated almost simultaneously near a group of restaurants, killing three people, police said.

During a state of emergency more police are deployed, and they conduct greater security checks.

Anbar was once overrun by Islamist militants such as al Qaeda, but a mostly Sunni Muslim anti-insurgent movement started by the province's tribal leaders in 2006 was decisive in routing them. The province has remained relatively calm since then, but has witnessed a rise in attacks in recent months.

Violence has fallen sharply across Iraq, but militant groups are still capable of carrying out frequent bomb attacks.

(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks in Baghdad and Ali al-Mashhadani in Ramadi; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Jon Boyle)

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Tuesday to halt production of the Air Force's missile-eluding F-22 Raptor fighter jets in a high-stakes showdown over President Barack Obama's efforts to shift defense spending to a new generation of smaller F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
The 58-40 vote reflected an all-out lobbying campaign by the administration, which had to overcome resistance from lawmakers confronted with the potential losses of defense-related jobs if the F-22 program was terminated.
"The president really needed to win this vote," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said. Levin said it was important not only on the merits of the planes but "in terms of changing the way we do business in Washington."
The top Republican on the committee, John McCain of Arizona, agreed that it was "a signal that we are not going to continue to build weapons systems with cost overruns which outlive their requirements for defending this nation."
Supporters of the program cited both the importance of the F-22 to U.S. security interests — pointing out that China and Russia are developing planes that can compete with it — and a need to protect aerospace jobs in a bad economy.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Pentagon officials have determined that production of the F-22, which has not been used in Iraq and Afghanistan, should be stopped at 187 planes in order to focus on the F-35, which would also be available to the Navy and Marine Corps.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered that the F-35 is designed to supplement, not replace, the F-22, "the "NASCAR racer of this air dominance team." Supporters of the F-22 have put the number needed at anywhere from 250 to 380.
The defense bill has funds to build 30 F-35s. The plane is currently being produced in small numbers for testing purposes. The single-engine plane will eventually replace the venerable F-16 and the Air Force's aging fleet of A-10s. Its primary purpose is to attack targets on the ground.
The twin-engine F-22 Raptor is a jet the Air Force would use for air-to-air combat missions.
McCain said the voting margin of victory was "directly attributable" to Obama, his opponent in the last presidential election, and Gates, who has pushed for termination of the F-22 and other weapons systems he says have outlived their usefulness.
The vote removed $1.75 billion set aside in a $680 billion defense policy bill to build seven more F-22 Raptors, adding to the 187 stealth technology fighters already built or being built.
The Senate action also saved Obama from what could have been a political embarrassment. He had urged the Senate to strip out the money and threatened what would have been the first veto of his presidency if the F-22 money remained.
Immediately after the vote, Obama told reporters at the White House the Senate's decision would "better protect our troops."
White House officials said Vice President Joe Biden and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel lobbied senators, as did Gates.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that spending on the stealth fighter would "inhibit our ability to buy things we do need," including Gates' proposal to add 22,000 soldiers to the Army.
"I've never seen the White House lobby like they've lobbied on this issue," said Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, an F-22 supporter whose state would be hit hard by a production shutdown.
According to Lockheed Martin Corp., the main contractor for both planes, 25,000 people are directly employed in building the F-22, and an additional 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a strong backer of the program, said his state stood to lose 2,000 to 4,000 jobs if F-22 production ended.

Levin suggested that some workers might be shifted to F-35 production. "We have to find places for people who are losing their jobs," he said.

The House last month approved its version of the defense bill with a $369 million down payment for 12 additional F-22 fighters. The House Appropriations Committee last week endorsed that spending in drawing up its Pentagon budget for next year. It also approved $534 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, another program that Obama, backed by the Pentagon, says is unwarranted and would subject the entire bill to a veto.

The defense bill authorizes $550 billion for defense programs and $130 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorist operations.

___

The defense bill is S. 1390.

___

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov

IPOD Speaker System

A loudspeaker, speaker, or speaker system is an electromechanical transducer that converts an electrical signal to sound. The term loudspeaker can refer to individual transducer devices (otherwise known as drivers), or to complete systems consisting of an enclosure incorporating one or more drivers and electrical filter components. Loudspeakers, just as with other electro-acoustic transducers, are the most variable elements in an audio system and are responsible for the greatest degree of audible differences between sound systems.

The suspension system keeps the coil centered in the gap and provides a restoring force to make the speaker cone return to a neutral position after moving. A typical suspension system consists of two parts: the "spider", which connects the diaphragm or voice coil to the frame and provides the majority of the restoring force; and the "surround", which helps center the coil/cone assembly and allows free pistonic motion aligned with the magnetic gap.

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor picked up her first Republican Senate supporter Friday, as Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar said she was "clearly qualified to serve."

Sotomayor on Thursday concluded four days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee , and none of the seven GOP members of that panel have said how they will vote. The 55-year-old federal appellate judge is seeking to become the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court .

She is expected to win other GOP votes. Sen. Lindsey Graham , R- S.C. , a committee member, has appeared to be leaning in her direction, while others offered praise.

Graham told Sotomayor on Thursday that "I think and believe, based on what I know about you so far, that you're broad-minded enough to understand America is bigger than the Bronx , it's bigger than South Carolina ."

But he's still weighing his decision, saying, in regard to some of her speeches, that she has been "consistently ... left of center," adding, "You have said some things that just bugged the hell out of me."

Lugar, who is not a committee member, Friday issued a statement saying he has "carefully reviewed her public service record, and reviewed recommendations from Indiana constituents and colleagues here in the Senate ."

After that review, said the veteran senator, long considered one of the Senate's most thoughtful members, said he found "Judge Sotomayor is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court and she has demonstrated a judicial temperament during her week-long nomination hearing."

He praised her "distinguished career of public service. She is well regarded in the legal community and by her peers."

As a result, Lugar said, "I will vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ."

Republicans realize that Sotomayor is likely to easily win confirmation. Democrats control 12 of 19 Judiciary Committee seats and 60 Senate seats.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama , the committee's top Republican, said he will not try to delay the final vote. The committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday morning and could take its vote then.

Republicans, though, can delay the committee action a week to review the record further and are expected to do so.

ON THE WEB

Sen. Lugar's statement

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CHICAGO – Two people have been injured in an explosion at a factory in Chicago that sent bricks and debris flying hundreds of feet in the air.
Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford says the 9 a.m. explosion seriously damaged the one-story building. He says the two injured people were workers at the factory, and one of them is in serious condition.
Langford says Friday's explosion appears to have been caused by a mixing of chemicals, but he didn't have any other information. He says the fire department hazardous team is trying to determine what chemicals were involved before they enter the building to investigate.
Langford also says some people in the neighborhood are complaining about minor respiratory problems that may be related to the explosion.

BERLIN (Reuters) –
Secret files of Communist East Germany's Stasi security police were sent to a film set for use as props, triggering an investigation into how such sensitive documents were obtained.

The authenticity of the files were revealed when 15 former political prisoners were being filmed for a docu-play called "Staats-Sicherheit" (State Security) by public broadcaster ZDF.

"It's just unbelievable that something like this could happen," CDU politician and former East German civil rights activist Vera Lengsfeld told Reuters. "This must be cleared up right away."

One of the "prop" files was actually the genuine file of one of the actors.

The German government's agency that looks after the Stasi archives said they had began a probe into how the files were obtained without authorization.

The Birthler agency said it had also immediately ordered the Babelsberg studio to restrict access to safeguard the files.

"We're investigating how these documents got into public hands," said agency spokesman Steffen Mayer. He said a prop firm delivered the documents to the studio and it was assumed the files were fakes to protect the identities of the victims.

Lengsfeld, who spent time in jail in East Germany as a political prisoner, was one of the 15 political prisoners the film centers around.

She said she did not think it was a coincidence real files surfaced on the film set. She believes former Stasi employees now work at the Birthler agency.

"There were even real Stasi files from people who weren't in the production being casually tossed about," said Lengsfeld, who called it "scandalous" the documents were freely available.

After German unification Lengsfeld discovered her husband had been a Stasi informant. She then divorced him.

Among the files that surfaced on the film set were documents about one of the film's actors, Mario Roellig. Roellig was arrested by the Stasi after a failed attempt to flee East Germany in 1987.

"I was just stunned when I saw them," Roellig told the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper.

Also found were genuine Stasi files about a famous East German Rock musician and an artist, Lengsfeld said.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

Accident insurance was first offered in the United States by the Franklin Health Assurance Company of Massachusetts. This firm, founded in 1850, offered insurance against injuries arising from railroad and steamboat accidents. Sixty organizations were offering accident insurance in the US by 1866, but the industry consolidated rapidly soon thereafter. While there were earlier experiments, the origins of sickness coverage in the US effectively date from 1890. The first employer-sponsored group disability policy was issued in 1911.

Some, if not most, health care providers in the United States will agree to bill the insurance company if patients are willing to sign an agreement that they will be responsible for the amount that the insurance company doesn't pay. The insurance company pays out of network providers according to "reasonable and customary" charges, which may be less than the provider's usual fee. The provider may also have a separate contract with the insurer to accept what amounts to a discounted rate or capitation to the provider's standard charges. It generally costs the patient less to use an in-network provider.

Affordable Health Insurance

He also stated that most successful niche sites pair people by race, sexual orientation or religion. The 20 most popular dating sites this year as ranked by Hitwise include JDate (for Jewish singles), Christian Mingle and Christian Cafe, Manhunt (for gay men), Love From India, Black Christian People Meet, Amigos (for Latino singles), Asian People Meet, and Shaadi (for Indian singles).

Social exchange theory interprets relationships in terms of exchanged benefits. It predicts that people regard relationships in terms of rewards obtained from the relationship, as well as potential rewards from alternate relationships. Equity theory stems from a criticism of social exchange theory and suggests that people care about more than just maximizing rewards. They also want fairness and equity in their relationships.

Christian Singles

On the morning of July 17, Zelko Peher was having breakfast on the 29th floor of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta when he heard a blast from downstairs. "We looked out the window down below and saw shattered glass so we knew the bomb had come from inside, probably the lobby," said the German cameraman after running out of the five-star hotel in the capital's Mega-Kuningan central business district. "We were very surprised because the security was so good when we checked in. They checked everything and even opened our suitcases so how could this have happened?" (Read "Indonesia Tense After Terrorism Executions.")
That will certainly be one of many pressing questions as more victims are hauled out of the Marriott as well as the Ritz-Carlton just across the road, where a second bomb went off just minutes after the first explosion at the Marriott. At least nine people, including foreign nationals, are believed to have been killed and at least 40 injured in the explosions, though it is not yet clear if a bomb was set off or if it was caused by a suicide bomber. PR executive Ruby Purnomo was sitting in his office in the building next door to the Marriott when he heard the first explosion around 8 a.m. "It was small but enough to cause panic," he says. "Our whole building was evacuated as we had been prepared since the first Marriott bombing." (See pictures of a deadly dam burst near Jakarta.)
Purnomo is referring to a 2003 car bomb at the hotel that killed 12 people. Since then, the security at the hotel has been enhanced: for example, vehicles are no longer allowed to pull up at the lobby. Instead, guests and visitors are dropped off near the street, go through metal detectors, then walk to the lobby. Same with pickups - people have to walk out to the street. At the Ritz-Carlton, which is connected to the Marriott by an underground tunnel, vehicles are still allowed to pull up to the lobby, but security at the front gate will open both the front hood and the trunk and use mirrors under each vehicle to spot any bombs. Since the first Marriott explosion, police have also gotten better at securing a bomb site. While reporters were allowed to get up close to the lobby in 2003, onlookers could not get within 500 feet of the blast this morning. While it was difficult to see the damage to the Marriott, the ballroom windows at the back of the Ritz-Carlton were clearly blown out.
Immediate speculation about the perpetrators pointed to suicide bombers in the main restaurants, which are either on the lobby or on the second floor at both of the five-star hotels. Indonesia's Metro TV quoted Nuruddin, an employee at the Marriott, saying that a body with no head or feet had been found. The news station reported that another headless body was found in the Ritz-Carlton, also an American hotel chain with the same Indonesian owner. "The bombs could have been on timers or strapped to suicide bombers," suggests Ken Conboy, a security consultant in Jakarta and author of The Second Front, a look inside Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a homegrown, regional terrorist network with ties to al-Qaeda. "If they were suicide bombers it was most likely the work of religious radicals or Jemaah Islamiah. It depends on the devices used, but if they got to the second floors of both hotels [the hotel] security really screwed up."
Indonesia's deadliest bombings took place in 2002 in Bali when 202 people died (the single largest group of victims being Australians); JI claimed responsibility. Then came the first Marriott attack, followed by an explosion at the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The last terrorist attack in Indonesia was in October 2005 when 20 people were killed by suicide bombers, also in Bali. Since then, Indonesia has been pretty safe. With the help of American and Australian counterterrorism experts, and the support of the public, the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has rounded up hundreds of militants since he took office in 2004, and killed in shootouts many senior militants. However, Noordin Top, one of the masterminds of the first Bali bombings in 2002, remains at large. (See pictures of Bali reeling from destruction and mourning loss.)
The July 17 blasts are a blow to Yudhoyono, whose resounding re-election on July 8 was widely viewed as a sign of growing stability in the country. Foreign investors have been returning to the country, which is seen as a Southeast Asian success story - a nation where Islam and democracy peacefully coexist. Now that idyll has been shattered.
See pictures of Suharto's Indonesia.
Read "Why Indonesia Matters."
Read "Al-Qaeda's New Proving Ground."
View this article on Time.comRelated articles on Time.com:Why the Car Bomb Is a Terrorist's Best Weapon An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin Marriott Terror: A Challenge to Pakistan's Leaders Trapped in Mumbai: A Survivor's Tale Mumbai Held Hostage Amid Terrorist Carnage

WASHINGTON – Relentlessly rising unemployment is triggering more home foreclosures, threatening the Obama administration's efforts to end the housing crisis and diminishing hopes the economy will rebound with vigor.
In past recessions, the housing industry helped get the economy back on track. Home builders ramped up production, expecting buyers to take advantage of lower prices and jump into the market. But not this time.
These days, homeowners who got fixed-rate prime mortgages because they had good credit can't make their payments because they're out of work. That means even more foreclosures and further declines in home values.
The initial surge in foreclosures in 2007 and 2008 was tied to subprime mortgages issued during the housing boom to people with shaky credit. That crisis has ebbed, but it has been replaced by more traditional foreclosures tied to the recession.
Unemployment stood at 9.5 percent in June and is expected to rise past 10 percent and well into next year. The last time the U.S. economy was mired in a recession with such high unemployment was 1981 and 1982.
But the home foreclosure rate then was less than one-fourth what it is today. Housing wasn't a drag on the economy, and when the recession ended, the boom was explosive.
No one is expecting a repeat. The real estate market is still saturated with unsold homes and homes that sell below market value because they are in or close to foreclosure.
"It just doesn't have the makings of a recovery like we saw in the early 1980s," says Wells Fargo Securities senior economist Mark Vitner, who predicts mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures won't return to normal levels for three more years.
Almost 4 percent of homeowners with a mortgage are in foreclosure, and 8 percent on top of that are at least a month behind on payments — the highest levels since the Great Depression.
Because home values have declined so dramatically, many people can't refinance. They owe far more to the bank than their properties are worth.
To combat the foreclosure crisis and help stabilize home prices, President Barack Obama launched an effort in March to help 9 million people avoid foreclosure by helping them refinance or modifying their loans to lower their payments.
But that's of no help to people who can't even afford the lower payments because they're making much less money or have lost their jobs altogether.
As of early July, about 160,000 borrowers were enrolled in three-month trials of loan modifications under the plan, according to preliminary figures from the Treasury Department.
Meanwhile, more than 1.5 million American households were threatened with losing their homes in the first six months of this year, foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan outlined their frustrations in a letter to 27 mortgage companies, saying the industry needs to "devote substantially more resources to this program for it to fully succeed."
While high-level pressure on the mortgage industry could help, "There's nothing there that's going to help people who don't have jobs," said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Just ask anyone in Rockford, Ill. Over the last generation, the blue-collar city of about 157,000 northwest of Chicago has struggled to attract jobs as auto suppliers, aerospace companies and machine shops closed. Today, unemployment runs at more than 13 percent.
Robin and Thomas Lewis, who live there, once earned a combined $100,000. But he lost his job in shipping and receiving at a robotics company, and she had to close her at-home day care business. They are staring at an October deadline for foreclosure.

Their water service was cut off in February because they couldn't afford to pay the bill. Since then, they and their two teenage sons have been showering at the homes of friends and family and filling up gallon jugs of water to drink at home.

Robin Lewis, 41, found a job as a cashier at Wal-Mart and is taking night classes in hopes of becoming an accountant. Her 43-year-old husband got a job through a temp agency working as a machine operator.

"At least now we have some income coming in," Robin Lewis said.

She hopes it's enough to persuade the mortgage company to modify their 30-year fixed-rate loan. They are meeting with a housing counselor next week to work on their application for a loan modification.

Around the country, the relationship between rising unemployment and foreclosures is growing. An Associated Press analysis of more than 3,100 U.S. counties found a much stronger link between foreclosure rates and unemployment this year than in 2007.

According to April figures, some of the highest unemployment rates in the country are in California cities like Merced, Modesto and Fresno that have been struck hardest by the foreclosure crisis. In those areas, home prices have been cut in half.

Even in areas where unemployment is lower, borrowers are struggling.

Claudia Escobar, a 44-year-old single mother in Clifton, Va., lives in a cozy three-story brick town house on a tree-lined suburban street about 25 miles west of the nation's capital.

A combination of family health problems and the loss of her $50,000-a-year job at an accounting firm have made it impossible to make her $900 mortgage payment.

She has staved off foreclosure so far and hopes to land a job while her lender evaluates her application for a loan modification. Her 14-year-old son, Tommy, broke down in tears when he found out that his mother lost her job.

"That has to be the most devastating point since we lived here," she said, sobbing. "He keeps asking me every now and then if we're going to lose the house."

___

Webber contributed to this report from Rockford, Ill. Associated Press Writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) –
The UN commission probing the assassination of Pakistani former prime minister Benazir Bhutto began its first working visit to Islamabad, the United Nations said.

Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim country, was killed in late December 2007 in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election rally in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad.

The three-member UN panel has a six-month mandate from July 1, but faces scepticism that its inquiry will lead to convictions by Pakistani authorities.

Headed by the Chilean ambassador to the United Nations, Heraldo Munoz, it includes an Indonesian ex-attorney general and an Irish former police official.

During the visit, they are scheduled to meet Bhutto's widower -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari -- and other senior officials.

Supported by experienced staff based in Pakistan, the commission will submit a report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by end-December. The report will be shared with the Pakistani government and the UN Security Council.

The United Nations says the panel will inquire into the facts and circumstances of the assassination, but stresses that any criminal investigation is Pakistan's responsibility.

"The staff, working under direction of the commissioners, will gather information, collate relevant material and conduct interviews," said a UN statement released on Thursday.

The Zardari government called for a UN inquiry after Bhutto's party won a general election two months after her death, with her supporters angered by conflicting accounts of how she died and who was responsible.

They cast doubt on a Pakistani probe into her death, criticised authorities for hosing down the scene of the attack within minutes -- allegedly destroying evidence -- and questioning whether she was killed by a gunshot or the blast.

Then president Pervez Musharraf and the US Central Intelligence Agency blamed Baitullah Mehsud, an Al-Qaeda-linked warlord based in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan, for masterminding the killing.

Bhutto, the first of whose two stints as prime minister began in 1988, wrote in her autobiography of warnings that four suicide squads -- including one sent by Mehsud and another by a son of Osama bin Laden -- were after her.

She also repeatedly accused a cabal of senior Pakistani intelligence and government officials of plotting to kill her, notably in an attack that killed 139 people in Karachi on October 18, 2007 when she returned from exile.

Munoz, the head of the UN commission, is joined on the panel by Indonesia's Marzuki Darusman and Ireland's Peter Fitzgerald.

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Oh, Brad Pitt. Isn't it enough to be ridiculously handsome—must you be a scandalous wit, as well?

The Inglourious Basterds star brings his comedy chops to Wired this month, eschewing traditional celebrity blather about his charmed life, private moments with Angelina Jolie and charitable works in order to provide guidance in the "Ask a Basterd" advice column.

This burning question concerns whether it's acceptable to talk on the phone while urinating. Brad says:

"No, you can't talk on the phone! Do you want the guy next to you to hear your entire conversation? That's why you should only text in the bathroom. Just be sure you don't hit the wrong button and end up putting a photo of your junk on Twitter. Trust me, you don't want those followers."

Do you find the star's literal bathroom humor hilarious—or not? You tell us. (And seriously, if you do have burning questions about peeing, we suggest you see a doctor.)

________

Got a question? Don't ask a celeb when you can Ask the Answer Bitch!

··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.com

At the end of the event participants submit to the organizers a list of who they would like to provide their contact information to. If there is a match, contact information is forwarded to both parties. Contact information cannot be traded during the initial meeting, in order to reduce pressure (especially on women) to accept or reject a suitor to his or her face.

Various theories of interpersonal compatibility classify interpersonal relationships by grades of comfortability and consider them as dependent of personal traits (durable psychological parameters) and/or psychological types (or temperaments). Such approach is much popular in pop psychology (astrological compatibility etc.)

Go

BERLIN (Reuters) –
A German who tried to fix his leaky air mattress blew up his apartment instead, the fire brigade in the western city of Duesseldorf said on Wednesday.

The 45-year-old man used tyre repair solvent to plug a hole in his airbed and left it overnight.

But it blew up when he went to inflate it the next day." A spark from the electric air pump ignited it," a fire brigade spokesman said.

The blast pushed his living room wall into the building's stairwell and caused extensive damage to walls, windows and furniture.

Fire fighters evacuated the 12-apartment building and a neighbouring housing block while they checked for structural damage.

The man suffered burns on his arms, while a three-year-old girl suffered first degree burns.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Richard Balmforth)