Mexico, are you ready?

By Scott Wilson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 2010 

The challenge for Obama, whose opposition to the Iraq invasion helped propel him to the presidency, is sticking to his timeline for a U.S. military withdrawal despite a jump in violence and continued wrangling among Iraqi politicians over who will lead the country.

The sensitive departure is being managed by Vice President Biden, who says the U.S. military will reduce troop levels to 50,000 this summer, even if no new Iraqi government takes shape.
"It's going to be painful; there's going to be ups and downs," Biden said in a 40-minute interview in his West Wing office this month. "But I do think the end result is going to be that we're going to be able to keep our commitment."

White House officials say Iraqis are increasingly relying on politics, rather than violence, to deal with disputes, diminishing the need for U.S. forces. But the situation on the ground demonstrates that Iraq remains fractured.
Rival factions have yet to establish a new government, nearly three months after close national elections, and politicians have begun warning of a power vacuum as neighboring Iran works to influence the outcome. Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq's vice presidents, urged all parties this month to agree quickly on a new leader to head off attempts by "terrorist gangs to use the circumstances in the country to hurt the Iraqi people and the armed forces."

Bill, What happened?

By MIGUEL HELFT and ASHLEE VANCE

Published: May 26, 2010

The moment came Wednesday when Apple, the maker of iPods, iPhones and iPads, shot past Microsoft, the computer software giant, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.

This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history for Apple, which had been given up for dead only a decade earlier, and its co-founder and visionary chief executive, Steven P. Jobs. The rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds an important cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.


Microsoft, with its Windows and Office software franchises, has dominated the relationship most people had with their computers for almost two decades, and that was reflected in its stock market capitalization. But the click-clack of the keyboard has ceded ground to the swipe of a finger across a smartphone’s touch screen.

Our condolences

by KING5.com Staff & Associated Press

KING5.com

Posted on May 26, 2010 at 6:54 PM

Updated today at 6:50 AM

AUBURN, Wash. -- Police in Auburn say two men were killed late Wednesday afternoon when their boom truck hit a power line, electrocuting the men.

Police Sgt. Scott Near says the two operators were moving propane tanks at the Farrellgas Propane Store. Both men were outside the truck, using the controls on the driver's side, when the accident happened. The driver's side of the vehicle was facing the powerlines.

The men were pronounced dead at the scene. They were not immediately identified.
The contact also sparked a fire in the truck.  Near says several tanks were charred during the fire, but the blaze was quickly contained. No other injuries were reported.

 Police are trying to figure out if the accident was caused by operator error or a malfunction.

Here we go again!

By Jana Winter

Published May 26, 2010

| FOXNews.com

The Department of Homeland Security is alerting Texas authorities to be on the lookout for a suspected member of the Somalia-based Al Shabaab terrorist group who might be attempting to travel to the U.S. through Mexico, a security expert who has seen the memo tells FOXNews.com.

The warning follows an indictment unsealed this month in Texas federal court that accuses a Somali man in Texas of running a “large-scale smuggling enterprise” responsible for bringing hundreds of Somalis from Brazil through South America and eventually across the Mexican border. Many of the illegal immigrants, who court records say were given fake IDs, are alleged to have ties to other now-defunct Somalian terror organizations that have merged with active organizations like Al Shabaab, al-Barakat and Al-Ittihad Al-Islami.

In 2008, the U.S. government designated Al Shabaab a terrorist organization. Al Shabaab has said its priority is to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on Somalia; the group has aligned itself with Al Qaeda and has made statements about its intent to harm the United States.

In recent years, American Somalis have been recruited by Al Shabaab to travel to Somalia, where they are often radicalized by more extremist or operational anti-American terror groups, which Al Shabaab supports. The recruiters coming through the Mexican border are the ones who could be the most dangerous, according to law enforcement officials.

Security experts tell FOXNews.com that the influx of hundreds of Somalis over the U.S. border who allegedly have ties to suspected terror cells is evidence of a porous and unsecured border being exploited by groups intent on wrecking deadly havoc on American soil.

What is North Korea thinking!

By the CNN Wire Staff

May 27, 2010 8:45 a.m. ED

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea reacted to a South Korean anti-submarine exercise early Thursday by saying it would meet "confrontation with confrontation" and war with "all-out war," according to North Korean state-run media.

"Now that the puppet group challenged the DPRK [North Korea] formally and blatantly, the DPRK will react to confrontation with confrontation, and to a war with an all-out war," according the KCNA news agency.
The news agency referred to South Korean leaders as a "group of traitors" and said they would experience "unheard of disastrous consequences" if they misunderstand North Korea's will.

The response comes amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula, after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for the sinking in March of a South Korean warship. An official South Korean report has accused the communist North of firing a torpedo at the ship, killing 46 sailors.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Seoul on Wednesday, called the sinking "an unacceptable provocation by North Korea" and said the international community should respond.