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| Massive storm system takes aim at winter-weary U.S. East Coast Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 06:29 PM PST  By Victoria Cavaliere NEW YORK (Reuters) - A massive winter storm system packing cold air, snow and freezing rain was bearing down on the U.S. East Coast, causing federal and local offices in Washington to close on Monday after it pummeled the central United States over the weekend. The National Weather Service predicted the storm will bring up to 9 inches of snow to the Washington area. Votes scheduled for Monday in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate were postponed, and District of Columbia Public Schools have canceled classes. The storm "is going to be a real mess," said Bruce Sullivan, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Maryland. Full Story | Top |
| Obama must carefully calibrate Russia response, rhetoric: Gates Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 05:41 PM PST  By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama needs to look "two or three moves out" as he weighs his response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, which Moscow is unlikely to soon reverse, Obama's former defense secretary, Robert Gates, said on Sunday. Gates, a Russia expert and former CIA chief, portrayed a difficult path for Obama in which European allies may "huff and puff" but fail to match rhetoric with strong action and where Russian President Vladimir Putin feels he has the upper hand. Full Story | Top |
| SEC investigates Citigroup over fraudulent Mexican loans: source Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 05:24 PM PST  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Citigroup for accounting fraud after it disclosed bogus loans in its Mexican Banamex unit, a source familiar with the investigation said. The securities regulator is also examining whether Citigroup violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the source said. An employee at Banamex has been questioned by Mexican police after being suspected by the bank of involvement in the loan scheme, another source familiar with the police investigation said. Citigroup said on Friday it had found $400 million in bad Banamex loans and was reducing its full year profit by $235 million to $13.67 billion, after the bank had first reported its 2013 earnings more than one month ago. Full Story | Top |
| Hundreds of Keystone protesters arrested at White House Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 04:58 PM PST  By Emily Stephenson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police arrested hundreds of young people protesting the Keystone XL project on Sunday, as demonstrators fastened themselves with plastic ties to the White House fences and called for U.S. President Barack Obama to reject the controversial oil pipeline. Participants, who mostly appeared to be college-aged, held signs reading: "There is no planet B" and "Columbia says no to fossil fuels," referring to the university in New York City. Organizers estimated 1,000 people protested and said several hundred agreed to risk arrest by refusing to leave the sidewalk in front of the White House. "If the Democratic Party wants to keep our vote, they better make sure President Obama rejects that pipeline," said Nick Stracco, a 23-year-old student at Tulane University in New Orleans. Full Story | Top |
| EU not seen matching U.S. threat of sanctions against Russia Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 03:39 PM PST By Justyna Pawlak and Luke Baker BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is unlikely to match the United States in threatening sanctions against Russia when its foreign ministers meet to discuss Ukraine on Monday, instead pushing for mediation between Moscow and Kiev, officials say. The emergency talks, convened after Russian President Vladimir Putin secured parliamentary approval on Saturday to invade Ukraine, are expected to result in a strongly worded statement of condemnation, but no immediate punitive measures. That will leave the EU a step behind the United States, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatening visa bans, asset freezes and trade restrictions against Russia on Sunday, following the seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Full Story | Top |
| For oil traders, a vexing new risk: U.S. politics Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 01:35 PM PST By Jonathan Leff NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil traders are past masters at handicapping geo-political risks, from war in the Middle East to resource nationalists in Latin America. Lately, they face another confounding political landscape: Washington. As a bounty of shale oil transforms the trading landscape across North America, U.S. policymakers are being confronted with a host of issues that hold immediate and material implications to energy companies, investors and traders. While energy policy has typically moved at a steady, stately pace for much of the past few decades, Washington is now grappling with a host of pressing questions that will affect oil prices: easing a crude oil export ban that could raise domestic crude prices; Full Story | Top |
| French government seeks pay cuts for CEOs of semi-public firms: paper Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 01:33 PM PST France's government has asked the chief executives of companies in which it owns a minority stake to accept pay cuts of up to 30 percent in upcoming pay rounds as the country tightens its belt, the daily Le Figaro reported on Sunday. Citing state and company sources, Le Figaro said the Socialist government wanted companies including Air France, carmaker Renault, Safran and GDF Suez to reduce their CEOs' salaries. President Francois Hollande, who is struggling with rock- bottom approval ratings, previously ordered the wages of CEOs of companies in which the state holds a majority stake to be limited to 450,000 euros ($621,500) per year. The government does not have the authority to impose salary limits in companies in which it holds a minority stake, but can apply pressure via a consultative vote. Full Story | Top |
| Dozens of young Keystone protesters arrested at White House Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 12:41 PM PST By Emily Stephenson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police arrested dozens of young people protesting the Keystone XL project on Sunday, as demonstrators fastened themselves with plastic ties to the White House fences and called for U.S. President Barack Obama to reject the controversial oil pipeline. Organizers estimated 1,000 people protested and said several hundred agreed to risk arrest by refusing to leave the sidewalk in front of the White House. "If the Democratic Party wants to keep our vote, they better make sure President Obama rejects that pipeline," said Nick Stracco, a 23-year-old student at Tulane University in New Orleans. Canadian energy firm TransCanada Corp is behind the proposed pipeline that would carry crude from Alberta's oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Full Story | Top |
| Massive storm system takes aim at winter-weary Midwest, East Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 12:28 PM PST By Victoria Cavaliere NEW YORK (Reuters) - A massive winter storm system packing cold air, snow and freezing rain was pummeling the central United States on Sunday and headed for the East Coast, sending temperatures plummeting and causing major delays for weekend travelers. The storm "is going to be a real mess," said Bruce Sullivan, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Maryland. "Ripple-effect flight delays and cancellations are likely to reach nationwide," said AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. SNOW EMERGENCY Boston and New York City should see only light snowfall, but lingering freezing rain could complicate Monday morning's rush hour for commuters. Full Story | Top |
| Gunmen kill French national in Libya's Benghazi Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 10:55 AM PST By Ayman al-Warfalli and Feras Bosalum BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a Frenchman and wounded an Egyptian in separate attacks in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi on Sunday, security sources said, as insecurity threatens to overwhelm the North African nation. In the capital, Tripoli, protesters stormed parliament to demand the dissolution of the General National Congress (GNC), shooting and wounding two lawmakers and beating others. Many Libyans blamed the GNC and the government for the chaos that persists three years after Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow. A security official named the Frenchman killed in Benghazi as Patrice Real, who worked for a company upgrading a large hospital. Full Story | Top |
| Oil producers undaunted as Colorado mulls fracking restrictions Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 10:20 AM PST  While Colorado environmental groups work to put a ballot measure before voters this fall that could severely hobble the U.S. energy industry, Whiting Petroleum Corp is busy figuring out where in the state it can spend $10 billion over the next decade. Whiting has little concern the ballot initiative will succeed, even after votes in several of the state's cities last fall to ban fracking, the controversial use of high-pressure water mixed with chemicals and sand to extract oil and natural gas. At least one fracking ban has been challenged in court, and more legal tussles are likely. The Denver-based company sees Colorado as key to its plan to sharply boost oil and natural gas production. Full Story | Top |
| Europe's flood losses to soar by 2050, research shows Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 10:08 AM PST  By Nina Chestney LONDON (Reuters) - Extreme floods like those swamping parts of Britain in recent months could become more frequent in Europe by 2050, more than quadrupling financial losses, if climate change worsens and more people live in vulnerable areas, research showed on Sunday. The study said instances of very extreme floods, which now occur about once every 50 years, could shorten to about every 30 years, while cases of extreme damage now occurring once every 16 years could shorten to once every 10 years. With shorter cycles of extreme floods and damage, the European's current average losses of 4.9 billion euros a year could reach 23.5 billion euros by 2050, a rise of almost 380 percent, said the study in the journal Nature Climate Change. Scientists at several universities and research centers in Europe and Australia used climate change models, economic data and river discharge data to form their conclusions. Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: Details of President Obama's fiscal year 2015 budget Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 09:57 AM PST (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will send Congress his fiscal 2015 budget request on Tuesday, and lawmakers will promptly ignore it. But the annual ritual will highlight his policy priorities for the coming year and serve as a Democratic Party manifesto as Democrats seek to draw a contrast with Republicans ahead of congressional elections in November. Obama will outline how he would parcel out $1.014 trillion on government agencies' discretionary programs ranging from the military to national parks. If the president wants to spend more, he'll have to sell Congress on the idea of raising additional revenues. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. prisons seen through the eyes of 'Birdman of Alcatraz' Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 07:06 AM PST  By Kevin Murphy SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (Reuters) - The pages are brown, faded and stained, but the handwriting is meticulous and the words detail a 150-year history of the U.S. prison system through the eyes of one of its most famous inmates. Robert Stroud, known as the Birdman of Alcatraz for his painstaking study of birds while in federal prison, wrote a four-part book about brutality, sex, bribery and what he saw as the monumental failure of prisons to rehabilitate inmates. The stacks of manuscripts stored at Stroud's former lawyer's house in Springfield, Missouri, have been converted into the book "Looking Outward: A History of the U.S. Prison System from Colonial Times to the Formation of the Bureau Prisons." "If there is anybody who could write about federal prisons, it was him," said J.E. Cornwell of Springfield, the book's publisher. Stroud entered federal prison in 1909 at age 19 after being convicted of manslaughter for killing with his bare hands a man in Alaska who allegedly beat up a prostitute. Full Story | Top |
| Turkey's Koc calls on Erdogan to address graft charges to lower tensions Sunday, Mar 02, 2014 06:45 AM PST  Mustafa Koc, chairman of Turkey's biggest company Koc Holding, on Sunday called on the government to calm financial markets worried about a corruption inquiry and denied he has sought to undermine Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. In a rare interview, Koc also told Hurriyet newspaper that in May 2013 he met with Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based Islamic cleric whom Erdogan has accused of orchestrating the corruption scandal, but that they did not discuss "political designs". Since a December 17 police operation, Erdogan has been battling a series of allegations that he and members of his family and senior government officials took bribes and engaged in other improprieties. Full Story | Top |
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