Summary: Insurgents struck in the heart of the Afghan capital with suicide attackers and a car bomb, targeting hotels used by foreigners and killing at least 16 people and wounding dozen. The four-hour assault began about 6:30 a.m. with a car bombing that leveled a residential hotel used by Indian doctors. A series of explosions and gunbattles left blood and debris in the rain-slicked streets and underscored the militants’ ability to strike in the heavily defended capital even as NATO marshals its forces against them in the volatile south. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 26, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann had acknowledged for the first time — at least implicitly — the uproar her controversial public comments have caused.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: In the biggest attack in months, Taliban militants struck in the heart of the Afghan capital of Kabul, launching suicide attacks at key government targets in a clear sign the insurgents plan to escalate their fight as the U.S. and its allies ramp up their own campaign to end the war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 19, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President George W. Bush presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, with economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly viewing his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation’s thorniest fiscal challenges. Specifically, the number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush’s tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans’ incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush’s father George H. W. Bush.

  ::  Read Comments (0)