Hunt for survivors of Brazil's floods.

Rescuers are trying to find survivors in cut-off
areas of south-eastern Brazil hit by deadly floods
that have left more than 500 people dead.
Relatives have been joining in the search but often
only find the bodies of loved ones.
Heavy rain has brought massive mudslides
down on several towns, where thousands have
been made homeless. Paulo Cabral reports.

Source: Http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12188627

READ MORE ................... Hunt for survivors of Brazil's floods.

'Angels,' bikers help protect girl's funeral.

Mourners at the funeral of Christina-Taylor Green
were greeted by more than a thousand
sympathizers who lined North Shannon Road for
a quarter-mile south of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Church.
Many wore white, and many had responded to
an Internet call to counter the possible appearance
of an out-of-state hate group.
They arrived on nearly 200 motorcycles, on foot
and on shuttle buses from area parking lots,
some prompted into action by the anticipated
presence of a group from Kansas that protests
funerals of veterans and gay people. The group
ended up not showing.
Many of the sympathizers who showed up wore
white and stood quietly on either side of Shannon
Road. Among them were 18 "angels" with giant
wings made from plastic pipe and bedsheets,
who stood side by side in silence less than a
block from the church for an hour and a half.
Behind them, graffiti on a subdivision's block wall
read: "Christina" and "Stop the Hate."
In the church parking lot, several firefighters and
soldiers stood between two fire-ladder trucks, to
hoist the 9/11 Flag at the church. The flag weighs
45 pounds.
The "New York Says Thank You Foundation" flew
the flag to Tucson Wednesday to honor
Christina-Taylor, 9, who was among six killed in
Saturday's shooting at a northwest-side Safeway.
She was born on Sept. 11, 2001.
The flag was flying at 90 West Street in New York
when the twin towers went down. It is the same
tattered flag seen in the iconic photo of ground
zero.
Pieces of retired flags from all 50 states have been
used to repair the flag, which is on tour this year
until the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
The flag was to be flown to Atlanta Thursday, so
it will not be in Tucson today for the funeral of
U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, at the same
northwest-side church.
On Thursday, families holding hands, cowboy
types in boots and hats, bikers in Hells Angels
and Huns jackets, teens, seniors and others were
there - most for the same reason: to support the
Green family.
"She was such a shining little star," Tucsonan
Jean Semington said of Christina-Taylor. "It's
tragic. . . . I've lost a son. I know a little of the
pain."
Ten-year-old Lindsey Lummus wore white angel
wings and a halo as she stood beside the street
with her family.
"I came to support them," said Lindsey, a fifth-
grader at Quail Run Elementary School.
Jeanne Davis traveled from Scottsdale and carried
a large sign reading: "Our thoughts & prayers are
with the Green family."
"This was such a big negative experience for
Arizona," Davis said. "We've got to stand
together now."
Casey Trapp and Katie Maine held white roses
they said were distributed by an "unknown
gentleman."
"We wanted to be here," Maine said. "There's
power in these numbers."
Dennis Bennett journeyed from Phoenix with 55
fellow members of the Phoenix Motorcycle Riders
Group.
"We just want to show our support," Bennett
said. "And if dummies show up, we want to
stand in front of them."
Angel Project organizer Wayne Belger said the
Angels are trained to resist provocation by the
hate group. Some are veterans of non-violent
protest, and all were trained for this deployment
in a role-playing session Wednesday night. The
Angels surround the hate group with their wings
so that funeral-goers do not have to see the signs
being carried - usually stating that the deaths are
God's punishment for homosexuality.
One of the angels, Ralph Alter, said: "I had to do
something, and this seemed like a good way to
take positive action."
Alter, who said he has a transgender son and
many gay friends, said it was also "something I
can do for them, too."
Another Angel organizer, Christin Gilmer, was
dressed in white but did not don angel wings.
The group discourages people with personal
connections to a funeral from doing so, she said.
"I knew Gabe (Zimmerman, a victim). We were
very involved in similar causes."
Gilmer also worked on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords'
campaigns and knew shooting victim Dorwan
Stoddard through volunteer activities. "He was
very sweet," she said.
After the funeral began, the 18 angels turned and
walked north, wings outstretched, along a dirt
path next to the road.
They were headed to a nearby home where a
resident told them they could store their wings
until today's funeral at the same church for Judge
Roll.

Source: Http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_f6572541-3612-5abf-9bf5-8535641529be.html

READ MORE ................... 'Angels,' bikers help protect girl's funeral.

Obama's olive branch to Big Business.

In recent weeks, President
Obama has taken significant
steps to try to repair his
administration's frayed
relationship with the business
community.
He has renegotiated a free-
trade treaty with South Korea
and signalled that he intends
to fight for its acceptance in
Congress. Similar pacts with
Panama and Colombia may
not be far behind.
The White House has thrown
its support behind a reform of
the corporate tax code that
could lower rates in exchange
for elimination of tax
preferences. And the recently
passed tax deal with
Republicans in Congress also
extended, or included for the
first time, a number of tax
credits and deductions that
were high on the business
wish-list.
The new White House Chief of
Staff, Bill Daley, has strong
personal and professional ties
to business - so much so that
the appointment even got
rave reviews from Tom
Donohue, the pugnaciously
partisan and ideological
president of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce.
At the National Economic
Council, the new team has
been charged with putting
"competitiveness" at the top
of its agenda, which ought to
be music to the ears of
business executives. Business
executives also have been
consulted on the
administration's continuing
efforts to prod China to alter
its stubbornly mercantilist
trade and economic policies,
an effort that takes center
stage again next week with
the visit of President Hu Jintao.
And while the details are still
being hammered out, the
budget the president will
submit next month is likely to
reflect many of the politically
difficult compromises laid out
by a majority of his deficit
reduction commission,
including all of its business
members.
These are more than just
gestures - they represent
substantive accommodation to
the business community's
stated priorities. By the
unwritten rules of political
reconciliation, they demand
and deserve a similar
response. The most obvious
and effective would be a clear
statement from the business
lobby that it will not support
Republicans in their effort to
repeal last year's health
reform legislation.
It is unimaginable that such an
olive branch could be offered
by the Chamber, which has
invested so much political and
reputational capital in repeal.
But the initial offer could
certainly come from the
Business Roundtable, which
represents the country's
largest corporations. The
Roundtable was an early
backer of a bipartisan reform
effort, along with the AARP
and the Service Employees
Union, and it never expressed
outright opposition to the final
legislation. Even now, the
Roundtable's focus is on
"trying to be helpful to make
an imperfect bill better,"
according to Larry Burton, its
executive director.
Another natural ally would be
the National Business Group
on Health, whose 300
corporate members provide
health insurance to 50 million
American workers, retirees
and family members.
President Helen Darling says
that although her members
are concerned the legislation
doesn't go far enough in
controlling health costs and
improving quality, they
understand the new system
will be better than anything
that would result from
outright repeal.
By renouncing repeal, the
business lobby could alter the
political dynamic around
health care. Repeal was never
likely in any case, given
continued Democratic control
of the Senate and the
prospect of a certain
presidential veto. But by
visibly siding with the
president, the lobby would win
favor at the White House
while cutting the political legs
out from under the repeal
effort among moderate and
independent voters whose
concerns have always been
more economic than
ideological. Moreover, these
business groups would put
themselves in the ideal
position to negotiate a modest
package of legislative and
regulatory "fixes" to the
legislation with the White
House and moderate
Democrats in Congress.
Those fixes might include
reasonable caps on punitive
damages in medical
malpractice suits, enhanced
powers for Medicare to
control spending and cost
growth, a modest reduction in
the scope (and thus the cost)
of the minimum benefit
package, and putting some
sort of floor on Medicaid
payment rates for doctors and
hospitals to prevent "cost
shifting" to private insurance
plans.
Republicans, faced with the
prospect of the near-certain
failure of repeal, might
welcome a compromise that
would allow them to declare a
partial victory over
Obamacare. The president,
meanwhile, might be glad to
put the issue behind him and
avoid an endless series of
legislative, regulatory and
judicial skirmishes over
implementation of the law.
This is an ideal opportunity to
test the good faith of a
business community whose
complaints about the Obama
administration were
overblown and more than a
tad hypocritical. The president
has assumed his share of the
responsibility for the
breakdown in relations and
taken several significant steps
toward detente, even at the
cost of alienating his political
base. Now it's time for those
who claim to be business
leaders to reciprocate - or
reveal themselves to be the
one-way-streeters that many
had suspected.

Source: Http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/13/AR2011011306083.html

READ MORE ................... Obama's olive branch to Big Business.