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Lesser-Known Strain of Bird Flu Kills 2 in China
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The authorities said the two Shanghai men, 27 and 87 years old, fell ill after contracting the H7N9 strain in February and died in March.
Athletes, stars join Obama for Easter Egg Roll
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama walk from the White House with their daughters Sasha Obama, second from left, and Malia Obama, right, on their way through Lafayette Park to St. John's Episcopal Church for Easter services, Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama walk from the White House with their daughters Sasha Obama, second from left, and Malia Obama, right, on their way through Lafayette Park to St. John's Episcopal Church for Easter services, Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Easter Bunny, dozens of professional athletes and thousands of children will be hippity-hopping across the White House's South Lawn as President Barack Obama and his family lead the annual Easter Egg Roll.
One highlight of this year's event is the "Eggtivity Zone," in which athletes and coaches will help teach kids how to play sports. Among the stars scheduled to attend are Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, NASCAR driver Danica Patrick, gymnast John Orozco and Washington Wizards point guard John Wall.
Two of the younger celebrities in Monday's lineup are Oscar-nominated actress Quvenzhane (kweh-VEHN'-zhah-nay) Wallis, star of "Beasts of the Southern Wild," and Robbie Novak, who plays "Kid President" in a series of popular YouTube videos. Elmo, Abby and other "Sesame Street" Muppets will also be performing.
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Pilot ejected when small airplane dove near Chattanooga; body recovered
By Gil Aegerter and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News
The body of a student pilot who was ejected from a small aircraft above an area east of Chattanooga, Tenn., in a freak accident Friday evening was found on Saturday, authorities said.
The man?s body was located after 8 a.m. local time, Bob Gault, a spokesman for the Bradley County Sheriff?s department, told NBC News.
The accident occurred when the owner of the Zodiac 601XL plane was taking lessons from an instructor, NBC station WRCB of Chattanooga reported, citing police. A malfunction caused the plane to nose dive and the canopy flew open ? and neither man was wearing a seat belt, WRCB reported.
The accident occurred at about 2,500 feet,?the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.?
The instructor was able to land the aircraft back at Collegedale Municipal Airport, operations manager Chris Hancock confirmed to NBC News. He directed further questions to a Collegedale police spokesman who could not immediately be reached.
?The people inside the plane were not wearing seat belts,? said Troy Spence, director of the county?s emergency management agency, according to WRCB. ?So when they lost control of the plane, in an attempt to regain control of the plane, the passenger was ejected.?
Authorities conducted a ground search in Bradley County, WRCB said. The Times Free Press said the owner-pilot had a cell phone with him and rescuers pinged it in an attempt to find him.
Neither of the men was identified publicly by authorities.
WRCB said the plane had been owned by a man killed in a December crash and then was sold to the current owner, described as an experienced pilot who wanted more training in the Zodiac.
The Zodiac 601XL is a single-engine kit aircraft offered for home builders. Its two seats are side by side under a large domed canopy.
This story was originally published on Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:18 PM EDT
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Afghans warned: the taxman is coming after you
By Katharine Houreld
KABUL (Reuters) - One of Afghanistan's most surprising success stories lies tucked away on a potholed street notorious for suicide bombings and lined with rusting construction equipment.
The work of the country's top tax collector is more inspiring than the view from his office in Kabul. Taxes and customs raised $1.64 billion last financial year, a 14-fold increase on 10 years ago. That means, now, the government can pay just over half of its recurrent costs such as salaries.
Thanks to tougher enforcement procedures, Afghanistan's tax to GDP ratio today stands above 11 percent - ahead of neighboring Pakistan's dismal 9 percent.
Increasing revenues is vital as donors begin reducing aid ahead of the 2014 drawdown of NATO troops, who have provided the backbone for security since U.S. forces invaded after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
By the end of this year the United States alone will have spent $100 billion on Afghan reconstruction. But future pledges are a fraction of that.
"We are largely dependent on international aid. We would like to be independent," said Abdurrahman Mujahid, the new head of the revenue department. "I would like a sustainable Afghanistan for all the children."
Despite rising revenues, the government will rely heavily on donors for years to come. Taxes, customs and mining revenue will only meet $2.5 billion out of a $7 billion budget this year.
Most of the revenue comes from large corporate taxpayers, who complain their payments have not improved power cuts, potholed roads or security.
Corporations pay a flat tax of 20 percent - the same rate for an individual earning over $2,000 a month.
But unlike developed countries where personal income tax generates a sizeable chunk of revenue, most Afghans scoff at the idea of giving the government some of their meager earnings.
The average annual income, in a country ranked one of the world's poorest, is just $470, according to the World Bank. Those making less than $100 a month don't have to pay tax.
"It's not a good government," said moneychanger Abdurrahman Arif, 28, as he held a wad of soiled notes and scanned for customers. "I don't pay tax. The rich people don't and the government should go to them before they come to me."
Afghanistan has a similar problem to neighboring Pakistan - the very wealthy don't pay their share, and weak institutions often have little way of forcing them.
Authorities admit that taxing the rich isn't easy in a country where the powerful often command militias. But Mujahid promises tax evaders will "be introduced to the law enforcement agencies".
SUBSTANTIAL ACHIEVEMENT
Much of Afghanistan's money is in an undocumented black economy. Corruption is endemic and the country produces 90 percent of the world's opium. Billions of dollars in cash leave the country every year in suitcases.
The security situation is discouraging. Taliban and other militias have made gains in many areas as foreign combat forces wind down their missions.
But some Afghans still manage to make money. Many businesses are fuelled by the aid dollars that have poured into the country over the last decade. Luxury supermarkets, travel agencies and stationery shops crowd the capital's streets.
A U.S. embassy official in Kabul commended Afghanistan's ability to raise tax revenues.
"It's a pretty substantial achievement," the official said, but noted the nation still faced a large funding gap, partly because of its huge security bill.
"It's going to continue being a problem until they can get revenues from the extractive industry, and that's going to take some time," the official said, referring to Afghanistan's rich but undeveloped mineral deposits.
Donors currently pay for just under half Afghanistan's operating costs - mostly government salaries - and more than three-quarters of all development projects like roads, dams and electricity equipment.
Rampant corruption means this money is often stolen, angering donors, fuelling anti-government rage and keeping aid from some of the world's neediest families.
Donors hope that if Afghans foot more of the bill for public services they may become less tolerant of graft from their leaders.
PUGNACIOUS PREDECESSOR
Mujahid, the new head of the revenue department, has large shoes to fill. His predecessor Ahmad Shah Zamanzai oversaw much of the department's growth and didn't shrink from confrontation.
When a vice-president refused to pay tax on income from renting out houses he owned, Zamanzai threatened to leak it to the press. Elections were approaching. The vice president paid up.
Under Zamanzai, the tax department jailed more than 20 tax evaders, froze bank accounts, slapped on travel bans and shuttered the premises of businesses that refused to pay.
In one showdown, he took on the glitzy wedding halls that have mushroomed up in the capital. When the 60 or so venues refused to pay their dues, he had police padlock a dozen of the biggest until the rest fell into line.
Zamanzai was appointed head of the state-run Pashtany Bank as part of a bureaucratic reshuffle this month. His first task, he said, would be to use skills honed in the tax department to extract overdue loan repayments from powerful Afghans.
But the tough tax enforcement has angered some businessmen.
Najib Ullah Latify's spotless factory, full of humming machinery and rows of workers in blue overalls and yellow hard hats, stands a few minutes drive from the tax office. High Standard Pipe employs 850 people and supplies pipes for projects providing clean water all over Afghanistan.
Latify said he'd expand but harassment from the tax man was hurting his business.
In recent years, he says, he's been repeatedly overcharged by the tax office and promised refunds have not been credited. Officials frequently offer to slash his tax bill in return for bribes, he added. When he refuses, he says, officials disrupt his imports and suspend his license.
"I don't know what to do, I have shouted everywhere that they are ruining my business," he said.
"I don't mind paying taxes. Even if 60 percent of it is spent on drinking and shopping and trips for (politicians') wives, maybe 40 percent will go to schools or hospitals. But they must tax me correctly."
The new tax chief, Mujahid, was not familiar with Vitaly's case, but promised to investigate. More than 10 tax collectors - whose basic salaries start at $180 a month - have been fired for corruption in the last two years.
"Corruption is a part of public life in Afghanistan," said Mujahid. "We have the aim to make this department corruption-free."
This year he's planning to finish computerizing tax records, usher through a law on Value Added Tax, and strengthen collection in the provinces - more than 90 percent of government taxes currently come from the capital.
"There's a lot of achievements, but for sure we have problems, and the biggest problem is corruption," he said.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghans-warned-taxman-coming-075922090.html
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Source: Business, labor get deal on worker program
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Big business and labor have resolved a dispute over a low-skilled worker program that threatened to hold up agreement on a sweeping immigration bill, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
The deal was struck in a phone call late Friday night with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who's been mediating the dispute.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement, said the deal resolves disagreements over wages for the new workers and which industries would be included. That had led talks to break down a week ago.
The deal must still be signed off on by the seven other senators working with Schumer to negotiate a bipartisan immigration bill ? but that's expected to happen. The agreement between business and labor removes the biggest hurdle to completion of the immigration bill to secure the border, crack down on employers, improve legal immigration and create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants already here.
The bipartisan senate group is expected to introduce the bill the week of April 8 after Congress returns from a two-week recess.
The AFL-CIO and the Chamber had been fighting over wages for tens of thousands of low-skilled workers who would be brought in under the new program to fill jobs in construction, hotels and resorts, nursing homes and restaurants, and other industries.
On Friday, officials from both sides said there was basic agreement on the wage issue, and Schumer said a final deal on the worker dispute was very close.
"We're feeling very optimistic on immigration: Aspiring Americans will receive the road map to citizenship they deserve and we can modernize 'future flow' without reducing wages for any local workers, regardless of what papers they carry," AFL-CIO spokesman Jeff Hauser said in a statement earlier this week. "Future flow" refers to future arrivals of legal immigrants.
Under the emerging agreement between business and labor, a new "W'' visa program would bring tens of thousands of lower-skilled workers a year to the country. The program would be capped at 200,000 a year, but the number of visas would fluctuate, depending on unemployment rates, job openings, employer demand and data collected by a new federal bureau pushed by the labor movement as an objective monitor of the market.
The workers would be able to change jobs and could seek permanent residency. Under current temporary worker programs, personnel can't move from employer to employer and have no path to permanent U.S. residence and citizenship. And currently there's no good way for employers to bring many low-skilled workers to the U.S. An existing visa program for low-wage nonagricultural workers is capped at 66,000 per year and is supposed to apply only to seasonal or temporary jobs.
The Chamber of Commerce said workers would earn actual wages paid to American workers or the prevailing wages for the industry they're working in, whichever is higher. The Labor Department determines prevailing wage based on customary rates in specific localities, so that it varies from city to city.
The low-skilled worker issue had loomed for weeks as perhaps the toughest matter to settle in monthslong closed-door talks on immigration among the senators, including Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida. The issue helped sink the last major attempt at immigration overhaul in 2007, when the legislation foundered on the Senate floor after an amendment was added to end a temporary worker program after five years, threatening a key priority of the business community.
The amendment passed by just one vote, 49-48. President Barack Obama, a senator at the time, joined in the narrow majority voting to end the program after five years.
___
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/source-business-labor-deal-worker-program-180402065--finance.html
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3 feared dead as Alaska Troopers copter crashes
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) ? An Alaska State Trooper helicopter carrying a trooper, a pilot for the agency and a rescued snowmobiler crashed in the south-central part of the state, leaving the three aboard feared dead, a spokeswoman said Sunday night.
Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said the aircraft went down Saturday night, the wreckage spotted Sunday, and no survivors have been found.
Peters said that though the three are feared dead, there has been no confirmation of any fatalities.
"This is a huge, profound tragedy for us. We can replace the helicopter but we can't replace what went down with it," she said. "It's been a bad day."
Wreckage of the helicopter burned, but Peters said it was not known how the fire started or how long it lasted.
The trooper helicopter was on a mission to pick up a snowmobiler stranded near Larson Lake 7 miles east of Talkeetna in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
The helicopter picked up a trooper and began a search, spotting the snowmobile and landing just before 10 p.m. It took off with the snowmobiler and was supposed to meet medics near Talkeetna but did not arrive.
The National Weather Service said the temperature in Talkeetna Sunday night was 34 with light rain that turned into snow at about 11 p.m., but that visibility was 10 miles.
Peters said it's not known if weather was a factor in the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
Alaska Air National Guard helicopter spokeswoman Kalei Rupp said fog in Anchorage and mandatory crew rest kept an agency helicopter from launching until 5 a.m.
A guard helicopter spotted the wreckage at 9:20 a.m. Sunday and landed.
Talkeetna is a community of nearly 900 about 80 miles north of Anchorage. It's the primary departure point for air taxis taking climbers to Mount McKinley.
The crash site was near the south end of Larson Lake.
The Alaska State Troopers have had at least one officer die in a helicopter crash during a search and rescue mission.
Trooper John David Stimson was on a chartered helicopter in 1983 that was attempting to reach a downed pilot in a blizzard. The chartered helicopter crashed near Cordova.
Stimson survived and assisted pilot Gary Wiltrout, who had suffered a broken back. However, when rescuers reached the crash site after 24 hours, the 11-year trooper had died of exposure. Wiltrout survived.
___
AP writer Bob Seavey in Phoenix contributed to this story.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-feared-dead-alaska-troopers-copter-crashes-051816982.html
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