David Paterson was officially sworn in as New York’s governor on Monday, becoming the state’s first black chief executive and vowing to move past the prostitution scandal that has rocked the state Capitol. Paterson, who is legally blind, was interrupted at several times during his address with thunderous applause. “This transition today is an historic message to the world: that we live by the same values that we profess, and we are a government of laws, not individuals,” Paterson said.
The Supreme Court on Monday stepped into a legal fight over the use of curse words on the airwaves, the high court’s first major case on broadcast indecency in 30 years. The case concerns a Federal Communications Commission policy that allows for fines against broadcasters for so-called “fleeting expletives,” one-time uses of the F-word or its close cousins. Fox Broadcasting Co., along with ABC, CBS and NBC, challenged the new policy after the commission said broadcasts of entertainment awards shows in 2002 and 2003 were indecent because of profanity uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie.
The Federal Reserve took bold action Sunday evening to provide cash to financially squeezed Wall Street investment houses, a fresh effort to prevent a spreading credit crisis from sinking the U.S. economy. The central bank approved a cut in its emergency lending rate to financial institutions to 3.25 percent from 3.50 percent, effective immediately, and created a lending facility for big investment banks to secure short-term loans. The new lending facility will be available to big Wall Street firms on Monday.
China accused Tibetan supporters of the Dalai Lama of attacking its embassies around the world, vowing Monday to protect its territory in the central government’s first comments on Tibetan protests against Chinese rule. The statement came as more clashes erupted in other Chinese provinces.
The pilot of a ship that spilled 58,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay after crashing into a bridge last November has been charged with criminal negligence and breaking environmental laws. Capt. John Cota faces misdemeanor charges, including harming migrant birds protected by the government. Cota was at the helm of the container ship Cosco Busan during the Nov. 7 collision with the Bay Bridge.
Lawmakers wearing lapel pins with pictures of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto vowed a new dawn for democracy Monday as Pakistan’s parliament convened for the first time since opponents of the president swept to victory in last month’s elections. Legislative leaders promised to challenge U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf by slashing his powers and reviewing his counterterrorism policies.
The Supreme Court gets to write on a blank slate when it takes up the meaning of the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms” and the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. The nine justices have said almost nothing about gun rights.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama urged the government Monday to cut middle class taxes this year to ease the spreading economic crisis, as he and rival Sen. Hillary Clinton criticized President Bush for failing to take the lead in addressing the nation’s economic woes. “Our economy is in a shambles,” Obama said at a town hall meeting at a community college near Pittsburgh. “This economy is contracting, it is heading toward recession. We probably already are in one.”
Florida Democrats have abandoned plans to redo the presidential primary with a mostly mail-in vote. Party leaders had expressed concerns about the proposal. The party plan was to run a second primary to seat the state’s delegates at the August convention. The state party considered the idea because the Democratic National Committee is refusing to award delegates based on Florida’s Jan. 29 primary, which Sen. Hillary Clinton won. The committee stripped Florida of its delegates because party rules didn’t allow the state to vote before Feb. 5.
Workers in Atlanta struggled to their offices Monday through debris and snarled traffic days after a tornado struck downtown, but no long-term effects on the city’s lucrative convention and tourism industry were anticipated. The twister knocked hundreds of hotel rooms out of commission and significantly damaged the city’s largest convention venue, the Georgia World Congress Center.
