United States

Despite growing worries about a future surge in inflation, consumer prices barely budged last month and fell for all of 2009 -- the first annual decline in more than half a century. The latest report on the consumer price index, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, increases the likelihood that Federal Reserve officials at their next meeting later this month will stand pat on their policy of setting interest rates at near zero for "an extended period." In recent weeks, there have been increasing signs of a split at the Fed over how soon the central bank should begin tightening credit and monetary policy to avoid a future outbreak of inflation.

Ushering in a new era in medicine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it had cleared the way for the world's first clinical trial of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells. By early summer, a handful of patients with severe spinal cord injuries will be eligible for injections of specialized nerve cells designed to enable electrical signals to travel between the brain and the rest of the body.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama spooled out a long list of proposals to lift the economy, create jobs and carry out his broader policy agenda. Some of the ideas are new; others had been announced. The following is a summary of the initiatives cited in the speech and where they stand: The economy and jobs To ease unemployment, Obama urged Congress to pass a jobs bill. The House narrowly passed a $174-billion measure in December, but the Senate has yet to act. The bill is one of Obama's main vehicles for jump-starting employment, which is the centerpiece of his 2010 agenda.

As President Obama names more policy czars to his White House team -- high-level staff members who will help oversee the administration's top initiatives -- some lawmakers and Washington interest groups are raising concerns that he may be subverting the authority of Congress and concentrating too much power in the presidency. The idea of these "super aides," who will work across agency lines to push the president's agenda, is not a new one.

Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a "public option" in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option? The "public option," as followers of the debate know, is a government-sponsored health plan that would be available as an alternative to, and in competition with, the for-profit health insurance industry, otherwise known as the private option.

In the heart of the Ethiopian community here, a group of friends gathered after work in an office to chew on dried khat leaves before going home to their wives and children. Sweet tea and sodas stood on a circular wooden table between green mounds of the plant, a mild narcotic grown in the Horn of Africa. As the sky grew darker the conversation became increasingly heated, flipping from religion to jobs to local politics. Suddenly, one of the men paused and turned in his chair.

While Detroit's automakers struggle to rebuild their sputtering operations, the key to jump-starting Michigan's economy may lie 80 miles northwest of the Motor City. This is the home of Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. It makes a material crucial for constructing photovoltaic panels. And that has turned this snow-covered hamlet into an unlikely hotbed for solar energy. On Dec. 15, the same week that General Motors Corp. and Chrysler begged $17.

A leading Latino lawmaker asserted Monday that Latinos, angered at President Obama for his failure to push immigration reform legislation, could stay home from the polls this year. "People are angry and disillusioned," U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said in an interview. Gutierrez criticized the Obama administration for not pushing harder for legislation that would provide an opportunity for legalization for some immigrants. But he conceded that he lacks the votes in the House to pass the bill he backs.

Home prices inched up in November, a closely watched national index released Tuesday showed, but the monthly increase was so small that it shed little light on whether the U.S. housing market was headed for a full recovery or another dip. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas increased 0.2% from October on a seasonally adjusted basis, with 14 cities posting gains. Compared with a year earlier, the index was down 5.3% in November, but the year-to-year rate of decline moderated in all 20 cities.

After a month of intense pressure on banks and other mortgage servicers, the Obama administration on Friday reported improvement in its much-criticized program to reduce mortgage payments to stave off foreclosures. The number of temporary loan modifications that were made permanent had more than doubled to 66,465 as of Dec. 30, the Treasury Department said. In addition, 46,056 three-month trial mortgage modifications were approved and awaiting only the homeowner signatures before they were made permanent as well.

Federal banking regulators are trying a new push to encourage banks to make small-business loans. The government's strategy is to ease banks' concern about being slapped down for making loans that might be perceived by regulators as high risk. A joint statement issued Friday by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other agencies emphasizes that "financial institutions that engage in prudent small-business lending after performing a comprehensive review of a borrower's financial condition will not be subject to supervisory criticism for small-business loans made on that basis."

Nallely and Heriberto Salgado boarded the Mexican fishing skiff bobbing off the Baja California coast last week and watched warily in the moonlight as 19 other people squeezed onto the vessel designed to carry no more than a dozen. A smuggler piloting the 25-foot boat promised a short ride before landing on a beach in San Diego. But 12 hours later, the Salgados were still being lashed with sea spray. The thick fog had burned off, leaving a panorama of brilliant blue, with no land in sight.

The $90 million California is expected to receive from the federal government this year for jailing illegal immigrants convicted of crimes is far short of the state's roughly $1 billion annual cost, officials said. "The federal government has sole control over the nation's borders. The states do not," said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state's finance department. "The incarceration costs associated are borne disproportionally by states like California." Los Angeles County officials have not projected how much in reimbursement funds they could receive this year.

Eager to portray themselves as responsible stewards of the economy, congressional Democrats on Thursday pledged to enact a package of measures to spur job growth while taking steps to tackle the burgeoning federal budget deficit. "Our No. 1 emphasis is going to be on creating jobs," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said as he unveiled a set of proposals he hopes to pass in the coming weeks. At the same time, the House on Thursday passed a bill that requires legislation to detail how any proposed spending program or tax cut would be offset by savings elsewhere.

One casualty of President Obama's first year in office: the notion that he would transform a political system mired in gridlock and secrecy, opening a window to the legislative process. That hasn't happened. Instead of healthcare negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN, as candidate Obama famously promised, the fate of the landmark bill is being hashed out in private on Capitol Hill. And recent polls indicate that the public has lowered its expectations about the prospect of a more open government.

A leading Latino lawmaker asserted Monday that Latinos, angered at President Obama for his failure to push immigration reform legislation, could stay home from the polls this year. "People are angry and disillusioned," U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said in an interview. Gutierrez criticized the Obama administration for not pushing harder for legislation that would provide an opportunity for legalization for some immigrants. But he conceded that he lacks the votes in the House to pass the bill he backs.

Weighing 70 tons, traveling up to 45 mph and possessed of a smash-mouth name, the Assault Breacher Vehicle is the Marine Corps' latest answer to a perennial problem of offensive warfare: how to push through the barriers and booby traps of an enemy's outer defenses. Over the decades, Marines have used various strategies to breach defenses, involving heavy vehicles or, in some cases, sending Marine engineers into minefields to set, by hand, line charges loaded with explosives. "Breaching is always the hardest part of an assault," said Sgt. Carl Hewett, a breacher operator stationed here.

The Chinese government Saturday announced a series of harsh retaliatory measures in protest of the Pentagon's $6-billion arms sale to Taiwan, including a suspension of security exchanges and threatened sanctions on U.S. companies selling to Taiwan. "The U.S. decision seriously endangers China's national security and harms China's core interests," the Defense Ministry said in a statement attributed to spokesman Huang Xueping. Denunciations from Beijing over arms sales to Taiwan have an element of ritual about them, but the threat of sanctions on U.S. arms contractors is a new one. It remains to be seen whether China will follow through, given its need for commercial aircraft and aviation systems.

The U.S. economy grew in the fourth quarter of 2009 at the fastest pace in six years, but many economists and business owners remained unconvinced that a full-scale recovery was underway or that substantial job growth would soon follow. The nation's total production of goods and services expanded at a heady 5.7% annual rate in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department said Friday in its first estimate of the quarter's gross domestic product. That's more than double the 2.2% growth rate in the third quarter and a dramatic turnaround from the first three months of last year, when the economy was mired in deep recession and the GDP shrank at a 6.4% annual rate.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama spooled out a long list of proposals to lift the economy, create jobs and carry out his broader policy agenda. Some of the ideas are new; others had been announced. The following is a summary of the initiatives cited in the speech and where they stand: The economy and jobs To ease unemployment, Obama urged Congress to pass a jobs bill. The House narrowly passed a $174-billion measure in December, but the Senate has yet to act. The bill is one of Obama's main vehicles for jump-starting employment, which is the centerpiece of his 2010 agenda.