USA
General Motors Corp. said Tuesday it will suspend its dividend for the first time since 1922, double its previously announced cuts in truck production, lay off salaried workers, and borrow $2 billion to $3 billion to weather a severe downturn in the US market.
A coalition of 15 American groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, said little progress is being made by the nation in doubling the number of bachelor's degrees awarded annually in science, math, and engineering to 400,000 by 2015. The group, which set the goal in 2005, said the pace is hovering at about 225,000 per year and believes failing to reach the target poses a threat to US competitiveness.
In speaking at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People convention Monday in Cincinnati, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he plans to continue talking about the need for blacks to take more responsibility for their lives. Meanwhile, both his campaign and that of Republican rival John McCain criticized a satirical New Yorker magazine cover that portrayed Obama and his wife as flag-burning terrorists.
Chicago Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski and Los Angeles Times publisher David Hiller resigned Monday. To what degree staff downsizing at both newspapers owned by the Tribune Co. influenced their decisions was unclear.
Former White House adviser Karl Rove, who faces possible contempt of Congress charges for his defiance of a congressional subpoena, said Monday that he has offered to answer questions, but only if no transcript is taken and he isn't under oath. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee want to question him about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department.
Oahu, Hawaii's most populous island, is running out of landfill space and may be forced to dispose of 100,000 tons of trash, or 6 percent of its annual total, by shipping the trash to the West Coast.
Pilotless planes developed by NASA deserve credit for helping California firefighters to identify hot spots and flare-ups and for saving lives, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday while touring a NASA research center in Mountain View. The remote-control drones are able to patrol areas considered too dangerous for other aircraft.
First-time baseball All-Star Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, who has bounced back from eight trips to rehab for drug and alcohol addiction, hit a record 28 homers (four more than the old mark) in the first round of the annual major-league Home Run Derby Monday in New York. Minnesota's Justin Morneau, however, won the derby crown.
