WASHINGTON — Escalating violence in Syria has become the ultimate no-win political situation for President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney: The deepening crisis is impossible for their campaigns to ignore but too complex for them to articulate an easy solution.
Over the last three years, the Friends of the Delaware County District Library have donated nearly $30,000 to the library, helping to provide you with enhanced library programs, services and products. I think it is a remarkable achievement, especially when you realize that our Friends of the Library group was organized only four short years ago. This group of dedicated, hardworking and enthusiastic volunteers — more than 200, currently — have held book sales, author and illustrator presentations, antique appraisal clinics and raffles to raise these funds, and they have been very generous in sharing them with the library.
This past Christmas, many parents of deployed service men and women sent care packages to a family member serving in Afghanistan. It’s something that parents typically do for those serving in combat zones, something to remind them that folks at home care about them and appreciate what they are doing.
WASHINGTON — Large new cuts in defense spending would “terribly weaken” U.S. national security, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday as he and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used a rare joint interview to argue that the nation cannot afford to keep playing partisan chicken with its finances. Panetta expressed optimism about progress by American-led forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan and by NATO forces in support of anti-government rebels in Libya. He cited those conflicts as examples of why severe cuts to spending on defense and diplomacy would be dangerous.
The stock market buckled Monday under the weight of a crisis in Europe and danger of recession at home. Reeling from a downgrade of American debt, the Dow Jones industrials plunged 634 points. It was the worst day for the market since the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 and extended Wall Street’s sudden, sharp decline. Stocks have lost 15 percent of their value in just two and a half weeks.
WASHINGTON — Eager to calm a nervous nation, President Barack Obama on Monday dismissed an unprecedented downgrade in the nation’s credit rating, insisting investors will stand by the United States even as stock markets plunged. Obama said Washington can fix its ills by showing more political will.