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Tonight on Countdown
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Lawmakers are about to bombard the American public with proposals that would crack down on lobbyists. Several prominent plans, including one outlined yesterday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would specifically ban meals and privately paid travel for lawmakers. Or would they? According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel the world on an interest group's expense and eat steak on a lobbyist's account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011701311.htmlCountdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.
Hillary Clinton's amplification of that plantation remark... "I believe that it is an accurate description of the kind of top-down way that the house of representatives is run which denies meaningful debate... which has engaged in all kinds of shenanigans -- keeping votes open... refusing to allow people to have the opportunity to present alternatives... and I think some very bad decisions are being made for America."
Iraqi authorities were working Wednesday to secure the release of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, who was seen in a tape aired on an Arab TV station late Tuesday for the first time since her Jan. 7 abduction in Baghdad.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10895039/The Federal Communications Commission said yesterday that it is investigating the sale of private cell phone records, a move privacy advocates said was welcome but long overdue. Numerous Web sites say they are able to provide records of incoming and outgoing cell phone calls, some for less than $100. While such records are routinely used by law enforcement agencies, experts warn that they can be exploited by criminals, such as stalkers or abusive spouses. The practice of using trickery to obtain the records from phone companies has been the subject of news reports for months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011701451.htmlA 15-year-old girl pulled from a car by a passer-by after it sank in Ala Wai Harbor over the weekend was released from the hospital today. The girl's grandfather -- Honolulu attorney Michael McCarthy -- was pronounced dead Saturday night after he was located in the car by rescue crews.
Police say McCarthy was backing his car out of a parking stall at the Waikiki Yacht Club when it hit two parked vehicles and plunged into the water.
As the car filled with water, McCarthy's granddaughter called 9-1-1.
http://www.kpua.net/news.php?id=7274http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/6196869/detail.htmlTwo rowers competing in an international race were rescued after spending 16 hours clinging to the hull of their capsized boat in the Atlantic Ocean, the Coast Guard said. Sarah Kessans, 22, and Emily Kohl, 23, both former collegiate rowers at Purdue University, were competing in the Atlantic Rowing Race 2005 on Sunday when a wave flipped their 24-foot wooden rowboat in choppy seas, the Coast Guard said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011700873.htmlThat's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.
Finally,
City officials are trying to figure out how a woman sneaked into the North American International Auto Show after closing time to pose naked atop the new Dodge Challenger. It happened around 2:30 a.m. Monday when only workers and security guards were supposed to be inside Cobo Center.Guards found the woman and about a dozen gawkers taking photographs with camera phones, workers told The Detroit News. "We heard they were all over the Challenger," said Jason Vines, a spokesman for the Chrysler Group, which earlier had tried to give its cars more sex appeal by bringing in fully clothed "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria to pose at its exhibit.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AUTO_SHOW_NUDITY?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOMECars gone wild. Conspiracy theorists might think she was an insider...
-- Carey Fox
Countdown Home:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/More:
Sago Mine survivor Randal McCloy Jr. is breathing on his own and appears to be coming out of his coma, more than two weeks after a mine explosion that led to the deaths of 12 other miners, doctors said Wednesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10907369/The five-year suspension of Bill Clinton's Arkansas law license in connection with the Monica Lewinsky affair ends this week, but an aide declined Tuesday to say whether the ex-president is seeking reinstatement.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10904831/Michael Fortier, the prosecution's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing trials, will be freed this week, more than a year before his sentence was scheduled to end. He was sentenced to 12 years and ordered to pay $200,000 in fines after pleading to having prior knowledge of the bombing plan but not alerting authorities, to helping McVeigh and Nichols move and sell stolen guns, and to lying to federal authorities.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10906185/British police have foiled a plot to kidnap Prime Minister Tony Blair's 5-year-old son Leo, the Sun newspaper reported on Wednesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10899298/NASA scrubbed its launch of an unmanned spacecraft on a nine-year voyage to Pluto for the second day in a row Wednesday, but this time the weather in Maryland was to blame.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10907532/Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a yard-long rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster -- whose name means "meal" in Japanese -- to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice. But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10903211/from/RS.2/
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