Freedom fizzles in Egypt

October 31, 2013 - Daily News Briefing

The danger to Egyptian freedom from fundamentalists was evident in Morsi’s power grab before the coup. The danger to Egyptian freedom today is from the general who was meant to remove that danger.

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Defending President Obama’s much-maligned health-care overhaul in Congress, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was confronted Wednesday with a government memo raising new security concerns about the trouble-prone website that consumers are using to enroll. The document, obtained by The Associated Press, shows that administration officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were concerned that a lack of testing posed a potentially “high” security risk for the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states. It was granted a temporary security certificate so it could operate.

Israel on Wednesday announced plans to build 1,500 new homes in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians, just hours after it freed a group of Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal to set peace talks in motion. The settlement construction was seen as an attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make up for the prisoner release, for which he has been sharply criticized at home.

The Federal Reserve says the US economy still needs support from its low interest-rate policies because it is growing only moderately. After a policy meeting Wednesday, the Fed said it would keep buying $85 billion a month in bonds to keep long-term interest rates low and encourage borrowing and spending. Yet the Fed seemed to signal that it thinks the economy is improving despite some recent weak data and uncertainties caused by the partial government shutdown.

The Pakistani government said Wednesday that 3 percent of the people killed in US drone strikes in the country since 2008 were civilians, a surprisingly low figure given past official calculations and estimates from independent organizations. The Ministry of Defense provided the data in a written response to questions from the Senate, saying 317 attacks have killed 2,160 Islamic militants and 67 civilians since 2008.

Nearly a mile underground in an abandoned gold mine, one of the most important quests in physics has come up empty-handed in the search for the elusive substance known as dark matter, scientists announced Wednesday. The most advanced Earth-based search for the mysterious material that has mass but cannot be seen turned up “absolutely no signal” of dark matter, said Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, a scientist working on the Large Underground Xenon experiment, or LUX.

A Syrian state-run TV channel says President Bashar al-Assad has told the Arab League-UN envoy that foreign support for the armed opposition must end if any political solution to the country’s conflict is to succeed.

Social Security benefits will rise 1.5 percent in January, giving millions of retired and disabled workers an average raise of $19 a month to keep up with the cost of living. The increase is among the smallest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

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