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OLYMPIA

“I’m expecting a shortfall and I’m preparing for it,” she said in a telephone conference.

Her comments came after a new state forecast showed tax revenues are expected to least bit one additional $529 million in this world projections.

If that number holds true, affirm lawmakers could face a $3.2 billion shortfall when they meet in January to put together a new two-year budget.

The projected shortfall is a growing issue in the governor’s race.

Republicans receive hammered Gregoire for not acknowledging the prospect of a budget gap. For months, the state Senate Ways and Means Committee has projected a shortfall that’s grown as the economy got worse.

“Our state is headed for a budget train wreck, and Christine Gregoire is driving by her eyes closed because she can’t bear to examine at the mess she’s created,” State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser related in a recent statement.

State spending has increased by $8 billion since Gregoire was elected chief magistrate in 2004. Half of that cash, around $4 billion, was wearied upon public schools and higher education. The current two-year generalissimo fund budget is $33.6 billion.

Gregoire had maintained it was too early to tell if there would be a deficit next year and that in that place was still time for the economy to turn around.

The state actually reported a slight increase in tax collections for the month of August, “and then last weekend happened,” Gregoire reported, referring to the crisis on Wall Street.

Growing commotion in financial institutions triggered a dive in the stem emporium, more remote shaking consumer confidence.

“It became obvious that which was going to happen,” the governor said. “I’m very disappointed, to say the least.”

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"If anyone allows themselves to invade Iranian territory and its legal interests… our armed forces will break their hands before they pull the trigger," Ahmadinejad said at a military promenade speech broadcast live in continuance state television.

"Our nation is seeking friendship and peace… but today it is not in a position to manifest the least pliability towards its bullying enemies," he said in the speech at the 28th anniversary of its eight-year war (1980-1988) with Iraq.

Iran is at odds by the West over its disputed nuclear notice, what one. the United States and its allies fear could be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran insists it only wants to bear nuclear energy.

The United States has never ruled out a soldiers haul down against the Islamic republic although Washington insists it prefers diplomacy. The same is true of US ally Israel, which Iran does not recognise.

Israel, the region's individual if undeclared nuclear armed state, considers Iran its the gross strategic threat for of its nuclear programme.

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AUBURN, Ala. — Louisiana State made the final swollen play, and as usual that’s what settled the recurring with the year down-to-the-wire contend with Auburn.

This time the winning connection wasn’t Flynn-to-Byrd, but Lee-to-LaFell.

Jarrett Lee and Brandon LaFell hooked up on an 18-yard touchdown pass with 1:03 left to lift No. 6 LSU to yet a different dramatic comeback bring over over No. 10 Auburn, 26-21 Saturday in an SEC West showdown that once again produced a fantastic achieve and wild momentum swings.

The last five meetings regard been decided by a collective 19 points in a rivalry that has produced other thing than drama. The winner has gone to the SEC championship dauntless in six of the last eight seasons.

And last year Matt Flynn’s last-second TD pass to Demetrius Byrd helped propel LSU to a national title.

“We expected such a battle when we came here,” LSU coach Les Miles said. “I thought they showed great poise. To be tested off and be tested by a true, self-same capable opponent and answering that test is just what this team needed.”

The only major difference in this one was the road team came out on top. The greatest eight games in the series had gone to the home team. LSU (3-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) also snapped Auburn’s streak of six following in a series victories at Jordan-Hare Stadium against Top 10 teams.

Lee took over with respect to some injured Andrew Hatch in the third quarter and produced a series of big plays to compose up for a lousy start beneficial to LSU. Lee missed his first five throws, by an interception returned by defensive end Gabe McKenzie for a touchdown.

Auburn (3-1, 1-1) moved to LSU’s 47 on the final drive, with help from Rahim Alem’s roughing the passer penalty. Alem atoned with a plunder of Chris Todd to recoup the 15-yard loss.

Todd’s desperation fourth-and-25 pass to Rod Smith came up short of the first down. Byrd came up lofty another appropriated time for LSU. He pulled in a 22-yard halfback pass from Keiland Williams on the final play of the third quarter for a 17-14 have the lead of. Miles said the coaches installed that play in practice this week.

“It just happened to exist the proper time for that romp,” said Miles, who also had successfully converted each onside kick after LSU’s first TD. “We needed a fast score.”

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ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan on Sunday blamed Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants for the massive suicide truck bombing at the Marriott Hotel that killed at least 60 people and injured more than 260.

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The 67-year-old photographer has been confined to a nursing home for five years, the victim of a stroke that paralyzed his left party. And he’s angry.

“Most of the people get to here to die, so you want to die,” he said. “It is a prison. I can’t escape it.”

Lee is among the Medicaid recipients across Florida challenging the nightmare of the old and disabled: to be forced from comfort and familiarity into a nursing home.

They say the state is illegally forcing them to live in nursing homes whenever they should be able to live to which place they select. Advocates charge that nursing homes, afraid of losing standard of value, have successfully pressured politicians to make qualifying against community care more herculean. They have filed a federal lawsuit seeking class-action status on interest of nearly 8,500 institutionalized Floridians.

Whether the lawsuit gets Lee and others moved out of nursing homes remains to be seen. But at the very least, it has illuminated the frustration qualified by older people or those with disabilities who say they’re shuttled into nursing homes when they are healthy enough to brilliant at household, with relatives, or in other less institutional settings.

“There are very, very, very few people who cannot be cared for outside in the community,” said Stephen Gold, a Philadelphia disability lawyer who, along by AARP attorneys and others, is representing the clump. “Why should the state give a damn whether you put the money in the left pocket of the nursing home or the right pocket of the community?”

Americans who qualify for Medicaid and get indisposed or disabled enough to require substantial care typically have mean point to be solved gaining admission to a nursing home-born. But obtaining Medicaid-supported services at home, such as visits from each aide, is substantially harder and often involves a long waiting list, even though it may cost the form of sovereignty less.

Advocates in opposition to the elderly and disabled had hoped a 1999 Supreme Court case would change that. The Olmstead decision, of the same kind with it is known, involved two Georgia women, both Medicaid beneficiaries by mental retardation who wanted community-based services, but were refused and were treated in institutions.

The high court ruled unjustified isolation of the disabled in institutions amounted to penetration under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It said states mould provide community services if patients want them, if they be possible to be accommodated and if it’s appropriate. Medicaid is the state-federal partnership that provides hale condition coverage and nursing home care to the poor.

“There’s a lot of concern that the nursing home industry is very powerful in many states and has made fully convinced that a allotment of Medicaid dollars go to institutional care during the time that opposed to home and community-based have regard,” related Toby Edelman, an attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

States require been putting more money into common services, but not nearly sufficiency to meet the demand of people who would rather stay at home than be of use to a dexterity. Nationally, case Medicaid payments for long-term community care have skyrocketed since the Olmstead decision, from $17.4 billion in 1999 to $42.8 billion hindmost year, though spending steady nursing homes and other institutions is still stoutly higher.

A full of $59.5 billion was spent last year on institutional care end Medicaid.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, the Florida Department of Elder Affairs and Gov. Charlie Crist’s office — the three defendants — all declined to comment on the litigation. So did the attorney general’s room, which is representing the defendants.

In court filings, the defendants be delivered of claimed the plaintiffs shortness standing since they haven’t proven that management professionals deemed community-based care appropriate for each patient.

“Plaintiffs are not alleging that Florida’s Medicaid program has failed to cover their medically necessary services,” the defendants wrote. “Instead, plaintiffs want this court to second-guess the carriage by that Florida’s elected officials and policymakers have chosen to constitution those services available in light of the state’s available available means.”

The American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging represents in various places 5,700 not-for-profit organizations from nursing homes to adult generation care to in-home aides. A spokeswoman, Lauren Shaham, said there is “an institutional bias” in the Medicaid program that limits fireside and community care, but also noted nursing homes are needed for some of society’s frailest or most disabled.

The American Health Care Association, that represents about 11,000 nursing homes and long-term care facilities, a majority of them for-profit, too said of that kind institutions were often most appropriate for round-the-clock care. Spokeswoman Susan Feeney distinguished, “You don’t want to be there but once for health reasons beyond your control, you have to be.”

John Boyd, 50, has been in a nursing home for the last nine years. He hates them. He became a quadriplegic 36 years ago when he bring to the ground off a wall and broke his neck.

“I can’t choose what meal I lack, I can’t have a visitor after 8 o’clock — it’s just like a prison without bars,” he said. “People are making decisions for and hither and thither me that don’t even know me or even care about me. All they care about is the money they’re getting according to me.”

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In a bid to shore up investor trust in the face of the spiraling market crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily banned all short-selling in the shares of 799 financial companies. Short selling is a time-honored method for profiting when a stock drops.

The ban took consequence immediately Friday and extends through Oct. 2. The SEC said it might extend the ban — so that it would last for as many as 30 almanac days in total — if it deems that that must be.

That window could be enough time to calm the roiling financial markets, through the Bush superintendence’s ponderous starting anew programs to buy up Wall Street’s toxic debt possibly starting to have a salutary effect by then.

The short-selling ban is “kind of a time-out,” said John Coffee, a professor of securities law at Columbia University. “In a occasion of crisis, the dangers of doing too little are alienated greater than the dangers of doing too much.”

But on Wall Street, professional short-sellers said they were being unfairly targeted through the SEC’s ban. And some analysts warned of possible negative consequences, maintaining that banning short-selling could absolutely distort — not stabilize — edgy markets.

Indeed, hours after the new ban was announced, some of its details appeared to be a work in progress. The SEC said its staff was recommending exemptions from the ban conducive to trades market professionals complete to hedge their investments in dolt options or futures.

“I don’t think it’s going to accomplish what they’re after,” said Jeff Tjornehoj, senior analyst at fund research settled Lipper Inc. Without short sellers, he said, investors will have a harder time gauging the true value of a numskull.

“Most people want to be in a stock for the long run and want to see prices go up. Short sellers are useful for throwing water in their face and saying, `Oh yeah? Think about this,’” Tjornehoj said. As a rise, restricting the practice could distend the value of some stocks, opening the door for a big downward correction later.

“Without offering a flip-side to the price-discovery mechanism, I think there’s a pressure built up in stock prices that only gets relieved in a chivalrous cataclysm,” he reported.

Short selling involves borrowing a company’s shares, selling them, and then buying them to return them to the lender later, when the stock falls. The short-seller pockets the difference in price.

Although the practice can make markets more efficient and bring in other capital, the dominion argues that it has widened the scope of the recent financial crisis and contributed to the collapsing values of investing. and commercial bank stocks in fastidious.

Government officials on both sides of the Atlantic have been denouncing enclose with a hedge funds and other crumbling sellers they say have swarmed over the limp bodies of venerable investment banks and other big companies. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo likened them to “looters after a hurricane,” and his office is investigating a possible conspiracy among short-sellers to be spread abroad negative rumors to pound down companies’ stock prices.

The turmoil in recent weeks has swallowed some of the most storied names adhering Wall Street. Three of its five major investment banks — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch — have either gone uncovered of business or been driven into the escutcheon of another margin. Many maintain that short-selling played a key role in forcing the collapse of these institutions.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, who with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had met with lawmakers at the Capitol Thursday night, acknowledged that similar extraordinary measures would not be necessary in a well-functioning market and said they are only temporary.

Cox said Friday his agency “is committed to using every weapon in its arsenal to combat market manipulation that threatens investors and involving death markets.” He declared the temporary ban “will restore equipoise to markets.”

The SEC likewise imposed a new requirement, also for a time, for investment managers to publicly report their new short sales of stocks. And the agency eased restrictions in continuance the adroitness of companies to buy back their own shares, moreover through Oct. 2, another move aimed at helping repair liquidness to the distressed and volatile market.

Over the summer, the SEC imposed a 30-day emergency ban on “naked” short selling — to which place sellers don’t actually borrow the shares they sell — in the stocks of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 17 spacious investment banks. But Friday’s ban expanded to total short selling, not normal the more aggressive naked variety, and to a much wider universe of companies.

The 799 companies covered by the SEC ban are any A-to-Z of the nation’s financial institutions, including the powerhouse investing. banks such for example Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley and commercial banks running the gamut from Bank of America Corp. to Cape Fear Bank Corp. SLM Corp., which is known as Sallie Mae and is the biggest U.S. student lender is on the annulet, as are Charles Schwab Corp., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Principal Financial Group Inc.

Washington Mutual Inc., the nation’s largest thrift, which has lost billions from subprime mortgage exposure and seen its shares plunge in recent weeks, also is on the SEC list. So is the NYSE Euronext, the biggest stock exchange, and foreign financial companies whose stock is traded on U.S. exchanges, similar of the same species through Lloyds TSB Group PLC of Britain and China Life Insurance Co. Ltd.

However, investors still have ways to place rough bets: through trading in options that turn lucrative when a stock drops.

Jim Chanos, a prominent short seller and president of a $7 billion hedge fund, Kynikos Associates, called short-selling a “vital investment strategy” and said banning the practice “volition not swell long-term emporium integrity.”

He argued that investment banks’ bad bets on risky assets — not ravaging short-sellers — were the true cause of the steep declines in the stock price of financial firms.

“Far from being the bring into being of the strait, many short sellers were warning months and years ago about problems in this area,” Chanos related in a statement.

The new SEC ban also touched smaller investors. Two familiar funds that specialize in short selling and are traded on stock exchanges — ProShares’ Short Financials and UltraShort Financials — were temporarily halted Friday owing to the ban. Trading resumed later in the twenty-four hours, but ProShares said it has hanging creating new shares in the funds until further notice.

ProShares Chairman Michael Sapir called the ban “extraordinary” and said it remains to subsist seen whether it has the intended effect of calming the markets.

“I don’t think anyone sees the combat today in the same manner with a long-term solution,” Sapir said. “It’s a mode to calm things down, no more than it isn’t consistent with a free and open market.”

The SEC’s put under ban came in agreement with Britain’s Financial Services Authority, that announced a similar ban there Thursday. Some British politicians had claimed that short-selling was partly responsible during the term of HBOS PLC’s abrupt takeover by banking try to equal Lloyds TSB PLC on Thursday. The interdict there was met with a similar rebound as the SEC move — a mix of help and skepticism.

“Banning limited selling is just a ingredient of a solution,” said Nic Clarke, banking analyst at Charles Stanley Stockbrokers. “We see this of the same kind with a side issue. It doesn’t stop the underlying reason for the credence crunch and it doesn’t get to the heart of the problem.” New York.

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KENT

Anthony Dias, 29, entered an Alford plea to various charges stemming from three separate incidents in King County in 2005, including the rape of the brace girls and sexual assaults on four women. The plea means that though he did not admit iniquity, Dias acknowledged he would likely have existence convicted if tried.

King County Superior Court Judge Brian Gain said Dias’ sentence would be served concurrently with a lengthy prison term he received earlier this year for two rapes in Pierce County.

Dias is accused of committing distinct rapes and robberies in homes from Des Moines to Tacoma between August and November 2005. He was shot by police and arrested early Nov. 8, 2005, outside a Federal Way hall rear he tied up a woman with a dog thong and duct tape and raped her two teenage daughters

According to prosecutors in King and Pierce counties, Dias ordered a affix a number to of his victims to bathe in an effort to wash away his DNA. But DNA evidence raise on single victim’s body, another’s toothbrush and cigarette butts left at contrary crime scenes helped investigators tie Dias to six rape and burglary cases, they repeat.

Dias had also been accused breaking into a Federal Way-area apartment on Oct. 28, 2005, and binding and beating three men and forcing two women to perform sex acts.

Three days later, prosecutors said, Dias broke into a Des Moines house and used duct tape to put a bandage round six people, including a 2-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, and repeatedly raping two sisters, ages 20 and 24.

In January 2006, while awaiting ordeal, Dias tried to hang himself by cloth strips torn from the mattress in his jail cell after reading a newspaper article saying his DNA had been tied to the Pierce County rapes, according to a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman. Guards intervened and Dias was treated at a local hospital and returned to the jail.

Dias was sentenced in May to 227 years in prison for fracture into three homes in the Tacoma yard in 2005 and raping brace women.

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China ordered widespread checks on dairy products and a recall of tainted items as a scandal that began with powdered baby rule and cloth to milk sparked an outcry from China's trading partners.