SPB News for Sunday.

Ahmadinejad Slams Obama On Nukes

AZ Police Want 8 Year Old Charged as Adult for Murder

Pelosi, Reid call on Paulson to use bailout authority to help Big Three Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are urging Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to use his authority under the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package to help beleagured U.S. automakers. With sales slumping, the auto industry and its allies in Congress are calling for as much as $50 billion in new government loans to help the struggling companies, on top of $25 billion already approved.

U.S. concedes Georgia attack attack in South Ossetia was a mistake The U.S. State Department said Friday the Georgian attack in South Ossetia last August was a mistake, but that it did not justify Russia's large-scale intervention. The comments follow a critical newspaper assessment of the Tbilisi government's role in the crisis. In its most specific comments on the subject to date, the State Department says Georgian leaders made a mistake when they attacked the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, in August.

Latest US air strike in Pakistan kills at least 12 At least 12 people were killed when a missile slammed into a small village in north-west Pakistan in a suspected US air strike near the border of Afghanistan, according to a Pakistani security official. The latest in a series of such incidents [war crimes], the missile strike on the tribal village of Kam Sam in North Waziristan marked the first attack since Pakistan's top defence official warned the newly appointed head of US Central Command to halt airborne assaults inside Pakistan.

U.S. to Open Public Land Near Parks for Drilling The Bureau of Land Management has expanded its oil and gas lease program in eastern Utah to include tens of thousands of acres on or near the boundaries of three national parks, according to revised maps published this week. National Park Service officials say that the decision to open lands close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park was made without the kind of consultation that had previously been routine. The bureau’s new maps, made public on Election Day, show not just those empty areas but 40 to 45 new areas where leasing will also be allowed.

Bankers and academics at top of donor list Barack Obama owes Wall Street bankers a debt of gratitude for generous campaign donations as he ponders how to cope with a financial crisis that poses challenges over government aid and regulation for the banking industry. Staff at banks, Silicon Valley technology companies and universities topped the list of contributors to Obama's record treasure chest of $640m (£406m).

Just 3 'superbanks' now dominate industry --Sudden consolidation raises questions about regulation, consumer impact The financial crisis that has been sweeping the globe has reshaped nearly every corner of the economy, but no industry has been altered more radically than banking. Several of the nation's biggest banks have failed or been absorbed by healthier institutions, leaving three giant "superbanks" with an unprecedented concentration of market power: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.