SPB News for Wednesday.

Not true: Kennedy cancer story denied
Story saying Sen. Ted Kennedy's brain cancer in remission false, office says.

Olbermann hits Steele on marriage

Patti Blagojevich expected to star in reality show

Spielberg lines up film on Dr. King

Banks talking to U.S. about TARP repayments: official

Senate Committee to Review Bonuses Paid to KBR for Deadly Electrical Work The U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) will hold an oversight hearing at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 20, to examine millions of dollars in bonuses paid to KBR, Houston, for electrical wiring work on U.S. Army bases in Iraq that has been linked to the electrocution deaths of at least two, and perhaps as many as five, U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq.
'Mystery surrounds prison death of terrorist whose testimony was key to Iraq invasion --Human rights organisations and Islamic groups have questioned whether al-Libi's death was suicide. The Islamist terrorist who was the key source of the false intelligence used to trigger the US and UK 2003 military invasion of Iraq has been found dead in a Libyan prison cell. Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi allegedly committed suicide by hanging in the prison where he was being held in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Yasser al-Sirri, an Egyptian who runs the Islamic Observation Centre in London, said al-Libi was a "true Muslim, and Islam prohibits committing suicide". Clive Stafford Smith of Justice, a group of British human rights lawyers, said: "We are told that al-Libi committed suicide in his Libyan prison. If this is true it would be because of his torture and abuse. If false, it may reflect a desire to silence one of the greatest embarrassments to the Bush administration."

US to send $110 million in emergency aid to Pakistan US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Tuesday that the United States was sending 110 million dollars in emergency aid to Pakistan to help displaced civilians there. Clinton, who detailed the aid package at the White House, said that the money would ease the plight of about two million Pakistanis who have fled fighting [not to mention, US drones] in the country’s northwest Swat Valley, reports the Associated Press.




GM bankruptcy plan eyes quick sale to gov't General Motors Corp's plan for a bankruptcy filing involves a quick sale of the company's healthy assets to a new company initially owned by the U.S. government, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. The source, who would not be named because he was not cleared to speak with the media, did not specify a purchase price.


US, states sue Wyeth over drug prices The US Justice Department and 16 states have joined two whistleblower lawsuits against Wyeth, alleging that the drugmaker has defrauded the government of hundreds of millions of US dollars. According to the lawsuits, filed in a federal district court in Massachusetts, Wyeth avoided paying hundreds of millions of US dollars in rebates due to state Medicaid programs -- which provide health insurance to low-income families or people with disabilities -- for its Protonix Oral and Protonix IV stomach acid drugs.