news/notes2009.04.15a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
Leonardo da Vinci
Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, whose genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal and whose Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (1503–06) are widely influential paintings, was born this day in 1452.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
1955: First McDonald's opened by Ray Kroc
On this day in 1955, American fast-food pioneer Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, launching an enterprise that would eventually become the world's largest fast-food chain.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Debate starts on bill to free up MSDF

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

The Lower House began deliberating on an antipiracy bill Tuesday to create a permanent law that would let the Maritime Self-Defense Force protect ships of any nationality against pirates and remove certain limits on the MSDF's use of force.

Prime Minister Taro Aso（麻生太郎首相） told the chamber that a new antipiracy law must be enacted quickly because of the dramatic increase in pirate attacks off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, and the need for Japan to play a bigger role in solving the international problem.

"Piracy is a life-or-death matter that threatens Japan's national interests of securing the safety of transport by sea," Aso said. "The pirates off the coast of Somalia are especially a threat to the international community, including Japan, and emergency measures need to be taken."

The Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc and the government want the bill passed before the Diet session ends in June. But if the opposition camp refuses to cooperate, the ruling bloc might have to extend the session.

The Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force, is urging the government to amend the bill to require prior Diet approval for a dispatch. Aso had the MSDF dispatch two destroyers for antipiracy patrols off Somalia in March.

"The antipiracy measures bill lacks a provision for advance Diet approval should the MSDF be dispatched in case of an emergency — but it is necessary from the viewpoint of civilian control," DPJ lawmaker Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi said. "We also think it is necessary that a dispatch plan clarifying the mission and region be reported to the Diet."

Last month, Japan for the first time used the maritime police-action provision of the Self-Defense Forces Law to send two MSDF destroyers to Somalia. However, the MSDF is only allowed to escort vessels linked to Japan, including Japanese-registered ships or foreign ships with Japanese nationals or cargo on board.

Nevertheless, the destroyers seem to be scaring potential pirates away from freighters unrelated to Japan as well.

The MSDF is not allowed to attack pirates except in limited circumstances, including in an emergency evacuation or in self-defense based on Article 7 of the Police Execution of Duties Law, which limits the use of arms to incidents deemed necessary.

The new law would permit the MSDF to fire at pirate boats that ignore warning shots.

Arguing emphatically against the bill was Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Seiken Akamine. "We absolutely cannot tolerate this bill, which would pave the way for the use of armed forces abroad — which is prohibited by Article 9 of the Constitution — by enabling the SDF to be dispatched abroad and expanding their right to use weapons," Akamine said.

Aso contends that the antipiracy measures do not violate the Constitution, which prohibits the use of force, on the grounds that piracy is a crime.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Seven years urged for stablemaster

NAGOYA (Kyodo) Prosecutors on Tuesday demanded a seven-year prison sentence for former sumo stablemaster Tokitsukaze（元時津風親方）, who stands accused of ordering wrestlers at his stable to assault a 17-year-old grappler, leading to his death.

During his trial session at the Nagoya District Court, the stablemaster, whose real name is Junichi Yamamoto, apologized to the relatives of the victim, Takashi Saito, whose ring name was Tokitaizan, over the 2007 incident.

But Yamamoto, 59, again denied giving an order for senior wrestlers at his stable in Aichi Prefecture to assault Saito, even though three wrestlers were convicted of the assault in a separate trial in December.

Wrestlers Yuichiro Izuka and Masakazu Kimura were sentenced to three years in prison and Masanori Fujii to 2 1/2 years. All three sentences were suspended.

According to the indictment, Yamamoto beat Saito with a beer bottle and ordered the wrestlers to hit him on June 25, 2007. On the following day, they also subjected Saito to what they called "exercise," slamming him on the sumo ring and hitting him with a metal bat for about 30 minutes. Saito later died from shock as a result of multiple trauma.

In the course of his trial that began in February, Yamamoto has admitted the beer-bottle assault but denied ordering any of the three to assault Saito.

When the court handed down its guilty verdict for the three wrestlers, the presiding judge ruled that Yamamoto had told them to assault Saito.

The court also recognized that the excessive sparring session they conducted on the teen deviated from normal training and constituted illegal violence.

But Yamamoto argued that the training blamed for Saito's death was never intended as hazing or punishment, claiming it was "done for the purpose of discipline."

Saito's death is one of the high-profile cases that have marred the public image of Japan's national sport.

Boxer dies at falls
OTSU Shiga Pref. (Kyodo) A professional boxer was found dead in the basin of a waterfall in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, on Monday evening, police said.

Noriyuki Komatsu, 29, a former flyweight champion of the Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation, is believed to have accidentally fallen in while engaging in ascetic training at the waterfall, they said.

He had been visiting a temple in Kyoto since Saturday for meditation.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Data faked on Hitachi-built atomic plants

(Kyodo News) Hitachi Ltd（日立製作所原子力部門）. said Monday it has discovered that data were falsified in connection with equipment at two nuclear plants in Shizuoka and Shimane prefectures, but shrugged off any safety concerns.

The falsified data relate to the heat-treatment process used by another company responsible for the pipe welds on the moisture-separator heaters, Hitachi and its group company said. The heaters increase thermal efficiency by removing moisture from steam sent to turn the turbines and heating it.

Hitachi admitted that the equipment used at Chubu Electric Power Co.'s No. 5 reactor at the Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture and at Chugoku Electric Power Co.'s No. 3 reactor under construction at the Shimane plant in Shimane Prefecture, were not operating as specified. But Hitachi claimed that "there is no problem with its material or safety."

Hitachi is checking for any similar data falsification incidents at its 17 other nuclear reactors.

Hitachi outsourced the heat treatment work, which was intended to make the pipes more resistant to cracking, to Japan Industrial Testing Co.

Although Hitachi was reprimanded by the government over a similar incident involving a subcontractor in 1997, it does not appear that the company is facing harsher punishment.

Instead, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told Hitachi and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd., to investigate whether other incidents of falsification had occurred and to submit plans to prevent a recurrence. Hitachi-GE Nuclear was formed by the merger of the nuclear businesses of the Hitachi and U.S. giant General Electric Co.

During the work, the pipes' temperatures fell faster than specified because of inappropriate temperature management, but that data was erased from the records using a bleaching agent, according to Hitachi, its group company and other sources.

The incident at the Shimane reactor occurred last December when a person in charge of the work wrongly operated the heat treatment equipment and failed to spot the irregularity quickly enough, they said.

The person in charge was quoted as saying: "If (the mistake had been) found, I would have had to do the heat treatment process again at the yearend when I was supposed to be off. I didn't want to do that."

An official at Japan Industrial Testing apologized and vowed that the company will train its employees appropriately. Hitachi has also apologized and said it will work to prevent a recurrence.

Hitachi started to investigate after Chugoku Electric Power in March found possible data falsification related to the heat treatment work of the Shimane plant's No. 3 reactor.

news/notes2009.04.15b

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

DNA pioneer Alec Jeffreys: drop innocent from database
• DNA scientist: drop innocent from database
• Father of genetic fingerprinting says thousands 'branded as criminals'

James Sturcke
The Guardian, Wednesday 15 April 2009
Article history

The inventor of genetic fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, today warns that the government is putting at risk public support for the DNA national database by holding the genetic details of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Jeffreys, whose pioneering discoveries revolutionised police investigation techniques, condemned the government for leaving innocent people "branded as criminals" by its insistence on keeping the details of everyone arrested, regardless of whether they are later convicted.

He said he was left "almost speechless" by reports that the government planned to respond to a recent European court ruling - that storing innocent people's genetic details broke their right to privacy - by simply removing their profiles from the database but keeping the original DNA samples.

In an interview with the Guardian, he said: "I have significant concerns there [about the size of the database]. That database is currently populated by an unknown number of entirely innocent people. It is not possible to get an accurate number but it appears to be hundreds of thousands.

"My view is very clear that if you have been convicted of a crime then you owe it to society to be retained on that database for catching in the future should you reoffend. But the retention of entirely innocent people is a whole different issue. There is a sort of presumption here that if they haven't committed any crime now, then they will in the future."

He also called for improved genetic testing procedures, warning that the current system could result in a miscarriage of justice.

Jeffreys' genetic discoveries at Leicester University in the mid-1980s enabled the establishment of the national DNA database 10 years later; it is now the largest in the world, storing details on more than 5 million people.

He believed DNA fingerprinting was a valuable technology and investigative tool which had enjoyed considerable public backing; his concern was the loss of that support.

"My genome is my property. It is not the state's. I will allow the state access to that genome under very strict circumstances. It is an issue of my personal genetic privacy," he said. "I have met some [innocent] people who are on the database and are really distressed by the fact. They feel branded as criminals and I would feel branded as a criminal."

Last December the European court of human rights (ECHR) ruled that the government was violating the rights to privacy of two men from Sheffield whose profiles were being held on the DNA database years after criminal proceedings against them had been dropped.

Asked about reports that the government wanted to get round the implications of the ruling for other innocent people whose details are retained on the database by keeping their original DNA samples, Jeffreys said he was "almost speechless".

"I would be wholly opposed to retaining the original DNA unless there are very, very strict safeguards on what could be done with it, like nothing at all. In a way, it would be even more sinister than retaining the profile.

"I would be very concerned if the government attempted to go down that route. The point is it has to to respond to the ruling by the ECHR. It was a very pointed ruling. Unusually so."

Police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland routinely take DNA samples from everyone arrested on suspicion of committing a recordable offence, which are then added to the national database. In Scotland, DNA records are destroyed if someone is acquitted, apart from in a small number of serious cases.

Jeffreys dismissed the Home Office argument that keeping the genetic details of everyone, even those acquitted, helped solve other crimes. "If you just dumped a few hundred thousand people at random on to the database you'd get the same effect," he said.

"I have never seen any argument in favour of England, Wales and Northern Ireland being the only countries in the world to retain the DNA of entirely innocent people. There are serious issues of discrimination and stigmatisation of branches of society that are over-represented on the database."

He also expressed concern that the current system of trawling the database in search of DNA matches left open the possibility of miscarriages of justice.

"Let's suggest you have two samples that get swapped, and I stress that the likelihood is very low, but given the huge amount of case work one has to be mindful of the fact that there is not a zero probability, then you may get an error. You may have wrong profile and come up with wrong suspect.

"The key point in my view is that cold hits on the database really should be verified by a second round of testing. That would trap false matches which are exceedingly rare but could happen and have happened in one or two cases in the past. I would like to see that in place. And it is not done. It leaves open the possibility of an unsafe conviction."

Following the release from prison last month of Sean Hodgson, who served 27 years after being falsely convicted of murder, Jeffreys called for DNA techniques to be used in more cold case reviews.

"At the moment the way it works is that police look for [cold] cases where they can catch the culprit. What you don't see is the flip side. People who maintain their innocence for decades. Yes, there should be some sort of government funding.

"Spending 27 years in prison for a crime you didn't commit is a terrible thing by any measure of judgment. And DNA could cut through that and it could be used. The state simply has to take it on that the judicial system is not perfect.

"With modest expenditure, you could cut through some of these cases. The key thing is never mind who pays for it, it should be done."


Somali pirates attack US ship en route to Kenya
Vessel's owner says pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 April 2009 04.16 BST
Article history

Somali pirates attacked and damaged an American ship carrying humanitarian aid yesterday, but the ship and crew were safe under US navy escort, the military and shipping company said.

The pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the Liberty Sun as it carried food for famine-wracked African nations, said the vessel's owner, Liberty Maritime Corp. The ship was en route from Houston to Mombasa, Kenya, with a roughly 20-member crew, officials said.

After the ship reported being attacked around 11.30am US Eastern time (4.30pm BST), the USS Bainbridge - the destroyer that assisted in the rescue of the hijacked Maersk Alabama last week - sailed to its aid, said US navy Captain Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for US central command in Tampa, Florida.

The Bainbridge arrived at 5.30pm US Eastern time to find that the pirates had left, and there were no injuries, Hanzlik said.

The ship was continuing on its way to Mombasa late yesterday, he said.

The vessel had discharged thousands of tons of American food aid earlier this week in Port Sudan, in nearby Sudan, earlier this week, Lake Success, NY-based Liberty Maritime said in a statement.

Crew member Thomas Urbik, 26, had been emailing regular updates on the voyage to his mother, Katy, in Wheaton, Illinois. She was nervous as he told her on Sunday the vessel was heading into pirate-patrolled waters, but somewhat relieved to hear the crew was reporting its position to the US navy regularly.

Then, yesterday, came another message: "The one that stopped my heart - that said 'We're under attack,'" she said in an interview.

But then there was a follow-up email "that said he was safe and they had a naval escort taking them in", she said.

Urbik said she was "very relieved and grateful to God for protecting him and to our navy, and that we come from a country that can respond like that and protect our citizens".

Liberty Maritime also praised the government's response, as well as that of it crew. "We commend the entire crew for its professionalism and poise under fire," the company said.

President Barack Obama vowed on Monday to "halt the rise of piracy", but defiant Somali pirates seized a total of four more ships with 60 hostages yesterday.

The pirates have vowed vengeance for five colleagues slain by US and French forces in two hostage rescues since Friday.

news/notes2009.04.15c

[News Alert] from [The New York Times]

U.S. Planning to Reveal Data on Health of Top Banks

By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC DASH
Published: April 14, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is drawing up plans to disclose the conditions of the 19 biggest banks in the country, according to senior administration officials, as it tries to restore confidence in the financial system without unnerving investors.

The administration has decided to reveal some sensitive details of the stress tests now being completed after concluding that keeping many of the findings secret could send investors fleeing from financial institutions rumored to be weakest.

While all of the banks are expected to pass the tests, some are expected to be graded more highly than others. Officials have deliberately left murky just how much they intend to reveal — or to encourage the banks to reveal — about how well they would weather difficult economic conditions over the next two years.

As a result, indicating which banks are most vulnerable still runs some risk of doing what officials hope to avoid.

The decision on handling the stress tests underscores the delicate balancing act by the government, which has spent hundreds of billions to stabilize banks. Despite some signs of improvement in the financial system, many economists remain concerned that banks are still weighed down with toxic assets stemming from the housing downturn.

Until now, the Treasury De-partment has simply said that it will reveal the amounts of any new infusions of capital into banks that regulators judge to be at risk if the economic downturn is prolonged or the economy takes a further dive.

The administration’s hand may have been forced in part by the investment firm Goldman Sachs, which successfully sold $5 billion in new stock on Tuesday and declared that it would use the proceeds and other private capital to repay the $10 billion it accepted from the government in October.

That money came from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, and Goldman’s action was seen as a way of predisclosing to the markets the company’s confidence that it would pass its stress test with flying colors.

Goldman’s action has put pressure on other financial institutions to do the same or risk being judged in far worse shape by investors. The administration feared that details on healthier banks would inevitably leak out, leaving weaker banks exposed to speculation and damaging market rumors, possibly making any further bailouts more costly.

The Goldman move also puts pressure on the administration to decide what conditions will apply to institutions that return their bailout funds. It is unclear if Goldman, for example, will continue to be allowed to benefit from an indirect subsidy effectively worth billions of dollars from a federal government guarantee on its debt, a program the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation adopted last fall when the credit markets froze and it was virtually impossible for companies to raise cash. In ordinary times, regulators do not reveal the results of bank exams or disclose the names of troubled banks for fear of instigating bank runs or market stampedes out of a stock. But as top officials at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank focused on the intensity with which the markets would look for signals about the nation’s biggest banks at the conclusion of the stress tests, the administration reconsidered its earlier decision to say little.

“The purpose of this program is to prevent panics, not cause them,” said one senior official involved in the stress tests who declined to speak on the record because the extent of the disclosures were still being debated. “And it’s becoming clearer that we and the banks are going to have to explain clearly where each bank falls in the spectrum.”

Two senior government officials said on Tuesday that they were now likely to encourage the banks to reveal a range of information, perhaps including the size of losses the banks could suffer under each of the stress assumptions. Critics of the testing system, however, have questioned whether the hypothetical cases are extreme enough.

“The assessments are not yet complete,” Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Treasury, said. “When they are, we’ll work with the banks on how best to release the appropriate data and on what time frame to ensure fairness and minimize market uncertainty.”

Concern about the impact of the stress tests on the financial markets has been deep. Last week, the Federal Reserve, acting on behalf of itself and other regulators, sent e-mail messages to banks undergoing the stress tests, urging them to say nothing about the tests during the earnings season, including their capital needs or plans to return TARP money.

The banks, officials say, have not been told of any test results, but since they know what information they have had to provide, they can probably estimate their own results.

Despite the regulators’ warning, there is evidence that some banks are trying to signal to the markets early that their quarterly results will look good — and, by implication, that investors should not worry about the tests.

Citigroup and Bank of America made positive statements about the current quarter weeks ago, and last week, John Stumpf, the chief executive of Wells Fargo, said the bank was in good shape and expected a $3 billion profit this quarter. The Wells Fargo statement appeared to frustrate some Treasury officials, and regulators clearly fear it will be more difficult for them to issue negative assessments of banks that have already proclaimed that they are in good shape.

A Wells Fargo spokeswoman, Janis Smith, said the company would not comment on interactions with its regulator.

“Given current market conditions we felt it was important to share preliminary results as early as possible,” she said, “and we are not aware of any constituent who would have disagreed.”

After Goldman’s announcement on Monday that it planned to return the TARP funds, other big banks are looking for ways to do the same. Healthier banks are desperate to get out from the government’s thumb, believing the heightened scrutiny and the restrictions on executive compensation could cripple their businesses. But senior administration officials made clear they, not the banks, would decide whether to let the institutions return the money, and that would depend on their ability to raise fresh capital in the private markets.

“We are going to have some separation between the haves and have nots,” said Dino Kos, a banking analyst at Portales Partners, a research firm. “The downside of it is that you are bleeding capital out of the banking system at a time when the banks would be better off with more, rather than less.”

The Treasury Department says it has $134.5 billion in TARP funds. That includes a conservative estimate that the banks would pay back $25 billion, a sign the government will allow at least some big banks to return the money.

news/notes2009.04.15d

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

Obama: Economy Gaining Traction
Weak Retail Data Signal Confidence Remains Off-Kilter

By Neil Irwin and Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 15, 2009; Page A01

The president and the Federal Reserve chairman voiced cautious optimism yesterday that the economy could be beginning to stabilize. But the economy wasn't cooperating.

Retail sales dropped sharply in March, the government reported, and wholesale prices fell steeply. Both pieces of data underscore the hard slog the nation faces to emerge from its deep recession and the limitations of more optimistic talk from Washington. The stock market fell 2 percent, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.

President Obama and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke were hardly effusive. Obama acknowledged that "there will be more job loss, more foreclosures and more pain" before the recession ends. But both men, in separate speeches, spoke of an end to the sense of free-fall that enveloped the U.S. economy in the final months of 2008 and first months of 2009.

Their words reflect a new phase of the government response to the financial crisis and recession. Unlike a few months ago, the major policies meant to prop up the economy-- increased government spending, special lending programs and extensive efforts by the Fed to pump money into the economy -- are now largely in place. Thus, senior officials are trying to encourage Americans to be confident about the future, so that those who still have their jobs will feel more comfortable buying a house, a car or other large items.

The administration's actions "are starting to generate signs of economic progress," the president said at Georgetown University, noting that some lending markets are recovering along with other sunny signs. "This is all welcome and encouraging news," he said in a wide-ranging speech that garnered particular applause when he was critical of business practices on Wall Street.

Bernanke said that "recently we have seen tentative signs that the sharp decline in economic activity may be slowing," noting that housing and consumer spending may be flattening. "A leveling out of economic activity is the first step toward recovery," Bernanke told an audience at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Their comments are consistent with an emerging consensus among those who track the economy. The pace of economic decline appears to be slowing -- but the economy is still declining. There is a good chance that gross domestic product will continue shrinking, if at a milder rate, for at least one more quarter. And the job market is likely to remain poor for many months.

"A few months ago, the economy was in its deepest, darkest hours," said Diane Swonk, chief economist of Mesirow Financial, a financial services firm. "It's not dawn, yet, but it's better than it was. That's what Bernanke and Obama are responding to."

And the latest economic readings yesterday underscored that conditions remain weak. Retail sales fell 1.1 percent in March, compared with the previous month. Analysts had expected a slight gain.

The Commerce Department said that sales fell among every type of retailer except food and beverage and personal-care stores. The largest decrease was at electronics and appliance stores, which dropped 5.9 percent. Auto sales fell 2.3 percent compared with February, while clothing stores were down 1.8 percent.

When compared with the same month last year, total March sales dropped 9.4 percent.

"It's just telling us that consumer spending is not ready to rebound on a sustained basis," said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight.

Retail stocks took a beating on the news. Best Buy and Macy's plunged 7 percent. Bed, Bath and Beyond was down 4 percent, and Target dropped 3 percent. That was part of an overall weak day for the stock market. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.7 percent, or 138 points, to 7920.18, while the broader S&P 500 was down 2 percent, or 17 points, at 841.50. The tech-heavy Nasdaq retreated 1.7 percent, or 28 points, to 1625.72.

"People started to feel maybe we've turned the corner," said Bob Duffy, retail leader at FTI Consulting. "I think that people are going to look at this and think that the recovery is a little further off."

A new reading on inflation also contributed to that perception. Wholesale prices fell 1.2 percent in March; analysts had expected the producer price index to be unchanged. Although decreased inflation is normally good news, in the current environment it signals that the economy is so weak that product makers have little leverage to raise prices.

That said, inflation could be a bigger risk in the long run, because of the Fed's efforts to prop up the economy. In his speech, Bernanke said that the committee of Fed policymakers in charge of managing the money supply "treats its obligation to ensure price stability extremely seriously."

"Although inflation seems set to be low for a while," he said, "the time will come when the economy has begun to strengthen, financial markets are healing, and the demand for goods and services . . . begins to increase again."

The comments seemed designed to signal to businesses, investors and ordinary Americans that the Fed is taking the risk of inflation seriously. If peoples' inflation expectations rise, it can be self-fulfilling, hence Bernanke's attempt to dampen those concerns.

news/notes2009.04.15e

[Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

Illegal immigration slowdown in California
After years of rapid growth, the state's illegal immigrant population is increasing more gradually, a study finds. Many migrants are bypassing California for other states.

By Teresa Watanabe
April 15, 2009

In five years of social outreach at Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles, Guillermo Armenta has always seen more parishioners stream into this historic haven for illegal immigrants than leave. Until now.

In the last few months, he said, nearly a dozen parishioners have told them they plan to return to their homelands because jobs in construction, restaurants and the janitorial trade have dried up here. Others say they are discouraging their relatives from coming here because of the economic slowdown and workplace immigration raids that have snared scores of unauthorized workers.

"This is the first time I've seen people returning instead of coming," Armenta said.

A study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center has documented a change in trend: After years of rapid growth, illegal immigration is slowing down in California, with the state's share of the nation's estimated 11.9 million undocumented migrants dropping to 22% from 42% in 1990, the study showed.

The state still has the largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the nation, with 2.7 million -- a figure that has nearly doubled since 1990.

But, in a trend that began with California's recession in the 1990s, more migrants are bypassing the state for other areas of the country. The number of illegal immigrants outside the nation's six traditional "first stop" states of California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York has increased sevenfold, to nearly 5 million in 2008 from 700,000 in 1990, according to Jeffrey S. Passel, the study's coauthor and a Pew Center senior demographer.

The study, based on March 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, comes amid renewed momentum for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would include a legalization program for undocumented migrants. President Obama is expected to make a speech on immigration reform next month and launch public forums about the issue during the summer. Meanwhile, the nation's leading labor groups have reached a compromise about a guest worker program.

Passel said one of the study's most striking findings was the number of young families among the illegal immigrant population. Nearly half of the households headed by undocumented immigrants have young children, twice the rate of native-born households. And nearly three-fourths of their children were U.S.-born citizens.

The children of undocumented immigrants make up about 10% of California students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

"This is a different picture than we usually see of undocumented immigrants," Passel said in a teleconference. "We usually see the young men, day laborers on the corners."

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the slowdown in illegal immigration was welcome news -- but not for the right reasons.

"It's slowing down because the economy has tanked, not because the state is doing much to stop it," he said. "What you'd like to see is illegal immigration decline because we have rational policies in place that make it clear to people that you're not going to benefit by coming to the U.S. or California illegally."

But people such as Jorge-Mario Cabrera, an El Salvador native and immigration activist, said he was sending both messages to relatives to dissuade them from coming here.

"The message to family members is think twice before coming here," said Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "Not only will you find a dearth of job opportunities, you will also find an environment that is very anti-immigrant, with raids and deportations."

The study, co-written by D'Vera Cohn, a Pew Research Center senior writer, found that three-quarters of illegal immigrants are Latino, mostly from Mexico. On average, they tend to work in low-skilled jobs such as farming and construction, earn markedly less than the median national income and have lower educational levels than U.S.-born residents.

For instance, 47% of illegal immigrant adults ages 25-64 have less than a high school education compared with 8% for U.S.-born residents. The immigrants' 2007 median household income was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for the U.S.-born, and they did not attain markedly higher incomes the longer they lived in the United States, unlike legal immigrants, the study found.

news/notes2009.04.15f

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Stressing Over Stress Tests

By Daniel Politi
Posted Wednesday, April 15, 2009, at 6:32 AM ET

The New York Times leads with word that the White House has decided to reveal at least some results from the so-called stress tests that are currently being completed on the nation's 19 biggest banks. The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with North Korea kicking out United Nations nuclear inspectors and announcing it would never again participate in disarmament talks. Responding to the U.N. Security Council's criticism of its missile launch, which it described as an "unbearable insult," North Korea also said it would restart its nuclear program. USA Today leads with a look at how a program to secure the nation's ports is delayed for at least two more years because the Department of Homeland Security still lacks fingerprint readers that can be used with the high-tech ID cards those who work in secure port areas were forced to purchase.

The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post lead with President Obama's speech at Georgetown University, but the papers use the address as a jumping-off point to different issues. In what the LAT dubs "an economic State of the Union address," Obama made it clear he is ready to fight Congress in order to achieve the changes in education, energy, health care, and financial regulation that he had previously outlined. The WP notes that while Obama and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke tried to sound cautiously optimistic about the economy, "the economy wasn't cooperating." Retail sales fell 1.1 percent in March from February, which was accompanied by a drop in wholesale prices, signifying that the downturn is nowhere near over. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 2 percent.

The NYT notes that the discussion over what to release from the stress tests "underscores the delicate balancing act by the government" as it tries to build confidence in the financial system. Discussions are still underway about what exactly will be revealed, but officials seem to recognize that leaks would be inevitable and failing to disclose how the banks could weather a severe economic downturn might create even more uncertainty. "The purpose of this program is to prevent panics, not cause them," said one senior official. "And it's becoming clearer that we and the banks are going to have to explain clearly where each bank falls in the spectrum." Banks that are in better shape, of course, are eager to announce that fact from the hilltop, despite the fact that the government has asked them to remain quiet. What does this all add up to? "We are going to have some separation between the haves and have nots," one banking analyst said.

In a smart piece that for some reason isn't on the front page, the WSJ declares that the result of the stress tests combined with the banks' first-quarter results "could lay the groundwork for a new phase in the financial crisis." Up until now, the government has pretty much treated the banks equally, but in the next few weeks a few of the stronger banks could find themselves free of government interference while the others would still be dependent on taxpayer funds, effectively transforming "how investors and the government view the financial sector." Many are worried that by listing which banks are in the worst shape, the government would essentially be propping up some banks while diminishing the stature of others. That could, of course, turn into a vicious cycle that ultimately could make any further bailouts much more expensive.

The NYT speculates that the announcement by Goldman Sachs that it wants to repay the $10 billion it got from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program may have pushed the government to release some of the results from the stress test. In fact, Goldman is creating lots of (additional) headaches, not only for the government but also for other banks that are now under increased pressure to follow its lead. Although it might be tempting for taxpayers to cheer the move, as usual, things aren't quite so simple. "The downside of it is that you are bleeding capital out of the banking system at a time when the banks would be better off with more, rather than less," notes one banking analyst. The government has made it clear that it will accept the repayment of funds only from banks deemed healthy enough to operate without the assistance. And it is still trying to determine whether the banks that return the TARP money would still be able to enjoy other government benefits that have been extended to banks over the last few months.

In a piece inside, the NYT details how banks, including Goldman Sachs, have been benefiting from "an indirect subsidy" in the form of a federal government guarantee on their debts. Economists say the value of this assistance is "incalculable" because it allowed banks to continue operating at a time when the credit markets were completely frozen. In a must-read op-ed piece (well, must-read for anyone who's interested in the ins-and-outs of Goldman Sachs), William Cohan lays out a convincing case for why Goldman shouldn't be so cavalier about not needing government funds when it has benefitted every step of the way from the government's actions. Although Goldman Sachs was eager to announce it made a first-quarter profit of $1.8 billion, it failed to mention that because of a change in its fiscal year, it didn't have to include December into its numbers, a month when it lost $1 billion.

While Obama tried to sound an optimistic note on the economy yesterday, he didn't predict blue skies. "By no means are we out of the woods just yet," Obama said as he acknowledged that "there will be more job loss, more foreclosures and more pain." But ultimately, the overall optimistic notes "reflect a new phase of the government response to the financial crisis and recession," notes the Post. Now that the government has instituted several programs to prop up the economy, the government wants Americans to feel optimistic enough to open up their wallets.

The LAT points out that Obama may be caught in an unenviable Catch-22. As the economy improves, lawmakers are likely to feel less pressure to quickly act on Obama's broad agenda. Interest groups are gearing up to fight the administration's efforts, and lawmakers now appear to be more open to listen. So now Obama is making it clear that although things may be looking up, the country's long-term recovery is dependent on instituting the broad changes that he had previously outlined in his budget. Ultimately, Obama now has to try "to keep some fear alive," as the LAT puts it.

The WP's editorial board writes that while Obama's speech "was, on many fronts, very good," Obama "overstates his case in one crucial area and loses all candor and courage in another." Although overhauling the country's education, energy, and health care are all laudable goals, "these pursuits have little to do with the economic crisis." Meanwhile, Obama fully recognizes that entitlement programs are too expensive but doesn't outline how he would change them or where he would come up with significant savings in order to pay for health care reform.

So far though, it seems the people are still broadly supportive of Obama's actions. USAT fronts the results of a new poll that shows most Americans are glad government has stepped in to deal with the current economic mess. Still, a vast majority of Americans also want the government to take a step back once the economy recovers.

In the LAT's op-ed page, Marc Cooper struggles to understand what on earth all the people who will throw "an anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Party" are smoking. Cooper writes that he can "recall only a few outbreaks of such collective insanity as these tea parties in recent years. … [A]re common folks actually going to dump Earl Grey into Santa Monica Bay because they are outraged, simply infuriated, by the marginal tax rate rising 3% for millionaires?" They'll also supposedly protest the billions on bailouts but conveniently forget to mention former President Bush was the one who started them. "The Tea Party movement, more than anything else, is a rather garish display of a Republican right that seems to have lost not only the national elections but also any semblance of political bearings."

In the WP's op-ed page, Harold Meyerson takes a look at a poll that found that among the under-30 set, 37 percent of Americans prefer capitalism, while 33 prefer socialism, and 30 percent are undecided. Meyerson says these figures are nothing short of astounding and reveal that, particularly among the young, there is no longer a connection between socialism and anti-Americanism. It would be naive to think that all those who say they prefer socialism know what that means, but Meyerson says that the "demagogic right" shares at least part of the blame (or credit, depending how you look at it) for these changing attitudes. The only people who talk about socialism today are the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hanittys of the country, who can't stop spouting off about how a president with a huge approval rating is taking the country down that path. And, ironically enough, young people seem to be answering their calls of doom by asking where they can sign up. "Rush and his boys are doing what Gene Debs and his comrades never really could," writes Meyerson. "In tandem with Wall Street, they are building socialism in America."