Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Wachovia announces $25B deal

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published May 8, 2006

The deal was valued at $81.07 per share, the companies said. That represented a 15 percent premium above Golden West's closing price of $70.51 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia is the nation's fourth-largest bank, with the bulk of its business in the South and East. Acquiring Oakland, Calif.-based Golden West would give it an entry into California and the West.

Golden West, which operates its branches under the World Savings brand, is among the nation's biggest mortgage lenders.

The combined company will have assets of $669-billion, and its banks will be in 21 states and Washington, D.C. Wachovia will gain mortgage lending operations under the World Savings Bank name in 39 states.

Bush says he is waiting for ruling on Guantanamo

WASHINGTON - President Bush says he would like to close the detention center in Guantanamo in Cuba, but is waiting for a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether inmates can face military tribunals.

"Obviously, the Guantanamo issue is a sensitive issue for people," Bush told ARD German television. "I very much would like to end Guantanamo; I very much would like to get people to a court.

"And we're waiting for our Supreme Court to give us a decision as to whether the people need to have a fair trial in a civilian court or in a military court," he said in a transcript released Sunday.

Hundreds of people suspected of ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban - including some teenagers - have been swept up by the U.S. military and secretly shipped there since 2002.

The Supreme Court case mentioned by Bush was the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who once worked as a driver for Osama bin Laden.

Hamdan has spent nearly four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, and the Supreme Court has been asked to decide if he can be put on trial with fewer legal protections before a type of military tribunal last used in the World War II era. The Supreme Court is expected to decide in June whether military tribunals can hear the cases of the detainees.

Bush said in the interview with ARD on Thursday that either way the court rules, "they will get a trial which they, themselves, were unwilling to give to the people that they're willing to kill."

United Airlines shows video of military jobs

CHICAGO - Hit by one of its most difficult recruiting periods in decades, the Defense Department is paying United Airlines to show passengers a Pentagon-produced video touting military jobs.

The 13-minute video Today's Military is played between standard in-flight programming, such as NBC sitcoms or Discovery Channel productions, the Chicago Tribune reported.

It profiles five military jobs, none in dangerous regions such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The video shows only one soldier beyond U.S. borders: an Army animal-care specialist on a humanitarian mission in Thailand.

The Defense Department is paying United about $36,000 to run the video from April 17 through May 17, said Lt. Bradley Terrill, project officer for the video.

Tom Bivins, a professor of media ethics at the University of Oregon, said the military's omission of production credits on the video is questionable. "People need to realize they are being advertised to," Bivins said.

Truck with radioactive material rolls over

SELIGMAN, Ariz. - A semitrailer truck carrying low-level radioactive items rolled over Sunday on Interstate 40 near this northern Arizona community when it rear-ended another vehicle.

The accident, which killed a passenger in the truck, was not threatening public health, said Officer Tim Mason, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

The truck driver was critically injured and flown to a hospital. No other injuries were reported.

The truck was carrying protective clothing, towels, tools and other items used in processing radioactive material. The final destination of the items wasn't known, Mason said.

[Last modified May 8, 2006, 08:16:58]