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The Weekly News in it's efforts to honor all mothers around the world will be putting out a special Mother's Day issue next week.

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Thank you,
A. Wallace

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Dollar touches one-year low against euro

The dollar recovered after hitting fresh one-year lows against the
euro and sterling on market expectations that the Federal Reserve
will soon end its cycle of tightening US interest rates, analysts
said.

The euro struck 1.2787 dollars in early European trading on Monday,
its highest point since May 12, 2005.

In late European trade, the euro fell back to 1.2725 dollars from
1.2726 dollars late on Friday in New York.

The dollar fell to 111.48 yen, from 112.46 dollars on Friday.

Sterling hit 1.8688 dollars in early trading, its highest level
since May 12, before falling back to 1.8588 dollars, unchanged from
its level on Friday.

"The soft April jobs report at the end of last week appeared to seal
the case for only one more interest rate hike from the Fed before a
pause," Calyon analyst Mitul Kotecha said, explaining the fall of
the dollar earlier in the day.

Dealers said that the dollar had recovered later Monday as investors
adopted more cautious positions ahead of a decision on US interest
rates on Wednesday.

With an increase in the key interest rate to 5.00 percent seen as a
done deal, the focus is on the post-meeting statement for any hints
on whether the Fed will pause in its two-year monetary-tightening
cycle.

"There are still some expectations that the Fed will raise its
interest rates to 5.25 percent but the statement is likely to be
dovish," said Mamoru Ashimoto, a deputy general manager at Shinsei
Bank.

US job creation weakened last month to its slowest pace since after
Hurricane Katrina in August but wages took off in a warning sign for
the Federal Reserve, dealers said.

US employers added 138,000 new jobs in April, the slowest pace since
October and much less than Wall Street's forecast of 200,000.

Comments from European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet on
Monday had also helped to support the euro in early trading,
analysts said.

Trichet warned on Monday that policymakers would have to work to
avoid a repeat of the knock-on effects of high oil prices that
gripped the world in the 1970s, adding to expectations that the ECB
will raise rates next month.

The yen was supported also by comments from Bank of Japan governor
Toshihiko Fukui suggesting that Japanese interest rates could start
to rise soon.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Fukui said the first stage of the
BoJ's move away from quantitative easing is nearing completion and
that excess liquidity in the Japanese economy will be gone in "a few
weeks".

The euro was changing hands at 1.2725 dollars against 1.2726 late on
Friday, 141.87 yen (143.13), 0.6845 pounds (0.6851) and 1.5617 Swiss
francs (1.5610).

The dollar stood at 111.48 yen (112.46) and 1.2272 Swiss francs
(1.2265).

The pound was being traded at 1.8588 dollars (1.8588).

On the London Bullion Market, the price of an ounce of gold fell to
675.50 dollars per ounce, from 678 dollars late on Friday.

LONDON (AFP)

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Bush faces new battle over CIA nomination

The White House says it will nominate General Michael Hayden to run
the CIA and defended the move to name a top military officer to run
the civilian intelligence agency.

"General Hayden is the president's nominee" to replace Porter Goss,
who resigned abruptly as CIA director Friday, National Security
Advisor Stephen Hadley told CNN television.

News that Hayden, who ran the military's National Security Agency
(NSA) from 1999 to 2005, leaked out at the weekend and lawmakers
have expressed doubts about President George W. Bush's decision.

Hayden is currently deputy to National Intelligence Director John
Negroponte.

Lawmakers, led by influential Republicans, said they opposed a
military officer running the civilian Central Intelligence Agency.

Hadley said the Air Force general's record in transforming the NSA
bureaucracy made him the right choice to lead the CIA, which has
been damaged by intelligence failures over the September 11 attacks
and the Iraq war.

"The issue is whether he is the best person to do this job and the
president strongly believes he is," Hadley said on ABC television.

If approved by Congress, he will take over the human-intelligence-
oriented CIA which has faced a storm of criticism over its failure
to detect the September 11, 2001 attacks and the faulty information
on weapons of mass destruction which Bush used to justify the
invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The CIA leadership has been infuriated by leaks from within the
agency over intelligence and political matters.

But top US lawmakers have expressed concern about putting a military
officer in charge of the agency, setting up a possible congressional
showdown over Hayden with the White House.

Ruling Republican and opposition Democratic legislators cited
Hayden's support for a controversial domestic spying program as a
worry.

"Bottom line, I do believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place,
at the wrong time," Representative Pete Hoekstra, a Republican who
heads the House Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday.

"We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at
this time," Hoekstra said.

"The danger of having the military take over intelligence is that
the military has a very different perspective on the world," he
said. "They're worried about today and wars and threats to the
United States in the short term and how we might respond militarily."

Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that Hayden could ease those
concerns by resigning as an Air Force general and naming civilians
as his deputies.

Still, Roberts, who praised the general's intelligence expertise,
would not say whether he would vote for Hayden's nomination. His
committee must endorse the nomination and send it to the full Senate
for approval.

"I'm not in a position to say that I am for General Hayden and will
vote for him," he said.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said: "You can't have the
military, I think, control most of the major aspects of
intelligence."

But Hadley pointed out that there have already been military
officers in charge at the CIA.

Lawmakers expect to grill Hayden over the NSA's eavesdropping
program, which some believe might have broken laws against spying on
US citizens.

"I have some very pointed questions," Republican Senator Arlen
Specter, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News. "I
want to know what the program is. We cannot judge its
constitutionality without knowing what the program is."

Goss, a Republican politician and former CIA agent, quit as the
agency's leader after less than two years in the job.

He upset the US spy establishment when he named some of his
congressional allies to top jobs and used strongarm tactics in a bid
to reform agency. The White House has denied reports that Goss was
forced out.

WASHINGTON (AFP)

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Former Aide to Rep. Ney Pleads Guilty

A former top aide to Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R
Ohio, pleaded guilty Monday in the Jack Abramoff influence peddling
scandal, admitting he conspired to corrupt Ney, his staff and other
members of Congress with trips, free tickets, jobs, meals and
campaign events.

The criminal investigation of Abramoff's lobbying operation has now
claimed Abramoff and three former congressional staffers: Neil Volz
on Monday, as well as Tony Rudy and Michael Scanlon, who both worked
for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

All four are now government witnesses whose prison terms may depend
in part on how cooperative they are with federal prosecutors in the
investigation involving lawmakers, their aides and members of the
Bush administration.

"They're singing for their supper," Ney lawyer Mark Tuohey said of
Abramoff, Volz, Rudy and Scanlon. The lawyer said many of the
allegations regarding Ney are incorrect and that "the government has
been sold a bill of goods by Mr. Abramoff."

Tuohey said Volz was under "extraordinary pressure" to assist the
Justice Department probe.

Volz said he engaged in a conspiracy, the intent of which was "to
influence members of Congress in violation of the law."

In a nine-page document that focused on Ney's conduct, Volz
enumerated 16 actions he said his old boss took on behalf of
Abramoff clients. During the period from January 2000 through April
2004, Volz said Abramoff and his lobbyists gave Ney and members of
his staff trips to Lake George in New York state, New Orleans, the
Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., in 2003, and a weeklong golfing retreat
to the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

In addition, Volz wrote, Abramoff provided the congressman and his
staff numerous tickets to concerts and sporting events in the
Washington, D.C., area; regular meals and drinks at restaurants
including Abramoff's restaurant Signatures, and unreported use of
Abramoff's box suites at the MCI Center Arena in Washington and
Camden Yards Stadium in Baltimore for political fundraisers for Ney
and for candidates and political organizations he supported.

Tuohey said the congressman and his staff paid their own expenses on
the trips that were inside the United States and that the
congressman is "not really" a golfer. Tuohey said Ney's reason for
going to Scotland was "because of the official business portion" — a
meeting with representatives of the Scottish Parliament and a
separate meeting with U.S. military officials. A scheduled meeting
with some representatives of the British Parliament did not occur.

Ney's public filing for the Scotland trip took place two years
afterward, a mixup that Ney's legal team says was due to papers
being misfiled or mislaid.

Volz, 35, worked for Ney from 1995 until early 2002, when he went to
work for Abramoff.

Are these accusations accurate? U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal
Huvelle asked Volz during a court proceeding.

"Yes, your honor," Volz replied.

"Mr. Volz, how do you wish to plead?" asked the judge.

"Guilty, your honor," Volz replied. Volz faces up to five years in
prison and a $250,000 fine.

The court papers did not detail the conduct of other congressmen,
but it said that Ney, acting with Volz and others, agreed to:

_Sponsor legislation to lift a ban against commercial gambling by
the Tigua Indian tribe, an Abramoff client in Texas.

_Sign a letter opposing creation of a commission to study Indian
gambling.

_Assist Abramoff in obtaining government property for Abramoff's
private school in Maryland.

The court papers also say that after asking Volz what Abramoff
wanted the congressman to say, Ney assured the Tiguas in Texas that
Abramoff was effectively representing them and that Ney would
continue to press for legislation on their behalf.

In a 2003 meeting to assist Abramoff clients, Ney told Housing
Secretary Mel Martinez that one of Ney's priorities would be housing
for American Indians.

Among the projects on which Volz worked was securing a contract for
Foxcom Wireless, an Israeli communications company, to improve cell
phone reception in House office buildings.

In a conference phone call with reporters, Ney's lawyers
acknowledged that the congressman met with Abramoff about a wireless
contract for the House buildings. The lawyers added that Ney, then
chairman of the House Administration Committee, also met with Haley
Barbour, now the governor of Mississippi, who was lobbying for a
competing firm at the time. Ney has said he would have been within
his rights to award the contract on his own, but instead held an
open competition and awarded it based on merit to the firm
represented by Abramoff, Foxcom Wireless.

"The Department of Justice has now appeared in federal court four
times and has been unable to even allege that Congressman Ney was
bribed," Ney spokesman Brian Walsh said in a defiant statement.

The conspiracy charge that Volz pleaded guilty to states that in
exchange for a "stream of things of value" supplied to Ney, the
congressman agreed to take favorable official action on behalf of
clients of Abramoff and Volz.

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

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Text messages give '411' on teen sex

San Francisco just launched the nation's first text-messaging
program aimed to shoot instant cellphone messages to sexually active
young people seeking advice about sex and health. The service
focuses on everything from what to do "if ur condom broke" to whom
to call "if ur feeling down ... like u wanna xcape ur life."

Written in the abbreviated style of text messaging, SexInfo is open
to anyone with cellphone text messaging. But it is aimed at sexually
active 12- to 24-year-olds in San Francisco, especially blacks,
whose rates of sexually transmitted diseases have increased in the
past year, says Jacqueline McCright of the San Francisco Department
of Public Health.

Kids, McCright says, "often do not get accurate information from
their friends, and many times their parents don't discuss sexual
issues with them. This is a way that they can get quick, easy
information confidentially."

The service, based on a London program that launched in 2004,
provides instant, automated responses to specific questions about
pregnancy, HIV, sex and depression. Kids send a text message to
36617 (Metro PCS users use a different number) with the
word "SexInfo." They are then sent a list of codes from which to
choose.

"I think kids will use it," says Alexis McBride, 16, a junior at
John O'Connell High School in San Francisco, who says she
sends "about 100" text messages a day. "Kids text a lot," she adds.

Organizers expect other cities to pick up on the program and are
hoping it develops into a national service where live operators
answer text messages in real time.

"We launched San Francisco as a small pilot to show what the
possibilities are," says Deb Levine, executive director of Internet
Sexuality Information Services (ISIS), the non-profit organization
hired to run SexInfo. "It's very clear that public health advocates
are watching San Francisco to see what we're doing - I have gotten e
mails from colleagues across the country."

The city health department paid ISIS $40,000 to develop SexInfo and
will spend $20,000 to market it and about $2,500 a month to maintain
it. Messages direct youths to San Francisco health services.

Jennifer Hartstein, psychologist with Montefiore Medical Center in
the Bronx, N.Y., worries that text responses lack detail and will
help teens avoid parental involvement, giving them one more way that
they can keep secrets from parents. Still, she calls the service "a
wonderful and innovative response" to the problem of sexually
transmitted diseases among teens.

By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY

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