News Blast: Lil Wayne Is Going to Jail Today

Lil Wayne Is Going to Jail Today
Today Lil Wayne is expected to begin his prison term. The 27-year-old rapper is expected to serve about eight months, with good behavior, for having a loaded gun on his tour bus. Wayne plead guilty to the weapons-possession charge in July 2007. [NY Times]

Wesley Snipes Discusses New Film "Brooklyn's Finest"

By Kam Williams

Born in Orlando on July 31, 1962 to Marian, a teacher’s aide, and Wesley, Sr., and an aircraft engineer, Wesley Trent Snipes was raised in the South Bronx, although the family moved back to Florida before he was able to graduate from NYC’s famed, Fiorello La Guardia High School of Music and Art. Still, Wesley went on to study drama in college at SUNY Purchase’s prestigious acting conservatory.

However, he dropped out during his junior year to pursue his passion professionally. In Hollywood, the versatile thespian’s stage and Shotokan karate training came in handy in helping him land a variety of roles. The accomplished actor/black belt’s long list of credits on his enviable resume’ include the Blade Trilogy, Jungle Fever, White Men Can’t Jump, U.S. Marshals, Waiting to Exhale, Mo’ Better Blues, New Jack City, Murder at 1600, The Fan, Demolition Man, Passenger 57, To Wong Foo and The Art of War.



Wesley’s many accolades include a couple of NAACP Image Awards and making People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World List. And he and his second wife, artist Nikki Park, are raising their four children both in the U.S. and South Korea. Here, he talks about his latest film, Brooklyn’s Finest, a gritty, NYC crime saga, directed by Antoine Fuqua, which co-stars Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Ellen Barkin, Lela Rochon, Will Patton and Vincent D’Onofrio.

Read More..

Boehner: Reconciliation Is Here, And It Aint Pretty

Posted By Erik Wong

GOP Leader:

Americans are asking “where are the jobs?” but out-of-touch Washington Democrats continue to focus on a massive government takeover of health care that is destroying jobs right now through the uncertainty it is causing for small businesses. Now Washington Democrats are getting ready to use a toxic legislative maneuver to try and ram through this unpopular, unaffordable health care bill.

Reconciliation has been called many things – “controversial,” “divisive,” “arcane,” “nasty,” a “trick,” an “end-run,” fraught with “all sorts of complications,” and “unhealthy for the country” – but ‘simple’ is not one of them. There’s also bipartisan agreement that reconciliation isn’t bipartisan: Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said it would “ensure that health care is perceived as a partisan exercise.” White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has called it “a club” to wield against Republicans. At least 18 Senate Democrats oppose reconciliation, for reasons ranging from it being “an outrage” to “very ill-advised” to “the worst.”

The future of one-sixth of our economy should not be decided this way. The American people have spoken: they want us to scrap this bill and start over with a clean sheet of paper and a step-by-step, common-sense approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses.

RECONCILIATION: ANYTHING BUT SIMPLE
Read More....

Times: Paterson enlisted two state employees to contact victim

The latest from the New York Times’ investigation of Gov. David Paterson’s role in the domestic violence case brought against his top aide David Johnson is a potential game-ender for the governor: It suggests that Paterson recruited press aide Marissa Shorenstein to convince the woman “to publicly describe the incident as nonviolent,” which would contradict the alleged victim’s earlier account of the Oct. 31 episode.

Shorenstein’s attempt to contact the women — which was made after the victim had dropped charges against Johnson — was unsuccessful. Sources quoted in the article note that both Paterson and Shorenstein were at that point still under the impression that the case did not involve violence.

In addition, the story says that Paterson enlisted Deneane Brown, an employee of the Division of Housing and Urban Renewal, to contact the woman — a mutual acquaintance of the governor and Brown. Several contacts between the two preceded the victim’s decision to drop the charges.

Nancy Pelosi thinks you are too stupid to know what is in your best interest

Appearing on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, Nancy Pelosi told Democratic Representatives to fall on their swords for Obamacare.

By R.D. Walker
VARGAS: What do you say to your members, when it does come to the House to vote on this, who are in real fear of losing their seats in November if they support you now?

PELOSI: Well first of all our members — every one of them — wants health care. I think everybody wants affordable health care for all Americans. They know that this will take courage. It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare. And many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill.

But the American people need it, why are we here? We’re not here just to self perpetuate our service in Congress. We’re here to do the job for the American people. To get them results that gives them not only health security, but economic security, because the health issue is an economic issue for — for America’s families.

“We’re not here just to self perpetuate our service in Congress. We’re here to do the job for the American people.” Interesting. She is claiming that doing the “job for the American people” means thwarting their will.

The implication here, of course, is that the voters don’t know what is in their best interest and that it is the job of congress to give them Obamacare whether they want it or not. She is telling Democratic Representatives to ignore their constituents even if it means their constituents angrily remove them from office. She is telling Democratic Representatives that representation means passing legislation against the will of those they represent. She sees herself as a shepherd tending a flock of foolish animals.

The notion that Rahm Emanuel has been the voice of reason — and Obama should have listened to him.

BY Ann Althouse


Jason Horowitz writes in WaPo:

Emanuel ... could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.

... [Emanuel] was not aggressive enough in trying to persuade a singularly self-assured president and a coterie of true-believer advisers that "change you can believe in" is best pursued through accomplishments you can pass.

By all accounts, Obama selected Emanuel for his experience in the Clinton White House, his long relationships with the media and Democratic donors, and his well-established -- and well-earned -- reputation as a political enforcer, all of which neatly counterbalanced Obama's detached, professorial manner....
... Obama went for the historically far-reaching, but more legislatively difficult, achievements that he and his campaign-forged inner circle believe they were sent to Washington to deliver.
Read the whole thing. There's some great detail about closing Guantanamo and trying KSM. I don't know who the sources are for Horowitz's article. It reads like PR for Emanuel. Eric Holder is portrayed as stuck on abstract principle, while David Axelrod is blinded by his "strong view" of Obama as a big "historic character."

[A]n early Obama supporter who is close to the president and spoke on the condition of anonymity... blamed Obama's charmed political life for creating a self-confidence and trust in principle that led to an "indifference to doing the small, marginal things a White House could do to mitigate the problems on the Hill. Rahm knows the geography better."
Hmm. Does Rahm talk about himself in the third person? It rings true though! This does sound like what history will record as Obama's tragic flaw: overconfidence and attachment to abstract principles (borne of the great good luck of fitting the template others had so much hope for).

Fury at Bunning as Dems Ready Broad UI Extension Bill

By: David Dayen

Jim Bunning’s one-man filibuster of a temporary extension of unemployment benefits (which actually may not have been a one-man filibuster at all) has drawn fire from Congressional Democrats today, even while leaders today introduced a broader measure, including a one-year extension of UI and the COBRA subsidy, along with dozens of other tax extenders and additional measures.

Democrats are certainly trying to make a political point over Bunning’s rejection of unanimous consent to move a short-term extension on several items which expired on Sunday. Bunning continued his refusal this morning.

Not only have hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans lost their unemployment benefits (14,000 in Bunning’s home state of Kentucky) and 65% subsidy to pay for COBRA health benefits. In addition, doctors just received a 21% pay cut for Medicare patients, as per the so-called “sustainable growth rate” (SGR). Congress typically patches the SGR to avoid the cut, known colloquially as the “doc fix,” but the patch elapsed, leading to the immediate reimbursement cut. As a result, doctors may refuse to accept millions of Medicare patients. Likewise, an expiration on highway funding means that thousands of construction workers just got furloughed for construction and infrastructure projects.

Also, in perhaps the greatest suffering you can extend to any American, millions of satellite TV subscribers in rural areas could lose access to local TV channels, as a result of an expiring mandate on satellite providers.

McClatchy actually had a good breakdown of all the expired deadlines triggered by Bunning’s action.




Progressives have begun to organize against the Bunning filibuster, and locals in Louisville have a protest scheduled for tomorrow at his office.

This, in addition to the torrent of criticism from national Democrats, is starting to get to Bunning. He ran away from reporters today.

Said Bunning: “I’m not talking to anybody.”

When producers asked him to stay and talk on camera, Bunning “walked toward the elevator and shot the middle finger over his head.”

A video clip shows Bunning kicking correspondent Jon Karl off the elevator, yelling “Excuse me! This is a Senator’s only elevator!”

(That’s not actually true.)

Even Jon Kyl, a member of the Republican leadership, said this weekend that the Senate would pass a temporary UI extension over Bunning’s objections, though he clearly hasn’t lifted a finger to get Bunning to relent.

Even while Democrats pressure Bunning to lift his objection to a temporary extension, however, Harry Reid and Max Baucus have readied a bill that would extend unemployment benefits and the COBRA subsidy to the end of the year, and offer retroactive payments to anyone who lost their benefits. The American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act has a number of provisions beyond that, however, including SBA loan programs for small businesses, disaster relief and flood insurance provisions, an important extension of federal assistance for state Medicaid programs that states with struggling budgets sorely need, retroactive extensions of highway funding, the doc fix and the satellite TV mandate, and a series of “tax extenders” that provide tax cuts which expired late last year.

You can access the bill at the Senate Finance Committee website. The tax extenders are a very mixed bag, with some important credits for renewable energy companies, teacher expenses (so they don’t have to shell out for their own classroom supplies) and others, but also corporate giveaways like the R&D credit and many others. Basically these are many of the measures Reid stripped from an earlier jobs bill, which passed last week.

But this bill would cost much more than that $85 billion dollar measure – $150 billion, to be exact. There are only about $37 billion in offsets in the bill.

So while Bunning feels the heat from Democrats, the bill that would cover unemployment and COBRA till the end of the year, along with a multitude of other measures, could get a vote as early as this week, overriding Bunning’s UC objections.

UPDATE: Looks like we could see an estate tax change attached to this bill as an amendment. Keep in mind that the changes sought to the estate tax could deprive the government of at least $233 BILLION in revenue over ten years, all of it going to super-rich heirs to family fortunes.

Ford says he could have beaten NY Sen. Gillibrand

NEW YORK — Former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. returned to his job as an MSNBC pundit on Tuesday, one day after announcing he wouldn't run for U.S. Senate in New York, and said he would have won the primary but worried that the intraparty battle would have emboldened Republicans.

Ford, who represented a Tennessee district in the U.S. House, had been publicly exploring a possible Democratic primary challenge in New York, but announced Monday night in a New York Times op-ed that he wouldn't run. He said Tuesday on MSNBC that he hopes "another opportunity presents itself."

Ford said he doesn't want to divide the party and risk strengthening the Republicans' chance to take Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's seat. She was appointed last year when Hillary Rodham Clinton became U.S. secretary of state.

"It would have been a close, tough, tough fight," he said Tuesday. "The last thing I wanted to see was for this seat to go Republican."

Ford moved to New York after losing the 2006 U.S. Senate race in Tennessee, taking a job with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He had spent the past seven weeks traveling the state and meeting with voters, Democratic dignitaries and elected officials to gauge support for a potential campaign.

Many in the Democratic establishment are backing Gillibrand, including the White House and New York Sen. Charles Schumer, and sought to discourage Ford from running. In Ford's op-ed, he complained of the party's "campaign to bully me out of the race," claiming it showed Democrats are nervous.

Gillibrand ignored Ford when he first declared he was testing the waters. But after Ford began regularly challenging her, the race that was not yet a race quickly turned ugly.

Ford called Gillibrand various names, including a hypocrite, a liar, an unelected senator and a parakeet who takes positions based on whatever party leaders tell her to do.

Gillibrand sought to paint Ford as a wealthy carpetbagger who cares only about his Wall Street friends and who has tried to hide the conservative streak that made him popular in Tennessee.

As a congressman, Ford described himself as "pro-life," said illegal immigrants should be deported if caught and voted for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Gillibrand spokesman Glen Caplin said that no matter who her opponent is this fall she would "wage a vigorous campaign on her strong record and her vision for New York."

The news about Ford was greeted with relief by some Democrats who feared a protracted primary battle would leave them vulnerable to a Republican challenge in November. State party chairman Jay Jacobs said Ford "sacrificed his opportunity for the greater good."

"I'm very pleased that he made that decision," Jacobs said. "I had stressed to him we need the Democratic party unified."

Those believed to be considering runs on the GOP line include real estate tycoon and Daily News publisher Mortimer Zuckerman and former George W. Bush administration adviser Dan Senor. Attorney Bruce Blakeman has declared his candidacy.

Ford would have faced the challenge of running without wide support from New York's Democratic power brokers.

Gillibrand has spent months lining up endorsements from labor unions, politicians and interest groups crucial to Democrats running statewide races. She has been endorsed by leaders of 59 of New York's 62 county party organizations, including those in Democrat-heavy Manhattan and the Bronx.

A Historic and Dangerous Senate Mistake

By BILL FRIST



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that while Democrats have a number of options to complete health-care legislation, he may use the budget reconciliation process to do so. This would be an unprecedented, dangerous and historic mistake.



Budget reconciliation is an arcane Senate procedure whereby legislation can be passed using a lowered threshold of requisite votes (a simple majority) under fast-track rules that limit debate. This process was intended for incremental changes to the budget—not sweeping social legislation.



Using the budget reconciliation procedure to pass health-care reform would be unprecedented because Congress has never used it to adopt major, substantive policy change. The Senate's health bill is without question such a change: It would fundamentally alter one-fifth of our economy.



The first use of this special procedure was in the fall of 1980, as the Democratic majority in Congress moved to reduce entitlement programs in response to candidate Ronald Reagan's focus on the growing deficit. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, reconciliation was used to reduce deficit projections and to enact budget enforcement mechanisms. In early 2001, with projected surpluses well into the future, it was used to return a portion of that surplus to the public by changing tax rates.



Senators of both parties have assiduously avoided using budget reconciliation as a mechanism to pass expansive social legislation that lacks bipartisan support. In 1993, Democratic leaders—including the dean of Senate procedure and an author of the original Budget Act, Robert C. Byrd— appropriately prevailed on the Clinton administration not to use reconciliation to adopt its health-care agenda. It was used to pass welfare reform in 1996, an entitlement program, but the changes had substantial bipartisan support.



In 2003, while I was serving as majority leader, Republicans used the reconciliation process to enact tax cuts. I was approached by members of my own caucus to use reconciliation to extend prescription drug coverage to millions of Medicare recipients. I resisted. The Congress considered the legislation under regular order, and the Medicare Modernization Act passed through the normal legislative procedure in 2003.



The same concerns I expressed about using this procedure to fast-track prescription drug expansions with a simple majority vote were similarly expressed by Majority Leader Reid, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, and others last year when they chose not to use the procedure to enact their health-care legislation. Over the past several months, an additional 15 Democratic senators have expressed opposition to using this tool.



The concerns about using reconciliation to bypass Senate rules which do not limit debate reflect the late New York Democratic Sen. Pat Moynihan's admonishment—that significant policy changes impacting almost all Americans should be adopted with bipartisan support if the legislation is to survive and be supported in the public arena.



Applying the reconciliation process is dangerous because it would likely destroy its true purpose, which is to help enact fiscal policy consistent with an agreed-upon congressional budget blueprint. Worse, using reconciliation to amend a bill before it has become law in order to avoid the normal House and Senate conference procedure is a total affront to the legislative process.



Finally, enacting sweeping health-care reform through reconciliation is a mistake because of rapidly diminishing public support for the strictly partisan Senate and House health bills. The American people disdain the backroom deals that have been cut with the hospital and pharmaceutical industries, the unions, the public display of the "cornhusker kickback," etc. The public will likely—and in my opinion, rightly—rebel against the use of a procedural tactic to lower the standard threshold for passage because of a lack of sufficient support in the Senate.



Americans want bipartisan solutions for major social and economic issues; they don't want legislative gimmicks that force unpopular legislation through the Senate. Thomas Jefferson once referred to the Senate as "the cooling saucer" of the legislative process. Using budget reconciliation in this way would dramatically alter the founders' intent for the Senate, and transform it from cooling saucer to a boiling teapot of partisanship.



Mr. Reid was right to rule out this option when this saga began last year. He would be wise to abandon it today.



Mr. Frist served as U.S. Senate majority leader from 2003–2007.

Mouse Clicks the New Brute Force in Politics

By Dave Cribbin



With the election of Scott Brown to the Senate in Massachusetts, Internet-enabled voters have given the political parties and their machine politicians the same bruising that a whole host of formerly successful business models have received, while barely lifting a finger in the process. They have bested the legions of campaign workers and party bosses by going straight to the candidate digitally (note: none of these puns are intended;) a political progression that has rendered the power structure of the Political Parties irrelevant. Politicians can no longer count on the machine to protect them. What's in store for Representatives who refuse to represent is going to rock their worlds!



It's no coincidence that the Big City Newspapers have experienced this same digital beat down; they are a glaring example of an industry that has also lost its focus: reporting news. As a result, their business models and bottom lines that rely on the continuing trust and confidence of their readers have been crushed. More and more, people get their news online these days, with fewer and fewer of them perusing the offerings of the MSM. Newspaper editors are left seething in a state of denial as they watch their circulation numbers and ad revenue continue to plummet. So too, the C's — as in the ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC — have suffered similar losses in viewership and ad revenue. Why have they fallen so far, so fast? The answer is simple. Their own voters, the readers and viewers who vote daily with their remote controls and pocketbooks, are no longer confident that they are reporting the truth to them. They have been punished in the market place because they stopped representing the truth to their readers.



Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts Senate election is just the latest example of the incredible power of the Internet to organize and flatten distribution channels. The money-bomb posted on Glenn Reynold's Instapundit and elsewhere to solicit campaign contributions first met, then exceeded, then nearly doubled Scott Brown's Campaign fundraising goal as contributions poured in from all over the country. A couple of lines of code had replaced the many hundreds of bodies of the party's machine and nullified two of the biggest advantages of incumbency: name recognition and the ability that comes with it to raise money. This new way to political prominence is brought to you courtesy of ordinary people and their mouse clicks. Ouch, that's got to sting!



Martha Coakley and the political elites, who were trying to save "Ted Kennedy's seat" by flying to Washington and holding a wine and cheese party for the big Pharma and health-care lobbyists (tell me again, who was she representing?) were no match for the ordinary people who voted first with their Visa and debit cards and then when it mattered most: their ballots on election day. Poor Martha, having to go all the way to Washington to scoop up campaign contributions. It just seems so inconvenient.



This new Digital Revolution is being fought by patriots armed not with pitch forks and ax handles but by voters armed with PC's using Visa and debit cards as ammunition to defeat those who claim to represent their interests, but instead serve their real masters: the special interest groups and the party. They organize in digital town hall meetings, and gather at rallies to show their support for candidates who will truly represent their values.



And so, the latest business that has been forever changed by the power of the Internet is politics, an industry whose business model had for too long counted on brute force instead of brain power to carry the day. Mouse clicks are the new brute force in this unfamiliar political paradigm. It's about to get real interesting.



Dave Cribbin, President of Tailwind Capital, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Capitol South

Republicans Face a Choice in Virginia

By Adam Bitely



Republicans and conservatives throughout the country are near giddy as they survey the prospects for the 2010 elections. As the policies of Obama and the mobbed-up Congress of Nancy Pelosi become more exposed, the American people are running from them in droves. All predictions are that the GOP will have a banner year and may reclaim a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. And while the odds are that Harry Reid's Democrats retain their Senate majority, it is certain to be much more narrow a margin.


But scratch the surface of this euphoria and a nagging fear is prevalent. What if, the fear whispers, the Republicans take back the majority and immediately revert to the same weak, vapid, self-destructive behavior that characterized the Republican Congresses that so repulsed the public before? Have they really changed? Are they willing to boldly do those things necessary to save the Republic?


Early signs coming out of Virginia are not encouraging. In 2009, Virginia elected a Republican Governor by a landslide. The vote was as much a repudiation of Obama and his socialist policies as it was for the victor, Bob McDonnell. The GOP saw a large increase in their numbers in the State Assembly. If ever there was a mandate, McDonnell and the Republicans have it.


The outgoing Governor and now Democrat National Chairman Tim Kaine left a huge fiscal mess. McDonnell has had to face a $4 billion shortfall. But, any new Republican Congress in 2011 will face an even more daunting situation. So, how McDonnell addresses the gaping deficit can tell Americans a lot about how many inside the GOP will deal with Obama's $1.5 trillion deficit next year.


Three items in the McDonnell approach to the budget clearly show a lack of courage and resolve, and demonstrate that the establishment GOP may not have learned a thing from their brief time in exile.


First, while joining in on the attack of the spendthrift Democrats, McDonnell has gone hat in hand to those very same left-wing Democrats begging for federal money. Seeking to avoid cuts or any meaningful restructuring, McDonnell has allied himself with Obama on extending federal bailout funds to the states.


Second, in the ultimate dodge and weave, the McDonnell Administration is calling for allowing local governments to underfund pension obligations. This is a complex area but the bottom line is that he is letting the Commonwealth and local governments use pension money for current consumption, thereby greatly underfunding the state employee pension system.


Any notion of addressing the monster of public employee legacy costs is a pipe-dream. The McDonnell team is just kicking this can down the road for the next Governor. But as the obligations grow and the amount of invested funds are reduced, we will quickly reach a point where massive amounts of tax money will be required to meet the commitment to public workers. Nowhere is there a mention of putting the public employee pension system on a sustainable path, real reform that is vital to both the public employees and the taxpayers.


And third, a time of such fiscal austerity is also an opportunity to rid ourselves of the wasteful, needless bobbles of Big Government that have grown up over the decades. One such wasteful expense is the $6 million Virginia spends each year on so-called "public broadcasting." In an era of hundreds of television channels and millions of Internet sites, there is no justification for government-run media; especially when such government-run media is all too often nothing more than a haven for far-Left propagandists.


So how does the McDonnell team deal with the $6 million line item? They defer elimination for four years. Why waste another $24 million for something we don't need and that is proven to be hostile to the very principles America was founded on? Sadly, the answer is simple. Lack of courage.


Numerous public polls have shown a big increase in the number of Americans who identify themselves as conservatives. But those same polls have shown that there has been at best no growth in the number of people who self-identify as "Republican." The most recent actions of the McDonnell Administration explain why.


Unless the GOP finds its true soul and commits itself to taking bold action, its stay in the halls of power will be very short-lived. And if tossed aside again by an increasingly frustrated and angry public, Republican majorities will not be seen again for a generation or more. Tentative, meek actions are not what the American people want nor are they what the country needs. It is time for the GOP to decide if they want to be America's natural majority or its fading memory.


Adam Bitely is the Virginia Political Editor for the Liberty Features Syndicate and the Senior Editor of NetRightNation.com.

Continued Looting in Chile in Aftermath of Earthquake

Authorities in Chile's second-most populous city have extended a curfew in an effort to curb the looting following Saturday's deadly earthquake.

The lawlessness that has plagued Concepcion since the city was badly damaged by the quake prompted officials to extend a curfew from 8 p.m. Monday until noon Tuesday.

The looting continued from late Monday night into the early morning hours of Tuesday, as desperate residents seek basic supplies such as food and water. Several stores and businesses have been ransacked and burned.

Concepcion was the closest city to the center of the massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 720 people and left much of the country in ruins. The death toll is expected to rise.

The international community is mobilizing relief for Chile. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Santiago briefly Tuesday, bringing emergency communications equipment.

The United Nations said Chile needs mobile bridges, field hospitals, dialysis equipment and other medical supplies, as well as food and shelter.

President Michelle Bachelet sent 10,000 soldiers to the earthquake region to restore order, and she announced that supermarkets there would distribute food free of charge. Her government also is working to deliver food, water and emergency shelters as quickly as possible to thousands of people living on the streets.

President Bachelet says the earthquake is an emergency "unparalleled in the history of Chile." The Andean nation on the western coast of South America is in a seismically active area. It was hit 50 years ago by the strongest earthquake recorded in modern history - magnitude 9.5. The quake that struck Saturday is among the top eight strongest earthquakes ever measured.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said an emergency medical mission has been sent to Chile. He promised up to $3 million in an emergency grant for recovery efforts.

China's state news agency says authorities in Beijing are offering $1 million in humanitarian assistance.


Some information for this report provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.