The White House is considering naming a high-powered official to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The official would report directly to President Bush and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. The goal would be to improve the coordination of military and civilian efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan by different parts of the government.
The chief financial officer of Menu Foods sold about half his shares in the company just three weeks before a massive recall of its pet food products. CFO Mark Wiens sold 14,000 shares for $89,900 on Feb. 26 and Feb. 27, Canadian insider trading reports show. The shares are now worth about $54,000. “He feels just awful that this link has been made,” a company spokesman said Wednesday.
Citigroup Inc., the nation’s largest financial institution, said Wednesday it will eliminate about 17,000 jobs. It’s part of a companywide restructuring to reduce costs and improve profit. That amounts to about 5 percent of the bank’s 327,000-strong work force. Citigroup said its plans include “shrinking the size of corporate centers,” several of which are in New York.
The operator of a cruise ship that struck a reef and sank off a popular Mediterranean resort, leaving two people missing, said Wednesday that human error was to blame. The ship struck well-marked rocks April 5 and sank near Greece’s Santorini island. Nearly 1,600 people, most of them Americans, including two dozen students from North Carolina, were safely evacuated.
Republican presidential contender John McCain on Wednesday called the four-year Iraq conflict “necessary and just.” And he accused anti-war Democrats, including the party’s top White House candidates, of recklessness. McCain reiterated his longtime criticism that President Bush initially went to war without a plan to succeed. But he also backed the commander in chief’s recent troop increase and said Bush is right to veto legislation that places conditions on the war.
