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AniDB: Yumekui Merry
Official Website: Yumekui Merry (Japanese)
Genre: Action, Supernatural
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NEW YORK – Federal authorities orchestrated one of the biggest Mafia takedowns in FBI history Thursday, charging 127 suspected mobsters and associates in the Northeast with murders, extortion and other crimes spanning decades.

Past investigations have resulted in strategic strikes aimed at crippling individual crime families. This time, authorities used a shotgun approach, with some 800 federal agents and police officers making scores of simultaneous arrests stemming from different mob investigations in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

They also used fanfare: Attorney General Eric Holder made a trip to New York to announce the operation at a news conference with the city's top law enforcement officials.

Holder called the arrests "an important and encouraging step forward in disrupting La Cosa Nostra's operations." But he and others also cautioned that the mob, while having lost some of the swagger of the John Gotti era, is known for adapting to adversity and finding new ways of making money and spreading violence.

"Members and associates of La Cosa Nostra are among the most dangerous criminals in our country," Holder said. "The very oath of allegiance sworn by these Mafia members during their initiation ceremony binds them to a life of crime."

In the past, the FBI has aggressively pursued and imprisoned the leadership of the city's five Italian mob families, only to see ambitious underlings fill the vacancies, said Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI's New York office.

"We deal in reality, and the reality is that the mob, like nature, abhors a vacuum," she said.

However, the FBI has gained a recent advantage by cultivating a crop of mob figures willing to wear wires and testify against gangsters in exchange for leniency in their own cases.

"The vow of silence that is part of the oath of omerta is more myth than reality today," she said.

In the latest cases, authorities say turncoats recorded thousands of conversations of suspected mobsters. Investigators also tapped their phones.

In sheer numbers, the takedown eclipsed those from a highly publicized assault on the Gambino crime family in 2008, when authorities rounded up 62 suspects. All but one of the arrests resulted in guilty pleas.

Among those arrested Thursday were union officials, two former police officers and a suspect in Italy. High-ranking members of the Gambino and Colombo crime families and the reputed former boss of organized crime in New England also were named in 16 federal indictments unsealed Thursday.

The indictments listed colorful nicknames — Bobby Glasses, Vinny Carwash, Jack the Whack, Johnny Cash, Junior Lollipops — and catalogued murders, extortion, arson and other crimes dating back 30 years.

One of the indictments charges a reputed Gambino boss, Bartolomeo Vernace, in a double murder in the Shamrock Bar in Queens in a dispute over a spilled drink. Another charges an alleged Colombo captain, Anthony Russo, in the 1993 hit on an underboss during the family's bloody civil war.

Luigi Manocchio, 83, the reputed former head of New England's Patriarca crime family, was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He has long denied having mob ties. An indictment accuses him of collecting protection payments from strip-club owners.

Also arrested was Thomas Iafrate, who worked as a bookkeeper for strip clubs and set aside money for Manocchio, prosecutors said. Iafrate pleaded not guilty Thursday in federal court in Providence, R.I.

Other charges include corruption among dockworkers in New York and New Jersey who were forced to kick back a portion of their holiday bonuses to the crime families. Members of the Colombo family also were charged with extortion and fraud in connection with their control of a cement and concrete workers union.

Most of the defendant were awaiting arraignment on Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn. If convicted, they face a wide range of maximum sentences, including life in prison.

ROME – More than 2,000 Italian women — mothers and daughters, politicians, artists and others_ have signed an online petition telling Premier Silvio Berlusconi that not all women in Italy are prostitutes or showgirls, in response to his encounters with a teenage Moroccan girl.

The campaign, entitled "Basta!" or "Enough!" is being coordinated by the leftist L'Unita newspaper, which is close to Italy's center-left opposition. It was announced Thursday as criticism mounted against the premier and the Vatican expressed concern over the scandal.

Prosecutors have placed Berlusconi and three associates under investigation, alleging he paid for sex with the 17-year-old girl and used his office to cover it up. Prosecutors have said Berlusconi had sex with several prostitutes during parties at his Milan estate.

The 74-year-old premier has gone on a campaign to refute the accusations, taping two video messages and an audio monologue in recent days in which he denounced the prosecutors as politically driven.

The teen, nicknamed Ruby, has begun a media blitz of her own to deny they ever had sex. On Wednesday she appeared on one of Berlusconi's television stations to refute reports, contained in wiretapped conversations published in Italian newspapers, that she asked Berlusconi for euro5 million to keep quiet.

"I could do something exaggerated, but I could never arrive at a statement like that," she said. She admitted though that he gave her euro7,000 to help her out financially but said he "never put a finger on me."

Italy's opposition leaders have demanded again that Berlusconi resign and there is talk among his allies of calling early elections. But Berlusconi has insisted he's not going anywhere and would gladly testify in court — as long as the judges were impartial.

On Thursday under a headline "The Women's Revolt," L'Unita published what it said was a partial list of 2,000 Italian women who had signed its campaign to tell Berlusconi they'd had enough of his antics.

"There are other women," the paper wrote in an editorial, listing the names of prominent union leaders, opposition politicians, actresses, journalists and citing ordinary Italian mothers and daughters. "There are women who don't consider it a victory to go into a powerful man's home and come out having earned what a normal (person) earns with seven months of work."

The campaign is similar to the "I'm not at your disposal" campaign launched last year by left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper as another sex scandal swirled around Berlusconi. It was sparked after Berlusconi insulted the looks of a middle-age, matronly opposition politician, Rosy Bindi, who shot back: "I'm not one of the women at your disposal."

Her retort struck a nerve in Italy, where nearly naked television showgirls are a celebrity class of their own and a staple of Berlusconi's TV empire. It sparked a backlash that garnered 100,000 signatories in less than a month.

On Thursday, the Vatican No. 2, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, called for a "more robust morality, a sense of justice and legality" in all citizens and "especially those who have public responsibility of any kind." In the first comments from a Vatican official, Bertone said the Holy See was following "these Italian events with attentiveness and concern."

Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops' conference, said this week that the scandal was "hurtful and upsetting" and had damaged Italy's international reputation.

(Big thread)

EVERETT, Washington – On a blustery and drizzly December afternoon in the Pacific Northwest, about 20 airplanes sat engineless and inert near the runway at a Boeing manufacturing plant. Huge, yellow blocks hung from the wings of some planes to substitute for the weight of absent engines.

Every few minutes, the heavy clouds parted to give a glimpse of blue skies over Everett, Washington, just north of Seattle. Then new clouds rolled in.

The parked planes are 787-8 Dreamliners, the world's first commercial aircraft with a body and wings made largely of lightweight carbon-composite materials instead of aluminum. Someday these sleek, fuel-efficient machines -- already painted in the liveries of their airline customers -- may change the face of air travel and plane-making.

But not today.

The program that produced these unfinished 787s is nearly three years behind schedule and, by some estimates, at least several billion dollars over budget. Dreamliner flight tests were halted in November after an electrical fire aboard a test plane. The tests resumed in December, and the company later announced yet another delay for the delivery schedule. The new ETA is sometime this summer.

About 45 miles away in south Seattle, members of Boeing's work force gathered at a union hall for a monthly lodge meeting, a holiday party and a chance to lament the seismic shift in plane-making strategy they say the Dreamliner represents.

The 787 is not merely a historic feat of engineering. The program also marks Boeing's departure from its own time-honored manufacturing practices.

Instead of drawing primarily from its traditional pool of aircraft engineers, mechanics and laborers that runs generations deep in the Puget Sound region around Seattle, Boeing leads an international team of suppliers and engineers from the United States, Japan, Italy, Australia, France and elsewhere, who make components that Boeing workers in the United States put together.

"Do you see the stupidity in that?" said James Williams, an imposing 43-year-old who has been employed by Boeing for 15 years, mostly working in factory safety.

Williams, whose father worked at Boeing for more than three decades, is just one of many in the company who blame the repeated Dreamliner delays on a splintered engineering strategy and a complex supply chain of about 50 partners.

Boeing itself has acknowledged that the system needs tweaking, and the company promises to bring more of the design work back in-house for the upcoming 787-9 model. But Boeing defends its reliance on outside partners, saying their work and investments made the Dreamliner possible.

"It is true that supplier involvement in the development and design of the 787 is significant," the company said in an emailed response to Reuters questions. "Suppliers helped us develop and understand technologies and options for the airplane as we went through the early phases of concept development. Suppliers have also provided more of their own development, design and manufacturing funding."

Whatever the advantages, Boeing's outsourcing is emblematic of corporate practices that have sent large chunks of U.S. industry overseas and to other states, battered communities and vaulted the U.S. jobless rate to nearly 10 percent, economists say.

Yet the biggest victim may be the culture that underpins the aerospace behemoth. Here in Boeing country, where children follow parents into the aviation business, outsourcing is plain heresy.

"It was like the family," said Williams, whose wife, Sarah, and three children joined him for the holiday party. "Can you outsource Mom? Can you outsource Dad?"

SHRINKING WORKFORCES

Boeing is the world's second-largest commercial plane-maker after its European rival Airbus. Founded in 1916 in Seattle by William Boeing, the company earned $68.3 billion in revenue in 2009, split between its defense and commercial airplanes divisions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the aerospace industry achieved $215 billion in sales in 2009 and provided more than 644,000 jobs. According to data compiled by consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Boeing is the 24th largest U.S. employer, including private companies and government. It is the fourth-largest employer in the U.S. manufacturing sector, excluding wholesalers, distributors and construction companies.

All told, Boeing and its subsidiaries employ 160,000 people in the United States and abroad, including 73,000 people in Washington. But while the company remains a pillar of the local economy and is hiring right now in Washington, Boeing is not the engine of job growth it once was.

At the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C., Boeing's total workforce was about 199,000. Its defense and commercial units shed 20,000 jobs between January 2002 and January 2003 after the 9/11 attacks sparked a steep decline in air travel and aircraft orders.

Myriad other U.S. manufacturers also cut jobs during that economic downturn, and many of those never regained their former staffing levels.

"What you've seen is a continual decline in manufacturing employment that didn't just start 20 years ago," said Stephen Bronars, senior economist at Welch Consulting. "And it's accentuated during downturns, where you see the steepest decline in manufacturing employment when there's a recession."

At its numerical peak, in 1978, the U.S. manufacturing sector accounted for more than one out of every four U.S. jobs, according to government data. Back in the 1950s, manufacturing made up an even higher share -- more than a third -- of total employment.

"A lot of Western Europe was still reeling after World War Two, and so we didn't have the same kind of competition when it came to manufacturing in the '50s," Bronars said.

Since the 1970s, employment in manufacturing has fallen more than 30 percent in the United States, compared with about 60 percent in Britain, and about 20 percent in Japan.

Then came the 2008/2009 global economic downturn, which wiped out nearly 8 million U.S. jobs. About 2 million of those were in manufacturing. Economists believe that many of these positions are gone for good, forcing blue-collar workers to search for employment elsewhere -- often at lower wages.

In several ways, Boeing's replacement of in-house labor with outside partners is typical of this trend. Although some of its outsourcing is to other U.S. companies and some of its job reductions came from spinning off businesses, the net effect has been punishing for Boeing's Washington workforce.

From Boeing's perspective, change was inevitable. Its role as a truly international company -- with 80 percent of its commercial airplane backlog for international customers -- demands a diverse and global operation to blunt the shocks to the U.S. job market from the highly cyclical aerospace business.

"Clearly, Boeing is a global company with a global customer base, and our U.S. employees benefit from that," the company said in an email response to questions by a Reuters reporter. "U.S. jobs are created by selling airplanes around the world."

NOT SO SIMPLE

That is true as far as it goes, but building airplanes is far more complicated than other frequently outsourced jobs like, say, textile manufacturing.

Plane-making is best done by a group of engineers and builders working in close proximity without the distractions of language barriers, cultural differences and bureaucracy, said Tom McCarty, president of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) local representing Boeing engineers in the Puget Sound region.

"Now with the 787, management felt they knew how to outsource the design jobs. Turns out they didn't," he said. "We're talking about how do you design and manufacture a plane like the 787?" McCarty said. "It's a very unique skill set. And schools don't turn out people who know how to do that. And there is a culture that has developed the composite knowledge of all those skills. We know how to build all these planes."

To be sure, language barriers and borders have not prevented Airbus from overtaking Boeing as the world's largest aircraft manufacturer in the past decade.

Driven by history and political necessity, the 40-year-old plane-maker was forced from the outset to create a system in which planes are built from large sections made in four countries -- Britain, France, Germany and Spain -- and then assembled in France or Germany. Airbus has also begun assembling smaller A320 150-seat planes in China for the local market.

The difference with the 787 and its future Airbus rival, the A350, is that both manufacturers are being forced to ship an increasing quantity of work for these planes beyond their traditional borders to share the risk and costs of giant technological changes aimed at making planes lighter to save fuel.

Still, Airbus has been more conservative on outsourcing. It contracts 52 percent of the airframe to outside suppliers. Boeing says it purchased 65 percent of the 787 airframe, which is comparable to the 777.

Because the A350 will not be available before 2013 -- a result of previous dithering over product strategy, according to its critics -- the EADS subsidiary can also afford to sit back and learn from Boeing's perceived mistakes on the 787.

McCarty said that by relying so heavily on foreign partners for their engineering, Boeing devalues the so-called tribal knowledge that facilitates practical application of complicated, academic engineering concepts that eventually produce a new plane.

Acquired on the job and over time, tribal knowledge is a key ingredient in the development of a new plane, some experts say. It is the shared method of performing countless daily tasks efficiently and in coordination with colleagues. In short, tribal knowledge is the grease that cuts friction throughout the design and assembly process.

"One of the things you don't want to outsource is your core competencies," said Karen Kurek, national leader of the manufacturing practice at RSM McGladrey, a tax and consulting firm. "It's the thing that gives your organization your value added."

McCarty says the loss of tribal knowledge could have far-reaching consequences for American engineering.

"As we outsource part of this work, we're removing opportunities for learning this trade, for learning these skills," he said. "As we reduce these opportunities to learn how to do these jobs, the Boeing Company becomes less capable to do the job."

THE PIVOTAL MOMENT

Many aviation experts say Boeing began to put a lower premium on in-house labor after its 1997 merger with rival McDonnell Douglas. That was the same year Boeing posted its first full-year loss as Airbus stole market share.

Boeing's $16.3 billion purchase of McDonnell Douglas triggered the integration of management at the two companies with Boeing Chief Executive Phil Condit, a former aerodynamics engineer, retaining the top job.

McDonnell Douglas CEO Harry Stonecipher, formerly of General Motors, GE and Sundstrand, became president of the merged aerospace giant. After a brief retirement, Stonecipher later returned to Boeing as CEO.

In September 1998, Alan Mulally, who started his career as a Boeing engineer, was made head of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) division.

Some critics view the merger as the point at which BCA began to favor a corporate culture that prized near-term profits over long-term engineering dominance. "Back in the early 2000s there was effectively a battle for Boeing's soul," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president at aviation consultancy Teal Group.

He and others also single out Stonecipher as the face of Boeing's shifting priorities. "He was symptomatic of the McDonnell Douglas philosophy," Aboulafia said.

Around this time, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago after 85 years in Seattle. Labor unions complain the departure drove a wedge between executives and Seattle-area rank-and-file. But the global corporation cited a need to be near Wall Street, Washington D.C. and big customers.

BCA headquarters remained in Seattle, its attention fixed on the next big project. "There were the legacy commercial guys who once a decade invested very heavily in the company's future by creating a new jet. And then there were the newcomers," Aboulafia said.

"Effectively, it was dominated by a lot of the McDonnell Douglas people who were a little more concerned with shareholder relations and perhaps even their own wealth," he added. "And they absolutely did not want to make a big investment."

Boeing's previous initiative, the 777, had recently entered service, and it was time for Boeing to get to work on its next new model. Responding to airline demands for greater fuel efficiency, Boeing began developing the design that in 2003 would be dubbed Dreamliner.

The carbon-composite structure would be lighter than aluminum planes of comparable size and would consume 20 percent less fuel. The concept was incredibly popular among cash-strapped airlines that were still reeling from a drop in travel demand after 9/11.

But when it came time to build the 787, Boeing turned away from its stable of engineers and mechanics to embrace a complex web of suppliers. For the first time in its history, Boeing would outsource the wing design and manufacturing.

"That, I think the smart people there knew, was an incredibly risky way of doing it, but it was the only way they could move forward," Aboulafia said. "It was kind of a Faustian bargain, I think, that Alan Mulally made. He did what he had to do to launch the program given the tremendous adversity he was facing."

For its part, Boeing maintains that it never abandoned its standards for design and engineering.

"Boeing leads the design effort, oversees the processes and tools, and holds both ourselves and our partners to the highest standards of performance on safety and quality," the company said. "It is important for Boeing to retain critical skills for engineering and building structures such as wings and composite structures," Boeing said.

The company had planned to make a first test flight of the Dreamliner around late August 2007 and first delivery in May 2008. But that target began to slip in 2007 when Boeing postponed the first test flight due to a shortage of bolts and flight control software.

More delays followed as production problems mounted. In 2008, the company blamed another delay on a 58-day strike by Boeing assembly workers over contract terms.

The next year, Boeing bought portions of business units of two of its suppliers to help regain control of its Dreamliner production. It paid $580 million for the South Carolina operations of Vought Aircraft Industries, the company that worked on the 787 aft fuselage section.

Boeing later purchased Alenia North America's half of Global Aeronautica LLC, the South Carolina fuselage subassembly facility for the 787. Boeing did not disclose financial terms of that deal. "By taking Alenia out of the ownership equation, this tidies up the situation in Charleston," Boeing said in a statement at the time.

The Dreamliner finally made its first flight on December 15, 2009. But less than a year later the company postponed delivery again -- this time to early 2011 -- because of a delay in the availability of a Rolls-Royce engine needed for the final phases of flight testing.

In October 2010, Boeing said it would tell suppliers to halt deliveries of sections for its 787 Dreamliner for two weeks because of delays at Alenia, a unit of Italian defense and aerospace company Finmeccanica SpA. Alenia makes the horizontal stabilizer for the tail of the 787.

On November 9, the Dreamliner schedule endured a new hiccup when a fire on a 787 test flight forced an emergency landing in Laredo, Texas.

Boeing halted the test flight program to determine the cause of the fire, which it later attributed to foreign debris in an electrical equipment cabinet. The company resumed 787 flight tests in late December, saying it had installed an interim version of updated power distribution system software and conducted a rigorous set of reviews.

The electrical system and a power panel for the 787 are built by the Hamilton Sundstrand unit of United Technologies Corp, a major Boeing supplier responsible for several key components of the 787's electrical systems.

On November 30, Jim Albaugh, who took over as BCA chief in 2009, confirmed to Reuters that Boeing would delay delivery to its 787 launch customer All Nippon Airways. Then, earlier this week, Boeing announced that it had moved first delivery to the third quarter of 2011 from the first quarter. That at least had the effect of assuaging Wall Street concerns about an even longer delay.

CONTRITION AND DAMAGE CONTROL

Nowadays, Boeing is quick to acknowledge the rocky road the Dreamliner has traveled so far. In a speech to the Wings Club of New York on November 11 -- just two days after the electrical fire that grounded the 787 test fleet -- Boeing CEO Jim McNerney appeared chastened.

"In retrospect, our 787 game plan may have been overly ambitious, incorporating too many firsts all at once -- in the application of new technologies, in revolutionary design-and-build processes, and in increased global sourcing of engineering and manufacturing content," he said.

But he also reiterated the company's faith in the Dreamliner. "While we clearly stumbled on the execution, we remain steadfastly confident in the innovative achievements of the airplane and the benefits it will bring to our customers," he said

Boeing executives declined to be interviewed for this story, but the company replied to written questions submitted by Reuters. "The sourcing decisions made on the 787 are a natural evolution of the work done at Boeing Commercial over the years," the company said. "We've said in the past that for the most part, we are satisfied with the general direction. However, there are a few things we would change, and you've seen us make changes on the 787 over the years."

HARD WORK AND HEARTBREAK

Back in Seattle, workers take little comfort in the words of their leader McNerney, the onetime head of GE Aircraft Engines. McNerney came to Boeing in 2005 after a tenure as CEO at 3M Co, a conglomerate that produces tens of thousands of diverse products like Scotch tape, medical masks and optical film used to brighten flat screen TVs and computers.

A group of Boeing employees, mostly stewards in the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union, sat down with Reuters in December to describe their own experiences on BCA projects, including the 787.

Daniel Swank, 47, an aircraft maintenance technician on the 787 program, who had previously worked on the 777, said "I can say it's night and day as far as processes and flow."

Swank and his colleagues refer to pre-Dreamliner Boeing as "legacy." In those days, he had easier access to the program engineers who worked in the same building and could quickly address problems as they arose.

"They started vendoring out years ago, but pretty much legacy is different from 787, because on 787 everything has been vendored out," Swank said.

He recalled a time on the 787 program when he ran out of a particular washer to fit with a screw on the plane. He said he had to fill out paper work to order a single washer and waited one day to receive it from the outside supplier.

"That shows you how ridiculous it's gotten," he said. "Everyone knows that vendoring has killed this program. You have contractor agreements that have slowed the whole process down."

That assessment is shared by Jason Redrup, 48, who has been with Boeing for 15 years and currently works for the IAM. Prior to that post, he was a structures mechanic on the 767 where he put the airplane body sections together. He said Boeing's plan to fly the Dreamliner parts to Seattle for easy assembly has not worked out.

"On the 87, the idea was Boeing was not going to own any of that. That all this stuff was going to come in kits -- all the parts, all the fasteners, everything you needed to do this one particular job," Redrup said.

"It's a very elaborate supply chain, so even their suppliers don't necessarily control where parts are being made," he said. "So it's a very complicated web of work now that's not so easy to fix when there's a problem."

Then there is Clark Fromong, 49, who has been at Boeing for 23 years. He makes duct work and tubing. His parents worked at Boeing as do both of his brothers.

He said outsourcing since the 1997 merger -- and especially since the Dreamliner -- has made life at Boeing and in the Puget Sound region stressful and gloomy. Workers who earned a living in plane-making now must look elsewhere and often leave the state.

"We keep offloading our work overseas, and it's cutting our work in half," Fromong said. "So we all think our jobs are going away. The attitude is everyone is always nervous. Always on needles. Stressed out."

Aircraft workers near Seattle suffered another blow in 2009 when, after a long battle to keep 787 assembly in Everett, Boeing selected South Carolina as the site of its second 787 final assembly plant. The company aims to ramp up 787 production to 10 planes per month in 2013.

The plant in South Carolina is expected to create thousands of new jobs in that state and is likely to be less disruptive to Boeing than its Everett counterpart, where four major IAM strikes in the last two decades have cost Boeing about 200 days in lost production. The machinists in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, voted against IAM representation.

Tom Wroblewski, district president of the IAM unit representing Boeing workers in the Puget Sound region, said downsizing and outsourcing have taken a toll on IAM membership, which is down to about 25,000 today from 42,000 in 1990.

He illustrates his point with a graphic depicting work performed by IAM members on six models of Boeing commercial planes. Parts of the plane that are made by IAM workers are colored red. The graphic for the single-aisle 737 is mostly red, compared with the 787, which features only a little red, mainly on the vertical fin.

IAM members and local government leaders mounted a campaign before work began on the 787 to entice Boeing to make the plane in Washington. The union was later surprised to find out how little work the locals would actually get.

"No sooner did the helium go out of the winning balloons than we find out that their commitment was to assembling the airplane and that was it," he said.

But three years of delays speaks for itself, he said. The vast global partnership was meant to share risk and cut costs. The opposite is happening, he said.

"I'm done saying 'I told you so' on the 87," Wroblewski said. "When they announced they were going global, we told them at that point: 'You go global, you put all of your eggs in the suppliers out there. You're going to lose control of your airplane. And when you lose control of your airplane, there's nothing you can do. So what's happened? They've lost control of it."

WHAT WENT RIGHT

One key Boeing supplier and a long-time partner to the company, U.S.-based aircraft components supplier Rockwell Collins, disagrees with the negative assessments by labor leaders.

"There's obviously a lot that gets press these days," said Jeffrey Standerski, vice president and general manager of Rockwell Collins' air transport systems. "But I'll tell you what: It's really phenomenal when you think about the success that the Boeing systems are having in the flight test program."

Rockwell Collins makes cockpit electronics for the Dreamliner. The company has a contract with Boeing valued at $3.5 billion over the life of the Dreamliner program.

Standerski describes a cohesive design and manufacturing process that involves constant communication between Boeing, Rockwell Collins, Honeywell International, GE and Hamilton Sundstrand, who also work on airplane systems.

He said Boeing contacted suppliers in the earliest stages of the 787 program and set up identical labs for engineers at the various companies. "Things have gotten more obviously complex on airplanes because of the increased functionality that is on airplanes," Standerski said.

Integrated architecture eventually will become the norm in plane-making, Standerski said, noting comparable construction practices on the Airbus A350. "It's going to continue to force companies to innovate," he said. "It's going to continue to force companies to make the investments in research and development to make sure that we're working on the technology for those next-generation airplanes."

HOW WILL THIS PLANE BE JUDGED?

By now, Boeing has about 850 orders for the Dreamliner on its books from airlines and aircraft leasing companies all over the world. It's a record number of orders for a plane still in development.

Aviation experts remain thrilled by the plane's reported fuel-efficiency as well the promise of a smooth, quiet, comfortable ride for passengers. Their delight was on full display in July when hordes of plane spotters gathered on the perimeter of the Farnborough Airshow in England to watch the Dreamliner land after its first overseas flight. Aviation buffs inside and outside of Boeing frequently call the 787 a "game-changer."

"It's still a plane with a very broad and eager market," said Teal Group's Aboulafia. "It's going to take them a long time to make money with this. But eventually -- assuming it works out -- they're going to sell thousands."

Meanwhile, the more than 50 customers for the plane have mostly withheld public criticism of Boeing, despite the havoc that delivery delays play with their long-term fleet planning. Analysts believe Boeing has probably already paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in penalty payments for late delivery.

Boeing has not said what it has spent on the Dreamliner program so far. But experts believe the plane is at least several billion dollars over budget.

In the end, the Dreamliner will be judged on its safety, reliability and ability to deliver on its many promises, said Ray Goforth, executive director of the SPEEA union in Seattle. "The real test on the 787 is going to come in its first year in service," he said.

The reliability rate of the Dreamliner will have to be near 100 percent to appease cost-conscious airlines that cannot afford to have a plane frequently out of service for repairs. "If it turns out that this thing is a dog because more and more of these problems are still cropping up, you are going to have to fix them quick and keep that level of confidence in the plane, or those orders will just evaporate," Goforth said.

At the same time, the Dreamliner and Boeing will also be judged on their impact on U.S. labor and American engineering.

The Dreamliner will be delivered sooner or later. And someday the same planes now parked in Everett may be the first of thousands of 787s to take their place in the skies among other Boeing icons like the jumbo 747 and the shorter-range workhorse 737.

But Boeing employees in the Puget Sound region are increasingly bitter about a corporate culture they say erodes the skills of American workers and makes their company less attractive to young people entering the job market. They hope Boeing leaders will soon see things their way.

Judging by its statements -- including the emailed comments to Reuters -- the company and its critics may not be so far apart on the issue of outsourcing.

"We made too many changes at the same time -- new technology, new design tools and a change in the supply chain -- and thus outran our ability to manage it effectively for a period of time," the company said. "In short, we have learned, and we are applying our learning."

WASHINGTON – Wal-Mart, the nation's largest grocer, says it will reformulate thousands of products to make them healthier and push its suppliers to do the same, joining first lady Michelle Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity.

The first lady accompanied Wal-Mart executives Thursday as they announced the effort in Washington. The company plans to reduce sodium and added sugars in some items, build stores in poor areas that don't already have grocery stores, reduce prices on produce and develop a logo for healthier items.

"No family should have to choose between food that is healthier for them and food they can afford," said Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart's U.S. division.

As the largest grocer in the United States, Wal-Mart's size gives it unique power to shape what people eat. The grocery business is nearly twice the size of No. 2 competitor Kroger. The company also has massive influence on products made by other manufacturers and sold at the store.

Mrs. Obama said the announcement has "the potential to transform the marketplace and help Americans put healthier foods on their tables every single day."

"We are really gaining some momentum on this issue, we're beginning to see things move," she said.

The nation's largest retailer plans to reduce sodium by a quarter and cut added sugars in some of its private label products by 2015. It also plans to remove remaining industrially produced trans fats. The foods Wal-Mart will concentrate on our products like lunch meats, fruit juices and salad dressings, items that contain high levels of sugar or sodium that consumers don't know they're ingesting..

A number of food makers have made similar moves, lowering sodium in their products based on shopper demand and increasing scrutiny by health groups. Bumble Bee Foods, General Mills Inc., Campbell Soup Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Kraft Foods Inc. all announced sodium reductions to their products last year.

During the press conference Wednesday, Andrea Thomas, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of sustainability acknowledged those industry efforts but said,"Our goal is not to supplant these efforts, but to encourage their widespread adoption. We see our role as a convener and a catalyst. "

Food makers say they are trying to reduce sodium gradually, making it a more palatable change to its customers and giving the industry time to reformulate products. Most said they support efforts to curb sodium in American's diets but are waiting to see if the Food and Drug Administration decides to mandate a reduction.

Wal-Mart said it would reduce prices on fruits and vegetables by $1 billion a year by attempting to cut unnecessary costs from the supply chain. The company also said it would work to reduce price premiums on healthier items made with more expensive ingredients.

"Our customers often ask us why whole wheat pasta sometimes costs more than regular pasta made by the same manufacturer," said Thomas.

Mrs. Obama has a history of working with Wal-Mart. She once served on the board of Westchester, Ill.-based TreeHouse Foods Inc., a food supplier for the store, but resigned in 2007 while her husband was campaigning for the presidency. Barack Obama had criticized the store over wages and benefits it pays employees.

MIAMI – A shootout erupted Thursday in a notoriously crime-ridden section of Miami as a team of heavily armed law enforcement agents tried to serve a warrant, leaving two officers and a suspect dead, authorities said.

Miami-Dade Police Director James Loftus said the first officer, 21-year veteran Roger Castillo, had been shot once and died at the scene. The second officer, 23-year veteran Amanda Haworth, was taken to a hospital and later died from several gunshot wounds, Loftus said. Loftus said officers killed the suspect, 23-year-old Johnny Simms, who had been armed with a handgun.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez said a squad of Miami-Dade police officers — who are part of the career criminal unit of the warrants division — was serving a homicide warrant in the city's impoverished Liberty City neighborhood. Loftus said officers knew Simms was inside the home — a duplex with bars on the windows — and told him to come out.

"This unit is very well-trained, very well-armed, and highly protects itself," said Alvarez, a former police chief. "So they know what they're doing. It was just a tragic incident that we see here too often in Miami-Dade, of a violent suspect who could care less."

Loftus said a third officer, Deidree Beecher, was being treated at a hospital for a knee injury.

Several people were being questioned, but no arrests have been made, Loftus said.

"Our worst nightmare was visited upon us again today," Loftus said. "Two angels from our police department were murdered today. They were murdered by someone who had murdered someone else."

Barry Golden, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in South Florida, said the officers were working with a Marshals fugitive task force. The task force works to arrest people wanted for crimes from all over the country. He didn't immediately have details on what the task force had been working on Thursday.

All the officers were wearing body armor and had clear police identification on them, Loftus said.

John Rivera, president of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association, said in an e-mail that the fallen officers were heroes.

"These two officers were loving family members, friends and our neighbors. They wanted to serve their community and make it a better, safer place for all of us," Rivera said.

Two schools had been placed on lockdown as residents waited outside their homes in the neighborhood. Streets were blocked off with police tape as U.S. marshals walked the streets in riot gear.

Liberty City was named for a housing project built in the 1930s for poor African-Americans. The area has never fully recovered from years of simmering racial tension and riots.

THURSDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Just a slim majority of Americans -- 52 percent -- think vaccines don't cause autism, a new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll found.

Conversely, 18 percent are convinced that vaccines, like the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, can cause the disorder, and another 30 percent aren't sure.

The poll was conducted last week, following news reports that said the lead researcher of a controversial 1998 study linking autism to the MMR vaccine had used fraudulent research to come to his conclusion.

The poll also found that parents who have lingering doubts about the vaccine were less likely to say that their children were fully vaccinated (86 percent), compared to 98 percent of parents who believe in the safety of vaccines.

Still, the percentage of fully vaccinated children remains high, at 92 percent, the poll found.

"This sounds like a cup half-empty/cup half-full story," said Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll. He noted that while the number of people who believe in a connection between vaccines and autism is "only 18 percent," that nonetheless translates to "millions and millions and millions of people, and it's clear that in some cases that has led them to not vaccinate their children."

Vaccine safety has been a major concern for many parents since the publication of the 1998 study, led by now disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield, which concluded that the MMR vaccine caused autism. The journal that originally published the study, The Lancet, has since retracted the paper and Wakefield was recently barred from practicing medicine in Britain.

In recent weeks, another leading British medical journal, BMJ, has published a series of articles purporting to expose deliberate fraud by Wakefield in his handling of the research that served as the basis for the 1998 study.

In the new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll, 69 percent of respondents said they had heard about the theory that some vaccinations can cause autism.

But only half (47 percent) knew that the original Lancet study by Wakefield and other researchers had been retracted, and that some of that research is now alleged to be fraudulent.

"Forty-seven percent is a huge number and this is a relatively new thing [allegations of fraud], so it's remarkable that they have heard of it. But that still means that half the population has not," Taylor said.

Still, the retraction and allegations of fraud do seem to have influenced public perception. Among those who had been following the news about Wakefield, only 35 percent believed the vaccine-autism theory, compared to 65 percent who had not kept up to date on the latest developments.

"There seems to be reasonable support for vaccination and I think this will increase with the revelation that a lot of this stuff was based on fraud or bad science," said Dr. Kenneth Bromberg, chairman of pediatrics and director of the Vaccine Research Center at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City.

Overall, 69 percent of adults polled agreed that schools should require vaccinations -- including, interestingly, 52 percent of those who believe that autism might be connected to vaccinations.

Sixteen percent of all adults surveyed said they knew of at least one family whose children had not received all recommended vaccines due to concerns about autism. One-quarter of those who believed the vaccine-autism theory said they knew at least one family that had not fully vaccinated their children.

Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, which supports more research into the safety of vaccinations, said autism is just one concern linked to vaccines.

"Parents have legitimate questions about vaccine risks and want better vaccine science to define those risks for their own child," she said. "This concern long predated the debate about vaccines and autism. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 was passed by Congress, in part, to address those concerns but has not done the job.

"The Harris poll points out the urgent need for a renewed effort to conduct new vaccine safety studies that are methodologically sound and free from real or perceived conflicts of interest," Fisher added, "or a significant portion of the public will continue to question the conclusions."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated one in 110 children in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder, part of a group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges.

The Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll was conducted online within the United States from Jan. 11-13, and included 2,026 adults over the age of 18. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

LONDON – Britain's High Court has upheld the extradition of a Briton to the United States to face charges of involvement in a scheme to bribe Nigerian officials to win contracts for a joint venture run by KBR Inc.

Solicitor Jeffrey Tesler, 62, who also has Israeli nationality, was indicted in 2009 on charges related to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for his alleged participation in the scheme between 1994 and 2004. The United States requested his extradition.

A district judge in London granted the request, but Tesler appealed against the decision. On Thursday the High Court refused to block his extradition, Press Association reported.

The U.S. indictment said that Tesler had been hired as an agent of the four-company venture to bribe Nigerian officials.

The bribes were paid to secure $6 billion worth of contracts for the joint venture to build and expand Nigeria's Bonny Island liquefied natural gas terminal.

Last month, Briton Wojciech Chodan, who worked for a unit of engineering company KBR, pleaded guilty in U.S. court to taking part in the bribery plot. He had been extradited from Britain.

KBR and ex-parent Halliburton Co have reached a total U.S. settlement over Bonny Island of $579 million. As part of the 2007 separation, Halliburton agreed to cover KBR's Bonny Island liabilities, and Britain's Serious Fraud Office is in talks with a local KBR subsidiary over a settlement.

The joint venture partners included Japan's JGC Corp, France's Technip SA and a unit of Italy's Saipem. The latter two reached settlements with U.S. investigators last year.

HONG KONG – Hong Kong customs officers have made the territory's second largest ever drugs haul, seizing cocaine worth HK$260 million ($33.4 million) hidden in planks bound for mainland China.

The seizure of 290 kilogrammes (639 pounds) of the drug was the largest yet made by the city's Customs and Excise Department and is believed to be the second biggest the city has seen, a customs spokesman told AFP Thursday.

Customs officials discovered the drugs hidden in dozens of hollowed-out wooden planks in a shipment originating from Bolivia on December 29 last year, a statement on Wednesday evening said.

Inside each of the planks were three slabs of cocaine wrapped in plastic and carbon paper, each weighing about 1.1 kilogrammes (2.4 pounds).

The discovery was only made public Wednesday because officials were hoping that someone would claim the consignment, local reports said Thursday.

The concealment method was "sophisticated" and "well thought out", the customs spokesman said.

Carbon paper was used to try to avoid detection by X-ray machines, while plastic wrap and glue were used to mask the smell of the drug from sniffer dogs, he added.

The shipment was trucked from Bolivia to Chile, where it was loaded onto a container ship. It arrived in Hong Kong via Taiwan late last month, where the city's customs officers discovered the cocaine.

No arrests have been made so far.

In April last year, Hong Kong police seized 372 kilogrammes (820 pounds) of cocaine with an estimated street value of $43 million in a village in northern Hong Kong while searching for a missing person.

Figures show an upward trend in narcotics entering the former British colony through seaports rather than its airport, the spokesman said, adding that this has prompted customs officers to step up inspection of inbound shipments.

"Customs will make every effort to ensure Hong Kong will not become a distribution point for drugs," he added.

Under Hong Kong law, drug trafficking carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a fine of HK $5 million ($643,000).

SAO PAULO – Brazil will create a nationwide disaster-prevention and early-warning system following recent floods and landslides that killed nearly 750 people in mountain towns north of Rio de Janeiro, a government official said Thursday.

The new system, expected to be fully operational in four years, will use 15 radars and a recently purchased supercomputer to help forecast and monitor extreme weather conditions, giving authorities enough time to evacuate people from high-risk areas, Science and Technology Minister Aloizio Mercadante said.

Speaking in an interview with radio reporters that was aired on the government's website, he said officials have not yet calculated how much the system will cost.

Meanwhile, the World Bank said in a statement e-mailed to news media outlets Wednesday night that it is considering funding a project to restructure Brazil's civil-defense system at the federal, state and municipal levels.

The bank also said it has earmarked a $485 million loan to rebuild houses and relocate families living in areas at risk for mudslides and heavy flooding.

Mercadante said he expected the death toll in the flood zones to eventually reach 1,000 and that Brazil has at least 500 high-risk areas where 5 million people are at risk.

Also Thursday, Planning Minister Miriam Belchior told Brazilian news media that the government will invest $6.5 million over the next four years in water drainage and hillside recovery projects across the country.

"We are talking about prevention, about identifying high-risk areas and recovering hillsides so that they do not collapse when it rains," she said.

NAIROBI, Kenya – Erik Prince, whose former company Blackwater Worldwide became synonymous with the use of private U.S. security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has quietly taken on a new role in helping to train troops in lawless Somalia.

Prince is involved in a multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, to mobilize some 2,000 Somali recruits to fight pirates who are terrorizing the African coast, according to a person familiar with the project and an intelligence report seen by The Associated Press.

Prince's name has surfaced in the Somalia conflict amid the debate over how private security forces should be used in some of the world's most dangerous spots. Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, became a symbol in Washington of contractors run amok after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which its guards were charged with killing 14 civilians in the Iraqi capital.

A U.S. federal judge later threw out the charges on the grounds that the defendants' constitutional rights were violated. Last year, Iraq's Interior Ministry gave all contractors who had worked with Blackwater at the time of the shooting one week to get out of the country or face arrest for visa violations.

Though Somali pirates have seized ships flying under various flags, most governments are reluctant to send ground troops to wipe out pirate havens in a nation that has been in near-anarchy for two decades and whose weak U.N.-backed administration is confined to a few neighborhoods of the capital. The forces now being trained are intended to help fill that void. They will also go after a warlord linked to Islamist insurgents, one official said.

In response to requests for an interview with Prince, his spokesman e-mailed a brief statement that the Blackwater founder is interested in "helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy" and has advised antipiracy efforts. Spokesman Mark Corallo said Prince has "no financial role" in the project and declined to answer any questions about Prince's involvement.

Prince's role revives questions about the use of military contractors. Critics say it could undercut the international community's effort to train and fund Somali forces to fight al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgents.

The European Union is training about 2,000 Somali soldiers with U.S. support, and an African Union force of 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers is propping up the government.

By introducing contractors, "You could see the privatization of war, with very little accountability to the international community," said E.J. Hogendoorn, a Nairobi-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank. "Who are these private companies accountable to and what prevents them from changing clients when it's convenient for them?"

Although Hogendoorn's concerns are shared by some U.S. officials, the director of one private security company welcomed the effort and Prince's involvement.

"There are 34 nations with naval assets trying to stop piracy and it can only be stopped on land," said John Burnett, director of Maritime Underwater Security Consultants. "With Prince's background and rather illustrious reputation, I think it's quite possible that it might work."

Prince, now based in the United Arab Emirates, is no longer with Blackwater. He has stoutly defended the company, telling Vanity Fair magazine that "when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus."

Last month, the AP reported that the Somalia project encompassed training a 1,000-man antipiracy force in Somalia's northern semiautonomous region of Puntland and presidential guards in Mogadishu, the ruined seaside capital. The story identified Saracen International, a private security company, as being involved, along with a former U.S. ambassador, Pierre Prosper; a senior ex-CIA officer, Michael Shanklin; and an unidentified Muslim donor nation. Prosper and Shanklin confirmed they were working as advisers to the Somali government.

Since then, AP has learned from officials and documents that Prince is involved and that a second 1,000-man antipiracy force is planned for Mogadishu, where insurgents battle poorly equipped government forces.

Lafras Luitingh, the chief operating officer of Beirut-registered Saracen International, said the company had sought to keep the project secret to surprise the pirates. He said his company signed a contract with the Somali government in March. He declined to say whether Prince was involved in the project and said he was not part of Saracen.

Since the signing, a new Somali government has taken office and has appointed a panel to investigate the Saracen deal and others, said Minister of Information Abdulkareem Jama. He said he had not been aware of Prince's involvement. Separately, the U.N. is quietly investigating whether the Somalia projects have broken the blanket embargo on arms supplies to Somali factions.

The money is moving through a web of international companies, the addresses of which didn't always check out when the AP sought to verify them.

There are at least three Saracens — the one registered in Lebanon, and two run by Luitingh's business partner and based in Uganda, where government office employees told the AP the registration papers have disappeared. An AP reporter in Beirut could not find the address Luitingh's company provided in the Somali contract. Lebanese authorities had no address listed for Saracen in Lebanon and said it is based in the United Arab Emirates.

Afloat Leasing, which owns two ships that have been working with Saracen, said it was Liberian-registered, but an AP reporter didn't find it at the address given or in Liberian records.

The force's mission may be more than just curbing piracy.

A former U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to talk to the media, said that besides targeting pirates, the new force in Puntland will go after a warlord who allegedly supplies weapons to al-Shabab, Somalia's most feared insurgent group. Luitingh said he had never heard of such a plan.

Luitingh was a founding member of Executive Outcomes, a controversial South African mercenary outfit linked in the 1990s to conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and as far away as Papua New Guinea.

He said Saracen will ensure it does not recruit child soldiers, will pay recruits regularly, and will be legally answerable to the Somali government. One group of 150 recruits finished training in November in Puntland and a second batch will soon complete the training course there. Training has not yet begun in Mogadishu.

Saracen has declined to disclose the source of its financing. A person familiar with the project, insisting on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said Prince is overseeing the antipiracy training.

The intelligence report, in which the United Arab Emirates was identified as a funder and Prince as a participant, was given to the AP on condition its author and agency not be disclosed because the document was confidential. Several Western security officials said in interviews that those findings were trustworthy.

Pirates use long stretches of Somali coastline as a base to prey on busy shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Al-Shabab controls most of south and central Somalia and much of Mogadishu. Western governments fear Somalia could be used as a base for attacks on the West.

Some American officials worry that the Saracen projects encourage the idea that more guns and money — rather than better governance and transparent defense training — can defeat the insurgency. The Somali army has been weakened by defections because a series of corrupt administrations has been incapable of paying its soldiers.

The Somalis being trained by the European Union are supposed to earn $100 a month. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said Saracen is offering $300 a month during training and $500 a month after graduation.

That could lure the best trained people away from the Somali army, the U.S. official said, and lessen the burden on the government to follow higher standards.

Many nations, including the Gulf states, have offered Somalia assistance. Several Arab nations who gave cash then found that the money could not be accounted for, said Hogendoorn, the Somalia analyst. That could be one reason for Arab rulers to support the Saracen project, he said.

You wirelessly make a credit-card transaction at a gas station kiosk, and wonder if anyone is grabbing your info. On Wednesday, Cisco Systems took a step to improve wireless security for financial transactions as it announced new network solutions to allow retailers to increase the security on their wireless networks beyond what is required by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard.

A survey by InsightExpress, conducted for Cisco, found that more than a third of retailers use wireless technology to transmit cardholder data, and more than 35 percent of financial institutions do the same. Cisco's solution offers a software download that enables Cisco access points to run in a new Enhanced Local Mode, or ELM, part of the company's new Adaptive Wireless Intrusion Prevention System (IPS).

'Significant Cost Savings'

With the download installed, businesses can continue to use the same access points they're using for data, voice and video, but now they can also monitor the radio frequency spectrum for attacks. Cisco's previous solution was one network for data, voice and video, and another for intrusion prevention.

On the company blog, Cisco's Ben Stricker said the integration of the two networks means "significant cost savings" for a business -- as much as 50 percent for smaller network deployments.

Stricker said that, before ELM, a retail business with a 30,000-square-foot store would have needed as many as 10 access points to handle wireless transactions, plus two additional dedicated access points for full-time wireless intrusion prevention. With ELM, the retailer no longer needs the two additional access points. In addition, ELM covers more threats than the LIMITED protection Cisco previously offered.

Along with IPS, Cisco is announcing updates to its Wireless Control System, which allows businesses to stay on top of PCI Data Security Standard compliance. The company said IPS offers more PCI compliance tools than its previous product, including summary reports, the ability to address compliance at individual locations or devices, and other improved features.

New PCI Standard

The InsightExpress survey for Cisco found that slightly more than half the respondents felt that compliance with the PCI security standard is a burden, but necessary. About 85 percent felt their organization could pass a PCI audit, even though a third were looking at additional measures to boost their security. Sixty percent said they had budgeted between $100,000 to more than $1 million on PCI compliance.

The compliance standards are set by the PCI Security Standards Council. A new PCI Data Security Standard was released in October and went into effect the first of the year, but some industry observers have complained that it doesn't adequately protect emerging mobile-payment technologies, such as add-on payment devices for smartphones.

Cisco has said the new PCI spec focuses only on rogue wireless access points, and can't deal with threats such as ad-hoc wireless bridging or denial of service.

CALGARY, Alberta – TransCanada Corp plans to build a $140 million link to its proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from the Bakken oil region in the northern United States, a project that would send more crude to a huge Oklahoma storage hub, the company said on Thursday.

TransCanada, whose $7 billion XL pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast from Alberta is awaiting U.S. State Department approval, said shippers from the fast-developing Bakken oil region have committed to capacity of 65,000 barrels a day on the planned link.

That is less than the 100,000 bpd the company had on offer, but pushes the project above its economic hurdle, TransCanada Chief Executive Russ Girling said.

"There was substantially more interest in the proposal and as that production comes on, I would expect we would move closer to that 100,000 barrels a day," Girling said in an interview.

The line would provide access from Baker, Montana, to Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for New York Mercantile Exchange West Texas Intermediate oil futures, and on to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The Bakken geological formation, straddling North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan, is the target of brisk investment as companies employ the horizontal drilling and multistage rock fracturing technology developed for shale gas.

Output from the U.S. portion of the region is expected to climb as much as 300,000 bpd by 2015, nearly doubling current overall North Dakota oil output. Pipeline capacity has lagged production increases.

The line would start up in the first quarter of 2013, but it is dependent on Keystone XL being approved, TransCanada said.

That project, which would move 510,000 barrels a day, faces opposition from environmental groups. They say Keystone XL will bring new oil spill risks to numerous states and drive more Canadian oil sands development.

Girling said he still expects a State Department decision by the middle of this year, a time frame that was extended last year, and believes the project's potential economic benefits, including jobs creation and energy security, will sway regulators in favor.

Meanwhile, commercial shipments on the final leg of the initial Keystone oil pipeline, which runs to Cushing from Steel City, Nebraska, should start in late February or in March, he said.

Rising volumes of Canadian crude imports have already contributed to brimming storage tanks at the hub, which analysts have said is a factor behind a widening spread between U.S. benchmark oil prices and Brent, the world marker.

With XL, the link to the U.S. Gulf Coast refining region will counteract further gluts there, Girling said.

"Our project is intended to be in service by 2013, which would include the extension of the Keystone XL pipeline from Cushing to Port Arthur, Texas," he said. "If it wasn't cleared by that point, certainly our project would help in alleviating that bottleneck," he said.

TransCanada shares fell 23 Canadian cents to C$36.92 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday.

DETROIT – The new chief of product development at GM holds what is arguably the most important job in the company: coming up with cars and trucks that people want.

There also are a few extra goals on Mary Barra's list: Make the stuff faster and raise its quality.

Barra, a 30-year veteran of General Motors, was named head of global product development on Thursday. She replaces Vice Chairman Tom Stephens who was moved aside after GM's CEO grew unhappy over the speed with which new vehicles reached the market.

She'll look for ways to more efficiently run a giant operation that includes 36,000 people across the globe, she said in an interview with The Associated Press. She also wants vehicles with more compelling exterior designs, the latest technology, and she promises to work with manufacturing and parts supply companies to boost quality.

Barra wouldn't say how much time she'd like to shave from product development, which typically takes four or five years.

With other automakers cranking out new models faster and faster, it's critical for GM respond with fresh cars and trucks because older models don't sell as well as those with the latest designs and gadgets.

The typical five-year wait for new models probably is too long, but GM could do significant updates in a much shorter period, said Rebecca Lindland, director of automotive research with consulting firm IHS Automotive.

"Everybody is going to be coming to market with products sooner," she said "With technology being more and more integrated into a vehicle, you can be obsolete before you know it."

New Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson told reporters last week that GM's 2009 bankruptcy put the company a year behind in vehicle development, and he wanted to bring out new cars and trucks faster. He said in a statement that Barra will bring a "fresh perspective" to the critically important job.

Bankruptcy sidetracked new pickup trucks, among GM's top-selling vehicles, and it delayed a replacement for the aging Chevrolet Impala large sedan.

Barra, 49, has been vice president of global human resources since 2009, helping the company through management turmoil that included four chief executives in less than two years. She also served as a plant manager and held a number of engineering and management posts, even heading internal communications.

Longtime GM executives have been criticized for moving too slowly in the company's rule-heavy culture. Barra said her long career at GM will be an asset.

"I have a rich vehicle background and I know the company," she said. "I know what works. I know what doesn't work."

Barra started at GM in 1980 while attending engineering school.

In her new post, Barra will manage the company's global alliances, such as those in China and Korea. She'll oversee a pipeline of cars and trucks for GM's 11 global brands, including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac in the U.S.

Barra wouldn't talk about specific products. She wants to assess what's in the works and see how new models can be accelerated.

Earlier this week Akerson cleared the spot for Barra by moving Stephens to a new post as chief technology officer. The move was part of a broader management shake-up that included the ouster of GM's OnStar chief and elevation of several marketing executives.

Stephens, a 42-year GM veteran, lost responsibility for product planning in a shake-up last year, but remained in charge of global product development, leading the launches of the Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car and the Chevrolet Cruze compact car.

Barra said part of her mandate is to boost quality. GM's reliability has been spotty in the past, but it showed the biggest improvement of any automaker in last year's Consumer Reports magazine survey, thanks to new models. Yet its highest-ranked brand of the 27 listed in the survey was Chevrolet at 17.

LONDON (AFP) – The finance spokesman for the opposition Labour party, Alan Johnson, stepped down Thursday citing personal reasons, just three months after being appointed to the post as an economic novice.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said he had accepted Johnson's resignation with "regret" and announced that he would be replaced by Ed Balls, the current home affairs spokesman and former right-hand man of ex-premier Gordon Brown.

"I have decided to resign from the Shadow Cabinet for personal reasons to do with my family," Johnson said in a statement.

"I have found it difficult to cope with these personal issues in my private life whilst carrying out an important frontbench role."

Johnson was appointed in October having no finance background, and one of his first comments was to joke that he would have to buy an economics primer -- a remark his opponents later flung back in his face.

He made a string of subsequent gaffes including being unable to give a television interviewer a key figure for the national insurance payments made by employers.

Miliband denied it had been a mistake to appoint Johnson, telling the BBC that the former interior minister was stepping down for "deeply personal reasons" and that his resignation had "nothing to do with the job."

Johnson was widely seen as a centrist influence with working class roots, having been a postman for 19 years and then worked his way up through trade unions.

A Labour party spokesman denied that a Sunday newspaper was about to publish details about Johnson's private life -- a situation which has sparked several resignations in British political life over the years.

What Johnson lacked in economic knowledge, Balls -- a former minister in the finance ministry -- has in abundance.

He had been widely tipped to be handed the finance spokesman's brief after the Labour leadership battle but lost out to Johnson.

He is closely associated with the economic policies of Brown, finance minister for a decade before he became prime minister, who talent spotted him and brought him into politics.

Balls ran against Miliband in the contest to become Labour leader and has strong views on tackling the country's record deficit which might not necessarily match those of his boss.

His style is also more combative than Johnson's and he has argued more aggressively against government cuts.

LOS ANGELES – The owner of a Beverly Hills beauty salon has agreed to plead guilty to using credit card information from celebrity clients without their knowledge to ring up bogus charges, according to court documents.

Maria Gabriela Hashemipour, 51, agreed to plead guilty to one count of access device fraud and could face up to 10 years in prison. She was scheduled to enter her plea in U.S. District Court on Friday. As part of her agreement, federal prosecutors will drop 40 other counts.

Hashemipour may also face a fine of up to $250,000 and must pay full restitution to her clients estimated to be no higher than $1 million.

"My client accepts full responsibility for the mistakes she has made, despite the fact that her actions caused minimal if any actual monetary loss," said defense attorney Nina Marino. "She trusts in the court to decide the appropriate consequences given all the circumstances."

Hashemipour was arrested in August at her business, Chez Gabriela Studio. Her website said her clientele includes Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry and Cher.

Two of actress Liv Tyler's credit cards had about $214,000 in fraudulent charges from the studio over a five-month period last year, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

The case came to the attention of investigators after jewelry designer Loree Rodkin's attorney said about $68,000 had been charged to her credit card from Hashemipour's studio without her authorization. Hashemipour offered $25,000 worth of products in exchange for the charges, but Rodkin refused, the affidavit said.

Rodkin also told authorities she knew of other clients, such as Anne Hathaway, who had similar charges on their credit card, the affidavit said. The indictment shows that in July 2009 there was more than $16,000 in charges to the American Express card of a victim identified only as "A.H." Prosecutors declined to release names of other victims.

Hashemipour also could be deported as part of her deal. The indictment filed against her said she was born in Mexico, not in Spain as she had claimed, and she had fraudulently obtained a U.S. passport.

BAGHDAD – Three suicide car bombers struck Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 51 people and wounding more than 180 in a third straight day of attacks across Iraq.

The string of assaults, reminiscent of the bloodiest days of the Iraq war, shattered a two-month lull and presented a major challenge to the new government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who must soon decide whether to ask U.S. forces to stay after the end of the year.

Thursday's attacks were particularly significant because most of the victims were Shiite civilians, the government's core constituency. A lawmaker allied with anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose support for al-Maliki was crucial in enabling him to remain prime minister, accused government security forces of "not acting in a professional manner" to protect the pilgrims.

"I expect the attacks will continue ... due to the negligence of the security forces," the lawmaker, Hakim al-Zamili, told The Associated Press.

The attacks took place at mid-afternoon Thursday at three security checkpoints — one north and the two others south of Karbala, where millions of Shiite pilgrims are converging for rituals marking the 7th century death of Imam Hussein. He was a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was slain near the city by Muslim rivals.

Ali Khamas, a pilgrim from the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad, said he saw a car speeding toward one of the checkpoints, its driver refusing to stop despite warnings shouted by Iraqi soldiers.

"He sped up and blew up his car near the checkpoint," said Khamas, a 42-year-old truck driver. "After the explosion, people started to run in all directions, while wounded people on the ground were screaming for help. I saw several dead bodies on the ground."

The dead included a dozen Iraqi soldiers and policemen as well as an undisclosed number of women and children, officials said.

No group claimed responsibility, but suicide attacks are the trademark of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group believed made up mostly of Sunni religious extremists.

Such groups have frequently targeted Shiite civilians, in part because of religious differences and because Shiite parties used their ties to the Americans to gain power after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime.

"The enemies always develop their tactics and improvise new plans to make use of any security breach," said Karbala provincial councilman Shadhan al-Aboudi. He blamed the blasts on al-Qaida and Saddam loyalists.

"They have apparently found a gap today in the security measures and they carried out an evil act against innocent believers who were practicing religious rituals," he said.

Since the end of Saddam's rule, Shiite politicians have encouraged huge turnouts at religious rituals, which were banned under the former regime as a demonstration of Shiite power.

Last month an alliance of Shiite parties took control of the government following elections in March, during which the Sunni-backed Iraqiya party won bragging rights by finishing first with a two-seat plurality.

With Iraqiya given a role in the new government, hopes were high that the Iraqis might be able to set aside sectarian ethnic and religious differences and begin the arduous task of rebuilding the country after nearly eight years of war.

Those hopes began to fade Tuesday when a suicide bomber struck a group of young men seeking to join the police in the northern city of Tikrit, killing 65 people. The next day, a suicide bomber blasted a police compound in the eastern city of Baqouba, killing another three.

Al-Maliki adviser Adil Barwari said the attacks show extremists' determination "to undermine the new Iraqi government."

He also said the insurgents were trying to frighten neighboring countries from sending delegates to the Arab League summit in Baghdad in March — the first time Iraq has hosted the meeting in 20 years.

"They want it to fail," Barwari said. "But al-Qaida will not succeed in achieving this goal."

Although the government was formed a month ago, al-Maliki has yet to appoint ministers of defense, interior or national security, leaving him in charge of Iraq's entire security force. The attacks have increased pressure on al-Maliki, whose power base is in Karbala, to fill those positions — a task which will require hard-bargaining with the parties in his government because of the power those ministries wield.

"We have said more than once that the security situation is fragile and security violations will increase," said Amir al-Kinani, a Sadrist lawmaker. "The prime minister and other political blocs are responsible for these security violations. They have to take care of the situation."

If large-scale attacks continue, they will likely sharpen the political debate over whether to ask President Barack Obama to extend the presence of U.S. forces beyond the Dec. 31 deadline for their withdrawal set down in an agreement reached with the Iraqis in the final months of the Bush administration.

Al-Maliki has insisted that Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining security on their own, although it is widely assumed that his government will ask for at least some residual American presence despite opposition by the Sadrists and others in his government.

U.S. officials have said they would be willing to consider an Iraqi request to extend the American stay, but they want a decision by early spring in order to make plans for moving out the remaining 47,000 troops and equipment.

No such request has been made, and U.S. officials have said they would need to know by the summer if the Iraqis want a continued American presence.

LAS VEGAS – Paris Hilton's boyfriend Cy Waits was driving under the influence of marijuana when he was arrested with the celebrity socialite on the Las Vegas Strip last summer, according to a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors Thursday.

Waits, 35, faces a felony charge of being under the influence of marijuana, and misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and driving under the influence. The former nightclub mogul could face up to four years in prison if convicted of the felony charge.

A toxicology report shows Waits had marijuana in his blood around the time of his arrest. Although drug possession is often a misdemeanor, it is a felony in Nevada to use or be under the influence of any illegal drug.

Waits' attorney, David Chesnoff, said his client is not guilty. Chesnoff said he has not received the forensic evidence.

"We are looking forward to vigorously defending the matter," Chesnoff said Thursday. "At this point it is just an allegation."

Waits' Aug. 27 traffic stop made national headlines after he and Hilton were arrested.

Police said a small bag containing 0.8 gram of cocaine fell from Hilton's Chanel purse as she reached for a tube of lip balm after the traffic stop.

Hilton pleaded guilty in September to misdemeanor cocaine possession and obstruction charges. She is serving a year of probation and was banned from two Wynn resorts after the arrest, and Waits was dismissed as a partner in the venue's nightclub.

The couple caught a police officer's attention as Waits was driving a black Cadillac Escalade on the Strip at 11:21 p.m., according to a police report. The officer said he smelled a "vapor trail" of marijuana smoke coming from the SUV.

Waits told the officer he had just finished smoking. His pupil size appeared normal, but his breath smelled of alcohol, his eyes were bloodshot and he appeared to wobble when he stood, according to a police report.

Waits passed a test in which the officer asked him to follow a finger with his eyes. But Waits failed a walk-and-turn test and a one-leg-stand test, showing poor balance in both, according to the report.

A vehicle search turned up the remains of a moist marijuana cigarette.

Wait's arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 17 in Las Vegas Justice Court.

Chesnoff, who also represented Hilton in her criminal case, said he would challenge the legality of the stop. He said the officer did not have probable cause that Waits was driving while impaired. He also questioned why the officer continued his investigation after Waits passed the eye test.

"When he passed, it should have been over," Chesnoff said.