Readwrotes Blog

Associated Press , White Plains, New York | Thu, 08/13/2009 11:27 PM | World Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94. According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side. He had been hospitalized in February 2006 when he learned he won two Grammys for an album he released after his 90th birthday, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played." "I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it," he joked. As an inventor, Paul helped bring about the rise of rock 'n' roll and multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the "tracks" in the finished

By Michael Bowman Washington 13 August 2009 Shoppers move through the check-out line after a shopping trip to Wal-Mart in Tallahassee, Florida, 11 Aug. 2009 One day after the U.S. central bank signaled a possible end to America's longest recession since World War II, new data suggest continued weakness in several economic sectors. Less than 24 hours after the Federal Reserve proclaimed the recession to be easing, the United States has been hit with a quadruple batch of somber economic news, with retail sales down, business inventories cut, jobless claims up and home foreclosures hitting a new record high. Instead of the modest gain economists had been expecting, U.S. retail sales dipped .1 percent in July. Lakshman Achuthan of the New York-based Economic Cycle Research Institute says even a slight drop in sales has consequences. "You are talking about an [American] economy that is almost $14 trillion

By Brian Padden Banda Aceh, Indonesia 13 August 2009 Fishing boat carried by killer tsunami in 2004 remains on top of house in Banda Aceh, 16 Apr 2009 The 2004 tsunami that ravaged Indonesia's Aceh province helped convince Acehnese separatists and the central government in Jakarta to work together to end 30 years of war and rebuild the province. August 15 marks the fourth anniversary of the peace settlement. While today the peace still holds, the tsunami recovery no longer unites the people of Aceh. In the Aceh village of Lam Thoe children play in the streets and farmers plant rice in the fields. But in 2004 the tsunami that inundated coastal communities in 11 countries destroyed this village. Village leader Arachman Yusuf and most of the people of Lam Thoe fled to hills before the tsunami hit. He says he thought it was the end of the world. But what followed one of the greatest natural disasters in histo