Rahm Emanuel has talked with President Barack Obama and other powerful leaders about some of the most serious questions of the day.

Now, in his bid to be Chicago mayor, he will have to sit in a room in the bowels of a government building and answer questions from lawyers and city residents who don't want him to run.

The stakes couldn't be higher for Emanuel, who quit one of the most powerful jobs in the nation as Obama's chief of staff, for the chance to replace powerful Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

The former Chicago congressman gets to defend himself Tuesday when he is expected to take the stand at what could be a raucous hearing about whether he remained a Chicago resident while he worked in Washington and is eligible to run for mayor.

He faces hours of questioning from lawyers and some of the more than two dozen people without lawyers who challenged his mayoral bid, including one man on Monday who claimed the hearing officer in the case should be arrested for not subpoenaing certain witnesses.

Paul Green, a political scientist at Roosevelt University, said the hearing on Emanuel's residency has the potential for "a lot of lunacy."

"It very easily could become a kangaroo court," Green said.

Emanuel is fighting to stay on the Feb. 22 ballot in a crowded race to replace Daley, who isn't seeking a seventh term.

Opponents argue Emanuel isn't eligible to be mayor because he lived in Washington for nearly two years before coming back to Chicago to run for mayor in October.

He's expected to be the first person to testify when the hearing officer for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners begins listening to evidence, and those who object to his name being on the ballot will get to question him personally.

They also will get to question the couple who began renting Emanuel's Chicago home when he moved to Washington.

It was obvious during a set-up hearing Monday that not everybody is well-versed on the finer points of the law — starting with one objector who couldn't understand why he wouldn't be allowed to subpoena journalists who have covered the issue to testify about what they know.

Emanuel and his lawyers claim he didn't forfeit his residency when he left Chicago. Among other things, the lawyers contend the Emanuel family continued to keep important personal items at their home, including his wife's wedding dress, the clothes his children wore home from the hospital after they were born and their school report cards. They have stressed he always intended to return.

"I own a home here in the city of Chicago," Emanuel told reporters during a campaign stop. "My car is licensed here in the city of Chicago. I pay property taxes here in the city of Chicago. I vote in the city of Chicago."

But attorney Burt Odelson said Emanuel did take some steps to give up his residency. For example, Odelson said Emanuel initially declared himself on tax forms to be a part-time resident of Chicago, and only changed that wording when people filed objections to his mayoral bid.

A bipartisan bloc of senators easily propelled President Obama’s tax cut compromise over a key procedural hurdle yesterday, clearing the way for a final Senate vote as early as today, and setting the stage for a potential showdown later this week among divided Democrats in the House.

A looming Jan. 1 deadline — when Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire, raising taxes for most Americans — brought Democrats and Republicans together in the Senate to advance Obama’s compromise over the objection of liberals. The lopsided vote of 83 to 15 easily cleared a 60-vote threshold to prevent a filibuster and generated momentum for the Obama-GOP alliance on the contentious issue.

The agreement would extend the tax cuts at all income levels for two years, though most Democrats, including the president, had wanted the cuts to extend only to families with incomes less than $250,000 a year.

“I just can’t see adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit to give some multimillionaires a tax break, and that’s all there is to it,’’ said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who joined a group of liberal senators and a smattering of conservative Republicans in voting no.

But the Senate’s minority leader, Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, said in a floor speech that the compromise was an essential first step toward addressing the nation’s deficit, by “cutting off the spigot’’ of tax income to the federal government to force Congress to make spending cuts.

In the House, debate is expected not only on the income tax, but on the estate tax. The current estate tax is zero, but it is due to be reset Jan. 1 at 10-year-old levels that members of both parties say are too high.

The president’s deal calls for a 35 percent tax on the value of an estate above $5 million — terms some Democrats in both chambers say is too generous to the wealthy.

“The estate tax is way too rich,’’ said Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat who supported the overall deal on yesterday’s procedural vote. Conrad said he will try to amend the package before it is passed.

Many Democrats prefer setting the estate tax at 2009 levels: a 45 percent tax on value above $3.5 million.

“There’s much consternation in the House about the estate tax,’’ majority leader Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, said yesterday, suggesting the House could try to amend that if Conrad’s attempt fails.

The White House has warned there is little room for changes. Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, said yesterday that his party would not accept a significantly different bill.

“I would think that what we agreed on will probably prevail,’’ he said in an interview. He noted that “the size of the vote, the showing of a lot of bipartisanship over here,’’ should create momentum that will make it hard for the House to resist.

Several political analysts agreed. “Considering all the criticism this package got from the right and the left, this vote is remarkable,’’ said a University of Virginia political analyst, Larry Sabato.

The wide margin is a blow to opponents of the deal, he said, adding, “it’s hard to see now how this is stopped.’’

Some of the angry rhetoric from liberal Democrats against the package has dissipated. Last week, Democrats, including several from Massachusetts, had bitterly denounced the deal, and the House Democratic caucus objected in a nonbinding voice vote.

Yesterday, Hoyer spoke of compromise: “You know, my experience in life, I haven’t gotten everything I wanted. That’s life. That’s the way we work with one another.

“I think we’ll pass a bill,’’ Hoyer said in a speech before the National Press Club. “As opposed to simply not passing anything.’’

Still, Massachusetts House members had not warmed to it by yesterday, despite the overwhelming support in the Senate.

“I just don’t get borrowing $855 billion from the Chinese to help families making more than $250,000,’’ said Representative Stephen Lynch, a South Boston Democrat.

The deal, negotiated by the president and congressional Republicans, also extends for 13 months an expiring program to provide federal unemployment benefits to those who have exhausted their 26 weeks of state benefits. The compromise would also create or continue a variety of tax breaks for individuals and businesses, including the establishment of a cut of 2 percentage points in the payroll tax and an extension of alternative energy credits that were part of the federal stimulus bill.

Lawrence Summers, in his last speech as head of President Obama’s National Economic Council, said the tax cut plan “averts what could have been a serious collapse in purchasing power.’’ He also said it delivers more in stimulus spending than most Democrats had thought politically possible.

Both Bay State senators supported the compromise. Democratic Senator John Kerry said it was hard to accept the tax cuts for the wealthy, but that was the price for extending unemployment benefits and preventing a tax increase on the middle class.

“Is it the deal I wanted? No,’’ Kerry said in a statement. “But the reality is we don’t have 60 senators who oppose the Bush tax policies the way I do, and the way Barack Obama and Joe Biden do, and this compromise provides many critical benefits for middle class folks that we’ve been fighting for and haven’t been able to win any other way.’’

Republican Senator Scott Brown said in a statement that the deal “is good for American families, for small businesses, and for individuals in Massachusetts and across the country.’’

Obama, who has weathered heavy criticism from liberals who complain he gave up too much in the deal, said yesterday that the Senate vote “proves that both parties can in fact work together to grow our economy and look out for the American people.’’ He urged the House to act quickly.

Representative James McGovern, a Worcester Democrat who continues to oppose the deal, acknowledged that a number of House Democrats support the current package, and with Republican support there may be enough votes to pass it.

Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political science professor, agreed.

“House Democrats need some symbolic compromise to make the medicine go down easier,’’ he said, “but this will pass because Democrats can’t afford to hold it up’’ and be blamed for higher middle-class taxes.

Residents here rejoiced two years ago when gas companies poked into a mammoth natural gas deposit 2 miles under their homes, sparking a modern-day gold rush.

The companies offered residents tens of thousands of dollars an acre to drill on their land, enriching some folks overnight in this rural corner of northwestern Louisiana.

Then cows started to die. Methane seeped into the drinking water. Homes were evacuated when natural gas escaped uncontrollably from a wellhead.

Today, many residents and local officials still praise the bounty reaped from the Haynesville Shale, one of the world's largest natural gas deposits, spread under Louisiana, Arkansas and eastern Texas. An estimated 250 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is trapped there — enough to power the United States for more than a decade, says Kevin McCotter, a senior director with Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp., the largest gas producer in the area. The shale has delivered a clean energy source while enriching residents, he says.

"At a time when our nation needs jobs and domestic investment more than ever, the Haynesville Shale has been a flu shot for northern Louisiana and East Texas," he says.

Others question whether the money landowners get for leasing their property is worth the risk they say the drilling poses.

"There are a lot of concerns," says Kassi Ebarb, who organized neighbors in her Shreveport suburb to demand more environmental safeguards from gas companies. "We would walk away (from the money) rather than take anything that was insufficient to protect our neighborhood and our kids."

Shreveport and the surrounding area have entered a national debate on the safety standards of a specialized form of natural gas drilling that pumps chemicals and water into the ground to release natural gas trapped thousands of feet below.

The debate centers on the controversial technique known as "hydraulic fracturing," or "fracking," in which companies drill down, then horizontally to reach natural gas deposits trapped in a shale formation. A mixture of water, chemicals and sand then is pumped into the shale with great force, breaking up the rock and releasing the gas.

The technology allows drillers to extract previously inaccessible natural gas deposits and has opened huge swaths of the USA to drilling. Nearly 500,000 natural gas wells are producing in 32 states, up from 393,000 in 2003, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The percentage of natural gas drilled from shale formations using hydraulic fracturing is expected to climb from 14% last year to 23% in 2020, according to the Department of Energy.

Environmentalists warn that chemicals blasted into the ground during fracking could harm water supplies and release toxic air and water, threatening rivers, air quality and human health.

"We've gone from getting the easiest oil and gas to the hardest," says Gwen Lachelt, director of Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project, a group advocating stricter drilling regulations. "It's getting dirtier and dirtier."

Gas companies and advocates of fracking say the technique is safe and poses little risk to drinking water or the environment. "We have a very good record when it comes to hydraulic fracturing, its regulations and the safety of the environment," says Jodee Bruyninckx of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.

Recent developments in fracking:

•The New York Assembly last week passed a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing until next year, while regulators review permitting rules.

•The Environmental Protection Agency in March launched a two-year study of the effects of hydraulic fracturing.

•The Pittsburgh City Council last month unanimously approved a measure banning natural gas drilling from its city limits, citing health and environmental concerns.

•The EPA last year found high levels of benzene, hydrocarbons and other harmful chemicals in water wells near gas rigs in Pavillion, Wyo., after residents complained of a foul odor and taste in the water, the agency says.

•Pennsylvania environmental regulators recently blamed the methane contamination of an aquifer — a natural underground formation that stores water — near Dimock, Pa., on Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas, which has been drilling into the region's Marcellus Shale. Cabot disputes the allegation.

A 'tough road' to regulation

Fracking is exempt from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, an exemption passed under the 2005 Energy Policy Act, according to legislative records. Under the exemption, gas companies don't have to disclose the chemicals used in the process.

A bill known as the FRAC Act, introduced in Congress last year by Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., would compel gas companies to reveal those chemicals, which largely have been guarded as trade secrets, Casey says. The bill is not expected to make it to the Senate floor in the near future, given the current political climate in Washington, he says.

"There's a tough road ahead of us," Casey says.

Further testing and monitoring should be done on the technique, which also is exempt from sections of the Clean Water Act and other federal environmental laws, says Josh Fox, a filmmaker whose documentary film, Gasland, profiles families across the USA impacted by natural gas drilling.

The film, released this year, shows residents setting the water coming out of their faucets on fire because of flammable methane gas in the water.

"This process has never been investigated," Fox says. "We don't put out drugs in the market without testing them first."

Fears of faucets flaring because of fracking are overblown, says Gary Hanson, a hydrologist at Louisiana State University at Shreveport who has studied the technique. Hydraulic fracturing bores down more than 2 miles underground, well past aquifers that sit at less than 1,000 feet, making it difficult for the process to contaminate drinking water supplies, he says.

Even if it doesn't fall under federal safety rules, fracking is still monitored by state and local agencies, Hanson says.

"You're going to have some incidents. There are going to be some spills," Hanson says. "But I don't see major contamination occurring."

Some see drilling as a 'blessing'

The financial benefits have been undeniable. Last year, Haynesville Shale drilling brought $10.6 billion in new business sales to the state, $5.7 billion in household earnings and 57,000 new jobs across the state, according to a study commissioned by the Louisiana Oil And Gas Association.

"Not only is natural gas production — and Haynesville Shale in particular — boosting Louisiana's economy and creating jobs, this type of exploration is helping to fuel America and decrease our dependence on foreign sources of energy," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, said in a statement.

Reegis Richard, pastor of the Temple of Knowledge Church International in nearby Mansfield, the heart of drilling activity, received $30,000 in gas money by leasing his church's 7 acres, and offerings from his enriched congregation have more than doubled, he says.

The influx of cash has allowed him to finish a new church building, open a private Christian school and travel twice to Israel with his wife and local ministers, he says.

"People's lives have been transformed," Richard says. "It's been a blessing."

The increased activity has also brought a greater strain on state regulators. In Louisiana, 38 oil and gas inspectors are responsible for monitoring the state's 19,000 producing natural gas wells, including 781 in the Haynesville Shale area, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

State agencies "don't have the political will nor the budget or the staff to adequately address the level of drilling that's going on in this area," says Murray Lloyd, a local lawyer.

Last spring, the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office received calls about cows in a pasture near a drilling rig that were foaming and bleeding at the mouth and keeling over, Sheriff Steve Prator says. Deputies found 17 dead cows there.

Necropsies later determined they had died from drinking fracking fluids that had leaked into the pasture, he says. Chesapeake and one of its subcontractors were later fined $22,000 each for the incident, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Then in April, about 200 homes in rural Caddo Parish were evacuated when a gas well blew out, sending gas into the air and local water supply, Prator says. Regulators detected high levels of methane in water from residents' toilets and sinks, he says.

The incident prompted Prator to contact Jindal's Office of Homeland Security and create the Haynesville Shale Task Force to better plan for emergencies. Lack of coordination among state agencies and their overall handling of the events frustrated him, Prator says. Another worrying development: gas rigs creeping closer to schools and crowded neighborhoods, he says.

"It made me question, 'Are we doing the right thing?' " Prator says.

One of those evacuated during the blowout was Frances Contario, 50, who left her trailer near Wallace Lake and lived in a room at the Clarion Hotel in Shreveport with her 23-year-old son, Braden, for 17 days. EXCO Resources, the Dallas-based gas company responsible for the blowout, paid the residents' hotel tabs and expenses, Prator says.

Contario says she has been drinking only bottled water since returning and fears that the lake, streams and forests near her home will be fouled by under so much drilling.

"We didn't ask for this," says Contario, who grew up in the area. "Our biggest concern is that one day this will all be contaminated."

On two separate Sunday news programs, the still-popular rascal of the 1990’s, Former President Bill Clinton, said that President Obama “was socked by the intensity of Republican opposition” and that “It disoriented him for awhile”, but that he is “getting his groove back”.

President Clinton went on to discuss the Republican strategy for regaining control of Congress, which was used against him in 1993 and 1994, which was simply to say no to everything. Mr. Clinton seems to forget that the Republicans regained control of Congress in the 1990’s because voters were angry that he sent our jobs to Mexico with NAFTA, and to other parts of the world with other Free Trade or Fair Trade agreements.

Now Obama proudly campaigns every week and tells Americans that the jobs that were sent overseas and south of the wide-open border with Mexico that “those jobs aren’t coming back”.

So what groove, exactly is our Socialist President supposed to be getting back? Has he found a way to send even more jobs out of the country? Well, of course he has! Most of the “Green Jobs Initiative” contracts went to places like China- curly-cue light bulbs, anyone? That contract was sent to China because the EPA didn’t want the dangerous mercury in the bulbs anywhere near people, because they don’t think Americans are smart enough to keep ourselves safe from the mercury, so now the fluorescent bulbs are not only made in China, this Chinese contract is forcing the closure of a light bulb factory in Winchester, Virginia.

Now the Mutual Adoration Society that is the Clinton/Obama Alliance will speak together in an event promoting the Clinton Initiative, meant to help women globally and supposedly to help create Green Jobs in the US without Government involvement. Does anyone smell the BS?

Clinton’s pandering to Big Business in the 1990’s sent American jobs everywhere but America. Obama is proud of the fact that not a single one of them will ever return to the US. POTUS has even said that it is a good thing they won’t return, saying that Americans need to be more educated, not so worried about jobs that are beneath them. Really, Mr. President?

All of America is supposed to be rich, fat and lazy, and let people like you and the other Marxists, Socialists and Progressives in your Administration brainwash us into believing we should serve you, we should serve everyone else in the whole world, and that America should make nothing, build nothing, unless we belong to a Union? Are we supposed to believe this crap?

What makes you think that Americans want to be indebted to the Government? Your experiences with the lazy, and the worthless in your Chicago Community Organizing efforts, who expect to be taken care of, and don’t believe they should work?

America wants her jobs back, so there won’t be so many poor huddled masses under bridges, Mr. President. We aren’t ashamed to work in factories or mills. We aren’t ashamed to dig coal. We aren’t ashamed to drive trucks. We are Americans, and there is nothing we cannot build, nothing our people cannot or will not do.

We deserve the chance to support our families without being indebted for decades by the price of a college education that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. You never had a “groove”, Mr. President. You had a big mouth, and a big political machine behind that big mouth.

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Worshipers crowded the aisles and spilled out the doorway of a small storefront church in the Bronx, where a small congregation of about 50 swelled on Sunday with those from nearby churches who stopped to offer condolences.

There was weeping and singing for hours over the loss of the church’s leader, his wife and four others, all killed when their church van overturned several times on the New York Thruway near Woodbury, N.Y., on Saturday.

Some arrived at Joy Fellowship Church still uncertain of what had happened. John G. Williams, the church’s financial adviser, did not know who had been lost as he approached the tan brick building on East Gun Hill Road.

He took off his hat, spread his arms and asked, “What happened? I’m totally at a loss. This is unreal.”

Fourteen congregant had crowded into a 1997 Ford minivan on Saturday and headed toward Schenectady, N.Y., to celebrate the second anniversary of a church founded by a nephew of Simon White’s, the bishop at Joy Fellowship.

A little more than 40 miles north of New York City, near the Woodbury Common outlet stores, the rear tire on the driver’s side of the minivan blew out. The vehicle swerved off the pavement and rolled several times before coming to rest upside down on the grassy center meridian.

Six passengers in the van died, including Mr. White, 55; his wife, Zelda, 52; and Mr. White’s older sister, Elaine Reid, 65. Emergency workers transported the other eight, including the van’s driver, to three area hospitals. Several remained in critical condition on Sunday.

Inside the church, the 50 folding metal chairs were filled; more people stood. Color photographs of Mr. and Mrs. White and Titus McGhie, 66, a pastor who also died in the crash, were hung behind the simple wooden lectern that serves as a pulpit. A neighboring Seventh-day Adventist church parked a motor home outside and provided food for mourners.

Many members at Joy Fellowship grew up in Jamaica or have strong ties there. Mr. White was the fifth of 15 children in Jonestown, Jamaica, where he served in the military and as a police officer, friends said.

Several in attendance spoke of the influence Mr. White had on their lives.

Glenford Edwards, 55, said he had served in the Jamaican military with Mr. White. Their paths crossed years later in New York, when Mr. White found Mr. Edwards hanging out with drug dealers on a street corner in the Bronx.

“He got out of his car and said, ‘Come here! This doesn’t fit you,’ ” Mr. Edwards said.

Mr. White encouraged him to get baptized and later walked him into a job interview at a Home Depot. Mr. Edwards said he got the job.

Ewan Peart, 55, said when he was a young man, Mr. White inspired him to join the Jamaican police.

“I saw him pull up one day in a Ford Falcon, which is what Jamaican police officers drove,” Mr. Peart said. “He had a .38 Smith & Wesson and a shotgun, and he had this sense of authority. He said, ‘Listen, man, you can do this.’ ”

Mr. Peart said Mr. White had moved to New York more than 20 years ago and had become a minister. A father of eight, he had married Zelda after his first wife died.

Mr. Williams described the Whites as “true soul mates.”

“I found them to be rather inseparable,” he said. “Zelda was extremely supportive of her husband.”

Mr. McGhie, a minister at the church, who also grew up in Jamaica, had preached on a local religious radio station, Mr. Williams said. He had recently retired and was struggling with his health.

Evelyn Ferguson, a mother of seven who also died in the crash, moved to New York from Jamaica four years ago to help take care of her grandchildren, said June Thompson, her stepdaughter. One of her grandchildren, Tyler Davidson, 11, said Ms. Ferguson loved doing crossword puzzles and watching Oprah Winfrey’s talk show.

“She was a very sweet old lady,” he said. “She always stood up for what she believed.”

Another who died, Avril Murray, 65, had recently retired from a hospital job to spend time with her children and grandchildren. She had performed missionary work in Jamaica, where two of her children live. She traveled there as recently as last year to deliver clothing she had collected from Bronx businesses, said Mr. Peart’s wife, Donna.

The church group was on its way to Schenectady for a banquet celebrating the second anniversary of the 1st Light Christian Assemblies, which was founded by Ms. Reid’s son, Robert A. Reid.

Mr. Reid wept and was embraced by dozens of congregants during the service at Joy Fellowship on Sunday. He wiped away tears as he spoke of his mother.

“She was always giving,” he said. “She was always kind and always tried to take care of every little thing.”

Delores Tulloch, a member at Joy Fellowship, said she was taken aback that such a tragedy had happened on what should have been a festive day.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me, but I know God has a plan,” she said.

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Looking ahead at this week's events focused on philanthropy and social innovation along with the political heavyweights that are set to gather, I can only think of one way to describe it -- philanthropy in overdrive.

Here's a sneak preview of what's to come:

Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting 2010: World leaders, CEOs and socially-conscious celebrities are gathering once again for the annual CGI meeting. First convened by President Clinton in 2005, the meeting works to develop solutions to some of the world's most challenging problems. There are several items on the agenda this year, including among others: empowering women, fighting poverty, enhancing access to new technologies, rebuilding Haiti. President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama will join President Clinton at the closing session on Thursday. To learn more, visit the CGI website.

Mashable & 92Y "Social Good Summit" (in partnership with the United Nations Foundation): One of the few public events during U.N. Week, the Summit will focus on solutions with speakers explaining how digital media and innovative ideas can combine to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Featured speakers include, among others: Geena Davis, Elizabeth Gore, Edward Norton and Judy McGrath. Visit the Summit's website for more information.

United Nations Summit: With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the eight international development goals that all 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit in New York on 20-22 September to accelerate progress towards the MDGs. President Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are among the leaders who will put forth rival plans to get the Millennium Developments Goals (MDGs) back on track. Visit the MGD website for more info.

Check back throughout the week for exclusive updates from these events.

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President Barack Obama heads to Pennsylvania on Monday to raise money for Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak, who is locked in a tight race for a seat considered a must-win for the president's party.

Democrats know that Sestak's chances of winning depend heavily on the party's ability to ramp up voter turnout in cities like Philadelphia. With six weeks until the midterm elections, Obama is trying to fire up the party's base, urging the first-time voters that helped him win the White House in 2008 to head back to the polls in November.

"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops, and beauty shops," Obama told a Congressional Black Caucus dinner Saturday night. "Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now."

The relationship between the White House and Sestak has been a rocky one. Obama backed longtime Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter in the primary contest that Sestak won earlier this year. The White House had tried to get Sestak to drop his challenge to Specter by offering him an unpaid presidential advisory position, an offer Sestak rejected.

Obama carried Pennsylvania during his White House run, but two years later, voters are angry at the sluggish economic recovery and could take their frustrations out on Democrats in November's balloting. Democrats see the Pennsylvania Senate seat as one that could not only determine which party holds the Senate majority, but also which way the key swing state might lean in 2012.

Several polls suggest Republican Pat Toomey, a former congressman and ex-head of the conservative Club for Growth, has a lead over Sestak. Republicans need to capture 10 Senate seats to win a majority. As many as a dozen held by Democrats appear competitive — the Pennsylvania race included — as well as at least five currently in the hands of the GOP.

Obama's trip to Pennsylvania is the latest in a string of appearances by Democratic heavyweights: Vice President Joe Biden headlined a Sestak fundraiser in Philadelphia last week, and former President Bill Clinton has made two appearances for Sestak in as many months.

National parties and outside groups are also pouring money into the race.

Estimates from the campaigns suggest that these groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Club for Growth and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have already spent $6 million to $7 million on TV ads since July. The airwaves are blanketed with ads blaming Toomey for the economic meltdown or accusing Sestak of recklessly raising taxes and the national debt.

Before his fundraisers for Sestak, Obama will participate in a CNBC town-hall discussion of jobs at Washington's Newseum. Tuesday evening, he'll headline a fundraiser in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Committee. Tickets for that event start at $10,000.

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One of the new stars of the Tea Party movement, an entertainer recently mistaken in Delaware for an actual politician, is Christine O'Donnell. Start here with O'Donnell, just because you have to:

Even Karl Rove thinks she is too far off the grid. This from a guy who thought Dick Cheney was fine.

Delaware is a state that has about one-third the population of Brooklyn. O'Donnell, running for the U.S. Senate, won her primary race with just over 30,000 votes. Even the Mets occasionally draw more people than that. No matter, she was suddenly a new drum majorette for the Tea Party.

Oh, sure. O'Donnell is a younger, peppier, more pleasant version of Sarah Palin, whom she channels in clothing, mannerisms, peppy rhetoric. So she and her 30,000 votes were supposed to be another example of the tidal wave of Tea Party fervor that is supposed to be sweeping America, even though her real campaign slogan should go something like this:

There are a lot of whack jobs in Congress, from both parties, and I aim to be one of them!

Or perhaps not.

Because on "Real Time" the other night, Bill Maher ran a clip from his old "Politically Incorrect" show in which O'Donnell voluntarily copped to the following:

"I dabbled into witchcraft - I never joined a coven. But I did, I did! I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around with people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me to do.

"One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it."

At this point, you wanted somebody to jump in and ask what she thought the altar was, the counter at White Castle?

The younger version of O'Donnell sure didn't stop there. She can talk the way Michael Phelps can swim. Apparently the only way to shut her up is to have video like this hit the Internet. As soon as it did, O'Donnell canceled both "Face the Nation" and "Fox News Sunday."

O'Donnell also volunteered this in the 1999 clip:

"I mean, there's a little blood and stuff like that. We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar."

Now last week, Rush Limbaugh lost his mind after he heard Rove criticizing O'Donnell, as if Rove had committed an act of high treason by thinking that O'Donnell was some low-common-denominator candidate, especially at a time when we're supposed to need every good Republican we can find to take back the country from the infidels.

The tax liens against O'Donnell in the past weren't supposed to matter, maybe because she's playing to an audience where anybody who doesn't pay taxes is viewed as a living saint. And her weird ideas about masturbation, and how condoms don't really prevent AIDS, weren't supposed to matter. Neither was the suggestion that she has confused campaign contributions with a cost-of-living stipend.

No, sir. O'Donnell was another spunky underdog running against big government and looked like an "All About Eve" version of Palin and anybody who attacked her had to be bad, bad, bad.

You wonder how all those who have fallen madly in love with her would feel if somebody in politics they truly hate, like Nancy Pelosi, admitted she was the one who once dabbled in witchcraft. Or if they'd simply decide that Pelosi being a witch was old news and move on.

You want to worry about this country and how it seems to be getting dumber by the minute? Worry that the problems with it are so profound, and have made people so desperate and crazy, that there are actually 30,000 people in Delaware who think that Christine O'Donnell and her beliefs - whatever they are - are some kind of solution.

Or that in New York a loudmouth like Carl Paladino, another big Tea Party guy with ideas about immigration and illegals that make Arizona's look enlightened, is suddenly a candidate for governor.

You actually want to see Paladino on a whistle-stop tour with that Arizona governor, Jan Brewer, at his side. You may have seen Brewer make a television appearance not long ago and wait 15 seconds for her next thought. Boxers get counted out after 10.

Paladino would have been delighted and jumped right in. Already you can tell he thinks having any kind of unspoken thought is a felony.

Paladino is supposed to be another part of the tidal wave of those set to take back the country, starting in November. And no worries if he stumbles along the way, the way poor Christine O'Donnell did this weekend. He can just say the devil made him do it.

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President Barack Obama urged Republicans on Wednesday to help renew Bush-era tax cuts quickly for the middle class but not wealthier Americans -- a flashpoint issue going into November's congressional election.

"We simply don't have time any more to play games," Obama said at the White House.

With trillions of dollars in tax cuts due to expire on December 31, Obama again accused opposition Republicans of holding the middle class "hostage" and coddling millionaires with their demand that tax relief be extended for all Americans.

"Once again, leaders across the aisle are saying no. They want to hold these middle-class tax cuts hostage until they get an additional tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans," Obama said.

"We simply can't afford that," he said, rejecting the Republican argument it is not the right time to raise taxes on anyone, given concerns the economy is not rebounding fast enough from the worst recession since the 1930s.

Obama, speaking after a Cabinet meeting, was flanked by members of his economic team, including Vice President Joe Biden, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and top economic advisers Larry Summers and Austan Goolsbee.

Republicans were swift to respond to Obama.

"Tax hikes aren't going to grow the economy, just as no amount of spin can change the fact that the Washington spending spree hasn't led to a hiring spree, despite the promises of Democrats," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement.


'PREPARED TO DISCUSS ALTERNATIVES'

Republicans demand, with the support of some Democrats, that tax cuts for families earning more than $250,000 a year be renewed alongside those for the less wealthy.

Thirty-one House Democrats, many of them fiscal conservatives, urged their leadership in a letter to consider legislation to extend all tax cuts.

"In recent weeks, we have heard from a diverse spectrum of economists, small business owners, and families who have voiced concerns that raising any taxes right now could negatively impact economic growth," they wrote.

Some opinion polls show voters like the idea of continuing the tax cuts for the middle class but not for the wealthy.

House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters earlier that he was "always, as you know, prepared to discuss alternatives so we can move forward."

But he quickly reaffirmed his support for Obama's position to renew tax cuts only for families earning less than $250,000 a year. Extending the cuts for wealthier Americans, he warned, risked driving up the budget deficit.

A Hoyer spokeswoman said later, "He's willing to listen to what other people have to say, but he's not willing to change his opposition" to extending tax cuts for wealthier Americans.

Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, reversing a long-standing aversion to higher taxes, said rates must rise to reduce the record budget deficit.

"I am in favor for the first time in my memory of raising taxes," Greenspan told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Greenspan warned of "very grave problems ahead" if the budget deficit, swollen to around $1 trillion by massive amounts of stimulus spending, was not tackled soon.

As Fed chairman, Greenspan backed the tax cuts passed during the Bush administration that are now set to expire at the end of this year unless Congress renews them.

Investors and companies are concerned about a possible rise in the tax rate for dividends and capital gains if Democrats and Republicans cannot reach a compromise.

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Justice Stephen Breyer expressed frustration with popular perceptions of the Supreme Court as a partisan battlefield, making an unusual public statement after a term full of 5-4 splits on politically sensitive issues.

Americans "think we're a group of junior league politicians," he said during a recent interview here. "They think we decide things on the basis of politics. Or, if not politics, on the basis of what we think is good for people, rather than the Constitution. And I think that's wrong."

In its most recent term, the court divided repeatedly along ideological lines, with a bare majority voting to strike down a local handgun ban and restrictions on corporate and union spending in elections.

ustice Breyer, during a conversation in the chambers he keeps at the federal courthouse here, sought to tamp down criticism from some on the left that conservatives led by Chief Justice John Roberts are on an ideological mission to roll back individual rights, while showing "tea-party groups" and others on the right why liberal-leaning justices like him believe they are keeping faith with the framers.

Even when the justices disagree, "all nine of us think we're following the same Constitution that was there in 1790," he said.

Justice Breyer has just published his first book aimed at a general audience. "Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View" takes readers through historical cases that helped establish the court's place in the American system. "I want to show through example what it is to be a member of the court," he said.

His concern about public confidence in the high court deepened earlier this year when security consultants persuaded the justices to close its front entrance. The marble steps and brass doors represented "dignified openness and meaningful access to equal justice under law," Justice Breyer wrote in a dissent. Relegating visitors to a cramped side door, he suggested, sent the opposite message.

One goal of the book, the author said, is to persuade Americans that he is "trying to use a coherent approach" in decisions "rather than deciding on a political basis."

In interpreting a law, judges typically "look to the words at issue, to surrounding text, to the statute's history, to legal traditions, to precedent, to the statute's purposes, and to its consequences evaluated in light of those purposes," Justice Breyer writes. "Of these I find the last two—purposes and consequences—most helpful most often."

It is an approach he contrasts with originalism, the model championed by Justice Antonin Scalia, which purports to apply constitutional text according to its meaning when adopted. Both justices have sought to popularize their competing methods in books and lectures.

In his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," then-Sen. Barack Obama discussed the Breyer-Scalia debate, writing that "ultimately…I have to side with Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution—that it is not a static but rather a living document."

Stanford University law professor Michael W. McConnell, a former federal appellate judge appointed by President George W. Bush, said Justice Breyer's approach risked leading to a "jurisprudence of personal preference" if it strayed from what the words of the law say.

Trying to surmise "what the nation might say if it were writing a constitution today," Mr. McConnell said, "doesn't adhere to the purpose of a constitution," which is to cement certain provisions in place.

Justice Breyer long had an ally in his self-described "pragmatic" approach: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a Reagan appointee who often sought a constitutional middle ground.

"I was very sorry when Justice O'Connor retired" in 2006, he said in the interview. "We wouldn't always agree, but we did share a general approach, and we'd tend to be, very often, on the same track."

The same can't be said of her successor, Justice Samuel Alito, a solid conservative who disdains split-the-difference adjudication.

As a result, Justice Breyer has been finding himself outvoted, such as in 2007 when the court's conservatives threw out student-integration plans adopted by local school boards.

Justice Breyer's dissent suggested deep frustration with the court's direction, saying it broke the promise of integration made in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case. "The court and the nation will come to regret" the 2007 ruling, he wrote at the time.

But in the interview, Justice Breyer played down any feelings of alienation.

"Am I overemphasizing the degree to which it is polarized?" he asked himself. "It is easy to get sort of unhappy about one or two or three particular cases in a term, but there's a bigger picture."

"The 5-4 cases, depending on the year, are probably 20 to 25%" of the cases the court hears, he said.

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Sarah Palin may have a magic touch with candidates she endorses, but nearly half of American voters aren't impressed by the former Republican vice presidential candidate.

The Tea Party isn't so popular, either.

Just 21% of those asked have a favorable view of Palin, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll, which also found that 19% support the Tea Party.

The number of voters who view Palin unfavorably rose six points since August to 46%.

Meanwhile, 33% say they are undecided on Palin or don't know enough about her positions.

Still, Palin's endorsements seem to matter.

So far this primary season, Palin has backed 43 candidates and 25 of them have won, 11 have lost, with the rest not having had a primary race.

Most recently, she helped lift Republicans Christine O'Donnell and Kelly Ayotte to Senate primary wins in Delaware and New Hampshire, respectively.

However, two in three voters say Palin is just looking for attention with her endorsements, according to the poll.

As for the Tea Party, 63% do not support its movement, though voters who are familiar with the party are more divided.

The poll finds 29% have an unfavorable view, opposed to 23% who see the party in a favorable light.

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Police say four people have been arrested for posing as San Bruno pipeline explosion victims in a scheme to get free food and other aid.

The San Francisco Chronicle says they submitted false driver's license applications at the Department of Motor Vehicles to show they lived in the burned out area where 37 homes were destroyed in last week's natural gas explosion and fire.

Victims are eligible for free cellular telephones, food and clothing store gift cards, among other things.

Niesha Taylor and Deonte Bennett of San Francisco were arrested Tuesday at a San Bruno assistance center. Sonya Smith and Lisa Justin, who live three miles from the devastated neighborhood, were arrested later in the day.

All four have been booked for investigation of burglary, perjury and submitting false or forged documents.

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President Barack Obama is announcing that 100 corporate CEOs will collaborate to support his goal of improving student performance in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math education.

The CEOs have created a nonprofit organization called Change the Equation, designed to bring successful, privately funded programs to 100 schools and communities most in need. Some of the programs will expand summer science camps for girls, boost the number of students taking advanced math and science courses and provide professional development for math teachers.

The nonprofit was founded by former astronaut Sally Ride and current and former CEOs from Intel, Xerox, Time Warner Cable and Eastman Kodak.

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President Barack Obama will appoint Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren as a special adviser to oversee the creation of a new consumer finance protection bureau, a Democratic official said Wednesday.

Warren would report to both the Treasury Department and the White House in a role that would not require Senate confirmation. The 61-year-old Harvard University professor and consumer advocate had been considered the leading candidate to head the bureau itself, but her lack of support in the financial community could have set the stage for contentious Senate hearings that might ultimately have derailed her confirmation.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement.

The White House would not confirm the appointment, but Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said an announcement could be made this week.

While Obama has long been a friend and supporter of Warren, he was keenly aware of the potential pitfalls of nominating a polarizing figure in the midst of a heated election year.

"I am concerned about all Senate nominations these days," Obama said during a news conference last week. "I've got people who have been waiting for six months to get confirmed who nobody has an official objection to."

The consumer bureau was created under the financial regulatory bill Obama signed into law earlier this year. It will have vast powers to enforce regulations covering mortgages, credit cards and other financial products, and be financed by the Federal Reserve.

The new bureau would consolidate consumer protection duties now spread across various regulatory agencies. The financial regulation law gives the Treasury Department the authority to run the consumer protection bureau while the nomination of its director is pending.

The law also says the Treasury secretary must transfer those functions to the new bureau within a year, but gives him latitude to seek an additional six months to complete the creation of the agency. That means Warren could, potentially, perform her new duties into 2012.

"I very much would like to see her directing that agency. Exactly in what form is less important to me than that she does it," Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "If someone told me that a candidate for that job could be easily confirmed, I think that would be a disqualification."

But some in the business community condemned the move to skirt the Senate.

"The administration has circumvented one of the very few checks on a big new agency that already has been given an unprecedented concentration of regulatory powers," said David Hirschmann, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's center for capital markets competitiveness. "This maneuver is an affront to the pledge of transparency and consumer protection that's purported to be the focus of this new agency."

Warren has served as head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with monitoring Treasury's handling of the $700 billion bank rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. She has at times clashed with Treasury over her committee's findings and conclusions about the use of TARP money.

As of Sept. 10, however, Warren stepped back from working on the group's latest report, a signal that the new Treasury post was a possibility.
Her pending appointment was first reported by ABC News.

It was unclear whether Obama also intends to nominate a permanent director for the job this week.

Others mentioned as contenders to lead the agency are Michael Barr, an assistant treasury secretary who was a key architect of the administration's financial regulatory plans, and Eugene Kimmelman, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's antitrust division.
Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Daniel Wagner contributed to this report.

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U.S. home seizures reached a record for the third time in five months in August as lenders completed the foreclosure process for thousands of delinquent owners, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

Bank repossessions climbed 25 percent from a year earlier to 95,364, the most since the Irvine, California-based data provider began keeping records in 2005. Foreclosure filings, including default and auction notices, fell 5 percent to 338,836. One out of every 381 U.S. households received a filing, RealtyTrac said today in a statement.

“We’re on track for a record year for homes in foreclosure and repossessions,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president, said in a telephone interview. “There is no improvement in the underlying economic conditions.”

Foreclosures are contributing to a growing housing supply that may add as many as 12 million homes to the U.S. market. Demand is crumbling amid high unemployment and following the expiration of a federal homebuyer tax credit in April. Sales of new and existing homes fell in July to the lowest level on record. Home prices have fallen 28 percent since 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of values in 20 U.S. cities.

About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders through 2011, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Home sales this year will be 7 percent below the 2009 total, Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage finance company, said yesterday in a report.

Default notices are falling while seizures rise because lenders are trying to control the number of properties that enter the foreclosure process, RealtyTrac said. That doesn’t mean more owners are catching up on their mortgage payments, Sharga said.

‘Serious Price Depreciation’

“If the market is left to fend for itself, you may see more serious price depreciation,” he said. “Whether things fall precipitously depends on government and lenders controlling the inflow of new foreclosure actions.”

The number of homes that received default notices last month was 96,469, down 1 percent from July and 30 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. A default notice is the first stage of foreclosure. They peaked at 142,064 in April 2009.

A foreclosure auction, the second stage in the process, was scheduled on 147,003 properties, up 9 percent from July and 2 percent from August 2009. The record was 158,105 in March.

Bank seizures rose 3 percent from July and had their ninth straight monthly increase on a year-over-year basis, RealtyTrac said. The August total was 1.7 percent more than the previous record of 93,777 set in May.

Highest in Nevada

Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate for the 44th straight month. One in every 84 households got a notice, more than four times the national average. Filings fell 25 percent from a year earlier.

Florida had the second-highest rate, at one in every 155 households, two and a half times the U.S. average. Filings fell 8.9 percent from a year earlier. Arizona ranked third at one in 165 households, and California was fourth at one in 194.

Idaho ranked fifth at one in 220 households, with filings up 8.9 percent from July and 11 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said. Utah, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois and Hawaii also ranked among the 10 highest rates.

Five states accounted for more than half of all U.S. filings, led by California’s 69,143, a fifth of the national total. Filings in the most populous state rose 3 percent from July and declined 25 percent from a year earlier.

Second in Filings

Florida ranked second with 56,877 filings, up 10 percent from July and down 9 percent from a year earlier. Michigan was third at 17,764 filings, followed by Illinois at 16,808 and Arizona at 16,510.

Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Nevada and Washington rounded out the top 10, said RealtyTrac, which sells default data from more than 2,200 counties representing 90 percent of the U.S. population.

As many as 8 million homes that are owned or will be seized by banks have yet to reach the market, according to Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. Owners of 3.8 million more homes said they are “very likely” to put them up for sale within six months if there is improvement, a survey by Seattle-based Zillow Inc. showed.

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President Barack Obama's popular support has softened at home, but he still has plenty of fans in Europe, a poll released Wednesday found.

More than three-quarters of those polled in 11 European Union countries said they approve of Obama's handling of international policies, compared with just over half of Americans having that view. The annual survey was conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a nonpartisan policy institution that promotes trans-Atlantic cooperation, and the Compagnia di San Paolo, a research center in Turin, Italy.

The poll found that Europeans were not as enthusiastic about some of Obama's specific policies, with just under half approving the U.S. president's handling of Afghanistan and Iran.

Obama's approval ratings did dip slightly in Europe from last year's poll, from 83 percent to 78 percent. Obama found the most approval in Portugal, at 88 percent. His approval took a serious hit in Turkey, falling from 50 percent to 28 percent.

Obama's dropping popularity at home has much to do with his failure to deliver a strong economic recovery and is likely to lead to sharp losses for his Democratic Party in November's congressional and state elections. For Europeans, Obama may remain a welcome contrast to his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who was unpopular in much of Europe.

Among the survey's other findings:

* Sixty-five percent of Europeans polled approved of Obama's policies involving Russia.

* While world leaders have failed to reach a major climate change accord since Obama took office, 61 percent of the Europeans approve of Obama's efforts to combat climate change.

* Europeans are unhappy about the euro but are more supportive of the European Union. Only 38 percent of respondents in the 11 countries said the euro has been a good thing for the economy, while 63 percent said EU membership has helped the economy.

* Despite NATO's struggles in Afghanistan, 62 percent of EU and 77 percent of U.S. respondents said they supported the security alliance being prepared to act outside of Europe.

The telephone survey conducted between June 1 and June 29 polled 1,000 people each in the United States, Turkey and 11 European Union countries. Each country's survey had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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President Barack Obama's back-to-school welcome to the nation's students created less controversy in North Texas this year as fewer parents objected to letting their children view the address and more districts made it available.

Obama spoke to students at an elite school in Philadelphia for about 20 minutes, and the speech was aired nationwide.

The president told students that "nothing — absolutely nothing — is beyond your reach. So long as you're willing to dream big. So long as you're willing to work hard. So long as you're willing to stay focused on your education."

At Arlington's Shackelford Junior High School on Tuesday, about 750 students viewed the address, either live or taped, depending on their lunch periods.

Only two parents requested that their children be exempt from watching, Principal Andy Hagman said. "It's just part of the school day," Hagman said. "I have sensed no controversy about this at all."

Students in Angelique Bell's seventh-grade math class sat quietly during the address, though a couple of girls put their heads down on their desks as soon as the room darkened.

One of Obama's talking points was that it is OK to be different. "So, what I want to say to you today — what I want all of you to take away from my speech — is that life is precious, and part of its beauty lies in its diversity," Obama said. "We shouldn't be embarrassed by the things that make us different. We should be proud of them. Because it's the things that make us different that makes us who we are."

Keller district students, too, watched Obama's address with little fanfare or controversy.

All 32,000 students in the district had the chance to view the speech, either live or on tape.

A year ago, many Keller parents objected to their children watching the speech during the school day, and about 5 percent requested that their children opt out.

This year, few parents expressed concerns, spokeswoman Shellie Johnson said.

In John Keigley's AP world history class at Fossil Ridge High School, students said Obama delivered a positive message. "It wasn't political like some people said it would be," said Audon Archibald, a 10th-grader. "He told kids straight up, 'You have to work hard for your future, and with hard work comes good things.'"

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US President Barack Obama has written a children's book which is to be published on 16 November, two weeks after Congressional mid-term elections.

The book - Of Thee I Sing: A Letter To My Daughters - was written before Mr Obama took office in January 2009.

The 40-page book pays tribute to 13 Americans, from the first President George Washington to baseball legend Jackie Robinson.

Mr Obama has already published two books which have become best-sellers.

The cover of his new book is an illustration of his two daughters, Sasha and Malia, walking their dog Bo.

Proceeds from the book are to go to a scholarship fund for the children of soldiers killed and disabled in wars.
Million-dollar earners

It is being published by Random House, which signed a three-book deal with Mr Obama in 2004, Associated Press news agency said.

The head of Random House's children's division, Chip Gibson, said Of Thee I Sing "celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans - the potential to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths.

"It is an honour to publish this extraordinary book, which is an inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story."

Mr Obama's 2006 political manifesto, The Audacity of Hope, was the first of the three books under the Random House contract.

The other is yet to be published.

The president's other book, the autobiographical Dreams From My Father, was published in 1995.

Mr Obama and his wife Michelle declared joint earnings of $5.5m (£3.6m) in 2009, mainly from book sales.

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