Octuplets raises controversy

The first live-born octuplets in the United States, including six girls and two boys, were born in Houston in 1998. One of the girls died after a week.
Medical experts say it is virtually out of the question that the eight babies born in the Los Angeles hospital were conceived naturally, noting that reproductive experts have the tools and the know-how to avoid such high-risk pregnancies.
"When we see something like this in the general fertility world, it gives us the heebie-jeebies," Michael Tucker, a clinical embryologist in Atlanta and a leading researcher in infertility treatment, told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

bailout draft bill

Key changes proposed by Frank would ensure oversight of the auto rescue under a trustee, or "car czar," and would eliminate language on steps the United Auto Workers union must take in coming weeks to reduce industry costs.
Under the Bush administration's bailout, car makers and the UAW are to make "their best efforts" to reach an agreement on concessions to the 2007 contract in at least three areas.
The administration wants the UAW to end its "jobs bank," which pays furloughed workers, and accept half of corporate contributions to a retiree health care trust fund in stock rather than cash.
The most contentious issue in Bush's bailout plan is a goal that seeks to bring hourly wage costs in line with those of Toyota and other Japanese auto makers operating non-union factories in the United States.
The labor give-back provisions were spearheaded by Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee and incorporated into the bailout by the Republican White House and the Treasury Department.