SAN JOSE, Calif. (KCBS) The contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for Texas delegates appears to be tightening. Nearly half of the votes from Saturday’s Texas caucuses remain to be counted, with Obama leading Clinton 58 percent to 42 percent. Obama’s campaign has predicted he’ll win the overall delegate race though Clinton narrowly won the popular vote in the March 4th primary.
Obama is continuing his swing through Pennsylvania. After a rally at Penn State, he traveled to the state capital of Harrisburg, where he repeated a call for party unity. He also criticized Republican nominee-to-be John McCain, saying the Arizona senator undercut his own credibility by supporting the lengthening of Bush tax cuts he had previously opposed.

On the other side of the country, former President Bill Clinton appealed to undecided California superdelegates to back his wife. And he said those squeamish about the hard-fought race for the nomination should “chill” and let everyone have their say.

California Democrats wrapped up their annual state convention in San Jose Sunday, but first they heard one last appeal for support from the rival presidential campaigns.

Most notably former President Bill Clinton was at the event. He met privately with about 15 of the 21 remaining undecided super delegates, before speaking to the full convention. He told the delegates the extended campaign fight between his wife Hillary, and Barack Obama is not hurting the Democratic Party.

”Chill out! We’re going to win this election if we just chill out and let everybody have their say,” said Clinton to a cheering crowd.

He asked for patience, and then made the case for his wife. “I strongly believe that Hillary would be the best Commander in Chief,” said Clinton before detailing her qualifications for almost an hour.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris spoke up for her candidate, Barack Obama. “It’ is Barack Obama Californians that have the ability to bring our nation together,” said Harris.

Donald Trump’s much publicized Palm Beach mansion has a new price, $100 million. Along with the $25 million price reduction, Trump also turned the listing over to Lawrence Moens, a Palm Beach broker who has a reputation as a low-key but highly effective deal maker.

When it debuted on the market in 2006, the estate’s $125 million price tag made it the most expensive property for sale in America and generated a great deal of attention. It took the No. 1 spot in that year’s edition of Ultimate Homes and most importantly it was one of the first, if not the first, to break the $100 million price point.

While the media has always focused on price, what makes this estate so important, according to Moens, are the 6.75 acres and almost 500 feet of unobstructed oceanfront. Also significant is the location itself, which he describes as“prime, one of the most desirable places on the Eastern seaboard.”

Another change, according to Moens, is the potential that the property could be sold as two separate parcels or a single compound.

SAN FRANCISCO – Bill Clinton has accepted an invitation to speak at the state Democratic convention in San Jose next weekend.State party Chair Art Torres said Friday that the former president will also meet privately with party leaders and officials known as “superdelegates” that could determine whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

An estimated one-third of California’s 65 named superdelegates remain uncommitted.

Torres says he’s also invited Obama and his wife Michelle to speak at the convention, but hasn’t heard back yet.

The three-day convention is not open to the public.

NEW YORK — Advertisers and marketers, struggling to keep up with changing consumer habits, are about to make massive investments in new digital and out-of-home media platforms, according to a forecast out today from research firm PQ Media.

It says that companies will spend more than $160.8 billion in 2012 — up 82% from 2008 — on 18 emerging markets including online videos, store-based TV screens, sponsored events, TV and movie product placements, cellphones, video games and digital video recorders.

“Americans are spending more time out of the home, working late hours, communicating via wireless devices, shopping in malls and stuck in traffic,” CEO Patrick Quinn says. “There has to be some change in (ad/marketing) strategies to reach these people.”

He expects the new platforms to account for nearly 27% of all ad and marketing spending in 2012, up from 16% this year.

Companies will increase their sales budgets and shift dollars away from traditional media, including broadcast TV, newspapers and magazines, PQ predicts.

One risk in the forecast — which PQ calls the first comprehensive analysis of the alternative media market — is that some figures are based on data that are not time-tested nor universally accepted.

Quinn says he assumes that “businesses are going to create trade organizations and standard metrics.” Then, “Some variables could change.” Sectors that PQ expects to see the biggest gains by 2012 include:

•Online search. Spending will grow 113%, to $26.1 billion, for ads and services at giants, including Google (GOOG) and Yahoo, (YHOO) as well as smaller providers such as ClipBlast and Citysearch. The big attraction is that these sites, in addition to displaying ads, also generate leads as customers click through to a sponsor’s site.

•Event sponsorships. Companies will spend more than $33 billion, up 72% from last year, to attach their brand names to sports, music, theater and other events. The trend is already well underway: Sponsors paid more than $2 billion last year on pro football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

Here, too, companies like the opportunities events provide to connect with new customers.

•E-direct marketing. Marketers will spend $22.1 billion, up 121%, to pitch messages to consumers via e-mail and pop-up ads.

Lots of people respond to e-mails, especially those that offer special deals for products or services that they like. Still, many recipients also increasingly are turning to spam-blocking software to keep from being inundated with junk e-mail.

•Online video and rich media. Opportunities are opening to reach potential customers with ads in or next to Internet video clips. In addition, many sites provide interactive services — for example, clothing retailers make it possible for visitors to visualize how a shirt might look on them. Spending on these sites will grow 389%, to $12.2 billion.

By JOHN SULLIVAN and MATTHEW L. WALD

Hundreds of flights were canceled Thursday as mechanics for American Airlines and Delta Airlines inspected wiring in aircraft to ensure the planes met federal safety rules.

Officials at American, the nation’s largest airline, said 132 flights were canceled, following 318 cancellations on Wednesday. The disruptions affected thousands of passengers, the airline said, and were concentrated at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Delta officials said the airline canceled 275 flights on Thursday. Betsy Talton, an airline spokeswoman, said Delta mechanics were inspecting wiring in 117 MD-88 aircraft. She said the airline had been able to transfer most passengers to other flights and was expecting to return to a normal schedule on Friday.

Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines, said its mechanics are checking to make sure that protective sheathing had been correctly attached to bundles of electric wires running through the airplanes’ wheel wells. Mr. Smith said the Federal Aviation Administration rules require the sheathing to be attached with cable ties at one-inch intervals, and the mechanics are making sure the installation matches the standards. He American also expects to return to a normal schedule on Friday.

Officials for both airlines said none of the aircraft involved in the inspection had been found to be unsafe.

Airline officials said the inspections concern wiring on MD-80’s, MD-88’s and MD-90’s, aircraft of similar design that are among most common airplanes flown by the airlines. At Delta, the inspections involved the airline’s fleet of 117 MD-88’s, while American mechanics inspected 299 aircraft including different variations of the MD-80.

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the F.A.A., said that instructions to protect the electrical cables with sheathing were originally issued in 2006 and that the airlines were given 18 months to comply. The cables in question attach to the aircraft’s auxiliary fuel pump, Ms. Brown said, and the sheathing is designed to protect them.

“If there is rubbing or chafing, that could compromise the integrity of the wire and could cause a fire or a spark,” she said. “We work to eliminate ignition sources, particularly ones anywhere near the fuel tanks.”

Ms. Brown said Thursday that Delta had used a sheathing material that was different from the type specified by her agency, but that the F.A.A. had approved that material as an “alternate means of compliance.”

She said she did not know yet whether the inspections had turned up additional variances from the rules on the airplanes.

The F.A.A. told all the airlines earlier this month to check their maintenance records after Southwest Airlines was found to have flown some aircraft without conducting required inspections for cracks.

In Washington, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has scheduled a hearing for next week to examine the effectiveness of the F.A.A.’s oversight of airline safety.

The decision to cancel the flights in order to inspect the aircraft was made voluntarily by both airlines, Ms. Brown said.

By MICHAEL POWELL

Senator Barack Obama called Thursday for tighter regulation of mortgage lenders, banks and other financial institutions, even as he spoke of pumping $30 billion into the economy to shield homeowners and local governments from the worst effects of the collapse of the housing bubble.

He laid much of the blame for the current financial difficulties on the industry lobbyists and politicians who dismantled much of the regulatory framework overseeing energy, telecommunications and financial services.

Speaking in the Great Hall at the Cooper Union in Manhattan, Mr. Obama blamed Democrats no less than Republicans for policies that now cast a shadow of foreclosure and insolvency over millions of Americans. He did not mention former President Bill Clinton by name, but the implied criticism seemed clear.

“Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices,” Mr. Obama said. “The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady sustainable growth — a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.”

Mr. Obama proposed to rebuild the government’s regulatory structure and promised not to clamp a too-tight hand on economic innovation. But he was unsparing in his view that industry lobbyists and weak legislators produced a misshapen deregulation of the economy.

“Instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one,” he said. “Aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight.”

Mr. Obama criticized President Bush, describing his proposals for dealing with this crisis as “completely divorced from reality.” And Mr. Obama took on Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who argued this week against vigorous government intervention in the housing market, saying Washington should not be bailing out banks and homeowners who in his view had knowingly plunged into risky mortgages.

Mr. Obama argued Mr. McCain’s approach offers far too little to rescue the deteriorating economy.

“While this is consistent with Senator McCain’s determination to run for George Bush’s third term, it won’t help families who are suffering,” Mr. Obama said.

Much of Mr. Obama’s speech, however, served as a reminder of the thin policy differences that separate his policy views from those of his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mrs. Clinton gave a speech earlier this week in Philadelphia on the housing crisis, and as often the two Democrats have walked in step.

Both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton spoke of an economy that binds the fates of financial institutions far more closely to those of ordinary Americans than many might guess. Mrs. Clinton said: “In today’s economy, trouble that starts on Wall Street often ends up on Main Street.” And Mr. Obama said: Americans must renew “that common interest between Wall Street and Main Street that is the key to our success.”

Both Democratic candidates spoke of the specter of a national credit crisis and advanced proposals to amend bankruptcy laws to aid the millions of Americans facing housing foreclosure. Each endorsed proposed Democratic legislation — sponsored by Senator Christopher J. Dodd and Representative Barney Frank — to create a new program that would provide ways for homeowners to refinance existing high-interest mortgages.

But Mrs. Clinton said the current financial difficulties were rooted in the housing slump, while Mr. Obama took pains to cast the blame for it on a decade’s long easing of government regulatory oversight.

Mr. Obama said the housing crisis was a result of the popping of yet another large bubble that has distorted the economy during the past decade. And in each case, he said, there was a failure to pass meaningful reforms. No one doubted, he noted, the need to change the Depression-era law that separated commercial banks and investment banks. But, as Mr. Obama’s aides noted in handouts supporting the speech, the banking and insurance industries spent more than $300 million on a successful campaign to repeal the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.

This new economic world, Mr. Obama said, granted far more freedom to bankers but without modernizing the regulatory framework and insisting on transparency. And the same pattern played out in the regulation of home mortgages, he said.

“When subprime mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn,” he said, “a patchwork quilt of regulators were unable or unwilling to protect the American people.”

Virginia State Police are looking for a suspect in a series of shootings at vehicles along Interstate 64 in Virginia, a police spokesman told OBS News.

Sgt. Dave Cooper said that five vehicles were hit by gunfire in three locations along I-64 in Virginia early this morning.

According to police, two people sustained non-life threatening injuries and were treated at area hospitals. Police said it was not clear if the injuries were caused directly by the gunfire, or from broken glass and fragments caused by the shots.

The first reports of gunfire came in at 12:10 a.m. near mile marker 114 on the on-ramp to westbound I-64. State police closed the intestate to traffic minutes later, Cooper said.

Three vehicles were reported to have been struck by gunfire near the overpass at mile marker 106.

A fifth unoccupied Virginia Department of Transportation vehicle was also struck. That vehicle was parked near the Yancey Mill exit of I-64.

Police say they are not releasing the type gun believed to have been used, but shell casings recovered at the scenes indicate that all five shootings might be connected.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also involved in the investigation and is expected to examine the shell casings, according to a law enforcement official.

The interstate was opened shortly after 6 a.m. this morning. Police continue to search for the gunman.

The area affected is near Charlottesville, Va., approximately two-and-a-half hours outside Washington, D.C.

In October 2002, snipers killed 10 people and wounded three in the Maryland-Virginia-Washington metropolitan area.

Juries convicted John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo for those sniper attacks. Both men are behind bars in Virginia; Muhammed is on death row and Malvo is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday launched an internal probe of its recent story about the 1994 shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur after a Web site questioned documents on which the newspaper based its report.The story by Pulitzer Prize winner Chuck Phillips sought to link rap music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs to the assault on Shakur through two men the paper said were Combs’ associates.

Combs had called the Times story a “lie” and strongly denied any involvement in the attack.

Shakur, one of rap’s rising singers, survived a beating and gunshot wounds to the groin, head, hand and thigh at the Quad Recording Studios in New York City in 1994 but was killed in 1996 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

The Smoking Gun, a Web site that specializes in uncovering news from legal documents and court filings, said on Wednesday it believed Federal Bureau of Investigation documents used by the Times were forgeries.

The Smoking Gun story — posted at thesmokinggun.com — said the FBI documents were created by one of the subjects in the Times’ report, James Sabatino, who is now in jail for wire fraud and racketeering.

The documents have black marks covering the name of the agent or agents who prepared them, appear as if parts were created using a typewriter and “are nowhere to be found” in the FBI’s computer system, according to The Smoking Gun.

The Times said on Wednesday that Editor Russ Stanton “will launch an internal investigation into the authenticity of (the) documents.”

A Times spokeswoman said the paper was “taking this very seriously.” Phillips continues to report for the paper.

DETAILED ACCOUNT

The Times story, which first appeared on its Web site on March 17 and days later in print, gave a detailed account of the 1994 attack on Shakur.

At the time, Combs was one of rap’s biggest producers with his Bad Boy Records housing stars like the Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace).

The 1994 attack ignited a widely reported feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers that eventually led to the 1996 killing of Shakur. Six months later, Wallace was shot and killed in Los Angeles.

Neither of the murders has been solved. The identity of Shakur’s attackers at Quad Studios has never been revealed.

The Times story cited “recently obtained” FBI records and an unnamed FBI informant as saying Sabatino and talent manager Jimmy Rosemond planned Shakur’s assault. Combs and Wallace knew Shakur was being set up, the Times said.

In its story, the Times said it contacted the FBI informant and verified he was at Quad Studios on the night of the assault. It said other sources verified the informant’s account.

On March 17, Combs said the story “is beyond ridiculous and is completely false.” A spokeswoman said he had no further comment on Wednesday.

Rosemond, now chief executive of Czar Entertainment, had also issued a statement denying any role. On Wednesday, he said: “I have always maintained over the past 14 years that I had no knowledge or involvement in the assault on Tupac in 1994.”

Combs now runs a business empire that spans music, fashion, fragrances and restaurants. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated his income at $23 million, and he recently starred in a Broadway and television production of the classic play “A Raisin in the Sun.”

TAMPA BAY, Fla.-OBSNews.com- reports Florida real estate market has been rocked by falling home prices due to crises in subprime mortgage lending, foreclosures, and the meltdowns in credit and home mortgage markets. This perfect storm has caused many real estate agents and real estate investors to quit buying and selling real estate.

Despite the general doom and gloom surrounding real estate in the United States some agents, investors, and buyers are happily buying houses, selling houses, and earning a good living doing so.

One of the keys to success in this market is knowing how to cultivate large numbers of interested home buyers in advance. Roger Salam, CEO of the www.HomelandGroup.com and former #1 speaker and trainer for Tony Robbins, has developed a unique system for creating an unlimited supply of buyers for homes by combining old-fashioned principles of hard work and customer service with the latest tools on the internet such as social networking and Web 2.0 practices.

According to Salam, “Real estate marketing has fundamentally changed, and anybody who wants to cultivate a large rolodex of ready, willing, and able buyers needs specialized training and support systems. At the Homeland Group, we’re so confident in our strategies to help real estate investors and agents attract buyers that we’re offering a 100% money back guarantee on our upcoming training course in Tampa on March 28, 29, and 30.”

Real estate investor Greg Forster at www.fasthouseoffers.com of Tampa Bay agreed, “Roger’s boot camp taught me things about selling houses fast that I had never heard before. His teachings are based on fundamentals, common sense, and outstanding customer service. Since using his system I have been able to sell on average four houses every month for the past four months.”

The next home selling bootcamp that the Homeland Group is hosting will be in the Tampa Bay area this weekend. To take advantage of the special limited time offer and to learn how to attend this program for FREE or obtain a scholarship please visit http://www.rogersalam.com/special to register.

Don’t delay as there only 5 of 50 seats still available. For questions call 727-408-3333. www.RogerSalam.com

Self-Funded Startup Seeks Outside Investment Capital to Propel Growth Plans

SACRAMENTO, Calif.–OBSNews.com–TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, a start-up online real estate brokerage, announced it has decided to seek outside investors to provide the company with additional access to growth capital. Analysts estimate that in 2007 more than $50 million was invested in real estate related businesses on the internet by angel investors, private equity companies and venture capitalists.

Citing this record growth in funding for online real estate businesses such as Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, said of his company’s vision: “We’re not just seeing this market cycle in real estate now. We’re looking 5 years down the road and are looking for the right partners to join us to provide growth capital and mentorship. We’re looking to grow our team and make up for things we lack in our company’s structure.”

TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, founded in 2006, is on the verge of entering into an exclusive referral relationship agreement with an undisclosed national real estate franchise brokerage company. The company distributes home seller listing leads that do not fit an investor’s criteria and leads of home buyers seeking to buy foreclosure properties and bank owned or REO (real estate owned) properties in exchange for a commission split upon closing.

According to the National Association of Realtors 80% of people who buy or sell a house in the US use the internet to obtain information about their house buying or selling needs. The NAR also reports that 23% of web surfers eventually work with an agent they found on the internet.

McGilvray indicated that the company, which started as a referral source for real estate investors, now focuses the bulk of its operations on referring home sellers and prospective home buyers to work with top real estate agents across the United States.