LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It wasn’t frustration.This was just a decision that it’s time.”
U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., who announced Monday that he won’t seek re-election.
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Fuel leak blamed for cruise ship fire
MOBILE, Ala. - A Coast Guard official said Monday that the cause of the engine-room fire on the Carnival cruise ship Triumph was a leak in a fuel oil return line.
Cmdr. Teresa Hatfield gave the description in a conference call with reporters and estimated that the investigation of the disabled ship would take six months.
Hatfield said the Bahamas, where the ship is registered, or flagged, is leading the investigation, with the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board leading U.S. interests in the inquiry.
In an e-mail after Monday’s conference call, Coast Guard spokesman Carlos Diaz described the oil return line that leaked as stretching from the ship’s No. 6 engine to the fuel tank.
The Triumph left Galveston, Texas, on Feb. 7 for a four day trip to Mexico. The fire paralyzed the ship early Feb. 10, leaving it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico until tugboats towed it to Mobile on Thursday.
Hackers target Burger King’s Twitter
Somebody hacked Burger King’s Twitter account on Monday, posting messages with obscenities and changing its profile picture to a McDonald’s logo.
The Tweets stopped after a little more than an hour, and Burger King said it had reached out to Twitter to suspend the account. A Twitter spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message left on Monday.
Burger King, which usually Tweets several times a week, said it was working to get the account back up. Typical Tweets promoted sales on chicken sandwiches, or asked how many bites it takes to eat a chicken nugget.
But just after 11 a.m. CST on Monday, someone Tweeted via Burger King’s account, “We just got sold to McDonalds!” They also changed the icon to rival McDonald Corp.’s golden arches and the account’s background picture to McDonald’s new Fish McBites.
About 55 Tweets and retweets followed over the next hour and a quarter, including some that contained racial epithets, references to drug use and obscenities.
More woe for Reader’s Digest parent
NEW YORK - The parent company of Reader’s Digest has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in less than four years, saying it needs to cut its debt so it can keep restructuring.
RDA Holding Co. said it will keep publishing the magazine during the bankruptcy, and aims to be out of Chapter 11 within six months.
The New York company said late Sunday that it plans to cut its debt load by 80 percent during the restructuring, leaving it with about $100 million in debt. It said it has already reached agreements with its secured lender and more than 70 percent of its secured note holders. A group of its creditors has supplied $45 million in new financing to help Reader’s Digest go through the process as part of a $105 million loan to repay existing bank debt.
Reader’s Digest has also been selling off some of its assets. It sold its food website Allrecipes.com for $175 million last year, and it sold its Every Day with Rachael Ray cooking magazine in late 2011.
Reader’s Digest paid circulation fell 0.6 percent to 5.5 million at the end of last year, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
Obama wraps up Florida golf trip
PALM CITY, Fla. - President Barack Obama hit the links with a comparatively low-key group of partners on Monday, the third and final day of a Florida golf vacation.
Obama played at the Floridian yacht and golf club, where he spent the long holiday weekend, with departing U.S.
Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the president’s Chicago pal Eric Whitaker and White House aide Marvin Nicholson, the White House said.
Tiger Woods was part of Sunday’s presidential foursome.
Obama was returning home late Monday, with days to go before a March 1 deadline to stop billions of dollars in spending cuts that could potentially cripple the government from kicking in.
The first lady and daughters were away on an annual ski trip.
The White House barred media coverage of the president’s vacation, but released the names of his golf partners daily.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/19/2013