However, the two added at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee that official 2008 growth forecasts made late last year by the central bank and the president's Council of Economic Advisors are likely to be lowered in the coming months.

The Fed is currently predicting 1.8% growth for this year but Bernanke said a new forecast would be finalized next week. The Council of Economic Advisors' most recent estimate was for the economy to grow by 2.7% in 2008.

In their prepared testimony, the head of the central bank and the Bush administration's point man on the economy said steps taken already this year will be able to keep the economy moving forward despite the continued downturn in housing and troubles in credit markets.

"At present, my baseline outlook involves a period of sluggish growth, followed by a somewhat stronger pace of growth starting later this year as the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus begin to be felt," said Bernanke in his opening statement, referring to a series of Fed interest rate cuts and a $170 billion tax rebate and stimulus plan signed by President Bush Wednesday.

But Bernanke conceded that banks are getting tighter in their lending standards, the housing and home building markets are likely to weaken further and the labor market may be softening.

"More-expensive and less-available credit seems likely to continue to be a source of restraint on economic growth," he said.

The Fed last month made two deep rate cuts: three-quarters of a percentage point at an emergency meeting, followed by half a point eight days later.

Bernanke said Thursday that the Federal Open Market Committee, its rate-setting body, was ready to act again if further economic readings justify it.

"The FOMC will be carefully evaluating incoming information bearing on the economic outlook and will act in a timely manner as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks," Bernanke said.

Text of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox's opening remarks to the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, as provided by the SEC:

Chairman Dodd, Senator Shelby, and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to update you on the work of the Securities and Exchange Commission in light of recent market events. Beginning last summer, U.S. and overseas markets have been roiled by the deterioration of credit and liquidity conditions in the U.S. residential mortgage market, especially the subprime portion of that market. As mortgage delinquencies rose, other financial instruments tied to the value of those mortgages declined in value, placing pressure on large financial institutions — both those that had packaged and marketed these securities and those that had purchased them based, at least in part, on the high credit ratings. The resulting large losses for some market participants, the concern in the markets about the future performance of a range of complex structured finance instruments, and the more generalized concern about the effects on credit markets overall have led to a more risk-averse environment, and have contributed to a slowdown in the rate of the nation's economic growth.

For the SEC, these recent market difficulties have posed a number of challenges. In addressing them, the Commission has worked closely with the other members of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets — including Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, who are testifying with me here today. We have also worked closely with our international regulatory counterparts, a reflection of the global impact that the U.S. market events have had, and the increasingly interconnected nature of today's worldwide capital markets.

The Commission's priorities in using the powers within our jurisdiction are to protect investors, keep our markets healthy and vibrant, and promote capital formation. Given the scope and complexity of the issues connected to the problems in the subprime securities market, the Commission's efforts in this area have involved nearly every major SEC division and office, and every area of emphasis — including monitoring systemic risk, guarding against market abuses, and clarifying the application of accounting rules concerning the restructuring of mortgages. To coordinate the efforts of all of the Commission's Divisions and Offices, Erik Sirri, the Director of the Division of Trading and Markets, is leading an agency-wide Task Force composed of senior leadership from each of the relevant disciplines within the SEC.

It was only a matter of time. Most have known for a while now that Bluray players were designed in different phases. The problem is that the same goes for the discs themselves. This leads to a situation where some players play some movies while some players are unable to. Such is the case with the first generation player from Samsung. And now the BD01200 player is the center of a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer Samsung.

A man named Bob McGovern has filed a suit because his BluRay player is unable to play some of the newer Blu-Ray movies.  His Bluray was manufactured in 2006 and is unable to play the movies due to the lack of updated firmware for his particular machine.

Samsung has publicly stated that they have no intentions of providing the necessary firmware update for the machine. Why the company would do this and face a lawsuit is a curious decision indeed. The lawsuit is open to anyone facing the same dilemma as Mr. McGovern.

The lawsuit was lodged in May against Jeppesen Dataplan by several men who say they were taken on secret flights to prisons in Morocco, Egypt, Afghanistan and Jordan, where they say they were tortured.

The lawsuit charged that Jeppesen was a leading supplier of logistics to planes used by US intelligence, and that it carried out 70 such flights in 2001.

The government asked the judge, James Ware in San Diego California, to throw out the case without considering it, arguing it involved secrets that could be neither confirmed nor denied.

After receiving a confidential statement from Michael Hayden, the current CIA director, the judge agreed.

"The Court's review of General Hayden's public and classified declarations confirm that proceeding with this case would jeopardize national security and foreign relations and that no protective procedure can salvage this case," his statement said.

"Thus, the Court finds that the issues involved in this case are non-justiciable because the very subject matter of the case is a state secret," he added.

The planes, which flew under the names of CIA front corporations, are suspected of having been part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

Under the program, terror suspects were abducted and then illegally flown to countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Romania for interrogation.

The European Union's Court of Justice ruled Thursday that Greece illegally ignored an EU order to recover millions of euros (dollars) in aid it gave to the ailing Olympic national airline.

The Luxembourg-based court said Greece "had not fulfilled its obligations" to take back the handouts from Olympic Airlines SA and its predecessor Olympic Airways.

EU officials said last November that Olympic would have to repay 130 million euros ($189.6 million) to the Greek government.

The ruling confirmed three previous EU court decisions since 2002, which backed the EU's executive Commission's arguments that the millions of euros (dollars) in direct aid and subsidies violated state aid rules and gave Olympic an unfair advantage over competitors.

Greece and Olympic Airlines still have an appeal pending in a lower EU court to annul earlier Commission decisions against restructuring aid and subsidies given to the airline.

Olympic Airlines won a small victory last year at the EU court when it said the Commission failed to prove some of the funds violated EU state aid rules. Those funds involved unpaid taxes on fuel and spare parts, as well as unpaid fees to Athens International Airport.

For years, Greece supplied subsidies to the struggling national airline, which in 2001 had debts totaling some 120 million euros ($166 million). In 2003, the government incorporated the assets of debt-ridden Olympic Airways and two subsidiaries into the newly named Olympic Airlines.

Investors showed immediate enthusiasm for Pittsburgh-based Calgon Carbon Corp., an industry leader in mercury-removal technology. Stocks were up the day of the ruling and continued to rise in the following days.

"We think that long-term it is going to be quite positive for us," said Calgon spokesperson Gail Gerono.

In its Feb. 8 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR).

The court agreed with opponents that the EPA, in adopting the CAMR for the control of mercury, had violated the Clean Air Act.

Mercury is a neurotoxin, a powerful poison that causes nerve and brain damage. It enters waterways and accumulates in fish and is especially harmful to children.

The 2005 CAMR aimed to cap U.S. power plant mercury emissions, which stand at about 48 tons a year. It would have reduced them by about 20 percent by 2010 and 70 percent by 2018.

Environmental groups and 17 states sued the agency, arguing that the Clean Air Act requires cuts as steep as 90 percent because existing mercury-removal technology can achieve those levels.

Last week's court action leaves the nation with no regulatory control over power plant mercury emissions while the EPA establishes a new rule based on available technology.

"It's sort of ironic," said American Electric Power spokesman Pat D. Hemlepp. "The environmentalists' challenge actually eliminates some of the reductions that would have taken place by 2010."

Some reductions will take place even without regulation.

"The majority of the mercury emissions reductions that we would achieve by 2010 will happen even without that rule (as) a co-benefit of other equipment that we are installing for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides control," Hemlepp explained.

But, he added, "We would have had to also put some activated carbon systems in place on some plants to do some mercury capture--and those are the systems that we will likely end up delaying until we get some clarity on what's going to be required."

Activated carbon, the current industry standard for mercury removal, is injected in powdered form into the flue of a coal-fired plant.

"The activated carbon comes into contact with the mercury and (bonds to it by chemical attraction)," Calgon's Gerono explained. "The activated carbon that holds the mercury is taken to a landfill."

The technology can remove 90 percent of the mercury from the flue stream, she said.