Home Prices Fall for 7th Straight Month: Case-Shiller

U.S. single family home prices fell for the seventh straight month in January, bringing prices to just above April 2009 lows, a closely watched survey said on Tuesday.

The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.2 percent in January from December on a seasonally adjusted basis where a Reuters poll of economists forecast a drop of 0.4 percent. Prices in the 20 cities have fallen 3.1 percent year-over-year compared to 3.2 percent expected.

"The housing market recession is not yet over," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P. "At most, we have seen all statistics bounce along their troughs; at worst, the feared double-dip recession may be materializing."

Eleven of the 20 cities fell to the lowest levels since home prices peaked in 2006 and 2007, while the overall index was just 1.1 percent above the April 2009 low, the report showed.

Unadjusted for seasonal impact, home prices fell 1.0 percent for the month. Only San Diego and Washington, D.C. showed annual price increases.

Libyan rebels pushed back from Gadhafi hometown

Libyan government tanks and rockets blunted a rebel assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte on Tuesday and drove back the ragtag army of irregulars, even as world leaders prepared to debate the country future in London.

Rockets and tank fire sent Libya's rebel volunteers in a panicked scramble away from the front lines, before the opposition was able to bring up truck mounted rocket launchers of their own and return fire.

The latest rebel setback emphasizes the see-saw nature of this conflict and how the opposition is still no match for the superior firepower and organization of Gadhafi's forces, despite an international campaign of deadly airstrikes.

The two sides traded salvos over the small hamlet of Bin Jawwad amid the thunderous crash of rockets and artillery shells as plumes of smoke erupted from the town. The steady drum of heavy machine gun fire and the pop of small arms could also be heard above the din.

"There aren't a lot of us in Bin Jawwad right now," said Faisal Ali, a 20 year-old-rebel who had retreated from the town. "If (Gadhafi) has enough firepower and forces using tanks, he will surely take over Bin Jawwad," he added, noting that the rebels' special forces, one of their few trained units, had not yet retreated.

A U.N.-mandated no-fly zone and campaign of strikes by the U.S. and its allies helped rebel forces regain territory lost of the past week, when they were on the brink of defeat by government forces.

A Ministry of Information official, right, grabs Iman Al-Obeidi, who said she spent two days in detention after being arrested at a checkpoint in Tripoli, Libya, and was sexually assaulted by up to 15 men while in custody in Tripoli Saturday March 26, 2011, after storming into the hotel's breakfast room to show her wounds to foreign media. A scuffle between hotel employees, information ministry officials and plain clothed police trying to grab her and stop the press for filming on one side and foreign media representatives followed. Two cameras were smashed on the ground and at least one reporter was beaten and kicked. Al-Obeidi was later taken in a car to an undisclosed location. Left and top right are foreign journalists .

A Ministry of Information official, right, grabs Iman Al-Obeidi, who said she spent two days in detention after being arrested at a checkpoint in Tripoli, Libya, and was sexually assaulted by up to 15 men while in custody in Tripoli Saturday March 26, 2011, after storming into the hotel's breakfast room to show her wounds to foreign media. A scuffle between hotel employees, information ministry officials and plain clothed police trying to grab her and stop the press for filming on one side and foreign media representatives followed. Two cameras were smashed on the ground and at least one reporter was beaten and kicked. Al-Obeidi was later taken in a car to an undisclosed location. Left and top right are foreign journalists .

Bill O'Reilly: Did President Obama's Libya Speech Impress You? | O'Reilly Factor

After 10 days of military action, the president finally addressed the nation on Libya. His main points were these:

• that Qaddafi is a monster who has killed Americans and would have massacred thousands of people had no intervention been launched

• that America responded to pleas for help from the Libyan people

• that it is in our national interest to help the Libyans because a brutal massacre that we could have stopped would have been partially on the conscience of the United States

• that we are different from other countries in the sense that we do not turn a blind eye to atrocities around the world

• that we will not directly engage in overthrowing Qaddafi and nation-building in Libya because we tried that in Iraq and the price was too high.

So there wasn't much new in the speech. It was fairly straightforward, and the president's explanation is logical. You may not agree with it, but Mr. Obama can defend his position.

If the USA is indeed an exceptional nation and we can save lives without harming our country, we should. Strong argument, and "Talking Points" agrees with it.

There is a valid criticism of Mr. Obama, however, in that he did not lead in this matter. If he feels so strongly about stopping Qaddafi from killing people, he could have acted quicker and more decisively. He did not.

That doesn't mean it was wrong to seek U.N. approval or world consensus. That is the smart thing to do. But Mr. Obama was not publicly aggressive in doing that. He laid back.

Japan struggles to contain radiactive spread at stricken plant

TOKYO — Cool water powered by diesel generators or firetruck pumps continued to circulate around nuclear fuel rods in reactors at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Tuesday, limiting the potential for new releases of toxic particles, as workers struggled to contain the spread of radioactive

Crews piled sand bags and concrete blocks around the mouths of flooded tunnels to keep contaminated water from spilling out into the sea and slowly pumped stagnant radioactive water out of darkened turbine rooms.

At the same time, scientists — under orders from nuclear regulators — painstakingly increased their documentation of the environmental damage that explosions from the malfunctioning reactors and a probable leak from the reactor’s core have begun to inflict on the country’s food and water supply and its environment.

“Monitor,” “measure,” “follow,” “study,” have become the mantras of government officials who have only the earliest glimpses of how the disaster will evolve.

At a meeting of the Japanese parliament, Prime Minister Naoto Kan criticized plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. for failing to adequately protect the facility from disaster. The plant was flooded by a wave that easily swept over its 20-foot-high protective wall.

“It’s undeniable,” Kan said, in language unusually harsh by Japanese standards, that Tokyo Electric’s “assumptions about tsunamis were greatly mistaken.”