PRESS DIGEST - Washington Post - Oct. 10

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The Washington Post included the following items on its front page on Oct. 10.

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Fear and foreboding take hold on Wall Street, as the stock market again plunged and investors became convinced that the nation is on the verge of a deep and prolonged recession. The rout continued in Japan, where stocks plummeted in early trading.

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The Bush administration appears poised to provisionally remove North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, perhaps as soon as today, sources close to the administration said.

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REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's government has seized the country's largest bank, completing an emergency takeover of virtually the entire financial system. About one-third of the population have seen their savings wiped out in one week by uncontrollable events thousands of miles away.

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The U.S. government is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were once unthinkable. Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise.

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Nowhere is the country's economic pain more evident than in Michigan where falling sales of vehicles and heavy equipment have sent ripples through the manufacturing food chain. The state's unemployment rate is now 9 percent, the highest in the nation.

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An outside public relations expert hired under a $31,000 contract with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources pitched Gov. Sarah Palin as a crusader against the oil industry, according records that show the she benefited from expert counsel on how to take her message nationwide.