Coins DIG

Separate from the work of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists, LaHood said, experts from the National Academy of Sciences will lead a study of unintended acceleration across the auto industry, a broader issue raised by congressional lawmakers at recent hearings on Toyota Motor Corp.

"We are determined to get to the bottom of unintended acceleration," LaHood said in an interview with Reuters ahead of the formal announcement on Tuesday.

Over the last few years, Nintendo has discovered a whole new market for video games: seniors. Not a demographic that's known for welcoming new technology, the senior-citizen crowd has nonetheless embraced the Wii console, with its intuitive controls and easy-to-understand interface.

Nintendo's new portable system, the DSi XL, could find a place on the coffee table next to grandma's Wii remote. Think of it as the electronic equivalent of a large-print novel: You get the same content you would on a DSi, but everything's bigger and easier to read.

The XL isn't just for seniors, though. As a game reviewer, I often spend hours gazing at the DSi. (Don't try this at home.) The 3.25-inch diagonal screens on the previous model have led to lots of squinting — and some fierce headaches. The 4.2-inch screens on the XL let me relax my eyeballs a little more.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended Thursday that the agency consider actions such as requiring that teenagers get parental consent before using a tanning bed or even banning the use of tanning beds among teens. The advisers also recommended reclassifying tanning lamps from Class I medical devices — a category that includes tongue depressors and elastic bandages — to a Class II or Class III device, which would permit the agency to impose greater restrictions.

Unacceptably high unemployment and well-contained inflation make it likely that U.S. monetary policy will remain accommodative for at least several months more, a top U.S. Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters in Shanghai, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans said he strongly supported maintaining the current loose monetary stance as long as inflation remained under control.

The "Dollar" originated in the city of Joachimsthal in Bavaria (now Germany). Beginning in 1518, silver from the mines near Joachimsthal was minted into silver "thalers", with a standardized weight of 29.2 grams. ("Thal" means "valley" in German.)

Eventually, governments throughout Europe adopted this standardized coin for commerce. The silver came from many locations, and many different governments produced the coins, but they were all basically identical. Europe was on a "Dollar standard"...

The Japan Mint has announced it will issue a memorial silver coin embossed with an image of legendary 19th-century samurai Ryoma Sakamoto.

The administrative agency has been issuing coins representing prefectures since 2008, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the enforcement of the Local Autonomy Law.

President Barack Obama's sweeping health care legislation won precious support from a longtime liberal holdout in the House on Wednesday and from a retired Catholic bishop and nuns representing dozens of religious orders — gaining fresh traction ahead of a climactic weekend vote.

"That's a good sign," said Obama, two weeks after taking personal command of a campaign to enact legislation in what has become a virtual vote of confidence on his still-young presidency.

But Democrats delayed the planned release of formal legislation at least until Thursday as they sought to make sure it would reduce federal deficits annually over the next decade.

At the White House, Obama met with Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO. Officials said the labor leader raised concerns over the details of a planned excise tax on high-cost insurance plans as well as other elements of the as-yet-unreleased legislation.

Toyota Motor Corp. was sued in Washington state by customers demanding refunds for cars being recalled over defects that include sudden acceleration.

Toyota was accused of breach of warranty, sale of unsafe vehicles and unjust enrichment in the complaint, filed today in federal court in Seattle. The complaint, which seeks class- action, or group status, is the first against Toyota to seek full refunds, lawyers for the car owners said.

I left GDC this year with a lot of uneasiness about the state of gaming on Windows 7 phones. The selling point for me was the synergy the phones would share with Xbox Live, though the sessions and conversations about Windows phones as a development platform worried me, as it became obvious that gaming experiences would not be identical between platforms despite the services sharing a Live backend. On one hand, you've got to develop to each platform's strengths, but if I earn Achievements, I want it to be for things that I can do on my Xbox 360.

They are not proof sets, and they are not uncirculated sets, popularly called mint sets, but Special Mint Sets are special in their own way, and are worth a second look.

The Treasury Department announced in 1964 that proof sets would not be produced in 1965. The announcement came at an interesting, and turbulent, time in American numismatics. A nationwide coin shortage was happening, along with the debate on removing silver from circulating coins and replacing it with another metal or metals. Also, mintmarks would not appear on 1965 coins.