Monday, December 14, 2009 WASHINGTON: Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson died Sunday at the age of 94, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.Samuelson became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1970, and is credited with creating the mathematical analysis on which modern economics is based."Paul Samuelson transformed everything he touched: the theoretical foundations of his field, the way economics was taught around the world, the ethos and stature of his department, the investment practices of MIT, and the lives of his colleagues and students," said MIT President Susan Hockfield.Samuelson's best-selling economics text, "Economics: An Introductory Analysis," has been translated into 40 languages and has sold nearly four million copies over a span of 60 years, MIT said.He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Risha Samuelson, six children from his first marriage and a stepdaughter, as well as 15 grandchildren.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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