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What she did not tell anyone was that she had no legal right to be in the home.

Ms. Omega, 48, is one of the beneficiaries of the foreclosure crisis. Through a small advocacy group of local volunteers called Take Back the Land, she moved from a friend’s couch into a newly empty house that sold just a few years ago for more than $400,000.

Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said about a dozen advocacy groups around the country were actively moving homeless people into vacant homes — some working in secret, others, like Take Back the Land, operating openly.

In addition to squatting, some advocacy groups have organized civil disobedience actions in which borrowers or renters refuse to leave homes after foreclosure.

The groups say that they have sometimes received support from neighbors and that beleaguered police departments have not aggressively gone after squatters.

Barack Obama shunned political contributions from lobbyists and, on his second day as president, announced new ethics rules to reduce their influence. Republican nominee John McCain disdained lobbyists as “birds of prey.”

Still, about one-quarter of the House and Senate members who retired or lost elections last year have found new jobs with lobbying firms, where business is booming as Obama pushes for multitrillion-dollar changes in federal banking, health care, energy and military procurement policies.

“Even though some people deplore lobbying, it’s still a growth profession,” said Bill Allison, a senior fellow with the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based watchdog group.

Law, lobbying and consulting firms have announced the hiring of at least 15 of 61 House and Senate members who left politics or were defeated in 2008.

The new hires include Jim McCrery of Louisiana, who was the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee before moving to Capitol Counsel LLC, where clients include Roche Holdings AG, the world’s biggest drugmaker by value. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican who sat on the Senate Finance Committee, joined the Covington & Burling LLP firm, which has advised the Investment Company Institute, the mutual-fund industry trade group.

New York Republican James Walsh, who retired in January after 20 years in Congress and joined the K&L Gates LLP law and lobbying firm, said companies have legitimate needs for experienced advisers.

‘Demagoguery Going On’

Instead the $9 billion development named CityCenter — touted as the city’s most ambitious endeavor — has come to symbolize a global retail and leisure slump and the city’s struggles to come to grips with crushing unemployment and dwindling casino revenue.

Partners MGM Mirage — struggling to bankroll the project’s ballooning cost — and Dubai World had pondered placing the development under bankruptcy, thrusting its future into question, sources say.

Things appear to be buzzing along at the 67-acre glass and steel mini-metropolis of envisioned condominiums, hotels, shops and casinos in the middle of the Strip, dwarfing MGM Mirage’s own sprawling Bellagio and Harrah’s Caesar’s Palace.

The complex is scheduled to open in phases starting late this year, although analysts say it’s unclear if that target will be met.

Motorists and pedestrians slow to gawk at buildings glittering in the desert sun, while workers in white hard-hats and orange vests throng the site.

But trouble is brewing beneath the surface. In March, Dubai World, the development arm of the United Arab Emirates, sued MGM Mirage, claiming mismanagement and wanting out of further financial commitments. The U.S. company hired bankruptcy counsel, setting off alarms about solvency. And the company was forced to inject an emergency $200 million to keep construction going.

“The events of the last six months have been our Pearl Harbor, economically,” said Bill Thompson, gaming expert and professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “CityCenter might be too big to fail. If it opens, it’s a dramatic gesture that says we’re winning, we’re not defeated, we’re on the way back.”

The purchases from General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. are being made from the $787 billion stimulus package “to increase demand for American auto companies during these difficult economic times,” a White House announcement said.

The General Services Administration, the government’s landlord agency, will spend $285 million from the stimulus law to buy fuel-efficient vehicles. About 2,500 of the vehicles will be hybrid sedans that will be ordered by April 15. This is the largest one-time purchase to date of hybrid vehicles for the federal government fleet, according to the statement.

“By purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles from American automakers over the next two months, this move will help stimulate the economy, support the auto industry and achieve energy-efficiency goals,” Obama said in the statement.

Late last month the president rejected recovery plans submitted by General Motors and Chrysler, and gave GM, the biggest U.S. automaker, 60 days to develop an acceptable strategy. The president said No. 3 Chrysler can’t survive on its own and gave it 30 days to complete a planned partnership with Italy’s Fiat SpA.

“This is going to wreck us,” said Black, 62, speaking of GM retirees. “These pledges from our companies are now garbage.”

As the biggest U.S. automaker teeters near bankruptcy, workers and retirees like Black are bracing for what may be $16 billion in pension losses if the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has to take over the plans, according to the agency. As many as half of GM’s 670,000 pension-plan participants might see their benefits trimmed if that happened, an actuary familiar with the company’s retirement programs estimates.

The request is expected to pay for those conflicts for the rest of the 2009 budget year, two Democratic congressional sources said.

The money would bring the running tab for both conflicts to about $947 billion, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service.

More than three-quarters of the $864 billion appropriated so far has gone to the war in Iraq, the agency estimated.

Since taking office in January, President Obama has announced plans to shift troops out of Iraq and beef up U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where American troops have been battling al Qaeda and Taliban fighters since al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Obama said the situation in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan “demands urgent attention.”

“The Taliban is resurgent, and al Qaeda threatens America from its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border,” Obama wrote in submitting the funding request.

Four AT&T fiber-optic cables in an underground vault were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Four more underground cables, at least two of which belong to AT&T, were cut about two hours later along Old County Road near Bing Street in San Carlos, authorities said.

John Britton, spokesman for AT&T, said, “Clearly, we have some vandalism. Someone purposefully and deliberately cut the wires.”

He added, “We can’t speculate about any connection, but the method of operation appears to be the same.”

Britton said the four cables that were cut in San Jose were about the width of a silver dollar and were encased in tough plastic sheath. One cable contained 360 fibers, and the other three had 48 fibers each.

In both instances, saboteurs had to use a piece of equipment to lift heavy manhole covers and climb down several feet to get to the cables. They would have to have been equipped with heavy-duty cutting equipment to slice through the thick cable coating.

Police in San Jose and San Carlos are sharing information, said Cmdr. Rich Cinfio, a spokesman for San Carlos police. Investigators said they had no suspects in either act of vandalism. AT&T announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators.

Verizon, which depends on AT&T cables in the South Bay, said its 52,000 landline customers who lost service in southern Santa Clara County came back online just before 4:30 p.m. Britton said AT&T hoped to have all service restored by 7 p.m.

Landlines, cell phones and the Internet were all affected. The outage knocked out 911 service, and officials said anyone without phone access who needs emergency help should get to a police or fire station or hospital on their own or flag down a law enforcement vehicle.

Extra sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and police officers were on the streets in the affected areas, authorities said. Additional ambulances were on hand at St. Louise Hospital in Gilroy.

“We’re having a more visual presence out there in the field,” said Sgt. Don Morrissey, Santa Clara County sheriff’s spokesman. “We’re out there to be the conduit, if you will. We’re trying to bridge that communication gap between emergency services and citizens.”

The outage was nearly tragic in at least a couple of instances.

Destiny Evans of Gilroy began blacking out this morning at her job as an office manager at Ortho Sports in Gilroy. Her boss, Joseph Abmont, called 911 on a landline and cell phone, but couldn’t get through.

So he put Evans in his car and drove her to St. Louise Hospital in Gilroy, where she was diagnosed with a kidney infection.

“He was my savior,” Evans said as she left the hospital later in the day with her boyfriend.

Florance Lijon of Gilroy was at home when her 84-year-old mother began to feel ill. She tried to call 911 to summon an ambulance. “I couldn’t call nowhere,” Lijon said. “I couldn’t use my home phone, I couldn’t use my cell phone, I couldn’t use my computer. I was miserable.”

Finally she drove her mom to the hospital.

“I worry about people that don’t have a car,” Lijon said. “It’s a good thing I could take her. I was going to call the ambulance, but I couldn’t.”

St. Louise spokeswoman Jasmine Nguyen said the hospital was rescheduling elective surgeries out of concern that if something went wrong, would be no way to contact doctors.

Hospital personnel were driving to doctors’ houses to get word to them if they were needed. They were also using a satellite phone and walkie-talkies to communicate.

“We literally feel like were on an island right now,” Nguyen said. “It’s bringing us back to the Stone Age.”

Most of the service outages were caused by the San Jose vandalism. Among those affected were customers of Verizon, Verizon Wireless and Sprint wireless, which rely on AT&T to carry their phone traffic back to their networks.

Verizon spokesman Jon Davies said the outage was first reported to the company at 1:25 a.m. He said about 52,000 of the company’s landline customers were affected in the Gilroy and Morgan Hill areas. Verizon is the sole provider of landlines in southern Santa Clara County.

Verizon Wireless customers were also affected in southern Santa Clara County and from Watsonville to Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County.

At least one of the severed San Carlos lines belongs to Sprint, which lost service for several thousand landline business customers. Crystal Davis, a crisis communications manager for Sprint, said the company was able to restore service to some of its customers by rerouting traffic.

Davis said she couldn’t recall the last time a concerted effort was made to attack multiple phone lines.

“Fiber cuts happen all the time, usually by accident. Someone is drilling for a water line or a power line,” she said. “But a specific act of vandalism, I can’t say that I recall it.”

The vandalism comes as AT&T is in talks with the Communications Workers of America for a contract covering more than 80,000 employees, who have been working under their old deal since it expired at 11:59 p.m. Saturday. Union members voted in late March to authorize a strike but have not scheduled one.

Candice Johnson, spokeswoman for the CWA, said union members were not involved in the incidents.

“I can state that CWA members have nothing to do with this at all,” Johnson said. “There is an investigation going on and we’ll fully cooperate. But our members are working. They’re on the job.”

In 2004, 1,200 Bay Area customers temporarily lost service after vandals cut wires at SBC telephone boxes in Oakland, Alameda, San Leandro and Vallejo. The vandalism took place during a four-day CWA strike of SBC, which became AT&T.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents most major shop chains, reported yesterday a 9 per cent rise in the price of food in the shops in the year to March, against a fall in the prices of non-food items of 1.5 per cent. Prices were up 0.4 per cent month-on-month. Despite a general fall in inflation – the annual rise in the Retail Prices Index (RPI) hit zero last month – food prices remain stubbornly high, and rising.

Imports of fresh vegetables from eurozone nations such as Spain have become especially dear – up by around one quarter. Other foods that have seen double-digit price rises since 2008 include lamb (21.3 per cent), beef (20.6 per cent), pork (19.7 per cent), cereals (16.1 per cent) and milk (11.5 per cent). British lamb is becoming an expensive delicacy, up 26.7 per cent, the largest jump of any food item in the RPI.

Because so many food prices are determined globally, home produce prices have also been pushed higher by the fall in the pound, as the price of otherwise comparatively cheap UK produce has been bid up by foreign buyers.

The BRC said: “Although around 60 per cent of food consumed in the UK is sourced domestically, the grocery industry is a global market place and hence exchange rate fluctuations affect the price of produce and production. The farm gate price of UK-produced foodstuffs has increased markedly as sterling has depreciated, to maintain parity in the price of similar goods sourced in other currencies in the global market place.”

Those households where food prices and utility bills (which are rising even faster) represent a big proportion of the budget are seeing little benefit from the much-heralded onset of deflation. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently found that the richest fifth of households had an average inflation rate of minus 1 per cent; the poorest fifth had an average inflation rate of 5.3 per cent. The least-well off pensioner households, usually with no mortgage and no benefit from the cut in Bank rate, are still coping with inflation at 6.9 per cent.