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Honda FCX
The new Honda FCX is larger, roomier, faster and has a smaller, yet more powerful Hydrogen stack.

This new one-box stack is 30 percent lighter than previous models, features a Honda-designed PEFC – a proton exchange membrane fuel cell that converts the hydrogen into electricity with water as the only emission. The FCX is still only available to governmental agencies only the select few lucky consumers – one a Southern California family and Whale Rider actress and environmentalist Q’orianka Kilcher – were able to lease the previous generation FCX. Oh, the new model looks amazing too.

a 12.9 percent increase over March last year, the Treasury said on Wednesday, as record outlays outstripped slower revenue growth.

The federal government took in total receipts of $166.49 billion last month. While it was a record for March that was up 1.2 percent from the year-ago total of $164.56 billion, it was a growth rate significantly smaller than that registered in recent months.

But March outlays, which included some accelerated foreign aid payments and hefty tax refunds, totaled $262.76 billion, a record for any month, compared to $249.84 billion in March 2006.

The March deficit was bigger than the $85 billion shortfall predicted by Wall Street analysts in a Reuters poll.

Although revenues did slow in March, it may be too soon to conclude this is a sign of slowing growth in the U.S. economy, said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey and a longtime budget watcher.

“The real question is how things look toward the end of the second quarter,” he said, adding that April receipts are expected to be strong due to taxes paid on big bonus payments based on 2006 incentive plans.

“April taxes reflect what happened last year. The only debate about April is whether taxes will be continuing the strong trend that we’ve seen recently or be the last hurrah for revenues,” Crandall added.

AID FOR ISRAEL, EGYPT

About $3 billion of the increase in the March deficit was due to annual military aid payments to

Israel

and Egypt that were made in March instead of December as they were the previous fiscal year, the

Congressional Budget Office

said.

Accounting adjustments involving subsidies for loan guaranty programs offered by several agencies contributed about $3 billion to the deficit gain. And the CBO noted there was one less Wednesday in March this year — a significant payday — which reduced payroll withholding.

For the first six months of fiscal 2007, which started on October 1, 2006, the deficit shrank to $258.43 billion from the year-ago deficit of $302.94 billion, which remains the record for a first half of a fiscal year.

First-half receipts were up 8.0 percent from a year earlier to a record $1.121 trillion, while outlays rose just 2.9 percent to a record $1.379 trillion.

A Treasury official said the U.S. government has run a deficit in March every year since 1970 and has seen March surpluses only 13 times in the last 53 years — mostly in the late 1950s and the 1960s.

He said the month typically reflects early tax returns filed by individuals who expect refunds, while most who owe taxes wait until the April 15 filing deadline.

By BASSEM MROUE and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers Wed Apr 4, 3:48 PM ET

BAGHDAD –

Iraq’s top corruption fighter said Wednesday that $8 billion in government money was wasted or stolen over the past three years and claimed he was threatened with death after opening an investigation into scores of Oil Ministry employees.