News Headlines
House-Senate talks said to yield agreement on renewing payroll tax cut, jobless benefits
WASHINGTON (AP) — House-Senate talks on renewing a payroll tax cut that delivers about $20 a week to the average worker yielded a tentative agreement Tuesday, with lawmakers planning to unveil the pact Wednesday and sending the measure to President Barack Obama as early as this week.
Under the outlines of the emerging agreement, a 2 percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax would be extended through the end of the year, with the nearly $100 billion cost added to the deficit. Jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed would be renewed as well, with the $30 billion cost paid for in part through auctioning broadcast spectrum to wireless companies and requiring federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions.
GOP lawmakers leaving a party meeting said they were told a tentative pact had been reached but said some details could change before the compromise was finalized, probably on Wednesday. They described the session as largely positive, and several predicted the House would approve the deal.
The payroll tax cut and renewing jobless benefits were key planks in Obama’s jobs program, which was announced in September. The payroll tax cut benefits 160 million Americans and delivers a tax cut of about $20 a week for a typical worker making $50,000 a year. People making a $100,000 salary would get a $2,000 tax cut.
The deal would not only be a win for Obama but would take the payroll tax fight — which put Republicans on the defensive — off the table for the fall election campaign.
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US, Europe consider crippling worldwide bank penalty against Iran, though costs could be high
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Europe are considering unprecedented punishment against Iran that could immediately cripple the country’s financial lifeline. But it’s an extreme option in the banking world that would come with its own costs.
The Obama administration wants Iran evicted from SWIFT, an independent financial clearinghouse that is crucial to the country’s overseas oil sales. That would leapfrog the current slow-pressure campaign of sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to drop what the U.S. and its allies contend is a drive toward developing and building nuclear weapons. It also perhaps would buy time for the U.S. to persuade Israel not to launch a pre-emptive military strike on Iran this spring.
The last-resort financial effort suggests the U.S. and Europe are grasping for ways to show immediate results because economic sanctions have so far failed to force Iran back to nuclear talks
But such a penalty could send oil prices soaring when many of the world’s economies are still frail. It also could hurt ordinary Iranians and undercut the reputation of SWIFT, a banking hub used by virtually every nation and corporation around the world. The organization’s full name is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.
Meanwhile, violence is increasing. Explosions in Bangkok on Tuesday — Israel’s defense minister labeled them an “attempted terrorist attack” — came the day after Israel accused Iran of trying to kill its diplomats in India and Georgia. Those attacks followed the recent killings of Iranian scientists.
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Bangkok blasts wound Iranian, 4 others; Israel blames Tehran for ‘attempted terrorist attack’
BANGKOK (AP) — Israel accused Iran of waging a covert campaign of state terror that stretched this week from the Middle East to the heart of Asia after a bungled series of explosions led to the capture of two Iranians in Bangkok.
Authorities in Israel ratcheted up security at home and abroad following Tuesday’s explosions in the Thai capital, escalating a confrontation over Iran’s suspect nuclear program and raising fears of war.
On Monday, an Israeli diplomat’s wife and driver were wounded in New Delhi when a bomb stuck to their minivan exploded, and another device was defused on an Israeli Embassy car in Tbilisi, Georgia. Israel blamed Iran for those attacks as well.
Israel has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists.
Iran denied responsibility for the attacks in India and Georgia, which appeared to mirror the killings of the Iranian scientists that used “sticky bombs.”
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Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget attacked by GOP for higher taxes, failure to cut spending more
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress Tuesday that the president’s new $3.8 trillion spending plan would impose new taxes on only 2 percent of the nation’s wealthiest families and the alternative would be to seek more painful cuts in other government programs such as defense, Social Security and Medicare.
Geithner defended the new budget plan in the face of intense attacks from GOP members of the Senate Finance Committee. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah told Geithner that the administration’s spending plan would give the country a “permanently larger, European-inspired government.”
But Geithner said deeper spending cuts now would damage economic growth and push more Americans into poverty at a time when the economy is still struggling to recover from a deep recession.
Geithner told the committee that the administration hopes to send Congress next week a framework for making changes in the country’s corporate tax structure.
He said the administration would not offer detailed legislative language but rather broad principles for corporate tax reform. He said the administration would propose eliminating a number of current business tax breaks in an effort to lower the corporate tax rate.
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Santorum revels in sudden rise in GOP race, but he’s still lacking big money and organization
BOISE, Idaho. (AP) — The latest Republican to surge in polls, Rick Santorum is trying to turn his newfound strength into something lasting.
Curious Republicans now pack his rallies. Supporters have funneled nearly $4 million to his formerly empty campaign account over the past seven days. And his staff is plotting an aggressive strategy to challenge Mitt Romney in Romney’s native Michigan and beyond.
But things don’t look so strong just beneath the surface.
Santorum is underfunded and outmanned. He’s still lacking in organization, a month and a half into the primary season. And, after he won three contests in a single day last week, his opponents — on the right and the left — have begun their own efforts to tear him down.
An upbeat Santorum declared “We’re building” in a brief interview in Tacoma, Wash., on Tuesday before heading to Idaho for campaign events. “We’ve got a great volunteer base. In some states we’re going to have staff. Other states we aren’t. We’re going to use volunteers.”
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Funeral for singer Whitney Houston to be held Saturday at NJ church where she sang as a child
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Whitney Houston’s funeral will be held Saturday in the church where she first showcased her singing talents as a child, her family choosing to remember her in a private service rather than in a large event at an arena.
The owner of the Whigham Funeral Home said Tuesday that the funeral will be held at noon at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, which seats up to 1,500 people. Gospel singer Marvin Winans, a Grammy Award winner and longtime family friend, has been chosen to give the eulogy, his son said.
The family said no public memorial service is planned. Officials had discussed the possibility of holding a memorial at the Prudential Center, a major sports and entertainment venue that can seat about 18,000 people, but the funeral home said it had been ruled out.
Funeral home owner Carolyn Whigham said the church service will be by invitation only, reflecting the family’s decision to keep the memorial more personal.
“They have shared her for 30-some years with the city, with the state, with the world. This is their time now for their farewell,” she said.
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Va House Republicans muscle abortion restrictions to passage over passionate Dem protests
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Republican supermajority has muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the Virginia House, including one that would all but outlaw the procedure in the state by declaring that the rights of persons apply from the moment sperm and egg unite.
The bills passed over bitter yet futile objections from Democrats. And one GOP delegate caused the House to ripple when he said most abortions come as “matters of lifestyle convenience.”
Del. Bob Marshall’s House Bill 1 on personhood at conception passed on a 66-32 vote. And on a 63-36 vote, the House passed a bill that requires women to have a “transvaginal ultrasound” before undergoing abortions.
Opponents said the bills were unprecedented intrusions into the prerogatives and decisions not just of pregnant women but of women trying to avoid conceiving.
“The General Assembly is dangerously close to making Virginia the first state in the country to grant personhood rights to fertilized eggs,” said Tarina Keene of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.
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Mormons apologize for posthumous baptism of parents of Jewish rights advocate Wiesenthal
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mormon church leaders apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were posthumously baptized, a controversial ritual that Mormons believe allows deceased people a way to the afterlife but offends members of many other religions.
Wiesenthal died in 2005 after surviving the Nazi death camps and spending his life documenting Holocaust crimes and hunting down perpetrators who remained at large. Jews are particularly offended by an attempt to alter the religion of Holocaust victims, who were murdered because of their religion, and the baptism of Holocaust survivors was supposed to have been barred by a 1995 agreement.
Yet records indicate Wiesenthal’s parents, Asher and Rosa Rapp Wiesenthal, were baptized in proxy ceremonies performed by Mormon church members at temples in Arizona and Utah in late January.
In a statement, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the baptismal rites.
“We are outraged that such insensitive actions continue in the Mormon temples,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the center.
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Woman receives consecutive prison terms for spiking Utah man’s smoothie with antifreeze
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah woman was sentenced Tuesday to consecutive prison terms for spiking a 79-year-old man’s peach smoothie with antifreeze after taking control of his bank accounts.
Vernal’s 8th District Judge Clark McClellan ordered Selena Irene York, 34, to serve three consecutive terms of up to five years each. York pleaded no contest in December to reduced charges of aggravated assault and forgery.
Authorities said York took control of Ed Zurbuchen’s bank accounts after he opened his home to the woman and her daughter. Prosecutors said she stole $10,000 and named herself the beneficiary of Zurbuchen’s life insurance policies.
Zurbuchen was hospitalized for four days in 2008 and is still undergoing liver and kidney testing.
“The damage … we don’t know what will happen or how it will affect me later in life,” Zurbuchen said Tuesday. “I was healthy as a horse (at the time).”
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Underdogs rule: Top black cocker spaniel, wire fox terrier lose early at Westminster dog show
NEW YORK (AP) — No matter how many blue ribbons or silver bowls or shiny trophies any dog brings to the Westminster Kennel Club show, there’s a saying that ultimately decides who wins the top prize.
“Dog on the day,” fanciers say.
A black cocker spaniel called Beckham who was the nation’s No. 1 show dog and a wire fox terrier named Eira who was favored by many to walk away with the title Tuesday night proved once again it takes more than a great reputation to own the green carpet.
Underdogs ruled Madison Square Garden in early judging on Day 2 of America’s biggest pooch parade. The sporting, working and terrier winners were to be chosen later, and judge Cindy Vogels was to pick the best in show shortly before 11 p.m.
They will be joined by a Pekingese, German shepherd, Dalmatian and wire-haired dachshund in the best-of-seven final ring after their wins Monday night.
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