AP News in Brief
Agreement on tax cuts, spending puts $789B economic stimulus package on track for final votes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Economic stimulus legislation at the heart of President Barack Obama’s recovery plan is on track for final votes in the House and Senate after a dizzying final round of bargaining that yielded agreement on tax cuts and spending totaling $789 billion.
Obama, who has campaigned energetically for the legislation, welcomed the agreement, saying it would “save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track.”
The $500-per-worker credit for lower- and middle-income taxpayers that Obama outlined during his presidential campaign was scaled back to $400 during bargaining by the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House. Couples would receive $800 instead of $1,000. Over two years, that move would pump about $25 billion less into the economy than had been previously planned.
Officials estimated it would mean about $13 a week more in people’s paychecks when withholding tables are adjusted in late spring. Critics say that’s unlikely to do much to boost consumption.
Millions of people receiving Social Security benefits would get a one-time payment of $250 under the agreement, along with veterans receiving pensions, and poor people receiving Supplemental Security Income payments.
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Scientists wary about orbital debris field after Russian and American satellites collide
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists are keeping a close eye on orbital debris created when two communications satellites — one American, the other Russian — smashed into each other hundreds of miles above the Earth.
NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the unprecedented crash and whether any other satellites or even the Hubble Space Telescope are threatened.
The collision, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday, was the first high-speed impact between two intact spacecraft, NASA officials said.
“We knew this was going to happen eventually,” said Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA believes any risk to the international space station and its three astronauts is low. It orbits about 270 miles below the collision course.
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Obama, launching presidency amid economic crisis, displays his fascination with Lincoln
By The Associated Press
When Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign, he did it in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown. When he arrived in Washington, he followed the train route Lincoln used in 1861. When he needed a Bible for his swearing-in, Obama picked Lincoln’s.
Heck, even Obama’s lunch on Inauguration Day was modeled after Lincoln’s favorites, right down to the seafood stew.
Clearly, the 44th president wants Americans to know how much he admires the 16th.
Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin thinks that reflects Obama’s genuine affinity with Lincoln — for his willingness to learn and grow, his ability to communicate with the nation, his insistence on having strong-willed, independent advisers.
“Somehow Lincoln has worked himself into Obama’s heart and mind, and it’s a good thing to have Lincoln as your mentor,” said Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Team of Rivals,” a Lincoln book that Obama says has influenced his thinking on how to govern.
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Afghanistan steps up security for Holbrooke visit following Taliban assault
KABUL (AP) — Heavily armed government troops thronged the streets of Afghanistan’s capital Thursday, stepping up security before the arrival of the new U.S. envoy to the region the day after Taliban attacks showed how easily the city’s defenses can be breached.
Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s recently appointed envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was expected later in the day for his first trip to the country. Security would have already been high for such a visit, but Holbrooke arrives following one of the Taliban’s most audacious attacks on the capital.
On Wednesday, Taliban militants killed 20 people in a coordinated assault on three government buildings. Armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests, they stormed through barricades at the Justice Ministry in the heart of Kabul and a corrections department building to the north.
One attacker was killed before he could force his way into a third building, the Education Ministry.
The Taliban claimed responsibility soon after the assault began.
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Peanut butter may get ‘high risk’ designation as government tightens oversight of food makers
WASHINGTON (AP) — They say nothing is more wholesome than peanut butter, but the government may soon ask companies that make the gooey treat to prove it.
The salmonella outbreak is starting to change the way the government oversees the safety of peanut butter and other foods, health officials tell Congress.
Dr. Stephen Sundlof of the Food and Drug Administration told lawmakers Wednesday that agency inspectors will start to routinely collect samples for bacterial testing whenever they go into a facility. Currently that’s done only if officials suspect a problem.
“We are changing that now as a result of this (outbreak),” Sundlof, head of the FDA’s food safety center, told the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee. The panel is looking for ways to prevent another outbreak like the one that has sickened some 600 people and is being linked to nine deaths. More than 1,900 products have been recalled.
Peanut butter may also be singled out for special attention. Sundlof said the government is weighing whether to designate it as a high-risk food. That means producers would be required to follow written food safety plans to prevent contamination.
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Analysis: Israel’s shift to right could complicate Obama policies as he reaches out to Iran
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel’s shift to the right could throw a monkey wrench into President Barack Obama’s conciliatory overtures to Iran and his budding drive to promote Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
Results of elections this week in Israel are likely to ensure a pivotal role for rightist Benjamin Netanyahu, whose tough statements on Iran reflect the distrust of Israeli voters. And unlike many Israelis, his aim in dealing with the Palestinians does not include immediate peace negotiations.
Netanyahu says he wants to focus on reviving the Palestinian economy and leave peacemaking for later. At the same time, he wants to expand the Israeli population on the West Bank beyond the current total of nearly 300,000.
The Palestinians, moderate or extremist, have other plans for the area: forcing the Israelis to withdraw and making the territory part of a Palestinian state.
Tzipi Livni, who has moved from hard-line to centrist over the years and accepts the principle of yielding territory, still is in the running for Israeli prime minister, along with Netanyahu. On the distant right is the Yisrael Beitenu Party’s Avigdor Lieberman, who might gain a toehold in the government.
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New urgency behind national fire alert system in Australia; 2 detained for possible arson
YEA, Australia (AP) — Australian police detained two suspects Thursday in connection with the country’s worst-ever wildfires, as the government pledged to push through a national fire alert system after thousands were caught off-guard by the infernos.
The two suspects were taken in after they were reported acting suspiciously in an area burned out by last weekend’s fires, but it was unclear if the two are suspected of setting fires, or of some other wrongdoing after the fires started.
Authorities say some of the fires that ravaged Victoria state last weekend and killed at least 181 people were the result of arson. Officials said the death toll could exceed 200.
Detectives responding to a tip found the men near Yea, which is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Marysville, a town utterly wrecked by a blaze Saturday and where officials say up to 100 people were killed.
“We’ve picked them up and it will now take us a little bit of time just to work through and establish what’s been going on,” Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Overland told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
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No butts about it: Study finds paying cigarette smokers to quit triples average success rate
By The Associated Press
Dangling enough dollars in front of smokers who want to quit helps many more succeed, an experiment with hundreds of General Electric Co. workers indicates. Among those paid up to $750 to quit and stay off cigarettes, 15 percent were still tobacco-free about a year later. That may not sound like much, but it’s three times the success rate of a comparison group that got no such bonuses.
GE was so impressed it plans to offer an incentive program nationwide next year, aiming to save some of the company’s estimated $50 million annually in extra health and other costs for smoking employees.
“This kind of reward system provides them with direct, positive feedback in the present,” not just delayed, intangible health benefits, said Dr. Kevin Volpp, the lead researcher of the study.
Volpp, who oversees the health incentives center at the University of Pennsylvania, called the study the largest ever of employer incentives to stop smoking. Several past studies failed to find higher quit rates linked to financial bonuses, but he said those included too few people or the financial incentives were too tiny, some as low as $10.
The $750 was “a good incentive,” said Dan Anzalone, a study participant who quit smoking cold turkey three years ago next month — after a 35-year habit.
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ABC: Nicollette Sheridan leaving her role as Wisteria Lane vamp Edie on `Desperate Housewives’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — ABC says Nicollette Sheridan is leaving “Desperate Housewives.”
The 45-year-old Sheridan plays vamp Edie Britt on the comedy-drama about domestic life on Wisteria Lane. The network did not say Wednesday when Sheridan’s role would end.
Her departure was first made public by TV Guide magazine.
A call to Sheridan’s publicist was not immediately returned.
“Desperate Housewives,” a top 20 show and one of ABC’s most successful series, stars Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria Parker.
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Deron Williams scores 31 as Jazz snap Lakers winning streak at 7 with 113-109 victory
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Deron Williams had 31 points and 11 assists and the Utah Jazz snapped the Los Angeles Lakers’ seven-game winning streak with a 113-109 victory Wednesday night.
Mehmet Okur scored 22 points, CJ Miles had 17 and Ronnie Brewer added 16 to give the injury-plagued Jazz their fourth win in the last five games.
Kobe Bryant scored 37 points and Lamar Odom had 19 points and 19 rebounds, but the Lakers allowed the Jazz to shoot a season-high 58.6 percent.
The Jazz didn’t score from the field and made 2-for-8 from the line in a nearly four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter to give the Lakers a last gasp.
Odom and Bryant combined for 10 points and Bryant’s 3-pointer gave the Lakers their first lead of the fourth quarter, 105-104, at the 1:36 mark.
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