As lawmakers do battle on overhaul, interest groups stay positive and focus on end game
WASHINGTON (AP) - A strong force, perhaps as powerful in Congress as President Barack Obama, is keeping the drive for health care going even as lawmakers seem hopelessly at odds.
Lobbyists.
The drug industry, the American Medical Association, hospital groups and the insurance lobby are all saying Congress must make major changes this year. Television ads paid for by drug companies and insurers continued to emphasize the benefits of a health care overhaul - not the groups' objections to some of the proposals.
"My gut is telling me that something major can pass because all the people who could kill it are still at the table," said Ken Thorpe, chairman of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta. "Everybody has issues with bits and pieces of it, but all these groups want to get something done this year." As a senior official at the Health and Human Services department in the 1990s, Thorpe was deeply involved in the Clinton administration's failed effort.
President Barack Obama on Saturday continued his full-court press to pass health care reform legislation. In his weekly Internet and radio address, Obama cited a new White House study indicating that small businesses pay far more per employee for health insurance than big companies - a disparity he says is "unsustainable - it's unacceptable."
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Bush considered sending US troops into Buffalo suburb to arrest terror suspects, paper says
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power, The New York Times reported.
Vice President Dick Cheney and several other Bush advisers at the time strongly urged that the military be used to apprehend men who were suspected of plotting with al Qaida, who later became known as the Lackawanna Six, the Times reported on its Web site Friday night. It cited former administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The proposal advanced to at least one-high level administration meeting, before President George W. Bush decided against it.
Dispatching troops into the streets is virtually unheard of. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.
According to the Times, Cheney and other Bush aides said an Oct. 23, 2001, Justice Department memo gave broad presidential authority that allowed Bush to use the domestic use of the military against al-Qaida if it was justified on the grounds of national security, rather than law enforcement.
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Black scholar says he'll have a beer with Obama, white police officer, wants to 'move on'
BOSTON (AP) - Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he's ready to move on from his arrest by a white police officer, hoping to use the encounter to improve fairness in the criminal justice system and saying "in the end, this is not about me at all."
After a phone call from President Barack Obama urging calm in the aftermath of his arrest last week, Gates said he would accept Obama's invitation to the White House for a beer with him and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley.
In a statement posted Friday on The Root, a Web site Gates oversees, the scholar said he told Obama he'd be happy to meet with Crowley, whom Gates had accused of racial profiling.
"I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative," Gates said. "I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sergeant Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige."
It was a marked change in tone for Gates, who in the days following his arrest gathered up his legal team and said he was contemplating a lawsuit. He even vowed to make a documentary on his arrest to tie into a larger project about racial profiling.
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Demonstrators around the world call for release of Iranians detained in opposition protests
LONDON (AP) - Protesters across the world called on Iran Saturday to end its clampdown on opposition activists, demanding the release of hundreds rounded up during demonstrations against the country's disputed election.
Groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International backed a global day of action, with protests planned in more than 80 cities.
The protesters want Iranian authorities to release what they say are hundreds, or even thousands, of people detained during protests that followed the presidential election last month that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.
Inside Iran, as well, Iranian police and pro-government militia attacked and scattered hundreds of protesters who had gathered in Tehran in response to the global demonstrations of solidarity, witnesses said.
Demonstrators in Vanak and Mirdamad districts chanted "death to the dictator" and "we want our vote back" before they were attacked and beaten by police Saturday. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
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Multiple suicide attackers strike southeastern Afghan city of Khost; 7 militants killed
KABUL (AP) - Less than a month before Afghanistan's presidential election, Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests attacked a provincial capital Saturday, triggering gunbattles that killed seven militants. U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said it is "extraordinary" to hold a presidential election during a war.
U.S. and NATO forces have stepped up operations in hopes of ensuring enough security for a strong voter turnout for Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election.
The assault in Khost began when at least six Taliban fighters carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the area around the main police station and a nearby government-run bank. All were shot and killed before they could detonate their suicide vests, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
A seventh attacker detonated a car rigged with explosives near a police rapid reaction force, wounding two policemen, the ministry said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said all the attackers were killed, but the Defense Ministry later said an eighth attacker may have escaped. The ministry said no government forces were killed but 14 people were wounded - 11 civilians and three police.
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Too much government? Activists strike out for the woods and a route back to America's roots
LANCASTER, N.H. (AP) - He fled the "People's Republic of Massachusetts" to escape tyranny. Now he strides the campground in a plaid kilt and mirror shades, an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle across his torso, an immense Scottish sword sheathed between his shoulders.
Out here, though, the only signs of danger are the ones warning drivers to watch out for moose. Could it be he senses a threat we're not seeing?
"Not expecting," says the swordsman, who calls himself Doobie, grinning broadly. "Just ready."
There's no escaping the long arm of big government - even here at the far edge of a state whose license plate decrees that without freedom from oppressive authority you might as well choose death. But for Doobie and 500 others, this tent colony on this particular weekend is about as close to Libertarian Nirvana as they're likely to get.
They've come for the Porcupine Freedom Festival, four days of beer, burgers and bonfires. But more importantly, they are here to carve out an enclave of less government and more liberty to do as they wish.
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Hubble Space Telescope captures details of atmospheric debris in rare collision with Jupiter
BALTIMORE (AP) - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is offering a glimpse of atmospheric debris from an object that plunged into Jupiter in a rare collision with the planet.
Scientists used the telescope Thursday to capture what they call the "sharpest visible-light picture" so far of the expanding gash. An amateur stargazer in Australia spotted the impression last Sunday.
Amy Simon-Miller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., says the magnitude of the impact is believed to be rare. Simon-Miller estimates the diameter of the object that hit the planet was the size of several football fields.
The debris possibly came from a comet or asteroid that hit Jupiter.
NASA also says the new images prove repairs done on the Hubble in May were successful.
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Sen. Charles Schumer warns SEC that it must curb high-speed traders' flash order advantage
Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has warned the Securities and Exchange Commission that if it does not curb the practice of flash orders, which give traders at large financial firms with high-speed computers a brief advantage over other market participants, he will move to sponsor legislation to limit their use.
In a letter Friday to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, Schumer, the chairman of the Senate's committee on rules and administration, said he is concerned that "the integrity of our capital markets is being compromised by the ability of some insiders to view order information before it is available to the entire market, and use electronic trading strategies to profit from that information at the expense of other investors."
Flash orders allow certain members of Direct Edge, Nasdaq and BATS exchanges access (for a fee) to buy and sell order information for milliseconds prior to that information being made available to the public. High-speed computer software can take advantage of that brief period to allow those members to trade ahead of those orders - at better prices - and therefore profit from advanced knowledge of buying and selling activity.
"If the SEC fails to curb this practice, I plan to introduce legislation in the U.S. Senate to prohibit the use of flash orders in connection with optional pre-routing programs in order to ensure that trading in U.S. public capital markets is fair and transparent for all market participants," Schumer added.
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Financier says he gave $5.5M to Jackson executors that was 'secret between Michael and me'
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A former financial advisor to Michael Jackson said Friday that he was the person who recently turned over to executors $5.5 million, which had been "a secret between Michael and me."
Dr. Tohme Tohme responded to an inquiry from The Associated Press about documents in which administrators of the estate said they had recovered $5.5 million and substantial amounts of personal property from an unnamed former financial adviser.
"It was not recovered," he said. "I had the money and I gave it to them. It was a secret between Michael and me."
He said the money, which came from recording residuals, was earmarked by Jackson for the purchase of what was to be his "dream home" in Las Vegas. He said he was in negotiations for the home when Jackson died.
"He said, 'Don't tell anyone about this money,"' Tohme recalled. "But when he passed away I told them I had this money, and I gave it to them."
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Ferrari driver Felipe Massa stable after surgery on 'life-threatening' injuries from crash
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Ferrari driver Felipe Massa underwent surgery on life-threatening skull injuries Saturday from a high-speed crash during Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying. He was in stable condition in the intensive care unit of a military hospital.
The accident happened when a loose part from another car hit Massa in the helmet, causing him to veer into a tire-lined barrier at about 120 mph. The front of his car was shredded, with both tires gone and the front nose open.
The 28-year-old Brazilian also sustained a concussion but was conscious when airlifted to AEK hospital, his team said.
"At the time he was admitted to hospital his condition was stable and he was breathing and blood circulation was normal," the Hungarian defense department said in a statement.
"During the course of his examination they established that he suffered a serious, life-threatening injuries, including loss of consciousness and a fracture of the forehead on the left side and a fracture on the base of the skull."