Nation & World Briefly

Health care deal with House 'Blue Dog' Democrats clears way for crucial September vote

WASHINGTON (AP) - After weeks of turmoil, House Democrats reached a shaky peace with the party's rebellious rank-and-file conservatives Wednesday and cleared the way for a vote in September on sweeping health care legislation.

Bipartisan Senate negotiators reported progress, too, on a bill said to extend coverage to 95 percent of all Americans without raising federal deficits.

"We're on the edge, we're almost there," said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican involved in the secretive talks, although a fellow GOP participant, Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, dissented strongly.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, said preliminary estimates from congressional budget experts showed the cost of the emerging Senate plan was below $900 billion and would result in an increase in employer-sponsored insurance - conclusions that may reassure critics who fear a bloated bill that prompts businesses to abandon the coverage they currently provide.

Across the Capitol, House Democratic leaders gave in - at least temporarily - to numerous demands from rank-and-file rebels, so-called Blue Dogs from the conservative wing of the party who had been blocking the bill's passage in the last of three committees.

The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberals in the chamber, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.

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Gates says up to 5,000 troops may leave Iraq ahead of schedule, gives no exact timetable

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AP) - A combat brigade of 5,000 American troops may be brought home early from Iraq if an emerging trend of reduced violence holds, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates' acknowledgment that he is considering speeding the withdrawal of a full combat unit by the end of this year amounts to the first hint that the Obama administration might rethink its decision to keep a large residual force in Iraq and pull them out slowly.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said later that "conditions on the ground" will dictate any quickening of the withdrawal pace.

"We certainly agree that if conditions on the ground continue to improve it's possible that timetable could be accelerated," Gibbs said Wednesday during a briefing aboard Air Force One en route to Bristol, Va., with the president. "But we've done nothing concrete except continue to watch the situation. Obviously there are a lot of - lots of political reconciliation that still has to be worked on and a security situation that we have to be mindful of even as many in the world focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Earlier in the day, Gates told reporters aboard a Defense Department plane that "I think there's at least some chance of a modest acceleration" in troop withdrawal this year.

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911 caller in Harvard scholar case says she chose her words carefully; hurt by racist label

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The woman who dialed 911 to report a possible break-in at the home of black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Wednesday she was wrongly labeled a racist based on words she never said and hoped the recently released recording of the call would put the controversy to rest.

With a trembling voice, Lucia Whalen, 40, said she was out walking to lunch in Gates' Cambridge neighborhood near Harvard University when an elderly woman without a cell phone stopped her because she was concerned there was a possible burglary in progress.

Whalen was vilified as a racist on blogs after a police report said she described the possible burglars as "two black males with backpacks."

Tapes of the call released earlier this week revealed that Whalen did not mention race. When pressed by a dispatcher on whether the men were white, black or Hispanic, she said one of them might have been Hispanic.

"Now that the tapes are out, I hope people can see that I tried to be careful and honest with my words," Whalen said. "It never occurred to me that the way I reported what I saw be analyzed by an entire nation."

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Bing-o! Microsoft can finally yell 'Yahoo!' as long-sought search deal aims at Google

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Microsoft finally persuaded Yahoo to surrender control of the Internet's second most popular search engine and join it in a daunting battle - taking on the overwhelming dominance of Google in the online advertising market.

A 10-year deal announced Wednesday gives Microsoft its best shot yet to show its new search technology, Bing, is as good as or better than Google's. Microsoft also hopes to use Yahoo to divert sales from Google, which generates more than $20 billion a year from ads.

Gaining access to Yahoo's audience would instantly more than triple Bing's U.S. market share to 28 percent. That's still a far cry from the remarkable 65 percent of U.S. searches handled by Google, according to the research firm comScore Inc.

By joining forces, Microsoft and Yahoo are betting they will be able to focus on their respective strengths. By turning over responsibility for search technology to Microsoft, Yahoo can concentrate on sales of billboard-style advertising on the Web - and figuring out how to keep luring traffic to its Web sites, which already attract more than 570 million people worldwide every month.

While the agreement shapes up as a potential boon for Microsoft, it was greeted in the stock market as a letdown for Yahoo. Just 14 months ago, Microsoft dangled $9 billion in front of Yahoo in an attempt to forge a search advertising partnership, only to be rebuffed. Yahoo had also turned down Microsoft's $47.5 billion bid to buy the entire company.

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Texas mother accused of decapitated baby heard screaming 'I didn't mean to do it' in 911 call

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A Texas mother accused of decapitating her 3-week-old son screams "I didn't mean to do it. He told me to!" while her sister pleads for an ambulance to bring help in a desperate four-minute 911 call released Wednesday.

Otty Sanchez, who police say told them the devil made her kill and mutilate her only child, cries "I love him" and says she's stabbed herself in the heart and stomach while her sister tries calming down the 33-year-old mother.

At one point during the frantic call, Priscilla Garcia tries reassuring her sister that she is alive. "Otty, this time I told you to come to me," Garcia says.

"I tried, but you told me that you died," Sanchez responds.

"I'm not dead, Otty," Garcia says. "I'm standing right here talking to you."

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Alleged DC Holocaust museum shooter could face the death penalty after grand jury indictes him

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal grand jury indicted an elderly white supremacist Wednesday on charges that could earn him the death penalty in the fatal shooting of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Hate crimes charges were added to the case against James von Brunn, who has been in a hospital since the shooting last month.

Officials say the 89-year-old shot and killed museum guard Stephen T. Johns on June 10. Von Brunn was shot in the face by other guards but survived.

A seven-count indictment was handed up Wednesday in U.S. District Court, charging von Brunn with first-degree murder, killing in a federal building - both charges already lodged against him - and a new charge of bias-motivated crime. Four of the charges make him eligible for the death penalty.

The indictment accuses von Brunn of seeking to intimidate Jewish people at the museum.

FBI Assistant Director Joseph Persichini said he believed the indictment will "send a message" to those who would try to turn hatred into violence.

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Scientists use mosquitoes to deliver malaria 'vaccine' through bites; Early tests show promise

In a daring experiment in Europe, scientists used mosquitoes as flying needles to deliver a "vaccine" of live malaria parasites through their bites.

The results were astounding: Everyone in the vaccine group acquired immunity to malaria; everyone in a non-vaccinated comparison group did not, and developed malaria when exposed to the parasites later.

The study was only a small proof-of-principle test, and its approach is not practical on a large scale. However, it shows that scientists may finally be on the right track to developing an effective vaccine against one of mankind's top killers. A vaccine that uses modified live parasites just entered human testing.

"Malaria vaccines are moving from the laboratory into the real world," Dr. Carlos Campbell wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. He works for PATH, the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, a Seattle-based global health foundation.

The new study "reminds us that the whole malaria parasite is the most potent immunizing" agent, even though it is harder to develop a vaccine this way and other leading candidates take a different approach, he wrote.

Malaria kills nearly a million people each year, mostly children under 5 and especially in Africa. Infected mosquitoes inject immature malaria parasites into the skin when they bite; these travel to the liver where they mature and multiply. From there, they enter the bloodstream and attack red blood cells - the phase that makes people sick.

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Federal authorities arrest dozens, including, doctors in Medicare fraud busts nationally

MIAMI (AP) - Federal authorities arrested more than 30 suspects, including doctors, and were seeking others in a major Medicare fraud bust Wednesday in New York, Louisiana, Boston and Houston, targeting scams such as "arthritis kits" - expensive braces that many patients never used.

More than 200 agents worked on the $16 million bust that included 12 search warrants at health care businesses and homes across the Houston area, where the bulk of the arrests were made.

Federal authorities say those businesses were giving patients "arthritis kits," which were nothing more than expensive orthotics that included knee and shoulder braces and heating pads. Patients told authorities they were unnecessary and many never even received them. But health care clinic owners billed between $3,000 to $4,000 for each kit.

Houston's other scam involved billing Medicare for thousands of dollars worth of liquid food like Ensure for patients who can't eat solid food. Authorities said clinic owners never distributed the food to patients. In some cases, clinic owners billed patients who were dead when they allegedly received the items.

It's the third major sweep since Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced in May they were adding millions of dollars and dozens of agents to combat a problem that costs the U.S. billions each year.

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Jackson's chef remembers role of personal doctor, praying with children on day singer died

LOS ANGELES (AP) - On the day Michael Jackson died, his personal chef says her first hint of something amiss was when his doctor didn't come downstairs to get the juices and granola he routinely brought the King of Pop for breakfast each morning.

Kai Chase, a professionally trained chef hired by Jackson to maintain a healthy food regimen, recalled the singer's final days in an interview with The Associated Press. She also spoke about the role of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, who is now the focus of a manslaughter investigation.

Chase said Tuesday that she had gotten used to seeing Murray coming and going from the mansion. The doctor usually arrived about 9 or 9:30 p.m. and would go upstairs to Jackson's room, and she said she would not see him again before she left - sometimes late in the evening - but understood he was staying the night.

In the morning, when she arrived for work, Chase said she would see the doctor coming down the steps carrying oxygen tanks. When Murray didn't come downstairs the morning of June 25, "I thought maybe Mr. Jackson is sleeping late," Chase said.

"I started preparing the lunch and then I looked at my cell phone and it was noon. About 12:05 or 12:10 Dr. Murray runs down the steps and screams, 'Go get Prince!' He's screaming very loud. I run into the den where the kids are playing. Prince (Jackson's oldest son) runs to meet Dr. Murray and from that point on you could feel the energy in the house change.

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Phelps bounces back from stunning loss to set world record in 200-meter butterfly

ROME (AP) - Michael Phelps had another swimsuit issue.

It didn't slow him down this time.

Phelps bounced back from a stunning loss with something more familiar - a world record in the 200-meter butterfly Wednesday. For good measure, he surpassed another of Mark Spitz's accomplishments with the 34th world record of his career, one more than Spitz had during his brilliant run in the pool.

One night after he was soundly beaten by Germany's Paul Biedermann, Phelps sliced the time in what he calls his "bread and butter" to 1 minute, 51.51 seconds, more than a half-second lower than his gold medal-winning time of 1:52.03 at the Beijing Olympics.

With all the hullabaloo over swimsuits, everyone wondered about Phelps' decision to wear one that stretched only from his waist to his ankles, leaving his upper body bare. Was he trying to make a fashion statement?

"No, that didn't even cross my mind," Phelps said. "It was just me being comfortable."

Actually, he had planned to wear a Speedo bodysuit, only to discover during warmups the one he brought to the Foro Italico was too tight in the shoulders. So he went back to the legsuit, which he prefers in the fly anyway.