World/Nation Briefs 6.26.2012
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
WASHINGTON (AP) — If you pay attention to election 2012 at all this summer, make it this week.
Decisions out of Washington are sure to have an impact on the major issues driving the presidential and congressional elections: Jobs. How much is in your wallet. Health insurance, immigration, campaign finance and more.
Lawmakers face deadlines on legislation determining the interest rate students pay for loans, overhaul of the federal transportation program, and money for the system that provides insurance for homes and businesses in flood-risk areas. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, is rendering judgment Thursday on the health care overhaul law, President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement.
‘‘I saw some story about (how) this is the week that could make or break Barack Obama. I don’t buy it,’’ said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health committee, who personally invested considerable time into passage of the health care law. ‘‘It’s an important week, sure.’’
In opinion polls, voters put the economy at the top of their list of concerns along with unemployment, which stands at 8.2 percent. They worry about federal spending at a time of record-breaking deficits, how to pay for their health care, and immigration policy. And in interview after interview, respondents say they are extremely concerned about their personal finances.
———
Supreme Court’s campaign money case could spur move for more deregulation of outside spending
WASHINGTON (AP) — Corporations and labor unions have been emboldened this election season to spend unlimited sums of cash. The Supreme Court is telling them to go full speed ahead.
The high court on Monday reaffirmed its controversial Citizens United decision from 2010, following a challenge to a Montana law that prohibited corporate spending in elections. But the decision in the Montana case probably will mean a push for more campaign-finance deregulation.
In the middle of a presidential race already brimming with cash from ‘‘super’’ political committees, the decision leaves no ambiguity that the practice can continue — benefiting the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney the most. Super PACs so far have spent tens of millions of dollars on the presidential election.
The ruling was a victory for those who support few restrictions, saying the First Amendment affords them the right to spend as much as they want to support or defeat a candidate. Reformers vowed to press on, hoping to craft new laws to curb what they call the corrupting influence of money in politics.
‘‘The Supreme Court today has left standing the disastrous Citizens United decision and the enormous damage it is doing to our democracy and political system,’’ Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said Monday.
———
Arizona immigration court ruling leaves police chiefs, sheriffs with more questions on role
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona’s police chiefs and county sheriffs hoped a U.S. Supreme Court ruling would settle their long-running debate on what role, if any, they should play in immigration enforcement. Instead, the justices’ decision to uphold the state’s ‘‘show me your papers’’ statute has left them with more questions than answers.
How long must officers wait for federal authorities to respond when they encounter someone illegal, especially given President Barack Obama’s new policy to only deport dangerous criminals and repeat offenders? If they release a person too soon, are they exposing themselves to a lawsuit from residents who accuse them of failing to enforce the law?
How do they avoid being sued for racial profiling? Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he anticipated no change in how he does his job but that comes from someone who was accused of racially profiling Latinos in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department.
‘‘We’re going to get sued if we do. We’re going to get sued if we don’t. That’s a terrible position to put law enforcement officers in,’’ said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, whose territory covers much of southern Arizona and who has long argued against his state’s requirement that local law enforcement be forced to ask about the legal status of anyone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
The justices on Monday unanimously approved the Arizona law’s most-discussed provision requiring police to check the immigration status of those they stop for other reasons. But it struck down provisions allowing local police to arrest people for federal immigration violations. They also warned against detaining people for any prolonged period merely for not having proper immigration papers.
———
Feds: Career programs at dozens of for-profits could eventually lose federal student aid
Former students in career-training programs at dozens of for-profit institutions have had so much trouble paying off their loans that the schools could lose access to federal student aid if they don’t improve, new data from the U.S. Department of Education finds.
The Education Department reported that at 193 programs at 93 schools, students were unable to meet any of three measures under the agency’s new ‘‘gainful employment’’ rule. The new regulations, announced by the Obama administration last year, are aimed at making sure students in career-training programs at for-profit, nonprofit and public institutions are able to get a job and pay off their student loans when they graduate.
The programs include Everest College’s paralegal training in Salt Lake City and more than 40 other programs operated by Corinthian Colleges, one of the nation’s largest higher education companies; chef training at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas; and the medical assistant program at Sanford-Brown College in McLean, Va.
‘‘Career colleges have a responsibility to prepare people for jobs at a price they can afford,’’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. ‘‘Schools that cannot meet these very reasonable standards are on notice: invest in your students’ success, or taxpayers can no longer invest in you.’’
The Education Department considers former students ‘‘gainfully employed’’ if the program they participated in meets one of three metrics: The estimated annual loan payments for a typical graduate does not exceed 30 percent of his or her discretionary income or 12 percent of total earnings; or at least 35 percent of former students are repaying their loans.
———
In Egypt election, US glad candidate most closely allied with past US influence didn’t win
WASHINGTON (AP) — The election of an Islamist president in Egypt is turning longstanding U.S. policy in the Mideast inside out: The Obama administration is relieved that the candidate representing three decades of close partnership with the United States lost.
The United States is now set to embrace a religious-based former opposition leader who does not share many U.S. goals, perhaps including the 30-year peace with Israel upon which U.S. policy in the region is based. The embrace won’t be warm, and for the administration it will come with strings attached.
Still, the administration is calling the election of Mohammed Morsi on Sunday a milestone in the transition to democracy.
Morsi, from the formerly banned fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood group, is the first Islamist president of Egypt. He defeated Ahmed Shafiq, ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, in a tight race that deeply split the nation.
Now Morsi faces a daunting struggle for power with the still-dominant military rulers who took over after Mubarak was forced out in last year’s Arab uprising.
———
Wildfires, images of smoke threaten summer Rocky Mountain tourism
MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Searing, record-setting heat in the interior West didn’t loosen its grip on firefighters struggling to contain blazes in Colorado, Utah and other Rocky Mountain states.
Colorado has endured nearly a week of 100-plus degree days and low humidity, sapping moisture from timber and grass, creating a devastating formula for volatile wildfires across the state and punishing conditions for firefighters.
‘‘When it’s that hot, it just dries the fuels even more. That can make the fuels explosive,’’ said Steve Segin, a fire spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Much of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado are under a red flag warning, meaning conditions are hot, dry and ripe for fires.
For the fourth straight day, Denver cleared 100 degrees and reached a record high temperature of 105 Monday. Other areas in the state have also been topping 100 degrees, including northern Colorado where the state’s second largest wildfire in history is burning.
———
Queen Elizabeth II begins Northern Ireland trip to mark 60th year on throne, meet ex-IRA chief
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II is beginning a two-day visit to Northern Ireland celebrating the British territory’s hard-won peace in a town that suffered one of the IRA’s worst massacres.
The British monarch’s planned meeting Wednesday with former Irish Republican Army commander Martin McGuinness comes the day after her visit to Enniskillen, where a no-warning IRA bomb in 1987 killed 11 Protestant civilians and wounded 63 others as they commemorated British dead from the two world wars.
The queen is expected to meet survivors and relatives of the dead alongside religious services in Enniskillen’s neighboring Protestant and Catholic cathedrals.
Worldwide revulsion at the Enniskillen massacre spurred McGuinness and other IRA chiefs to begin sounding out peace terms with the British. That quarter-century journey is to end with a Belfast handshake.
———
Artist replaces image of Sandusky on mural at Penn State; ex-coach insists he’s not guilty
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — The depiction of Jerry Sandusky on a well-known mural across the street from the Penn State campus has been replaced by an image of a poet and activist draped with a blue ribbon — a symbol for awareness of child sexual abuse.
It was artist Michael Pilato’s latest step in erasing the image of the disgraced former assistant football coach following Sandusky’s conviction last week on 45 counts at his child sex abuse trial.
Sandusky was removed from the mural days after his arrest in November. But Pilato returned to the work on Sunday, painting in Dora McQuaid, a Penn State graduate who is poet and advocate for domestic and sexual violence victims and issues. The blue ribbon was added on Monday.
Also replacing Sandusky were two red handprints — one belonging to Ann Van Kuren, one of the 12 jurors who convicted Sandusky and the other belonging to a sexual abuse victim.
Meanwhile, as Sandusky insisted through a lawyer Monday that he was not guilty, Van Kuren said she hoped the verdict would help his accusers heal.
———
Moody’s downgrades its ratings of 28 banks in Spain, cites weakening of government’s credit
Spain’s battered banks have taken another hit, this time in the form of a sweeping downgrade by Moody’s.
The rating agency said that it is cutting its views on the debt issued by 28 Spanish banks, including international heavyweights Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
The Spanish government’s fragile finances are making it more difficult for that country to support its lenders, according to Moody’s. And it says the banks are vulnerable to further losses from Spain’s real-estate bust.
The announcement late Monday from Moody’s Investors Service came on the same day that Spain’s government formally asked for help from its European neighbors in cleaning up its stricken banking sector. The request left many questions unanswered, including how much Spain would ask for out of the $125 billion loan package it has been offered.
That uncertainty over Spain led to losses Monday in global stock markets. Bond investors, meanwhile, pushed Spain’s borrowing costs higher, a sign of wilting confidence in the country’s ability to support its banks.
———
Lochte wins 1st showdown with Phelps at US swim trials; 2nd round coming up in 200 free
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Ryan Lochte won Round 1 of his showdown with Michael Phelps at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials. Phelps won’t have to wait long for a second chance to take down his rival.
They’ll compete in the 200-meter freestyle preliminaries on Tuesday morning, with the 16 fastest qualifiers advancing to the evening semifinals. Lochte owns the upper hand in that event, having beaten Phelps at last year’s world championships in Shanghai.
Any butterflies two of the world’s best swimmers may have felt going into the eight-day meet should be gone since both qualified for the London Games on the first night of the trials. Lochte became the first swimmer to make the U.S. team with his win over Phelps in the grueling 400 individual medley on Monday.
‘‘I can sit down and take a deep breath and relax,’’ Lochte said. ‘‘I can just do what I love to do and have fun and just race.’’
It was a three-man race between world champion Lochte, world record holder Phelps, and Tyler Clary, the fourth-fastest swimmer ever in the event. Each of them owned the lead at different points in the race — Phelps in the butterfly, Clary in the backstroke and Lochte in the breaststroke.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — If you pay attention to election 2012 at all this summer, make it this week.
Decisions out of Washington are sure to have an impact on the major issues driving the presidential and congressional elections: Jobs. How much is in your wallet. Health insurance, immigration, campaign finance and more.
Lawmakers face deadlines on legislation determining the interest rate students pay for loans, overhaul of the federal transportation program, and money for the system that provides insurance for homes and businesses in flood-risk areas. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, is rendering judgment Thursday on the health care overhaul law, President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement.
‘‘I saw some story about (how) this is the week that could make or break Barack Obama. I don’t buy it,’’ said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health committee, who personally invested considerable time into passage of the health care law. ‘‘It’s an important week, sure.’’
In opinion polls, voters put the economy at the top of their list of concerns along with unemployment, which stands at 8.2 percent. They worry about federal spending at a time of record-breaking deficits, how to pay for their health care, and immigration policy. And in interview after interview, respondents say they are extremely concerned about their personal finances.
———
Supreme Court’s campaign money case could spur move for more deregulation of outside spending
WASHINGTON (AP) — Corporations and labor unions have been emboldened this election season to spend unlimited sums of cash. The Supreme Court is telling them to go full speed ahead.
The high court on Monday reaffirmed its controversial Citizens United decision from 2010, following a challenge to a Montana law that prohibited corporate spending in elections. But the decision in the Montana case probably will mean a push for more campaign-finance deregulation.
In the middle of a presidential race already brimming with cash from ‘‘super’’ political committees, the decision leaves no ambiguity that the practice can continue — benefiting the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney the most. Super PACs so far have spent tens of millions of dollars on the presidential election.
The ruling was a victory for those who support few restrictions, saying the First Amendment affords them the right to spend as much as they want to support or defeat a candidate. Reformers vowed to press on, hoping to craft new laws to curb what they call the corrupting influence of money in politics.
‘‘The Supreme Court today has left standing the disastrous Citizens United decision and the enormous damage it is doing to our democracy and political system,’’ Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said Monday.
———
Arizona immigration court ruling leaves police chiefs, sheriffs with more questions on role
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona’s police chiefs and county sheriffs hoped a U.S. Supreme Court ruling would settle their long-running debate on what role, if any, they should play in immigration enforcement. Instead, the justices’ decision to uphold the state’s ‘‘show me your papers’’ statute has left them with more questions than answers.
How long must officers wait for federal authorities to respond when they encounter someone illegal, especially given President Barack Obama’s new policy to only deport dangerous criminals and repeat offenders? If they release a person too soon, are they exposing themselves to a lawsuit from residents who accuse them of failing to enforce the law?
How do they avoid being sued for racial profiling? Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he anticipated no change in how he does his job but that comes from someone who was accused of racially profiling Latinos in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department.
‘‘We’re going to get sued if we do. We’re going to get sued if we don’t. That’s a terrible position to put law enforcement officers in,’’ said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, whose territory covers much of southern Arizona and who has long argued against his state’s requirement that local law enforcement be forced to ask about the legal status of anyone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.
The justices on Monday unanimously approved the Arizona law’s most-discussed provision requiring police to check the immigration status of those they stop for other reasons. But it struck down provisions allowing local police to arrest people for federal immigration violations. They also warned against detaining people for any prolonged period merely for not having proper immigration papers.
———
Feds: Career programs at dozens of for-profits could eventually lose federal student aid
Former students in career-training programs at dozens of for-profit institutions have had so much trouble paying off their loans that the schools could lose access to federal student aid if they don’t improve, new data from the U.S. Department of Education finds.
The Education Department reported that at 193 programs at 93 schools, students were unable to meet any of three measures under the agency’s new ‘‘gainful employment’’ rule. The new regulations, announced by the Obama administration last year, are aimed at making sure students in career-training programs at for-profit, nonprofit and public institutions are able to get a job and pay off their student loans when they graduate.
The programs include Everest College’s paralegal training in Salt Lake City and more than 40 other programs operated by Corinthian Colleges, one of the nation’s largest higher education companies; chef training at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas; and the medical assistant program at Sanford-Brown College in McLean, Va.
‘‘Career colleges have a responsibility to prepare people for jobs at a price they can afford,’’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. ‘‘Schools that cannot meet these very reasonable standards are on notice: invest in your students’ success, or taxpayers can no longer invest in you.’’
The Education Department considers former students ‘‘gainfully employed’’ if the program they participated in meets one of three metrics: The estimated annual loan payments for a typical graduate does not exceed 30 percent of his or her discretionary income or 12 percent of total earnings; or at least 35 percent of former students are repaying their loans.
———
In Egypt election, US glad candidate most closely allied with past US influence didn’t win
WASHINGTON (AP) — The election of an Islamist president in Egypt is turning longstanding U.S. policy in the Mideast inside out: The Obama administration is relieved that the candidate representing three decades of close partnership with the United States lost.
The United States is now set to embrace a religious-based former opposition leader who does not share many U.S. goals, perhaps including the 30-year peace with Israel upon which U.S. policy in the region is based. The embrace won’t be warm, and for the administration it will come with strings attached.
Still, the administration is calling the election of Mohammed Morsi on Sunday a milestone in the transition to democracy.
Morsi, from the formerly banned fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood group, is the first Islamist president of Egypt. He defeated Ahmed Shafiq, ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister, in a tight race that deeply split the nation.
Now Morsi faces a daunting struggle for power with the still-dominant military rulers who took over after Mubarak was forced out in last year’s Arab uprising.
———
Wildfires, images of smoke threaten summer Rocky Mountain tourism
MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Searing, record-setting heat in the interior West didn’t loosen its grip on firefighters struggling to contain blazes in Colorado, Utah and other Rocky Mountain states.
Colorado has endured nearly a week of 100-plus degree days and low humidity, sapping moisture from timber and grass, creating a devastating formula for volatile wildfires across the state and punishing conditions for firefighters.
‘‘When it’s that hot, it just dries the fuels even more. That can make the fuels explosive,’’ said Steve Segin, a fire spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Much of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado are under a red flag warning, meaning conditions are hot, dry and ripe for fires.
For the fourth straight day, Denver cleared 100 degrees and reached a record high temperature of 105 Monday. Other areas in the state have also been topping 100 degrees, including northern Colorado where the state’s second largest wildfire in history is burning.
———
Queen Elizabeth II begins Northern Ireland trip to mark 60th year on throne, meet ex-IRA chief
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II is beginning a two-day visit to Northern Ireland celebrating the British territory’s hard-won peace in a town that suffered one of the IRA’s worst massacres.
The British monarch’s planned meeting Wednesday with former Irish Republican Army commander Martin McGuinness comes the day after her visit to Enniskillen, where a no-warning IRA bomb in 1987 killed 11 Protestant civilians and wounded 63 others as they commemorated British dead from the two world wars.
The queen is expected to meet survivors and relatives of the dead alongside religious services in Enniskillen’s neighboring Protestant and Catholic cathedrals.
Worldwide revulsion at the Enniskillen massacre spurred McGuinness and other IRA chiefs to begin sounding out peace terms with the British. That quarter-century journey is to end with a Belfast handshake.
———
Artist replaces image of Sandusky on mural at Penn State; ex-coach insists he’s not guilty
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — The depiction of Jerry Sandusky on a well-known mural across the street from the Penn State campus has been replaced by an image of a poet and activist draped with a blue ribbon — a symbol for awareness of child sexual abuse.
It was artist Michael Pilato’s latest step in erasing the image of the disgraced former assistant football coach following Sandusky’s conviction last week on 45 counts at his child sex abuse trial.
Sandusky was removed from the mural days after his arrest in November. But Pilato returned to the work on Sunday, painting in Dora McQuaid, a Penn State graduate who is poet and advocate for domestic and sexual violence victims and issues. The blue ribbon was added on Monday.
Also replacing Sandusky were two red handprints — one belonging to Ann Van Kuren, one of the 12 jurors who convicted Sandusky and the other belonging to a sexual abuse victim.
Meanwhile, as Sandusky insisted through a lawyer Monday that he was not guilty, Van Kuren said she hoped the verdict would help his accusers heal.
———
Moody’s downgrades its ratings of 28 banks in Spain, cites weakening of government’s credit
Spain’s battered banks have taken another hit, this time in the form of a sweeping downgrade by Moody’s.
The rating agency said that it is cutting its views on the debt issued by 28 Spanish banks, including international heavyweights Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
The Spanish government’s fragile finances are making it more difficult for that country to support its lenders, according to Moody’s. And it says the banks are vulnerable to further losses from Spain’s real-estate bust.
The announcement late Monday from Moody’s Investors Service came on the same day that Spain’s government formally asked for help from its European neighbors in cleaning up its stricken banking sector. The request left many questions unanswered, including how much Spain would ask for out of the $125 billion loan package it has been offered.
That uncertainty over Spain led to losses Monday in global stock markets. Bond investors, meanwhile, pushed Spain’s borrowing costs higher, a sign of wilting confidence in the country’s ability to support its banks.
———
Lochte wins 1st showdown with Phelps at US swim trials; 2nd round coming up in 200 free
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Ryan Lochte won Round 1 of his showdown with Michael Phelps at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials. Phelps won’t have to wait long for a second chance to take down his rival.
They’ll compete in the 200-meter freestyle preliminaries on Tuesday morning, with the 16 fastest qualifiers advancing to the evening semifinals. Lochte owns the upper hand in that event, having beaten Phelps at last year’s world championships in Shanghai.
Any butterflies two of the world’s best swimmers may have felt going into the eight-day meet should be gone since both qualified for the London Games on the first night of the trials. Lochte became the first swimmer to make the U.S. team with his win over Phelps in the grueling 400 individual medley on Monday.
‘‘I can sit down and take a deep breath and relax,’’ Lochte said. ‘‘I can just do what I love to do and have fun and just race.’’
It was a three-man race between world champion Lochte, world record holder Phelps, and Tyler Clary, the fourth-fastest swimmer ever in the event. Each of them owned the lead at different points in the race — Phelps in the butterfly, Clary in the backstroke and Lochte in the breaststroke.
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