Father John S. Sarge begins the last Saturday Mass at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic church on June 29, 2013, in Bridgeport Township. The church is one of many in the Saginaw Diocese that is being affected by the parish reorganization. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary will merge with St. Francis and Claire Parish in Birch Run after its last Mass on Sunday, June 30. Sarge is retiring after 40 years of service with the parish.
A bitter row between the European Union and Beijing over new duties on Chinese solar panels should be settled amicably through talks, French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.
"France has always wanted such differences to be resolved through negotiation and in a spirit of appeasement," Hollande told a team of visiting Chinese business leaders.
He also urged them to step up investments in France to attain a balance.
"There are a lot of French investments in China," said Hollande, adding that "we have nothing to fear ... from Chinese investments on the condition support creating jobs and production."
China accounts for just four percent of foreign investments into France, compared to 16 percent in Germany and 23 percent in the United States.
The visit comes amid an escalating trade dispute between China and the EU.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, imposed an average tariff of 11.8 percent on solar panel imports from China -- which will rise to more than 47 percent in August if negotiations fail to resolve the dispute.
China hit back at the tariffs by launching an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy inquiry into sales of European wine, which analysts said could hit wine exports from France and Italy, stoking fears of the dispute escalating.
The solar panel tariffs, which were introduced this month on a provisional basis, have sparked divisions among EU nations, who will vote in December on whether to make them permanent.
France had supported the Commission's decision to impose the temporary tariffs in order to bring China to the negotiating table.
In addition to the solar cells, the EU also decided this month to challenge China at the World Trade Organization after Beijing slapped duties on some steel products, and has threatened an investigation into China's telecom equipment firms.
Total trade between the two sides fell 3.7 percent year-on-year in 2012, with China's imports from the bloc rising 0.4 percent to $212 billion, while shipments in the opposite direction tumbled 6.2 percent to $334 billion, according to Chinese customs data.
Coming update makes it easier to organize and play your library while keeping all the sound improvements you expect from Spins HD
While the debate over keeping your music collection stored locally or in the cloud will never end, the one thing most people agree on is that a good music player app makes a world of difference in the way those files sound. Everyone has a favorite, but Max Sound is pushing out an update to Spins HD that you're going to want to look at.
Spins HD takes your existing on-device music collection and runs it through more than equalizer presets, the app delivers HD sound by converting the file into an actual analog sound wave. While it's still a compressed digital file, this allows the "full breadth" of the original recording to come through, delivering better sounding music. These claims may come from the developers, but I will say the files do sound better when playing in Spins HD, and often times much better. And it's easy -- there is a page of presets that work well, and for the more adventurous, you can also set the tone for high, low, and midpoint sounds from your music. Great sound from an app that's easy to use is always a plus.
Smart phones have taken the place of the mp3 player for most of us, so getting great sounding audio is important for the connoisseurs out there. The coming update for Spins HD keeps the great sound you expect from the player, and adds a much improved UI that makes it easier to manage and sort your playlists and songs. If you're a current user, look for the update shortly, and if you haven't tried Spins HD yet, click the link above to give it a whirl. A press release and series of screenshots is after the break.
Summer is upon us and, along with it, grilling season. We've got plenty of tips and tricks to help you become a grill master this weekend.
Note: If you don't have a great grill just yet, choose from any of these five great options.
Get the Right Tools
When you're at the grill, it helps to have the right tools. Here are a few we've found over the years that can make your job a bit easier and your food better:
Grill Clips take the hassle out of grilling smaller vegetables. Asparagus, for example, can slip through the surface and into the fire. Grill Clips bundle the smaller items together so they can't escape.
Stake combines a spatula, fork, and tongs into one grilling multi-tool.
The Weber 3-Piece Set gives you a solid spatula, form, and tongs separately (if you prefer them that way).
Kabob Baskets keep your kabobs in order.
You don't need everything on that list?in fact, getting it all would leave you with quite a bit of redundancy?so stick with what you need for what you want to grill. Ultimately, a good spatula, fork, and tongs will give you enough to work with.
Get Some Good Recipes
You need a good set of recipes, whether simple or complex, to produce some great food. We like Weber's On the Grill for a comprehensive guide, but here are a few other specific options:
Learn to Cook Meats
Plan on grilling hotdogs? You can achieve a perfect spiral if you know how to cut the dog beforehand. This increases the grilling surface and enhances the flavor. Marinating your dogs can also provide a killer flavor boost. A good marinade can work with steaks and fruit, too. If you've never made a marinade before, learn the basics before you dive in.
Speaking of steaks, a few things can improve the final product. First, know your steak grilling myths so you don't fall victim to any common errors. Second, you can improve a lesser cut of meat by covering it in salt an hour before you grill. Third, a quick freeze will earn you Steakhouse-quality crust. Finally, you need to know when your steak is ready to eat. While that moment will depend upon how rare or well-done you like your meat, you can test its doneness by just touching your thumb to your pointer finger.
What about chicken? You can figure out when chicken is ready using this tip from Serious Eats:
"Remember that the last part on the whole chicken to finish cooking is always the joint between the leg and the thigh. The easiest way to tell if your chicken is perfect is a simple twist test. Twist a chicken leg with your fingers. If it doesn't budge, it isn't done. If it spins like a roulette wheel in Las Vegas, it has cooked too long. Ideally you want to feel slight tension and then a release of the joint.
If you want to maintain a juicier grilled chicken, you should (seriously) cook it under a brick. As for burgers, you gave us some of the best tips, but we have a few good ones, too. Regardless of what you're cooking, make sure you know where to put it on the grill for the best results.
Clean Up Easily
After a day of grilling, you might find the need to clean but not have the energy to do it. Not to worry?you can just stick many of the dirty parts of your grill in the oven and then use the oven's self-cleaning setting to handle the job for you. If you'd rather keep it all together, stick half an onion on a fork and use it to tidy up. If not of that works for you, try a coffee bath.
Have a great weekend (and a great meal)!
Related
Five Best Grills
With the summer grilling season upon us, you may be looking for the perfect backyard cooking surface for your next cookout, or you may just have? Read?
After two long years, the International Trade Commission has finally come to a decision in favor of Huawei, Nokia and ZTE in a 3G patent case brought by InterDigital in 2011. According to an ITC judge, the three phone manufacturers did not violate the seven InterDigital-owned patents that covers various WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies used to make their devices. InterDigital even went so far as to request the ban of US sales of these devices pending a decision. The Pennsylvania-based company filed a similar complaint against LG, which chose a settlement instead of going through the courts. Still, this is just a preliminary ruling; the final decision of the case is expected in October.
The office of the Bulgarian Football Union has suffered heavy damages after an attack by angered CSKA Sofia fans Saturday.
The windows and door of the office have been broken and part of the inscription has been removed.
There are damages even to the above ground floors, according to the Bulgarian Focus Information Agency.
Police have closed down the area, located on the central Ivan Asen II Str. in Bulgarian capital Sofia.
CSKA fans are currently protesting in front of the team's stadium in the nearby Borisova Gradina park.
The rally has been provoked by??the takeover of the team by former football legend?Hristo Stoichkov, and its possible merger with the team of?Litex Lovech.
The change of ownership comes after years of financial trouble and unconvincing performance by?CSKA, which however finished third in Bulgaria's latest national football championship.
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? One of the most important prosecution witnesses in George Zimmerman's murder trial has left the witness stand.
Rachel Jeantel testified Thursday for a second consecutive day about the last phone call she had with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in the moments before his deadly encounter with Zimmerman.
She is one of the prosecution's most important witnesses since she bolsters prosecutors' contention that Zimmerman was the aggressor in his confrontation with Martin.
Zimmerman is pleading not guilty to second-degree murder, claiming self-defense.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
George Zimmerman's defense attorney on Thursday challenged the credibility of a key prosecution witness' account of what she heard over the phone in the moments before the deadly exchange between the neighborhood watch volunteer and 17-year-old Trayvon Martin that left the Miami teen with a bullet in his chest.
The defense attorney challenged 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel about her claim that the encounter was racially charged and about her differing accounts of what she heard over the phone when Zimmerman and Martin first exchanged words. The often-testy exchanges between Jeantel and defense attorney Don West came a day after Jeantel admitted to lying about her age and lying about why she skipped Martin's funeral.
Jeantel was on the phone with Martin as he walked from a convenience store through the neighborhood where he was visiting, and she was the last person to speak with him before his encounter with Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012 at the Retreat at Twin Lakes townhome complex. Jeantel is one of the prosecution's most important witnesses because she bolsters the contention that Zimmerman was the aggressor.
Jeantel has given slightly differing versions about what she has heard in a deposition, in a letter to Martin's mother and in a recorded interview with an attorney for the Martin family. Among the differences cited by West:
? In some accounts, she said race was an issue but not in others.
? Jeantel testified Wednesday that her friend's last words were "Get off! Get off!" before Martin's phone went silent. But on Thursday, under cross-examination, she conceded that she hadn't mentioned that in her account of what happened to Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton. She had left out some details to spare Fulton's feelings, and also because neither Fulton nor the Martin family attorney asked her directly about them, Jeantel said.
? After Martin asks why he is being followed, Zimmerman responds, "What are you doing around here?" in one account by Jeantel. In another account, according to West, she says Zimmerman said, "What are you talking about?"
Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. Zimmerman followed Martin in his truck and called a police dispatch number before he and the teen got into a fight.
Zimmerman has said he opened fire only after the teenager jumped him and began slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic and has denied the confrontation had anything to do with race, as Martin's family and their supporters have claimed.
Jeantel testified Thursday that she thought race was an issue because Martin told her he was being followed by a white man. She told jurors on Wednesday that Martin had described being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker."
"He was being followed," Jeantel said.
But West responded, "It was racial because Trayvon put race in this?"
The exchanges got testier as the day progressed.
When asked by West if she had previously told investigators that she heard what sounded like somebody being hit at the end of her call with Martin, Jeantel said, "Trayvon got hit."
"You don't know that? Do you? You don't know that Trayvon got hit," West answered angrily. "You don't know that Trayvon didn't at that moment take his fists and drive them into George Zimmerman's face."
Later in the morning, West accused Jeantel of not calling police after Martin's phone went dead because she thought it was a fight he had provoked.
"That's why you weren't worried. That's why you didn't do anything because Trayvon Martin started the fight and you knew that," West said.
"No sir!" Jeantel said. "I don't know what you're talking about."
At one point, West handed her a letter she had written with the help of a friend to Martin's mother explaining what happened. She looked at it but then said she couldn't read cursive handwriting.
Jeantel recounted to jurors on Wednesday how Martin told her he was being followed by a man as he walked through the Retreat at Twin Lakes townhome complex on his way back from a convenience store to the home of his father's fiancee.
She testified that Martin described the man following him as "a creepy-ass cracker" and that he thought he had evaded him. But she said Martin told her a short time later the man was still behind him, and she told him to run.
Martin said Zimmerman was behind him and she heard Martin ask: "What are you following me for?"
She then heard what sounded like Martin's phone earpiece dropping into wet grass, and she heard him say, "Get off! Get off!" The phone then went dead, she said.
During Wednesday's testimony, she bristled at West's questions, and at one point she urged West to move on to his next question: "You can go. You can go."
Jeantel's testimony was more subdued on Thursday, at least in the beginning, and West took note of her calmer demeanor. She answered many of West's questions by repeating "yes, sir," almost in a whisper.
"You feeling OK today? You seem different than yesterday," West said.
"I got some sleep," she answered.
___
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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP
Kinsale is an insurance provider specializing in ?hard to place? small to medium sized commercial accounts for property, casualty and specialty policies. With an increasing amount of the company?s business transacted via email, they needed to choose a reliable system with rich features that would support the staff?s revenue-generating efforts. Kinsale needed Zimbra.
The Challenge
?In the last few years, I have seen the insurance industry move to email-based communication versus telephone, postal mail or fax,? says Alex Albro, Network Team Lead at Kinsale Insurance. ?We do 95% of our business through email. The money comes in through email now, so if we were down for 15 minutes, that could translate to millions of dollars. Email is business-critical. It is our lifeline.?
Kinsale Insurance is a 3 year old company that was formed by members of larger competing insurance companies in the area, where they always used Exchange for email. When Kinsale was founded, they did not want to keep using Exchange unless they absolutely had to.
?Working with Exchange was always a headache,? recalls Albro. ?When you have everything dependent on Microsoft?s database structure, it can be a pain. There are always performance issues.
Albro explains that even when they would throw up another Exchange server, it still did not help. The users would regularly get messages that the email system was waiting on the server. Performance issues would happen a minimum of twice a day, even with multiple Exchange servers, leaving the users without access to email for as long as several minutes.
?No matter how much we invested in Exchange, there always seemed to be performance problems,? Albro continues. ?We were looking for an alternative that could provide better performance and get us away from the expense of Microsoft licensing.?
The Solution
At its founding, Kinsale Insurance chose Zimbra as its communications solution. Today the entire company transacts a majority of its business via email using Zimbra.
?The constant support and continuous upgrading of Zimbra by VMware means there are always new versions coming out with innovative new features,? Albro comments. ?I like how Zimbra is progressing.?
?Zimbra is built on an open source design where the community is very involved,? he adds. ?Issues seem to be worked out much faster. The forums and the open source community support are an important part of Zimbra, and that is really big advantage for us.?
Deployment Overview
?We are very safe with our deployments,? explains Albro. ?We try solutions in multiple environments and stress test them. Compared to an Exchange deployment, it was not as big of a hurdle to integrate Zimbra into our environment. We were very surprised and pleased about that.
?When a company leaves a Microsoft environment and goes to some other environment, there always seem to be some drawbacks to the users, but we did not see that at all with Zimbra,? he adds.
Business Results & Benefits
Kinsale Insurance gains the following benefits by offering Zimbra:
Improved Performance and Reliability -?
?Performance is a big advantage of Zimbra,? Albro states. ?With Zimbra we do not experience any performance problems. Zimbra doesn?t go down. The system doesn?t freeze up on our users. That was the main challenge that Zimbra solved right away.?
Now that Kinsale is using Zimbra, the users no longer have to wait for the Exchange server, or see? messages stating that the email system is unavailable. The performance advantage alone convinced Albro and the Network team that Kinsale had made the right choice with Zimbra.
Greater Mobility -
?One of the main capabilities of Zimbra that we benefit from is the mobile integration,? says Albro. ?Allowing our users to stay mobile and get their email ? that has been one of the greatest benefits of Zimbra.?
All of Kinsale?s executives and management team use their own personal devices ?? a variety of smartphones including Blackberry, iPhone and Android? ? and they all integrate with Zimbra. It is a very easy transition every time a new phone comes out. Albro notes that whenever an employee brings in a new phone, it works seamlessly with Zimbra.
Prior to Zimbra, at the previous company, Exchange limited the users to Blackberry as the only mobile option. At the time they did not even realize the significance of this limitation. They simply did what they had to do, says Albro.
?Having the option to use any mobile device allowed us to expand in a way that we could not imagine before, especially with all the tablets and other new mobile devices coming out,? says Albro. ?We used to have to control our user?s devices. With Zimbra, our users have the ability to choose their own phones, and keep a personal and business line, instead of having to carry two devices.?
Easy Maintenance -
?Zimbra is very easy to maintain,? Albro points out. ?Zimbra support has been very helpful, and the forums are great. Just the fact that we don?t have to get on the phone with Microsoft and wait for a couple hours for Exchange support, that has been extremely helpful.?
Reduced Administration Time -
According to Albro, when they had to do a restore on Exchange, it took almost an entire day at the previous company, tying up valuable resources. With Zimbra, Albro can restore a mailbox in 20 minutes.
?Zimbra reduces administration time by 90%, compared to what we used in the past,? Albro confirms. ?Everything is a lot quicker with Zimbra.?
Faster Troubleshooting -
Troubleshooting time is much faster with Zimbra, Albro says, adding that the logs in Zimbra are much better and more detailed than in Exchange.
?If something goes wrong, I can find it easily and quickly in the logs or with Zimbra support,? he explains. ?I can find the root cause much easier on Zimbra, than with Windows and Exchange.?
Increased User Productivity -
Zimbra?s ease of administration and problem solving is not only about the Kinsale IT team?s time and effort. It also helps increase the productivity of users across the company. For example, if the IT team has to perform a restore on a mailbox, a user is often waiting to access business-critical information that could impact revenue. Albro says it is vital to complete restores as quickly as possible and keep the system running at top performance.
?Our business is very time sensitive,? he explains. ?If the user is waiting for one email that they need to write their business, it could absolutely hurt the user?s productivity that day. If we can get the restore done faster, there is a much better chance that Kinsale can gain the business. From a maintenance standpoint, Zimbra is much better and much quicker, and that impacts our users? productivity.?
Lower Cost -
The fact that Kinsale does not have to buy Exchange server licenses was a definite savings with Zimbra, especially when they would have required multiple Exchange servers.
Microsoft is adding native support for 3D printers to Windows 8.1. That means you don't have to jump through any hoops to 3D print an item?if your computer is hooked up to a 3D printer, you can just hit print.
Verizon's curiosity about entering the Canadian market could represent more than just a brief fascination: Reuters claims that Big Red has made a "tentative" bid for Wind Mobile. While the exact price would depend on what Verizon finds in Wind's accounting books, the estimated value ranges from $600 million to $800 million. Neither party is commenting on the rumor, although Verizon may still be open to alternative deals -- it supposedly approached Mobilicity about a potential acquisition. Verizon will likely need permission from both the Canadian government and Vodafone to make any takeover attempt official, but the reported bidding suggests that the company is willing to brave the gauntlet for some 700MHz spectrum and a presence up North.
Sony's been explaining the design story behind its new Xperia range at a UK briefing, how it's trying to balance both the dematerialization of tech (touchscreens, gesture interfaces) and a design that's both desirable and beautiful -- and Sony's certainly got the latter down on its new smartphone. The Xperia Z Ultra follows the lines of the rest of the Z-series. It has the same "OmniBalance" plane, uniform screen surface, but this time it measures in at 6.4 inches across, but still running at 1080p resolution. Yep, it does feel substantially bigger than the original Xperia Z -- check out our comparison gallery, the new Ultra model dwarfs it. You're looking at a screen width almost identical to a passport and that 6.5mm profile helped fit it into pockets -- we managed to cram it into our trouser pockets without an issue. There's also Qualcomm's notable Snapdragon 800 powering the device on a relatively large 3,000mAh battery, while Sony's simplified the design dropping a few of those much-maligned protective flaps, at least on the headphone socket. There's more impressions and a hands-on video after the break!
US actor Ethan Hawke smiles during a press conference in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, June 26, 2013. Hawke made a plea for all children to be educated from a young age, arriving in Romania where he promoted his recent film ?Before Midnight.? Hawke also spoke about his mother Leslie Hawke?s work with some of Romania?s most impoverished young children whom she has been raising awareness and funds for to get them a kindergarten education since she arrived in Romania as a Peace Corp volunteer in 2000.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
US actor Ethan Hawke smiles during a press conference in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, June 26, 2013. Hawke made a plea for all children to be educated from a young age, arriving in Romania where he promoted his recent film ?Before Midnight.? Hawke also spoke about his mother Leslie Hawke?s work with some of Romania?s most impoverished young children whom she has been raising awareness and funds for to get them a kindergarten education since she arrived in Romania as a Peace Corp volunteer in 2000.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
US actor Ethan Hawke waves upon arriving for a press conference in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, June 26, 2013. Hawke made a plea for all children to be educated from a young age, arriving in Romania where he promoted his recent film ?Before Midnight.? Hawke also spoke about his mother Leslie Hawke?s work with some of Romania?s most impoverished young children whom she has been raising awareness and funds for to get them a kindergarten education since she arrived in Romania as a Peace Corp volunteer in 2000.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
US actor Ethan Hawke gestures during a press conference in Bucharest, Romania, Wednesday, June 26, 2013. Hawke made a plea for all children to be educated from a young age, arriving in Romania where he promoted his recent film ?Before Midnight.? Hawke also spoke about his mother Leslie Hawke?s work with some of Romania?s most impoverished young children whom she has been raising awareness and funds for to get them a kindergarten education since she arrived in Romania as a Peace Corp volunteer in 2000.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) ? Actor Ethan Hawke says it's crucial that all children get an education from an early age, pointing to his own daughter's struggles with dyslexia.
Hawke spoke Wednesday in Romania, where he is promoting his recent film "Before Midnight."
His mother, Leslie Hawke, has worked with some of Romania's most impoverished young children. She has been raising awareness and educational funds for Romanian children since arriving here as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2000.
The Hollywood star told reporters that he is "affected by children whether it is in New York or Romania." He says his "eldest daughter is dyslexic ... if she were from a poor family everyone would assume she was stupid."
"Before Midnight" premiered in May and is the third in the series, following 1995's "Before Sunrise" and 2004's "Before Sunset." Hawke plays Jesse, who is married to Frenchwoman Celine.
Brazil's Constitution was created in 1988 following years under a military dictatorship. This week, President Rousseff proposed a referendum on a constitutional assembly to create sweeping political reform.
By Tom Hennigan,?Contributor / June 25, 2013
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff (c.) sits with Cities Minister Agnaldo Ribeiro (l.) and Planning Minister Miriam Belchior (r.) as they meet with representatives of social movements at the presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Tuesday, June 25. So far, Brazilian protesters don't appear appeased by Rousseff's proposals.
Eraldo Peres/AP
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In an effort to end the widest series of street protests Brazil has seen for decades, President Dilma Rousseff made a vague offer of sweeping changes to the country's 25 year old Constitution. But whether her gambit will work, or meaningful changes will be made, remain open questions.?
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The proposal to hold Brazil's first constitutional assembly since the current Constitution was adopted in 1988 was made after protesters were unmoved by President Rousseff's promise on Friday to fight official corruption by strengthening Brazil's freedom of information act.
The tin-eared proposal underscored one of the major complaints of the protesters ? that Brazil's leaders are out of touch ? and drove tens of thousands of Brazilians back to the street the next day.
So now, Rousseff has come with a bolder proposal. But it will have to address years of anger at a system many Brazilians believes serves politicians and business interests, not the public, if it's to work.? ? ?Here the politicians only come knocking on our door at election time,? says Neide Sacramento, a house cleaner protesting on the gritty edge of S?o Paulo this morning. ?But once election time is over they disappear. We do not see them again.?
Democratic fervor
This week?s proposal for a constitutional assembly could offer the country a chance to fix its Constitution and address widespread corruption.
"The streets are telling us that the country wants quality public services, more effective measures to combat corruption ... and responsive political representation," Rousseff said Monday.
The Constitution written in 1988 is highly inclusive and ended up allowing an outsized voice for the political fringe. The result has been hundreds of thousands of candidates running in each election cycle, spending billions of dollars of often illegally raised funds amid a scrum of over 20 political parties seeking seats in Brazil's National Congress.
It is common for politicians to then go on and sell their votes in return for government pork or lucrative state appointments. This kind of behavior was on full display last year when the Supreme Federal Court convicted the former leadership of the ruling Workers Party of operating a massive vote buying scheme in congress during the presidency of Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva.
Critics say it is no wonder only 12 percent of Brazilian voters trust congress.
A 'distraction?'
Some have claimed the offer of a plebiscite is nothing more than an effort to deflate the protests, with little concrete plan to move forward or create change.
In order to hold a plebiscite, the National Congress must pass a law authorizing it. But this is the same legislative body that has been sitting on various political reform proposals for years without showing the slightest inclination of bringing them to a vote. A proposal to publicly finance election campaigns has knocked around the Congress for 15 years without ever being called for a vote.
By opting for a process involving a constitutional assembly instead of demanding a vote on existing reform bills, Rousseff has chosen a way ?of distracting the people out in the streets,? said Carlos Velloso, the former head of Brazil's Supreme National Court, in an interview on Brazilian television Monday.
Long-time campaigners for political reform also criticized the president?s proposed constitutional assembly, fearing it could be dominated the country's political parties. ?It would be a way for Brazil?s political elite to dominate the debate,? says M?rlon Reis, director of the Movement to Combat Electoral Corruption (MCCE), a network of over 50 civic organizations dedicated to curbing corruption in Brazil.
At a meeting Monday with Rousseff, the MCCE and other members of civil society demanded that a plebiscite be held within 45 days to decide on which type of change was best for Brazil. Congress would then be asked to vote the most popular proposal into law without the need for a drawn-out constitutional assembly. The president promised to study the idea. ? Should that not happen, they have promised to continue a campaign to gather up the millions of signatures needed to turn their own proposal into a constitutionally sanctioned ?popular initiative,? which allows citizens to present bills to Congress for a vote once they have backing from one per cent of the electorate. Given Brazil?s large population, that would amount to almost 1.5 million signatures, but backers of the proposals say they would need more to force it through a reluctant Congress.
The president's proposal might yet be made redundant by a society stirred into action and no longer willing to follow the lead of their political leaders.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House says Russia has a "clear legal basis" to expel National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and is asking them to do so without delay.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden says even without an extradition treaty, Russia should expel him to face espionage charges in the United States.
Hayden's statement Tuesday came after Russian President Vladimir Putin bluntly rejected the request for extradition and said Snowden is free to travel wherever he wants.
Hayden said the White House agrees with Putin that they don't want the issue to negatively impact their bilateral relations. But she said they are asking for Snowden's extradition to build upon their law enforcement cooperation, particularly since the Boston Marathon bombing.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell more than 1 percent on Monday, adding to a sell-off built on concerns about reduced stimulus from the Federal Reserve and on overnight losses in Chinese equity markets.
The market shed some of the day's losses in the afternoon, but it was the third time in the past four sessions that the S&P 500 dropped more than 1 percent. Volume was again above-average, with 8.33 billion shares traded on U.S. exchanges, a sign that the pullback has not abated yet.
Losses at one point extended as far as 2 percent, but stocks retraced some ground after two Fed officials downplayed the notion of an imminent end to monetary stimlus.
"We were really oversold in many different indices, so you would expect a bounce. The trick is, is this going to continue tomorrow?" said Sam Ginzburg, head of capital markets at First New York in New York.
"I would be careful of this move up. I wouldn't be sure it sticks as of this time."
Ginzburg said he would like to the S&P close over 1,600, a level which was support but now is resistance.
All 10 industry sectors on the S&P 500 ended lower, led by declines in materials, industrials and financial shares. Those sectors are most sensitive to the growth outlook and rising interest rates.
The Dow Jones industrial average finished down 139.61 points, or 0.94 percent, at 14,659.56. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 19.34 points, or 1.21 percent, at 1,573.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 36.49 points, or 1.09 percent, at 3,320.76.
Markets have been under pressure as investors cashed out of losing positions in the last several days since the Fed suggested it would cut back on its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases before long.
The S&P 500 posted its worst weekly performance in two months last week, and looked set to extend the sell-off coming out of the weekend as developments in China's financial system dampened sentiment on Wall Street.
The People's Bank of China said banks needed to do a better job of managing their cash and lending as the central bank attempts to move China away from credit-driven investment. Shares in Shanghai fell 5.3 percent while Chinese financial shares dropped more than 7 percent.
Materials shares, which are often affected by expectations for China's growth, dropped 1.7 percent. Cliffs Natural Resources sank 7.6 percent to $15.88, making it one of the biggest decliners on the S&P.
Stocks were able to cut losses after U.S. Treasuries prices rebounded from substantial declines. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves in the opposite direction of the price, rose as high as 2.67 percent but later dipped to 2.55 percent.
The Fed last week said if the economy improves, it could begin to reduce its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases before the end of the year.
One of the Fed officials who spoke Monday about the markets' recent storm of selling was Richard Fisher, the hawkish head of the Dallas Fed. He said the strength of the U.S. dollar reflects confidence in the economy.
Fisher strongly backed Bernanke's timetable for QE3, repeating the unprecedented stimulus should be slowly removed.
The S&P 500 has slumped 4.8 percent over the past four sessions and breached both its 100-day and 50-day moving averages, a sign that near-term momentum may be toward the downside.
The S&P 500 has fallen 3.5 percent in June, putting the benchmark index on track to end a seven-month rise as well as its worst monthly performance since May 2012. The index is down 5.8 percent from its all-time closing high on May 21.
Energy stocks were weak. Consol Energy fell 5.8 percent to $28.05 and Peabody Energy lost 7.2 percent to $14.85.
U.S. hospital operator Tenet Healthcare Corp will buy smaller rival Vanguard Health Systems Inc for $4.3 billion or $21 per share including debt to expand into new locations. Vanguard shares jumped 67.3 percent to $20.70 and Tenet gained 4.5 percent to $43.73 as the S&P's top advancer.
(Reporting By Alison Griswold; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Study identifies protein that contributes to cognitive decline in Alzheimer'sPublic release date: 25-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karin Eskenazi ket2116@columbia.edu 212-342-0508 Columbia University Medical Center
Findings highlight potential therapeutic targets
NEW YORK, NY (June 25, 2013) Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have demonstrated that a protein called caspase-2 is a key regulator of a signaling pathway that leads to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease. The findings, made in a mouse model of Alzheimer's, suggest that inhibiting this protein could prevent the neuronal damage and subsequent cognitive decline associated with the disease. The study was published this month in the online journal Nature Communications.
One of the earliest events in Alzheimer's is disruption of the brain's synapses (the small gaps across which nerve impulses are passed), which can lead to neuronal death. Although what drives this process has not been clear, studies have indicated that caspace-2 might be involved, according to senior author Michael Shelanski, MD, PhD, the Delafield Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, chair of the Department of Pathology & Cell Biology, and co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at CUMC.
Several years ago, in tissue culture studies of mouse neurons, Dr. Shelanski found that caspace-2 plays a critical role in the death of neurons in the presence of amyloid beta, the protein that accumulates in the neurons of people with Alzheimer's. Other researchers have shown that caspase-2 also contributes to the maintenance of normal synaptic functions.
Dr. Shelanski and his team hypothesized that aberrant activation of caspase-2 may cause synaptic changes in Alzheimer's disease. To test this hypothesis, the researchers crossed J20 transgenic mice (a common mouse model of Alzheimer's) with caspase-2 null mice (mice that lack caspase-2). They compared the animals' ability to negotiate a radial-arm water maze, a standard test of cognitive ability, with that of regular J20 mice and of normal mice at 4, 9, and 14 months of age.
The results for the three groups of mice were similar at the first two intervals. At 14 months, however, the J20/caspase-2 null mice did significantly better in the water maze test than the J20 mice and similarly to the normal mice. "We showed that removing caspase-2 from J20 mice prevented memory impairment without significant changes in the level of soluble amyloid beta," said co-lead author Roger Lefort, PhD, associate research scientist at CUMC.
Analysis of the neurons showed that the J20/caspase-2 null mice had a higher density of dendritic spines than the J20 mice. The more spines a neuron has, the more impulses it can transmit.
"The J20/caspase-2 null mice showed the same dendritic spine density and morphology as the normal miceas opposed to the deficits in the J20 mice," said co-lead author Julio Pozueta, PhD. "This strongly suggests that caspase-2 is a critical regulator in the memory decline associated with beta-amyloid in Alzheimer's disease."
The researchers further validated the results in studies of rat neurons in tissue culture.
Finally, the researchers found that caspase-2 interacts with RhoA, a critical regulator of the morphology (form and structure) of dendritic spines. "It appears that in normal neurons, caspase-2 and RhoA form an inactive complex outside the dendritic spines," said Dr. Lefort. "When the complex is exposed to amyloid beta, it breaks apart, activating the two components." Once activated, caspase-2 and RhoA enter the dendritic spines and contribute to their demise, possibly by interacting with a third molecule, the enzyme ROCK-II.
"This raises the possibility that if you can inhibit one or all of these molecules, especially early in the course of Alzheimer's, you might be able to protect neurons and slow down the cognitive effects of the disease," said Dr. Lefort.
###
The paper is titled, "Caspase-2 is required for dendritic spine and behavioural alterations in J20 APP transgenic mice." The other contributors are Julio Pozueta, PhD (co-lead author), Elena M. Ribe, Carol M. Troy, and Ottavio Arancio, all based at CUMC at the time of the study.
Dr. Pozueta was an associate research scientist at CUMC at the time of this research and is currently a senior analyst at Prescient Life Sciences. The remaining authors declare no financial or other conflicts of interests.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIHAG08702 and NS15076), the Wallace Foundation for Research, and the Taub Foundation.
The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center is a multidisciplinary group that has forged links between researchers and clinicians to uncover the causes of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other age-related brain diseases and to discover ways to prevent and cure these diseases. It has partnered with the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center at Columbia University Medical Center, which was established by an endowment in 1977 to focus on diseases of the nervous system, and with the Departments of Pathology & Cell Biology and of Neurology to allow the seamless integration of genetic analysis, molecular and cellular studies, and clinical investigation to explore all phases of diseases of the nervous system. For more information, visit The Taub Institute at http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/taub/.
Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. For more information, visit cumc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Study identifies protein that contributes to cognitive decline in Alzheimer'sPublic release date: 25-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karin Eskenazi ket2116@columbia.edu 212-342-0508 Columbia University Medical Center
Findings highlight potential therapeutic targets
NEW YORK, NY (June 25, 2013) Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have demonstrated that a protein called caspase-2 is a key regulator of a signaling pathway that leads to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease. The findings, made in a mouse model of Alzheimer's, suggest that inhibiting this protein could prevent the neuronal damage and subsequent cognitive decline associated with the disease. The study was published this month in the online journal Nature Communications.
One of the earliest events in Alzheimer's is disruption of the brain's synapses (the small gaps across which nerve impulses are passed), which can lead to neuronal death. Although what drives this process has not been clear, studies have indicated that caspace-2 might be involved, according to senior author Michael Shelanski, MD, PhD, the Delafield Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology, chair of the Department of Pathology & Cell Biology, and co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at CUMC.
Several years ago, in tissue culture studies of mouse neurons, Dr. Shelanski found that caspace-2 plays a critical role in the death of neurons in the presence of amyloid beta, the protein that accumulates in the neurons of people with Alzheimer's. Other researchers have shown that caspase-2 also contributes to the maintenance of normal synaptic functions.
Dr. Shelanski and his team hypothesized that aberrant activation of caspase-2 may cause synaptic changes in Alzheimer's disease. To test this hypothesis, the researchers crossed J20 transgenic mice (a common mouse model of Alzheimer's) with caspase-2 null mice (mice that lack caspase-2). They compared the animals' ability to negotiate a radial-arm water maze, a standard test of cognitive ability, with that of regular J20 mice and of normal mice at 4, 9, and 14 months of age.
The results for the three groups of mice were similar at the first two intervals. At 14 months, however, the J20/caspase-2 null mice did significantly better in the water maze test than the J20 mice and similarly to the normal mice. "We showed that removing caspase-2 from J20 mice prevented memory impairment without significant changes in the level of soluble amyloid beta," said co-lead author Roger Lefort, PhD, associate research scientist at CUMC.
Analysis of the neurons showed that the J20/caspase-2 null mice had a higher density of dendritic spines than the J20 mice. The more spines a neuron has, the more impulses it can transmit.
"The J20/caspase-2 null mice showed the same dendritic spine density and morphology as the normal miceas opposed to the deficits in the J20 mice," said co-lead author Julio Pozueta, PhD. "This strongly suggests that caspase-2 is a critical regulator in the memory decline associated with beta-amyloid in Alzheimer's disease."
The researchers further validated the results in studies of rat neurons in tissue culture.
Finally, the researchers found that caspase-2 interacts with RhoA, a critical regulator of the morphology (form and structure) of dendritic spines. "It appears that in normal neurons, caspase-2 and RhoA form an inactive complex outside the dendritic spines," said Dr. Lefort. "When the complex is exposed to amyloid beta, it breaks apart, activating the two components." Once activated, caspase-2 and RhoA enter the dendritic spines and contribute to their demise, possibly by interacting with a third molecule, the enzyme ROCK-II.
"This raises the possibility that if you can inhibit one or all of these molecules, especially early in the course of Alzheimer's, you might be able to protect neurons and slow down the cognitive effects of the disease," said Dr. Lefort.
###
The paper is titled, "Caspase-2 is required for dendritic spine and behavioural alterations in J20 APP transgenic mice." The other contributors are Julio Pozueta, PhD (co-lead author), Elena M. Ribe, Carol M. Troy, and Ottavio Arancio, all based at CUMC at the time of the study.
Dr. Pozueta was an associate research scientist at CUMC at the time of this research and is currently a senior analyst at Prescient Life Sciences. The remaining authors declare no financial or other conflicts of interests.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIHAG08702 and NS15076), the Wallace Foundation for Research, and the Taub Foundation.
The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center is a multidisciplinary group that has forged links between researchers and clinicians to uncover the causes of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other age-related brain diseases and to discover ways to prevent and cure these diseases. It has partnered with the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center at Columbia University Medical Center, which was established by an endowment in 1977 to focus on diseases of the nervous system, and with the Departments of Pathology & Cell Biology and of Neurology to allow the seamless integration of genetic analysis, molecular and cellular studies, and clinical investigation to explore all phases of diseases of the nervous system. For more information, visit The Taub Institute at http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/taub/.
Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. For more information, visit cumc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
(Reuters) - A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday made it harder for workers to sue their employers over alleged harassment and retaliation in the workplace.
In two identical 5-4 votes, the court's conservative majority ruled against a black Ball State University catering assistant who claimed she was harassed on the basis of race, and a University of Texas doctor of Middle Eastern descent who claimed he lost his job in retaliation for complaining of bias.
Both decisions prompted harsh criticism from liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who took the unusual step of reading for eight minutes from the bench from her dissents. She accused the majority of having "corralled" Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and called on Congress to undo the damage.
That part of the law prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
"The decisions don't reflect realities of the workplace," said Michael Foreman, a Pennsylvania State University law professor who submitted briefs on behalf of the complaining workers. "They effectively don't protect the right to complain."
Monday's decisions add to a growing list from the court in this and recent terms favoring businesses, including cases involving class-action lawsuits.
"These are good decisions for employers and the economy generally," said Anthony Oncidi, a Proskauer Rose law firm partner in Los Angeles specializing in employment law. "This will help smoke out claims where employees cannot show that but for the alleged illegal actions, they would not have suffered."
In the Ball State case, Maetta Vance, the black employee, had sued over the alleged taunts and threats of physical harm by a white woman she considered to be her supervisor at the university in Muncie, Indiana.
Vance said Ball State eventually retaliated by making her a "glorified salad girl" who cut vegetables and washed fruit.
While the Supreme Court in 1998 said Title VII let harassment victims hold employers responsible for supervisors' improper conduct, it had never defined what a supervisor was.
Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito adopted a narrower definition of a supervisor than Vance proposed, and upheld a 2011 ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He said an employer could be liable "only when the employer has empowered that employee to take tangible employment actions against the victim, i.e., to effect a 'significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.'"
The court rejected Vance's argument that a supervisor was anyone with day-to-day oversight of an employee's activities, and what Alito called the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's "nebulous" guidance to link supervisory status to the exercise of significant oversight over such work.
'REDUCES THE INCENTIVES'
"It reduces the incentives for employers to police harassment," said Carolyn Shapiro, a professor at the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and director of its Supreme Court institute.
Daniel Ortiz, a lawyer for Vance, was not immediately available for comment. Ball State had no immediate comment.
In the Texas case, Naiel Nassar had been employed on the university faculty and as a physician at an affiliated hospital.
He resigned his teaching post amid alleged harassment by a supervisor including comments such as "Middle Easterners are lazy." Nassar said the hospital later withdrew a job offer in retaliation for his having complained about the harassment.
In letting the retaliation claim go forward, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012 said Nassar need only show that retaliation was a motivating factor for the adverse job action.
The Supreme Court set a higher bar. In an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, it said Title VII plaintiffs must show that "but for" having enforced their rights, retaliation would not have happened. He sent the case back to the 5th Circuit.
Brian Lauten, a lawyer for Nassar, said that "we're obviously disappointed" but expressed confidence in prevailing at a second trial. Tom Kelley, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, declined to comment.
Both majorities included Alito, Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Ginsburg's dissents.
Ginsburg said the majority in the Vance case "relieves scores of employers of responsibility for the behavior of the supervisors they employ," and in the Nassar case "appears driven by a zeal to reduce the number of retaliation claims filed against employers."
Both decisions "should prompt yet another Civil Rights Restoration Act," she said.
Ginsburg had also dissented from the bench in a 2007 case that applied a 180-day limit to claims under Title VII for pay discrimination. Congress reversed that decision in 2009 by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The cases are Vance v. Ball State University, U.S. Supreme Court. No. 11-556; and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, No. 12-484.
FILE - In this April 18, 2013 file photo, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the start of a crucial week for far-reaching immigration legislation backed by the White House, the Senate headed Monday for the first test vote on the measure offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions and pouring new technology and manpower into the border. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)
FILE - In this April 18, 2013 file photo, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the start of a crucial week for far-reaching immigration legislation backed by the White House, the Senate headed Monday for the first test vote on the measure offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions and pouring new technology and manpower into the border. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)
FILE - In this June 21, 2013 file photo, Sen. John Hoeven, N.D., leaves the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington. At the start of a crucial week for far-reaching immigration legislation backed by the White House, the Senate headed Monday for the first test vote on the measure offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions and pouring new technology and manpower into the border. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama campaigned from the White House for immigration legislation on Monday in advance of a Senate test vote on a bill calling for more than $30 billion worth of new security measures along the border with Mexico and offering a chance at citizenship for millions living in the country illegally.
Far outnumbered, conservative critics attacked without letup in speeches and electronic appeals. "It will encourage more illegal immigration and must be stopped," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, exhorted supporters, urging them to contact their own senators with a plea to defeat the measure.
After three weeks of desultory debate, the end game was at hand in the Senate for the most ambitious attempt to overhaul the nation's immigration system in decades.
Supporters exuded confidence they had more than the 60 votes required to send the measure over a key hurdle and on its way toward Senate passage by week's end.
Democrats appeared unified on the issue. Republicans were anything but, as evidenced by the divide among potential 2016 presidential contenders. Among them, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, while Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Cruz were opposed.
Passage would send the issue to the House, where most conservative Republicans in the majority are strongly opposed to citizenship for anyone who came to the country illegally or overstayed their visa.
Some GOP lawmakers have appealed to Speaker John Boehner not to permit any immigration legislation to come to a vote for fear that whatever its contents, it would open the door to an unpalatable compromise with the Senate. At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee is in the midst of approving a handful of measures related to immigration, action that ordinarily is a prelude to votes in the full House.
"Now is the time to do it," Obama said at the White House before meeting with nine business executives who support a change in immigration laws. He added, "I hope that we can get the strongest possible vote out of the Senate so that we can then move to the House and get this done before the summer break" beginning in early August.
He said the measure would be good for the economy, for business and for workers who are "oftentimes exploited at low wages."
As for the overall economy, he said, "I think every business leader here feels confident that they'll be in a stronger position to continue to innovate, to continue to invest, to continue to create jobs and ensure that this continues to be the land of opportunity for generations to come."
Leaving little to chance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced it was launching a new seven-figure ad buy Monday in support of the bill. "Call Congress. End de facto amnesty. Create jobs and economic growth by supporting conservative immigration reforms," the ad said.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the legislation will reduce the deficit and increase economic growth in each of the next two decades. It is also predicting unemployment will rise slightly through 2020, and that average wages will move lower over a decade.
At its core, the legislation in the Senate would create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States. It also calls for billions of dollars to be spent on manpower and technology to secure the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, including a doubling of the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents.
The measure also would create a new program for temporary farm laborers to come into the country, and another for lower-skilled workers to emigrate permanently. At the same time, it calls for an expansion of an existing visa program for highly-skilled workers, a gesture to high tech companies that rely heavily on foreigners.
In addition to border security, the measure phases in a mandatory program for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers, and separate effort to track the comings and goings of foreigners at some of the nation's airports.
The legislation was originally drafted by a bipartisan Gang of 8, four senators from each party who negotiated a series of political tradeoffs over several months.
The addition of the tougher border security provisions came after CBO informed lawmakers that they could potentially spend tens of billions of dollars to sweeten the bill without fearing higher deficits.
The result was a series of changes negotiated between the Gang of 8 and Republican Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee. Different, lesser-noticed provisions helped other lawmakers swing behind the measure.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, likened some of them to "earmarks," the now-banned practice of directing federal funds to the pet projects of individual lawmakers.
He cited a provision creating a $1.5 billion jobs fund for low-income youth and pair of changes to benefit the seafood processing industry in Alaska. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., issued a statement on Friday trumpeting the benefits of the first; Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat, took credit for the two others.
Grassley also raised questions about the origin of a detailed list of planes, sensors, cameras and other equipment to be placed along the southern border.
"Who provided the amendment sponsors with this list?" asked Grassley, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee that approved an earlier version of the bill. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano "did not provide the committee with any list. Did Sikorsky, Cessna and Northrup Grumann send up a wish list to certain members of the Senate?"
___
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.
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