LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.
Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials.”
Jay Carney,
White House press secretary Article, 1AEndeavour shuttle on sightseeing tour
LOS ANGELES - Space shuttle Endeavour landed Thursday in California after a cross-country journey that paid homage to NASA workers and Arizona’s former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her astronaut husband.
“That’s my spaceship,” said Endeavour’s last commander, Mark Kelly, as the couple watched the shuttle loop over Tucson, Ariz.
The baby of the shuttle fleet touched down shortly after noon Thursday at Edwards Air Force Base, 100 miles north of Los Angeles. It was to spend the night in the Mojave Desert before taking to the skies early today on an aerial tour of California and landing at Los Angeles International Airport.
Endeavour’s final flight, on the back of a Boeing 747, was twice delayed by stormy weather along the Gulf of Mexico.
Early Wednesday, it departed from its Cape Canaveral, Fla., home base, soared over NASA centers in Mississippi and Louisiana, and made a layover in Houston, home of Mission Control.
After refueling Thursday in El Paso, Texas, it flew over the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, an emergency shuttle landing site used once. Kelly requested that Endeavour pass over Tucson to honor Giffords, who is recovering after suffering a head wound in a shooting rampage last year.
Boehner: Farm bill postelection issue
WASHINGTON - The House won’t vote on a new agriculture bill or an extension of current law until after the November election, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Thursday. That means current farm programs will lapse when they expire at the end of the month.
With House Republicans divided, there aren’t enough votes to “pass an extension or the entire farm bill,” said the Ohio Republican. “We will deal with the farm bill after the election.”
The Senate passed a five-year bill in June. The House Agriculture Committee approved a measure the next month, but the bill has not been scheduled for a vote by the full House.
Both plans would cost about $1 trillion over a decade, with cuts in nutrition programs, including food stamps, and farm subsidies. Lower payments to farmers would be partially offset by adjustments in crop-insurance initiatives.
Without authorizing legislation, U.S. Department of Agriculture programs revert to original farm-program language approved in 1949. Food stamps, crop insurance and many conservation programs have their spending authorized separately from the farm bill, and those initiatives will continue.
Skilled-worker visa bill fails in House
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House defeated legislation Thursday that would increase the number of green cards available to high-skilled, foreign-born graduates with advanced college degrees.
Under the bill, the U.S. work-visa system would have been overhauled and 55,000 green cards made available annually to foreign graduates of accredited U.S. universities with doctoral or master’s degrees in science, technology, engineering or math.
Thursday’s 257-158 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority required under the expedited procedure by which the bill was considered.
Democrats opposed a provision in the bill that would eliminate a diversity immigrant visa program, a lottery that makes 50,000 visas available each year for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S.
They also wanted the bill to include provisions for visas that would help immigrant families stay together.
House blocks welfare-flexibility plan
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House voted to block President Barack Obama’s bid to give states more flexibility in how they run their welfare programs.
The Republican-majority chamber voted 250-164 to approve legislation targeting an administration initiative, announced in July, that would give governors more freedom to experiment with alternative plans to get welfare recipients off government assistance.
“We’re here today because the president has decided that he would exercise power he does not have in order to waive welfare work requirements Congress has said must not be waived,” said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., during floor debate.
The bill now heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it prospects seem bleak.
Democrats contend the administration’s initiative is designed to allow states to focus less on documenting how recipients are spending their time and more on getting them into jobs.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 09/21/2012