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House Speaker John Boehner

of Ohio said he and his fellow Republicans will continue to oppose any tax increases as part of negotiations to reduce the budget deficit, even if President Barack Obama wins re-election, adding: “Why would I ever be for something like that? I’m not.”

Kim Chapin

said workers at an animal shelter in Richardson, Texas, are trying to find a home for Skinny, a 41-pound cat that was picked up as a stray, adding that the 5-year-old orange tabby is the largest feline she’s seen in 21 years with the shelter.

Christopher Vaughn, 37, who prosecutors said fatally shot his family during what he told them was a road trip to a water park because he wanted to be free to start a new, isolated life in the Canadian wilderness, was convicted in Joliet, Ill., of murdering his wife, Kimberly, 34, and three children, Abigayle, 12, Cassandra, 11, and Blake, 8.

Wayne Swan, Australia’s deputy prime minister, took aim at the Tea Party during a speech at a Canberra business forum, saying that “the cranks and crazies that have taken over a part of the Republican Party” are the greatest threat to the U.S. economy.

Renee Bishop-McKean, 44, of Everett, Wash., was found guilty of attempted murder for trying to decapitate her sleeping husband with an electric saw.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat and the House minority leader, said the 2 percentage-point reduction in the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax was meant to be temporary and should be allowed to expire at the end of this year, adding that then lawmakers can work on overhauling the entire federal tax code.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said the agency will retire 110 of its 563 research chimpanzees over the next year, calling it a “significant step in winding down NIH’s investment in chimpanzee research.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/22/2012

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