AP Poll: Jobs, Social Security are key for next president
AP Poll: Jobs, Social Security are key for next president
WASHINGTON (AP) — Here’s something that Democrats, Republicans and independents agree on. When it comes to the economy, they all want to protect Social Security and lower unemployment.
That’s where their similarities end.
Beyond the top two issues, Americans’ lists of top economic concerns for the next president are more fractured, according to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Democrats attach far more importance than do Republicans to narrowing the gap between rich and poor, reducing poverty and increasing wages to keep up with the cost of living.
Republicans place far more importance than Democrats on shrinking the federal deficit, reducing government regulation and reforming welfare.
US-Brazil teams seek mothers, babies for Zika research
JOAO PESSAO, Brazil (AP) — U.S. and Brazilian health workers knocked on doors in the poorest neighborhoods of one of Brazil’s poorest states Tuesday in a bid to enroll mothers in a study aimed at determining whether the Zika virus is really causing a surge in birth defects.
Eight teams each made up of three Brazilian health workers and a so-called disease detective from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began the first day of more than a month of house calls hoping to enroll at least 100 mothers and babies born with microcephaly, which causes unusually small heads and brain damage.
The women are given an extensive questionnaire touching on everything from whether they used mosquito repellent during pregnancy to where they got their drinking water to how much the family makes.
The teams started in Joao Pessoa, the capital of Paraiba state which is one of the epicenters of Brazil’s tandem Zika and microcephaly outbreaks. Over the course of the next four or more weeks, they’ll head farther afield, reaching out to mothers and babies in the hard-to-reach rural districts of one of Brazil’s poorest states.
For now, the teams are venturing through some of the poorest neighborhoods of the capital, where families cohabitants with the Zika-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquito and eke by on just a couple hundred dollars a month.
Obama: Guantanamo Bay undermines security, must be closed
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba slammed into a wall of Republican opposition on Tuesday, stopping cold Obama’s hope for a bipartisan effort to “close a chapter” that began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The long-awaited proposal, which was requested by Congress, is Obama’s last attempt to make good on an unfulfilled campaign promise by persuading Congress to change the law that prohibits moving detainees accused of violent extremist acts to U.S. soil. Fourteen years after the facility opened and seven years after Obama took office, the president argued it was “finally” time to shutter a facility that has sparked persistent legal battles, become a recruitment tool for Islamic militants and garnered strong opposition from some allies abroad.
“I don’t want to pass this problem onto the next president, whoever it is,” Obama said in an appearance at the White House. “If we don’t do what’s required now, I think future generations are going to look back and ask why we failed to act when the right course, the right side of history, and justice and our best American traditions was clear.”
Despite the big ambitions, Obama’s proposed path remained unclear. The plan leaves unanswered the politically thorny question of where in the U.S a new facility would be located. It offered broad cost estimates. The White House described it as more of a conversation starter than a definitive outline.
Republican leaders in Congress showed no interest in having that conversation.
Scalia suffered from many health problems
DALLAS (AP) — Antonin Scalia suffered from coronary artery disease, obesity and diabetes, among other ailments that probably contributed to the justice’s sudden death, according to a letter from the Supreme Court’s doctor.
Presidio County District Attorney Rod Ponton cited the letter Tuesday when he told The Associated Press there was nothing suspicious about the Feb. 13 death of the 79-year-old jurist. He said the long list of health problems made an autopsy unnecessary.
Ponton had a copy of a letter from Rear Adm. Brian P. Monahan, the attending physician for members of Congress and the Supreme Court. The letter was to Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara, who conducted a death inquiry by phone and certified Scalia’s death.
The letter dated Feb. 16 said Scalia’s many “significant medical conditions led to his death,” Ponton said.
In the letter, Monahan listed more than a half-dozen ailments, including sleep apnea, degenerative joint disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and high blood pressure. Scalia also was a smoker, the letter said.
McConnell shuts door on Senate action on Obama court pick
WASHINGTON (AP) — Majority Leader Mitch McConnell emphatically ruled out any Senate action on whoever President Barack Obama nominates to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, an extraordinary step that escalated the partisan election-year struggle over replacing the late Antonin Scalia. Democrats promised unremitting pressure on Republicans to back down or face the consequences in November’s voting.
After winning unanimous public backing from the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, McConnell told reporters that that panel would hold no hearings and ruled out a full Senate vote until the next president offers a nomination. Such steps would defy many decades of precedent that have seen even the most controversial choices questioned publicly by the Judiciary Committee and nearly always sent to the entire chamber for a vote, barring nominees the White House has withdrawn.
“In short, there will not be action taken,” McConnell told reporters.
The Kentucky Republican said he wouldn’t even meet with an Obama selection should the White House follow tradition and send the nominee to Capitol Hill to visit senators. Such a snub could generate campaign-season television images of a scorned selection standing outside a closed door.
“I don’t know the purpose of such a visit,” McConnell said. “I would not be inclined to take one myself.”