Boehner to Obama: Why a break for businesses only?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Framing a new argument against President Barack Obama's health care law, congressional GOP leaders called Tuesday for a delay in the law's requirement that individual Americans carry health insurance.

If the White House can grant a one-year delay for employers — as the administration did just last week — individuals should get the same consideration, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other senior Republicans said in a letter to the president.

"Your decision to delay one part of the law affecting employers and leave in place provisions regulating individual and family health care creates many new questions and concerns," the GOP leaders wrote. "We agree with you that the burden was overwhelming for employers, but we also believe American families need the same relief."

The White House had no immediate response to Boehner's demand.

Republicans hope their new argument will gain traction in next year's congressional elections, as the law's big push to cover the uninsured gets underway. Foes are betting the coverage rollout will be full of problems, particularly since about half the states have refused to support the federal effort.

Under the law, middle-class people with no access to job-based coverage will be eligible for subsidized private insurance, while low-income uninsured people will be steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states that accept it.

The health care law contains coverage requirements for individuals as well as companies with 50 or more workers. Both requirements were originally scheduled to take effect next Jan. 1.

Last week, the White House unexpectedly announced a one-year delay in the employer requirement, saying the administration needed more time to work out technical details that employers find too burdensome. Some saw a political motive, since Republicans have criticized the requirement on businesses as a "job killer."

But administration officials said that the individual mandate would remain in place.

The two requirements are different. While the mandate on individuals is expected to play a major role in getting people to sign up for coverage, the employer requirement is more of a backstop, designed to deter companies from shifting to the government their traditional role in providing health benefits.

The individual mandate applies to virtually every U.S. resident, with exceptions for financial hardship, people who entered the country illegally, and prison inmates. The coverage requirement survived a determined legal challenge by "Obamacare" opponents. A divided Supreme Court upheld the mandate last year, reasoning that the penalties which enforce it are taxes constitutionally levied by Congress.

Those individual penalties start small — as little as $95 next year — but they build up with time.

The GOP leaders' letter also requested that the administration provide detailed information on the impact of its decision to delay the employer mandate.

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After brutal weekend, a small break

(CNN) -- Thousands of firefighters battling to control dangerous wildfires in Arizona will get a small measure of relief this week as winds calm and humidity levels rise, the National Weather Service said Monday.

Critical conditions are forecast Monday across large sections of New Mexico and Texas, and to a lesser extent in Oklahoma and Kansas. On Sunday, critical to extreme conditions could be found in those four states, plus Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Nevada.

Arizona bore the brunt of Sunday's fiery conflagration as flames outpaced firefighters' efforts.

The Monument Fire -- which U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has deemed the nation's No. 1 priority, putting it first in line for any air, ground or other resources -- jumped Highway 92 late Sunday afternoon at Carr Canyon heading east, according to the Cochise County website.

"We've had a hard day today, with things that we didn't want to happen," fire spokesman Bill Paxton said Sunday night. "The bull came out of the pen."

Thanks to dry, windy conditions, the fire broke through four contingency lines, including going over to the other side of the highway, said Paxton, part of the national Interagency Incident Management Team.

"Everything aligned for a massive push," he said. "It's really hard on the community here."

The Cochise County Sheriff's Office broadened the evacuation zone east to the San Pedro River, reports InciWeb, an online interagency database that tracks fires, floods and other disasters.

On Sunday evening, the website noted the fire had burned at least 26,956 acres and was 27% contained. More than 1,000 personnel -- as well as 100 engines and nine helicopters -- were battling that blaze, which had destroyed 44 homes and 18 other structures from its start June 12 through Sunday.

The weather has hardly been cooperating in the fight, with humidity at 7% and temperatures topping 96 degrees. The National Weather Service forecast winds should weaken somewhat in the early part of this week, to between 7 mph and 13 mph in Sierra Vista, Arizona, though temperatures were still expected to remain in the 90s or higher all week.

People living in Sierra Vista were ordered to leave Sunday while firefighters conducted burn-out operations in an attempt to stop the fire moving that way, CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reported from the area.

Even as the flames spread, some Sierra Vista residents turned to their faith.

"There are disasters, calamities and tragedies," Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas said during a special weekend service at St. Andrew the Apostle Church, reported CNN affiliate KGUN-TV in Tucson.

"We are with them in solidarity," Kicanas said. "We pray for an end to the fire, we pray for the safety of our firefighters and we pray that the monsoon rains will come and free us from these terrible fires that have been so devastating."

The church is taking donations for fire victims.

Will Posko said he is housing several people in his home.

"Our hearts go out to those people," Posko told KGUN. "We all have to help one another in this community."

Parishioner Tom Felix said the community's spirit and support overwhelmed him.

"Coming here ... and just seeing everybody, my goodness that's beautiful faith," he told KGUN.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has issued emergency declarations for the Monument Fire and another blaze, Horseshoe II, making Cochise County eligible for $100,000 toward response and recovery expenses.

In Texas, critical fire weather conditions were predicted across much of the state Monday, the Texas Forest Service said.

The forest service is battling 20 wildfires, with 12 new large blazes reported Sunday. Some 500 homes are threatened in Jasper County, the service said, and 163 have been evacuated in Walker County.

Nationwide, wildfires have burned almost as many acres in the first half of 2011 as were recorded by the National Interagency Fire Center for all of last year.

The agency website reports 3.1 million acres in the United States had been ignited by wildfires as of May 31, compared with 3.2 million burned acres cited in the organization's year-end report in November 2010.

One Arizona blaze that started May 29 has mushroomed into a historically large wildfire. Known as the Wallow Fire, it has burned 519,319 acres and was 51% contained as of Sunday evening.

This fire caused power outages Sunday in Arizona cities Blue and parts of Alpine, Nutrioso and Greer, the Navopache Electric Cooperative reported on its website. Generators are powering some of the company's New Mexico customers as well as those in Alpine, Arizona.

Residents of Luna, New Mexico, were ordered to evacuate Saturday afternoon after the blaze jumped containment lines along U.S. 180, according to InciWeb.

But fire public information officer Rich Szlauko had some good news, saying that in terms of bringing the Wallow Fire under control, "Everything is starting to look pretty good."

Some 3,600 people continue to battle the blaze, in the face of winds Sunday measuring 20 mph to 30 mph, he said.

But even with marginally improved conditions, authorities across the Southwest and southern Plains enforced expanded evacuations as flames cut off power to communities.

CNN's Ed Payne and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.

CNN

Protests break out across Yemen

(CNN) -- Demonstrations swelled in several cities across Yemen on Friday, a week after the country's president was injured in an attack on the mosque at the presidential palace.

In Sanaa, demonstrators participating in a large protest against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's continued rule could be heard chanting "Saleh will fall" and "The end is near for Saleh," according to eyewitnesses.

In a separate large protest in the city, pro-government demonstrators carried signs of Saleh and chanted, "We are with you, Saleh," according to witnesses.

Another large demonstration was occurring in Taiz, according to witnesses. Protests were also under way in Ibb and Mukalla, witnesses said.

Yemen has been consumed with unrest for months as protesters demand an end to Saleh's rule.

In recent weeks, government troops have battled both anti-government tribal forces and Islamic militants.

On June 3, the presidential compound was attacked, injuring Saleh and other senior officials. They went to Saudi Arabia for treatment.

Tareq al-Shami, a spokesman for the ruling party said Saleh was in good health and would be returning to Yemen "within days."

The government has also been battling Islamic militants, including in Zinjibar, an Abyan province town that had been taken over by militants. Yemeni state TV said this week that the government had ousted the militants from Zinjibar.

A six-nation Gulf Arab alliance has tried to broker a government-opposition agreement that would lead to Saleh's departure, but that effort has so far been unsuccessful.

CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom and Hakim Almasmari contributed to this report.

CNN

India police break anti-graft yoga guru hunger strike (Reuters)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Police swooped on India's most famous yoga guru on Sunday, using teargas and batons to break up a fast against graft, risking more political headaches for scandal-tainted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Swami Ramdev began his hunger strike with tens of thousands of followers at a tent in New Delhi on Saturday. Less than 24 hours into the fast, police detained him and flew him to near Haridwar in northern India, center of his global yoga business.

Media said at least 30 people were injured in the pre-dawn raid at a tent where his followers, from poor villagers to foreign tourists and civil servants, had gathered. Some Ramdev supporters threw stones at police.

"The permission was for a yoga camp for 5,000, not for 50,000 people for agitation. We have canceled the permission and asked them to move out," said Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.

Ramdev's campaign was already an embarrassment for a Congress party-led coalition hit by graft scandals including allegations of kickbacks at the Commonwealth Games and a telecoms scam that may have cost the government up to $39 billion.

The eviction could harden Ramdev's stance, spark protests by his millions of supporters and dent the government's popularity in the electorally important northern states of India, where Ramdev is hugely popular.

"My hunger strike has not ended. I will continue fasting," a defiant Ramdev, who plans to launch a political party to contest the 2014 general election, told a news conference from Haridwar, located in the foothills of the Himalayas.

HUGE TV FOLLOWING

The saffron-robed Swami Ramdev, who rose from an illiterate family to host a television show with 30 million viewers, carries such weight in India that four government ministers met him when he arrived by private jet in New Delhi.

Negotiations to end the protest appeared to be making ground on Saturday. But New Delhi is a city run by the ruling Congress party and the sweep by police will likely be seen as a politically motivated against the guru.

Tapping into spiraling voter anger at corruption as Asia's third largest economy booms, the guru has called on the government to pursue billions of dollars in illegal funds abroad and the withdrawal of high denomination bank notes.

Graft has long been a part of daily life from getting an electricity connection to signing business deals, but the latest scandals - that have seen a minister jailed and business billionaires questioned - are unprecedented.

Investors worry the latest troubles will again force the government to pay less attention to reform bills, such as making it easier for industry to acquire land, postponed due to opposition protests over graft causing parliamentary deadlock.

The main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slammed the government and called for a 24-hour protest, while Congress leaders said police action was justified.

But senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who had earlier questioned the Swami's luxurious lifestyle and called it a "five-star" protest, accused Ramdev of inciting people.

"Now you can't allow people like Ramdev to run riot in a capital like Delhi. Some laws, some rules have to be followed," Singh said. "And where as he has taken permission for yogic shivir (camp), what was he doing there?...he was trying to agitate people."

Some analysts said the government may try to paint the protest as political.

"The movement was going to the BJP's hands," political commentator Amulya Ganguly said. "The government will claim it is a BJP movement."

Ramdev, who turned an ancient spiritual tradition into a mass healing movement, runs a $40 million-a-year global yoga and health empire and says he can cure cancer.

Critics say he is linked to a radical Hindu nationalist group.

Ramdev's fast came after a similar one by social activist Anna Hazare, whose April campaign rang a chord with millions of Indians and forced the government to make legislative concessions on an anti-corruption bill that effectively gives India an independent ombudsman to battle graft.

Both campaigns have underscored how India's traditional national parties are struggling to deal with the growing anger at middle class Indians increasingly fed up with graft, leaving a political vacuum that figures like Ramdev can fill.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

Yahoo! News

17 die in attempted Iraq prison break

BAGHDAD — The man accused of masterminding an attack on a Baghdad church last year wrestled a gun from a guard at a detention facility, freed his comrades and launched an hours-long assault that ended with 17 people dead, including a top counterterrorism officer, officials and witnesses said.

var data = blocks.columnist;if (data != undefined){document.getElementById('columnistmug').innerHTML=data;} By Karim Kadim, AP

Relatives of Brigadier Muaeid Mohammed Saleh load his coffin onto a vehicle during his funeral in Baghdad on Sunday, He was slain in an inmate uprising.

By Karim Kadim, AP

Relatives of Brigadier Muaeid Mohammed Saleh load his coffin onto a vehicle during his funeral in Baghdad on Sunday, He was slain in an inmate uprising.

Abu Huthaifa al-Battawi, the man accused by authorities of plotting the October attack on an Iraqi church killing 68 people, nearly drove out of Baghdad's Ministry of Interior with fellow inmates before being gunned down by guards.

The melee at the sprawling compound raises questions about how a group of prisoners at what is supposed to be one of the most secure facilities in the country managed to launch such a fierce attack.

The detainees, all accused of belonging to al-Qaida in Iraq, were being moved from a detention room to an interrogation room at the ministry grounds in eastern Baghdad when one of the detainees attacked a guard and wrestled away his weapon, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the top military spokesman in Baghdad.

Two interior ministry officials said it was al-Battawi who launched the attack. One official said al-Battawi's hands had just been untied for his interrogation when he grabbed the weapon.

The detainee killed the guard, moved into one of the rooms and killed another guard and took his weapon, al-Moussawi said. In all, the detainees managed to seize four weapons including an assault rifle.

An Iraqi lawmaker on the security and defense committee, Hakim al-Zamili, said they also managed to get their hands on grenades.

The prisoners then entered the office of Brigadier Muaeid Mohammed Saleh, the head of a department responsible for combating terrorism and organized crime in eastern Baghdad, and shot him along with another officer who was in the room.

"I was in the next room close to Brigadier Muaeid's room and I heard shots fired and screams in the corridor. I opened the door and saw about four al-Qaida detainees moving around and I closed the door back immediately," said Saleh's bodyguard, Jawad Kadhum.

"Then I heard one of them saying 'This is the director's room,' and I heard a flurry of gunshots," he said.

Al-Moussawi said the assault by the prisoners was not spontaneous but appeared to have been plotted ahead of time. He said six police and 11 detainees were killed in the ensuing melee which lasted for nearly three hours before Iraqi security forces brought the situation under control.

A group of the detainees, including al-Battawi, managed to seize a car and were driving toward the gate of the compound when a guard opened killed them with a machine gun, al-Zamili said.

Al-Moussawi said the detainees were not shackled at the time, which is normal procedure except that since they were accused of being involved in al-Qaida, they should have been restrained.

"I blame the security measures in this case because they were senior terrorists," he said. "Tight security measures should have been taken."

An Interior Ministry official on the scene said the guards violated procedure by keeping their weapons with them when moving the prisoners. Usually when prisoners are taken into the investigation room their restraints are removed but guards are not supposed to have their weapons on them at the time.

The official said about 20 to 25 prisoners were involved in the melee.

An additional eight police officers and six detainees were wounded, security and hospital officials said.

The injured detainees were brought to Baghdad's al-Kindi hospital under tight security, treated and then taken away again by security officials to an unidentified location, officials said.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

It is the latest embarrassing incident for Iraq related to its detention facilities.

In January, 12 inmates, many believed to have links to al-Qaida in Iraq, were awaiting trial in a temporary detention center in the southern city of Basra when they obtained uniforms and walked out in disguise. They scattered after that to avoid the massive manhunt. At least two were later picked up by security officials in northern Iraq.

Sunday's prison attack immediately led to cries of outrage over how such an incident could have happened.

"The Interior Ministry lets large number of dangerous terrorist leaders gather in one cell without any means of surveillance such as cameras and this makes them free to plot and even give orders to people outside to carry out attacks through mobiles smuggled to them in the prison," al-Zamili said.

——

Associated Press writers Saad Abdul-Kadir in Baghdad and Sameer N. Yacoub in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.

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Supreme Court leaves in place Ariz. school tax break

"Monday's decision was a major victory for the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, which had intervened in the case to support the Arizona tax-credit program. The Obama Justice Department also had sided with Arizona and had argued that the 1968 case should be narrowly construed. "

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Supreme Court leaves in place Ariz. school tax break

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