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Tuesday, November 16, 2010 – Daily News – 5A Senate GOP leader joins House effort to stop adding WORLD BRIEFING Lame-duck session starts with pork-barrel projects WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt shift that’s likely to cement a dramatic change in the ways of Congress, the top Republican in the Senate on Monday fell into line behind demands by House leaders and tea party activists for a mora- torium on pork-barrel projects known as ‘‘earmarks.’’ Earmarking is the longtime Washington practice in which lawmakers insert money for home-state projects like road and bridge work into spending bills. Critics say that peppering most spending bills with hundreds or even thou- sands of such projects creates a go-along-get-along mindset that ensures that Washington spending goes unchecked. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has long defended the practice, said he’s now heeding the message that voters sent in midterm elections that swept Democrats from power in the House. He said he can’t accuse Democrats of ignoring the wishes of the American people and then do the same thing. McConnell’s move heads off a battle with conservative Republican senators who had signaled that they would force a vote Tuesday on banning the practice. That vote is now a formality. ‘‘Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people,’’ McConnell said in a surprise announcement from the Senate floor. ‘‘When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.’’ Security officials struggle to reassure airline passengers upset about scanners WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a week before the Thanksgiving travel crush, federal air security officials were struggling to reassure rising numbers of fliers and airline workers outraged by new anti-terrorism screening proce- dures they consider invasive and harmful. Across the country, passengers simmered over being forced to choose scans by full-body image detectors or prob- ing pat-downs. Top federal security officials said Monday that the procedures were safe and necessary sacrifices to ward off terror attacks. ‘‘It’s all about security,’’ Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. ‘‘It’s all about everybody recognizing their role.’’ Despite officials’ insistence that they had taken care to prepare the American flying public, the flurry of criticism from private citizens to airline pilots’ groups suggested that Napolitano and other federal officials had been caught off guard. At the San Diego airport, a software engineer posted an Internet blog item saying he had been ejected after being threatened with a fine and lawsuit for refusing a groin check after turning down a full-body scan. The passenger, John Tyner, said he told a federal Transportation Security Admin- istration worker, ‘‘If you touch my junk, I’m gonna have you arrested.’’ Ethics panel deliberates whether Rep. Rangel misused office, broke House rules WASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly after veteran Rep. Charles Rangel of New York walked out of his ethics trial in protest, a House panel began closed-door deliberations Monday on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct that could bring formal condemnation. Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for col- leagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left even before they said no, and the rare proceeding — only the second for this type of hearing in two decades — went on without him. An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late Monday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members agreed. If the panel members decide Rangel violated any House rules, the full committee will hold a hearing on how he should be punished. The most likely sanction would be a House vote deploring his conduct. Rangel, a 20-term congressman representing New York’s famed Harlem neighborhood, implored the ethics panel for further delay, saying that ‘‘50 years of public service is on the line.’’ But the panel basically decided that the 2 1/2-year- old case had gone on long enough — and Congress had lit- tle time left to deal with it in the lame duck session that com- menced Monday. MORE THAN JUST BOWLING & Bowling Greens Minature Golf Reserve Your Holiday Party Time NOW! • Company Party • School or Youth Group • Social Club • Church Groups FUN LEAGUES STILL LOOKING FOR BOWLERS! Check out www.LariatBowl.com ALSCO, INC. 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Active Senior Citizens A Retirement Community for the lots to do, dim prospects WASHINGTON (AP) — Dejected Democrats and invigorated Republicans returned to the Capitol Monday to face a mountain of unfinished work and greet more than 100 mainly Republican freshmen-elect lawmakers determined to change how they do business. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, in line to become speaker when the new Republican-led Congress convenes in Janu- ary, told GOP newcomers Sunday evening that they may spend their next two years doing just two things: stopping what he called ‘‘job-killing policies’’ and the ‘‘spending binge.’’ ‘‘The American people are sick and tired of the ’Wash- ington knows best’ mentality. All the power in this town is on loan from the people,’’ he told the group, which he noted includes seven farmers, six physicians, three car dealers, two funeral home directors, a former FBI agent, a pizzeria owner, an NFL lineman, and an airline pilot. On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell met 12 of the 13 newly elected Republicans. He noted that two years ago there were only two freshmen Republicans, and said the new class would bring a ‘‘huge improvement’’ to the Senate. First, though, lawmakers must slog through the postelec- tion session that, as with past lame ducks, is expected to be unpopular and largely unproductive. Facebook to revamp messaging service, e-mail seen past prime in era of texts, chats SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook unveiled a new messaging platform Monday that takes aim at one of the Internet’s first applications, e-mail. Though CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t go as far as declaring e-mail dead, he sees the four-decade-old technology as secondary to more seam- less, faster ways of communicating such as text messages and chats. In other words, Facebook is betting that today’s high school students are on to something. ‘‘We don’t think a modern messaging system is going to be e-mail,’’ Zuckerberg said at a special event in San Fran- cisco. The new platform, which will be rolled out to users in the coming months, integrates cell phone texts, chats, e-mail and the existing Facebook messages. It seeks to bring together all these different forms of communication in one inbox, cen- tered around the people sending it rather than the type of technology they use. Facebook will hand out (at)face- book.com e-mail addresses — mostly to make it easier to communicate with people who aren’t on Facebook. ‘‘If we do a good job, some people will say this is the way that the future will work,’’ Zuckerberg said. By making e-mail part of its communications hub, Face- book escalates its duel with Internet search leader Google Inc., which shook up online communications six and half years ago with its Gmail service. Google has also said it will roll out more social networking features to counter Face- book’s growing popularity. Ohio sheriff says 3 missing people may have been killed MOUNT VERNON, Ohio (AP) — Fearing the worst, investigators searched a lake for three missing people Mon- day after a teenage girl who disappeared along with them was rescued, bound and gagged, from the basement of a man’s home nearby. Sheriff David Barber conceded that 13-year-old Sarah Maynard’s mother, brother and a family friend may be dead. All four vanished last Wednesday from the girl’s home, which was found splattered with blood, police said. ‘‘We still would like to retain a hopeful attitude,’’ the sheriff said, ‘‘but we have to be realistic.’’ On Sunday, Sarah was rescued from the home of 30- year-old ex-convict Matthew J. Hoffman, who was arrested and charged with her kidnapping. The sheriff would not dis- cuss details of Sarah’s ordeal. ‘‘She is a very brave little girl,’’ Barber said. ‘‘Under the circumstances, a 13-year-old girl being held captive for four days by a total stranger ... I would call her the epitome SUNDAY SPECIAL!! 30% OFF Excluding basic Wranglers Boot or Clothing item! 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In reality, Thomas Steven Sanders had lived openly for years without anyone noticing that fact — until his weekend arrest on suspicion of kidnapping a Las Vegas girl who recently turned up dead. Sanders was arrested Sunday at a Gulfport, Miss. truck stop after a massive nationwide manhunt and charged with kidnapping 12-year-old Lexis Roberts, whose body was found last month in Louisiana, the FBI said. The girl’s moth- er, 31-year-old Suellen Roberts is missing and feared dead in a bizarre case that leaves many wondering how a legally dead man can go unnoticed for so long — even after being arrested in several states under his real name. Authorities say the answer is pretty simple, really. There’s no national death database in the United States, said James Kelly, sheriff of Catahoula Parish in central Louisiana where the girl’s skeleton was found by hunters in October. And at age 53, Sanders wasn’t collecting Social Security, raising no red flags there. It’s not even clear if Sanders knew he was considered dead. ‘‘Right now we have a lot more questions than we do answers,’’ Kelly said. 32 killed, many more buried under rubble as building collapses in New Delhi NEW DELHI (AP) — A four-story building collapsed in a congested neighborhood in New Delhi Monday, killing at least 32 people and injuring 60 others, a top police official said. Many more people were trapped under debris after the building on the Indian capital’s east side collapsed, said B.K. Gupta, New Delhi police commissioner. Local residents, who were the first to reach the scene of the accident, used their bare hands to scoop away mud and mortar and pull out survivors. Emergency efforts were hampered as fire engines found it difficult to navigate the narrow alleys of the residential neighborhood of Lalita Park. Residents helped carry the injured to vehicles and to transport them to nearby hospitals. 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