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4B Daily News – Saturday, January 4, 2014 WORLD BRIEFING concede some pension and health care benefits in order to secure assembly of the company's new 777X airplane in Washington state has fractured the union. It has drawn unusual pleas from politicians who say the deal is necessary to support the Puget Sound region's economic future. Boeing has been exploring the prospect of building the 777X elsewhere, a move that could trigger a steady exodus of aerospace jobs from a region where Boeing was founded. Local union officials, meanwhile, urged their 30,000 members to oppose the deal that members were voting on Friday, arguing that the proposal surrenders too much at a time of company profitability. They have opposed taking a vote at all but were overruled by national leaders in the Machinists union. Voting was scheduled for 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Results were expected to be announced later in the night. US court: Government can continue collecting Americans' phone records daily WASHINGTON (AP) — A secretive U.S. spy court has ruled again that the National Security Agency can keep collecting every American's telephone records every day, in the midst of dueling decisions in two civilian federal courts about whether the surveillance program is constitutional. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Friday renewed the NSA phone collection program, said Shawn Turner, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Such periodic requests are somewhat formulaic but required since the program started in 2006. The latest approval was the first since two conflicting court decisions about whether the program is lawful and since a presidential advisory panel recommended that the NSA no longer be allowed to collect and store the phone records and search them without obtaining separate court approval for each search. In a statement, Turner said that 15 judges on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on 36 occasions over the past seven years have approved the NSA's collection of U.S. phone records as lawful. Also Friday, government lawyers turned to U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to block one federal judge's decision that threatens the NSA phone records program. Porsche in crash that killed Paul Walker going 100 mph LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Porsche carrying ''Fast & Furious'' star Paul Walker may have been going 100 mph or more before it crashed, killing both Walker and the driver, according to a coroner's report released Friday. Investigators found no mechanical problems with the 2005 Porsche Carrera GT or debris or other problems on the roadway. The street forms an approximately 1-mile loop amid industrial office parks and is rimmed by hills and isolated from traffic, especially on weekends. The downed light pole the car hit had a speed limit sign of 45 mph. The area in Santa Clarita is about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Roger Rodas, Walker's friend and financial adviser, was driving the Porsche at an unsafe speed, and witnesses interviewed by deputies estimated it was going 100 mph or more. No alcohol or drugs were detected in the system of either man on the day of the fiery one-car crash. The Nov. 30 deaths were ruled accidents and were due to combined traumatic and thermal injuries, the report said. It said both men were burned over 100 percent of their bodies. Health overhaul plans seen as too skimpy for people with modest incomes WASHINGTON (AP) — For working people making modest wages and struggling with high medical bills from chronic disease, President Barack Obama's health care plan sounds like long-awaited relief. But the promise could go unfulfilled. It's true that patients with cancer and difficult conditions such as multiple sclerosis or Crohn's disease will be able to get insurance and financial help with monthly premiums. But their annual outof-pocket costs could still be so high they'll have trouble staying out of debt. You couldn't call them uninsured any longer. You might say they're ''underinsured.'' These gaps ''need to be addressed in order to fulfill the intention of the Affordable Care Act,'' said Brian Rosen, a senior vice president of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. ''There are certainly challenges for cancer patients.'' Kerry's diplomatic pursuit of peace for Israel, Palestinians JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's closed-door diplomacy to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians has burst into a public spat, with both sides trading blistering criticisms, Republican senators showing up in Jerusalem to argue Israel's side, and Palestinian demonstrators protesting his visit. Kerry is on his 10th visit to the region to try to craft a peace treaty that would create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He met for three hours on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Later in the day, Kerry traveled to Ramallah, West Bank, to speak with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Although battered by sniping from all sides, Kerry remained upbeat — at least publicly. Asked if he was making progress, Kerry replied that progress is being made every day. Earlier, about 150 Palestinians demonstrators marched through the streets of downtown Ramallah to protest Kerry's visit. They carried Palestinian flags and signs that said: ''The northern, central and southern Jordan Valley are a genuine part of Palestinian sovereignty.'' The West Bank's Jordan Valley is a strategic area along the border with Jordan that Israeli hardliners, including members of Netanyahu's Likud Party, say must be annexed by Israel for its own security. DNA tests confirm man in Lebanese custody is top al-Qaida suspect BEIRUT (AP) — DNA tests confirmed that a man in government custody is the alleged leader of an alQaida-linked group that has conducted attacks across the Middle East before shifting its focus to Syria's civil war, Lebanese authorities said Friday. The suspected militant, Majid al-Majid, is the purported commander of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and one of the 85 most-wanted individuals in his native Saudi Arabia. The U.S. State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organization in 2012, freezing any assets it holds in the United States and banning Americans from doing business with the group. The brigades have claimed responsibility for attacks throughout the region, including the 2010 bombing of a Japanese oil tanker in the Persian Gulf and several rocket strikes from Lebanon into Israel. The most recent attack claimed by the group was the double suicide bombing in November outside HELP WANTED AUTO ROUTE DRIVERS WANTED Corning area Must be 21 or older & bondable. Call or apply in person Circulation Dept. Red Bluff Daily News (530) 527-2151 ext 128 DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. Reports first surfaced in Lebanon early this week that authorities had detained al-Majid. Security officials eventually confirmed that they had a suspect in custody, but said they were not certain of his identity. Lebanese and Saudi officials said DNA samples taken from the suspect would be checked against al-Majid's relatives in Saudi Arabia, and the Lebanese army said Friday that tests established the detainee was indeed al-Majid. Lebanese officials still have not disclosed when or where he was taken into custody, and his current location has not been made public. San Antonio library offers look at a future SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Texas has seen the future of the public library, and it looks a lot like an Apple Store: Rows of glossy iMacs beckon. iPads mounted on a tangerine-colored bar invite readers. And hundreds of other tablets stand ready for checkout to anyone with a borrowing card. Even the librarians imitate Apple's dress code, wearing matching shirts and that standardbearer of geek-chic, the hoodie. But this $2.3 million library might be most notable for what it does not have — any actual books. That makes Bexar County's BiblioTech the nation's only bookless public library, a distinction that has attracted scores of digital bookworms, plus emissaries from as far away as Hong Kong who want to learn about the idea and possibly take it home. ''I told our people that you need to take a look at this. This is the future,'' said Mary Graham, vice president of South Carolina's Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. ''If you're going to be building new library facilities, this is what you need to be doing.'' All-digital libraries have been on college campuses for years. But the county, which runs no other libraries, made history when it decided to open BiblioTech. It is the first bookless public library system in the country, according to information gathered by the American Library Association. Gov't: Birth France mulls control ban on comic mandate PARIS (AP) — It's should not be caught on like a dance move — one hand pointing blocked downward, the other touching the shoulder with an arm across the chest. But for many, the gesture popularized by a French comic is hateful and anti-Semitic. Now, France's top security official wants to ban him from the stage. Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala has a small but faithful following of fans from disparate walks of life. Some are marginalized immigrants from France's housing projects. Some are Muslims. Some are even adherents of the far-right. But Dieudonne's profile has soared since the gesture, dubbed the ''quenelle,'' went viral in recent months. To Interior Minister Manuel Valls, it is an ''inverted Nazi salute.'' He is exploring ways to ban gatherings he says threaten public order as a means of keeping the comic from performing. US OKs $5k fine against Va. Tech for '07 massacre RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has agreed to a $5,000 fine against Virginia Tech stemming from the April 2007 campus massacre that left 33 dead. The penalty announced Friday is the second assessed against Tech for a violation of the federal Clery Act, which requires schools to issue timely warnings of campus threats. In December 2012, Duncan fined Tech $27,500 for failure to issue a timely warning the morning of the April 16, 2007, shooting on the Blacksburg campus. The latest fine is based on what federal education officials called Tech's inconsistent timely warning policies at the time of the shootings. A spokesman for the university did not immediately respond for comment. In the past, the university has disputed Duncan's finding that the internal policy was not disclosed. Boeing machinists voting on contract tied to 777X SEATTLE (AP) — A contract offer to Boeing machinists that would WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration urged a Supreme Court justice Friday to stop blocking the new health care law's requirement that some religionaffiliated organizations provide health insurance that includes birth control. The Justice Department called on Justice Sonia Sotomayor to dissolve her last-minute stay on the contraceptive coverage requirement of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Sotomayor issued the stay on New Year's Eve, only hours before the law's coverage went into effect. Under the health care law, most health insurance plans have to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives as preventive care for women, free of cost to the patient. Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from the birth control requirement, but affiliated institutions that serve the general public are not. That includes charitable organizations, universities and hospitals. In response to an outcry, the government came up with a compromise that requires insurers or health plan administrators to provide birth control coverage but allows the religious group to distance itself from that action. The exemption is triggered when the religious group signs a form for the insurer saying that it objects to the coverage. The insurer can then go forward with the coverage. A group of Denver nuns who run nursing homes for the poor, called the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, say signing that form makes them complicit in providing contraceptive coverage, and therefore violates their religious beliefs. They want Sotomayor to make the injunction permanent until the case can be hashed out in court, or for the Supreme Court to agree to take their case now. Government officials ''are simply blind to the religious exercise at issue: The Little Sisters and other applicants cannot execute the form because they cannot deputize a third party to sin on their behalf,'' said their lawyer, Mark Rienzi, who is also senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.