Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/50062
8A Daily News –Wednesday, December 14, 2011 WORLD BRIEFING Republicans plan to push payroll tax cut WASHINGTON (AP) — Defiant Republicans pushed toward House pas- sage Tuesday of legislation to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts long sought by President Barack Obama. But they sparked a veto threat by including construction of a much-disputed oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. Passage would send the bill to certain demise in the Democratic-controlled Senate, triggering the final partisan showdown of a remarkably quarrelsome year of divided government. In debate on the measure, House Democrats accused Republicans of pro- tecting ''millionaires and billionaires, '' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada derided the GOP-backed pipeline provision as ''ideological candy'' for the tea party set and Repub- licans mocked Obama's objections. ''Mr. President, we can't wait,'' said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, employing a refrain the White House often uses to criticize Republi- cans for failing to take steps to improve an economy struggling to recover from the worst recession in decades. ''You can't be for the middle class, you can't be for keeping taxes low, and be against our Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act,'' Cantor said. States should ban all cellphone use by drivers WASHINGTON (AP) — Texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed, federal safety investigators declared Tuesday, urging all states to impose total bans except for emergen- cies. Inspired by recent deadly crashes — including one in which a teenager sent or received 11 text messages in 11 minutes before an accident — the rec- ommendation would apply even to hands-free devices, a much stricter rule than any current state law. The unanimous recommendation by the five-member National Transporta- tion Safety Board would make an excep- tion for devices deemed to aid driver safety such as GPS navigation systems A group representing state highway safety offices called the recommendation ''a game-changer.'' ''States aren't ready to support a total ban yet, but this may start the discus- sion,'' Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Associa- tion, said. Attack in Belgian city of Liege leaves 5 dead, 122 wounded LIEGE, Belgium (AP) — A man armed with grenades and an assault rifle attacked holiday shoppers Tuesday at a central square in the Belgian city of Liege. Five people died, including the attacker, and 122 others were wounded, officials said. It was not immediately clear what motivated the attack in the busy Place Saint-Lambert square, the central entry point to downtown shop- ping streets in the city in eastern Bel- gium. The attack prompted hundreds of shoppers to stampede down old city streets, fleeing explosions and bullets. Interior Ministry official Peter Mertens said the attack did not involve terrorism but did not explain why he thought that. Belgian officials identified the attack- er as Nordine Amrani, 33, a Liege resi- dent who they said had done jail time for offenses involving guns, drugs and sexu- al abuse. He was among the dead, but Liege Prosecutor Danielle Reynders told reporters it was unclear if he committed suicide or died by accident. He did not die at the hands of police, she said. The other dead were two teenage boy students aged 15 and 17 and a 75-year- old woman, while an 18-month-old tod- dler died Tuesday evening in the hospi- tal, Liege police said. Sandusky backs out of hearing on sex abuse charges BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) — Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky stunned a packed courtroom and backed out of a preliminary hearing at the last minute Tuesday, avoiding a face-to-face confrontation with accusers who his lawyer said were just trying to cash in by making up stories of child sex abuse. Sandusky pleaded not guilty and vowed afterward to ''stay the course, to fight for four quarters.'' His lawyer, Joe Amendola, then took the defense to the courthouse steps and spoke before dozens of news cameras for an hour, saying some of the 10 men who accuse Sandusky of molesting them as children were only out to profit from civil lawsuits against the coach and Penn State. A prosecutor said about 11 witnesses, most of them alleged victims, were ready to testify at the hearing. An attorney for one called Sandusky a ''coward'' for not hearing his accusers' testimony and derided the arguments that they were out for money, saying many were too old to sue Sandusky under Pennsylvania's statute of limita- tions. Gingrich pledges to stay relentlessly positive in White House bid — except when he's not ATLANTA (AP) — Newt Gingrich is pledging to stay relentlessly positive in his quest for the White House. Except when he's not. Trying to make over his image as the angry, bomb-throwing leader of the Republican revolution of the 1990s, the former House speaker has adopted a sunnier persona these days and is play- ing up his credentials as a grandfather, husband and historian. On Tuesday, he urged supporters to refrain from attacking his opponents and eschewed negative ads. But old habits die hard. When chief rival Mitt Romney cast Gingrich as a lifelong Washington insid- er at a weekend debate in Iowa, Gingrich had this snarky comeback: ''The only reason you didn't become a career politi- cian is because you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994.'' Biggest plane ever to launch spaceships SEATTLE (AP) — Microsoft co- founder Paul Allen and aerospace pio- neer Burt Rutan are building the world's biggest plane to help launch cargo and astronauts into space, in the latest of sev- eral ventures fueled by technology tycoons clamoring to write America's next chapter in spaceflight. Their plans, unveiled Tuesday, call for a twin-fuselage aircraft with wings longer than a football field to carry a rocket high into the atmosphere and drop it, avoiding the need for a launch pad and the expense of additional rocket fuel. Allen, who teamed up with Rutan in 2004 to send the first privately financed, manned spacecraft into space, said his new project would ''keep America at the forefront of space exploration'' and give a new generation of children something to dream about. ''We have plenty and many chal- lenges ahead of us,'' he said at a news conference. Allen and Rutan join a field crowded with Silicon Valley veterans who grew up on ''Star Trek'' and now want to fill a void created with the retirement of NASA's space shuttle. Several compa- nies are competing to develop spacecraft to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. Remains found near believed to be missing prostitute OAK BEACH, N.Y. (AP) — After a yearlong search, police on New York's Long Island said Tuesday they believe they have discovered the skeletal remains of a New Jersey prostitute whose disappearance sparked an investi- gation into a possible serial killing spree. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said searchers found the bones at around 9:15 a.m. in a dense wetland thicket, about a half mile from where 24-year- old Shannan Gilbert disappeared after meeting a client for an early-morning sexual encounter.