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6B Daily News – Tuesday, February 14, 2012 WORLD BRIEFING Obama unveils election-year budget WASHINGTON (AP) — Taking a pass on rein- ing in government growth, President Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year bud- get plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spend- ing on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill. Though the Pentagon and a number of Cabinet agencies would get squeezed, Obama would leave the spiraling growth of health care programs for the elderly and the poor largely unchecked. The plan claims $4 tril- lion in deficit savings over the coming decade, but most of it would be through tax increases Republicans oppose, lower war costs already in motion and budget cuts enacted last year in a debt pact with GOP lawmak- ers. Many of the ideas in the White House plan for the 2013 budget year will be thrashed out during this year's election cam- paigns as the Republicans try to oust Obama from the White House and add Senate control to their command of the House. ''We can't just cut our way into growth,'' Obama said at a campaign-style rally at a community col- lege in the vote-rich Northern Virginia sub- urbs. ''We can cut back on the things that we don't need, but we also have to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share for the things that we do need.'' Republicans were unimpressed. Bombers target Israeli diplomats NEW DELHI (AP) — Israel blamed Iran on Monday for bomb attacks on its diplomats' cars in India and Geor- gia, heightening con- cerns that the Jewish state was moving closer to striking its archene- my. Iran denied responsi- bility for the attacks that appeared to mirror the recent killings of Iran- ian nuclear scientists that Tehran blamed on Israel. The blast in New Delhi set a car ablaze and injured four people, including an Israeli Embassy driver and a diplomat's wife; the device in Georgia was discovered and safely defused. ''Iran is behind these attacks and it is the largest terror exporter in the world,'' Israeli Prime Minister Ben- jamin Netanyahu told lawmakers from his Likud Party. The violence added further tension to one of the globe's most con- tentious standoffs. Iran has been accused of developing a nuclear weapons program that Israel says threatens the existence of the Jewish state. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Whitney Houston was underwater when found in hotel tub BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Whitney Houston was underwa- ter and apparently unconscious when she was pulled from a Bev- erly Hills hotel bathtub, and she had prescription drugs in her room, authorities said Mon- day. The regal pop star's family made arrange- ments to fly her body home to New Jersey for a funeral at the end of the week. Authorities said that there were no indica- tions of foul play and no payroll tax measure this week, but that the fate of unemployment benefits for millions of the long-term jobless and efforts to fore- stall a scheduled cuts in fees to doctors who treat Medicare patients would remain in the hands of a House-Senate negotiating panel that's looking for ways to pay for them. The GOP statement came after intense talks this weekend failed to produce an agreement. Republicans were pressing for pay cuts for federal workers and requiring them to contribute more to their pensions. They recoiled at a Democ- ratic proposal to raise Trans- portation Security Adminis- tration per-ticket airline security fees. ''Democrats' refusal to agree to any spending cuts in the conference commit- tee has made it necessary for us to prepare this fall- back option to protect small business job creators and ensure taxes don't go up on middle class workers,'' the GOP leadership statement said. obvious signs of trauma on Houston's body but that it could be weeks before the coroner's office completes toxi- cology tests to establish the cause of death. The 48-year-old singer had struggled for years with cocaine, mar- ijuana and pills, and her behavior had become erratic. Houston was found underwater Saturday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel by a member of her staff about 3:30 p.m., hours before she was supposed to appear at a pre-Grammy Awards gala, police Lt. Mark Rosen said. She was pulled from the tub by members of her staff, and hotel security was promptly notified, Rosen said. She was pronounced dead about a half-hour later. ''As of right now, it's not a criminal investiga- tion,'' Rosen said, refus- ing to release further details. ''We have con- cluded our portion of the investigation at the hotel.'' Greeks clean up damage after riots ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Firefighters doused smoldering buildings and cleanup crews swept rubble from the streets of central Athens on Monday follow- ing a night of rioting during which lawmakers approved harsh new austerity mea- sures demanded by bailout creditors to save the nation from bankruptcy. Police said rioters destroyed or damaged more than 110 buildings, of which 50 were burned. They included nine listed as national heritage buildings, mostly in the neoclassical style, while 30 stores were looted. Smoke still rose from the remains of a landmark 1870 building which had housed one of the capital's most loved cinemas, the Attikon, since 1916. About 100 peo- ple held a candle-light protest outside the gutted structure late Monday. ''Criminals targeted all that was best in the city of Athens, its neoclassical monuments,'' said Thanas- sis Davakis, cultural policy chief of the conservative New Democracy party, a coalition government part- ner. ''The damage must be swiftly redressed and the city's memory restored.'' The stench of tear gas still hung in the air on Mon- day, choking passers-by, while traffic lights at many major intersections were out after being smashed. The Athens municipality said cleanup crews had gathered an estimated 40 tons of bro- ken marble and rocks from the streets of the center, while railings, drainage covers and paving stones from sidewalks also suf- fered extensive damage. House GOP has backup plan to extend payroll tax WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt about-face, House GOP leaders announced Monday that they are willing to extend the two percentage point cut in the payroll tax through the end of the year and add the approximately $100 bil- lion cost to the nation's $15 trillion-plus debt. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy of California said the House could vote on the Without action by Con- gress by the end of the month, payroll taxes will rise for 160 million Ameri- cans. The two percentage point tax cut delivers about $20 a week to a worker making $50,000 a year and a tax cut totaling $2,000 this year for someone making a $100,000 salary. Syria rebels repel regime attack BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels repelled a push Mon- day by government tanks into a central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad's regime in an 11-month conflict that looks increasingly like a civil war. The military pressed its offensive on Rastan a day after the regime rejected Arab League calls for the U.N. to create a peacekeep- ing force in Syria and for an end to the violent crack- down on dissent. Damascus called the League initiative ''a flagrant interference in (Syria's) internal affairs and an infringement upon national sovereignty.'' With diplomatic efforts bogged down, the conflict is taking on the dimensions of a civil war, with army defectors clashing almost daily with soldiers. The rebels have taken control of small swathes of territory in central Homs province, where Rastan is located, and the northwestern province of Idlib, which borders Turkey. Support our classrooms, keep kids reading. 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