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Obama sends spending plan to Congress WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama unveiled a multi- trillion-dollar spending plan Monday, pledging an intensified effort to com- bat high unemployment and asking Congress to quickly approve new job- creation efforts that would boost the deficit to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion. Obama's new budget blueprint preaches the need to make tough choices to restrain run- away deficits, but not before attacking what the administration sees as the more immediate chal- lenge of lifting the coun- try out of a deep recession that has cost 7.2 million jobs over the past two years. The result is a budget plan that would give the country trillion-dollar- plus deficits for three con- secutive years. Obama's new budget projects a spending increase of 5.7 percent for the current budget year and forecasts that spending would rise another 3 percent in 2011 to $3.83 trillion. ''Until America is back at work, my administra- tion will not rest and this recovery will not be fin- ished,'' Obama declared in his budget message. Addressing the fact that his budget first pro- jects big increases in the deficit before starting to lower these imbalances, Obama told reporters, ''It's very important to understand, we won't be able to bring down this deficit overnight given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help.'' ''What I reject is the same old grandstanding when the cameras are on, and the same irresponsi- ble budget policies when the cameras are off,'' the president said. ''It's time to save what we can, spend what we must, and live within our means once again.'' Republicans weren't impressed with the pro- posals. ''They're not willing to do big ideas. They're doing ideas that create perception but don't do anything big,'' said New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, senior Republican on the Budget Commit- tee. ''The spending freeze for example. You're talk- ing what, $10 billion on a $1.6 trillion deficit?'' Democrats, facing the prospect of major losses in November, are likely to join Republicans in balk- ing at many of Obama's proposals. Moderate Democrats already are wary of another debt- financed economic stimu- lus program and may also choke on many of the rec- ommended tax increases and spending cuts. US Baptists knew they were wrong PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti's prime minister said Mon- day that 10 Americans who tried to take a bus- load of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew that ''what they were doing was wrong'' and could be prosecuted in the United States. Prime Minister Max Bellerive also told The Associated Press that his country is open to having the Americans face U.S. justice, since most gov- ernment buildings — including Haiti's courts — were crippled by the monster earthquake. ''It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents,'' Bellerive said. ''And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong.'' If they were acting in good faith — as the Americans claim — ''per- haps the courts will try to be more lenient with them,'' he said. U.S. Embassy officials would not say whether Washington would accept hosting judicial proceed- ings for the Americans, who are mostly from Idaho. For now, the case remains firmly in Haitian hands, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington. Iraq election on March 7 must be fair BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Iraq outlined twin chal- lenges Monday to the unsteady democracy's elections next month: assuring that voters and rival factions accept the result and then making sure the losers step aside quietly. Christopher Hill said the March 7 parliamen- tary balloting will likely shape Iraq's path long after the U.S. military pullout. It also will test Sunni-Shiite cooperation to quell violence — which struck again Mon- day as a suicide bomber killed at least 54 Shiite pilgrims. The vote, delayed from January, will be the last major election in which the U.S. military is help- ing with security. At stake are some of the country's most ambitious goals, including political and sectarian reconciliation and finalizing a law gov- erning the oil industry, on which Iraq's economy is almost solely dependent. In an interview with The Associated Press, Hill said he was confident Shiite political leaders would soon settle a seething debate over the purge from the ballot of about 450 candidates accused of being loyalists to Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. The blacklist is widely seen as targeting Sunnis, even though Shiite candidates are also on the list. He predicted the Iraqi government would fully explain the reasons for banning each of the can- didates because ''there should be a situation where people don't scratch their heads at why certain people have been included on the list.'' Gov's affair made first lady feel ugly CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford writes in her new book that she got short of breath and later felt unwanted and ugly when she found out about her husband's affair with an Argentine woman. The New York Daily News reported on its Web site Monday that Sanford also writes that one of her sons exclaimed that it's ''worse than Eliot Spitzer'' when she told them about Gov. Mark Sanford's infidelity. Spitzer is the former New York governor who resigned after acknowl- edging he was a client of a call-girl ring. Jenny Sanford's mem- oir ''Staying True,'' pub- lished by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Ran- dom House Inc., goes on sale Friday. She will be inter- viewed by Barbara Wal- ters on ABC's 20/20 on Thursday night. A seg- ment of the interview aired last month, a few days before she filed for divorce from her husband of more than 20 years. 27 of 104 US reactors leak radioactive tritium MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Radioactive tri- tium, a carcinogen discov- ered in potentially danger- ous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, has now taint- ed at least 27 of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors — rais- ing concerns about how it is escaping from the aging nuclear plants. The leaks — many from deteriorating underground pipes — come as the nuclear industry is seeking and obtaining federal license renewals, casting itself as a clean-green alter- native to power plants that burn fossil fuels. Tritium, found in nature in tiny amounts and a prod- uct of nuclear fusion, has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday that new tests at a monitor- ing well on Vermont Yan- kee's site in Vernon regis- tered 70,500 picocuries per liter, more than three times the federal safety standard of 20,000 picocuries per liter. That is the highest read- ing yet at the Vermont Yan- kee plant, where the original discovery last month drew sharp criticism by Gov. Jim Douglas and others. Offi- cials of the New Orleans- based Entergy Corp., which owns the plant in Vernon in Vermont's southeast corner, have admitted misleading state regulators and law- makers by saying the plant did not have the kind of underground pipes that could leak tritium into groundwater. Lawmakers want to ban health mandates JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Although President Barack Obama's push for a health care over- haul has stalled, conserva- tive lawmakers in more than two-thirds of the states are forging ahead with constitu- tional amendments to ban government health insur- ance mandates. The proposals would assert a state-based right for people to pay medical bills from their own pocketbooks and prohibit penalties against those who refuse to carry health insurance. In many states, the pro- posals began as a backlash to Democratic health care plans pending in Congress. But instead of backing away after a Massachusetts election gave Senate Republicans the filibuster power to halt the health care legislation, many state law- makers are ramping up their efforts with new enthusi- asm. The moves reflect the continued political potency of the issue for conserva- tives, who have used it extensively for fundraising and attracting new support- ers. The legal impact of any state measures may be questionable because courts generally have held that fed- eral laws trump those in states. Lawmakers in 35 states have filed or proposed amendments to their state constitutions or statutes rejecting health insurance mandates, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a non- profit group that promotes limited government that is helping coordinate the efforts. Many of those pro- posals are targeted for the November ballot, assuring that health care remains a hot topic as hundreds of federal and state lawmakers face re-election. Prayer leader shot 20 times DETROIT (AP) — A Muslim prayer leader accused of encouraging his followers to commit vio- lence against the U.S. gov- ernment was shot 20 times during an FBI raid at a sub- urban warehouse last fall, according to an autopsy report released Monday. The autopsy was com- pleted a month after Luq- man Ameen Abdullah's death, but Dearborn police were granted a delay in releasing the results while they investigate the Oct. 28 shooting, said Dr. Carl Schmidt, Wayne County's chief medical examiner. Abdullah, 53, died instantly, he said. ''You cannot tell by the gunshot wounds whether he was lying down, standing up, sitting,'' Schmidt told reporters. ''It is impossible to say which one was the fatal gunshot wound. It was a combination of gunshot wounds.'' Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was the imam of a small mosque in Detroit that served most- ly black Muslims. The FBI says agents were trying to arrest him at a Dearborn warehouse when he resisted and fired a gun. FDA adds warning to HIV drug WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials said Monday that patients taking a Bristol-Myers Squibb drug for HIV are at risk of a rare, but poten- tially fatal, liver disorder. The Food and Drug Administration said it has received 42 reports of the disorder since Videx was approved in 1991. Four patients died from bleed- ing or liver failure after developing the problem, known as non-cirrhotic portal hypertension. The problem involves dangerously slow blood flow though the liver, which can cause veins in the esophagus to swell. These veins are thin and can cause burst, causing potentially deadly bleeding. FDA says it is keeping the drug on the market because its benefits to patients outweigh its risks. Videx capsules pre- vent HIV from multiply- ing and are used in com- bination with other virus- fighting drugs in adults and children. 4B – Daily News – Tuesday, February 2, 2010 WORLD BRIEFING