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4B – Daily News – Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Newspaper website visitors spend more time online than other internet users January 2010 Stats 370,761 Page Views 52,407 Unique Visitors RedBluffDailyNews.com is the most visited local site for local news & information Average online hours per week 9 hours General internet population 9 hours 19 hours Newspaper Visitors 19 hours ` Summit will not break health care impasse WASHINGTON (AP) — Here's one point on which Democrats and Republicans agree on health care: President Barack Obama's much-touted televised summit has virtually no chance of breaking the political logjam, forcing Democrats to find a way to pass an overhaul on their own or face a huge political defeat. Lawmakers from both parties suggested the Obama-hosted meeting Thursday will amount to little more than political theater. No cracks appeared in the GOP's overwhelming opposition to Democrats' efforts. And both par- ties saw the president's revised far- reaching proposal, released Mon- day, as a call for Democrats to try to pass the legislation on their own under Senate rules that would bar Republican delaying tactics. ''We're happy to be there, but I'm not quite sure what the pur- pose is,'' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday of the daylong summit. ''It seems to me the president's already made up his mind.'' Underscoring his points, McConnell invited some of Obama's sharpest critics, includ- ing 2008 GOP presidential nomi- nee John McCain of Arizona, to join him. None of the GOP mod- erates who have raised the prospect of bipartisanship on health care, such as New Hamp- shire Sen. Judd Gregg or Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, were included. Democrats were equally dis- missive of GOP demands that they start from scratch. Toyota official says recalls won't totally fix safety issues WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of Toyota's U.S. opera- tions acknowledged to skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that the company's recalls of millions of its cars may ''not totally'' solve the problem of sudden and dan- gerous acceleration. ''We are vigilant and we con- tinue to look for potential causes,'' Toyota's James Lentz told a con- gressional panel. However, he repeated his company's position that unexpected acceleration in some of the company's most pop- ular cars and trucks was caused by one of two problems — misplaced floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals. He insisted electronic systems connected to the gas pedal and fuel line did not contribute to the problem, drawing sharp criticism from lawmakers who said such a possibility should be further explored — and from a tearful woman driver who could not stop her runaway Lexus. ''Shame on you, Toyota,'' Rhonda Smith, of Sevierville, Tenn., said at a congressional hearing. Then she added a second ''shame on you'' directed at feder- al highway safety regulators. Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton cautioned his colleagues early in the hearing against con- ducting a ''witch hunt'' and said ''We don't want to just assume automatically that Toyota has done something wrong and has tried to cover it up.'' But midway through Lentz's testimony, Barton said of Toyota's investigation of the problems: ''In my opinion, it's a sham.'' Lentz said the company had not completely ruled out an elec- tronics malfunction and was still investigating causes of the sudden acceleration. Army, Air Force warn against quick repeal of gays policy WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Army and Air Force officers said Tuesday they would be reluctant to overturn a 17-year policy that prohibits gays from serving open- ly in the military without more time to ascertain it won't hurt the services. ''I do have serious concerns about the impact of a repeal of the law on a force that is fully engaged in two wars and has been at war for eight and a half years,'' Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told Congress. ''We just don't know the impacts on readi- ness and military effectiveness.'' As Casey cautioned the Senate Armed Services Committee against moving too fast to repeal the law, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz made sim- ilar remarks before the House. The carefully crafted com- ments indicate reluctance among the military's senior ranks to act anytime soon on President Barack Obama's plan to repeal the ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy. Obama says the policy is wrongheaded and should change. Defense Secretary Robert Gates agrees but wants to move slowly, and has ordered a lengthy assess- ment on how to lift the ban with- out affecting troops and their fam- ilies. Brown goes from darling to turncoat after vote on jobs bill BOSTON (AP) — A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republi- can Sen. Scott Brown of Massa- chusetts is being branded ''Bene- dict Brown'' for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama adminis- tration. Like the four other GOP sena- tors who joined him, the man who won the late Democrat Edward Kennedy's seat says it's about jobs, not party politics. And that may be good politics, too. The four other GOP senators who broke ranks — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio and Christopher ''Kit'' Bond of Missouri — also were criticized on Tuesday. But Brown was the big target on conservative Web sites, talk shows and even the Facebook page his campaign has promoted as an example of his new-media savvy. ''We campaigned for you. We donated to your campaign. And you turned on us like every other RINO,'' said one writer, using the initials for ''Republican-In-Name- Only.'' The conservative-tilting Drudge Report colored a photo of Brown on its home page in scarlet. Cheney sustained 'mild heart attack' WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney sustained a ''mild heart attack'' but is feeling better and likely to leave the hospital with- in a day or two, an aide said Tuesday. Cheney, 69, who has remained a forceful advocate for the former Bush administra- tion and a leading Republican figure since leaving office last year, has a history of heart trou- ble. He was admitted to George Washington University Hospi- tal in Washington on Monday after experiencing chest pains. Lab tests revealed evidence of a mild heart attack, Cheney aide Peter Long said in a state- ment. Long reported that Cheney is ''feeling good'' after undergoing a stress test and a heart catheterization. The latter procedure examines blood flow to the heart and tests how well the heart is pumping. A heart attack occurs when blood flow to the heart muscle is blocked. The statement from Cheney's office did not say whether he needed to have an angioplasty, a procedure to clear a blockage. Former President George W. Bush spoke with Cheney by telephone Tuesday afternoon, a Bush aide said from Dallas. New full-body scanners going to 2 airports in next 2 weeks WASHINGTON (AP) — The first of 150 full-body scanners planned for U.S. air- ports will be installed in Boston next week, officials said Tuesday. The plan is to install three machines at Logan Interna- tional Airport, according to a homeland security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made. In the next two weeks, officials plan to install another machine at Chicago's O'Hare International. The rest of the 150 machines that were purchased with $25 million from Presi- dent Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus plan are expected to be installed in airports by the end of June, another homeland security official, spokes- woman Amy Kudwa, said. The use of the scanners in airports is key to the Obama administration's plans to improve airport security because of their ability to show objects hidden on the body. Body scanners have been available for years, but their deployment has been slowed by objections from pri- vacy advocates. After a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner last Christmas, Obama called for purchasing hundreds more of the machines on top of 150 already announced last year. Other countries have also signed on to use the technolo- gy, including Nigeria and the Netherlands, where the final leg of the man's flight origi- nated. New species of long-necked dinosaur found SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Fossils of a previously undiscov- ered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains, scientists said Tuesday. The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod — long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land. The discovery included two complete skulls from other types of sauropods — an extremely rare find, scientists said. The fossils offer fresh insight into lives of dinosaurs some 105 million years ago, including the evolution of sauropod teeth, which reveal eating habits and other information, said Dan Chure, a paleontologist at the monument that straddles the Utah-Colorado border. ''You can hardly overstate the significance of these fossils,'' he said. Of the 120 or so known species of sauropods, complete skulls have been found for just eight. That's mostly because their skulls were made of thin, fragile bones bound by soft tissue that were eas- ily destroyed after death. WORLD BRIEFING