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	US oil shipments canceled WASHINGTON — Responding to congressional pressure, the Bush administration on Friday said it is suspending oil deliveries into the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the remainder of the year. The move came days after Congress passed legislation requiring President Bush to temporarily halt shipments into the reserve in hopes of lowering gasoline prices. The president is expected to sign the bill. The decision came as Bush, visiting Saudi Arabia, sought to get the Saudis to pump more oil. Saudi Arabia announced it decided a week ago that it increase production by 300,000 barrels a day in response ... Read Article »
	Texas officials sue US over border fence WASHINGTON — Texas mayors and business leaders filed a class-action lawsuit Friday alleging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff hoodwinked landowners into waiving their property rights for construction of a fence along the Mexican border. Members of the Texas Border Coalition said Chertoff did not fairly negotiate compensation with landowners for access to their land for six-month surveys to choose fence sites. The coalition of mayors and business and community leaders is seeking an injunction to block work on the fence. They also want a federal judge to rescind all the agreements with landowners and to order Chertoff ... Read Article »
	Bernanke: Banks must get better at foreseeing risk WASHINGTON — Commercial banks and other financial institutions need to beef up their ability to detect and protect themselves against risks like the credit and mortgage debacles, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday. The trio of crises — housing, credit and financial — have exposed weaknesses in financial firms’ so-called risk-management practices. That is their ability to sufficiently detect and hedge against risks. Banks and other financial players have racked up multibillion-dollar losses when investments in complex mortgage-backed securities soured with the collapse of the housing market. Credit problems in housing quickly spread to other areas, intensifying ... Read Article »
	House members debate surtax to fund veterans’ education WASHINGTON — The House kicked off a partisan debate Thursday on a Democratic plan to sharply boost education benefits for Iraq-Afghanistan veterans as the price for approving President Bush’s long-stalled request for war funding. People whose unemployment benefits have run out would also get a 13-week extension. The Democratic plan would impose a surtax on individuals with incomes above $500,000 to pay for the 10-year, $52 billion cost of boosting the GI Bill to try to provide Iraq veterans with college educations. Couples would pay the tax on income exceeding $1 million. ‘‘We are talking about ... Read Article »
	Magellan aided by El Nino WASHINGTON — The El Nino phenomenon that has puzzled climate scientists in recent decades may have assisted the first trip around the world nearly 500 years ago. Explorer Ferdinand Magellan encountered fair weather on Nov. 28, 1520, after days of battle through the rough waters south of South America. From there his passage across the Pacific Ocean may have been eased by the calming effects of El Nino, researchers speculate in a new study. When an El Nino occurs, the waters of the Equatorial Pacific become warmer than normal, creating rising air that changes wind and weather ... Read Article »
	Congress passes farm bill with veto-proof margin WASHINGTON — With veto-proof margins, Congress on Thursday sent President Bush a bill boosting farm subsidies and money for food stamps to help the poor deal with rising grocery prices. Bush has threatened to veto the $290 billion bill, saying it is fiscally irresponsible and too generous to wealthy corporate farmers in a time of record crop prices. But Congress disagreed, with both chambers passing the measure by well more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The Senate voted 81-15, a day after the House approved it with 318 ‘‘yes’’ votes. About two-thirds ... Read Article »
	Rates on 30-year mortgages fall to lowest point in a month WASHINGTON — Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down this week to their lowest point in a month, a spot of welcome news to would-be home buyers. Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.01 percent for the week ending May 15. That was down from last week’s 6.05 percent and was the lowest since mid-April when rates averaged 5.88 percent. Other rates also fell. Five-year adjustable-rate mortgages dropped to 5.57 percent, from 5.67 percent last week. One-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 5.18 percent, compared with 5.29 percent. However, rates on ... Read Article »
	Quaid testifies of peril to newborn twins WASHINGTON — Actor Dennis Quaid told Congress on Wednesday of a harrowing, near-fatal drug mixup in which his newborn twins were administered 1,000 times the normal dose of a blood thinner. The actor said his family’s brush with tragedy underscores the need to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable through lawsuits, a remedy that is becoming increasingly problematic for injured consumers. Some 7,000 Americans die every year from medication errors. At issue before the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee is a move by regulators at the Food and Drug Administration to step into lawsuits on the side ... Read Article »
	Boeing shuts down Chinook production line in Pa. WASHINGTON — Army criminal investigators are looking into damage to two military helicopters on a production line at a Boeing Co. plant in suburban Philadelphia, prompting the company to shut down the line. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat whose district includes the plant, said Wednesday he was told that wires that appeared to be broken or severed were found in one helicopter and a suspicious washer was found in a second. There is a ‘‘low probability that it was not deliberate,’’ Sestak said, but he added that unintentional damage remains a possibility. Sestak said he has communicated ... Read Article »
	US probing Iraqi companies for insurance fraud WASHINGTON — Companies working on Iraq reconstruction have been accused of padding their profits through an insurance scam, leading to a criminal probe and hurried changes in the way many contracts are handled by the U.S. Army, according to internal military documents obtained by The Associated Press. The investigation of two companies located in Tikrit — Sakar al-Fahal and al-Jubori — led the Army Corps of Engineers to scour its records for evidence of fraud by other contractors hired with billions of U.S. dollars to help rebuild Iraqi infrastructure devastated by the war, the documents reveal. Whether ... Read Article »
	Polar bears to be protected species WASHINGTON — The Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species Wednesday, saying it must be protected because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited dramatic declines in sea ice over the last three decades and projections of continued losses. These declines, he told a news conference, mean the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future. Kempthorne also said, though, that it would be ‘‘inappropriate’’ to use the protection of the bear to reduce greenhouse gases, or to broadly ... Read Article »
	Senate approves renewal of flood insurance program WASHINGTON — The Senate agreed Tuesday to write off — and hand over to taxpayers — more than $17 billion in debt that a FEMA flood insurance program accumulated after being devastated by Katrina and other 2005 hurricanes. The bill to extend the National Flood Insurance Program for five years also includes measures, such as increasing premiums and reducing subsidies, aimed at putting the 40-year-old program on a better financial footing. The 92-6 vote sends the bill to negotiations with the House, which passed similar legislation last September. With the 2008 hurricane season officially starting on June ... Read Article »
	Teen exercise protects against breast cancer later in life WASHINGTON — Get your daughters off the couch: New research shows exercise during the teen years — starting as young as age 12 — can help protect girls from breast cancer when they’re grown. Middle-aged women have long been advised to get active to lower their risk of breast cancer after menopause. What’s new: That starting so young pays off, too. ‘‘This really points to the benefit of sustained physical activity from adolescence through the adult years, to get the maximum benefit,’’ said Dr. Graham Colditz of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the ... Read Article »
	Median home prices drop in many cities WASHINGTON — Median home prices fell in two-thirds of the cities surveyed during the first three months of this year while 46 states reported experienced declining sales, a real estate trade group reported Tuesday. The National Association of Realtors said that median prices for existing single-family homes dropped in 100 of 149 metropolitan areas in the January-March period, while 48 metropolitan areas saw prices increase and one reported no change. The price declines in 67 percent of the areas surveyed was the largest percentage of areas reporting declining prices in the history of the Realtors’ survey, which ... Read Article »
	Farm bill has little aid for needy children abroad WASHINGTON — A five-year farm bill in Congress this week does little to address the growing global food crisis. Instead, it diverts money that could be spent feeding poor children abroad to give more subsidies for U.S. farmers now enjoying record high crop prices and incomes. Food experts, international aid groups and the White House all complain that the $300 billion bill crafted by House and Senate negotiators focuses on the wrong priorities. The bill has widespread bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, but President Bush has promised to veto it. While the legislation does ... Read Article »