Congress 'hits wall' on jobless benefits
WASHINGTON, May 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. House, bowing to criticism it's spending too much, approved a jobs bill but cut out health insurance subsidies for the unemployed, officials say.
Senate members left Capitol Hill Thursday for a 10-day Memorial Day holiday break, leaving in limbo about 5.3 million people who don't have jobs or unemployment benefits. Those emergency benefits cannot be picked up until Congress acts next week, The Washington Post reported.
"What might have been acceptable a month ago has moved," said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., who voted against the jobs bill. "There is going to be a fiscal standard that is, frankly, much more rigorous," he said.
Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, said it would not be wise to sacrifice the unemployed on the altar of the "the deficit craze."
"This is the worst labor market we've had since the Second World War," he said. "We can't just say we're done with it."
But moderate Democrats say they are finding their limit.
"We've hit the wall. We've come to the tipping point where we're not going to do any more," Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., said, noting constituents in his suburban Pittsburgh district are growing impatient with extra money for the jobless.
"I think the case can be made that there are still more people who need jobs than there are jobs available," he said. "But what's the limit? It can't be a permanent program."
Ground Zero lawyers accept fee cut
NEW YORK, May 29 (UPI) -- Lawyers who reached a settlement for thousands of sickened Ground Zero workers bowed to pressure to reduce legal fees, saying they will give up $85 million.
Attorneys at Worby Groner Edelman & Napoli Bern said they agreed to reduce their fees from $200 million to $115 million, the New York Daily News reported.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the case and had chastised layers for accepting a third of the $600 million settlement, lawyers from the New York firm said they will take the lower fee and turn over more settlement money to sickened workers.
"Our fees will be reduced under this court's insistence that it would limit those fees to an even greater degree than we have voluntarily agreed to do," the letter said. "We have ... been influenced by the truly disheartening pressures visited upon us by the media and our own clients, both of whom seem to believe that we should have simply donated our time for these past seven years."
Ernie Vallebuona, a retired police officer who has cancer, told the Daily News: "There is only one pie, and everyone is looking for a piece of it. The judge has asked them to find ways to get more to the people who were sick. If that does this, then it is a good move."
But lawyers for the city who worked out the settlement in April told the newspaper the judge went too far in interfering with a "private settlement."
Beck apologizes for mocking Obama daughter
WASHINGTON, May 29 (UPI) -- Right-wing radio host Glenn Beck has apologized for a fake conversation between U.S. President Barack Obama and one of his daughters.
Beck posted an apology on his Web site Friday a few hours after the dialogue aired, CNN reported.
"In discussing how President Obama uses children to shield himself from criticism, I broke my own rule about leaving kids out of political debates," Beck said. "The children of public figures should be left on the sidelines. It was a stupid mistake and I apologize -- and as a dad I should have known better."
Beck's dialogue was inspired by a statement Obama made in a news conference Thursday on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The president said his daughter Malia had asked him "Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?"
On air, Beck and his colleagues had Malia asking the president questions like "Why do you hate black people so much?"
There has been no reaction from the White House to Beck's broadcast or apology, CNN said.
Malawi leader frees gay couple
LILONGWE, Malawi, May 29 (UPI) -- A gay Malawi couple imprisoned after getting engaged has been freed, the country's president said.
As U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the country, Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika said he had ordered the couple's immediate release, the BBC said.
The couple, Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, were convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts and were sentenced to 14-year prison terms earlier this month.
Their case aroused international condemnation and sparked debate about homosexuality in the African country, the BBC report said.
Ban said the president's decision as "courageous," adding, "This outdated penal code should be reformed wherever it may exist," he said.
Mutharika has in the past dismissed homosexuality as foreign to Malawian culture, but said he freed the couple on humanitarian grounds. "These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws," he said after meeting Ban. "However, as the head of state I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions."
