Senate proposes to tap liquor tax for scholarships

SANTA FE, N.M. -- The Senate has approved a proposal to shore up a lottery-financed college scholarship program with state liquor tax money.

The measure passed the Senate late Tuesday on a 31-11 vote and goes to the House with lawmakers set to adjourn Thursday.

The scholarships pay the full cost of tuition for high school graduates attending a New Mexico college or university.

The program is running short of money because tuition costs have grown faster than lottery revenue.

The bill will direct 39 percent of liquor excise tax collections to the scholarship program, about $19 million next year.

College freshmen and sophomores will continue to receive scholarships for 100 percent of tuition but a smaller percentage will go to future juniors and seniors based on the availability of money for the program.

Federal inspectors shut down Calif. meat producer

HANFORD, Calif. -- Federal inspectors shut down a central California slaughterhouse that supplies beef to the National School Lunch Program because of unsanitary conditions.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement Tuesday that it withdrew inspectors and suspended operations at Central Valley Meat Co. in Hanford, about 30 miles south of Fresno, over the conditions.

"The plant's suspension will be lifted once we receive adequate assurances of corrective action," the agency said.

The Times reported that Central Valley Meat didn't respond to a request for comment. Company representatives didn't immediately return a phone message left by The Associated Press on Tuesday evening.

In 2012, Central Valley Meat Co. shut down for a week after Compassion Over Killing, an animal rights group, sent videos to federal officials showing workers torturing cows with electric prods and spraying hot water on the animals, the Los Angeles Times reported (http://lat.ms/1m8qZU8 ).

"This facility has a history of rampant animal abuse, so it's not surprising that it's also having issues with unsanitary conditions," Erica Meier, executive director of Compassion Over Killing, told the newspaper.

The 2012 abuse led to the end of the company's relationship with In-N-Out. The national lunch program and McDonald's also suspended purchases.

Federal inspectors didn't find that the animals' treatment affected food safety.

The facility reopened after submitting a plan of action that included training its workers to use electric prods correctly and banning taking in cows not able to walk or stand.

In addition, in September 2013, Central Valley recalled 58,000 pounds of beef for the school lunch program after federal officials said the meat possibly contained pieces of plastic. There was no recall in Tuesday's announcement.

9 injured as Cathay Pacific flight hits turbulence

HONG KONG -- Cathay Pacific Airways said Wednesday that nine people were injured when a Boeing 747 hit severe turbulence over Japan.

The airline said two crew members and six passengers were taken to hospital after the jet landed in Hong Kong on Tuesday evening. Another passenger who sustained an injury didn't require hospitalization.

The 747-400, which departed from San Francisco, was carrying 321 passengers and a crew of 21. It encountered the turbulence near Hokkaido around noon Hong Kong time Tuesday.

Cable News television showed one passenger being taken away in a stretcher.

A passenger surnamed Wu told local TV news channels he felt like he was a on a roller coaster during the turbulence, which lasted two minutes. He said some passengers were thrown out of their seats and hit the overhead bins.

Nasdaq opens support office in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines -- Nasdaq has opened a customer service center in the Philippines in a coup for the country's rapidly growing outsourcing industry.

The operator of the namesake U.S. stock exchange says Wednesday the office will be part of its efforts to provide 24-hour support services for its corporate clients.

It says the Manila office has 170 staff.

Aside from its stock and futures markets in the U.S., the company has exchanges in Europe as well as stock index and trading technology businesses.

For foreign companies, the Philippines has become the go to country in Southeast Asia for call centers and outsourcing of back office business functions.

India's outsourcing industry is also thriving as multinational companies seek to lower costs by basing some functions in countries with lower wages.

CBO: $10 minimum wage would cut poverty but also jobs

By Kevin G. Hall and Sean Cockerham McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty but also cost a half million jobs, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday in a report that’s sure to feed a simmering debate over how to help loft people up the economic ladder.

President Barack Obama wants to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour to $10.10 over the course of three years. The minimum wage then would rise automatically each year to meet the rate of inflation under the president’s proposal.

The 43-page report by the Congressional Budget Office found that the proposal would increase earnings overall by $31 billion, although only 19 percent would go to families below the poverty line. That’s because many people who work low-income jobs come from families that collectively make far more than the poverty threshold, the CBO said.

The plan would move nearly a million people above the poverty line, the report found, with 16.5 million workers seeing hourly wages rise.

The CBO estimated, though, that the plan would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers once fully implemented in 2016.

The CBO said its projection of a half million jobs lost was a rough estimate, and that the range might be anywhere from a “slight reduction in employment” all the way to a drop in employment of 1 million workers.

Once the increases and decreases of income for all workers are calculated, the CBO said, overall real income in the economy would rise by a modest $2 billion.

Both sides of the heated minimum-wage debate seized on the report as confirmation of their points of view.

The White House touted the report’s findings on the benefits of raising the minimum wage, while dismissing the warnings of job losses as out of step with the consensus views of economists on the issue.

“The report very much does make the case for a policy that benefits more than 16.5 million workers, reduces poverty and raises income,” said Jason Furman, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Furman said he thought “zero is a perfectly reasonable estimate” for how much impact the wage hike might have on employment.

National Urban League President Marc Morial said his group’s research showed that raising the minimum wage the last six times had not cost jobs. Morial, who was among a group of African-American civil rights leaders who met Tuesday with Obama at the White House, said the minimum wage hadn’t kept pace with inflation and that workers’ ability to pay for necessities “erodes year after year because bread and milk and clothing and housing and baby’s diapers go up while their wages stay stagnant.”

Democrats in Congress said the report gave them ammunition in the fight for a minimum wage increase, but Republican lawmakers said the report proved that Obama’s “irresponsible” plan must be defeated.

“Today’s CBO report shows that raising the minimum wage could destroy as many as 1 million jobs, a devastating blow to the very people that need help most in this economy,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the report confirmed arguments about the perils of raising the minimum wage.

“With unemployment Americans’ top concern, our focus should be creating, not destroying, jobs for those who need them most,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said.

The CBO also examined the impact of a more modest proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour over the next two years and not to tie it to the rate of inflation thereafter.

That would move about 300,000 people above the poverty line while reducing overall employment by about 100,000 jobs, it estimated.

Some 7.6 million people would be affected by that change, the report found, with earnings for those workers rising by $9 billion and about 22 percent of that sum going to families with incomes under the poverty threshold.

Lesley Clark contributed to this article.

Email: khall@mcclatchydc.com, scockerham@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @KevinGHall, @Seancockerham

Fed orders post-crisis crackdown at big banks

By Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve moved Tuesday to correct one of the main causes of the 2008 financial crisis, ordering the nation’s largest domestic banks and foreign ones operating in the United States to hold more capital in case things go bad.

The long-anticipated rule covers banks both domestic and international with assets above $50 billion. It was required as part of the sweeping revamp of financial regulation back in 2010 that followed the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression. It aims to reduce system-wide risks.

Before the crisis, large interconnected financial institutions, many of them global in scale, were spottily supervised or had portions of their businesses supervised by multiple regulators. No one regulator was seeing the complete picture of the financial institution’s activities and risks.

“As the financial crisis demonstrated, the sudden failure or near failure of large financial institutions can have destabilizing effects on the financial system and harm the broader economy,” said Janet Yellen, the new Fed chairwoman. “And as the crisis also highlighted, the traditional framework for supervising and regulating major financial institutions and assessing risks contained material weaknesses.”

The rule, she said, would “help address these sources of vulnerability.”

Giant foreign banks operating in the United States would have to create U.S.-based intermediate holding companies that would be regulated by the Fed and would be subject to stricter capital requirements and enhanced risk-management efforts. They’d essentially be treated as if they were domestic banks.

In a nod to pressure from overseas, the Fed gave foreign banks an extra year to comply, said a senior Fed official, briefing the media under the condition of anonymity before the rule was made public.

The rule doesn’t specify an exact number for how much capital must be kept in reserve. Instead, each bank will develop a capital plan annually that must pass the Fed’s stress tests, which try to determine what would happen to assets in a galloping crisis like that of 2008. This testing will determine how much a bank must have on hand. Foreign banks also will have to pass an equivalent stress test in their home countries.

The rule “marks another important milestone” in correcting the defects in past financial regulation, Yellen said.

In 2008, when giant investment banks were toppling like dominoes, regulators were shocked to find that many were highly leveraged, meaning they’d invested far more than they had on hand. They were also highly dependent on short-term lending to stay afloat. When banks suddenly stopped lending to each other, it quickly became a game-over situation, and the U.S. taxpayer was forced to inject capital on the largest banks to ensure their solvency.

To address this, the new rule also requires more holdings that can be sold off quickly in a crisis, lowering the reliance on short-term dollar loans that amplified the crisis in 2008.

The Fed also adopted regulatory changes for publicly traded domestic banks and foreign banks with assets above $10 billion. They’ll be required to create special risk committees and be subjected to stress testing to determine how much capital they need to keep on hand to fend off emergencies and prevent the need for government bailouts like the controversial ones that marked the financial crisis.

Federal Reserve staffers expect that 24 large U.S. bank holding companies and 100 foreign banks will fall under the new rules. Of the 100 foreign banks, about 15 to 20 would be required to form a U.S. intermediate holding company if they wanted to continue operating in the U.S. marketplace. The rule would take effect on Jan. 1, 2015, for giant U.S. banks and by mid-2016 for large foreign banks.

The rule does not cover giant non-bank lenders such as insurance companies with investment operations, but the Fed said these non-bank lenders, sometimes called shadow banks, would be subjected to similar enhanced supervision by an individual rule or order.

That may be a weakness over time, warned Bert Ely, a banking industry expert who rose to acclaim during the savings and loan crisis of the 1970s and 1980s.

“What this may do over time . . . is spark growth in the shadow-banking system,” he said. “The more cost that gets laid on the highly regulated banks, the greater the incentive to create new types of mechanisms. I think people are kidding themselves if they think that this decreases systemic risk. It may increase it over time.”

Justice Dept. Asks For Help Finding Prisoners Who Deserve Clemency

The second-in-command at the Justice Department met Tuesday with defense lawyers and interest groups to identify the cases of worthy prisoners who could qualify for clemency.

The initiative by Deputy Attorney General James Cole follows a speech he gave last month suggesting the White House intends to make more use of the president's power to shorten prison sentences for inmates who have clean records, no significant ties to gangs or violence, and who are serving decades behind bars for relatively low-level offenses.

Cole wants to enlist lawyers to help solicit and prepare clemency requests. It's part of a broader effort to stop spending so much money incarcerating people that it squeezes the public safety budget.

A Justice Department spokesman says Cole "wants to ensure that individuals like the eight whose sentences the president commuted in December have access to attorneys to help them present their cases."

Longtime followers of the pardon power have criticized President Obama's relatively stingy approach over five years in office. They also suggest that backlogs in the Justice Department's Office of Pardon Attorney might get worse if the call for more prisoner petitions takes hold.

But the Justice spokesman says Cole has made this effort a top priority and that he's instructed the pardon attorney to do the same, taking some steps to handle any influx of clemency requests in the months ahead.

Representatives from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Federal public defender program and Families Against Mandatory Minimums had been scheduled to attend the meeting at Justice Department headquarters.

Mary Price of FAMM, one of the attendees, says she came away feeling "really encouraged."

"We look forward to working together with them and others to help identify potential commutation cases and ensure prisoners have trained pro bono counsel to submit focused petitions for the meaningful consideration the Deputy Attorney General has pledged they will receive," Price says.

She adds that broader efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system, especially legislation to cut or scrap mandatory minimum sentences, will make the most difference.

"Commutation isn't the way to fix the system," Price says. "We need to change these laws so they're fair for everybody."

A Look At What They’re Saying About myRA Across the Country

Ed. note: This is cross-posted from Treasury Notes, the official blog of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. See the original post.

Last month in the State of the Union, President Obama laid out specific executive actions he will take to put more Americans back to work and expand opportunity so that every American can get ahead. Speaking about the importance of securing a dignified retirement, the President announced that he would direct Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings. According to independent estimates, about half of all workers and 75 percent of part-time workers lack access to employer-sponsored retirement plans. That is why the Obama administration designed myRA (my Retirement Account) - a simple, safe, and affordable retirement savings account that will be offered through employers to help low- and moderate- income Americans begin to save for retirement.

read more

Democrats Seek Cure For GOP Obamacare Attacks

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hide captionHouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the House Democrats' recent retreat where much of the discussion was about countering the GOP's messaging against the Affordable Care Act.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the House Democrats' recent retreat where much of the discussion was about countering the GOP's messaging against the Affordable Care Act.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

House Democrats know they can run but can't hide from Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act.

So they've decided on a four-pronged counter message as they try to withstand the GOP pummeling.

• Embrace the parts of the law that are broadly popular like the ban on insurance companies excluding people for pre-existing conditions.


• Promise to fix what's wrong.


• Accuse Republicans of wanting to return to the days when insurers had more control over healthcare. (A House Democratic memo lists several lines of attack Democrats could use against Republicans.)


• Last, but not least, urge voters to see the bigger picture which, Democrats insist, is that they are the party, not the GOP, that truly wants to help improve the lives of most Americans.

Whether this approach will work to keep House Democrats from losing ground in the House, or Senate Democrats from losing their majority, will be answered in November. But Democrats see this as their strategy for the foreseeable future.

"Ultimately, I think the Affordable Care Act is an issue that fits into a broader conversation that is going to happen in 2014," said Emily Bittner, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "And that is, when voters go to the polls in 2014 and they are pulling the lever, whatever their voting mechanism is, they're asking who's on my side? Who is fighting for me? Who's got my back?

"The Affordable Care Act is one of the issues where they can say the Democrats are fighting for them. But there are other issues out there, too, like raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment insurance benefit. Pay equity for women. So we think the election will be fought on a broader spectrum and framework of issues."

That wider framework was captured in a video narrated by civil-rights icon Rep. John Lewis that House Democrats saw at their retreat outside Washington last week and which was publicly released on Tuesday.

While Democrats are trying to widen the focus to include other issues, the GOP wants to keep it tightly focused on the ACA. Republicans scoff at Democratic promises to smooth the law's rough places and claims that the GOP would return health care to the bad old days when insurers ran roughshod over the insured and their families.

"I saw their memo and I believe it's complete baloney," said Daniel Scarpinato, national press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "If you look at what is actually happening and outside of the spin of what they're putting in their memos and what's actually happening on the ground, on TV with ads the Democrats have launched already, they're completely in defensive mode and they're not embracing Obamacare.

"They're finding ways to try to trick voters into thinking that their members have been somehow calling out Obamacare."

House Candidates Outpace Senate Contenders In Money Haul

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hide captionDemonstrators gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington in October 2013, as the court heard arguments on campaign finance.

Susan Walsh/AP

Demonstrators gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington in October 2013, as the court heard arguments on campaign finance.

Susan Walsh/AP

With 435 seats up for grabs every two years, House candidates typically raise more money overall than those running for the Senate, where only about one-third of the chamber's 100 seats are contested every two years.

But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the fundraising gap is especially wide this year: Data show that House candidates have raised more than twice as much as Senate hopefuls at this point in the election cycle. The last time the discrepancy was this pronounced was in 2008, and before that, in 2002.

So far in the 2013-14 cycle, the 866 candidates for the U.S. House have raised $404 million in individual and political action committee donations. The 145 Senate candidates have raised $204 million.

Why the wider-than-usual disparity? It's still early in the campaign year, so there's no single answer. But there are lots of clues.

Here are a few possible explanations:

• There were six special elections in 2013 for House seats and two Senate special elections. The House races included a high-profile matchup in South Carolina won by former GOP Gov. Mark Sanford, whose Democratic opponent was Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, the sister of popular comedian Stephen Colbert. In the Senate, Democrat Cory Booker cruised to victory in New Jersey, and Democrat Ed Markey won in Massachusetts.


• So far, the election cycle hasn't seen huge-money, self-funded Senate candidates — like Connecticut Republican Linda McMahon, who spent about $100 million of her own money for losing Senate efforts in 2010 and 2012. Republicans David Perdue in Georgia and Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, for example, have each put about $1.6 million of their own money into their current Senate campaigns. But those numbers pale in comparison to the McMahon-level self-financing.


• The Senate race map may also be playing a role. In 2010, more than $50 million was raised in three separate Senate races alone — California among them. But this time around, in the four most populous states — New York, California, Texas, and Florida (all home to lots of expensive media markets) — only one of the eight Senate seats is being contested: Republican John Cornyn is running for re-election in Texas.

Sarah Bryner, CRP's research director, notes that while House fundraising is far outpacing that for the Senate, the overall money flowing to individual campaigns continues to shrink as a result of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United campaign finance decision.

That ruling prohibited restrictions on political spending by corporations, associations and labor unions.

"There's now three times as much in independent expenditures than there were at this point in 2010," Bryner says. "Since Citizens United, a lot of money that would have previously gone to the party and to candidates is going to outside spending groups."

The top iPhone and iPad apps on App Store

App Store Official Charts for the week ending Feb 17, 2014:

Top Paid iPhone Apps:

1. "Threes!", Sirvo LLC

2. "Card Wars - Adventure Time", Cartoon Network

3. "Minecraft - Pocket Edition", Mojang

4. "Heads Up!", Warner Bros.

5. "Afterlight", Simon Filip

6. "Plague Inc.", Ndemic Creations

7. "Hide N Seek : MC Mini Game With Worldwide Multiplayer", wang wei

8. "Cycloramic Studio 360 Panorama", Egos Ventures

9. "iTranslate Voice 2", Sonico GmbH

10. "Sleep Cycle alarm clock", Northcube AB

Top Free iPhone Apps:

1. "Splashy Fish - The Adventure of a Flappy Tiny Bird Fish", Massimo Guareschi

2. "Ironpants", Eduardas Klenauskis

3. "Fly Birdie - Bird Flyer", TapTomic

4. "City Bird", Markku Virtanen

5. "Unroll Me - unblock the slots", Turbo Chilli Pty Ltd

6. "Facebook Messenger", Facebook, Inc.

7. "Guess The 90's!", Conversion, LLC

8. "Beats Music", Beats Music, LLC.

9. "Super Ball Juggling", Dong Nguyen

10. "Facebook", Facebook, Inc.

Top Paid iPad Apps:

1. "Minecraft - Pocket Edition", Mojang

2. "Card Wars - Adventure Time", Cartoon Network

3. "Hide N Seek : MC Mini Game With Worldwide Multiplayer", wang wei

4. "Threes!", Sirvo LLC

5. "Survivalcraft", Igor Kalicinski

6. "Dinosaur Train A to Z", PBS KIDS

7. "Angry Birds Star Wars II", Rovio Entertainment Ltd

8. "Pixel Gun 3D - Block World Pocket Survival Shooter with Skins Maker for minecraft (PC edition) & Multiplayer", Alex Krasnov

9. "Cops N Robbers 2 (Original) - Mini Block Survival Game & Worldwide Fight Multiplayer with skins exporter for Minecraft (PC Edition)", Nora Blaha

10. "The Room Two", Fireproof Games

Top Free iPad Apps:

1. "Splashy Fish - The Adventure of a Flappy Tiny Bird Fish", Massimo Guareschi

2. "City Bird", Markku Virtanen

3. "NBC Sports Live Extra", NBC Universal, Inc.

4. "Fly Birdie - Bird Flyer", TapTomic

5. "Ironpants", Eduardas Klenauskis

6. "Farm Heroes Saga", King.com Limited

7. "Netflix", Netflix, Inc.

8. "Frozen Free Fall", Disney

9. "Calculator for iPad Free", International Travel Weather Calculator

10. "Unroll Me - unblock the slots", Turbo Chilli Pty Ltd

(copyright) 2014 Apple Inc.

Puerto Rico pursues tax evaders amid debt troubles

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico's government is cracking down on tax evaders to increase revenue and help pay off $70 billion in public debt after recent downgrades put the island's credit rating into junk status, officials said Tuesday.

Treasury Secretary Melba Acosta said a task force has been set up to target both business owners and individuals, adding that authorities are investigating more than 100 cases and more are expected to follow.

Puerto Rico currently has only a 56 percent "capture" rate on tax revenues that should be taken in, losing some $800 million annually as a result, economist Gustavo Velez says.

The Treasury Department already has referred 12 cases representing a total of more than $8 million in unpaid taxes to the island's justice department.

"This money belongs to the people of Puerto Rico," Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda said. "It represents a teacher's salary, a town's road, a police officer's uniform."

Two business owners have been charged with 36 counts of tax evasion and illegal appropriation, and officials warned that dozens of others could face similar accusations.

Acosta said the government is taking other measures, including publishing the names of violators and applying a 7 percent sales-and-use tax to merchandise as soon as it arrives at the island's docks.

The announcement comes as Puerto Rico prepares to re-enter the bond market and as legislators hold public hearings for a measure that would authorize the sale of up to $3.5 billion in bonds.

The money would be used to pay old debt, said Eduardo Bhatia, president of Puerto Rico's Senate.

"Puerto Rico has to live within its means, and it has not done so," he said during the hearings. "Everyone's collective patience is running out. ... We will approve this transaction, but it will be the last one."

Government officials held a webcast with investors Tuesday to talk about those plans, assuring them the U.S. territory would not default on its debt. Investor concerns centered on the administration's ability to present a balanced budget as promised and a request to see the government's financial statement for the 2013 fiscal year.

Puerto Rico's bonds have been popular with U.S. investors because they are exempt from federal, state and local taxes, and its debt is held by roughly 70 percent of U.S. municipal mutual funds, according to investment research firm Morningstar.

Standard & Poor's downgraded Puerto Rico's credit one notch earlier this month, while Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings have lowered it two notches.

The island of 3.7 million people is in its eighth year of recession and has a 15.4 percent unemployment rate, higher than any U.S. state.

UPMC-Altoona, nurses resuming talks

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Contract talks between the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's hospital in Altoona and the union representing registered nurses resume Tuesday following a 10-day hiatus and a one-day strike.

Both sides tell The (Altoona) Mirror (http://bit.ly/1ckUgrK ) that they hope to reach accord.

Hospital spokesman Dave Cuzzolina said the 380-bed hospital about 85 miles east of Pittsburgh is approaching the talks as it has all others, "with the intention of bargaining in good faith and reaching an agreement."

A union representative said nurses "are committed to achieving a contract." Although nurses were warned at a rally last week to be ready to walk out again if no agreement is reached, the SEIU Healthcare PA representative says no strike notice has been issued.

The contract expired at the end of last year.

Families denounce detention of ISIS suspects

BEIRUT: The families of three young men detained by the Lebanese authorities on charges of plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in Lebanon and of belonging to an Al Qaeda-linked militant group dismissed accusations against their relatives Tuesday.

“We are the people of clans, and we never hated anyone," read a statement by the families from the northern Akkar border region of Wadi Khaled. "We believe in co-existence under the rule of the law, and our sons never knew and will never know terrorism.”

On Monday, Investigative Military Judge Fadi Sawan charged Abdel-Majid Hmeidan, Mohammad Ali and Alaa al-Mohammad on charges of belonging to the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and of planning terrorist attacks in Lebanon. All three hail from the Wadi Khaled area.

The judge issued the charges, along with formal arrest warrants, after the suspects were detained in the eastern town of Labweh last week and interrogated.

Sawan also issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Satem, an ISIS commander thought to be in the Syrian town of Yabroud, who reportedly trained the three suspects in Yabroud to carry out attacks in Lebanon.

The families admitted their sons were in Syria but denied they were engaged in any military activities there.

“Our sons were lured into going to Syria but they went to a border area in which there were no battles and they did not get blood on their hands,” the statement said.

The families said that the three men only spent five days in Syria and that they were on their way home “after they realized that this is not their path or way of thinking” when they were detained.

“They left their houses to make their parents know their value,” the statement said.

The families said they informed the security authorities of their sons’ absence the moment they left home. They also slammed the media for picturing their sons “as first-rank terrorists.”

The families appealed on the state to place the young men in rehabilitation facilities instead of prisons.

Rifi meets Hezbollah official 'to restore contact'

BEIRUT: Senior Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa met with Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi to congratulate him on his appointment and to "restore" communication channels.

“The meeting with Safa was in the framework of restoring contacts that already existed [with Hezbollah] for the protection of Lebanon,” Rifi told reporters at Baabda Palace after Cabinet’s first session Tuesday.

Rifi also said he discussed with Safa “the possibility of removing any illegitimate checkpoints from the the Arsal-Labweh road," apparently referring to checkpoints established by Hezbollah on the east Lebanon road after several deadly bombings nearby targeting predominantly-Shiite towns in the northern Bekaa.

A media report, published by Al-Akhbar daily, said the meeting was held on Monday morning at Rifi's residence in Ashrafieh.

It was attended by in the head of the Internal Security Forces Information Branch, Col. Imad Othman, and ISF Operations Room Chief Col. Hussam al-Tannoukhi.

Safa also reportedly contacted newly-appointed Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk to congratulate him.

The report described the meeting as “positive” and characterized it as a "continuation of the successful Cabinet formation process."

Rifi has repeatedly voiced criticism of Hezbollah, while the March 8 alliance, for its part, rejected a proposal that would have seen Rifi take over as interior minister.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam announced a 24-member Cabinet of national interest Saturday.

Emerging market turmoil weighs on German optimism

FRANKFURT, Germany -- A key survey of optimism among German financial professionals took an unexpected dip in February amid worries over turmoil in emerging markets.

The ZEW institute's index fell to 55.7 points from 61.7 the month before. Market analysts had expected a reading of 61.5.

The institute and outside analysts said the index remained at a high level and reflected temporary worries about weak U.S. employment figures and troubles in countries such as Turkey and Argentina, where economies and currencies are under market pressure.

ZEW President Clemens Fuest said Tuesday the decline "should not be overstated" and that "the majority of surveyed financial market experts remain optimistic."

Germany's economy, Europe's largest, grew 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and is expected to continue to expand this year.

Democrats Eye Long-Time GOP Seat In Florida Special Election

Audio for this story from Morning Edition will be available at approximately 9:00 a.m. ET.

A special election next month in Florida's 13th Congressional District is being touted as an important preview of the upcoming mid-term races. Polls suggest it's a tight race and that will likely turn on which candidate does a better job getting his or her supporters to come out and vote.

Europe car sales grow 5th straight month

MILAN -- European automakers continue to claw their way out of the industry's longest slump ever, posting the fifth straight month of growth in January.

The European carmakers' association said Tuesday that car sales rose 5.5 percent in January to 935,640 units. Still, the industry's six years of contraction set the bar low: sales were the second lowest for January in a decade.

All major markets saw growth: Britain, Spain and Germany all posted more than 7-percent increases and Italy, which is just shaking off recession, saw car sales grow 3.2 percent, the second straight month of gains.

Carlos Da Silva of IHS Automotive says that despite the low volumes, the trend "is now pointing to future growth," and automakers can switch their focus from survival to revival.

Obama to talk up benefits of fuel-efficient trucks

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says having a more fuel-efficient truck fleet will boost the economy and help combat climate change.

Obama on Tuesday was to visit a Washington-area distribution center for Safeway stores to announce the newest steps he plans to take on his own to bolster the economy when he thinks Congress isn't doing its job. He returned late Monday from a three-day golf getaway in Southern California.

The actions Obama is taking could have the double benefit of improving the environment by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.

Much of what Obama was announcing has already been made public, including by the president himself.

Obama was expected to say that he's directing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department to issue a new round of fuel-efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by March 2016. Tighter fuel-efficiency standards were in the climate change plan he announced last June.

The new round of fuel-efficiency standards would follow similar rules that have been finalized for the 2014-18 model years of that category of vehicles.

Under those standards, vehicle owners and operators stand to save $50 billion in fuel costs and use 530 million fewer barrels of oil, according to a White House fact sheet. Reduced fuel consumption from more fuel-efficient vehicles also means a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases that are blamed for the gradual rise in the Earth's temperature.

Obama also was expected to announce that he's ordering the Energy Department to provide companies that want to join an existing public-private partnership that was created to help speed up the introduction of clean, energy-efficient vehicles with specialized resources and the technical expertise they need to increase fuel efficiency and reduce fuel consumption.

In addition, Obama was to renew his call for Congress to end billions of dollars in federal subsidies to oil and natural gas companies. Congress has rejected the president's previous calls for lawmakers to take this step and there was little reason to believe that this time around would be any different.

Obama wants some of that money to be put into a new fund to pay for research and development into advanced vehicle technologies, to pay for a new tax credit to support investment in advanced vehicles and infrastructure, and to extend existing tax credits that support research into cellulosic biofuels.

Obama's announcement was set for Safeway because the company has invested in cleaner, more efficient trucks with improved aerodynamics, better tires and larger-capacity trailers.

Child porn operation raided in Philippine school

MANILA, Philippines -- Government agents raided an Internet child porn operation based in a Philippine school and arrested its president and eight other people, investigators said Tuesday.

The suspects used a room at the Mountaintop Christian Academy to post online images and video of children and adults for foreign consumption, said Ronald Aguto, cybercrime investigation head in the National Bureau of Investigation.

Authorities were still investigating, but Aguto said it didn't appear that children at the school were being abused and that the operators were uploading pre-recorded images and video stored.

The school had 2,000 elementary and high school students, Aguto added. Its license was revoked in 2006 for unknown reasons but it had remained open.

Puring Martinez, the arrested president and owner of the private school, told GMA television network she rented out the room to the Internet site operators to augment the income of the school because fees paid by students were not enough to cover costs.

She said she was aware that the Internet links sold can only be opened by a foreigner who will use his card and that the links lead to "naughty" materials.

Martinez' son, Tom, said the school had only 260 preschool, elementary and high school pupils, and that their permit to operate was valid. It was not clear why there was a discrepancy with the NBI information.

He said the Internet operation was owned by an American from Tennessee, who rented two rooms for 40,000 pesos ($900) in a bungalow separate from the classrooms but within the school compound. All of the suspects arrested are Filipino, and the American's whereabouts were not clear.

The raid shows the extent of the task facing Philippine authorities in cracking down on child pornographers, who exploit weak law enforcement and increasing broadband Internet penetration to base operations in the country.

Gilbert Sosa, director of the national police's Anti-Cybercrime Group said last month the Philippines was one of the top 10 sources of child pornography in the world, and that police have been cooperating with other countries to crack down on it.

Two other Internet porn operations in Quezon city were raided Monday night. At least 22 people were arrested in those two raids and more than two dozen computers seized.

Aguto said they have yet to conduct a forensic investigation on the seized computers, but based on what they have gathered so far, the suspects will be charged with violating laws against child pornography and obscene publication of adult pornographic images.

More than 40 computers were seized as evidence during the raid late Monday at the school in Metropolitan Manila's Muntinlupa city.

"It was like a computer lab inside the school," Aguto said in a telephone interview. "Even during daytime, when the pupils were there, they were using it for this kind of offense."

He said the site operators worked day and night, chatting online with clients and pretending to be women or girls depending on what the client wanted. They would then upload pictures and pre-recorded video of a nude girl or woman they claim to be.

Last month, Britain's National Crime Agency said child abuse investigators in Britain, the U.S. and Australia had dismantled an organized crime group that streamed footage of child sexual abuse. The ring abused impoverished children as young as 6, the agency said. Authorities made 29 arrests, including 11 people in the Philippines who had facilitated the crime. Some were members of the children's families.

Medical marijuana changes approved in Wash. House

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A measure to overhaul the state's medical marijuana system cleared the House late Friday night, a move supporters say is necessary to bring it into line with the still-developing legal recreational market.

House Bill 2149 passed just before midnight on a 67-29 vote. It now heads to the Senate, which is considering similar measures addressing how to reconcile the two marijuana systems.

Changes under the bill sponsored by Democratic Rep. Eileen Cody include reducing the amount of marijuana and number of plants patients can possess, doing away with collective gardens and establishing a patient registry.

Cody said that lawmakers are trying to align the systems, "but continue to make sure our legitimate medical marijuana patients have access."

"I think that we can satisfy some of the patients," she said after the vote. "I don't think that all of the medical marijuana community will be happy."

The state has allowed medical use of marijuana since 1998. The passage of Initiative 502 in 2012 allowed the sale of the drug to adults for recreational use at licensed stores, which are expected to open by this summer.

Lawmakers have worried that the largely unregulated medical system would undercut the taxed, recreational industry, and U.S. Justice Department officials have warned that the state's medical pot status quo is untenable.

Medical marijuana patients have flocked to public hearings on the issue in both the Senate and House in recent weeks, decrying the potential changes.

Rep. Cary Condotta, R-East Wenatchee, said HB 2149 was premature because the recreational system is not yet up and running, adding that the impact on medical marijuana patients should be looked at more closely.

"Right now, you're taking everything away from them — you can't give it back," he said during the floor debate. "I'm a little concerned we're moving a little too quickly without a program to integrate."

In December, the state's Liquor Control Board gave its final recommendations to the Legislature about how it believes the medical system can be brought under the umbrella of I-502.

Cody's bill incorporates many of those suggestions, including cutting how much pot patients can have from 24 ounces to 3 ounces — which is still more than the 1 ounce adults are allowed under the recreational law. However, Cody's measure allows a health care professional to authorize more if deemed necessary. Her measure also limits the number of plants patients can grow to six. Under current regulations, they can grow 15.

US olive oil pushing gov't to test imported oils

WASHINGTON -- It's a pressing matter for the tiny U.S. olive oil industry: American shoppers more often are going for European imports, which are cheaper and viewed as more authentic.

And that's pitting U.S. producers against importers of the European oil, with some likening the battle to the California wine industry's struggles to gain acceptance decades ago.

The tiny California olive industry says European olive oil filling U.S. shelves often is mislabeled and lower-grade oil, and they're pushing the federal government to give more scrutiny to imported varieties. One congressman-farmer even goes so far as suggesting labels on imported oil say "extra rancid" rather than "extra virgin."

Imposing stricter standards might help American producers grab more market share from the Europeans, who produce in bulk and now have 97 percent of the U.S. market.

Olive oil production is growing steadily. The domestic industry, with mostly high-end specialty brands, has gone from 1 percent of the national olive oil market five years ago to 3 percent today. Most of the production is in California, although there are smaller operations in Texas, Georgia and a few other states.

Seeking to build on that, the domestic industry has mounted an aggressive push in Washington, holding olive oil tastings for members of Congress and lobbying them to put stricter standards on imports. The strategy almost worked last year when industry-proposed language became part of a massive farm bill passed out of the House Agriculture Committee.

The provision backed by California lawmakers would have allowed the Agriculture Department to extend mandatory quality controls for the domestic industry to imports. The bill's language would have allowed government testing of domestic and imported olive oil to ensure that it was labeled correctly.

That testing, intended to prevent labeling lower-grade olive oil as "extra virgin" or fraudulently cutting in other types of oil, would be much more comprehensive than what imported oils are subjected to now.

But the language was stripped from the bill when it reached the House floor, an effort led by lawmakers from New York, where many of the country's olive oil importers are based. They had the backing of food companies and grocery stores that use and sell olive oil.

The floor fight broke down to one between East Coast and West Coast lawmakers. Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a farmer from Northern California, suggested that labels for imported oil should say "extra rancid."

"What we're after here is not to cause problems for our friends who would like to market it. It's more just the truth in advertising that's necessary," LaMalfa said.

New York Republicans said new testing standards would cost importers millions of dollars. Republican Rep. Michael Grimm of Staten Island, N.Y., said his Greek-American and Italian-American constituents know good oil and haven't had problems.

"It's not rancid," he said. "There is always going to be a problem in every industry, but this is nothing more than a multimillion-dollar earmark," he added, using the term for special provisions that sometimes are inserted into legislation.

In the end, the final farm bill signed by President Barack Obama earlier this month was silent on olive oil.

But a nonbinding statement accompanying the bill encouraged the Agriculture Department, the U.S. Trade Representative and the Food and Drug Administration to "remove the obstacles that are preventing the U.S. olive oil industry from reaching its potential." It cited a 2013 U.S. International Trade Commission report that said international standards are widely unenforced and allow many varieties to be mislabeled and possibly even adulterated.

The report also cited subsidies for European olive oil producers and tariffs as barriers to the domestic industry's success.

The California olive oil industry widely promoted that report and even boasted of helping to influence it. According to the American Olive Oil Producers Association, California producers arranged farm tours for federal investigators, arranged for witnesses to testify to the group, and even held an olive-oil tasting on Capitol Hill for lawmakers and administration officials.

For now, the domestic industry says it will keep pushing. Kimberly Houlding, executive director of the American Olive Oil Producers Association, says producers are still considering petitioning the USDA for an order to establish mandatory quality standards, including frequent testing. Ideally the order would apply to the entire domestic industry, including importers, Houlding says.

Eryn Balch of the North American Olive Oil Association, which represents the importers, says they would like to work with the domestic industry to grow the olive oil market in the United States. There's still a lot of the market to grab — only around 40 percent of U.S. consumers use olive oil right now, and olive oil has only about 15 percent of the volume share compared with other cooking oils. But that market is growing along with increased awareness of olive oil's health benefits compared with other oils. Extra virgin olive oil is often rich in polyphenols, nutrients that are thought to be helpful in preventing heart disease and other illnesses.

"If the industry promoted the key proven benefits with a common voice and positive message, the growth potential could be almost limitless," Balch said.

The United States now consumes the third largest amount of olive oil of any nation, behind Italy and Spain, according to the trade commission report. The report said consumption has risen by more than 50 percent since 2001 but said most U.S. consumers aren't able to distinguish good olive oil from bad, so they gravitate toward the least costly.

Patricia Darragh, director of the California Olive Oil Council, says the domestic industry wouldn't have the capacity to supply all of the country's olive oil, but it is a grassroots industry that is continuing to grow. And in another decade or two, Americans may be more familiar with the domestic variety.

"We're where the California wine industry was 20 or 30 years ago," Darragh says.

Russia to continue cash injection to Ukraine

MOSCOW -- Russia's finance minister says Moscow will provide a fresh cash injection to Ukraine after several weeks of stalled payments to Kiev.

Anton Siluanov said that Ukraine would receive $2 billion (1.46 billion euros) this week. After Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych shelved an agreement to deepen ties with the European Union, Russia promised Kiev a $15 billion loan.

Moscow has only disbursed $3 billion so far, and last week Siluanov said Russia wanted to ensure Ukraine would "make good on (its) obligations" before transferring the cash. Russia showed increasing impatience as Yanukovych failed to disperse protesters who were camped out in government buildings in the Ukrainian capital.

On Sunday, however, demonstrators ended their nearly three-month occupation of the buildings in exchange for the release of jailed protesters.

Lebanese Army releases photo of wanted man

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army has released a photo of a “dangerous” man wanted for involvement in a crime.

The short statement did not identify the suspect, who was described as “one of the most dangerous wanted men” in the country, nor did it specify his alleged crime.

The statement urged anyone who has information about the suspect to contact the Lebanese Army’s Operations Room, or the nearest military post, or to use the LAF Shield mobile application.

Optimism high for Cabinet policy talks

BEIRUT: The new Cabinet holds its first meeting at Baabda Palace Tuesday as signs emerged that the rival factions are ready to compromise over the policy statement, a contentious issue that could paralyze the government’s work if left unresolved, political sources said Monday.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam Monday officially assumed his duties at the Grand Serail, where he met separately with U.S. Ambassador David Hale and British Ambassador Tom Fletcher, both of whom expressed their countries’ support for Salam’s 24-member Cabinet.

Salam announced a 24-member Cabinet of “national interest” Saturday, equally divided between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions and centrists, after 10 months of political deadlock, the longest in Lebanon’s history.

“Like their compromise that led to the formation of an 8-8-8 Cabinet, the March 8 and March 14 camps will probably compromise over the wording of the policy statement in a bid to prevent the thorny issue from posing a major obstacle in the way of the government’s work,” a political source said.

A source close to Salam concurred, telling The Daily Star: “No trouble is expected in drafting the Cabinet’s policy statement.”

To be chaired by President Michel Sleiman, the Cabinet session, slated to begin at 11 a.m., will focus on the formation of a committee to draft the government’s policy statement.

The committee is expected to include ministers from the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance and the March 14 coalition, which are poles apart over what policy statement the Cabinet should adopt. The committee will also include representatives from the centrist bloc, which refers to ministers loyal to Sleiman, Salam and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt.

The Future Movement and its March 14 allies are pressing for the Baabda Declaration to be adopted as the new Cabinet’s policy statement. They have called for abolishing altogether Hezbollah’s tripartite formula of “the Army, the people and the resistance” that has been adopted by previous governments as a way of legitimizing the group’s armed resistance against Israel’s threats to Lebanon. Hezbollah, backed by Speaker Nabih Berri and March 8 allies, insists that the tripartite formula remain in the new Cabinet’s policy statement.

As a way out of the stalemate, the ministerial committee is expected to recommend the adoption of policy statements of previous governments as well as the decisions of the National Dialogue Committee, including the Baabda Declaration, the political source said.

The endorsement of a policy statement is essential before the Cabinet can go to Parliament to seek a vote of confidence. With the majority of parties represented in it, the Cabinet is assured of easily winning a confidence vote from Parliament’s 128 members.

March 14 parties accuse Hezbollah of violating the Baabda Declaration with its military intervention in Syria. The declaration calls for distancing Lebanon from regional and international conflicts, particularly the conflict in Syria.

March 14 MP Boutros Harb, the new telecommunications minister, threatened to withdraw from the Cabinet unless the Baabda Declaration was adopted in the policy statement.

In remarks published by An-Nahar newspaper Monday, Harb said it was totally out of the question for the March 14 coalition to accept “the Army, the people and the resistance” formula following Hezbollah’s military involvement in the war in Syria.

“We will only accept the Baabda Declaration in the [Cabinet’s] policy statement,” he said.

Sleiman and Berri called for a swift resolution to the policy statement in order for the Cabinet to begin addressing security threats and a worsening economic crisis arising from the repercussions of the three-year war in Syria.

Sleiman expressed hope the new Cabinet would waste no time in drafting its policy statement. He said the Cabinet should begin its duties immediately to compensate for the long delay in forming the government.

“I think the unified efforts that contributed to the [Cabinet] formation will continue throughout the next phase, because [these efforts] presented the country in a positive image, especially when leaders reach a consensus,” Sleiman, said.

For his part, Berri said the formation of the Cabinet was bound to reduce political tensions and open the door for reviving National Dialogue.

He called on the Cabinet to finalize its policy statement in order for it to win Parliament’s confidence vote and begin confronting economic and security challenges, including the threat of terrorism.

“The Cabinet must confront terrorism which will not stop despite the arrest of some of its symbols and the thwarting of some [car bomb] attempts,” Berri said during a Sunday dinner in Kuwait hosted by the Lebanese ambassador in his honor.

Speaking after his first meeting with Salam as prime minister, Hale described the talks as positive, reiterating U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks in welcoming the formation of the government, which has yet to win a vote of confidence in Parliament.

The U.S. ambassador also said Washington was ready to work with Salam, advance bilateral relations and help Lebanon face its many challenges, including maintaining neutrality in the face of the war in Syria and addressing issue of more than 1 million Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon since the uprising in Syria began in March 2011.

“Foremost among the challenges are promoting Lebanon’s policy of dissociation from the conflict in Syria, ending terrorist acts and violence, helping Lebanese communities cope with the refugees from Syria, and protecting the opportunity for the Lebanese to choose their own leaders, as president and in Parliament, freely, fairly, on time, and in accordance with Lebanon’s constitution,” the ambassador said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Salam at the Grand Serail, Fletcher said he conveyed British Prime Minister David Cameron’s personal congratulations to the premier, saying agreement among rival politicians was a sign that the leaders aim at confronting division and extremism.

“There is no time to waste, and we should all work to achieve what the Lebanese aspire to: stability, independence and a bright future,” he said.

Jumblatt said he hoped the new Cabinet would be able to defuse tensions in Lebanon and set the stage for the presidential election.

“We hope the government will help organize political disputes by taking them from the tense streets to the Cabinet table,” Jumblatt said in his weekly column published by the PSP-affiliated online Al-Anbaa newspaper.

He said the government should work to hold the presidential election on time and to confront the security risks facing the country.

“One of the main missions of the new Cabinet is to create the right atmosphere for holding the presidential election on time in order to prevent the country [from] falling into a vacuum,” Jumblatt added.

Cabinet holds first session over policy statement

BEIRUT: The new Cabinet held its first meeting at Baabda Palace Tuesday as signs emerged that rival factions were ready to compromise over the controversial policy statement.

State Minister Nabil de Freij told the voice of Lebanon before the meeting that “the formulation of the policy statement should not be as difficult as some have been expecting.”

“It will be hard to formulate it [the policy statement] in one session; it might require a few sessions but there is a decision to facilitate the process,” said Freij, who belongs to the Future bloc.

The session, chaired by President Michel Sleiman, started at 11 a.m. and focused on the formation of a committee to draft the government’s policy statement.

The committee is expected to include ministers from the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance and the March 14 coalition, as well as representatives from the centrist bloc, which refers to ministers loyal to Sleiman, Salam and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt.

The policy statement has been a polarizing issue that could paralyze the government’s work if left unresolved. March 14 has insisted the statement include the Baabda Declaration declaring Lebanon's neutrality towards the Syrian crisis, while Hezbollah wants to uphold the tripartite formula of "the Army, the people, and the resistance" that has been adopted by previous governments.

Political sources told The Daily Star Monday that the ministerial committee is expected to recommend including both the tripartite agreement of previous policy statements and the Baabda declaration, as well as several other decisions issued by the National Dialogue Committee.

Once the policy statement has been drafted, Cabinet can go to Parliament to seek a vote of confidence.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam announced a 24-member Cabinet of “national interest” Saturday after 10 months of political deadlock, the longest in Lebanon’s history.

Salam met separately Tuesday with European Union Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst and Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin, both of whom expressed support for Salam’s 24-member Cabinet.

“I conveyed to Prime Minister Salam the congratulations of Russia over the new Cabinet formation and confirmed Russia’s ongoing support to Lebanon’s sovereignty and unity,” Zasypkin said.

“We hope that the formation of the national interest government will enhance stability and security in Lebanon, and we support the priorities ... declared by Salam regarding the upcoming presidential election and other issues.”

“We also call for strengthening partnership and developing dialogue between the political forces in Lebanon and we are optimistic about the coming phase,” the Russian envoy said.

Seminar focuses on government contracting

HAMMOND, La. -- The Louisiana Small Business Development Center at Southeastern Louisiana University and the Service Corps of retired Executives will offer a free seminar on contracting with government agencies for goods and services.

The session will be from 9-11 a.m. on Feb. 27 at the St. Tammany Center, 21454 Koop Drive, Mandeville.

Preregistration is requested.

More information is available by calling the center at 985-549-3831 or by email at lsbdc.slu@lsbdc.org.

Online registration is available at www.lsbdc.org.

UK inflation within target for 1st time in 4 years

LONDON -- U.K. inflation slipped below the official 2 percent target for the first time since 2009 as retailers slashed prices on furniture, alcohol and tobacco.

Official figures on Tuesday show consumer prices were up 1.9 percent in the year to January, down from the 2 percent rate in December. The rate also reflected a drop in prices for recreational and household goods.

The Bank of England has been keeping its key interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent to help an uneven recovery.

Until recently the bank had been indicating that its interest rates would remain low until joblessness fell to a more tolerable level. Mark Carney, the bank's governor, updated the guidance last week to broaden the range of indicators that would be considered before rates are raised.

Arkansas cattle industry on rebound after drought

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Arkansas ranchers are rebuilding their herds after culling animals during a lengthy drought.

The state's cattle industry suffered $128 million in damage in a 2012 drought, the economic effects of which stretched into 2013.

Nationally, cattle numbers are the lowest they have been since 1951. Arkansas producers had 4 percent more cattle in January as they did one year previously. Federal statistics show Arkansas has 1.66 million head, part of the 86.7 million head nationally.

Cattle expert Tom Troxel of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture says the 2012 drought cause a 4 percent decline in Arkansas cattle last year. Nationally, the cattle inventory dropped 2 percent.

The Arkansas cattle industry is poised to recover as the state is almost 100 percent free of drought.

NHL says it won't discuss 2018 Winter Olympics

SOCHI, Russia -- NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says the league's possible participation in the 2018 Olympics hasn't been and won't be discussed during the Sochi Games.

Bettman was joined at a news conference Tuesday by NHL Players' Association Executive Director Don Fehr and International Ice Hockey Federation President Rene Fasel.

The league and the union have allowed their players to play in the Olympics since 1998, creating an elite hockey tournament that has become one of the most popular events at the Olympics.

The 2018 Winter Games will be in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Judge mulls Fisker asset sale to Wanxiang

WILMINGTON, Del. -- A Delaware bankruptcy judge is holding a hearing to determine whether to approve the sale of the remaining assets of failed electric-vehicle maker Fisker Automotive to Chinese auto-parts conglomerate Wanxiang Group.

In an auction stretching over three days last week, Wanxiang beat out Hybrid Technology, led by Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, with a final bid of $149.2 million in cash and other considerations.

A court hearing on confirmation of the auction results was set for Tuesday in Wilmington.

California-based Fisker, which had planned to build cars at the former General Motors plant in Delaware, filed for bankruptcy protection in November. The move ended a long, downward spiral that began after it received a $529 million loan commitment from the Obama administration in 2010.

ORNL and Cincinnati aim to improve 3-D printer

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- Oak Ridge National Laboratory is partnering with Cincinnati Inc. to develop a 3-D printing system that can print faster, larger and more cheaply than current systems.

According to the laboratory, most 3-D polymer printers on the market today can only fabricate small prototype parts. Through this partnership, ORNL and Harrison, Ohio-based Cincinnati hope to build a system that is 200 to 500 times faster and capable of printing polymer components 10 times larger than today's common printers.

Such a system could introduce new capabilities to the U.S. tooling sector and strengthen domestic manufacturing.

The partnership supports the Department of Energy's Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative.

Lebanese surrenders to Sydney police after allegedly killing wife

BEIRUT: A Lebanese man turned himself over to police after allegedly killing his wife in Sydney, Australia, Australian media reported.

55-year-old George Tannous allegedly killed his wife Margaret, 47, Monday night in an apartment in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Bankstown. Margaret, who suffered severe head wounds, reportedly died shortly after arrival at the hospital.

The Lebanese couple have two children, reports said. None of the media reports offered a motive for the attack.

The Australian newspaper reported that Tannous was charged with murder for beating his wife to death.

A judge refused Tannous bail, and the suspect did not enter a plea, The Australian said on its website.

Tannous, who had a shaved head and spoke through an Arabic translator, showed little emotion during the brief hearing, according to the report.

The couple's son, Elie, posted a photo of his mother and an emotional tribute on Facebook.

"My mother my angel my life my queen the closest person to me. How could this happen to you," he wrote.

"You were the strongest woman, the strongest PERSON i knew, you taught me that the most power you have in this life is in your brain and not your fists or muscles, you taught me to do right by people even though they do wrong to you ... everything in this world you sacrificed for me and my sister ... I'm so proud to be called your son."