Rai makes rare visit to Berri’s Ain al-Tineh

BEIRUT: Cardinal Beshara Rai on Thursday made a rare visit to Speaker Nabih Berri’s residence in Ain al-Tineh, in the wake of Parliament's failed attempt to elect a new president.

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Cool spring posing tough choices for corn farmers

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Agricultural experts say Indiana's lingering cool spring will soon pose some tough choices for farmers waiting to plant their corn acreage.

Indiana's weekly crop report says only 1 percent of Indiana's corn crop had been planted by Sunday. That compares with the five-year average of 14 percent planted by the same date.

Purdue Extension agronomist Bob Nielsen says planting corn now is a moderate risk because Indiana's 10-day forecast calls for more below-normal temperatures.

Nielsen says many farmers must soon decide whether to go ahead and plant corn or wait for a warm-up.

He says farmers who have thousands of acres to plant should probably go ahead and start planting, while those with small acreage might want to wait a week to let soils warm up.

Asian stocks drop on no trade deal in Obama visit

TOKYO -- Asian shares were mixed as stocks in Tokyo slipped Thursday after talks between Japan's prime minister and visiting President Barack Obama produced little on a trade agreement.

Progress on the trans-Pacific pact would be a plus for Japan's giant exporters like Toyota Motor Corp. Adding to the mixed view was the fall on Wall Street overnight despite a solid earnings report from Apple Inc. that sent that issue higher.

The Nikkei, the benchmark for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, lost 1 percent to close at 14,404.99. South Korea's Kospi inched down 0.1 percent to close at 1,998.34.

The Hang Seng index was higher by 0.2 percent to 22,548.85, and share prices were also higher in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Asia is abuzz this week with Obama's arrival late Wednesday in Tokyo for the first state visit by an American president to Japan in nearly 20 years. He will later go to South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had little to say on a wide-reaching trans-Pacific trade agreement in a joint news conference, and focused more on reassuring bilateral security ties.

Market players are also cautious ahead of a slew of earnings reports expected in coming weeks from Japanese companies.

Sentiment on Asian markets were dampened by worries about the U.S. economy, highlighted by a surprise drop in new home sales as well as dismal earnings.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 4.16 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,875.39. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 12.72 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,501.65 and the Nasdaq composite fell 34.49 points, or 0.8 percent, to 4,126.97.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed down 0.1 percent at 6,674.74 while Germany's DAX fell 0.6 percent to 9,544.19. The CAC-40 in France ended 0.7 percent lower at 4,451.08.

The dollar was lower at 102.30 yen from 102.51 yen late the previous day. The euro was higher at $1.3822 from $1.3716.

A barrel of benchmark New York crude was up 31 cents at $101.75.

Bob Dole Returns To Kansas For Gratitude Tour

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hide captionFormer Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, center, takes questions while seated between Gov. Sam Brownback, left, and Rep. Kevin Yoder, right, during a visit to the Johnson County Republican headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., on Monday.

Orlin Wagner/AP

Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, center, takes questions while seated between Gov. Sam Brownback, left, and Rep. Kevin Yoder, right, during a visit to the Johnson County Republican headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., on Monday.

Orlin Wagner/AP

In Kansas this week, a political icon returned home. Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole has been traveling the state, meeting with friends and supporters who embraced his long political career.

Dole is not running for office, but the 90-year-old has a tour schedule that could tire a politician half his age. He's made ten public appearances over three days, including a stop at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Dole has touched on serious topics during the trip. When asked about the most critical issues facing the nation in the next decade, he says controlling the budget will be near the top of the list and among the more difficult.

"I know when we had legislation when I was there that affected Kansas, it was pretty hard to vote for it if it was taking something away from Kansas," he said.

There's still plenty of Dole's trademark wit sprinkled throughout his talks. At a facility bearing his name on the KU campus, he joked about his time at KU before going off to serve in World War II: "So we had a lot of farewell parties, but we didn't attend many classes."

Aldean Banker, from Dole's hometown of Russell, says she liked his ability to get things done in Washington.

"He was very able to get people to work together, and I think we need that in government right now," she says.

University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis says while many may remember Dole for getting things done, he was a tough-minded partisan and pretty conservative for his time.

"But in the end, he was working to make this a better place. At the end he compromised, and in the end he could see the other person's position," Loomis said.

Beside being a presidential candidate three times, Loomis says Dole's legacy may well be his work in the Senate helping pass key legislation like the Social Security overhaul and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Dole will continue his Kansas tour next month, with more than a dozen additional stops.

Novartis reports Q1 profit up on divestitures

GENEVA -- Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG has reported a 24 percent increase in profit for the first quarter, helped by selling off less-profitable parts of its business.

The Basel, Switzerland-based company says its net profit rose to nearly $2.97 billion, up from $2.42 billion in the period last year, driven by strong sales, key drug approvals and other factors such as growth in emerging markets, particularly China.

In a statement Thursday, the company attributed its quarterly profit to "higher operating income driven by the exceptional divestment gain and higher income from associated companies."

On Tuesday, Novartis launched a major overhaul of its business through a series of multibillion-dollar deals with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Eli Lilly & Co. of the United States.

Labor Dept. cuts levels of allowable coal dust

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration said Wednesday it is cutting the amount of coal dust allowed in coal mines in an effort to help reduce black lung disease.

"Today we advance a very basic principle: you shouldn't have to sacrifice your life for your livelihood," Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said. "But that's been the fate of more than 76,000 miners who have died at least in part because of black lung since 1968."

Perez was one of several top government officials to announce the long-awaited final rule Wednesday at an event in Morgantown, W.Va.

Black lung is an irreversible and potentially deadly disease caused by exposure to coal dust, where the dust particles accumulate in the lungs.

The rule by the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration lowers the overall dust standard from 2.0 to 1.5 milligrams per cubic meter of air. For certain mine entries and miners with black lung disease, the standard is cut in half, from 1.0 to 0.5. The rule also increases the frequency of dust sampling, and requires coal operators to take immediate action when dust levels are high. In addition, coal mine operators will be required to use new technology to provide real-time dust levels. The requirements will be phased in over two years.

"It is a major happening in the coal fields," Joseph A. Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, said in an interview before Wednesday's event. "And it's one whose time has really come."

Main, who worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania and West Virginia for about eight years starting when he was 18, said he made a "personal commitment" to helping to eradicate black lung disease.

"I personally know miners who have had the disease and died from the disease — the same as other folks who grew up in coal mining communities," Main said.

The administration first proposed the rule back in 2010, when it said it would fight a resurgence of black lung disease. The Mine Safety and Health Administration held seven public hearings, extended the comment period three times, and got around 2,000 pages of comments. It took 3 ½ years for the rule to be finalized.

"We probably all would have liked to move faster, but you've got to be careful when you're getting to regulatory processes like this," Main said. "Getting it right was very important."

Main and John Howard, the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, joined Perez at the event in West Virginia.

Hal Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, a trade association, called the rule "a lost opportunity to provide better protection for those who need it and more job security for all our coal miners."

The Mine Safety and Health Administration, Quinn said in a statement, "declined to embrace constructive suggestions and proven solutions to reduce miner's exposure to respirable coal dust." Those include the use of proven personal protection technologies; rotating miners to minimize their exposure to coal dust; and requiring miners to participate in X-ray surveillance programs to encourage timely medical intervention, Quinn said.

But Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, said Wednesday marked a "truly historic day" for coal miners.

"While this is a big step forward, it is by no means the end of our fight to eradicate this scourge of coal miners," he said, referring to black lung disease.

The United Mine Workers of America had no immediate comment on the rule.

Policy group dives into retirement savings

By Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Concerned about the future finances of Social Security and ample evidence that Americans are failing to save enough for retirement, the Bipartisan Policy Center on Wednesday launched a new Personal Savings Initiative.

The BPC, an influential think tank in the nation’s capital, formed a 18-member commission that will exhaustively study the problem and then make policy recommendations for Congress and the Obama administration.

The effort is patterned after similar undertakings regarding long-term fiscal and budget challenges facing the nation, and will be led by former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-ND, and James Lockhart, a former deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration and former head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

“Personal savings have been on a long-term downward trend,” Conrad said at a news conference announcing the initiative, adding that only 38 percent of working-age adults are now contributing into a retirement savings plan.

The lack of savings will tax an already fragile existing retirement system, as both Social Security and Medicare are viewed by experts as being woefully underfunded to face the challenges of coming years. The time to begin addressing the problem is now, said Conrad.

“We believe the day will come, really the day has to come,” he said. “The longer we wait, the more draconian the solution will have to be.”

For the elderly on the lower half of the income ladder, 85 percent of their income comes from Social Security, Lockhart said. A trust fund for federal disability programs, administered by the Social Security Administration, is expected to run dry before this decade is out and Social Security is already paying out more than it takes in, he said.

“That’s something Congress just has to fix,” said Lockhart.

The Personal Savings Initiative wades into a crowded field. A number of universities and think tanks already have important retirement research programs, so the challenge for the center will be not to reinvent the wheel but to come up with action items for Congress and the executive branch that can boost personal savings and retirement security.

Final recommendations are expected in early 2015, and the new effort will include roundtables and issue papers to draw attention to America’s chronic shortfall in retirement savings.

Topics expected to be covered by the new commission include federal policies that either encourage or discourage savings, the tax code, solvency issues regarding government-run retirement programs and the long-term care and financial needs of the elderly.