Davis, Abbott Set To Face Off For Texas Governor

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hide captionDemocratic state Sen. Wendy Davis greets supporters Tuesday before speaking at her campaign headquarters.

L.M. Otero/AP

Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis greets supporters Tuesday before speaking at her campaign headquarters.

L.M. Otero/AP

Texas Republicans picked the state's attorney general in the fight to succeed longtime Gov. Rick Perry, while a rising Democratic star coasted to her party's nomination Tuesday night during the nation's first statewide primary.

Warnings about Democrat Wendy Davis' star-making run for Texas governor threatening two decades of Republican dominance dealt complacent conservatives a new reason to vote. So did a rare opportunity to select an entirely new stable of leaders after 14 years under Perry.

Perry's decision to not seek re-election launched a stampede of 26 Republican candidates vying for six of Texas' top offices. Among them was George P. Bush, the 37-year-old nephew of former President George W. Bush and son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who easily won the nomination for land commissioner in his political debut.

In the first primary since Ted Cruz barreled into the U.S. Senate in 2012 and yanked Republicans nationwide farther right, Texas candidates willingly went along. U.S. Sen John Cornyn, who didn't get an endorsement from his fellow Texas senator, routed his primary challenger.

"I say they are not going far right enough," said Marlin Robinson, 56, after casting his primary ballot in Houston. "They need to go farther right, as far as I'm concerned because I'm tired of this liberal crap that's running this country."

Attorney General Greg Abbott clinched the Republican nomination for governor and Davis locked up her party's selection, thereby making official a showdown poised to become a record-shattering arms race of fundraising in a Texas gubernatorial election.

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hide captionRepublican candidate for governor, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, speaks to the media after voting Tuesday.

Erich Schlegel/Getty Images

Republican candidate for governor, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, speaks to the media after voting Tuesday.

Erich Schlegel/Getty Images

Abbott, who only three weeks ago unapologetically campaigned with shock rocker Ted Nugent, never mentioned Davis in becoming the GOP's first new gubernatorial nominee other than Perry since George W. Bush in 1998.

"If you're looking for a way to get ahead, if you're looking for a way to succeed or elevate or advance yourself, then I'm your candidate," Abbott said.

In another sign of a rightward drift, state Sen. Dan Patrick, who drew heat from even fellow Republicans for bemoaning an "invasion" of immigrants coming across the Texas-Mexico border, headed for a runoff in the lieutenant governor's race with longtime incumbent David Dewhurst.

"In Texas, we will show the rest of the country what it means to be conservative," Patrick said.

Democrats set on breaking the nation's longest losing streak in races for statewide office, meanwhile, hoped a charismatic headliner in Davis would turn out long-dormant voters.

Davis, who catapulted to national political stardom last summer with a nearly 13-hour filibuster over abortion restrictions, is the first female gubernatorial nominee in Texas since Ann Richards in 1994.

Her underdog campaign has raised $16 million so far behind a whopping 91,000 individual donors and big checks from abortion-rights groups.

"If people don't start supporting the Democratic Party and voting as a Democrat, instead of being a Democrat voting in the Republican primary, then we're never going to win races and we're never going to establish ourselves as a serious party here," said Janet Veal, 43, a student adviser at Texas Tech University who cast her ballot Tuesday in Lubbock.

That possibility, and the rising influence of Cruz, has Texas Republicans flanking farther right this primary season. Some pledged to further tighten some of the nation's strictest abortion laws and double down on the state's gay marriage ban — one of several state bans recently ruled unconstitutional by federal courts.

"I think we need to bolster the border security and get tougher on immigration," 38-year-old conservative Republican Glendon Paulk said after voting in Lubbock. "I'm all for people who come over here legally but the illegal immigrants, it doesn't make sense for them to get a break while we're working and having to pay taxes."

Frigid weather greeted some voters with a dangerous drive to the polls. Austin locations opened late because of icy conditions and extended voting for two hours. Turnout was light in many places, with election workers seen knitting or reading a newspaper in between voters' sporadic arrivals.

The last time Texas had so many open statewide seats was 2002, when Perry won his first full term. While Democrats ran mostly unopposed in their primaries, GOP runoffs were set for later this month to settle races for attorney general and agriculture commissioner.

Unlike Davis and Abbott, few other Texas candidates had the luxury of uneventful primaries.

Almost all were on the Republican side, where candidates have wooed voters with vows to emulate Cruz's no-compromise style. Even Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, another powerful Republican who coasted again to the nomination, spent money campaigning against longshot challengers who said the incumbents had grown too moderate in Washington.

Cornyn routed tea party-backed Texas Congressman Steve Stockman, who ran a bizarre primary campaign. But 91-year-old U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, the oldest member of Congress, will have to win a runoff to secure an 18th and final term.

Illinois holds the nation's next primary March 18, followed by a flood of state primaries in May and June.

Iran stands firm on maintaining a nuclear program

TOKYO -- Iran's foreign minister is pushing back against calls for deeper cuts to its nuclear program.

Mohammad Javad Zarif says that the West "cannot entertain illusions" of Iran completely ending its uranium enrichment program. Speaking in Tokyo on Wednesday, he also reiterated that his country is not going to close its heavy-water nuclear reactor.

His remarks came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Washington, D.C., that Iran must dismantle its enrichment facilities and the reactor.

Iran is trying to negotiate a deal with the U.S. and six other global powers to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.

Zarif said Iran is eager to tap Japan's nuclear power technology and also seeks investment in its oil, gas and petrochemical industries.

GOP, deficit hawks pan Obama's $3.9T budget

WASHINGTON -- Republicans are dismissing President Barack Obama's new $3.9 trillion budget as nothing more than a Democratic manifesto for this fall's congressional campaigns, but the fiscal plan is taking hits from another quarter too — anti-deficit groups.

Obama on Tuesday sent lawmakers a 2015 budget top-heavy with provisions that have little chance of becoming law. They included $1 trillion in tax increases — mostly on the rich and corporations — and a collection of populist but mostly modest spending boosts for consumer protection, climate change research and improved technology in schools.

It even trumpeted $2.2 trillion in 10-year deficit reduction, though most of the proposed savings, including fresh tax boosts plus cuts in government payments to Medicare providers, seemed long shots to make it through Congress. Almost one-third came from claiming savings from the end of U.S. fighting in Iraq and troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

That meant the budget's clearest impact was political: feeding Democrats' election-year narrative that they are trying to help narrow the income gap between rich and poor while creating jobs. Republicans, who see tax cuts as the surest way to help the economy, pounced.

"The president has once again opted for the political stunt for a budget that's more about firing up the president's base in an election year than about solving the nation's biggest and most persistent long-term challenges," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

"This budget isn't a serious document, it's a campaign brochure," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Obama and his Democratic allies saw things differently.

"It's a road map for creating jobs with good wages and expanding opportunity for all Americans," the president said while visiting an elementary school in the nation's capital. He added that his plan would help curb budget deficits with higher taxes on the wealthy and other savings, "not by putting the burden on folks who can least afford it."

Despite those words, pressure for lawmakers to take serious swipes at budget shortfalls has faded.

After four years of record-setting annual deficits that each exceeded $1 trillion, the budget gap dropped to $680 billion in 2013 and could continue downward. Obama's budget projects shortfalls of $649 billion this year and $564 billion in 2015.

A bipartisan compromise curbing agency spending for the next two years, combined with the usual election-year pressures to avoid politically risky steps, has further diluted lawmakers' desires to tackle the problem.

But Washington groups that press to control budget shortfalls argue that the government's long-term fiscal problem remains.

They argue that retiring baby boomers and ever-rising health costs threaten to swamp revenues in the long run, running federal debt to levels that are hard to sustain without risking economic problems. Even with Obama's proposed savings, the government would still run up $4.9 trillion more in debt over the coming decade, on top of more than $14 trillion it already owes.

"The longer we wait, the more painful the changes will be," said Maya MacGuineas, a leader of the bipartisan Fix the Debt Campaign. "We can't let election-year malaise be an excuse for inaction on such an important issue."

"Stabilizing the debt over the long term is a key part of any sound fiscal policy and viable economic strategy for America," said Michael A. Peterson, president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

In a nod to controlling the budget, Obama's fiscal plan proposes to live within a compromise spending limit for agencies reached in December between Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wis.

But on top of that, Obama proposed $55 billion in additional spending priorities, divided evenly between defense and domestic programs. These include repairs for bases and more weapons purchases for the military, plus domestic programs like upgrading national parks and increasing grants to schools that train students for jobs.

Obama would pay for the entire add-on by limiting tax breaks for retirement benefits of the wealthy, cutting some farm subsidies and boosting airline passenger fees — none of which have realistic chances of enactment this year.

Without that extra money, Pentagon spending would be $496 billion in 2015, the same as this year. The Pentagon plans to shrink the Army from 490,000 active-duty soldiers to as few as 440,000 over the coming five years, the smallest since just before World War II, reduce ship purchases and take other steps that defense hawks in Congress are unhappy with — especially since Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimea region.

Obama's budget also calls for $302 billion for roads, mass transit and railroads over the next four years; doubles to $1,000 the maximum earned income tax credit for childless low-income workers; and spends $66 billion over the next decade for preschool programs for all 4-year-olds.

Tobacco taxes would rise an additional 94 cents per pack, up from their current $1.01. A corporate tax overhaul would quickly yield $150 billion as loopholes were tightened on U.S. companies doing business abroad, and other companies and financial institutions would face $56 billion over 10 years from a new fee.

None of those proposals are going anywhere quickly on Capitol Hill.

Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

Muskegon to welcome boaters with shoppers' docks

MUSKEGON, Mich. -- A coalition of Muskegon waterfront property owners, downtown business interests and the city of Muskegon will attempt to link the shoreline and the downtown this boating season.

The age-old issue of how to link activity on Muskegon Lake to the downtown will get a trial run with a series of shoppers' docks at the city of Muskegon's Hartshorn Marina, according to The Muskegon Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1gP8lNC ).

Boaters on Muskegon Lake will have the ability to come into Hartshorn Marina and tie up for a few hours to walk the Lakeshore Trail or enjoy the businesses and activities in downtown Muskegon. The city will dedicate a half dozen docks to remain open for temporary tie-up and charge a small fee for the service, City Manager Frank Peterson said.

Hartshorn Marina has 134 large slips and the nearby small-boat basin has another 30 smaller slips. It is a Michigan Waterway Commission harbor of refuge and must keep a number of its slips available for overnight transient boaters, while renting out the majority of the slips on a seasonal basis.

"This gets us connecting downtown with the Lakeshore," Peterson said. "We need to have a place for boaters to access the downtown and what the community has to offer."

Connecting boaters and downtown businesses has been a longstanding need, according to Muskegon Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce President Cindy Larsen. Other Lake Michigan waterfront communities provide access from the water to their central business districts in places such as Saugatuck, Grand Haven, Traverse City and Charlevoix, she said.

The use of Hartshorn Marina is a quick and easy pilot project to run this summer, officials said. It is not directly located in the heart of downtown Muskegon but provides transportation along the Lakeshore Trail or by trolley bus.

Muskegon County Community Development Director Bob Lukens said the Muskegon Area Transit System's Muskegon Trolley Co. bus service plans on making the main gate at Hartshorn Marina next door to the Muskegon Family YMCA a stop on the downtown trolley route this summer.

The Muskegon County Convention & Visitors Bureau also is exploring a tourist information kiosk at that particular trolley stop, Lukens said.

No one is more thrilled to test a shoppers' dock program at Hartshorn Marina this summer than Ted Fricano, owner of the nearby Fricano's Place. The commercial and office building is home to Fricano's pizza restaurant and an ice cream shop called Pinchtown Market.

"Downtown Muskegon needs public docks," Fricano said. "We are the Port City and need to be welcoming to boaters."

One of the most frequent calls during the summer months at Fricano's Muskegon Lake is about access to the restaurant and ice cream shop by boat, Fricano said. Nothing has been more frustrating than to tell boaters that there is no easy access to the pizza restaurant, he said.

"We need to give people the option to get off the water, come ashore and have dinner," Fricano said. "You have Hartshorn Marina right next door. I certainly think this is a great thing for my building, but it is for other businesses and the community as well."

Larsen said that chamber officials have been exploring the shoppers' dock question for several years with no real good solution without major development costs. Currently, boaters have the option to tie up in the Harbor Towne development to access Docker's Restaurant and in the Bear Lake Channel to access the Bear Lake Tavern.

The Hartshorn Marina program this summer could lead to other shopping dock solutions along the downtown Muskegon Lake shoreline, she said.

Terrace Point Marina had space in prior summers for transient boaters to tie up for a short period of time. But the marina has become more full and that space is not available at Terrace Point, which is part of the Shoreline Inn and Conference Center and Lake House restaurant development.

Owner Jon Rooks last spring suggested that a platform could be constructed on the outside of the public walkway and breakwall that protects Terrace Point Marina from Muskegon Lake. He estimated that a 300-foot-by-50-foot floating dock system could cost $300,000 to install and suggested it would have to be a community investment.

The Terrace Point dock plan has not progressed but the idea of boater access to downtown Muskegon hasn't gone away. Officials from the chamber, city and county, along with business owners, have been discussing how to solve the boater-downtown link.

"We all got together in the same room and talked about what we can do," Fricano said. "It was a beautiful thing seeing all of the groups coming together and working on it."

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Information from: The Muskegon Chronicle, http://bit.ly/1cBdupZ

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by The Muskegon Chronicle.

China premier promises to advance economy reforms

BEIJING -- China's government pledged Wednesday to promote sustainable growth by opening state-dominated industries to private investment and making banks more market-oriented while keeping this year's economic expansion at a relatively robust 7.5 percent.

In his first annual policy speech as China's top economic official, Premier Li Keqiang said Beijing will promote consumer spending, ease exchange rate controls and improve access to credit for productive businesses.

Li's pledges were in line with Communist Party plans issued in November that call for promoting market forces and domestic consumption to replace a model based on exports and investment that delivered three decades of explosive growth but has run out of steam.

"We need to make sure the market plays a decisive role," said Li in a nationally televised speech to China's legislature. He promised to "break mental shackles and vested interests" — a reference to possible resistance from state companies that might lose subsidies and monopolies.

Li set an official growth target of 7.5 percent. That was the same as last year but looked unusually ambitious after growth in 2013 tumbled to a two-decade low of 7.7 percent as the government cooled a lending and investment boom. That suggested Beijing is trying to reassure companies and financial markets it is ready with interest rate cuts or other steps if needed to keep growth in the world's No. 2 economy from falling too low.

"Despite the painful adjustment ahead, the Chinese authorities have no plan to slow the speed," of economic expansion, said Citigroup's Minggao Shen and Ding Shuang in a report.

"We sense that the government is not ready to accept growth much lower than 7.5 percent," the two economists said.

They said the government would deploy stimulus measures if quarterly growth fell to 7 percent or less.

Entrepreneurs and investors are watching the annual meeting of the National People's Congress for details of how President Xi Jinping and other party leaders will carry out their November pledge to give markets a "decisive role" in allocating resources. That could radically change an economy dominated by state companies that receive low-cost access to loans, energy and land.

The party says its plans are the most ambitious reforms since the late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping's launch of market-oriented change in 1979 that set off China's boom.

Beijing responded to an abrupt decline in growth in mid-2013 with a mini-stimulus of higher spending on railway construction but Li has said further gains have to come from longer-term restructuring.

Still, despite pledges of reform, the ruling party made clear the limits to possible change in its November plan by declaring that state ownership will remain the core of the economy. Beijing has issued a flurry of minor changes such as simplifying processes for registering new businesses but has yet to take action on major tasks such as overhauling the state-run banking system.

On Wednesday, Li promised changes in banking and finance that reform advocates say are essential to making the economy more efficient and productive.

Banks will be given more control over lending and interest rates, the premier said. That would allow profitable companies to compete for credit by paying higher rates, possibly channeling more money to entrepreneurs who generate most of China's new jobs and wealth but are mostly unable to get loans from the state-run system. It also might boost rates paid on savings, putting more money in the pockets of Chinese families and encouraging consumer spending.

The premier also threw the government's support behind the growth of popular new Internet-based banking services, promising to promote their "healthy development."

Services such as one launched by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group have drawn billions of dollars in deposits from small savers by paying higher rates than state banks. Critics see them as a threat to a financial system that supports politically favored companies. A commentator for state television last month called them "financial parasites."

Li promised to open state-controlled industries such as banking, oil, power generation, railways and telecommunications to private investment. He pledged to "level the playing field" for Chinese and foreign companies to promote competition.

The premier gave no details about key issues such as whether private investors would gain any management control in state-run industries. That is in line with a time-tested strategy under which the ruling party experiments with reforms in a single city or province and studies the results before crafting detailed rules for rolling out changes nationwide.

Beijing will make domestic demand "the main engine driving growth," Li said. He promised to promote consumer spending by raising incomes and encourage growth of service industries such as education, tourism and care for the elderly, the premier said.

"We will enhance people's ability to consume," said Li.

In a separate report, the Cabinet planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, promised to experiment with a change sought by business groups to simplify investment by issuing a "negative list" of fields that are off-limits, leaving all others open.

That would overturn a system under which investors wait for each industry or line of business to be declared open to private competition. Companies say that system fails to keep pace with changes in technology and markets.

Syria bombs Lebanon border town in series of air raids

BEIRUT: Syrian aircraft Wednesday bombed a remote area of a Lebanese border town, a security source said.

There was no immediate reports of casualties from the 8 a.m. air raid on the outskirts of Arsal, a northeastern town in the Bekaa Valley.

More to follow ...

Israel says shot two Hezbollah fighters on Syrian Golan

JERUSALEM: Israeli troops shot two Hezbollah fighters who tried to plant a bomb near the fence between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syrian-held territory on Wednesday, the army said.

An army spokeswoman said Israeli intelligence had identified the men as members of Hezbollah, which is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad fight a civil war. She had no immediate word on their condition.

Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill in the July-August 2006 Lebanon war. Both sides have built up strength since but have largely avoided direct confrontation.

Last week, however, Hezbollah accused Israel of bombing one of its bases near the Lebanon-Syria border and threatened to retaliate.

Israel did not confirm carrying out the air strike, in keeping with its official silence on at least three such attacks in the last year targeting suspected Hezbollah-bound weapons convoys from Syria. It said it would hold Beirut responsible for any Hezbollah reprisals from Lebanese turf.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The strategic plateau has seen occasional spillover violence from the Syrian civil war, and Israel has accused Hezbollah of setting up positions on the other side of the boundary fence.