Martha Stewart denies wrongdoing in Penney deal

Martha Stewart denies wrongdoing in Penney deal 

Martha Stewart arrives to court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Macy's Inc. is suing the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with J.C. Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring

NEW YORK (AP) -- Home decor and food guru Martha Stewart testified in court on Tuesday that she did nothing wrong when she signed an agreement to open shops within most of J.C. Penney's stores across the country.

Stewart testified in New York State Supreme Court in a trial over whether the company she founded breached its contract to sell cookware, bedding and other items exclusively at Macy's when she inked the deal with Penney.

Stewart's appearance, which followed a lineup of other top brass including the CEOs of both Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co., attracted a lot of attention from the media. So much so that the judge opened up the jury box to make room for the expanded audience, and spectators had to wait behind a roped line to enter the courtroom.

During four hours of testimony, Stewart, who founded Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., denied Macy's allegations that she did anything unethical and said she was only looking to expand her brand.

Stewart said it's Macy's that didn't uphold its end of the agreement to try to maximize the potential of her business. She said her brand had grown to about $300 million at Macy's, but the business was now "static" at the department store chain. She said she had hoped the business would exceed $400 million.

"We were disappointed," Stewart, 71, wearing a light brown tunic and a mini skirt, testified. "We got to a certain dollar amount and struggled and never got any further."

The trial, which began Feb. 20, centers around whether Macy's has the exclusive right to sell some Martha Stewart branded products such as cookware, bedding and bath items.

Penney signed a pact in December 2011 with Martha Stewart Living to open shops at most of its 1,100 stores by this spring. A month later, Macy's renewed its long-standing exclusive deal with Martha Stewart until 2018, then it sued both Martha Stewart Living and Penney.

Macy's is trying to block Penney's from opening the Martha Stewart shops within its stores. The company also is seeking to stop Martha Stewart from providing any designs to Penney - whether or not they carry the Martha Stewart label.

Martha Stewart and Penney are using what they believe is a loophole in the agreement between Macy's and Martha Stewart to move forward with their deal. It's a provision that allows Martha Stewart to sell some of the products that it offers in Macy's stores at Martha Stewart shops, too.

According to Martha Stewart lawyers, because the Macy's agreement doesn't specify that Martha Stewart stores have to be "stand alone" locations, the mini shops within Penney's stores would not violate the contract. Stewart said in court Tuesday that even Amazon.com could be considered a store, given that shoppers are shifting more to online buying.

"I don't think you need walls to be a store," she said.

The trial has revealed some of the drama that took place behind-the-scenes as the Martha Stewart-Penney deal came to be. During his testimony on Friday, Penney CEO Johnson rejected claims by Macy's lawyers that he plotted to push Martha Stewart to breach her deal with Macy's with the goal of eventually becoming the sole carrier of some of Stewart's products.

Johnson, who was dressed in a dark suit and striped navy tie, testified that he just wanted to get a piece of the action while helping the Martha Stewart's business grow. He also said that the expanded partnership could be good for all parties involved, including Macy's.

Macy's attorneys, meanwhile, have portrayed Stewart as someone who turned her back on a good friend, Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren, to broker a deal with a rival company. During testimony earlier in the trial, Lundgren, who wore a suit, said that he hung up on Stewart after she told him about the deal she'd reached with Penney. He said he hasn't spoken to her since.

"I was quite taken back by his response and when he hung up on me I was quite flabbergasted," Stewart testified Tuesday.

Stewart also testified that she couldn't discuss the impending Penney deal with Lundgren sooner because the negotiations were "confidential." But Theodore Grossman, an attorney representing Macy's, presented an email on Tuesday that showed that Stewart had discussed the idea in the summer of 2011 with Millard Drexler, CEO of the J. Crew clothing chain. Stewart called Drexler a "helpful adviser."

Stewart's testimony comes as the company she founded continues to struggle. Martha Stewart Living just finished its fifth straight year of losses. The company has also had steep sales declines.

Martha Stewart Living took a hit when Stewart was indicted in 2003 on charges that included making false statements and obstruction of justice related to a personal stock sale. She was convicted in March 2004 and was sentenced to five months in prison. After Stewart's release in March 2005, business began to recover as advertisers who had fled returned.

"I stumbled in 2003," Stewart said Tuesday, adding that "We emerged from that whole and healthy."

Still, in the past few years, Martha Stewart Living's broadcast and publishing divisions have been grappling with a shift by people to getting their recipes and food tips on the Web and on their mobile devices. As a result, the company, based in New York City, has been trying to bolster its merchandising business, which represents 30 percent of the company's annual revenue.

The biggest opportunities for Martha Stewart Living are in selling products for the home, including bedding, bath and kitchen merchandise. That's because as the housing recovery gains momentum in the economic recovery, people likely will put more money into their homes.

During her testimony on Tuesday, Stewart said she always wanted to open big shops within Macy's stores, but the retailer never embraced that concept. Instead, she said the merchandise in Macy's stores is just "here and there."

That's why she said that a proposal from Penney's Johnson to create shops filled with home merchandise was appealing to her. She called Johnson a "visionary."

"We hoped this business would be growing," Stewart said. "It just boggles my mind that we're here sitting in front of you, judge."

Hugo Chavez, fiery Venezuelan leader, dies at 58

Hugo Chavez, fiery Venezuelan leader, dies at 58 

FILE - In this July 21, 2006 file photo, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, gestures as Cuba's President Fidel Castro looks on during an event in Cordoba, Argentina. Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 that Chavez has died at age 58 after a nearly two-year bout with cancer.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez was a fighter. The former paratroop commander and fiery populist waged continual battle for his socialist ideals and outsmarted his rivals time and again, defeating a coup attempt, winning re-election three times and using his country's vast oil wealth to his political advantage.

A self-described "subversive," Chavez fashioned himself after the 19th Century independence leader Simon Bolivar and renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

He called himself a "humble soldier" in a battle for socialism and against U.S. hegemony. He thrived on confrontation with Washington and his political opponents at home, and used those conflicts to rally his followers.

Almost the only adversary it seemed he couldn't beat was cancer. He died Tuesday in Caracas at 4:25 local time after his prolonged illness. He was 58.

During more than 14 years in office, his leftist politics and grandiose style polarized Venezuelans. The barrel-chested leader electrified crowds with his booming voice, and won admiration among the poor with government social programs and a folksy, nationalistic style.

His opponents seethed at the larger-than-life character who demonized them on television and ordered the e

xpropriation of farms and businesses. Many in the middle class cringed at his bombast and complained about rising crime, soaring inflation and government economic controls.

Chavez used his country's vast oil wealth to launch social programs that included state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and education programs. Poverty declined during Chavez's presidency amid a historic boom in oil earnings, but critics said he failed to use the windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars to develop the country's economy.

Inflation soared and the homicide rate rose to among the highest in the world.

Before his struggle with cancer, he appeared on television almost daily, frequently speaking for hours and breaking into song or philosophical discourse. He often wore the bright red of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, or the fatigues and red beret of his army days. He had donned the same uniform in 1992 while leading an ill-fated coup attempt that first landed him in jail and then launched his political career.

The rest of the world watched as the country with the world's biggest proven oil reserves took a turn to the left under its unconventional leader, who considered himself above all else a revolutionary.

"I'm still a subversive," the president told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview, recalling his days as a rebel soldier. "I think the entire world has to be subverted."

Chavez was a master communicator and savvy political strategist, and managed to turn his struggle against cancer into a rallying cry, until the illness finally defeated him.

From the start, he billed himself as the heir of Bolivar, who led much of South America to independence. He often spoke beneath a portrait of Bolivar and presented replicas of the liberator's sword to allies. He built a soaring mausoleum in Caracas to house the remains of "El Libertador."

Chavez also was inspired by his mentor Fidel Castro and took on the Cuban leader's role as Washington's chief antagonist in the Western Hemisphere after the ailing Castro turned over the presidency to his brother Raul in 2006. Like Castro, Chavez vilified U.S.-style capitalism while forming alliances throughout Latin America and with distant powers such as Russia, China and Iran.

Supporters eagerly raised Chavez to the pantheon of revolutionary legends ranging from Castro to Argentine-born rebel Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Chavez nurtured that cult of personality, and even as he stayed out of sight for long stretches fighting cancer, his out-sized image appeared on buildings and billboard throughout Venezuela. The airwaves boomed with his baritone mantra: "I am a nation." Supporters carried posters and wore masks of his eyes, chanting, "I am Chavez."

In the battles Chavez waged at home and abroad, he captivated his base by championing his country's poor.

"This is the path: the hard, long path, filled with doubts, filled with errors, filled with bitterness, but this is the path," Chavez told his backers in 2011. "The path is this: socialism."

On television, he would lambast his opponents as "oligarchs," scold his aides, tell jokes, reminisce about his childhood, lecture Venezuelans on socialism and make sudden announcements, such as expelling the U.S. ambassador or ordering tanks to Venezuela's border with Colombia.

Chavez carried his in-your-face style to the world stage as well. In a 2006 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he called President George W. Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulfur after the U.S. president's address.

At a summit in 2007, he repeatedly called Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a fascist, prompting Spain's King Juan Carlos to snap, "Why don't you shut up?"

Critics saw Chavez as a typical Latin American caudillo, a strongman who ruled through force of personality and showed disdain for democratic rules. Chavez concentrated power in his hands with allies who dominated the congress and justices who controlled the Supreme Court.

"El Comandante," as he was known, insisted Venezuela remained a vibrant democracy and denied charges that he sought to restrict free speech. But some opponents faced criminal charges and were driven into exile. His government forced the opposition-aligned television channel, RCTV, off the air by refusing to renew its license.

While Chavez trumpeted plans for communes and an egalitarian society, his rhetoric regularly conflicted with reality. Despite government seizures of companies and farmland, the balance between Venezuela's public and private sectors changed little during his presidency.

Nonetheless, Chavez maintained a core of supporters who stayed loyal to their "comandante" until the end.

"Chavez masterfully exploits the disenchantment of people who feel excluded ... and he feeds on controversy whenever he can," Cristina Marcano and Alberto Barrera Tyszka wrote in their book "Hugo Chavez: The Definitive Biography of Venezuela's Controversial President."

Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias was born on July 28, 1954, in the rural town of Sabaneta in Venezuela's western plains. He was the son of a schoolteacher father and was the second of six brothers. His mother was also a schoolteacher who met her husband at age 16.

Hugo and his older brother Adan grew up with their grandmother, Rosa Ines, in a home with a dirt floor, mud walls and a roof made of palm fronds.

Chavez was a fine baseball player and hoped he might one day pitch in the U.S. major leagues. When he joined the military at age 17, he aimed to keep honing his baseball skills in the capital.

But between his army duties and drills, the young soldier immersed himself in the history of Bolivar and other Venezuelan heroes who had overthrown Spanish rule, and his political ideas began to take shape.

Chavez burst into public view in 1992 as a paratroop commander leading a military rebellion that brought tanks to the presidential palace. When the coup collapsed, Chavez was allowed to make a televised statement in which he declared that his movement had failed "for now." The speech, and those two defiant words, launched his career, searing his image into the memory of Venezuelans.

Two years later, he and other coup prisoners were released from prison, and President Rafael Caldera dropped the charges against them.

After organizing a new party, Chavez ran for president in 1998, pledging to clean up Venezuela's entrenched corruption and shatter its traditional two-party system. At age 44, he became the country's youngest president in four decades of democracy with 56 percent of the vote.

After he took office on Feb. 2, 1999, Chavez called for a new constitution, and an assembly filled with his allies drafted the document. Among various changes, it lengthened presidential terms from five years to six and changed the country's name to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

By 2000, his increasingly confrontational style and close ties to Cuba disenchanted many of the middle-class supporters who voted for him, and the next several years saw bold attempts by opponents to dislodge him from power.

In 2002, he survived a short-lived coup, which began after large anti-Chavez street protests ended in shootings and bloodshed. Dissident military officers detained the president and announced he had resigned. But within two days, he returned to power with the help of military loyalists amid massive protests by his supporters.

Chavez emerged a stronger president.

He defeated an opposition-led strike that paralyzed the country's oil industry and fired thousands of state oil company employees.

The coup also turned Chavez more decidedly against the U.S. government, which had swiftly recognized the provisional leader who briefly replaced him. He created political and trade alliances that excluded the U.S., and he cozied up to Iran and Syria in large part, it seemed, due to their shared antagonism toward the U.S. government. Despite the souring relationship, Chavez kept selling the bulk of Venezuela's oil to the United States.

By 2005, Chavez was espousing a new, vaguely defined "21st-century socialism." Yet the agenda didn't involve a sudden overhaul to the country's economic order, and some businesspeople continued to prosper. Those with lucrative ties to the government came to be known as the "Bolivarian bourgeoisie."

After easily winning re-election in 2006, Chavez began calling for a "multi-polar world" free of U.S. domination, part of an expanded international agenda. He boosted oil shipments to China, set up joint factories with Iran to produce tractors and cars, and sealed arms deals with Russia for assault rifles, helicopters and fighter jets. He focused on building alliances throughout Latin America and injected new energy into the region's left. Allies were elected in Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and other countries.

Chavez also cemented relationships with island countries in the Caribbean by selling them oil on preferential terms while severing ties with Israel, supporting the Palestinian cause and backing Iran's right to a nuclear energy program.

All the while, Chavez emphasized that it was necessary to prepare for any potential conflict with the "empire," his term for the United States.

He told the AP in 2007 that he loved the movie "Gladiator."

"It's confronting the empire, and confronting evil. ... And you end up relating to that gladiator," Chavez said as he drove across Venezuela's southern plains.

He said he felt a deep connection to those plains where he grew up, and that when died he hoped to be buried in the savanna.

"A man from the plains, from these great open spaces ... tends to be a nomad, tends not to see barriers. 

What you see is the horizon," Chavez said.

Running a revolution ultimately left little time for a personal life. His second marriage, to journalist Marisabel Rodriguez, deteriorated in the early years of his presidency, and they divorced in 2004. In addition to their one daughter, Rosines, Chavez had three children from his first marriage, which ended before he ran for office. His daughters Maria and Rosa often appeared at his side at official events and during his trips. He had one son, Hugo Rafael Chavez.

After he was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011, he acknowledged that he had recklessly neglected his health. He had taken to staying up late and drinking as many as 40 cups of coffee a day. He regularly summoned his Cabinet ministers to the presidential palace late at night.

Even as he appeared with head shaved while undergoing chemotherapy, he never revealed the exact location of tumors that were removed from his pelvic region, or the exact type of cancer.

Chavez exerted himself for one final election campaign in 2012 after saying tests showed he was cancer-free, and defeated younger challenger Henrique Capriles. With another six-year term in hand, he promised to keep pressing for revolutionary changes.

But two months later, he went to Cuba for a fourth cancer-related surgery, blowing a kiss to his country as he boarded the plane.

After a 10-week absence, the government announced that Chavez had returned to Venezuela and was being 

treated at a military hospital in Caracas. He was never seen again in public.

In his final years, Chavez frequently said Venezuela was well on its way toward socialism, and at least in his mind, there was no turning back.

His political movement, however, was mostly a one-man phenomenon. Only three days before his final surgery, Chavez named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his chosen successor.

Now, it will be up to Venezuelans to determine whether the Chavismo movement can survive, and how it will evolve, without the leader who inspired it.

John Hanger: Gov. Tom Corbett's acceptance of gifts is 'a firing offense' | PennLive.com

John Hanger: Gov. Tom Corbett's acceptance of gifts is 'a firing offense' | PennLive.com

Scientists say baby born with HIV apparently cured

Scientists say baby born with HIV apparently cured 

This image provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine shows Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins' Children's Center in Baltimore. A baby, born with the AIDS virus, appears to have been cured scientists announced Sunday, March 3, 2013, describing the case of a child from Mississippi, who's now 2½ and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection. If the child remains free of HIV, it would mark only the world's second known cure. Specialists say the finding offers exciting clues for how to eliminate HIV infection in children. "Maybe we'll be able to block this reservoir seeding," Persaud said.

 
About 300,000 children were born with HIV in 2011, mostly in poor countries where only about 60 percent of infected pregnant women get treatment that can keep them from passing the virus to their babies. In the U.S., such births are very rare because HIV testing and treatment long have been part of prenatal care.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A baby born with the virus that causes AIDS appears to have been cured, scientists announced Sunday, describing the case of a child from Mississippi who's now 2 1/2 and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection.

There's no guarantee the child will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing uncovered just traces of the virus' genetic material still lingering. If so, it would mark only the world's second reported cure.

Specialists say Sunday's announcement, at a major AIDS meeting in Atlanta, offers promising clues for efforts to eliminate HIV infection in children, especially in AIDS-plagued African countries where too many babies are born with the virus.

"You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we've seen," Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who is familiar with the findings, told The Associated Press.

A doctor gave this baby faster and stronger treatment than is usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. That was before tests confirmed the infant was infected and not just at risk from a mother whose HIV wasn't diagnosed until she was in labor.

"I just felt like this baby was at higher-than-normal risk, and deserved our best shot," Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi, said in an interview.

That fast action apparently knocked out HIV in the baby's blood before it could form hideouts in the body. Those so-called reservoirs of dormant cells usually rapidly reinfect anyone who stops medication, said Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children's Center. She led the investigation that deemed the child "functionally cured," meaning in long-term remission even if all traces of the virus haven't been completely eradicated.

Next, Persaud's team is planning a study to try to prove that, with more aggressive treatment of other high-risk babies. "Maybe we'll be able to block this reservoir seeding," Persaud said.

No one should stop anti-AIDS drugs as a result of this case, Fauci cautioned.

But "it opens up a lot of doors" to research if other children can be helped, he said. "It makes perfect sense what happened."

Better than treatment is to prevent babies from being born with HIV in the first place.

"We can't promise to cure babies who are infected. We can promise to prevent the vast majority of transmissions if the moms are tested during every pregnancy," Gay stressed.

The only other person considered cured of the AIDS virus underwent a very different and risky kind of treatment - a bone marrow transplant from a special donor, one of the rare people who is naturally resistant to HIV. Timothy Ray Brown of San Francisco has not needed HIV medications in the five years since that transplant.

The Mississippi case shows "there may be different cures for different populations of HIV-infected people," said Dr. Rowena Johnston of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. That group funded Persaud's team to explore possible cases of pediatric cures.

It also suggests that scientists should look back at other children who've been treated since shortly after birth, including some reports of possible cures in the late 1990s that were dismissed at the time, said Dr. Steven Deeks of the University of California, San Francisco, who also has seen the findings.

"This will likely inspire the field, make people more optimistic that this is possible," he said.

In the Mississippi case, the mother had had no prenatal care when she came to a rural emergency room in advanced labor. A rapid test detected HIV. In such cases, doctors typically give the newborn low-dose medication in hopes of preventing HIV from taking root. But the small hospital didn't have the proper liquid kind, and sent the infant to Gay's medical center. She gave the baby higher treatment-level doses.

The child responded well through age 18 months, when the family temporarily quit returning and stopped treatment, researchers said. When they returned several months later, remarkably, Gay's standard tests detected no virus in the child's blood.

Ten months after treatment stopped, a battery of super-sensitive tests at half a dozen laboratories found no sign of the virus' return. There were only some remnants of genetic material that don't appear able to replicate, Persaud said.

In Mississippi, Gay gives the child a check-up every few months: "I just check for the virus and keep praying that it stays gone."

The mother's HIV is being controlled with medication and she is "quite excited for her child," Gay added.

The United Nations agency that guides the global fight against HIV/AIDS, known as UNAIDS, hailed the news.

"This news gives us great hope that a cure for HIV in children is possible and could bring us one step closer to an AIDS-free generation," said UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe. "This also underscores the need for research and innovation especially in the area of early diagnostics."

Calif. woman dies after nurse refuses to do CPR

Calif. woman dies after nurse refuses to do CPR 

Shown is the main gate of Glenwood Gardens in Bakersfield, Calif., Monday March 4, 2013, where an elderly woman died after a nurse refused to perform CPR on her last week. The central California retirement home is defending one of its nurses who refused pleas by a 911 operator to perform CPR on an elderly woman, who later died. "Is there anybody that's willing to help this lady and not let her die," dispatcher Tracey Halvorson says on a 911 tape released by the Bakersfield Fire Department aired by several media outlets.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) -- A nurse's refusal to give CPR to a dying 87-year-old woman at a California independent living home despite desperate pleas from a 911 dispatcher has prompted outrage and spawned a criminal investigation.

The harrowing 7-minute, 16-second call also raised concerns that policies at senior living facilities could prevent staff from intervening in medical emergencies. It prompted calls for legislation Monday to prevent a repeat of what happened Feb. 26 at the Glenwood Gardens in Bakersfield.

Loraine Bayless collapsed in the dining room of the retirement home that offers many levels of care. She lived in the independent living building, which state officials said is like a senior apartment complex and doesn't operate under licensing oversight.

"This is a wakeup call," said Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, chair of the California Assembly Aging and Long-term Care Committee. "I'm sorry it took a tragedy like this to bring it to our attention."

Yamada cautioned that while it's not yet known whether intervention would have saved the woman's life, "we want to investigate because it has caused a lot of concern and alarm."

Independent living facilities "should not have a policy that says you can stand there and watch somebody die," said Pat McGinnis, founder of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, a consumer advocacy group. "How a nurse can do that is beyond comprehension."

In all her years of advocating for the elderly, McGinnis said: "This was so horrifying. I've never seen this happen before."

State officials did not know Monday whether the woman who talked to the 911 dispatcher actually was a nurse, or just identified herself as one during the call. She said one of the home's policies prevented her from doing CPR, according to an audio recording of the call.

"The consensus is if they are a nurse and if they are at work as a nurse, then they should be offering the appropriate medical care," said Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the California Board of Registered Nursing, the agency that licenses health care providers.

The executive director of Glenwood Gardens, Jeffrey Toomer, defended the nurse in a written statement, saying she followed the facility's policy.

"In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community, our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives," Toomer said. "That is the protocol we followed."

Toomer offered condolences to the woman's family and said a thorough internal review would be conducted. 

He told KGET-TV that residents of the facility are informed of the policy and agree to it when they move in. He said the policy does not apply at the adjacent assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.

Multiple calls to the facility and its parent company seeking more information were not returned.

Unlike nursing homes, which provide medical care, independent living facilities generally do not.

"These are like apartments for seniors. You're basically living on your own. They may have some services provided by basic nursing staff, but it's not their responsibility to care for the individual," said Dr. Susan Leonard, a geriatrics expert at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Residents of independent living communities can still take care of themselves, but may need help getting to doctor's appointments. In skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes, many residents require around-the-clock care.

Staff members are "required to perform and provide CPR" unless there's a do-not-resuscitate order, said Greg Crist, a senior vice president at the American Health Care Association.

Bayless did not have such an order on file at the facility, said Battalion Chief Anthony Galagaza of the Bakersfield Fire Department, which was the first on the scene. That's when firefighters immediately began CPR, continuing until she reached the hospital.

Dr. Patricia Harris, who heads the University of Southern California's geriatrics division, said the survival odds are slim among elderly who receive CPR. Even if they survive, they are never the same. She said she would override the home's policy and risk getting fired "rather than watch somebody die in front of me."

During the call, an unidentified woman called from her cellphone, and asked for paramedics to be sent to help the woman. Later, a woman who identified herself as the nurse got on the phone and told dispatcher Tracey Halvorson she was not permitted to do CPR on the woman.

Halvorson urged the nurse to start CPR, warning the consequences could be dire if no one tried to revive the woman, who had been laid out on the floor on her instructions.

"I understand if your boss is telling you, you can't do it," the dispatcher said. "But ... as a human being ... you know, is there anybody that's willing to help this lady and not let her die?"

"Not at this time," the nurse answered.

Halvorson assured the nurse that Glenwood couldn't be sued if anything went wrong in attempts to resuscitate the resident, saying the local emergency medical system "takes the liability for this call."

Later in the call, Halvorson asked, "Is there a gardener? Any staff, anyone who doesn't work for you? Anywhere? Can we flag someone down in the street and get them to help this lady? Can we flag a stranger down? I bet a stranger would help her."

"I understand if your facility is not willing to do that. Give the phone to a passer-by. This woman is not breathing enough. She is going to die if we don't get this started, do you understand?"

The woman had no pulse and wasn't breathing when fire crews reached her, Galagaza said.

Sgt. Jason Matson of the Bakersfield Police Department said its investigation so far had not revealed criminal wrongdoing, but the probe is continuing.

First responders say often it's hard to find someone willing to provide CPR in an emergency.

"It's not uncommon to have someone refuse to provide CPR if they physically can't do it, or they're so upset they just can't function," Kern County Fire Department Deputy Chief Michael Miller said. "What made this one unique was the way the conversation on the phone went. It was just very frustrating to anyone listening to it, like, why wasn't anyone helping this poor woman, since CPR today is much simpler than it was in the past?"

Campaign presses on to name a Brandywine Valley national park

Campaign presses on to name a Brandywine Valley national park

Expectant parents die in NY crash; infant survives

Expectant parents die in NY crash; infant survives 

Members of the Satmar Orthodox Jewish community congregate for the funeral of two expectant parents who were killed in a car accident, Sunday, March 3, 2013, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. A driver struck the car the couple were riding in early Sunday morning, killing both parents while their baby, who was born prematurely, survived and is in critical condition.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A pregnant young woman who was feeling ill was headed to the hospital with her husband early Sunday when the car they were riding in was hit, killing them both, but their baby boy was born prematurely and survived, authorities and a relative said.

The driver of a BMW slammed into the car carrying Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21, at an intersection in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, said Isaac Abraham, a neighbor of Raizy Glauber's parents who lives two blocks from the scene of the crash.

Raizy Glauber was thrown from the car and her body landed under a parked tractor-trailer, said witnesses who came to the scene after the crash. Nachman Glauber was pinned in the car, and emergency workers had to cut off the roof to get him out, witnesses said.

Both of the Glaubers were pronounced dead at hospitals, police said, and both died of blunt-force trauma, the medical examiner said.

Their son was in serious condition, Abraham said. The hospital did not return calls about the infant. The Glaubers' livery cab driver was treated for minor injuries at the hospital and was later released. Both the driver of the BMW and a passenger fled and were being sought, police said.

On Saturday, Raizy Glauber "was not feeling well, so they decided to go" to the hospital, said Sara Glauber, Nachman Glauber's cousin. Abraham said the Glaubers called a car service because they didn't own a car, which is common for New Yorkers.

The Glaubers were married about a year ago and had begun a life together in Williamsburg, where Raizy Glauber grew up in a prominent Orthodox Jewish rabbinical family, Sara Glauber said.

Raised north of New York City in Monsey, N.Y., and part of a family that founded a line of clothing for Orthodox Jews, Nachman Glauber was studying at a rabbinical college nearby, said his cousin.

Brooklyn is home to the largest community of ultra-orthodox Jews outside Israel, more than 250,000. The community has strict rules governing clothing, social customs and interaction with the outside world. Men wear dark clothing that includes a long coat and a fedora-type hat and often have long beards and ear locks.

Jewish law calls for burial of the dead as soon as possible, and hours after their deaths, the Glaubers were mourned by at least 1,000 people at a funeral outside the Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar synagogue. Men in black hats gathered around the coffins in the middle of the street, while women in bright headscarves stood on the sidewalk, in accordance with the Orthodox Jewish tradition of separating the sexes at religious services.

The sound of wailing filled the air as two coffins covered in black velvet with a silver trim were carried from a vehicle. A succession of men and women delivered eulogies in Yiddish, sobbing as they spoke into a microphone about the young couple. "I will never forget you, my daughter!" said Yitzchok Silberstein, Raizy Glauber's father.

Afterward, the cars carrying the bodies left and headed to Monsey, where another service was planned in Nachman Glauber's hometown.

"You don't meet anyone better than him," said his cousin. "He was always doing favors for everyone."

She said Nachman's mother herself just delivered a baby two weeks ago.

"I've never seen a mother-son relationship like this," Sara Glauber said. "He called her every day to make sure everything was OK. He was the sweetest, most charming human being, always with a smile on his face."

She added that, of him and his bride, "if one had to go, the other had to go too because they really were one soul."

Biden leads re-enactment of voting rights march

Biden leads re-enactment of voting rights march 

Thousands of residents await the arrival of Vice President Joe Biden for the annual Bridge Crossing Ceremony in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 3, 2013. Biden is traveling to Selma on Sunday to participate in the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. The event commemorates the 1965 march, which prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act and add millions of African-Americans to Southern voter rolls.

SELMA, Ala. (AP) -- The vice president and black leaders commemorating a famous civil rights march on Sunday said efforts to diminish the impact of African-Americans' votes haven't stopped in the years since the 

1965 Voting Rights Act added millions to Southern voter rolls.

More than 5,000 people followed Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma's annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee. The event commemorates the "Bloody Sunday" beating of voting rights marchers - including a young Lewis - by state troopers as they began a march to Montgomery in March 1965. The 50-mile march prompted Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act that struck down impediments to voting by African-Americans and ended all-white rule in the South.

Biden, the first sitting vice president to participate in the annual re-enactment, said nothing shaped his consciousness more than watching TV footage of the beatings. "We saw in stark relief the rank hatred, discrimination and violence that still existed in large parts of the nation," he said.

Biden said marchers "broke the back of the forces of evil," but that challenges to voting rights continue today with restrictions on early voting and voter registration drives and enactment of voter ID laws where no voter fraud has been shown.

"We will never give up or give in," Lewis told marchers.

Jesse Jackson said Sunday's event had a sense of urgency because the U.S. Supreme Court heard a request Wednesday by a mostly white Alabama county to strike down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act.

"We've had the right to vote 48 years, but they've never stopping trying to diminish the impact of the votes," Jackson said.

Referring to the Voting Rights act, the Rev. Al Sharpton said: "We are not here for a commemoration. We are here for a continuation."

The Supreme Court is weighing Shelby County's challenge to a portion of the law that requires states with a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the Deep South, to get approval from the Justice Department before implementing any changes in election laws. That includes everything from new voting districts to voter ID laws.

Attorneys for Shelby County argued that the pre-clearance requirement is outdated in a state where one-fourth of the Legislature is black. But Jackson predicted the South will return to gerrymandering and more at-large elections if the Supreme Court voids part of the law.

Attorney General Eric Holder, the defendant in Shelby County's suit, told marchers that the South is far different than it was in 1965 but is not yet at the point where the most important part of the voting rights act can be dismissed as unnecessary.

Martin Luther King III, whose father led the march when it resumed after Bloody Sunday, said, "We come here not to just celebrate and observe but to recommit."

One of the NAACP attorneys who argued the case, Debo Adegbile, said when Congress renewed the Voting Rights Act in 2006, it understood that the act makes sure minority inclusion is considered up front.

"It reminds us to think consciously about how we can include all our citizens in democracy. That is as important today as it was in 1965," he said.

Adegbile said the continued need for the law was shown in 2011 when undercover recordings from a bribery investigation at the Alabama Legislature included one white legislator referring to blacks as "aborigines" and other white legislators laughing.

"This was 2011. This was not 1965," he said.

Rescuers end effort to find body in Fla. sinkhole

Rescuers end effort to find body in Fla. sinkhole 

Jeremy Bush places flowers and a stuffed animal at a makeshift memorial in front of a home where a sinkhole opened up underneath a bedroom late Thursday evening and swallowed his brother Jeffrey in Seffner, Fla. on Saturday, March 2, 2013. Jeffrey Bush, 37, was in his bedroom Thursday night when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five other people were in the house but managed to escape unharmed. Bush's brother jumped into the hole to try to help, but he had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy.

 

SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) -- The effort to find the body of a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole under his Florida home was called off Saturday and crews planned to begin demolishing the four-bedroom house.

The 20-foot-wide opening of the sinkhole is almost completely covered by the house and rescuers feared it would collapse on them if they tried to search for Jeff Bush, 37. Crews were testing the unstable ground surrounding the home and evacuated two neighboring homes as a precaution.

Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said heavy equipment would be brought in to begin the demolition Sunday morning.

"At this point it's really not possible to recover the body," Merrill said, later adding "we're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole."

Jessica Damico, spokeswoman for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, said the demolition equipment would be placed on what they believe is solid ground and reach onto the property to pull apart the house. The crew will try pulling part of the house away from the sinkhole intact so some heirlooms and mementoes can be retrieved.

Bush was in his bedroom Thursday night in Seffner - a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa - when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five others in the house escape unharmed.

On Saturday, the normally quiet neighborhood of concrete block homes painted in Florida pastels was jammed with cars as engineers, reporters, and curious onlookers came to the scene.

At the home next door to the Bushes, a family cried and organized boxes. Testing determined that their house and another was compromised by the sinkhole. The families were allowed to go inside for about a half-hour to gather belongings.

Sisters Soliris and Elbairis Gonzalez, who live on the same street as Bushes, said neighbors were worried for their safety.

"I've had nightmares," Soliris Gonzalez, 31, said. "In my dreams, I keep checking for cracks in the house."

They said the family has discussed where to go if forced to evacuate, and they've taken their important documents to a storage unit.

"The rest of it, this is material stuff, as long as our family is fine," Soliris Gonzalez said.

"You never know underneath the ground what's happening," added Elbairis Gonzalez, 30.

Experts say thousands of sinkholes form yearly in Florida because of the state's unique geography, though most are small and deaths rarely occur.

"There's hardly a place in Florida that's immune to sinkholes," said Sandy Nettles, who owns a geology consulting company in the Tampa area. "There's no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur."

Most sinkholes are small, like one found Saturday morning in Largo, 35 miles away from Seffner. The Largo sinkhole, about 10 feet long and several feet wide, is in a mall parking lot.

The state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations - including the area where Bush became a victim - making them even more prone to sinkholes.

Jonathan Arthur, the state geologist and director of the Florida Geological Survey, said other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors like extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction. "The conditions under which a sinkhole will form can be very rapid, or they can form slowly over time," he said.

But it remained unclear Saturday what, if anything, caused the Seffner sinkhole.

"The condition that caused that sinkhole could have started a million years ago," Nettles said.

Jeremy Bush, who tried to rescue his brother, lay flowers and a stuffed lamb near the house Saturday morning and wept.

He said someone came to his home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other issues, apparently for insurance purposes, but found nothing wrong. State law requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes.

"And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said Friday.

Consequence to cuts no one thought would happen

Consequence to cuts no one thought would happen 

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks to reporters in the White House briefing room in Washington, Friday, March 1, 2013, following a meeting with congressional leaders regarding the automatic spending cuts.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not the first time that government economic engineering has produced a time bomb with a short fuse.

Back in 2011, few lawmakers, if any, thought deep and indiscriminate spending cuts, totaling about $85 billion and now starting to kick in, were a smart idea.

The across-the-board cuts, set up as a last-resort trigger and based on a mechanism used in the 1980s, are a reality largely because President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, failed to find a way to stop them.

Republicans, influenced by tea party and other conservative factions, insisted on just spending cuts to narrow the deficit. Tax increases were out.

Obama and the Democratic-run Senate didn't budge from a mix of cuts and increased tax revenues.

"Arbitrary" and "stupid" Obama called the auto-pilot cuts, known as sequester.

But history shows a long trail of unintended consequences from government actions - or inaction:

-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after a solid re-election victory in 1936, believed that the Great Depression was winding down. Unemployment was declining and economic activity was coming back.

Roosevelt and Congress believed it was time to cut free-flowing government spending and raise taxes. The Federal Reserve tightened its financial reins. But the fragile economy couldn't withstand the blows. The Depression roared back, lasting until the 1940s when U.S. involvement in World War II finally revived the economy.

-President Ronald Reagan's ambitious 1986 overhaul of the tax code simplified taxes and closed many loopholes, including repealing the popular tax deduction for credit-card interest. Then people started borrowing heavily against fast-rising equity in their homes; that interest still was deductible.

But the practice eventually helped put millions of homeowners under water on their mortgages when the housing bubble burst, contributing to the 2007-2009 recession.

-The Fed has kept short-term interest rates unusually low and printed money to keep downward pressure on longer-term rates, easing borrowing for businesses and individuals.

Yet retirees and other savers are earning near-zero interest on bonds and savings accounts, and many investors are jumping into riskier transactions in search of higher returns.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and many mainstream economists argue that the Fed's stimulus policies have helped the housing and financial sectors recover and kept the downturn from getting worse.

One leading Fed critic Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., accused Bernanke at a hearing last week of "throwing seniors under the bus" by driving down interest rates on their savings to almost nothing.

-The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 were first proposed by Texas Gov. George W. Bush as he campaigned for president in 2000. At the time, the economy was enjoying rare multi-year budget surpluses and government economists were predicting surpluses well into the future. Bush told cheering audiences his tax cuts would return to taxpayers "what is rightfully yours."

Those cuts long have outlived the surpluses, which vanished in Bush's first year in office. Deficits returned with a vengeance and have grown ever since.

But most of them remain today, trimmed only slightly by the New Year's deal that ended Bush's tax breaks for households making over $450,000 a year.

Economists view those tax cuts as one of the biggest drains on the Treasury, and a major contributor to the spiraling government debt.

-Wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq lasted far longer and cost much more, in terms of U.S. lives and dollars, than anticipated.

-Social Security has become one of the most expensive federal programs ever. When it was created in the 1930s, the average life expectancy was about 65. Longer life expectancies and the coming retirements of millions of baby boomers have put enormous strains on Social Security, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

And now the sequester.

"It's not hard to come up with something better, yet all efforts to do so went down the toilet for various reasons," said economist Bruce Bartlett, who held economic posts in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

"And I think people didn't realize how wedded Republicans are to not raising taxes."

Still, no one really thought the cuts would happen, he added.

Stan Collender, a former staffer on both the House and Senate budget committees, said Congress is "very short-term focused. The longer-term consequences are of very little concern to people who have to run for re-election every two years," said Collender, now a partner at Quorvis Communications, a financial consulting firm.

More House districts have been redrawn in recent years with political factors in mind, and that's tended to concentrate conservatives in Republican districts and liberals in Democratic ones.

And set the terms of the debate on Capitol Hill.

"If people in your district are hell bent on cutting spending, even if it hurts the economy, and applaud your intransigence, then that's going to be your priority and your vote, even if it's not necessarily good for the country," Collender said.

The sequester now in play is actually an updated version of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985. 

There also was a small sequester in 1986, and a big one planned for 1990.

The latter was avoided only after President George H.W. Bush broke his "no new taxes" pledge to join Democrats in a deficit-reduction compromise that raised taxes.

There was a huge GOP backlash, one that many politicians believe contributed to Bush's 1992 re-election defeat to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Clearly not the consequence Bush had in mind

Fla. man swallowed by sinkhole, presumed dead

Fla. man swallowed by sinkhole, presumed dead

In this undated photo released by Jeremy Bush, shows his brother Jeff Bush. Jeremy Bush heard a loud crash and screaming coming from his brother's room early Thursday, March 1, 2013 in Seffner, Fla. A large sinkhole opened under Jeff's bedroom and he disappeared together with most of the bedroom furniture. Jeremy jumped into the hole and was quickly up to his neck in dirt. Jeff is presumed dead.

SEFFNER, Fla. (AP) -- In a matter of seconds, the earth opened under Jeff Bush's bedroom and swallowed him up like something out of a horror movie. About the only thing left was the TV cable running down into the hole.

Bush, 37, was presumed dead Friday, the victim of a sinkhole - a hazard so common in Florida that state law requires home insurers to provide coverage against the danger.

The sinkhole, estimated at 20 feet across and 20 feet deep, caused the home's concrete floor to cave in around 11 p.m. Thursday as everyone in the Tampa-area house was turning in for the night. It gave way with a loud crash that sounded like a car hitting the house and brought Bush's brother running.

Jeremy Bush said he jumped into the hole but couldn't see his brother and had to be rescued himself by a sheriff's deputy who reached out and pulled him to safety as the ground crumbled around him.

"The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn't care. I wanted to save my brother," Jeremy Bush said through tears Friday in a neighbor's yard. "But I just couldn't do nothing."

He added: "I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him."

Officials lowered equipment into the sinkhole and saw no signs of life, said Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico.

A dresser and the TV set had vanished down the hole, along with most of Bush's bed.

"All I could see was the cable wire running from the TV going down into the hole. I saw a corner of the bed and a corner of the box spring and the frame of the bed," Jeremy Bush said.

Engineers worked to determine whether the ground was stable enough to support heavy machinery to help them recover the body. Workers with rope tied around them took soil samples from the yard.

Engineers said they may have to demolish the small, sky-blue house, even though from the outside there appeared to be nothing wrong with the four-bedroom, concrete-wall structure, built in 1974.

Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water. A sinkhole near Orlando grew to 400 feet across in 1981 and devoured five sports cars, most of two businesses, a three-bedroom house and the deep end of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in Hillsborough County alone since the government started keeping track in 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.

Jeremy Bush said someone came out to the home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other things, apparently for insurance purposes.

"He said there was nothing wrong with the house. Nothing. And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said.

Six people were at the home at the time, including Jeremy Bush's wife and his 2-year-old daughter. The brothers worked maintenance jobs, including picking up trash along highways.

Gridlock: No budging at the budget-cuts deadline

Gridlock: No budging at the budget-cuts deadline 

President Barack Obama speaks to reporters in the White House briefing room in Washington, Friday, March 1, 2013, following his meeting with congressional leaders regarding the automatic spending cuts.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gridlocked once more, President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders refused to budge in their budget standoff Friday as $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts bore down on individual Americans and the nation's still-recovering economy. "None of this is necessary," said the president after a sterile White House meeting that portended a long standoff.

Even before Obama formally ordered the cuts required by midnight, their impact was felt thousands of miles away. In Seattle, the King County Housing Authority announced it had stopped issuing housing vouchers under a federal program that benefits "elderly or disabled households, veterans, and families with children."

The president met with top lawmakers for less than an hour at the White House, then sought repeatedly to fix the blame on Republicans for the broad spending reductions and any damage that they inflict. "They've allowed these cuts to happen because they refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," he said, renewing his demand for a comprehensive deficit-cutting deal that includes higher taxes.

Republicans said they wanted deficit cuts, too, but not tax increases. "The president got his tax hikes on Jan. 1," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters, a reference to a $600 billion increase on higher wage earners that cleared Congress on the first day of the year. Now, he said after the meeting, it is time take on "the spending problem here in Washington."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was equally emphatic. " I will not be part of any back-room deal, and I will absolutely not agree to increase taxes," he vowed in a written statement.

At the same time they clashed, Obama and Republicans appeared determined to contain their disagreement.

Boehner said the House will pass legislation next week to extend routine funding for government agencies beyond the current March 27 expiration. "I'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time," he said, referring to the new cuts by their Washington-speak name.

Obama said he, too, wanted to keep the two issues separate.

White House officials declined to say precisely when the president would formally order the cuts. Under the law, he had until midnight. Barring a quick deal in the next week or so to call them off, the impact eventually is likely to be felt in all reaches of the country.

The Pentagon will absorb half of the $85 billion required to be sliced between now and the end of the budget year on Sept 30, exposing civilian workers to furloughs and defense contractors to possible cancellations. Said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, only a few days on the job: "We will continue to ensure America's security" despite the challenge posed by an "unnecessary budget crisis."

The administration also has warned of long lines at airports as security personnel are furloughed, of teacher layoffs in some classrooms and adverse impacts on maintenance at the nation's parks.

The announcement by the housing agency in Seattle was an early indication of what is likely to hit as the cuts take effect. It said it was taking the action "to cope with the impending reduction in federal funding," adding that it normally issues 45 to 50 vouchers per month.

After days of dire warnings by administration officials, the president told reporters the effects of the cuts would be felt only gradually.

"The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage to our economy - a slow grind that will intensify with each passing day," he said. Much of the budget savings will come through unpaid furloughs for government workers, and those won't begin taking effect until next month.

Obama declined to say if he bore any of the responsibility for the coming cuts, and expressed bemusement at any suggestion he had the ability to force Republicans to agree with him.

"I am not a dictator. I'm the president," he said. "So, ultimately, if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say we need to go to catch a plane, I can't have Secret Service block the doorway, right?" He also declared he couldn't perform a "Jedi mind meld" to sway opponents, mixing Star Wars and Star Trek as he reached for a science fiction metaphor.

Neither the president nor Republicans claimed to like what was about to happen. Obama called the cuts "dumb," and GOP lawmakers have long said they were his idea in the first place.

Ironically, they derive from a budget dispute they were supposed to help resolve back in the fall of 2011. At the time, a congressional Supercommittee was charged with identifying at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings over a decade as part of an attempt to avoid a first-ever government default. The president and Republicans agreed to create a fallback of that much in across-the-board cuts, designed to be so unpalatable that it would virtually assure the panel struck a deal.

The Supercommittee dissolved in disagreement, though. And while Obama and Republicans agreed to a two-month delay last January, there was no bipartisan negotiation in recent days to prevent the first installment of the cuts from taking effect.

It isn't clear how long they will last.

Of particular concern to lawmakers in both parties is a lack of flexibility in the allocation of cuts due to take effect over the next few months. That problem will ease beginning with the new budget year on Oct. 1, when 

Congress and the White House will be able to negotiate changes in the way the reductions are made.

For his part, Obama suggested he was content to leave them in place until Republicans change their minds about raising taxes by closing loopholes.

"If Congress comes to its senses a week from now, a month from now, three months from now, then there's a lot of open running room there for us to grow our economy much more quickly and to advance the agenda of the American people dramatically," he said.

"So this is a temporary stop on what I believe is the long-term, outstanding prospect for American growth and greatness."

But Republicans say they are on solid political ground. At a retreat in January in Williamsburg, Va., GOP House members reversed course and decided to approve a debt limit increase without demanding cuts. They also agreed not to provoke a government shutdown, another traditional pressure point, as leverage to force Obama and Democrats to accept savings in benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Obama has said repeatedly he's willing to include benefit programs in deficit-cutting legislation - as long as more tax revenue is part of the deal.

"I am prepared to do hard things and to push my Democratic friends to do hard things," he said at the White House on Friday.

Republicans speak dismissively of such pledges, saying that in earlier negotiations, the president has never been willing to close a deal with the type of changes he often says he will accept.