World/Nation Briefs July 1, 2011

Senate changes plans, will work next week

WASHINGTON - The Senate abandoned plans for a July 4 break as time dwindled for lawmakers to strike a compromise on avoiding a government default and reducing mammoth federal deficits. In a challenge to President Barack Obama, the chamber's top Republican invited him to the Capitol to discuss the impasse with GOP lawmakers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced the scheduling change Thursday, a day after President Barack Obama prodded lawmakers to act swiftly to extend the government's ability to borrow money. The Senate had been scheduled to take a week's break but instead will meet beginning Tuesday.

The House had already been scheduled to work next week.

Minnesota shuts down government over tax impasse

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota stumbled into its second government shutdown in six years on Thursday, with a partisan divide over taxes and spending to close a $5 billion deficit becoming only more bitter as a midnight deadline came and went without agreement.

Any hope of a last-minute budget deal between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders evaporated around 10 p.m., when Dayton appeared to say he and Republicans were still fundamentally divided over how much the state should spend the next two years and that he saw no chance of avoiding a shutdown.

"It's significant that this shutdown will begin on the Fourth of July weekend," Dayton said. "On that date we celebrate our independence. It also reminds us there are causes and struggles worth fighting for."

Republicans appeared again minutes later, and tried to hang blame for the shutdown around the governor's neck.

The shutdown means thousands of layoffs, a standstill for road projects and padlocked state parks just ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. The effects were already being felt hours ahead of the deadline, as people rushed Thursday to get driver's and fishing licenses, and park officials began warning campers to pack their gear and leave.

Al-Qaida linked network blamed for hotel attack

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition on Thursday blamed an al-Qaida affiliated network working jointly with Taliban fighters for a deadly attack on a luxury hotel in Kabul - an assault that raised doubts about the ability of Afghan forces to handle security as foreign troops withdraw.

The coalition also reported that a leader with the Haqqani network suspected of having provided assistance, including weapons, fighters and training, to the gunmen who attacked the Inter-Continental hotel was killed Wednesday night in a precision airstrike. Ismail Jan, the deputy to the senior Haqqani commander inside Afghanistan, and other Haqqani fighters died in the airstrike in Gardez, the provincial capital of Paktia province, the coalition said.

Nine suicide bombers launched an attack on the hotel late Tuesday, triggering an hours-long standoff with Afghan security forces, who were assisted by coalition mentors and NATO helicopters. In all, 20 people were killed, including the nine attackers.

Crack cocaine convicts eligible for early release

WASHINGTON - As many as 12,000 people in federal prison for crack-related crimes can get their sentences reduced as a result of a new law that brought the penalties for the drug more closely in line with those for powdered cocaine, a government commission decided Thursday.

The decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission applies to approximately 1 in 17 inmates in the federal system.

Congress last year substantially lowered the sentences for crack-related crimes such as possession and trafficking, changing a 1980s law that was criticized as racially discriminatory because it came down extra hard on a drug common in poor, black neighborhoods.

- The Associated Press