World Nation Briefs March 4, 2013
Republicans suggest spending cuts here to stay
WASHINGTON - The spending cuts are here to stay if you believe the public posturing Sunday.
The Senate's Republican leader Mitch McConnell called them modest. House Speaker John Boehner isn't sure the cuts will hurt the economy. The White House's top economic adviser, Gene Sperling, said the pain isn't that bad right now.
So after months of dire warnings, Washington didn't implode, government didn't shut down and the $85 billion budget trigger didn't spell doom. And no one has a tangible proposal for rolling back those cuts.
"This modest reduction of 2.4 percent in spending over the next six months is a little more than the average American experienced just two months ago, when their own pay went down when the payroll tax holiday expired," McConnell said.
Biden joins in re-enactment of landmark march
SELMA, Ala. - Vice President Joe Biden led civil rights leaders and national political figures in a ceremonial crossing of a Selma bridge where voting rights marchers were beaten in 1965.
Biden put his arm around U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who was one of the original marchers attacked by state troopers at the start of the march to Montgomery 48 years ago. Biden said Lewis and the other marchers showed courage and determination in the name of justice always prevails.
About 5,000 people joined the re-enactment. That's 10 times the number of original marchers at what's now known as "Bloody Sunday."
Queen Elizabeth hospitalized due to infection
LONDON - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II was hospitalized Sunday over an apparent stomach infection that has ailed her for days, a rare instance of ill health sidelining the long-reigning monarch. Elizabeth will have to cancel a visit to Rome and other engagements as she recovers, and outside experts said she may have to be rehydrated intravenously.
Buckingham Palace said the 86-year-old queen had experienced symptoms of gastroenteritis and was being examined at London's King Edward VII Hospital - the first time in a decade that Elizabeth has been hospitalized.
Infant delivered after parents die in crash
NEW YORK - 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.
- The Associated Press