News briefs for Thursday, April 26

WASHINGTON (AP)— Democrats and Republicans alike say they want to prevent the cost of federal loans from ballooning for millions of students. But the effort has evolved into an election-year battle each side is using to embarrass the other and spotlight its own priorities to voters.

In the latest political chess move, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, scheduled a House vote for Friday on legislation preventing the 3.4 percent interest rate on subsidized Stafford student loans from doubling as scheduled on July 1. In a bitter pill for Democrats, the measure's $5.9 billion cost would be paid for with cuts from President Barack Obama's health care overhaul bill.

Boehner announced the vote in an abruptly called news conference Wednesday that followed days of pounding by Obama and congressional Democrats. It also came two days after the GOP's presumptive presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, tried defusing the issue by embracing the call for freezing interest rates, putting more pressure on congressional Republicans to back the effort or look isolated.

"What Washington shouldn't be doing is exploiting the challenges that young Americans face for political gain," Boehner said. He also accused the president of "campaigning and trying to invent a fight where there isn't and never has been one."

Congressional GOP aides said Republicans were working on the legislation for some time and unveiled their bill to try to prevent Obama from escalating the dispute. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss party strategy.

 US could soon see about-face over how it confronts illegal immigration

PHOENIX (AP) — The United States could see an official about-face in the coming months in how it confronts illegal immigration if the Supreme Court follows through on its suggestion that it would let local police enforce the most controversial part of Arizona's immigration law.

Over the last several years, states frustrated with America's porous borders, have rejected the long held notion that Washington is responsible for confronting illegal immigration and have passed a flurry of laws to let local police confront illegal immigration. The Supreme Court is poised in the coming months to let the states know whether they haven't crossed the line.

The justices strongly suggested Wednesday that they are ready to let Arizona enforce the most controversial part of its law, a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the country illegally. Such a ruling could codify the type of local enforcement that some local authorities in Arizona have carried out over the last six years and open the door to such enforcement in states with similar laws, such as Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.

"I think you'll see more involvement by local police in immigration enforcement, an involvement that hadn't previously been seen," Kevin Johnson, law school dean at the University of California-Davis and an expert in immigration law, said of the possibility of Arizona's law being upheld.

The most controversial parts of the Arizona law were put on hold by a federal judge shortly before they were to take effect in late July 2010, but the statute has encouraged other states to take up similar legislation and — combined with other state immigration laws and an ailing economy — played a part in 170,000 illegal immigrants leaving Arizona since 2007.

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Pakistan's top court convicts prime minister of contempt over presidential graft case

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Supreme Court convicted Pakistan's prime minister of contempt on Thursday but spared him a prison term for refusing to reopen a corruption case against his boss, the president, leaving the premier in power but facing fresh calls to resign.

The ruling against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani added to political uncertainty and tensions between the government and the court, effectively crippling an administration that has shown little will to tackle the economic and security challenges facing the country.

Thursday's hearing had been widely anticipated by opponents of Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari, who were hoping the Supreme Court would sentence the prime minister to prison and order his immediate dismissal from office. That would have triggered a major political crisis, brought criticism on the court and could have benefited Gilani and Zardari electorally by making them martyrs in the eyes of their supporters.

Gilani is the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Pakistan, where civilian governments have repeatedly been toppled by the country's powerful military, often with the support of the Supreme Court, which critics allege is heavily politicized. Corruption charges have routinely been used to target those in power, or seeking to return.

Gilani's conviction in a court of law means there are now grounds to initiate dismissal proceedings, which involves the speaker of the parliament and the election commission. It could take up to four months and be fiercely contested every step of the way.

Beleaguered beef industry avoids widespread market scare over mad cow case with quick response

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The announcement that mad cow disease was spotted in a California cow drew a rapid response this week from the beleaguered American beef industry, which has been enduring one crisis after another for more than a year.

First, a severe drought in the Southwest cut cattle herd numbers to their lowest level in more than 60 years. Then an intense controversy erupted over a common type of filler known as "pink slime," hurting ground beef sales. The industry was just regaining its footing when the word of the mad cow discovery came Tuesday.

"They say things happen in threes, so hopefully this is the last one," said Buck Wehrbein, who manages a feeding operation in Mead, Neb.

The infected dairy cow, only the fourth ever discovered in the United States, was found as part of an Agriculture Department program that tests about 40,000 cows a year for the fatal brain disease. The animal apparently acquired the infection from a random mutation, not from eating infected cattle feed.

It was the first new case of mad cow disease in the U.S. since 2006 and came just as beef exports were finally recovering from an outbreak in 2003. With billions of dollars at risk, the USDA and other government officials responded quickly, explaining that consumers were never at risk because none of the animal's meat was bound for the food supply.

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Analysts say new missiles displayed by N. Korea are sloppy fakes, show no sign of advancement

TOKYO (AP) — Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess.

Since its recent rocket launch failure, Pyongyang'stop military leaders have made several boastful statements about its weapons capabilities. On Wednesday, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho claimed his country is capable of defeating the United States "at a single blow." And on Monday, North Korea promised "special actions" that would reduceSeoul's government to ashes within minutes.

But the weapons displayed April 15 appear to be a mishmash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together. Undulating casings on the missiles suggest the metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don't even fit the launchers they were carried on.

"There is no doubt that these missiles were mock-ups," Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, of Germany'sSchmucker Technologie, wrote in a paper posted recently on the website Armscontrolwonk.com that listed those discrepancies. "It remains unknown if they were designed this way to confuse foreign analysts, or if the designers simply did some sloppy work."

The missiles, called KN-08s, were loaded onto the largest mobile launch vehicles North Korea has ever unveiled. Pyongyang gave them special prominence by presenting them at the end of the parade, which capped weeks of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung.

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After birds strike 2 planes, senator proposes allowing goose kills at NY wildlife refuge

NEW YORK (AP) — The problem of birds living near some of the nation's busiest airports is coming under renewed scrutiny after two emergency landings in a week and more than three years after the famous ditching of a jetliner in the Hudson River.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday proposed making it easier to round up geese from a federal refuge near Kennedy Airport and kill them, an idea that's meeting opposition from wildlife advocates.

A JetBlue plane bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., made an emergency landing at Westchester County Airport north of New York City on Tuesday. A Los Angeles-bound jet made an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport after a bird strike on the right engine a week ago.

No one was hurt, but Grant Cardone, a sales training consultant who was on the flight out of Kennedy and was filming video from his window in seat 1D as the birds hit the plane, said it was scary.

"I felt like the plane was going to roll over on its right side," Cardone said. "Those five or six seconds were terrifying."

Yemeni officials: Yes to more US anti-al-Qaida aid, but no to drone strikes on large groups

WASHINGTON (AP) — Yemeni officials want more U.S. counterterrorism aid, including drone strikes and more U.S. militarytrainers and advisers, to fight a growing threat from al-Qaida, Yemeni officials said late Wednesday.

But Yemen rejected a CIA and U.S. military request to expand the use of drone strikes to target groups of fighters who appear to be militants, the officials said.

Currently, U.S. counterterrorism forces are limited to striking clearly identified individuals with known links to al-Qaida. The White House approves who goes on the target list, after a lengthy, legal vetting process at the Pentagon and the CIA, and the Yemeni government approves each strike, Yemeni and U.S. officials say.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic matters.

U.S. officials say the CIA and U.S. military had asked the White House for permission to target larger groups if intelligence points to al-Qaida-related activity. Such hits are known as "signature strikes," used by the CIA against militant targets in Pakistan's tribal regions. Officials reached Wednesday night said the White House had not yet informed them of their decision. White House officials could not be reached for comment.

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Suspicion, confusion swirl around rules governing content on Google's online storage service

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is already facing spasms of suspicion and confusion as it tries to persuade people to entrust their personal documents, photos and other digital content to the company's new online storage service.

That became apparent shortly after Tuesday's release of the long-awaited Google Drive service. Before the day was over, technology blogs and Twitter users were picking apart a legal clause that made it sound as if all the users' content stored in Google Drive automatically would become the intellectual property of Google Inc.

That could have meant authors writing their next novels and employees collaborating on spreadsheets with confidential data would find all that suddenly belonging to Google.

As it turns out, the worries are probably unfounded.

The language is actually standard legalese to give Google the licensing rights that it needs to deliver on the services that users request.