News briefs
Jobless to get $3 billion
in emergency aid
WASHINGTON (KRT) - President
Bush announced $3 billion in emer
gency aid for unemployed workers
Thursday as top budget leaders in
Congress began defining how they in
tend to spend up to $80 billion more to
spur America’s stumbling economy.
As the latest weekly filings for un
employment relief skyrocketed to
528,000, up 71,000 over last week,
Bush said he will give $3 billion to
workers laid off since the Sept. 11 at
tacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon. Bush also authorized
an extra 13 weeks of unemployment
insurance in hard-hit areas.
On Capitol Hill, the leading law
makers who draft budgets held a
joint press conference to discuss how
they plan to meet Bush’s call
Wednesday for up to $75 billion in
new economic stimulus.
Top Republicans and Democrats
on the House and Senate budget
committees agreed that they would
work to place limits on the stimulus
package, saying it would throw fed
eral finances into deficit for the first
time since 1997. The Treasury sur
plus is estimated at only $52 billion.
To guard against plunging the
Treasury deeper into debt for any
longer than necessary, the top budget
lawmakers agreed that any stimulus
measures Congress adopts must last
no longer than one year. If their re
solve prevails, that would block con
servatives who want to ram perma
nent tax cuts through Congress as
part ofthe stimulus package.
With Capitol Hill tax cutters already
clamoring to cut taxes on everything
from corporate rates to capital gains, a
test of wills between them and fiscal
conservatives appears inevitable.
“If challenged, we ought to be pre
pared to stand strong,” said Sen. Pete
Domenici of New Mexico, the rank
ing Republican on the Senate Budget
Committee. “There are some who are
not going to want us doing this. ”
Domenici made his comments
flanked by Senate Budget Commit
tee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D;
House Budget Committee Chair
man Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, and that
panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep.
John Spratt of South Carolina.
The four said the government
would have to spend at least $60 bil
lion to give the flagging economy a
boost. But they agreed that much of
that spending should be paid back in
future years as the economy improves.
Thry declined as a group to offer
recommendations on how the mon
ey should be used.
— Sumana Chatterjee
and fames Kuhnhenn
©2001, Knight Ridder/Tribune information
Services.
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Florida man hospitalized
with anthrax
MIAMI (KRT) — A 63-year-old
Palm Beach County, Fla., man has
been hospitalized in critical con
dition with anthrax, state health
officials confirmed Thursday.
State of Florida and federal in
vestigators from the Centers for
Disease Control are at the Colum
bia JFK Medical Center in Lan
tana, Fla., and are investigating,
federal sources said.
The patient was tentatively
identified as Robert Stevens,
though the spelling of his last
name was unclear. Investigators
said he had recently returned
from dropping his son off at Duke
University in Durham, N.C.
At a hastily arranged news con
ference, Florida Lt. Gov. Frank
Brogan and Florida Department
of Health Secretary John Ag
wunobi said the man was first di
agnosed with meningitis, but the
Centers for Disease Control con
firmed that it was anthrax
Wednesday afternoon.
Brogan said the man may have
inhaled the deadly bacteria but
added that the health officials be
lieve it is an isolated case. The
FBI has been alerted.
“We’re going to stress a calm
and reasoned approach to this
particular event,” Brogan said.
Anthrax is not contagious from
one person to another, and in the
rare occasions when it is spread
to humans, it is usually done so
by infected animals. The bacteria
is most deadly when spread by
air, making it one of the most
feared methods of biological at
tack. But such cases are rare.
In the United States, about one
case of anthrax has been con
firmed each year over the last 10
years, according to a report by Dr.
Arthur M. Friedlander, chief of
the Bacteriology Division in the
U.S. Army Medical Corps.
The last case in Florida was in
1974, Brogan said.
In 1979 in Sverdlovsk, Russia,
anthrax spores aroidentally re
leased from a military research fa
cility reportedly killed dozens of
people.
At Columbia JFK Medical Cen
ter in Lantana, Fla., hospital offi
cials declined to comment, and
said information would be re
leased later in the day Thursday.
A security guard was posted at
the entrance to the critical care
unit on the hospital’s second
floor.
— Manny Garcia and David Kidwell
(c) 2001, The Miami Herald.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
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