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Page 4A POLITICS East Oregonian Tuesday, January 6, 2015 Boehner in line for third term as speaker Boehner’s election, but that was far short of the number needed to place his election in jeopardy. One lawmaker, Rep. Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, said Boehner “de- serves a chance” to try and pass a conservative agenda in coopera- tion with the Senate under Repub- lican control. The speaker’s spokesman, Mi- chael Steel, said Boehner “was selected as the House Republican Conference’s choice for speaker By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner’s prospects for a new term appeared secure Monday despite grumblings from tea party-aligned dissidents on the eve of a Republican takeover of Congress, while GOP leaders in both houses pointed toward a swift veto showdown with Presi- dent Barack Obama over the long- stalled Keystone XL pipeline. Senate Republicans, winners of a majority in last fall’s elec- tions, began laying down markers reform should not be used as an - ican people,” wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who will become Finance Committee. “Any such ef- fort is a needless distraction,” he added, pointedly rejecting a long- held view of the White House and many Democrats. - get as congressional veterans and newcomers alike looked ahead to a day of pomp and ceremony be- neath the Capitol Dome. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McCo- nnell’s ascension Tuesday to the post of Senate majority leader was automatic following his approval last year. That wasn’t the case in the House, where the election of a speaker is the main event on any opening day’s agenda. Reps. Lou- AP file photo In this Dec. 11, 2014 file photo, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio arrives for a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. of Florida put themselves forward as challengers, and the Tea Party Patriots tweeted out a request for - port one or the other. Roughly a dozen Republicans have announced they will oppose elected by the whole House this week.” Nor did any of the rebels predict they would succeed in toppling the 65-year-old Ohioan. Instead, they said the current high command wasn’t conservative enough. Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who defeated former Majority Lead- er Eric Cantor in a primary last summer, said the Republican leadership has “strayed from its own principles of free market, limited government, constitution- al conservatism. We are at a cru- cial turning point in our country’s history.” Two years ago, Boehner was faced with similar criticism, and sweated out his election to a sec- ond term. His hand is considerably stron- ger this year as a result of the sweep of the Republican electoral triumph. The party will hold 246 House seats in the new Congress, to 188 for the Democrats, the big- gest GOP majority in nearly 70 years. It would have been bigger Grimm’s resignation took effect one day before the new Congress convened. He pleaded guilty last The intra-party leadership struggle underscored the political peril facing Republicans as they looked ahead to two-house con- ability to pass Keystone pipeline legislation showed their potential to advance an agenda. The legislation passed the House but died in a Democrat- last year. Now, Republican lead- ers intend to push the bill through the House late this week, and ap- pear to have more than enough votes to clear it through the Sen- ate as well, given the Republican pickup of nine seats in the elec- tions. While Obama has not said if he will reject the measure, White House spokesman Josh Earnest outlined a series of concerns with the measure before adding, “I’m not prepared at this point to issue a piece of legislation.” But Republicans stand ready to cast the measure as a bipartisan jobs bill of the type that should be signed into law. “There’s a lot we can get done together if the president puts his famous pen to use signing bills rather than vetoing legislation his liberal allies don’t like,” McCon- nell said late last year. Big threat for Obama’s climate efforts from GOP-run Congress By JOSH LEDERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON — Pres- ident Barack Obama’s deter- mined efforts to combat glob- al warming face their biggest trial yet as Republicans take full control of Congress this week. The GOP vows to move fast and forcefully to roll back his environmental rules and force his hand on energy development. business: the Keystone XL pipeline. The Republican-led House has repeatedly passed legislation to approve the pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada deep into the United States. The bills died in the Senate when Democrats were in control, but that will change Wednesday when a Repub- lican-led Senate committee holds a Keystone hearing. “The president is going to see the Keystone XL pipeline on his desk and it’s going to be a bellwether decision by the president whether to go with jobs and the economy,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Sunday. Success for Republicans on the climate front would jeopardize a key component of Obama’s legacy. And the ricochet far beyond the Unit- ed States. Later this year, nations are supposed to sign a ma- jor global climate treaty in Paris. Aggressive action by the U.S. under Obama has upped the pressure on other governments to get serious about climate change, too. But if Obama can’t make good on his commitments at home, it’s unclear whether poorer nations will still feel compelled to act. “The American govern- ment has been responsible for sending very strong political and economic signals with what they have announced so - ident Felipe Calderon, now a global climate leader, said in an Associated Press inter- view. “I know that there is a risk that those will be over- come by the new political reality in the U.S.” Obama has made clear he will use his veto power if Re- publicans succeed in getting hostile bills to his desk — es- pecially on climate change. “I’m going to defend gains that we’ve made on environ- ment and clean air and clean water,” he has said. And Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, says the Republi- cans aren’t likely to overturn his veto. That would require a number of Democrats to vote against the president. “There’s reason to be concerned, but I don’t think there’s reason to be pan- icked,” Schatz said. NATION/WORLD Tuesday, January 6, 2015 AP file photo Page 5A BRIEFLY Jury selection begins in Boston Marathon bombing BOSTON (AP) — Some of the prospective jurors who could decide Dzhokhar look Monday at the young man accused of bombing the Boston Marathon, and they seemed shaggy-haired 21-year-old. Tsarnaev, for his part, rose to his feet and nodded, slightly and awkwardly, as he was about 200 citizens. So began what could be weeks of jury selection in the nation’s most closely watched terror trial since the Oklahoma City bombing two decades ago. Security was tight, with stationed inside and outside the federal courthouse along with The potential jurors seemed riveted by Tsarnaev and by U.S. District Judge George the gravity of what they will be asked to do if they are picked: They must decide not only whether the former college student is guilty or innocent, but also what his punishment will be if he is convicted — life Police seek attacker who wounded three, stole baby LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Police say they don’t know why a gunman wounded three members of a California family and stole a 3-week-old baby girl who was later found dead in a trash bin near the At a news conference Monday afternoon, Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna called pleaded for public help President Barack Obama addresses the Climate Sum- mit, at United Nations headquarters in September. East Oregonian Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The body of Eliza Delacruz was found Sunday in a trash bin behind a strip mall in Imperial Beach, about 120 miles south of where her father, mother and uncle were shot a day earlier. The mother and uncle are hospitalized in critical condition. Authorities are looking for a man, but his description is vague and they have no leads. However, police say they don’t believe the attack was random. Judge orders suspect to stand trial in state trooper ambush MILFORD, Pa. (AP) — A judge on Monday ordered a survivalist who called for revolution to stand trial on charges he fatally shot a Pennsylvania state trooper and wounded another outside their barracks, a case his attorneys to defend. The ruling came after a preliminary hearing for Eric Frein, 31, who is charged with offenses in the Sept. 12 ambush that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson and critically wounded Trooper they found the murder weapon along with a journal in which Frein described shooting the troopers. After the hearing, a defense lawyer, Bill Ruzzo, said his primary goal is to save Frein’s life. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. “It’s a battle,” said another defense attorney, Michael Weinstein, adding that Frein “understands his circumstances.” Lebanon limits entry civil war BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon turned back Syrians trying to cross the border Monday under strict new visa regulations, saying it simply cannot handle any more people displaced by the ongoing civil war. The policy, requiring Syrians to obtain visas that sharply limit the time they can stay in Lebanon, effectively narrows one of the few escape has displaced a third of Syria’s pre-war population and shows no sign of ending. Humanitarian groups dealing with Syrian refugees say authorities should not close the doors on people who are desperate to leave. By KRISTIN J. BENDER Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Two men are roughly halfway through what has been called the hardest rock climb in the world: a free climb of a half-mile - Tom Evans, a climber and photog- rapher, has been chronicling Kevin Jorgeson. 30, of Santa Rosa, Califor- nia, and Tommy Caldwell, 36, of Es- tes Park, Colorado, as they scale their way using only their hands and feet. El Capitan, the largest monolith of granite in the world, rises more than The men eat, stretch and sleep in hanging tents suspended to El Capi- tan’s Dawn Wall. They don’t have the creature comforts of home, but they have kept in touch with the outside world thanks to social media --tweet- ing, posting on Facebook, feeding information for blogs and keeping in touch with a bevy of supporters on the ground. “The guys are doing great,” said Josh Lowell with Big Up Produc- tions, which has been chronicling “(Monday) they are resting and trying so they can continue to do battle with the hardest climbing sections, which involve grabbing tiny, razor-sharp edges of rock,” Lowell said. If all goes as planned, the duo could be at the top as soon as Friday or Saturday, Lowell said. “But that’s best-case scenario. It could take several more days just where they currently are. If any weather moves in, that could also de- lay things, but the forecast is looking AP Photo/Ben Margot, File This 2004 file photo shows the climbing face of El Capitan in Yosem- ite National Park. good for now,” he said. Many have climbed Dawn Wall climb” the section using ropes only climber reached El Capitan’s summit in 1958, and there are roughly 100 routes up to the top. Evans said the two have a cell- phone on their ascent, but they weren’t taking calls Monday because they were resting and “want no dis- tractions while on the cliff.” The two also weren’t answering emails from roughly 1,500 feet above the ground. These practices may not seem un- usual, but the climbers have relied heavily on social media to document their adventure. Both update their Facebook pages regularly and tweet from the Dawn Wall, which has been called “as smooth as alabaster, as steep as the bedroom wall.” Last Friday, Jorgeson hosted a live question-and-answer session from the wall. Caldwell’s wife’, Becca, has also been blogging about their trip daily and wrote this post last weekend: “Being up on the wall for over a week and the hard climbing Tommy and Kevin have done up until now of the hard climbing they have to do,” she wrote. “Imagine performing your very best after not walking for one week. I know Tommy has made an effort to try and do stretching, push- ups, (and) yoga in the (hanging tent) hoping this might combat the unusual circumstances of living like veal be- tween their climbing. So let’s hope - nitely won’t be over until it’s over, but I believe it’s possible. Let’s go boys!!!” Flu season continues to worsen, could peak this month in all but seven states, and hospitalization rates match the dismal season two years fear this will be an unusually bad year, it’s too soon to say. - leased Monday by the Cen- ters for Disease Control and Prevention show the the 43 states where the ill- ness was widespread. But Michael Jhung said. It’s not clear yet how bad ing roughly 24,000 a year, on average. in populous states like Cal- are worried because the nas- ty bug that’s making most people sick isn’t included in this year’s vaccine. Prelim- inary data on how well the vaccine is working is still weeks away. Among infec- - sidered one of the nation’s leading causes of death, kill- makes predictions more - son hit hard in December — earlier than usual. But The report is for the week of Christmas, and it shows similar track as the last two, later than mid-January. Per- haps that will happen this winter, too, the CDC’s Dr. - pitalization rates are simi- lar to the harsh season two years ago, which was dom- MARY A. JOHNSON, P h .D. Counseling Services Specializing in Grief and Loss, with sub-specialty in Suicide Bereavement. 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