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The Senate’s establishment GOP leadership has endorsed valuable but limited reforms to immigration policy because of populist pressure from the House GOP amid the end-of-year budget negotiations. The draft changes endorsed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are valuable but are also inadequate to block inevitable evasions by President Joe Biden’s deputies, said Jon Feere, the director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies. “The devil is in the details and there’s not much detail here … and there’s no language that requires actual [measurable] results,” he told Breitbart News.

Ministerial team approves new apartments in West Bank blocs; Danny Dayan: It's a pity that parents, children need to be murdered for building to take place; calls for new Itamar neighborhood in name of victims. The ministerial team for settlements approved hundreds of new apartments in the settlements of Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, Kiryat Sefer and in Gush Etzion in a special meeting on Saturday. The move comes in the wake of a terrorist attack on Friday in which five members of one family were stabbed to death in the West Bank settlement of Itamar. Among the participants in the specially...

The Arizona Senate on Tuesday approved a sweeping bill which supporters contend would crack down on illegal immigration. Key elements of the Republican-drafted proposal would pay for sending National Guard troops to the border, criminalize illegal immigrants' presence in Arizona and impose new sanctions on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. The Senate approved the package on a 18-7 vote, attaching its numerous provisions to a House-passed bill on employer sanctions. Senate approval sent the bill (HB2577) back to the House to consider the Senate's changes. House passage would send it to Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who previously vetoed several...

BRASILIA, Brazil - A Brazilian congressional investigative committee gave its final approval Wednesday to a report recommending prosecution of over 100 people linked to a campaign finance and corruption scheme run by former members of the governing Workers Party. The final panel report, approved by a 17-4 vote, had already cleared Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from any direct involvement in the scheme. It will be sent to the Federal Prosecutors' Office, which will decide whether to take legal action. The probe report recommends prosecution against at least 18 members of Congress linked to the kickback and bribery...

The state House approved a bill Thursday to expand Arizona's trespassing law to make illegal immigrants' presence in Arizona a crime and to enable local authorities to arrest them. Under the bill, an illegal immigrant anywhere in Arizona would be guilty of a felony. A law officer arresting someone for investigation of a crime also would be authorized to question the person's immigration status.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The Palestinian parliament overwhelming approved the Hamas Cabinet on Tuesday, setting the stage for the new administration to take office amid threats by Western nations to cut off aid if the Islamic militant group doesn't change its violent ways. Hamas legislators broke into chants of "God is great" immediately after the 71-36 vote in favor of the new Cabinet. Two parliamentarians abstained. Lawmakers in Gaza City swarmed Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh to congratulate him. The Gaza session was hooked up via video link to a simultaneous session in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where...

SOUTH BEND -- St. Joseph County residents will no longer have to request restaurant seating in a "no smoking" area. Beginning April 10, all the areas in most restaurants will be smoke-free. After months of deliberation, the County Council voted 7-2 on Tuesday to adopt an ordinance that will ban smoking in restaurants and other public places, and in private businesses as well. Dozens of area residents, including several physicians warning of health risks and restaurant owners fearful that they will lose business appeared in the County-City Building to support or oppose the issue. Jerry Scott, vice president of human...

SACRAMENTO -- The state Legislature easily passed a $117.5 billion spending plan Thursday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign next week, paving the way for the start of talks over his government reform package. The Assembly approved the financial plan 65-13 and the Senate, 34-4. "This budget puts California on the path toward rebuilding to make our state great once again," Schwarzenegger said in a written statement. "However, California still has a broken budget system that spends more than the state takes in. "We must now use this same bipartisan spirit to work together to bring needed, fundamental...

SPRINGFIELD - Senate Democrats on the Executive Committee hastily approved four gun-control measures Wednesday amid partisan rancor. Another Senate panel already had rejected much of the legislation, and some Republican senators repeatedly expressed disapproval at the work-around tactic. Senate Bills 1330, 1331 and 1332 were approved Wednesday even though the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected identical legislation earlier this session. Two of the Judiciary Committee's six Democrats are from downstate - Sens. James Clayborne of Belleville and Bill Haine of Alton - and both tend to vote against gun-control legislation. On the other hand, seven of the Executive Committee's eight Democrats...

WASHINGTON - House Republican leaders on Friday easily pushed through sweeping new law enforcement powers as part of a Sept. 11 anti-terrorism package, but the House now must negotiate a truce with the Senate on those measures to get President Bush (news - web sites)'s signature before the elections. The House voted 282-134 to approve the GOP leaders' bill to create a new national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center as recommended by the 9/11 commission. But they also included new government anti-terrorism, deportation, border security and identity theft powers to the bill that the Senate had rejected. The...

SACRAMENTO - The Senate on Wednesday revived an effort to require a paper trail to ensure that electronic voting machines aren't tampered with and accurately record voter preferences. Meanwhile, the Assembly approved a bill that would create a state conservancy to help protect the Sierra Nevada from overdevelopment, and the Senate passed legislation requiring economic impact reports before local governments approve Wal-Mart-like superstores. The Senate also approved a bill by Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, that would require that all touch-screen voting machines used after Jan. 1, 2006, give voters paper receipts verifying how they voted. The machines would also have...

Judge upholds "free speech zone" at Democratic convention but O-K's march BOSTON A federal judge has called a fenced-in "protest zone" at the upcoming Democratic National Convention "an affront to free expression" -- but rejected an effort to block its use. Judge Douglas Woodlock also agreed with protesters' lawyers that the area, more than a block away from the convention site, looked worse than a concentration camp, with razor wire on a chain-link fence, and overhead netting. But Woodlock indicated he had Secret Service information about possible protest tactics that made the site necessary, especially in a time of terrorism....

House OKs bill to let U.S. soldiers guard border Sergio Bustos Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- U.S. soldiers may be asked to keep undocumented immigrants and potential terrorists out of the country. The House on Thursday passed a defense authorization bill, which includes a provision that would let U.S. troops join with U.S. Border Patrol agents in guarding the nation's borders with Canada and Mexico. The bill authorizes Defense Department programs for the coming fiscal year, which will begin Oct. 1. The border troop amendment, championed by Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., passed the House late Wednesday by a 40-vote margin, 231-191....

SEATTLE (Dec. 9) - The King could be your cabbie under the city's new taxi driver dress code. The City Council voted Monday to approve legislation that would allow drivers to sport rhinestone capes, blue suede shoes or whatever other appropriate costume they wish. "Uh, a-thank you verrah much," cabbie Dave Groh, an Elvis Presley impersonator, said after the vote. It was Groh's case that prompted the change to the city's 1997 taxi dress code. Adopting an Elvis look after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in hopes of bringing some levity to the city, Groh pleased many passengers, but...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate on Tuesday voted to ban the practice that critics call partial birth abortion, sending President Bush a measure that supporters and foes alike said could alter the future of U.S. abortion rights. A court challenge is certain. Years in the making, the bill imposes the most far-reaching limits on abortion since the Supreme Court in 1973 confirmed a woman's right to end a pregnancy. "This is an enormous day. It's been a long seven-year fight about the issue of partial birth abortion," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. He was a leader of the drive to...

Politics - U. S. Congress Senate OKs $390 Billion Spending Bill 17 minutes ago Add Politics - U. S. Congress to My Yahoo! WASHINGTON - The Senate approved a massive $390 billion measure Thursday financing most federal agencies, blessing the long-delayed last chunk of this year's budget that stalled last fall in an election-season standoff with President Bush (news - web sites) over spending. The bill's 69-29 passage ended the first prolonged battle this year in the new Senate. The winners were the chamber's majority Republicans, who battled — and sometimes used budget sleight of hand — to keep...