Archives: Morning Breakouts

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including the latest on Democrats' efforts to corral the votes necessary to pass the health reform bill.

Democratic leaders of the House, as well as top aides to President Obama, said that while the party didn't yet have the votes lined up to pass the Senate's version of health reform, they expected to have them by next weekend.

News outlets reported that Democrats seeking to pass a health bill next week got a boost from a Cabinet official, a key senator and the Catholic Health Association, while newly-elected Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., attacked the Democrats' plans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled Friday that votes on a health care overhaul could come by the end of next week after President Obama postponed until March 21 an overseas trip.

The Democrats' plan for passing the health overhaul faced questions when the Senate parliamentarian said President Obama must first sign into law the Senate-passed health bill before senators could consider separate fix-it legislation as part of the reconciliation process.

During a conference in London Thursday, development officials urged world leaders to "accelerate efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and [said] rich countries must make good on promises to boost aid to poorer nations," Reuters AlertNet reports.

The U.S. State Department on Thursday released its annual review on the state of human rights around the world, the Associated Press reports. The 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which includes an assessment of 194 countries, "described abuses in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe," according to the news service (Klug, 3/11).

Several drugmakers have reached an agreement "to supply up to 200 million doses a year of cut-price pneumococcal vaccines to developing nations," according to GAVI Alliance, Reuters reports. A formal announcement of the deal is expected "in the next couple of weeks," GAVI's Deputy Chief Executive Officer Helen Evans told the news service Thursday.

After announcing a revised appeal of $1.4 billion in February to finance emergency relief as well as recovery and reconstruction, the U.N. "is struggling to provide support for equake-ravaged Haiti," according to humanitarian chief John Holmes, Reuters reports. "We did extremely well on raising funds for the initial flash appeal, but we are struggling, I'm afraid, to raise resources for the revised appeal. ... We have got 49 percent of what we need for the whole year and we are appealing to donors to come forward with more resources for that relief operation," Holmes said.

At a meeting this week in Nigeria to address African agriculture production, "African leaders and donor agencies have endorsed an ambitious plan to generate employment, income and food security in Africa by developing agribusiness and agro-industries," Punch reports. The event was organized by the AU, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDP), FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), according to the newspaper (Ibrahym, 3/12).

Democrats Thursday looked for a way forward on health reform legislation as colleagues in the House questioned cost and provisions in the bill before considering their support for the measure.

A sampling of opinions and editorials from around the country.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a Republican tactic for influencing Democratic votes on a health reform overhaul: scaring them into voting "no."