The proposal, which the Mexican government greeted as a positive step, was the latest sign of a new willingness by the Obama administration to support free-trade measures backed by Republicans and by businesses despite objections from labor unions and other liberal constituencies.
The United States has effectively barred Mexican trucks from operating on American roads since March 2009. Mexico said the ban violated the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994, and retaliated by imposing $2.4 billion in punitive tariffs on a wide range of American agricultural and other products imported to Mexico.
On Thursday, the United States transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, offered a “concept document” that could help resolve the dispute.
Under the plan, Mexican long-haul trucking operators could seek permits to operate in the United States so long as they agree to safety, insurance and other monitoring requirements. The proposal would not cover the movement of hazardous materials.
The nation's unemployment rate, which is calculated from a different survey, fell sharply, to 9.4% from 9.8%, partly because 260,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force, including many discouraged workers who gave up the job hunt. A total of 14.5 million Americans were out of work last month.
President Barack Obama forcefully declared his support Friday for U.S. civilian trials of Guantanamo detainees, pledging to overturn language in a sweeping defense bill that would effectively block such trials from happening anytime soon.
"The prosecution of terrorists in federal court is a powerful tool in our efforts to protect the nation and must be among the options available to us," the president said. "Any attempt to deprive the executive branch of that tool undermines our nation's counterterrorism efforts and has the potential to harm our national security.
Obama made the comments even while signing the legislation, which also allows funding for a wide range of military and national security programs that the president said were too important to dispense with.
The law bans the use of Defense Department dollars to transfer suspected terrorists held at the U.S. Navy prison in Cuba to the United States, where they could be tried in civilian court. That effectively prevents any such transfer from happening during the period covered by the legislation — the 2011 fiscal year that runs through September.
Metro Jacksonville ranks 40th in the nation for number of small businesses, according to a Business First breakdown of 2008 federal data, the latest year for which U.S. Census Bureau statistics are available.
Jacksonville had 34,497 small businesses, compared with Miami-Fort Lauderdale, 170,762 (No. 4); Tampa-St. Petersburg, 70,200 (No. 18); and Orlando, 55,653 (No. 24).
U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw has been named to three subcommittees - one he will chair - of the House Appropriations committee. The Jacksonville Republican has sat on that committee, which approves all House spending bills, since 2003.
During the 112th Congress, Crenshaw will sit on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, and chair the Legislative Branch Appropriations subcommittee.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, between Dec. 16 and Jan. 3, 40,667 citations were issued on the state's highways.
Troopers also made 474 DUI arrests.
The breakdown for citations also includes 13,705 for speeding and 3,848 for safety belt violations.
The FHP reports 56 traffic-related fatalities during the heightened enforcement campaign.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced Thursday that Florida will get the remaining $88 million because it had weatherized 6,800 low-income homes through Oct. 31. That's more than 30 percent of the state's 19,100-home goal.
Another 1,075 Florida homes were improved under the federal government regular annual weatherization program.
State reports show the stimulus weatherization program supported more than 230 jobs in Florida during the third quarter of 2010.
When total state government revenues across the nation plummeted by a record-breaking 30.8 percent in 2009, the steep investment losses of pension funds proved to be an even bigger drain on state coffers than recession-battered tax collections, according to census data released Wednesday.
States reported $1.1 trillion in total revenues in 2009, down from $1.6 trillion a year earlier — the steepest drop the United States Census Bureau has reported since it began collecting data on state government finances in 1951.
Tax collections fell by $66 billion, blowing a hole in the operating budgets of many states. But the biggest losses will be felt only in the future: states reported a $477 billion decline in what the census calls “insurance trust revenue,” mostly from pension funds but also from funds for unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation.
The number of emergency room visits resulting from misuse or abuse of prescription drugs has nearly doubled over the last five years, according to new federal data, even as the number of visits because of illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin has barely changed.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found there were about 1.2 million visits to emergency rooms involving pharmaceutical drugs in 2009, compared with 627,000 in 2004. The agency did not include visits due to adverse reactions to drugs taken as prescribed.
The White House has ordered the Pentagon to budget for relatively small annual increases for the next five years. Its budget next year will be $553 billion, or $13 billion less than expected, but still 3% higher than last year.
In all, Gates announced plans that will allow the military to save $150 billion over five years in part by cutting some programs such as the Marines' $15 billion amphibious-landing craft program.
The money saved by the services will be transferred to other programs, such as buying more drones for the Air Force and to pay for higher-than-expected costs for fuel, health care and other bills.
After examining the children's medical records and interviewing their parents, only one of the 12 children was found to have "regressive autism," or late-onset of the syndrome, the core concern of the 1998 study, Mr. Deer wrote.
In other odd findings, Mr. Deer said three children didn't have autism diagnoses; two children had bowel problems and "fits" before they received the MMR vaccine; and one child was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, which is not regressive and is distinct from autism.
Mr. Deer wrote that the parents didn't know that Dr. Wakefield, a gastroenterologist, was already seeking to prove that vaccines were linked to a "new syndrome" of enteritis (a bowel disorder) and disintegrative disorder (late-onset autism) in children.
A key goal of Dr. Wakefield's study, published in the Lancet in 1998, was to show a clear "time link" between the MMR vaccinations and the onset of symptoms, wrote Mr. Deer. This would bolster a case against vaccine makers, he wrote, noting that Dr. Wakefield was receiving payments from lawyer Richard Barr, who wanted to pursue such a lawsuit.
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