The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS NEW YORK Zipcar revs up for public offering Zipcar Inc., the car-sharing company that rents rides for as little as an hour, is expected to get a warm reception from Wall Street for its planned initial pub- lic offering this week. Its supporters think skyrocket- ing gas prices will make car shar- ing more popular. They praise Zipcar's technological savvy and its plans for overseas expansion. Zipcar is "one of the long- awaited hot tickets in the IPO valley," said John Fitzgibbon, founder of IPOscoop.com. Inves- tors are warming up to IPOs again after the market sputtered in2008 and 2009. Still, Zipcar has never been profitable since it was founded in 2000. It expects to lose money again in 2011. Cars, its main expense, don't come cheap. SAN JOSE, Calif. U.S. Energy Dept. backs solar project Federal energy officials are putting financial support behind two huge solar energy projects in California that could create hun- dreds of jobs and power 145,000 homes. Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday announced a condi- tional offer of $1.2 billion in loan guarantees for the California Val- ley Solar Ranch project on the state's Central Coast. The project would use new technology to fol- low the sun, increasing efficiency. Chu announced the move at a new factory near San Jose for SunPower Corp., which would sponsor the project. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. would purchase the power. The project is expected to cre- ate 350 construction jobs and power 60,000 homes. WANTAGH, N.Y. 10 sets of human remains found in Long Island case Police in New York confirm that remains found this week dur- ing a search for possible victims of a serial killer are human. That makes 10 sets of remains found along a beach highway in recent months. The first remains found Mon- day morning were about 1.5 miles east of the entrance to Jones Beach on Long Island. Later in the day, a skull was found several miles away. The findings in Nassau County, outside New York City, come after police in neighboring Suffolk County uncovered eight sets of human remains since December along the same highway. Police ended an extensive search of the area yesterday, but say they could return. Authorities suspect a serial killer may be responsible for at least some of the deaths. They have not named any suspects. KINGSTON, Jamaica Jamaica mulls pot decriminalization Officials in Jamaica say the Caribbean island's government will review decade-old recom- mendations to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal and reli- gious use. Six Cabinet ministers will eval- uate a 2001 report by the National Commission for Ganja - as mari- juana is known in Jamaica. The government-appointed panel argued that marijuana is "culturally entrenched" in Jamai- ca and that moderate use has no negative health effects on most users. The United States has spent millions of dollars trying to eradi- cate the drug in Jamaica. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment Tuesday. -Compiled from Daily wire reports I After agreement, federal budget bill expected to pass A young boy holding an opposition flag, who was brought toa checkpoint near the front line by a female relative to show support, is walked back to safety by a rebel fighter believed to be his father yesterday on the outskirts of Ajdabiya, Libya. New battenLibya show strain in NATO allilance Britain, France urge more U.S. invovlement AJDABIYA, Libya (AP) - Moammar Gadhafi's forces fired rockets along the east- ern front line and shelled the besieged city of Misrata yester- day as France and Britain urged their NATO allies, includingthe United States, to intensify the campaign against the Libyan regime. But hopes for a rebel military victory have faded and diplo- matic efforts to find a solution were picking up momentum. On Wednesday, diplomats will gather in the tiny Gulf nation of Qatar for a meeting of the Libya contact group, which aims to coordinate an international response to the conflict. On Monday, African leaders tried to broker a cease-fire but were immediately shot down when the opposition insisted that Gadhafi give up power immediately. For his part, Libyan govern- ment spokesman Moussa Ibra- him insisted that any talk of Gadhafi stepping down, which has also been suggested by some European officials, was "imperialist" thinking and he lamented that the rebels had not followed suit in accepting the African proposal. The Libyan rebels have prov- en to be far weaker and out- numbered by Gadhafi's forces and without NATO airstrikes, they could face a crushing military defeat. So any real- istic rebel hopes of unseating Gadhafi now rest firmly on international political pressure combined with sustained NATO airstrikes. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said NATO was not doing enough to ease the pres- sure on Misrata. He also said the alliance should be firing on the weapons being used by Gad- hafi's troops to target civilians in Misrata, the only city in west- ern Libya that is still partially in the hands of rebels. Interna- tional groups are warning of a dire humanitarian crisis in Mis- rata, Libya's third-largest city. Paris lamented the limited U.S. military role in Libya and chided Germany for its lack of involvement. In a dire analy- sis, France's defense minister acknowledged that without full American participation in the combat operation, the- West probably can't stop Gadhafi's attacks on besieged rebel cities. Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague agreed that the allies must "intensify" their efforts. France has played a particu- larly aggressive role in Libya in recent weeks, pushing diplo- matically for a U.N. resolution to allow the international mili- tary operation and firing the first strikes in the campaign. France also was the first to rec- ognize the Libyan opposition and to send a diplomatic envoy to the rebel-held city of Beng- hazi. A NATO general rejected the criticism and said the alliance is performing well and protecting civilians. Dutch Brig. Gen. Mark Van Uhm said the alliance was suc- cessful in enforcing an arms embargo, patrolling a no fly zone and protecting civilians. "I think with the assets we have, we're doing a great job," he said. NATO took over command of the operation over Libya from the U.S. on March 31. House to consider measure tomorrow, Senate to cast votes on Friday WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite scattered opposition from both ends of the political spectrum, House Republicans and the White House both pre- dicted approval yesterday for the hard-bargained $38 billion package of spending cuts that narrowly avoided a government shutdown. House Democratic leaders remained non-committal on the legislation, sealed late last week in negotiations that excluded them. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) touted the plan some- what cautiously, saying it was "far from perfect and we need to do much more if we're serious about creating new jobs." In a posting on his website, Boehner said the measure calls for the largest non-military spending cut in history and would set the stage for a com- panion vote later in the week on a Republican budget to reduce federal deficits by trillions of dollars over the next decade. The spending bill covering the rest is fiscal year through Sept. 30 is ticketed for a vote in the House tomorrow, with the Senate to follow either later in the day or on Friday. The product of days of brinks- manship, the compromise gave the White House, House Repub- licans and Senate Democrats enough to claim victory yet left critics every opportunity to find fault. Overall the $38 billion in cuts are less than the $61 bil- lion contained in legislation the House passed in February. Sen- ate Democrats and the White House initially advocated no reduction from current levels. The legislation includes cuts for the Environmental Protec- tion Agency, the National Insti- tutes of Health, community health centers and the Commu- nity Development Block Grant, favored by mayors and other local officials. Yet the administration and Senate Democrats succeeded in blunting Republican demands for even deeper reductions in those programs and elimina- tion of others. The deal pro- tects some of President Barack Obama's top priorities, leav- ing Head Start untouched, for example, while maintainingthe maximum Pell education grant of $5,550. Two prominent conserva- tives, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) both said they would vote against the legislation. "I believe voters are asking us to set our sights higher," said Jordan, who chairs an organiza- tion of House conservatives. He said the group, the Republican Study Committee, had called earlier this year for $100 billion in cuts, a total that far exceeds the amount in the legislation. Bachmann, a potential presi- dential candidate, said on a campaign-style trip to the first caucus state of the 2012 cam- paign that she was "very disap- pointed with the bill that came through. And that's an under- statement." In an appearance at a high school in Pella, Iowa, she said, "Voters expected us to defund Obama-care," a reference to the health care law that passed a year ago. D.C. Mayor arrested in protest over budget Gray analogized D.C. situation to popular uprisings in Egypt, Libya WASHINGTON (AP) - A day after getting arrested with other city leaders, the District of Columbia's mayor called on residents of the nation's capi- tal to join him in protesting likely new restrictions on the city from Congress, drawing analogies to this year's popular uprisings in Egypt and Libya. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said yesterday that residents should work through religious groups and neighborhood and civic associations to push back against consequences for Washington in the federal bud- get Congress is expected to pass later this week. D.C. has its own city govern- ment, but Congress ultimate- ly oversees the city's affairs including its budget and laws. As a result, Gray and other city leaders said that Washington became a pawn in last week's budget negotiations. It appears that a deal members of Con- gress reached Friday to avert a federal government shutdown included provisions that ban the district from spending its own, city-collected tax money to pay for abortions for poor women. The deal would also re-establish a school voucher program that has divided city leaders. Gray said he hoped that his arrest Monday with 40 others, including six members of the District of Columbia Council, would energize other residents. On Monday, the mayor and oth- ers sat down and blocked traffic on Washington's busy Consti- tution Avenue near the Capi- tol before being arrested and held until the early hours of yesterday. "I don't think there's any doubt that we' got people's attention," Gray said in an interview in his office later yesterday, still wearing a tag from police on his wrist. "But the reality is, too, that a single event is not going to make a lasting'difference. I think the greatest value of this was to be able to be a catalyst or to be a spark for further involve- ment." Gray said he didn't have any guarantees that activism by citizens would work, but he added that change comes about when people get frus- trated enough to take action, making analogies to the civil rights movement, the move- ment to give women the right to vote and recent events in Egypt and Libya. Gray acknowledged he has no direct influence over the federal budget process, but he said the city's 600,000 residents could be a powerful force. There was also some suggestion Tuesday that members of Congress and even the White House took notice of the protest. White House spokesman Jay Carney said during a briefing with reporters that the president does not sup- port the provisions in the budget that Gray has been critical of but that, "in a nego- tiation, you have to make tough choices." House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland said at a news conference that it was unfortunate that the city had been used as a bargaining chip, but that the budget was a compromise. Accelerate your academic progress as a guest student in summer classes at Lawrence Technological University! 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