The News in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

Override of immigration veto fails in Arizona

PHOENIX—The Arizona House rejected an effort Tuesday to override Gov. Janet Napolitano’s veto of a bill requiring that city and county police agencies have programs to confront federal immigration violations.

The effort fell 10 votes short of what was needed to send the override proposal to the Senate.

The bill vetoed three weeks ago by the Democratic governor would have given police agencies three options to meet its requirements. The agencies could have given federal immigration training to their officers, put federal agents in units within their departments or set up relationships with federal authorities to confront the problem.

Chinese troops hike to quake-buried villages

MIANYANG, China—Soldiers hiking over landslide-blocked roads reached the epicenter of China’s devastating earthquake Tuesday, pulling bodies and a few survivors from collapsed buildings. The death toll of more than 12,000 is certain to rise as the buried are found.

Rescuers worked through a steady rain as they searched wrecked towns across hilly stretches of Sichuan province that were stricken by Monday’s magnitude-7.9 quake, China’s deadliest in three decades. Tens of thousands of homeless spent a second night outdoors, some sleeping under plastic sheeting, others bused to a stadium in the city of Mianyang, on the edge of the disaster area.

The industrial city of 700,000 people — home to the headquarters of China’s nuclear weapons design industry — was turned into a thronging refugee camp.

Congress says halt oil reserve shipments

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The House and Senate, in a direct challenge to President Bush, voted Tuesday to temporarily halt the shipment of thousands of barrels of oil a day into the government’s emergency reserve.

Both Democrats and Republicans said such shipments make no sense when oil is costing more than $120 a barrel and could better be used to add supplies to a tight market and possibly lower prices.

“With Republicans joining Democrats, senators voted 97-1 to suspend the shipments — averaging about 70,000 barrels a day — until the end of the year. Only Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., voted against the measure. The House vote was 385 to 25 to halt the shipments.

The White House said President Bush is against stopping the shipments and believes such a small amount would not affect gasoline prices. The reserve was created in the 1970s as a precaution against major interruptions of oil supplies.

Kitt Peak fire closer to containment

TUCSON—Fire crews are demobilizing as a wildfire that has charred 2,177 acres in Southern Arizona’s Baboquivari Mountains comes closer to full containment.

The Solano fire was 85 percent contained as of early Tuesday. Fire officials expect to fully contain the fire by Thursday.

Fire spokesman Bill Watt says some resources, including all single-engine air tankers and heavy helicopters, have been let go.

Over half in U.S. on chronic medicines

TRENTON, N.J.—For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows.

The most widely used drugs are those to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol — problems often linked to heart disease, obesity and diabetes.

The numbers were gathered last year by Medco Health Solutions Inc., which manages prescription benefits for about one in five Americans.