Nation & World Briefly June 8

Cantor 'cautiously optimistic' debt talks will produce deal

WASHINGTON (AP) - A key GOP negotiator in talks on lifting the government's borrowing cap said Tuesday that it may take more than a decade to accumulate savings to pay off the approximately $2.4 trillion in new debt needed to keep the government afloat for about a year and a half.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also said that he believes any agreement to raise the so-called debt ceiling - and avoid a market-rattling, first-ever default on U.S. obligations - should be enacted sometime next month, before an Aug. 2 deadline. Kyl is a participant in top-level talks aimed at producing spending cuts to pass in concert with the debt limit increase.

"A debt ceiling increase is only over roughly an 18-month period of time. The savings could play out (over) more than a decade," Kyl told reporters. The time frame is important because spreading the cuts over a longer period means that they would be less severe than if they were imposed over a decade, as is typical for legislation considered by Congress.

Kyl's comments came as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told his GOP colleagues that he's "cautiously optimistic" that ongoing budget talks led by Vice President Joe Biden will produce an agreement on budget cuts at least as large as the accompanying increase in the government's ability to borrow.

Cantor, R-Va., representing the Republican-controlled House, told fellow lawmakers in an email Monday that the Biden-led group is scrubbing all of the major spending programs of the federal budget for potential savings, including health care programs for the elderly and the poor.

Arizona wildfire moves toward homes

SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. (AP) - Bulldozers scraped away brush and trees on Tuesday to create a barrier between two eastern Arizona mountain towns and a mammoth wildfire. Crews removed brush from around homes and firefighters were sent to protect other buildings from the flames.

All the while, the 7,000 residents of Eagar and Springerville prepared to leave if the second-largest wildfire in state history edges closer.

"If given the word, then I'm gonna go," Eagar resident Gerald McCardle said. "We're already packed. We packed last night, and we're out of here."

Officials say the blaze has already burned 486 square miles and is about 10 miles outside the towns. Winds have been driving the flames 5 to 8 miles a day since the fire began a week ago, possibly from an unattended campfire.

Strong afternoon winds are already kicking up and could send the flames to within several miles of the towns, triggering evacuation orders.

CDC: Increase in U.S. food poisonings in 2010

ATLANTA (AP) - More Americans got food poisoning last year, with salmonella cases driving the increase, the government reported Tuesday. Illness rates for the most common serious type of E. coli fell last year. There was a rise in cases caused by other strains of the bacteria, although that bump may just reflect more testing was done for them, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

An unusually aggressive strain of E. coli is behind the current large outbreak of food poisoning in Europe, mostly in Germany. That strain has never caused an outbreak in the U.S.

The CDC estimates that 50 million Americans each year get sick from foodborne illnesses, including about 3,000 who die.

The report released Tuesday is based on foodborne infections in only 10 states, or about 15 percent of the American population. But it has information that other databases lack and is believed to be a good indicator of food poisoning trends.

More than 19,000 cases of food poisoning were reported in those states last year. That was up from 17,500 cases in 2009, and about 18,500 in 2008.