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VIDEO: Today's Headline News from Associated Press

GOP HOUSE: KEEP GOVERNMENT OPEN, HIT 'OBAMACARE'

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Charting a collision course with the White House, the Republican-controlled House approved legislation Friday to wipe out the three-year-old health care law that President Barack Obama has vowed to preserve - and simultaneously prevent a partial government shutdown that neither party claims to want.

 

"The American people don't want the government shut down, and they don't want "Obamacare," Speaker John Boehner said as members of his rank and file cheered at a celebratory rally in the Capitol moments after the 230-189 vote. He stood at a lectern bearing a slogan that read, "(hash)Senate must act."

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it will - but not the way Boehner and his tea party-heavy Republican contingent want. Assured of enough Senate votes to keep the government open and the health care law in existence, the Nevada Democrat accused Republicans of attempting "to take an entire law hostage simply to appease the tea party anarchists."

 

Behind the rhetoric lay the likelihood of another in a series of complex, inside-the-Beltway brinkmanship episodes as conservative House Republicans and Obama struggle to imprint widely differing views on the U.S. government.

 

In addition to the threat of a partial shutdown a week from Monday, administration officials say that without passage of legislation to allow more federal borrowing, the nation faces the risk of a first-ever default sometime in the second half of next month.

 

SENATOR CONCERNED ABOUT APPLE'S FINGERPRINT TECH

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sen. Al Franken is asking Apple for more clarity on privacy and security concerns he has with its use of fingerprint recognition technology in the new iPhone 5S.

 

The iPhone 5S, which went on sale Friday, includes a fingerprint sensor that lets users tap the phone's home button to unlock their phone, rather than enter a four-digit passcode.

 

But Franken said that the fingerprint system could be potentially disastrous for users if someone does eventually hack it. While a password can be kept a secret and changed if it's hacked, he said, fingerprints are permanent and are left on everything a person touches, making them far from a secret.

 

"Let me put it this way: if hackers get a hold of your thumbprint, they could use it to identify and impersonate you for the rest of your life," the Minnesota Democrat said in a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

 

Apple Inc. officials didn't immediately return an email seeking comment on Franken's letter.