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VIDEO: Today's Headline News from Associated Press

SCHUMER SEES DEAL THIS WEEK ON IMMIGRATION

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A raucous public debate over the nation's flawed immigration system is set to begin in earnest this week as senators finalize a bipartisan bill to secure the border, allow tens of thousands of foreign workers into the country and grant eventual citizenship to the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.

 

Already negotiators are cautioning of struggles ahead for an issue that's defied resolution for years. An immigration deal came close on the Senate floor in 2007 but collapsed amid interest group bickering and an angry public backlash.

 

"There will be a great deal of unhappiness about this proposal because everybody didn't get what they wanted," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leader of the eight senators negotiating the legislation, said Sunday. "There are entrenched positions on both sides of this issue."

 

"There's a long road," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appearing alongside McCain on CBS' "Face the Nation." "There are people on both sides who are against this bill, and they will be able to shoot at it."

 

Schumer, McCain and their "Gang of Eight" already missed a self-imposed deadline to have their bill ready in March, but Schumer said he hopes that this week, it will happen.

 

DENGUE CASES MAY BE 4 TIMES MORE COMMON THAN KNOWN

 

LONDON (AP) -- There may be nearly four times as many people infected with the tropical disease dengue globally than was previously believed, according to a new study.

 

The World Health Organization has estimated there are about 50 million to 100 million cases of dengue, also known as "break-bone fever," every year. But new research puts the number at around 390 million - though about two-thirds of those people have only mild illness and don't need medical attention. The study was published online Sunday in the journal Nature.

 

The data won't change how patients are handled but could prompt a speedier search for a vaccine for the mosquito-borne disease. The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and others.

 

WITH POPE FRANCIS, IT'S PRIME TIME FOR JESUITS

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- For decades, the Society of Jesus has faced the same struggles to find priests that have plagued the wider Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Chuck Frederico, one of the priests who evaluate Jesuit applicants, says he usually heard from five a week, or fewer.

 

Then, last month, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica - the first Jesuit to be elected pope.

 

The number of queries jumped to four or five each day.

 

"Some guys who made contact in the past weeks are serious candidates," said Frederico, vocations director for the region from Maine to Georgia. "This election of the Holy Father has given them reason to examine this more fully."

 

DAD SAYS DIPLOMAT HAD PASSION FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

 

CHICAGO (AP) -- Anne Smedinghoff had a quiet ambition and displayed a love of global affairs from an early age, joining the U.S. Foreign Service straight out of college and volunteering for missions in perilous locations worldwide.

 

So when the 25-year-old suburban Chicago woman was killed Saturday in southern Afghanistan - the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya - her family took solace in the fact that she died doing something she loved.

 

"It was a great adventure for her ... She loved it," her father, Tom Smedinghoff, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "She was tailor-made for this job."

 

Anne Smedinghoff grew up in River Forest, Ill. - an upscale suburb about 10 miles west of Chicago - the daughter of an attorney and the second of four children. She attended the highly selective Fenwick High School, followed by Johns Hopkins University, where she studied international relations and became a key organizer of the university's annual Foreign Affairs Symposium in 2008. The event draws high-profile speakers from around the world.

 

Those who knew Smedinghoff described her as a positive, hard-working and dependable young woman.