Ryan seeks help for RG Steel employees

Ryan seeks help for RG Steel employees

Washington

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, requested the U.S. Department of Labor to expedite assistance for RG Steel employees.

Ryan offered in a letter to help the Labor Department in any way he could to assist the process moving forward.

RG Steel notified workers May 24 that layoffs would begin June 4. The company laid off more than 4,000 workers, including 1,100 at its Warren facility.

Vote for businesses to receive grants

warren

Chase and LivingSocial are awarding $250,000 grants to small businesses.

For a business to be eligible, it has to have received a minimum of 250 votes. A number of businesses in the Mahoning Valley are part of the group. To vote for a business, go online to www.missionsmallbusiness.com/. The site can be searched based on the city where the business is located.

Chrome browser for iPad, iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO

Google’s Chrome browser now can be used to surf the Web on the iPhone and iPad.

The Chrome application released Thursday is the latest volley in the escalating rivalry between Google Inc. and Apple Inc., which makes those two popular mobile devices. The announcement highlighted the second day of Google I/O, an annual conference that the company hosts in San Francisco for computer programmers around the world.

Google’s attempt to supplant Apple’s own Safari browser comes a day after it unveiled plans to sell a low-priced tablet computer to compete against the iPad and Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire.

If Chrome turns out to be a hit on Apple’s mobile devices, it could help boost Google’s profits, even though it’s free, because Google now shares some advertising revenue with Apple in exchange for Apple’s building the Google search engine into the mobile version of Safari.

Loan, highway bills set for vote today

WASHINGTON

Republican leaders pushed a sweeping highways-student loans package salvaging millions of construction jobs and maintaining low interest rates on millions of new college loans toward a House vote today even as conservative groups mounted a last-minute and likely futile campaign against it.

Favorable action by the Senate on what would be the only big jobs measure Congress has enacted this year was assured. Leaders there held out hope they could to get it done Thursday night but ran into procedural hurdles. Lawmakers in both parties hoped to get an early start bragging about a rare accomplishment four months before the election.

The conservative Heritage Action for America and the anti-tax Club for Growth urged a “no” vote on the bill in emails Thursday to lawmakers, warning that it will be counted as a key vote on their legislative scorecards.

Despite the backlash from such core conservative groups, the bill’s supporters expressed confidence.

Vindicator staff/wire reports