On Cinco de Mayo, Obama pushes bill

On Cinco de Mayo, Obama pushes bill

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama is telling Latino lawmakers and Hispanic advocates that they should press House Republicans to act on a broad overhaul of immigration laws.

Obama was observing the Mexican national holiday of Cinco de Mayo, or fifth of May, in the White House on Monday. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden used the day’s celebration to pressure House Republicans to follow up on legislation that passed the Senate last year.

The Senate bill would expand border security and provide a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

VA rejects call for 3 resignations

INDIANAPOLIS

The American Legion called Monday for the resignations of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and two of his top aides amid an investigation into allegations of corruption and unnecessary deaths at the veterans hospital in Phoenix.

Legion National Commander Daniel Dellinger accused Shinseki, Under Secretary of Health Robert Petzel and Under Secretary of Benefits Allison Hickey of poor oversight and leadership failures.

The Department of Veterans Affairs issued a statement rejecting the call for the resignations.

Search diver dies

SEOUL, South Korea

A civilian diver involved in searches for dozens of missing people from the South Korean ferry disaster died today, as other divers helped by better weather and easing ocean currents were picking up efforts to retrieve more bodies from the sunken ship.

The Sewol carried 476 people, most of them students from a single high school near Seoul, when it sank off South Korea’s southern coast April 16. Only 174 survived, including 22 of the 29 crew members. The sinking left more than 260 people dead, with about 40 others still missing.

Today, one civilian diver died at a hospital after becoming unconscious, government task force spokesman Ko Myung-seok said in a statement. He is the first fatality among divers mobilized after the ferry’s sinking, according to the coast guard.

Quake in Thailand

BANGKOK

Officials said today that one person was killed and several dozen were hurt in Thailand in an earthquake that struck northern Thailand and Myanmar a day earlier, smashing windows, cracking walls and roads and damaging Buddhist temples.

The airport in Chiang Rai, a northern Thai city near the epicenter of the shallow magnitude-6.3 temblor, evacuated people from its terminal, where display signs and pieces of the ceiling fell.

Remark condemned

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

A state Senator’s blog post likening the insurance requirement under President Barack Obama’s health care law to the forced deportation of Jews during the Holocaust drew swift condemnation Monday from leaders of both parties in Tennessee.

Republican Sen. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville wrote the comment in a post titled “Thought of the Day.”

“Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory sign ups for ‘train rides’ for Jews in the 40s,” he wrote.

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Devaney called the comment “ignorant and repugnant,” and called for an immediate apology to the Jewish community. Democratic Party Chairman Roy Herron called the statement “outrageous, pathetic and hateful.”

Campfield in a phone interview shrugged off the criticism and said he stands by his comments.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Southeast interim regional director, Shelley Rose, wrote Campfield, urging him to apologize.

Associated Press