Money is sought for Alzheimer’s WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is increasing spending on Alzheimer’s research — planning to surpass half a billion dollars next year — as part of a quest to find effective treatments for the brain-destroying
Money is sought for Alzheimer’s
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is increasing spending on Alzheimer’s research — planning to surpass half a billion dollars next year — as part of a quest to find effective treatments for the brain-destroying disease by 2025.
In a two-part plan announced Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health immediately will devote an extra $50 million to dementia research, on top of the $450 million a year it currently spends. The boost opens the possibility that at least one stalled study of a possible therapy might get to start soon.
Next week, President Barack Obama will ask Congress for $80 million in new money to spend for Alzheimer’s research in 2013.
“The science of Alzheimer’s disease has reached a very interesting juncture,” with promising new findings to pursue after years of false starts, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told The Associated Press. “We would love to be able to come up with a way of bringing forward an even larger amount of support.”
Patient advocates have long said the nation’s spending on Alzheimer’s research is far too little considering the disease’s current and coming toll.
Obama campaign backs super PACs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Reversing an earlier stand, President Barack Obama is now encouraging donors to give generously to the kind of political fundraising groups he once assailed as a “threat to democracy.”
He had little choice, his campaign says, if he was to compete with big-money conservative groups that are sure to attack him this fall.
Obama’s campaign is urging its top donors to support Priorities USA, a “super PAC” led by two former Obama aides that has struggled to compete with the tens of millions of dollars collected by Republican-backed outside groups. Campaign officials said Tuesday the president had signed off on the decision.
The president is already facing criticism that he is compromising on principle and succumbing to Washington political rules he pledged to change.
Dow approaches rare 13,000 mark
NEW YORK (AP) — It was just last summer that the Dow Jones industrial average shed 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. Investors had a host of things to worry about, including the possibility of another recession.
Now the Dow is within reach of the rarefied 13,000 mark — a level it hasn’t seen since May 2008, four months before the financial system almost came apart.
A strong one-day rally — caused by a deal on bailout money for Greece, perhaps, or an unexpectedly positive economic report — could put it over the top.
What’s more, the average is just a 10 percent rally from an all-time high. And 10 percent rallies can happen fast these days.
The stomach-turning summer is a bad memory. Europe appears to be getting its act together, last summer’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating was quickly forgotten, D.C. is mostly behaving and recession fears are gone.
Congress OKs FAA legislation
WASHINGTON (AP) — After five years of legislative struggling, 23 stopgap measures and a two-week shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, Congress finally has passed a bill aimed at prodding the nation’s aviation system into a new high-tech era in which satellites are central to air traffic control and piloted planes share the skies with unmanned drones.
The bill, which passed the Senate 75-20 Monday, speeds the nation’s switch from radar to an air traffic control system based on GPS technology. It also requires the FAA to open U.S. skies to drone flights within four years.
Final approval of the measure was marked by an unusual degree of bipartisan support despite labor opposition to a deal cut between the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House on rules governing union organizing elections at airlines and railroads.
