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The endgame at hand, House Republicans struggled Thursday to pass legislation to prevent a looming government default while slicing nearly $1 trillion from federal spending. Senate Democrats pledged to scuttle the bill _ if the GOP could get it through the House _ in hopes of forcing a final compromise.

As afternoon debate headed toward evening, GOP leaders ordered an unexplained halt on the measure as Speaker John Boehner summoned a string of recalcitrant rank-and-file Re(publicans to his office.

Asked what he and Boehner had talked about, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said, “I think that’s rather obvious. .. There’s negotiations going on.”

It wasn’t clear how long the delay might last, although a spokesman for Boehner said the vote was still expected to take place later in the evening.

The White House quickly taunted Boehner’s Republicans.

“Clock ticks towards August 2, House is naming post offices, while leaders twist arms for a pointless vote. No wonder people hate Washington,” White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer tweeted.

Earlier, Boehner had exuded optimism.

“Let’s pass this bill and end the crisis,” said the president’s principal Republican antagonist in a new and contentious era of divided government. “It raises the debt limit and cuts government spending by a larger amount.”

President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the measure, and in debate on the House floor, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida savaged it as a “Republican plan for default.” She said the GOP hoped to “hold our economy hostage while forcing an ideological agenda” on the country.

Despite the sharp rhetoric, there were signs that gridlock might be giving way.

“Around here you’ve got to have deadlock before you have breakthrough,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. “We’re at that stage now.”

Wall Street suffered fresh losses as Congress struggled to break its long gridlock. The Dow Jones industrial average was down for a fifth straight session.

The Treasury Department moved ahead with plans to hold its regular weekly auction of three-month and six-month securities on Monday. Yet officials offered no information on what steps would be taken if Congress failed to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit by the following day.

Without signed legislation by Aug. 2, the Treasury will not have enough funds to pay all the nation’s bills. Administration officials have warned of potentially calamitous effects on the economy if that happens _ a spike in interest rates, a plunge in stock markets and a tightening in the job market in a nation already struggling with unemployment over 9 percent.

White House press secretary Jay Carney outlined White House compromise terms: “significant deficit reduction, a mechanism by which Congress would take on the tough issues of tax reform and entitlement reform and a lifting of the debt ceiling beyond … into 2013.”

The last point loomed as the biggest obstacle.

The House bill cuts spending by $917 billion over a decade, principally by holding down costs for hundreds of government programs ranging from the Park Service to the Agriculture Department and foreign aid.

It also provides an immediate debt limit increase of $900 billion, which is less than half of the total needed to meet Obama’s insistence that there be no replay of the current crisis in the heat of the 2012 election campaigns.

An additional $1.6 trillion in borrowing authority would be conditioned on passage of at least $1.8 trillion in further savings to be recommended by a newly created committee of lawmakers. Those deficit reductions would presumably come from cuts to benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare, as well as an overhaul of the tax code generating additional government revenue.

The GOP bill’s $917 billion in upfront spending cuts was trillions less than many tea party-backed rank-and-file Republican lawmakers wanted, but a total that seemed nearly unimaginable when they took power in the House last winter with an agenda of reining in government. Numerous Republicans grumbled that the legislation didn’t cut more deeply, and Boehner and the rest of the GOP leadership have spent their week cajoling reluctant conservatives to provide the votes needed to pass it.

By most accounts, they were succeeding.

“It gives us a little bit of heartburn because it doesn’t go big enough,” said Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., a first-term lawmaker who said he would vote for the bill as the best one available.

Another first-term Republican, Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama, said the bill was “far from perfect. But I don’t have the luxury of writing the plan by myself, and neither does Speaker Boehner.”

While the White House and Democrats objected to the House bill, they readied an alternative that contained similarities.

Drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it provides for $2.7 trillion in additional borrowing authority for the Treasury. It also calls for cuts of $2.2 trillion, including about $1 trillion in Pentagon savings that assume the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even before the House voted, Reid served notice he would stage a vote to kill the legislation almost instantly.

“No Democrat will vote for a short-term Band-Aid that would put our economy at risk and put the nation back in this untenable situation a few short months from now,” he said.

With the House and Senate focused on debt-limit legislation at opposite ends of the Capitol, eleven religious leaders protesting budget cuts were arrested in the Rotunda midway between the two chambers.

Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine said on the House floor that they were praying for those who will be “hurt the hardest” by the bill being considered.

Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., countered that he, too was praying _ to avoid a default.

The day’s events marked the climax of a struggle that began last winter, when the Treasury Department notified Congress it would need additional borrowing authority, and Boehner said any increase would have to include steps to reduce future spending.

At first the White House balked at the terms, then relented. That gradually morphed into a series of bipartisan negotiations, one led by Vice President Joe Biden, then another by Obama, and finally, a round of golf that led to stab at a “grand bargain” between the president and Boehner.

Boehner announced last Friday he was calling off the talks, setting in motion a frantic week of maneuvering as the default deadline grew near.

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ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. crews have finished initial cleanup work on four sites contaminated when a pipeline carrying crude oil broke underneath the Yellowstone River three weeks ago.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Quality will assess whether the cleanup is adequate.

DEQ Deputy Director Tom Livers tells The Billings Gazette that state standards require the cleanup to continue until the effort would be more harmful than beneficial to the environment.

So far, 46 sites have been identified for cleanup after an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil leaked into the river, starting on July 1.

International Bird Rescue of California was brought in by Exxon to clean wildlife affected by the spill. Jay Holcomb with the rescue group says they’ve only had to treat three birds.

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A study commissioned by Samsung into cancers among six of its semiconductor workers found they were unrelated to exposure to chemicals on the job but the electronics giant is not yet releasing the full results.

U.S.-based Environ International Corp. on Thursday announced the broad findings of a study it conducted over the past year of several Samsung chip manufacturing facilities.

Samsung commissioned the investigation last July to try and allay public anxieties. The company says that 26 current or former workers in production, research and development or office work at semiconductor facilities have contracted leukemia or lymphoma since 1998, while 13 have died.

The South Korean company said it had no plans to immediately publish the study as doing so could compromise the trade secrets of Samsung and its suppliers.

The six cases covered by the study have also been the subject of an ongoing court case in South Korea. Late last month, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled that two of them could be related to exposure to toxic chemicals on the job. Four of the people have died.

Samsung Electronics Co. is the world’s largest manufacturer of memory chips used in personal computers, mobile phones, digital cameras and other products.

Environ said in a statement that that Samsung’s current manufacturing operations fall “well within accepted standards” for exposure to chemicals and other substances.

Environ officials, including CEO Steve Washburn, appeared at a press conference held at Samsung’s Giheung semiconductor plant in the city of Yongin, south of Seoul.

“The study further concluded that the scientific evidence does not support a link between workplace exposure and the diagnosed cancers in six cases that underwent specific review,” the company said.

It said that in four of the six cancer cases it studied “there was no evidence” of exposure to an agent that would have caused the illnesses, while in the other two “exposures to cancer-causing agents were substantially below levels of exposure associated with an increased risk of cancer.” Those agents included formaldehyde and ionizing radiation.

Samsung, which has long said its facilities are safe, welcomed the results. Still, Kwon Oh-hyun, the Samsung executive in charge of semiconductors, said the company would not immediately release the Environ study.

“We will consider disclosing the report,” he said, after discussing the issue internally and with suppliers free credit score.

That stance disappointed activists supporting plaintiffs in the court case.

Kong Jeong-ok, an occupational health physician and a member of a support group, called for Samsung to act fast.

“First, disclose the full report,” Kong said after the presentation, which she attended. She also urged Samsung to consult with civil groups, experts and the government before doing so to ensure “transparency and reliability.”

Paul Harper, the Environ official who oversaw the study, said that releasing the report was up to Samsung. He also declined to disclose how much Samsung paid his company to carry out the probe, citing client confidentiality.

He also said that Environ focused on the six specific cancer cases at Samsung’s request.

Kwon denied that Samsung commissioned the study so it could be used as evidence in the ongoing court case.

The Seoul Administrative Court last month ordered the government’s Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service to compensate the families of two dead women. It ruled that while the exact cause of their deaths has not been determined, it could be presumed that they were exposed to toxic chemicals and radiation on the job.

It upheld the service’s findings, however, that the cancer cases of three other workers, two of whom are alive, were unrelated to their work at Samsung, though their attorneys are appealing the ruling.

Five of the six original cases are currently being contested in court as the family of another worker who died last year dropped out.

Samsung is not a defendant in the case, but has cooperated with the welfare service. Yonhap news agency reported that the agency has filed an appeal in the two rulings it lost.

Environ said it carried out the study with Samsung’s full cooperation. It also said the study’s design and implementation were reviewed by an independent advisory panel which included academic experts from institutions such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Yale, but that they were not asked to endorse the conclusions.

Separately, Samsung said Thursday that it plans to expand investments in a research institute it runs devoted to semiconductor health and safety and would also upgrade health programs for employees.

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Australia’s tax on carbon emissions will cost Qantas 110 million to 115 million Australian dollars ($118 million to $123 million) for the 2013 financial year and lead to an increase in passenger fares, the airline said Monday.

The flagship Australian carrier is one of the first of the nation’s major companies to release details of the financial impact of the tax, which will force the 500 worst polluters to pay AU$23 for every ton of carbon they emit.

The government released details of the tax on Sunday, saying it would help Australia lower its massive carbon emissions. Australia is one of the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluters because of its heavy reliance on coal for electricity.

The government is granting AU$9.2 billion in compensation over the next three years to industries affected by the tax, but Qantas said airlines are exempted from that assistance. The tax goes into effect on July 1, 2012.

Qantas said it would pass the costs onto its customers, with the tax adding an average of AU$3.50 to the price of a domestic flight ticket in the financial year ending June 30, 2013. The carbon tax does not apply to international flight fuel.

Qantas shares were down 2.5 percent to AU$1.95 in early afternoon trading.

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Leaders in four area counties announced on Thursday a regional anti-meth drive

There won

Some of Canada

The United States and other nations that depend on oil imports will release and sell 60 million barrels of crude from emergency stocks in an effort to ease the strain of high oil prices on the global economy.

The release by the International Energy Agency, a group of more than two dozen countries, covers only what the world uses roughly every 16 hours. But it was enough to send oil prices lower, at least for the moment.

In addition to helping the struggling economies of the U.S. and Europe, analysts said the move was meant as a rebuke to OPEC, which has refused to increase oil production to bring down prices.

It will be the largest sale of crude ever from world strategic reserves and only the third since the IEA was formed in 1974 after the Arab oil embargo. The IEA released oil in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and in 1990 and 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Half the oil will come from reserves in the U.S. Refiners who turn crude into gasoline will be able to bid on the extra oil and have it shipped to them from the salt caverns along the Gulf Coast where it is stored.

The IEA said high oil demand and shortfalls of oil production caused by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa threatened to “undermine the fragile global economic recovery.”

The uprising in Libya has taken 1.5 million barrels of oil per day off of the market _ half a million barrels less than will be released each day by the IEA for 30 days.

The price of oil rose to nearly $114 per barrel in at the end of April, the highest since the summer of 2008, has fallen 20 percent since then to about $91 a barrel on Thursday. Analysts questioned how much relief the move would provide the economy, and for how long.

One analyst, Andrew Lipow, said the timing of the announcement, a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a negative outlook on the economy, suggests that industrialized countries are grasping for solutions. He said Americans should expect the price of gasoline to fall, but not dramatically, in coming weeks.

“Fifteen or 20 cents a gallon of relief is not enough to make people feel good about their job prospects or losses on the stock market or our general economic slowdown,” he said.

The IEA and the White House said they were acting to increase the supply of oil available during the peak summer driving season.

“We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries and their impact on the global economic recovery,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

Gas prices have already fallen for 20 days in a row. They were down another penny Wednesday, to a nationwide average of $3.61 per gallon, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That’s about 21 cents lower than a month ago. Gas prices peaked this year at a national average of $3.98 per gallon in early May.

The timing of the release brought criticism from business groups and Republican lawmakers, who accused President Barack Obama of playing politics with the country’s oil reserves, which are intended to address emergencies.

The amount of oil to be released, 2 million barrels per day, represents 2.2 percent of daily global oil demand. The 60 million barrels to be released over the span of a month is less than one day’s demand, about 89 million barrels.

The IEA left open the possibility that it could continue the program after a month.

The IEA’s move comes two weeks after OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, decided during a tense meeting not to increase oil production to meet rising demand. OPEC is made up primarily of Middle Eastern and North African nations.

OPEC countries are divided over whether to increase supply. Iran and Venezuela want to keep production stable in hopes of keeping prices _ and revenue _ high. Saudi Arabia wants to increase production, fearing that high oil prices will hurt the global economy and reduce oil demand over the long term.

The head of the IEA, Nobuo Tanaka, expressed disappointment about OPEC’s decision after that meeting No teletrack payday loans. At a news conference Thursday in Paris, he said the IEA’s action would “contribute to ensuring that adequate supplies are available to the global market.”

Kevin Book, an analyst at Clearview Energy Partners, said the move was the first time the IEA has used its reserves as an offensive weapon “to send an unforgettable message to OPEC.”

The reserves, he said, have always acted as a shield. “Now we are using it to bludgeon prices globally. This is the first time we’ve used our shield as a club.”

In addition, Book said, it sends a signal to oil investors that governments will go to great lengths to fight high oil prices. These oil investors, including banks, mutual funds and pension funds, buy contracts for oil in hopes the price will go up, but they don’t actually use the oil. Critics have said these investors, derided as speculators, have helped push oil prices far higher than they would otherwise be.

“Part of the reason to do this is to make anyone on the other side of oil consumers, whether it is speculators or oil cartels, worried that it will happen again,” Book said.

Oil finished trading at $95.41 on Wednesday just before Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy may be in bigger trouble than previously thought. Prices dropped to about $94 overnight and then fell as low as $89 per barrel after the IEA announcement. Oil finished trading Thursday at $91.02.

Worldwide oil demand is at record levels because the recovering economies of the West and the surging economies of Asia are burning more gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The unrest in the Middle East this spring cut into supply. Those two factors drove prices higher, raising costs for shippers, travelers and commuters and leaving people less money to spend on clothes, entertainment and travel.

The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 1.8 percent in the first quarter of this year, down from 3.1 percent in the previous quarter, in part as a result of high gasoline prices.

Oil prices fell later in the spring, though, as the U.S. economy appeared to slow and Greece’s financial crisis threatened to spread to the rest of Europe. Reports that Saudi Arabia would increase production in defiance of OPEC helped send prices lower in recent days. It’s unclear whether Saudi Arabia has begun to do so, or still might.

Also, oil supplies in the U.S. are among their highest levels ever, a result in part of rising North American production and less consumption.

Analysts also said that while the IEA move will lower oil prices in the short term, it also reveals major concerns about the ability of oil producers to meet growing world demand in the future. If they can’t, oil prices will rise dramatically.

Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group, said oil would have to drop below $80 a barrel to have much economic impact on the economy. He said he doesn’t think the 60 million barrels is enough to do that.

“The argument is, if we can lower oil prices that would be a major tax cut,” Baumohl said. “The logic is fine. Whether it can successfully be carried out is the question. And I don’t think it can.”

IEA members are required to hold in reserve the equivalent of what they would import in 90 days, though countries collectively now hold 146 days’ supply.

The U.S. stocks, called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, hold 727 million barrels. The reserve has never been fuller. It held 707 million barrels before the U.S. last tapped the reserve in 2008 in response to supply disruptions caused by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

The IEA decision will free about 30 million barrels in the United States. Europe will release 18 million barrels and industrialized countries in Asia 12 million.

For U.S. refiners, bidding for the oil now held in reserve will mean having to import less from abroad. The 1 million barrels per day to be released is about 20 percent of what Gulf Coast refiners import.

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Household Essentials, a Hazelwood-based distributor of ironing boards, hampers and other products for laundry and storage rooms, acquired Cedar Fresh, a cedar storage products manufacturer based in Miami.

Terms of the deal, which closed June 17, were not disclosed.  

Cedar Fresh was founded in 1984 and makes cedar drawer liners, hangars and blocks that are designed to protect clothes and linens from moths.   

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As its strike against local building contractors moves into its fourth week, the St. Louis Bricklayers union plans to ask a federal mediator to step in if the contentious impasse continues when the two sides reconvene on Monday.

Business Manager Don Brown of the bricklayers’ Local 1 blames the stalemate on the St. Louis Mason Contractors Association, which Brown accuses of trying to use the economic downturn to loosen the unions’ grip on local construction projects.

“It’s a tactic that hasn’t been tried here before,” Brown said. “They’re trying to get members to resign from the union. It’s telling guys, ‘You can scab on your own union.’”

Association Executive Director David Gillick denies any attempt to bust the union, citing an alliance between the bricklayers and union contractors dating back a century. At issue, Gillick said, is the association’s belief that the future success of regional construction rests on a fundamental shift in the way unions and contractors do business.

“We choose to be union contractors. They choose to be union bricklayers. But if we don’t change the path we’ve been on, the marketplace will change it for us. It won’t be our choice anymore,” said Gillick.

Len Toenjes, president of the Associated General Contractors of St. Louis, said the split between the two parties exemplified a failed reliance on short-term fixes to the complex task of positioning the region to compete in the post-recession economy.

“In order to attract development, we need to be competitive,” Toenjes said. “But striking a reasonable balance is difficult for everybody. And it’s especially hard when two (organizations) that have been doing business for 100 years are suddenly thrust into the global marketplace.”

The public bickering marks an end to a pledge by the union not to negotiate the terms of its next contract in public. Brown said he broke that agreement in response to remarks Gillick made in an interview ten days ago with Charlie Brennan on KMOX radio.

The bricklayers walked off the job when the five-year contract they agreed to in 2006 expired at midnight, June 1. Approximately 500 members of Local 1 haven’t worked since.

Another 200 have remained on projects, part of an “interim agreement” with a handful of contractors who agreed to honor the terms of a new contract retroactively, assuming a settlement can be reached.

Local 1 also hit the pavement five years ago when talks faltered in a resolution of the 2006 pact. That strike lasted only five days.

What separates the tone of the negotiations in 2006 from 2011, said Brown, is the economic climate.

Compensation and work rules are the primary negotiating points separating the two parties. The association is asking for concessions that would peel back salary and benefits by four percent. Local 1 has balked at the proposal, noting that economy-induced declines in construction already slashed the average annual bricklayer salary to $30,702 in 2010.

The hours worked by bricklayers this year have already dropped 38 percent, Brown said. To the union, taking a salary reduction in a depleted construction market makes no sense.

“Even if we agreed to (a pay cut), there still won’t be any residential work out there, because they just aren’t building homes right now, and they won’t start until the banks start releasing money,” said Brown.

The two sides also can’t get together on a rule change that would increase the allowable weight of bricks lifted by workers from 30- to 40-pound masonry blocks.

Brown, citing a study, said a bricklayer hoisting 40-pound blocks 200 times a day would lift the equivalent of five pickup trucks a week or 2 1/2 fully loaded 747 jetliners over the course of a year.

Gillick maintains the 40-pound lift is consistent with union-regulated rules in other jurisdictions, including those in Illinois.

The union and the contractors are in accord on one aspect of the strike: Without an expedited agreement, current projects throughout the region will soon suffer the consequences of the labor stoppage.

Toenjes says some construction sites are already ’seeing an impact.”

And Gillick cautions the situation is “hitting a critical point” as bricklayers are needed to complement the work of carpenters, ironworkers, sheet metal workers and other tradesmen.

“Their patience is running thin, and they won’t be able to let a project dwindle,” Gillick said of general contractors and clients in the region. “They are going to have to make a decision about whether to bring in a union guy or a non-union guy. And in some cases that is already happening.”

On Friday, Day 17 of the strike, neither Gillick nor Brown was optimistic that an agreement might be imminent.

One measure of the distance separating the two men was Gillick’s reaction when asked if he’d agree with Brown to turning negotiations over to a federal mediator.

His answer: Probably not.

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