Senate OKs infusion of highway funds

The Senate voted Wednesday to shift $8 billion into the highway trust fund, restoring solvency to an account that is going broke and staving off what could have been crippling delays in federal aid for road and bridge projects around the country.

The voice vote came five days after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said the trust fund would be out of money by the end of the month and urged Congress to approve the $8 billion replenishment bill that the White House previously had threatened to veto.

The House passed a nearly identical bill in July and was scheduled to vote today to send a final version of the legislation to the president.

Los Angeles

Bishops fight ban on same-sex vows

California’s six most senior Episcopal bishops Wednesday unanimously declared their opposition to a constitutional amendment on the statewide November ballot that would ban same-sex marriage.

The bishops argued that preserving the right of gays and lesbians to marry would enhance the “Christian values” of monogamy, love and commitment.

By going on the record against Proposition 8 – which would reverse the California Supreme Court’s decision in May to allow same-sex marriage – the bishops waded into a controversy that is political and religious dynamite.

Gay marriage has strained the Episcopalians’ international body, the Anglican Communion, with hundreds of bishops from Africa and elsewhere threatening to break away over attempts to change church doctrine and practice.

Washington

House panel chair owes IRS $5,000

The head of the House tax-writing committee admitted Wednesday that he owes about $5,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for failing to report income on his returns.

But Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., asked colleagues to let the ethics committee investigate and urged Republicans to stop trying to have him removed from his post.

As House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rangel has a powerful say over tax law changes. By his own admission, he has no excuse for not reporting years worth of rental income on a beach vacation property he owns in the Dominican Republic.

New Bedford, Mass.

Firefighter blows life into cat

A lucky cat owes one of its nine lives to a firefighter who revived it with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Al Machado rescued the cat from a burning apartment Tuesday, telling the Standard Times of New Bedford that he saw immediately that it needed air. Machado began performing mouth to mouth on the animal as he carried it outside.

Video shot at the scene shows Machado bent over, breathing into the cat’s mouth several times. The cat, a tiger angora, was revived and resting comfortably soon after.

Asked what it tasted like to give mouth-to-mouth to a cat, Machado laughed, grimaced and said: “Like fur.”