U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar got a double dose of bad news Friday, as a key supporter pulled out and his opponent, Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, gained a high-profile endorsement from Sarah Palin.

The blows were the latest sign that Lugar is in deep trouble as he fights for his political life in the May 8 primary election.

With Mourdock getting substantial help from outside groups, Lugar needed the same. But late Friday, a Republican Super PAC that has been backing Lugar -- the American Action Network -- said it is calling it quits.

Dan Conston, a spokesman for the group, told the online political newspaper Politico that "we've decided to let this race play out."

It will run no further TV ads after Tuesday and has dropped digital online ads as well.

As of Friday, the American Action Network had spent more than $645,153 on ads backing Lugar.

Asked whether this sent a national message that Lugar was losing, Lugar spokesman Andy Fisher said he had "no idea" why the group decided to end its involvement.

But, he said, "Hoosiers decide this race. The ground game that we have (to get their voters to the polls) is very effective, so it's not going to be decided by a barrage of television advertisements. It's decided by one-to-one contact we've been making with voters since last summer."

The news followed the announcement earlier that Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, had posted an endorsement of Mourdock on his Facebook page.

"Conservatives of all stripes are uniting behind Richard Mourdock," she wrote.

Lugar's 36 years of service in the Senate are "appreciated," she added, "but it's time for the torch to pass to conservative leadership in Washington that promises to rein in government spending."

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona senator who was the GOP nominee for president in 2008 and elevated Palin to national political stardom, is backing Lugar, including in a new radio ad for him in which he says Lugar has fought against President Barack Obama on health care and "budget-busting proposals."

"Some in Indiana are claiming Dick Lugar is Obama's friend," McCain says in the ad. "That's ridiculous. And I know it firsthand, because I fight alongside him every day in the Senate. Dick Lugar is a patriot and a hero, and we need him in the United States Senate."

The decision by American Action Network to end its support of Lugar, coupled with Palin's support for Mourdock, may have been why Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman, who is backing Lugar for re-election, put out a statement late Friday saying that "it will be Hoosiers, and only Hoosiers, who will choose our nominee for U.S. Senate -- not out-of-state interests or endorsements."

Pro-Mourdock groups, though, were taking notice.

Barney Keller, a spokesman for the Club for Growth, which is backing Mourdock, said Lugar's "allies in Washington are abandoning his sinking campaign and their desperate, negative attacks."

Lugar has been in the Senate since 1977. In his last election in 2006, Democrats didn't even field an opponent because of his perceived strong popularity. But with the rise of the tea party movement, Lugar has found himself increasingly under fire in his own party, with the GOP showdown coming in the May 8 primary.

Democrats, though, seemed Friday to be already looking ahead to November and a matchup between Mourdock and the Democratic candidate for Senate, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly.

Ben Ray, a spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party, said Palin's endorsement of Mourdock "makes perfect sense."

Both, he indicated, are on the wrong side of issues from Medicare and Social Security to trade deals that ship jobs overseas.

"Richard Mourdock and Sarah Palin are just wrong for Hoosiers," he said, in what sounded like a Democratic ad for the November election.

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Republicans and Democrats are squaring off over freezing student-loan interest rates in a partisan fight that resembles lawmakers' recent confrontation over extending the payroll tax cut.

The student-loan standoff could consume the energies of House and Senate leaders after they return from a week-long recess as the election race between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney heats up. The payroll-tax fight lasted two months before Congress passed a $145 billion extension measure in February.

The student-loan dispute carries "a real downside" for Republicans, "but it's not quite as radioactive as the payroll tax," said John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont- McKenna College in Claremont, California.

This time "they are trying to frame the issue to their advantage" by "passing something and trying to shift the blame for obstructionism to the Democrats," he said.

The Republican-led House, defying a veto threat from the White House, voted 215-195 yesterday to extend the current 3.4 percent interest rate on government student loans that is set to double on July 1. The Obama administration called the measure "politically motivated" because it would finance the $5.9 billion subsidy by abolishing a public-health fund.

Democrats accused Republicans of what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called an "assault on women's health" because the measure would eliminate the health fund, which has provided breast and cervical cancer screenings as well as child immunization and prenatal tests for birth defects and developmental disorders. They cited a USA Today/Gallup poll showing Romney trailing Obama among women voters by 18 percentage points.

'Where Are the Women?'

"We will continue to ask the question: Where are the women?" New York Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney told reporters before the vote. "Republicans have worked very hard to earn that gender gap, bit by bit, vote by vote, defunding by defunding and insult by insult."

House Speaker John Boehner, who had rushed the legislation to the floor after Obama toured college campuses in three swing states to prod Congress to act, maintained that Republicans had planned all along to avert the interest-rate increase.

"No one wants to see student loans go up," Boehner said. "Why do people insist we have to have a political fight on something where there is no fight?"

Boehner, who had derided the public-health account as a "slush fund," also rejected the Democrats' charge against his party about women's health. "To accuse us of wanting to gut women's health is absolutely not true," Boehner said in a floor speech. "Give me a break."

'Slush Fund'

Other House Republicans agreed. "What we are talking about is using a slush fund that is provided" to the health and human services secretary "to spend as she sees fit," said John Kline, the Minnesota Republican who is chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. "That is somehow perceived as an attack on women, what a surprise in this election year."

Kline said there were other sources of money for the women's health initiatives that are financed by the preventive health fund.

Boehner claimed Democrats earlier this year had supported taking $5 billion from the fund to finance the extension of the payroll tax cut through December.

Democrats "weren't happy that was the only way" Republicans "would agree to the payroll tax reduction," Pelosi said. The earlier example provides "all the more reason to leave the rest of the money" in the fund, she said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/04/27/bloomberg_articlesM357AF6TTDS101-M35UL.DTL#ixzz1tJiWmeNB

Cicada insects chaos of summer over, but some in the Nanjing road on sides in the trees the town continues to be left traces in the alien insects. Yesterday afternoon, reporters through the door of Hanzhong Hanzhong Road on the direction to visit all the way up Xinjiekou found that there are many trees within the beetle's nest hole, this reporter interviewed the relevant departments, and believed experts and insect experts in botany views.
Beetles are beetles, is really a wood boring insects, many types convey more than 2000 varieties of Chinese, Nanjing main thing is Anoplophora glabripennis, A. chinensis, mulberry longicorn cloud spots, for instance Monochamus alternatus. There are peach pink bungii pear, acacia tree inside two-section beetles. Beetles that Nanjing often say "water bull." They are going to drill through the mouth area from the trees, affecting water and nutrient uptake of trees will cause deforestation. They lay their eggs within the bark, the April will fly pupation, 5 June to natural supplements, start a new round of eggs, the present winter season will be the more beetles.
Become victims of childhood plaything
60s of last century, the Hu lived in temples in the vicinity, in memory of his childhood near temples Jianye Road, Mo-road roadside planted plane trees, willows. At that time he with the exceptional partners favorite small edge up the bush to catch called "water bull," the worm, then withhold it inside neck using a rope and allow it fly via a flight, or place it to hook on the bottle to find out it swimming . "The insect's body's black, some dark green, also with white spots above his head with two grayscale 'pigtail' (antenna). This little bug is the most powerful of the teeth, just saw the same sharp teeth holes in the bark, 10 mins to bite into the trunk go, they generally stay in the trunk are not equipped out of the nest. "Hu recalled with great interest. However, Hu was found recently on the roadside trees Hanzhong Road, there are numerous beetles build the nest hole, "it bite trunk are empty, strange feel bad for."
Many trees belly empty
Yesterday, 12:30, Hanzhong Way to reporters along the direction Xinjiekou. Nanjing Cement Industry Design & Research Institute near Green Island, the reporter found a diameter of approximately 80 cm of plane trees, from the trunk and branches of the bifurcation, with a diameter of approximately 30 cm beetles cavity, cavity was inverted triangle, that have been completely gnawing away, nearby the trunk have also been dry crack. Reporter towards the nest hole that has a Shugun poke a lttle bit to locate that every Heiqu Qu viscous material, there are many cobwebs wrapped around gnawing away inside the trunk.
Reporters traveling with the management of any landscape Baixia staff surnamed Chen told reporters how the beginning of the cavity is not entirely built of digging beetles. "As being the old city of Nanjing trunk trees generally lower trunk for the twigs often broken by passing vehicles or by wind Guaduan, old tree twigs are broken, the break point so occurance of holes, which nests for your Longhorn Beetle parasitic offers a great convenience. "
Kingsley nearby the Sheraton Hotel from the sidewalk, the reporter saw a Kewutongshu central trunk has a nearly 50-centimeter-long wound, which includes been gnawing away, and out of your yellow liquid, many ants crawling around within the above . Province Chinese Medicine Hospital in, a diameter of about 50 cm in the ground plane trees one meter in the trunk on the twigs I did to create a 1-meter-long gnawing away for the belt, gnawing away inside is gnawing away at the range with large almost a complete trunk hollow.
Experts on Pest elimination
Nanjing Research Institute of trees garden room Dade warranty engineer Wei told reporters: "Nanjing City street trees include the main threat would be the threat of beetle larvae, beetle larvae due to rise in the trunk of trees, the larvae in the amount of several time Tree Road can lead to a good large gnawing away on the organization, when the organization is a large part of trees cut off Road, then the tree died. "reporter that there are more cavity trees are mainly skinny trunk, branch skew.
Dade Wei Road engineers also told this reporter, in August, when management had Baixia landscape garden along with Nanjing Research Institute with the experts, with the trees of the area performed on control work, "we have taken measures mainly two, one is 'up enemies' is stocked from the trees on a few of guani as guani hi beetle larvae prey; the opposite perhaps there is are beetles inside trees trunks and branches inoculation, both Point measures have played a clear effect. "
For the prevention and treatment of trees about the beetles, Nanjing Forestry University, School of Forest Resources and Environment Professor Yan Aojin said: "If you need to deal with it, should begin in May within their 'sent' when spraying within the forest canopy, to avoid them inside branches as well as the trunk to lay eggs. Furthermore, options is highly recommended when planting trees in a range of trees in mixed species, so the speed would slow up the spread of pests. Another point, the backyard department can make to 'resistance' strong planting trees, as days cattle like weak tree. "