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Elton Gallegly, the Anti-Steve King

Elton Gallegly, the California Republican unexpectedly chosen over Steve King to lead the House immigration subcommittee, doesn’t haunt the cable-news circuit or put out inflammatory statements like King—but don’t call him a moderate.

Forty minutes into my interview with Elton Gallegly, the Republican congressman from California who took over the House immigration subcommittee in January, I make a mistake, at least as far as Gallegly is concerned. We are talking about why he was chosen for the post over , who had both seniority and a knack for stirring up controversy, when I ask him if it was because Gallegly is seen as being more moderate than his colleague from Iowa.

There’s a slight pause. The corners of Gallegly’s mouth turn down as he cocks his head, squints, and asks sternly, “How is that?” He doesn’t seem pleased with my word choice. “Some people are much better about holding press conferences and doing TV interviews,” he explains. “I’m the guy that likes to sit back and observe.”

So far as chairman, Gallegly has pursued a strategy that most observers have described as less inflammatory than the one they expected from King, who infamously compared illegal immigration to aand once suggested from the House floor that we electrify the border fence with Mexico since “we do that with livestock all the time.” In his first few hearings, Gallegly has largely avoided the headline-grabbing topics—anchor babies, the DREAM Act, and the —that tend to bring Republicans sharp criticism. Instead, he has focused his committee on going after businesses that employ undocumented workers.

To that end, Gallegly will introduce a bill next month that will require businesses to use a computer program known asto confirm the immigration status of each new employee. The system, which checks Social Security numbers against federal databases, has been in place since 1997, thanks in large part to Gallegly, but it remains voluntary. (Only about 238,000 companies use the system, says the Department of Homeland Security.) Gallegly is convinced the legislation will open up millions of jobs for out-of-work Americans.

“We have 14 million people that are unemployed in this country,” says Gallegly, who was elected in 1986. “Are illegals taking all of those jobs? Of course not. We know that. Are the illegals the only reason that we’re having economics problems? We know that isn’t the case, but it is having a profound effect.”

“Are the illegals the only reason that we’re having economics problems?” asks Gallegly. “We know that isn’t the case, but it is having a profound effect.”

If Gallegly is seen as , it may be a matter of style, not substance. Gallegly tends to keep a lower profile and is rarely found on the cable-news circuit, but his legislative record is as hard-line as they come. He has taken up the cause of denying citizenship to children born in this country to illegal immigrants, introducing so-called birthright-citizenship legislation two decades ago. Gallegly also has supported measures that would make English the official language and allow states to deny public education to the kids of illegal immigrants. In 2004, he voted for a bill that would cut off federal funding for hospitals that don’t report the immigration status of certain patients.

E-Verify, which Gallegly has been championing for years in one form or another, is certainly less controversial than some of the other measures Republicans introduced during the last Congress, when they didn’t control the House. In theory, most people can get behind a measure that’s aimed at helping employers figure out whom they can hire legally, though Democrats argue E-Verify would force more businesses to hire employees off the books. By tying immigration to , Republicans are trying to set themselves up as the champions of those hurt hardest by the economic downturn.

But the new chairman may be outflanked on the right. King plans to push ahead with his own agenda and will circumvent Gallegly’s subcommittee to do it. “When you really look at it, there is a lot of immigration [policymaking] that goes on outside the immigration committee, and I’ve been interested in the whole subject, not just within the jurisdiction of the subcommittee itself,” King says. His first priority is “to stop the bleeding”—by which he means the flow of undocumented workers. King wants a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. He doesn’t care how long it is. He wants it built until “they stop going around the end.”

Part of his plan is to force freshman lawmakers to take a stand on legislation he’ll be reviving in the Ways and Means Committee that directs the Obama administration to share information about illegal workers. He also is considering offering amendments to various appropriations bills that would cut funding for cities and states he thinks aren’t supporting law-enforcement efforts on illegal immigration.

By and large, whateverbecause they have little chance of making it through the Senate. Democrats, for their part, hope they can capitalize on what they see as the GOP’s increasingly inflexible stance.

And they have reason to be optimistic. Latinos are the fastest growing voting bloc and have been moving leftward over the past decade. In 2008, , and two years later Hispanics helped the Democrats hold on to the Senate by delivering winning margins forin Nevada andin Colorado.

A few Republicans are calling for comprehensive immigration reform—most notably former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has said the GOP will become marginalized if it doesn’t court Hispanics. The party’s tough talk about cracking down on illegal immigrants has largely alienated this expanding population.

But Gallegly, who was just reelected with 60 percent of the vote in a heavily Hispanic district, doesn’t buy the argument. “I’m known as the toughest guy in the state of California on illegal immigration,” he says. “No one ever got within 20 points of me.”

Correction: The headline of this story mistakenly referred to Peter King.

Laura Colarusso is a reporter at The Daily Beast. She previously worked as a senior news editor at Talking Points Memo. She has also written for The Boston Globe, The Star-Ledger (Newark), AOL and New Jersey Monthly Magazine.

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Sun exposure, vitamin D linked to MS risk: study

NEW YORK (Reuters) – People who have spent more time in the sun and those with higher vitamin D levels may be less likely to develop multiple sclerosis, according to an Australian study.

Previous studies have shown that people living close to the equator are less likely to get multiple sclerosis (MS) than those at higher latitudes, a difference that may be explained by more sun exposure and higher vitamin D levels.

According to a report in "Neurology," Robyn Lucas of The Australian National University and colleagues studied 216 adults who has just started having the first symptoms of MS between 2003 and 2006.

They also found a comparison group of nearly 400 people from the same regions of Australia, who matched the subjects in age and gender, but had no signs or symptoms of MS.

Participants in both groups were asked how much time they had spent in the sun and where they had lived at different points in their lives, with skin damage from the sun and the level of vitamin D in their blood also checked.

On average, people with the first signs of MS had been exposed to a smaller "UV dose" -- based on how much time they had spent in the sun and how close to the equator they had lived -- over the course of their lives.

People with early MS were also less than half as likely to have high levels of skin damage caused by sun exposure, with vitamin D levels 5 to 10 percent lower than those without MS.

"Our study is the first to be able to look at both sun exposure and vitamin D status right at the very first symptoms that might precede development of MS," Lucas told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

The latest study does not prove that being exposed to very little sunlight or having low vitamin D levels causes MS, and while the authors tried to show that both sun exposure and vitamin D levels influence risk of MS on their own, some experts were doubtful that this was possible.

"They may have independent roles, but the reality is it's extremely difficult to sort them out," said Alberto Ascherio, who studies the link between vitamin D and MS at the Harvard School of Public Health and was not involved in the current study.

He noted that the authors didn't know the participants' blood levels of vitamin D over the course of their lives, and that it's possible that measuring somebody's sun exposure over the years is really just another way of measuring how much vitamin D they had at those times.

Since sun exposure is associated with a higher risk of skin cancer, more time outside is not always better. Nor do the results mean that everybody should load up on vitamin D, health experts said.

The main message of the study, Lucas said, is that "small amounts of sun exposure... occurring frequently, are probably optimal both for maintaining vitamin D levels and for other health effects."

(Reporting by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Q&A with CNN Worldwide president

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – As president of CNN Worldwide, Jim Walton oversees the news operation's television, online and mobile businesses around the world.

A day after CNN's parent company Time Warner reported its latest earnings, Walton spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the cable network's 2010 financials, the early performance of Piers Morgan Tonight and the importance of U.S. primetime show.

The Hollywood Reporter: CNN had a record operating profit in 2009, and I hear you brought in another record profit for 2010. Is that true, and how big was it?

Jim Walton: We had a really good year in 2010. We had a fantastic year, and yes, we grew up profits over 2009. It was another earnings record, so we are really pleased...I am speaking about the worldwide business of CNN.

THR: How big a profit?

Walton: As you know, Time Warner doesn't break out our earnings, so I am not allowed to either. I can't.

THR: That is several record years in a row, isn't it?

Walton: That is seven years in a row of profit growth. That's pretty good. While the journalism industry is under siege, we continue to grow.

THR: What were the main drivers of your growth?

Walton: There are a lot of men and women here who work really hard. We have a pretty diverse business that is spread out around the world. And we got multiple revenue streams - television, the Web and mobile. It's not one television network. It's a big old honking news machine.

THR: The continued profit growth seems to be in some contrast with your continued U.S. primetime ratings challenges that are often in focus. Is that just not as important a factor?

Walton: I don't want to minimize it. The primetime programming on CNN U.S. is very, very important, and those ratings are important to us. But the ad revenue generated by our primetime programming on CNN U.S. is only about 10% of our total revenues. We have other parts of our business that are as big or bigger than that.

THR: What were some of the growth drivers for CNN last year?

Walton: Over the years, as various economies go up and down around the world, we are in so many different economies that we have a lot of touch points and are not weighed down by any one thing. We also have television, Web and mobile. Advertising is a huge component of our business domestically and internationally, but the distribution business is big for us. The Web business is big for us, mobile is growing, and we are in the syndication business as well.

THR: What do you predict for your business for this year?

Walton: I'm not allowed to give forward-leaning statements on financials. What I can tell you is that I am confident that we are going to have another great year. We have some new programs on CNN. We will be launching a new primetime program on HLN. We have some digital additions that we are going to make over the next four, five months. And the international business continues to evolve. So, I am very confident that we are going to have another strong year.

THR: You mentioned new programs. How do you feel about the performance of Piers Morgan so far?

Walton: It's spectacular. I'm really pleased. He is so clever, he is really smart, he is a big personality. And he works hard and does his homework. He's been stepping into the Egypt story now. We couldn't be happier.

THR: What about ratings? Have you noticed what kind of guests and topics do better for him or whether the show does better when he steps into breaking news versus has celebrity guests?

Walton: It's really too early to put a stamp on it. Piers and his producers and Ken Jautz who runs CNN U.S. will work together and look at what happens each day, review and always try to make it better each day. I can assure you that Piers will be every bit a part of the conversation, and the interview will be the basis of what that program is. But I think it is in its early days. He has tried all sorts of different types of shows in the two and a half weeks he has been on the air. Maybe that's what it will always be like.

THR: Parker Spitzer has been on the air longer, and you have tweaked that a bit. How happy are you with it now?

Walton: Much has been said and much has been written about the program. If you look at it just on its merits, it's one of the smartest programs on television - whether cable or broadcast. It fits very much within the brand of CNN and what it stands for. And if you look at the last 10 days or so, its performance has gotten a lot better and the past couple of nights it has beaten MSNBC. It's got some momentum right now.

THR: How do you explain that?

Walton: We had a couple of folks who weren't television professionals, and now they have got some time under their belts. They are performing, and the show just gets better and better.

THR: Anything you can say about the chatter that it will be just Spitzer one day?

Walton: I have got a little saying here at CNN internally that you can't burp without somebody somewhere writing. CNN commands a lot of attention, which is great. What you can count on is that we have Dr. Drew coming on HLN in primetime soon. That's the talent focus for our company right now.

THR: You have added personalities to primetime since Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes joked last year that some time CNN may be a bit boring. Do you feel you have made real progress?

Walton: It's in the eye of the beholder. What is funny to somebody is not funny to somebody else. What is exciting to one person might be boring to somebody else. But everybody who performs at CNN in an anchor role needs to be very, very smart and be able to relate to and be relevant to their audiences. We are not trying to be funny necessarily.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)

Cow that escaped slaughterhouse has new adventure

BILLINGS, Mont. – Five years after a cow dubbed the "Unsinkable Molly B" leapt a slaughterhouse gate and swam across the Missouri River in an escape that drew international attention, the heifer has again eluded fate, surviving the collapse of the animal sanctuary where she was meant to retire.

Molly B was among an estimated 1,200 animals removed from the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in recent weeks as part of a massive effort to bail out its overwhelmed owners.

Animal welfare groups said they were forced to euthanize dozens of starving and ill cattle, horses and llamas found on the 400-acre sanctuary in rural Sanders County.

The bovine celebrity herself - an overweight black Angus breed said to be sore in the hoof but otherwise relatively healthy - was removed to a nearby ranch and is headed this week to a smaller farm sanctuary.

"Molly B made it OK. She's a tough old broad," said Jerry Finch with Habitat for Horses of Hitchcock, Texas, who participated in the rescue effort. "She had bad feet, but she was not anywhere near as bad as some of the others."

Molly B's relocation to a 20-acre ranchette known as the New Dawn MT Sanctuary has proven an adventure in its own right. Local media stories had trumpeted her arrival at the Stevensville facility last week, including photos said to be of Molly B and new friend "Misty."

Yet when New Dawn owner Susan Eakins watched one of the reports on the nightly news, video of the cow climbing a hill revealed the sanctuary had gotten the wrong animal - a male steer named "Big Mike." A mix-up left Molly B behind on another ranch.

Her home since 2006, near the small town of Hot Springs, in recent years had grown into a sort of Noah's Ark-gone-wild - more than 600 llamas; at least 100 horses, donkeys and cattle; and a motley assortment of bison, camels, exotic rodents and other furry and feathered beasts.

Many of the animals were breeding. Rescuers said that allowed the sanctuary population to multiply unchecked, setting the stage for conditions to deteriorate rapidly after one of the facility's two full-time employees fell ill last year. As the situation worsened, word circulated among animal rescue groups across the country.

Patty Finch with the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries said by the time she called the Montana facility in late November to offer help, many of its animals were sick, dying or struggling to survive in increasingly cramped quarters.

"Molly is a good representative of what a betrayal it was to each of these animals. The sanctuary should be a line in the sand that means never again should you suffer," said Patty Finch, who said she has no relation to Jerry Finch.

Molly B's second retirement will start another chapter in an unlikely story that began January 2006, when a yet-to-be-named 1,200 pound heifer skipped her date with doom by leaping a 5-foot-5-inch fence at Mickey's Packing Plant in Great Falls.

The cow raced through town with police and animal control on her heels, reportedly running into a conflict with a German Shepherd, dodging an SUV and negotiating through a rail yard. She swam across the Missouri River and later took three tranquilizer darts before eventually getting corralled.

Mickey's Packing Plant employees christened the spirited cow Molly B and voted 10-1 to spare her from slaughter.

A less formal vote on Molly B's fate came out in her favor this weekend. New Dawn owner Eakins said after a heart-to-heart with her husband over whether they could afford to take another cow into their 50-animal operation, the couple decided to make it work. "We made a commitment to her," Eakins said.

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Online:

New Dawn MT Sanctuary:The Ballad of Molly B:

WCup leader Kostelic wins super-G for 5th victory

KITZBUEHEL, Austria – Overall World Cup leader Ivica Kostelic won the super-G on Friday, his fifth World Cup victory in less than three weeks.

The Croatian slalom specialist, who had never won a speed race, finished his run on the challenging Streifalm course in 1 minute, 17.33 seconds for his 16th career World Cup win.

Georg Streitberger of Austria trailed by 0.23 seconds to move to the top of the discipline standings. Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway was another 0.05 back in third. Bode Miller finished 10th.

"It was not a clean run, I went off the ideal line a couple of times but I handled it pretty well," said Kostelic, who has won five of the last eight races.

His previous best result in a speed discipline was second in a super-G in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in March 2010.

"It was important to have someone with a yellow helmet on the podium again," said Kostelic, whose helmet has the same color as the one worn by retired ski legend Hermann Maier.

Last year's winner, Didier Cuche of Switzerland, was fourth, while teammate and defending overall champion Carlo Janka was 2.04 behind after skiing off course and almost missing a gate.

Kostelic, who had bib No. 3, said he took advantage of his low start number.

"I was a bit lucky ... The course got rough and visibility did not get better during the race so it was good to have an early start," he said.

Kostelic leads the overall standings with 826 points, 255 ahead of second-place Svindal.

"I will start thinking about the overall title after the world championships," Kostelic said. "I will have to focus on every single race up to then."

Svindal earned his 10th podium finish of the season. The Norwegian said he lost the race in the upper section.

"I wasn't good from the start," he said. "I knew I had to do well because all the favorites were finishing well behind Ivica."

Three Austrian racers managed to avoid high-speed crashes, one day after teammate Hans Grugger crashed during Thursday's downhill training. He underwent brain surgery and is in an induced coma.

Klaus Kroell, Michael Walchhofer and Benjamin Raich all went out as they missed a gate at the same section of the hill, where a bumpy right curve threw them off course.

"We're still deeply shocked, it was not easy to race," former overall champion Raich said. "Our thoughts are with Hans, we hope he gets well soon and can race with us again some day."

Streitberger said the accident gave him more motivation to do well.

"I just tried to concentrate and stay focused," said the Austrian, who was third in last year's super-G race at the Streifalm. "This hill suits me, I like racing here."

The downhill will be held on Saturday.