Presidential Nominations Sent to the Senate

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

NOMINATIONS SENT TO THE SENATE:

Nicholas Christopher Geale, of Virginia, to be a Member of the National Mediation Board for a term expiring July 1, 2013, vice Elizabeth Dougherty, resigned.

Byron Todd Jones, of Minnesota, to be Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. (New Position)

Marietta S. Robinson, of Michigan, to be a Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission for a term of seven years from October 27, 2010, vice Thomas Hill Moore, term expired.

President Obama discusses his nomination of Mary Jo White to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and Richard Cordray to continue as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

President Obama taps Denis McDonough to serve as his chief of staff and lead the team at the White House.

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Philadelphia, Portland City Councils Consider Offering Workers Paid Sick Leave

America is in the middle of what is projected to become the worst flu epidemic in a decade, and across the country workers risk making it worse by going to their jobs while sick. They do so because American workers have little access to paid sick leave, but some cities are considering enshrining such leave into law.

City councils in Portland, Oregon and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania are both considering new paid sick leave laws. Under the Portland proposal, all businesses would have to grant workers at least 40 hours of sick leave each year; for businesses with more than six employees, that leave time would be paid. A report from the Main Street Alliance of Oregon, which supports paid sick leave, said business expenses would grow at most by 1.9 percent under the law.

In Philadelphia, where a paid sick leave law was passed in 2011 but was vetoed by the mayor, lawmakers are making another attempt. The bill is backed by local restaurant workers, thousands of whom go to work while sick each day. Nearly 80 percent of food workers do not have paid sick leave, and 60 percent say they have reported to work while sick. A majority of Americans support providing paid sick leave to food workers.

The lack of paid sick leave is its own epidemic in the United States, where 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers don’t receive a single paid sick day. Lack of paid sick leave led to an additional 5 million cases of the H1N1 flu virus in 2009.

And though business leaders in Portland and Philadelphia oppose the laws, perhaps they shouldn’t. Research suggests that paid sick leave reduces employee turnover and increases productivity, meaning providing it to employees has substantial benefits for the companies’ bottom lines too.

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Judge Faults Louisiana For Inadequate Voter Registration Efforts

A federal judge ruled this week that Louisiana violated federal voting law in not offering voter registration opportunities to applicants and recipients of public benefits programs such as food stamps, WIC and Medicaid. In yet another court affirmation of unfettered access to voting, U.S. District Court Judge Jane Triche Milazzo faulted the secretary of state for taking no action “to ensure that the State comply” with its obligations under the National Voter Registration Act, intended to facilitate voter registration opportunities for all citizens.

After an election cycle characterized by dogged efforts to make it more difficult to access the ballot, attorney Ron Wilson said the value of the decision “cannot be overstated” in giving “due meaning to the purpose behind the enactment of the NVRA, to make it easier, and not more difficult, for individuals to register to vote.”

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Actavis predicts 2013 profit growth short of St.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. -- Generic drug developer Actavis Inc., formerly named Watson Pharmaceuticals, predicted profit growth for 2013 that was short of Wall Street's expectations.

The Parsippany, N.J., company changed its name to Actavis after buying Swiss drugmaker Actavis Group for about $5.6 billion in October.

Actavis' financial outlook for 2012 was in line with market predictions. The newly combined company said Friday before its investor meeting in New York that it expects 2012 adjusted earnings to be at the high end of a previously forecast range of $5.85 to $5.95, with revenue growing 29 percent to $5.9 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet expect profit of $5.93 per share on revenue of $5.89 billion.

But its 2013 profit estimate fell short. For this year, Actavis predicted adjusted earnings of between $7.70 and $8.10 per share on about $8.1 billion in revenue.

Analysts expected profit of $8.19 per share on $8.09 billion in revenue.

As part of the name change, the company's New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol switched to "ACT" from "WPI."

The shares, which were inactive in premarket trading Friday, have gained 50 percent in the last 12 months.

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Gun Industry Aims To Sell Youth On Assault Weapons

Responding to Americans’ declining interest in shooting sports, gun manufacturers are developing programs to market their products to younger children. The National Shooting Sports Foundation trade association and the industry-funded National Rifle Association spend millions of dollars annually to recruit kids as gun enthusiasts. And those efforts increasingly focus on pushing semi-automatic assault weapons, including the very model used by the shooter in the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy.

The New York Times reports:

The pages of Junior Shooters, an industry-supported magazine that seeks to get children involved in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semiautomatic rifle. At the end of an accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15 — an advertisement elsewhere in the magazine directed readers to a coupon for buying one — the author encouraged youngsters to share the article with a parent.

“Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”

The industry’s youth-marketing effort is backed by extensive social research and is carried out by an array of nonprofit groups financed by the gun industry, an examination by The New York Times found. The campaign picked up steam about five years ago with the completion of a major study that urged a stronger emphasis on the “recruitment and retention” of new hunters and target shooters.

Federal law prohibits the sale of rifles to those under age 18. But through programs at Boy Scout camps and 4-H clubs, the NRA trains children on how to safely shoot single-shot rifles. And, according to the report: “Newer initiatives by other organizations go further, seeking to introduce children to high-powered rifles and handguns while invoking the same rationale of those older, more traditional programs: that firearms can teach ‘life skills’ like responsibility, ethics and citizenship.”

This effort seems eerily similar to the marketing strategy employed by the tobacco industry in the 1980s. Recognizing that the number of smokers in America was declining — and dying off — cigarette companies sought to addict underage children to ensure a continuing market for their product. A now infamous 1981 Philip Morris corporate memo noted that “[t]oday’s teenager is tomorrow’s potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens. In addition, the 10 years following the teenage years is the period during which average daily consumption per smoker increases to the average adult level. The smoking patterns of teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris.”

One gun-industry study noted a similar need to “start them young,” observing that “stakeholders such as managers and manufacturers should target programs toward youth 12 years old and younger… This is the time that youth are being targeted with competing activities. It is important to consider more hunting and target-shooting recruitment programs aimed at middle school level, or earlier.”

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UPDATE 1-FDA OKs Merck OTC version of overactive bladder drug

Jan 25 (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators approved Merck & Co's nonprescription version of Oxytrol to treat overactive bladder in women ages 18 and older, the agency said on Friday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the over-the-counter version of Oxytrol would be available for women only and that the drug remained available to men by prescription.

Overactive bladder, which affects an estimated 33 million Americans, is a condition in which the bladder squeezes too often or without warning. Symptoms include leaking urine, feeling a sudden and urgent need to urinate, and frequent urination.

Oxytrol for Women is a patch that contains oxybutynin, a medicine that helps relax the bladder muscle, and is designed to be applied to the skin every four days, the FDA said.

Oxybutynin belongs to a class of drugs known as anticholinergics. Pfizer Inc's Detrol is the market leader in the class with annual sales of about $700 million.

Oxytrol will be the first drug in the class to be sold over the counter. Merck licensed exclusive rights to sell OTC Oxytrol from Actavis Inc, the generic drugmaker formerly known as Watson Pharmaceuticals.

Merck said it expected the OTC patch to be available in the fall.

The FDA decided to approve the OTC version of the Merck drug, based on the results of nine studies of women that demonstrated that consumers can understand the information on the label, properly determine whether the product is right for them, and use the drug appropriately, the agency said.

Last week, the FDA approved the popular wrinkle treatment Botox from Allergan Inc to treat overactive bladder in people who cannot tolerate drugs from the class to which Oxytrol belongs or are not helped by these medications.

Merck shares rose 3 cents to $43.03 on the New York Stock Exchange.

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McCain to GOP: Accept path to citizenship in immigration-reform bill

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that the Republican Party has to accept a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants as part of an immigration-reform package.

McCain said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday that a group of bipartisan senators would be announcing “principles” on immigration reform this week, which he said was similar to a plan unveiled during President George W. Bush’s second term that ultimately failed.

McCain said there’s one big reason that his party has to loosen its opposition to providing a path to citizenship.

“Look at the last election,” he said. “We are losing dramatically the Hispanic vote, which we think should be ours for a variety of reasons, and we’ve got to understand that.”

President Obama is making his own immigration push this week with a speech in Las Vegas. McCain, one of the president’s harshest critics in Congress, said he thinks Obama’s proposals will be “helpful” to the effort in the Senate.

He said there’s a “new appreciation on both sides of the aisle — including maybe importantly on the other side of the aisle” to pass immigration reform.

While McCain’s stance on immigration reform was at odds with much of his party during Bush’s second-term, there are signs that things have changed after the 2012 election.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a speech this week that he was confident a bipartisan immigration bill would pass in this Congress.

McCain said Sunday that something had to be done with the 11 million illegal immigrants “living in the shadows” in the United States.

“I think the time is right,” McCain said.

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Rep. Cantor: You Will Not See Higher Taxes

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoThu 24 Jan 13 | 04:28 PM ET Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) discusses the debt ceiling, tax reform and how the U.S. can balance its budget, with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo.

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Pfizer's Spinoff 'Zoetis' a Good Idea?

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BREAKING: Rhode Island House Passes Marriage Equality

Openly gay Rep. Frank Ferri (D), one of the bill's sponsors.

As expected, the Rhode Island House of Representatives voted today to approve marriage equality legislation with a vote of 51-19. The bill now advances to the Senate, where the Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed (D) previously blocked a vote. This year, though, Paiva Weed has promised to allow a vote after approval in the House, but it’s unclear when that will occur. Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) has promised to sign the bill and block any attempts to refer the question to a referendum.

An October poll showed that 56 percent of Rhode Island voters support marriage equality. Same-sex marriages from other states are already recognized by state agencies. After over a year of offering civil unions, less than 100 couples bothered to obtain one. All other states in New England — Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut — already recognize and offer same-sex marriages.

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