Norway suspect's claim of allies in doubt

OSLO, Norway — The leader of Norway's Delta Force says the breakdown of the team's boat didn't cause any significant delay in its efforts to reach the island where Anders Behring Breivik's shooting rampage killed 68 people.

Anders Snortheimsmoen told reporters Wednesday that even though the assigned boat quickly broke down, the team immediately jumped into another, better boat. He says his team arrived by the harbor at the same time as local police and that the boat mishap caused "no delay."

At the same news conference, Justice Minister Knut Storberget praised the team, saying it helped "limit the tragedy" on Utoya island and the bombing in the city center. Friday's twin terrorist acts claimed at least 76 lives.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

OSLO, Norway — A spokesman for the Norwegian Railway Authority says parts of Oslo's central station have been evacuated as police investigate an abandoned suitcase.

Olav Nordli says the suitcase was found in the area where buses depart for Oslo's airport. Police have sealed off the area and are examining the abaondoned luggage.

The city is on high alert in the wake of Friday's bombing and youth camp shooting that killed 68 people.

The first Cabinet ministers were to return to their offices Wednesday after a car bomb exploded in the government district of the Norwegian capital.

On Wednesday, police detonated an unknown quantity of explosives found on a farm owned by Breivik north of Oslo in a controlled blast.

CBS News partner network Sky News reports that Breivik posed for years as a farmer in order to purchase large amounts of synthetic fertilizer, some of which he obtained online from a Polish company.

Norway's intelligence chief told the BBC on Wednesday that investigators have found no evidence to support Breivik's claims of contact with other extremist individuals or groups in Britain or anywhere else.

"We don't have indications that he has been part of a broader movement or that he has been in connection with other cells or that there are other cells," Janne Kristiansen told the BBC.

She cautioned that the investigation was still underway and that connections to other groups or individuals could not be ruled out.

In a voluminous online manifesto posted the morning before the attack Breivik expressed an admiration for right-wing extremist groups in the U.S. and Europe.

"We are in close contact with our sister services in Europe, America and elsewhere," said Kristiansen.

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GOP Bucks Boehner's Plan That Obama Threatens to Veto

WASHINGTON - US Representative Richard Neal has been thwarted for years in his effort to stop foreign insurance companies from shifting premiums paid by their US customers to offshore tax havens.

This week, it became clear that the Springfield Democrat will be frustrated once again, as Democrats and Republicans in Congress have left tax code changes out of their competing plans to raise the debt limit.

While much of the nation’s attention has been riveted on the determination of fiscal conservatives in the House to block any provision that raises new revenue, Neal’s unsuccessful effort to close what he calls an offshore tax loophole is an example of how business interests have stymied an array of tax code changes sought by President Obama, Democrats, and even some Republicans in the Senate.

“It’s the lobbying muscle,’’ Neal said. “Once something becomes embedded in the tax code, its very hard to extract.’’

Coincidentally, the aftermath of the tornadoes that tore through Western Massachusetts last month, causing an estimated $200 million in damage, offers a peek at the particular strategy on some insurance premiums that Neal and others say is unfair to US taxpayers.

So far, it doesn't appear Cantor's efforts are working. Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee, said, "I am confident as of this morning that there were not 218 Republicans in support of this plan," The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez reports. (No hard feelings though: Jordan insists that he and fellow conservatives "appreciate the speaker's hard work.") Though she's out on the campaign trail, Rep. Michele Bachmann wants everyone to know she does not back Boehner's plan--her staffers told the liberal site Think Progress, "the congresswoman is standing firm opposing the Boehner plan."

The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman tweets that first the Republican Study Committee, then an arm of the Heritage Foundation, and now the Club for Growth are all opposing Boehner's plan: "This is a whip's nightmare -- or a real [break] for compromise." Could conservatives' abandonment of Boehner mean there's a chance to compromise with Democrats? Probably not. The New York Times' Jada F. Smith reports that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer says when it's time to vote Wednesday, Boehner's plan will get "very few" Democratic votes, if any. And the White House's Office of Management and Budget released a memo saying if the plan, "is presented to the President, the President’s senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill."

Sen. Kent Conrad, of the declared-dead-then-revived-now-probably-dead-again Gang of Six plan, says the "Boehner plan probably has to fail in the House or Senate before debt limit end game becomes clear," Brian Beutler reports. That's one of two scenarios Democrats are gaming out with the hopes of exploiting the disunity in the Republican ranks, The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reports. Sargent explains.

Short-term debt hike confounds 2 sides

WASHINGTON — Neither the House nor the Senate has a clear path forward for must-pass legislation to allow the government to continue to borrow to pay its bills, putting lawmakers and financial markets alike on edge less than a week before the deadline for heading off a first-ever U.S. default.

The pressure is on House Speaker John Boehner, who's being forced to rewrite his debt and budget plan after nonpartisan congressional scorekeepers said it wouldn't reap the savings he's promised.

The Ohio Republican also needs to shore up his standing with tea party-backed conservatives demanding deeper spending cuts to accompany an almost $1 trillion increase in the government's borrowing cap.

In a national, prime-time address Monday, the president declared that Boehner's plan "would force us to once again face the threat of default just six months from now. In other words, it doesn't solve the problem."

But debt ceiling increases are by definition temporary. Since 1993, when the debt ceiling stood at $4.37 trillion, Congress raised the limits 13 times, in amounts that lasted from three months to almost five years. The debt ceiling was raised 18 times during President Ronald Reagan's two terms, including three times during his 1984 re-election run, for an average length of about five months. House Republicans point out that is a shorter period than the six-month debt ceiling increase their plan would provide.

The problem for Obama is that Boehner's plan ties a second debt ceiling increase to a broad scrubbing of entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, with a goal of reducing long-term deficits by at least $1.8 trillion. White House officials fear that under such a plan, the debt ceiling would once again be pushed to a near-crisis point in January as lawmakers undertake what so far has been a Sisyphean task to cut the costs of the nation's biggest benefit programs.

White House officials say that effort would be further complicated because it would be colored by election-year politics.

Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell both have accused Obama of being more worried about his own re-election than the fiscal health of the country. "With all due respect to the president, we have more important things to worry about than getting through the next election," McConnell said.

Obama, however, has said he would be willing to seek increases in the debt ceiling during an election year if they somehow would be guaranteed to pass, as they were in a proposal by McConnell.

"That way folks in Congress can vote against it, but at least it gets done," Obama said Friday. "I'm willing to take the responsibility. That's my job. So if they want to give me the responsibility to do it, I'm happy to do it."

For House Republicans, the two-step process was not always the preferred method either.

On June 13, Cantor asserted, "It's my desire to have one debt ceiling vote."

A week later, on June 21, he said: "I don't see how multiple votes on a debt ceiling increase can help get us to where we want to go. We want big reforms, we want big spending cuts and big changes to how this town works. And to me, it is a case of having to make some tough decisions. I am not so sure that if we can't make the tough decisions now, why we would be making those tough decisions later."

With six days left before the government exhausts its borrowing authority, Republican officials say they no longer have the luxury of planning a single debt ceiling increase to accomplish the deficit reductions they have in mind.

Those chances faded Friday when Boehner ended negotiations with the White House for a large package of $4 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years in exchange for a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. Boehner said he walked out of the talks because Obama had insisted on $400 billion more in tax revenue than the $800 billion that Boehner was willing to concede.

But Republicans believe the only way Democrats and the president will seriously consider structural changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is if the debt ceiling is on the line. Boehner's plan as outlined Tuesday would increase the debt ceiling by $900 billion and seek cuts in day-to-day spending that are greater than that. It then would require a joint committee of Congress to identify deficit reduction measures totaling at least $1.8 trillion. Congress would have to approve those cuts before granting a second debt ceiling increase of $1.6 trillion.

"At this late hour, any plan that's going to have significant deficit reduction is going to have to be a two-step plan," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said. "There's just not time to write all the reforms needed.

Norway killer: 'no link' to British far-right groups

Explosives found at a farm leased by Anders Behring Breivik, the sole suspect in Friday's killings in Norway, have been safely detonated in a controlled explosion about 160km north of Oslo by the Norwegian police.

Police believe that Breivik, 32, made his bomb using fertiliser which he had bought under the cover that he was a farmer.

Tueday's detonation came as Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said that he is probably insane, and was on drugs while he carried out his attacks that killed 68 in Utoeya island and eight in Oslo.

Lippestad said it was too early to say if his client would plead insanity at his trial, even though he thought the loner and computer-games enthusiast was probably a madman.

"This whole case indicated that he is insane," Lippestad said of Breivik, who has confessed to "atrocious but necessary" actions, but denies he is a criminal.

Breivik, who killed at least 76 people in twin attacks last week, has written of meeting British right-wing groups nine years ago.

But Ms Kristiansen said she believed he had acted on his own.

The intelligence chief added that she did not believe the killer was insane, but calculating and evil, and someone who sought the limelight.

Breivik's lawyer Geir Lippestad, had said it was too early to say if his client would plead insanity at his trial, even though "this whole case indicated that he is insane".

He believes that he's in a war and he believes that when you're in a war you can do things like that without pleading guilty," Mr Lippestad told reporters.

Ms Kristiansen's comments came as Norwegian police started releasing names of some of Breivik's victims.

They published four names, with more expected to follow later today.

Norwegian police have also defended the fact that it took an hour and a half for armed officers to reach Utoeya.

"I don't think we think we could have done this faster," Police Chief of Staff Johan Fredriksen said in Oslo.

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Lawmakers head for showdown over debt

Washington – President Barack Obama again addressed the nation to warn that if an agreement is not reached to raise the debt ceiling, the United States risks "a deep economic crisis" and called on Americans to pressure Congress to come up with a fair compromise.

At one week until the U.S. debt goes into default and after days of intense talks, Obama spoke to the nation Monday night from the East Room of the White House in a last-ditch effort to unblock the discussions.

"If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message," Obama said.

The countdown has become a sword of Damocles for Obama, since once an agreement is reached - if that should happen - it must be passed by the House of Representatives, the Senate and finally signed by the president.

Defaulting would be "a reckless and irresponsible outcome to this debate," Obama said, adding that simply raising the debt ceiling until the end of the year, as the Republicans propose, will not solve the problem and will not be sufficient to avoid a downgrade of the U.S. debt.

If the United States defaults, there will be no money to pay social security, veterans' benefits, nor the contracts signed with thousands of companies.

"Now, every family knows that a little credit card debt is manageable. But if we stay on the current path, our growing debt could cost us jobs and do serious damage to the economy," the president said.

For the first time in history, moreover, the United States could lose its AAA credit rating, "leaving investors around the world to wonder whether the United States is still a good bet. Interest rates would skyrocket on credit cards, on mortgages and on car loans, which amounts to a huge tax hike on the American people. We would risk sparking a deep economic crisis - this one caused almost entirely by Washington," Obama said.

Boehner on Tuesday kept up efforts to rally support for his plan, which could come up for a vote in the House as early as Wednesday but is in doubt because of resistance from some conservatives in the Republican camp aligned with the Tea Party movement.

"It's reasonable, it's responsible. It can pass the House and it can pass the Senate," Boehner told reporters.

Boehner is pushing a two-stage deficit reduction plan that would start with an initial $1.2 trillion in savings over 10 years. Obama opposes it because it would raise the debt limit for only a few months, something he has said he will not agree to.

The chief Democratic vote counter in the House, Representative Steny Hoyer, said "maybe a few" Democrats would back Boehner's plan. That would boost the bill's chances in what is expected to be a close vote on Wednesday.

Boehner will not have enough Republican votes to pass his budget plan through the House without Democratic support, a leader of the chamber's conservatives said.

"I don't have an exact count, but I do not believe there are 218 Republicans supportive of it right now," said Representative Jim Jordan, who heads the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 150 conservative and Tea Party-aligned lawmakers.

Obama's Democrats have presented their one-step plan for $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade but with a debt limit hike that would carry through the November 2012 elections, when he is seeking a second term.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, is expected to hold off on any vote on the plan until the House takes up Boehner's proposal.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers, despite weeks of intense talks, are far apart on a deal to reduce the budget deficit, which would clear the way for Congress to lift the debt ceiling by next week, when the country runs out of cash to pay all of its of its bills. Democrats control the Senate. Republicans control the House of Representatives.