In The News

All aboard! Dogs and cats could ride along as passengers on some Amtrak trains under a pilot program passed by the U.S. House as part of a bill to reauthorize funding for the rail service.

The bill was passed 316-101 by the House on Wednesday. It would allow at least one car on many Amtrak trains to be designated so that passengers “may transport a domesticated cat or dog in the same manner as carry-on baggage.”

Amtrak officials would be required to report to House and Senate committees within a year on how the program was working.

When Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee, took to the House floor on Wednesday, he paid tribute to former White Sox player Minnie Minoso, the first black player from Latin America, who died on Sunday.

Cohen told a touching tale about an encounter he had with Minoso in 1955 in Memphis, where the White Sox were playing an exhibition game. At the time, Cohen was a young Sox fan recovering from polio and using crutches to get around.

Cohen said he was wearing a White Sox cap and t-shirt while getting autographs prior to the start of the game, when a white player gave him a baseball.

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi politely stood and clapped when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered the House chamber for his long-awaited, and highly controversial, speech to Congress. The longer he spoke, the less enthusiastic she got.

WASHINGTON — Some are standing with President Obama. Some are protesting the actions of the House speaker, John A. Boehner. Still others say they do not want to be props in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress “political theatre” worthy of an Oscar and said he was right to boycott it.

“The political game was won,” the Memphis Democrat said, “but the world game of peace was lost.”

Cohen and some 50 Democrats skipped the speech, arguing that it was a breach of protocol because Republicans did not consult with the White House before inviting Netanyahu to speak and that it could damage relations between the United States and Israel.

[MEMPHIS, TN] - Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) issued the following statement after learning that his friend and hero Minnie Minoso passed away this morning:

"Ever since an exhibition game in Memphis where he--through a white player because of segregation--gave me a baseball and befriended me when I was only 5, Minnie has been a hero of mine. That initial meeting and the fact that he felt he could not give me, a child on crutches because of Polio, the ball directly and had to hand it to a white player instead made him my hero ."

Close study of major changes in official American policies and attitudes reveals a principle that has been informally given the name of "Nixon-Goes-to-China" — a reference to President Richard Nixon's historic 1971 diplomatic opening to a country that U.S. officialdom had always withheld recognition from.

During Nixon's early prominence, he was a scourge of what he and other Cold Warriors scorned as "Red China," and it was only from that well-established position that he could so dramatically change positions and tilt for a change in policy.

Today’s Big Idea: Gov. Bill Haslam’s Tennessee Promise scholarship program offers two years of free community college or technical school to all of the state’s high school graduates. It was funded by transferring $312 million in reserves from the Tennessee Lottery-funded Hope Scholarship program.

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Gov. Bill Haslam’s Tennessee Promise program so intrigued the White House that President Barack Obama decided to use it as a model for a similar program on a national scale.