10 things you need to know today: January 30, 2015

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1. Obama calls for ending automatic spending limits in new budget
2. Mitt Romney will reportedly announce his 2016 decision today
3. Keystone pipeline clears a big hurdle
4. Sinai attacks leave 32 dead
5. Google reports revenue growth, but not as much as expected
6. McCain kicks out anti-war "scum" from Senate hearing
7. Dartmouth bans drinking on campus
8. Jordan lets ISIS prisoner-swap deadline pass
9. Texas executes killer with 67 IQ
10. Suge Knight could face 30 years in jail in fatal hit-and-run

published 30 January 2015

1. Obama calls for ending automatic spending limits in new budget

President Obama is calling for a 7 percent increase in military and domestic spending in his new budget proposal, the White House said Thursday. The spending plan, to be unveiled Monday, calls for ending four-year-old congressionally mandated spending caps known as "sequestration" now that budget deficits have returned to pre-Great-Recession levels. Republicans criticized the plan, saying its mix of new taxes and an end to automatic spending cuts would do nothing to solve long-term budget problems.

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The GOP-led Senate on Thursday passed a bill approving construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but Republicans were just short of the votes needed to override President Obama's threatened veto. The bill must now be reconciled with a similar one passed by the House. Supporters say the project will create jobs; opponents say it's not worth the environmental risk. Press Secretary Josh Earnest reiterated Obama's plan to veto the bill. The pipeline would carry oil from Canadian tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

Militants simultaneously hit more than a dozen army and police targets in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Thursday, killing at least 25 soldiers and one policeman and wounding more than 60. Egyptian health officials raised the death toll to 32 on Friday. At least one car bomb and numerous mortar shells destroyed buildings at a military base, burying soldiers with debris. An army spokesman blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, but before the attack the Islamic State affiliate in Egypt tweeted a photo of militants carrying rocket-propelled grenades.

Google reported a 15 percent increase in revenue over the last quarter, falling shy of expectations. The average price for Google's online ads fell by 3 percent, although some analysts had been hoping to see those prices rise. Google's stock dipped on the news but rallied to close up by 0.1 percent, at $510.66 per share. Google has been battling to keep its advertising revenue strong as users of its online services shift to mobile devices, where ads sell for less.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain booted several protesters from the anti-war group Code Pink from a budget hearing after they approached a witness table and called former secretary of State Henry Kissinger a war criminal. "Get out of here, you low-life scum," McCain told the protesters. Kissinger, who served under in the Nixon administration during the Vietnam war, was testifying along with his counterparts from the Clinton and Reagan administrations, Madeleine Albright and George P. Shultz.

Dartmouth College on Thursday announced broad changes to cut down on dangerous behavior on campus, including bans on alcohol and pledging at fraternities and sororities. Students also will have to participate in a program aimed at preventing sexual violence. Dartmouth developed the plan, called Moving Dartmouth Forward, based on recommendations from a committee formed last spring. The initiative came after a former fraternity wrote an expose two years ago describing hazing and drinking at the Ivy League school.

Jordan let the Islamic State's deadline for a prisoner exchange pass on Thursday, demanding proof that a captured Jordanian fighter pilot was alive before it would release imprisoned failed suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi. ISIS had said it would kill the pilot, Moaz al-Kasasbeh, and Japanese hostage Kenji Goto unless Jordan delivered al-Rishawi to the Syrian-Turkish border by sundown Thursday. "Rishawi is still in Jordan," a government spokesman said, "and the exchange will happen once we receive the proof of life we ask for."

Texas executed convicted murderer Robert Ladd on Thursday despite defense attorney's claims that he shouldn't be put to death because he was mentally disabled. "Anywhere else in the country, Mr. Ladd's IQ of 67 would have meant a life sentence, not death," defense attorney Brian Stull said this week. Ladd was convicted for beating Vicki Ann Garner, 38, to death with a hammer and then setting her body on fire. At the time, he was on parole for a 1980 stabbing and arson that killed three people.

Hip-hop mogul and founder of Death Row Records Marion "Suge" Knight could face 30 years in jail if he is convicted of murdering a man in a hit-and-run. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says Knight ran over two men in a parking lot, killing one of them, after a confrontation on the set of the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. Knight was arrested Friday morning, and his bail is set at $2 million.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.