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involved in the process said the administration wants to temper Congressional plans until Rouhani takes office in August and has an opportunity to demonstrate whether his government will offer concessions.
• The legislation would blacklist Iran's mining and construction sectors, effective next year, because they are seen as heavily linked to Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guard corps. It also would commit the U.S. to the goal of ending all Iranian oil sales worldwide by 2015, targeting the regime's biggest revenue generator and prime source of money for its weapons and nuclear programs.
• U.S. penalties that went into effect last year already have cut Iran's petroleum exports in half, but that still leaves billions of dollars coming in every month from Turkey, China and several other Asian countries.
• The House's bill may pass before Congress' August recess. The Senate version won't get a vote until at least September, said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a leading advocate of tougher Iran sanctions. The Senate Banking Committee, which will put forward the package, is in ongoing consultations with the administration, according to one U.S. official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the sanctions.
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Northwest China quake toll continues to rise, with 94 killed and more than 1,000 hurt
• BEIJING (AP) -- Rescuers with shovels and sniffer dogs chipped away at collapsed hillsides Tuesday as the death toll rose to 94 from a strong earthquake in a farming region of northwest China.
• Just one person was listed as missing and 1,001 as injured in Monday morning's quake near the city of Dingxi in Gansu province.
• About 123,000 people were affected by the quake, with 31,600 moved to temporary shelters, the provincial earthquake administration said on its website. Almost 2,000 homes were completely destroyed, and about 22,500 damaged, the administration said.
• The quake toppled brick walls and telephone lines, shattered mud-and-tile-roofed houses and sent cascades of dirt and rock down hillsides, blocking roads and slowing rescue efforts by crews trying to reach remote areas.
• Hospitals set up aid stations in parking lots to accommodate the injured, while hundreds of paramilitary People's Armed Police fanned out to search for victims in (Continued on page 32)
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