OGDENSBURG — A new round of cleanup activities has been completed at the former Shade Roller Co. industrial site, according to City Planning and Development Director Andrea L. Smith.

Ms. Smith informed City Council in a written update regarding the property that NRC Environmental Services of Massena has completed excavation of the areas contaminated by metals and that all soil and concrete has been transported off site and disposed of at the Development Authority of the North Country landfill.

The company involved with the cleanup was hired by City Council in April after submitting a low bid of approximately $65,000 to carry out removal of contaminated soil from an area near the former main mill building on the old manufacturing site.

In addition to the cost associated with removing the soil, the project also called for disposal of concrete and the sampling of materials, according to Ms. Smith.

Along with removing soil and concrete, NRC also collected and removed approximately 4,500 gallons of contaminated water from an excavation pit, according to Ms. Smith. She said the contaminated water was disposed of at the wastewater treatment plant in Watertown.

“Following the removal of waste material from the site, NRC has backfilled the excavation with clean granular fill material,” Ms. Smith said. “NRC has also installed a new gate along the eastern fence line for future site access.”

Ms. Smith said the NRC work has completed the city’s obligations in accordance with its U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Broomfield Cleanup Grant, which was used to pay for the project.

In April, Ms. Smith said the continuation of the Shade Roller cleanup effort through NRC was expected to bring project expenses so far to approximately $315,000.

The most recent cleanup involving the removal of metals does not address the contamination of polychlorinated biphenyls, which are also known to exist at the site.

The former Standard Shade Roller Co. property is at 541 Covington St., and the 7.46-acre parcel is part of the city’s Brownfield Opportunity Area, consisting of several former industrial sites in varying states of remediation.

The property has been used for a variety of industrial purposes, including as a site for boat manufacturing, match manufacturing, brewing, shade roller manufacturing and milling, according to city officials.

Up until 2012, the Standard Shade Roller site contained 11 abandoned and slowly deteriorating buildings. The buildings were eventually removed by the city.

MASSENA — Things will be hopping Thursday morning at the Massena Arena when the annual Boss Frog Jumping Contest makes its return at 9 a.m.

This will be the 37th year for the event, which is held as part of the Massena Recreation Department’s summer recreation program.

“I think this is one of the largest and longest running events,” Recreation Director Michael P. McCabe said.

The competition is broken down into three age groups — 5 and under, 6 to 9, and 10 and over. Frogs have 45 seconds to go from the middle of a circle on the arena floor to the outer edge of the circle.

Contestants can clap or blow on their animals to get them to move, but they’re prohibited from touching the frogs.

The top 10 times overall move on to the finals and start with a clean slate for times.

Last year’s winner was Ashton Chilton, whose frog crossed the finish line in 3.49 seconds during the finals. The frog had recorded a 7.42-second time in the first round.

Mr. McCabe said the event always draws a large crowd.

“Grab your friends and come out and enjoy a great event,” he said.

Contestants can pre-register by calling the Massena Arena at 315-769-3161, or they can register the morning of the event.

Registration is also underway for another event — An Aug. 7 trip to Calypso Water Park in Ottawa. The bus leaves the Massena Arena at 8 a.m.

The cost is $40 for transportation and ticket, and Mr. McCabe said anyone who plans to attend must register by Aug. 2 so they’ll have a count of how many people will be participating.

“For that one, we need a minimum of 20 to make the trip happen,” he said.

The trip isn’t restricted to just participants in Massena’s summer recreation program.

“If adults want to go, great. If people from Potsdam want to go, perfect. They don’t have to be part of the recreation program,” Mr. McCabe said.

At a minimum, anyone taking part in the trip must have a birth certificate to cross the border. A passport or enhanced driver’s license can also be used.

WATERTOWN — Teacher Jeri C. Gosier isn’t sold on the idea that reducing the number of lanes along a busy section of Washington Street will solve the traffic problems and accidents near the city school district complex.

Concerned about the impact it will have on students, Mrs. Gosier on Monday night tried to convince City Council members to hold off on turning the four-lane street into a two-lane thoroughfare with a turning lane.

“We need to make sure we have the best plan,” she told council members.

The issue came up this spring after a Wiley Intermediate School student was hit by a car there in March. A traffic engineer then spent two days to see what improvements could be implemented that would make it safer for students, while reducing the number of vehicle and vehicle-pedestrian accidents in that section of Washington Street.

After a lengthy debate on Monday night, the majority of council members agreed to move forward with reducing the number of lanes.

“We need to do something,” Mayor Joseph M. Butler Jr. said.

The city’s Engineering office is working with a consultant involved in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s $110 million Pedestrian Safety Initiative to come up with ways to protect students when they cross the busy four-lane city street in the school zone.

Timothy R. Faulkner, a transportation manager with consultant Fisher Associates, Syracuse, suggested that a series of recommendations — some that should be completed immediately and others more long-term — to solve the problems for pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles.

But Mrs. Gosier criticized his findings, saying that the traffic engineer spent just two days studying the school zone on two sunny days. He should return in the winter when 2 feet of snow is on the ground, she said.

She also would like to see speed radar signs installed on both ends of the school zone. Only one exists now. A crossing guard or the district’s school resource officer should patrol the area in the morning and when students are let out from school in the afternoon, she added.

While they disagree about the lane reduction, Mrs. Gosier and her colleague, Case Middle School librarian Alison Spooner, concur with council members on a number of other improvements.

The ideas include consolidating three crosswalks into one, repainting crosswalks, adding signage, combining driveways of businesses in the area and adding a flashing light.

The school zone already has 20 mile-per-hour speed limit signs, other traffic signs, striping and smaller supplemental pedestrian signs placed in the crosswalks during nicer weather.

About 16,000 vehicles travel through the school zone daily. There have been about six pedestrian-vehicle accidents in that area during the past four years and about 94 vehicle crashes from 2014 to 2016.

The governor’s program takes an engineering approach to address safety issues and minimize the potential for crashes by implementing low-cost measures.

The state will pay for most of the changes. The consultant is working with the state Department of Transportation on the governor’s pedestrian initiative.

In other action, council members agreed not to increase the cost of ice time for the Watertown Hockey Association youth hockey league and the Figure Skating Club of Watertown.

The cost of ice time at the Watertown Municipal Arena will remain at $70 an hour. The city had proposed increasing the fee to $80 an hour for the upcoming season.

But representatives from the organizations told council members on Monday night that the two groups were hurt when they had to go idle for a season while the $10.9-million renovation of the ice rink was completed at the Alex T. Duffy Fairgrounds.

They are still attempting to regain members and finances lost by the arena’s closure for a year, they said.

LOWVILLE — Soggy conditions will limit on-site Lewis County Fair parking for at least the start of the annual event, so organizers will offer shuttle service from the former Climax Manufacturing site.

“We’re going to take it on a day-by-day basis,” said Douglas P. Hanno, president of the Lewis County Agricultural Society, which organizes the county fair.

Due to the recent heavy rains, particularly Monday morning, directors decided to restrict parking inside and around the track when the fair opens today, Mr. Hanno said.

“This rain is what put us over the edge,” he said.

Handicapped parking will still be offered off the Dewitt Street entrance near the playground, but other on-site parking will be “very limited” until the lower parking areas dry out, Mr. Hanno said.

“The grounds are OK,” he said. “Just the parking areas are bad.”

While the on-grounds parking remains unusable, fair officials will offer free parking and shuttle bus service from the old Climax plant on Route 26 just north of the village, Mr. Hanno said.

Fairgoers may park at the Lewis County Courthouse after regular business hours, and Lowville Academy and Central School has also granted permission to use its lots, but no shuttle service will be offered from those sites, he said.

The fair, which runs through Saturday, kicks off this morning with a 4-H/FFA English horse show at 9 a.m., with opening ceremonies at 10 a.m. and the annual cheese auction — during which 20-, 10- and 5-pound blocks of cheddar cheese donated by Kraft Foods and the Lowville Producers Dairy Cooperative are auctioned off — at 10:30 a.m. The Lowville Village Band will perform in front of the grandstand at 6:30 p.m., followed by the annual fair parade at 7 p.m. and fireworks at 10:30 p.m.

CANTON — The campaign manager for district attorney candidate James L. Monroe said she has filed general objections to the Democratic and Working Families Party petitions of candidate David A. Haggard and to the Independence petition of candidate Gary M. Pasqua.

Both Mr. Monroe and Mr. Haggard have filed petitions to run on the Democratic line with the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections while Mr. Pasqua is running on the Republican and Independence lines.

According to the Board of Elections, Mr. Haggard’s petition carries 1,005 signatures, while Mr. Monroe filed with 1,830 signatures. Mr. Pasqua submitted his Independence petition with 165 signatures, three more than the required 162.

Mr. Monroe’s campaign manager Anne Monck said she would be challenging roughly 200 signatures on Mr. Haggard’s Democratic petition, which would put him well below the 1,000 signature requirement. The deadline to file petitions was Thursday.

“You always get a bumper if you can. What I noticed when I looked at his petitions was there was a real rush at the end. They just did not have it,” Ms. Monck said of Mr. Haggard’s petitions. “So they barely squeaked in with 1,005 and I just looked at one page and knocked off 10 (signatures).”

In response, Mr. Haggard said he will be filing an objection to Mr. Monroe’s petition, but not Mr. Pasqua’s.

“Mr. Monroe has the legal right to file objections to my petitions. If this is the route he chooses, in response and only in response to Mr. Monroe’s filing am I compelled to file a general objection to his Democratic petition. However, I will not be filing any objections to Mr. Pasqua’s petitions,” he said. “Only after careful consideration have I concluded I must take this extraordinary step. I feel this step is necessary to protect the voters of St. Lawrence County who honored my candidacy by signing my petition. Clearly, Mr. Monroe is neither confident nor content in placing his trust in the citizens of St. Lawrence County by allowing them to exercise their right to vote in a Democratic primary Sept. 12.”

Mr. Pasqua seemed unfazed by the objection to his Independence petition and said he was simply going to focus on his campaign.

“I expected that there may be a challenge because of how many signatures we had. I am not really concerned about it. I believe all the signatures collected are good, valid signatures, so if they want to challenge that is fine,” he said.

Mr. Monroe declined to comment.

According to Thomas A. Nichols, the county’s Republican elections commissioner, anyone filing a general objection has another six days to file specific objections.

Mr. Nichols said there are a number of reasons a petition could be challenged. He said there could be a challenge because a signature does not match what is on file in the poll book, the date of the signature may not fall within petition range, the signator may have put down the wrong township, the witness statement may be filled out in error, or there may be a problem with the address.

Mr. Nichols said if there is a duplication of a signature, that is also grounds for disqualification.

“If a person signed for both John and Sally’s petition for the same position, the signature would go to the person who signed first on the petition,” he explained. “If I signed both petitions on the same day, it would be an automatic disqualification on both petitions.”

Ms. Monck hinted that some of the signatures she was questioning were duplicates.

“There was one sheet that was almost identical to one that we had so those are gone,” she said. “His petitions looked like sort of a rushed mess.”

After an objection is filed, the two elections commissioners meet to consider the grounds on which the objection is filed, according to Mr. Nichols.

“If it is a double affirmative to uphold the objection, then that individual line is removed from the total number of valid signatures,” he said.

“At the end of that process, if it is found that there are enough objections to sustain the challenge to the petition then the petition is deemed invalid by us,” Mr. Nichols continued. “However, if we rule against the petition, either side if they don’t like the decision has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court to ask a Supreme Court judge to rule on the objection.”

A Libertarian from Hudson Falls is exploring a potential run against U.S. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik, R-Willsboro, for the 21st Congressional District seat in 2018.

Christopher R. Schmidt, 30, has been exploring a run since early June. He said an official run is contingent on whether he can garner enough support from north country voters to enter the race on the Libertarian Party line. He needs at least 3,500 signatures, and he said he’s aiming to get close to 8,000.

Considering the size of the 21st Congressional District, Mr. Schmidt said he’s well aware of the challenge ahead. Thus far, however, he said feedback to his message has been positive.

“A lot of people are receptive,” he said in a Times interview Monday. “They want new ideas. The Libertarian message is very strong. A lot of people do want less government.”

Mr. Schmidt has been a political activist for most of his adult life. Nowadays, he is the temporary chairman of the Washington County Libertarian Party, and he co-founded the Warren County Libertarian Party. He’s also finishing up a liberal arts degree from SUNY Adirondack, taking courses in journalism and political science.

Asked why he picked next year’s midterm elections as his first shot at running for office, Mr. Schmidt said the turmoil at the federal level is opening doors for third party ideals like his.

“I think it’s a perfect time because everybody is sick of what’s happening in Washington,” he said.

Health care is one of the top issues on his campaign platform, and he’s firmly against the Affordable Care Act, arguing that it has “overburdened” the nation’s health care system. He said he’s in favor of deregulating health care to allow for new technology and drugs on the health care market.

Mr. Schmidt also advocates for maintaining a strong national defense, noting Fort Drum’s role in doing so.

“I believe in a strong defense,” he said. “And I think New York needs to be strong, and this is where Fort Drum plays its role.”

He added that he supports improved post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for veterans and active-duty servicemen, including increased access to marijuana to help treat PTSD.

Should he enter the race, Mr. Schmidt would join an ever-growing list of candidates seeking to challenge Ms. Stefanik.

Four Democrats — Canton’s Tedra L. Cobb, Saranac Lake’s Emily Martz, Keene’s Katie K. Wilson and Stillwater’s Patrick Nelson — have announced their candidacy over the last few months.

Green Party candidate Matthew J. Funiciello, of Glens Falls, also intends to run for a third time.

FORT DRUM — The alleged killer of two people in Theresa, Justin Walters, will not receive his military pay as criminal charges against him proceed in local court.

Fort Drum’s public affairs office confirmed Walters’ status on Monday. He was charged with first- and second-degree murder by state police in connection to the July 9 shooting deaths of his wife, Nichole Walters, state police Trooper Joel Davis. He is also accused of shooting Rebecca Finkle, who was treated and released that night from River Hospital.

“Absence in the hands of civil authorities is an unauthorized absence; pay stops with that absence,” post spokeswoman Julie Halpin wrote in an email to the Times. “SSG Walters will not be receiving military pay while incarcerated.”

Based on Department of Defense data, Walters’ pay would have been about $3,372.60 per month, based on his rank of staff sergeant and nine years of service. That figure does not include additional support like housing allowance, which for a soldier of his rank could amount to about $1,584 per month.

Walters, who joined the Army in September 2007, spent his entire career at Fort Drum. His career included two yearlong deployments to Afghanistan.

Multiple family members of Walters have revealed concerns about his treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the weeks leading to the July 9 shooting, Walters posted to Facebook about death, getting treatment at Fort Drum’s Warriors in Transition Unit and frustrations with the Army.

As a juvenile, Justin was convicted of six felonies, including a plot to kill students at his Michigan middle school.

Military officials told the Times that the record may not have prohibited him from joining the Army in 2007, as waivers for past conduct were granted more widely as military operations increased in Iraq.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said that though post-traumatic stress disorder is associated with an increased risk of violence, “a majority of veterans and non-veterans with PTSD have never engaged in violence.”

The VA also noted that the association between PTSD and violence decreases when factoring in alcohol and drug misuse, additional psychiatric disorders or younger age.

The funeral for Trooper Davis was held on Saturday at Fort Drum, while a private service for Mrs. Walters was held on Sunday in Syracuse.

WATERTOWN — Seven years ago, local graphic artist Jeffrey S. Rule won a competition to design a new look for the downtown fountain at Lachenauer Plaza.

And he did it again on Monday night.

Out of four entries, the City Council selected a design by Mr. Rule, owner of Inkwell Graphix, for the fountain at Arsenal and Court streets.

His design for the fountain’s three panels features circles, or bubbles, and series of different shades of blues, greens and pinks.

Councilman Cody J. Horbacz said council members decided his design fits well with the character of the fountain.

“It’s artistic,” he said after the meeting. “It’s unusual, and I think it’ll catch people’s eyes.”

The fountain — which had featured a teal and blue abstract design — sat at Arsenal and Court streets until a drunk driver rammed his pickup truck into it in November 2015.

Mr. Rule could not be reached for comment on Monday night, but he explained his design in an application he submitted to the North Country Arts Council, which administered the contest.

“The design plays off the rectilinear shape of the fountain and softens it using color circular overlays,” he wrote.

He will use industrial paints and urethane coat for protection. It was unclear Monday night when the project will be finished.

Mr. Rule also submitted another unsuccessful entry, a variation of the winning selection in 2010.

After a more than two-hour council meeting, council members talked about the contest for just a couple of minutes before agreeing on Mr. Rule’s design. Councilman Horbacz said he and his colleagues only received the entries Monday morning and had little time to discuss them.

Arts council board members recommended Mr. Rule’s design for its “vibrant colors” and “preferred it from solely an artistic point of view,” they wrote in a memo to council members.

Two weeks ago, a City Department of Public Work crew installed the iconic fountain back in its rightful place, waiting for the selected artist to get to work on it.

Henderson artist Mary Ellen Kalil Shevalier, a retired arts teacher, and Virginia Hovendon, an art teacher in the Copenhagen Central School District, also submitted entries.

In June, council members decided to delay the competition for a month because some artists had questions, including whether they would be paid for their work and whether they had to buy their materials. The city will provide materials for the redesign.

Council members had suggested artists use a patriotic theme, something that shows the city’s role in the Industrial Revolution or its connection to the Black River.

The city received $17,000 in insurance money to fix the fountain.

The plaza that includes the fountain is named for William G. Lachenauer, Watertown mayor from 1956 to 1966. It was installed at that site in 1972 as part of the city’s urban renewal program.

WASHINGTON — Two more Republican senators declared on Monday night that they would oppose the Senate Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, killing, for now, a 7-year-old promise to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

The announcement by Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas left their leaders at least two votes short of the number needed to begin debate on their bill to dismantle the health law. Two other Republican senators, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine, had already said they would not support a procedural step to begin debate.

With four solid votes against the bill, Republican leaders now have two options.

They can try to rewrite it in a way that can secure 50 Republican votes, a seeming impossibility since the defecting senators are not suggesting small changes to the existing bill but a fresh start. Or they can work with Democrats on a narrower measure to fix the flaws in the Affordable Care Act that both parties acknowledge.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, conceded Monday night that “the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful.” But he said he would move to pass a measure to repeal the Affordable Care Act now, then work on a replacement over the next two years. That has almost no chance to pass, either, since it could leave millions without insurance and leave insurance markets in turmoil.

But President Donald Trump was not ready to give up. He immediately took to Twitter to say: “Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!”

In announcing his opposition to the bill, Moran said it “fails to repeal the Affordable Care Act or address health care’s rising costs.”

“There are serious problems with Obamacare, and my goal remains what it has been for a long time: to repeal and replace it,” he said in a statement.

In his own statement, Lee said of the bill, “In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle-class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.”

By defecting together, Moran and Lee ensured that no one senator would be the definitive “no” vote.

House Republicans, after their own fits and starts, passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act in May, a difficult vote that was supposed to set the stage for quick Senate action. But with conservative and moderate Republicans so far apart in the Senate, the gulf proved impossible to bridge. Conservatives wanted the Affordable Care Act eradicated, but moderates worried intensely about the effects that would have on their most vulnerable citizens.

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, responded to the announcement on Monday by urging his Republican colleagues to begin anew and, this time, undertake a bipartisan effort.

“This second failure of Trumpcare is proof positive that the core of this bill is unworkable,” Schumer said. “Rather than repeating the same failed, partisan process yet again, Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.”

Roughly 20 million people have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the law was a top priority for Trump and Republicans in Congress, who say it has driven up premiums and forced consumers to buy insurance they do not want and cannot afford.

The opposition from Paul and Collins to the latest version of the Senate bill was expected, so McConnell had no margin for error as he unveiled it. But he managed to survive through the weekend and until Monday night without losing another of his members — though some expressed misgivings or, at the very least, uncertainty.

McConnell had wanted to hold a vote this week, but he was forced to abandon that plan after Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had surgery last week to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. That unexpected setback gave the forces that opposed the bill more time to pressure undecided senators.

Already, McConnell was trying to sell legislation that was being assailed from many directions. On Friday, the health insurance lobby, which had been largely silent during the fight, came off the sidelines to blast as “unworkable” a key provision allowing the sale of low-cost, stripped-down health plans, saying it would send premiums soaring and undermine protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions.

McConnell has now failed twice in recent weeks to roll out a repeal bill and keep his conference together for it. He first wanted to hold a vote in late June, only to reverse course after running into opposition.

House Republicans in competitive districts who supported their version of the bill will now have to explain themselves — and Democrats are eager to pounce.

“Make no mistake, Paul Ryan can’t turn back time and undo the damaging vote he imposed on his conference,” said Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “House Republicans all own a bill that would strip health care from 23 million Americans and raise costs for millions more, and it will haunt them in 2018.”

Lee, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, was part of a group of four conservative senators who came out against the initial version of McConnell’s bill after it was unveiled last month. He then championed the proposal to allow insurers to offer cheap, bare-bones plans, which was pushed by another of those opponents, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. But the language ultimately added was not quite what Lee had been advocating, his office said after the new bill was released.

Moran, a reliable Republican vote and a past chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, had announced his opposition to the bill as drafted after McConnell scrapped plans to hold a vote in late June. He expressed concerns about how it would affect Kansas, including whether it would limit access to health care in rural communities and effectively penalize states, like his, that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

The pressure on Moran at home showed no sign of relenting. The Kansas Hospital Association said last week that the revised Senate bill “comes up short, particularly for our most vulnerable patients.”

WASHINGTON - House Republicans unveiled a 2018 budget plan Tuesday that would pave the way for ambitious tax reform legislation - but only alongside a package of politically sensitive spending cuts that threaten to derail the tax rewrite before it begins.

GOP infighting over spending, health care and other matters continues to cast doubt on whether the budget blueprint can survive a House vote. Failing to pass a budget could complicate leaders’ plans to move on to their next governing priority as hopes of a health-care overhaul appeared to collapse late Monday in the Senate.

The House Budget Committee blueprint, which is set for a Thursday committee vote, sets out special procedures that could ultimately allow Republicans to pass legislation over the objections of Senate Democrats who can normally block bills they oppose. GOP leaders in the House, as well as top Trump administration officials, hope to use those procedures - known as reconciliation - to pass tax reform later this year.

The instructions in the draft budget, however, go well beyond tax policy and set the stage for a potential $203 billion rollback of financial industry regulations, federal employee benefits, welfare spending and more. Those are policy areas where Republicans have, in many cases, already passed legislation in the House but have seen Democrats block action in the Senate.

House Budget Committee Chairman Diane Black, R-Tenn., said the spending proposal is “not just a vision for our country, but a plan for action.”

“In past years, our proposals had little chance of becoming a reality because we faced a Democratic White House,” she said in a statement Tuesday. “But now with a Republican Congress and a Republican administration, now is the time to put forward a governing document with real solutions to address our biggest challenges.”

Like the spending blueprint released this year by President Trump, the House plan envisions major cuts to federal spending over the coming decade, bringing the budget into balance by relying on accelerated economic growth to boost revenue. Under the House plan, defense spending would steadily increase over 10 years while nondefense discretionary spending would decline to $424 billion - 23 percent below the $554 billion the federal government is spending in that category this year.

Unlike Trump’s budget, the House proposal cuts into Medicare and Social Security - entitlement programs that the president has pledged to preserve. The House plan also makes a less-rosy economic growth assumption of 2.6 percent versus the 3 percent eyed by the Trump administration. Both, however, exceed the 1.9 percent figure eyed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in its most recent economic estimates.

The House blueprint won a strong endorsement from White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who served on the House Budget Committee before joining the Trump administration.

“It is a bold effort that follows the leadership of President Trump in Making America Great Again,” he said in a statement. “Critically, this budget lays a pathway for Congress to pass, and President Trump to sign pro-growth tax reform into law.”

But under congressional budget rules, a tax bill drafted to comply with the House budget proposal would have to include much more than tax provisions.

The Ways and Means Committee, which is drafting the tax bill, would be instructed to find $52 billion in deficit savings over the coming decade. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., and the panel’s chairman, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, have said they intend to pursue a deficit-neutral reform bill, meaning the savings would have to be found in other programs under the committee’s jurisdiction - such as Medicare, disability aid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and unemployment compensation.

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has explored cuts to the federal workforce and to federal employee benefits, would be required to find $32 billion in deficit savings.

The Financial Services Committee would be ordered to produce $14 billion in savings - a figure that could allow Republicans to repeal large parts of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The Congressional Budget Office found earlier this year that the Financial CHOICE Act, a Dodd-Frank repeal bill passed by the House last month, would produce about $24 billion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years.

And the Judiciary Committee would be responsible for $45 billion in deficit reduction, which is roughly the amount of savings produced under the Protecting Access to Care Act, a medical-malpractice reform bill that also passed the House last month.

Both bills have little support among Democrats and would likely be blocked in the Senate under typical procedure. Reconciliation rules could allow Republicans to avoid that barrier.

The more profound barrier could be Republican divisions over the budget proposal itself. The effort to write a budget has been stalled for months as defense hawks, deficit watchdogs and appropriators have sparred over where to set spending levels, and while there appears to be a working accord on the House Budget Committee, it remains unclear whether the blueprint can survive a floor vote.

Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus have been pushing for more aggressive long-term spending cuts in reconciliation. The group’s leader, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told reporters last week that the numbers in the draft budget could not pass the House, calling the proposed $203 billion in mandatory spending cuts over the coming decade a relative pittance in a federal budget that already approaches $4 trillion in yearly spending.

Conservatives are also pushing House GOP leaders for more specificity on the tax reform bill - in particular, an assurance that a proposal to tax imported goods known as border adjustment will not be included.

Moderates, meanwhile, are staging a revolt of their own. Twenty members of the centrist Tuesday Group signed a letter last month objecting to even $200 billion in mandatory spending cuts, arguing they are “not practical” and would “make enacting tax reform even more difficult than it already will be.”

They are also pushing for budget talks with Democrats, who maintain significant leverage in federal spending: Republicans are proposing to exceed defense spending caps enacted under the 2011 Budget Control Act each year until the measure expires in 2021. Adjusting those caps will require a bipartisan agreement to pass the Senate.

Senate Republicans have yet to draw up a budget blueprint of their own.

House Republican leaders have whistled past questions about the practicality of the spending levels they are proposing and instead have made the case to rank-and-file House members that passing the budget resolution - because of the reconciliation instructions - represents the only way to ensure a successful tax bill.

“We can move forward with an optimistic vision for the future, and this budget is the first step in that process,” Black said. “This is the moment to get real results for the American people. The time for talking is over, now is the time for action.”

The former managers of Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns are leading a new initiative called “Defending Digital Democracy” in the hopes of preventing a repeat of Russia’s 2016 election interference.

Robby Mook, Clinton’s 2016 campaign chief, and Matt Rhoades, who managed the 2012 run of GOP nominee Romney, are heading up the project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in one of the first major efforts outside government to grapple with 21st century hacking and propaganda operations - and ways to deter them.

“The Russian influence campaign was one of the most significant national security events in the last decade, and it’s a near-certainty that all the other bad guys saw that and will try to do something similar in the United States in 2018 and 2010,” said Eric Rosenbach, co-director of the Belfer Center, which launches the initiative Tuesday.

The bipartisan project aims to develop ways to share key threat information with political campaigns and state and local election offices; create “playbooks” for election officials to improve cybersecurity; and forge strategies for the United States to deter adversaries from engaging in hacks and information operations, among other things.

Russian government hackers broke into the computers of the Democratic National Committee in 2015 and 2016, and some of that material was later leaked to WikiLeaks and published online, sowing discord within the Democratic Party. The hacks were part of a larger campaign to influence the election to undermine Clinton’s candidacy and help Donald Trump win the White House, according to a January report by U.S. intelligence agencies.

It was, intelligence officials said, the most brazen effort yet by the Russians to interfere in an American election and exploited the Internet to “weaponize” political information and manipulate public opinion. They did so by posting hacked emails online and corralling armies of bots to spread and amplify news articles on social media that contained material damaging to Clinton’s campaign - some of it false.

The Russian government has intervened in other countries’ political institutions - in the Netherlands and France, for instance.

“Over the last two years nearly every election on both sides of the Atlantic has been affected by foreign cyber attacks, including Hillary Clinton’s in 2016,” Mook said in a news release. “This project will find practical solutions to help both parties and civic institutions that are critical to our elections better secure themselves.”

Cyberhacks “affect people of all political stripes,” Rhoades noted in the news release. In 2012, Chinese hackers targeted Romney’s campaign. “That means we all need to work together to address these vulnerabilities.”

During the 2016 campaign, the Obama administration struggled to win buy-in from several GOP state election officials for offers of help from the Department of Homeland Security to secure their electoral systems. Several officials objected on grounds that such help would represent a federal takeover of the states’ role managing elections.

The initiative leaders say they have spoken with state officials from both parties, and hope that as a bipartisan, nongovernmental group they will be able to win cooperation and trust where the federal government could not.

“We want to be able to fill a gap where it looks like there is one, and make a difference,” said Rosenbach, who was Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter’s chief of staff from 2015 to 2017.

The project is bringing together key political players and experts in national security and the tech sector to attack the problem. They include Google’s director of information security, Heather Adkins; Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos; Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the cyber firm CrowdStrike; the National Security Agency’s former director of information assurance, Debora Plunkett; Stuart Holliday, former U.S. ambassador for special political affairs at the United Nations; and Nicco Mele, director of the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans are concerned the United States could get involved in a full-scale war with North Korea, even as a majority lacks trust in President Trump to handle the situation, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

A new high of 66 percent say North Korea poses a “serious threat” to the United States, up from 54 percent in a 2005 Post-ABC poll and 55 percent in 2003, with concern spanning partisan and ideological lines.

The poll was conducted shortly after North Korea launched its farthest-reaching missile test to date in July with a range experts say could reach Alaska. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the missile test was a new escalation of the threat posed to the United States and the world, and that Washington would bring North Korea’s action before the U.N. Security Council.

The Post-ABC poll finds lagging confidence in Trump to handle the situation, with 36 percent saying they trust Trump at least “a good amount” to deal with the issue, while 63 percent have “just some” or less confidence. Four in 10 say they do not trust Trump “at all” on the issue, nearly twice the number who express “a great deal” of confidence.

As with approval of Trump in general, there is a large partisan divide in the public’s faith in Trump on this issue. An 81 percent majority of Republicans trust Trump at least a good amount to handle North Korea, while only 11 percent of Democrats say the same. Independents are closer to Democrats, with 31 percent trusting Trump a good amount or more while 66 percent trust him just some or not at all.

Ideological differences are also sharp but unbalanced. While 86 percent of liberals trust Trump just some or not at all to deal with North Korea, a smaller 66 percent majority of conservatives express faith in his leadership.

There are also political divisions in concerns about a full-scale war breaking out with North Korea. Overall, 74 percent of Americans say they are very or somewhat concerned about this prospect, including 39 percent who are “very concerned” while 35 percent are “somewhat concerned.”

Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans say they are “very concerned” about the United States getting involved in a full-scale war, 53 percent vs. 27 percent, with 36 percent of independents expressing significant concern.

Despite differing worries about a full-scale war, Democrats and Republicans see eye-to-eye when it comes to the threat North Korea poses: Two-thirds of Democrats along with 7 in 10 Republicans say that North Korea is a serious threat, and 65 percent of independents agree, all at least slightly higher than in 2005.

The poll finds concern that the United States will get involved in a war with North Korea peaks among African Americans, 63 percent of whom are “very” concerned, compared with 49 percent of Hispanics and 33 percent of whites. There is also a large gender gap, with 51 percent of women saying they are “very concerned” about the possibility compared with 27 percent of men.

Women have also become sharply more wary of the threat posed by North Korea than in the past. Fully 73 percent of women say North Korea is a serious threat, up 23 points from 2005, when 50 percent of women said the same. Among men, just under 6 in 10 at both time points have said North Korea is a serious threat.

The Post-ABC poll also finds an age gap in fears of North Korea, with 77 percent of Americans ages 40 and older saying the country poses a serious threat compared with 49 percent of people younger than 40. The younger group has not changed in their concern since 2005, while concerns among those over age 40 have grown by 19 percentage points.

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The Post-ABC poll was conducted July 10-13 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults reached on cellular and landline phones. The margin of sampling error for overall results is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security lifted its electronics ban on Saudi Arabian carrier Saudia and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jiddah. Later this week, the agency expects to add King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh - the only remaining airport affected by the ban announced in March - to the approved list, after verifying its bolstered security.

The agency has now lifted the ban, which required passengers to check any gadgets larger than a mobile phone as a safety precaution, on nine of the 10 Middle Eastern and African airports affected.

Over the past few weeks, the airlines and their affiliated airports have met the agency’s criteria for enhanced security measures.

Etihad Airways was the first to invite gadgets back onboard on July 2. Dubai-based Emirates and Istanbul-based Turkish Airlines followed on July 5. The next day, Qatar Airways, which flies out of Doha, slid over to the “permitted” side of the ledger.

“Etihad Airways and Abu Dhabi International Airport; Turkish Airlines and Istanbul Ataturk Airport; Emirates Airlines and Dubai International Airport; and Qatar Airways and Hamad International Airport have implemented the required initial enhanced security measures,” said Lisa Farbstein, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration. “Travelers will now be able to bring laptops and other large electronic devices into the cabin of U.S.-bound flights.”

Next in line: Royal Jordanian and Queen Alia International Airport in Amman; EgyptAir and Cairo International Airport; Royal Air Maroc and Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca; and Kuwait Airways and Kuwait International Airport. The agency cleared the quartet between July 9 and 13.

To prevent any slippage in vigilance, Farbstein said, TSA inspectors will “observe compliance at the location.”

For a president with historically low poll numbers, Donald Trump can at least find solace in this: Hillary Clinton is doing worse.

Trump’s 2016 Democratic rival is viewed favorably by just 39 percent of Americans in the latest Bloomberg National Poll, two points lower than the president. It’s the second-lowest score for Clinton since the poll started tracking her in September 2009.

The former secretary of state has always been a polarizing figure, but this survey shows she’s even lost popularity among those who voted for her in November.

More than a fifth of Clinton voters say they have an unfavorable view of her. By comparison, just 8 percent of likely Clinton voters felt that way in the final Bloomberg poll before the election, and just 6 percent of Trump’s voters now say they view him unfavorably.

“There’s growing discontent with Hillary Clinton even as she has largely stayed out of the spotlight,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. “It’s not a pox on the Democratic house because numbers for other Democrats are good.”

The former first lady and New York senator has made a few speeches and occasionally tweaks Trump on Twitter, but has mostly kept out of sight since a defeat in November that shocked the political establishment and surprised markets.

In follow-up interviews with poll participants, Clinton voters denied that their negative feelings about her had anything to do with her losing the election and, therefore, helping Trump move into the White House.

Instead, their comments often reflected the ongoing angst among Democrats about how best to position themselves against Trump and Republicans in 2018 and beyond. Many said they wished Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont had won the Democratic nomination, or that they never liked Clinton and only voted for her because she was the lesser of two bad choices.

“She did not feel authentic or genuine to me,” said Chris Leininger, 29, an insurance agent from Fountain Valley, California. “She was hard to like.”

Leininger, an independent voter who leans Democratic, said she found Sanders much more likable and with a better story to tell voters.

“But I don’t blame her for Trump,” she said. “There were a lot of factors that fed into Trump becoming a president and she was just one of them.”

As was the case throughout the campaign, Clinton suffers from gender and racial gaps. Just 35 percent of men hold a favorable view of her, compared to 43 percent of women. And just 32 percent of whites like her, while 51 percent of non-whites do.

Clinton’s lowest reading ever in the Bloomberg poll -- one percentage point lower than her current popularity -- was recorded in September 2015, as she battled with Sanders before the first primary ballots were cast and as the scandal surrounding her use of a private email server escalated.

“I felt like there was a smugness and that she was just a politician who was called a Democrat, but could have been a Republican,” said poll participant Robert Taylor, 46, a second-grade teacher from suburban Chicago who voted for Clinton, but would have preferred Sanders as the Democratic nominee.

Even before the election, Taylor said he felt negatively about Clinton, but he doesn’t blame her for Trump being president.

“I could vote for a competent leader or I could vote for a jackass,” he said of his choices. “I think my negativity about her would be there whether Trump was elected or not.”

Ray Cowart, 75, the retired owner of a small software company from Elk Park, North Carolina, said he voted for Clinton even though he didn’t like her because “she was the better of two bad options.”

Asked who he would rather have a beer with if neither one of them was president, Cowart said he’d rather stay home. “I wouldn’t go, even if I was thirsty,” he said.

In contrast to Clinton, former President Barack Obama has fared well with some distance from the spotlight. He’s viewed favorably by 61 percent, up 5 points since December and at the highest level since the poll began tracking him in September 2009.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is just one percentage point below Obama and at his highest level since the poll started asking about him in December 2009.

The telephone poll of 1,001 American adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, higher among subgroups. It was conducted July 8-12 by Iowa-based Selzer & Co.

Getting a solid night’s sleep is crucial not only for feeling good the next day - there is increasing evidence that it may also protect against dementia, according to new research presented Tuesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London.

Three studies by researchers at Wheaton College found significant connections between breathing disorders that interrupt sleep and the accumulation of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease. Treating the problems with dental appliances or CPAP machines that force air into airways could help lower the risk of dementia or slow its progress, the researchers said.

People with sleep-disordered breathing experience repeated episodes of hypopnea (under breathing) and apnea (not breathing) during sleep. The most common form, Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), occurs in around 3 in 10 men and 1 in 5 women, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

It occurs when the upper airway closes fully or partially while efforts to breathe continue, and it can wake a person up 50 or 60 times a night, interrupting the stages of sleep necessary for a restful night. It often starts in middle age, before clinical signs of Alzheimer’s usually appear.

In one study of 516 cognitively normal adults 71 to 78, those with sleep disordered breathing had greater increases in beta-amyloid deposits over a three-year period. This was true regardless of whether they had the ApoeE4 gene considered a risk factor for Alzheimer’s.

A second study found that OSA was associated with increases in amyloid buildup in older people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and a third found such an association in both normal and MCI subjects.

While correlation between sleep apnea and dementia has been documented in the past, these are among the first longitudinal studies to look at the relationship between sleep disruption and the biomarkers, such as beta-amyloid accumulation, that are commonly associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, said Megan Hogan, one of the Wheaton researchers.

Noting that past research has found that the brain clears up deposits of amyloid plaque during sleep, Hogan hypothesized that apnea may impede this process.

“During sleep, when your brain has time to wash away all the toxins that have built up throughout the day, continually interrupting sleep may give it less time to do that,” she said.

It may be in the deepest stages of sleep that the clearing up takes place, said Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. “If you’re only making it to Stage 1 or Stage 2 and then you start choking or snoring or whatever and you wake yourself up and you do it again and again, you may not even be aware of it, but you...may be accumulating this bad amyloid in the brain rather than clearing it,” he said.

In recent research, people repeatedly jolted awake during the night showed immediate increases in amyloid buildup and, if the sleep disruption continued for a couple of weeks, subjects also showed increases in the tau protein tangles that are also associated with Alzheimer’s, Petersen said.

Repeated deprivation of oxygen to the brain that occurs during apnea may also contribute to amyloid buildup, as oxygen regulates an enzyme that plays a role in creating amyloid, Hogan said.

It is not yet clear whether the relationship between apnea and dementia is causative - “whether people with very early levels of brain disease are having trouble sleeping or whether people having trouble sleeping are more likely to develop brain disease,” said Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs & outreach at the Alzheimer’s Association. He noted that animal studies have shown it could go both ways.

“Ultimately it doesn’t matter what the direction is for this to have an effect on your life,” he said. “If you’re waking up your partner multiple times a night or you’re tired all day, then you really, really need to go get checked by your doctor because it could be a sign of something serious, or if it’s not, just treating the apnea could help with your day-to-day cognition.”

A next step in confirming that sleep disruption causes amyloid buildup could be to conduct an intervention with CPAP machines and see if their use reduces the incidence of amyloid buildup, Hogan and Fargo said.

Here’s a habit you might want to flush: taking your smart devices to the bathroom.

In 2015, Verizon posted a survey of its customers that revealed 90 percent used their phone in the bathroom.

There are several reasons to leave your phone or tablet when you’re bathing, grooming or taking care of business according to a recent USA Today article by Brett Molina. Not the least of these is that your smartphone likely carries more germs than your toilet. The article cited a 2011 study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in which one in every six phones contained fecal matter.

“You’ve got to think of your mobile devices as an extension of yourself,” Jason Tetro, a scientist and author of “The Germ Files,” told USA Today. “Anything your cell phone touches, imagine that’s your hands.” He told the newspaper the best way to clean phones is with wipes made for electronics.

Germs are just one reason bathrooms and smart devices aren’t a good pairing.

You are one clumsy move away from having your device destroy by a sink, bathtub or toilet. Even if your phone is water resistant, the paper asks, “do you really want to reach into the toilet for your phone?”

The habit is potentially dangerous. People have died using their charging devices in the bathroom. Earlier this year a 14-year-old girl from Lubbock, Texas, died after she was electrocuted while using her plugged-in phone in the bath. Installing ground fault circuit interrupters in bathrooms and kitchens is recommended by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to prevent severe shocks.

WASHINGTON - For Mitch McConnell, Monday night was as embarrassing a blow as they come for a Senate majority leader. Two more Republican senators came out against his bill to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, effectively dooming the latest version. That forced the Kentucky Republican to confront a difficult question with no good options: What now?

The answer he came up with and then articulated in a 90-word written statement was essentially a dare.

McConnell practically challenged conservative critics of the bill to vote against moving the process ahead. How? By publicly dangling in front of them what they have said they wanted if the current effort falls apart: a so-called clean repeal of the law known as Obamacare, with a two-year delay to come up with a replacement.

But there is a catch: to get that vote, they will now have vote to proceed to consideration of the House-passed repeal and replace bill, which Senate GOP leaders have been trying to reconcile with their own version (through an arcane procedural tactic known appropriately as budget reconciliation).

If hard-right conservative senators vote no on proceeding with the bill and it collapses, McConnell can come back at them and say, “Well, you had your chance at the ‘clean repeal’ you demanded. And you decided not to take it.” He will have shifted some of the blame onto others and given himself a new talking point to counter the “clean repeal” crowd - which includes President Trump.

If they vote yes - hey, they’re suddenly back on track, at the table debating legislation with at least some chance of passing.

But don’t count on the latter scenario ever happening. Why?

Because even if the Senate got to a clean repeal vote, it wouldn’t likely have the votes to pass. So why would the conservatives go out on a limb for something that isn’t expected to actually become law?

Sure, it passed back in 2015. But the stakes were lower back then. Barack Obama was president and he wasn’t ever going to sign a bill that undid his signature law. So Republicans were free to vote for it with little on the line.

Now, there’s a lot on the line - which is why moderate Republicans have openly worried the current Senate bill goes too far in attacking Obamacare. How are they supposed to support a more aggressive repeal?

What’s less clear at this point is McConnell’s longer game. If this doesn’t work out, will he move on to other matters? Follow through on his threats to work with Democrats and narrower reforms, which were seen as ways to try to pressure conservatives not to let this fail? We’ll find out soon.

There are no longer any good outcomes for McConnell - politically speaking. There are bad ones and less bad ones. And putting the onus on other senators means there will be more blame to go around when this all ends.

OGDENSBURG — A city man faces felony drug charges related to the alleged manufacture of methamphetamine and two acquaintances face misdemeanor charges following a traffic stop by Ogdensburg police.

The arrests took place Saturday after police stopped a vehicle driven by Jessica A. Mendenhall, 28, of 615 Morris St. Also in the vehicle were Kurt M. Bjork, 29, of 1004 Ogden St., and Michael B. Jones, 30, of 402 Main St.

During a subsequent inspection of the vehicle, police discovered a duffel bag in the back seat that allegedly contained the materials and components used for the manufacture of methamphetamine. The car was then towed to the Ogdensburg police station where members of the department along with state police further inspected the vehicle.

Mr. Bjork was later charged with third-degree unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine, a class D felony, and two counts of seventh-degree possession of a controlled substance. He was arraigned in city court and ordered held in the St. Lawrence County jail on $2,500 cash or $5,000 bond. Police say Mr. Bjork was already under the supervision of state parole officials at the time of his arrest.

Mr. Jones was also arrested, charged with seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, second-degree possession of drug paraphernalia and criminal possession of a hypodermic needle. All of the charges are class A misdemeanors.

He was arraigned and released to the supervision of probation.

Ms. Mendenhall was ticketed for third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

The Ogdensburg Police Department was assisted by the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office Drug Task Force, New York State Parole and the New York State Police Contaminated Crime Scene Emergency Response Team.

Further charges and arrests are possible in the case, police said.

LOWVILLE — A Lowville couple has been accused of smuggling suboxone strips into the Lewis County Jail this spring.

Lewis County Sheriff’s Department officials on July 10 charged Carissa G. Jantzi, 36, with first-degree promoting prison contraband, then on July 12 charged Jeffrey F. Jantzi, 39, with first-degree promoting prison contraband and fourth-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, according to a department release issued Tuesday.

Both were arraigned in Lowville Village Court and sent to jail, with bail set at $2,500 for Mrs. Jantzi and $5,000 for Mr. Jantzi. Mrs. Jantzi is also being held on a parole violation warrant.

Deputies said Mrs. Jantzi in April smuggled the strips into the jail to her husband during visitation and he gave them to other inmates.

Mr. Jantzi in early April was sentenced to one year in county jail on a charge of driving while ability impaired by drugs stemming from a September traffic stop on Brantingham Road in the town of Greig.

State parole and county corrections officers assisted in the investigation. More charges are pending, deputies said.

State police announced Maj. Philip T. Rougeux, 57, of Oneida, will be the new commander of their Troop D, which covers seven counties including Jefferson and Lewis.

Maj. Rougeux, a member of state police since 1986, has spent most of his career in Central New York.

His career includes time in Long Island, Sylvan Beach, Marcy, Albany, North Syracuse and Canandaigua.

Most recently, he was in the Professional Standards Bureau covering Troops C, D and Thruway Zone 3.

Maj. Rougeux, who started in the role on Thursday, replaces Maj. Francis S. Coots, who retired in February.

The troop, operating from 27 facilities, provides services to 167 towns, 89 villages and 5 cities.