NATIONAL BRIEFS

WASHINGTON: Limiting family green cards

Senators writing a comprehensive immigration bill may dramatically limit green cards for extended families of U.S. citizens, reserving them for immediate family members instead, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday. Immigration policy has long favored family ties over economic or job criteria. Groups trying to protect family-based immigration are opposed. Said Graham, part of a bipartisan group studying the bill: "Green cards should be reserved for the nuclear family. This is not a family court we're dealing with here. We're dealing about an economic need."

MICHIGAN: A turnaround pro for Detroit

Gov. Rick Snyder appointed an auto-industry turnaround expert Thursday to steer Detroit back from the brink of ruin. The one-time symbol of America's industrial might became the biggest U.S. city to be placed under state financial control. Kevyn Orr, a partner in the Cleveland-based law firm of Jones Day who represented Chrysler during its successful restructuring, will have broad powers to control all spending, including renegotiating labor contracts, selling off assets and even suspending elected officials' salaries. "We can rise from the ashes," Orr said.

WASHINGTON STATE: Welcome party turned deadly

The grandparents of a man accused of killing them were strangled at their Renton home after they held a party to welcome him home from prison, the King County sheriff's office said. Robert R. Taylor, 82, and Norma J. Taylor, 80, died of strangulation. Their grandson, Michael Chadd Boysen, 26, was arrested Tuesday after a daylong standoff at a motel in Lincoln City, Ore. He was in serious condition.