Rivers' garbageman named CNN Hero of the Year

CNN) -- Chad Pregracke, an Illinois man who has dedicated his life to cleaning the Mississippi River and other U.S. waterways, is the 2013 CNN Hero of the Year.

Pregracke organizes community cleanups across the country through his nonprofit, Living Lands & Waters. About 70,000 volunteers have pitched in, helping Pregracke collect more than 7 million pounds of trash in the past 15 years.

"The garbage got into the water one piece at a time," Pregracke said earlier this year. "And that's the only way it's going to come out."

Pregracke was recognized during Sunday night's airing of "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute" along with the rest of this year's top 10 CNN Heroes -- everyday people doing extraordinary things to help change the world. He was chosen as Hero of the Year through a five-week public vote on CNN.com.

"I'll just keep on cleaning up America's rivers and loving every minute of it," said Pregracke when he accepted the award.

For being named CNN Hero of the Year, Pregracke receives $250,000 to continue his work. That is in addition to the $50,000 that each Hero receives for making the top 10.

During the show, Pregracke pledged to spread some of his Hero of the Year money to the rest of the top 10 Heroes: "I've met so many great people today, the other Heroes, and I'm really moved by all their stories and all the things they do around the world. ... I'm going to give 10 grand to each of them, because they're awesome."

Pregracke, 38, grew up in East Moline, Illinois, where the Mississippi River was in his backyard. As a teenager, he worked as a commercial shell diver and began to notice the heaps of debris in the fabled waterway, which supplies drinking water to 18 million people in more than 50 U.S. cities.

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5 reasons why Congress might (finally) pass a budget

Washington (CNN) -- (CNN) -- The words "budget" and "compromise" haven't been connected in Congress in recent years.

But legislators stunned observers and perhaps each other this week when Republicans and Democrats proved that they can, indeed, agree on government spending.

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray worked out a budget framework to fund the government into 2015.

The House approved the compromise agreement Thursday. The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass as early as next week. The White House supports the proposal.

It was the first full budget agreement by a divided Congress -- in which different parties control the House and Senate -- since 1986, Ryan boasted in announcing the deal.

After years of bruising political fights over spending and the federal borrowing limit, dysfunction reigned supreme in October when the government shut down for 16 days.

A short-term spending plan got it going again, but a CNN/ORC International poll found that 71% of Americans thought another shutdown would occur when the money ran out in January.

Instead, such repeated budget brinksmanship would be put on hold if Congress passes the Ryan-Murray proposal. While neither side loves the compromise legislation, it appears to be on a path to approval.

So, what changed this time?

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Raising the Minimum Wage Is Good for Business (But the Corporate Lobby Doesn't Think So)

As soon as President Barack Obama called on Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour in his State of the Union address last week, you could see Speaker John Boehner, seated behind the president, uttering his religious mantra: "Job killer." And even if you couldn't read his lips, you could read his mind: "Campaign contributions." He and his Republican colleagues could expect huge donations from business lobby groups -- especially those that depend on low-wage workers, like the hotel industry, restaurants and fast-food chains, nursing homes and hospitals and big-box retailers -- to keep Congress from embracing Obama's modest proposal.

Boehner's "job killer" grumble should come as no surprise. Business groups and their political allies have been "crying wolf" about the minimum wage ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed it during the Depression to help stimulate the economy. The critics warned that enacting a minimum wage would destroy employees' drive to work hard and would force many firms out of business. The minimum wage law, warned the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in 1937, "constitutes a step in the direction of communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism." Congressman Edward Cox, a Georgia Democrat, said that the law "will destroy small industry." These ideas, Cox claimed, "are the product of those whose thinking is rooted in an alien philosophy and who are bent upon the destruction of our whole constitutional system and the setting up of a Red Labor communistic despotism upon the ruins of our Christian civilization." Roosevelt and most members of Congress ignored these warnings and adopted the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, establishing the federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour.

Since then, each time Congress has considered raising the minimum wage, business groups and conservatives have repackaged the same arguments. In 1945, NAM claimed that, "The proposed jump from an hourly minimum of 40 to 65 cents at once, and 70 and 75 cents in the following years, is a reckless jolt to the economic system. Living standards, instead of being improved, would fall -- probably to record lows." Instead, the next three decades saw the biggest increased in living standards in the nation's history.

In 1975, economist Milton Friedman, a conservative guru, said: "The consequences of minimum wage laws have been almost wholly bad, to increase unemployment and to increase poverty. In my opinion there is absolutely no positive objective achieved by minimum wages." While campaigning for president, Ronald Reagan said, "The minimum wage has caused more misery and unemployment than anything since the Great Depression." In 2004, David Brandon, the CEO of Domino's Pizza, declared: "From our perspective, raising the minimum wage is a job killer." Earlier this month, Jason Riley, aWall Street Journal editorial writer, called the minimum wage a "proven job killer" on the newspaper's cable talk show.

Following Obama's State of the Union address, business representatives and conservative media pundits echoed the same talking points. Analyzing Obama's speech for Fox News, Nina Easton, an editor for Fortune magazine, repeated the claim that increasing the minimum wage is a "job killer." Michael Saltsman, research director at the business-backed Employment Policies Institute, told Fox Business News that "minimum wage hikes lead to job losses." Bill Herrle, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business' Florida affiliate, told Sunshine State News that Obama's plan was a "job killer."

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Kennedy Assassination 50 years ago remembered

Across the nation and around the world, there are events to remember the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 50 years ago Friday.

Special Section: The JFK Assassination 

Just outside of London, President Kennedy's granddaughter, Tatiana Schlossberg and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Matthew Barzun, along with Lord Hill, leader of the House of Lords, planted an oak sapling and laid four wreaths at the official British memorial to the late president. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, along with Jackie, Caroline and John Kennedy, dedicated the memorial in Runneymeade in May of 1965.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visited President Kennedy's gravesite early Friday. The president's sister, Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, was to lay a wreath at the eternal flame at the president's grave, and taps will be played.

Dallas hosts an commemoration at Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot and killed. Bells will ring shortly before 12:30 p.m. CT, followed by a moment of silence to mark the time of the president's death. The mayor, the bishop of Dallas, the U.S. Naval Academy Men's Glee Club, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and historian David McCullough are part of the event, which you can watch live on CBS.

Also, in Boston, at the John F. Kennedy Library, musicians James Taylor and Paul Winter and his Sextet will play, and the performance will be streamed live on the web, followed by a moment of silence at 2 p.m. ET, the time the president's death was announced to the nation.

CBSNews.com will stream CBS News' historic broadcast coverage of President John F. Kennedy's assassination to mark the anniversary. The online stream will begin at 1:38 p.m. ET on Friday, and feature the minute-by-minute CBS News broadcasts in real time as they were delivered during the four-day period following the assassination.

Obama administration pondering new carbon emission pledge in wake of Warsaw climate change conference

The Obama Administration is planning to introduce a pledge to make additional steep cuts in U.S. carbon emissions after 2020 in the wake of a little-noticed United Nations conference on greenhouse gas emissions that is the latest step toward a new treaty to take the place of the tattered Kyoto Protocol.

Just how dramatic the American pledge will be is not yet clear. A U.S. official at the conference taking place in Warsaw —who declined to be quoted directly—told Fox News that an amorphous White House inter-agency consulting process was still considering what the next U.S. reduction should be, and wasn’t yet ready to put a hard number on the table.

Whatever it is eventually revealed to be, the next emissions reduction target will be introduced into the labyrinthine, U.N.-sponsored treaty process as itinches along for two years after the Warsaw meeting that is slated to end Friday. It will supposedly culminate at yet another major climate session in Paris in December 2015, where the successor treaty will—supporters hope—be adopted.

The administration itself says that its forthcoming emissions targets—and continuing staunch support for the war against “climate change”—are intended help to kick-start a virtuous competition among nations, spurred on by interest groups, hosts of non-government organizations, and the sprawling global network of United Nations organizations to push the faltering climate process away from the ditch of disinterest where it has increasingly been heading.

That virtuous competition is part of a new, smorgasbord-style approach that the U.S. is promoting for future pledges, “ to ensure that each Party is constructing a commitment that reflects its national circumstances and full capabilities,” as the administration puts it in a conference submission

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Senate's Nuclear Option Raises Stakes For 2014

 WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made one party in the Senate significantly more powerful when he ended filibusters on presidential appointments Thursday -- and instantly elevated the importance of the 2014 Senate elections.

"It raises the stakes," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has often remarked that "elections have consequences."

The one-time GOP presidential nominee also admitted that the ability Reid exercised to break the Republican blockade of President Barack Obama's nominees was one of those consequences.

"I'm afraid so," McCain said.

Led by the Nevada Democrat, the Senate voted 52-48 Thursday to wield the "nuclear option," eliminating the ability of the Senate minority to filibuster executive branch nominees and any judgeship below the Supreme Court by changing the requirements for passage to a simple majority vote. And now, thanks to Reid's power move, the stakes for 2014 include control of a Senate that can either be a stronger aid to Obama in the furtherance of his agenda or, if the GOP can take over, an even more effective check on the executive's ambitions.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested just that immediately after Thursday's vote to change the rules, announcing that he intended to strike back at the polls next fall.

"The solution to this problem is at the ballot box," McConnell rather pointedly told reporters on Capitol Hill. "I look forward to having a great election in November 2014."

Republicans need to win six seats next fall to take over the upper chamber, and the map remains a tough one for Democrats, who have to defend 21 seats, compared to just 14 for the GOP. And seven of those Democratic seats are in states that lean Republican, with a couple more in swing states.

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EU spokesman: Iran nuclear deal reached

Geneva, Switzerland (CNN) -- An agreement was struck early Sunday between Iran and six world powers over Tehran's nuclear program, a spokesman for the European Union said.

The historic deal follows marathon talks to overcome issues surrounding the wording of an initial agreement over Iran's nuclear development program and lift some sanctions while a more formal deal between the two sides is worked out.

"We have reached agreement," EU spokesman Michael Mann said in a Twitter post.

For years, Iran and Western powers have left negotiating tables in disagreement, frustration and at times open animosity.

But the diplomatic tone changed with the transfer of power after Iran's election this year, which saw President Hassan Rouhani replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Caustic jabs at the United States and bellicose threats toward Israel were a hallmark of Ahmadinejad's foreign policy rhetoric.

He lambasted the West over the economic sanctions crippling Iran's economy and at the same time, pushed the advancement of nuclear technology in Iran.

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Rouhani has struck up a more conciliatory tone and made the lifting sanctions against his country a priority