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Israel says Saturday that it's prepared to release a number of Palestinian prisoners after a breakthrough in talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry.

Yuval Steiniz, Israel's intelligence and strategic affairs minister, said the release would involve "heavyweight prisoners in jail for decades". He said the prisoners would be freed soon. (Note: the translation used by The Associated Press has it as "hardcore" instead of "heavyweight").

The remarks follow an announcement Friday night by Kerry that Israeli and Palestinian officials would meet soon in Washington to work out the resumption of peace negotiations that broke down in 2008.

As NPR's Emily Harris reports from Jerusalem releasing long-term inmates from Israeli custody has been a key issue for Palestinian officials before restarting talks. She says that although the exact terms for resuming negotiations have yet to be formalized, Steiniz "says his government did not agree to stop Israeli settlements, or define future borders before negotiations start."

Kerry, speaking in Amman, said the two sides had agreed in principle to restarting talks, but he declined to provide details, telling reporters that the "best way to give these negotiations a chance is to keep them private".

Talks could resume in the next week or so "if everything goes as expected," Kerry said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who met with Kerry on Friday, said in a statement that "some details still need to be worked out."

On the release of Palestinian prisoners, the BBC reports:

"While the number of detainees to be freed is unclear, one Palestinian official said discussions had earlier focused on the release of 350 prisoners over a period of months, including around 100 men held since before 1993, when Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo peace accords.

According to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, 4,817 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails."

Unlike New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who often takes the subway to work, some prominent politicians in Brazil have a far more impressive way of getting around: private helicopters and government planes.

Perhaps the most over-the-top example of the trend is that of Rio de Janeiro state Gov. Sergio Cabral. A recent magazine expose showed that his commute to work is only about 6 miles.

Yet every morning he gets up, takes a chauffeured car to his helipad about halfway to work, and then takes the rest of the trip — about three minutes — by chopper. The cost to the taxpayer of that daily flight, according to the magazine, is $1.7 million a year.

Cabral also used his helicopter to ferry his nanny, his dog and his family on shopping trips and vacations to his country home. When confronted by reporters with the findings, he was unapologetic.

"I'm not the first to do it; others in Brazil do it, too," he said. "And it's OK because of the job I have. I'm not doing anything new. I am transported with my family, I get out of work and go to my country home."

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Of the 50 state governors in the U.S., 30 are Republicans, 20 are Democrats for a ratio of 3 to 2.

So when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a non-profit watchdog group issued a report this week listing 18 governors it alleged are the "worst in America," it immediately raised eyebrows and partisan ire for the notable party tilt of its examples — only two were Democrats.

How could that be? Wouldn't you expect at least a few more Democrats on the list, at least based on that 3:2 ratio?

I put that question to Melanie Sloane, CREW's executive director.

"The thing is, we looked at all 50. And you just can't put people on the list just in order to have an even balance. You can't say, 'Here's the percentage of governors that are Republican and the percentage that are Democrat' — and there are significantly more that are Republicans right now — and say, 'We'll have the exact same balance.' I would instead suggest somebody ought to ask, 'Who did we leave off? because we looked at all 50 and we didn't find any Democrats, any others who we felt belonged on the list based on our criteria. I think that's the main question. While people are critical, they haven't said who's missing.

"And then if we were just so anxious to protect Democrats, I don't think naming one of the lead presidential candidates for 2016 would be such a smart move on our part."

Girl Most Likely

Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Genre: Comedy

Running Time: 103 minutes

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language

With: Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon