Kansas.com: Nation and World

Conventions over, candidates hit the road

WILLIAM DOUGLAS — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

John McCain and Sarah Palin tried Friday to ride whatever momentum they generated from this week's Republican convention, beginning their sprint to Election Day by campaigning together in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan.

Late in the day after the balloons and fanfare of the St. Paul convention, the Republican presidential ticket stood before a packed amphitheater in this suburban Detroit swing county of Macomb, known for its blue-collar "Reagan Democrats."

"These are tough times for many of you," McCain said. "In the state of Michigan, times are tough. You're worried about keeping your job or finding a new one. Many are struggling to put food on the table.... All you've ever asked of government is for it to stand on your side, not in your way, and that's what I intend to do, stand on your side and fight for you."

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, meanwhile, campaigned in the swing state of Pennsylvania, emphasizing economic issues amid Friday's news that the U.S. unemployment rate reached a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as employers cut 84,000 jobs.

Earlier in the day, McCain and Palin stood before a crowd of thousands assembled along the main street of downtown Cedarburg, a suburb of Milwaukee. McCain said that it's places like this staunchly Republican enclave of 11,000 that will propel him and Palin into the White House.

Alaskans get extra oil money

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- It's the season for Alaskans to be rewarded just for living here and this year's take is extra sweet: $3,269, a record share of the state's oil wealth combined with a special cash payout to help with stratospheric energy prices.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell announced Friday that every eligible man, woman and child will receive $2,069, thanks to this year's annual payment from the state's oil royalty program. On top of that, the checks will include an additional $1,200 from the state treasury to help offset soaring fuel prices.

The one-time energy boost was proposed by Gov. Sarah Palin in May and approved by state lawmakers last month. It fell to Parnell to make Friday's announcement on the dividend because Palin is out of state.

Suspicious package found in train, doused

NORTH BERGEN, N.J. --A suspicious package found aboard a freight train Friday evening contained an electronic device that bomb squad members doused with a water cannon, but it wasn't immediately clear if was capable of causing damage, authorities said.

Confederate soldier's widow dies in Ark.

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

Maudie Hopkins, who was the last publicly documented widow of a Confederate soldier, having married an elderly Civil War infantryman when she was a teenager, has died. She was 93.

Hopkins died Aug. 17 at a hospital in Helena-West Helena, Ark., according to media reports. A cause of death was not given, but she had been in failing health for several years.

She remained largely silent -- even among her family -- about her link to the Civil War until four years ago, when an Alabama woman died and was reported to be the last surviving Confederate widow.

"I have nothing to be ashamed of," Hopkins once said, but had kept quiet about the marriage because she "didn't want people gossiping about my business."

Federal highway trust fund out of money

Israel approves weapon transfer to Palestinians

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

JERUSALEM -- Some 900 assault rifles were transferred to the Palestinian Authority in late August with Israel's approval, an Israeli security official said Friday, as part of a drive to build the capacity of Palestinian security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

The AK-47 rifles, together with ammunition, came into the West Bank via Jordan.

Israel maintains overall security control in the West Bank and its forces operate freely there, but strengthening the Western-backed authority's security apparatuses is considered a prerequisite for Palestinian state-building.

The weapons may also be intended to bolster Abbas' Fatah-dominated forces against the looming threat of the rival Islamist militant group Hamas.

Canada sets sanctions against Zimbabwe

U.S. attacks near Pakistan border

PIR ZUBAIR SHAH AND JANE PERLEZ — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

A missile strike from a pilotless U.S. reconnaissance aircraft killed between six and 12 people in a group of houses in southern Afghanistan, very close to the border with Pakistan, Pakistani residents of the area said Friday.

The strike came after the United States launched a commando raid by Special Operations forces in South Waziristan in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan on Wednesday, the first of what American military officials said could be more raids to attack Taliban insurgents in Pakistan's tribal region. After the raid on Wednesday, Pakistan lodged a "strong protest" with the American government and said it reserved the right of retaliation.

The spokesman for the Pakistani army, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that the missile strike Friday did not take place inside Pakistani territory. "There was no airstrike in Pakistan, or near Miran Shah or in North Waziristan," Abbas said, referring to Miran Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, a tribal region in Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.

Residents in Miran Shah also said that the missile strike Friday morning hit a target inside Afghanistan, and not inside Pakistan.

They said the attack struck two residential compounds in the village of Al Must, less than a mile from the Pakistani border.

Rice's visit marks Libya's rehabilitation

HELENE COOPER — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

For the first time in more than half a century, a high-ranking U.S. official, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is in Libya. She arrived here on Friday to meet with the man whom Ronald Reagan famously called the "mad dog of the Middle East."

But that was then. Rice, after waiting at the Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel here for an hour as the Ramadan sun set, finally got word that Col. Moammar Gadhafi was ready to receive her at his Bab al Azizia residence -- the same compound bombed by U.S. airstrikes in 1986 during the height of tensions with Libya.

Amid a swarm of cameras and reporters, she walked into the receiving room where Gadhafi, clad in a long, flowing white robe, purple and gold sash, and a green Africa brooch, stood waiting to greet her.

It was a very different Libyan leader, in the eyes of Rice and the Bush administration, from the man who bedeviled six U.S. presidents over the past four decades.

As far as the Bush administration is concerned, the Libyan leader is rehabilitated, his country removed from the State Department's terrorism list, his debt to the families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103 on its way to being paid, Libya's stockpiles of chemical weapons destroyed and its secret nuclear weapons program dismantled.

FDA lists 20 drugs that could be unsafe

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:08 CDT

The government on Friday began posting a list of prescription drugs under investigation for potential safety problems in an effort to better inform doctors and patients.

The first list is a bare-bones compilation naming 20 medications and the potential issue for each. It provides no indication of how widespread or serious the problems might be, leading some consumer advocates to question its usefulness, and prompting industry worries that skittish patients might stop taking a useful medication if they see it listed.

Food and Drug Administration officials said they are trying to walk a fine line in being more open to the public while avoiding needless scares. Congress, in a drug safety bill passed last year, ordered the agency to post quarterly listings of medications under investigation.

"My message to patients is this: Don't stop taking your medicine," said Janet Woodcock, who heads the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "If your doctor has prescribed a drug that appears on this list, you should continue taking it unless your doctor advises you differently."

At least five of the drugs on the list had problems that already have been publicized. These included the blood thinner heparin, recalled earlier this year, and immune-suppressing medications being studied for a link to cancer in youngsters.

Report: U.S. spied on Iraq officials

ERNESTO LONDONO — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

Iraqi leaders on Friday expressed incredulity and disappointment over a report that U.S. officials had spied on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top Iraqi leaders.

"If it is true, it reflects that there is no trust and it reflects also that the institutions in the United States are used to spying on their friends and their enemies in the same way," Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, said in a statement. "We will raise this with the American side and we will ask for an explanation."

Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward wrote about the reported espionage in his fourth book about the Bush administration, "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," which is scheduled to be released Monday.

Some Iraqi officials said the revelation is likely to hinder already contentious negotiations toward an agreement that would govern the role of U.S. troops in Iraq after the United Nations mandate that allows them to operate in Iraq expires in December.

"It is going to affect the level of trust between us as two parties," said Abbas al-Bayati, an Iraqi lawmaker who acts as a spokesman for the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite political coalition that includes Maliki's party. "Spying is usually done when one party is hiding something, and we know the Iraqi government has nothing to hide from the Americans."

Agencies prepare Freddie, Fannie rescue plan

KEVIN G. HALL — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

Wall Street may be poised for a rally Monday as rumors swirled Friday about a possible weekend rescue plan for troubled mortgage finance titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

For the past several weeks, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other federal agencies have quietly prepared a plan to backstop Fannie and Freddie, which operate as quasi-private entities that buy top-quality mortgages and package them as bonds sold to investors.

A backstop to prevent the entities' failure is important to all Americans because mortgage lending happens in great measure thanks to Fannie and Freddie, which own or back more than $5 trillion in mortgage debt. Their problems have contributed to the nation's housing problems, which have brought the U.S. economy to the brink of recession.

Any government move to shore up the two financial entities could result in lower mortgage rates for consumers and spark new mortgage lending that could bring to an end a deep two-year slump in home sales and home prices.

"We are making progress on our work with Morgan Stanley, FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency) and the Federal Reserve," said Jennifer Zuccarelli, a Treasury spokeswoman, stopping short of confirming a report late Friday by the Wall Street Journal that an announcement could come this weekend. "As we've been saying for weeks, we're not going to comment on every market rumor."

Afghans 'fed up' with U.S. troops

KATHY GANNON — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

The bearded, turbaned men gather beneath a large, leafy tree in rural eastern Nangarhar province. When Malik Mohammed speaks on their behalf, his voice is soft but his words are harsh.

Mohammed makes it clear that the tribal chiefs have lost all faith in both their own government and the foreign soldiers in their country. Such disillusionment is widespread in Afghanistan, feeding an insurgency that has killed 195 foreign soldiers so far this year, 105 of them Americans.

"This is our land. We are afraid to send our sons out the door for fear the American troops will pick them up," says Mohammed, who was chosen by the others to represent them. "Daily we have headaches from the troops. We are fed up. Our government is weak and corrupt and the American soldiers have learned nothing."

A strong sense of frustration echoed through dozens of interviews by the Associated Press with Afghan villagers, police, government officials, tribal elders and Taliban who left and rejoined the religious movement. The interviews ranged from the capital, Kabul, to the rural regions near the border with Pakistan.

The overwhelming result: Ordinary Afghans are deeply bitter about American and NATO forces because of errant bombs, heavy-handed searches and seizures and a sense that the foreigners do not understand their culture. They are equally fed up with what they see as seven years of corruption and incompetence in a U.S.-backed government that has largely failed to deliver on development.

Hanna nears, but Ike is the big worry

KEVIN SACK — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

Carolinas call for some voluntary evacuations

With wary eyes cast at Hurricane Ike farther out at sea, coastal Carolina residents prepared on Friday for gusting winds and torrential rain as Tropical Storm Hanna sped toward them. Hanna was expected to make landfall near the North Carolina-South Carolina line early today.

As of Friday evening, the storm had sustained winds of 70 miles per hour, slightly under hurricane strength of 74 mph. It was moving rapidly northward just off the coast of Georgia at 20 mph, offering hope that it would move too quickly to cause the catastrophic flooding seen here in previous storms.

Officials in both states called for voluntary evacuations of coastal communities; ordered schools, colleges, libraries and museums closed; postponed high school football games; and opened shelters. But few expected significant damage, and most beachfront residents were not even taking the trouble to board up their windows.

Those who did said they saw the exercise primarily as a rehearsal for the possible arrival of Ike, which is now a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph.

Spacecraft has close encounter with asteroid

KATRIN SCHIEFER AND GEORGE FREY — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40 CDT

The Rosetta deep space probe successfully passed close to an asteroid 250 million miles from Earth, the European Space Agency said Friday night.

In a mission that may bring man closer to solving the mystery of the solar system's birth, the craft completed its flyby of the Steins asteroid, also known as Asteroid 2867 -- now in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter -- at around 2:15 p.m. CDT.

As planned, the spacecraft's signal was lost for about 90 minutes as engineers turned it away from the sun and because the craft was moving too fast for its antennas to transmit.

The resumption of the craft's signal transmission was greeted with cheers from ESA engineers and technicians.

Mission manager Gerhard Schwehm said the agency would work to get images and other data collected by the probe processed as soon as possible. He said the first images should be released to the public today.