AP News in Brief

Rom­ney: Obama failed to keep promises because he doesn’t under­stand how to fix economy

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney claimed Fri­day that Pres­i­dent Barack Obama has failed to ful­fill his promises in part because he does not under­stand what it takes to ignite a more robust eco­nomic recovery.

Resum­ing cam­paign­ing after a hia­tus dur­ing the Demo­c­ra­tic National Con­ven­tion, Rom­ney impugned Obama’s com­pe­tence, not his effort, the day after Obama accepted his party’s nom­i­na­tion for president.

“This pres­i­dent tried, but he didn’t under­stand what it takes to make our econ­omy work. I do,” Rom­ney told 4,000 sup­port­ers at North­west Col­lege in Orange City, the heart of Iowa’s GOP-heavy west.

Enter­ing the fall stretch to the Nov. 6 elec­tion, Rom­ney is con­cen­trat­ing on Obama’s per­for­mance, accord­ing to aides, to counter what they say are neg­a­tive depic­tions of the Repub­li­can in Obama cam­paign ads.

It’s also a way to keep the pres­sure on Obama, with­out assail­ing him per­son­ally. Although Obama is in a tight bat­tle for re-election, a slight major­ity of Amer­i­cans have a favor­able opin­ion of him personally.

___

Analy­sis: Weak jobs report could can­cel Obama con­ven­tion bounce, snarl swing-state strategy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dis­ap­point­ing August jobs report raises yet another cam­paign obsta­cle for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and makes his hopes of hold­ing onto his own job even more chal­leng­ing — espe­cially in closely con­tested bat­tle­ground states with painfully high lev­els of unemployment.

Com­ing less than 12 hours after the pres­i­dent accepted his party’s nom­i­na­tion for a sec­ond term, the lack­lus­ter report could wipe out or dimin­ish any tra­di­tional bounce in the polls he might have got­ten from the fes­tive, well-choreographed three-day Demo­c­ra­tic National Convention.

“The broad mes­sage here is flat, flat, flat,” said econ­o­mist Heidi Shier­holz with the labor-affiliated Eco­nomic Pol­icy Center.

___

US declares Haqqa­nis ter­ror­ists; impli­ca­tions for Afghan talks, Pak­istan, cap­tured US soldier

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama admin­is­tra­tion declared Fri­day that the Pakistan-based Haqqani net­work of mil­i­tants is a ter­ror­ist body despite mis­giv­ings about how the largely sym­bolic act could fur­ther stall planned Afghan peace talks or put yet another chill on the United States’ already frag­ile coun­tert­er­ror­ism alliance with Islamabad.

Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clinton’s deci­sion, signed Fri­day ahead of a Sun­day dead­line set by Con­gress, bans Amer­i­cans from doing busi­ness with mem­bers of the group and blocks any assets it holds in the United States. The order, which will go into effect within 10 days, com­pletes an odyssey of sorts for the Haqqa­nis from the days they part­nered with the CIA dur­ing the Cold War and were hailed as free­dom fighters.

Clin­ton, whose advis­ers were of two minds about whether the des­ig­na­tion was the right path, said in a state­ment Fri­day that the U.S. will “also con­tinue our robust cam­paign of diplo­matic, mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence pres­sure on the net­work, demon­strat­ing the United States’ resolve to degrade the organization’s abil­ity to exe­cute vio­lent attacks.”

Enraged by a string of high-profile attacks on U.S. and NATO troops, Con­gress insisted Clin­ton deliver a report on whether the Haqqa­nis should be des­ig­nated a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and all of its mem­bers sub­jected to U.S. finan­cial sanctions.

A sub­sidiary of the Tal­iban and based in the remote North Waziris­tan region of Pak­istan, the Haqqani net­work is respon­si­ble for sev­eral attacks in Kabul, includ­ing last September’s rocket-propelled grenade assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO head­quar­ters. Amer­i­can offi­cials esti­mate its force at 2,000 to 4,000 fight­ers and say it main­tains close rela­tion­ships with al-Qaida.

___

Feds: Man who made false air­plane threat tar­geted girlfriend’s ex because of photo he posted

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man angry about a com­pro­mis­ing Face­book photo of his girl­friend took revenge against the ex-boyfriend who posted it, mak­ing a hoax call to police that set off a ter­ror­ism scare and got the for­mer beau taken off an air­liner at gun­point, author­i­ties say.

The new boyfriend, Ken­neth W. Smith Jr., was arrested Fri­day on charges of mak­ing a false threat to Philadel­phia police, who recalled a Dallas-bound flight and marched the ex-beau, Christo­pher Shell, off the plane Thursday.

The episode led to Shell’s own arrest on drug war­rants after he finally reached Texas to cel­e­brate his 29th birthday.

On Fri­day, both Shell and Smith posted bond.

Shell declined to com­ment. Smith’s lawyer, Bill Bren­nan, described his client as “embar­rassed” by the con­se­quences of the alleged threat.

___

Aide: Con­gress­man Jesse Jack­son Jr. back home after treat­ment for depres­sion at Mayo Clinic

CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Rep. Jesse Jack­son Jr. has returned to home in Wash­ing­ton after treat­ment for depres­sion at Mayo Clinic, Jackson’s chief of staff in sub­ur­ban Chicago said Friday.

“He’s at home in Wash­ing­ton con­va­lesc­ing with his wife and chil­dren,” Jack­son aide Rick Bryant said. “Let’s hope he returns to work on Monday.”

Bryant said he’s not sure exactly when the Illi­nois con­gress­man was dis­charged. Mayo Clinic spokesman Chris Gade referred all ques­tions to Jackson’s office.

Con­gress goes back into ses­sion Mon­day fol­low­ing its sum­mer break.

Jack­son went on a secre­tive med­ical leave in June, when fam­ily mem­bers said he col­lapsed at home in Wash­ing­ton. He was being treated for bipo­lar dis­or­der at the clinic in Rochester, Minn.

___

SC mother con­victed in miss­ing son’s case; refuses to tell author­i­ties where boy is

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Nearly 10 months after her 18-month-old son was last seen, a South Car­olina woman was con­victed Fri­day of unlaw­ful con­duct for refus­ing to tell author­i­ties where he might be, just insist­ing that he is safe.

Zinah Jen­nings, 23, showed no emo­tion as the ver­dict was read. The jury of eight women and four men delib­er­ated for about 2 1/2 hours before issu­ing its deci­sion, and a judge sen­tenced Jen­nings to the max­i­mum of 10 years in prison. Jen­nings has been jailed on no bail since her arrest.

The last time Jen­nings’ son, Amir, was seen was Novem­ber, when a secu­rity video at a Colum­bia bank recorded them both.

Police say Jen­nings repeat­edly lied to them about where the boy is, telling false tales that led them to search places from Atlanta to Char­lotte, N.C.

Jen­nings, who did not tes­tify in her defense, has said she left the boy some­where safe but wouldn’t give details when ques­tioned by police. Pros­e­cu­tors played a lengthy police inter­view in which Jen­nings cried as she said her son was safe but that she couldn’t prove to detec­tives that the boy was alive.

___

Series of earth­quakes jolt moun­tain­ous SW China, killing at least 64 and dam­ag­ing 30,000 homes

BEIJING (AP) — Twin earth­quakes and a spate of after­shocks struck south­west­ern China on Fri­day, top­pling thou­sands of houses and send­ing boul­ders cas­cad­ing across roads. At least 64 peo­ple were killed and hun­dreds injured in the remote moun­tain­ous area, and more than 100,000 res­i­dents were evacuated.

Dam­age was pre­vent­ing res­cuers from reach­ing out­ly­ing towns, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions were dis­rupted after the mid­day quakes hit along the bor­ders of Guizhou and Yun­nan provinces, a rural region where some of China’s poor­est peo­ple live.

The first 5.6-magnitude quake struck just before 11:30 a.m. and was fol­lowed by an equally strong quake shortly after noon, joined by dozens of after­shocks. Though of mod­er­ate strength, the quakes were shal­low, which often causes more damage.

Hard­est hit was Yil­iang County, where all but one of the deaths occurred, accord­ing to the Yun­nan provin­cial government’s offi­cial web­site. Another 715 peo­ple in the area were injured. Yiliang’s high pop­u­la­tion den­sity, shoddy build­ing con­struc­tion and propen­sity for land­slides were blamed for the rel­a­tively high death toll.

China Cen­tral Tele­vi­sion showed roads lit­tered with rocks and boul­ders and pil­lars of dust ris­ing over hill­tops from the land­slides. One image taken just as one quake struck showed peo­ple run­ning out of a super­mar­ket as the ground shook.

___

Swollen creek sends Ohio teen trav­el­ing 1,500 feet through sewer drains, emerges with scrapes

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An over­flow­ing creek in a Cleve­land sub­urb sent a 14-year-old boy on the ride of his life this week.

Jef­frey LaPorta trav­eled more than a quar­ter of a mile through mul­ti­ple storm sewer pipes, at times com­pletely sub­merged water, before find­ing enough breath­ing room to await res­cue. He was even­tu­ally pulled out of the sewer in less than an hour, with only scrapes and bruises.

The teen was rid­ing his bike with a friend on Tues­day through pud­dles cre­ated by the ris­ing creek, which flows near a strip mall park­ing lot in Parma. He fell into the over­flow­ing water just off the edge of the park­ing lot and was forced into a drain pipe — roughly 2 feet in diam­e­ter, author­i­ties said.

“The water was mov­ing so quickly it sucked him into the drain,” said Doug Turner, a spokesman for the Parma Fire Depart­ment. “It sucked him in and pulled him prob­a­bly 100 yards, full of water, where he couldn’t take his breath.”

The pipe car­ried Jef­frey under­neath the park­ing lot and into the suburb’s storm sewer. He was then shifted into pipes that grew increas­ingly larger, Turner said. “Now the same amount of water is flow­ing through there with a lit­tle bit big­ger of an open­ing, so his head actu­ally bobs above water a cou­ple times.”

___

Mass. schol­ars say col­lec­tor may have found only the 2nd known photo of Emily Dickinson

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — Schol­ars at Amherst Col­lege in Mass­a­chu­setts believe a col­lec­tor may have what would be just the sec­ond known photo of Emily Dickinson.

The col­lege says the col­lec­tor, who wishes to remain anony­mous, bought the photo in 1995 in Spring­field. He brought it to the college’s archive and spe­cial col­lec­tions staff in 2007, and they’ve been research­ing it since.

Last month, it was pub­licly shown dur­ing the Emily Dick­in­son Inter­na­tional Soci­ety con­fer­ence in Cleve­land, Ohio.

The daguerreo­type, dated around 1859, appears to show Dick­in­son sit­ting next to a friend, Kate Scott Turner.

There’s strong evi­dence it’s Dick­in­son, includ­ing com­par­isons of high-resolution dig­i­tal images of the newer photo with the known image, from 1847, said Mike Kelly, head of the archive and spe­cial col­lec­tions depart­ment at Amherst College.

___

Appeal panel vacates sus­pen­sions of 4 NFL play­ers pun­ished in Saints bounty probe

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The sus­pen­sions of Jonathan Vilma and three other play­ers in the NFL’s bounty inves­ti­ga­tion were lifted Fri­day by a three-member appeals panel and the league rein­stated those play­ers a few min­utes later.

While the rul­ing allows Saints line­backer Vilma, banned for the 2012 sea­son, Saints defen­sive end Will Smith, Cleve­land line­backer Scott Fujita and free agent defen­sive line­man Anthony Har­grove to play imme­di­ately, it does not per­ma­nently void their suspensions.

Still, the rul­ing comes just two days before the first full slate of NFL games this sea­son and is a set­back for Com­mis­sioner Roger Good­ell and the league.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Good­ell would “make an expe­dited deter­mi­na­tion of the dis­ci­pline imposed” for vio­lat­ing the league’s bounty rule.

“Until that deter­mi­na­tion is made, the four play­ers are rein­stated and eli­gi­ble to play start­ing this week­end,” Aiello said.

Posted by AP News on Sep 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.