AP News Briefs

Can­di­dates seek for­eign pol­icy edge in 3rd debate

WASHINGTON (AP) — Still neck-and-neck after all these months, Barack Obama and Mitt Rom­ney head into their third and final debate with each man eager to project an aura of per­sonal strength and lead­er­ship while rais­ing doubts about the steadi­ness and for­eign pol­icy cre­den­tials of the other guy. Each is aim­ing for a com­mand­ing per­for­mance Mon­day to set­tle the see­saw dynam­ics of the first two debates: Rom­ney gave Obama an old-fashioned shel­lack­ing in the first round, and the chas­tened pres­i­dent rebounded in their sec­ond encounter.

Analy­sis: Debat­ing world pol­icy amid tumult abroad

WASHINGTON (AP) — For months the one reli­able con­stant for Barack Obama was the public’s approval of his han­dling of for­eign pol­icy and ter­ror­ism. Al-Qaida was on the run, he would say. The war in Iraq was over. Bin Laden was dead. Crowds cheered and national polls showed a major­ity in the coun­try stood with him. But with 15 days left before Elec­tion Day, the land­scape has changed, and as Obama and Repub­li­can rival Mitt Rom­ney take their seats at their third, final and foreign-policy focused debate Mon­day evening in Boca Raton, Fla., the pres­i­dent will be fac­ing head­winds from abroad instead of the breezes that once had been at his back.

UCI agrees to strip Arm­strong of his 7 Tour titles

GENEVA (AP) — Lance Armstrong’s name is com­ing out of cycling’s record books. Arm­strong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life by cycling’s gov­ern­ing body Mon­day fol­low­ing a report from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that accused him of lead­ing a mas­sive dop­ing pro­gram on his teams.

Sus­pect in Wis. Spa attack had his­tory of abuse

BROOKFIELD, Wis. (AP) — A Wis­con­sin woman whose hus­band is sus­pected in a fatal spa shoot­ing says he threat­ened to throw acid in her face and burn her with gas. Author­i­ties say Rad­cliffe Franklin Haughton shot and killed three women, injured four more then turned the gun on him­self Sun­day at a sub­ur­ban Mil­wau­kee spa where his wife worked. Police haven’t said if Zina Haughton was among those killed or wounded.

Weak­ened, al-Qaida in Afghanistan tries comeback

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A dimin­ished but resilient al-Qaida, whose 9/11 attacks drew Amer­ica into its longest war, is attempt­ing a come­back in Afghanistan’s moun­tain­ous east even as U.S. and allied forces wind down their com­bat mis­sion and con­cede a small but steady toe­hold to the ter­ror­ist group. That con­cerns U.S. com­man­ders, who have inten­si­fied strikes against al-Qaida cells in recent months. It also under­cuts an Obama admin­is­tra­tion nar­ra­tive por­tray­ing al-Qaida as bat­tered to the point of being a non­is­sue in Afghanistan as West­ern troops start leaving.

Lebanon launches major secu­rity operation

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese troops launched a major secu­rity oper­a­tion on Mon­day to open all roads and force gun­men off the streets, try­ing to con­tain an out­burst of vio­lence set off by the assas­si­na­tion of a top intel­li­gence offi­cial who was a pow­er­ful oppo­nent of Syria. Sec­tar­ian clashes killed at least five peo­ple. Oppo­nents of Syria have blamed the regime in Dam­as­cus for the killing of Lebanese Brig. Gen. Wis­sam al-Hassan in a Beirut car bomb on Fri­day. With Lebanon already tense and deeply divided over the civil war next door, the assas­si­na­tion has threat­ened to drag the coun­try back into the kind of sec­tar­ian strife that plagued it for decades — much of it linked to Syria.

Cas­tro pub­lishes arti­cle crit­i­ciz­ing health rumors

HAVANA (AP) — For­mer Cuban leader Fidel Cas­tro said he doesn’t even suf­fer from a headache in an arti­cle he pub­lished in state-media Mon­day crit­i­ciz­ing those who spread rumors he was on his death bed. The arti­cle is accom­pa­nied by pho­tos taken by son Alex Cas­tro that show the 86-year-old rev­o­lu­tion­ary icon stand­ing out­side near some trees wear­ing a checked shirt and cow­boy hat, includ­ing one in which he is seen read­ing Friday’s copy of the Com­mu­nist Party news­pa­per Granma.

11-year-old accused in Maine baby death arraigned

SKOWHEGAN, Maine (AP) — The youngest per­son to be charged with homi­cide in Maine in at least 30 years bit her nails and looked down dur­ing her first court appear­ance Mon­day. The girl was charged at age 10 with juve­nile manslaugh­ter over the sum­mer in the death of 3-month-old Brook­lyn Foss-Greenaway, who was stay­ing overnight in the girl’s home in Fair­field in the care of the girl’s mother.

Cheer­lead­ing needs sports safety rules, docs say

CHICAGO (AP) — Cheer­lead­ing isn’t just jump­ing and wav­ing pom­poms — it has become as ath­letic and poten­tially as dan­ger­ous as a sport and should be des­ig­nated one to improve safety, the nation’s lead­ing group of pedi­a­tri­cians says. The num­ber of cheer­lead­ers injured each year has climbed dra­mat­i­cally in the last two decades. Com­mon stunts that pose risks include toss­ing and flip­ping cheer­lead­ers in the air and cre­at­ing human pyra­mids that reach 15 feet high or more.

World’s old­est sur­vivor of Auschwitz dies at 108

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — An offi­cial says the old­est known for­mer pris­oner of the Auschwitz death camp has died in Poland at the age of 108. Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum, says Antoni Dobrowol­ski died Sun­day in the north­west­ern town of Debno.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Oct 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.