Wednesday, July 11, 2012

“If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him,” Romney told the group’s annual convention. Pausing as some in the crowd heckled, he added, “You take a look!”

“For real?” yelled someone in the crowd.

The reception was occasionally rocky though generally polite as the Republican presidential candidate sought to woo a Democratic bloc that voted heavily for Obama four years ago and is certain to do so again. Romney was booed when he vowed to repeal “Obamacare” – the Democrat’s signature health care measure – and the crowd interrupted him when he accused Obama of failing to spark a more robust economic recovery.

“I know the president has said he will do those things. But he has not. He cannot. He will not,” Romney said as the crowd’s murmurs turned to groans.

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1 more time: GOP-controlled House votes to repeal Obama health law, gets 5 Dem defectors

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pressing an election-year point, Republicans pushed yet another bill through the House on Wednesday to repeal the nation’s two-year-old health care law, a maneuver that forced Democrats to choose between President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement and a public that is persistently skeptical of its value.

The vote was 244-185, with five Democratic defectors siding with Republicans.

By Republican count, the vote marked the 33rd time in 18 months that the tea party-infused GOP majority has tried to eliminate, defund or otherwise scale back the program — opponents scornfully call it “Obamacare” — since the GOP took control of the House.

Repeal this year by Congress is doomed, since the Democratic-controlled Senate will never agree.

But Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam said before joining other Republicans in Wednesday’s House vote: “Here’s the good news. The voters get the last word in November. Stay tuned.”

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US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s office says the Chicago Democrat being treated for ‘mood disorder’

CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is under intensive medical treatment for a “mood disorder,” his office said in a brief statement Wednesday, more than a month after the Chicago Democrat quietly went on a medical leave of absence.

No details about where Jackson is being treated were included in the statement, which was released amid mounting pressure that he reveal his whereabouts and exact medical condition. Jackson went on leave June 10, though his office didn’t disclose it until weeks later and has been mum on details ever since.

Staff members said the statement Wednesday was from Jackson’s physician but that the doctor’s name and location would not be released because of federal privacy laws.

“The Congressman is receiving intensive medical treatment at a residential treatment facility for a mood disorder,” the statement said. “He is responding positively to treatment and is expected to make a full recovery.”

Jackson’s office said reports about the 47-year-old congressman being treated for “alcohol or substance abuse” weren’t true. His spokesman declined to elaborate on the statement.

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Syrian opposition figure says Syrian ambassador to Iraq has defected

ISTANBUL (AP) — The Syrian ambassador to Iraq has defected, denouncing President Bashar Assad in a TV statement Wednesday, becoming the most senior diplomat to abandon the regime during a bloody 16-month uprising.

Nawaf Fares, a former provincial governor, is the second prominent Syrian to break with the regime in less than a week. Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, an Assad confidant and son of a former defense minister, fled Syria last week, buoying Western powers and anti-regime activists, who expressed hope that other high-ranking defections would follow.

The high-level defections could be a sign that Assad’s tightly wrapped regime is unraveling, but it was too early to be certain. There have been thousands of defections in the past, mostly low-level army conscripts, but until now no one as senior as the general and the ambassador had fled.

In a statement broadcast on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Fares said he was resigning and joining the opposition. Wearing a dark suit and reading from a prepared text in what appeared to be a large office, Fares harshly criticized Assad.

“I’m announcing from this moment on that I’m siding with the revolution in Syria,” he said, according to the Al-Jazeera translation into English. He called on all Syrians to abandon Assad.

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Tears flow like water as Muslim Bosnians bury 520 newly identified Srebrenica massacre victims

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The pain that seared Srebrenica 17 years ago burned fresh Wednesday as tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims came to bury their dead in the town whose name is now synonymous with genocide.

In a ceremony broadcast live on television across the country, 520 coffins were placed in the ground as tears flowed like water from family and friends.

On the anniversary of Europe’s worst massacre since World War II, 30,000 Muslims traveled to a memorial center in Srebrenica to honor the thousands of Muslim men and boys slaughtered in July 1995 by Serb forces.

Izabela Hasanovic, 27, sobbed over one of the coffins before it was lowered into a freshly dug pit.

“My father, my father is here,” she sobbed. “I cannot believe that my father is in this coffin. I cannot accept it!”

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W.Va. sheriff says woman was tortured; husband denies malicious wounding charge

LEROY, W.Va. (AP) — While her husband returned a rototiller to a West Virginia rental shop, a limping woman sneaked into another part of the building seeking help. Soon, court papers say, she was at a shelter with a horrifying tale: She had been held captive for the better part of a decade — beaten, burned and even shackled during childbirth.

Investigators said they have 45 photographs showing burns on her back and breasts from irons and frying pans, and scars on her wrists and ankles. Now her husband is in jail and authorities are investigating what Jackson County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Boggs called one of the most terrible cases he’s seen.

“This appears to go beyond abuse to what I would consider torture,” he said Wednesday.

Authorities said Peter Lizon, 37, was in jail Wednesday on $300,000 bond. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday on a malicious wounding charge, they said.

The criminal complaint says 43-year-old Stephanie Lizon told another woman at a Parkersburg shelter that her husband smashed her foot with a piece of farm equipment, among other things.

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In letter surfacing on eve of highly anticipated report, Paterno defends program’s integrity

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno defended his program’s integrity in a 7-month-old letter released Wednesday, a day ahead of a report that could forever mar his legacy.

In the letter, written shortly before his death and confirmed as legitimate by his family, Paterno rejected the notion that his former assistant Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of boys amounted to a “football scandal” or tarnished the accomplishments of his players or Penn State’s reputation as a whole.

The results of Penn State’s internal investigation into the Sandusky scandal are set to be released Thursday in a report that should answer many of the troubling questions swirling around one of the worst scandals in sports history.

A team led by former federal judge and FBI ex-director Louis Freeh interviewed hundreds of people to learn how the university responded to warning signs that its once-revered former assistant football coach — a man who helped Paterno win two national titles for a university that touted “success with honor” — was a serial child molester.

Sandusky was convicted on 45 criminal counts last month at a trial that included gut-wrenching testimony from eight young men who said he abused them as boys. By contrast, the Freeh report, to be released online at 9 a.m. Thursday, will focus on Penn State and what it did — or didn’t do — to protect children.

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Marine biologist names blood-sucking parasite in Caribbean after reggae icon Bob Marley

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — A tiny blood-sucking parasite that infests fish on Caribbean coral reefs has been named after Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley.

Arkansas State University marine biologist Paul Sikkel discovered the parasite off the U.S. Virgin Islands a decade ago but it was only recently unveiled as “Gnathia marleyi” as an homage to the singer.

Sikkel says he dubbed the tiny crustacean due to his “respect and admiration” for Marley, who died in 1981.

The National Science Foundation says the creature is a new species within the family of gnathiids, parasites commonly found on coral reefs that are ecologically similar to blood-sucking ticks on land. It infests some fish that inhabit reefs of the shallow eastern Caribbean.

Celebrities such as comedian Stephen Colbert and singer Beyonce have had insects named after them.

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Hubble Space Telescope spies smallest moon yet around dwarf planet Pluto; fifth overall

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pluto may have been kicked out of the planet club, but it has gained yet another companion.

Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of the smallest moon yet around the icy orb, bringing the tally of known moons to five.

“We’re not finished searching yet,” said Hal Weaver of Johns Hopkins University, who thinks there may be more lurking.

The discovery was made by a team of scientists who used the Hubble Space Telescope to scout out Pluto’s neighborhood ahead of a NASA spacecraft that’s scheduled to arrive in 2015. When the New Horizons craft launched in 2006, Pluto was a full-fledged planet, but has since been demoted to dwarf planet status by the International Astronomical Union.

The newfound moon — known as P5 until it gets a proper name — appeared as a faint fleck in the Hubble images. Scientists estimated the mini-moon to be 6 to 15 miles across, smaller than the still nameless one that they spotted last year, which is 8 to 21 miles wide.

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Person familiar with negotiations: Brees, Saints more than $10 million apart in the guarantees

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints still must close a significant gap in guaranteed money if they are to agree on a five-year contract worth about $100 million by Monday’s looming deadline for a long-term deal, said a person familiar with the negotiations.

The sides were more than $10 million apart in the guaranteed portion of the contract on Wednesday, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because talks are ongoing.

The stakes are high for both sides and the negotiations have lasted for months, including long gaps in communication between the two camps.

Brees, who is 33 and entering his 12th season, has never before had the chance to negotiate a contract on par with the elite quarterbacks of the game.

The Saints, meanwhile, risk alienating the best quarterback in franchise history, not to mention their fan base, by failing to make an offer to his satisfaction by Monday — the deadline for players with the franchise tag to sign long-term deals.