AP News in Brief
Journalists return to US after N. Korea grants pardon and Bill Clinton helps win release
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton and two American journalists flew back to the United States on Wednesday for what was expected to be an emotional reunion with family and friends after the reporters spent the last four months detained in North Korea.
Euna Lee and Laura Ling were granted a pardon by North Korea following rare talks between Clinton and the reclusive leader Kim Jong Il. They had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally.
The women, dressed in short-sleeved shirts and jeans, appeared healthy as they climbed the steps to the plane and shook hands with Clinton before getting into the jet. Clinton waved, put his hand over his heart and then saluted.
North Korean officials waved as the plane took off. Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said the flight was bound for Los Angeles, where the journalists will be reunited with their families.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hailed their release.
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Ahmadinejad sworn in as Iran president amid crisis
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in Wednesday for a second term as president nearly two months after a disputed election triggered massive street protests, split Iran's clerical leadership and brought attacks from within his own conservative camp over mistreatment of detained opposition activists.
In streets near parliament, security forces using batons dispersed hundreds of protesters who chanted "Death to the Dictator," witnesses said. Some wore black T-shirts in a sign of grief and others wore green — the color of the opposition movement. A middle-aged woman carried a banner warning Iran's leaders if they do not listen to people's demands, they will face the same fate as Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The opposition had called for demonstrations to coincide with the inauguration and a number of its key leaders — and all three of Ahmadinejad's election challengers — boycotted the swearing in ceremony in parliament.
In his inaugural address, Ahmadinejad seemed to tone down his often-bellicose rhetoric and emphasized his plans to improve the faltering economy. He demanded that Iran be on an equal footing with other world powers, denounced foreign interference and said other governments must be held accountable for their actions.
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Gunman walks quietly into Pittsburgh-area health club, starts shooting, leaves 4 dead, 9 hurt
BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Investigators were trying to piece together the motive of a gunman who walked into an exercise class in suburban Pittsburgh and fired dozens of shots, killing three women and himself and injuring nine other women, authorities said.
Two women and the man believed to be the shooter died at the scene Tuesday night and another woman died on the way to a hospital, Allegheny County police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said at a news conference in the parking lot of the LA Fitness center in Collier Township early Wednesday.
Moffatt said police were not sure who the target of the shooting was but that the gunman went into the health club planning to shoot several people — firing "multiple" weapons "indiscriminately," Moffatt said — and did not say anything before unleashing a burst of bullets.
"He walked right into the room where the shootings occurred as if he knew exactly where he was going," Moffatt said.
The violence rocked Collier, a bedroom community of about 5,300 residents near Interstate 79, some eight miles southwest of downtown Pittsburgh.
Moffatt said the gunman was a member of the health club and had identification but that police needed to check fingerprints and speak to his family to confirm his identity. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner said three of the four victims had been positively identified early Wednesday, but their names would likely not be released before midmorning.
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Senate will approve 'cash-for-clunkers' extension, Democratic and GOP leaders say
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has cleared the way for a vote extending the "cash-for-clunkers" program, which offers car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 for trading in their gas-guzzlers for new, higher-mileage models, setting aside Republican opposition to the plan.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he had the votes to pass a $2 billion extension already approved by the House. The funding would triple the cost of $1 billion rebate program and give as many as a half-million more Americans the chance to grab the new car incentives through September.
Many Republicans oppose the plan but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., predicted his party would not block a vote.
"The matter will be completed," McConnell said.
Lawmakers hoped for a vote late Wednesday or Thursday.
Senate passage would send the legislation to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature and assure consumers there will be no interruption in the program that has led to packed car dealerships nationwide. Vice President Joe Biden called the program "an unqualified success" as Obama officials sought passage for the extension.
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AP sources: US monitoring Russian subs off East Coast, an action reminiscent of the Cold War
MOSCOW (AP) — A top Russian general says two nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines that have been spotted off the U.S. East Coast are part of regular patrols.
Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, says the patrols are not newsworthy.
Nogovitsyn said Wednesday Russia resumed the submarine patrols after restarting strategic bomber patrol flights in 2007.
U.S. defense officials said Tuesday that the Russian submarines had been patrolling in international waters for several days. While the activity was reminiscent of the Cold War, the U.S. officials said the submarines had done nothing to provoke concern.
Nogovitsyn said the patrols were "a normal thing" and suggested the U.S. also has submarines patrolling near Russia.
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Obama ventures back to hurting region — with money
WASHINGTON (AP) — Venturing back to a region reeling in deep unemployment, President Barack Obama's latest mission in Indiana is to show that the costly stimulus plan he lobbied for is producing tangible help — $2.4 billion in taxpayer grants to create electric cars and tens of thousands of jobs.
At a recreational-vehicle plant in northern Indiana, Obama on Wednesday will announce the grants and try to stabilize American confidence. His stop in Wakarusa, Ind., is part of a concerted economic campaign that also will see Vice President Joe Biden and four Cabinet secretaries holding events in five states.
As Congress breaks for the summer, the public message war is on. Obama wants to persuade Americans that his economic agenda is working but also that it will take time to produce the number that people really want: more jobs.
That matters immensely in the region where Obama is headed, a capital of RV manufacturing. The industry has been crushed by the recession.
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Senate conducts historic debate on Sotomayor, in line to become Supreme Court's first Hispanic
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are lining up to criticize Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as unfit for the bench while Democrats offer effusive praise of the judge whose confirmation this week as the first Hispanic justice is all but assured.
The Senate is continuing a history-making debate on Sotomayor, dominated by Republican charges that she would bring bias to the court and assertions from Democrats that she's a mainstream moderate. Nearly three-quarters of GOP senators oppose Sotomayor, leaving just a handful breaking with their party to join Democrats in backing President Barack Obama's first high court nominee.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., calls Sotomayor's nomination a "truly an American story" that reflects the American dream. "She's a restrained, experienced and thoughtful judge who has shown no bias in her rulings," Leahy said.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Republican and his party's pointman on Sotomayor, called her a devotee of an approach that heeds "the seductive siren call of judicial activism" and is contrary to the "classical underpinnings" of the nation's legal system.
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Billy the Kid: An outlaw, and an articulate one, as letters to New Mexico governor show
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The handwritten letter to the governor is polite, articulate and to the point.
"Dear Sir," begins the missive. "I wish you would come down to the jail and see me."
The sender of the letter to territorial governor Lew Wallace was none other than Billy the Kid, the legendary gunslinger who was being held in the Santa Fe jail at the time. Just four months later, the Kid was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett.
But in a boon to history lovers and Billy the Kid buffs, that March 1881 letter and an earlier letter to the governor from New Mexico's most famous outlaw are now in a state history library in Santa Fe and available for public viewing.
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Autopsy: NY mom was drunk, smoking pot before wrong-way crash that killed her, 7 others
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — A mother drank vodka and smoked marijuana while taking a vanload of children home from a weekend camping trip that ended in disaster when she went the wrong way on a highway and crashed into an SUV, killing eight people, police said Tuesday.
Diane Schuler, who died along with her 2-year-old daughter and three nieces in her red minivan, had more than 10 drinks of alcohol in her system and a high level of the main ingredient in marijuana, authorities said. A broken 1.75-liter bottle of Absolut vodka was found in her wrecked minivan, police said.
The revelations from the 36-year-old Long Island woman's autopsy helped explain how the woman her family called "an accomplished working mother who always put her children before any other priorities" wound up driving the wrong way for nearly two miles on a suburban parkway before slamming into the SUV.
The July 26 crash on the Taconic State Parkway, about 35 miles northwest of New York City, also killed three men in the SUV. Schuler's 5-year-old son, in her minivan, survived.
Investigators said Schuler had been driving erratically on other upstate roads before getting on the highway for the 140-mile trip home.
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Amid contract talks, Paula Abdul says she's quitting 'American Idol' with sad heart
LOS ANGELES (AP) — If Paula Abdul's abrupt Twitter announcement that she's quitting "American Idol" is a contract negotiating ploy, it's a spectacular one.
If not, she's potentially blown a hole in TV's top-rated show — and rejected an eight-figure deal that represented a 30 percent raise, according to a person familiar with the talks. The person, lacking authority to speak publicly, asked not to be identified.
Abdul dropped her online bombshell Tuesday evening, right before season-nine auditions begin Friday in Denver. That has the whiff of a pressure tactic on Abdul's part, although boycotting the early auditions that skip from city to city might have been a less dramatic way to negotiate.
Her tweets, however, seemed to have an air of finality.
"With sadness in my heart, I've decided not to return" to Fox's singing contest, Abdul said on her Twitter account. "I'll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day 1 become an international phenomenon."
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AP Interview: Aaron says 104 names on performance-enhancing drug list should be released
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Hank Aaron wants the list of players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 to be released.
In a wide-ranging interview Tuesday night with The Associated Press, the Hall of Famer said releasing the list would help Major League Baseball get past the so-called "Steroid Era." The list was supposed to remain anonymous and is now under court seal, but big names have continued to leak out.
"I wish for once and forever that we could come out and say we have 100 and some names, name them all and get it over and let baseball go on," the former home run king said. "I don't know how they keep leaking out. I just wish that they would name them all and get it over with."
Aaron also wanted to make a few other things clear.
No, he has not spoken with commissioner Bud Selig about banned Pete Rose being reinstated in baseball. But he does think it's time Rose, the career hits leader, be reinstated and voted into the Hall of Fame.
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