AP News in Brief
By The Associated Press
AP IMPACT: Convicted terrorist with mysterious background to be released from US prison
NEW YORK (AP) — In 1973, a young terrorist named Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary entered the United States and quickly began plotting an audacious attack in New York City.
He built three powerful bombs — bombs powerful enough to kill, maim and destroy — and put them in rental cars scattered around town, near Israeli targets.
The plot failed. The explosive devices did not detonate, and Al-Jawary fled the country, escaping prosecution for nearly two decades — until he was convicted of terrorism charges in Brooklyn and sentenced to 30 years in federal penitentiary.
But his time is up.
In less than a month, the 63-year-old Al-Jawary is expected to be released. He will likely be deported; where to is anybody’s guess. The shadowy figure had so many aliases it’s almost impossible to know which country is his true homeland.
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Obama focuses on big, nonideological issues in making clear break with unpopular Bush policies
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama opened his presidency by breaking sharply from George W. Bush’s unpopular administration, but he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. He focused instead on fixing the economy, repairing a battered world image and cleaning up government.
“What an opportunity we have to change this country,” the Democrat told his senior staff after his inauguration. “The American people are really counting on us now. Let’s make sure we take advantage of it.”
In the highly scripted first days of his administration, Obama overturned a slew of Bush policies with great fanfare. He largely avoided cultural issues; the exception was reversing one abortion-related policy, a predictable move done in a very low-profile way.
The flurry of activity was intended to show that Obama was making good on his promise to bring change. Yet domestic and international challenges continue to pile up, and it’s doubtful that life will be dramatically different for much of the ailing country anytime soon.
Obama’s biggest agenda items — stabilizing the economy and ending the Iraq war — are complex tasks with results not expected soon. Even as Obama made broad pronouncements and signed a stream of executive orders to usher in a new governing era, his actions leave unanswered or unresolved questions, including how he will close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists.
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We were just doing our jobs, Hudson River pilot tells celebratory hometown crowd
DANVILLE, Calif. (AP) — The pilot who safely landed a US Airways jetliner in the Hudson River says he was only doing his job.
Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is being given a hero’s homecoming in Danville, the San Francisco suburb he calls home.
During brief remarks at Saturday’s celebration, Sullenberger said circumstance determined he would be flying with an experienced crew on Jan. 15.
Sullenberger says, “We were simply doing the jobs we were paid to do.”
Around 3,000 people gathered under drizzly skies in the town square to welcome Sullenberger home.
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On first day back at school, Gaza students recall lost classmates, absorb 3 weeks of war
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of children returned to schools across Gaza on Saturday after three weeks of war, playing games for some relief from the devastation and telling friends and teachers about the explosions they heard and relatives they lost.
In one classroom, signs with the names of three 14-year-old boys killed in the fighting were set on their desks — and their deskmates sat with stunned expressions next to the empty seats as the teacher encouraged the class to talk about their experiences.
“It’s very hard when one used to see 30 students in class, and after what happened, I see 27,” their teacher, Bassam Salha told the class at the U.N.’s Fakhoura Elementary school. “We lived three weeks in sadness. I want you students to help me to get out of the sad mood I am in now.”
Meanwhile, an Israeli foreign office official said President Barack Obama’s newly-appointed special envoy to the Middle East is expected in Israel on Wednesday for talks on reviving Mideast peace negotiations after the Gaza fighting and on ensuring an arms blockade on the territory’s Hamas rulers.
George J. Mitchell will meet with Israel’s prime minister and other leaders, as well as the Palestinian president and prime minister in the West Bank, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because there has not yet been an announcement from Washington. The White House and State Department declined to comment.
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Arrests indicate Mexico’s top police may have favored powerful drug cartel
MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug trafficking has led to his own doorstep, with the arrest of a dozen high-ranking officials with alleged ties to Mexico’s most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa Cartel.
The U.S. praises Calderon for rooting out corruption at the top. But critics say the arrests reveal nothing more than a timeworn government tactic of protecting one cartel and cracking down on others.
Operation Clean House comes just as the U.S. is giving Mexico its first installment of $400 million in equipment and technology to fight drugs. Most will go to a beefed-up federal police agency run by the same people whose top aides have been arrested as alleged Sinaloa spies.
“If there is anything worse than a corrupt and ill-equipped cop, it is a corrupt and well-equipped cop,” said criminal justice expert Jorge Chabat, who studies the drug trade.
U.S. drug enforcement agents say they have no qualms about sending support to Mexico.
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Obama tells Americans what’s in his economic aid plan for them, then meets economic advisers
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama met with his economic advisers Saturday after he asked Americans to support his economic package as a way to better schools, lower electricity bills and health coverage for millions who lose insurance.
The two-hour session in the Roosevelt Room focused the proposed $825 billion economic stimulus package that Congress is considering. The group also discussed the upcoming federal budget, Obama’s first chance to shape the country’s spending amid a recession that lost 2.6 million jobs last year, the most in a single year since World War II.
“Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. And we could lose a generation of potential, as more young Americans are forced to forgo college dreams or the chance to train for the jobs of the future,” Obama said in a five-minute address released Saturday morning by radio and the Internet.
“In short, if we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.”
It was the latest appeal from the new president for a massive spending bill designed to inject almost $1 trillion into the economy and fulfill campaign pledges. Obama spent much of last week wooing reluctant legislators — many from his own Democratic Party — and weighing whether there’s a need for a second economic package, which aides refused to rule out.
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Economic crisis straining college aid system, parents’ nerves as financial aid season opens
CHICAGO (AP) — Finding financial aid for college this year promises to be tougher than any final exam.
The quest for money that begins for students and parents every January has taken on new urgency in 2009 amid fears that loans and grants will be scarcer than in the past due to the recession.
“The financing system for college is in real crisis,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. “Every one of the participants in the system is experiencing hardship — higher education institutions, states, aid donors and families all are cash-strapped.”
Federal student loans remain readily available — with some funding even increased recently by Congress. But the prospect that grants and scholarships may be cut at many schools, combined with the shrinking availability of private loans, has fueled widespread angst at a time when more people than ever are seeking help. Applications for federal aid for the current academic year already are running 10 percent above last year’s record pace, according to the Department of Education.
Savings held in Section 529 plans — the state-sponsored investment funds for college that are popular for their tax breaks — have been depleted by the worst bear market in decades and home equity values have plummeted. That has sapped two sources most tapped by parents to fund their children’s higher education. Colleges’ endowments have been similarly walloped.
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Brazil model who lost hands, feet to infection dies; had sought to aid poor family by modeling
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — One month ago, 20-year-old beauty queen Mariana Bridi was living the dream of many young Brazilian women, trading her striking good looks for a modeling career that promised to lift her family out of poverty.
Then she contracted a seemingly ordinary urinary tract infection. The bacteria spread quickly and inexorably through her body, proving to be extremely drug resistant. In a desperate bid to save her life, doctors amputated her hands and feet. But by Saturday she was dead.
“God is comforting our hearts because he wanted her to be with him now,” her father Agnaldo Costa told reporters outside the hospital where his daughter died. “I can’t accept that my daughter left us so soon.”
Bridi’s Web site says she began modeling at age 14 with the hope of giving “a dignified life to her parents.”
Her father is a taxi driver and her mother a house cleaner.
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He’s a jewel of a plumber: Mr. Rooter recovers woman’s $70K diamond ring from eatery’s toilet
PHOENIX (AP) — Just a case of plumb luck.
It took a plumber to retrieve a woman’s 7-carat diamond ring after city workers failed in efforts to flush the gem out of the pipes of a restaurant toilet.
The $78,000 engagement ring fell from Allison Berry’s hand when she flushed the toilet in the restroom of the Black Bear Diner on Jan. 14. The ring plopped in and the water whisked it away, said Elena Castelar, the restaurant’s shift manager.
City workers opened a pipe outside the restaurant and continuously flushed the toilet, hoping to push the ring out to the opening. When that didn’t work, the city called the office in suburban Tempe of Mr. Rooter, a plumbing services franchise based in Waco, Texas.
“This is going to be like dredging for a treasure chest in the ocean,” Mike Roberts, general manager of Mr. Rooter, said at the time.
Roberts guided a tiny video camera into the pipe with an infrared light attached. He eventually spotted the ring just 3 feet down and 5 feet over from where it was flushed.
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Poor economy hits Super Bowl in subtle ways, but its famous luster won’t be lost
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The sagging economy has put a hit on plans for this year’s Super Bowl, not that visitors to Tampa for the game and hundreds of millions watching on TV will be able to tell the difference.
America’s bacchanalian bash in honor of football will still roll for the TV cameras with all its over-the-top glitz. Yet there are signs — fewer and smaller parties, maybe not quite so many reporters and traveling fans — that the shine will be a little less bright this year.
The game will still be sold out. The town will be crawling with party-hopping celebrities. Hotels will be busy, fans wearing Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals garb will be ubiquitous on the streets, and hundreds of media members will descend to cover the event, which will still likely be the nation’s most-watched TV broadcast this year.
The impact of the nation’s economic woes on the event are more subtle.
The Super Bowl Host Committee had to lower its fundraising goal by $1 million. Corporations that are sponsoring the game are sending fewer bigwigs to town. A couple of the big Super Bowl parties and other events were bagged, others are downsizing, and some media companies — especially hard hit by the downturn and the changing habits of news consumers — are sending fewer scribes to cover the game.
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