Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton ended September with more money in the bank than rival Barack Obama, holding $35 million cash on hand for the presidential primary contests to his $32 million, according to financial reports due Monday. Both were far ahead of Rudy Giuliani, the money leader on the Republican side. Giuliani reported $11.6 million in the bank for the GOP primary.
Commerical drivers’ data missing
Two laptop computers with detailed personal information about commercial drivers across the country who transport hazardous materials are missing and considered stolen. The laptops belong to a contractor working for the Transportation Security Administration and contain the names, addresses, birthdays, commercial driver’s license numbers and, in some cases, Social Security numbers of 3,930 people, according to an Oct. 12 letter from TSA to lawmakers.
Death row inmate appeal denied
The Supreme Court turned down an appeal Monday from an Arizona man, first sentenced to death in 1977, who says he has been on death row too long to be executed. Joe Clarence Smith Jr. picked up two teenage hitchhikers in the Arizona desert, a month apart, and killed them by stuffing their throats with dirt and taping their mouths. He also stabbed them repeatedly.
Texas: Storms ravage state’s north
Heavy storms swept through North Texas on Monday, flooding roads, damaging buildings and knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses. The rainy weather was blamed for at least one death and lead to numerous accidents, snarled traffic and the cancellation of 110 flights at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Minn.: Craig appeal in sex sting case
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday to overrule a county judge who refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June.
California: Cockfighting arrests
Fifty people have been charged criminally and more than 5,000 birds seized after a six-month investigation into a cockfighting operation near the Mexican border, authorities said Monday. Birds were hatched at the Nestor area of San Diego, taught to fight and then shipped out or immediately pitted against other birds, authorities said. The seized birds have been euthanized.
Drivers unaccounted for in crash
Authorities scrambled Monday to find at least nine drivers who apparently escaped from vehicles trapped in a weekend tunnel inferno that killed three people on a key transportation route north of downtown Los Angeles. Thirty-one vehicles were involved in the pileup in the curving tunnel on I-5, but the California Highway Patrol has accounted for only 23 people, including two men and a 6-year-old boy who were killed. As the highway reopened Monday, investigators worked to identify vehicles, some reduced to molten steel.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The time has come for establishing a Palestinian state and it is in the interest of the U.S. to do so, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday in one of her most forceful statements yet on the issue.
The comments from Rice, after a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, suggested that the Bush administration is determined to try to bridge the wide gaps between Israel and the Palestinians ahead of a U.S.-hosted Mideast conference.
“I wanted to say in my own voice to be able to say to as many people as possible that the United States sees the establishment of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution as absolutely essential for the future, not just of Palestinians and Israelis but also for the Middle East and indeed to American interests,” Rice said. “That’s really a message that I think only I can deliver.”
England: Boeing, Airbus jets clip
Two big passenger jets clipped wingtips while taxiing on a runway at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday night, but there were no injuries, officials said. “It was a minor collision in between two planes who just clipped each other,” a London fire brigade spokesman said. “There was no fire, no injuries, no damage.” The planes involved were a British Airways Boeing 747 and a Sri Lankan Airlines Airbus A340, the fire brigade said.
India: Tsunami warning system
India on Monday inaugurated a $32 million tsunami early warning center, which can alert people living along the coast within 13 minutes of getting data from seismic stations. The center is in southern Andhra Pradesh state. An estimated 10,700 people were killed in India from the massive 2004 earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra island that triggered a devastating tsunami.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
