DETROIT — Barack Obama urged hundreds of thousands of supporters Monday to donate to the Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Gustav. The Democratic presidential nominee scaled back Labor Day speeches to unions in an effort to keep the focus on the Gulf Coast. “Instead of a speech, what I’d like to do is to ask all of us join in some silent prayer for all those Americans who are spending this Labor Day in a shelter waiting for another storm to pass,” Obama said at a rally in the shadow of General Motors’ headquarters. In an e-mail sent to hundreds of thousands of his supporters, Obama said, “Please give whatever you can afford, even $10, to make sure the American Red Cross has the resources to help those in the path of this storm.”
South Carolina: Balloon crashes
Officials said a man survived a hot air balloon crash in South Carolina when the balloon’s basket got caught in a tree about 10 feet above the ground. Officials said pilot Chuck Walz of Munith, Mich., broke his leg and pelvis Sunday morning in a crash at a balloon festival in Anderson. A fire official said Walz’s balloon may have been 9,000 feet in the air when it deflated. He said the balloon’s basket was skewered by a tree branch 10 feet from the ground and stopped the fall.
Illinois: Bipolar disorder study
Children born to older fathers face a greater chance of developing bipolar disorder, according to one of the largest studies linking mental illness with advanced paternal age. Previous research has connected schizophrenia and autism with older dads, and a Danish study published last year added bipolar disorder to the list. The new study led by researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute strengthens the evidence. The leading theory is that older men’s sperm may be more likely to develop mutations.
California: Drug user stabs himself
Police said a man tried to cut off his own arm at a restaurant in Modesto because he thought he had injected air into a vein while shooting cocaine and feared he would die unless he took drastic action. Authorities said Michael Lasiter, 33, rushed into the Denny’s restaurant late Friday and started stabbing himself in one arm with a knife he grabbed from a table. They say that when that knife didn’t work Lasiter took a butcher knife from the kitchen and dug it into his arm. He was taken to a hospital for treatment of severe cuts.
Burned bear cub get a webcam
Li’l Smokey will soon be live on the Internet. An injured American black bear cub who gained international fame after his rescue last month from the embers of a Shasta County wildfire will soon have a webcam to complement his new blog. Li’l Smokey, who was the focus of a recent “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” segment, will be seen on a 24-hour webcam, www.ltwc.org, starting this week, a wildlife rescue official in South Lake Tahoe said. “He’s doing great,” she said, adding that the bear cub now weighs 25 pounds.
Mexico: Migrants send less home
The amount of money Mexicans sent home suffered its sharpest drop on record in July as the U.S. economy slowed and the dollar fell, Mexico’s central bank reported Monday. Remittances — Mexico’s second-largest legal source of foreign income after oil — dropped by 6.9 percent in July compared with the year before. “This is the sharpest drop we have seen,” the director of economic measurement for Mexico’s central bank said. The worst previous year-over-year monthly decline was 6.3 percent in January.
Japan: Prime minister to resign
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, after less than a year of listless leadership over a sour economy, said Monday that he was resigning to prevent a “political vacuum” that could further weaken Japan’s government. The surprise announcement marks the second time in two years that a deeply unpopular, politically stymied and seemingly directionless Japanese leader has called it quits after serving less than 12 months in office. Fukuda’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, resigned last September.
India: Half a million people rescued
Indian authorities rushed doctors and medical equipment to flood-devastated northern India on Monday to ward off outbreaks of disease among the hundreds of thousands of victims crowding relief camps, officials said. Nearly half of the 1.2 million people who were left homeless when the Kosi River burst its banks two weeks ago, spilling over north India’s vast plains, had been rescued by Monday, and officials said they hope to reach the rest in the next three days.
Belgium: Mild warning for Russia
European Union leaders warned Russia on Monday that talks on a wide-ranging political and economic agreement would be postponed unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia. The threat to delay talks set for this month on the “partnership and cooperation agreement” with Russia came after Britain and eastern European nations held out for a tougher line. But Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred stronger sanctions.
From Herald news services
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