DES MOINES, Iowa — Rep. Tom Tancredo, who built his longshot presidential campaign on opposition to illegal immigration, dropped out Thursday and endorsed Republican rival Mitt Romney as the best man to carry on the fight. Tancredo, a five-term congressman from Colorado, has consistently polled at the bottom of the nine-person Republican field. He announced his withdrawal two weeks before Iowa begins the presidential nominating process with its precinct caucuses. Tancredo has hinted he would consider running for the Senate after his presidential bid.
Missouri: Giuliani out of hospital
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was released from a St. Louis hospital Thursday after spending the night to undergo tests for flulike symptoms. “I feel great. Take care. Merry Christmas, I’m feeling fine thanks to the hospital. They did a good job,” a smiling and waving Giuliani said as he left Barnes-Jewish Hospital en route to returning to New York. His campaign said he would make planned stops in New Hampshire on Saturday and Sunday.
@3. Headline Briefs 14 no:Museum will get Clinton’s sax
Former President Clinton has donated the saxophone he played at his inauguration to the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City. The attraction is part of the historic 18th and Vine district, where musicians often play into the early morning at an old union hall called the Mutual Musicians Foundation. The saxophone, which is expected to be handed over in a public ceremony today, had been in the collection of Clinton’s presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.
Illinois: FAA cites control error
Another error by controllers at an air traffic center put planes too close to each other over central Illinois, but they were never in danger of colliding, the Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday. It was the second error by controllers at the FAA’s Chicago Center radar facility in Aurora reported this week. A Boeing 737 jet came within 3.6 miles horizontally of a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 about 20 miles from Springfield on Wednesday, an FAA spokesman said. Minimum spacing between planes is five miles horizontally or 1,000 feet vertically.
California: New rules for cops
The Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously Thursday to impose a controversial anti-corruption policy that will require hundreds of police officers serving in anti-gang and narcotics units to disclose personal financial information. The decision deeply angered police union officials, who responded by filing a lawsuit seeking an injunction to bar the disclosures. The policy calls for officers to disclose outside income, real estate, stocks and other assets, and debts. They also have to report the size of any bank accounts and disclose financial holdings they share with family members.
D.C.: District will get a quarter
The District of Columbia is getting a place on the quarter’s flip side. After nearly 10 years of lobbying, a measure tucked into a massive federal spending bill passed by Congress will extend the popular state quarter program to the nation’s capital as well as five territories: American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The D.C. quarter is due in 2009.
S. Carolina: Monks quit egg sales
A monastery will halt its egg farming business after claims by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that the trappist monks mistreated hens. Father Stan Gumula of Mepkin Abbey said Wednesday that pressure from PETA has made it difficult for the monks to live a quiet life of prayer, work and sacred reading. He said the monks were sad to give up “a hard and honorable work of which they are proud.” The monks admitted no wrongdoing.
Panama: Invasion anniversary
The anniversary of the 1989 U.S. invasion was declared a day of “national mourning” by Panama’s legislature on Thursday, and it established a commission to determine how many people were killed when U.S. troops stormed the capital. The measure was approved as Panama commemorated the 18th anniversary of the day thousands of troops landed to arrest dictator Manuel Noriega. “This is a recognition of those who fell on Dec. 20 as a result of the cruel and unjust invasion by the most powerful army in the world,” said Rep. Cesar Pardo, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party.
Canada: Sentence for sex abuse
A Canadian man who sexually abused his 4-year-old daughter live on the Internet so another man could watch was sentenced in Toronto on Thursday to four years in prison. A detective who played a key role in catching the 35-year-old man criticized the judge’s sentence as too lenient. The father was arrested in October 2006, just hours after he used a webcam to expose his daughter to another man during a chat room conversation.
From Herald news services
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
