Today's Top News
Austrian father reveals his "addiction" to incest
05.13.08 -- 10:41 AM
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian Josef Fritzl said he became addicted to incest with his daughter, who bore him seven children, and had imprisoned her in a cellar to save her from the outside world.
In comments related by his lawyer to weekly magazine News, Fritzl, who locked up Elisabeth in 1984 when she was 18, said he started raping his daughter a year later.
"My drive to have sex with Elisabeth grew stronger and stronger," Fritzl was quoted as saying.
"I knew Elisabeth didn't want me to do what I did to her. I knew that I was hurting her. ... It was like an addiction ... In reality, I wanted children with her."
Elisabeth, 42, spent nearly a quarter of a century in a windowless cell in the basement of Fritzl's house, giving birth to seven of his children, now aged between 19 and 5 years.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Obama defends his patriotism, quarrels with McCain
05.13.08 -- 10:28 AM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Wearing a flag lapel pin, Sen. Barack Obama emphasized his patriotism and support for a strong and humane military Monday, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton implored West Virginians to sustain her hopes of somehow denying him the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama expects Clinton to win Tuesday's primary in West Virginia, which has large numbers of working-class whites - a group that usually backs the former first lady - as well as a strong military tradition. He used his visit to Charleston to combat critics' claims that he is not particularly patriotic or ready to be commander in chief, in part because he never served in the military, usually does not wear a flag pin, and opposed the Iraq war from the start.
Obama broke from his usual practice by wearing the flag pin and reading his speech instead of talking without notes. He told several thousand people at the Charleston Civic Center that patriotism means more than saluting flags and holding parades. He criticized Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain for opposing a Democratic bill to expand education benefits for veterans.
"At a time when we're facing the largest homecoming since the Second World War," Obama said of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, "the true test of our patriotism is whether we will serve our returning heroes as well as they've served us."
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Superdelegates put Obama within mathematical reach
05.13.08 -- 10:20 AM
Barack Obama's wave of superdelegate endorsements puts him within reach of the Democratic presidential nomination by the end of the primary season on June 3 - even if he loses half of the remaining six contests.
The Illinois senator has picked up 26 superdelegates in the past week. At that pace, he will reach the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination - 2,025 - in the next three weeks, when delegates from the remaining primaries are included.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's best chance to slow Obama is to move the goal posts. She will get that chance May 31 when the Democratic National Committee's rules panel considers proposals to seat the delegates that had been stripped from Florida and Michigan. Those two states violated national party rules by holding their primaries in January and lost their delegates.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Top Michigan Democrats suggest splitting delegates
04.29.08 -- 4:39 PM
Michigan Democrats working to get the state's delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday suggested splitting them 69-59 between presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
The Democratic National Committee stripped Michigan of its 128 delegates for holding its presidential primary too early in the year.
Clinton has argued that she should get 73 delegates based on the results of the Jan. 15 primary, which she won - 18 more than Obama.
Obama, who removed his name from the ballot, wants the 128 pledged delegates split evenly, 64-64.
The compromise, suggested Tuesday in a letter to Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer, fell halfway between the two proposals.
The DNC stripped Florida and Michigan of their convention delegates - 366 in all, including pledged delegates and superdelegates - for holding their primaries too early in the nominating process, which violated party rules
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Obama Says Race Not An Issue In Election
04.27.08 -- 9:35 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama, struggling to win over white Democratic voters, said in a Sunday television interview that race would not be a factor in November's U.S. presidential election.
"Is race still a factor in our society? Yes. I don't think anybody would deny that," Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, said on "Fox News Sunday."
"Is that going to be the determining factor in a general election? No, because I'm absolutely confident that the American people -- what they're looking for is somebody who can solve their problems," the Illinois senator said in an interview taped on Saturday.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Republicans McCain and Huckabee dodge talk of VP slot
04.26.08 -- 2:03 PM
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain and former rival Mike Huckabee dodged talk of whether Huckabee could be McCain's vice presidential running mate as they campaigned together on Friday.
Former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee maintained his race for the Republican presidential nomination even after it was clear McCain was going to clinch the position, only withdrawing once McCain secured sufficient nominating delegates in March.
The two men, however, have developed a friendly relationship -- based in part on the chats they had while sometimes waiting lengthy periods for questions to come to them during many Republican presidential debates.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Democrats favored in electoral map
04.26.08 -- 1:44 PM
The electoral road to the White House favors Democrats this fall - either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton - and has Republican John McCain playing defense to thwart a presidential power shift.
A downtrodden economy, the war in Iraq and a public call for change have created an Electoral College outlook and a political environment filled with extraordinary opportunity for the Democrats and enormous challenge for the GOP nominee-in-waiting.
Both parties count on victory in dozens of states that long have voted their way. The competition to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win is expected to play out primarily in 14 states. All but one saw the greatest action in 2004. The exception is Virginia, a longtime Republican stronghold where Democrats have made inroads.
Eight of the states went for President Bush four years ago, including the crown jewels Ohio and Florida. Six, including big-prize Pennsylvania, voted for Democrat John Kerry. In the battlegrounds, far more electoral votes, 97, are up for grabs for Democrats than the 69 available for McCain to go after. Twice as many of the closest states - decided by 2 or fewer percentage points - voted Republican in 2004; they include New Mexico and Iowa, which the GOP won by 1 point.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
Clinton challenges Obama to Lincoln-Douglas style debate
04.26.08 -- 1:30 PM
MARION, Ind. (AP) - Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned up the rhetoric Saturday in their increasingly heated primary battle as she issued a new debate challenge and he complained of a race that's largely been reduced to trivia while working families feel economic pain.
Clinton took the debate dispute to a new level, challenging Obama to face off with her in a debate without a moderator, Lincoln-Douglas style.
"Just the two of us, going for 90 minutes, asking and answering questions, we'll set whatever rules seem fair," Clinton said while campaigning in South Bend.
Her campaign made the offer formal with a letter to the Obama campaign. Obama aides said they were studying the letter.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(2) | Email to a friend
Pitched Contest for Pa. Youth Vote
04.06.08 -- 2:24 PM
Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are hustling for the youth vote in Pennsylvania as if they've never heard this is a state where the old hold sway.
Campuses in the cities and mountainsides are alive with political activism, stirred most notably by Obama in student registration drives aimed at replicating his success with young voters dating to the Iowa caucus in January.
How motivated are his youthful supporters? So motivated that Alyssa Beasley, 20, endured an encounter with the DMV so she could switch her driver's license from New Jersey and register to vote at the same time.
And how high are their expectations? In Beasley's case, very.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(1) | Email to a friend
Deal on Mich., Fla. Unlikely Before June
04.06.08 -- 1:44 PM
A deal to allow delegates from Florida and Michigan to participate at the Democratic National Convention is unlikely before summer, party chief Howard Dean said Sunday.
Dean said that was partly because presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama want to focus on the coming round of contests. Next on the schedule are Pennsylvania on April 22 and Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, followed by several other states and U.S. territories. Voting ends June 3.
But he continued to express confidence that an agreement would be reached to seat delegates from both states.
Read more | Save and Share | Trackbacks(0) | Comments(0) | Email to a friend
