World/Nation Briefs August 5, 2011

Reid announces bipartisan deal to end FAA shutdown

WASHINGTON - Congress has reached a bipartisan compromise to end the two-week partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration that has idled 74,000 federal employees and construction workers and cost the government about $30 million a day in uncollected airline ticket taxes, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Thursday.

The deal would allow the Senate to approve a House bill extending the FAA's operating authority through mid-September, including a provision that eliminates $16.5 million in air service subsidies to 13 rural communities. A vote on the bill is expected today.

Republicans had insisted on the subsidy cuts as their price for restoring the FAA to full operation. But the cuts may become moot.

The bill includes language that gives the Obama administration's transportation secretary the authority to continue subsidized service to the 13 communities if he decides it's necessary.

Democrats said they expect the White House to effectively waive or negate the cuts.

Virginia Tech locked down for hours after report of gunman

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A report of a possible gunman at Virginia Tech on Thursday set off the longest, most extensive lockdown and search on campus since the bloodbath four years ago that led the university to overhaul its emergency procedures.

No gunman was found, and the school gave the all-clear just before 3 p.m., about five hours after sirens began wailing and students and staff members started receiving warnings by phone, email and text message to lock themselves indoors. Alerts were also posted on the university's website and Twitter accounts.

Maddie Potter, a 19-year-old from Virginia Beach, holed up inside a campus wood shop, where she had been working on a class project. Staff members locked the doors and turned off the lights.

"I was pretty anxious. We had family friends who were up here when the shooting took place in 2007, so it was kind of surreal," she said. "I had my phone with me and I called both my parents."

The emergency was triggered by three teens who were attending a summer program on campus and told police they saw a man walking quickly across the grounds with what might have been a handgun covered by a cloth, authorities said.

Panetta: Defense could face deep cuts in time of austerity

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon got nearly everything it asked for during a decade of two wars shadowed by the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the rise of al-Qaida. No more.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen acknowledged that reality Thursday, saying the military is resigned to budget cuts of around $350 billion over a decade to meet the public clamor for reducing the nation's debt. But they quickly warned that more than doubling those cuts along the lines of the "doomsday mechanism" spelled out in the new debt-limit law would undermine the military.

"If it happened - and, God willing, that would not be the case - but if it did happen, it would result in a further round of very dangerous cuts across the board, defense cuts that I believe would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families, and our military's ability to protect the nation," Panetta said at his first Pentagon news conference.

Mullen, who has said repeatedly that the debt is the greatest national security threat, said any cut on that order "jeopardizes our ability to deal with the other very real and very serious threats we face around the world."

Reflecting the widespread demand for fiscal austerity, the compromise debt deal struck by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders this week will slice $350 billion from projected military spending over the next 10 years, and it leaves open the possibility of more than $500 billion in additional reductions.

Clinton: More than 2,000 killed in brutal Syrian crackdown

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday accused the Syrian government of killing more than 2,000 of its own citizens during its ongoing brutal crackdown against opposition protesters as the Obama administration moved to further isolate President Bashar Assad and his inner circle.

The administration is unhappy with Assad's actions in trying to quell the five-month-old uprising.

"We think, to date, the government is responsible for the deaths of more than 2,000 people of all ages," Clinton said, repeating the administration's position that "Assad has lost his legitimacy to govern the Syrian people."

She said the U.S. would "continue to support the Syrians themselves in their efforts to begin a peaceful and orderly transition to democracy" and renewed calls for the international community to unify behind steps to isolate Assad and his regime.

Ex-Beatle McCartney part of tabloid phone hacking scandal

LONDON - Former Beatle Paul McCartney said Thursday he would contact police over his ex-wife's claim that their private communication had been spied upon by British tabloid journalists, condemning the practice as horrendous.

In comments to journalists in Los Angeles delivered via videolink, McCartney said that he would be in touch with police as soon as he was finished with his summer tour.

"I don't think it's great. I do think it is a horrendous violation of privacy, and I do think it's been going on a long time, and I do think more people than we know knew about it. But I think I should just listen and hear what the facts are before I comment," he said.

- The Associated Press