World/Nation Briefs April 4, 2012
Romney sweeps Wisconsin, Maryland and DC
MILWAUKEE - Mitt Romney tightened his grip on the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night, sweeping primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C., with time left over to swap charges with President Barack Obama.
At a victory party in Milwaukee, Romney said Obama was "a little out of touch" after spending four years surrounded by the trappings of power and had presided over near-record job losses as well as increases in poverty, home foreclosures, government debt and gasoline prices. In Washington, Obama said things could be worse - and he predicted they would be if Romney and the Republicans got their way.
The victories enabled Romney to pad his already-wide delegate lead over Republican rival Rick Santorum, who flashed defiance in the face of pressure to abandon his own candidacy in the name of party unity.
Wisconsin was the marquee contest of the night, the only place of the three on the ballot where Santorum mounted a significant effort.
Obama's health care comments irk federal judge
HOUSTON - A federal appeals court judge on Tuesday seemed to take offense to comments President Barack Obama made earlier this week in which he warned that if the Supreme Court overturned his signature health care overhaul it would amount to overreach by an "unelected" court.
The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling later this year on whether to strike down some or all of the historic health care law.
During oral arguments in Houston in a separate challenge to another aspect of the federal health care law, U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith said Obama's comments troubled a number of people who have read them as a challenge to the authority of federal courts.
Tornadoes tear through Dallas; injuries reported
DALLAS - Tornadoes raked the Dallas area Tuesday, crumbling a wing of a nursing home, peeling roofs from dozens of homes and spiraling big-rig trailers into the air like footballs. More than a dozen injuries were reported.
Overturned cars left streets unnavigable and flattened trucks clogged highway shoulders. Preliminary estimates were that six to 12 twisters had touched down in North Texas, senior National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello said. But firm numbers would only come after survey teams checked damage Wednesday, he said.
In suburban Dallas, Lancaster police officer Paul Beck said 10 people were injured, two of them severely. Three people were injured in Arlington, including two residents of a nursing home who were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after swirling winds clipped the building, city assistant fire chief Jim Self said.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport canceled hundreds of flights and diverted others heading its way. Among the most stunning video was an industrial section of Dallas, where rows of empty tractor-trailers crumpled like soda cans littered a parking lot.
Syria says troops begin pullout from calm cities
BEIRUT - Syrian troops began pulling out Tuesday from some calm cities and headed back to their bases a week ahead of a deadline to implement an international cease-fire plan, a government official said.
The claim could not immediately be verified and activists near the capital Damascus denied troops were leaving their area. They said the day regime forces withdraw from streets, Syria will witness massive protests that will overthrow the government.
"Forces began withdrawing to outside calm cities and are returning to their bases, while in tense areas, they are pulling out to the outskirts," the government official told The Associated Press in Damascus without saying when the withdrawal began.
President Bashar Assad agreed just days ago to an April 10 deadline to implement international envoy Kofi Annan's truce plan. It requires regime forces to withdraw from towns and cities and observe a cease-fire. Rebel fighters are to immediately follow by ceasing violence.
Attack suspect upset about expulsion, teasing
OAKLAND, Calif. - One Goh's life was on the skids even before he became the suspect in the nation's biggest mass school shooting since Virginia Tech.
He was chased by creditors. He grieved the death of his brother. In January, he was expelled from Oikos University, a small Christian school where he studied nursing. And, police say, he was angry.
Goh, who was born in South Korea, told them he felt disrespected by teasing about his poor English skills at the Oakland school - a college founded as a safe place where Korean immigrants could adjust to a new country and build new careers.
So, he bought a gun and a few weeks later took his revenge, opening fire at the college on Monday in a rampage that left six students and a receptionist dead and wounded three more, authorities said.
- The Associated Press