World Briefs for April 20, 2012
Secret Service, GSA overshadow Obama message
WASHINGTON - It isn't Mitt Romney who's giving Barack Obama fits as the president pivots to re-election mode. It's those federal bureaucrats carousing in Las Vegas, the Secret Service consorting with Colombian prostitutes and U.S. soldiers posing with bloody enemy corpses.
The scandals are taking a toll. They are distracting embarrassments that are dominating public attention while Obama seeks to focus on difficulties abroad and jobs at home. And they are giving Republicans an opportunity to question his competence and leadership, an opening for Romney in a race so close that any advantage might make a difference.
Even if the Democratic president escapes being defined by these flare-ups, they still feed a story line that can erode public confidence in Washington institutions, fuel a perception of federal excess and frustrate Obama's argument that government can be a force for good.
Sick fish in Gulf trouble scientists and fishermen
BARATARIA BAY, La. - Open sores. Parasitic infections. Chewed-up-looking fins. Gashes. Mysterious black streaks. Two years after the drilling-rig explosion that touched off the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, scientists are beginning to suspect that fish in the Gulf of Mexico are suffering the effects of the petroleum.
The evidence is nowhere near conclusive. But if those suspicions prove correct, it could mean that the environmental damage to the Gulf from the BP disaster is still unfolding and the picture isn't as rosy as it might have seemed just a year ago.
And the damage may extend well beyond fish. In the past year, research has emerged showing deep-water coral, seaweed beds, dolphins, mangroves and other species of plants and animals are suffering.
Rubio insists Romney has other choices
WASHINGTON - Wherever Sen. Marco Rubio goes, talk of vice president follows - whether he's inadvertently referring to himself as the second in command or insisting to questioners that he would rather stay in the Senate.
In the morning Thursday, the Florida Republican called himself vice president at a forum sponsored by National Journal, saying, "If I have done a good job as vice president ..." He quickly corrected himself. It was unclear whether the slip was intentional.
Later in the day, he told reporters that he would prefer to remain in Congress but left open the possibility of an ambitious political future in 2016 or beyond.
GOP muscles $46B tax cut through House
WASHINGTON - Republicans rammed an election-year, $46 billion tax cut for most of America's employers through the House on Thursday, ignoring a White House veto threat in a debate both parties used to show voters how they would bolster the economy.
The near party-line 235-173 vote moved the bill to the Senate, where Democrats controlling the chamber are sure to ignore it. But the measure's inevitable demise was secondary to the chance it gave each side to offer its prescriptions for creating jobs, echoing the battle that seems certain to dominate this fall's contest for the White House between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney.
Eighteen Democrats and 10 Republicans defected from their party's positions on the bill.
Norway killer: playing 'Call of Duty' helped aim
OSLO, Norway - Anders Behring Breivik knew it would take practice to be able to slaughter dozens of people before being shot by police. In a chilling account, the far-right fanatic claimed Thursday that he sharpened his aim by playing the video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" for hours on end.
Breivik told an Oslo court he also took steroids to build physical strength and meditated to "de-emotionalize" himself before the bombing and shooting rampage that left 77 people dead. He figured he had no more than a 5 percent chance of not being killed by police.
His lack of remorse and matter-of-fact description of weapons and tactics - he even considered using a flame thrower - were deeply disturbing to families of the victims, most of whom were teenagers.
New search for remains of 6-year-old boy
NEW YORK - Police and the FBI searched a Manhattan basement Thursday for the remains of a 6-year-old boy whose 1979 disappearance on his way to school helped launch a missing children's movement that put kids' faces on milk cartons.
Etan Patz vanished on May 25, 1979, after leaving his family's SoHo apartment for a short walk to catch a school bus. It was the first time his parents had let him go off to school alone.
A forensic team planned to dig up the concrete floor and remove drywall partitions to find blood, clothing or human remains in the building, just down the street from Etan's home, police spokesman Paul Browne said. The work is expected to take up to five days.