World/Nation Briefs August 17, 2012

Tax return bickering continues

GREER, S.C. - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney declared Thursday he has paid at least 13 percent of his income in federal taxes every year for the past decade, offering that new detail while still decrying a "small-minded" fascination over returns he will not release. President Barack Obama's campaign shot back in doubt: "Prove it."

Campaigning separately, Romney and running mate Paul Ryan also scrambled to explain their views on overhauling Medicare, the health care program relied on by millions of seniors.

Romney, the former company CEO, set up a whiteboard to make his case with a marker, while lawmaker Ryan resorted to congressional process language to explain why his budget plan includes the same $700 billion Medicare cut that he and Romney are assailing Obama for endorsing.

Essentially, Ryan said, he had to do it because Obama did it first.

Politically, both topics tie into major elements of the presidential race less than three months before the election: how well the candidates relate to the daily concerns and to the life circumstances of typical voters. Democrats are using the tax issue to raise doubts about Romney's trustworthiness - or, as Republicans contend, to distract from a weak economic recovery under Obama.

Ecuador grants asylum to WikiLeaks founder

LONDON - He's won asylum in Ecuador, but Julian Assange is no closer to getting there.

The decision by the South American nation to identify the WikiLeaks founder as a refugee is a symbolic boost for the embattled ex-hacker. But legal experts say that does little to help him avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.

Instead, with British officials asserting they won't grant Assange safe passage out of the country, the case has done much to drag the two nations into an international faceoff.

"We're at something of an impasse," lawyer Rebecca Niblock said. "It's not a question of law anymore. It's a question of politics and diplomacy."

The silver-haired Australian shot to international prominence in 2010 after he began publishing a huge trove of American diplomatic and military secrets - including a quarter million U.S. Embassy cables that shed a harsh light on the backroom dealings of U.S. diplomats. Amid the ferment, two Swedish women accused him of sexual assault; Assange has been fighting extradition to Sweden ever since.

Black Hawk crash kills 7 Americans

KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. military helicopter crashed during a firefight with insurgents in a remote area of southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing seven Americans and four Afghans in one of the deadliest air disasters of a war now into its second decade. The Taliban claimed they gunned down the Black Hawk.

American service personnel in Afghanistan are dying at a rate of about one per day so far this year despite a drawdown of troops. That death rate has risen recently with the summer fighting season in full gear and a rash of attacks by Afghan security forces on their foreign trainers and partners.

NATO forces said they could not confirm what caused Thursday's crash and stressed that it was still being investigated. The Black Hawk was operating in support of an ongoing assault on the ground but initial indications were that it was not shot down, according to U.S. officials who spoke anonymously because the investigation was continuing.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said insurgent fighters struck the helicopter in Kandahar province on Thursday morning. He declined to give further details in a phone call with The Associated Press.

The Kandahar provincial government backed the Taliban claim. It said the helicopter was shot down in Shah Wali Kot district, a rural area north of Kandahar city where insurgents move freely and regularly launch attacks. Provincial spokesman Ahmad Jawed Faisal did not provide details or say how the province had confirmed the information.

Children swept away in Merced River at Yosemite

FRESNO, Calif. - A 10-year-old boy died and his 6-year-old brother was missing after they were swept away along a popular but treacherous boulder-strewn stretch of the Merced River, Yosemite National Park officials said Thursday.

The two victims were part of a family visiting from Southern California that was hiking near the Vernal Fall Footbridge. Group members were cooling off in the river Wednesday when a current carried the boys away.

The older boy was pronounced dead around 3 p.m. Wednesday. Park visitors were able to pull him from the river about 150 yards downstream, but efforts to resuscitate him failed.

Authorities were still searching for the younger boy, who is presumed dead. Their mother was hospitalized after being pulled from the river with a back injury, park spokeswoman Kari Cobb said.

"She went into the river but made it out," Cobb said.

Motorists help save women pinned inside car

HANCOCK COUNTY, Miss. - Passing motorists who saw smoke billowing Thursday from a stand of pine trees along southern Mississippi's Interstate 10 rescued a woman and her disabled sister trapped inside a wrecked, burning sport utility vehicle.

Fifteen to 20 motorists, including a photographer for The Associated Press, came to the aid of the women Thursday afternoon in Hancock County.

Photographer Gerald Herbert said the rescuers pulled the disabled woman from the wreck first, but getting the driver out was difficult.

"No one had fire extinguishers," Herbert said. "We were all sure she was going to perish. The sounds of her screams and the sight of the fire inching closer to her, that was the most horrible and helpless feeling I've ever felt in my life."

As flames spread in the SUV and the driver screamed in panic, those who'd stopped flagged down motorists in a desperate search for fire extinguishers, water - anything that could be used to douse the flames while others tried to find a way to extricate the driver.

- The Associated Press