World / Nation briefs February 6, 2012
Lost pickers used knife to signal their rescue
GOLD BEACH, Ore. - Three mushroom pickers lost six nights in the rugged forest of southwest Oregon used their dead cellphone and a sheath knife to flash a signal at the helicopter pilot who found them.
Dan Conne said Sunday from his hospital bed in Gold Beach that he and his wife and son spent the nights huddled in a hollow log with nothing to eat, and considered sacrificing their dog Jesse for food before they were found.
A volunteer helicopter pilot looking outside the search area Saturday spotted Dan and Belinda Conne, both 47, along with 25-year-old Michael, on the edge of a deep ravine in tall timber. They were several miles outside the community of Gold Beach, roughly 330 miles south-southwest of Portland.
GOP race turns to Colorado, Minnesota
LAS VEGAS - Now it's on to Colorado, Minnesota and Maine.
With back-to-back victories fueling him, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is looking toward the next states that hold GOP nominating contests as main rival Newt Gingrich brushes aside any talk of abandoning his White House bid - all but ensuring the battle will stretch into the spring if not beyond.
Shortly after losing big to Romney here, the former House speaker emphatically renewed his vow to campaign into the party convention in Tampa this summer. His goal, he said, was to "find a series of victories which by the end of the Texas primary will leave us at parity" with Romney by early April.
Just a bluff? Fears grow of Israeli attack
JERUSALEM - For the first time in nearly two decades of escalating tensions over Iran's nuclear program, world leaders are genuinely concerned that an Israeli military attack on the Islamic Republic could be imminent - an action that many fear might trigger a wider war, terrorism and global economic havoc.
High-level foreign dignitaries, including the U.N. chief and the head of the American military, have stopped in Israel in recent weeks, urging leaders to give the diplomatic process more time to work. Israel seems unmoved, and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has reportedly concluded that an Israeli attack on Iran is likely in the coming months.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Sunday he does not think Israel has decided whether to attack Iran, telling NBC News in an interview that the United States was "going to be sure that we work in lockstep as we proceed to try to solve this - hopefully diplomatically."
Student uncovers lost Malcolm X speech
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The recording was forgotten, and so, too, was the odd twist of history that brought together Malcolm X and a bespectacled Ivy Leaguer fated to become one of America's top diplomats.
The audiotape of Malcolm X's 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn't stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little-remembered visit gathering dust in the university archives.
In the May 11, 1961, speech delivered to a mostly white audience of students and some residents, Malcolm X combines blistering humor and reason to argue that blacks should not look to integrate into white society but instead must forge their own identities and culture.
At the time, Malcolm X, 35, was a loyal supporter of the black separatist movement Nation of Islam, now based in Chicago. He would be assassinated four years later after leaving the group and crafting his own more global, spiritual ideology.
- The Associated Press