World/Nation Briefs January 6, 2012

Rivals: Romney not conservative enough, too timid

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Mitt Romney's Republican presidential rivals repeatedly attacked him as a candidate of the status quo and a timid, less-than-reliable conservative Thursday as they simultaneously sought to slow his campaign momentum and personally audition for the role of conservative rival-in-chief.

"Don't settle for less than America needs," said Rick Santorum, eager to capitalize on his second-place finish behind the former Massachusetts governor in this week's Iowa caucuses, a scant eight votes off the pace.

A heavy favorite to win New Hampshire's primary next Tuesday, Romney all but ignored his Republican rivals as he campaigned in two states. Instead, he criticized President Barack Obama as a "crony capitalist. He's a job killer."

Without saying so, the rest of the field appeared to share a common campaign objective - hold down Romney's vote totals in New Hampshire, then knock him off stride 11 days later in South Carolina, the first Southern primary of the year.

Suspect in Utah police shootouthad depression

OGDEN, Utah - Search warrant in hand, a team of bulletproof vest-wearing officers rapped on the door of a small, red-brick Utah house, identifying themselves as police. When no one responded, authorities say, the officers burst inside.

That's when the gunfire erupted.

When it was over Wednesday night, a 7-year veteran officer was dead and five of his colleagues were wounded, some critically. The suspect, an Army veteran whose estranged father said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have been self-medicating with marijuana, was injured.

Now, as the city tries to grapple with the outburst of violence and the loss of one of its officers, investigators are trying to determine how the raid as part of a drug investigation could have gone so terribly wrong.

Attacks kill 78 Shiites in Iraq, deepening crisis

BAGHDAD - An apparently coordinated wave of bombings targeting Shiite Muslims killed at least 78 people in Iraq on Thursday, the second large-scale assault by militants since U.S. forces pulled out last month.

The attacks, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents, come ahead of a Shiite holy day that draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across Iraq, raising fears of a deepening of sectarian bloodshed. Rifts along the country's Sunni-Shiite faultline just a few years ago pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

The bombings in Baghdad and outside the southern city of Nasiriyah appeared to be the deadliest in Iraq in more than a year.

Thursday's blasts occurred at a particularly unstable time for Iraq's fledgling democracy. A broad-based unity government designed to include the country's main factions is mired in a political crisis pitting politicians from the Shiite majority now in power against the Sunni minority, which reigned supreme under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Some Iraqis blame that political discord for the lethal strikes.

After school shooting, parents seek answers

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - On a doorstep outside a family home, a father wondered why police had to shoot his son in the hall of the boy's middle school. In an office across town, a police chief insisted that his officers had no choice.

And scores of others in this Texas border city wondered: Could the death of 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez have been prevented?

A day after police fatally shot an eighth-grader who was brandishing a realistic-looking pellet gun, his anguished parents pleaded for answers, demanding to know why police didn't try a Taser or beanbag gun before resorting to deadly force.

In front of the family home, the father lamented his loss and called on authorities to explain their actions.

But there was broad agreement among law enforcement experts: If a suspect raises a weapon and refuses to put it down, officers are justified in taking his life. The shooting also raised questions about whether pellet guns should be marked in a way that would easily distinguish them from real handguns.

- The Associated Press