World/Nation Briefs January 25, 2012
Romney's wealth, Gingrich's deals come to fore
TAMPA, Fla. - Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's fight for Florida and the states beyond stayed at a high boil Tuesday as Romney released tax returns showing annual income topping $20 million - including a now-closed Swiss bank account - and Gingrich insisted his high-paid consulting work for a mortgage giant that contributed to the housing crisis didn't include lobbying.
After a night of mutual sniping in a debate, the two leading GOP presidential candidates tried to turn the arguments over their various business dealings to his own advantage. Romney's release of two years' worth of tax documents, showing him at an elite level even among the nation's richest 1 percent, kept the focus on the two men's money and how they earned it.
Romney's income put him in the top 0.006 percent of Americans, according to Internal Revenue Service data from 2009, the most recent year available. His net worth has been estimated as high as $250 million.
Marine in killings of Iraqis won't serve jail time
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - The lone Marine convicted in his squad's killing of two dozen unarmed civilians in one of the Iraq War's defining moments escaped jail time Tuesday after defending his order to raid homes in Haditha as a necessary act "to keep the rest of my Marines alive."
The sentencing of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich ends a six-year prosecution for the 2005 attack that failed to win any manslaughter convictions. Eight Marines were initially charged. One was acquitted, and six others had their cases dropped.
Wuterich admitted he ordered is squad to "shoot first, ask questions later" after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine as part of a deal that ended his manslaughter trial with a guilty plea Monday to a single count of negligent dereliction of duty.
The deal that dropped nine counts of manslaughter sparked outrage in the besieged Iraqi town and claims that the U.S. didn't hold the military accountable.
Workers in place for expected
fuel pumping
GIGLIO, Italy - A barge carrying a crane and other equipment hitched itself to the toppled Costa Concordia on Tuesday, signaling the start of preliminary operations to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded cruise ship before it leaks into the pristine Tuscan sea.
Actual pumping of the oil isn't expected to begin until Saturday, but teams from the Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit were working on the bow of the Concordia on Tuesday and divers were to make underwater inspections to identify the precise locations of the fuel tanks.
They were at work on the now-hitched Meloria barge as divers who blasted through a submerged section of the third-floor deck located another body from the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 16.
Apple doubles iPhone sales in holiday quarter
NEW YORK - The iPhone is taking over Apple.
For the first time, the device that changed how people use mobile phones, accounts for more than half of the behemoth company's sales.
Apple Inc. on Tuesday said it sold 37 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, vastly exceeding analyst estimates and propelling the company to record quarterly results.
The phone accounted for 53 percent of Apple's revenue in the quarter. Though it has other hit products, like MacBooks and the iPad, they can't keep up with the iPhone, whose sales more than doubled over last year from an already high level.
The sales mean Apple is set to regain the position it briefly held earlier last year of being the world's largest maker of smartphones. Nokia Corp., the earlier No. 1, in transition to a new generation of smartphones, and more recent competitor Samsung Electronics Co. has announced preliminary figure of 35 million smartphones sold in the October to December period.
Jury: Hospital must pay Garth Brooks $1 million
CLAREMORE, Okla. - An Oklahoma hospital in Garth Brooks' hometown must pay $1 million to the country singer because it failed to build a women's health center in honor of his late mother, jurors ruled Tuesday evening.
Jurors ruled that the hospital must return a $500,000 donation to Brooks plus pay him $500,000 in punitive damages in Brooks' breach-of-contract lawsuit against Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital in Yukon. Brooks said he thought he'd reached a deal in 2005 with the hospital's president, James Moore, but sued after learning the hospital wanted to use the money for other construction projects.
The hospital argued that Brooks gave it unrestricted access to the $500,000 donation and only later asked that it build a women's center and name it after his mother, Colleen Brooks, who died of cancer in 1999.
"Obviously we are disappointed, particularly with the jury's decision to award damages above and beyond the $500,000," Integris spokesman Hardy Watkins said. "We're just glad to see the case come to a resolution."
Brooks called the jurors "heroes" and said he felt vindicated by their verdict.
- Associated Press