World/Nation Briefs November 6, 2012
<p>A woman and her son scramble over a tree toppled by Superstorm Sandy as she accompanies him to Public School 195, background, in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough, Monday in New York. Monday was the first day of public school for New York City students following the storm of a week ago. The woman declined to provide their names.</p>
Obama, Romney fight to the end of long campaign
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The White House the prize, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney raced through a final full day of campaigning on Monday through Ohio and other battleground states holding the keys to victory in a tight race. Both promised brighter days ahead for a nation still struggling with a sluggish economy and high joblessness.
"Our work is not done yet," Obama told a cheering crowd of nearly 20,000 in chilly Madison, Wis., imploring his audience to give him another four years.
Romney projected optimism as he neared the end of his six-year quest for the presidency. "If you believe we can do better. If you believe America should be on a better course. If you're tired of being tired ... then I ask you to vote for real change," he said in a Virginia suburb of the nation's capital. With many of the late polls in key states tilting slightly against him, he decided to campaign on Election Day in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where he and Republicans made a big, late push.
Authorities try to find housing for Sandy's victims
NEW YORK - Government leaders are turning their attention to the next crisis unfolding in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: finding housing for potentially tens of thousands of people left homeless.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has already dispensed close to $200 million in emergency housing assistance and has put 34,000 people in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area up in hotels and motels.
But local, state and federal officials have yet to lay out a specific, comprehensive plan for finding them long-term places to live, even as cold weather sets in. And given the scarcity and high cost of housing in the metropolitan area and the lack of open space, it could prove a monumental undertaking.
Americans face return of status quo Congress
WASHINGTON - A barrage of negative ads, more than $2 billion in spending and endless campaign stops all come down to this: Americans likely will elect a Congress as divided as the one they've been ranting about for two years.
In today's voting, Republicans are poised to hold the 435-seat House, with Democrats expected to gain a small handful of seats at best from roughly 60 competitive races but fall well short of the net 25 needed for the majority. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is poised to wield the gavel again.
Senate Democrats are likely to maintain their narrow advantage as two Republican candidates' clumsy comments about rape and abortion could cost the GOP Indiana and dampens its prospects of winning Missouri - two major roadblocks in the Republican path to the majority.
Republicans hoped the math would work in their favor - Democrats are defending 23 seats, the GOP 10 - but solid Democratic recruits and the close presidential race, added to the GOP candidate stumbles may ensure that Nevada Sen. Harry Reid remains majority leader.
Syrian chaos deepens as rebel rivals fight
BEIRUT - New chaos engulfed Syria's civil war as Palestinian supporters and opponents of the embattled regime were swept up Monday in intense fighting in Damascus, while rival rebel groups clashed over control of a Turkish border crossing.
The rare infighting - accompanied by car bombs, airstrikes and artillery shells that killed or maimed dozens of people - heightened fears that if Syrian President Bashar Assad falls, the disparate factions battling the regime will turn on each other.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near an army checkpoint in Hama province, killing 50 soldiers in one of the deadliest single attacks targeting pro-Assad troops in the 19-month uprising, according to activists.
Details emerge inAfghan massacre at soldier's trial
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. -The caped figure on the surveillance video came running out of the darkness to the edge of a remote Army outpost in southern Afghanistan. Blood was smeared on his face, prosecutors said, and soaked into his clothes.
Less than a mile away, 16 Afghans, including nine children, were dead, some of their bodies on fire in two villages.
As fellow soldiers stopped him at the base's gate, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was incredulous, prosecutors said. Then, as he was taken into custody, Bales said, "I thought I was doing the right thing."
The details, from a prosecutor as well as Bales' comrades, emerged Monday as a preliminary hearing in his case opened, offering the clearest picture yet of one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The March 11 attack prompted the U.S. to halt combat operations for days in the face of protests, and it was a month before military investigators could reach the crime scenes.
- The Associated Press