World/Nation Briefs April 3, 2013
North Korea bars South Korean workers
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Wednesday barred South Korean workers from entering a jointly run factory park just over the heavily armed border in the North, officials in Seoul said, a day after Pyongyang announced it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material.
The move to bar South Koreans from entering the Kaesong factory park, the last remaining symbol of detente between the rivals, comes amid increasing hostility from Pyongyang, which has threatened to stage nuclear and missile strikes on Seoul and Washington and has said that the armistice ending the 1950s Korean War is void.
Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said Pyongyang is allowing South Koreans to return home from Kaesong, but that about 480 South Koreans who had planned to travel to the park Wednesday were being refused entry.
SC's ex-Gov. Sanford wins GOP runoff
MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. - Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday cleared another hurdle in his bid for political redemption, defeating a former Charleston County council member to win the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat he held for three terms.
"It's been a very long journey. And in that journey I am humbled to find ourselves where we find ourselves tonight," said Sanford, whose political career was derailed four years ago when, as sitting governor, he disappeared from the state only to return to acknowledge an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman.
That woman, Maria Belen Chapur, and Sanford are now engaged. She appeared at Sanford's side during his victory speech, smiling and applauding the former governor, who thanked her for being long-suffering while he was campaigning. She did not address the crowd.
"I want to thank my God," Sanford said. "I used to cringe when somebody would say I want to thank my God because at that point I would think this is getting uncomfortable. But once you really receive God's grace and (have) seen it reflected in others you stop and acknowledge that grace and the difference He has made in my life and in so many lives across this state and across this nation."
Clinton's small steps fuel big hopes among fans
WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton stayed on safe political ground Tuesday, advocating women's rights globally in a 12-minute speech, but that was enough to excite fans imploring the former first lady, senator and secretary of state to run again for president three years from now.
Clinton, perhaps as popular as ever in her 22 years in national politics, said she has "unwavering faith in the untapped potential of women and girls." She spoke at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards, at Washington's Kennedy Center. The event, highlighting efforts such as expanding education for girls and fighting domestic violence worldwide, marked her first public speech since ending her much-praised stint as secretary of state.
As members of the group Ready for Hillary cheered outside, the 2016 political buzz was inevitable. Vice President Joe Biden - another potential Democratic candidate - spoke later at the same event.
If Clinton has any jealousy, she didn't show it. She praised Biden effusively, especially for his role in Congress' recent renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.
Parolee slipped ankle bracelet before slayings
DENVER - Evan Spencer Ebel ran up a long list of felony convictions before turning 21, joined a white supremacist gang behind bars, assaulted one prison guard and wrote that he fantasized about killing others.
Along the way, he benefited from a series of errors in the criminal justice system before he became a suspect in the slaying of Colorado's prisons chief and a pizza deliveryman.
He got out of prison four years early because of a clerical error in a rural courthouse. He slipped his ankle bracelet and violated the terms of his parole last month, but authorities didn't put out a warrant for his arrest until after the killings of pizza delivery man Nathan Leon and corrections chief Tom Clements.
Ebel's streak came to an end on March 21 after he was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy in rural Texas. He died after the ensuing car chase and shootout. The gun he used was the same used to kill Clements; the trunk of Ebel's car held a Domino's pizza box and shirt.
"We have to do better in the future," Tim Hand, the head of the Department of Correction's parole division, said in an interview Tuesday. "It forces us to step back and see what things we need to examine."
- The Associated Press