World/Nation Briefs 9.17.2012
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
TIMERGARAH, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of people protesting an anti-Islam video have set fire to a press club and a government office in northwest Pakistan, sparking clashes with police that killed one demonstrator.
Police official Mukhtar Ahmad says the protesters first attacked the press club in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Upper Dir district Monday, apparently angered because their demonstration wasn’t getting more coverage.
Ahmad says police charged the crowd, beating protesters with batons. The protesters then attacked a government office and set it ablaze. Ahmad says the protesters, many of them armed, have now surrounded a local police station.
Another police official, Akhtar Hayat, says one protester died when police and the demonstrators exchanged fire and several were wounded.
———
As Chicago mayor seeks court order to end teachers strike, parents scramble for child care
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is turning to the courts to try to put an end to a teachers strike that’s entering its second week and has left parents scrambling to make alternative child care arrangements for at least two more days.
The union and school leaders seemed headed toward a resolution at the end of last week, saying they were optimistic students in the nation’s third-largest school district would be back in class by Monday. But teachers uncomfortable with a tentative contract offer decided Sunday to remain on strike, saying they needed more time to review a complicated proposal.
Emanuel fired back, saying he told city attorneys to seek a court order forcing Chicago Teachers Union members back into the classroom.
The strike is the first for the city’s teachers in 25 years and has kept 350,000 students out of class, leaving parents to make other plans.
Working mom Dequita Wade said that when the strike started, she sent her son 15 miles away to a cousin’s house so he wouldn’t be left unsupervised in a neighborhood known for violent crime and gangs. She was hoping the union and district would work things out quickly.
———
AP IMPACT: Array of license rules reflects uncertainty, angst about aging’s impact on driving
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jerry Wiseman notices it’s harder to turn and check his car’s blind spots at age 69 than it was at 50. So the Illinois man and his wife took a refresher driving course, hunting tips to stay safe behind the wheel for many more years — a good idea considering their state has arguably the nation’s toughest older-driver laws.
More older drivers are on the road than ever before, and an Associated Press review found they face a hodgepodge of state licensing rules that reflect scientific uncertainty and public angst over a growing question: How can we tell if it’s time to give up the keys?
Thirty states plus the District of Columbia have some sort of older-age requirement for driver’s licenses, ranging from more vision testing to making seniors renew their licenses more frequently than younger people. At what age? That’s literally all over the map. Maryland starts eye exams at 40. Shorter license renewals kick in anywhere from age 59 in Georgia to 85 in Texas.
The issue attracted new attention when a 100-year-old driver backed over a group of schoolchildren in Los Angeles late last month. That’s a rarity, but with an imminent surge in senior drivers, the federal government is proposing that all states take steps to address what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls ‘‘the real and growing problem of older driver safety.’’
Here’s the conundrum: ‘‘Birthdays don’t kill. Health conditions do,’’ said Joseph Coughlin, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, which develops technologies to help older people stay active.
———
WHY IT MATTERS: It’s an election of true choices on issues bound to touch your life
When you vote for Democrat Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney in November, you’ll be voting for more than a president. You’ll be casting a ballot for and against a checklist of policies that touch your life and shape the country you live in.
It can be hard to see, through the fog of negative ads, sound bite zingers and assorted other campaign nasties, that the election is a contest of actual ideas. But it is always so. A candidate’s words connect to deeds in office.
Roll back to 2008. Obama was the presidential candidate who promised to get the country on a path to health insurance for all. He delivered. If you haven’t noticed one way or another, you soon will.
And back to 2000. George W. Bush ran on a platform of big tax cuts. That’s precisely what the country got. A decade later, taxes are lower than they otherwise would have been.
That’s not to say you can count on Romney’s checklist or Obama’s to come into full being. You sure can’t.
———
WHY IT MATTERS: You’ll feel it whether that health care law stays or goes
The issue:
America’s health care system is unsustainable. It’s not one problem, but three combined: high cost, uneven quality and millions uninsured. Major changes will keep coming. Every family will be affected.
———
Where they stand:
President Barack Obama’s health care law will extend coverage to 30 million uninsured and keep the basic design of Medicare and Medicaid the same. It’s not clear how well his approach will control costs for taxpayers, families and businesses. Mitt Romney would repeal Obama’s health care overhaul; what parts he’d replace have yet to be spelled out. Romney would revamp Medicare, nudging future retirees toward private insurance plans, and he would turn Medicaid over to the states.
———
1 year after encampment began, Occupy Wall Street is in disarray; spirit of revolt lives on
NEW YORK (AP) — Occupy Wall Street began to disintegrate in rapid fashion last winter, when the weekly meetings in New York City devolved into a spectacle of fistfights and vicious arguments.
Punches were thrown and objects were hurled at moderators’ heads. Protesters accused each other of being patriarchal and racist and domineering. Nobody could agree on anything and nobody was in charge. The moderators went on strike and refused to show up, followed in quick succession by the people who kept meeting minutes. And then the meetings stopped altogether.
In the city where the movement was born, Occupy was falling apart.
‘‘We weren’t talking about real things at that point,’’ says Pete Dutro, a tattoo artist who used to manage Occupy’s finances but became disillusioned by the infighting and walked away months ago. ‘‘We were talking about each other.’’
The trouble with Occupy Wall Street, a year after it bloomed in a granite park in lower Manhattan and spread across the globe, is that nobody really knows what it is anymore. To say whether Occupy was a success or a failure depends on how you define it.
———
Romney to outline what he would do as president; hopes to shift direction of race
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney will seek this week to explain more about what he would do as president, a strategy shift intended to change the trajectory of a race that President Barack Obama appears to be winning.
Seven weeks before the election, campaign aides say Romney plans to release a new batch of TV ads, re-focus his campaign appearances on his five-point economic plan and make a series of speeches aimed at offering voters a more concrete outline of his plans for the country.
The shift comes as Republicans openly fret about the state of their nominee’s campaign and press Romney to give voters a clearer sense of how he would govern. It also comes as polls show Obama with an edge nationally and in key states, and amid reports of infighting at the Boston-based campaign.
The new ads will highlight Romney’s plan to create 12 million jobs, cut the deficit and allow the nation to become energy independent. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, will focus on the debt and deficit in a series of campaign appearances. It’s all aimed at giving voters a clearer picture of what Romney would do as president, advisers said.
With the new push, Romney is looking to put behind him a turbulent week that saw him stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East. And he’s spent hours preparing for debates, mindful that they may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.
———
Salt-high blood pressure link may be stronger in overweight kids, government study suggests
CHICAGO (AP) — American children eat as much salt as adults — about 1,000 milligrams too much, or the same amount as in just one Big Mac. Extra salt is linked with higher blood pressure, even in kids, but government research says those who are overweight and obese may be most vulnerable to its effects.
The new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Previous research has shown similar results in adults but studies on salt, weight and blood pressure are scarce in children.
The CDC researchers looked at data on 6,200 kids aged 8 to 18 involved in 2003-08 national health surveys. The children were asked twice over several days to detail all foods they’d eaten the previous day; the researchers calculated salt intake from their answers.
Overall, 15 percent had either high blood pressure or slightly elevated blood pressure called prehypertension.
———
Iran’s nuke chief to speak at 155-nation atomic agency meet on Tehran’s atomic agenda
VIENNA (AP) — Iran’s nuclear chief is addressing a 155-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency that will focus on Tehran’s contentious atomic program as well as Mideast tensions over Israel’s nuclear capacities.
Fereydoun Abbasi is expected Monday to again outline Iran’s refusal to give up uranium enrichment — which it says it needs to make reactor fuel. The U.N. Security Council has ordered Tehran to stop the activity, however, because of fears it might use it to produce nuclear warheads.
Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons. But it has refused to stop enrichment, despite offers of reactor fuel from abroad. It dismisses IAEA suspicions that it worked secretly on nuclear arms.
For the Arabs, Israel’s nuclear capacities are the greatest threat. Israel is believed to have nuclear arms.
———
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi visits US, milestone in her journey from prisoner to stateswoman
WASHINGTON (AP) — Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be honored in Washington this week and presented Congress’s highest award, the latest milestone in her remarkable journey from political prisoner to globe-trotting stateswoman.
The Nobel Peace laureate’s 17-day U.S. tour, starting Monday, will include meetings at the State Department and likely the White House. She then goes to New York, the American Midwest and California. The trip comes as the Obama administration considers easing its remaining sanctions on the country also known as Burma.
Since her release from house arrest in late 2010, Suu Kyi has transitioned from dissident to parliamentarian as Myanmar has shifted from five decades of repressive military rule, gaining international acceptance for a former pariah regime.
After being confined to her homeland since 1989 because she was either under detention or afraid she wouldn’t be permitted to return, Suu Kyi has in the past four months spread her wings. She has traveled to Thailand and five nations in Europe, where she was accorded honors usually reserved for heads of state.
Revered by Republicans and Democrats alike, Suu Kyi will get star treatment too in the U.S., although her schedule is being carefully planned to avoid upstaging the itinerary of Myanmar President Thein Sein, who arrives in the U.S. the following week to attend the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders in New York.
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TIMERGARAH, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of people protesting an anti-Islam video have set fire to a press club and a government office in northwest Pakistan, sparking clashes with police that killed one demonstrator.
Police official Mukhtar Ahmad says the protesters first attacked the press club in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province’s Upper Dir district Monday, apparently angered because their demonstration wasn’t getting more coverage.
Ahmad says police charged the crowd, beating protesters with batons. The protesters then attacked a government office and set it ablaze. Ahmad says the protesters, many of them armed, have now surrounded a local police station.
Another police official, Akhtar Hayat, says one protester died when police and the demonstrators exchanged fire and several were wounded.
———
As Chicago mayor seeks court order to end teachers strike, parents scramble for child care
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is turning to the courts to try to put an end to a teachers strike that’s entering its second week and has left parents scrambling to make alternative child care arrangements for at least two more days.
The union and school leaders seemed headed toward a resolution at the end of last week, saying they were optimistic students in the nation’s third-largest school district would be back in class by Monday. But teachers uncomfortable with a tentative contract offer decided Sunday to remain on strike, saying they needed more time to review a complicated proposal.
Emanuel fired back, saying he told city attorneys to seek a court order forcing Chicago Teachers Union members back into the classroom.
The strike is the first for the city’s teachers in 25 years and has kept 350,000 students out of class, leaving parents to make other plans.
Working mom Dequita Wade said that when the strike started, she sent her son 15 miles away to a cousin’s house so he wouldn’t be left unsupervised in a neighborhood known for violent crime and gangs. She was hoping the union and district would work things out quickly.
———
AP IMPACT: Array of license rules reflects uncertainty, angst about aging’s impact on driving
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jerry Wiseman notices it’s harder to turn and check his car’s blind spots at age 69 than it was at 50. So the Illinois man and his wife took a refresher driving course, hunting tips to stay safe behind the wheel for many more years — a good idea considering their state has arguably the nation’s toughest older-driver laws.
More older drivers are on the road than ever before, and an Associated Press review found they face a hodgepodge of state licensing rules that reflect scientific uncertainty and public angst over a growing question: How can we tell if it’s time to give up the keys?
Thirty states plus the District of Columbia have some sort of older-age requirement for driver’s licenses, ranging from more vision testing to making seniors renew their licenses more frequently than younger people. At what age? That’s literally all over the map. Maryland starts eye exams at 40. Shorter license renewals kick in anywhere from age 59 in Georgia to 85 in Texas.
The issue attracted new attention when a 100-year-old driver backed over a group of schoolchildren in Los Angeles late last month. That’s a rarity, but with an imminent surge in senior drivers, the federal government is proposing that all states take steps to address what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls ‘‘the real and growing problem of older driver safety.’’
Here’s the conundrum: ‘‘Birthdays don’t kill. Health conditions do,’’ said Joseph Coughlin, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, which develops technologies to help older people stay active.
———
WHY IT MATTERS: It’s an election of true choices on issues bound to touch your life
When you vote for Democrat Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney in November, you’ll be voting for more than a president. You’ll be casting a ballot for and against a checklist of policies that touch your life and shape the country you live in.
It can be hard to see, through the fog of negative ads, sound bite zingers and assorted other campaign nasties, that the election is a contest of actual ideas. But it is always so. A candidate’s words connect to deeds in office.
Roll back to 2008. Obama was the presidential candidate who promised to get the country on a path to health insurance for all. He delivered. If you haven’t noticed one way or another, you soon will.
And back to 2000. George W. Bush ran on a platform of big tax cuts. That’s precisely what the country got. A decade later, taxes are lower than they otherwise would have been.
That’s not to say you can count on Romney’s checklist or Obama’s to come into full being. You sure can’t.
———
WHY IT MATTERS: You’ll feel it whether that health care law stays or goes
The issue:
America’s health care system is unsustainable. It’s not one problem, but three combined: high cost, uneven quality and millions uninsured. Major changes will keep coming. Every family will be affected.
———
Where they stand:
President Barack Obama’s health care law will extend coverage to 30 million uninsured and keep the basic design of Medicare and Medicaid the same. It’s not clear how well his approach will control costs for taxpayers, families and businesses. Mitt Romney would repeal Obama’s health care overhaul; what parts he’d replace have yet to be spelled out. Romney would revamp Medicare, nudging future retirees toward private insurance plans, and he would turn Medicaid over to the states.
———
1 year after encampment began, Occupy Wall Street is in disarray; spirit of revolt lives on
NEW YORK (AP) — Occupy Wall Street began to disintegrate in rapid fashion last winter, when the weekly meetings in New York City devolved into a spectacle of fistfights and vicious arguments.
Punches were thrown and objects were hurled at moderators’ heads. Protesters accused each other of being patriarchal and racist and domineering. Nobody could agree on anything and nobody was in charge. The moderators went on strike and refused to show up, followed in quick succession by the people who kept meeting minutes. And then the meetings stopped altogether.
In the city where the movement was born, Occupy was falling apart.
‘‘We weren’t talking about real things at that point,’’ says Pete Dutro, a tattoo artist who used to manage Occupy’s finances but became disillusioned by the infighting and walked away months ago. ‘‘We were talking about each other.’’
The trouble with Occupy Wall Street, a year after it bloomed in a granite park in lower Manhattan and spread across the globe, is that nobody really knows what it is anymore. To say whether Occupy was a success or a failure depends on how you define it.
———
Romney to outline what he would do as president; hopes to shift direction of race
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney will seek this week to explain more about what he would do as president, a strategy shift intended to change the trajectory of a race that President Barack Obama appears to be winning.
Seven weeks before the election, campaign aides say Romney plans to release a new batch of TV ads, re-focus his campaign appearances on his five-point economic plan and make a series of speeches aimed at offering voters a more concrete outline of his plans for the country.
The shift comes as Republicans openly fret about the state of their nominee’s campaign and press Romney to give voters a clearer sense of how he would govern. It also comes as polls show Obama with an edge nationally and in key states, and amid reports of infighting at the Boston-based campaign.
The new ads will highlight Romney’s plan to create 12 million jobs, cut the deficit and allow the nation to become energy independent. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, will focus on the debt and deficit in a series of campaign appearances. It’s all aimed at giving voters a clearer picture of what Romney would do as president, advisers said.
With the new push, Romney is looking to put behind him a turbulent week that saw him stumbling to respond to an ongoing crisis in the Middle East. And he’s spent hours preparing for debates, mindful that they may be his last best hope of overtaking Obama.
———
Salt-high blood pressure link may be stronger in overweight kids, government study suggests
CHICAGO (AP) — American children eat as much salt as adults — about 1,000 milligrams too much, or the same amount as in just one Big Mac. Extra salt is linked with higher blood pressure, even in kids, but government research says those who are overweight and obese may be most vulnerable to its effects.
The new findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Previous research has shown similar results in adults but studies on salt, weight and blood pressure are scarce in children.
The CDC researchers looked at data on 6,200 kids aged 8 to 18 involved in 2003-08 national health surveys. The children were asked twice over several days to detail all foods they’d eaten the previous day; the researchers calculated salt intake from their answers.
Overall, 15 percent had either high blood pressure or slightly elevated blood pressure called prehypertension.
———
Iran’s nuke chief to speak at 155-nation atomic agency meet on Tehran’s atomic agenda
VIENNA (AP) — Iran’s nuclear chief is addressing a 155-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency that will focus on Tehran’s contentious atomic program as well as Mideast tensions over Israel’s nuclear capacities.
Fereydoun Abbasi is expected Monday to again outline Iran’s refusal to give up uranium enrichment — which it says it needs to make reactor fuel. The U.N. Security Council has ordered Tehran to stop the activity, however, because of fears it might use it to produce nuclear warheads.
Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons. But it has refused to stop enrichment, despite offers of reactor fuel from abroad. It dismisses IAEA suspicions that it worked secretly on nuclear arms.
For the Arabs, Israel’s nuclear capacities are the greatest threat. Israel is believed to have nuclear arms.
———
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi visits US, milestone in her journey from prisoner to stateswoman
WASHINGTON (AP) — Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be honored in Washington this week and presented Congress’s highest award, the latest milestone in her remarkable journey from political prisoner to globe-trotting stateswoman.
The Nobel Peace laureate’s 17-day U.S. tour, starting Monday, will include meetings at the State Department and likely the White House. She then goes to New York, the American Midwest and California. The trip comes as the Obama administration considers easing its remaining sanctions on the country also known as Burma.
Since her release from house arrest in late 2010, Suu Kyi has transitioned from dissident to parliamentarian as Myanmar has shifted from five decades of repressive military rule, gaining international acceptance for a former pariah regime.
After being confined to her homeland since 1989 because she was either under detention or afraid she wouldn’t be permitted to return, Suu Kyi has in the past four months spread her wings. She has traveled to Thailand and five nations in Europe, where she was accorded honors usually reserved for heads of state.
Revered by Republicans and Democrats alike, Suu Kyi will get star treatment too in the U.S., although her schedule is being carefully planned to avoid upstaging the itinerary of Myanmar President Thein Sein, who arrives in the U.S. the following week to attend the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders in New York.
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