Republicans optimistic about Senate elections; Democrats count on get-out-the-vote operation
WASHINGTON (AP) - Public campaigning gave way to the privacy of the voting booth Tuesday with control of the Senate, the makeup of the House and three dozen governorships at stake.
President Barack Obama, his approval ratings low, was not on the ballot midway through his second term. But even he said his policies were, and Republicans rushed to agree.
“The president’s policies have just flat-out failed,” House Speaker John Boehner said Monday, campaigning for a 13th term in Congress and hoping for two more years as top House leader. He and other Republicans vowed to change Obama’s policies, but have offered little in the way of specifics.
Democrats didn’t so much defend the president as insist they were independent of him.
“There are two people on the ballot tomorrow, me and Scott Brown,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said as she made the rounds of six campaign stops on the race’s final full day.
___
Midterm election: A look at the hot races, big stakes and key players on Election Day 2014
Above all else, what’s at stake in Tuesday’s midterm elections is control of the U.S. Senate.
That, in turn, will shape the fate of President Barack Obama’s agenda for the rest of his term. And everything else that Congress wants to do, or stop from getting done.
Republicans need to gain six seats to win back the Senate majority they lost in 2006. Their odds are good, but it’s not a slam dunk.
Polls and pundits alike see about 10 Democratic seats that could switch to the GOP. Democrats could flip a GOP seat, too, or perhaps as many as three if they have what passes for a good night.
Voters will also pick a new House of Representatives, choose governors in three dozen states and decide more than 100 ballot measures.
___
Air Force fires 2 more nuclear missile corps commanders, disciplines another
WASHINGTON (AP) - Adding to signs of distress in the nuclear force, the Air Force fired two commanders and disciplined a third in response to internal investigations of leadership lapses and misbehavior at two of its three intercontinental ballistic missile bases.
The most senior officer to be relieved was Col. Carl Jones, the No. 2 commander of the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, in charge of 150 of the Air Force’s 450 Minuteman 3 nuclear ICBMs. He was dismissed “for a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership abilities,” and has been reassigned as a special assistant to the wing commander.
The actions Monday were confirmed to The Associated Press in response to an AP inquiry about an internal Air Force investigation of two commanders at the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, which also is responsible for 150 Minuteman 3 missiles. A separate investigation was conducted at F.E. Warren.
The Air Force nuclear missile corps has suffered a rash of recent setbacks, including the firing last year of its top commander.
It is unusual for disciplinary action to be taken against senior officers at two of the Air Force’s three nuclear missile bases on the same day. Officials said the timing was a coincidence. It extends a pattern of leadership failures in the ICBM force over the past year.
___
Death of right-to-die advocate Brittany Maynard expected to prompt legislative action
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Brittany Maynard’s last days started a national conversation about whether it’s OK for a terminally ill person to end their own life.
Now that she has died, it’s time to see whether the millions of clicks and views she generated online trigger more than just talk.
Advocates for expanding right-to-die laws beyond a handful of states expect attention from the young woman’s story to carry into the new year, when state legislatures go into session.
“Up and down New England, the East Coast, and then in the West, too,” said Peg Sandeen, executive director of the Death with Dignity National Center. “I think on both coasts we’re going to see legislative action.”
That optimism, however, will be met with the political reality that such legislation has been pushed for years, often unsuccessfully.
___
Syria’s better-offs attend costume parties, amusement parks, seeking relief as war grinds on
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Followed by a vampire and a medieval knight, a man dressed up as an Islamic militant walks into the thumping club, past the blue-lit bar in a Damascus hotel, determined to party. The music is pounding, a break-dancer stands on his head and in the DJ booth, a man and woman are kissing.
Over the loudspeakers, a droning voice intoned: “Welcome foolish mortals. There’s no turning back now.”
Amid a conflict lapping at the edge of Damascus, Syria’s better-offs spend their time in cafes and at parties, strolling a gleaming new mall and enjoying the controlled adrenalin of amusement park rides overlooking a city skyline of buildings and columns of smoke from bombings - striving to deny war its miserable monotony.
Yet as the Syrian conflict grinds on, well into its fourth year, almost no family has been left untouched by death, injury, poverty, homelessness or missing relatives.
“We want to change our boring routine,” said Naja, a she-vampire with fake blood drooling from her reddened lips. “Every day we live a horror show (in Syria) but this one is a comedy,” she said, laughing at the hotel Halloween party. Nearby, a woman painted makeup on arriving guests, turning them into vampires or Spiderman. Beside her, Cleopatra and a two-faced man posed for photographs.
___
A lifetime of generous perks help cushion a vast wealth gap in the United Arab Emirates
UMM AL-QUWAIN, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The United Arab Emirates contains the world’s tallest building, an artificial indoor ski slope and man-made islands shaped like the world. Dubai’s fleet of police cars includes a $2.5 million Bugatti Veyron and a $500,000 Lamborghini Aventador.
Look past the blinding glitz, though, and you discover a gulf separating the elite and their riches from most Emiratis. Yet in contrast to much of the world, a note of complaint is seldom heard here, and the reason is simple: Most Emiratis live lives of comfort that they owe to a bounty of perks and benefits from the government.
The welfare system, built more than four decades ago under Abu Dhabi’s Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, helped forge long-standing political loyalty.
“We came from this hard life, but because of this man - may God rest his soul - we now have a good, beautiful life,” said 60-year-old Jumaa al-Shami, who lives in the northern emirate of Umm al-Quwain.
The question is how long it will last. Officials and economists warn that the lavish government spending that has long sustained a robust Emirati middle class could eventually be curtailed. Analysts say the United Arab Emirates’ economic viability requires guiding more Emiratis into self-sustaining private businesses and weaning them from the state’s openhanded patronage.
___
Security contractor breach went undetected for months, similar to prior China hackings
WASHINGTON (AP) - A cyberattack similar to previous hacker intrusions from China penetrated computer networks for months at USIS, the government’s leading security clearance contractor, before the company noticed, officials and others familiar with an FBI investigation and related official inquiries told The Associated Press.
The breach, first revealed by the company and government agencies in August, compromised the private records of at least 25,000 employees at the Homeland Security Department and cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost government contracts.
In addition to trying to identify the perpetrators and evaluate the scale of the stolen material, the government inquiries have prompted concerns about why computer detection alarms inside the company failed to quickly notice the hackers and whether federal agencies that hired the company should have monitored its practices more closely.
Former employees of the firm, U.S. Investigations Services LLC, also have raised questions about why the company and the government failed to ensure that outdated background reports containing personal data weren’t regularly purged from the company’s computers.
Details about the investigation and related inquiries were described by federal officials and others familiar with the case. The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the continuing criminal investigation, the others because of concerns about possible litigation.
___
White House defends Ferguson no-fly zone, says it didn’t restrict news organizations
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Monday a no-fly zone the U.S. government imposed over Ferguson, Missouri, for nearly two weeks in August should not have restricted helicopters for news organizations that wanted to operate in the area to cover violent protests there.
Audio recordings obtained by The Associated Press showed the Federal Aviation Administration working with local authorities to define a 37-square-mile flight restriction so that only police helicopters and commercial flights could fly through the area, following demonstrations over the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The Obama administration’s defense of its actions centered on a provision of obscure federal regulations intended to allow press flights as long as they meet certain conditions. White House spokesman Josh Earnest sidestepped questions about conversations on the tapes showing police working with the FAA to keep media away.
“In this case, what the FAA says is that they took the prudent step of implementing the temporary flight restriction in the immediate aftermath of reports of shots fired at a police helicopter, but within 12 to 14 hours, that flight restriction was updated in a way to remove restrictions for reporters who were seeking to operate in the area,” Earnest said.
In Missouri, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar defended his department’s involvement Monday, telling reporters that “at no time did we request that only media be kept out of the airspace.” The chief said the safety restrictions were prompted by reports of gunfire and that conversations on the tapes were “out of context.” He did not elaborate.
___
Division of twin German towns tells the tale of a fractured nation now reunited
BOECKWITZ, Germany (AP) - Friedrich-Wilhelm Lenz was only a toddler when the wall went up that split his family’s 75-hectare farm in two - dividing the cow stall and even a restaurant on the land.
It was 1952, and East German authorities were erecting the wooden barrier that broke up the twin towns of Zicherie in the capitalist West and Boeckwitz in the communist East. The two had operated as one for centuries - sharing markets, schools and social clubs - and had long been the site of the Lenz family farm.
Years before the collapse of the Berlin Wall - whose 25th anniversary falls Sunday - East Germany had already started sealing off its main frontier with West Germany, spanning nearly 1,400 kilometers (870 miles), dividing communities, friends and even families.
The Lenz family keenly felt the trauma of division. The East German authorities seized their property and forced them to relocate to another town on the communist side of the border. They didn’t like it and were able to move to the part of their property that remained in Zicherie in 1960.
But they left Friedrich-Wilhelm’s older sister, Anneliese, with an aunt so she could finish high school before rejoining them.
___
Old Navy port trying to prevent more Muslims from traveling to Syria to join Islamic State
PORTSMOUTH, England (AP) - Royal Navy sailors used to swagger out of this great seaport at the zenith of the British Empire, manning the warships and trading vessels that made this nation rich and powerful. Today a handful of young men are again leaving to go to war - but this time they have sworn allegiance to foreign terrorists.
It is a sign of the times that Portsmouth, with its tradition of naval glory, finds itself trying to persuade young British Muslims not to follow six locals who traveled to Syria to join forces with Islamic State extremists battling President Bashar Assad.
Numbers alone might be a deterrent: Four or the six are dead, one is in jail, and only one is still believed active on the battlefield. But police, political leaders and Islamic community activists believe those facts alone may not convince angry young men that joining the Islamic State group - which has declared Britain an enemy - will destroy their lives.
The front of the mosque most of the young men attended before departing for Syria is decorated with an elaborate mosaic that says: “Peace Is Better.” Syed Haque, chairman of the Jami Mosque’s advisory council, is mystified that some of the congregation has chosen war instead.
“All those boys went, they were university students, they were working,” he said. “There was nothing in their faces showing they were miserable or had problems at home or weren’t being looked after by their family.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.