TOP STORIES
REPUBLICANS-DEBATE-ANALYSIS
MANCHESTER, N.H. —If Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and other Republican presidential hopefuls feel they need to close the gap on front-runner Mitt Romney, they didn’t show it at the New Hampshire debate.
BACHMANN-2012
ST. PAUL, Minn. — One hand clutches a crisply folded U.S. flag with a concealed weapons certification protruding. The other slides discreetly into a denim coat pocket. Behind the beaming state lawmaker looms a silhouette target with bullet holes square in the chest. Next to her nameplate is a "No New Taxes!" sticker. The photo taken during Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann’s initial run for Congress in 2006 captures her essence.
LIBYA
TRIPOLI, Libya — A NATO airstrike apparently has targeted the area near Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s compound in the capital Tripoli. A column of gray smoke could be seen rising from the area around Gadhafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound before dawn Tuesday. The explosion from the early morning strike could be felt at a hotel where journalists stay in the capital.
IRAQ
BAGHDAD — An Iraqi army official says eight people have been killed in an attack on a government compound. The assailants set off two car bombs outside a government compound in Baqouba 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Gunmen then stormed the building and took hostages.
IRAQ-WEAPONS SALES — Iraqis nervous over impending US withdrawal stocking up on assault rifles, pistols.
MISSOURI RIVER FLOODING
HAMBURG, Iowa — Crews are working to build up a secondary barrier protecting a small Iowa town from the swollen Missouri River after floodwaters broke a massive hole in the main levee, increasing fears that the town could be left under several feet of standing water. Water spilling out of the 300-foot hole was moving across farmland on Monday and expected to arrive by Tuesday in the town of Hamburg.
OBAMA
MIAMI — President Barack Obama is making a rare presidential visit to Puerto Rico, the U.S. island territory, with an eye firmly placed on the Puerto Ricans back on the mainland who could help him deliver at least one key state during his 2012 re-election campaign.
NATIONAL
GAY MARRIAGE TRIAL
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge is expected to decide Tuesday whether a gay judge’s ruling to strike down California’s same-sex marriage ban should be overturned because he failed to divulge his own marital intentions before throwing out the voter-approved measure.
WESTERN WILDFIRES
LUNA, N.M. — The battles continue Tuesday to save a tiny New Mexico mountain town from a massive forest fire that has already driven thousands from their homes in Arizona. So far, residents of Luna are staying put, despite huge plumes of smoke that have been billowing above their homes for two weeks.
WIFE COLD CASES
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — To the outside world, Betty Neumar was a diminutive Georgia grandmother with a shock of white hair who operated beauty shops, attended church and raised money for charity. It wasn’t until North Carolina investigators in 2008 reopened a 25-year-old murder case that police discovered that Neumar had left behind a decades-long trail of five dead husbands in five states. Any hope of answering lingering questions of her husbands’ deaths — or the missing pieces of her life — faded Monday when Neumar died.
GROUND ZERO FIRE — Summations to start Tuesday in ground zero tower fire manslaughter trial; two firefighters died.
IRAQ CONTRACTOR-ASSAULT — A Texas woman’s claims she was raped in 2005 by co-workers in Iraq while employed by a former subsidiary of military contractor Halliburton Co. and held against her will when she tried to report the assault are about to go before a jury.
INTERNATIONAL
FOOD CRISIS-MOTHERS’ BURDEN
THUAN THANH, Vietnam — In her crude brick kitchen, Vo Thi Quan struggles to work a poor mother’s magic: creating a dinner out of next to nothing for her family. As world food prices surge to the highest levels ever recorded due to a combination of production constraints and rising demand from expanding middle classes, many poor families teeter on the edge, and it is the mothers who often quietly bear the brunt.
CHINA-INFLATION — China food costs push politically volatile inflation to 5.5 percent in May; June seen at 6 percent.
AFGHAN-THREE CUPS OF PRAGMATISM
KABUL, Afghanistan — Sakena Yacoobi is a builder of schools and clinics who says she hopes that educating women will help bring peace to Afghanistan. But she is no idealist. The 61-year-old Afghan woman first started refugee schools in Pakistan, then underground girls schools in Afghanistan under the Taliban. After that regime’s 2001 ouster, she opened scores of women’s centers teaching basic reading, math, sewing and health skills. Her programs now serve about 350,000 women and children a year.
AUSTRALIA-VOLCANIC ASH — Volcano ash halts flights to another Australian city; backlog at Melbourne could clear Tuesday.
SYRIA — Troops backed by tanks enter new towns near border with Turkey and Iraq.
YEMEN — Yemen president health stable but suffers throat problem, prime minister very critical.
SOMALIA — Somalia’s prime minister says he will not resign despite an agreement calling for his ouster.
ISRAEL-EGYPT — Israeli foreign minister says US-born Israeli arrested in Egypt is not a spy.
WASHINGTON
GATES INTERVIEW
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is disappointed and suspicious that militants in Pakistan apparently were tipped off that American intelligence officials had discovered two of their suspected bomb-making facilities, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.
ETHANOL TAX CREDITS
WASHINGTON — With lawmakers desperately working to shave federal budget deficits, the Senate is debating a measure to eliminate ethanol tax credits that pay the oil industry $5 billion a year. The biggest defenders of the subsidies, however, include farm belt conservatives leading the charge for less government.
WEINER-TWITTER PHOTOS — With a defiant Rep. Anthony Weiner resisting calls to quit and President Barack Obama saying he’d resign if he were in Weiner’s shoes, House Democrats are wrestling with how to put the embarrassing online sex scandal behind them.
CONGRESS-SPENDING — In an otherwise lean budget year, the House is poised to boost funding for the medical needs of the nation’s veterans and increase funding for the military.
SUPREME COURT-SUMMER TRAVEL — For justices, in summertime, the living is easy, the travel deluxe: Aspen, Geneva, Rome and more. A Supreme Court Notebook.
ALSO GETTING ATTENTION
AIRLINES-BAG FEES — Airlines collected $5.7 billion in fees for checking bags, changing reservations last year.
GERMANY-AIRSHIP CRASH — Blimp crashes in Germany, killing pilot; 3 passengers escape.
ITALY-REFERENDUMS — Painful defeat for Berlusconi in Italian referendums on water, nuclear power.
SUPREME COURT-SUMMER TRAVEL — SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: For justices, in summertime, the living is easy; the travel deluxe.
COURTROOM DOG-CHILD WITNESS — Trained dogs provide calm, comfort for traumatized witnesses in tense courtroom settings.
STANLEY CUP — Boston Bruins chase Roberto Luongo from Game 6, force big finale in Stanley Cup finals.
TEXAS
IRAQ CONTRACTOR-ASSAULT
HOUSTON — A jury will hear opening statements Tuesday in a Texas woman’s federal lawsuit accusing co-workers of raping her in 2005 and holding her for hours in a shipping container while she working in Iraq for a former subsidiary of military contractor Halliburton Co. Jamie Leigh Jones, 26, is asking for unspecified damages in her suit against KBR Inc. and its former parent company. It also names Charles Bortz, a former KBR firefighter she alleges was one of her rapists. The trial could last up to three weeks.
NURSES-RETALIATION
MIDLAND — Attorneys are to make their closing arguments in the trial of a West Texas sheriff accused of retaliating against two whistleblowing nurses who complained about his physician friend. The arguments come Tuesday in the trial of Winkler County Sheriff Robert Roberts after his attorneys rested their case. Roberts is charged with two felony counts of misusing official information and retaliation, along with a misdemeanor official oppression count. Convictions could mean up to 10 years in prison.
EL PASO-PARTNER BENEFITS
EL PASO — El Paso’s City Council is considering reinstating medical insurance benefits for domestic partners of municipal workers left uncovered by a referendum proposed by a local evangelist. The vote is scheduled for Tuesday. Voters decided in November to give benefits only to city employees, legal spouses and dependent children. That not only disqualified 19 gay couples but also about 100 other partners of employees, some retirees and workers not legally considered city employees.
BEAUTY QUEEN-CROWN DISPUTE
SAN ANTONIO — The runner-up who was briefly named Miss San Antonio after the pageant stripped the winner of her crown has decided not to compete for Miss Texas, avoiding a second showdown in a beauty queen battle that grabbed headlines nationwide. Organizers gave the crown to runner-up Ashley Dixon, 23, but she lost it in March, when a Bexar County jury reinstated Domonique Ramirez, 17, after a weeklong trial. The Miss Bexar County Organization, which runs the Miss San Antonio pageant, then gave Dixon the title of Miss Bexar County, which includes San Antonio. An attorney for the Miss Bexar County Organization said Dixon told Miss Texas organizers recently that she wouldn’t be competing.
RANGER GRAVE
HOUSTON — DNA testing has failed to confirm that human remains uncovered near a Central Texas cemetery belong to a legendary Texas Ranger killed in an Indian attack almost two centuries ago, the Texas Historical Commission said. DNA samples collected this year from a Falls County gravesite could not conclusively be matched to pioneer lawman James Coryell, although evidence unearthed suggests it is him, said James Bruseth, the commission’s archaeology division director and leader of the project.
POLYGAMIST LEADER — Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs is due in court Tuesday to determine if his oft-delayed trial will begin July 25, as scheduled.
TEXAS EXECUTION-APPEAL — A federal appeals court has reversed a ruling that ordered Texas to give a condemned serial killer a new punishment trial or agree to a life sentence.
IRAQ CONTRACTOR-APPEAL — A jury has been chosen in a trial stemming of a lawsuit from a Texas woman who says she was raped by co-workers in Iraq while working for a former Halliburton Co. subsidiary.
POLYGAMIST LEADER — Attorneys for polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs are asking for removal of the judge in his upcoming trial.
TEXAS-DEAD RAPIST — Investigators say a man has died while in the act of raping an elderly South Texas woman.
RADIO SHOW-FRAUD — A North Texas man who hosted a radio show and seminars on real estate investing but later confessed to fraud is going to prison and must repay $4.6 million.
JUVENILE CRIME LAW-TEXAS
DALLAS — Texas soon could provide teachers with detailed information about students’ criminal histories, opening juvenile files that always have been confidential and unavailable in most states. Spurred by the fatal stabbing of a high school teacher in 2009, the measure awaiting Gov. Rick Perry’s signature is adding to a debate over whether teacher safety should outweigh the rights of young offenders. Many juvenile justice experts say such disclosures won’t allow young people to move beyond early mistakes to lead normal lives, but some educators insist teachers are in too much danger.
IMMIGRATION
AUSTIN — Houston and Dallas law enforcement officials say they oppose legislation that would free up officers in so-called sanctuary cities to ask about the immigration status of anyone pulled over during a traffic stop, questioned as a witness or otherwise detained. Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland Jr. and Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez testified at a Senate hearing that the immigration bill the Legislature is likely to approve could make immigrants afraid to report crimes and cause the further crowding of jails.
ABORTION RULES LAWSUIT — A reproductive rights group has filed a lawsuit against a newly-signed Texas law requiring doctors to conduct a sonogram before performing an abortion.
