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World
Dazed Iraqi teen suicide bomber says she didn’t
want to die
BAQOUBA, Iraq – Around her chest was a vest packed with explosives. The policeman chained her to the bars of a window, stripped off her dress, found the vest and deactivated the bomb. Had he not intervened, Rania would have been this year’s 31st suicide bomber in Iraq.
A day later, Rania seemed in a daze as she spoke about the people who put her up to it: the relatives who forced her to don the vest and apparently drugged her.
Rania said in an interview Monday with McClatchy Newspapers that she didn’t know that the wired vest was a bomb. But she also said she was suspicious from the moment her husband’s female cousins told her to wear it.
Rania has rheumatism, and her cousins told her that the vest would help her back, she said.
Chrysler considers selling Dodge Viper
DETROIT – Chrysler LLC indicated Wednesday morning that its Dodge Viper sports car line could be sold as the company continues to spin off non-core assets.
The Auburn Hills, Mich., automaker, a year into private ownership, announced in a statement that it is preparing to explore “strategic options for the Dodge Viper business.”
“We have been approached by third parties who are interested in exploring future possibilities for Viper,” Bob Nardelli, Chrysler CEO, said in a statement.
The automaker stressed in the statement that the review is “unique to the Viper specialty vehicle” and emphasized that Chrysler “has not set a definitive timetable for completion of the review of its strategic options, no final decision has been made with regard to the Viper business, and there can be no assurance that any transaction will take place as a result of this process.”
Chrysler has hired financial advisory Lazard Ltd. to help in the process.
NATO rejects `business as
usual’ with Russia
BRUSSELS, Belgium – NATO declared Tuesday that there will be no “business as usual” with Moscow while Russian forces occupied large parts of Georgia, but it took no decisive action to enforce a demand for an immediate Russian withdrawal in line with a French-brokered cease-fire.
Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, mocked the outcome of an emergency meeting of the 26-nation alliance.
“The mountain gave birth to a mouse,” Rogozin told reporters.
In Georgia last Tuesday, Russia continued to display its control over key locations and roads and despite repeated promises showed no clear signs of a withdrawal. “We have not seen any significant movement,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.
National
Clinton stands tall
behind Obama
DENVER – Sen. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday turned the second day of the Democratic National Convention into a celebration of her historic presidential campaign as a breakthrough for women, but she left no doubt that she’s solidly behind Barack Obama as her party’s nominee for the presidency.
After a video tribute to her long campaign against Obama for the nomination, Clinton walked onstage, introduced by her daughter, Chelsea, who called her “my hero and my mother.”
Clinton told everyone unequivocally: “I’m here tonight as a proud mother, as a proud Democrat, as a proud senator from New York, a proud American and a proud supporter of Barack Obama . . . Whether you voted for me or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.”
Southwest Airlines will cut 200 flights from winter schedule
FORT WORTH, Texas – Southwest Airlines will cut about 200 flights from its schedule this winter as it adjusts its winter schedule for high fuel prices.
The airline traditionally trims the number of flights it operates during the first quarter, when travel demand drops after the holidays. The cuts this year “are a little steeper than usual,” said Chris Mainz, a spokesman for the Dallas-based carrier.
Still, he said the airline hasn’t changed its overall forecast for its 2009 capacity.
New York Times July
newspaper revenue plunges
CHICAGO – New York Times Co. said Tuesday that July advertising revenue at its newspapers fell 18 percent $119.9 million, as even online ad growth slowed to less than 1 percent compared with the same month a year ago.
Classified ad revenue, traditionally the most important source of income for newspapers, dropped 30.1 percent in July, after declining 25.6 percent in June and 24.8 percent in May. “It really just fell off the cliff,” said Ed Atorino, newspaper analyst at Benchmark & Co.
The company’s newspapers saw weakness in help-wanted, real estate and automotive classifieds.
Local/BSU
Canyon County commuters can earn cash incentives
Canyon County commuters now have extra motivation to share vehicles: cash incentives.
The Idaho Transportation Department has allocated $275,000 to boost Ada County Highway District Commuteride services during the Interstate 84 Garrity to Meridian project to reduce congestion and improve safety in the work zone.
Effective immediately, vanpool and carpool participants entering eastbound I-84 at the Garrity Interchange or further west can qualify for the incentives.
Full-time vanpool riders will be eligible for an $84 quarterly rebate. Riders also may receive an $84 bonus for each new full-time rider they recruit.
Carpool participants who register online at commuteride.com and share at least 60 percent of their monthly commute trips will be eligible for a $25 gift card each month to local area merchants.
Sentencing delayed in
local gang case
Sentencing has been delayed in the case of Simona Liza “Mona” Manzanares, a Caldwell woman accused of recruiting members into a Caldwell-based gang.
Her sentence was originally slated to come down last Tuesday afternoon. Manzanares, 29, is the first person in Idaho to be arrested on charges of gang recruitment since legislation passed in summer 2006 that made it a felony offense.
Manzanares’ attorney, Richard Harris, asked 3rd District Judge Thomas Ryan for more time to confer with Manzanares to determine if he needs to call additional witnesses to the stand.
Harris indicated he was taken off guard by evidence and witnesses produced by Canyon County deputy prosecuting attorney Ellie Somoza.
Dust storm leads to
I-84 pileups
Idaho State Police dispatchers say a combination of low visibility and careless driving led to back-to-back pileups involving nearly a dozen vehicles near the Middleton exit on Interstate 84 in Nampa.
The first accident happened Tuesday, Aug. 26 at 6:27 p.m. Traffic slowed due to high winds, dust and smoke from a grass fire that was burning along the sides of the interstate. Motorist Russell Garner, 62, of Salt Lake City, failed to slow with traffic and crashed into a Mercedes sedan and a Ford truck.
Two people were transported to Mercy Medical Center in Nampa with minor injuries.
What the?
Officer, it was awful … what TV cameras?
A store supervisor in Edinburgh, Scotland, stole money from the safe and had his friend beat him up so it would look like a robbery. Alas, he forgot to turn off the store’s closed-circuit TV cameras before he did it.
Oh, that’s not mine
A man, who was pulled over in Bahrain for a driving offense, gave the police officer his license, before realizing that a piece of hashish was stuck to it.
When she says rust,
she means rust
A woman who ordered rust-colored hydrangeas for her New York City wedding was more than a little peeved when the florist provided pink hydrangeas instead. Citing “extreme disappointment, distress and embarrassment,” the bride is suing for $400,000.
Compiled by Arbiter staff