Nation / World Snapshots

By The Associated Press - 07/23/2008

Hurricane Dolly blows ashore on South Padre Island BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Hurricane Dolly slammed into the South Texas coast Wednesday with punishing rain and winds of 100 mph, blowing down signs, peeling off roofs and knocking out power to thousands before weakening over land.

Local officials’ greatest fear — that the levees holding back the Rio Grande would fail and cause massive flooding — eased when Dolly meandered 35 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border just before coming ashore on South Padre Island as a Category 2 storm. About two hours later, Dolly’s winds slowed to 95 mph, and the storm was downgraded to a Category 1.

“The levees are holding up just fine,” said Cameron County Emergency Management Coordinator Johnny Cavazos. “There is no indication right now that they are going to crest.” The storm defied forecasts that it would swarm the mouth of the Rio Grande, pushing its current upstream and causing massive flooding on both sides of the border. But “it’s still very early in the storm,” cautioned Sally Spener, a spokeswoman with the International Boundary and Water Commission.

Most of the destruction was on South Padre Island, a beach resort town on a barrier island off the Texas coast. Numerous roofs were ripped off and windows were smashed.

McCain denies he misstated timing of Iraq surge BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — Republican John McCain pushed back on Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007.

He told reporters during an unscheduled stop in a super market that, what the Bush administration calls “the surge” was actually “made up of a number of components,” some of which began before the president’s order for more troops.

It’s all a matter of semantics, he suggested.

McCain said Army Col. Sean MacFarland started carrying out elements of a new counterinsurgency strategy as early as December 2006.

At issue are McCain’s comments in a Tuesday interview with CBS. The Arizona senator disputed Democrat Barack Obama’s contention that a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida combined with the dispatch of thousands more U.S. combat troops to Iraq to produce the improved security situation there. McCain called that a “false depiction.” Help for strapped homeowners sails through House WASHINGTON (AP) — Rescue legislation sailed through the House Wednesday aimed at helping 400,000 strapped home- owners avoid foreclosure and to prevent troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing.

The 272-152 vote reflected a congressional push to send election-year help to struggling borrowers and to reassure jittery financial markets about the health of two pillars of the mortgage market.

Hours before the vote, President Bush dropped his opposition to the measure, which is now on track to pass the Senate and become law within days.

The White House swallowed its distaste for $3.9 billion in grants the bill would provide for devastated neighborhoods. The Bush administration gains the power to throw a lifeline to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of the measure that also is designed to rein in the government-sponsored mortgage firms.

The administration and lawmakers in both parties teamed to negotiate the measure, which accomplishes several Democratic priorities, including federal help for homeowners, a new permanent affordable housing fund financed by Fannie and Freddie and the $3.9 billion for hard-hit neighborhoods. The grants are for buying and fixing up foreclosed properties.

Woman attacked by bear escapes, drives to help CALIENTE, Calif. (AP) — A woman walking her two dogs in a rural area of Southern California was attacked and severely injured by a bear, but managed to escape and drive herself to a nearby fire station.

The woman suffered severe lacerations to her face and head in Tuesday’s attack and was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, said county fire spokesman Sean Collins. Her condition was not known.

“For her to be attacked in that manner and drive to a fire station, she must have been running on pure adrenaline,” Collins said.

The woman, whose name was not immediately released, was taking her dogs on a morning walk when the bear attacked near the tiny community of Caliente, east of Bakersfield and about five miles away from an area that burned in a recent wildfire, Collins said.

Gates, Bloomberg put $375 million into anti-smoking campaign NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their piles of money to pour $375 million into a global effort to cut smoking.

The billionaire philanthropists, who have a combined worth of more than $70 billion, said Wednesday that the money will help efforts in developing countries where tobacco use is highest. There are more than 1 billion smokers worldwide.

The $250 million from Bloomberg and $125 million from Gates will support projects that raise tobacco taxes, help smokers quit, ban tobacco advertising and protect nonsmokers from exposure to smoke. It will also aid efforts to track tobacco use and better understand tobacco control strategies.

“Together we can make a clear, measurable difference — not just for ourselves and our generation but for the generations that come after us,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg, an ex-smoker, and Gates made the announcement together at a Manhattan news conference — an appearance that Gates noted was his first public event since ending his full-time tenure at Microsoft Corp. to spend more time at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ambassador: Al-Qaida recruits going to Afghanistan, Pakistan WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-Qaida’s foreign fighters who have for years bedeviled Iraq are increasingly going to Afghanistan to fight instead, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States said Wednesday.

“We have heard reports recently that many of the foreign fighters that were in Iraq have left, either back to their homeland or going to fight in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now seeming to be more suitable for al-Qaida fighters,” said Ambassador Samir Sumaida’ie.

Al-Qaida had training camps and a headquarters in Afghanistan, under the protection of the then-ruling Taliban, until the U.S.

invaded after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. With al-Qaida forced out of Afghanistan, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 quickly drew outside fighters there.

Sumaida’ie said al-Qaida is finding it now increasingly difficult to operate in Iraq, beginning with the rebellion of the largely Sunni tribes in Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007. Until then, al-Qaida had ruled by intimidation and violence, establishing physical control and setting up a shadow government in large swaths of Iraqi territory.

“There were large tracts that were run by al-Qaida, administered by al-Qaida — they had ministers, administrators, paid salaries and so on. This no longer exists, so they do not have any territory to control (where it) is safe for them to move in and around Iraq,” he said. “In whole areas they ceased to operate as effective terrorist networks.”