Nation & World Briefly Ag. 23

Gadhafi regime teeters on collapse

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was nowhere to be found Monday as his 42-year rule teetered on the brink of collapse. Months of NATO airstrikes have left his Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli largely demolished. Most of his security forces fled or surrendered when rebel forces rolled into the capital Sunday night and took control of most of the city. And three of his sons are under arrest.

A mood of joy mixed with trepidation settled over the capital, with the rebels still fighting pockets of fierce resistance from regime loyalists firing mortars and anti-aircraft guns. Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, who was in Tripoli, said the "danger is still there" as long as Gadhafi remains on the run.

"The real moment of victory is when Gadhafi is captured," Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, head of the rebel National Transitional Council, told a news conference in the opposition's de facto capital of Benghazi, hundreds of miles east of Tripoli. He said the rebels have no idea where Gadhafi is and whether he is even in Tripoli. An Obama administration official said the U.S. had no indication that Gadhafi had left Libya.

President Barack Obama said the situation in Libya reached a tipping point in recent days after a five month NATO-led bombing campaign. However, he acknowledged that the situation remained fluid and that elements of the regime remained a threat.

The Obama administration official said U.S. officials and NATO partners had not been in contact with Gadhafi during the siege on Tripoli. However, the official said American and NATO representatives, as well as Libyan rebels, had all been in contact with people around Gadhafi, mostly those looking for a way out.

Stocks edge higher after a 4-week slump

NEW YORK (AP) - It was another day of big swings in the Dow Jones industrial average, but at least Monday ended with a modest gain.

The Dow soared 200 points in the morning, an encouraging start after four weeks of losses. By noon that gain shriveled to just 2 points, then came a rise of another 100 in the afternoon. At the end of the day, the Dow closed up 37 points.

Compared with the even wilder fluctuations over the past two weeks, Monday's trading looked relatively calm. The Dow has gained or lost at least 200 points eight days in August, including a 419-point plunge last Thursday. A flare-up of Europe's debt crisis and fears of a new U.S. recession have shaken investors, taking the Dow down 15 percent in one month.

Hewlett-Packard Co. rose 3.6 percent, the most of the 30 large companies in the Dow Jones industrial average. H-P sank 20 percent on Friday after saying it planned to sell its PC business and stop selling other products.

Bank stocks, which have been clobbered over worries about Europe's debt crisis, took another fall. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped 2.7 percent. Bank of America lost 7.9 percent, the biggest drop among the 30 Dow companies. Analysts at Wells Fargo cut their price target on the stock, citing fears that the U.S. could slip back into a recession.

Hurricane Irene heads north; threatens to gain strength

SAMANA, Dominican Republic (AP) - Hurricane Irene cut a destructive path through the Caribbean on Monday, raking Puerto Rico with strong winds and rain and then spinning just north of the Dominican Republic on a track that could carry it to the U.S. Southeast as a major storm by the end of the week.

Irene slashed directly across Puerto Rico, tearing up trees and knocking out power to more than a million people, then headed out to sea north of the Dominican Republic, where the powerful storm's outer bands were buffeting the north coast with dangerous sea surge and downpours.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the Category 1 storm was expected to strengthen during the next two days, and could be near major hurricane strength by the time it tracks over the central Bahamas.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season was a large system that could cause dangerous mudslides and floods in Dominican Republic, the hurricane center said. It was not expected to make a direct hit on neighboring Haiti, though that country could still see heavy rain from the storm.

Dominican officials said the government had emergency food available for 1.5 million people if needed and the country's military and public safety brigades were on alert.

Prosecutors recommend dropping Strauss-Kahn charges

NEW YORK (AP) - New York City prosecutors asked a judge Monday to dismiss all criminal charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn because they aren't sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the hotel maid who created a cross-continental sensation by accusing him of sexual assault is telling the truth.

The Manhattan district attorney's office said in court papers that the accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, repeatedly gave false information to investigators and grand jurors about her life, her past and her actions following her encounter with the French diplomat.

"In virtually every substantive interview with prosecutors, despite entreaties to simply be truthful, she has not been truthful on matters great and small," the lawyers wrote.

Diallo, and her attorney, Kenneth Thompson, met briefly with representatives of the Manhattan district attorney's office to discuss the decision not to proceed with the prosecution. Thompson didn't say what had happened inside or reveal what his client was told, but he recited a short statement condemning prosecutors for their handling of the case.

"Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case," he said. "He has not only turned his back on this innocent victim. But he has also turned his back on the forensic, medical and other physical evidence in this case."

New fights brew over balanced budget amendment, deficit cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) - As a "supercommittee" tries to find $1.5 trillion in new deficit cuts this fall, Republicans will be pressing a far more ambitious goal: passing an amendment to the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget.

The idea is being pushed most forcefully by conservative activists eager to shrink the government and its spending but disappointed with the results they've achieved so far in Washington, where Democrats control both the White House and the Senate.

"Spending cuts and caps are steps in the right direction," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. But a balanced budget amendment is "the only permanent solution to control government spending and end our nation's spending-driven debt crisis," Sessions said.

House GOP leaders - short of the two-thirds margin required to pass the amendment - have held off scheduling a vote. But both House and Senate are required to hold votes this fall as one of the conditions of recently enacted legislation to raise the government's borrowing cap.

It's a decidedly uphill battle, even though Republicans control the House with larger numbers than they had in 1995, when a balanced budget amendment sailed through the chamber with 300 votes. It fell just one supporter short of the required two-thirds margin in the Senate.

Nature hike took 76-year-old scout leader into path of attacker

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - As a 76-year-old scoutmaster led two young charges on a nature hike, they stopped to identify a tree - a pause authorities say put them in the path of a man who emerged from a nearby home with a 12-inch knife and stabbed the group's leader, leaving him to bleed to death on the trail.

The attack Sunday afternoon on the Nickel Plate Trail in Bunker Hill, 60 miles north of Indianapolis, killed Arthur Anderson, a scouting volunteer for 50 years who also mentored young computer whizzes at Kokomo High School and held a patent for an electrical device.

Authorities say that after approaching Anderson from behind and stabbing him without provocation, 22-year-old Shane Golitko returned to the home where he had earlier assaulted his mother, breaking her arm, and stabbed his two dogs, killing one of them. He fled in his mother's Jeep, leading police on an eight-mile chase before he was arrested.

Authorities said it wasn't clear what set Golitko off, and neither drugs nor alcohol were involved.

"It was a senseless act," said Indiana State Police Detective Tony Frawley, who had stated in a court affidavit that Golitko told him "that the reason he got the knife from his bedroom was to 'stab the guy with the gray hair."'

Friend says wing walker who fell 200 feet at Michigan air show was 1 of 2 to do deadly stunt

DETROIT (AP) - A Michigan wing walker who fell to his death as he tried to grab a helicopter's skid from his perch atop a small plane had successfully performed the same maneuver many times before, a former colleague said Monday.

Todd Green, the son of a prominent aerial stuntman and a skilled one himself, was one of only two people to ever do the stunt, said Kyle Franklin, a stunt pilot and former wing walker who once worked with him.

"He was very good at it. I've seen him do that many, many times," Franklin said. "He was always on spot and did a very good job with everything he did."

Green, who died Sunday after falling 200 feet from the plane during an annual air show at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, successfully completed the stunt the day before, said Technical Sgt. Dan Heaton, a base spokesman.

His death came a day after two pilots died in separate crashes at air shows in Missouri and England.