PENINSULA DAILY NEWS for Monday, October 1, 2012 PAGE
A3 Briefly: Nation As race stands, Obama within reach of a win DES MOINES, Iowa — Five weeks to Election Day, President Barack Obama is within reach of the 270 electoral votes needed to win a second term. Republican Mitt Romney’s path to victory is turning uphill. To overtake Obama, Romney would need to gain the upper hand in nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the hardest. Polls show the president with a steady lead in many of them as Romney looks to shift the dynamics of the race, starting with their first debate Wednesday in Denver. If the election were held today, an Associated Press analysis shows Obama would win at least 271 electoral votes, with likely victories in crucial Ohio and Iowa along with 19 other states and the District of Columbia. Romney would win 23 states for a total of 206.
2 dead at Fla. VFW WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — Police say two people are dead and another is injured after a shooting at a central Florida Veterans of Foreign Wars post. Winter Springs Police said a charity motorcycle ride was supposed to depart from the post when the shooting broke out Sunday morning while the riders were eating breakfast. The Orlando Sentinel
reported an unknown number of armed men came in and began firing. It was unclear if any of the attendees shot back. Winter Springs Police spokesman Lt. Doug Steeley said the agency detained several people and confiscated a number of weapons.
Ex-governor, wife split NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. David Paterson and his wife have separated. The split between the Democratic politician and wife Michelle Paige Paterson was first reported Saturday by the New York Post. Paterson Paterson representative Sean Darcy said the decision was “mutual and amicable.” The couple’s relationship was in the public eye from the day he took office in 2008. He immediately admitted one affair in an interview and the next day appeared at a news conference with his wife, where both admitted having affairs at a time when their marriage was heading toward divorce. The revelations followed on the heels of the sex scandal that felled Paterson’s predecessor. Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned from office after he was accused of spending thousands on high-end prostitutes. The Associated Press
Briefly: World Afghanistan fire fight kills 2 Americans
Powerful typhoon
TOKYO — A powerful typhoon headed to Tokyo on Sunday after injuring dozens of people, causing blackouts and paralyzing traffic in southern and western Japan. KABUL, Afghanistan — A Japan’s Meteorological firefight broke out between U.S. Agency said Typhoon Jelawat forces and their Afghan army said the storm was packing allies in eastern Afghanistan winds of up to 78 miles an hour Sunday, killing two Americans as it passed the Nagoya area in and three Afghan soldiers and central Japan. pushing the number of U.S. Nagoya city issued an evacutroops killed in the long-running ation advisory to more than war 2,000. 50,000 residents because of fear The fighting started Saturof flooding. More than 10,000 day when what is believed to people were also evacuated in have been a mortar fired by Ishinomaki, a coastal city that insurgents struck a checkpoint was hit by last year’s tsunami. set up by U.S. forces in Wardak The typhoon left 145 people province, said a provincial govwith minor injuries in southern ernment spokesman. and western Japan, about half He said the Americans thought they were under attack of them on the southern island of Okinawa, public broadcaster from a nearby Afghan army NHK said. checkpoint and fired on it. Tens of thousands of homes The Afghan Defense Ministry were without electricity. said the gunbattle was the result of a “misunderstanding” Deep Colombia temblor between international forces and Afghan soldiers manning a BOGOTA, Colombia — There checkpoint in the Sayd Abad were no immediate reports of district. injuries from an earthquake NATO’s International Secucentered deep underground in rity Assistance Force provided a the country’s southwest whose different account. magnitude the U.S. Geological “After a short conversation Survey placed at 7.1. took place between (Afghan The USGS said the quake army) and ISAF personnel firstruck at 11:31 a.m. local time ing occurred, which resulted in Sunday 30 miles from the the fatal wounding of an ISAF regional capital of Popayan, censoldier and the death of his tered at a depth of 94 miles. civilian colleague,” the coalition National disaster director said in a statement. Carlos Ivan Marquez said there It said the three Afghan solwere no immediate reports of diers died “in an ensuing injuries or damage. exchange of fire.” The Associated Press
D.C. sniper: I felt like ‘worst piece of scum’ Tuesday will mark 10 years since attacks THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Convicted D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo said in a newspaper interview published Sunday that the devastated reaction of a victim’s husband made him feel like “the worst piece of scum.” Malvo expressed remorse in the interview with The Washington Post and urged the families of victims to try and forget about him and his partner John Allen Muhammad so they can move on. Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the deadly spree in the Washington area carried out by Malvo and John Allen Muhammad. The pair was linked to 27 shootings across the country, including 10 fatal attacks in the Washington, D.C., area. Malvo, 27, told the Post in a rare interview that the look on the face of victim Linda Franklin’s husband right after she was shot stands out in his memory of the rampage. Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst, was killed as she and her husband loaded supplies outside a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va. “They are penetrating,” Malvo said of Ted Franklin’s eyes. “It is the worst sort of pain I have ever seen in my life. His eyes . . . You feel like the worst piece of scum on the planet.” Malvo is serving a life sentence with no parole at a prison in southwest Virginia for killing Franklin. Muhammad was executed in Virginia in 2009 The attacks all but paralyzed the nation’s capital, as people
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (2)
A 17-year-old John Lee Malvo is escorted from court after his preliminary hearing Jan. 14, 2003.
John Allen Muhammad, seen in 2006, was executed in ’09. were shot at random while going about their everyday life — pumping gas, buying groceries, and for one boy, as he went to school.
Fired from car’s trunk The shooters used a high-powered rifle, firing from the trunk of a modified Chevy Caprice until they were tracked down at a Maryland rest stop. Malvo also repeated previous assertions that he was manipulated by Muhammad during the string of attacks that took place
when Malvo was 17. But he acknowledges: “I was a monster.” Asked what he would say to victims’ families, the remorseful Malvo said there’s no way to properly convey an apology. “We can never change what happened,” Malvo said. “There’s nothing that I can say except don’t allow me and my actions to continue to victimize you for the rest of your life.” He added: “Don’t allow myself or Muhammad to continue to make you a victim for the rest of your life. It isn’t worth it.” Linda Franklin’s father, Charles Moore, was incredulous about the idea that victims’ relatives would be able to forget about what Malvo and Muhammad did. “There’s no way. I can’t believe that. No one can go through something like that,” Moore said, adding that his daughter’s slaying contributed to his wife’s death several years later. “What he did just destroyed my family.”
Medicare to fine hospitals over readmitted patients THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — If you or an elderly relative have been hospitalized recently and noticed extra attention when the time came to be discharged, there’s more to it than good customer service. As of today, Medicare will start fining hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications. The penalties are part of a broader push under President Barack Obama’s health care law to improve quality while also trying to save taxpayers money. About two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or some 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging around $125,000 per facility this coming year, according to government estimates. Data to assess the penalties have been collected, and Medicare has shared the results with individual hospitals. Medicare plans to post details online later in October, and people can look up how their community hospitals performed by using the agency’s
Quick Read
“There is a lot of activity at the hospital level to straighten out our internal processes.” NANCY FOSTER American Hospital Association official “Hospital Compare” website. It adds up to a new way of doing business for hospitals, and they have scrambled to prepare for well over a year.
Improving communication They are working on ways to improve communication with rehabilitation centers and doctors who follow patients after they’re released, as well as connecting individually with patients. “There is a lot of activity at the hospital level to straighten out our internal processes,” said Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and safety at the American Hospital Association. “We are also spreading our wings a little and reaching outside the hospital,
to the extent that we can, to make sure patients are getting the ongoing treatment they need.” Still, industry officials said they have misgivings about being held liable for circumstances beyond their control. “Readmissions are partially within the control of the hospital and partially within the control of others,” Foster said. Consumer advocates said Medicare’s nudge to hospitals is long overdue. “It’s modest, but it’s a start,” said Dr. John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center. “Should we be surprised that industry is objecting? You would expect them to object to anything that changes the status quo.” For the first year, the penalty is capped at 1 percent of a hospital’s Medicare payments. The overwhelming majority of penalized facilities will pay less. Also, for now, hospitals are only being measured on three medical conditions: heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia.
. . . more news to start your day
West: Homes threatened by California brush fire
Nation:‘Hotel Transylvania’ Nation:‘Hotel scares up $43 million take
Nation: Small earthquake rattles suburb of Dallas
World: Thousands take to streets in Haitian protest
“A HANDFUL OF homes” were reported threatened by a 300-acre brush fire burning in a remote area of California’s Riverside County on Sunday morning, officials said, but no evacuations have been ordered. The so-called Range fire began about 6:10 p.m. Saturday near Old Idyllwild Road and Shirleon Drive, a rugged, hilly area south of Banning, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. Nearly 250 firefighters were attacking the blaze, which was zero percent contained Sunday morning. The fire destroyed at least one outbuilding and a few abandoned vehicles Saturday, officials said.
ADAM SANDLER’S MONSTER mash-up “Hotel Transylvania” has brought the weekend box office back to life after a late-summer slump. The animated comedy from Sony Pictures debuted at No. 1, taking in $43 million, one of the strongest starts ever for a movie opening in September, according to studio estimates Sunday. This weekend’s box office was further strengthened by a solid No. 2 debut for another Sony release, Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s time-travel thriller “Looper,” which took in $21.2 million. In narrower release, Universal Pictures’ music tale “Pitch Perfect” opened strongly at No. 6 with $5.2 million.
A MINOR EARTHQUAKE and an aftershock rattled the western suburbs of Dallas overnight, but authorities reported no damages or injuries, and a major airport near the epicenter continued with normal flight operations. The quake measuring a preliminary magnitude of 3.4 on the Richter scale struck at 11:05 p.m. CDT Saturday and was centered about 2 miles north of the Dallas suburb of Irving, the US Geological Survey’s national earthquake monitoring center in Golden, Colo., reported. USGS Geophysicist Randy Baldwinsaid the quake lasted several seconds and appeared strong enough to be felt up to 15 or 20 miles away.
SEVERAL THOUSAND PEOPLE poured into the streets of Haiti’s capital Sunday to protest the government of President Michel Martelly. It was among the biggest demonstrations this year in Port-au-Prince against the first-time leader as he tries to rebuild the impoverished nation following a powerful 2010 earthquake that displaced more than a million people. Demonstrators’ complaints included the high cost of living, rising food prices and allegations of corruption. Some protesters carried small red cards to suggest that Martelly has committed too many fouls since he was sworn in as president in May 2011.