Obama spends first day in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — Barack Obama visited Saturday with U.S. troops and Afghan officials in this war-weary nation, the focal point of his proposed strategy for dealing with threats to the U.S. if elected president.
While officially a part of a congressional delegation on a fact-finding tour expected to take him to Iraq, Obama was traveling yesterday amid the publicity and scrutiny accorded a likely Democratic nominee for president rather than a senator from Illinois. Security was tight and media access to Obama was limited by his campaign, and his itinerary in the war zones was a closely guarded secret.
Obama, dressed in light khaki colored trousers and a checkered shirt with his sleeves rolled up, and others in the delegation received a briefing inside the U.S. base in Jalalabad from the Afghan provincial governor of Nangarhar, Gul Agha Sherzai, a no-nonsense, bullish former warlord.
Tropical Storm Cristobal forms off Southeast
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Tropical Storm Cristobal churned off the Southeast seaboard after it formed yesterday, the first storm to threaten the U.S. this hurricane season, forecasters said.
The storm strengthened from a tropical depression, generating maximum sustained winds of about 45 mph as it promised to bring much-needed rains to the parched eastern Carolinas. At 5 p.m. EDT, the center of the storm was about 125 miles east of Charleston and about 205 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The National Hurricane Center said Cristobal was moving northeast at about 7 mph.
Petraeus says al-Qaida may be switching focus
BAGHDAD — After intense U.S. assaults, al-Qaida may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are running higher than in Iraq, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said yesterday.
"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of al-Qaida's fight in Iraq," Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press in an interview at his office at the U.S. Embassy.
Whatever the result, Petraeus said no one should expect al-Qaida to give up entirely in Iraq.
"They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that," he said. "But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
Iran nuclear negotiations stall
GENEVA — A U.S. decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled yesterday, with Iran stonewalling Washington and five other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
In response, the six gave Iran two weeks to respond to their demand, setting the stage for a new round of U.N. sanctions.
Iran's refusal to consider suspending enrichment was an indirect slap at the United States, which had sent Undersecretary of State William Burns to the talks in hopes the first-time American presence would encourage Tehran into making concessions.
Officials and diplomats refused to characterize the timeframe as an ultimatum, but it appeared clear that Iran now has a de-facto deadline to show flexibility.
Wars' emotional toll on military families deepens
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Far from the combat zones, the strains and separations of no-end-in-sight wars are taking an ever-growing toll on military families despite the armed services' earnest efforts to help.
Divorce lawyers see it in the breakup of youthful marriages as long, multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan fuel alienation and mistrust. Domestic violence experts see it in the scuffles that often precede a soldier's departure or sour a briefly joyous homecoming.
Teresa Moss, a counselor at Fort Campbell's Lincoln Elementary School, hears it in the voices of deployed soldiers' children as they meet in groups to share accounts of nightmares, bedwetting and heartache. "They listen to each other. They hear that they aren't the only ones not able to sleep, having their teachers yell at them," Moss said.
Even for Army spouses with solid marriages, the repeated separations are an ordeal.
Rift grows between Martin Luther King Jr.'s children
ATLANTA — For years, they were the picture of solidarity: the four children of Martin Luther King Jr. carrying on the legacy of the civil rights icon.
But a lawsuit over how their father's estate is being run has left a rift in one of the world's most famous families. And it may now be up to a judge to get the King children in the same room.
"Strong parents have strong children, and strong children have strong opinions, and that usually leads to conflicts that they have difficulty reconciling," said Andrew Young, the former Congressman and Atlanta mayor who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement and remains close to the family.
The lawsuit filed July 10 claims that Dexter King, the youngest King child and administrator of his father's estate, has failed to provide his surviving siblings with essential documents, including financial records and contracts. It claims that he and the estate "converted substantial funds from the estate's financial account ... for their own use" on June 20 without notifying his sister and brother.
It is not about money, but instead is a last-resort effort to talk to Dexter King about the family's affairs, even if it's through a judge, Young said.
Congress considers raising pump tax
WASHINGTON — The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere.
Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded — with a prod from the construction industry — that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs.
Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel.
With gas prices setting records daily, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and former Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a 90-day suspension of the federal fuel tax to give drivers a little relief at the pump. The fuel taxes go into the Highway Trust Fund, which is used for road construction and repair and mass transit.
