By wire sources
Gridlock alert for Iowa: Republican campaign for caucus enters
final, hectic week
DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa caucus campaign that has cycled through several Republican presidential front-runners entered its final week Monday, as unpredictable as the day conservatives began competing to emerge as Mitt Romney’s chief rival.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, released a new television commercial for the state in which he cited a “moral imperative for America to stop spending more money than we take in. It’s killing jobs,” he said.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry countered with an advertisement that said four of his rivals combined — none of them Romney — have served 63 years in Congress, “leaving us with debt, earmarks and bailouts.”
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who has invested more time in Iowa than any other contender, was the only one in the state during the day.
That changes today, with bus tours planned by Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, all eager to energize their existing supporters and attract new ones.
Fire chief says Conn. home where 5 died in a Christmas morning fire has been torn down
STAMFORD, Conn. — A house severely damaged in a Christmas morning fire that killed three children and two grandparents, one of whom worked as Santa Claus at Saks Fifth Avenue, has been torn down.
The building department determined that the $1.7 million house was unsafe and ordered it razed, Stamford fire chief Antonio Conte said.
The home’s owner, advertising executive Madonna Badger, and her male acquaintance escaped from the fire. But Badger’s three daughters — a 10-year-old and 7-year-old twins — and her parents, who were visiting for the holiday, died, police said.
Neighbors said they awoke to the sound of screaming shortly before 5 a.m. Sunday and rushed outside to help, but could do nothing as flames devoured the large, turreted home.
Police said the male acquaintance who escaped the blaze with Badger was a contractor working on the home. He was also hospitalized but his condition was not released.
Sadrists call for
new elections in
Iraq as political
turmoil escalates
BAGHDAD — The political party loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called Monday for the dissolution of Iraq’s parliament and new elections in another move that could escalate the country’s growing sectarian crisis.
The anti-American Sadrist bloc is a partner in the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bahaa al-Aaraji, the head of the Sadrists’ bloc in parliament, said the elections are needed because of instability in the country and problems that threaten Iraq’s sovereignty.
“The political partners cannot find solutions for the problems that threaten to divide Iraq,” he said.
Iraq plunged into a new sectarian crisis last week, just days after the last American troops withdrew at the end of a nearly nine-year war.
The new political crisis has been accompanied by a new wave of attacks on the Iraqi capital by suspected Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida. A suicide bomber set off a car bomb Monday at a checkpoint leading to the Interior Ministry, killing seven people and injuring 32, officials said. Police and hospital officials said the bomber struck during morning rush hour, hitting one of many security barriers set up around the ministry’s building.
By wire sources