House Republican budget plan heats up as campaign issue
House Republican budget plan heats up as campaign issue
WASHINGTON — The new debt-slashing budget plan pushed by House Republicans heated up as a presidential campaign issue Sunday as the proposal’s architect, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, sparred with top Democrats over its political fallout and downplayed the possibility he could be tapped as a vice presidential candidate.
Senior White House adviser David Plouffe dismissed the GOP plan Sunday as “a lot of candy, not a lot of vegetables,” and charged that it would be “rubber-stamped” as law if leading Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is elected.
“This is really the Romney-Ryan plan,” Plouffe said, adding that its mix of across-the-board tax cuts and stiff budget cuts “showers huge tax cuts on millionaires and billionaires paid for by senior and veterans.”
Ryan tried to tamp down speculation that he could be tapped for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket, although who will be the nominee is far from settled.
“I would have to consider it, but it’s not something I’m even thinking about right now because right — I think our job in Congress is pretty important,” Ryan said. “And what we believe we owe the country is, if we don’t like the direction the president is taking us, which we don’t, we owe them a specific sharp contrast and a different path that they can select in November. And doing this in Congress is really important.”
Powerful quake hits central Chile coast
SANTIAGO, Chile — A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Chile Sunday night, the strongest and longest that many people said they had felt since the huge quake that devastated the area two years ago. There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.
The quake struck at 7:30 p.m. about 16 miles (27 kilometers) north-northwest of Talca, a city of more than 200,000 people where residents said the shaking lasted about a minute.
Buildings swayed in Chile’s capital 136 miles (219 kilometers) to the north, and people living along a 480-mile (770-kilometer) stretch of Chile’s central coast were briefly warned to head for higher ground.
Residents were particularly alarmed in Constitucion, where much of the coastal downtown at the mouth of a river was obliterated by the tsunami caused by the 8.8-magnitude quake in 2010.
Panic also struck in Santiago and other cities, with people running out of skyscrapers, and many neighborhoods were left partly or totally without electrical power. Phone service collapsed due to heavy traffic.
French gunman’s brother hit with preliminary terror, murder charges
PARIS — A Frenchman suspected of helping his brother plot attacks against Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers was handed preliminary murder and terrorism charges Sunday.
But Abdelkader Merah denied any role in the attacks. Investigators looking into France’s worst terror attacks in years believe Merah helped his brother Mohamed prepare the killings, and are investigating whether they were linked to an international network of extremists or worked on their own.
Abdelkader’s lawyer said he feels like “a scapegoat.”
“No one knew anything” about what Mohamed was plotting, lawyer Anne-Sophie Laguens told reporters in Paris. She dismissed reports that Abdelkader had praised his brother’s attacks. “He was never proud of those actions.”
Mohamed Merah, 23, claimed responsibility for killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers earlier this month. After a 32-hour standoff with police, he died Thursday in a hail of gunfire as he jumped out a window of his apartment in the southern city of Toulouse.
By wire sources