Mexican candidate leads crowd demanding recount

Mexican candidate leadscrowd demanding recount
MEXICO CITY -- Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a vast crowd of supporters Sunday to wage a campaign of "civil resistance" to push for a manual recount of the election that he claims his conservative opponent won by fraud. Lopez Obrador did not say what the campaign should entail, but the term civil resistance in Mexico often has meant protest camps and street blockades. A crowd of more than 300,000 jammed the capital's central plaza, spilling down the city's main avenue for at least 1.5 miles and chanting "Vote by vote!" -- the slogan of the recount campaign.
Anti-Taliban offensiveto continue, coalition says
KABUL, Afghanistan -- There is no end in sight for a massive anti-Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan, which must continue until local authorities gain control of the insurgent-dominated region, the U.S.-led coalition said Sunday. More than 10,000 soldiers have fanned out across southern mountain ranges, desert plains and opium fields to crush the Taliban in Operation Mountain Thrust, the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001. American, British and Canadian troops have inflicted large numbers of casualties in recent days in some of the most intense fighting of the offensive. Authorities said more than 70 Taliban were killed in 24 hours of violence in southern Helmand province.
NAACP chairman urgesBush to speak to group
WASHINGTON -- Julian Bond blasted the war in Iraq and conservative attacks on voting rights Sunday, yet the NAACP's chairman also urged President Bush to attend the civil-rights group's annual convention. "This year the convention has come to the president and we hope and pray he is coming to us," said Bond, speaking about a mile from the White House at the city's convention center. Bush has avoided the conventions since taking office in 2001, making him the first sitting president in decades not to have spoken to the group. His schedule for Wednesday lists an event with the notation "TBA," or to be announced. Bond said Bush's presence would show that he hears the concerns of black Americans. "We have values, we vote our values," he said.
Shuttle gets OK to land
HOUSTON -- All their assigned duties were completed and final precautionary tests had turned up no problems Sunday, leaving weather the only question facing the astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery as they looked forward to a return to Earth. On Sunday, Mission Control gave the shuttle crew permission to try for a landing today at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, clearing all lingering technical questions on the shuttle heat shield and the system that provides hydraulic power for landing. Re-entry is one of the two most dangerous parts of a shuttle flight, along with the launch. A damaged heat shield caused Columbia to disintegrate during re-entry in 2003.
Heat wave grips nation
CHICAGO -- Temperatures soared into the upper 90s and higher Sunday from coast to coast, bringing out heat warnings, wilting athletes and driving others into the shade. The choking heat was expected to continue for the next few days, and the hot air was moving toward the East Coast, meteorologists said. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Sunday the state would make more than 130 office buildings available as cooling centers beginning today. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had ordered the National Guard out to help firefighters as temperatures even in the normally cool northern part of the state pushed 100 degrees amid very dry conditions. The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for Las Vegas, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Tulsa, Okla., and parts of New Jersey, where thermometers made it into the 90s Sunday and were expected to reach 100 degrees today.
Plane crashes into houses
HILLSBORO, Ore. -- An airplane participating in an air show crashed into a densely populated neighborhood near the Hillsboro Airport on Sunday afternoon, exploding and setting at least two homes on fire. Connie King, a spokeswoman for the Hillsboro Fire Department, said three homes were hit and two caught fire. King didn't know of any casualties. The crash happened toward the end of the two-day Hillsboro Air Show. Witness Kory Hauser said the plane, an older model jet, went down about 4:30 p.m. about a mile and a half from the airport, the (Salem) Statesman Journal reported. "It was doing a loop and couldn't pull out in time," he told the paper. "It clipped about three houses and went down." The air show was immediately canceled and Hauser said the streets in that section of Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland, were in gridlock.
Associated Press