Clinton’s senior strategist leaves her campaign

Clinton’s senior strategist leaves her campaign

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Mark Penn, the pollster and senior strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid, left the campaign Sunday after it was disclosed he met with representatives of the Colombian government to help promote a free trade agreement Clinton opposes.

“After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign,” campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement released Sunday.

Communications director Howard Wolfson and pollster Geoff Garin will direct the campaign’s message and strategic efforts for the campaign going forward, Williams said.

Oldest black in world is Calif. woman, 114

LOS ANGELES — In the courtyard of a low-slung convalescent hospital west of the University of Southern California, Gertrude Baines was inaugurated Sunday into one of the world’s most exclusive sororities.

She turned 114 years old. Only two other people in the world are 114 and alive to tell of it. No one is older.

Baines is the third-oldest person on Earth, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates claims of extreme old age. Baines is the oldest black person in the world, according to the GRG Web site. She’s also the oldest person in California. She’s the second-oldest in the United States, after Edna Parker of Indiana, who will turn 115 in two weeks.

Protest turns into riot

MAHALLA EL-KOBRA, Egypt — Thousands of demonstrators angry about rising prices and stagnant salaries torched buildings, looted shops and hurled bricks at police who responded with tear gas Sunday in a northern industrial town as Egyptians staged a nationwide strike.

About 150 people were arrested and 80 were wounded in the gritty Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kobra, where riots broke out among residents and disgruntled workers at the largest textile factory in Egypt.

A call for a nationwide strike Sunday was the first major attempt by opposition groups to turn the past year’s labor unrest into a wider political protest against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.

Olympic torch in peril

LONDON — Demonstrators grabbed at the Olympic torch, blocked its path and tried to snuff out its flame Sunday in raucous protests of China’s human rights record that forced a string of last-second changes to a chaotic relay through London.

The biggest protests since last month’s torch-lighting in Greece tarnished China’s hope for a harmonious prelude to a Summer Games celebrating its rise as a global power. Instead, the flame’s 85,000-mile journey from Greece to Beijing has become a stage for activists decrying China’s recent crackdown on Tibetans and support for Sudan despite civilian deaths in Darfur.

U.S., Russia far apart

SOCHI, Russia — President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to overcome sharp differences over a U.S. missile defense system, closing their seven-year relationship Sunday still far apart on an issue that has separated them from the beginning.

Putin declared there were no breakthrough solutions but said “certain progress is obvious” in the long-running dispute on missile defenses. He was referring to U.S. concessions to assuage Russia’s concerns. U.S. officials said that was what they wanted to hear him say.

Bush also conferred with Putin’s hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, but did not claim gaining any insight into his soul, as he had with Putin upon their first encounter. He pronounced Putin’s proteg “a straightforward fellow” and said he was eager to work with him.

Confusion after raid

ELDORADO, Texas — Authorities who removed 219 women and children from a polygamist compound were struggling Sunday to determine whether they had the 16-year-old girl whose report of an underage marriage led them to raid the sprawling rural property.

Many people at the compound, built by followers of jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, are related to one another and share similar names; investigators said in some cases, they were giving different names at various times.

Law enforcement agents continued to search for more children and evidence at the 1,700-acre compound, the former site of an exotic-game ranch.

Associated Press