$530,000 in support owed

$530,000 in support owed

FLINT, Mich. — Authorities in Michigan say a man fathered 14 children with 13 separate women and owes more than $530,000 in unpaid child support.

The Flint Journal reports 42-year-old Thomas Frazier was jailed Thursday. Court records say he hasn’t made a support payment in six years.

The newspaper says the unemployed man could be held for 90 days if he doesn’t pay $27,900.

Frazier says he thinks he fathered only three of the children and that it’s unrealistic for authorities to expect him to pay child support that was $3,000 a month at one point.

Frazier remains held at the Genesee County Jail. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak for him.

Apology for name remark

AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas lawmaker under fire for saying that Asian-American voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans” has apologized for her remarks.

State Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell, issued an apology Thursday for the comments made during a House Elections Committee hearing April 7.

Brown said the remark came during a conversation on the difficulty of translating names and that she was referring to transliteration issues when she asked a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans whether Asian-Americans could adopt names that “we could deal with more readily here.”

Ramey Ko, the representative, had testified that people of Asian descent have problems voting because they sometimes list legal names that had been transliterated in addition to common English names on their driver’s licenses or other identification.

Brown said she was not asking Ko to change his name.

Palestinian ultimatum

JERUSALEM — Israel must declare its support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state if peace talks are to resume, the chief Palestinian negotiator said Saturday.

In neighboring Jordan, senior officials from several Arab states reiterated their support for an Arab peace initiative offering recognition to Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in the 1967 Mideast War, including land the Palestinians want for a state.

However, Israel’s previous centrist government did not accept the initiative, and it is even less likely to win the support of the new right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu hasn’t expressed support for the idea of Palestinian statehood, instead offering the Palestinians “economic peace,” and his foreign minister has dismissed peace efforts by the previous U.S. administration.

Condemning North Korea

UNITED NATIONS — Key Security Council nations reached agreement Saturday on a statement that would condemn North Korea’s rocket launch and toughen U.N. sanctions against the reclusive communist nation.

The five permanent veto-wielding members — the U.S., China, Russia, Britain and France — and Japan reached agreement after Tokyo backed down from a demand that the Security Council adopt a new resolution, the strongest response the U.N.’s most powerful body can give.

They distributed the text of the proposed presidential statement to the nine other council members, who must now consult their capitals. Libya’s deputy U.N. ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said he expects the council to meet again Monday.

Storms a threat in Texas

DALLAS — Firefighters in Texas faced calmer weather conditions Saturday while attacking deadly wind-driven wildfires, but worried that approaching thunderstorms could create new problems.

Bill Beebe, a spokesman for the Texas Forest Service, said conditions were “pretty quiet,” though firefighters had yet to contain more than 122,000 burning acres, including two new fires in East Texas.

The major concern was that lightning from thunderstorms predicted for today could spark additional fires, he said.

“We’re bracing possibly for some difficult times,” he said.

Ken Schneider, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Amarillo, said the threat of thunderstorms Sunday encompasses all of North Texas.

In neighboring Oklahoma, grass fires that have plagued the state in recent days flared up again Saturday in two counties, prompting temporary evacuations.

Associated Press