Canadian mayors drop threat to boycott US goods

Canadian mayors drop threat to boycott US goods

TORONTO — Canada’s mayors said Saturday that they are withdrawing their threat to boycott suppliers from the United States in retaliation for Buy American provisions involving U.S.-funded stimulus projects.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities said it won’t enact a resolution passed in June that gave the U.S. 120 days to back down from the Buy American provisions, warning that Canadian municipalities would in return boycott U.S. suppliers.

“We are encouraged by the talks now under way between Canadian and U.S. officials and want to give them the time and space to reach a successful outcome,” said Federation president Basil Stewart.

The resolution was to take effect today.

Officials: Death toll from quake likely to double

PADANG, Indonesia — The death toll from Indonesia’s massive earthquake will likely double as officials on Saturday reached rural communities wiped out by landslides that buried more than 600 people under mountains of mud, most of them guests at a wedding celebration.

Virtually nothing remained of four villages that had dotted the hillside of the Padang Pariman district in Indonesia’s West Sumatra just three days ago, said officials and an Associated Press photographer who flew over the devastated area.

The number of fatalities in the disaster will jump to more than 1,300 if all those people are confirmed dead. The government’s death toll Saturday held steady at 715, most reported in the region’s badly hit capital of 900,000, Padang.

More than 100 detained in police sweeps in Mosul

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces have detained more than 100 suspects in sweeps through Mosul to try to cripple the country’s last major stronghold of Sunni insurgents, a commander said Saturday.

The offensive, which began earlier this week, is the latest attempt to break the networks of al- Qaida in Iraq and other groups in the Mosul region in northern Iraq. But the insurgents have bounced back each time with little apparent damage to their ability to strike Iraqi and U.S. troops and their allies.

Smaller prehistoric site found near Stonehenge

LONDON — Archaeologists have discovered a smaller prehistoric site near Britain’s famous circle of standing stones at Stonehenge.

Researchers have dubbed the site “Bluehenge,” after the color of the 27 Welsh stones that were laid to make up a path. The stones have disappeared, but the path of holes remains.

Researchers from Sheffield University in northern England say the new circle represents an important find. The site is about a mile away from Stonehenge, which is believed to have been built around 2500 B.C.

Bluehenge is thought to date back to the same period, but the exact circumstances of Bluehenge’s construction aren’t clear.

Charged with stalking, taping ESPN reporter

CHICAGO — An insurance man called “as regular a guy as you’ll ever meet” was ordered back to California on Saturday to face charges that he stalked ESPN reporter Erin Andrews and videotaped her nude by aiming a cell-phone camera through an altered peephole in her hotel-room door.

Michael David Barrett, 47, of Westmont, Ill., was being held in jail over the weekend while awaiting a judge’s decision Monday on whether he will go to Los Angeles as a federal prisoner or free on bail.

An FBI affidavit said Barrett requested and stayed in a room near Andrews at a Tennessee hotel where investigators believe seven videos were recorded. An eighth video may have been shot at a hotel in Milwaukee.

Barrett faces charges of interstate stalking for purportedly taking videos of Andrews in her hotel rooms while she was covering sporting events, trying to sell them to celebrity Web site TMZ and posting the videos online. The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Police: Man used Twitter to illegally warn marchers

NEW YORK — A self-described New York City anarchist has been accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law-enforcement actions at last month’s summit.

The New York Post reported the arrest in Saturday editions.

Associated Press