Outburst brings in cash

Outburst brings in cash

WASHINGTON — The returns are in: Two words — you lie! — are worth more than $2 million apiece.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., and his Democratic challenger, Rob Miller, raised a total of nearly $4.4 million through Sept. 30 in their 2nd Congressional District rematch.

Fourteen months before voters go to the polls, the Wilson-Miller contest is already the richest U.S. House race ever in South Carolina.

Wilson, of Lexington, S.C., collected $2.7 million from 50,000 campaign contributions, almost all of it after his now-famous “you lie!” yell Sept. 9 as President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on prime-time TV.

Miller, of Beaufort, S.C., gathered $1.69 million in donations from 44,000 people in the first three quarters of the year, most of it also after Wilson’s outburst.

EPA to revoke mine permit

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it planned to use its authority for the first time to revoke a previously issued permit for a West Virginia surface mine.

Acting EPA Regional Administrator William Early said in a letter sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Huntington district that the agency is “taking this unusual step in response to our very serious concerns” that the project could violate the Clean Water Act.

According to the EPA, the agency has never used its authority to review a previously permitted project since Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972.

The permit was issued in 2007 for Mingo Logan Coal’s Spruce No. 1 mine, which is owned by St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc.

It would allow the company to fill valleys at the site with material removed to expose coal, a practice widely opposed by environmentalists.

Was balloon flight a hoax? Authorities want to know

DENVER — The Colorado sheriff whose deputies chased a homemade, mushroom-shaped balloon across three counties before the boy it purportedly was carrying turned up safe at home said Friday that investigators would seek to re-interview the family in light of comments the child made that suggested the incident had been staged.

Asked Thursday night during an appearance with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer why he had not emerged from hiding when he heard people calling for him, 6-year-old Falcon Heene said to his father, Richard: “You had said we did this for a show.”

“Clearly, that has raised everyone’s level of skepticism; we feel it’s incumbent to re-interview them and establish if this is a hoax,” Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said at a news conference.

Richard and Mayumi Heene have denied that the runaway helium balloon was part of a publicity stunt.

On Friday morning, Richard Heene told NBC’s “Today” show that what happened was “absolutely not” a hoax.

Putin suggest organizing international song contest

MOSCOW — From the Cold War to a Battle of the Bands.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, by some accounts a big fan of ABBA, has suggested organizing an international song competition for Russia, Central Asia and China, saying it would strengthen cultural ties among the nations.

“Uzbekistan Idol” perhaps? Or maybe “Tajikistan’s Got Talent.”

Europe has been holding such a competition for decades, called the Eurovision Song Contest. Known for campy and glitzy performers, the annual showcase for singers and musicians from across the continent typically attracts 100 million viewers or more from around the world on TV and the Internet.

Russia won the competition in 2008 with heartthrob Dima Bilan’s song, “Believe.”

Baby survives being dragged by train

MELBOURNE, Australia — A 6-month-old baby has miraculously survived a train hitting his stroller, which rolled onto the tracks when his mother let go for an instant.

The escape was captured on security camera footage that shows the red, three-wheeled stroller plunging off a station platform just as the commuter train pulls in, and the mother’s panicked lunge to grab it.

The train pushed the stroller about 130 feet along the tracks before it stopped, but it did not go under the train. The baby, who was strapped into the stroller, received only a bump on the head.

Police said they released the video, which was captured last week at a suburban station in the southern city of Melbourne, to underscore the need for people to be extra safety-conscious when using the train system.

The dramatic footage led news bulletins across Australia and was shown internationally and on YouTube.

Combined dispatches