Obama marks 49th birthday in Chicago

Obama marks 49th birthday in Chicago

CHICAGO

Alone on his 49th birthday, President Barack Obama fled the empty White House mansion and headed for a more-intimate celebration with longtime friends in his Chicago hometown.

Obama has been living a bachelor’s life for the past several days with first lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha visiting Spain and daughter Malia spending the month away at an undisclosed camp.

Mrs. Obama and Sasha phoned in their happy birthday wishes, followed by a lunchtime call from Malia.

Moscow suffers in heat, smoke

PEREDELTSY, Russia

Moscow was engulfed Wednesday by the thickest blanket of smog yet this summer, an acrid, choking haze from wildfires that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base.

Passengers on Moscow’s subway said the eye-stinging haze hovered above the platforms, and city hall warned of health risks from the smoke, which is carrying harmful gases, including carbon monoxide.

Russia is suffering through its worst heat wave on record, a condition that has sparked forest and peat fires across its central and western regions that have killed at least 48 people in the past week.

Giuliani’s daughter arrested in theft

NEW YORK

Police say Rudy Giuliani’s daughter has been arrested after she was seen on video pocketing makeup at a New York City cosmetics store.

New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said 20-year-old Harvard University student Caroline Giuliani was caught Wednesday at a Sephora store in Manhattan. He says police arrested her on a misdemeanor charge of petty larceny.

Giuliani left a police precinct Wednesday night and quickly got into an SUV with a man and a woman.

Study: Moms’ weight puts babies at risk

LONDON

Women who gain too much weight during pregnancy have big babies, putting their children at risk of becoming heavy later on, a new study says.

American researchers followed all births in Michigan and New Jersey between 1989 and 2003.

Among the more than 513,000 women and their 1.1 million infants studied, scientists found that women who gained more than 53 pounds during their pregnancy had babies who were about 0.3 pounds heavier at birth than infants of women who gained only 22 pounds.

The study was published online today in the medical journal Lancet and was paid for by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Suicide bomber kills police chief

PESHAWAR, Pakistan

A Taliban suicide bomber killed the head of a U.S.-backed paramilitary police force battling militants in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, one of the highest-ranking security officers ever assassinated in the country.

The bombing in Peshawar that killed Sifwat Ghayur, the head of the 25,000-strong Frontier Constabulary, was the first attack since monsoon rains triggered massive flooding over a week ago.

Suing over mosque

NEW YORK

The debate over a planned Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero became a court fight Wednesday, as a conservative advocacy group sued to try to stop a project that has become a fulcrum for balancing religious freedom and the legacy of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The American Center for Law and Justice filed suit Wednesday to challenge a city panel’s decision to let developers tear down a building to make way for the mosque two blocks from ground zero.

Associated Press