Smoot chosen to be White House social secretary

Smoot chosen to be White House social secretary

WASHINGTON — Veteran fundraiser Julianna Smoot was officially tapped as the next White House social secretary on Saturday, following the announcement that Desiree Rogers will step aside.

Smoot served as national finance director for the Obama campaign in 2008. Her success raising millions early in the Democratic primaries proved vital to Obama’s victory, undercutting the perception that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was an inevitable juggernaut — and making Smoot one of the most popular figures in the Chicago headquarters.

Smoot has spent the past year serving as chief of staff to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

RFK’s grandson considering House run

BOSTON A top Massachusetts Democrat said Saturday that one of Robert F. Kennedy’s grandsons is considering carrying on the family’s vaunted political tradition by running for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Joseph P. Kennedy III, one of the twin sons of former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, may run this fall if Democratic Rep. William Delahunt decides against seeking re-election in his South Shore and Cape Cod district.

Kennedy, 29, is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School who works as a prosecutor in Barnstable County, near his family’s Cape Cod compound.

Delahunt has served in Congress since 1997, but Massachusetts incumbents were shocked in January when a little-known Republican state senator, Scott Brown, claimed the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly a half-century by Edward M. Kennedy.

Marie Osmond’s son dies in apparent suicide

LOS ANGELES — Marie Osmond’s 18-year-old son Michael Blosil has died, the entertainer said Saturday.

“Entertainment Tonight” reported on its Web site that Blosil jumped to his death Friday night from a downtown Los Angeles apartment building.

Officers responded to an apparent suicide jump in the area, but the victim was not identified Saturday, Los Angeles Police Officer Gregory Baek said.

Blosil reportedly left a note which referred to a lifelong battle with depression.

In 2007, Osmond said Michael was treated at a rehabilitation facility, but she didn’t disclose the nature of his problem.

Michael is one of Osmonds’ five adopted children. She also has three other children from two marriages. She divorced Brian Blosil in 2007 after two decades of marriage. She and her first husband Stephen Craig divorced in 1985.

Texas preparing to make first posthumous pardon

LUBBOCK, Texas — The Texas pardons and parole board has recommended clemency in the case of a man who died in prison after he was wrongly convicted of rape.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported Saturday the recommendation in Tim Cole’s case was forwarded to Gov. Rick Perry’s office Friday.

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle tells The Associated Press that he looks forward to pardoning Cole.

Cole’s family has expressed relief over the recommendation.

Cole died in 1999 at age 39. He was convicted of the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock.

A 2008 DNA test cleared Cole and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who confessed in several letters to court officials dating back to 1995.

Cole would be the state’s first posthumous pardon.

8 dead, 2 missing in flooding in Haiti

LES CAYES, Haiti — Haitian officials say eight people are dead and two missing after heavy rain pounded the southwest and caused widespread flooding.

Rain fell around Les Cayes on the country’s southern peninsula. The civil protection department says a prison flooded and more than 400 prisoners were evacuated.

City delegate Josephe Mary Yves Aurbour says the dead from Saturday’s storm include two adults and a child killed when water rushed into their home and swept them into a rain-swollen river.

It’s still several weeks until Haiti’s rainy season typically starts. It also has been raining, but not as hard, in parts of the capital, where thousands of people are living outside after their homes were destroyed in the earthquake.

Combined dispatches