Quake rattles northern Japan

July 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

TOKYO

A quake with a magnitude of 6.3 jolted northern Japan early today, but there was no danger of a tsunami, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The quake occurred off the coast of Iwate, some 310 miles north of Tokyo at 7:08 a.m. today. The quake’s center was 19 miles below the sea surface, the agency said.

Iwate police official Takahiro Fujibayashi said there were no reports of damage.

“I felt the tremor, but nothing fell off from bookshelves after the quake,” he said.

Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people.

Terminal reopens after bomb scare

NEW YORK

Passengers are back inside a terminal at New York City’s JFK Airport that was evacuated due to a bomb scare.

A Port Authority spokesman says 250 to 300 passengers were evacuated from Terminal 1 at the airport about 6 p.m. Sunday. They were allowed back in after 8 p.m.

The evacuation happened after an anonymous phone caller said there was a bomb at the airport, and at the same time someone else reported an unattended bag.

Port Authority spokesman John Kelly says police checked the bag and it was not a bomb.

McCain: Steele must assess future

WASHINGTON

The embattled head of the GOP isn’t getting an endorsement from Sen. John McCain.

McCain says party chairman Michael Steele’s recent comments about the Afghanistan war are “wildly inaccurate” and inexcusable.

The Arizona Republican says Steele needs to assess whether he can still function in his job and must make “an appropriate decision” about his future.

At a recent GOP fundraiser, Steele called the U.S. commitment of troops in Afghanistan a mistaken “war of Obama’s choosing.”

The war began after the Sept. 11 attacks, when George W. Bush was president. McCain tells ABC’s “This Week” that it’s “America’s war and we can’t afford to fail.”

Some Republicans want Steele to resign because of his remarks.

Komorowski takes Polish presidency

WARSAW, Poland

Interim president Bronislaw Komorowski appeared to have held off a last-minute surge from the identical twin brother of the late president, who died in an April plane crash that shocked the country and forced Sunday’s early election.

Exit polls showed Komorowski with a slight edge over Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who essentially conceded defeat in the presidential run-off by declaring before supporters, “I congratulate the winner.”

A poll released Sunday by the TNS OBOP institute predicted Komorowski winning 53.1 percent of the vote, and Kaczynski winning 46.9 percent. A separate poll, by Millward Brown SMG/KRC, shows Komorowski with nearly 52 percent and Kaczynski with just over 48 percent.

Official results based on 95 percent of polling stations reporting appeared to bear out the exit polls. They showed that Komorowski won 52.63 percent of the vote and Kaczynski 47.37 percent, the state electoral commission said early today.