O’Donnell dismisses her past remarks

O’Donnell dismisses her past remarks

NEWARK, Del.

Republican Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell is dismissing comments she’s made over the years on religious and social issues such as evolution, sexual abstinence and homosexuality, saying they’re not relevant to the campaign.

Squaring off against Democrat Chris Coons in a nationally televised debate, O’Donnell said Delaware voters want to hear about job creation and spending, not comments she made as a television commentator long ago. She refused to say if she still believes evolution is a myth, as she has said in the past.

Coons, a county executive, argued that O’Donnell owes voters an explanation. He said her remarks are directly related to how she would serve in the Senate, citing Supreme Court nominations as an example of where they might come into play.

The 90-minute debate was held at the University of Delaware and moderated by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Forecasters predict East Coast storm

PHILADELPHIA

The East Coast is bracing for what could be a big storm.

The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather outlook for today for parts of the Northeast. It also issued a gale warning for Massachusetts to Maryland.

Weather Service meteorologist Patrick O’Hara said Wednesday that the storm is forming off the coast of North Carolina and will bring strong winds and about an inch of rain starting this afternoon. He said much of the rain will be done Friday morning, but strong winds and clouds will stick around through Saturday.

Weather Underground predicts strong winds, large hail and heavy rain could develop anywhere over the Ohio River Valley and New England.

Hurricane Paula weakens to a crawl

HAVANA, Cuba

Hurricane Paula weakened Wednesday on a rain-drenching crawl toward the lush tobacco-growing farmlands of western Cuba, threatening to inundate an area still seeking to recover from three major hurricanes in 2008.

The hurricane was expected to pass very near or over western Cuba sometime Wednesday night or early today, U.S. forecasters added. They predicted more gradual weakening by the storm over the next day or two amid possible heavy rains.

Foreclosure anger hits campaign

MIAMI

Three weeks before the election, anger over tainted home-foreclosure documents is bursting into the battle for control of Congress, especially in hard-hit states such as Nevada and Florida. Democrats in tight races in the worst housing markets are pressing for a national moratorium, putting a reluctant White House on the spot. Leading the call for a nationwide time-out on kicking people out of their homes is Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is locked in a neck-and-neck re-election contest with tea party-endorsed Sharron Angle in Nevada, which has the highest foreclose rate in the country. Reid is decrying “reports of shoddy and defective affidavit preparation.”

In US, Hispanics outlive whites, blacks

ATLANTA

U.S. Hispanics can expect to outlive whites by more than two years and blacks by more than seven, government researchers say in a startling report that is the first to calculate Hispanic life expectancy in this country. The report released Wednesday is the strongest evidence yet of what some experts call the “Hispanic paradox” — longevity for a population with a large share of poor, under-educated members. A leading theory is that Hispanics who manage to immigrate to the U.S. are among the healthiest from their countries.

Associated Press