Tea-party candidate beats GOP veteran

Tea-party candidate beats GOP veteran

WASHINGTON

Virtually unknown a month ago, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware rode a surge of support from tea-party activists to victory in the Republican Senate primary Tuesday night, dealing yet another setback to the GOP establishment in a campaign season full of them.

O’Donnell defeated nine-term Rep. Mike Castle, a fixture in Delaware politics for a generation and a moderate who campaigned with the strong backing of party officials in his state and in Washington. Nearly complete returns showed her with 53 percent of the vote.

Despite her win, O’Donnell will enter the fall campaign as an underdog to Chris Coons, a county executive who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Republican officials said as the votes were being counted the party would not come to her aid if she won the primary, citing a string of disclosures about her personal finances and other matters.

US airstrikes hit Afghan militants

ISLAMABAD

Drone aircraft unleashed two missile attacks in a lawless tribal region on the Afghan border, making September the most-intense period of U.S. strikes in Pakistan since they began in 2004, intelligence officials said.

The stepped-up campaign that included Tuesday’s strikes is focused on a small area of farming villages and mountainous, thickly forested terrain controlled by the Haqqani network, a ruthless American foe in Afghanistan, U.S. officials say. There is some evidence the network is being squeezed as a result, one official said.

Eiffel Tower bomb threat proves false

PARIS

The Eiffel Tower and its immediate surroundings were evacuated Tuesday evening after an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat, but explosives experts scoured France’s most-visited monument and found nothing suspicious, Paris police headquarters said.

Parts of a second tourist hub — the Saint-Michel subway station near Notre Dame Cathedral — were briefly evacuated after a similar threat, police said. The station was the target of a terrorist attack in 1995 that killed eight and injured scores of people.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the threats. But they came after the head of France’s counterespionage agency was quoted this weekend as saying that the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil has never been higher.

FDA questions safety of diet pill

WASHINGTON

Federal health officials dealt a surprising blow Tuesday to an experimental diet pill that was thought to offer a safer way to shed pounds after decades of dangerous side effects reported with weight-loss drugs. The Food and Drug Administration said the pill, lorcaserin, developed by Arena Pharmaceutical, produced minimal weight loss while raising concerns about heart damage, depression and other problems.

Shares of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. fell $2.72, or 40 percent, to $4.13.

In a review posted online, FDA scientists said the drug barely met the agency’s threshold for weight-loss effectiveness and raised safety concerns about side effects, including heart-valve disease and psychiatric problems.

Twitter tweaks site

SAN FRANCISCO

Twitter is turning its text-messaging website into a multimedia showcase by adding a new pane that will make it easier for its 160 million users to check out photos and video.

The redesign unveiled Tuesday may compel people to linger on Twitter’s website for longer periods and come back more frequently, making it a more-attractive advertising vehicle.

Associated Press