GOP plans 3rd stopgap measure

GOP plans 3rd stopgap measure

WASHINGTON

With budget talks deadlocked, House Republicans readied a weeklong bill to cut spending by as much as $12 billion while averting a government shutdown threatened for Friday, officials disclosed Monday night.

The measure also would include enough money to operate the Defense Department through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year, the officials added.

Workers pump nuke water into sea

TOKYO

Workers began pumping more than 3 million gallons of contaminated water from Japan’s tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, freeing storage space for even more highly radioactive water that has hampered efforts to stabilize the reactors.

It will take about two days to pump most of the less-radioactive water out of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, whose cooling systems were knocked out by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami March 11.

Musician wins Haiti election

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

Musician Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly scored a come-from-behind victory Monday in Haiti’s presidential runoff, according to preliminary results from last month’s election in which he easily defeated a former first lady for the leadership of a country facing enormous challenges.

Martelly, who never has held political office, received nearly 68 percent of the vote in the two-way race with Mirlande Manigat, electoral council spokesman Pierre Thibault said in an announcement that was immediately followed by noisy celebration in the Haitian capital.

Police: Parents beat crossing guard, 73

LANSING, Mich

Two Michigan parents have been charged with misdemeanor assault in the beating of a 73-year-old school crossing guard who police say tried to break up a fight between their 6-year-old son and a 7-year-old classmate.

The boys got into a fight last week at Lyons Elementary School, Lansing police said. They said the parents set up a rematch the next morning.

The parents drove their son to the crossing and told him to attack the 7-year-old, police said. They said the couple’s son threw a punch, knocking the boy to the ground.

When James Thompson intervened, police said the couple attacked him, breaking a tooth.

2 men fall from bus window; 1 dies

BOSTON

Two Massachusetts men were roughhousing when they fell out of the bathroom window of a bus that was travelling at 60 mph on a return trip from New Hampshire, investigators said Monday. One was killed, and the other was injured.

An autopsy conducted Monday on Thomas Johnson of Gardner shows the 31-year-old died of impact trauma Saturday night. A ruling on whether his death was accidental won’t be made until the conclusion of the investigation. Seth Davis, 34, of Winchendon, has been hospitalized in stable condition, Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said.

32 of 33 UN workers on plane die in crash

UNITED NATIONS

Only one person survived among the 33 U.N. personnel and crew members aboard a plane that crashed in Congo on Monday, U.N. officials said.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy told reporters he had no detailed information about the sole survivor, who he said was hospitalized after the crash in the Congolese city of Kinshasa.

Le Roy said the cause of the crash had not been determined, but investigators were looking at the possibility that windy weather had caused the plane to miss the airstrip.

Associated Press