Schwarzenegger to hit speech circuit

Schwarzenegger to hit speech circuit

LOS ANGELES

The Terminator always said he’d be back.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is sifting through a stack of corporate, Hollywood and real estate offers as the celebrity politician nears an inevitable career crossroad: On Monday, he’s out of a job.

His next act? After seven years in Sacramento, the former strongman and film star will by his own account hit the speech circuit, keep a hand in political activism and possibly write the autobiography that publishers have wanted him to do for years.

Schwarzenegger says he even might get back into acting if the right script comes along — presumably one appropriate for a 63-year-old father of four with political baggage, advancing age lines and a tinge of gray.

North Korea warns of ‘nuclear holocaust’

BEIJING

North Korea on Saturday called for dialogue and peace on the Korean Peninsula in a state-issued New Year’s Day editorial, warning that a breakout of war with the South “will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”

Though the statement also characterized South Korea’s government as a “minion of war” beholden to “pro-U.S. war hawks,” the document’s repeated calls for more cooperation suggest that the North might be moving, for now, away from a pattern of attacks against the South.

After a year of some of the worst tensions on the Korean Peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War, the past week has brought signs of calming. On Wednesday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said that he saw no choice but to resume six-party talks with the North that also include Russia, China, Japan and the United States.

4 children, 1 man killed in fire

REDMOND, Wash.

A mother could only watch in agony as her four young children and a man were killed by an intense apartment fire that broke out a few hours into the new year, her neighbors in the apartment complex said Saturday.

Neighbor Jared Wilson said the 30-year-old woman was able to escape the two-bedroom ground-floor apartment and stood outside as heavy smoke and flames engulfed her home. All four children were 10 or younger, fire officials said.

“She couldn’t speak — she was just hysterically screaming,” said Wilson, 27, who lives on the building’s third floor.

A 32-year-old man in the same apartment also died, said police spokesman Officer Matt Peringer. The woman was taken to a hospital where she was reported in stable condition, said Fire Battalion Chief Ed Carolan.

Ex-Marxist guerrilla sworn in as president

SAO PAULO, Brazil

Accepting the green and yellow mantle of power from her immensely popular mentor, former Marxist guerrilla Dilma Rousseff was sworn in Saturday as Brazil’s first female president and faced two immediate tasks: keeping the booming economy on track and fleshing out Brazil’s developing role on the world stage.

Rousseff succeeded Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who left Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia with an 87 percent approval rating, the highest in recent history for a departing leader of South America’s largest and most populous country.

Vindicator wire services