NATIONAL AND WORLD NEWS DIGEST: Kasich to allow press at official swearing-in

Kasich to allow press at official swearing-in

COLUMBUS

Ohio’s incoming governor has reversed an earlier decision and plans to open his official swearing-in to reporters and some members of the public, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Republican Gov.-elect John Kasich changed direction after requests from supporters as well as a flurry of media criticism this week, according to spokesman Rob Nichols.

Nichols said the incoming governor was not concerned about security at his Columbus- area home, where he had planned to have the ceremony, as much as he just wanted the occasion to be a private one shared with his family.

The swearing-in conducted by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor will now be in the Senate chamber at the Statehouse at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Nichols said.

Bodyguard: Doctor said to put vials in bag

LOS ANGELES

As Michael Jackson’s lifeless body lay on a bed in his palatial mansion, a bodyguard obeyed a frantic doctor’s instructions to bag up medicine bottles and intravenous bags and shield the Jackson children from seeing their father — all before being told to call 911, court testimony revealed Wednesday.

Alberto Alvarez said he was the first security guard to reach Jackson’s room after word came that something was wrong. He described a shocking scene.

The King of Pop was on his bed connected to an IV tube and a urinary catheter. His eyes and mouth were open, and Dr. Conrad Murray was leaning over him doing one-handed chest compressions to try to revive him.

Alvarez said he was “frozen” at the sight.

“I said, ‘Dr. Murray, what happened?’ And he said, ‘He had a reaction. He had a bad reaction,’” Alvarez recalled.

The testimony came during a preliminary hearing to determine if Murray, the singer’s personal physician, will be tried on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Republicans take control of US House

WASHINGTON

Claiming power beneath the Capitol dome, resurgent Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the 112th Congress convened in an era of economic uncertainty. Dozens of tea-party-backed lawmakers took office in both houses, eager to cut spending and reduce government’s reach.

Both the House and the Senate convened at the constitutionally mandated hour of noon for a day of pageantry and bipartisan flourishes that contrasted sharply with the fierceness of the midterm elections that set the new roll of lawmakers.

WH press secretary Robert Gibbs to leave

WASHINGTON

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary and one of the most visible and forceful advocates for President Barack Obama, is quitting his job to become an outside political adviser, part of what he described as a “major retooling” at the top levels of the of the White House.

The change is among the many expected in the coming days as Obama redefines his leadership team to gear up for a re-election bid and a more- powerful Republican Party.

Gibbs said he would be leaving the White House by early February. The top contenders to replace him are two of his deputies, Bill Burton and Josh Earnest, and Jay Carney, who is communications director to Vice President Joe Biden.

High school student shoots 2, kills himself

OMAHA, Neb.

The son of a police detective opened fire at a Nebraska high school Wednesday, wounding the principal and assistant principal and forcing panicked students to take cover in the kitchen of the building just as they returned from a holiday break.

The gunman, who had attended the school for no more than two months, fled from the scene and fatally shot himself in his car about a mile away.

Authorities did not know why the suspect, identified as 17-year-old Robert Butler Jr., targeted the administrators, who were hospitalized. Omaha police said the assistant principal, Vicki Kaspar, died Wednesday night.

Report: Autism study from 1998 was a fraud

LONDON

The first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on the widely discredited research.

The conclusions of the 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues was renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion the MMR shot was connected to autism spooked parents worldwide, and immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella never fully recovered.

A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study.

Associated Press