Romney vows to expand drilling

Romney vows to expand drilling

HOBBS, N.M.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney promised Thursday to aggressively expand off-shore oil drilling along Virginia, North Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico, changing the subject from social issues like abortion and Medicare that have dominated the debate in the days before the critical Republican National Convention.

Speaking to voters in the heart of New Mexico’s oil- and-gas industry, Romney declared that his energy plans — which include drilling for oil in a federal Alaskan wildlife reserve — would create 3 million jobs and more than $1 trillion in new revenue. And he predicted complete “North American energy independence by 2020, a never-realized goal claimed by presidential candidates for decades.”

Teen missing in Southwest flooding

LAS VEGAS

A teen was swept away in a drainage wash in the Las Vegas area, and two people were rescued from a van stranded in high water in suburban Phoenix after heavy rains in the Southwest flooded ditches and roads.

Family and friends gathered Thursday in Henderson, southeast of the Las Vegas Strip, to look for a 17-year-old boy who disappeared in a flood channel the day before. The wash had filled quickly after a Wednesday morning downpour.

The teen, William Mootz, was hanging out with a group of friends and apparently didn’t intend to get into the Pittman Wash, which meanders past a shopping mall and Mootz’s high school.

France backs partial no-fly zone in Syria

BEIRUT

France signaled Thursday that it was prepared to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria, piling pressure on President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime as it widens a major offensive against rebels in Damascus and surrounding areas.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged the international community to consider backing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria but cautioned that closing the Arab nation’s entire air space would be tantamount to “going to war” and require a willing international coalition that does not yet exist.

Teen held captive escapes after 2 years

WASHINGTON PARK, Ill.

Police in southwestern Illinois say a teenage girl reported missing more than two years ago has escaped from a home where she was held captive.

Police in Washington Park, a village next to East St. Louis, say the girl was raped by her captor, got pregnant and had a baby.

She escaped from the home earlier this week and went to police, saying her child was still in the house.

About two dozen members of a SWAT team swarmed the home Thursday afternoon and recovered the child. A 24-year-old man has been arrested.

Washington Park Police Chief David Clark says it appears the man’s mother assisted in the crime.

Police say the girl was listed as a missing or runaway juvenile in April 2010. She was 15 when she disappeared.

Motorist finds GPS instructions all wet

There are those who are ready to follow the GPS in their car to the ends of the Earth — literally.

A man intently following the instructions of his GPS after leaving a ferry early Thursday made a sharp right turn and drove into the harbor in Whittier, Alaska, submerging his car up to the antenna, police said.

The man, who was not seriously injured, was rescued by another ferry passenger and taken by ambulance to a hospital in Anchorage.

“We’re aghast, actually,” harbor master Sue Miller told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s never happened before, let’s put it that way.”

Combined dispatches