Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Sen. Inouye, 88, dies
WASHINGTON
Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the second-longest-serving senator in U.S. history and winner of the Medal of Honor for combat heroics in World War II, has died, his office announced in a statement. He was 88.
Inouye died at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with his wife, Irene, and his son, Ken, at his side.
A senator since 1963, Inouye in 2009 became chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he continued a long record of helping fund projects in his home state. From 1998 to 2003, he steered $1.4 billion to military projects in Hawaii, according to The Almanac of American Politics.
Dismal turnout for vote raises concerns
CAIRO
Just under a third of voters turned out for the first stage of the referendum on a constitution meant to be a historic milestone in setting Egypt’s future — a showing critics say deepens doubts over the legitimacy of a charter that already has polarized the country.
The dismal showing also raises the question whether Egyptians have been turned off by the turmoil that has characterized the country’s politics throughout the nearly two years since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime.
Electoral College affirms Obama win
WASHINGTON
In the end, it wasn’t close. Despite predictions that the presidential election could end in an electoral-vote tie, or that the winner of the popular vote again could be denied the White House by the Electoral College, President Barack Obama won his anticipated 126-vote landslide Monday as the 538 electors officially voted in statehouses.
But 12 years after Al Gore’s defeat prompted some Democrats to call for changing to the constitutionally prescribed method of choosing the president, Republicans now are mounting efforts in key states to end the winner-take-all method that most states employ. Some Republican strategists believe that could counter the advantage Democrats have gained on the path to the needed 270 electoral votes.
Shooting threat
OKLAHOMA CITY
A small-caliber rifle and notes about a possible attack on a northeast Oklahoma high school were found at the home of a teenager accused of plotting to shoot classmates and detonate bombs, police said Monday.
Sammie Eaglebear Chavez, 18, lived at home with his mother in Bartlesville, about 50 miles north of Tulsa. He was arrested Friday morning and has been charged with a felony count of planning to perform an act of violence.
Combined dispatches