Booker, stripper defend messages

Booker, stripper defend messages

NEWARK, N.J.

A dancer at an Oregon vegan strip club says her online interactions with U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker are innocent, and says she didn’t communicate with the Newark, N.J., mayor outside of Twitter.

Lynsie Lee, the 26-year-old stripper at Casa Diablo in Portland, Ore., tells The Associated Press the exchange with Booker is being blown out of proportion.

Lee described the interaction as “G-rated flirting,” not anything “secret or sexy.” She provided a screen shot of the exchange Wednesday to the website BuzzFeed.

Booker says the episode isn’t going to change anything about how he uses Twitter.

The 44-year-old Booker, who is single, exchanged direct messages with Lee in February.

Davis reportedly running for Texas governor

AUSTIN, Texas

Democrat Wendy Davis, a state senator who catapulted to national prominence this summer with a filibuster over access to abortion, is running for Texas governor.

Two Democrats with knowledge of her decision told The Associated Press on Thursday that Davis would announce her candidacy next week.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to pre-empt her official campaign launch Oct. 3, which will take place in her home district of Fort Worth.

Ex-teacher freed after 30 days in jail

BILLINGS, Mont.

A former Montana high-school teacher was released from prison Thursday after completing a 30-day sentence for raping a 14-year-old student, a term that is under review by the state’s high court and has critics calling for the removal of the judge who handled the case.

Stacey Rambold, 54, left the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge after serving the sentence handed down by District Judge G. Todd Baugh for the 2007 rape of Cherice Moralez.

The judge drew outrage last month over the sentence’s leniency and comments he made that appeared to pin some of the blame on Moralez.

The teen committed suicide in 2010 before Rambold went to trial.

Bomb attacks kill 23 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD

Bombs ripped through outdoor markets in and near Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens, the latest in a deadly wave that has hit Iraq in recent months, officials said.

Three bombs went off simultaneously in the Shiite village of Sabaa al-Bour, about 20 miles north of the Iraqi capital.

Police said the explosions — two at the market entrance and one inside the shopping area — went off as the place was packed with shoppers, killing 16 people and wounding 41 there.

Three women and two children were among those killed in the village market, according to police and hospital officials. Several shops and cars were damaged in the blast.

The attack came shortly after a bomb blast hit the al-Athorien market in Baghdad’s southern neighborhood of Dora. Police said that seven people, including two women, were killed there, and 17 people were wounded.

Associated Press