In climate bid, Obama visits glacier

In climate bid, Obama visits glacier

SEWARD, Alaska

President Barack Obama stared down a melting glacier in Alaska on Tuesday in a dramatic use of his presidential pulpit to sound the alarm on climate change.

From a distance, Exit Glacier appears as a river of white and blue flowing down through the mountains toward lower terrain. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The 2-mile-long chock of solid ice has been retreating at a faster and faster pace in recent years – more than 800 feet since 2008, satellite tracking shows.

“This is as good of a signpost of what we’re dealing with when it comes to climate change as just about anything,” Obama said with the iconic glacier at his back.

Obama trekked up to the glacier with photographers in tow in a carefully choreographed excursion aimed at calling attention to the ways human activity is degrading cherished natural wonders.

McConnell: Plan to defund has to wait

WASHINGTON

The Senate’s top Republican is conceding that his party will have to await the next president before it can cut off federal funds that go to Planned Parenthood, prompting heated rebuffs from conservatives.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says Republicans lack the votes to halt the payments. He also says that standing in the GOP’s way is President Barack Obama, who doesn’t leave office until January 2017.

“The way you make a law in this country, the Congress has to pass it, the president has to sign it,” McConnell said in an interview with Kentucky TV station WYMT recorded Monday.

Israel asks UN to reject raising of flag

UNITED NATIONS

Israel on Tuesday urged U.N. leaders to reject a Palestinian attempt to raise their flag at U.N. headquarters as early as this month’s gathering of world leaders there.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor accused the Palestinians in letters to the United Nations secretary-general and General Assembly president of “attempting to swiftly change long-standing U.N. tradition in order to score political points.”

The flags of all 193 U.N. member states fly outside U.N. headquarters in New York and other U.N. offices – but not the flags of the two nonmember observer states, Palestine and the Vatican.

The Palestinians are seeking General Assembly approval of a draft resolution that would allow nonmember observer states to raise their flags.

Man who got life on pot charge is freed

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.

A man sentenced to life without parole on a marijuana-related charge was freed Tuesday from a Missouri prison after being behind bars for more than two decades – a period in which the nation’s attitudes toward pot steadily softened.

Family, friends, supporters and reporters flocked to meet Jeff Mizanskey as he stepped out of the Jefferson City Correctional Center into a sunny morning, wearing a new pair of white tennis shoes and a shirt that read “I’m Jeff & I’m free.”

“I spent a third of my life in prison,” said Mizanskey, now 62, who was greeted by his infant great-granddaughter. “It’s a shame.”

Mo. executes man

BONNE TERRE, Mo.

A man who spent nearly 25 years on Missouri’s death row was executed Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl.

Roderick Nunley, 50, became the sixth death-row inmate to be put to death in Missouri this year.

Associated Press