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Thursday, October 21, 2010 – Daily News – 3B WORLD BRIEFING Republicans lead on most measures WASHINGTON (AP) — All signs point to huge Republican victories in two weeks, with the GOP now leading Democrats on virtually every mea- sure in an Associated Press-GfK poll of people likely to vote in the first major elections of Barack Obama’s presidency. In the final survey before Election Day, like- ly voters say the GOP would do a better job than Democrats on handling the economy, creating jobs and running the gov- ernment. Most also think the country’s headed in the wrong direction. More than half disapprove of Obama’s job perfor- mance. And even more don’t like the Democrat- ic-controlled Congress. Neither party is popu- lar. But likely voters view the GOP a bit more posi- tively than they do the Democrats. Slightly more say they will vote for the Republican congressional candidate in their district over the Democrat. And most think the GOP will win control of Congress from the Democrats. ‘‘If we get some new blood in there who will do what the people want, maybe this can get turned around,’’ said Sharon Klawender, 70, who lives in rural Kingston in Michigan, one of the most economically troubled states. She hopes Repub- licans will ‘‘get things back under control.’’ Justice Dept: suspend ruling on ’don’t ask, don’t tell’ WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama adminis- tration on Wednesday asked a federal appeals court to immediately sus- pend a judge’s ruling that overturned the military’s ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy on gays. The government says it wants the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to take action on Wednesday. The feder- al government is prepar- ing arguments for the appeals court on why the ruling on ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ should be sus- pended while the case is appealed. The Obama adminis- tration says it is in favor of repealing the law. However, the government says that letting the ruling of U.S. District Judge Vir- ginia Phillips to go for- ward immediately would be a major problem for the military. Leaving the judge’s decision in place now ‘‘would create tremen- dous uncertainty about the status of servicemem- bers who may reveal their sexual orientation in reliance on the district court’s decision and injunction,’’ the Justice Department said in its lat- est appeals court filing. ‘‘Effectively develop- ing proper training and guidance with respect to a change in policy will take time and effort,’’ the court papers added. ‘‘The dis- trict court’s injunction does not permit sufficient time for such training to occur, especially for com- manders and servicemem- bers serving in active combat.’’ Clarence Thomas’ wife asks Hill to apologize WASHINGTON (AP) — Anita Hill is refusing to apologize for accusing then-Supreme Court jus- tice nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her, in an issue that Thomas’ wife has reopened 19 years after his confirmation hearings. ‘‘I have no intention of apologizing because I tes- tified truthfully about my experience and I stand by that testimony,’’ Hill, now a Brandeis University professor, said in a state- ment released Tuesday night. Thomas’ wife, Vir- ginia, had left a voicemail message on Hill’s phone on Oct. 9 asking her to say she was sorry for the allegations that surfaced at Thomas’ confirmation hearings for a seat on the high court bench in 1991. In her statement, Hill said, ‘‘I certainly thought the call was inappropri- ate.’’ She had worked for Clarence Thomas in two federal government jobs before he was selected for the court by President George H.W. Bush for the Supreme Court. Virginia Thomas is a longtime conservative activist and founder of a new nonprofit group, Lib- erty Central, which opposes what she has characterized as the leftist ‘‘tyranny’’ of the Obama administration and con- gressional Democrats. She was a keynote speak- er earlier this month in Richmond, Va., at a state convention billed as the largest tea party event ever. Crystal Cathedral teeters on the edge; he failed to keep up GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) — Capitaliz- ing on the emerging car culture of Southern Cali- fornia in the 1950s, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller started a drive-in church and built it into an inter- national televangelist empire, symbolized by the soaring glass Crystal Cathedral and its weekly ‘‘Hour of Power’’ show. Now Schuller’s life’s work is crumbling. The organization declared bankruptcy this week in a collapse blamed by some on its inability to keep up with the times and a disastrous attempt to hand the church over to Schuller’s son. The church’s failure to adapt to a changing land- scape is ironic, consider- ing that Schuller, now 84, was considered a theolog- ical radical during the Eisenhower years when he started preaching about the ‘‘power of positive thinking’’ from the roof Formerly The Daily News’ annual “Future Ad Designers” Contest Through a Child’s Eyes… A special contest bringing Tehama County school children and local businesses together … to the delight of Daily News readers! This year held earlier – to allow publication in the Daily News’ THANKSGIVING DAY EDITION! • Participating businesses agree to let school children in grades 2-8 create and draw a special ad for them. • Businesses choose the winner from the ads drawn by the children. • Winning children’s ads appear in a special broadsheet section of The Daily News on Thanksgiving Day, one for each participating business. • First and Second place winners in three separate age categories receive cash awards and special recognition in the broadsheet section. • Ads published are the same size (apx. 5” wide x 3 1/4” tall) Business Operators: Deadline to commit to participate: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21 …so we can provide list of businesses to local classrooms Business Sponsorship/Advertising cost: $8950 Nominal additional charge of $7.00 for publication in the Daily News Online Digital Edition Call your Advertising Representative TODAY! RED BLUFF D NEWSAILY 527-2151 TEHAMACOUNTY OC O C O S C advertise@redbluffdailynews.com is a small smudge of light that European astronomers now calcu- late is a galaxy from 13.1 billion years ago. That’s a time when the universe was very young, just shy of 600 million years old. That would make it the earli- est and most distant galaxy seen so far. By now the galaxy is so ancient it probably doesn’t exist in its earli- er form and has already merged into bigger neighbors, said Matthew Lehnert of the Paris Observatory, lead author of the study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature. ‘‘We’re looking at the of a concession stand at a drive-in theater. Followers could sit in their cars and listen to him through the movie loudspeakers that hooked to their windows. Schuller tapped into powerful post-World War II cultural forces that were reshaping America, said Scott Thumma, a sociologist of religion at the Hartford Institute of Religion Research. ‘‘What he was preach- ing was seen a pretty heretical to a traditional religious world view at the time. But it worked because that’s where soci- ety was,’’ Thumma said. ‘‘Society was in their car. They had a very positive viewpoint of the world. We had just come back from World War II, we were all having kids, we were all going to college. He tapped into those dif- ferent streams in the cul- ture and turned them into Christian expression.’’ Afghan government throws out ballots KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan has thrown out nearly a quar- ter of ballots cast in last month’s parliamentary elections because of fraud, but it is still far from clear whether the public will accept the results as fair. The full preliminary results from the Sept. 18 poll were released Wednesday after multiple delays as election officials struggled to weed out results from polling sta- tions that never opened, along with bunches of ballots all cast for one candidate, or suspiciously split 50-50 between two people. After last year’s fraud- marred presidential elec- tion, the government wanted to prove to the Afghan people and inter- national allies that it is not mired in corruption but making strides for reform. While findings indi- cate that cheating was pervasive, the rulings also show election officials were doing their job this time around — by keep- ing fraudulent ballots out of the totals. ‘‘They’ve been doing a moderately good job at detecting the fraudulent ballots and removing them. That’s a positive thing,’’ said Andy Camp- bell, the Afghanistan director for the National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-based election-mon- itoring group. Octuplet doctor emotional LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fertility doctor whose in vitro treatments gave Nadya Suleman her octuplets tearfully began testimony Wednesday as he defended his methods in the fight to keep his medical license. Dr. Michael Kamrava appeared shaken after being sworn in for the Medical Board of Califor- nia’s licensing hearing in downtown Los Angeles. He stammered and went silent on the stand before describing his emigration from his native Iran to the United States in 1968, at age 16. The Beverly Hills doc- tor detailed his life decades before he helped Suleman have octuplets and six other children through in vitro fertiliza- tion. ‘‘My family back- ground is Jewish, and that was one of the reasons I came here,’’ Kamrava said before stopping to wipe away tears. The state licensing agency alleges that Kam- rava was negligent in the treatment of Suleman and two other patients, and is seeking to revoke or sus- pend his license. Swiss find ’remarkable’ 5,000-year- old door GENEVA (AP) — Archaeologists in the Swiss city of Zurich have unearthed a 5,000-year- old door that may be one of the oldest ever found in Europe. The ancient poplar wood door is ‘‘solid and elegant’’ with well-pre- served hinges and a ‘‘remarkable’’ design for holding the boards togeth- er, chief archaeologist Niels Bleicher said Wednesday. Using tree rings to determine its age, Bleich- er believes the door could have been made in the year 3,063 B.C. — around the time that con- struction on Britain’s world famous Stonehenge monument began. ‘‘The door is very remarkable because of the way the planks were held together,’’ Bleicher told The Associated Press. Harsh climatic condi- tions at the time meant people had to build solid wood houses that would keep out much of the cold wind blowing across Lake Zurich, and the door would have helped, he said. ‘‘It’s a clever design that even looks good.’’ Astronomers claim to see oldest galaxy WASHINGTON (AP) — Astronomers believe they’ve found the oldest thing they’ve ever seen in the universe: It’s a galaxy far, far away from a time long, long ago. Hidden in a Hubble Space Telescope photo released earlier this year universe when it was a 20th of its current age,’’ said California Institute of Technology astrono- my professor Richard Ellis, who wasn’t part of the discovery team. ‘‘In human terms, we’re looking at a 4-year-old boy in the life span of an adult.’’ While Ellis finds the basis for the study ‘‘pret- ty good,’’ there have been other claims about the age of distant space objects that have not held up to scrutiny. And some experts have ques- tions about this one. But even the skeptics praised the study as important and interesting. Maine Coon in Nevada becomes world’s longest cat RENO, Nev. (AP) — The world’s longest cat measures more than 4 feet, stealing the record from another Maine Coone. The Reno Gazette-Journal report- ed that 5-year-old Stewie was certified as the new Guinness World Record holder after measuring 48 1/2 inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail bone. That’s a little more than 4 feet long. The record was previ- ously held by another Maine Coon that mea- sured 48 inches. Stewie’s owners, Robin Hendrickson and Erik Brandsness, say they decided to try for the record after hearing countless people say they were amazed by Stewie’s length. Hendrickson said Maine Coons are known as ‘‘the gentle giants’’ of the cat world. Man arrested with drugs after asking cop for ride REDWOOD CITY (AP) — Authorities say a 19-year-old Northern California man was arrested after he asked a police officer for a ride, agreed to be searched and was found to have cocaine in his pocket. Ongley Raymond Ocon III was charged with felony possession of cocaine. San Mateo County prosecutors say Ocon left a party in San Car- los early Sunday morn- ing, walked up to a Red- wood City police patrol car and asked for a ride home to Danville. The officer asked Ocon whether he was carrying anything ille- gal. Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe says Ocon initially responded ‘‘yes’’ before pausing and saying ‘‘no.’’ Wagstaffe tells the Contra Costa Times Ocon then agreed to be searched, and the officer discovered the cocaine.