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8A – Daily News – Wednesday, October 27, 2010 WORLD BRIEFING Storm howls over Midwest CHICAGO (AP) — A massive storm with wind gusts up to 81 mph howled across the nation’s midsection Tues- day, snapping trees and power lines, ripping off roofs, delaying flights and soaking commuters hunched under crumpled umbrellas. Spanning from the Dakotas to the eastern Great Lakes, the unusual system mesmerized mete- orologists because of its size and because it had pressure similar to a Cate- gory 3 hurricane, but with much less destructive power. Scientists said the storm had the force of a blizzard minus the snow. ‘‘If it were colder, we’d have a blizzard with this system,’’ said David Imy, operations chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- tion’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. But the temperatures were in the 50s and 60s, instead of 20s. At one point, more than 145,000 homes and businesses were without power in Wisconsin, Indi- ana, Illinois, Ohio and the St. Louis area. Indonesia hit by twin disasters MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia (AP) — A vol- canic eruption and a tsunami killed scores of people hundreds of miles apart in Indonesia — spasms from the Pacific ‘‘Ring of Fire,’’ which spawns disasters from deep within the Earth. Tuesday’s eruption of Mount Merapi killed at least 18 people, forced thousands to flee down its slopes and spewed burn- ing ash and smoke high into the air on the island of Java. Meanwhile, off the coast of Sumatra, about 800 miles (1,300 kilome- ters) west of the volcano, rescuers battled rough seas to reach Indonesia’s Mentawai islands, where a 10-foot tsunami trig- gered by an earthquake Monday night swept away hundreds of homes, killing at least 113 vil- lagers, said Mujiharto of the Health Ministry’s cri- sis center. Up to 500 oth- ers are missing. The twin disasters hap- pened hours apart in one of the most seismically active regions on the plan- et. Scientists have warned that pressure building beneath Merapi’s lava dome could trigger its most powerful explosion in years. Fiorina hospitalized for infection SACRAMENTO (AP) — California GOP Senate challenger Carly Fiorina was sidelined Tuesday from the campaign trail in the final week of a close race to be treated for an infection associated with her reconstructive surgery after breast cancer. The former Hewlett- Packard Co. chief execu- tive was admitted to a Los Angeles-area hospital, forcing her to cancel cam- paign appearances in Riverside and Coachella just as polls suggested she was starting to gain momentum in her race against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. According to Deborah Bowker, the campaign’s chief of staff, Fiorina was being treated with antibi- otics. ‘‘While this will impact her campaign schedule today, Carly is upbeat and her doctors expect her to make a quick and full recovery and be back out on the campaign trail soon,’’ Bowker said in the state- ment. Boxer’s campaign sent their well wishes. Rand Paul volunteer blames police for not intervening LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — The volunteer with Rand Paul’s Repub- lican U.S. Senate cam- paign who stepped on the head of a liberal activist and pinned her face to the concrete said Tuesday the scuffle was not as bad as it looked on video and blamed police for not intervening. ‘‘I’m sorry that it came to that, and I apologize if it appeared overly force- ful, but I was concerned about Rand’s safety,’’ Tim Profitt told The Associat- ed Press. A judge will decide whether Profitt should face criminal charges. Lauren Valle, the 23- year-old activist with the group MoveOn.org, said her face was swollen and her neck and shoulder were sore after she was wrestled to the ground by Paul supporters Monday night before a debate between the tea party favorite and Democrat Jack Conway. Valle was roughed up as she tried to give Paul a fake ‘‘employee of the month’’ award. She told years, fell to ninth. Ford was 10th, but rose from 16th the previous year. Consumer Reports rankings, released Tues- day, are widely used by buyers shopping for cars and trucks. The magazine ranks No. 3 on the list of information sources used by Americans to pick vehicles, topped only by brand loyalty and recom- mendations from friends and family. Scion, Toyota’s youth police she was assaulted while trying to take a pic- ture with Paul. Pentagon’s No. 2 official says enemies mining WikiLeaks BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. enemies already are combing through data released last week in a trove of Iraq war docu- ments for ways to harm the American military, the Pentagon’s No. 2 official said Tuesday. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn called the documents ‘‘stolen material’’ and said they give adversaries key insight on how the U.S. military operates. He did not say which groups, or how the Pentagon knew they were research- ing the documents. ‘‘There are groups out there that have said they are indeed mining this data to turn around and use against us,’’ Lynn told a small group of reporters during a brief visit to Baghdad. ‘‘We think this is problematic.’’ The Pentagon furious- ly opposed the docu- ments’ release Saturday by the whistle-blower WikiLeaks website. Lynn’s remarks came a day after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told CNN that the nearly 400,000 papers did not put troops at risk because the names of any soldiers or Iraqi civilians have been redacted. The U.S. has said that the WikiLeaks release of secret Afghan and Iraq war documents threatens national security. Tariq Aziz sentenced to hang for persecuting Shiites BAGHDAD (AP) — The international face of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Tariq Aziz, was sentenced to death by hanging Tuesday for per- secuting Shiites just over three months after the Americans transferred him to Iraqi government custody. Iraqi High Tribunal spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Sahib did not say when the 74-year-old for- mer foreign minister would go to the gallows. Aziz has 30 days to launch an appeal. Aziz, the only Christ- ian in Saddam’s mainly Sunni inner circle, was wearing a blue suit and sat alone in the court. He bowed his head and fre- quently grasped the handrail in front of him, as the judge read out the verdict. The Vatican urged Iraq to not carry out the death sentence and said it may intervene to try to halt it A spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Vatican hoped that the sentence wouldn’t be car- ried out and added that Vatican usually would pursue any possible humanitarian intervention to halt an execution via diplomatic channels. Honda and Toyota vehicles most trouble-free DETROIT (AP) — The most problem-free cars and trucks are made by Honda and Toyota, but U.S. automakers Ford and General Motors are clos- ing the gap in quality, according to an annual survey by Consumer Reports magazine. Ford and GM continue to narrow the disparity that once separated Asia- based automakers from their Detroit rivals. Large overhauls of American car companies in the last few years have resulted in fewer brands and better vehicles from Detroit. For the third year in a row, Toyota’s Scion had the fewest problems of any brand in the survey. It was followed by Porsche, Acura, Honda, and Nis- san’s Infiniti luxury brand. The Toyota brand ranked sixth, down from third last year. It was fol- lowed by Subaru and Volvo. Lexus, which had been a top finisher in past RBUHS Employees Association Seek your help in supporting Barbara McIver Marianne Willard for RBUHS Board Paid Political brand, was tops because it sells just three models, the xD hatchback, xB wagon and tC coupe. Those models haven’t been revamped recently. As a result, they have fewer reliability prob- lems, said David Champi- on, senior director of auto testing for Consumer Reports. Iran has been funding Afghanistan for years TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran acknowledged Tuesday it has been send- ing funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, but said the money was intended to aid recon- struction, not to buy influ- ence in the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai said Monday he receives millions of dol- lars in cash from Iran, adding that Washington gives him ‘‘bags of money’’ too because his office lacks funds. In Washington, Presi- dent Barack Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, denied that. ‘‘We’re not in the big bags of cash business,’’ he said Tuesday. Earlier, State Depart- ment spokesman P.J. Crowley said some of the U.S. aid to Afghanistan is in cash. U.S. officials asserted the money flowing from Tehran was proof that Iran is playing a double game in Afghanistan — wooing the government while helping Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO forces. Iran denies that. Animal lovers mourn giant stag LONDON (AP) — It’s a photo of animal majesty that has turned into a mur- der mystery: Who shot the Emperor? Nature lovers on Tuesday were mourn- ing a red stag dubbed the Emperor of Exmoor — a 9-foot (2.75-meter) giant reported to be the biggest wild animal in the British Isles. He was found dead days after his picture appeared in the national press. The Emperor’s size set him apart from the herd, but may also have made him prize prey for hunters willing to pay handsomely for such a majestic trophy. ‘‘With a set of antlers such as this deer had, it was basically going to kill him in the end,’’ said Richard Austin, the pho- tographer whose images appeared in newspapers — inevitably accompa- nied by the word ‘‘majes- tic.’’ ‘‘He was his own worst enemy, I suppose,’’ Austin told the BBC. ‘‘Growing that big and that huge and that magnificent, he was a definite target.’’ Paid Political Advertisement VOTE “Jim” Byrne for City Council Good Government Starts Locally James E