National

  WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans familiar with a new White House offer on avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff say it looks almost exactly like President Barack Obama's budget proposal in February.

 

     GOP aides say Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner presented an offer calling for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over the coming decade, extending the 2 percentage point payroll tax deduction or something comparable to it and $50 billion in stimulus spending on infrastructure projects.

 

     The White House plan calls for $960 billion over the coming decade by increasing tax rates and taxes on investment income on upper-bracket earners and $600 billion in additional taxes.

 

     The aides required anonymity because of the sensitivity of revealing the offer made by Geithner to top Republican lawmakers in meetings in the Capitol on Thursday. 

 

 DEARBORN, Mo. (AP) - The Missouri Lottery has verified the state's winning Powerball ticket.

 

     A news conference to reveal who bought the ticket is planned for Friday morning at a high school in Dearborn, the small northwestern Missouri town where the ticket was purchased.

 

     One of the jackpot's two winning tickets was purchased at a gas station in Dearborn, about 30 miles north of Kansas City. The other was bought at a convenience store in suburban Phoenix.

 

     The winners will split the record $588 million Powerball jackpot.

 

     Missouri Lottery chief operations officer Gary Gonder says he can't provide any details, including whether the ticket was bought by someone from Missouri.

 

     U.S. sales of new homes fell slightly in October and the September sales pace was slower than initially thought. 

 

     The Commerce Department says home sales dipped 0.3 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 368,000. That's down marginally from the 369,000 pace in September, which was revised lower from an initial 389,000.

 

     Sales are still 20.4 percent higher than the same month last year, supporting other data that show the housing market recovering.  Still, new-home sales are well below the annual rate of 700,000 that economists consider healthy.

 

     Sales fell a sharp 32.3 percent in the Northeast, but the government said Hurricane Sandy had only a minimal effect on the housing data because it hit at the end of the month.

 

 

 TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Lawyers for the Tampa socialite embroiled in the scandal that prompted CIA Director David Petraeus' resignation say she never tried to exploit her friendship with him.   

 

     Jill Kelley's lawyers released emails, phone tapes and other material Tuesday that they say back their claim.  

 

     The lawyers went on the attack against a businessman who accused Kelley of incompetence while trying to set up a deal he was negotiating with South Korean companies; an attorney who called her a social climber; and the FBI agent who leaked her name in connection to the scandal. 

 

     The 37-year-old Kelley became the focus of national media attention earlier this month after it was revealed she received anonymous emails from Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer and mistress. Broadwell allegedly told her to stay away from Petraeus. 

 

 

  WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas has checked himself into Walter Reed Army Medical Center for what his spokeswoman described as a routine procedure.

 

     Spokeswoman Marion Watkins says the 89-year-old Dole is "doing very well" and is expected to leave the hospital Wednesday.

 

     Dole's name drew mention as the Senate on Tuesday debated a U.N. treaty promoting equal rights for the disabled. Dole overcame disabling war wounds to forge a 36-year political career. In the early 1990s, he underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer and in 2001 he had surgery to treat an aneurysm.

 

     Dole spent 10 months at Walter Reed in 2010 after suffering pneumonia following knee surgery.

 

     He was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, losing to Bill Clinton.

 

 

<VIDEO> A Northern California community has been stunned by the deaths of three family members who drowned when they were swept out to sea by the powerful ocean surf.

 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration has halted operations of the country's largest organic peanut butter processor, cracking down on salmonella poisoning for the first time with a new enforcement authority the agency gained in a 2011 food safety law.

 

     FDA officials found salmonella all over Sunland Inc.'s New Mexico processing plant after 41 people in 20 states, most of them children, were sickened by peanut butter manufactured at the Sunland plant and sold at Trader Joe's. The suspension will prevent the company from distributing any food.

 

     The food safety law gave the FDA authority to suspend a company's registration when food manufactured or held there has a "reasonable probability" of causing serious health problems or death.

 

     Sunland sold hundreds of products to many of the nation's largest grocery chains.

 

<VIDEO> Five people including a child are dead after a fire broke out at an apartment building in southwest Missouri.The Wheaton Fire Department says fire crews found the victims in two separate units at the building.

     BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) - Two people are dead and dozens are injured after an estimated 100-vehicle pileup that forced the closure of Interstate 10 in Southeast Texas.

 

     KFDM-TV reports that the collision happened around 8 a.m. Thursday on I-10 near Beaumont, about 80 miles east of Houston.

 

     Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Stephanie Davis says two people in an SUV died after the crash, but declined to provide details. She says at least 100 cars and trucks crashed in extremely dense fog. Officials at Acadian Ambulance service tell KFDM that at least 51 people have been taken to area hospitals and that at least eight are critically hurt. 

 

     I-10 remains shutdown in eastbound lanes. Westbound lanes have reopened.

 NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - A wrongly convicted Virginia man is beginning his new life outside of prison in time for Thanksgiving.

 

     Johnathan Montgomery was released from prison late Tuesday after Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell issued a conditional pardon. Montgomery was convicted in 2008 of molesting a 10-year-old girl when he was 14, but Montgomery's accuser recently recanted her story. Now in her 20s, she has been charged with perjury.

 

     According to the National Registry of Exonerations, there have only been about 1,000 cases of prisoners who were later cleared of all charges since 1989.

 

     Montgomery told reporters Wednesday that he's looking forward to spending Thanksgiving at his father's home in Vale, N.C. He's slowly readjusting to life outside prison walls, eating hamburgers and sleeping in.

 

  BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Prosecutors say the man accused of killing a monkey at Boise's zoo hoped to steal the animal, but he was bitten and then he clubbed it to death with a tree branch.

 

     Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Fafa Alidjani said Wednesday that Michael J. Watkins entered the zoo Saturday morning, manipulated a lock to get into the primate enclosure and removed the patas monkey by wrapping it in his jacket.

 

     Fourth District Judge Henry Boomer denied a request from Watkins' public defender to reduce bail from $150,000 to $10,000.

 

     Alidjani argued bail shouldn't be reduced because Watkins has a history of arrests from drugs and drunken driving, and probation violations.

 

     Police have said they don't expect others to be charged, but Watkins' public defender, Gary Reedy, told the judge at least one individual entered the zoo with Watkins.

 

   KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A southwest Missouri man accused of plotting to open fire inside a theater during the "Twilight" movie underwent a mental evaluation in 2009 after following around a Walmart store clerk.

 

     An arrest report released Tuesday says Blaec Lammers brought a knife to the store in Bolivar looking for an "easy victim" after watching the horror film "Halloween."

 

     He told authorities he was planning to follow the clerk into a storage room and kill him when he heard his name over the public address system. No charges were filed.

 

     The 20-year-old Lammers was arrested last week after his mother contacted police.

 

     Investigators found he'd recently bought assault rifles and 400 rounds of ammunition. He told authorities he also planned to attack a Walmart store.

 

     His public defender declined comment Tuesday.

 

Hostess Brands Inc. lived to die another day.

 

     The maker of Twinkies and Ding Dongs said late Tuesday that it failed to reach an agreement with and its second biggest union. As a result, the company will continue with a hearing on Wednesday in which a bankruptcy court judge will decide if the company can liquidate 

 

     The talks had come as a surprise after Hostess declared last week it would move to wind down its business and start selling off its assets in bankruptcy court. After making its case to liquidate on Monday, however, the bankruptcy judge hearing the case noted the two sides hadn't yet tried resolving their differences through private mediation. The judge noted that 18,000 jobs were on the line and urged the company and union to try to resolve their differences.

 

     Hostess shut down its three dozen plants late last week after it said a strike by the union crippled its ability to maintain normal production. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which represents about 30 percent of the company's workers, says the company's demise was the result of years of mismanagement, however, and that workers have already given steep concessions over the years.

 

 

     The former CIA chief is testifying behind closed-doors before the congressional intelligence committees. It's his first Capitol Hill appearance since resigning last Friday over an extramarital affair. 

 

     Republican Rep. Peter King tells reporters after the House hearing that Petraeus focused his remarks on Libya. 

 

     Lawmakers say Petraeus told them that CIA talking points written after the attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans referred to it as a terrorist attack. But Petraeus says that reference was removed by other federal agencies that made changes to the CIA's draft. 

   WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration has given states another month to decide what role, if any, they'll play in carrying out the new health care law.

 

     Instead of having to declare their intentions by Friday, states now have until Dec. 14, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter Thursday evening to Republican governors who had requested more time.

 

     Most states are still expected to announce their choices by Friday, but a check by The Associated Press found that 16 states are still mulling over their decisions. 

 

     That includes Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott long opposed the law and now says he wants to work with the Obama administration. New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania are also in the undeclared column.

 

 

  WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Eric Holder says a very critical interview took place the Friday before Election Day in the probe involving CIA Director David Petraeus and that afterward the Justice Department thought it appropriate to share information with top Obama administration officials. 

 

     A federal law enforcement official says that Nov. 2 interview was with Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer and lover, and the questioning reassured FBI agents they knew what classified documents Broadwell had, where they came from and that Petraeus had not supplied them.

 

     The official says the agents became satisfied they knew the complete story about classified documents at issue. On Nov. 6, the FBI informed National Intelligence Director James Clapper of the investigation.

 

     The official was not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation and requested anonymity.

 

 

  WASHINGTON (AP) - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has described his role in the investigation that led to the resignation of CIA chief David Petraeus, saying someone gave him information about the case that sounded like a potential "national security vulnerability." 

 

     Cantor, a Virginia Republican, told reporters Wednesday that he did not know the person and did not know if the information was credible. He says that's when he decided to take the matter to the FBI and its director, Robert Mueller. 

 

     In late October, Cantor was contacted by an FBI employee who gave him information about the affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

 

     Cantor says he asked the FBI to keep officials in Congress informed once it was determined whether an investigation was necessary. 

 

     

 

 CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) - A judge has postponed a court hearing for the man charged in the Colorado movie theater killings after his attorneys said he was taken to a hospital for unspecified reasons.

 

     Court documents filed Wednesday said James Holmes' condition rendered him unable to be present for a hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday. 

 

     Holmes' attorneys declined to give details on his condition at an emergency hearing on the request to delay the court date. But defense attorney Tamara Brady said it wasn't something that would be resolved by Thursday.

 

     The judge said that was enough information for him, and he granted the delay. 

 

     Holmes is charged with killing 12 people and injuring at least 58 others by opening fire in a crowded theater July 20.

 

 

<VIDEO> Rep. Nancy Pelosi laughed off a question as offensive about whether her staying on his House Minority Leader would prevent younger members from assuming leadership roles.

<VIDEO> Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Australia that he has confidence in General John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan. General Allen is under investigation for exchanging thousands of emails with a married Florida woman.

  SEATTLE (AP) - Two snowboarders who spent two nights stranded on Mount Rainier after getting lost in a snowstorm are on their way down.

 

     National Park spokeswoman Lee Snook says the two are snowshoeing out with rescuers who reached them Tuesday morning. 

 

     Snook says 21-year-old Derek Tyndall and 20-year-old Thomas Dale didn't appear to have any injuries.

 

     The two had been stuck on Washington's tallest mountain since Sunday, after getting lost in whiteout conditions and digging a snow cave for protection.

 

     Rescuers first spotted them Monday but couldn't immediately reach them because of darkness and avalanche danger.

 

     Snook says the group should be at the Paradise ranger station by late afternoon. 

 

  JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Authorities say a small plane with three people aboard has crashed into a neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, near an airport.

 

     A Jackson deputy fire chief told WJTV-TV that one person escaped a burning home Tuesday evening with minor injuries. It was not immediately clear if anyone else was inside the house.

 

     The Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says the Piper PA-32 single-engine plane is registered to a company in Flowood, Miss. She says information was not immediately available about the condition of the people aboard the plane.

 

     Witnesses say large flames and black smoke rose about 50 feet from a burning house that was hit. 

 

     The FAA says the plane had just departed Hawkins Field Airport headed for Raymond, Miss., when it crashed into a building.

 

 WASHINGTON (AP) - Your emails are not nearly as private as you think.

 

     The downfall of CIA Director David Petraeus demonstrates how easy it is for federal law enforcement agents to examine emails and computer records if they believe a crime was committed. With subpoenas and warrants, the FBI and other investigating agencies routinely gain access to electronic inboxes and information about email accounts offered by Google, Yahoo and other Internet providers.

 

     Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor - not a judge - to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. To get more recent communications, a warrant from a judge is required. Critics want the law updated to reflect changes in technology.

 

 

 

     Boehner tells reporters a day after the president's clear re-election victory that those conditions include a revamped tax code to make it cleaner and fairer, fewer loopholes and lower rates for all.

 

     He did not specify what loopholes House Republicans might consider. Boehner's comments are along the lines of proposals by vanquished Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that also were vague on specifics.

 

     Still, Boehner's comments signaled a willingness to enter into talks. He suggested Congress could use its upcoming lame-duck session to get the ball moving on such a compromise.

  NEW YORK (AP) - The number of homes and businesses without electricity in the Northeast is climbing again as a wintry storm sweeps the coast.

 

     Utilities in New York City and Long Island reported that a nor'easter hitting Wednesday has knocked out power to about 48,000 customers. Some of those had just gotten it back after losing it to Superstorm Sandy more than a week ago.

 

     New Jersey utilities are also reporting scattered outages. Some customers also complain they had just gotten their lights back only to lose them again.

 

     At the peak of the outages from Sandy, more than 8.5 million customers lost power. Before the nor'easter hit that number was down to 675,000, mostly in New Jersey and New York.

 

 

     NEW YORK (AP) - Major airlines are scrapping flights in and out of the New York area ahead of the second significant storm in little more than a week. 

 

     United, the world's largest airline, is suspending most service here starting at noon Wednesday due to a winter storm forecast for the region. It warns that bad weather will likely cause more delays and cancellations throughout the Northeast. 

 

     American Airlines is shutting down in New York at 3 p.m. Wednesday. It's also stopping flights to and from Philadelphia at noon. 

 

     Most other airlines, including Delta Air Lines Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp., are asking passengers to reschedule their Northeast flights for a later date. They're waiving the usual change fees of up to $150. 

 

     Superstorm Sandy last week led to about 24,000 flight cancellations.

<VIDEO>  WASHINGTON (AP) - Mitt Romney is conceding that his hard-fought presidential bid has ended in failure. He told supporters in Boston that he gave it his all and that he is now praying that President Barack Obama will be successful in guiding the nation. 

 

     Romney said, "This election is over, but our principles endure."

 

     Obama, meanwhile, tweeted to supporters, "This happened because of you. Thank you." 

 

     Obama was chalking up additional victories in states that the polls had said could go either way. After winning Virginia's 13 electoral votes, he had a margin of 100 electoral votes - 303 to 203 - with just Alaska and Florida still to count.

 

     Florida's result remained too close to call, hours after the polls closed.

 

     Despite Obama's sizeable margin in the electoral vote count, he held just a slim advantage in the popular vote.

 

 NEW YORK (AP) - Airlines are again looking at canceling flights in and out of the Northeast, just a week after Superstorm Sandy led to more than 23,000 cancellations in the region.

 

     This time it's a coastal storm that's leading to travel headaches.

 

     United Airlines is grounding about 500 flights between noon Wednesday and noon Thursday out of Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports.

 

     Many United passengers were automatically rebooked on other flights to their destination, connecting through those hubs.

 

     Passengers can rebook themselves on other flights without paying the usual change fees.

 

     Other airlines said they are evaluating which flights will and won't be canceled. Delta Air Lines and US Airways also issued fee change waivers, while American Airlines had an existing waiver for this week related to Sandy.

 

 

<VIDEO>  WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican Mitt Romney in a hard-fought race in which the economy was the dominant issue.

 

     Voters decided to give Obama another four years of stewardship over an economy that is slowly recovering from the recession.

 

     Obama captured battleground states including Ohio, Iowa and Colorado on his way to the 270 electoral votes he needed.

 

     Romney unsuccessfully campaigned on the theme that his business background gave him the experience needed to guide the nation out of tough economic times.

 

     Obama will again be dealing with a divided Congress. Democrats maintained control of the Senate and Republicans likely will again control the House. Among the most pressing matters is the so-called fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to hit in January. Economists have warned that if they aren't averted, the nation could face another recession.

 

   NEW YORK (AP) - The Federal Emergency Management Agency says 95,000 people are eligible for emergency housing assistance in New York and New Jersey.

 

     The program allows survivors who can't return to their homes due to storm Sandy damage to stay in certain hotels or motels until more suitable housing becomes available.

 

     The figures for each state weren't available Tuesday.

 

     FEMA also said more than 277,000 people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have registered for general assistance. More than $251 million has been approved.

 

 

<VIDEO> Voters on Staten Island, N. Y. began lining up to vote at makeshift polling stations, just one week after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the New York City borough.

   POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. (AP) - A week after Superstorm Sandy pummeled the East Coast, wiping out entire communities, residents were bracing for yet another potentially damaging storm.

 

     A nor'easter taking shape Monday in the Gulf of Mexico was expected to begin its march up the coast, eventually passing within 50 to 100 miles of the wounded New Jersey coastline on Wednesday. The storm was expected to bring winds of up to 55 mph, coastal flooding, up to 2 inches of rain along the shore, and several inches of snow to Pennsylvania and New York.

 

     One of the biggest fears was that the storm could bring renewed flooding to parts of the shore where Sandy wiped out natural beach defenses and protective dunes.

 

 PITTSBURGH (AP) - The head of the Pittsburgh Zoo says a medical examiner has concluded that a toddler who fell into an African painted dog exhibit was killed by the animals, not by the fall.

 

     Barbara Baker, CEO and president of the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium, said she received that information from the medical examiner's office Monday.

 

     Officials say the child's mother had placed the boy on a wooden rail above the exhibit. There is a net below the rail, but Baker says the boy bounced off it and into the enclosure.

 

     She says the animals attacked the child so quickly that by the time a veterinarian and other zoo staffers arrived seconds later, they determined it would have been futile to try to rescue the child.

 

  ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - More than 400 possible cases of price gouging have been reported in New York before and after Superstorm Sandy.

 

     Reports are being investigated in New York City, the Hudson Valley and on Long Island by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

 

     Among the reports: The price of a bag of potatoes jumped from $3 before the storm to $7. A box of matches more than tripled, to $10. And a loaf of bread more than doubled, to $7.

 

     State law prohibits spikes in prices for essential goods, including food, water, gasoline, generators, batteries and flashlights. The law also prohibits sharp increases in prices by retailers, supermarkets, hardware stores, bodegas, delis and taxis.

 

     A vendor may defend higher prices if they can show an increased cost of getting goods or delivering services.

 

 

     GOP officials familiar with the plan say the Republican nominee may make a final visit Tuesday to the critical battleground state, where 18 electoral votes are up for grabs.

 

     Such a visit would be a last-ditch attempt to win a state that is critical to Romney's presidential hopes. Without it, he would have to win nearly all the other contested states. Polls in Ohio have been stubbornly close, showing Democratic President Barack Obama holding a slight but consistent edge. 

 

     Romney had planned to hold his final campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., late Monday night before heading to his home in Belmont, Mass. 

 

     The officials requested anonymity to discuss internal campaign strategy.

 

     

<VIDEO> One of the last U.S. apparel manufacturers of its kind is losing its shirt. Production at family-owned apparel manufacturer, FesslerUSA will shut down soon forcing dozens of employees out of work after nearly 113 years.

     WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. companies boosted their orders for manufactured goods by the largest amount in 18 months in September, but companies remained cautious in ordering goods that signal plans to expand and modernize.

 

     The Commerce Department says factory orders rose 4.8 percent in September compared to August, a month when orders had fallen 5.1 percent. The September gain was the biggest since March 2011 and was driven by a surge in demand for commercial aircraft, a volatile category which had seen orders plunge in August.

 

     Demand for core capital goods, viewed as a good proxy for business investment plans, edged up a slight 0.2 percent in September following a 0.3 percent rise in August. The two modest gains followed two months of huge declines as business investment remains weak.

 

 

     The Labor Department's last look at hiring before Tuesday's election sketched a picture of a job market that is gradually gaining momentum after nearly stalling in the spring.

 

     Since July, the economy has created an average of 173,000 jobs a month, up from 67,000 a month from April through June. 

 

     Still, President Barack Obama will face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent since Franklin Roosevelt. The rate ticked up because more people without jobs started looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching. 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Amtrak president Joseph Boardman says he hopes the railroad will be able to resume service between New York City and Boston on Friday.

 

     There has been no service between city and points north since the region was walloped by Superstorm Sandy. Limited service between New York City and points south resumed Thursday. Boardman said Washington-to-New York service will be available Friday.

 

     Boardman also told reporters in a conference call that he has had discussions with the head of Via Rail Canada in Montreal about borrowing trains for Amtrak's New York state service. He said if Amtrak can do that, it would free up other trains that could be used to provide commuter service in hard-hit New Jersey. 

 

     He said the discussions were ongoing and no decision had been reached.