Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday conceded that comments he made about bitter working class voters who “cling to guns or religion” were ill chosen, as he tried to stem a burst of complaints that he is condescending. “I didn’t say it as well as I should have,” he said at Ball State University. At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser in San Francisco last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over working class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions.
American Airlines on Saturday received clearance from federal aviation officials to return all of its 300 grounded jets to service, an airline spokesman said. After 200 cancellations Saturday morning, Fort Worth-based American was running a full schedule by the afternoon with no cancellations, said spokesman Charley Wilson. Starting Tuesday, the nation’s largest airline canceled nearly 3,300 flights, as it grounded 300 MD-80 jets to wrap wiring bundles to meet federal safety standards and prevent fires. The cancellations stranded hundreds of thousands of people during the week.
Polygamous sect members who were moved to a Texas compound from their longtime homes along the Utah-Arizona line were hand-picked for their fierce loyalty to leader Warren Jeffs, and that allegiance may be a stumbling block for law enforcement, authorities say. Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, transferred people to Eldorado, Texas, to escape growing government scrutiny on the sect’s base in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. “This was Warren Jeffs’ all-star cast,” said Goddard, who has been investigating the sect since 2004. “They had the strongest sense of obedience.”
A roadside bomb killed an American soldier in Baghdad on Saturday, capping the bloodiest week for U.S. troops in Iraq this year. The U.S. military said the American soldier was killed in a blast Saturday morning in northwestern Baghdad, but did not say whether Shiite militiamen were responsible. The death raised the number of American troopers killed in Iraq since last Sunday to at least 19. American casualties have risen with an outbreak of fighting in Baghdad between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the largest Shiite militia – the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe skipped a regional summit Saturday addressing the deepening crisis over the country’s contentious presidential election, giving southern African leaders little chance to step up the pressure on him. Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said he had called the summit because of the failure of Zimbabwean officials to publish the results of the March 29 presidential election. Independent tallies indicate Mugabe lost, but garnered enough votes to force a runoff. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he won outright and has traveled the region asking neighboring leaders to push for Mugabe to step down.
