"Chicago Tribune" Reader

"Chicago Tribune" Reader


GOP governor calls on Romney to release more tax returns

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 03:34 PM PDT

GOP Governor Calls on Mitt Romney to Release Additional Tax Returns and Show He Has 'Nothing to Hide'ABC News' Michael Falcone and Arlette Saenz report: WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — In an interview with ABC News on Saturday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley called on presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney to release additional years of his tax returns in order to show voters that he...


Weather stops tandem lawn chair balloon flight

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 05:02 PM PDT

Iraqi adventurer Fareed Lafta, right, and Bend, Ore., gas station owner Kent Couch lift off Saturday, July 14, 2012, from Couch's gas station in Bend, Ore., as they attempt to fly some 360 miles to Montana. The flight is a warm-up for a future flight planned in Iraq. (AP Photo/Jeff Barnard)An Oregon gas station owner and an Iraqi adventurer trying to fly from Central Oregon to Montana were forced to abort their flight to Montana on Saturday due to thunderstorms.


NYC seaport fire doused without any injuries

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 04:33 PM PDT

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at PIer 17 in New York on Saturday, July 14, 2012. Firefighters battled a three-alarm blaze at the South Street Seaport that created a large cloud of smoke over the East River. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)A fire on a tourist-friendly New York City pier that sent a huge cloud of smoke billowing above the Manhattan skyline was doused without any injuries on Saturday, fire officials said.


Florida election officials to get access to citizen database

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 04:17 PM PDT

Florida election officials will have access to a federal database to help purge its voter rolls of non-citizens under an agreement reached between state and federal officials and welcomed on Saturday by Florida's Republican governor. The Department of Homeland Security will allow state officials to access the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Florida and federal officials have been battling over access to the database for several weeks. Florida filed a lawsuit against the Homeland Security Department to gain access to the database. ...

U.S. fugitive caught in Cancun after 24 years on the run

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 03:17 PM PDT

The U.S. Marshals Service has captured Vincent Legrend Walters, one of the law enforcement agency's 15 most wanted fugitives, in the Mexican resort city of Cancun. Walters, 45, wanted on kidnapping, murder and drug charges stemming from a 1988 San Diego case, was apprehended Friday morning, then transported to Mexico City where he will await extradition to the United States, the service said late on Friday. Walters had been working at the Cancun International Airport under the assumed name Oscar Rivera, according to a statement released by the agency. ...

Liturgy, Flying Lotus keep Pitchfork energy high

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 04:25 PM PDT

Kot: Liturgy threw up a furious din amid the torrential rain Saturday. When the skies cleared the energy plummeted, with the twee pop sounds of Cults and Idaho's Youth Lagoon.

Lawn chair balloonists take flight

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 10:39 AM PDT

Iraqi adventurer Fareed Lafta, right, and Bend, Ore., gas station owner Kent Couch lift off Saturday, July 14, 2012, from Couch's gas station in Bend, Ore., as they attempt to fly some 360 miles to Montana. The flight is a warm-up for a future flight planned in Iraq. (AP Photo/Jeff Barnard)An Oregon gas station owner and his Iraqi co-pilot lifted off into flight Saturday on two lawn chairs tethered to 350 balloons.


Ron Paul's delegate insurgency ends

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 03:18 PM PDT

Ron Paul's Delegate Insurgency Ends in NebraskaRon Paul's delegate insurgency has come to an end. Supporters of the libertarian GOP presidential candidate fell short at the Nebraska GOP convention, where they had hoped to out-organize Mitt Romney's delegates and push Paul over a critical threshold that would have ensured him an...


Doctor wins Green Party's presidential nod

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 02:48 PM PDT

FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2011 file photo, Jill Stein of Lexington, Mass. speaks during a news conference outside the Statehouse in Boston. Stein, a Massachusetts doctor who ran against Mitt Romney for governor a decade ago is poised to challenge him again _ this time for president as the Green Party's candidate. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)A doctor who ran against Mitt Romney for Massachusetts governor a decade ago won the chance to challenge him again on Saturday, this time as the Green Party's presidential nominee.


Y-Me organization closes its doors

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 04:01 PM PDT

A Chicago-based national breast cancer support group known for its 24-hour hotline and Mother's Day fundraising race abruptly shut its doors last week.

Is it just the economy? Other issues may play role

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 10:37 AM PDT

President Barack Obama holds a re-election campaign rally despite the heavy rain at the historic Walkerton Tavern & Gardens in Glen Allen, Va., near Richmond Saturday, July 14, 2012. It is in the Congressional district represented by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., a key county in a crucial swing state of the presidential election. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)As the economy colors and polarizes voters' attitudes, the Election Day outcome for President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney may be decided on the margins by narrower issues that energize small but crucial slivers of the population.


U.N.: Syria attack targeted army defectors, activists

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 02:08 PM PDT

UN Syria monitors in TremsehAn attack in the Syrian village of Tremseh appeared to target the homes of army defectors and activists, and assailants used weapons including artillery and mortars, a statement by the spokesman for the U.N. observers in Syria said on Saturday. The observers entered the village on Saturday after activists said about 220 people had been killed there by President Bashar al-Assad's troops. The observers saw damaged houses and a burned school and planned to return to the village on Sunday, the statement said, adding the number of casualties was unclear.


Spain austerity measures will raise $69 billion

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 02:11 PM PDT

The Spanish government's most recent reforms will slash 56.4 billion euros ($69 billion) from the public deficit in the next two and a half years, an official document showed on Saturday, leaving a gap to be filled by taxes on energy. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy pledged 65 billion euros of savings from tax hikes and spending cuts on Wednesday in a painful package aimed at convincing the EU and investors his government is serious about reform. The 8. ...

Indiana father accidentally shot dead by 3-year-old son

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 12:55 PM PDT

An Indiana father watching television with his children was accidentally shot to death by his 3-year-old son after the boy found a loaded handgun nearby, police said on Saturday. Michael Payless, 33, was found dead in the southern Indiana town of Salem on Friday night. Payless was watching television with two of his children when the other child, a 3-year-old boy, found the gun. "The child accidentally discharged the loaded handgun ... Michael A. Payless was pronounced dead at the scene," an Indiana state police statement said. ...

U.S. crops wilting despite scattered Midwest rains

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 10:28 AM PDT

Scattered rains over the last 24 hours provided little relief for U.S. Midwest corn and soybean crops that are rapidly deteriorating in the worst drought since 1988, and the forecast is for scant rain for the next two weeks, meteorologists said on Saturday. "Overall the rain yesterday won't put a dent in the drought because they were spotty hit or miss kind of rains. Certainly some isolated areas will benefit, but it was not a significant drought buster," said AccuWeather meteorologist Dan Pydynowski. Thunderstorms on Friday left from 0.25 inch to 0. ...

U.N. team investigates reported massacre in Syria

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 01:53 PM PDT

This image made from amateur video from Hama Revolution 2011 and accessed by AP video Friday, July 13, 2012 purports to show families gathered around bodies of victims killed by violence that, according to anti-regime activists, was carried out by government forces in Tremseh, Syria, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) northwest of the central city of Hama. Anti-regime activists in Syria said Friday that government gunners rained shells on a poor, farming village before armed thugs moved in, leaving scores of people dead in what rebels claim is one of the worst single days of bloodshed in the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime. (AP Photo/ Hama Revolution 2011 via AP video)U.N. observers investigating Syria's latest reported mass killing say they found signs of a heavy assault that targeted specific homes of regime opponents.


Mitt Romney relaxes while President Obama rallies

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 11:12 AM PDT

While President Obama Rallies, Mitt Romney Sits Lakeside With iPadMitt Romney spent part of his Saturday morning sitting in a lawn chair barefoot on the beach of his New Hampshire lake house, iPad in hand, while President Obama was on the campaign trail. It was the first glimpse of the presumptive...


Report: EU fund plans $120 billion Spain bailout

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 01:45 PM PDT

The European Union's bailout fund is working on a €100 billion ($120 billion) package to prop up Spanish banks, according to a report Saturday by German news weekly Der Spiegel.A confidential draft plan ...

Clinton to Egypt's Morsi: Find way out of crisis

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 01:11 PM PDT

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a press conference in Cairo Saturday, July 14, 2012. Clinton arrived in Cairo for talks with new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, amid a power struggle between the Islamist leader and the generals who ruled Egypt after Hosni Mubarak was ousted. (AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used her first meeting with Egypt's new Islamist president to press Mohammed Morsi to start a dialogue with military leaders as a way of preserving the country's transition to democracy.


Obama rallies supporters in battleground Virginia

Posted: 14 Jul 2012 01:32 PM PDT

U.S. President Barack Obama meets a young girl in the audience during a campaign rally in Glen AllenPresident Barack Obama, soaked to the skin as he rallied supporters during a downpour in the election battleground state of Virginia on Saturday, kept up his attack on Republican Mitt Romney as the rhetoric hardened on both sides