Nation & World briefly

Obama launches political counteroffensive this week with Midwest trip amid GOP campaign buzz

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama launches a political counteroffensive this week, weighed down by withering support among some of his most ardent backers, a stunted economy and a daily bashing from the slew of Republicans campaigning for his job.

"We've still got a long way to go to get to where we need to be. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and it's going to take time to get out of it," the president told the country over the weekend, all but pleading for people to stick with him.

A deeply unsettled political landscape, with voters in a fiercely anti-incumbent mood, is framing the 2012 presidential race 15 months before Americans decide whether to give Obama a second term or hand power to the Republicans. Trying to ride out what seems to be an unrelenting storm of economic anxiety, people in the United States increasingly are voicing disgust with most all of the men and women, Obama included, they sent to Washington to govern them.

With his approval numbers sliding, the Democratic president will try to ease their worries and sustain his resurrected fighting spirit when he sets off Monday on a bus tour of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The trip is timed to dilute the GOP buzz emanating from the Midwest after Republicans gathered in Iowa over the weekend for a first test of the party's White House candidates. The state holds the nation's first nominating test in the long road toward choosing Obama's opponent.

"You have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president," Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told elated supporters minutes after winning Saturday's Iowa straw poll, essentially a fundraising event that also tests a candidate's organizational and financial strength. She spent heavily and traveled throughout the state where she was born, casting herself as the evangelical Christian voice of the deeply conservative small government, low tax tea party wing of the party.

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Once viewed as a fringe player, Ron Paul's presidential bid shaping 2012 White House race

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Ron Paul, once seen as a fringe candidate and a nuisance to the establishment, is shaping the 2012 Republican primary by giving voice to the party's libertarian wing and reflecting frustration with the United States' international entanglements.

The Texas congressman placed second in a key early test vote Saturday in Ames, coming within 152 votes of winning the first significant balloting of the Republican nominating contest. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota won the nonbinding Iowa straw poll, but Paul's organizational strength and a retooled focus on social issues set him up to be a serious player in the campaign.

"I believe in a very limited role for government. But the prime reason that government exists in a free society is to protect liberty, but also to protect life. And I mean all life," he told a raucous crowd on Saturday.

"You cannot have relative value for life and deal with that. We cannot play God and make those decisions. All life is precious," he said, opening his remarks with an anti-abortion appeal to the social conservatives who have great sway here in Iowa's leadoff caucuses.

Later Saturday, Paul won 4,671 votes, or roughly 28 percent of the votes from party activists who flocked to a college campus for the daylong political carnival

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Syria uses gunboats for first time to crush uprising in Mediterranean city, 25 killed

BEIRUT (AP) - Syria used gunboats for the first time Sunday to crush the uprising against Bashar Assad's regime, hammering parts of the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia after thousands marched there over the weekend to demand the president's ouster. At least 25 people were killed, according to activists.

The coordinated attacks by gunboats and ground troops were the latest wave of a brutal offensive against anti-government protests launched at the beginning of the month. The assault showed Assad has no intention of scaling back the campaign even though it has brought international outrage and new U.S. and European sanctions.

"We are being targeted from the ground and the sea," said a frightened resident of the al-Ramel district of Latakia, the hardest hit neighborhood. "The shooting is intense. We cannot go out. They are raiding and breaking into people's homes," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

As the gunships blasted waterfront districts, ground troops backed by tanks and security forces stormed several neighborhoods including al-Ramel, sending terrified women and children fleeing, some on foot, to safer areas.

The al-Ramel resident said at least three gunboats were taking part in the offensive, and that many people have been killed and wounded. The shooting targeted several mosques in the area.

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Indiana officials say 'fluke' gust of wind toppled stage at fair, forecast had been checked

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The wind gust that toppled a stage at the Indiana State Fair Saturday night, killing five and injuring dozens of fans waiting for the country band Sugarland to perform, was a "fluke" that no one could have anticipated, the governor and others said Sunday.

The wind was far stronger than that in other areas of the fairgrounds, said Dan McCarthy, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Indiana. He estimated the gust at 60 to 70 mph.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said precautions were taken before the storm, but no one could have foreseen such a strong gust focused in one place. Some witnesses have said that while a storm was expected, rain hadn't begun to fall when the wind sent the stage rigging falling into the crowd of terrified fans.

"This is the finest event of its kind in America, this is the finest one we've ever had, and this desperately sad, as far as I can tell fluke event doesn't change that," Daniels said.

Four people were killed when the metal scaffolding that holds lights and other stage equipment fell, and a fifth died overnight at a hospital, Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said. The county coroner's office identified the victims as Alina Bigjohny, 23, of Fort Wayne; Christina Santiago, 29, of Chicago; Tammy Vandam, 42, of Wanatah; and two Indianapolis residents: 49-year-old Glenn Goodrich and 51-year-old Nathan Byrd. Byrd died overnight.

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Lawyer: No evidence that US man detained in Aruba disappearance has committed a crime

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) - A U.S. tourist detained in Aruba in the death of his travel companion has cooperated with investigators and should be immediately released because there is no evidence against him, his defense lawyer said Sunday.

Michael Lopez, the Aruban lawyer for Gary Giordano, denied statements by prosecutors that his client is no longer answering questions about what happened to Robyn Gardner, his companion on a short trip to the Dutch Caribbean island.

Giordano, a 50-year-old business owner from Gaithersburg, Maryland, has granted four interviews to investigators and accompanied them twice on visits to the area where he said Gardner disappeared while they went snorkeling, Lopez said in a written statement.

"To date, our client has given all possible cooperation to the investigation," he said. "Where our client has been asked the same question more than once he referred to previous statements."

Giordano is scheduled to appear before a judge Monday for a detention hearing. Prosecutors plan to ask that he be held for at least eight more days while authorities continue to investigate what happened to Gardner. Previously, Aruban Solicitor General Taco Stein said that investigators believe the 35-year-old woman from Frederick, Maryland, is dead.

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For members of deficit-cutting supercommittee, 'doomsday' defense cuts hit close to home

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the dozen lawmakers tasked with producing a deficit-cutting plan, the threatened "doomsday" defense cuts hit close to home.

The six Republicans and six Democrats represent states where the biggest military contractors - Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and Boeing Co. - build missiles, aircraft, jet fighters and tanks while employing tens of thousands of workers.

The potential for $500 billion more in defense cuts could force the Pentagon to cancel or scale back multibillion-dollar weapons programs. That could translate into significant layoffs in a fragile economy, generate millions less in tax revenues for local governments and upend lucrative company contracts with foreign nations.

The cuts could hammer Everett, Wash., where some of the 30,000 Boeing employees are working on giant airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force, or Amarillo, Texas, where 1,100 Bell Helicopter Textron workers assemble the fuselage, wings, engines and transmissions for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Billions in defense cuts would be a blow to the hundreds working on upgrades to the Abrams tank for General Dynamics in Lima, Ohio, or the employees of BAE Systems in Pennsylvania.

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Ohio woman, 94, wakes up to find windblown blimp from nearby airport landed in her backyard

WORTHINGTON, Ohio (AP) - A 94-year-old Ohio woman who woke up to discover that a breakaway blimp from a nearby airport had landed in her backyard said she heard a bang during stormy weather but didn't realize what happened until police knocked on her door about seven hours later.

The 128-foot-long blimp broke free of its moorings at a Columbus airport during strong winds early Sunday, then drifted to the sky, headed eastward and landed in Lillian Bernhagen's backyard in Worthington, less than two miles from Ohio State University's Don Scott airfield. No one was aboard and no injuries were reported.

The remnants of a battered blimp were draped over Bernhagen's picnic table and birdfeeders, covering half her backyard.

"I looked out the window and I said, 'Wow!'" she said.

Storms had limited the options authorities had to find the blimp until it was spotted in Bernhagen's yard. The Federal Aviation Administration tried to locate it via radar, while its owners tried to see it from the ground, said state police spokesman Lt. Rudy Zupanc.

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'Apes' rise to top again with $27.5M weekend; 'The Help' opens at No. 2 with $25.5M

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rebellious apes have held off Southern maids for a narrow win at the weekend box office.

Studio estimates Sunday pegged "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" at $27.5 million, good enough for its second-straight No. 1 finish. The 20th Century Fox release raised its 10-day domestic total to $104.9 million.

The "Planet of the Apes" prequel came in just ahead of "The Help," a drama about Mississippi maids during the civil-rights movement that debuted at No. 2 with $25.5 million. "The Help," a DreamWorks release distributed by Disney, has taken in $35.4 million domestically since opening Wednesday.

The Warner Bros. horror sequel "Final Destination 5," the latest in the franchise where death stalks victims who had been fated to die earlier, opened at No. 3 with $18.4 million.

The weekend's other two new wide releases had soft openings. Sony's action comedy "30 Minutes or Less," starring Jesse Eisenberg as a pizza deliveryman forced to help rob a bank, was No. 5 with $13 million, just behind Sony's surprise animated smash "The Smurfs," which slipped to fourth-place with $13.5 million and lifted its three-week total to $101.5 million.

Obama launches political counteroffensive this week with Midwest trip amid GOP campaign buzz

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama launches a political counteroffensive this week, weighed down by withering support among some of his most ardent backers, a stunted economy and a daily bashing from the slew of Republicans campaigning for his job.

"We've still got a long way to go to get to where we need to be. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and it's going to take time to get out of it," the president told the country over the weekend, all but pleading for people to stick with him.

A deeply unsettled political landscape, with voters in a fiercely anti-incumbent mood, is framing the 2012 presidential race 15 months before Americans decide whether to give Obama a second term or hand power to the Republicans. Trying to ride out what seems to be an unrelenting storm of economic anxiety, people in the United States increasingly are voicing disgust with most all of the men and women, Obama included, they sent to Washington to govern them.

With his approval numbers sliding, the Democratic president will try to ease their worries and sustain his resurrected fighting spirit when he sets off Monday on a bus tour of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. The trip is timed to dilute the GOP buzz emanating from the Midwest after Republicans gathered in Iowa over the weekend for a first test of the party's White House candidates. The state holds the nation's first nominating test in the long road toward choosing Obama's opponent.

"You have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president," Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told elated supporters minutes after winning Saturday's Iowa straw poll, essentially a fundraising event that also tests a candidate's organizational and financial strength. She spent heavily and traveled throughout the state where she was born, casting herself as the evangelical Christian voice of the deeply conservative small government, low tax tea party wing of the party.

___

Once viewed as a fringe player, Ron Paul's presidential bid shaping 2012 White House race

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Ron Paul, once seen as a fringe candidate and a nuisance to the establishment, is shaping the 2012 Republican primary by giving voice to the party's libertarian wing and reflecting frustration with the United States' international entanglements.

The Texas congressman placed second in a key early test vote Saturday in Ames, coming within 152 votes of winning the first significant balloting of the Republican nominating contest. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota won the nonbinding Iowa straw poll, but Paul's organizational strength and a retooled focus on social issues set him up to be a serious player in the campaign.

"I believe in a very limited role for government. But the prime reason that government exists in a free society is to protect liberty, but also to protect life. And I mean all life," he told a raucous crowd on Saturday.

"You cannot have relative value for life and deal with that. We cannot play God and make those decisions. All life is precious," he said, opening his remarks with an anti-abortion appeal to the social conservatives who have great sway here in Iowa's leadoff caucuses.

Later Saturday, Paul won 4,671 votes, or roughly 28 percent of the votes from party activists who flocked to a college campus for the daylong political carnival

___

Syria uses gunboats for first time to crush uprising in Mediterranean city, 25 killed

BEIRUT (AP) - Syria used gunboats for the first time Sunday to crush the uprising against Bashar Assad's regime, hammering parts of the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia after thousands marched there over the weekend to demand the president's ouster. At least 25 people were killed, according to activists.

The coordinated attacks by gunboats and ground troops were the latest wave of a brutal offensive against anti-government protests launched at the beginning of the month. The assault showed Assad has no intention of scaling back the campaign even though it has brought international outrage and new U.S. and European sanctions.

"We are being targeted from the ground and the sea," said a frightened resident of the al-Ramel district of Latakia, the hardest hit neighborhood. "The shooting is intense. We cannot go out. They are raiding and breaking into people's homes," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

As the gunships blasted waterfront districts, ground troops backed by tanks and security forces stormed several neighborhoods including al-Ramel, sending terrified women and children fleeing, some on foot, to safer areas.

The al-Ramel resident said at least three gunboats were taking part in the offensive, and that many people have been killed and wounded. The shooting targeted several mosques in the area.

___

Indiana officials say 'fluke' gust of wind toppled stage at fair, forecast had been checked

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - The wind gust that toppled a stage at the Indiana State Fair Saturday night, killing five and injuring dozens of fans waiting for the country band Sugarland to perform, was a "fluke" that no one could have anticipated, the governor and others said Sunday.

The wind was far stronger than that in other areas of the fairgrounds, said Dan McCarthy, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Indiana. He estimated the gust at 60 to 70 mph.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said precautions were taken before the storm, but no one could have foreseen such a strong gust focused in one place. Some witnesses have said that while a storm was expected, rain hadn't begun to fall when the wind sent the stage rigging falling into the crowd of terrified fans.

"This is the finest event of its kind in America, this is the finest one we've ever had, and this desperately sad, as far as I can tell fluke event doesn't change that," Daniels said.

Four people were killed when the metal scaffolding that holds lights and other stage equipment fell, and a fifth died overnight at a hospital, Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said. The county coroner's office identified the victims as Alina Bigjohny, 23, of Fort Wayne; Christina Santiago, 29, of Chicago; Tammy Vandam, 42, of Wanatah; and two Indianapolis residents: 49-year-old Glenn Goodrich and 51-year-old Nathan Byrd. Byrd died overnight.

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Lawyer: No evidence that US man detained in Aruba disappearance has committed a crime

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) - A U.S. tourist detained in Aruba in the death of his travel companion has cooperated with investigators and should be immediately released because there is no evidence against him, his defense lawyer said Sunday.

Michael Lopez, the Aruban lawyer for Gary Giordano, denied statements by prosecutors that his client is no longer answering questions about what happened to Robyn Gardner, his companion on a short trip to the Dutch Caribbean island.

Giordano, a 50-year-old business owner from Gaithersburg, Maryland, has granted four interviews to investigators and accompanied them twice on visits to the area where he said Gardner disappeared while they went snorkeling, Lopez said in a written statement.

"To date, our client has given all possible cooperation to the investigation," he said. "Where our client has been asked the same question more than once he referred to previous statements."

Giordano is scheduled to appear before a judge Monday for a detention hearing. Prosecutors plan to ask that he be held for at least eight more days while authorities continue to investigate what happened to Gardner. Previously, Aruban Solicitor General Taco Stein said that investigators believe the 35-year-old woman from Frederick, Maryland, is dead.

___

For members of deficit-cutting supercommittee, 'doomsday' defense cuts hit close to home

WASHINGTON (AP) - For the dozen lawmakers tasked with producing a deficit-cutting plan, the threatened "doomsday" defense cuts hit close to home.

The six Republicans and six Democrats represent states where the biggest military contractors - Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co. and Boeing Co. - build missiles, aircraft, jet fighters and tanks while employing tens of thousands of workers.

The potential for $500 billion more in defense cuts could force the Pentagon to cancel or scale back multibillion-dollar weapons programs. That could translate into significant layoffs in a fragile economy, generate millions less in tax revenues for local governments and upend lucrative company contracts with foreign nations.

The cuts could hammer Everett, Wash., where some of the 30,000 Boeing employees are working on giant airborne refueling tankers for the Air Force, or Amarillo, Texas, where 1,100 Bell Helicopter Textron workers assemble the fuselage, wings, engines and transmissions for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Billions in defense cuts would be a blow to the hundreds working on upgrades to the Abrams tank for General Dynamics in Lima, Ohio, or the employees of BAE Systems in Pennsylvania.

___

Ohio woman, 94, wakes up to find windblown blimp from nearby airport landed in her backyard

WORTHINGTON, Ohio (AP) - A 94-year-old Ohio woman who woke up to discover that a breakaway blimp from a nearby airport had landed in her backyard said she heard a bang during stormy weather but didn't realize what happened until police knocked on her door about seven hours later.

The 128-foot-long blimp broke free of its moorings at a Columbus airport during strong winds early Sunday, then drifted to the sky, headed eastward and landed in Lillian Bernhagen's backyard in Worthington, less than two miles from Ohio State University's Don Scott airfield. No one was aboard and no injuries were reported.

The remnants of a battered blimp were draped over Bernhagen's picnic table and birdfeeders, covering half her backyard.

"I looked out the window and I said, 'Wow!'" she said.

Storms had limited the options authorities had to find the blimp until it was spotted in Bernhagen's yard. The Federal Aviation Administration tried to locate it via radar, while its owners tried to see it from the ground, said state police spokesman Lt. Rudy Zupanc.

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'Apes' rise to top again with $27.5M weekend; 'The Help' opens at No. 2 with $25.5M

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Rebellious apes have held off Southern maids for a narrow win at the weekend box office.

Studio estimates Sunday pegged "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" at $27.5 million, good enough for its second-straight No. 1 finish. The 20th Century Fox release raised its 10-day domestic total to $104.9 million.

The "Planet of the Apes" prequel came in just ahead of "The Help," a drama about Mississippi maids during the civil-rights movement that debuted at No. 2 with $25.5 million. "The Help," a DreamWorks release distributed by Disney, has taken in $35.4 million domestically since opening Wednesday.

The Warner Bros. horror sequel "Final Destination 5," the latest in the franchise where death stalks victims who had been fated to die earlier, opened at No. 3 with $18.4 million.

The weekend's other two new wide releases had soft openings. Sony's action comedy "30 Minutes or Less," starring Jesse Eisenberg as a pizza deliveryman forced to help rob a bank, was No. 5 with $13 million, just behind Sony's surprise animated smash "The Smurfs," which slipped to fourth-place with $13.5 million and lifted its three-week total to $101.5 million.