World/Nation Briefs August 23, 2011

Strauss-Kahn charges could be dropped

NEW YORK - New York City prosecutors asked a judge Monday to dismiss all criminal charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn because they aren't sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the hotel maid who created a cross-continental sensation by accusing him of sexual assault is telling the truth.

The Manhattan district attorney's office said in court papers that the accuser, Nafissatou Diallo, repeatedly gave false information to investigators and grand jurors about her life, her past and her actions following her encounter with the French diplomat.

"In virtually every substantive interview with prosecutors, despite entreaties to simply be truthful, she has not been truthful on matters great and small," the lawyers wrote.

Hurricane Irene threatens to gain strength

SAMANA, Dominican Republic - Hurricane Irene cut a destructive path through the Caribbean on Monday, raking Puerto Rico with strong winds and rain and then spinning just north of the Dominican Republic on a track that could carry it to the U.S. Southeast as a major storm by the end of the week.

Irene slashed directly across Puerto Rico, tearing up trees and knocking out power to more than a million people, then headed out to sea north of the Dominican Republic, where the powerful storm's outer bands were buffeting the north coast with dangerous sea surge and downpours.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the Category 1 storm was expected to strengthen during the next two days, and could be near major hurricane strength by the time it tracks over the central Bahamas.

New fight over balanced budget expected in fall

WASHINGTON - As a "supercommittee" tries to find $1.5 trillion in new deficit cuts this fall, Republicans will be pressing a far more ambitious goal: passing an amendment to the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget.

The idea is being pushed most forcefully by conservative activists eager to shrink the government and its spending but disappointed with the results they've achieved so far in Washington, where Democrats control both the White House and the Senate.

"Spending cuts and caps are steps in the right direction," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. But a balanced budget amendment is "the only permanent solution to control government spending and end our nation's spending-driven debt crisis," Sessions said.

Nature hike took scout leader into path of attacker

INDIANAPOLIS - As a 76-year-old scoutmaster led two young charges on a nature hike, they stopped to identify a tree - a pause authorities say put them in the path of a man who emerged from a nearby home with a 12-inch knife and stabbed the group's leader, leaving him to bleed to death on the trail.

The attack Sunday on the Nickel Plate Trail in Bunker Hill, 60 miles north of Indianapolis, killed Arthur Anderson, a scouting volunteer for 50 years.

Authorities say after approaching Anderson from behind and stabbing him without provocation, Shane Golitko, 22, returned to the home where he had earlier assaulted his mother, breaking her arm, and stabbed his two dogs, killing one of them. He fled in his mother's Jeep before he was arrested.

Authorities said it wasn't clear what set Golitko off, and neither drugs nor alcohol were involved.

"It was a senseless act," said Indiana State Police Detective Tony Frawley, who had stated in a court affidavit that Golitko told him "that the reason he got the knife from his bedroom was to 'stab the guy with the gray hair."'

US and NATO were crucial, covert partners in spurring Libyan rebels out of military stalemate

WASHINGTON (AP) - Through months of military stalemate in Libya it was an open secret among NATO allies that countries inside and outside the alliance were quietly but crucially helping rebels gain their footing against the much stronger forces loyal to longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Covert forces, private contractors and U.S. intelligence assets were thrown into the fight in an undercover campaign operating separately from the NATO command structure. Targeted bombings methodically took out Gadhafi's key communications facilities and weapons caches. And an increasing number of American hunter-killer drones provided round-the-clock surveillance as the rebels advanced.

These largely unseen hands helped to transform the ragtag rebel army into the force storming Tripoli.

Diplomats acknowledge that covert teams from France, Britain and some East European states provided critical assistance, without - they contend - compromising NATO's mandate from the United Nations to restrict its operations to protecting civilians.

The aid included logisticians, security advisers and forward air controllers for the rebel army, as well as intelligence operatives, damage assessment analysts and other experts, according to a diplomat based at NATO's headquarters in Brussels. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Friend says wing walker who fell 200 feet at Michigan air show was 1 of 2 to do deadly stunt

DETROIT (AP) - A Michigan wing walker who fell to his death as he tried to grab a helicopter's skid from his perch atop a small plane had successfully performed the same maneuver many times before, a former colleague said Monday.

Todd Green, the son of a prominent aerial stuntman and a skilled one himself, was one of only two people to ever do the stunt, said Kyle Franklin, a stunt pilot and former wing walker who once worked with him.

"He was very good at it. I've seen him do that many, many times," Franklin said. "He was always on spot and did a very good job with everything he did."

Green, who died Sunday after falling 200 feet from the plane during an annual air show at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, successfully completed the stunt the day before, said Technical Sgt. Dan Heaton, a base spokesman.

His death came a day after two pilots died in separate crashes at air shows in Missouri and England.

Hospitals are much faster at opening blocked arteries for heart attack patients, study finds

In a spectacular turnabout, hospitals are treating almost all major heart attack patients within the recommended 90 minutes of arrival, a new study finds. Just five years ago, less than half of them got their clogged arteries opened that fast.

The time it took to treat such patients plunged from a median of 96 minutes in 2005 to only 64 minutes last year, researchers found.

Some hospitals are moving at warp speed: Linda Tisch was treated in a mere 16 minutes after she was stricken while visiting relatives near Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut this month. Emergency responders called ahead to mobilize a team of heart specialists.

Once she arrived, "they had a brief conversation and I went straight into the OR. My family was absolutely flabbergasted," said Tisch, 58, who went home to Westerly, R.I., two days later.

Tisch wasn't a fluke. The hospital took 26 minutes on another case on Thursday.

- Associated Press