World/Nation Briefs July 19, 2011

Sen. unveils $9T in deficit cuts

WASHINGTON - One of the Senate's staunchest budget-cutters unveiled Monday a massive plan to cut the nation's deficit by $9 trillion over the coming decade, including $1 trillion in tax increases opposed by most of his fellow Republicans.

The plan by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is laced with politically perilous proposals like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor and funding for community development grants. Coburn even takes on the powerful veterans' lobby by proposing that some veterans pay more for medical care and prescription drugs.

'Robo-signing' still rampant

Mortgage industry employees are still signing documents they haven't read and using fake signatures more than eight months after big banks and mortgage companies promised to stop the illegal practices that led to a nationwide halt of home foreclosures.

County officials in at least three states say they have received thousands of mortgage documents with questionable signatures since last fall. Lenders say they are working with regulators to fix the problem but cannot explain why the practice, known collectively as "robo-signing," has continued.

Last fall, the nation's largest banks and mortgage lenders, including JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and an arm of Goldman Sachs, suspended foreclosures while they investigated how corners were cut to keep pace with the crush of foreclosure paperwork.

Petraeus hands over command

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gen. David Petraeus handed over command of the Afghan war to Marine Gen. John Allen on Monday as the U.S. and its international partners prepare to withdraw over the next few years.

Petraeus, widely credited with turning the tide in Iraq, left to take over the CIA with his signature counterinsurgency strategy having yet to deliver a safer Afghanistan or push the Taliban to reconcile with the country's Western-backed government.

GOP candidates face pressure

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential contenders may be feeling nostalgic for the days when a candidate could focus on just one pledge: the oath of office.

With pledges spreading like kudzu on the campaign trail, candidates this year are being asked - in some cases, pressured - to profess their fealty to a whole host of positions: supporting marriage, opposing taxes, reducing the deficit, fighting abortion and gay rights and more.

Plans to keep Anthony safe

ORLANDO, Fla. - Casey Anthony's whereabouts for her first week of freedom were a closely guarded secret Monday, known only to a select few as she tries to start a new life after being acquitted of killing her daughter. One of her lawyers says an elaborate plan was made to protect her from people with "the lynch-mob mentality."

Her options for starting a new life could be limited by lawsuits pending against her, the scorn of multitudes who think she was guilty of the killing and a criminal record from her convictions for lying to police. She walked out of jail on Sunday, shortly after midnight.

Her attorney, Cheney Mason, told NBC's "Today Show" on Monday that he's confident in Anthony's safety, but declined to answer questions about where she was.

"She's gone, she's safe and elaborate plans had to be made to keep the people away from her," Mason said. "Her life is going to be very difficult for a very long time as long as there are so many people of the lynch-mob mentality."

London police face new probes

LONDON - Britain's tabloid phone-hacking scandal enveloped the London police force Monday with the rapid-fire resignations of two top officers amid claims of possible illegal eavesdropping, bribery and collusion. U.K officials immediately vowed to investigate.

Prime Minister David Cameron, feeling the political heat from his own close ties to individuals within Rupert Murdoch's media empire, cut short his trip to Africa and called an emergency session of Parliament for Wednesday so he could address lawmakers on the scandal.

U.K lawmakers today will grill Murdoch, his son, James, and Rebekah Brooks, the ousted chief executive of Murdoch's U.K. newspaper arm, in a widely anticipated televised public hearing on the scandal. Lawmakers hope to learn more about the scale of phone hacking by U.K. journalists and who - if anyone - in Murdoch's empire was aware of what allegedly took place at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

Paralyzed woman getting married

RALEIGH, N.C. - A year after she was paralyzed in poolside horseplay at her bachelorette party, Rachelle Friedman knows one thing she would change about her life before the injury.

"I wish we had danced together more because I love dancing so much, and we didn't do it enough," she says of her soon-to-be husband. "Looking back, I would have done it every night."

Friedman will finally make it down the aisle on Friday, marrying the man who has waited with her to exchange vows since the accident. She is wearing the same gown she chose for the first ceremony but with her father pushing her wheelchair down the aisle instead of walking her down it, arm in arm.

Couple charged with kidnapping

TRENTON, N.J. - A New Jersey rabbi and his wife surrendered to the FBI on Monday on charges that they abducted an Israeli man, beat him and threatened to bury him alive if he didn't give his wife a religious divorce.

The case against David Wax and his wife in U.S. federal court marks a strange twist in a chain of events that started with a divorce dispute in Israel's Rabbinical Court over the victim's refusal to give his wife a "get," an Orthodox Jewish divorce document permitting a wife to remarry.

It also entangles a prominent religious figure and publisher of Jewish texts, described as a "pillar of the community" of Lakewood, N.J., a large Orthodox enclave and center of Jewish learning.

David Wax, 49, and Judy Wax, 47, made a brief appearance in federal court Monday before being released on $500,000 bond each. A grand jury will decide whether to indict them on kidnapping charges, which could result in a life sentence if they are convicted.

- The Associated Press