World/Nation Briefs March 2, 2012

Santorum blasts Romney on health coverage in Spokane

SPOKANE, Wash. - Seizing an opportunity to instill doubts about Mitt Romney's conservative credentials, Rick Santorum on Thursday said his presidential rival's gut reaction to a Senate measure that would have repealed mandatory health coverage for contraceptives shows the former Massachusetts governor is not conservative "at the core."

Romney opened himself to criticism the day before by telling a reporter that he opposed a Republican bill to block President Barack Obama's policy on contraceptive insurance coverage. Hours later, Romney reversed himself and said he had misunderstood the question.

But the damage was done. Santorum used the opening to score political points just five days before Super Tuesday's 10-state voting, suggesting that Romney was too moderate to defeat Obama in November.

"We aren't going to win with someone who doesn't excite the very people that we need to excite," Santorum said during a rally inside the New Life Assembly of God church. "We won 2010 not because we nominated moderates!"

The issue of contraceptive coverage resonates with conservative primary voters, but it also offers a contrast between each party's priorities that could have general election ramifications. While the issue roiled the Republican presidential contest, Obama railed against oil and gas company subsidies in New Hampshire.

GOP fails to overturn Obama mandate for birth control coverage

WASHINGTON - In an election year battle mixing birth control, religion and politics, Democrats narrowly blocked an effort by Senate Republicans to overturn President Barack Obama's order that most employers or their insurers cover the cost of contraceptives.

The 51-48 vote on Thursday killed a measure that would have allowed employers and insurers to opt out of portions of the president's health care law they found morally objectionable. That would have included the law's requirement to cover the costs of birth control.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, who this week dropped her re-election bid and cited frustration with the polarized Congress, cast the lone Republican vote to block the measure. Two Democrats up for re-election and one who is retiring voted against Obama's requirement.

Majority Democrats said the legislation would have allowed employers and insurers to avoid virtually any medical treatment with the mere mention of a moral or religious objection.

"We have never had a conscience clause for insurance companies," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Insurers, she said, don't need an invitation to deny coverage for medical treatment. "A lot of them don't have any consciences. They'll take it."

Rebels withdraw from besieged enclave in Syria

BEIRUT - After a punishing, monthlong military siege, Syrian rebels made what they called a "tactical retreat" Thursday from a key district in Homs, saying they were running low on weapons and the humanitarian conditions were unbearable.

Within hours of the rebels' withdrawal, President Bashar Assad's regime granted permission for the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter the neighborhood of Baba Amr, which had become a symbol of the resistance.

Human rights workers have been appealing for access for weeks to deliver food, water and medicine, and to help evacuate the wounded from an area that has been sealed off and attacked by the government since early February.

The Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent received a "green light" from the Syrian authorities to enter Baba Amr on Friday "to bring in much-needed assistance including food and medical aid, and to carry out evacuation operations," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan told The Associated Press in Geneva.

Also Thursday, Syria's main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, formed a military bureau to help organize the armed resistance and funnel weapons to rebels - a sign of how deeply militarized the conflict has become over the past year.

Sheriff Joe: Obama's birth certificate probably was forged

PHOENIX - America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff finds himself entangled these days in his own thorny legal troubles: a federal grand jury probe over alleged abuse of power, Justice Department accusations of racial profiling and revelations that his department didn't adequately investigate hundreds of Arizona sex-crime cases.

Rather than seek cover, though, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is seeking to grab the spotlight in the same unorthodox fashion that has helped boost his career as a nationally known lawman.

Arpaio on Thursday unveiled preliminary results of an investigation, conducted by members of his volunteer cold-case posse, into the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate, a controversy that has been widely debunked but which remains alive in the eyes of some conservatives.

At a news conference, Arpaio said the probe revealed that there was probable cause to believe Obama's long-form birth certificate released by the White House in April is a computer-generated forgery. He also said the selective service card completed by Obama in 1980 in Hawaii also was most likely a forgery.

"We don't know who the perpetrators are of these documents," Arpaio said, although he said he doesn't think the president forged the documents.

Earlier, the 79-year-old Republican sheriff defended his need to spearhead such an investigation after nearly 250 people connected to an Arizona tea party group requested one last summer.

"I'm not going after Obama," said Arpaio, who has criticized the president's administration for cutting off his federal immigration powers and conducting a civil rights investigation of his office. "I'm just doing my job."

- The Associated Press