Obama: Nation needs changes

in tax laws

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama told business leaders Tuesday that the nation needs to reform its tax system to help boost the economy, saying the American people "instinctually understand" that the U.S. needs a more balanced approach to solve its economic problems.

"The economy is getting stronger and the recovery is speeding up. The question now is how do we make sure it keeps going," Obama said to the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of top U.S. corporations.

The president told more than 90 executives that the nation would "have to deal with revenue and that's something that I think the American people instinctually understand, that if we do this in a balanced way, we can solve our problems." He said the nation was not in a similar situation as debt-laden Greece, saying "we don't have to cut by 25 percent and raise taxes by 25 percent."

U.S., Europe set new talks with Iran on nukes

WASHINGTON - Alarmed by rising talk of war, the United States, Europe and other world powers announced Tuesday that bargaining will begin again with Iran over its fiercely disputed nuclear efforts. Tehran, for its part, invited inspectors to see a site suspected of secret atomic weapons work.

In Washington, President Barack Obama declared he had been working to avert war with Iran during intensive meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Israel, fearing the prospect of a nuclear Iran, has been stressing a need for possible military action, but Obama said sanctions and diplomacy were already working.

The president rebuffed Republican critics, who say his reluctance to attack Iran is a sign of weakness, holding up the specter of more dead Americans in another Mideast war.

Texas tycoon convicted of

bilking investors

HOUSTON - Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford spent more than 20 years charming investors, who handed him billions of dollars they had spent their lives accumulating through hard work and saving.

Stanford promised them safe investments that would help fulfill their dreams of being able to retire comfortably or pay their children's college tuition. All the while, he was pulling their money out of his Caribbean bank to pay for a string of failed businesses and a jet-setting lifestyle.

Stanford, once considered one of the wealthiest people in the U.S., with a financial empire that spanned the Americas, was convicted Tuesday on charges he bilked investors out of more than $7 billion.

Obama: Attacks underscore need to end Afghan war

WASHINGTON - Amid concerns over the safety of American forces, President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the accidental burning of Qurans in Afghanistan and the retaliatory killings of U.S. troops gave new credence to the need to end the war.

"I think that it is an indication of the challenges in that environment, and it's an indication that now is the time for us to transition," Obama said during a White House news conference.

Obama announced no speeding up of the NATO-backed plan to end combat missions in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, saying "that continues to be the plan." But he said the violence aimed at Americans in Afghanistan that followed the accidental burning of Qurans on a U.S. base was "unacceptable."

Six Americans were killed in retaliatory violence. Obama offered his apologies to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a move that was roundly criticized by his Republican presidential rivals as weak and unnecessary.

Soldier dies

trying to save girls from blaze

HOPE MILLS, N.C. - A decorated Green Beret leapt from the second-story of his burning home early Tuesday, wrapped himself in a blanket and ran back inside in an attempt to save his two young daughters.

Firefighters recovered the body of Chief Warrant Officer Edward Cantrell on the second floor of his North Carolina home, not far from the remains of 6-year-old Isabella and 4-year-old Natalia.

"He never made it back out," said Debbie Tanna, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County sheriff's office.

Cantrell's wife and the girl's mother, Louise, also jumped from the second floor.

Mystery looms after reclusive twins, 73, die

When they were young, Patricia and Joan Miller sang and danced for Bing Crosby, troops and their friends.

But as the identical twins grew older, they became less interested in socializing. When people called, the sisters came up with excuses to get off the phone. Without explanation, they stopped sending birthday cards to a childhood friend.

Never married and without children or pets, the Miller sisters withdrew into their four-bedroom home in California's South Lake Tahoe, where they were found dead last week at the age of 73. One was in a downstairs bedroom and the other was in the hallway just outside.

It was as if the two sisters, long each other's only companion, could not live without each other, said Detective Matt Harwood with the El Dorado County sheriff's office.

"My perception is one died and the other couldn't handle it," said Harwood. "It appears purely natural, but we are still trying to piece it all together."

- Associated Press