Copter lands on West Lawn of U.S. Capitol

WASHINGTON - Police arrested a Florida Postal Service worker who steered his tiny aircraft onto the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol after flying through restricted airspace around the National Mall on Wednesday.

The pilot was Douglas Mark Hughes of Ruskin, Fla., who remained in custody Wednesday evening, Capitol Police said in a statement. On his website, Hughes took responsibility for the stunt and said he was delivering letters to all 535 members of Congress to draw attention to campaign finance corruption.

"As I have informed the authorities, I have no violent inclinations or intent," Hughes wrote on his website, thedemocracyclub.org. "An ultralight aircraft poses no major physical threat - it may present a political threat to graft. I hope so. There's no need to worry - I'm just delivering the mail."

Capitol Police said Hughes could face charges of violating federal aviation laws. Airspace security rules that cover the Capitol and the District of Columbia prohibit private aircraft flights without prior coordination and permission, and violators can face civil and criminal penalties.

A Senate aide said Capitol Police knew of the plan shortly before Hughes took off, and said he had previously been interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigation.

Feared drowning of 400 migrants raises alarms

MILAN - The feared drowning of 400 migrants in a shipwreck this week in the Mediterranean Sea - one of the deadliest such tragedies in the last decade - raised alarms Wednesday amid an unprecedented wave of migration toward Europe from Africa and the Middle East.

The U.N. refugee agency expressed shock at the scale of the deaths in Monday's capsizing and renewed calls on European governments to redouble search and rescue efforts, while the International Organization for Migration maintained that the situation had reached "crisis proportions."

The Mediterranean "has emerged as the most dangerous" of four major sea routes used by the world's refugees and migrants, taken by 219,000 people last year, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.

The Italian Coast Guard rescued some 140 people of the coast of Libya on Monday and recovered nine bodies, but could see immediately from the size of the capsized smuggler's boat that there had likely been hundreds more on board.

The rescue was made during a five-day surge that saw Italian ships save nearly 10,000 people at sea since Friday - an unprecedented rate in such a short period, according to Cmdr. Filippo Marini, a Coast Guard spokesman. The number is only likely to grow, with summer weather encouraging even more people fleeing poverty and conflict to make the perilous crossing.

Washington shows it can work - for a few days

WASHINGTON - For at least a few days, Washington may have actually worked.

Republicans and Democrats talked to each other. President Barack Obama and several members of his administration conversed with lawmakers, too. As a result, a Senate committee unanimously backed legislation to give Congress a say in the Iran nuclear talks. In the biggest surprise of all, the White House said Obama would sign the measure if it passed the full Congress.

For a capital city long stalled in gridlock, with the priorities of Republicans and Democrats rarely overlapping, it was a rare burst of bipartisanship - even if neither side wanted to admit it.

It took Obama spokesman Josh Earnest 45 minutes of questions from reporters before he acknowledged on Tuesday that the president would sign the new Iran legislation. Even then, he said, the White House wasn't "particularly thrilled" with the outcome.

Republicans said the White House got boxed in when administration officials realized they would lose if it came to a vote on a tougher Iran measure.

Clinton straddles promise, risk of following Obama

NORWALK, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton came to Iowa to give voters an intimate glance of who she'd be as president. What they got instead was a glimpse into the complicated relationship between the current inhabitant of the White House and the woman who hopes to follow in his path.

On a two-day swing through Iowa, the opening act of her 2016 campaign, Clinton embraced two of the most politically fraught planks of President Barack Obama's legacy: the health care law and the push for an immigration overhaul. But even as she cast herself as continuing the Obama administration's domestic policies, Clinton carefully drew a subtle contrast between her leadership and that of the president.

"I want to fix our political system. I want to get things done," she told small business owners, sitting between cardboard fruit cartons at a produce company warehouse in Norwalk. "We have to start breaking down the divisions that have paralyzed our politics."

The roundtable with small business owners reflected the pull-and-tug that Clinton will face as she attempts to extend Democrats' control over the White House to three straight terms, should she win the nomination.

It won't be easy: Historically, Americans have rewarded change after a party controls the presidency for two straight terms - Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were the only presidents to maintain control for three terms during the past half-century.

Despite $5M settlement, video not released

CHICAGO - Months after a teenager was shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer, the city is still refusing to release the dash-cam video of the fatal shooting and didn't even show it to aldermen Wednesday before they approved a $5 million settlement with the family.

The October 2014 shooting death of Laquon McDonald hasn't generated the same kind of national attention as other recent high-profile confrontations involving officers. After some, in such places as South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arizona, video was released that quickly went viral.

In approving a settlement even before McDonald's family filed a lawsuit, some members of the Chicago City Council disagreed on whether releasing the video could spark the kind of angry protests seen elsewhere.

- The Associated Press