Escaped convicts still elude police near border

DANNEMORA, N.Y. - Investigators believe a female prison employee had agreed to be the getaway driver in last weekend's escape by two killers but never showed up, a person close to the case told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The manhunt, meanwhile, dragged into a sixth day with a renewed burst of activity by searchers in the woods close to the prison after bloodhounds were said to have picked up the convicts' scent. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo said investigators are also "talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape."

David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, used power tools to cut through steel and bricks and crawled through an underground steam pipe, emerging from a manhole outside the 40-foot walls of the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border, authorities said.

The person close to the investigation said authorities believe Joyce Mitchell - an instructor at the prison tailor shop, where the two convicts worked - had befriended the men and was supposed to pick them up Saturday morning, but didn't.

The person said that was one reason the manhunt was focused so close to the prison.

General: New U.S. military hub key in IS fight

NAPLES, Italy - The Pentagon's top general said Thursday the U.S. military's reach could extend even further into Iraq if the campaign against the Islamic State gains momentum, and he held out the possibility of eventually recommending to President Barack Obama that U.S. troops take on the riskier role of calling in airstrikes.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the White House's announcement Wednesday that up to 450 more U.S. troops would be sent to Iraq to invigorate its flagging campaign against the Islamic State is a natural extension of U.S. assistance. He said the support hub the troops will set up will not produce instant results but may serve as a model to be replicated elsewhere in Iraq, possibly requiring even more U.S. troops.

"The campaign is built on establishing these lily pads, if you will, that allow us to continue to encourage the Iraqi security forces (to move) forward, and as they go forward there may be a point where" additional such U.S. hubs are called for to enable the Iraqis to succeed, he told reporters traveling with him to Naples, where he spoke to American troops and conferred with their commanders.

"Sure, we're looking all the time at whether there might be additional sites necessary. It's another one of the options that we're considering." He added: "It's very practical, looking at geographic locations, road networks, airfields, places where we can actually establish these hubs."

The Pentagon said Thursday the U.S. has spent more than $2.7 billion on the war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria since bombings began last August, and the average daily cost is now more than $9 million.

House Democrats target Obama's trade bill

WASHINGTON - Union-backed Democrats launched a last-ditch effort Thursday to scuttle President Barack Obama's trade agenda by sacrificing a favored program of their own that retrains workers displaced by international trade.

The retraining program is linked to the Democrats' real target: legislation to help Obama advance multi-nation trade agreements. In hopes of bringing down the whole package, which they say imperils jobs at home, numerous House Democrats said they would vote today against the retraining measure.

House Republicans were in the odd position of supporting Obama's bid for "fast-track" trade-negotiating authority, while the White House struggled to come up with enough Democratic votes to win passage.

Obama himself, who's been unusually personally engaged on a bill that could amount to the biggest achievement of his second term, paid a surprise visit to the annual congressional baseball game Thursday night for some 11th hour persuading. Obama arrived as Democratic and Republican lawmakers faced off at Nationals Park and was greeted with chants of "TPA! TPA!" from the GOP side - the acronym for the Trade Promotion Authority fast track bill. He brought beer and visited with lawmakers on both sides.

Girlfriend asked theater shooter to see therapist

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - Months before James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado movie theater, his ex-girlfriend said she urged him talk to his therapist after he mentioned having thoughts about killing people, thoughts that to her "seemed very philosophical" and not a concrete threat.

Gargi Datta also testified Thursday that during their relationship, Holmes showed no interest in guns, including when they visited an outdoor store that sold weapons. She did not know about his meticulous plans for the July 20, 2012, attack or the arsenal he assembled.

Datta and Holmes were graduate students at the University of Colorado when they began dating during their first semester in the fall of 2011. By February 2012, she did not want anything more than a casual relationship, and the two remained "friends with benefits" until Holmes told her in early April he could not continue.

- The Associated Press