Analysis: Romney's veep pick of Ryan sets clear choice on government's size, role in November
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney's pick of Rep. Paul Ryan for the Republican presidential ticket brings clarity to the stark election-year choice for voters — the competing Democratic and GOP visions about the size and role of the federal government in Americans' lives.
Ryan is synonymous with his revolutionary budget that slashes spending for safety-net programs for the poor, remakes Medicare and cuts personal and corporate taxes while pushing the deficit down to a manageable level. It turns the tea party dream of a scaled-back, less involved government into hard-core reality.
"America is more than just a place ... it's an idea. It's the only country founded on an idea," Ryan said Saturday in Virginia as Romney introduced his vice presidential choice. "Our rights come from nature and God, not government. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes."
With Romney's embrace of Ryan, it is now the Romney-Ryan budget and blueprint for the future.
President Barack Obama, who repeatedly talks up the November election as a profound choice for the country, has rejected the Ryan approach as "thinly veiled social Darwinism." The Democrat and former community organizer sees government as a place with enough resources to help the less fortunate.
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Romney picks Wis. Rep. Paul Ryan, ardent conservative, as GOP ticket mate, vows to oust Obama
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Republican Mitt Romney anointed Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, an ardent conservative and devoted budget cutter, as his vice presidential running mate on Saturday, and the two men immediately embarked on a tour of campaign battleground states vowing to defeat President Barack Obama and repair the long-ailing U.S. economy.
America is "a nation facing debt, doubt and despair," and a transformative change in leadership is vital, Ryan declared to a flag-waving crowd in the first moments after Romney introduced him as his partner for the fall campaign.
"Regrettably, President Obama has become part of the problem... and Mitt Romney is the solution," said the seven-term lawmaker, who at 42 is a generation younger than Romney, 65. Ryan is chairman of the House Budget Committee, the chief architect of deeply controversial budget plans and widely viewed by Republican lawmakers as an intellectual leader within the party.
The two Republican ticket mates basked in the cheers of supporters in a made-for-television debut on a ticket hoping to make Obama's first term his last. "I did not make a mistake with this guy," Romney exulted.
Romney declared that in the campaign to come, Republicans will present economic solutions "that are bold, specific and achievable. ... We offer our commitment to help create 12 million new jobs and to bring better take-home pay to middle class families."
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Report: TSA officers say Boston airport program to flag terrorists encourages racial profiling
NEW YORK (AP) — Transportation Security Administration officers at Boston's Logan International Airport are alleging that a program intended to help flag possible terrorists based on passengers' mannerisms has led to rampant racial profiling, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/P2enzfhttp://nyti.ms/P2enzf ) reported on its website that in interviews and internal complaints it has obtained, more than 30 officers involved in the "behavior detection" program at Logan contend that the operation targets not only Middle Easterners, but also passengers who fit certain profiles — such as Hispanics traveling to Miami, or blacks wearing baseball caps backward.
The TSA told the newspaper on Friday that it is investigating the officers' claims. At a meeting last month with the agency, officers provided written complaints, some of them anonymous, from 32 officers.
The officers said their co-workers were increasingly targeting minorities, believing the stops would lead to the discovery of drugs, outstanding arrest warrants and immigration problems, in response to pressure from managers who wanted high numbers of stops, searches and criminal referrals, The Times reported.
"The behavior detection program is no longer a behavior-based program, but it is a racial profiling program," one officer wrote in an anonymous complaint The Times obtained.
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US men try to secure their place in Olympic basketball history in gold-medal rematch vs Spain
LONDON (AP) — The Americans left as champions four years ago and returned thinking they were even better.
This U.S. men's Olympic basketball team was an improved model over the 2008 version, players insisted, so versatile, so athletic that not only would they beat those gold medalists, but they could even take a game from the Dream Team.
The stats back them up, and a place in history is awaiting this group of Americans — on one condition.
"I thought we had the potential to be really good, better than the '08 team, but the '08 team brought home gold, so we've got some unfinished business still left," LeBron James said Saturday.
And it comes Sunday against Spain, the team the Americans beat in an Olympic classic at the 2008 Beijing Games.
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EYES ON LONDON: US runner on Bolt: 'Wow. He's a monster'; first gold for Trinidad and Tobago
LONDON (AP) — Around the 2012 Olympics and its host city with journalists from The Associated Press bringing the flavor and details of the games to you:
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QUICKQUOTES: IN AWE OF BOLT
Here's what two American sprinters have to say about coming in second to Usain Bolt and the Jamaican men, who posted a world-record time of 36.84 seconds in the 4x100 relay Saturday night.
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Chad Johnson arrested on domestic violence charge; accused of head-butting newlywed wife
DAVIE, Fla. (AP) — Dolphins receiver Chad Johnson was arrested Saturday on a domestic violence charge, accused of head-butting his newlywed wife during an argument in front of their home outside Miami.
Johnson and his wife, Evelyn Lozada, were at dinner and she confronted him about a receipt she had found for a box of condoms, said Davie police Capt. Dale Engle. The argument got heated and continued on the drive home, he said.
When they arrived in their driveway in Davie, the 34-year-old Johnson head-butted Lozada, she told police. Lozada, who is on the reality show, "Basketball Wives," was treated at a hospital for a cut to her forehead, Engle said.
Johnson, who changed his last name back to Johnson from Ochocinco after his July 4 wedding to Lozada, was being held Saturday night in Broward County Jail where he will remain until he can appear before a judge, which Engle says might not be until Monday. He is charged with simple battery, domestic violence, which is a misdemeanor.
Team officials were "aware of the situation and are in the process of gathering of relevant information," Dolphins spokesman Harvey Greene said.
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Rebels carve out large enclave in north Syria, gaining freedom to move, organize and fight
AZAZ, Syria (AP) — Residents of this north Syrian border town like to snap photos of their children atop the tank parked downtown, one of more than a dozen captured or destroyed by rebels in the battles last month that "liberated" the area from President Bashar Assad's army.
Across the street in air-conditioned offices once occupied by Assad's Baath party, a new political order is emerging. Local rebels have formed committees to fix power lines, fire up bakeries and staff the nearby border crossing with Turkey. They also run security patrols and a prison with some 60 captives. Two men were executed by firing squad recently after a judge and Islamic clerics found them guilty of murder.
"We run a state system here," said Samir Hajj Omar, the silver-haired former teacher who heads the rebel political office for Azaz, a town of 35,000. "We're enforcing the law."
In recent months, Syria's rebels have extended control over a large swath of territory in the northeastern corner of the country after forcing the army from town after town in a string of bloody street battles.
As a result, for the first time in Syria's 17-month conflict, rebels have a cohesive enclave in which they can move and organize with unprecedented freedom, plus a long stretch of the border with Turkey key for moving out refugees and smuggling in weapons. They also have one official, working border crossing.
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AP PHOTOS: Highlights from 2 weeks of the London Olympics
The London 2012 Olympics kicked off two weeks ago with Queen Elizabeth (actually, a body double) parachuting into a whimsical opening ceremony.
The games gathered speed as U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps collected four gold medals and six overall to become the most decorated Olympian ever, with 22 career medals.
Gabby Douglas, the 16-year-old American gymnast, won two golds — and got to meet Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, to boot.
In one delirious night, Britain struck gold three times in track and field — all in less than an hour. The host country piled up 28 golds and will finish third in the total count.
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NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Martian soil; a look at what's ahead
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — After a spectacular landing on Mars, the rover Curiosity wasted no time embracing its inner shutterbug, delighting scientists with vistas of Gale Crater complete with sand dunes, mountain views and even haze.
Now what?
The nuclear-powered, six-wheel Curiosity is on a quest to learn whether the Martian environment could have been favorable for microbial life. Before it can drive, it has to slog through weeks of health checkups. Since it's the most complex spacecraft ever sent to the red planet, engineers want to make sure it's in tip-top shape before they hand over the keys to scientists. It already has done a cursory check of its 10 science tools, but more tests are needed. This weekend, its computers get a software update — a process that will last several days.
When can we watch a movie of the touchdown?
The footage is recorded and stored on board Curiosity and will be downloaded as time allows. It sent back a low-quality video and several high-resolution frames that captured the last few minutes of the descent, providing a sense of a spacecraft landing on another planet. In the video, the protective heat shield pops off and tumbles away. It ends with billowing plumes of dust as Curiosity was safely delivered to the surface.
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Afghan policeman guns 10 of his fellow officers, a day after Afghan gunmen kill 6 US soldiers
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan police officer killed at least 10 of his fellow officers on Saturday, a day after six U.S. service members were gunned down by their Afghan partners in summer violence that has both international and Afghan forces questioning who is friend or foe.
Attacks on foreign troops by Afghans working with the alliance are on the rise and, while cases of Afghan security forces killing within their own ranks are less frequent, together they show how battle lines have blurred in the decade-long war.
The assaults on international service members have stoked fear and mistrust of their Afghan allies, threatening to hamper the U.S.-led coalition's ongoing work to train and professionalize Afghan policemen and soldiers. The attacks also raise questions about the quality of the Afghan forces that have started taking charge of security in many areas of the country as U.S. and NATO combat troops move to withdraw by the end of 2014.
Coalition officials say a few rogue policemen and soldiers should not taint the overall integrity of the Afghan security forces and that the attacks have not impeded plans to hand over security to Afghan forces, which will be 352,000 strong in a few months. But there is growing unease between international troops and their Afghan partners and that's something Taliban insurgents are happy to exploit.
Shakila Hakimi, a member of the Nimroz provincial council, said the policeman who opened fire on his colleagues at a checkpoint in Dilaram district is believed to have had ties to militants. He was killed in an ensuing gunbattle, she said in a telephone call from the provincial capital of Zaranj, along Afghanistan's western border with Iran.