Des Moines, Iowa – Iowa’s Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack will promise “the courage to create change” as he embarks today on a campaign for the White House.
“I am running for president to replace the America of today with the hope of tomorrow and guarantee every American their birthright – opportunity,” Vilsack is to say in prepared remarks.
The two-term governor, 55, will make the announcement in Mount Pleasant, the small Iowa town where he served as mayor for five years.
Additional nation/world news briefs:
GRANTS PASS, Ore.
Audit: Feds pay too much of wildfire costs
The Forest Service should let more wildfires burn and demand that state and local governments pick up a bigger share of firefighting costs, according to an audit released Wednesday.
Forest Service personnel said protecting private property where cities meet forests, known as the wildland-urban interface, accounts for more than half of Forest Service firefighting costs, which have exceeded $1 billion in three of the past six years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general said.
By picking up so much of the cost, the Forest Service was taking away the incentive for homeowners to take responsibility for protecting their properties in the woods, the audit said. State and local governments control development in the wildland urban interface, so they should bear a greater share of the costs, it said.
LORAIN, Ohio
Ex-principal denies foot fetish allegation
A former Roman Catholic school principal accused of kissing three male students’ feet has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition.
Robert Holloway, the former principal at St. Anthony of Padua School in Lorain, entered the plea Monday. He also pleaded not guilty to charges of unauthorized use of public property.
Police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said foot fetish material was found on two school computers seized from Holloway’s office, despite the educator’s claims he did not have a foot fetish.
Holloway, 50, resigned as principal in the spring after the 14-year-old students and their parents reported the foot-kissing to police.
The principal told authorities that the kissing was pay-up for a bet over a student-teacher volleyball game. He paid each student $15 and kissed their feet 50 times in the school’s library and gym.
TOKYO
Japan claims ability to build nuke arms
Japan has the technological know-how to produce nuclear weapons but has no immediate plans to do so, the foreign minister said Thursday.
Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who has called for discussion of Japan’s non-nuclear policy, also asserted in parliament that the pacifist constitution does not forbid possession of the bomb.
Japan, the only country ever attacked by atomic weapons, has espoused a strict policy of not possessing, developing or allowing the introduction of nuclear bombs on its territory.
JERUSALEM
Rice plans meetings with Abbas, Olmert
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to meet today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. The two meetings hint at renewed U.S. involvement in efforts to restart long-frozen Israel-Palestinian peace talks.
Rice’s visit follows the declaration of a cease-fire Sunday designed to halt five months of violence. The truce has largely held. Israel’s military said Wednesday that only four rockets have been fired from Gaza since the cease-fire took hold, with no casualties. Israel, for its part, has not carried out military operations in Gaza.
