Daily Digest
22.txt
Palin introducing herself; GOP blasts questions
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Buffeted by political and
personal revelations, Republican vice presidential can-
didate Sarah Palin presents herself to the GOP con-
vention Wednesday, even as John McCain’s campaign
declared heatedly it was time to stop questioning her
background. McCain was heading for St. Paul to be
nominated in a roaring roll call.
McCain was ”itchin’” to get to the convention city,
campaign manager Rick Davis said.
After a slow start of the convention because of Hur-
ricane Gustav, momentum was building on Day Three
of the GOP gathering. The spotlight was on Palin, the
44-year-old governor and surprise pick to be McCain’s
running mate. She has been the talk of the convention,
but most Americans have hardly heard her voice, let
alone her views.
She will give her address in prime time, at 10:30
p.m. EDT.
”She will speak as a governor, a former mayor and
someone with both hands on the steering wheel of Amer-
ica’s energy economy,” said Tucker Eskew, a senior Mc-
Cain adviser. ”She will detail her record of shaking up
the status quo in Alaska and standing up to entrenched
interests to put the government back on the side of the
people.”
Wednesday night’s speakers also include a trio of
former McCain rivals, now supporters: Mitt Romney,
Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani. ”We are getting
a little more political tonight,” Davis said in a hint
of the partisan barbs being sharpened for Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama.
The campaign also lashed out at the media and
called for an end to questions about Palin’s background
and her family. Senior campaign adviser Steve Schmidt
decried what he called a ”faux media scandal designed
to destroy the first female Republican nominee” for vice
president.
”This nonsense is over,” Schmidt declared in a writ-
ten statement.
Palin’s experience - she has been mayor of tiny Wasilla,
Alaska, and has served as the state’s governor for less
than two years - has been questioned since McCain
chose her last week. The process that led to her selec-
tion has been criticized as hasty because McCain had
met her just once before he offered her the job.
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Palin also is the subject of an ethics investigation
involving the firing of the state’s public safety com-
missioner after he wouldn’t dismiss her former brother-
in-law, a state trooper. Her efforts as mayor to gain
millions of dollars in federal funding through the so-
called ”earmark” process appeared to be at odds with
the McCain message of fiscal reform.
Her personal life became a topic of discussion after
Palin revealed that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter
was pregnant. Yet her candidacy has excited Republi-
cans at the convention and across the country, in part
because she has earned a reputation for taking on en-
trenched interests in Alaska and is staunchly pro-gun
and anti-abortion.
”Give her a chance to make her first speech, give her
a chance to do her first interview,” said former New
York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the convention’s keynote
speaker.
”Of course it’s going to be high stakes,” Giuliani
said in an interview Wednesday with ”Good Morning
America” on ABC. ”The media is ready to pounce on
any mistake. ... She looks to me like she’s got tremen-
dous confidence, got tremendous ability as a speaker.”
Palin walked onto the spare stage at the Xcel Center
about 6:20 a.m. local time for a run-through and spent
about 10 minutes looking out into the nearly empty
arena and discussing where she would stand at the
lectern and where she would look during her prime-time
speech. Joining Palin were McCain campaign manager
Davis and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace.
The disclosure Monday that Palin’s daughter Bris-
tol is five months pregnant - and a continuing drip of po-
tentially embarrassing details - knocked the convention
off message before a rousing program Tuesday night.
Speakers extolled McCain as a war hero and mav-
erick senator while blasting Democrat Obama as an
untested liberal. The 47-year-old Illinois senator is seek-
ing to become the first black president.
”Democrats present a history-making nominee for
president. History-making in that he is the most lib-
eral, most inexperienced nominee ever to run for pres-
ident,” former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson said as
delegates roared with delight.
Palin, who has been in St. Paul since Sunday but
out of sight, has a chance Wednesday to speak above
the media din and present herself directly to voters as
a strong-willed reformer and a solid conservative with
appeal to women, including supporters of failed Demo-
cratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.
 The convention returned, mostly, to normal Tues-
day after its opening session was cut short as Hurricane
Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast. With damage
from Gustav relatively light, the political speeches be-
gan, with President Bush calling McCain ”ready to lead
this nation.”
Thompson, a longtime ally of McCain whose own
campaign for the White House flamed out early this
year, tossed chunk after chunk of rhetorical red meat
to the delegates.
”Washington pundits and media big shots are in a
frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually
governed rather than just talked a good game on the
Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail cir-
cuit,” Thompson said.
But the media focus on Palin’s difficulties won’t
go away, particularly since Bristol Palin and the un-
born child’s father, 18-year-old Levi Johnston, were to
attend Wednesday’s session. Republicans across the
party defended Palin.
”I haven’t seen anything that comes out about her
that in any way troubles me or shakes my confidence in
her,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who
ran unsuccessfully for the party’s presidential nomina-
tion this year.
The prime spot in Tuesday evening’s lineup went to
Connecticut Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Joe
Lieberman - whose vote presently gives Democrats con-
trol of the Senate - who enthusiastically endorsed Mc-
Cain and Palin.
”When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the
field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut
off funding for our troops on the ground,” Lieberman
said, ”John McCain had the courage to stand against
the tide of public opinion.”
23.txt
Traffic builds as Gustav evacuees return home
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Cars, campers and sports
utility vehicles jammed the roads back to the Louisiana
coastline Wednesday, as the 2 million evacuees chased
away by the threat of Hurricane Gustav tried to make
their way home.
Though New Orleans wouldn’t officially open its
doors until midnight, outlying communities were al-
ready welcoming residents back. Mayor Ray Nagin said
no one would be turned away from the city if they tried
to come in early, but warned that New Orleans was still
in a ”very, very vulnerable state.”
”I don’t want people heading in yet,” Nagin said.
”But if they jumped the gun, we will let them through.”
Those trying to make their way home were visibly
angry it took so long for officials to let them return after
Gustav’s Monday strike. George Johnson, 41, was glad
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to heed the call to leave - but said he would stay put
next time because returning was such a hassle.
”People need to get home, need to get their houses
straight and get back to work,” said Johnson, 41, who
used back roads to get into the city Tuesday night.
”They want to keep you out of your own property.
That’s just not right.”
After spending days in motels, with family, or in
hot, overcrowded shelters, evacuees came home to find
another set of problems. This storm was no Katrina,
but there were still nearly 800,000 homes in Louisiana
without power, including about 77,000 in the city of
New Orleans.
Officials said the main transmission lines into south-
ern Louisiana were crippled and they had no timetable
for when much of the power might be restored. Hospi-
tals were running on generators, and some had to move
patients who they feared would suffer without air con-
ditioning.
Grocery store manager Ryan Carderara, 23, headed
back into a reopened St. Bernard Parish after ducking
the storm at a friend’s house. He didn’t expect to have
electricity, but intended to reopen his store on Thurs-
day.
”It’s just the typical stuff you get living down here,”
Carderara said while he gassing up his car. ”We’ve been
here all our lives. We’re used to it.”
What’s left of Gustav moved north into Arkansas,
knocking out power to nearly 100,000 homes and busi-
nesses there as lashing winds and several inches of rain
caused flash flooding in parts of the state. A num-
ber of schools were closed as water inundated saturated
ground and creeped up onto roads.
Gustav’s death toll jumped to 16 in the U.S., with
most coming in traffic accidents, and two in a post-
storm tornado. The storm killed 94 during its march
through the Caribbean.
Several roads remained closed in Mississippi, where
nine casinos that closed as the storm approached were
given permission Wednesday to reopen.
President Bush was set to tour hard-hit areas of
Louisiana Wednesday, and authorities were still try-
ing to assess the damage to low-lying communities on
the southeast coast. A levee broke in Plaquemines
Parish, and National Guard helicopters were bringing
in sandbags to plug it. The break was threatening a
small group of houses, said parish spokeswoman Karen
Boudrie.
”It looks like someone just took a bite out of the
levee,” Boudrie said.
Early insurance industry estimates put the expected
damage to covered properties at anywhere from 2 bil-
lion to 10 billion. That’s high, but well short of Kat-
rina’s 41 billion.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he won two promises
from the federal government that will ease Louisiana’s
recovery: the White House approved his ”major disas-
ter” declaration request, allowing residents of 34 parishes
to receive federal funding for housing and recovery, and
a strategic oil reserve will be opened to help reverse a
severe shortage of fuel, particularly in south Louisiana.
Initial inspections showed little damage to the Gulf
Coast’s extensive oil and gas installations, though re-
sumption of production and refining could still take a
few days. Reflecting confidence the industry suffered
little damage, oil prices fell 5.75 a barrel Tuesday.
But markets and the southeast were nervously watch-
ing the Atlantic, where a series of storms were brew-
ing. In the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Hanna pounded
flood-plagued Haiti just days after Gustav added to the
misery of a country that has lost more than 100 lives to
mudslides and flooding in the past month. The storm is
expected to change course and head for the U.S. coast
after sweeping across the Bahamas.
Farther out to sea, Tropical Storm Ike marched west-
ward across the Atlantic and could arrived in the Ba-
hamas on Sunday as a hurricane. Tropical Storm Josephine
was just behind, gaining strength as that storm’s winds
topped 60 mph.
New Orleans expected to begin this weekend bring-
ing back the estimated 18,000 residents who didn’t have
the means to evacuate on their own and were sent to
shelters in Louisiana and other states on buses, trains
or aircraft.
The state has generally been quiet after the storm,
but there have been isolated reports of looting. Jindal
said two or three people attempting to loot a supply
truck fired on National Guard soldiers in Ville Platte
in south central Louisiana overnight. The soldiers shot
at the attempted looters but they fled. There were no
reports of injuries.
”It’s not going to be tolerated. We will defend our-
selves, and rightfully so,” said Maj. Michael Kazmierzak,
a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard.
There were very few gas stations open in New Or-
leans, but at one that was running, the consensus seemed
to be that residents preferred to rough it at home, even
though it was going to be awhile before the city was
truly back on its feet.
”Everybody knows it’s going to be miserable here
for a while,” said Brendell John, 50. ”It always is after
a hurricane. The quicker you get back, the quicker you
get back to normal.”
24.txt
Hanna dumps more rain on flood-plagued Haiti
SAINT-MARC, Haiti (AP) – Far-reaching Tropical
Storm Hanna drenched flood-plagued Haiti on Wednes-
day, adding to the miseries of a country that has lost
more than 100 lives to mudslides and flooding since
mid-August.
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The storm that had been drifting south and east
finally swung to the north on Wednesday. It was ex-
pected to sweep across the Bahamas and then start
climbing along the U.S. coastline by the weekend, ac-
cording to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami
- with a 20 percent chance it could bring tropical storm
force winds to New York City.
Haitian authorities on Wednesday reported four more
deaths caused by Hanna, raising the toll to 25.
Floodwaters swamped a hospital in the Les Cayes
area, forcing nurses to move patients to higher floors.
At least 5,000 people in Les Cayes remained in shelters,
said Jean-Renand Valiere, a coordinator for the civil
protection department.
High water still prevented U.N. soldiers from reach-
ing the western city of Gonaives, where the rise of
muddy water drove people to seek refuge on rooftops
Tuesday as wind gusts drove horizontal sheets of rain.
”They are screaming for help,” said Iris Norsil, 20,
who managed to escape the city.
Water rose so much overnight near Gonaives that
a bridge people crossed on Tuesday night was under
water on Wednesday.
A convoy carrying Prime Minister Michele Pierre-
Louis had to abandon efforts to reach Gonaives when
one of the cars was nearly swept away, said Julian
Frantz, a Haitian police officer with the group.
”The situation is as bad as it can be,” said Vadre
Louis, a U.N. official in Gonaives. ”The wind is ripping
up trees. Houses are flooded with water. Cars can’t
drive on the street. You can’t rescue anyone, wherever
they may be.”
Haiti already had suffered scores of deaths due to
flooding cause by Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane
Gustav in late August.
Hanna was centered about 75 miles (125 kilometers)
southwest of Grand Turk Island on Wednesday morn-
ing, with maximum sustained winds of near 60 mph (95
kph), the hurricane center said. Tropical storm force
winds extended out as far as 290 miles (465 kilometers)
in some areas - mostly to the north.
It was moving north at about 6 mph (9 kph) but
it was expected to cut through or near the central and
northeastern Bahamas over the next couple of days. It
could regain hurricane force by Thursday or Friday.
Rain and wind were picking up in the Bahamas,
where officials told residents they would shut down the
water system Wednesday night.
”Even though we’re not feeling the full effects of the
storm, it is rough out there,” said Chrystal Glinton, a
spokeswoman for the National Emergency Management
Agency. ”Persons have been warned to stay indoors.
That’s what they’re doing. Waiting.”
Haiti is particularly vulnerable to devastating floods
because of its steep hillsides that have been deforested
to plant crops or make charcoal.
 Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Ike was cruising north-
westward across the Atlantic with top winds near 70
mph (110 kph) and projected to near the Bahamas by
Sunday as a hurricane, though the hurricane center cau-
tioned that ”it is too early to determine what, if any
land areas might be directly affected by Ike.”
Following behind was Tropical Storm Josephine, which
grew stronger, with top winds near 65 mph (100 kph).
And in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Karina weak-
ened to a tropical depression Tuesday night and was
expected to further weaken over the next few days.