COMMERCE, Mich. — Republican Mitt Romney raised the discredited rumor that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, jokingly declaring “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate” as he campaigned Friday near his own Michigan birthplace.
Romney birth certificate remark
sets off firestorm
COMMERCE, Mich. — Republican Mitt Romney raised the discredited rumor that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, jokingly declaring “no one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate” as he campaigned Friday near his own Michigan birthplace.
Romney later insisted the remark was just a joke and not meant to question Obama’s citizenship. But the comment risked creating an unwanted distraction for Romney in his last few days of campaigning before the Republican National Convention begins Monday. It came a day after Romney caused another stir by declaring that big business was “doing fine” in the current struggling economy in part because companies get advantages from offshore tax havens.
Romney made his birth certificate remark at a large outdoor rally in Michigan, where he grew up and where his father, George Romney, served as governor.
Mexico police fire on U.S. Embassy car
MEXICO CITY — Mexican federal police fired on a U.S. Embassy vehicle and wounded two U.S. government employees Friday after their vehicle drove into a rural, mountainous area outside the capital where the officers were looking for criminals, Mexican and U.S. officials said.
The two embassy employees were hospitalized, one with a leg wound and the other hit in the stomach and hand, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Hospital officials in Cuernavaca, the nearest city, said they were taken in the afternoon to Mexico City for treatment. The U.S. Embassy said in a statement they were in stable condition.
The embassy did not release the names of the victims, and only said its vehicle, also carrying a Mexican Navy captain, was ambushed by a group of armed men.
The Navy said in a written statement that federal police shot the U.S. vehicle, but its description of the incident left out key details of how the shooting occurred. It said at least four vehicles opened fire on the Americans’ sport utility vehicle on a road south of Mexico City, but did not make clear if any of the four carried federal police officers.
A U.S. official who was briefed on the shooting said, however, that all the shots were fired by federal police, of which at least 12 officers were being held for questioning by Mexican authorities. The U.S. Embassy employees were on their way to do training or related work at a nearby military base, the official said.
Teen arraigned, jailed in newborn abduction
PITTSBURGH — A 19-year-old woman who falsely claimed to be pregnant was arraigned Friday on charges she kidnapped a 3-day-old infant from a hospital after pretending to be a nurse and sneaking the boy out inside a zippered handbag, police said.
The newborn was found with the kidnapping suspect, Breona Moore, of McKeesport, early Thursday night and was reunited with his parents unharmed at Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC.
Online court records don’t list an attorney for Moore, who was arraigned on charges she kidnapped Bryce Coleman on Thursday. She remained jailed unable to post $250,000 bond and was ordered to undergo a mental evaluation.
Moore’s family contacted police as soon as they heard media reports of the kidnapping, saying that Moore had told them and made Facebook posts that she was pregnant, but they were doubtful, Police Cmdr. Thomas Stangrecki said. Moore’s build apparently made her claims at least somewhat credible, as a criminal complaint lists her as 5-foot-4 and 230 pounds.
Moore told police “she had convinced people that she was pregnant and told people she had just had a baby,” according to a criminal complaint. She also had claimed to have a C-section on Monday and said the baby would be released on Thursday because he was sick and needed additional care, police said.
By wire sources
