nation & World Briefly

Obama pushes jobs proposals

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - President Barack Obama promoted job creation Monday in politically important North Carolina, trying to assure Americans he's focused on their No. 1 concern - and his greatest political weakness - as his potential GOP presidential opponents prepared to target his economic policies in their first major debate.

Speaking at an energy-efficient-lighting plant in Durham, Obama called for training more engineers as a means to boost long-term economic growth, as he sought simultaneously to reassure businesses about his administration's policies and try to instill some optimism in voters despite dismal recent economic reports.

His remarks also served as a counterpoint to gathering political opposition represented by seven Republican 2012 potential presidential hopefuls who were meeting in New Hampshire later Monday for a debate where they were likely to agree to disagree with Obama on his approach on the economy.

"Today, the single most serious economic problem we face is getting people back to work," the president said. "We stabilized the economy, we prevented a financial meltdown and an economy that was shrinking is now growing. ... But, I'm still not satisfied. I will not be satisfied until everyone who wants a good job that offers some security has a good job that offers security."

Republicans meet in New Hampshire for debate

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Mitt Romney readied Monday to share a debate stage for the first time with six of the likely rivals who want to strip him of his perceived frontrunner mantle for the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney, who has emerged as the GOP's candidate to beat during his second presidential bid, was going into his first debate with his critics already telegraphing their eagerness to link the former Massachusetts governor with President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Conservatives loathe the Democrats' plan that mandates all Americans have health insurance and was modeled on a Massachusetts law Romney signed into law.

"I strongly oppose the individual mandate at any level," former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said on Sunday, previewing an expected line of criticism toward Romney. "I think it's a dramatic overreach."

Elbowing Romney, Pawlenty said Obama had stated that "he designed Obamacare after Romneycare and basically made it Obamneycare."

Pawlenty was looking to use the evening debate to pitch himself as an alternative to Romney, who came up short four years ago in his bid for the nomination and hardly stopped campaigning. Conservatives who hold great sway in the nominating process, however, aren't rallying around Romney and are looking for an alternative.

Secret Vietnam war study is out in whole

WASHINGTON (AP) - Call it the granddaddy of WikiLeaks. Four decades ago, a young defense analyst leaked a top-secret study packed with damaging revelations about America's conduct of the Vietnam War.

On Monday, that study, dubbed the Pentagon Papers, finally came out in complete form. It's a touchstone for whistleblowers everywhere and just the sort of leak that gives presidents fits to this day.

The documents show that almost from the opening lines, it was apparent that the authors knew they had produced a hornet's nest.

In his Jan. 15, 1969, confidential memorandum introducing the report to the defense chief, the chairman of the task force that produced the study hinted at the explosive nature of the contents. "Writing history, especially where it blends into current events, especially where that current event is Vietnam, is a treacherous exercise," Leslie H. Gelb wrote.

Asked by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara to do an "encyclopedic and objective" study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from World War II to 1967, the team of three dozen analysts pored over a trove of Pentagon, CIA and State Department documents with "ant-like diligence," he wrote.

Libyan rebels breakout from port toward Tripoli

MISRATA, Libya (AP) - Libyan rebels Monday broke out toward Tripoli from the opposition-held port of Misrata 140 miles to the east, cracking a government siege as fighters across the country mounted a resurgence in their four-month-old revolt against Moammar Gadhafi.

The rebels gained a diplomatic boost as well when the visiting the German foreign minister said the nascent opposition government was "the legitimate representative of the Libyan people." Guido Westerwelle was visiting Benghazi, the capital of the rebel-held east of the country, to open a liaison office and hand over medical supplies.

He stopped short of full diplomatic recognition of the Transitional National Council, as has the United States, awaiting the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi from his more than 40-year rule in the oil-rich North African country.

Germany has refused to participate in NATO airstrikes in Libya and withheld its support for the U.N. resolution that allowed the attacks.

What started as a peaceful uprising against Gadhafi has become a civil war, with poorly equipped and trained rebel fighters taking control of the eastern third of Libya and pockets of the west.

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White House calls Rep. Weiner's conduct a 'distraction'; Ethics Committee review begins

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House said Monday that Rep. Anthony Weiner's conduct has been inappropriate and distracting, while the House Ethics Committee started a preliminary inquiry that could bloom into a full investigation if the New York Democrat ignores mounting pressure to resign.

"The president feels, we feel in the White House, that this is a distraction, obviously," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in response to reporters' questions aboard Air Force One as the president traveled to North Carolina. "As Congressman Weiner has said himself, his behavior was inappropriate, his dishonesty was inappropriate."

Carney wouldn't say whether President Barack Obama believes Weiner should resign for sending sexually charged photos and messages online to several women. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for Weiner to quit, as did several other Democrats including party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

House officials said the ethics inquiry is not yet extensive, and committee leaders have not indicated whether they will order a more intensive staff investigation. The officials requested anonymity because the committee has not announced the staff inquiry.

If Weiner does resign, the committee would no longer have jurisdiction to investigate him. If he remains in Congress, Chairman Jo Bonner of Alabama and ranking Democrat Linda Sanchez of California could name a four-member subcommittee to conduct a more thorough investigation. That could lead to an ethics trial.

Arizona wildfire battle shifts to New Mexico border

RESERVE, N.M. (AP) - Crews who've been battling a massive wildfire in eastern Arizona for two weeks shifted their focus Monday to New Mexico, where they lit fires to stop its advance and protect another mountain town in its path.

In the opposite corner of New Mexico, near the Colorado border, winds kicked up flames at a wildfire that had already forced evacuations and closed 20 miles of the main north-south highway through both states.

"We're watching trees explode before our eyes. It's horrendous," said Barbara Riley, a schoolteacher and bed-and-breakfast owner in Raton, in northeastern New Mexico.

The eastern Arizona fire has been burning since Memorial Day; efforts to stop its spread finally met with success over the weekend as high winds caused no major growth.

Residents of two Arizona towns on the fire's northern edge were allowed to go back home Sunday, and thousands streamed into Eagar and Springerville through the day. Crews have stopped its northern advance and are now trying to corral its eastern advance into New Mexico by burning a line in front of the fire that it can't cross.

World War II bomber makes emergency landing in cornfield

OSWEGO, Ill. (AP) - A World War II bomber made what appeared to be an emergency landing in a cornfield Monday and all seven people on board escaped before it was consumed by fire, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"The plane departed the airport, noted an emergency and the pilot made what appears to be an emergency landing, after which the plane was consumed by fire," FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said in an email. None of the passengers were injured.

The accident happened right after the plane took off from the Aurora Municipal Airport and the plane landed in an Oswego cornfield outside Chicago, Cory said. The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating the incident.

Jim Barry, who lives in a nearby subdivision, told the Chicago Tribune he heard a low-flying plane and looked to see it. The engine on the bomber's left wing was on fire, he said.

"Not a lot of flames, just more smoke than flames," Barry said.

Airlines collected $5.7 billion in fees

NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. airlines collected $3.4 billion in bag fees last year. The 24 percent increase from 2009 shows how the airlines are increasingly reliant on charging for once-free services to make money.

The fees - typically $50 round-trip for the first piece of checked luggage - are one of the few bright spots for an industry that is caught between rising fuel costs and customers who expect rock-bottom airfares.

"If it weren't for the fees, the airlines would most likely be losing money," said Jim Corridore, airline analyst with Standard & Poor's.

That's little comfort to fliers who've felt nickel-and-dimed by the airlines over the past three years as fees have proliferated. And as they face higher airfares and packed planes for travel this summer.

"I feel like I am constantly being hit by little things by the airlines," said Lauren DiMarco, a stay-at-home mother from Wenham, Mass. "We're already paying so much money."

Relative says woman who left trail of 5 dead husbands in 5 states has died in Louisiana

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - An elderly grandmother who left a trail of five dead husbands in five states over decades has died in Louisiana after an illness, her son-in-law said Monday.

Terry Sanders said Betty Neumar died in a hospital in Louisiana. Stanly County, N.C., Sheriff Rick Burris said authorities are looking into her death.

"We're going to make sure we examine the death certificate," Burris said.

The 79-year-old was facing three counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder. She was accused of trying to hire someone to kill her fourth husband, Harold Gentry, in the weeks before his death in 1986.

Neumar was arrested in 2008 and released on a $300,000 bond. She had been living in Augusta, Ga., where she moved after Gentry's death. She also spent time with Sanders and his wife, Peggy, in Ocala, Fla. Her trial was postponed numerous times since her arrest.