Briefs

LOCAL & VCU

McDonnell asks Obama to view Louisa quake damage

Gov. Bob McDonnell is asking President Barack Obama to join him in visiting Louisa County – which was recently denied federal disaster aid – during Obama’s swing state bus tour next week.

McDonnell, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, writes in a letter to Obama that the visit to Louisa “would benefit your administration to understand the devastation brought on by this historic earthquake, and to see how the community’s recovery will be hindered as a result of FEMA’s denial of important emergency relief funds.”

Damage assessments for residential properties are nearly $15 million, mostly in uninsured costs, McDonnell said.

FEMA’s administrator said “Based on our review of all of the information available, it has been determined that the damage to dwellings from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the commonwealth, affected local governments and voluntary agencies.”

McDonnell, who declined to greet Obama at the airport during the president’s last visit to Richmond in September, says he would appeal the “shocking” FEMA decision.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Va. man allegedly worked for Syrian intelligence

A Syrian-born, naturalized U.S. citizen has been indicted on charges of spying on U.S. activists opposed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and providing intelligence to that country’s intelligence agents.

According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday, Mohamad Soueid (SWAYD) of Leesburg, Va., was arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiring to act in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government. Soueid was scheduled to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the indictment, Soueid sent 20 audio and video recordings between April and June to Syrian’s intelligence agency. They depict protests in this country against the Syrian regime, which has cracked down ruthlessly on anti-government protesters there.

Soueid is also charged with making false statements for allegedly lying about his activities for the Mukhabarat, Syria’s intelligence agency, when interviewed in August by the FBI.

Brief by The Associated Press

Occupy Norfolk protesters begin camping downtown

A handful of protesters are camping in downtown Norfolk as part of the nationwide Occupy Wall Street political protests.

At least seven tents and an informational booth were set up at the fountain park off Main Street and Commercial Place. Occupy Norfolk organizer Rex Bonney says the group got a permit to camp there, between two national bank chains.

Bonney said 20 people slept in the park Monday after the city granted a permit for them to do so. They also have a permit to march at certain times, including a planned parade on Wednesday. The permits expire on Friday but could be extended.

Bonney says the group is part of a movement to “try to take out the influence of corporate money in our political process.”

Brief by The Associated Press

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

Senate Republicans vote to kill Obama’s jobs bill

Senate Republicans have voted to kill the White House jobs bill despite weeks of campaign-style barnstorming by President Barack Obama across the country.

Forty-six Republicans joined with two Democrats to filibuster the $447 billion plan.

That vote was not final. The roll call was kept open Tuesday night to allow Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. to vote. But it would have taken 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to keep the legislation alive.

Anticipating defeat, Obama promised to try again in smaller bites. “If they don’t pass the whole package we’re going to break it up into constituent parts” and try to push them through separately, Obama told members of his jobs council.

Obama advisers said they were working with Senate Democratic leaders on how and when to break out separate aspects of the overall jobs bill for votes.

Brief by The Associated Press

Man pleads guilty to underwear bomb airline attack

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab plead guilty on Wednesday to charges that include conspiracy to commit terrorism and attempted murder.

He’s accused of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas 2009.

The bomb didn’t work, but Abdulmutallab was badly burned. Hours later in the hospital, he told the FBI that he was working for al-Qaida in Yemen.

Brief by The Associated Press

Death toll in Baghdad blasts jumps to 23

Iraqi officials say the death toll in a string of blasts targeting police in Baghdad has jumped to 23.

Two police officials say 13 people were killed in western Baghdad when a suicide bomber rammed a police station.

In the northern Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, nine people died when a suicide bomber also targeted a police station. And in western Baghdad, a parked car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded and killed one civilian.

Brief by The Associated Press

BlackBerry outages spread to North America

Sporadic outages of BlackBerry messaging and email service spread to the U.S. and Canada Wednesday as problems stretched into the third day for Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The service outage, the longest in many years, added to RIM’s woes.

In the United Arab Emirates, the two biggest phone companies said they would compensate their BlackBerry users for the mishap by giving them at least three days of free service.

One of the BlackBerry’s big attractions is the BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, which works like text messaging but doesn’t incur extra fees. That service was affected by the outage, and to make matters worse for RIM, Apple Inc. released software Wednesday for its iPhones that works like BBM. Competition from Apple is one of the chief causes of RIM’s diminishing fortunes.

Brief by The Associated Press