Obama calls for cut in oil tax breaks
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PITTSBURGH (AP) - President Barack Obama pressed Congress to scrap billions in oil company tax breaks and pass legislation to help the nation kick a dangerous "fossil fuel addiction" Wednesday, trying to channel disgust over the worsening oil disaster into a force for clean energy.
Seeking opportunity in a crisis, Obama argued for action in Congress as crews struggled into a seventh week to contain BP's mangled oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. He urged lawmakers to shift the tax-break money toward clean-energy research and approve a major energy bill, now stalled in the Senate, that would slap a price on carbon emissions.
"Our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security," he declared. "It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk."
Among the costs, Obama said in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University, is the risk that comes with drilling deep below offshore waters to find oil. He received sustained applause when he said, "We have to acknowledge that an America that runs solely on fossil fuels should not be the vision that we have for our children and grandchildren."
He added, "The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century."
US might send carrier to Korea
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. is considering dispatching the massive aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the waters where North Korea allegedly sank a South Korean warship, defense officials said Wednesday.
The deployment of the nuclear-powered carrier, one of the world's largest warships, would represent a major show of force by the U.S., which has vowed to protect South Korea and is seeking to blunt aggression from North Korea.
An international investigation last month blamed North Korea for torpedoing a South Korean navy vessel, the Cheonan, in March, killing 46 sailors.
Two U.S. defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been made, said that a decision on deployment was likely by week's end.
The deployment of the aircraft carrier would be seen as a particularly aggressive move by the United States because of its sheer size. According to a Navy website, the carrier is 244 feet high from keel to mast and can accommodate some 6,250 crew members.
Holloway suspect sought in Peru killing
LIMA, Peru (AP) - A young Dutchman previously arrested in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway is the prime suspect in the weekend slaying of a Peruvian woman, police said Wednesday.
Joran van der Sloot is being sought for Sunday's killing of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in a Lima hotel, police chief Gen. Cesar Guardia told a news conference. He said the suspect crossed into Chile the next day by bus.
Authorities in Chile confirmed that van der Sloot entered their country on May 31 and there is no record of him leaving. The Dutch government said Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for van der Sloot.
Guardia said the 22-year-old Dutchman, in Peru for a poker tournament, appears with the young woman in a video taken at a Lima casino early Sunday and the two were later seen entering the hotel by one of its employees.
Stephany Flores' body was found face down on the hotel room floor on Wednesday, abrasions on her face and body, and signs of trauma, the police general said. He said she was clothed.
The killing occurred exactly five years after the May 30, 2005, disappearance of Holloway in Aruba, a Dutch Caribbean island.
