AP News in Brief

Obama, allies signal they will try to scale back health care bill after Mass. Senate loss

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chastened by the Democratic Senate loss in Massachusetts, President Barack Obama and congressional allies signaled Wednesday they may try to scale back his sweeping health care overhaul in an effort to at least keep parts of it alive.

A simpler, less ambitious bill emerged as an alternative only hours after the loss of the party's crucial 60th Senate seat forced the Democrats to slow their all-out drive to pass Obama's signature legislation despite fierce Republican opposition. The White House is still hoping the House can pass the Senate bill in a quick strike, but Democrats are now considering other options.

No decisions have been made, lawmakers said, but they laid out a new approach that could still include these provisions: limiting the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to people with medical problems, allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies, helping small businesses and low-income people pay premiums and changing Medicare to encourage payment for quality care instead of sheer volume of services.

The goal of trying to cover nearly all Americans would be put off further into the future.

Obama urged lawmakers not to try to jam a bill through, but scale the proposal down to what he called "those elements of the package that people agree on."

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Strong aftershock hits Haiti, a terrifying reminder of last week's deadly quake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A frightening new aftershock Wednesday forced more earthquake survivors to live on the capital's streets or sent them fleeing to perhaps even worse conditions in the countryside.

A flotilla of rescue vessels, meanwhile, led by the U.S. hospital ship Comfort, converged on the capital. They are helping fill gaps in still lagging global efforts to bring water, food and medical help to hundreds of thousands of people who are surviving in makeshift tents or simply on blankets or plastic sheets under the tropical sun.

The strongest tremor since Haiti's cataclysmic Jan. 12 earthquake struck at 6:03 a.m., just before sunrise while many were still sleeping. From the teeming plaza near the collapsed presidential palace to a hillside tent city, the 5.9-magnitude aftershock lasted only seconds but panicked thousands of Haitians.

"Jesus!" they cried as rubble tumbled and dust rose anew from government buildings around the plaza. Parents gathered up children and ran.

Up in the hills, where U.S. troops were helping thousands of homeless, people bolted screaming from their tents. Jajoute Ricardo, 24, came running from his house, fearing its collapse.

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Intel chief cites error in not treating alleged Christmas bomber as high-value terror suspect

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's intelligence chief on Wednesday conceded a new misstep in the government's handling of the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt, but his comments about the failure to use a special federal interrogation team may have amounted to a misstep of his own.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair raised new questions Wednesday before a Senate panel about how well prepared the administration is to respond on short notice to domestic terrorist acts.

Blair suggested the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, also known as HIG, should have questioned the Nigerian airline bomb incident suspect before any decisions were made on whether to place him in the civilian court system.

"That unit was created exactly for this purpose," Blair told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "We did not invoke the HIG in this case. We should have."

But the elite interrogation unit cited by Blair was designed by the Obama administration last year to deal with suspects captured abroad. And it is not operational yet, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.

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'Multitude' of explosives found at Va. home where bodies of 8 shooting victims were discovered

APPOMATTOX, Va. (AP) — Bomb technicians discovered a "multitude" of explosives Wednesday at a home where eight people were found dead, police said. The killings launched an all-night manhunt that ended when the suspect surrendered at sunrise.

Christopher Bryan Speight, 39, was wearing a bulletproof vest but had no weapons when he turned himself in to police around 7:10 a.m., Sheriff O. Wilson Staples said. Authorities say he fired at a state police helicopter, rupturing its gas tank and forcing it to land, but no one on board was hurt. Police still have not revealed a motive or identified the victims.

Staples said Wednesday that Speight lived in the home where three bodies were found inside and four outside. The eighth victim, who was found barely alive on the road just outside the house, died at the hospital.

Police were concerned that Speight might have rigged the house with explosives, and state police Sgt. Thomas Molnar said bomb-sniffing dogs found a "multitude of devices inside and outside the house." Bomb technicians were exploding the devices, a process expected to continue into Thursday.

Authorities have not said how Speight was related to the victims. Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller also would not say what Speight said when he turned himself in.

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Brown says he's ready to get to work as Massachusetts' new senator, victory sends message

BOSTON (AP) — Republican Scott Brown, fresh from a stunning Massachusetts Senate victory that shook the power balance on Capitol Hill, declared Wednesday that his election had sent a "very powerful message" that voters are weary of backroom deals and Washington business-as-usual.

Democrats scrambled to explain the loss, which imperils President Barack Obama's agenda for health care and other hard-fought domestic issues. Republicans greeted their victory with clear glee.

"The president ought to take this as a message to recalibrate how he wants to govern, and if he wants to govern from the middle we'll meet him there," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Obama said the Massachusetts vote reflected the mood around the country. "People are angry, and they're frustrated," he said in an interview with ABC News.

Democrats still exercise majority control over both the House and Senate. But Tuesday's GOP upset to win the seat long held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy — following Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey last fall for gubernatorial seats that had been held by Democrats — signals challenges for Democratic prospects in midterm elections this year. Even when the economy is not bad, the party holding the White House historically loses seats in midterms.

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Hundreds under evacuation orders as new storm hits California, some refuse to leave

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. (AP) — A third powerful Pacific storm pounded California with heavy rain and snow Wednesday, forcing evacuations of hundreds of homes below wildfire-scarred mountains, shutting a major interstate and unleashing lightning strikes on two airliners.

Forecasters warned of powerful wind gusts and rainfall rates as high as 1 1/2 inches an hour on soil already saturated from two days of wild weather that caused urban street flooding in coastal cities, spawned a damaging tornado and toppled trees, killing two people.

Despite stern pleas from authorities and door-to-door calls by police officers and sheriff's deputies, some residents refused to comply with evacuation orders issued for Los Angeles-area foothill communities below the steep San Gabriel Mountains where 250 square miles of forest burned in a summer wildfire.

Rick and Starr Frazier put their faith in concrete barriers and a 2-foot-high wall of sandbags on the perimeter of their home in La Canada Flintridge.

"Look at our house, we're pretty well fortified here," Starr Frazier said. "If any rain or mud or anything comes down, it'll be blocked by our barricades and we're very well stocked with food and water."

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Experts say they may have found the bones of 10th century English Princess Eadgyth

LONDON (AP) — She was a beautiful English princess who married one of Europe's most powerful monarchs and dazzled subjects with her charity and charm. Now an international team of scientists say they think they've found the body of Princess Eadgyth (pronounced Edith) — a 10th-century noblewoman who has been compared to Princess Diana.

"She was a very, very popular person," said Mark Horton, an archaeology professor at Bristol University in western England. "She was sort of the Diana of her day if you like — pretty and full of good works."

Horton is one of a team of experts working to verify the identity of some bones found bundled in silk at Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany.

Should the skeleton be positively identified as belonging to Eadgyth, it would be oldest remains of any English royal discovered so far. Experts say her closest competitors — the bones of various Saxon royals in Winchester Cathedral in southern England — are so hopelessly jumbled together that no single person can be identified.

"If (Eadgyth's) skeleton is intact then, yes, as far as I'm aware, it would be the earliest identifiable remains from Anglo-Saxon England," said Simon Keynes, a professor of Anglo-Saxon history at the University of Cambridge.

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Lawyer: Charlie Sheen's wife in Los Angeles intensive care unit with infection from surgery

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charlie Sheen's wife, Brooke, was in a hospital intensive care unit Wednesday with a high fever and an infection following oral surgery, her lawyer said. Attorney Yale Galanter said Brooke Sheen was running a fever of 105 degrees when she was taken to Sherman Oaks Hospital.

She had already obtained a postponement of a hearing in the Colorado domestic violence case against her actor husband because she was to undergo the surgery.

Galanter, who was reached in Aspen, Colo., said the hearing that had been rescheduled for Friday will have to be postponed again.

"She has an infection as the result of oral surgery earlier in the week," said Galanter. "They're concerned and trying to get it under control."

Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen was attempting to get permission to visit his wife in the hospital. A court order prevents them from communicating with each other. A judge was expected to rule later in the day on his request.

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Oil tumbles with stock market, as investors worry Chinese demand not as strong as hoped

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices tumbled Wednesday, weighed down by a drop on Wall Street, a stronger dollar and signs that China's energy needs might not be as robust as previously thought.

Gasoline prices also fell, sliding lower for the sixth straight day.

Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service said Americans still aren't driving enough to justify higher prices.

"We'll see larger pullbacks in the days and weeks ahead, I believe," Kloza said.

The national average fell by less than a penny overnight to $2.737 a gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular unleaded is still 14.7 cents more expensive than it was last month and costs 89.4 cents more than the same time last year.

Benchmark crude for February delivery gave up $1.40 to settle at $77.62 a barrel on the last day of trading for the contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Most of the trading already moved to the March contract, which also fell $1.58 to settle at $77.74 a barrel.

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AP Exclusive: IOC recommends setting up medical centers to handle gender cases

LONDON (AP) — The International Olympic Committee is recommending the establishment of special medical centers to deal with athletes who have ambiguous sexual characteristics.

The IOC also wants rules put in place by sports bodies to determine their eligibility to compete on a "case by case" basis when gender is called into question.

The IOC organized a two-day conference with medical specialists in Miami to consider guidelines for handling sex-verification cases. The issue gained global attention last year when South African runner Caster Semenya was ordered to undergo gender tests.

The case of Semenya, who won the women's 800 meters in August at the world championships in Berlin, was not dealt with directly in the closed meetings Sunday and Monday. But it helped focus the need for clarity on the issue of whether an athlete competes as a man or a woman.

"We did not discuss any particular case," IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. "We explored the science of all these matters. We established several important points based on up-to-date science and global expertise. Now we have the scientific basis for going further."