AP News in Brief

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AP News in Brief at 5:58 p.m. EDT

Clinton confronted by Pakistanis over Predator drone attacks — ‘executions without trial’

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was confronted repeatedly by Pakistanis Friday as she ended a tense three-day tour of the country, chastised by one woman who said a U.S. program using aerial drones to target terrorists amounted to “executions without trial.”

On another thorny topic, Clinton slightly softened her blunt charge of a day earlier that Pakistani officials know where al-Qaida terrorists are hiding and are doing little about it.

Clinton faced sharp questions from Pakistani civilians about the U.S. effort that uses unmanned aircraft to launch missiles to kill terrorists along the porous, ungoverned border with Afghanistan.

But she refused to go into detail about the classified strikes that have killed both key terror leaders and bystanders, long a source of outrage among Pakistan’s population despite an equally deadly campaign of militant-spawned bombings.

Asked repeatedly about the drones, a subject that involves highly classified CIA operations, Clinton said only that “there is a war going on.” She added that the Obama administration is committed to helping Pakistan defeat the insurgents.

Cheney told FBI agents he had no idea who leaked Valerie Plame’s CIA identity

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI that he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA.

The FBI summary of Cheney’s interview from 2004 reflects that the vice president had deep concern about Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa who said the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the probe of who leaked Plame’s identity to the news media.

The FBI interview summary was released Friday to a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In the interview whose participants included federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Cheney told agents that he did not recall having a conversation about either Plame or her husband with President George W. Bush.

Many House liberals fold and look ready to accept compromise health care bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — They may not like it, but many House liberals look ready to accept a compromise health care bill, putting Democratic leaders well on the way to delivering on President Barack Obama’s call for overhaul.

After claiming for months they couldn’t vote for a bill without the strongest possible government-run insurance option, liberals are putting aside their disappointment over the weaker version in the legislation for a historic chance to remake America’s medical system.

“The current language is far weaker than what I would have preferred, and I think that is also true of the Progressive Caucus,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Friday. “But because I did not come up here to participate in gridlock and acrimony, I have told leadership that I am willing to compromise.”

Obama privately told House liberals they should chalk up a win.

Leaders from the Progressive, Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific American caucuses met at the White House Thursday evening with Obama, who listened to their concerns and praised their efforts.

Thousands evacuated in Philippines as 4th typhoon in month hits, spins toward flooded capital

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The fourth typhoon to lash the Philippines in a month brought pounding rain and winds to the eastern coast early Saturday as it barreled toward Manila along the same path as an earlier storm that left the capital still partially submerged.

Thousands were evacuated from their homes in the eastern province of Quezon, where Typhoon Mirinae made landfall after midnight, as rains threatened to unleash mudslides.

In Manila, residents hunkered down in their homes as rains beat down on dark, deserted streets. The typhoon was expected to pass south of the sprawling city of 12 million later Saturday morning with winds of 93 miles (150 kilometers) per hour and gusts of up to 115 mph (185 kph), said chief government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz.

Mirinae was tracking the same route as Tropical Storm Ketsana on Sept. 26 when it dumped the heaviest rains in 40 years in and around Manila — a month’s worth in just 12 hours — leaving hundreds dead and thousands stranded in cars, on rooftops and in trees.

Forecaster Rommel Yutuc said the storm slammed ashore near Infanta town in Quezon hours before dawn Saturday. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Searchers scour ocean for 9 missing in Coast Guard plane, Marine helicopter crash

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Investigators were trying Friday to determine why a Coast Guard airplane on a nighttime search for a missing boater collided with one of four Marine Corps helicopters flying in formation to deliver troops to a training exercise on a military island off Southern California.

The collision occurred minutes after civilian air traffic controllers told the Coast Guard C-130 pilot to begin communicating with military controllers, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

All seven people aboard the C-130 and the two-person crew of the Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter remained missing as a search of a 644-square-mile area focused on a debris field about 50 miles off the San Diego coast.

“A tragic event,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. “The search is still on, but it’s likely taken the lives of nine individuals.”

The C-130 crew had survival gear aboard the aircraft, including exposure suits that could have allowed them to survive in the water for hours, Petty Officer Henry Dunphy said.

Dozens of House members under scrutiny, from early review to full probe, ethics report shows

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dozens of lawmakers have drawn scrutiny from their ethics monitor this year for everything from financial dealings to travel and campaign donations, according to a leaked account showing an active House panel secretly at work.

Seven of the lawmakers — four not previously known — serve on a defense appropriations subcommittee that divvies up money for Pentagon contractors.

Most of the names and investigative subjects, mentioned in a summary of the ethics committee’s work last July, were known. But the summary — obtained by The Washington Post — shows the widespread scope of preliminary reviews and investigations the panel can have before it at any one time.

If anything, the document rebuts arguments of some watchdog groups that members of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — the ethics committee — do little to investigate their colleagues.

The document shows the scrutiny involved some 30 members last summer, but it lumps together lawmakers who are subjects of a complete investigation with subpoena powers with those who may simply have asked for a ruling on a proposed trip to be financed by a private sponsor. Full investigations by an investigative subcommittee are announced publicly.

New York judge says ex-NYPD commissioner Kerik displaying worrying behavior in jail

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is displaying worrisome, risky behavior in jail, a federal judge said Friday after speaking with the jail’s psychiatric director.

The former Homeland Security nominee’s specific actions and symptoms were not revealed, and lawyers and jail officials wouldn’t comment on specifics, including whether Kerik was on a suicide watch.

Judge Stephen Robinson said at a pretrial session Friday in U.S. District Court that he received a memo from Dr. Robert Mahler, medical psychiatric director of the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, then spoke with the doctor by phone. The doctor reportedly said Kerik, 54, was “at risk.”

He said Mahler felt there was more behind Kerik’s problem than just the normal stress of incarceration. Kerik has been jailed since Oct. 20 to await trial on corruption charges.

“There were things, unexplained, described to me that were either said or done … that raised the level of concern,” the judge said. “I left the conversation with Dr. Mahler feeling this was an issue that cannot be ignored.”

World’s largest cruise liner, Oasis of the Seas, sets sail for Florida from Finnish shipyard

HELSINKI (AP) — The world’s largest cruise liner on Friday began its maiden voyage to Florida, gliding out from a shipyard in Finland with an amphitheater, basketball courts and an ice rink on board.

The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 1,200 feet (360 meters) from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew.

Commissioned by Royal Caribbean International, the ship cost €1 billion ($1.5 billion) and took two and a half years to build at the STX Finland Oy shipyard in Turku, southwestern Finland.

The liner has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children. There is also an ice rink that seats 780 spectators and a small-scale golf course.

The Oasis of the Seas is due to make its U.S. debut on Nov. 20, when it will be unveiled on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show at its home port, Port Everglades in Florida. The official naming ceremony will be 10 days later. The ship will embark on its first cruise — a four-day trip to the port of Labadee in Haiti — on Dec. 1.

Stocks slump a day after euphoric rise and are flat for the month; Dow plunges 250

NEW YORK (AP) — Grim signals about consumer spending ripped through the markets Friday, sending stocks tumbling as investors raced for safe havens.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index ended with losses for October, breaking a streak of seven months of gains. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 250 points, erasing a 200-point gain Thursday and ending the month flat.

Drops in key barometers of the health of consumers — what they’re spending, what they’re earning and how they’re feeling — fanned worries that an economic recovery celebrated by the market only a day earlier won’t last.

The huge reversal in market sentiment from the day before reflected how desperate stock investors are to reach conclusions about how the economy is doing, and how quickly they are willing to abandon those convictions.

The about-face from Thursday to Friday in the S&P 500 index, the most widely used indicator by investing professionals and the benchmark for many mutual funds, was the sharpest swing for the index since February.

Andre Agassi tells People magazine he did meth for ‘a year or so’

NEW YORK (AP) — Andre Agassi used crystal meth periodically for “a year or so,” the eight-time Grand Slam champion revealed in an interview with People magazine.

In his upcoming autobiography, Agassi admits he used crystal meth in 1997 and failed a drug test — a result he says was thrown out after he lied by saying he “unwittingly” took the substance.

“If you’re going to tell your story, you owe it to yourself to tell it honestly,” Agassi told the magazine in its latest issue. “Especially if you’re going to call it ‘Open,’”

New excerpts published Friday reveal Agassi wore a hairpiece that nearly fell off at the 1990 French Open, became jealous during ex-wife Brooke Shields’ appearance on “Friends,” and how Shields put a photo of Steffi Graf — now married to Agassi — on the fridge for motivation to get in better shape before their wedding.

“It’s a photo of the perfect woman, she says” Agassi wrote. “The perfect woman with the perfect legs — the legs Brooke wants.”