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Obama impressed by 'promise' of moment

AMMAN, Jordan, July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, in Amman, Jordan Tuesday, said it's possible to end the war in Iraq, strengthen the U.S. military and step up operations in Afghanistan.

Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, flanked by his traveling companions, Sens. Charles Hagel, R-Neb., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., told a news conference in Amman, they have all been struck by "the promise of this moment."

Obama, D-Ill., traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq earlier this week to assess the military situation and burnish his foreign affairs credentials.

"If we responsibly end the war in Iraq, we can strengthen our military, step up our efforts to finish the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan and succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future," Obama said.

Obama said he still thinks U.S. troop strength in Iraq can safely be drawn down during the next 16 months, despite the reservations of tribal leaders in Anbar province and elsewhere. He said though violence and ethnic strife are down, he realizes the suspicions are still there and that U.S. troops are seen as "more honest" brokers in resolving those differences.

Obama arrived in Jordan Tuesday, where he is expected to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq and Iran with Jordanian leaders.

Doctors seek more privileges for Hinckley

WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- Siblings of presidential assailant John Hinckley Jr. told a federal judge in Washington their brother would benefit from having more privileges.

During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman, Hinckley's family members said they did not think the man who shot President Ronald Reagan posed a danger and would benefit from getting a driver's license and spending more time with their mother, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Friedman is considering a request by doctors at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington to grant Hinckley more privileges. Court documents indicate doctors would like to increase the number and duration of unsupervised visits by Hinckley to his mother's home and would like Hinckley to be able to get a driver's license.

"There was nothing I saw as a red flag," Hinckley's sister, Diane Hinckley Sims, said about his reaction to their father's death earlier in 2008 and recent unsupervised visits to their mother's home. "He did it well."

Hinckley, 53, has been confined to the psychiatric hospital since he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the March 1981 shootings of Reagan, Reagan press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer.

The hearing is expected to last a week.

Spanish guards capture eight ETA suspects

MADRID, July 22 (UPI) -- Spanish military personnel arrested eight suspected members of a Basque separatist group thought to be behind a May fatal bombing, a Spanish official said.

Elite agents of Spain's Civil Guard used explosives to open the apartment door of the suspected cell leader Arkaitz Goikoetxea in Bilbao in northern Spain, CNN reported. Also arrested were seven other suspects who allegedly worked secretly for the ETA separatists.

ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its fight for Basque independence from Spain and is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, CNN said.

In May, a car bomb explosion at a Civil Guard barracks in Alava province killed a guardsman and injured four others.

Goikoetxea has been on the run for five years, Spanish media reported. He has been linked to attacks against three Civil Guard barracks, including the one in May, plus attacks on a Basque regional police station and several offices of the ruling Socialist Party in Vizcaya province.

Senate office building jumper surrenders

WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Capitol police said Tuesday they successfully talked down a man threatening to jump off a ledge inside the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington.

The unidentified man climbed over a railing and was perched 50 feet above the floor of the building's atrium. He had threatened for more than eight hours to commit suicide, but he surrendered peacefully around 2 a.m. Tuesday, The Hill reported.

Authorities had placed an inflatable pad on the atrium's floor to cushion the man's fall had he jumped.

"The U.S. Capitol Police responded to this event, established communications with the individual, and after several hours of deliberate negotiations, convinced him to return to safety on the correct side of the railing," Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said in a statement issued to the newspaper.

Apartment blast leaves 1,000 homeless

TORONTO, July 22 (UPI) -- Toronto fire investigators probing a massive underground electrical explosion at a apartment building say it could be weeks before 1,000 residents can return.

An underground electrical vault in the 22-story building exploded Sunday with enough force to lift a fire pumper truck off the ground before a major fire broke out.

"We are in the early stages of our investigation, which will take a considerable length of time," said Bill Hiscott of the Ontario Fire Marshal's office.

Nine firefighters and a resident received non-life threatening injuries in the five-alarm blaze.

However, displaced residents are becoming anxious about pets and medicines left in their units, which have no electricity, water or gas, the Toronto Sun reported Tuesday.

Police have ventured into units to retrieve items, but residents aren't allowed in, as the building's structural integrity isn't known, Hiscott said.

"The blast was so substantial because it was confined and it went through the length of the building," he told the newspaper, adding the explosion site was under four feet of water.

The Salvation Army and Red Cross are caring for some of the displaced residents in a nearby school, the report said.

Dolly nears hurricane strength in Gulf

MIAMI, July 22 (UPI) -- Tropical Storm Dolly's winds were just shy of hurricane status midday Tuesday over the Gulf of Mexico as it approached the U.S.-Mexico border.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 11 a.m., Dolly's sustained winds had increased to 70 mph with higher gusts. When sustained winds surpass 74 mph, a storm becomes a Category 1 hurricane. The storm was centered about 230 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, moving northwest near 12 mph, forecasters said.

Tropical storm-force winds extended 160 miles from the center and the report said current conditions would mean a landfall Wednesday near the Mexican-U.S. border.

Mexico had tropical storm warnings posted from the U.S. border south to Rio San Fernando, while the Texas hurricane warning was from Brownsville north to Port O'Connor.

Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Cristobal veered farther from northeastern North American shores. Forecasters said the storm, centered about 280 miles south-southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was moving northeast near 25 mph with 65 mph winds and higher gusts.

The Canadian Hurricane Center said the storm "will track far enough offshore to prevent strong winds from affecting land areas" although heavy surf and heavy rain had already begun in the province.