Former treasury head calls for stimulus
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said the nation needs another stimulus package to kick-start the economy.
The former Clinton administration official -- a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama -- said on CBS's "Face the Nation" a lot has been done with the $700 billion financial industry bailout package but there is "a good deal else" officials can do.
"I think it is imperative that we have a very large fiscal stimulus, although I do think that stimulus needs to be married to a commitment to long-term fiscal discipline, so we don't risk undermining our bond market and our currency market," Rubin said.
Rubin said a new stimulus package could include such things as $1,000 tax rebates for families and financial assistance to city and state governments in need of funds to make infrastructure improvements.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and currently a senior policy adviser to Republican nominee John McCain, said a McCain administration would be open to a stimulus package.
"Well, obviously, Senator McCain would never take off the table anything that would be helpful. But the idea that somehow tough economic times are a license to spend money on anything you can think of is something you want to look at very carefully," Holtz-Eakin said.
Rove: McCain has an 'uphill climb'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Republican presidential nominee John McCain cannot win the White House without winning Virginia, the state's Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, said Sunday.
In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Kaine said McCain needs to win traditionally Republican states like Virginia.
"I do not see how Senator McCain could be president without Virginia," Kaine said.
Polls indicate Obama has a slight lead in Virginia, which has not voted for a Democratic president since 1964.
"We realize we haven't done this for a very long time in Virginia, so we're going to consider ourselves the underdogs until we finally break the string," Kaine said.
Also appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Republican campaign strategist Karl Rove said McCain has a "steep uphill climb" if he's going to win Nov. 4.
"He's got to win all of the toss-up states, 64 electoral votes, all the yellow-shaded states on the map," Rove said. "Then he needs to strip away Ohio and Indiana with 31 electoral votes to get him to 252. And then he needs to either win Colorado and Virginia, which gets him to 274, or win one of them plus Pennsylvania, which would get him to 282 or 286."
Defendant says he was framed in killing
PERUGIA, Italy, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Rudy Guede's attorney says his client was framed in the death of Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student slain in Italy last year.
A verdict is expected Tuesday in Guede's case, while a judge is expected to rule this week on whether Amanda Knox, 21, of Seattle, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 24, are to be tried for murder, The Sunday Times of London reported.
Guede, 21, who opted for a fast-track trial, was in the Perugia house shared by Kercher and Knox but was in the bathroom listening to his iPod when Kercher was killed in the bedroom last November, said his lawyer, Walter Biscotti.
Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito have suggested a burglar, possibly Guede, killed Kercher when she found him in the house. Biscotti claims Guede had consensual sex with Kercher that night but did not rape her. Guede, who was born in the Ivory Coast and grew up in Italy, has been portrayed as a drifter by Knox and Sollecito's lawyers, the Times reported.
Prosecutors have argued the three defendants killed Kercher during an erotic game and that it was Knox who cut Kercher's throat.
Stranded British marathoners all safe
KESWICK, England, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Hundreds of British marathon runners stranded by heavy rains and flooding in the country's Lake District have all been found, officials said.
Concerns mounted Saturday after the Original Mountain Marathon was abandoned with hundreds of runners still out on the waterlogged course between Seathwaite and Gatesgarth, England. But by Sunday, all of the contestants had been accounted for, including 700 people who took shelter in a huge barn, Sky News reported.
The athletes became marooned when torrential downpours in Britain's Cumbria region flooded roads and blocked access between the two points. A total of 3,050 people had registered for the marathon, considered one of the toughest endurance events in Britain, the broadcaster said.
In addition to the barn dwellers, 80 runners stayed overnight at the Glaramara Outdoor Activity Centre in Borrowdale, England, and 45 more had taken shelter at the Honister Slate Mine at Honister Pass, Sky News said.
