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Palin impacts voters' decision, poll says

NEW YORK, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. voters increasingly say Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin isn't qualified to be to be vice president and is dragging the Republican ticket down, a poll indicates.

Fifth-nine percent of voters surveyed for the latest New York Times-CBS News poll indicated they thought Palin wasn't up for the job, an increase of 9 percentage points since the beginning of October, results released Friday indicated.

About a third of voters said the choice of running mate would be a major factor in their choice for president, pollsters said. Of those who said they the vice presidential slot is important, most favor Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

Palin was viewed as unprepared for the job by about six in 10 men and women alike, results indicated. Eight in 10 Democrats viewed Sen. John McCain's running mate as unprepared; more than 6 in 10 independents and 3 in 10 Republicans also held that view.

Poll results indicate Obama maintains his lead, with 51 percent of likely voters supporting him and 40 percent supporting McCain.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Saturday-Wednesday with 1,439 adults nationwide, including 1,308 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.

White House seeks to relax federal rules

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The Bush administration is making a last-minute push to enact U.S. federal regulations that would ease rules designed to protect the public, observers said.

Trying to ensure the regulations -- as many as 90 are being developed -- are enacted before President George Bush leaves office, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in May imposed a deadline of Saturday for finishing major new regulations, "except in extraordinary circumstances," the Washington Post reported Friday.

Included among the proposed changes are rules that would clear roadblocks to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking water standards and lift a major restriction on mountaintop coal mining, the Post said.

"They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office," said Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, a non-profit group.

The Bush administration has tried to avoid rushing through regulations at the end of the term, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

"And yes, we'd prefer our regulations stand for a very long time -- they're well reasoned and are being considered with the best interests of the nation in mind," he added.

Petraeus takes over Central Command

MACDILL AFB, Fla., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus took over U.S. Central Command Friday at a change of command ceremony in Florida.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates presided over the ceremony at MacDill Air Force Base in which Acting Central Command Commander Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey relinquished the post to Petraeus, the Pentagon said in a release.

Petraeus, 55, assumed command of U.S. forces across the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including Iraq and Afghanistan. He most recently led the Multinational Forces in Iraq, overseeing all coalition forces from February 2007 to September 2008.

Dempsey departs the Central Command after first serving as the deputy commander in August 2007, then as the acting commander since March 2008. Dempsey recently was confirmed for promotion to general and will become the commander of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

U.S. deaths in Iraq track to record low

BAGHDAD, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- October could mark the first month since the war in Iraq began in which no U.S. service personnel died in combat in Baghdad, officials said.

As of Thursday, the U.S. Defense Department reported 13 U.S. troops died in October, USA Today said Friday. If the number holds, it would tie July for the lowest monthly U.S. death toll since the war began 5 1/2 years ago.

Militant groups are moving their base to Afghanistan where U.S. fatalities in October were higher than those in Iraq for the second straight month, the Pentagon said. As of Thursday, 15 U.S. troops died in Afghanistan in October.

"What you're seeing is a migration of the extremists from one area to the other," said Navy Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for the military's Central Command, which oversees both Iraq and Afghanistan. "They're not having the success that they had in Iraq and they're looking for other places to go."

The U.S. will shift resources from Iraq to Afghanistan beginning in November, when 2,000 Marines originally set to go to Iraq will be deployed to Afghanistan, USA Today reported. In January, the Army is rerouting 3,700 soldiers to Afghanistan.

Muslims quizzed in '04 pre-election survey

NEW YORK, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A 2004 pre-election operation to disrupt potential terrorist plots focused on more than 2,000 immigrants from mostly Muslim countries, government data show.

Most of those questioned were found to have done nothing wrong, The New York Times reported Friday. Some, however, were deported for overstaying their visas. There was no word of a similar operation before next week's election.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted the program and emphasized that its investigations were "without regard to race, ethnicity or religion."

However, records showed that 79 percent of the suspects were from Muslim-majority countries, the Times said.

The newly released data showed that immigration agents questioned the foreigners about what they thought of the United States, whether violence was preached at their mosques and whether they had access to biological or chemical weapons.

Two charged in campus Obama effigy hanging

LEXINGTON, Ky., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A University of Kentucky student and a friend were arrested in the hanging of an effigy from a tree of U.S. Democratic candidate Barack Obama, police said.

The men, who turned themselves in to UK police Thursday, said they hung the effigy on the Lexington, Ky., campus in response to reports an effigy of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was hung in California, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported Friday.

Police charged Lexington residents Joe Fischer, 22, a UK senior, and Hunter Bush, 21, with burglary in the second degree, theft by unlawful taking and disorderly conduct, the newspaper reported.

The life-size effigy was found Wednesday hanging from a tree near a parking garage.

Items used in the effigy were taken from a fraternity house, said interim campus police chief Joe Monroe said. Neither Fischer nor Bush was a member of the fraternity, he said.

"They expressed extreme remorse for a prank that they say got out of hand," Monroe said of the pair. "They meant no harm or disrespect."

During a news conference Thursday, University of Kentucky President Lee Todd called on the campus "to unite against this type of behavior in the future and move forward from here with a re-dedication to diversity and inclusion," The (Louisville) Courier-Journal said.