Obama: 'Not a lot' think they're victims
COSTA MESA, Calif., Sept. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. President Obama, responding Tuesday to controversial statements by Republican rival Mitt Romney, said "not a lot of people" think they are victims.
In an appearance on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman," the president suggested Romney was "writing off a big chunk of the country" with comments that 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."
Romney's comments emerged Monday with the release of a video of his address to campaign donors in Florida in May.
"When I won in 2008, 47 percent of the American people voted for John McCain," Obama said Tuesday in an interview with Letterman to be televised Tuesday night. "They didn't vote for me and what I said on election night was: 'Even though you didn't vote for me, I hear your voices, and I'm going to work as hard as I can to be your president.'"
Obama said people he meets as he travels the country believe in "the American dream."
"There are not a lot of people out there who think they're victims," he said. "There are not a lot of people who think they're entitled to something."
Romney has defended his remarks as "not elegantly stated."
"We have a very different approach, the president and I, between a government-dominated society and a society driven by free people pursuing their dreams," Romney said in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel.
Chicago teacher reps vote to end walkout
CHICAGO, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Striking Chicago teachers will be back in the classroom Wednesday after their union delegates threw their support behind the tentative contract.
About 800 members of Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates backed the deal in a voice vote Tuesday afternoon, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Crain's Chicago Business newspaper said two school district sources told it the union delegates had voted to send members back to work before rank-and-file members cast ballots on the tentative contract.
The delegates met behind closed doors to decide whether to end the first teachers strike in the nation's third-largest district in 25 years.
The walkout, which affected 350,000 students and about 26,000 school district teachers and other staff, hit its seventh day of classes Tuesday.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel went to court this week seeking an injunction to force teachers back into the classroom. A judge held off ruling on the request until Wednesday.
Texas hospital delivers sextuplets, quints
HOUSTON, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- A Texas hospital is celebrating the delivery of sextuplets five months after the delivery of quintuplets, health officials said.
Doctors at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston delivered the quintuplets Monday to parents Sarah and Bruce Plauche of Lake Charles, La. In April, doctors delivered Lauren Perkins' six children, all healthy. The last of her six children was released Sept. 7.
The Plauche babies each weighed about 2 pounds and had been carried 28 weeks, doctors said. They remain at the hospital in critical but stable condition.
When asked by the Houston Chronicle what advice she had for the new parents, Lauren Perkins said: "Just take everything one day at a time. When they can't sleep and start crying, remember it's just temporary. Focus on the positive and have fun."
Women sue after 'toxic' pool party
NEW YORK, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Two women are suing a concert promoter who touted a hip New York City party, but allowed them to swim in toxic water they say blinded them.
The Brooklyn rave party took place Aug. 4 and promised the "luxury" of swimming in a black-light-reflective waterfall, the New York Post reported. But the women charge the water had been turned into a toxic soup and after they took a dip they suffered "permanent reduction of visibility in both eyes," the court papers say.
Tickets to the party, dubbed Return to the Bubble Kingdom, cost $90 apiece. The two victims, both 19, have sued the promoter Unicorn Meat NYC, who told the newspaper they were unaware of any lawsuit following the event.
