Number of Obama, Romney TV ads to top 1M
MIDDLETOWN, Conn., Oct. 25 (UPI) -- The Obama and Romney campaigns are likely to spend $1 billion to air 1 million-plus ads by Election Day, a UPI analysis of a U.S. university study indicated.
The campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney already set a record by running more than 915,000 commercials on broadcast and cable stations from June 1 to Oct. 21, the Wesleyan Media Project study found.
The airtime cost of those ads was about $900 million, The Daily Beast said the Wesleyan analysis indicated.
The number of political ads in that 143-day period represented a 44.5 percent jump from the 637,000 ads aired in the same period of 2008 and a 43.7 percent increase from the 634,000 ads aired that period in 2004, the study found.
Presidential political advertising typically increases dramatically in the final days before the election, but if the current advertising-frequency rate simply continues at the average pace of the days the Wesleyan researchers studied, the two campaigns would be on trend to reach 1 million ads Nov. 3, three days before Election Day, the United Press International analysis indicated.
The advertising money spent for to air those ads would top $982 million that day and go over the $1 billion mark two days later, the day before the election, the UPI analysis indicated.
Obama assails Mourdock's rape comments
BURBANK, Calif., Oct. 25 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama blasted Indiana Republican U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's rape comments, saying rape distinctions "don't make any sense to me."
"I don't know how these guys come up with these ideas," Obama said in an appearance on the "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Wednesday. "Let me make a very simple proposition -- rape is rape. It is a crime. And so these various distinctions about rape don't make too much sense to me, don't make any sense to me."
Obama, who supports abortion rights, has emphasized the issue in his bid for a second term, warning women some Republicans would like to see abortion outlawed in all cases.
"This is exactly why you don't want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women's healthcare decisions," Obama said on the program.
"Women are capable of making these decisions in consultation with their partners, with their doctors, and for politicians to want to intrude in this stuff, oftentimes without any information, is a huge problem. And this is obviously a part of what's at stake in this election."
Mourdock, supported by the Tea Party movement, said during a Tuesday debate life conceived by rape "is something that God intended to happen" and must be protected from abortion.
Police arrest 9 in Malala shooting
MINGORA, Pakistan, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Pakistani police searched for a science graduate, the main suspect in the attempt to kill teenage activist Malala Yousufzai, while holding nine others.
CNN reported police had rounded up nine people in the Oct. 9 shooting in which 15-year-old Malala, now recovering in a hospital in Britain, was critically wounded, but the main suspect identified as Atta Ullah Khan, a master's degree student of chemistry believed to be 23 years old, was being sought in the scenic Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan, where Malala and two other girls were attacked as they rode their school bus. The other two girls were not seriously injured.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the shooting of Malala, who had spoken out against the militant group and advocated education for girls like her. Her struggle has won her worldwide admiration and Pakistanis have strongly condemned the attack on her.
Those arrested in the shooting include six men from Swat, CNN reported. Police were also holding the mother, the brother and the fiancée of Khan, the main suspect, but a police official was quoted as saying the three have not been accused of involvement in the shooting.
It was not clear what role Khan himself may have played in the attack.
Hurricane Sandy eyes Bahamas, Cuba
MIAMI, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Hurricane Sandy, blamed for two deaths, bore down on the central Bahamas and northeastern Cuba after slamming Jamaica, forecast officials said.
Weather advisories were posted for many Caribbean islands and portions of Florida, and officials were keeping watch along the U.S. East Coast.
Sandy, a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, was about 40 miles east of Holguin, Cuba, and 185 miles south of the central Bahamas, moving north at 5 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in its 5 a.m. EDT advisory.
Sandy is blamed for one death in Jamaica and one death in Haiti, CNN said.
Jamaican broadcaster TV J reported 70 percent of the island's residents were without power and 1,000 people were in shelters.
A hurricane warning was in effect for portions of Cuba, the central and northwestern Bahamas and the Ragged Islands in the southeastern Bahamas.
A tropical storm warning was posted for Haiti, parts of the southeastern Bahamas, Florida's east coast from Ocean Reef to Flagler Beach and Lake Okeechobee.
A tropical storm watch was in effect in Florida from north of Flagler Beach to Fernandina Beach, the upper Keys from Ocean Reef to Craig Key and the Florida Bay.
On its forecast track, the center of Sandy will move off the northeastern coast of Cuba Thursday morning and move near or over the central Bahamas Thursday night.
Murderer becomes 11th execution in Texas
HUNTSVILLE, Texas, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Killer Bobby Lee Hines was executed in Texas for his conviction in the murder of a Dallas-area woman in her apartment 21 years ago, officials said.
Hines, 40, was executed at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville Wednesday after a federal civil rights appeal by his family and friends was dismissed earlier that day by a judge in Houston, KWTX-TV, Waco, reported.
Hines was 19 and on probation when he stabbed 26-year-old Michelle Wendy Haupt 18 times then strangled her in October 1991. She was found dead in her apartment in Carrollton, a Dallas suburb.
Haupt's blood was on Hines' clothing, and he was found with several items from her apartment, including a gold charm, several packs of cigarettes and a bowl of pennies, KWTX said. Haupt had moved to Carrollton from Pittsburgh and Hines was staying next door with a man who handled maintenance for the apartment complex.
Hines' execution was the 11th so far this year in Texas.
