Sestak knocks off Specter
PITTSBURGH, May 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak was declared the winner over incumbent Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic U.S. Senate primary Tuesday night.
The Washington Post projected Sestak the winner, as he led Specter 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent with nearly 76 percent of the vote counted.
Republicans' choice to face the Democratic winner was already clear: former Rep. Pat Toomey was the winner over Peg Luksik, 79.5 percent to 20.5 percent.
Specter, a five-term incumbent who jumped from the Republican Party last year, had the backing of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell and much of the Democratic establishment. Sestak, however, ran a campaign that, among other things, painted Specter as an opportunist who changed parties to save his political career.
In the race to succeed Rendell, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato was garnering 45.4 percent to 25.4 percent for state Auditor General Jack Wagner, 18.8 percent for state Sent. Anthony Williams and 10.4 percent for Montgomery County Commissioner Joseph Hoeffel on the Democratic side. In the GOP primary, Attorney General Tom Corbett polled 69.9 percent to 30.2 percent for state Rep. Samuel Rohrer.
Tea Party-backed Paul wins in Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 18 (UPI) -- Rand Paul, the son of a maverick congressman and a Tea Party favorite son, Tuesday won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Kentucky.
It wasn't even close. With about 83 percent of the vote counted, Paul, the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, held about 59 percent of the votes to 35 percent for Trey Grayson, who had the support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Four other Republicans trailed far behind.
Paul's supporters at a country club in Bowling Green, where he works as an ophthalmologist, celebrated heartily when CNN projected him the winner about 7:45 p.m. local time, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal reported.
On the Democratic side, with 80 percent of the precincts counted, Attorney General Jack Conway forged a 46 percent to 41 percent edge over Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo while three other Democrats lagged in single digits.
The winner will face off against Paul in November to determine who will replace Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican who decided not to go after a third term.
Pakistani officer held in N.Y. bomb try
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 18 (UPI) -- A Pakistani army officer linked to a suspect in the failed attempt to set off a bomb in New York's Times Square has been arrested, law enforcement sources said.
The officer, said to be a major in the Pakistani army, had met in Islamabad with suspect Shahzad Faisal and had been in contact with the suspect by cellphone, law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times. Other than those contacts, it was not clear what involvement the officer had with Shahzad, the newspaper reported Tuesday.
Shahzad was arraigned in federal court in New York Tuesday but did not enter a plea, The New York Times reported. A magistrate appointed a federal defender to represent Shahzad and granted a prosecution request that he be held without bail.
Shahzad is charged in a May 1 incident in which a smoking sport utility vehicle was found packed with explosives in Times Square but did not detonate. He faces one count each of attempting terrorism by attempting to kill people; attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction; using a destructive device in an attempted crime of violence; transporting explosives; and attempting to destroy property with fire and explosives.
Shahzad allegedly planned to target four other high-profile sites besides New York's Times Square, police allege, including Rockefeller Center, Grand Central terminal, the world financial center across from Ground Zero and Sikorsky, the Connecticut defense contractor, WNYW-TV, New York, reported Tuesday.
SEC proposes stocks 'circuit breakers'
WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday proposed a trial of a system intended to head off the kind of chaos Wall Street experienced May 6.
SEC Chairwoman Mary Shapiro said a system of individual circuit breakers on all stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index "would help to limit significant volatility," The New York Times reported. Schapiro told lawmakers on Capitol Hill May 11 regulators were working on establishing a fair process for evaluating trade.
The circuit breakers -- which would pause trading in a stock if its price shifts by 10 percent or more within in a 5-minute span -- would be subject to a trial following a 10-day public comment period. The trial would end Dec. 10, the SEC said.
SEC officials would continue during the trial period to develop other approaches to addressing the problem, including restrictions or bans on some trading practices, the report said.
In a preliminary report issued Tuesday, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said investigators had been unable to identify a single factor responsible for the May 6 disruption, but said they had "found no evidence that these events were triggered by 'fat finger' errors, computer hacking, or terrorist activity, although we cannot completely rule out these possibilities."
Blumenthal regrets comments on service
HARTFORD, Conn., May 18 (UPI) -- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he takes "full responsibility" for misleading statements about his military service in the Vietnam war.
"On a few occasions I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility," Blumenthal, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, said Tuesday during a news conference at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in West Hartford, "but I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country."
The New York Times had reported Blumenthal's statements about his military service didn't square with the record. While on the stump, the Democrat trying to succeed retiring Sen. Christopher Dodd used ambiguous language that suggested he served in Vietnam when in fact he received at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970, the Times said, and spent his time in the reserves stateside.
Blumenthal said the errors were "totally unintentional" and he had made them only several times during the hundreds of public appearances he's made.
Blumenthal said he received no special treatment when it came to military service.
"You want to know how I got into the United States Marine Corps Reserves? I looked them up in a phone book. No special help. No special privileges," said Blumenthal, who was a White House aide at the time. "I joined the Reserves by picking up the phone and signing up. Unlike many of my peers, I chose to join the military and serve my country."
Blumenthal's campaign called the Times article an "outrageous distortion" of his record. On it was posted a 26-second video of a debate in March in which Blumenthal mentioned his military service, saying he had been "in the reserves," adding, "Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand the effects of military action."
