Biden will not enter race because he ‘couldn’t win’
WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden says he decided against running for president because he “couldn’t win,” not because he would have had too little time to get a campaign up and running.
“I’ll be very blunt. If I thought we could’ve put together the campaign ... that our supporters deserve and our contributors deserved, ... I would have done it,” he said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
In the wide-ranging interview, in which Biden took questions for a time joined by his wife, Jill, the vice president also said he would not have gotten into the race just to stop Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
The 72-year-old Biden also sought in the interview to dispel recurrent rumors that his late son Beau, who died earlier this year at age 46 of brain cancer, had made a last-minute plea to his father to run for president.
Adult victims in Oklahoma homecoming crash ID’d
STILLWATER, Okla. – Police have revealed the identities of the three adults killed and dozens more injured when a woman plowed her car into the Oklahoma State University homecoming parade crowd, sending some spectators flying through the air.
The crash also killed a 2-year-old boy and hurt other children among the spectators during what was supposed to be a joyful event Saturday morning in Stillwater. Police arrested the driver, 25-year-old Adacia Chambers, on a DUI charge and are awaiting blood test results to determine if she was impaired by drugs or alcohol.
Capt. Kyle Gibbs said 23-year-old Nakita Prabhakar of Edmond was killed in the crash, along with Bonnie Jean Stone and Marvin Lyle Stone, both 65 and of Stillwater. Another 47 people were injured in the collision, including five who remained in critical condition early Sunday.
Louisiana sets its gubernatorial race
BATON ROUGE, La. – Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter survived challenges Saturday from two GOP rivals who called his years-old prostitution scandal a stain on Louisiana, reaching a runoff against Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards in the governor’s race.
The Nov. 21 runoff will decide who follows Republican presidential hopeful Gov. Bobby Jindal into office. Jindal is now waging a long-shot campaign for the presidential nomination.
Kerry’s plan for Jerusalem fails to address core issues
JERUSALEM – John Kerry’s latest Mideast mission has aimed for the modest goal of easing tensions around Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site – the focal point of more than a month of deadly unrest.
But the steps announced by Kerry over the weekend did little to address the deeper issues behind the fighting, disappointing the Palestinians and raising fears that even if calm is restored, it is just a matter of time before another round of violence erupts.
On Saturday, Kerry announced the steps after several days of meetings with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders. The highlight was a Jordanian proposal to install surveillance cameras at the Jerusalem holy site.
The Associated Press
