LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I suspect they’re going to try to wait as long as possible, so people will leave because they’re hungry.”
Jon Hain,
a Madison, Wis., coffee-shop owner,
who said police were no longer allowing protesters to bring in large amounts of food and drink Article, 1AGingrich to speak to presidential run
WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich intends to take a formal step toward entering the 2012 presidential race within the next two weeks, after months spent traveling to important primary and caucus states, Republican officials said Sunday.
These officials declined to say precisely what type of announcement the 67-year old former Georgia lawmaker would make, but added that they expect him to make clear his determination to run.
If so, he would be the first Republican to do so in a slow to-develop field of potential challengers to President Barack Obama.
Gingrich became the first Republican speaker in 40 years after he led his party to control of the House in the 1994 elections.
The officials who described his plans did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
U.S.’ final veteran of World War I dies
CHARLES TOWN, W.Va.
- A spokesman says the nation’s last surviving veteran of World War I has died in West Virginia. He was 110.
Biographer and family spokesman David DeJonge said in a statement that Frank Woodruff Buckles died early Sunday of natural causes in his home in Charles Town, W.Va.
Born in Missouri in 1901 and raised in Oklahoma, Buckles visited a string of military recruiters after the United States entered the “war to end all wars” in April 1917. He was repeatedly rejected before convincing an Army captain he was 18. He was 16 1/2.
“A boy of [that age], he’s not afraid of anything. He wants to get in there,” Buckles said.
He served in England and France, working mainly as a driver and a warehouse clerk. He did not see combat.
When asked in February 2008 how it felt to be the last of his kind, he said simply, “I realized that somebody had to be, and it was me.” And he told The Associated Press he would have done it all over again, “without a doubt.”
Buckles also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II.
He turned 110 on Feb. 1.
He had been advocating for a national memorial honoring veterans of the Great War in Washington, D.C.
More than 4.7 million people joined the U.S. military from 1917-18 for the war.
Florida governor keeps up rail veto
WASHINGTON - Florida Gov. Rick Scott won’t reconsider his refusal of $2.4 billion in federal money for a rail project after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood gave him a week to think it over.
“Our taxpayers aren’t going to take the risk of the cost overrun,” Scott, a Republican, said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. Constructing the proposed high-speed line from Tampa to Orlando would cost $3 billion, he estimated.
LaHood said on Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital with Al Hunt that he was providing extra time after meeting with Scott in Washington on Friday.
Scott, 58, said on Bloomberg Television that the state would have to repay the $2.4 billion if the program failed.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/28/2011