The nation in brief

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

— QUOTE OF THE DAY “The time has come

for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform.

We can’t allow immigration reform

to get bogged down in an endless debate.” President Barack Obama Article, 1A Suspect in killing

had bad prostate

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - A retired barber accused of shooting a California urologist to death in his exam room suffered from prostate problems and was angry about his incontinence after a recent surgery, neighbors said Tuesday.

Stanwood Fred Elkus, 75, was jailed on $1 million bail.

Police say he shot Dr. Ronald Franklin Gilbert multiple times on Monday at a medical office in Newport Beach, an affluent city in suburban Orange County.

Police would not say whether the 52-year-old Gilbert was Elkus’ doctor. He appeared to be the only target of the attack, police said.

Elkus, who has an initial court hearing today, was upset by a surgery that left him running to the bathroom constantly, sometimes in midconversation, neighbors said.

Detectives recovered a handgun at the scene of the shooting and found additional evidence at Elkus’ home.

Stricken barge lost

167 barrels of oil

VICKSBURG, Miss. - The Coast Guard said Tuesday that about 167 barrels of crude oil were unaccounted for aboard a leaking barge that had rammed a railroad bridge near Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, which remained closed for a third day as crews slowly pumped out oil.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Lally said it’s not clear that all of the 167 barrels leaked into the river since the crash early Sunday.

Some of it, he said, could have seeped into void spaces inside the barge.

A barrel is equal to 42 gallons.

Lally said a plan to pump oil from the stricken barge onto another barge - a process known as lightering - had been approved but it was unclear how long that would take or when the river might reopen to vessels. He said the other barge was en route.

Environmental impact, Lally said, has been minimal because a boom is containing the leak around the barge and the leak is slow.

On Tuesday, tugs were pinning the ruptured barge to the bank on the Louisiana side of the river, across from Vicksburg’s Riverwalk and Lady Luck casinos.

At least 54 vessels, including towboats and barges, were idled Tuesday on the closed 16-mile stretch.

Dissident: Stand firm with China

WASHINGTON - Blind dissident Chen Guangcheng on Tuesday urged China’s people to end the communist-governed nation’s “leadership of thieves” and for Washington not to “give an inch” on human rights in its relations with Beijing.

Chen made the comments as he received an award from a human-rights group in a ceremony attended by several U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The 41-year-old selftaught lawyer caused a diplomatic crisis last April when he fled house arrest in rural China and sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

China subsequently allowed him to come to the U.S. to study law.

Chen said at a time of transformation in China, international pressure is extremely important but the main actors in bringing changes to the one-party state should be the Chinese themselves.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 01/30/2013