NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
East Oregonian
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By STEVE PEOPLES
and NICHOLAS RICCARDI
Associated Press
ELKO, Nevada — Marco
Rubio amassed increasing
support for his candidacy
while Ted Cruz’s campaign
showed signs of struggle
as Republican presidential
candidates
crisscrossed
Nevada on Monday on the
¿ nal day of campaigning
ahead of the state’s GOP
caucuses.
Cruz
told
reporters
Monday he has asked his
campaign spokesman, Rick
Tyler, to resign for tweeting
a story that falsely alleged
Rubio insulted the Bible.
“We are not a campaign
that is going to question the
faith of another candidate for
president,” he said, calling
Tyler “a good man” and
noting that he deleted the
tweet once he discovered it
was false.
Tyler did not return
telephone, text or email
messages left by The Associ-
ated Press seeking comment.
It’s not the ¿ rst time that
Cruz’s campaign has been
accused by rivals of using
questionable tactics. Cruz
apologized to GOP hopeful
Ben Carson earlier this
month after his campaign
promoted a news story
suggesting that Carson was
getting out of the race. Cruz’s
campaign has also acknowl-
edged creating a website that
used a computer program to
create a fake picture of Rubio
shaking hands with President
Barack Obama.
Speaking
during
a
campaign stop in Elko,
Nevada, earlier Monday,
Rubio criticized Cruz for the
incident and asked whether
Cruz would ¿ re anyone
involved.
“It’s every single day
something comes out of the
Cruz campaign that’s decep-
tive and untrue, and in this
case goes after my faith,”
Rubio told reporters when
asked about the incident. “I
guess one of their spokesper-
sons apologized, and I accept
their apology.”
Republican front-runner
Donald Trump lashed out
at Cruz over Twitter on
Monday, saying that Cruz
“has now apologized to
Marco Rubio and Ben
Carson for fraud and dirty
tricks. No wonder he has
lost Evangelical support!”
He reiterated his calls for
disqualifying Cruz because
of “his fraudulent win in
Iowa.”
Trump was scheduled to
hold two rallies in Nevada
— one in Elko and another
later in Las Vegas. Trump’s
campaign manager Corey
Lewandowski said Monday
that the billionaire busi-
nessman has been seeking
advice from former New
York City Mayor Rudy
Giuliani as he gradually
expands his tight inner circle.
Meanwhile,
estab-
lishment
heavyweights
continued to back Rubio,
with many saying they see
him as the candidate who
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, smiles as he speaks at a rally Monday in Reno, Nev.
GOP delegate count
Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary,
increasing his delegate lead and forcing rival Jeb Bush to end
his campaign.
Donald Trump
61
John Kasich
5
1,237 needed for nomination
Ted Cruz
Jeb Bush
11
4
Marco Rubio
Ben Carson
10
3
SOUTH CAROLINA — percentage of vote (delegates won)
Trump
Rubio
32.5%
22.5%
Cruz
22.3%
(38)
(TBA)
(TBA)
Bush
Kasich
7.8%
7.6%
(TBA)
(TBA)
Carson
7.2%
(TBA)
Next contest: Feb. 23
Nevada Republican Caucuses
SOURCE: AP Election Services
can unite a disharmonious
Republican Party. Arkansas
Gov. Asa Hutchinson and
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch
were the latest to endorse
Rubio. South Florida’s three
Cuban-American members
of Congress also said that
they shifted their support to
Rubio, having previously
supported for former Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush’s now defunct
bid.
Former Sen. Bob Dole
told ABC News on Monday
that he too had been
backing Bush, but he’s now
supporting Rubio because
“he wants to grow the party
as opposed to Cruz. I don’t
know what he wants to
grow.”
Since Friday, Rubio has
added 12 new Congressional
or gubernatorial endorse-
ments, while Trump and
Cruz have added none.
While ¿ ve men of¿ cially
remain in the race for the
AP
Republican
nomination,
House Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy billed it as
a two-man contest between
Trump and Rubio. Speaking
to MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe” Monday, McCarthy
said Trump’s victory and
Rubio’s second-place ¿ nish
in Saturday’s South Carolina
primary dealt a blow to
Cruz’s strategy to win the
nomination. The California
congressman
predicted
voters in Florida, Rubio’s
home state, would determine
whether Rubio continues or
Trump easily rolls on to the
nomination.
Cruz on Saturday char-
acterized a two-man contest
as well — between him and
Trump. But Rubio, who
campaigned in South Caro-
lina alongside the state’s
GOP Gov. Nikki Haley, has
continued to capitalize on the
momentum from his second-
place ¿ nish.
KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The
Uber ride-hailing service acknowl-
edged Monday that it received
complaints about erratic driving by
the suspect in the random shootings
that killed six people in Kalamazoo,
and a prosecutor said the man
admitted carrying out the attacks.
As authorities pieced together
Jason Dalton’s actions, the prosecutor
said he picked up Uber fares after the
¿ rst shooting and probably got more
riders after the subsequent shootings.
Dalton, the 45-year-old former
insurance adjuster, appeared brieÀ y in
court by video link and was charged
with six counts of murder. A judge
denied him bail.
During a talk with investigators,
Dalton waived his right against
self-incrimination and confessed his
role in the Saturday night shootings,
Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff
Getting said.
Dalton admitted “that he took
people’s lives,” Kalamazoo police
Det. Cory Ghiringhelli told the court.
The murder charges carry a manda-
tory life sentence. Michigan does not
have the death penalty.
An Uber passenger said he called
police to report that Dalton was
driving erratically more than an hour
before the shootings began.
Matt Mellen told Kalamazoo tele-
vision station WWMT that he hailed
a ride around 4:30 p.m. Saturday. He
said driver Jason Dalton introduced
himself as “Me-Me” and had a dog in
the backseat.
Mellen sat in front. About a mile
into the trip, Dalton got a phone
call, and when he hung up, he began
driving recklessly, blowing through
stop signs and sideswiping cars,
Mellen said.
“We were driving through
medians, driving through the lawn,
speeding along, and when we came
to a stop, I jumped out of the car and
ran away,” Mellen said. He said he
called police and that when he got to
his friend’s house, his ¿ ancpe posted
a warning to friends on Facebook.
Uber said riders complained
Saturday about Dalton’s driving.
When alerted to unsafe driving,
company policy is to contact the
driver. But Uber of¿ cials would not
WASHINGTON (AP)
— The United States and
Russia agreed Monday
on a new cease-¿ re for
Syria that will take effect
on Saturday, U.S. of¿ cials
said.
They said the former
Cold War foes, which are
backing opposing sides in
Syria’s civil war, agreed
on all the terms and condi-
tions for the “cessation
of hostilities” between
Syrian President Bashar
Assad’s government and
armed opposition groups.
Those sides still need to
accept the deal.
The truce will not
cover the Islamic State,
the al-Qaida-linked Nusra
Front and any other mili-
tias designated as terrorist
organizations by the U.N.
Security Council. Both
the U.S. and Russia are
still targeting those groups
with airstrikes.
An announcement is
expected after Presidents
Barack Obama and
Vladimir Putin speak on
the matter by telephone
Monday, according
to the of¿ cials, who
weren’t authorized to
speak publicly on the
matter ahead of time and
demanded anonymity.
The timing of the
cease-¿ re is only days
ahead of Moscow’s
proposal earlier this
month for it to start on
March 1. Washington
rejected that offer at the
time, saying it wanted an
“immediate cease-¿ re”
and not one that would
allow Syria and its
Russian backer to make
a last-ditch effort for
territorial gains in the
Arab country’s north and
south.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Donald Trump has repeated
inaccurate and racially charged crime statistics,
reposted pledges of support from white supremacists
and retweeted dubious questions about the citizenship
of his presidential rivals to an online following of more
than 6 million people on Twitter alone.
His response when challenged? To dismiss it all as
nothing more than harmless “retweets.”
Unlike any presidential candidate before him, Trump
has fueled his campaign for the Republican nomination
with a seemingly endless series of eyebrow-raising
statements. It’s a strategy unavailable to a conventional
politician but seemingly tailor-made for the billionaire
businessman and master marketer.
“We’ve gone from a 24-hour news cycle to a
24-second news cycle,” said GOP consultant Kevin
Madden. “So right when you think Trump is about
to endure a concentrated level of scrutiny for a false
statement or the latest outrage, he is on to the next
controversy.”
Yet Trump’s pattern of repeating things that are
false, or just unseemly, and then refusing to take
responsibility, would undoubtedly pose a challenge
should he move into the White House — where a
president’s casual utterance or late-night tweet could
move ¿ nancial markets or spark a diplomatic incident.
Trump’s latest example came on Saturday, hours
before he won the South Carolina GOP primary
to cement his status as the Republican presidential
front-runner. He quoted a supporter on Twitter who was
questioning rival Marco Rubio’s eligibility to run for
president, even though the Florida senator was born in
the U.S.
RICHLAND,
Wash. (AP) — The
Environmental Protection
Agency says the
uncontrolled spread
of small amounts of
radioactive waste at
Hanford after a Nov. 17
windstorm is alarming.
The winds pushed
specks of contamination
beyond Route 4, the
public highway from
Richland out to the Wye
Barricade entrance to
Hanford.
The Tri-City Herald
reports that tests found
no contamination on the
public highway. And the
Department of Energy
concluded that workers
and the public are not at
risk of exposure.
But the EPA
in a letter says the
uncontrolled spread
of contamination “is a
matter that is alarming
to EPA and requires
further investigation and
discussion.”
It has given the Energy
Department until the third
week of April to prepare
a report on its loss of
control of radioactive
material.
Uber acknowledges getting complaints about shooting suspect
By JEFF KAROUB
Associated Press
New U.S.-Russia
plan sets Syria
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Latest state results: Feb. 20
Page 7A
say whether anyone at the company
spoke to Dalton, deferring to law
enforcement.
Dalton passed a background
check and became a driver on Jan.
25. He had given about 100 rides, the
company said.
Since Dalton’s arrest, several
people have come forward to say
that he picked them up for Uber in
the hours after the ¿ rst attack. The
Associated Press could not con¿ rm
those accounts.
Kalamazoo
County
Sheriff
Richard Fuller said Uber is cooper-
ating with law enforcement of¿ cials,
and he believes the company will
“help us ¿ ll in some timeline gaps.”
Investigators are particularly
interested
in
communication
between Dalton and Uber, as well as
customers he might have driven, the
sheriff said.
The attacks began outside the
Meadows apartment complex on the
eastern edge of Kalamazoo County,
where a woman was shot multiple
times. She survived.
A little more than four hours later
and 15 miles away, a father and his
17-year-old son were fatally shot
while looking at cars at a car dealer-
ship.
Fifteen minutes after that, ¿ ve
people were gunned down in the
parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restau-
rant. Four of them died. A 14-year-old
girl survived with a head wound and
was hospitalized in critical condition.
Police and prosecutors have not
provided a motive. The victims had no
apparent connection to the gunman.
Getting dismissed the idea that
Dalton was seeking a particular person
when authorities say he shot the ¿ rst
victim. The prosecutor said Dalton
called the woman by a different name
only “to get her attention” before
shooting her outside of her apartment.
Questions about motive and
Dalton’s frame of mind are “going to
be the hardest to answer for anybody,”
Fuller said. He expects some answers
to emerge in court, but he doubts they
will be satisfying.
“In the end, I ask people, because
I keep hearing this question of why,
‘What would be the answer that
would be an acceptable answer for
you?’ They have to think about it for
a moment, and they say, ‘Probably
nothing.’
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BEND (AP) — A new
law that automatically
registers eligible voters in
Oregon has added nearly
10,000 voters to the rolls
since Jan. 1.
The Bulletin reports
that the system registers
voters after they obtain
or renew their driver’s
license, permit or
identi¿ cation card.
Of¿ cials with the
Secretary of State’s Of¿ ce
say it is expected to take
eight years for the DMV
to contact nearly every
eligible voter in the state
as licenses and IDs come
up for renewal.
Oregon has had high
voter turnout in recent
elections. Deschutes
County Clerk Nancy
Blankenship says it will
be interesting to see if the
newly registered voters
come out to the polls in
November.