Danny Puff

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war as a "pretext for intervention", President Bashar al-Assad's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.

He spoke as Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.

"Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Faisal Maqdad said.

U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and "there would be consequences". Assad would probably lose vital diplomatic support from Russia and China that has blocked military intervention in the 20-month-old uprising that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

Maqdad said Western reports that the Syrian military was preparing chemical weapons for use against rebel forces trying to close in on the capital Damascus were simply "theatre".

"In fact, we fear a conspiracy ... by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons," he said on Lebanon's Al Manar television, the voice of Hezbollah.

"We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria."

UNCONTROLLABLE

Exactly what Syria's army has done with suspected chemical weapons to prompt a surge of Western warnings is not clear. Reports citing Western intelligence and defense sources are vague and inconsistent.

The perceived threat may be discussed in Dublin on Thursday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to put a U.N. peace process for Syria back on track.

The talks come ahead of a meeting of the Western-backed "Friends of Syria" group in Marrakech next week which is expected to boost support for rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Brahimi wants world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a transitional administration.

In addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by "an increasingly desperate" Assad, Clinton said Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.

The United States is considering blacklisting one group suspected of ties to al Qaeda. U.S. officials confirmed that Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria, was under review for blacklisting.

An explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday, Syrian state television said.

It blamed "terrorists from al Qaeda" -- a term often employed to refer to rebel forces.

Meanwhile, activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have also been cut off from the city's water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.

COLLAPSE

Assad responded to past warnings about chemical weapons by taking steps to secure them, according to Israel's vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon.

"There is speculation that the chemical arsenal will fall into the hostile and irresponsible hands of the likes of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. In the past, clear messages were relayed to Assad on a number of occasions, and in response Assad in fact gathered up the weaponry and separated the materials," Yaalon said on Wednesday.

Rebels say they have surrounded an air base 4 km (2-1/2 mikes) from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.

Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue: "What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors."

But residents inside the capital say that the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop and many fear the fight will soon come to Damascus.

The Western military alliance's decision to send U.S., German and Dutch Patriot missile batteries to help defend the Turkish border would bring European and U.S. troops to Syria's frontier for the first time in the 20-month-old civil war.

The actual deployment could take several weeks.

"Some countries now are now supplying Turkey with missiles for which there is no excuse. Syria is not going to attack the Turkish people," Maqdad said.

But a veteran Turkish commentator, Cengiz Candar of the Radikal newspaper, said Ankara fears Syria's 500 short-range ballistic missiles could fall into the wrong hands.

The government is "of the view that Syria was not expected to use them against Turkey, but that there was a risk of these weapons falling into the hands of 'uncontrolled forces' when the regime collapses", he wrote.

(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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WASHINGTON (AP) The dealmakers who warn that a year-end plunge off the "fiscal cliff" would be disastrous don't seem to be rushing to stop it. Why aren't they panicking?

For one thing, the Dec. 31 deadline is more flexible than it sounds. Like all skilled procrastinators, from kids putting off homework to taxpayers who file late, Washington negotiators know they can finagle more time if they need it.

That doesn't mean delay would be cost-free. Stock markets might tank if 2013 dawns without a deal. But Americans could be temporarily spared many of the other ill effects if Congress and President Barack Obama blow past their deadline.

The Obama administration would have power to delay some of the tax increases and spending cuts that would officially take effect as January begins. Then, if an agreement is reached early in the year, it could be applied retroactively to wipe them out.

Some lawmakers even argue that briefly going over the cliff is the best way to force a compromise. The Obama administration on Wednesday indicated it would take the plunge if necessary to ensure that the wealthy end up paying higher tax rates.

Pushing the deadline too far is a risky strategy, however. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the fiscal cliff policies, if left unchecked, would spark a recession later in 2013 and send the unemployment rate above 9 percent by fall.

How long could negotiators balk and bicker before putting the U.S. economy in jeopardy? The calendar becomes less and less forgiving as the weeks pass.

A procrastinator's guide to pushing the deadline:

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DECEMBER

Democrats led by Obama and Republicans led by House Speaker John Boehner say it's critical to reach a deal this month. Yet both sides appear dug in over taxes. And their two plans are far apart on how much to cut spending while the economy is still recovering from the last recession.

So far, Boehner said, "we're nowhere."

If compromise were easy for this bunch, they wouldn't be in this jam. A good chunk of the fiscal cliff the automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester" is an artificial deadline created by Congress in hopes of forcing itself to come up with a deficit-cutting plan. It arrives at the same time as the expiration of the George W. Bush-era income tax cuts and other temporary tax breaks scheduled to end unless Congress extends them. Together the taxes and cuts would equal close to $700 billion in deficit reduction over 2013.

Congress could vote to override all this and essentially freeze taxes and spending where they are now while the economy heals. But Obama and lawmakers, especially Republicans bent on budget-cutting, see the fiscal cliff as the critical moment to overcome inertia on the nation's long-term debt crisis.

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JANUARY

If there's no deal in December, the economy won't fall off a cliff on New Year's Day. But it probably will begin a bumpy downhill ride.

The new Congress that convenes Jan. 3 won't look much different from the one that's deadlocked now, divided between a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-dominated Senate. The lawmakers would feel more heat, however.

Higher taxes for nearly everyone and across-the-board spending cuts would already be law.

"People will get more nervous day by day," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. Still, he thinks the economy could weather a few more weeks of uncertainty as long as negotiators appeared to be working toward an agreement.

If the Bush-era tax cuts expired, that would raise income taxes for the average middle-class family by $2,200 over the course of 2013, the White House says. That's about $42 per week, probably not enough to curtail spending right away and deal an immediate blow to the economy, economists say.

Plus, taxpayers might never have to ante up. The Treasury Department sets withholding tables that determine how much tax comes out of Americans' paychecks. It could hold off raising the withholding if a deal seems to be in the works, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow of the private Tax Policy Center.

Both Republicans and Democrats say they don't want middle-class taxpayers to pay higher tax rates. They disagree over whether to let tax rates rise on individual income above $200,000, as Obama wants.

Other far-reaching tax changes are more likely to go ahead in January. For example, although Obama proposes extending the temporary Social Security payroll tax reduction, support for that has been weak. So more money might start coming out of workers' pay, whether or not a fiscal cliff deal is reached. That's another $1,000 over the year, or a little more than $19 per week, from a worker making $50,000.

As for the sequester, the White House can direct the Pentagon and federal agencies to husband their resources for a while and hold off on some spending cuts while negotiations continue.

"The more there's an anticipation that there's actually an agreement in the works, the less of an impact any of this should have," said Chad Stone, chief economist for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He argues that it's OK to miss the fiscal cliff deadline if necessary to achieve a well-designed agreement.

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FEBRUARY

What might finally get procrastinators moving if nothing else has? Fear of the United States defaulting on its debts for the first time ever.

Unless Congress acts, the government is expected to hit its legal borrowing limit of $16.39 trillion by the end of December. Treasury Department maneuvers should hold off a default for a couple more months, until late February or early March, private economists say.

Congress could raise the debt limit anytime now, if lawmakers agreed, before resolving the fiscal cliff. But it's being discussed as part of the bigger tax-and-spending package. The White House says raising the debt limit must be included in the deal; Boehner says the Republicans want any increase in the government's borrowing to be matched by spending cuts.

Remember the last debt limit showdown? The government came within a whisker of default in August 2011 before a compromise was reached. The financial markets reeled. Standard & Poor's downgraded the nation's credit rating.

Again coming to the edge of default an economic crisis that scares investors more than the fiscal cliff would probably send markets plummeting and finally shake up lawmakers, too.

"That's a pretty scary thing to watch," Zandi said. "For a policymaker that's real motivation."

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Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ConnieCass

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BERLIN (AP) Israel's prime minister is brushing off international criticism over a planned new settlement project near Jerusalem, saying Israel will keep the area under any future peace deal in any case.

Israel's plans to build 3,000 new settler homes in the corridor near Jerusalem triggered sharp criticism in Europe.

After meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "most governments who have looked at these proposals over the years including the Palestinians themselves ... understand that these blocs ... are going to be part of Israel in a final political settlement of peace."

Palestinians say that would make it impossible for them to establish a viable state in the West Bank.

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NEW YORK (AP) While New York City straphangers pondered what they would do in a similar nightmare situation, authorities charged a homeless man in the death of a Queens resident pushed in front of an oncoming subway train and killed as onlookers watched.

"I would certainly try to do whatever I possibly could," said Denise Martorana, 34, as she waited for the "A'' train at Penn Station on Wednesday evening.

"I certainly wouldn't be able to stand there and watch, that's for sure," she said.

Naeem Davis, 30, was arraigned Wednesday night on a second-degree murder charge and ordered held without bail in the death of 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han on Monday. He is due back in court on Dec. 11.

Davis has several prior arrests in New York and Pennsylvania on mostly minor charges including drug possession.

Han's death got widespread attention not only for its horrific nature, but because he was photographed a split-second before the train trapped him and seemingly no one attempted to come to his aid.

Han's only child, 20-year-old Ashley, said at a news conference Wednesday that her father was always willing to help someone. But when asked about why no one helped him up, she said: "What's done is done."

"The thought of someone helping him up in a matter of seconds would have been great," she said.

A freelance photographer for the New York Post was waiting for a train Monday afternoon when he said he saw a man approach Han at the Times Square station, get into an altercation with him and push him into the train's path.

The Post photo in Tuesday's edition showed Ki-Suck Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time.

The photographer, R. Umar Abbasi, told NBC's "Today" show Wednesday that he was trying to alert the motorman to what was going on by flashing his camera.

He said he was shocked that people nearer to the victim didn't try to help in the 22 seconds before the train struck.

"It took me a second to figure out what was happening ... I saw the lights in the distance. My mind was to alert the train," Abbasi said.

"The people who were standing close to him ... they could have moved and grabbed him and pulled him up. No one made an effort," he added.

In a written account Abbasi gave the Post, he said a crowd took videos and snapped photos on their cellphones after Han was pulled, limp, onto the platform. He said he shoved them back as a doctor and another man tried to resuscitate the victim, but Han died in front of them.

Ashley Han and her mother, Serim Han, met reporters Wednesday inside their Presbyterian church in Queens. The family came to the U.S. from Korea about 25 years ago. They said Han was unemployed and had been looking for work. Their pastor said the family was so upset by the front-page photo of Han in the Post that they had to stay with him for comfort.

"I just wish I had one last chance to tell my dad how much I love him," Ashley Han said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Han, "if I understand it, tried to break up a fight or something and paid for it with his life."

The suspect's last known address was in a working-class neighborhood in Queens. The only neighbor who even vaguely remembered Davis was Charles Dawes, 80, who stays with his son two doors down.

Davis "came and went, came and went, and he always looked serious," Dawes said. "But I haven't seen him for three or four months."

Subway pushes are feared but fairly unusual. Among the more high-profile cases was the January 1999 death of Kendra Webdale, who was shoved to her death by a former mental patient.

Straphangers said they were shocked by Han's death but that it's always a silent fear for many of the more than 5.2 million commuters who ride the subway on an average weekday.

"Stuff like that you don't really think about every day. You know it could happen. So when it does happen it's scary but then what it all comes down to is you have to protect yourself," said Aliyah Syphrett, 23, who sat on a bench as she waited at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan.

If she saw someone fall or be pushed, "I would try to help them, and also inform them that at the end of the platform there are steps.... If you can run to the other end you can come right back up the steps. But I guess at that moment you're panicked."

Diana Henry, 79, a Long Island resident, was waiting for a train at 34th Street. She stood as far from the platform as possible about a dozen feet back, leaning against the wall.

"I'm always careful, but I'm even more careful after what happened," she said. "I stand back because there are so many crazies in this city that you never know."

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Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik, Karen Matthews and Tom Hays contributed to this story.

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WASHINGTON (AP) Americans prefer letting tax cuts expire for the country's top earners, as President Barack Obama insists, while support has declined for cutting government services to curb budget deficits, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows. Fewer than half the Republicans polled favor continuing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

There's also a reluctance to trim Social Security, Medicare or defense programs, three of the biggest drivers of federal spending, the survey released Wednesday found. The results could strengthen Obama's hand in his fiscal cliff duel with Republicans, in which he wants to raise taxes on the rich and cut spending by less than the GOP wants.

As Obama and Republicans joust over ways to avoid tumbling over the cliff when the new year begins, the poll offers scant evidence that the public is willing to sacrifice much when it comes to specific cuts in the name of budget austerity.

Social Security, Medicare and defense account for just over half the $3.8 trillion the government is projected to spend this year. Voters typically voice support for deficit reduction but shy away from painful, detailed cuts to achieve it.

In the poll, 48 percent said tax cuts should expire in January on earnings over $250,000 but continue for lower incomes. An additional 32 percent said the tax cuts should continue for everybody, which has been the view of Republican lawmakers who say raising taxes on the wealthy would squelch their ability to create jobs. Thirteen percent said the tax cuts dating back to 2001 and 2003 should end for all.

"If you are fortunate and have some extra, you need to help those who don't," said Robin Keck, 49, of Golden Valley, Minn., who owns a framing business and supports ending tax cuts for the rich. "I believe people who have more money generally find more uses for it than putting other people to work."

A November 2010 AP-CNBC poll showed similar support for allowing the cuts to expire for people with the largest incomes. Polling earlier in that year had shown a preference for continuing the cuts for everyone, including the wealthy.

Support for renewing the tax cuts for everyone has ebbed among Republicans since 2010, dropping from a high of 74 percent just after the GOP recaptured the House in that year's elections to 48 percent now. Among Democrats, support for allowing tax cuts for the wealthy to expire was a robust 61 percent, though down slightly from two years ago.

Unless the two parties strike a deal, the new year will begin with the triggering of broad spending cuts plus tax boosts on almost every taxpayer. Economists warn that the brew of sharp deficit cuts nicknamed the fiscal cliff could revive the recession.

The battle is occurring when the public trusts the two parties about equally to handle the deficits. Democrats have a slight edge on handling taxes but enjoy a much bigger preference when it comes to addressing Medicare, according to the poll.

Obama was re-elected last month insisting that taxes be raised on the rich as their contribution to deficit reduction. He has proposed continuing Bush-era tax cuts for all but the country's top earners, letting taxes rise on income exceeding $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.

Though Republican lawmakers have long opposed raising taxes on the highest earners, GOP leaders have proposed curbing unspecified tax deductions to avert the fiscal cliff, raising revenue that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, says could come from upper-income people.

The new poll found that, by 46 percent to 30 percent, more favor cutting government services to raising taxes to tackle budget deficits. That sentiment echoes the view of the GOP, which has emphasized spending cuts during four years of budget battles with Obama.

Yet support for trimming government services has dropped in AP-GfK polls. It was 56 percent last February and 62 percent in March 2011.

Still, Ray Wilkins, 58, of Belton, Mo., a warehouse worker, said, "The government's gotten too big. The federal government tries to do just about everything."

Thirteen percent said budget balancing efforts should focus equally on service cuts and higher taxes, more than doubling that sentiment in previous polls.

When it comes to specifics, people are leery.

By 48 percent to 40 percent, more oppose proposals to gradually raise the eligibility age for Medicare from 65. Only 3 in 10 support slowing the growth of annual Social Security benefits. And more people oppose than favor cutting military spending.

Sentiments about culling savings from Social Security and Medicare were similar among Democrats and Republicans. The strongest opposition to raising the Medicare eligibility age came from people ages 30 to 64. People 50 to 64 were most opposed to slowing the growth of Social Security benefits.

Just over half of Democrats favor cutting defense; two-thirds of Republicans oppose it.

People were about evenly split over an idea voiced by defeated GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to put a dollar limit on taxpayers' deductions.

Another idea ending the tax deduction for home mortgage interest in exchange for lower income tax rates was favored 42 percent to 33 percent, slightly less support than the proposal received in 2010. Homeowners were closely divided over the proposal.

Just over half the poll respondents say they doubt Obama will be able to reduce budget deficits during his remaining four years in office. In his first days in office in 2009, more people than not thought he would be able to do so.

The poll found little change in the nation's partisan makeup after the contentious presidential election campaign, with 33 percent saying they consider themselves Democrats, 23 percent Republicans and 27 percent independents. That's about the same as in AP-GfK polling over the past six months.

The Associated Press-GfK poll was conducted Nov. 29 to Dec. 3 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,002 adults nationwide. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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AP news survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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Online:

http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

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WASHINGTON (AP) The Homeland Security Department paid for an underwater robot in a Midwest city with no major rivers or lakes nearby, a hog catcher in rural Texas and a fish tank in a small Texas town, according to a new congressional report highlighting what it described as wasteful spending of tax money intended for counterterrorism purposes.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said in his 54-page report that while much of the spending for the department's Urban Area Security Initiative appeared to be allowed under the program's rules, it was still inappropriate in an age of budget austerity and as the federal government faces a $16 trillion national debt.

"Every dollar misspent in the name of security weakens our already precarious economic condition, indebts us to foreign nations, and shackles the future of our children and grandchildren," Coburn said.

The report focused on UASI spending in the last few years in Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma and the National Capitol Region, which includes Washington and parts of Maryland and Virginia. Among the projects Coburn found questionable were:

$21 for a fish tank in Seguin, Texas, a small town outside of San Antonio.

$98,000 for an underwater robot in Columbus, Ohio, where there are no major rivers and few lakes nearby.

$24,000 for a "latrine on wheels" in Fort Worth, Texas.

A "BearCat" armored vehicle bought with a $285,933 grant in Keene, N.H., a small New England town that is home to an annual pumpkin festival that draws up to 70,000 people.

$250,000 for security upgrades, including $9,000 in signage, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

The grant program stems from the 2001 terrorist attacks when the federal government pledged to help equip local governments to prevent future attacks and respond if they occurred. DHS has pumped billions to states over the past decade under the program that puts states in control of how the money is ultimately spent.

The security program is the department's most popular grant, and guidance for how money can be spent has evolved over the years. During the past decade there have been other examples of questionable homeland security grants, including infamous snow cone machines bought by Michigan officials last year. The department has no way of tracking how the money is spent and has not produced adequate measures to gauge what states and communities actually need, Coburn said.

DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said the department "fundamentally disagrees with the report's position on the value of homeland security grants and the importance of investments in our first responders on the front lines and the development of critical capabilities at the local level."

Chandler said the department's grant programs are evolving and changes proposed by the Obama administration reflect "a more targeted approach" to how federal money will be spent in the future.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the retiring chairman of the Senate homeland security committee, said while Coburn's report "makes some good points" the program's benefits outweigh its flaws.

"The grants, for example, have helped improve first-responder communications between different jurisdictions and levels of government a lesson learned from the 9/11 attacks when scores of New York City fire fighters died because of poor communications," said Lieberman, I-Conn.

Congress regularly complains about the lack of accountability of the grant programs but lawmakers are happy to have the federal dollars spent in their districts. And almost from the beginning the program has operated with political considerations.

In 2004, then-DHS Secretary Tom Ridge told a congressional panel asking about allotments to various cities that he was looking for a formula that get "218 votes in the House or 51 votes in the Senate, in order to get it done."

Coburn wasn't shy about shouldering some of the blame for the program's failings.

"Any blame for problems in the UASI program ... also falls on Congress, which is often more preoccupied with the amount of money sent to its cities than with how the money is spent, or whether it was ever needed in the first place," Coburn said.

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Associated Press writer Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

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CHICAGO (AP) A veteran Illinois state senator was arrested Wednesday after allegedly trying to board a flight from Chicago to Washington with a gun and ammunition in a carry-on bag, authorities said.

Sen. Donne Trotter, a Chicago Democrat who recently announced he would run to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in the U.S. House, was carrying an unloaded .25-caliber Beretta handgun and a magazine clip with six bullets when he tried to board a flight at O'Hare International Airport, according to Chicago police.

Trotter, who is part the Illinois Senate's Democratic leadership, was charged with a felony.

The gun and clip were found in an outside zippered pocket of Trotter's garment bag during routine X-ray screening, according to a Chicago police report.

Trotter told Transportation Security Administration officers that he uses the weapon for work as a security officer at a Chicago security and detective firm. He said he worked late Tuesday night and did not realize the weapon was in the bag when he packed for his Wednesday morning flight, the police report said.

Messages left by The Associated Press for Trotter on his cellphone and at his office in Chicago were not immediately returned.

Trotter, 62, was charged with a Class 4 felony, which carries a penalty of one to three years in prison upon conviction. He was expected to appear in Cook County bond court Thursday, Cook County State's Attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.

Police said Trotter would spend Wednesday night in a police lockup.

Trotter is licensed to carry a weapon and has a Firearm Owner's Identification card, Chicago police spokeswoman Melissa Stratton said.

Trotter was carrying a "firearm control card," issued by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, that allows him to carry a weapon during work hours and for no more than an hour commuting to or from work. A department spokeswoman said a security company helped Trotter obtain the card.

The card is issued after completion of 20 hours of classroom firearm instruction and 20 hours of firearm handling training.

Trotter known for wearing bowties and sometimes riding his motorcycle to Springfield served in the Illinois House from 1988 to 1993, and since then in the Illinois Senate, where he chairs the Democratic majority caucus.

Under former Senate President Emil Jones, he was the Senate Democrats' budget negotiator and known as a cool, calm presence in the often-contentious budget debates during the tenure of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is now imprisoned on corruption charges.

Trotter previously ran for Congress in 2000, a race in which both he and then-state Sen. Barack Obama lost to U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.

He was born in Cairo, in far southern Illinois, earned an undergraduate degree from Chicago State University and a law degree from Loyola University. He is married and has four children.

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CAIRO (AP) Overnight clashes in Cairo between supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist leader killed at least five people, according to state television, as the nation further descended into political turmoil over the constitution drafted by President Mohammed Morsi's allies.

The street battles outside the presidential palace in the city's Heliopolis district were the worst violence since Egypt's latest crisis erupted on Nov. 22, when Morsi assumed near absolute powers.

It was also the first time supporters of rival camps have fought each other since last year's uprising that toppled authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak.

An early Thursday report by state television quoted the Health Ministry as saying five people were killed and 446 people were injured as angry mobs battled each other with firebombs, rocks and sticks outside the presidential complex long into the night.

The fighting erupted late Wednesday afternoon when thousands of Morsi's Islamist supporters descended on an area near the presidential palace where some 300 of his opponents were staging a sit-in. The Islamists, members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, chased the protesters away from their base outside the palace's main gate and tore down their tents.

After a brief lull, hundreds of Morsi opponents arrived and began throwing firebombs at the president's backers, who responded with rocks. The crowds swelled and the clashes continued well after nightfall, spreading from the immediate vicinity of the palace to residential streets nearby.

The deployment of hundreds of riot police did not stop the fighting. The police later fired tear gas to disperse Morsi's opponents. Volunteers ferried the wounded on motorcycles to waiting ambulances, which rushed them to hospitals.

By dawn, the violence had calmed. But both sides appeared to be digging in for a long struggle, with the opposition vowing more protests later Thursday and rejecting any dialogue unless the charter is rescinded.

Morsi, for his part, seemed to be pressing relentlessly forward with plans for a Dec. 15 constitutional referendum to pass the new charter.

The large scale and intensity of the fighting marked a milestone in Egypt's rapidly entrenched schism, pitting the Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Islamists in one camp, against liberals, leftists and Christians in the other.

The violence spread to other parts of the country on Wednesday. Anti-Morsi protesters stormed and set ablaze the Brotherhood offices in Suez and Ismailia, east of Cairo, and there were clashes in the industrial city of Mahallah and the province of Menoufiyah in the Nile Delta north of the capital.

There were rival demonstrations outside the Brotherhood's headquarters in the Cairo suburb of Moqatam and in Alexandria, security officials said senior Brotherhood official Sobhi Saleh was hospitalized after being severely beaten by Morsi opponents. Saleh, a former lawmaker, played a key role in drafting the disputed constitution. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Compounding Morsi's woes, four of his advisers resigned Wednesday, joining two other members of his 17-member advisory panel who have abandoned him since the crisis began.

The opposition is demanding that Morsi rescind the decrees giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve the controversial draft constitution, which the president's Islamist allies rushed through last week in a marathon, all-night session shown live on state TV.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading opposition reform advocate, said late Wednesday that Morsi's rule was "no different" than Mubarak's.

"In fact, it is perhaps even worse," the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told a news conference after he accused the president's supporters of a "vicious and deliberate" attack on peaceful demonstrators outside the palace.

"Cancel the constitutional declarations, postpone the referendum, stop the bloodshed, and enter a direct dialogue with the national forces," he wrote on his Twitter account, addressing Morsi.

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EVANSDALE, Iowa (AP) Hunters discovered two bodies Wednesday believed to be the young Iowa cousins who vanished five months ago while riding their bikes, authorities said.

The families of 9-year-old Elizabeth Collins and 11-year-old Lyric Cook were notified of the discovery and are asking for privacy, Black Hawk County sheriff's Capt. Rick Abben said.

He said the bodies were found in a wooded area, but he wouldn't say where, and that they're being sent to the state medical examiner's office for identification.

Appearing to fight back tears during a news conference in Evansdale not far from where the girls were last seen, Abben said: "It's definitely not the outcome that we wanted, obviously."

"This is a difficult thing for us to go through. It's a difficult thing for the community," he added.

The cousins disappeared July 13 near a popular recreational lake in Evansdale, a city about 110 miles northeast of Des Moines. Investigators found their bicycles and a pink purse near the lake hours later, but no sign of the girls.

Abben declined to say if there were any suspects in the cousins' disappearance.

On Wednesday night, about 70 people attended a prayer vigil at the lake, some cradling plastic cups with candles to protect the flames from the cold wind. Some were holding out hope that the bodies weren't those of the missing cousins, though others seemed resigned to the tragic news.

"These were just innocent children. These girls should have been left alone. They should be home safe in their beds, and it's only a coward who would have done something like this," said Barb Collins, a machinist who grew up in Evansdale and helped lead the group in prayer.

Hundreds of volunteers had helped investigators search for girls after they went missing, traipsing through cornfields and wooded areas in and around Evansdale, a city of 8,000 residents. The mayor even flew above in his private plane looking for them.

Days later, an FBI dive team brought in specialized equipment to search the bottom of the lake for the girls but found nothing. Police then classified the case as an abduction.

Investigators had largely been tight-lipped in the months since. An FBI spokeswoman initially said investigators had reason to believe the girls were alive, raising the region's hopes. But other investigators backtracked, saying only that there was no reason to believe the girls were dead.

Authorities had asked hunters to look for the girls in the region during this fall's popular deer hunting season.

Abben said the bodies were discovered around 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, but refused to say where. He said the area was still being processed as a crime scene and could not be compromised.

"Preservation of that scene is paramount," he said.

Abben said he hoped to release additional details Thursday.

Abben said the girls' families wanted to express gratitude to the community for their support but have asked the media to respect their privacy at this time.

Investigators have poured through thousands of tips and chased many different theories in the case.

They looked into Cook's parents, who had criminal records for prior involvement in making methamphetamine. Cook's father, Daniel Morrissey, is being prosecuted for domestic assault and a series of meth and other drug charges, and he backed out of a plea agreement with prosecutors the day before the disappearance. They have denied any involvement.

The region had rallied in support of the girls. Photographs of the cousins seemed to be everywhere in northeastern Iowa: on T-shirts and buttons worn by locals, and on fliers hung on gas station walls and in business windows.

"In the beginning, I helped search, and I've been to many other vigils they had. The community is so involved," said Amanda Mulzac, who lives in nearby Waterloo and attended Wednesday night's vigil. "My heart breaks. It's just devastating."

"At their age I was out by myself, but now it's different," she added. "Hold your babies close."

Local residents had held prayer vigils, even as the months passed and both girls had birthdays. Just last week, an anonymous donor pledged $100,000 for information about the girls' whereabouts, on top of the $50,000 that police had offered.

After Wednesday night's vigil, family friend Sarah Curl said she had seen "a lot of heartbreak" after news broke about the bodies being found.

"We're a tight community that cares about one another, and when something happens to one family it happens to all of our families," she said. "This could have happened to anyone."

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Eccentric software tycoon John McAfee, wanted in Belize for questioning in the shooting death of his neighbor, has been arrested in Guatemala for entering the country illegally, his Guatemala attorney told ABC News.

Before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.

"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee, 67, before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."

McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.

"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."

But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.

In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.

McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.

During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.

He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.

Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.

McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.

McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.

"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."

Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.

According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.

"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"

Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.

False Report of McAfee Arrest on Mexico Border

Over the weekend, a post on McAfee's blog claimed that he had been detained on the Belizean/Mexico border.

On Monday, a follow-up post said that the "John McAfee" taken into custody was actually a "double" who was carrying a North Korean passport with McAfee's name.

That post claimed that McAfee had already escaped Belize and was on the run with Samantha and two reporters from Vice Magazine.

McAfee did not reveal his location in that post, and a spokesman for Belize's National Security Ministry, Raphael Martinez, told ABC News on Monday that no one by McAfee's name was ever detained at the border and that Belizean security officials believed McAfee was still in their country.

However, a photo posted by Vice magazine on Monday with their article, "We Are With John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," apparently had been taken on an iPhone 4S and had location information embedded in it that revealed the exact coordinates where the photo was taken -- in the Rio Dulce National Park in Guatemala -- as reported by Wired.com.

A subsequent blog post on McAfee's site confirmed that the photo had mistakenly revealed his location, and said that Monday was "chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters.

"We made it to safety in spite of this handicap," the post read. "I had to cancel numerous interviews with the press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of those affected.

"I apologize for all of the misdirections over the past few days . ... It was not easy to exit Belize and required many supporters in many countries."

Belizean authorities said there was no manhunt, and have questioned McAfee's sanity.

"He is extremely paranoid. I would go far as to say even bonkers," said Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow, circling his index finger.

But now, all the misdirection may be coming to any end. Asked if he feels safe, McAfee told ABC News, "Oh, absolutely. I feel like I've come home."





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