The world at a glance . . . United States

last updated 8 January 2015

Sacramento

Whitman’s rough start: The campaign of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, considered the front-running Republican candidate for California governor, has gotten off to a rocky start. The trouble started last month, when The Sacramento Bee reported that Whitman, 53, did not register to vote until 2002. Next, the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that Whitman, who describes herself as a “darn good” Republican, donated the maximum $4,000 to the 2004 re-election campaign of liberal Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. After apologizing for her “atrocious” voting record, Whitman said she remembered voting in the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections while living in San Francisco. Election officials there are reviewing their records. Whitman also defended her support of Boxer, saying that the senator opposed taxing transactions made over the Internet, an important issue for firms like eBay.

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McChrystal rebuked: Top Obama administration officials have publicly, if obliquely, chided Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military officer in Afghanistan, for openly lobbying for a troop surge. During a speech last week in London, McChrystal complained that Washington had “under-resourced our operations” in Afghanistan. The next day, President Obama met with McChrystal for 25 minutes in Copenhagen for a conversation aides described as “awkward.” A few days later, Defense Secretary Robert Gates indirectly scolded McChrystal, saying participants in the internal administration debate about Afghanistan should speak “candidly but privately.” James Jones, Obama’s national security advisor, echoed those remarks on CNN, saying, “It’s better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.” McChrystal had no comment.

Saylorsburg, Pa.

Bear kills keeper: A 37-year-old Pennsylvania woman was killed this week by a 350-pound black bear she had raised from a cub. The bear, named Teddy, attacked Kelly Ann Walz while she was cleaning its 15-by-15-foot steel-and-concrete cage, located in a compound where Walz and her husband kept a menagerie that at one time included an African lion, a cougar, and a tiger. Neighbor Scott Castone said Walz regularly cleaned the bear’s cage, tossing food into a corner of the enclosure to distract the animal while she worked. “She’s done it 1,000 times,” Castone said. “And on 1,001, something happened.” Walz’s two young children witnessed the attack along with Castone’s children. They summoned Castone, who shot the animal dead.

Farmville, Va.

Small-town horror: A devotee of a grisly type of rap music known as “horrorcore” has been arrested in connection with the gruesome killing of four people in this quiet Virginia town last month. Richard McCroskey, 20, was arrested at Richmond International Airport, after authorities discovered four decomposing bodies in a house in Farmville, population 7,000. Police said the crime scene was “too horrible” to describe. McCroskey is a fan and performer of horrorcore, a rap genre whose lyrics celebrate murder and dismemberment. His stage name is Syko Sam. McCroskey’s attorney, Cary Bowen, said his client may not understand “the severity of everything right now.”

Bridgeport, Conn.

Church papers to air: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport must turn over internal documents relating to the clergy sex-abuse scandal, after the U.S. Supreme Court this week refused to block their release. Several newspapers had sued to gain access to 12,000 pages of documents, generated during 23 lawsuits against six priests accused of molesting young boys. The suits were settled in 2001. The documents could detail how and why church officials shuffled priests suspected of abuse from parish to parish. Lawyers for the diocese argued that the documents were protected by First Amendment religious privileges. “The right of the church to determine the suitability of its own ministers has been compromised,” said Bridgeport Bishop William Lori.

New York City

Security blanket: A high-tech surveillance network, already in place in lower Manhattan, will blanket midtown Manhattan by 2011, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this week. The network, extending from 30th Street to 60th Street and encompassing Times Square, will feed data from high-resolution cameras, license-plate readers, and weapons sensors to a central command center. Funded by a $24 million federal grant, the security system will cover Grand Central Station, Penn Station, the United Nations, and other landmarks. The announcement follows the unraveling of an alleged terrorist plot to explode homemade bombs in New York City. “We cannot afford to be complacent,” Bloomberg said. But civil-liberties activists raised alarms. “The fear is that the NYPD, without any oversight or public scrutiny, is creating a massive surveillance system,” said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

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