The nation in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You can’t keep spending the kind of money they’re spending every month just to

operate the RNC. I would hope he would step aside.”

Republican National Committee member Ada Fisher,

on Chairman Michael Steele Article, 3AElbow flies; Obama’s lip gets stitches

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama needed 12 stitches in his upper lip after taking an errant elbow during a pickup basketball game Friday morning with family and friends visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday, the White House said.

First word of the injury came in a statement from press secretary Robert Gibbs nearly three hours after the injury.

The White House did not initially name the person who caused the injury, but identified him later Friday as Rey Decerega, director of programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

Obama received the stitches under local anesthesia in the doctor’s office on the ground floor of the White House after returning home. Doctors used a smaller filament than typically used, which increases the number of stitches but makes a tighter stitch and leaves a smaller scar.

The president had gone to nearby Fort McNair for a game of basketball, one of his favorite athletic pursuits. It was a five-on-five contest of family and friends. Among the players were Obama’s nephew, Avery Robinson, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Reggie Love, Obama’s personal assistant, who played at Duke University.

Judge affirms triple killer should die

HARTFORD, Conn. - A Connecticut judge has decided that a jury was fair in deciding that Steven Hayes should be executed for a home invasion that left a woman and her two daughters dead.

Lawyers for Hayes had argued that the jury was swayed by emotion after hearing and seeing gruesome testimony.

Jurors condemned Hayes to death on Nov. 8.

New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue on Friday denied defense lawyers’ motion seeking a new trial, new penalty phase hearing or a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The judge said the jury wasn’t “driven by passion and prejudice.” Public defender Thomas Ullmann said he believes that the same issues will come up on appeal.

Another defendant, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is set to go on trial next year for the killings in the town of Cheshire.

Attorney: Death suspect no scuba wiz

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - An accomplished diver charged with murder in Alabama in the honeymoon death of his wife while scuba diving in Australia had been certified in rescues but had little formal training, his attorney said Friday.

Gabe Watson served 18 months in an Australian prison for not doing enough to save his wife in 2003 but now faces more serious capital murder charges in Alabama. Prosecutors believe he hatched a plan to kill his wife, Tina Watson, 26, in Alabama before the trip.

Gabe Watson’s attorney said his client had only taken a short rescue certification class two years before the newlyweds’ dive along the Great Barrier Reef.

“It was a half-day class,” attorney Joseph Basgier told CBS’s Early Show. “He had never participated in a rescue dive before. He wasn’t an expert rescuer. He had never done it, and he was scared, too. This was his new wife.”

In 2009, Gabe Watson - who had remarried - traveled to Australia to face trial. Officials in Queensland state argued he killed his wife by turning off her air supply and holding her underwater.

Gabe Watson, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, the crime for which he served 18 months. He arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday after he was deported from Melbourne, Australia.

White House accepts Christmas tree

WASHINGTON - A day after celebrating Thanksgiving, the White House shifted into Christmas mode on Friday as Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha accepted the gift of an 18 1/2-foot Douglas fir from Pennsylvania as the official White House Christmas Tree.

The tree was hauled through the White House gates by horse-drawn carriage and presented to the Obamas by Christopher Botek. It was grown on his family’s Christmas tree farm in Lehighton, Pa. - the second time the farm has supplied the White House with its official tree.

Botek’s parents presented a tree in 2006, during the George W. Bush years.

The tree will go on display in the Blue Room and is typically the main attraction for the thousands of people who stream through the mansion in December for parties and public tours. White House staff members and volunteers will decorate it.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 11/27/2010

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