In the news

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska incumbent who is mounting a write-in campaign to keep her seat after losing the Republican primary last month, will remain in her post as top minority member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, GOP lawmakers in Washington decided.

Roberto Cintio, 62, an Italian engineer, has been arrested in Brazil after police say he amassed $259,000 in traffic fines and other penalties, mostly for speeding, linked to his 9-year-old General Motors van.

Bill Clinton, the former president, said the American people should give Democrats two more years to dig the country out of an economic hole that he blamed on eight years of a Republican administration, adding that if the Democrats then fail, “throw us all out.”

Robert Foucrault, the San Mateo County, Calif., coroner, said the death toll from a pipeline explosion in a residential area has risen to seven after officials identified three more victims, all members of one family.

Andrew Marr, a BBC reporter and author of The Making of Modern Britain, said he hoped his book was not “being taken off to be pulped” after a truck carrying boxes that held nearly 17 tons of the history volume overturned on an English highway and blocked the road for several hours.

Gov. Jim Gibbons, 65, a Nevada Republican, broke his pelvis in two places after a horse he was attempting to get on spooked and bucked him off at a private ranch, his spokesman said, adding that surgery is planned to repair the damage.

Doug Colety, chairman of New York’s Westchester County Republicans, said the party is going to court to get Jim Russell, 56, the GOP candidate in a New York congressional race, off the ballot because he wrote an article warning against the mingling of the races, adding: “We’ve denounced his campaign. ... This is not the way Republicans think.”

Michelle Obama, the first lady, is hitting the campaign trail next month and will headline at least nine fundraisers in six states for Democrats, the White House said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that despite a ban on importing birds from Afghanistan because of avian flu fears, federal officials have agreed to let Mitch, an eagle wounded on a firing range in Afghanistan and rescued by Navy SEALs, into the United States, where he will find a new home at a bird sanctuary in upstate New York.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/23/2010

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