Clinton launches new Fla., Mich. offensives

BOCA RATON, Fla. – With a bit of momentum from her landslide Kentucky victory and less lopsided Oregon loss, Hillary Clinton is turning her attention to two states that have already voted, Florida and Michigan, over two states and a territory that have yet to, South Dakota, Montana and Puerto Rico.

It’s part of a last-gasp strategy aimed at prolonging her campaign by convincing the party to alter the nomination math. By seating the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations, she would not only gain a significant number of delegates but also bolster her popular vote argument with the superdelegates.

The new Florida and Michigan offensive will kick off in earnest today with three campaign events in South Florida – though she’ll have to share the state with Obama, who begins a three-day campaign swing there – and will likely also include campaigning in Michigan. That’s in addition to an already circulating online petition and escalating campaign rhetoric casting Clinton as best-positioned to carry the two important big states in the fall against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain – partly because of her fight against disenfranchising Democrats there.

In an intentional bit of symbolism, Clinton’s three campaign stops will be in Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade counties – the three jurisdictions where Democrats allege voters were disenfranchised during the 2000 presidential election.

Clinton campaign officials acknowledge the target audience for the offensive is not only voters but the superdelegates who will ultimately decide the nomination as voters and the party officials who will meet May 31 to effectively rule on the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegations.

“What’s driving this effort is primarily the belief that every voice and every vote should count, something that Sen. Clinton believes very strongly,” said campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee. “And we hope that everyone shares that same value, including superdelegates, DNC members and all Democrats.”

He said more than 360,000 people had added their names to an online petition supporting the seating of the states’ delegates. And he said the campaign has been asking supporters to take that message to members of the Democratic National Committee and its Rules and Bylaws Committee.

The previously little-known committee will meet before the next primary in Puerto Rico June 1 to decide whether, or how, to allocate delegate votes from the two states. The DNC stripped the states of their delegate votes for holding their primaries earlier than the party wanted.

Clinton, who won both states’ primaries (Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan), has repeatedly called for the panel to seat the delegations at this summer’s Democratic National Convention, an outcome that would cut into Obama’s lead in pledged delegates.

David McDonald, an uncommitted Washington state superdelegate who sits on the rules committee, said he wouldn’t be swayed by “mere publicity and a claim to be able to win the states.”

Still, Obama doesn’t appear inclined to let Clinton have the Florida and Michigan stages to herself.

He also arrived today in Florida and will be spending three days campaigning here, seeking to win over voters who sided with Clinton by a margin of 50 percent to 33 percent in the unsanctioned Jan. 29 primary. Last week, he paid his first visit this year to Michigan, touring a Chrysler plant, holding a town hall in Macomb County and a rally in Grand Rapids.

It’s unlikely that the rules committee will back a solution that significantly boosts Clinton’s pledged delegate tally.

But she has portrayed her effort to seat the delegations as a fight to protect voters’ franchise in the two states.

“I’m going on now to campaign in Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico – and I’m going to be standing up for the voters of Florida and Michigan,” she told supporters during her Kentucky victory speech Tuesday. “Democrats in those two states cast 2.3 million votes and they deserve to have those votes counted. That’s why I’m going to keep making our case until we have a nominee whoever she may be.”

Expect to hear more Florida and Michigan talk in the coming days, said Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, who said the campaign will “probably” travel to Michigan soon.

“The reason you probably hear more frequency is we have a lot fewer contests coming up,” he said Tuesday night. “They’re two of the five remaining events that are going to be very important to determine who the nominee of the Democratic Party is. So before, you heard a lot of talk about Pennsylvania and Indiana and North Carolina. Now, we have obviously Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Montana – and to resolve these two important states.”

Thunderous applause filled the Louisville hotel ballroom where Clinton held her Kentucky victory party when she delivered the Florida-and-Michigan line, but McAuliffe admitted superdelegates are the main audience for the appeal.

The goal seems to be implanting the idea that Clinton would fare better than Obama against McCain in Florida and Michigan in November partly because of her support for seating the two delegations.

It’s a theory that has become increasingly prominent in the campaign’s message over the last few days.

McAuliffe asserted Tuesday “it makes it a lot easier for our Electoral College map if Florida and Michigan are excited about the upcoming elections and don’t feel they were disenfranchised in the nominating process. So our argument’s always been – and all the different maps and the recent polling data show it – Hillary Clinton beats John McCain … in Ohio. She beats him in Florida. She wins Pennsylvania. She wins states we’ve got to win.”

A late April poll by Quinnipiac University found Clinton leading McCain 49 percent to 41 percent among Florida voters, while Obama and McCain were tied.

And Bill Clinton Tuesday morning told reporters that not seating the states’ delegations “violates our values and is dumb politics.”

It would alienate those states’ voters in the general election, he asserted, adding “we’re going to decapitate them, smush them, step on them, act like they never existed, act like they never voted.”

Carrie Budoff Brown and Avi Zenilman contributed to this report.

Lost parrot tells veterinarian his address

TOKYO - When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught — recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

But Yosuke apparently wasn't keen on opening up to police officials.

"I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me," Uemura said.

US biotech company offers to clone man's best friend

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US biotech company on Wednesday announced it will auction off the right for five dog owners to have their furry best friend cloned, with bidding starting at 100,000 dollars.

"BioArts International ... will sell five dog cloning service slots to the general public via a worldwide online auction," the California-based biotech start-up said in a statement.

Registration for the auctions opens Wednesday. Bidding in that first auction begins on June 18 at 1300 GMT and runs for 24 hours, BioArts says on its bestfriendsagain.com website.

BioArts is the only company in the world licensed to clone dogs, cats and endangered species, the company statement says.

It uses the same cloning method that gave the world Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned in July 1996 from an adult cell.

Dogs are arguably the most difficult mammal to clone, according to BioArts.

"We may or may not perform any additional commercial dog cloning services after this auction," the company says on its website.

Pilots run out of fuel, pray, land near Jesus sign

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - It seemed like an almost literal answer to their prayers. When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field — coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord."

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, both from the town of Blenheim on the country's South Island, were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound when the engine spluttered, coughed and died.

"My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God's help," Stubbs told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

He said he prayed during the ill-fated flight Sunday that the tiny craft would get over the top of a ridge and that they would find a landing site that was not too steep — or in the nearby sea.

Wilson said that the pair would have been in deep trouble if the fuel had run out five minutes earlier.

"If it had to run out, that was the place to be," he said. "There was an instantaneous answer to prayer as we crossed the ridge and there was an airfield — I didn't know it existed till then."

After Wilson glided the powerless craft to a landing on the grassy strip, the pair noticed they were beside a 20-foot-tall sign that read, "Jesus is Lord — The Bible."

"When we saw that, we started laughing," Stubbs said.

Nearby residents provided them with gas to fly the home-built plane back to base.

Calif. quake scientists detail impact of 'Big One'

LOS ANGELES - The "Big One," as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California's mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border. In less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly.

The jolt from the 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes — 15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake.

Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.

Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.

Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region — too many for firefighters to tackle at once.

A team of about 300 scientists, governments, first responders and industries worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for preparedness, including a statewide drill planned later this year. Published by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, it is to be released Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Researchers caution that it is not a prediction, but the possibility of a major California quake in the next few decades is very real.

Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California. The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.

"We cannot keep on planning for Northridge," said USGS seismologist Lucy Jones. "The science tells that it's not the worst we're going to face."

USGS geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut said scientists wanted to create a plausible narrative and avoided science fiction like the 2004 TV miniseries "10.5" about an Armageddon quake on the West Coast.

"We didn't want to stretch credibility," said Hudnut. "We didn't want to make it a worst-case scenario, but one that would have major consequences."

The figures are based on the assumption that the state takes no continued action to retrofit flimsy buildings or update emergency plans. The projected loss is far less than the magnitude-7.9 killer that caused more than 40,000 deaths last week in western China, in part because California has stricter building code enforcement and retrofit programs.

The scenario is focused on the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other. The fault is the source of some of the largest earthquakes in state history, including the monstrous magnitude-7.8 quake that reduced San Francisco to ashes and killed 3,000 people in 1906.

In imagining the next "Big One," scientists considered the section of the San Andreas loaded with the most stored energy and the most primed to break. Most agree it's the southernmost segment, which has not popped since 1690, when it unleashed an estimated 7.7 jolt.

Scientists chose the parameters of the fictional temblor such as its size and length of rupture and ran computer models to simulate ground movement. Engineers calculated the effects of shaking on freeways, buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure. Risk analysts used the data to estimate casualties and damages.

A real quake would yield different results from the scenario, which excludes possibilities such as fierce Santa Ana winds that could whip fires into infernos.

The scenario: The San Andreas Fault suddenly rumbles to life on Nov. 13, 2008, just after morning rush hour. The quake begins north of the U.S.-Mexican border near the Salton Sea and the fault ruptures for about 200 miles in a northwest direction ending near the high desert town of Palmdale about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

Scientists chose the scenario because it would create intense shaking in the Los Angeles Basin and neighboring counties — a region with nearly 22 million people.

The scenario will be released at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources meeting in Washington.

Here are the major elements:

_10 a.m.: The San Andreas Fault ruptures, sending shock waves racing at 2 miles per second.

_30 seconds later: The agricultural Coachella Valley shakes first. Older buildings crumble. Fires start. Sections of Interstate 10, one of the nation's major east-west corridors, break apart.

_1 minute later: Interstate 15, a key north-south route, is severed in places. Rail lines break; a train derails. Tremors hit burgeoning Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.

_1 minute, 30 seconds later: Shock waves advance toward the Los Angeles Basin, shaking it violently for 55 seconds.

_2 minutes later: The rupture stops near Palmdale, but waves march north toward coastal Santa Barbara and into the Central Valley city of Bakersfield.

_30 minutes later: Emergency responders begin to fan across the region. A magnitude-7 aftershock hits, but sends its energy south into Mexico. Several more big aftershocks will hit in following days and months.

Major fires following the quake would cause the most damage, said Keith Porter, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studied physical damage for the scenario.

The quake would likely spark 1,600 fires that would destroy 200 million square feet of housing and residential properties worth between $40 billion and $100 billion, according to the scenario.

Once the shaking stops, emergency responders would do a "windshield survey" that involves rolling through neighborhoods to tally damage and identify areas of greatest need, said Larry Collins, captain of the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force at the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Collins said the scale of the disaster means firefighters would not be able to put out every flame.

"We're going to have to think about out-of-the-box solutions," he said.