NATION
MADISON, Wis. — Warning that the Republican presidential race has become too nasty, Scott Walker exited the 2016 campaign on Monday and urged others to quit, too, and “clear the field” so someone can emerge to take down front-runner Donald Trump.
The announcement marked a dramatic fall for Walker, who was struggling to generate money and enthusiasm after surging into the race's top tier earlier in the year. He will return to his job as governor of Wisconsin, where his term runs through 2018.
“Today, I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top,” Walker said in a news conference. “I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current front-runner.”
Walker said that is “fundamentally important to the future of the party and more importantly to the future of our country.”
One of the last Republicans to enter the race, Walker joined former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as one of the first to leave it.
ALBANY, Ga. — Before federal marshals led him from the courtroom en route to prison, possibly for the rest of his life, Stewart Parnell apologized years after his company's peanut butter spawned a deadly outbreak of salmonella poisoning.The former Peanut Corporation of America owner had remained publicly silent in 2009 after authorities traced salmonella blamed for killing nine people and sickening 714 to his plant in rural southwest Georgia. He refused to testify when called before a congressional hearing, and likewise never took the witness stand during the criminal trial that led to his conviction in U.S. District Court a year ago.A judge Monday sentenced 61-year-old Parnell to 28 years in prison. It's the harshest criminal penalty ever for a U.S. producer in a food-borne illness case and a span his attorneys say might as well be a life sentence. It came down after Parnell, in a shaky voice, spoke to those he had harmed.“It's just been a seven-year nightmare for me and my family,” Parnell told a courtroom filled with families of children who survived violent illnesses and elderly adults who died after eating his company's peanut butter. “All I can do is come before you and ask for forgiveness from you and the people back here. I'm truly sorry for what happened.”
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Border Patrol arrested nearly 10,000 unaccompanied immigrant children and families caught illegally crossing the border with Mexico in August, a 52 percent jump from August 2014, according to statistics published by the agency Monday afternoon.Since the start of the fiscal year in October, border agents have arrested more than 35,000 children traveling alone and more than 34,500 people traveling as families, mostly mothers and children. The total number of arrests for the year is down nearly 50 percent compared with a year ago, but border agents have reported a jump in arrests since July.The Border Patrol reported arresting 6,424 unaccompanied immigrant children and families in August 2014, compared to 9,790 this year.The August increase comes a year after a surge of more than 68,000 unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border. Many were trying to escape violence in Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala. For much of the year, the number of illegal border crossings by families and children has been far lower than last year, before increasing in July and August.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — She's already spent five days in jail, and now a Kentucky clerk could be back in court soon for altering marriage license forms issued to same-sex couples.Monday, lawyers for two gay couples and two straight couples questioned the validity of the new marriage licenses and asked a federal judge to order Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis' office to reissue them. If she refuses, the lawyers asked the judge to put the office in receivership and have someone else do it.Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses in June after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling effectively legalized gay marriage nationwide. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her. A federal judge ordered Davis to issue the licenses, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that order.
