Gingrich toys with idea of dropping out

Newt Gingrich suggested Monday that the end may be near for his struggling presidential campaign.

In an interview with NBC news, the former House speaker acknowledged that he would have to "reassess" his bid if he fares poorly in Tuesday's Republican primary in Delaware, a state where he has spent considerable time campaigning.

"I think we need to take a deep look at what we are doing," Gingrich said. "We will be in North Carolina tomorrow night and we will look and see what the results are."
He told NBC, "I would hope we would do well here — either carry it or come very, very close."

Gingrich has won only two states so far — South Carolina and his home state of Georgia — and his campaign is $4.3 million in debt, according to FEC filings.

And he has garnered more attention lately for being bitten by a penguin in St. Louis and bouncing a check in Utah.

Still, Gingrich has refused to bow out. Even after Rick Santorum suspended his campaign two weeks ago, Gingrich insisted that he was "committed to staying in this race all the way to Tampa so that the conservative movement has a real choice."

In Delaware, he also had some words of caution for presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

"Gov. Romney is clearly the frontrunner but that doesn't mean he is inevitable," Gingrich told a small crowd at GOP headquarters in Wilmington. "It is very dangerous for frontrunners to start behaving like they are inevitable because the voters might decide that's not so true."

Second tremor hit Western Mexico

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Two large earthquakes struck western Mexico, shaking buildings as far away as the capital and sending people rushing out of offices onto the streets, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

There were no reports of major damage after the first of the two tremors.

The USGS said the first quake on Wednesday evening in the western state of Michoacan had a magnitude of 6.5 -- and was recorded at a depth of 12.4 miles.

The second quake, in the early hours of Thursday off Baja California, was stronger at a magnitude of 6.9 and shallower at a depth of 6.2 miles.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, writing on his Twitter account after the first quake, said there were no initial signs of serious damage.

Key services in the capital, including its subway system and the international airport, were operating normally.

"There was a nasty crunching sound in my bathroom and everything moved," said Adela Arceo, who was looking after two young children in the central Roma neighborhood of Mexico City.

There were no initial reports of casualties.

Emergency services in Michoacan and in the neighboring state of Guerrero, which has been hit by a series of recent quakes, reported no major problems on Wednesday.

"You could feel it, but there's no major damage. There are no reports, no emergency calls," said Agustin Lule, a spokesman for fire services in Uruapan, a town in Michoacan near the epicenter.

Reuters reporters in coastal areas of Guerrero and neighboring Oaxaca state said there was no damage.

The Honolulu-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said it had issued no tsunami warning, but staff oceanographer David Walsh noted the quake was close to water, big enough and potentially deep enough to cause one.

The two quakes followed two tremors that jolted Mexico within the past month. A 7.4 magnitude quake struck on March 20, damaging hundreds of buildings in the southwest. That was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

Earlier on Wednesday, an 8.7 magnitude earthquake struck off Indonesia, raising fears of a huge tsunami like the one that battered the Indian Ocean rim in 2004, but authorities said there were no reports suggesting a major threat.

(Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg, Simon Gardner, Krista Hughes and Ana Isabel Martinez; writing by Dave Graham; editing by Ron Popeski)

8.6-magnitude earthquake strikes off Indonesia, triggering tsunami watch

– A tsunami watch was issued for countries across the Indian Ocean after a large earthquake hit waters off Indonesia on Wednesday, triggering widespread panic as residents along coastlines fled to high ground in cars and on the backs of motorcycles.

Some were crying. Others screamed "God as great" as they poured from their homes.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 8.6-magnitude quake was centered 20 miles beneath the ocean floor around 269 miles from Aceh's provincial capital.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.

A tsunami watch means there is the potential for a tsunami, not that one is imminent.

Said, an official at Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued for cities all along the coast of Sumatra island.

MIND MASTERY

There was chaos in the streets, with fierce shaking continuing for nearly four minutes.

"I was in the shower on the fifth floor of my hotel," Timbang Pangaribuan told El Shinta radio from the city of Medan. "We all ran out. ... We're all standing outside now."
He said one guest was injured when he jumped from the window of his room.

The tremor was felt in Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and India. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia's west coast shook for at least a minute.

Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center issued an evacuation order to residents in six provinces along the country's west coast, including the popular tourist destinations of Phuket, Krabi and Phang-Nga.

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.

A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, nearly three quarter of them in Aceh.


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Gov. Brown's tax-the-rich pitch looks like a winner

— Paul Whitefield

Photo: Gov. Jerry Brown speaks at a news conference at a Boeing plant in Long Beach. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

Californians don’t actually hate taxes. They just don’t want to pay taxes.

Huh?

No, that’s not a contradiction. As my colleague Anthony York reported in Sunday’s Times:

California voters strongly support Gov. Jerry Brown's new proposal to increase the sales tax and raise levies on upper incomes to help raise money for schools and balance the state's budget, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said they supported the governor's measure, which he hopes to place on the November ballot. It would hike the state sales tax by a quarter-cent per dollar for the next four years and create a graduated surcharge on incomes of more than $250,000 that would last seven years. A third of respondents opposed the measure.

Brown's new plan, rewritten recently amid pressure from liberal activist and union groups that had a competing proposal, relies on a larger share of revenue from upper-income earners than his original measure. Correspondingly, it leans less upon sales taxes, which are paid by all California consumers. The poll shows that taxing high earners is overwhelmingly popular.

You see: Californians aren’t opposed to tax increases — as long as it is someone else being taxed.

You want to raise my taxes? Over my dead body!

You want to raise taxes on the rich? As Oliver Twist might say, “More please.”

Or, as The Times story said:

"These poll results illustrate that Brown was very smart to put together this initiative the way he did," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

Well, yes. Go ahead with all those “Gov. Moonbeam” jokes if you want, but Brown is no dummy. The state needs money. Republicans in the Legislature act as if raising taxes violates one of the Ten Commandments. Californians believe, wrongly, that they are taxed to death (or rightly, that the Legislature needs to get a grip on how it spends tax dollars).

The solution? Pick on the rich. Because here’s what that strategy buys you:

Shirley Karns, 74, an independent voter from the Northern California town of Lakeport who backs the governor's new plan, said the wealthy should pay more.

"Those who have an unbelievable amount more than those who do not should contribute more," she said. "And on the sales tax, the more you buy, the more you pay. It's pretty tough on low-income people who have to pay an extra nickel here and there, but we've got to get the money from somewhere."

Shirley, we can safely assume, does not qualify for membership in the California millionaires club. (Nor, apparently, does she buy a lot of big-ticket items.)

Of course, these are just poll results. Poll results don’t matter as much as what happens when people step into that private little place called a voting booth. (See: L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, governor’s race, 1982.)

But with the state’s education system crumbling, its infrastructure eroding and its budget bathed in red ink, a tax increase certainly appears to be at least one part of the solution.

And here’s betting that most Californians will agree in November — especially if they’re not the ones who’ll feel the pain.

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