Debate appears likely to topple 36-year ratings record ADVERTISING Debate appears likely to topple 36-year ratings record NEW YORK (AP) — The showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Monday appears likely to set a record for the most-watched
Debate appears likely to topple 36-year ratings record
NEW YORK (AP) — The showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Monday appears likely to set a record for the most-watched presidential debate ever.
A final viewership estimate from the Nielsen company was not immediately available on Tuesday. But preliminary estimates from 11 of the networks that carried the debate totaled 81.4 million viewers, which would topple a record that had stood for 36 years.
The previous record for presidential debate viewership was the 80.6 million people who saw the only debate in 1980 between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger Ronald Reagan.
No debate since then had exceeded 70 million viewers.
Clinton has some bragging rights at home. When final results are in, the audience for her first presidential debate will more than double what her husband, former President Bill Clinton, received for his last presidential debate in 1996 (36.3 million viewers).
Ex-ally: Gov. Christie seemed happy about bridge gridlock
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was told about the epic 2013 traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge while it was underway, seemed happy about it and joked sarcastically that there was nothing political going on, a former loyalist testified Tuesday in the scandal that helped destroy Christie’s White House ambitions.
David Wildstein, a former executive at the agency that oversees New York-area bridges and tunnels, took the stand for the prosecution at the trial of two one-time Christie allies accused of engineering the four days of gridlock to punish a Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie. Wildstein has pleaded guilty.
Wildstein’s account was the first testimony to suggest Christie knew about the scheme as it was unfolding.
Christie has repeatedly denied that and has not been charged with a crime.
On Tuesday, the Republican governor said: “All kinds of stuff is going on up in a courtroom in Newark. I want to be really clear: I have not and will not say anything different than I’ve been saying since January 2014. No matter what is said up there, I had no knowledge prior to or during these lane realignments.”
Battle for besieged Syrian city of Aleppo intensifies
BEIRUT (AP) — With international diplomacy in tatters and the U.S. focused on its election, the Syrian government and its Russian allies are seizing the moment to wage an all-out campaign to recapture Aleppo, unleashing the most destructive bombing of the past five years and pushing into the center of the Old City.
Desperate residents describe horrific scenes in Syria’s largest city and onetime commercial center, with hospitals and underground shelters hit by indiscriminate airstrikes that the U.N. said may amount to a war crime.
Debris covers streets lined with bombed-out buildings, trapping people in their neighborhoods and hindering rescue workers. On Tuesday, activists reported at least 23 people killed in airstrikes on two districts in the rebel-held part of Aleppo.
The battle for Aleppo is unlikely to be an easy one for government forces because the isolated rebels say they are determined to “fight until the end” to defend their neighborhoods. Insurgents outside the city could also attack government troops to try to reduce pressure on comrades trapped inside.
If government forces and their allies capture the rebel-held eastern neighborhoods, it would be a turning point in the 5½-year-old civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half of Syria’s population.
Confidential UN report details South Sudan threats, violence
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The U.N. ambulance carried an urgent patient: a local woman in labor. South Sudan government soldiers stopped the ambulance 15 times at checkpoints in the capital, Juba. The Aug. 2 journey, which usually takes 15 minutes, lasted nearly two hours.
“The baby was dead on delivery,” says a confidential report from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the U.N. Security Council. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, offers a stark list of the ways that South Sudan’s government has obstructed the U.N. peacekeeping mission in a country devastated by civil war.
In one incident last month, two South Sudanese soldiers stopped a U.N. vehicle and threatened to kill the international staffers inside, the report says. In another, soldiers in the capital beat the driver of a U.N. truck “with an electric cord.”
The report is the first by the U.N. chief since the Security Council gave South Sudan’s government an ultimatum in mid-August: Allow the deployment of a 4,000-strong regional protection force and let the existing U.N. mission do its job unimpeded — or face a possible arms embargo.
While South Sudan’s government agreed in principle to the regional force during the council’s visit to the country early this month, its officials have spoken out against it, saying it violates the country’s sovereignty. Hostility against the international community inside South Sudan has grown.
2 men charged in California killings
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Two young men were charged Tuesday with murder in the slayings of a California couple and family friend who were discovered after the couple’s 6-year-old daughter called police.
Army Pfc. Joshua Acosta, 21, and Frank Felix, 25, were each charged with three counts of murder, and Acosta also faces possible sentencing enhancements for personal discharge of a firearm causing death, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.
Acosta and Felix were friends with the couple’s daughter and attended “furry” events where some participants dress up in colorful animal costumes, according to friends and their social media pages.
Prosecutors allege that Acosta was the gunman in the killings of Jennifer Yost, 39, her husband, Christopher Yost, 34, and their friend Arthur Boucher, 28.
A district attorney’s statement says the killings occurred when Acosta and Felix entered the Yosts’ Fullerton home early Saturday.
Governor signs bill targeting ‘doctor-shopping’ for opioids
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California doctors will be required to check a database of prescription narcotics before writing scripts for addictive drugs under legislation Gov. Jerry Brown signed Tuesday that aims to address the scourge of opioid abuse.
The measure attempts to crack down on a practice known as “doctor-shopping,” in which addicts visit multiple providers to obtain prescriptions for addictive drugs. The action by the Democratic governor comes amid an intensifying national focus on the problems that stem from prescription and illegal opiates.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 165,000 people died nationwide from prescription opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2014.
California maintained records of narcotic prescription histories for years in an early, paper version. The database has since been updated, but using it has been optional for physicians, dentists, nurse practitioners and others who write prescriptions.
For 20 years, doctors’ influential lobby thwarted efforts to mandate that California prescribers review patients’ narcotic prescription histories, housed in the nation’s first drug-monitoring program.
