From the AP …
One of the two Indian men arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks was a counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission, security officials said Saturday, demanding his release.
The arrests, announced in the eastern city of Calcutta, were the first since the bloody siege ended. But what was touted as a rare success for India’s beleaguered law enforcement agencies, quickly turned sour as police in two Indian regions squared off against one another.
Senior police officers in Indian Kashmir, which has been at the heart of tensions between India and Pakistan, demanded the release of the officer, Mukhtar Ahmed, saying he was one of their own and had been involved in infiltrating Kashmiri militant groups.
Run-offs Postponed elections tonight in Louisiana. We’re bringing you the results in our news section over to the right.
Late Update, 10:39 PM: This is starting to look pretty good for Paul Carmouche (D) possibly picking up the Shreveport seat Rep. Jim McCrery (R) held for twenty years .
Later Update — 11:07 PM: Sigh, looks like a jinxed it.
Too Much Even for the Big Easy — 11:10 PM: It’s looking like Rep. “Dollar Bill” Jefferson (D) is going down to defeat.
Fork In It Update: Yep, Bill Jefferson outta there.
Shreveport Update: It seems, and I stress ‘seems’, that Fleming (R) has come from behind at the last moment to defeat Democrat Paul Carmouche. All the precincts are reporting. But the margin is only about 350 votes out of about 90k. And the local news outlets don’t seem to have called it yet.
Yet Again on Shreveport Update: As you can see on our results box we’re not ‘calling’ Louisiana-4 yet. Fleming has claimed victory. But Carmouche has not conceded defeat. The Shreveport Times is calling it for Fleming; but the AP seems not to have done so yet. It seems pretty clear Fleming, the Republican, pulled this out. But with a 350 vote margin out of 90k we’re going to hold off until the AP calls it and/or they settle things out tomorrow.
According to the New Haven Independent, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr. told a gathering in New Haven Friday night that he’s been told by the Obama transition that he will soon be tapped for a cabinet secretaryship.
As we noted last night, Republican John Fleming apparently came from behind to defeat Paul Carmouche in which is a very Republican district, Louisiana’s 4th. But the margin was only 356 votes out of more than 90k cast. And Carmouche is not conceding.
Follow up shows there’s a pretty good reason why. The current totals do not include provisional ballots (which often heavily favor Democrats) or absentee ballots (which in the past often favored Republicans but now can cut either way). They’ll both be counted on Tuesday.
Carmouche is also signaling he’ll likely ask for a recount.
Who knows? But with some non-trivial number of votes left to be counted, a 356 margin can’t be set in stone.
Mary Jo Kilroy (D) wins House seat in Ohio’s 15th district.
That’s the seat currently held by Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce.
Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times and the Baltimore Sun is on the edge of bankruptcy.
Late Update: The Journal (sub.req.) says a Chapter 11 filing is possible as soon as this week.
Obama on those factory workers occupying their factory in Chicago, demanding their benefits and pay. “When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right. What’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.”
A very disquieting — maybe just even more disquieting — article from the Journal on the India-Pakistan conflict. Tensions spiked when India’s foreign ministry called Pakistani President Zardari with a “bellicose” message at the height of the Mumbai seige. But now the two countries are arguing back and forth over whether it was actually a crank call from a prankster — a lack of clear lines of communication which could lead to some rather unpleasant misunderstandings.
No, that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Then there’s this.
A top [Pakistani] security official has said the military would be willing to fight India alongside Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, the man accused of assassinating former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr. Mehsud has denied involvement in the murder. The Taliban, too, said it would suspend its fight against Pakistani soldiers to join them a conflict with India.
McClatchy is putting the Miami Herald up for sale, according to this report from the Times.