CHEYENNE, Wyo.

Cheney gives first public talk since his heart transplant

Former Vice President Dick Cheney walked onstage without assistance and spoke for an hour and 15 minutes without seeming to tire in his first public engagement since he underwent a heart transplant three weeks ago.

Cheney sat in a plush chair throughout the long chat with daughter Liz Cheney but looked better than during recent appearances where he has been gaunt and used a cane.

Cheney’s heart transplant in Virginia on March 24 initially canceled his trip to the state party convention but he got last-minute medical clearance to go. “I’m not running any foot races yet but it won’t be long,” he said.

He owed a “huge debt” to the unknown donor of his new heart, he said, and to medical technology. He did not take the opportunity to weigh in on health care politics.

LA PUENTE, Calif.

Animal control officials laud Labrador retriever’s loyalty

Los Angeles County animal control officials are heralding the loyalty of a black Labrador retriever that braved traffic to stay by another dog that was fatally struck by a car.

A motorist who saw the dogs on a street Wednesday put down traffic cones to alert other drivers and shot video of the dogs. The video released Saturday showed the female Labrador lying next to a motionless, yellow Labrador as vehicles pass dangerously close to them.

The Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control says the 2-year-old dog, who animal shelter staff and volunteers have named Grace, appears to have been well cared for. However, nobody has come forward to claim her so she is up for adoption.

CAIRO

Egypt election commission disqualifies 10 candidates

Egypt’s election commission disqualified 10 presidential hopefuls, including Hosni Mubarak’s former spy chief and key Islamists, from running Saturday in a surprise decision that threatened to upend an already tumultuous race and plunge the Arab world’s most populous nation into a new political crisis.

Farouk Sultan, head of the Supreme Presidential Election Commission that was appointed by Egypt’s military rulers to oversee the vote, said that those barred from the race included Mubarak-era strongman Omar Suleiman, Muslim Brotherhood chief strategist Khairat el-Shater and hard-line lawyer-turned-preacher Hazem Abu Ismail. He didn’t give a reason.

The announcement came as a shock to many Egyptians as three of the 10 excluded were considered among the front-runners in a highly polarized campaign that has left the nation divided into two strong camps: Islamists and former regime insiders who are allegedly supported by the ruling generals.

SAO PAULO

Police arrest three people in purification sect killings

Police have arrested three people for allegedly killing at least two women, eating parts of their bodies and using their flesh to make stuffed pastries known as empanadas that they sold to neighbors in their northeastern Brazil city.

The three suspects — a man, his wife and his mistress — belonged to a sect that preached “the purification of the world and the reduction of its population,” police inspector Wesley Fernandes in the city of Garanhuns told the Globo TV network Friday.

 

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