DES MOINES, Iowa

Pup named for Mike Tyson wins ‘Beautiful Bulldog’ title

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Tyson, owned by Tyler and Chelsea Motter, of Urbandale, Iowa, sits on the throne after being crowned the winner of the 33rd annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest on Monday in Des Moines, Iowa. The pageant kicks off the Drake Relays festivities at Drake University, where a bulldog is the mascot. The Associated Press

Tyson, an English bulldog, doesn’t bite ears like his namesake, boxer Mike Tyson, but he does share a title: champion. The 2-year-old pup was crowned the winner of this year’s “Beautiful Bulldog” pageant Monday in Des Moines, Iowa.

Tyson beat out 49 other pups for the honor Monday in the contest, now in its 33rd year.

ASTON, Pa.

Romney backs student loans in move to political center

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday embraced a student loan proposal that President Obama is selling on the campaign trail and refused to endorse Sen. Marco Rubio’s conservative immigration plan aimed at helping young illegal immigrants.

The two policy positions signaled an effort by Romney to move to the political center as he works to court critical general election swing voters — including young voters and Hispanic voters — after a brutal primary fight.

“I think young voters in this country have to vote for me if they’re really thinking of what’s in the best interest of the country and what’s in their personal best interest,” Romney said.

CHICAGO

Nobel Peace Prize winners urge youth involvement

Poverty, a lack of education and arms proliferation present daunting obstacles, yet peace can be achieved if world leaders are more willing to talk and young people are encouraged to get involved, Nobel Peace Prize winners said Monday at their annual meeting.

Former presidents Jimmy Carter of the United States, Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union and Lech Walesa of Poland were among the peace prize winners in Chicago for the start of the three-day World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

Carter said that, as the last global superpower, the United States has a responsibility to be a leader in peace efforts and set an example for the rest of the world. Instead, he said, the United States is “too inclined to go to war” and is contemplating going to war again, “perhaps in Iran.”

“Humankind has got to say that war comes last” and negotiation comes first, Carter said.

NEW YORK

Bin Laden sought to wreck U.S. economy, witness says

A British man who trained to be a shoe bomber a decade ago says Osama bin Laden told him after Sept. 11 that he hoped a follow-up terrorism attack would collapse the American economy.

The videotaped testimony played Monday came from Saajid Badat, who was convicted in a 2001 plot to down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. Badat was testifying at the federal trial of a man accused in a 2009 plot to attack New York’s subways with suicide bombs.

Badat said he was supposed to carry out a simultaneous bombing with failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Badat said bin Laden told him the shoe plot could ruin the aviation industry.

DETROIT

Woman alive on respirator gives birth to twin sons

Vance Terrell offered encouraging words to his pregnant sister during visits to a western Michigan hospital. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see or hear him, and would never hold her twin sons.

Christine Bolden, 26, was already brain dead from aneurysms, but doctors kept her on a respirator for a month to allow for the development of babies who were born prematurely at 25 weeks. It was a rare procedure: In 2010, German researchers found just 30 similar cases worldwide dating back to 1982.

Nicholas and Alexander Bolden weighed less than 2 pounds when they were born by cesarean section April 5, and remain on ventilators at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids.

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