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Nation in brief

Poll gives low marks to most lawmakers

By wire services
Published December 9, 2005

WASHINGTON - Indictments, investigations and a congressman's guilty plea for taking millions in bribes have left most Americans convinced that political corruption is a deeply rooted problem, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

Missteps and misconduct that have reached into all levels of government - from the White House and Congress to governors' offices in Connecticut and Ohio - have helped drive 88 percent of those surveyed to say the problem is a serious one.

Scandal has touched all politicians. President Bush's approval rating was 42 percent, better than his 37 percent approval rating in a previous AP-Ipsos poll, but still well below his marks for most of his presidency.

Sixty-five percent of respondents disapproved of lawmakers' work in Washington and only 31 percent approved, the worst numbers since AP-Ipsos began asking the question in January.

ATLANTA - A judge Thursday freed an inmate whose claims of innocence in a kidnapping and rape went unheeded for nearly a quarter of a century, until DNA evidence proved him right.

At the end of the 15-minute hearing, Robert Clark hugged and kissed family members, repeatedly said, "I told you. I told you."

Clark's mother died and his children grew up and had families of their own while he sat in prison for a 1981 attack on an Atlanta woman.

Clark, 45, was convicted and sentenced to life plus 20 years after the woman identified him as the man who abducted her at gunpoint and raped her repeatedly. But recent DNA tests showed Clark did not commit the crime.

CHESTERFIELD, Va. - A white man who violated Virginia fair housing laws by refusing to sell his home to a black woman will pay $12,000 dollars in fines for the snub, a judge ruled Thursday.

Ruffus T. Matthews will have to pay Nealie Pitts $3,500 in compensatory damages and $1,000 in punitive damages. Matthews is also required to pay $7,500 to Housing Opportunities Made Equal, a Virginia fair housing group. He will also be required to take three hours of fair housing classes within 60 days.

The case concerned a 2002 incident in which Pitts, who hoped to buy Matthews' brick single family home, said she was told the property was "not for colored."

Storms across the nation's midsection delivered freezing cold and as much as 10 inches of snow by Thursday, bedeviling drivers on slippery roads and closing schools from Texas to Indiana.

At least 10 people were killed in road wrecks in Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky over two days. In Texas, a mother and son died in a fire caused by an improperly installed wood-burning stove.

The eastbound storm system was expected to leave a half-foot of snow in central Illinois and 3 to 5 inches in the Chicago area, where by late afternoon about 30 flights had been canceled at O'Hare International and Midway airports.

[Last modified December 9, 2005, 01:20:12]