Consumer Reports says Ford is slipping

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GM recalls SUVs to fix tire pressure monitors

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Range Rover sheds pounds, aims to gain share

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The new Range Rover Evoque is the smallest and lightest model ever to wear the Land Rover nameplate.

Few vehicles can match the off-road capabilities of the typical Land Rover sport-utility vehicle. But when it came time to introduce the new Range Rover Evoque the British maker dug even deeper to reinforce its claims – more than 100 feet beneath the streets of Liverpool.

The media preview – staged in a long-abandoned network of railroad tunnels – was intended to show that the distinctive new Evoque could handle anything the typical buyer would likely run into. But the reality is that few will ever experience anything rougher than a gravel road or un-shoveled driveway. So why design a vehicle carrying all the extra hardware – and weight – of the typical Land Rover? 

While the iconic British brand isn’t likely to abandon the classic SUV that has been its foundation for the last 60 years, Land Rover is planning some major changes, and the Evoque is the first sign of what’s in store.

Apparently, the new crossover-ute has struck the right chord.  It has been named Motor Trend magazine's SUV of the Year and is a semi-finalist for North American Truck of the Year, an award that will be presented at the Detroit Auto Show in January.

The Range Rover Evoque is the first car-based crossover produced by the luxury brand, now owned by India’s Tata Motors, rather than the classic body-on-frame SUV.  With its funky, coupe-like styling, the new model is both the smallest and, at just north of 3,500 pounds in base configuration, the lightest model ever to wear a Rover badge. 

That reflects the reality of today’s automotive market. Motorists are generally downsizing as they struggle to deal with crowded city streets and rising fuel prices. That doesn’t mean they want to give up style, performance, space or functionality, however. 

So while Evoque abandons the low-range gearbox found on the classic Range Rover and other, less expensive Land Rover models, it carries over the Terrain Response Control system that, with the touch of a button, takes the guesswork out of driving on different surfaces, such as mud-and-ruts, gravel, snow-and-ice or standard pavement. 

It does that by revising the settings of all manner of vehicle operations. In one of the off-road modes, Evoque’s ride height increases by several inches. Throttle response changes appropriately. In snow, you’ll start out in second gear. Transmission and brake-intervention systems like ABS and electronic stability control also are reprogrammed for optimum traction and handling.

That dependence on electronic, rather than mechanical, technology will become increasingly apparent in future products, as will the wedge shape of the Evoque, explained Gerry McGovern, the brand’s design director, acknowledging, “Land Rover needs redefining.”

The process began with the unveiling of the LRX concept vehicle in January 2008 at the North American International Auto Show.  Company officials admit they weren’t sure what to expect, but the strong response to the show car convinced them to move forward with the project that became Evoque, which was launched while the brand was still owned by Ford Motor Co., then brought to market by Tata, which acquired both Land Rover and sibling British brand Jaguar in March 2008.

“We knew we had something very special on our hands, something that could change the perception of the brand," said Land Rover managing director Phil Popham

The buzz kept building as the maker carefully doled out details of the project and by the time of the recent media preview there were already 20,000 orders in hand.  Significantly, 80 percent of those buyers have never before owned a Land Rover product.

Considering initial reviews, the new Range Rover Evoque very well could become one of – if not the – best-selling model in the brand’s history.  Long little more than a niche player, Land Rover is aiming to take itself at least a bit more mainstream.  That doesn’t mean it will walk away from classic truck-based SUVs. Quite the contrary. 

It revealed an all-new concept version of the big Defender model at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, McGovern describing it as a “vision of the 21st Century” SUV. A production version should roll into showrooms in a couple of years.

But even such traditional offerings will undergo some dramatic changes, according to Popham, who revealed a corporate goal of trimming anywhere from 800 to 1,100 pounds of weight off the typical Land Rover product. That will be critical if the marque hopes to meet tough new emissions and mileage requirements going into effect in most of its key markets.

Expect also to see a shift to more high-tech powertrains, he hinted. There’ll be more diesels – and very likely a diesel for the U.S. market.  The Range Rover Evoque, meanwhile, will be the first Land Rover offering to get a hybrid-electric drivetrain.  Even conventional gasoline powertrains will be downsized and turbocharged – like the turbo 2.0-liter direct injection 4-cylinder engine offered in the new crossover.

While rising fuel prices have clearly had an impact on the utility vehicle market, sales have remained surprisingly strong.  But Land Rover officials recognize they can’t keep practicing business as usual. The new Evoque gives a hint of the alternative future they’re mapping out.

A look at how dealers can profit from Land Rover's winning SUV, with Ryan Ambrifi, Land Rover of Milford, CT managing partner.

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Ford posts 10th consecutive quarterly profit

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Girl shot at North Carolina school, prompting lockdown

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WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina | Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:09pm EDT

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - A high school student was shot in the neck during an outdoor lunch break at a North Carolina school on Monday, prompting a lockdown of two campuses as authorities tried to identify her shooter.

Exactly what happened at Cape Fear High School in Fayetteville to land the 15-year-old girl in the hospital confounded investigators.

"This was probably one of the strangest shootings that we've ever come across," Cumberland County Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Tanna told WRAL News.

"There have been all kinds of scenarios that have been tossed around here today," she said. "We're not (any) closer to knowing right now as we were when this initially happened."

Sheriff Earl "Moose" Butler told reporters that students who were outside for lunch at the high school said they thought they heard a "pop" about the time of the shooting, but no one saw a gun.

The injured student, who is in the 10th grade, fell to the ground, Butler said. Tanna said a school resource officer was standing nearby when the shooting occurred and saw the student get hit, but did not see any "chaos" around her at the time.

The student was in stable condition on Monday evening, according to Theresa Perry, assistant superintendent for Cumberland County Schools. She could not indicate how serious the girl's injuries were.

Officials locked down the high school and a nearby middle school for several hours after the shooting. School buses and students were searched by law enforcement before being released several hours later, officials said.

All after-school activities on both campuses were canceled on Monday, but officials expected the schools to reopen as usual on Tuesday, Perry told Reuters.

Law enforcement and school officials have been more vigilant about the potential for gun violence in schools following the 1999 shooting massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.

At Columbine, students Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher and injured 21 other students before taking their own lives.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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Perry Ups Ante With Flat Tax Plan

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In his effort to reboot his struggling presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a statement Tuesday morning with a starkly conservative flat tax proposal. The plan would set personal income and corporate taxes at 20 percent, would eliminate the capital gains and estate tax, and would be paired with a commitment, and eventually a constitutional amendment, to bring federal spending down to 18 percentof gross domestic product. The plan was crafted with the help of magazine publisher Steve Forbes, who used a similar plan in his unsuccessful runs for the White House in 1996 and 2000.

Already, it may have succeeded by drawing a sharp contrast with his chief rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose 59-point economic plan has been attacked for being too complicated, and for stopping short of a single-rate flat tax. Perry's plan may shore up support from the anti-tax, libertarian-leaning side of the conservative movement. "It's better than anything on the table right now," says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist had been critical of businessman Herman Cain's "9-9-9" proposal, which includes a 9 percent flat income tax but would create a new national sales tax. Chris Chocola, a former Indiana representative and current president of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax advocacy group which is a major player in GOP primary politics, praised Perry and blasted Romney for failing to offer up a similar plan. "I continue to be disappointed that Governor Romney has yet to embrace a flat or fair tax," Chocola said in a written statement. "He would be wise to avoid using class warfare when comparing his current proposals to those of Governor Perry or Herman Cain."

[Is Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan a good idea?]

But despite the support from die-hard anti-tax activists, the plan is raising questions from some conservatives. For one thing, like Forbes' plan, it's optional. Taxpayers could opt to keep their current rate, and whatever deductions they enjoy, rather than going into the new plan. "It undermines the claim that he's sweeping away the very complexity of the current code," says Alan Viard, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "I was very disappointed to see that feature." Even if taxpayers opt into the new system, if they make less than $500,000 a year they can still keep deductions for charity, for interest on their mortgages, and for local and state tax deductions, annoying those who say that the United States needs to clear away all tax deductions. Daniel Mitchell, an economist with the libertarian Cato Institute, criticized the plan for continuing those deductions, but said it overall was an improvement. "It's no big surprise that it doesn't measure up to my idea of perfection," he says.

[Vote Now: Who Is Your Pick for the Republican Nomination?]

The plan ensures that the government will collect less in revenue than it did before, Viard argued. Even if it weren't optional, the new tax rates would amount to an overall tax cut at a time when the government faces gigantic deficits. But because it is optional, in a way it's more of a series of targeted tax breaks than a total tax overhaul—those who would pay less in taxes would opt for the new system, those who would pay more would stick with the old. While that makes some activists such as Norquist happy—he's long advocated lowering taxes as a way to eventually shrink the size of government—Viard says it's dangerous to cut off government revenue while federal deficits continue to climb. While Perry also laid out some ideas of how to cut the federal budget, including eventually raising the eligibility age of Social Security, it's still not entirely clear how he could reduce spending by enough to cover the difference.

Despite the questions, Perry's flat tax proposal is likely just what his campaign needed, a chance to define himself as the serious conservative alternative to Romney. But he'll have to show he can master the details of complex policy before he wins over skeptics.

aparker@usnews.com

Twitter: @AlexParkerDC

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Romney Campaign Confident in Frontrunner Status

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A senior Romney aide points out that the former Massachusetts governor has maintained his position in the top tier of Republican presidential candidates for many months, an achievement in itself.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 GOP hopefuls.]

He has done this by minimizing errors, remaining steady when under attack, raising lots of money, and most of all by staying on message. Romney has relentlessly criticized President Obama on the economy rather than getting distracted by other issues such as criticism of Romney's Mormon religion and his healthcare plan in Massachusetts, his advisers say. "We stick to our policies and our own plan," the senior Romney aide told me.

[Read: Democrats Continute to Rip Romney.]

Rommey advisers say it would be wrong to see the current GOP presidential campaign as a repeat of 2008, when the leading candidate, John McCain, faded and then came back to win the nomination (by defeating Romney and others). This time, different candidates have risen to the top in the polls, only to quickly drop back under the weight of their own mistakes, media scrutiny, and the criticism from their rivals. All the while, Romney has held onto from 20 to 25 per cent of the GOP vote in the polls. Politicohas an interesting analysis here.

And the early debates have been key. Many Americans have been paying close attention, and some candidates such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry have harmed themselves with weak performances. Others, including Romney and businessman Herman Cain, have done well. And the debate phase isn't over, with one Romney senior adviser estimating that there could be 13 more such encounters between now and the end of January.

[Vote now: Who is your pick for the 2012 GOP nomination?]

But from now on, the candidates are also expected to increasingly focus on television ads, building their grass-roots organizations, giving major speeches, and retail campaigning in the states with early nominating contests--Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada. It's in all these areas that the Romney team expects to shine.

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Two accused killers break out of Florida prison

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By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla | Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:08pm EDT

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) - Two accused killers escaped through an air conditioning vent and used blankets to scale razor-wire-topped fences to break out of maximum security at a Florida prison before dawn on Monday, authorities said.

"When all the details come out, you probably won't believe (it)," Indian River Sheriff Deryl Loar said.

The two men had been cellmates for the past five days in the Indian River County Jail and were being held on murder charges for separate incidents.

"It was a very elaborate scheme. We also know that it was very detailed in the way they departed the premises," Loar said at a press conference.

Loar said the inmates made use of the jail's air conditioning system to get out of the jail building and used clothing or blankets to help scale multiple razor-wire-topped fences. Investigators believe the inmates had outside help and fled in a car, he said.

One of the escaped inmates, Rondell H. Reed, who turns 52 on Tuesday, has a history of shooting at police, according to sheriff's records. The other escapee, Leviticus Uriah Taylor, 25, was convicted of first-degree murder within the past month and was due to be sentenced on November 10, Loar said.

Loar said both are considered dangerous and likely have left the immediate Indian River area.

The inmates were discovered missing during a routine hourly head count just before dawn, officials said. During a search of the jail, their red jumpsuits were found in a service area.

According to sheriff's records, Taylor was convicted of a 2009 murder during a home burglary. Reed was awaiting trial in connection with the murder of his sister's boyfriend and theft of the victim's Corvette at an automotive shop.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)

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Police, Wall Street protesters fall into uneasy truce

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1 of 4. Protesters and members of Occupy Wall Street shout slogans against police next to New York Police Department (NYPD) officers, during an annual demonstration calling for a stop to police brutality in New York October 22, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

By Ben Berkowitz

NEW YORK | Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:50pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a rough start marked by mass arrests and allegations of heavy-handed behavior, the New York Police Department has settled into an uneasy standoff with the protesters of Occupy Wall Street.

Officers say they are frustrated by people they think are willfully flouting the law -- protesters marching without permits, erecting tents, breaking noise and curfew regulations, publicly defecating and so on. Meanwhile, protesters say the cops should be with them, not against them, in their fight.

Five weeks after the first protest in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, a nervous stalemate has evolved as the movement mushroomed and drew the world's scrutiny.

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association of the NYPD and a 30-year veteran of the force, finds the mixed messages from above frustrating. "At times we don't have to - or they don't want us to - do things, and at times they do want us to do things. There's no real clear message as to what right and wrong is," he said. "In many ways we are almost the pawns in this situation."

The early days of the protest, which routinely draws at least a few hundred people, were marked by more contentious relations. There was a high-profile incident of an occupier being pepper-sprayed by a senior officer, who has since been disciplined. On October 1, more than 700 people were arrested after a march on the Brooklyn Bridge; many accused the police of entrapping them.

Paul Browne, the NYPD's chief spokesman, was widely quoted after those arrests saying the protesters had been given ample warning to get off the bridge's roadway before being detained.

Browne did not return phone calls or emails over the course of a week seeking comment on the police's relations with the protesters or its tactics in dealing with the movement.

But as the Occupy Wall Street protests have grown larger and drawn more attention, the tone of relations has changed.

When a group of protesters was arrested in Washington Square Park in Manhattan early on October 16 for an act of civil disobedience - failing to obey a midnight curfew - the atmosphere, by all accounts, was relatively calm.

A branch movement has even popped up - OccupyPolice - to try and convince officers to join the protests. Its website lists contact information for police departments and attorneys general nationwide to further the effort.

CAUGHT ON FILM

The police are also under pressure because they know they are potentially on film at all times. The overwhelming majority of demonstrators have smartphones, and many have handheld cameras as well, such that anything the police do, day or night, can be captured from multiple angles.

One expert on policing policy said the constant scrutiny by protesters and the media had a clear effect.

"Police departments around the country and the world, and that includes the NYPD ... are very much concerned with visible accountability," said Maki Haberfeld, the chairwoman of the department of law and police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Still, she said that despite the presence of cameras "you cannot demand of police officers that they perform their duties in an emotionless manner."

One officer who has become something of a media darling over the course of the protests said there was an unease between the sides but behind that there was also dialogue.

"There's mistrust on their end, there's mistrust on our end, but we're trying to maintain a relationship," said Detective Rick Lee, a non-uniformed officer who has been dubbed the "hipster cop" by a number of websites for his trendy dress and ongoing dialogue with the protesters.

Some protesters are willing to concede that not all the police guarding them are against them.

"They're asking people questions, they're intrigued, they want to know," said protester Andrew Carbone of Brooklyn. "The cops, you see them a lot of times smiling, laughing at stuff."

RUNNING COUNT

In keeping with the core role social media plays in the Occupy movement, a Twitter account has popped up, @OccupyArrests, to keep a running count of those who have been arrested for participating in some capacity. As of Monday afternoon, the account tallied 2,382 arrests worldwide, though that figure is not independently verified.

Fears of a crackdown have spawned parody. A Facebook page called "Occupy Lego Land," urging peaceful protests by the popular children's' toys, carried pictures of toy police roughing up toy protesters during a "demonstration."

Joke or not, cops chafe at such images.

"If anything rankles a police officer it's that kind of stuff, it's the kind of stuff that makes the cops look like they're out of control," said one retired police official now involved with an association of officers.

The protesters tell police they too are "the 99 percent" -- working and middle-class Americans who struggle to pay bills and chafe at the inequities in the financial system.

For the dozens of cops circling the park, who spend most days doing little more than standing cross-armed and staring at the crowd, there is some financial upside.

"There's so much of this stuff going on, our guys tend to look at it as 'great I'll get some overtime,'" the retired official said.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz, editing by Martin Howell)

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Thousands Plan to Protest Keystone Pipeline

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Home > Politics & Policy > Washington Whispers > Thousands Plan to Protest Keystone Pipeline

October 25, 2011 Print

Thousands of people are gearing up for November 6 when they will encircle the White House in Washington, D.C., to protest the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Their message to President Obama? Tar sands oil is not in the national interest and that he must deny the presidential permit for the 1,700 mile Keystone XL pipeline, which runs from Canada through the United States to Mexico.

[See a collection of political cartoons on energy policy.]

The Sierra Club has said that this is one of the most important environmental issues confronting Obama. The oil, according to environmentalists, is some of the dirtiest, most destructive oil in the world and could threaten drinking water as well as farmers and ranchers. Even some Tea Party activists in Texas have aligned with environmentalists to protest the pipeline. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's State Department, too, has a say in the pipeline. (TransCanada's main lobbyist for the pipeline was deputy manager of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.)

[Read how global economic problems could mean lower gas prices.]

The clean air advocates plan to highlight this conflict of interest during the rally. More importantly, they say, that this will be a real test for Obama to stand his ground as he is going into the 2012 campaign. The issue affects several heartland states like Nebraska, which Obama barely won in 2008. If he sells them out on this, they may not turn out in 2012 to pull the lever for him. "He needs a big win, not just a bunch of proposed EPA regs that haven't been finalized such as the mercury rule and the ozone rule," says one environmentalist involved in the issue.

Tags:oil, White House 2011: 2010: 2009: 2008: 2007: 2006:

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Brooklyn man accused of butchering boy to plead insanity

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By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK | Mon Oct 24, 2011 5:56pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for the Brooklyn man accused of butchering an 8-year-old boy on his first walk home alone from an Orthodox Jewish day camp said on Monday they believe his signed confession was coerced and will pursue an insanity defense.

Levi Aron, 35, is charged with kidnapping, suffocating and dismembering Leiby Kletzky in July. His lawyers say he is insane and should therefore be found not guilty.

"My opinion is you could get this guy to admit he shot (John F.) Kennedy if you spent a little bit of time with him," Howard Greenberg, a lawyer defending Aron, told reporters after a brief hearing at the Supreme Court in Brooklyn, New York.

Greenberg in a later interview told Reuters that he thought his client was "crazy." Re recounted a meeting in which Aron "sat in a chair and didn't move a muscle for about 30 minutes," and said he found Aron's signed confession dubious, noting it was written in "police Mandarin and lingo."

Aron appeared at Monday's hearing via a video feed, which showed him sitting virtually motionless in jail. He spoke only to confirm that he could hear the audio feed from the courtroom.

Aron was arrested on July 13 after a search by police and members of the local Orthodox community led to his apartment in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, where parts of Kletzky's dismembered body were found in the freezer, according to prosecutors.

He has been charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping, and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation ruled that Aron was fit to stand trial. At the time, Aron's lawyers said they were considering an insanity defense and on Monday, they confirmed that was the defense they would pursue.

Arom has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held without bail.

The Brooklyn District Attorney's office declined to comment on the defense strategy.

Dov Hikind, an assemblyman whose district includes Borough Park and who attended the court hearing, said the Kletzky family was upset at the thought Aron might be found not guilty.

"The message to the family and to everyone else is, 'Don't hold it against Levi Aron, it wasn't him, it was the devil that did it,' -- that kind of thing is extremely painful," he said in an interview.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Greg McCune)

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Debt 'Supercommittee' Taking Small Steps

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The Republican head of a special deficit-reduction panel in Congress said on Tuesday he was hopeful that at least some modest steps can be achieved by a November 23 deadline.

There has been growing uncertainty about how much the committee can achieve and there have been few signs of progress so far, raising questions about its ability to reach the minimum target of at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings over 10 years.

"I remain hopeful that the Joint Select Committee can show progress on a bipartisan basis of at least taking a few steps down the road of fiscal sustainability," Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling told Reuters in an interview.

The 12 Democratic and Republican members of the so-called "super committee" have been negotiating behind closed doors since early September in an effort to find ways of slashing huge U.S. deficits amid a stubbornly weak economic recovery.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]

Investors have been hoping the committee exceeds its minimum requirement of $1.2 trillion and finds more like $2 trillion to $3 trillion in savings. It would take significant political concessions from Democrats and Republicans to strike a multitrillion-dollar deal.

While Hensarling's remarks referred to modest steps, he stressed that much more was needed to reverse huge budget deficits that began during President George W. Bush's administration and widened under President Barack Obama.

"A trillion and a half dollars of deficit reduction over 10 years, although better than a rounding error, is woefully, woefully, inadequate," Hensarling said.

He added that "quality" government healthcare and retirement programs ultimately will have to be set at "a price that doesn't bankrupt our children and mortgage our futures."

At a press briefing following a meeting of House of Representatives Republican leaders, Hensarling was asked whether recent media reports of scant progress within the super committee were accurate and whether its November 23 deadline could still be met.

"Until the stroke of midnight on November 22, we still have plenty of time to reach an agreement," Hensarling answered.

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Cain's Running Against the Clock

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Herman Cain, who became a surprising front-runner in the Republican presidential race without running a traditional campaign, is scrambling to assemble a team with just 10 weeks before the first crucial nominating contests in January.

A former fast food executive who has never held public office, Cain has jumped to the top of polls among Republican candidates vying for the nomination to oppose President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the November 2012 election. [See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 GOP hopefuls.]

And he has done it with hardly any organization in states that hold early primaries and caucuses to help determine the nominee.

But to do well in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida -- where the nomination race may be decided -- Cain will need organizations like those that his main rivals Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have been assembling for months. [Rick Newman: 5 Economically Illiterate Campaign Themes]

With a condensed voting schedule that means all four states will hold their nominating contests in January, it is particularly important for Cain to assemble his team quickly.

"In the end, you need the votes in the primary states," said Julian Zelizer, an expert on presidential politics at Princeton University in New Jersey.

"You lose the first four major caucuses and primaries, they will be talking about the front-runner, not you," he added.

Iowa holds its caucuses, the first contest of the Republican nomination process, on January 3, when party members attend meetings to pick their candidates.

Cain and Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, lead polls in the state, as they do nationally. But winning in Iowa takes staff to convince voters to attend long meetings on a cold and possibly snowy night during caucuses voting. [Vote: Is Herman Cain the 'Flavor of the Week'?]

"Cain has almost no presence in Iowa. He doesn't really have a ground game here," said a state Tea Party activist who requested anonymity to speak candidly, adding that Cain could suffer in Iowa because his positions are not well known there. "We're not going to get out the vote for him."

Cain now has four paid staff in Iowa, his campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon said, although he is in the process of hiring more, funded by donations of $1 million a week in October.

"I would say that we're getting there. We're hiring people every day. We're expanding because of the new revenue streams that we have," Gordon said.

Earlier this month, Cain's campaign reported he had some 30 staffers nationally. According to published reports, Romney has about 70 paid staffers. Perry's website has announced the hiring of 94 staffers and "leadership team" members.

Winning in Iowa would be particularly important for Cain, whose base of support is among conservative Republicans who play an out-sized role in the caucuses there.

TOUGH FIGHT WITH ROMNEY

"Cain's path ... has to start in Iowa," veteran Republican campaign operative Matt Mackowiak said. "He's really made clear that he doesn't want to play by traditional rules and he's not investing in the early states to the extent that he probably should or to the extent that candidates in the past have."

Cain trails Romney by an average of 22 percentage points in the more moderate New Hampshire, which holds its primary on January 10, according to polls averaged by RealClearPolitics.

Gordon said he could not provide details on Cain's staffing in the state, which borders Romney's home state Massachusetts and where Romney has a vacation house.

In South Carolina, the third state voting in the nomination race, Perry has been expected to do well. As governor of Texas, he would be popular in a fellow southern state and because evangelical Christians -- another base of Perry's support -- are expected to play a big part in the January 21 primary.

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Police forces shrinking amid budget strains

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A pedestrian walks past a line of New York Police Department (NYPD) cars parked at Times Square in New York, October 18, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Gary Hershorn

WASHINGTON | Mon Oct 24, 2011 1:34pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday warned that financially strained police forces around the country likely will shrink for the first time in the quarter century in which statistics have been tallied.

Holder said that by the end of this year, 12,000 police officers and sheriff's deputies probably will lose their jobs amid government budget shortfalls and cuts in a sluggish economy, citing a new Justice Department report.

"The findings included in this new report show that law enforcement agencies nationwide have nearly 30,000 unfilled vacancies," he said in prepared remarks to U.S. police chiefs.

"In 25 years of collecting data, we are now seeing the first-ever national decrease in law enforcement positions."

The report was done by the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services office, COPS.

Last month, the COPS office unveiled $240 million in grants to help cities and municipalities hire or retain just over a thousand officers for three years, but budget cuts in Washington threaten to reduce federal aid for hiring.

Holder tried to rally support for President Barack Obama's jobs bill, which has $4 billion for law enforcement hiring but has gone nowhere in Congress.

The Senate has proposed $200 million and none has been allocated in the House of Representatives, he said.

"That is a drastic and unacceptable gap -- one that can't be closed without your immediate attention and assistance," Holder said.

Even with the budget cuts, FBI statistics have shown that violent crime has consistently dropped over the last four years.

The COPS report found that furloughs of sworn officers for 40 hours or more in a year would likely double this year to 6.9 percent from 3.4 percent from 2009.

Law enforcement agencies have been instituting hiring freezes and cutting travel and training to avoid layoffs, furloughs and big cuts to service.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Bill Trott)

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Obama Plans to Lift Veteran Hiring in Lead Up to Iraq Troop Withdrawal

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The Obama administration announced fresh steps Tuesday to lift the hiring of military veterans, who face higher levels of unemployment than other Americans as thousands more prepare to return home from Iraq.

President Barack Obama, currently touring electorally vital western states to convince voters he is doing everything he can to cut high U.S. unemployment, has repeatedly emphasized measures to aid veterans that resonate with many Americans.

He has pledged to use the executive powers of his office to work around Republicans in Congress, who oppose a $447 billion jobs plan he laid out last month because it raises some taxes.

The latest aid for veterans did not require a presidential executive order and was rather low-key.

The first initiative will encourage community health centers to hire 8,000 veterans over the next three years. The second will improve training opportunities for military medics to become physician assistants. They follow news last week from First Lady Michelle Obama that private firms had pledged to hire thousands more veterans over the next two years.

[Check out our editorial cartoons on President Obama.]

"This is an important step, but it is part of an overall plan," Matt Flavin, director of the White House task force on veterans, told reporters.

Unemployment among veterans who have served since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States stands at 235,000, or 11.7 percent, versus a national jobless rate 9.1 percent.

More veterans are expected to enter the labor force after Obama announced last week he was pulling the remaining 40,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq by the end of the year.

Obama is seeking to bypass congressional Republicans to show voters he is serious about spurring hiring and employment, key goals to securing his reelection next year.

On Monday in Las Vegas, where the housing market collapse hit hardest, Obama took steps to help homeowners who owe more on their homes than they are worth. On Wednesday, in the swing state of Colorado, he will highlight measures to help students better manage their student loan debt when they graduate.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the economy.]

Tuesday's action to aid veterans was not done through an executive order. Rather, it took the form of a challenge from the Obama administration to healthcare centers to lift veteran hiring and report back on how many are on the payroll.

Republicans complain Obama's western tour is naked election campaigning that shows that the Democratic president is not serious about working with them to lift economic growth and hiring.

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