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NATION & WORLD

Court fight looms in Ukraine

Backers say Tymoshenko will contest election loss

KIEV, Ukraine — Supporters of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Tuesday that she would turn to the courts to address fraud in the weekend presidential election, in which her foe leads by a decisive margin. With virtually all of the votes counted, figures from Ukraine’s Central Election Commission showed Tymoshenko trailing her archrival, Viktor Yanukovych, by more than 3 percentage points. International monitors and the U.S. government have congratulated Ukraine on a fair election.

But vague whispers of impending defiance continue to emanate from Tymoshenko’s corner. The tone was set shortly after polls closed on Sunday, when Tymoshenko urged her followers to fight for every ballot.

On Tuesday, members of Tymoshenko’s parliamentary faction said that she would refuse to recognize defeat without first appealing to the courts. Reports of their comments were posted on Tymoshenko’s Web site. Earlier, a Ukrainian newspaper reported that Tymoshenko told her supporters, “I will never recognize the legitimacy of Yanukovych’s victory with such elections.”

The standoff thrusts Tymoshenko into the awkward position of contesting an election roundly praised by international monitors as a sign of burgeoning democracy in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the pro-Moscow Yanukovych has emerged, at least for the moment, as an unlikely champion of the democratic process, chiding his rival for intransigence. This is particularly ironic given that it was the tainted election of Yanukovych in 2004 that brought Ukrainians into the streets in what became known as the Orange Revolution — and pushed Tymoshenko into greater prominence as a national leader.

“She risks turning from the hero of the Orange Revolution to its executioner,” Yanukovych told CNN on Tuesday.

Amid heated demands for her to bow out of the race, Tymoshenko stayed silent for a second day on Tuesday. A press conference touted by her staffers never materialized.

Palestinians clash with police in East Jerusalem

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian rioter, left, tries to grab a weapon from an Israeli police officer during clashes Tuesday in a refugee camp in East Jerusalem. Palestinian youths threw rocks at police and burned tires and trash bins as city workers tried to repair run-down infrastructure and collect back taxes from residents of the Shuafat refugee camp. Police said nine Palestinians were arrested.

NATION

WASHINGTON — Illegal immigrant ranks drop 7% to 10.8 million

The Homeland Security Department estimates the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. fell about 7 percent to 10.8 million in January 2009.

The drop is the second in two years. The population rose to 11.8 million in January 2007. It fell to 11.6 million in January 2008.

The government says about two-thirds of the illegal immigrants who were in the country in 2009 entered the U.S. before 2000. About the same share were from Mexico.

The Homeland Security Department noted that the decline has coincided with the economic downturn in the U.S.

Stalker taped 16 others

LOS ANGELES — A man who stalked ESPN reporter Erin Andrews and shot nude videos of her through a hotel room peephole recorded 16 other women and ran background checks on 30 people, including female sports reporters and TV personalities, according to court documents.

A sentencing memo filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles says Michael Barrett uploaded videos of 16 other women to an online account.

Barrett also allegedly conducted 30 Internet background checks that can produce birthdays and home addresses, the document said. The filing did not name the other alleged victims or say what information he obtained.

Barrett has pleaded guilty to interstate stalking and agreed to a 27-month prison sentence.

Ambulance stolen, full

MADISON, Wis. — Authorities say a drunken man stole an ambulance from a Wisconsin ski area with the patient and paramedics still inside.

The Dane County Sheriff’s Department says emergency responders were treating a patient in the back of the ambulance at the Tyrol Basin Ski and Snowboard Area in Mount Horeb on Monday night. They say a 24-year-old Illinois man got into the vehicle and drove it around the parking lot.

The sheriff’s department says deputies arrested the man. But it is unclear how he was stopped. Fitch-Rona Medical Service Deputy Chief Dale Dow says the ambulance’s emergency brake was on and paramedics were still in the back when the man got inside.

WORLD

China sentences activist for earthquake families

BEIJING — A Chinese activist who investigated the deaths of thousands of children crushed in their schools during the Sichuan earthquake was sentenced Tuesday to five years, underscoring the government’s determination to suppress questions about why the buildings fell.

Many have asked whether poor construction was responsible for the staggering number of children killed in the May 2008 temblor, which took 90,000 lives. Parents have protested frequently, and authorities have jailed, harassed and threatened participants.

The United States quickly condemned Tuesday’s conviction of Tan Zuoren, and a human rights activist said the case was the latest example of how China uses its vague subversion laws to silence dissent.

Tan, 56, was convicted of inciting subversion of state power and handed the maximum sentence of five years in jail by the Chengdu Intermediate Court in southwestern China’s Sichuan province, his attorney Pu Zhiqiang said.

Nigeria’s VP takes reins

ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s parliament empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to run Africa’s most populous nation Tuesday in place of an ill and absent president, striving for a political end to a crisis that ground the government to a virtual halt and triggered the resumption of an insurgency in the vital oil sector.

But the move is not contemplated in the constitution, legal experts say, and could cause more friction between the Christian south and Muslim north.

Jonathan told the nation in a televised address Tuesday night that he had assumed power as acting president.

THE NEWSMAKER

Pakistani Taliban loses another chief to missiles

Hakimullah Mehsud died from injuries suffered in a U.S. drone missile strike last month, an attack that forces the Pakistani Taliban to find a new leader for the second time in six months. The insurgent group confirmed on Tuesday the death of Mehsud, engineer of a devastating series of suicide attacks and raids on markets, mosques and security installations across Pakistan in the latter half of 2009. A drone strike last August killed Mehsud’s predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud.