Longshoremen storm Wash. port over labor dispute (AP)

LONGVIEW, Wash. – Hundreds of Longshore workers stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.

Six guards were detained for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that's staffing a workforce of other union laborers.

Meanwhile, the international union is investigating reports of a wildcat strike at the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.

"It appears the members have taken action on their own," said ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees from union headquarters in San Francisco. "We're trying to understand how many are involved and to what extent this apparent wildcat action has spread."

Thursday's violence at Longview was first reported by Kelso radio station KLOG.

Police from several agencies in southwest Washington, the Washington State Patrol and Burlington Northern Santa Fe responded to the violence to secure the scene that followed a demonstration Wednesday.

"We're not surprised," Duscha said. "A lot of the protesters were telling us this in only the start."

One sergeant was threatened with baseball bats and retreated, Duscha said. "One officer with hundreds of Longshoremen? He used the better part of discretion."

The train was the first grain shipment to arrive at Longview. It arrived Wednesday night after police arrested 19 demonstrators who tried to block the tracks. They were led by ILWU International President Robert McEllrath, who said they would return.

The blockade appeared to defy a federal restraining order issued last week against the union after it was accused of assaults and death threats.

EGT chief executive Larry Clarke said it was unfortunate that law enforcement needed to make arrests.

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U.S. sets ultimatum in Swiss bank tax dispute: reports (Reuters)

ZURICH (Reuters) – The United States has written to Switzerland to demand it hands over detailed information this week on its citizens using Swiss accounts to dodge tax or see Credit Suisse and nine other banks face charges, newspapers reported on Sunday.

The letter, quoted by two Swiss Sunday papers, was sent by U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole on August 31 and demands detailed figures on tax evasion at Credit Suisse by Tuesday and also seeks information from nine other smaller Swiss banks.

In the letter, Cole demands that Switzerland quickly deliver a significant number of client accounts, the SonntagsZeitung reported, adding that U.S. authorities are also ready to examine a Swiss offer to settle the dispute.

Mario Tuor, a spokesman for the Swiss department for international financial affairs, would only say that Switzerland was in contact with the United States but declined to comment on the letter.

"We are seeking a solution on the basis of existing laws," he said.

Switzerland last month made a proposal to try to kickstart talks to settle its impasse with U.S. authorities, offering to hand over data on groups of clients under a pending new bilateral tax treaty despite strict bank secrecy.

A long tradition of bank secrecy has helped Switzerland build up a $2 trillion offshore financial industry, but the country has agreed in recent years to do more to help hunt tax cheats amid a global crackdown on tax havens.

US SEEKS THOUSANDS OF CLIENT NAMES

The United States is pushing for Switzerland to hand over thousands more bank client names as it did last year when it allowed UBS to bend bank secrecy and reveal the details of around 4,450 clients to avoid criminal charges.

"They won't be contented with less than in the UBS case," former U.S. Justice Department investigator Peter Henning told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.

He added that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service felt betrayed because many UBS clients had shifted their assets to smaller Swiss banks rather than declaring them.

The SonntagsZeitung quoted Swiss sources close to the talks as saying Washington is seeking details of all U.S. clients with accounts worth at least $50,000 between 2002 and 2010 at banks including Credit Suisse, private banks Julius Baer and Wegelin as well as the Zurich and Basel cantonal banks.

That could imply tens of thousands of accounts, the paper said, far more than Switzerland could deliver under a double taxation agreement with the United States that it approved in 2009 but is still awaiting ratification by the U.S. Senate.

Switzerland is keen to find a solution that would not need approval from parliament, seen as likely to block any new breach of bank secrecy after only reluctantly agreeing to the UBS treaty under emergency law last year.

If Switzerland does not comply, the United States could issue a subpoena against the banks to force them to hand over data, as it did in the case of UBS, the SonntagsZeitung and NZZ am Sonntag reported.

"This will be much more expensive as with UBS that had to pay a fine of $780 million," one banking source told the SonntagsZeitung. "We expect that the Swiss banks will have to pay a fine of up to 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.6 billion) and deliver much more client data than in the UBS case."

Henning said the United States would probably launch criminal charges against a smaller Swiss bank rather than Credit Suisse as it was too critical to the global financial system.

Last month, Switzerland struck deals with Germany and Britain to tax money kept by their residents in secret Swiss accounts and also introduce a withholding tax on future interest earned, a proposal rejected by Washington.

($1 = 0.783 Swiss Francs)

(Editing by Yoko Nishikawa and Jon Loades-Carter)

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Woman: Ohio killer of 7 was in estate dispute (AP)

By KEVIN BEGOS and ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Associated Press Kevin Begos And Andrew Welsh-huggins, Associated Press – 1?hr?1?min?ago

COPLEY, Ohio – Police identified the man responsible for shooting and killing seven people in a terrifying rampage over the weekend near Akron, as a woman who knew him said Monday that he was an unpleasant, disliked person who was involved in an estate dispute.

Michael Hance, 51, died in a shootout with police in Copley after the Sunday spree that included an 11-year-old among the victims.

Robin Hancock, a caregiver for a couple slain in the rampage, went to the police station in Copley on Monday to hear updates on the killings and the identification of Hance as the gunman.

"He was quiet and strange," said Hancock, 53, of Akron.

One shooting victim who survived was Becky Dieter, Hance's girlfriend of more than two decades, she said. Hance had become embroiled in a dispute over the will of Dieter's late parents, and a couple next door who were longtime friends with Dieter's parents got involved, Hancock said.

That couple, 67-year-old Russ Johnson and his 64-year-old wife, Gerdie, were among the seven people police say Hance shot and killed. Hance's confrontational behavior had led Hancock to leave her job taking care of the couple, she said.

Police combed three homes and searched outside a fourth in a wooded residential area of Copley, collecting evidence as they tried to piece together what happened during the shootings that shook the quiet neighborhood.

Authorities were withholding the names and ages of those involved until officers could tell victims' family members, some of whom were out of state, Copley police Sgt. Eric Goodwin said. Autopsies began Monday.

Hance shot his girlfriend in one home, ran next door, shot her brother and gunned down four neighbors, police say. He then chased four people — two through backyards — shooting one of them before bursting into a home where two others had sought refuge.

Police said he shot an eighth person there and left, only to get into a gunfight outside with a police officer and a citizen who had been a police officer.

Neighbors said that the dead included an 11-year-old boy and that at least three victims were from one family.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported that Copley-Fairlawn School Superintendent Brian Poe said he was told by a township trustee that two Copley High School students were killed. Poe said the trustee told him the 11-year-old was not a Copley student.

Gilbert Elie, who has lived in the neighborhood for 11 years, heard the gunshots and cries for help as he got ready for church. In an account that differed slightly from the police version, Elie said he went to a house across the street and found Gerdie Johnson lying in the driveway, her husband shot near the garage, and their granddaughter and another woman shot in the front seat of a vehicle, the windows apparently blown out by gunfire.

A third woman came out of the house next door and tried to talk to Elie, he said, but their brief exchange ended abruptly when a man followed her out of the house and shot her, sending the 76-year-old Elie running for safety behind a truck.

"She was talking to me, and he come up behind her and shot her, so I figured, maybe I'm next," he told The Associated Press.

He hid until he could see the gunman was gone, then returned home. Police arrived, and Elie said he heard a second round of shots coming from behind the houses and assumed officers had killed the gunman.

Elie said the ordeal has left residents of their well-kept neighborhood shaken and full of questions about the gunman's motive. Elie described him as generally unfriendly, a rarity on the street, and said he often worked on his car outside his house but never waved at anyone.

Some of the victims were from out of state, Copley police Sgt. Eric Goodwin said.

Brian and Diane Cross said they were riding on a motorcycle Sunday morning when they heard a loud bang and saw a man with a gun chasing another man. Brian Cross, 53, said that they drove a half-mile to a service station to call 911, but that "Copley police was already on it, and they were flying by us."

Around sunset, about 200 people assembled at a park for a candlelight vigil for the shooting victims in their town and crime victims elsewhere. Some residents said they set up a memorial fund.

Some saw a double rainbow, including Kelly Kerr Gill, who was one of more than 100 people who posted condolences on a Facebook page set up for a family that lost several members. "Your double rainbow sent from heaven did not go unnoticed ... was truly a sign from God that those taken are ok," she wrote.

The Rev. Jeff Bogue of the Grace Church of Greater Akron prayed with those gathered about faith in the wake of violence.

"This is troubling, Lord, why such evil would come to our little township," he said.

Copley Township is west of Akron and about 40 miles south of Cleveland.

___

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, who reported from Columbus, can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.

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Senate postpones Libya vote amid budget dispute (AP)

WASHINGTON – Senate Democratic leaders abandoned plans for a test vote Tuesday on authorizing the U.S. military operation against Libya as Republicans insisted they should instead focus on government spending and the nation's borrowing limit.

Just hours before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced the change in plans, leaving the fate of the resolution in doubt. One after another, GOP senators had stood on the Senate floor and signaled they would oppose any effort to move ahead on the Libya measure, arguing that dealing with the debt was far more important than working on a resolution with no practical impact.

The Senate had already canceled this week's recess to deal with the financial issue.

"No real work is scheduled in the Senate this week on the budget, nor is any on the debt ceiling," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. "Instead, we are moving today to a Libya resolution. This resolution, not requested by the president, is not why we asked to cancel recess."

At least five Republican senators indicated they would oppose the vote.

"If the resolution we're debating is debated and passed, it would not affect one iota what we're doing in Libya," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Congress was already sending a muddled message on Libya to both U.S. allies and Moammar Gadhafi.

Bipartisan Senate support for giving President Barack Obama limited authority to continue military involvement against Gadhafi was at odds with overwhelming opposition in the House to the commander in chief's actions. Democrats as well as Republicans in the House have criticized Obama for failing to seek congressional consent for the operation in a constitutional stalemate that has dragged on for weeks.

The Senate had scheduled a vote on whether to proceed with a resolution authorizing "the limited use of United States Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya." The resolution would expire when the NATO operation ends or after one year, and it would prohibit the use of American ground forces or private security contractors in Libya. The Foreign Relations Committee easily adopted the measure on a 14-5 vote last week.

Leading backers of the resolution include Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee. They have been the strongest voices in the Senate for the military action against Gadhafi's forces. Also sponsoring the resolution are Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican, and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

McCain said he understood the reason for the Senate delay, but he hoped they would return to the resolution next week.

"The Senate does need to have a debate about United States policy and military action in Libya," McCain said.

Since NATO took command of the Libya operation in early April, the U.S. role has largely been limited to support efforts such as intelligence, surveillance and electronic warfare. The U.S. has launched airstrikes and drone attacks, flying more than 3,400 sorties.

"In Libya today, no American troop is being shot at," Kerry said last week.

But that hasn't silenced the congressional debate pitting the executive branch against the legislative.

Obama last week defended his decision to order U.S. military action more than three months ago and insisted he had not violated the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which demands congressional authorization within 60 days of first military strikes. The president contends American forces supporting the NATO-led operation are not engaged in full-blown hostilities, making congressional consent unnecessary.

Even members of the Foreign Relations Committee, which backed the resolution, rejected Obama's legal argument that the operation does not constitute full-blown hostilities. The panel adopted an amendment that specified the operation included "hostilities" that fall under the War Powers Resolution and require congressional authorization.

The sponsor of that amendment, Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana, is one of the strongest Senate critics of the Libya operation. He said Obama had ignored Congress, dealing a setback to the Constitution in a "fundamental failure of leadership that placed expedience above constitutional responsibility."

Lugar, the top GOP lawmaker on the Foreign Relations panel, also questioned the expensive, open-ended commitment of U.S. forces. Last month, the White House put the cost of U.S. military operations in Libya at about $715 million, with the total increasing to $1.1 billion by early September.

"Let us be clear that we are deliberately trying to overthrow the government of Libya with military force," Lugar said on the Senate floor.

In Libya on Tuesday, at least 11 people were killed in fighting that began late Monday and continued Tuesday as Gadhafi forces stepped up pressure to try to block rebel fighters from advancing toward the capital of Tripoli, rebels said.

Libyan government troops have been unable to retake two main rebel strongholds in the west — Misrata and several towns in the Nafusa mountain range. The rebels have been trying to break out of those bridgeheads.

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