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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Nation in brief: Report says corps erred for decades

The Spokesman-Review

Decades of mistakes – some as basic as not knowing the elevation of New Orleans – led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to believe its levees and floodwalls would protect the city from a storm as strong as Hurricane Katrina, a report released Wednesday concludes.

The corps used obsolete research to design flood-control structures that were built too low and improperly maintained, a group of engineers and storm researchers called Team Louisiana said in its 475-page report. The report was commissioned by the state Department of Transportation and Development.

The system was intended to be strong enough to handle a Category 3 hurricane like Katrina, which devastated New Orleans when levees broke.

The report said the errors date to the original plans in 1965, which relied on land height measurements from 1929. Because the city had sunk over the years, the plans called for levees that were 1 to 2 feet too low.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.

Lawmakers vote for early primary

The Florida House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to make the state’s presidential primary one of the earliest in the nation.

The House voted 115-1 to permanently move up the date of the presidential primary to the first Tuesday in February or a week after the New Hampshire primary, whichever comes first. Right now, New Hampshire has scheduled its 2008 primary for Jan. 22.

The Florida Senate has yet to act on a similar measure and may not act until right before the Legislature ends its annual session in early May. Other states are also talking about moving up their primary dates. Last week, California switched its primary date up to Feb. 5.

WASHINGTON

Anti-Clinton ad’s creator revealed

The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama.

Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama’s presidential campaign.

De Vellis, 33, said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by the HuffingtonPost.com.

Blue State designed Obama’s Web site, and one of the firm’s founding members, Joe Rospars, took a leave from the company to work as Obama’s director of new media.