In brief: Tomblin wins governor race

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin overcame weeks of Republican attack ads to win the West Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, successfully distancing himself from the Obama administration and the president’s health care plan.

Tomblin, who has been acting governor for the past year, will finish the final year of a term left vacant by Joe Manchin, who stepped down after he won a U.S. Senate seat.

With 96 percent of precincts reporting, Tomblin had 50 percent of the vote compared with Republican Bill Maloney’s 47 percent, according to unofficial results.

Democrats outnumber the GOP by nearly 2-to-1 in West Virginia, but they are considered more conservative than their national counterparts on both social and fiscal issues, supporting gun rights and cutting taxes.

Veterans’ views mixed on wars

WASHINGTON – In a new poll of veterans who have served since 9/11, one-third say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting.

And a majority of those surveyed think that 10 years after the al-Qaida attacks, America should be focusing less on foreign affairs and more on its own problems.

The opinion poll was released today by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group.

Authorities say boy put in coffin

SCRANTON, Pa. – A northeastern Pennsylvania couple accused of making a 7-year-old boy sleep in a coffin have been arraigned on endangerment and unlawful restraint charges.

The diaper-clad boy was found crying in the basement of a home. He says he was bound with tape.

His mother, 26-year-old Lori Gardner, and stepfather, 31-year-old Brian Sleboda, were ordered taken to Lackawanna County Prison on Tuesday in lieu of $60,000 bail each. The (Scranton) Times-Tribune says the two said nothing as they were escorted out of the Scranton police headquarters.

Neighbors heard the boy crying last week and called police. Officials say the bug-infested home has been condemned.

Authorities say in a criminal complaint the child told officers he often was locked in the basement and told there were ghosts there.

Dust storm wreck kills passenger

PHOENIX – A blinding dust storm rolled across the Arizona desert Tuesday, causing three pileups involving dozens of vehicles on a major interstate. A 70-year-old man was killed and at least 15 other people were injured, authorities said.

“It looked like a war zone,” Patrick Calhoun, one of the first rescuers to respond to the scene, told the Associated Press. “This has been one of the worst pileups we’ve had on the I-10.”

Calhoun, with the Avra Valley Fire District, said the man who died was in the passenger seat of a car driven by his wife. Their car had slammed into the back of a semi and was lodged underneath it, killing the man almost instantly and leaving the woman critically injured in a semiconscious state of shock.