Nation briefs 2/18/06

Two U.S. helicopters crash off coast of Djibouti

WASHINGTON -- Two Marine Corps transport helicopters carrying a dozen troops crashed Friday off the coast of Djibouti, and two were rescued in the initial search, the Pentagon said. The status of the other 10 aboard the CH-53E choppers was not immediately known, officials said. A search-and-rescue mission by troops from the United States, Djibouti and France was underway, according to a statement issued by Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, a U.S.-led military force headquartered at Camp Lemonier, a French military base in Djibouti. At the Pentagon, a spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, said there was no indication of hostile fire.

Rush Limbaugh paints Senate candidate wrong color

WASHINGTON -- Brown is black in the eyes of Rush Limbaugh. When Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett was forced out of the Democratic primary in the U.S. Senate race in Ohio, the conservative commentator criticized The New York Times for not saying that the Democrats' preferred candidate is black. Limbaugh later found out from e-mails to his nationally syndicated radio show that the candidate, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is, in fact, white. "Uh, Sherrod Brown's a white guy? Then I'm confusing him with somebody. OK, I'm sorry," Limbaugh said this week. Brown is a seven-term congressman and former Ohio secretary of state who is running against GOP Sen. Mike DeWine. "Rush Limbaugh obviously knows as much about me as the Republicans know about balancing the budget," Brown told the Chronicle-Telegram of Elyria, Ohio, for an article published Friday.

Pentagon back on defensive after more bad publicity

WASHINGTON -- Allegations of torture. Pictures of bloodied prisoners. Reminders of embarrassing acts by American troops. All of a sudden, the Bush administration finds itself back on the defensive in its long campaign to persuade the Muslim world that the global war on terrorism is not a war on the Muslim faith. In just a few days, the United States has endured a pair of blows to its image abroad. The publication of previously unseen photos from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, plus a U.N. report calling for the closure of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, have forced the administration to defend its record and try to regain the upper hand in public relations. On Friday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fired back at U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's remark that Guantanamo should be closed as soon as possible. Annan "is just flat wrong. We shouldn't close Guantanamo," Rumsfeld said during remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "That place is being run as well as any detention facility should be run."

Birth-control patch maker warns of clot risk

WASHINGTON -- Risks of blood clots in legs and lungs are twice as high for women using the birth-control patch instead of the pill, says a study reported by the drug maker and the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Daniel Shames of the FDA said Friday the new findings don't require immediate action by the government, but he urged concerned women to discuss the risk with their physicians. One new study found users of the Ortho Evra patch had twice the risk of clots compared with women taking birth-control pills, although a second analysis found no difference in risk between the two forms of birth control. The results of the two studies were made public Thursday by the patch's manufacturer, Ortho Women's Health & Urology. The Raritan, N.J.-based company is owned by Johnson & Johnson. Last year an investigation by The Associated Press, citing federal death and injury reports, found higher rates of blood clots in women using the patch.

-- From wire reports