Politics

TUPELO, Miss. - Federal agents of all sorts invaded northeast Mississippi several days ago, on a mission: Find the man who sent a poison-laced letter to the president. But the United States government quickly found itself entangled, once again, in a misunderstood land dominated by squabbling tribes and petty vengeances. Agents first arrested an Elvis impersonator, released him, then on Saturday arrested his nemesis, a karate instructor. Gradually investigators concluded that what they had descended upon was probably less about the president - or the U.S. senator and retired state judge who also received letters - than a serious case of indigenous bickering.

OAKLAND - It was a quiet evening by this city's standards, and still the police emergency lines were lighting up. As screams rang out behind her, a caller said her neighbor was being beaten. A woman reported that a front door down the street had been bashed in by a possible intruder. Another said a family member with a knife and supply of methamphetamine was threatening to kill herself. By 7:30 p.m. there were 40 calls requiring squad cars on the eastern half of town but no officers available to respond.

WASHINGTON - Two years after Mark Sanford left the South Carolina governor's office tarred by an adultery scandal, he has completed an unlikely political comeback to win a special congressional election, holding the seat for Republicans. Sanford defeated Democratic neophyte Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of the late-night satirist Stephen Colbert, in the Republican-leaning 1st Congressional District on Tuesday. He reclaims a House seat he once held for three terms. The bitter race had been expected to be tight, but the Associated Press called it just 90 minutes after the polls closed.

During eight years in office, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa staked much of his legacy on transportation. He lobbied Washington for millions of dollars in federal funding. He oversaw the addition of 150 miles of bike lanes. And, five years ago, he won voter approval of Measure R, the countywide half-cent sales tax expected to raise more than $30 billion over 30 years for a dozen new transportation projects. The challenge for the next mayor, experts say, will be the nuts and bolts: repaving the city's broken streets and sidewalks, completing a surge of bus and rail projects and securing more transportation funding.

In his first full day on the job, Gov. Jerry Brown walked right up to the third rail of California politics: Proposition 13. Heading into a meeting with local government officials Tuesday morning, Brown said implementation of the property-tax limits that Californians hold dear has contributed to the state's financial mess. The new governor said his budget proposal next week would include plans to return to cities and counties many government functions that Sacramento took over after Proposition 13 passed.

When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa crashed his bike on Venice Boulevard last summer, he did more than bruise his head and shatter his elbow. He became an advocate for the city's bicycling community. After he was jolted off his bike by a turning taxicab, Villaraigosa convened a bicycle summit, launched a safety campaign to educate drivers and threw his support behind the city's first CicLAvia, which closed 71/2 miles of city streets to traffic for most of a day. He also put his clout behind an ambitious bicycle master plan that is expected to be passed Tuesday by the City Council.

NEW DELHI - Thousands gathered Tuesday in the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Bangladesh to pray for the 1,127 people who died in the world's worst apparel industry disaster. Pictures taken at the Islamic prayer ceremony on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital, showed a rescue worker in yellow headgear affixing a red flag in the ruins. Army personnel, who have been working around the clock for almost three weeks, ended their cleanup and recovery operation early Tuesday, handing responsibility to civil authorities.

WASHINGTON -- What began as a small group of citizens voicing their disappointment with President Obama's victory in last week's presidential election has turned into a plea from hundreds of thousands of citizens to have their states be granted independence from the federal government. The White House has now received secession petitions from all 50 states by citizens requesting that the administration “peacefully grant” them the opportunity to form their own sovereign government.

A political system in gridlock, conservatives and progressives at each others' throats, military threats looming in the Middle East: Welcome to the last days of the Roman Republic. In 64 BC, Marcus Cicero, an idealistic outsider and the greatest orator ancient Rome produced, was running for consul - the highest office in the land - in a desperate bid to restore sanity to a corrupt and broken political system. It was a bitter contest to lead the most powerful government on earth, with accusations of incompetence, inconsistency and sexual misdeeds filling the air. Marcus wanted more than anything to save the republic from ruin, but he was hampered by his lowly birth and political naivete.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Computer errors prompted California prison officials to mistakenly release an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general. More than 1,000 additional prisoners presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out, officials said. No attempt was made to return any of the offenders to state lockups or place them on supervised parole, said inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen.