House Republicans vote to dig more into Benghazi

WASHINGTON

- House Republicans yesterday rammed through a measure opening a new investigation of the deadly assault in Benghazi, Libya, vowing to dig deeper in a search for truth. Democrats declared it merely a political ploy to raise campaign cash and motivate voters.

A bitterly divided House voted 232-186 to establish the panel that Speaker John Boehner insisted would answer questions that linger almost 20 months after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission. Seven Democrats, many facing tough re-election campaigns, broke ranks and joined Republicans in supporting the probe.

The panel's investigation will be the eighth on Benghazi and will examine the entirety of the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Independent, bipartisan and GOP-led probes have faulted the State Department for inadequate security at the outpost, leading to four demotions. No attacker has yet been brought to justice.

Republicans say they're unsatisfied with explanations so far, and they have leveled a range of accusations against President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other senior administration officials.

OKLAHOMA CITY

- The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals agreed yesterday to a six-month stay of execution for a death row inmate while an investigation is conducted into last week's botched lethal injection.

The court reset the execution date of inmate Charles Warner to Nov. 13. Warner's attorneys requested the delay, and state Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in a court filing that he wouldn't object.

While the stay only applies to Warner, the attorney general and governor have said Oklahoma will not carry out any executions until the investigation is finished, which is expected to take at least eight weeks.

Warner was scheduled to be executed the same night as Clayton Lockett last week in what would have been the state's first double execution since 1937. But Lockett's vein collapsed during his injection, prompting prison officials to halt the execution. He later died of a heart attack.

BAUCHI, Nigeria

- Residents of a Nigerian town attacked by Boko Haram criticized security forces for failing to protect them despite warnings that the Islamic militants were nearby. At least 50 bodies have been recovered, many horribly burned, in the town.

The attack on Gamboru, in remote northeastern Nigeria near the border with Cameroon, is part of the Islamic militants' campaign of terror that included the kidnapping of teenage girls from a school, 276 of whom remain missing and believed held by Boko Haram in the vast Sambisa Forest in northeastern Nigeria.

The bodies were found after the market reopened on Wednesday as health workers, volunteers and traders searched for missing people, said Gamboru resident Abuwar Masta. He said most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. Some of the victims were traders from Chad and Cameroon, he said.

- Associated Press