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Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich reacts to a question at the start of the Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. Gingrich is denying that he ever asked his ex-wife for an open marriage and angrily denounced CNN's John King, moderator of Thursday night's Republican debate for raising the issue. Gingrich blasted what he called the "destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich reacts to a question at the start of the Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. Gingrich is denying that he ever asked his ex-wife for an open marriage and angrily denounced CNN's John King, moderator of Thursday night's Republican debate for raising the issue. Gingrich blasted what he called the "destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media." (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich shakes hands with supporters while standing with his wife Callista Gingrich before speaking at Mutt's Barbeque in Easley, S.C. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/The Independent-Mail, Nathan Gray) THE GREENVILLE NEWS OUT, SENECA NEWS OUT
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) ? Presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Thursday angrily denied that he asked his second wife for an "open marriage" that would allow him to have a mistress as she claims in an interview broadcast two days before the South Carolina primary.
"Let me be quite clear. The story is false," Gingrich said at a debate, without elaborating.
At the same time, his campaign released his tax returns, showing that he paid more than $994,000 in federal taxes on more $3.1 million in income in 2010.
It was a day of ups and downs for Gingrich, who picked up the endorsement for former rival Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The former House speaker is working to consolidate the support of conservatives behind his candidacy with polls showing him rising in his bid to overtake Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.
"Newt is not perfect but who among us is," Perry said as he bowed out of the race, seeking to provide Gingrich with some political cover in a state filled with evangelicals likely to cringe at Gingrich's two divorces and acknowledged infidelity.
Gingrich's ex-wife threatened to throw his campaign off course.
In excerpts the network released earlier in the day, Marianne Gingrich told ABC News in an interview being broadcast late Thursday that when she discovered Gingrich was having an affair with Callista Bisek, a congressional staffer, he asked his wife to share him.
"And I just stared at him, and he said, 'Callista doesn't care what I do,'" Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. "He wanted an open marriage, and I refused."
She confirmed to The Associated Press that the former speaker had asked her for an open marriage, but she refused his request. She declined to comment further.
At the debate Thursday, Gingrich forcefully denied his ex-wife's charges and castigated debate moderator ? CNN's John King ? for raising the issue at the start of the two-hour long event.
"I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office," Gingrich said. "And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that."
As he stood on stage in Charleston, his campaign released his 2010 income tax returns, which showed he paid roughly 31.6 percent of his adjusted income in taxes, giving about 2 percent to charity. Gingrich criticized rival Romney ? who is worth more than $250 million ? this week for saying he paid only 15 percent.
Gingrich gave $81,133 in cash or checks to charities, about 2.6 percent of his income. That is considerably less than the average of $259,692 that households earning at least $2 million a year gave to charities in 2009, according to research from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
Personal financial disclosure forms filed last summer show Gingrich is worth more than $6.5 million. He reported at least $500,000 in assets from Gingrich Productions, his media company that produces books and films.
Two days before the pivotal South Carolina primary, Gingrich's political and private life were clashing just as new polls showed him rising as he looks to overtake Romney in the third state to weigh in on the presidential race. Gingrich has seen his crowds grow in recent days after a strong performance in a debate Monday.
It was unclear how the new revelations from Marianne Gingrich would play in a state where religious and socially conservative voters hold sway. The interview's mere existence shines a spotlight on a part of Gingrich's past that could turn off Republican voters in a state filled with religious and cultural conservatives who may cringe at his two divorces and acknowledged marital infidelities.
Marianne Gingrich has said Gingrich proposed to her before the divorce from his first wife was final in 1981; they were married six months later. Her marriage to Gingrich ended in divorce in 2000, and Gingrich has admitted he'd already taken up with Bisek, the former congressional aide who would become his third wife. The speaker who pilloried then President Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky was himself having an affair at the time.
Earlier in the day, a Gingrich spokesman suggested, like Gingrich's daughters did a day earlier, that Marianne Gingrich's comments may be suspect given the emotional toll divorce takes on everyone involved.
"Divorces are very tough and people have very different recollections of how things happen," R.C. Hammond said.
Equally uncertain was whether Gingrich would get a boost from Perry's endorsement, given that the Texas governor had little support in the state, and get conservative voters to coalesce behind his candidacy. Complicating Gingrich's effort is another conservative, Rick Santorum, who threatens to siphon his support.
A CNN/Time South Carolina poll released Wednesday showed Gingrich in second place with support from 23 percent of likely primary voters, having gained 5 percentage points in the past two weeks. Romney led in the poll with 33 percent, but he had slipped some since the last survey. Santorum was third, narrowly ahead of Texas Rep. Ron Paul and well ahead of Perry.
Regardless of the South Carolina outcome, Gingrich was making plans to compete in Florida's primary on Jan. 31.
Confidence exuded from Gingrich, who rose in Iowa only to be knocked off course after sustaining $3 million in attack ads from an outside group that supports Romney. Gingrich posted dismal showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
By the time the race turned to South Carolina, he was back on course ? and criticizing Romney as a social moderate who is timid about attacking the nation's economic troubles.
___
Ray Henry in Atlanta and Jack Gillum in Washington contributed to this report.
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Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Florence Civic Center in Florence, S.C., Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at the Florence Civic Center in Florence, S.C., Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, left, speaks as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney listen at the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, Pool)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Mitt Romney's promise to release his 2011 tax return in April follows the practice of leading presidential candidates that began after Watergate. If history is any lesson, questions and criticism will continue long afterward.
For more than three decades, the major party nominees have released their income tax records. Some offered one year and others more than 10 years of returns. The same has been true for vice presidential candidates, except for Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas when he joined President Gerald Ford on the GOP ticket in 1976.
Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan broke his longstanding rule of keeping his personal finances private in July 1980 when he released his 23-page 1979 income tax return weeks before accepting the GOP nomination. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton weathered weeks of criticism in 2008 for not releasing tax returns showing family income after Bill Clinton left the presidency. She ultimately produced the records in April of that year after taking a pounding from her top party rival, Sen. Barack Obama.
Even after returns are released, controversies persist. Democratic Sen. John Kerry took heat in 2004 after releasing his returns because his wife, heiress to the Heinz Co. food fortune, initially refused to release hers, which were filed separately. Four years later, Republican Sen. John McCain faced similar criticism because his wife didn't release her separately filed returns, which reflected income from a Phoenix-based beer distributing company she inherited. She later released the two top summary pages of one year's return, the same that Kerry's wife had released.
Now it's Romney's turn. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who released his own tax returns dating back to 1991, urged Romney during a debate Monday to release his. Romney, whose net worth is estimated at roughly $250 million, previously had resisted calls to release his tax returns. Anticipating a key question about his taxes, Romney disclosed Tuesday that he pays an effective federal tax rate of about 15 percent, still higher than the rate paid by many Americans.
Romney said in the debate that he will decide whether to release returns in the coming months.
"I hadn't planned on releasing tax records because the law requires us to release all of our assets, all the things we own. That I have already released," he said. Later, he added, "What's happened in history is people have released them in about April of the coming year and that's probably what I would do."
Romney's right. There is no law requiring presidential candidates to release personal tax information. Since 1978, however, they've had to disclose information about their income and some about their assets, like real estate holdings, investments and outside business interests. But those disclosures only show a range of values for assets, making it impossible to use those forms to identify a candidate's actual wealth.
He's also right that many leading candidates in recent history chose April to release their tax returns.
On Tuesday, Romney gave reporters in South Carolina more insight into his plans, saying he would release one year of his tax returns, not the six previous years that Obama released as a candidate in 2008 or even the two years that McCain released that year.
"People will want to see the most recent year," Romney said.
He said he's paid "closer to the 15 percent rate" in taxes because most of his income has come from investments and not ordinary wages, which have a top tax rate of 35 percent for those with the highest earned income.
When he ran in 2008 Romney refused to release his tax returns, and he previously had filed only state financial disclosures that described his assets in the most general terms.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia has said he will release his tax returns Thursday.
Even when tax returns are released, they offer only a narrow snapshot into a candidate's financial background. But some candidates in the past, like former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter in 1976, have offered more specific breakdowns of their financial worth.
Some of the bigger controversies over tax returns have belonged to vice presidential candidates. Geraldine Ferraro was a little known New York City congresswoman when the Democratic nominee, Sen. Walter Mondale, chose her as his running mate in 1984. The euphoria of that history-making selection of a woman for a major presidential ticket ended abruptly when Ferraro began battling criticism over her husband's refusal to release his separately filed tax returns. After they finally relented, she faced more controversy over accounting errors and other questions in the returns.
George H.W. Bush was Reagan's vice president at the time and became one of Ferraro's biggest critics on the issue, only to face his own controversy that year when he initially declined to release three years of returns. Bush argued he couldn't release them because he had turned his personal financial affairs over to a blind trust when he became vice president. But he ultimately released the returns weeks before the 1984 election.
Dick Cheney, George W. Bush's running mate in 2000, got blasted after releasing his returns for his financial ties to a Dallas-based oil company and for charitable giving that amounted to less than 1 percent of his income. After becoming Obama's running mate in 2008, Sen. Joe Biden faced similar criticism over his charitable giving once his tax returns became public.
In 2008, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's tax returns for two years triggered scrutiny because Palin, then McCain's running mate, did not list per diem payments the state made to her when she stayed in her own home. She later had to pay taxes on the payments.
Associated PressNEW YORK ? Tim Lincecum asked San Francisco for $21.5 million in arbitration, just shy of the record for a player, and the Giants offered him a club-record $17 million Tuesday on a dizzying day when 80 players agreed to contracts.
The two-time NL Cy Young Award winner was among 54 players who exchanged figures with their teams, and his request fell short of the record $22 million requested by Roger Clemens from Houston when he became a free agent and accepted the Astros' arbitration offer before the 2005 season.
Interrupting the frenzied focus on money, there were two notable injury announcements.
Detroit said star slugger Victor Martinez could miss the entire season after tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament last week during offseason conditioning.
"After you feel sorry for yourself for a day or so, you move on," general manager Dave Dombrowski said. "We have a good club. We've got a lot of players who will step up."
Boston outfielder Carl Crawford had surgery on his left wrist Tuesday and could miss opening day. He was bothered by the wrist last season, and felt discomfort as he intensified pre-spring training workouts.
"Carl will be our everyday left fielder for the bulk of the 2012 season," new general manager Ben Cherington said. "We're not ruling out opening day, but we're not going to put a timeline on it."
At the exchange of arbitration figures, Lincecum set a mark among players with less than six years in the majors, topping Derek Jeter's $18.5 million submission in 2001. And the Giants' offer broke the 11-year-old club mark of $14.25 million offered by the Yankees to Jeter that winter.
"I'm overall optimistic that we'll find common ground without a hearing room," Bobby Evans, Giants vice president of baseball operations, said before seeing Lincecum's filing numbers. "It's a process that begins long before today in terms of conversations about possible deals that work for both sides. That process has continued in a mutual fashion. At this point we haven't reached a conclusion."
Lincecum is eligible for free agency after the 2013 season.
Boston designated hitter David Ortiz, who became a free agent and accepted Boston's offer of arbitration, had the second-highest request at $16.5 million and was offered $12.65 million by the Red Sox.
Other large amounts involved Chicago Cubs pitcher Matt Garza ($12.5 million vs. $7.95 million), Philadelphia outfielder Hunter Pence ($11.8 million vs. $9 million), Texas World Series star Mike Napoli ($11.5 million vs. $8.3 million), Los Angeles Dodgers NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw ($10 million vs. $6.5 million) and Baltimore right-hander Jeremy Guthrie ($10.25 million vs. $7.25 million).
Garza's $4.55 million gap was the largest. All-Star pitchers Chris Perez of Cleveland and Jair Jurrjens of Atlanta submitted the same figures as their teams, a signal a deal already was all but finalized.
Barring agreements, hearings before three-arbitrator panels will be scheduled for the first three weeks of February. Players won two of three hearings last winter, but teams lead 286-212 since arbitration began in 1974. The 119 players in arbitration averaged a 121 percent increase last year, according to a study by The Associated Press.
Among the 142 players who filed last Friday, 98 already have settled, including 10 after figures were exchanged.
There was just one multiyear agreement among Tuesday's deals, with Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval getting a $17.15 million, three-year contract, a deal subject to a physical.
The largest one-year deals went to Philadelphia pitcher Cole Hamels ($15 million), Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier ($10.95 million), Boston outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury ($8.05 million), Milwaukee reliever Francisco Rodriguez ($8 million), San Diego outfielder Carlos Quentin ($7,025,000) and Tampa Bay outfielder B.J. Upton ($7 million).
Among international free agents, the Milwaukee Brewers agreed to a two-year contract with Japanese outfielder Norichika Aoki, a three-time batting champion in Japan's Central League.
Texas had a deadline of 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday to reach an agreement with Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish.
Also, former All-Star pitcher Joe Saunders agreed to a $6 million, one-year contract with Arizona, which cut him loose last month rather than allow him to become eligible for arbitration.
___
AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley and AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen and Noah Trister contributed to this report.
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NEW HAVEN, Conn. ? A judge denied a request Wednesday by convicted murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky for a retrial in the home invasion killings of a woman and her two daughters, saying he received a fair trial.
New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue denied motions for a new trial and that the conviction be overturned.
Komisarjevsky joined co-defendant Steven Hayes on death row last month for the 2007 killings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters in Cheshire.
Hayes raped and strangled Jennifer Hawke-Petit, while Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted her 11-year-old daughter, Michaela. Michaela and her 17-year-old sister, Hayley, were tied to their beds, were doused in gas and died of smoke inhalation after the house was set on fire.
Komisarjevsky beat the girls' father, Dr. William Petit, with a bat and tied him up. Petit escaped to a neighbor's house to get help.
Komisarjevsky argued the proceedings should have been moved because of the case's notoriety in New Haven and the "emotional effect of a clearly visible Petit posse" at the trial advocating capital punishment.
Blue said the victims' family behaved in a dignified manner and the jury was attentive and "remarkably fair." He said the defense arguments left the impression that the trial atmosphere led the jury to feel pressured to come up with a particular verdict.
"I don't really see that at all," Blue said, adding that the jury took its time before reaching a grave decision.
While the defense objected to pins the victims' family wore to court in their memory, Blue said he did not believe the pins were designed to intimidate jurors or appeal to their emotions.
The defense also noted that Petit sat very close to the jury. But Blue noted that during the trial the defense was allowed to switch seats with prosecutors so Komisarjevsky was seated close to the jury.
"Under these circumstances, I just don't think it's fair to say that the jury was influenced by outside pressures or anything like that," Blue said. "Under these circumstances, I believe the trial was perfectly fair and a new trial should not be granted."
Komisarjevsky's attorneys also argued the conviction should be overturned because the evidence did not show he intended to kill anyone. Blue said that was matter for the jury to decide, but he called the evidence "exceptionally strong."
Komisarjevsky gave police a lengthy confession after the crime. The men were caught fleeing the scene.
Komisarjevsky attorney Jeremiah Donovan acknowledged Wednesday that the arguments had been previously rejected but said he wanted to preserve the record for an appeal.
Petit, who recently became engaged, was not in court for the hearing.
Komisarjevky will be formally sentenced next week.
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>>> good evening. tonight a thorry mod everyone cruise ship outfitted with state-of-the-art navigation ls on its side just off the coast of italy after runningnto rock jetting out of the tersor centuries. one of the boulders in fact, is now iedded in the side of the hull. it wasn awful heroing night on the water. a scramble fhe lifeboats as it tipped to one side some knotted together bed sheets . some passengers were forced to jump. thankfully it was close to shore. in plain english , the costa concordia shouldn't have been anywhere near the rocks. while some didn't makit, some are still missg, a lot of passengers are very lucky to be alive and onry land. of t 4,20 souls on board,ix are dead, 29 still missing. that number includes two americans. we have this story covered from italy tonight. before we get to nbc's harry ith, we begin tonight with michelle kaczyni. michelle , od evening.
>> reporter: good evening, brian. rescue efforts have been relentless and dangerous. now we know according to the company what caused this saster was human error . thecaptain's decision to go off course, bring the ship closer to shore. now, there is desperate hope that any of the more two dozen still ssing might yet be found alive. rescuers fighting their way while there's time to fd people who might still be trapped deep within the costa concordia today battled weather, had to pull back as the half half sunk behemoth under water.
>> to start and we are losing the trek.
>> among the missing , american retirees jerry and barbara hyle from minnesota their family said they coopete wait for their dream mediterranean cruise and trapped on board for a day and a half. the bouer still lodged in the concordia's ripped hull, the ship lying on a rocky bed mor than 100 feet deep, at an angle, in danger of sliding. and a state of emergency declared over wries that half be aking. gallons of fuel could still emerging video shows how a vation three hours in evolved into a desperate push to escape.
>> people are passing out. ople are getting nervous. people are having chest pains . i was having che pains. i was having anxiety because i don't know how to swim.
>> infrared video shows people inching down the exposed hull in the dark. today, costa cruise has kuld this the result of human error . blaming the captain f making an unautrized decision to steer off course closer to an island. he's also under suspicion o abandoni ship while passengers still scrambled forheir lives. the company said this course chan may have all been for show.
>> he wanted to show the ship and to nearby thi island and so he decided tchange the course of the ship.
>> the captain has defended his action claiming navigational char showed a clear route. locals say it's not uncommon to make a display close to land, sounding horns, delighting tourists. this video of the concordia on a previous run sws just that. today, this time, the picture shows only disaster on an enormous scale. you know, brian, we have heard repeated scathing aounts from paengers about the evaation procedure. but today the company defended the crew saying that ship rled quickly,endering half the lifeboats useless. and commended them forelping to get more than 4,000 people off safely in two hours's me.
>> nbc's michelle kaczynski, thanks, starting
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46017169/
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