News briefs update: Tsunami watches issued off Indonesia after massive quakes

UPDATE: Indian Ocean tsunami watch issued after massive earthquake hits Indonesia coast

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two massive earthquakes triggered back-to-back tsunami warnings for Indonesia on Wednesday, sending panicked residents fleeing to high ground in cars and on the backs of motorcycles. There were no signs of deadly waves, however, or serious damage, and a watch for much of the Indian Ocean was lifted after a few hours.

Women and children were crying in Aceh province, where memories are still raw of a 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province alone. Others screamed “God is great” as they poured from their homes or searched frantically for separated family members.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first 8.6-magnitude quake was 270 miles (435 kilometers) from Aceh’s provincial capital. The tsunami watch that followed from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii advised countries all along the rim of the Indian Ocean, from Australia and India to as far off as Africa, that a tsunami could be generated.

The only wave, however, was less than 30 inches high, rolling to Indonesia’s coast.

But just as the region was sighing relief, an 8.2-magnitude aftershock hit.

“We just issued another tsunami warning,” Prih Harjadi, from Indonesia’s geophysics agency, told TVOne in a live interview.

His countrymen were told to stay clear of western coasts.

Again, the threat quickly passed.

Experts said both quakes were geologically different than the one that spawned the 2004 tsunami, occurring horizontally, with the tectonic plates sliding against each other, creating more of a vibration in the water.

The other type of earthquake, a mega thrust, like the one that also hit off Japan last year, causes the seabed to heave and displaces water vertically, sending towering waves racing toward shores.

 Obama-Romney contest promises bitter words, and probably scant ’hope’ or ’change’

MENDENHALL, Pa. (AP) — The 2012 presidential general election has begun. It won’t be pretty.

Tuesday marked Day One, in essence, of the contest between the two virtually certain nominees, Republican Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. Rick Santorum’s departure removed the last meaningful bump from Romney’s path to the GOP nomination. Romney and Obama wasted no time in portraying the voters’ choice in dire, sometimes starkly personal terms.

With Obama saddled with a still-ailing economy and a divisive health care law, and Romney riding a wave of blistering TV ads, the fall election is unlikely to dwell on “hope,” “change” and other uplifting themes from four years ago. Much of the nation’s ire then was aimed at departing President George W. Bush, and Obama had no extensive record to defend.

The landscape is much different now. Americans face nearly seven months of hard-hitting jabs and counterpunches between the two parties’ standard-bearers.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor making his second presidential bid, attacked Obama with gusto Tuesday in his two public events that followed Santorum’s surprising announcement.