Briefly

Los Angeles

Davis takes on Bush, GOP in national address

Gov. Gray Davis, fighting to keep his job in the recall election, received two bursts of Democratic support Saturday as he gave his party’s national radio address and was endorsed by one of its leading presidential candidates.

In the Democrats’ response to President Bush’s weekly radio speech, Davis sharply criticized the Bush administration’s economic policies, saying that “Republicans in power have refused to learn from their mistakes.”

Then former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, whose scrappy campaign style has vaulted him to the front of the pack of Democratic presidential candidates, joined Davis in Los Angeles to say he was proud to back Davis despite the governor’s record low poll ratings.

California

Brush fire threatens about 1,500 homes

A brush fire fueled by erratic winds threatened about 1,500 homes east of Los Angeles Saturday, while in central Oregon, crews held back another wildfire that had earlier jumped containment lines.

About 400 of the 1,500 threatened homes along the edge of California’s San Bernardino National Forest were evacuated, and firefighters were taking advantage of calmer weather Saturday morning to battle the blaze, said Melody Lardner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.

More erratic winds and possible thunderstorms were forecast for later in the day.

The fire, which began Friday afternoon, had burned about 1,500 acres by evening. It was threatening the communities of Smiley Park, Fredalba, Knob Hill and Enchanted Forest, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

Virginia

Scandal-scarred GOP selects new state leader

Virginia Republicans, shaken by an eavesdropping scandal that forced the chairman and executive director to resign, Saturday chose their first female party leader, the daughter of a U.S. Senate nominee killed in a 1978 plane crash.

Longtime party activist Kate Obenshain Griffin, 34, was elected party chairwoman on a unanimous voice vote by the state GOP’s governing Central Committee.

“There is no question we as a party have done much to be proud of over the past decade, but there is also no question that individuals veered off course here in this building,” Griffin told the committee. “Mistakes were made and people within the party suffered, but we will not become paralyzed by these challenges.”