SAN FRANCISCO

Kerry slams Bush on Social Security crisis

Democrat John Kerry’s campaign said Friday that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s warning of a looming crisis for Social Security and Medicare should be a wake-up call that President Bush’s economic policies had failed.

Kerry spokeswoman Allison Dobson said Bush had driven up deficits that had put Social Security in danger.

Kerry spoke to voters at a town hall meeting at a high school gymnasium in Daly City, Calif. He said Bush had neglected the middle class, and he promised to curb credit card fees and protect home buyers and military families from unfair lending practices.

MIAMI

Bush courts Cubans, hurricane victims

President Bush wooed the state that decided the 2000 election with a pledge Friday to seek $2 billion more for hurricane recovery, and launched a fresh attack on Sen. John Kerry’s commitment to ousting Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Thousands of Cuban-Americans filled the arena where Bush spoke, part of a subtle effort by Bush to promote the Senate candidacy of Mel Martinez, Bush’s former housing secretary. The Cuban-born Martinez is in a contest against fellow Republican Bill McCollum, with the primary Tuesday.

The president said Kerry had flip-flopped on the Helms-Burton Act signed by President Clinton in 1996 that tightened the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.

Speaking in Spanish, Bush said, “He voted yes, then he voted no.”