AP reports:

An armed man took people hostage Friday at a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign office in New Hampshire, police said.

The incident happened at about 1 p.m. Friday at 28 North Main St. in Rochester. Officials said that a man is holding people hostage at the office, but it is unclear how many people are being held.

UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting that the two hostages being held are Clinton campaign volunteers. The hostage-taker, who reportedly is demanding to speak with the senator, has already released a woman and a child.

UPDATE II: Bill Shaheen, a top state campaign official, said that the “man had what appeared to be a bomb strapped to himself.” The AP reports that workers “for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign office in Rochester also were evacuated, a campaign spokesman said. The office is four doors away from Clinton’s. Staffers in John Edwards’ office, a few buildings away, evacuated as well.”

UPDATE III: Clinton, who is in DC, canceled her speech to the DNC after news of the NH situation broke.

UPDATE IV: The Clinton campaign has put out this statement:

There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, NH office. We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction. We will release additional details as appropriate.

UPDATE V: WMUR in New Hampshire reports that another “one of the hostages, a woman, was released at about 3 p.m.“

With “at least 171 journalists and other news media staff” killed “as a result of their work around the world so far this year,” 2007 has become “the bloodiest year on record for the industry.” “The all-time high of 168 deaths” in 2006 was eclipsed on Tuesday “when at least three editorial staff were killed in Sri Lanka.” With 64 deaths this year, Iraq is by far “the most murderous country” in the world for news media.

(HT: Greenslade)

UPDATE: The United States, Britain, and France today publicly pledged to “take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of journalists in war zones.” AP reports:

The three countries became the first signatories of the Geneva Conventions to accept a new nonbinding accord on protecting correspondents in conflict, said the International Committee of the Red Cross, which oversees compliance with the 1949 treaty on the rules of war. [...]

Media rights campaigners cautiously welcomed the pledge, but said its effectiveness would be measured by what the countries did in practice.

Earlier this week, Politico reported that as New York City mayor, Giuliani “billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons.” In a New York Times article today, disgraced Bernie Kerik, formerly Giuliani’s police commissioner, defended his friend:

Bernard B. Kerik, who was Mr. Giuliani’s police commissioner when some of the charges were billed, said in an interview yesterday that the security detail’s travel expenses would normally come out of the Police Department’s budget.

“There would be no need for anyone to conceal his detail’s travel expenses,” said Mr. Kerik, who was indicted earlier this month on unrelated federal tax fraud and corruption charges. “And I think It’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest that the mayor or his staff attempted to do so.“

Earlier this month, a federal grand jury indicted Kerik on 14 counts, including conspiracy, making false statements, “mail fraud and wire fraud in the theft of honest services,” and more.

Last night, John Ashcroft delivered an address on the Cornell University campus “in the face of shouting dissenters and shrouded protesters.” At his last appearance on a student campus, Ashcroft was asked whether he would be willing to be subjected to waterboarding. “The things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do,” he said.

Last night, Cornell University kept the heat on Ashcroft, repeatedly confronting him about his views on waterboarding.

Prior to his speech, Ashcroft answered students’ questions in the lounge of a resident house on campus where a small reception was held for him. One student in the adjoining dining hall (which shares a common window with the lounge) “taped a piece of paper to a window…asking Ashcroft why waterboarding was not considered torture.” The Cornell Sun reports that Ashcroft “merely stared at the piece of paper without comment.”

The Sun adds that it later followed-up on the question with Ashcroft:

In an interview with the Sun conducted just prior to his speech at Statler Hall, Ashcroft did address the question when it was again posed to him.

“The question of whether or not waterboarding is torture is defined by statute. It’s not something I can make a decision on,” Ashcroft answered. “There are laws about what is torture and what isn’t.”

Ashcroft told the Cornell students “I have no regrets” about his tenure as attorney general, adding “and I have done some crazy things.”

Ashcroft’s dodge on waterboarding is much like the answer former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) tried to give during the CNN/YouTube debate on Wednesday night. Romney claimed he can’t say specifically whether waterboarding is torture or not. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) ripped his equivocation:

McCAIN: I am astonished that you would think such a — such a torture would be inflicted on anyone in our — who we are held captive and anyone could believe that that’s not torture. It’s in violation of the Geneva Convention. It’s in violation of existing law. And, governor, let me tell you, if we’re going to get the high ground in this world and we’re going to be the America that we have cherished and loved for more than 200 years. We’re not going to torture people.

We’re not going to do what Pol Pot did. We’re not going to do what’s being done to Burmese monks as we speak. I suggest that you talk to retired military officers and active duty military officers like Colin Powell and others, and how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me.

After the debate, McCain reminded people that Japanese soldiers were tried and hanged for torturing American prisoners during World War II with techniques that included waterboarding.

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In October, while the California wildfires raged, FEMA staged a notorious “fake” press conference where FEMA employees posed as journalists and lobbed “softball” questions to a FEMA administrator. Today, Al Kamen reports that two of those fake “journalists” have been promoted:

On Oct. 23, the day of FEMA’s now infamous phony news conference, the agency’s former external affairs chief, Pat Philbin, announced plans to promote a number of people in the shop as part of an effort to build a “new FEMA.”

Cindy Taylor, deputy director of public affairs, was to become head of a new Private Sector Office, Philbin said in his e-mail to staff members. And Mike Widomski would move up to replace Taylor as deputy director of public affairs. [...]

They’ve received the promotions they were in line to get.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has appointed Gordon Hinkle, a top communications aide to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) as deputy press secretary for the state prison system. In September, Hinkle received a subpoena “from a Washington grand jury investigating Doolittle for his ties to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He was asked to turn over documents but was not required to testify.” TPMmuckraker’s Paul Kiel notes:

For those curious at home, if Doolittle, who is under investigation for his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, were in fact convicted of bribery charges, he’d end up in a federal penitentiary, not one in the California state system, so the two aren’t likely to be reunited. Oh, well.