BY STEPHEN BRAUN AND ERIK SCHELZIGAssociated Press

FRANKLIN, Tenn. — The SecretService said Wednesday it is in-vestigating the reported theft ofcopies of Republican presidentialcandidate Mitt Romney’s federaltax records during a break-in at anaccounting office in Franklin.Someone claiming responsibilitydemanded $1 million not to makethem public.

An anonymous letter sent toRomney’s accounting firm and po-litical offices in Tennessee andpublished online sought $1 millionin hard-to-trace Internet currencyto prevent the disclosure of histax filings, which have emerged asa key focus during the 2012 presi-dential race. Romney released his2010 tax returns and a 2011 esti-mate in January, but he has re-fused to disclose his returns fromearlier years.

Romney’s accounting firm,PricewaterhouseCoopers, saidthere was no evidence that anyRomney tax files were stolen.

“At this time there is no evi-dence that our systems have beencompromised or that there wasany unauthorized access to thedata in question,” Pricewater-houseCoopers spokesman ChrisAtkins said.

In Washington, Secret Servicespokesman Edwin Donovan

confirmed the agency was investi-gating. The Romney campaign de-clined to comment, referring allquestions to the accounting firm.

Franklin police said there wereno recent alarms or break-ins re-ported at the site. “We’ve hadnothing from that address in Au-gust,” Police Lt. Charles J. Warnersaid.

There was no sign of forcedentry at the five-story building thathoused the accounting firm’s localoffice, not far from the CoolSprings Galleria, a large mall about20 miles south of Nashville.

The building does not restrictaccess during business hours andhas no guard. Access to the doorsand elevators appear to be con-trolled by keycard. A spokes-woman for the building manager,Spectrum Properties, said the com-pany would not speculate on theburglary claim.

“All of the tenants operate inde-pendently and the building ishighly secured,” the spokeswoman,Beth Courtney, said.

The data theft was claimed inletters left with political party of-fices in Franklin and disclosed inseveral Tennessee-area newspa-pers. Jean Barwick, the executivedirector of the Williamson CountyRepublic Party, said employees inthe GOP office found a small pack-age on Friday with a hand-writtenaddress. The package contained aletter and a computer flash drive,she said. Yankton Mall

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France Giving Aid To Rebel-Held Syrian CitiesPARIS (AP) — A diplomatic source says France has started provid-

ing direct aid to five rebel-held Syrian cities in the first such move by aWestern power.

France is also stepping up contacts with armed opposition groupsas it pushes to secure “liberated zones” in Syria, the official said.

The aid is notably helping restore water supplies, bakeries andschools affected by Syria’s civil war, the source said Wednesday. Hespoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of theFrench actions amid Syria’s violence.

He would not name the cities or explain how the aid is being pro-vided, citing security reasons. He said the cities house a total of700,000 residents and are securely outside control of President BasharAssad’s regime.

100s Of Afghan Soldiers Fired In Attack ProbeKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan authorities have detained or re-

moved hundreds of soldiers in an investigation into rising insider at-tacks against international service personnel who are their supposedpartners in the fight against Taliban insurgents and other militants, of-ficials said Wednesday.

The crackdown is the result of the Afghan Defense Ministry’s effortto re-evaluate soldiers to stem the attacks, which are complicatingplans to train Afghan forces so that most foreign troops can withdrawfrom the country by the end of 2014. President Hamid Karzai’s govern-ment hopes Afghan forces can take responsibility for security nation-wide by that time.

The U.S. military is taking precautionary measures too and recentlystopped training about 1,000 members of the Afghan Local Police, acontroversial network of village-defense units that is growing but re-mains a fraction of the country’s army and police force. Karzai has ex-pressed concern that without careful vetting, the program could endup arming local troublemakers, strongmen or criminals.

So far this year, 45 international service members, most of themAmericans, have died at the hands of Afghan soldiers or policemen orinsurgents wearing their uniforms. There were at least 12 such attacksin August alone, resulting in 15 deaths.

Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said that hun-dreds of Afghan National Army soldiers were removed from the serv-ice, but he declined to provide an exact number or specify how manywere detained.

Drs. Diagosis Colo. Girl With Bubonic PlagueDENVER (AP) — The parents of 7-year-old Sierra Jane Downing

thought she had the flu when she felt sick days after camping in south-west Colorado.

It wasn’t until she had a seizure that her father knew somethingwas seriously wrong and rushed her to a hospital in their town ofPagosa Springs.

“I didn’t know what was going on. I just reacted,” Sean Downingsaid. “I thought she died.”

An emergency room doctor who saw Sierra Jane for the seizure anda 107-degree fever late Aug. 24 wasn’t sure what the cause was eitherand called other hospitals before the girl was flown to Denver.

There, a pediatric doctor at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Childrenracing to save Sierra Jane’s life got the first inkling that she hadbubonic plague. Dr. Jennifer Snow suspected the disease based on thegirl’s symptoms, a history of where she’d been, and an online journal’sarticle on a teen with similar symptoms.

Clinton Boosts Obama In Rousing Convention SpeechBY DAVID ESPOAP Special Correspondent

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President BarackObama inherited a wreck of an economy, “puta floor under the crash” and laid the founda-tion for millions of good new jobs, formerPresident Bill Clinton declared Wednesdaynight in a rousing Democratic National Con-vention appeal aimed at millions of hard-pressed Americans yet to decide how to vote.

Conceding that many struggling in a slow-recovery economy don’t yet feel the change,Clinton said in a prime-time speech that cir-cumstances are improving “and if you’llrenew the president’s contract you will feelit.”

To the cheers of thousands of Democratspacked into their convention hall, he said ofObama, “I want to nominate a man who iscool on the outside but who burns for Amer-ica on the inside.”

The speech was vintage Clinton, overlongfor sure, insults delivered with a folksy grin,references to his own time in office and hiswife Hillary, all designed to improve Obama’schances for re-election in an era of painfullyslow economic growth and 8.3 percent unem-ployment.

Clinton spoke as Obama’s high commandworked to control the political fallout from anembarrassing retreat on the party platform,just two months from Election Day in a tightrace with Republican challenger Mitt Rom-ney.

Under criticism from Romney, the Obamacamp abruptly rewrote the day-old documentto insert a reference to God and to declarethat Jerusalem “is and will remain the capitalof Israel.” Some delegates objected loudly,but Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa,presiding in the largely-empty hall, ruledthem outvoted. White House aides saidObama had personally ordered the changes,but they did not disclose whether he had ap-proved the earlier version.

The convention hall rocked with dele-gates’ applause and cheers as Clinton — un-official Democratic ambassador-in-chief toanxious voters in a tough economy — strodeonstage to sounds of “Don’t Stop ThinkingAbout Tomorrow,” his 1992 campaign themesong.

He sought to rebut every major criticismRepublicans have leveled against the presi-dent at their own convention last week inTampa, and said that in fact, since 1961, farmore jobs have been created under Demo-cratic presidents than when Republicans satin the White House — by a margin of 42 mil-lion to 24 million.

Clinton accused Republicans of proposing“the same old policies that got us into troublein the first place” and led to a near financialmeltdown. Those, he said, include efforts toprovide “tax cuts for higher-income Ameri-cans, more money for defense than the Penta-gon wants and ... deep cuts on programs thathelp the middle class and poor children.”

“As another president once said, ‘Therethey go again,”’ he said, quoting Ronald Rea-gan, who often uttered the remark as a re-buke to Democrats.

Obama flew into his convention city ear-lier in the day and arrived in the hall for Clin-ton’s speech. He arranged to join the formerpresident onstage afterward in a made-for-television joint appearance.”In Tampa the Re-publican argument against the president’sre-election was pretty simple: ‘We left him atotal mess, he hasn’t finished cleaning it upyet, so fire him and put us back in,”’ Clintonsaid.

“I like the argument for President Obama’sre-election a lot better. He inherited a deeplydamaged economy, put a floor under thecrash, began the long hard road to recoveryand laid the foundation for a more modern,more well-balanced economy that will pro-duce millions of good new jobs, vibrant newbusinesses, and lots of new wealth for the in-novators.”

On an unsettled convention day, aidesscrapped plans for the president to speak toa huge crowd in a 74,000 seat football sta-

dium, citing the threat of bad weather in acity that has been pelted by heavy down-pours in recent days.

“We can’t do anything about the rain. Theimportant thing is the speech,” said Washing-ton Rey, a delegate from Sumter, S.C.

That and the eight-week general electioncampaign about to begin between Obamaand Republican challenger Romney, whospent his second straight day in Vermontpreparing for this fall’s debates with Obama.

Clinton shared prime time with ElizabethWarren, the Democratic candidate for a Re-publican-held Senate seat in Romney’s Mas-sachusetts. For many years “our middle classhas been chipped, squeezed and hammered,”she said.

In a tight race for the White House andwith control of the Senate at stake, Democ-rats signaled unmistakable concern about thegrowing financial disadvantage they confront.Officials said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel,who was Obama’s first White House chief ofstaff, was resigning as national co-chair of thepresident’s campaign to help raise money fora super PAC that supports the his re-election.

Unlike candidates, outside groups can so-licit donations of unlimited size from donors.At the same time, federal law bars coordina-tion with the campaigns.

Inside the hall, a parade of speakerspraised Obama and criticized the Republi-cans, sometimes harshly.

Sandra Fluke, a law student whom con-gressional Republicans would not let testifyat a hearing on contraceptives, said if Repub-licans win in the fall, women will wake up to“an America in which access to birth controlis controlled by people who will never use it,in which politicians redefine rape.“

Clinton’s speech marked the seventh con-secutive convention he has spoken to partydelegates, and the latest twist in a relation-ship with Obama that has veered from frostyto friendly. The two men clashed in 2008,when Obama outran Hillary Rodham Clin-ton’s wife for the Democratic presidentialnomination.

Clinton, then a New York senator, nowObama’s Secretary of State, was in East Timoras the party met half a world away. She made acameo appearance on the huge screens insidethe Time Warner Cable Arena, though, turningup in a video that celebrated the 12 Demo-cratic women senators currently in office.

Whatever the past differences betweenpresidents current and past, Obama and histop aides looked to Clinton as the man bestable to vouch for him when it comes to theeconomy, his largest impediment to re-elec-tion.

ADAM JENNINGS/CHARLOTTE OBSERVER

Former President Bill Clinton speaks to the del-egation on the second night at the 2012 Dem-ocratic National Convention at Time WarnerCable Arena, Wednesday, in Charlotte, N.C.

Reported Theft Of RomneyTax Records Being Investigated