BOSTON (Reuters) – Self-made millionaire, triathlete and former two-term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson said on Thursday he will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

Johnson, 58, made the announcement on the steps of the New Hampshire State House in Concord. New Hampshire holds an important early contest in the race for the Republican nomination.

“I have the qualifications, the ability and the know-how to do the job. I also have a track record,” Johnson said.

Johnson is considered a long-shot candidate to win his party’s nomination to challenge President Barack Obama, a Democrat who has announced he is running for re-election.

But Johnson is an intriguing addition to a prospective Republican field that has not yet generated much excitement among voters. Johnson is a former handyman who built a large construction business and who advocates legalizing marijuana as a way to stop drug cartels.

He is a health enthusiast and avid athlete who has competed in many endurance and adventure events, including the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii.

In 2003, Johnson reached the summit of Mount Everest. In 2005, he suffered a near-fatal paragliding accident.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire, April 20 (Reuters) – Republican former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, mulling a run for the White House, on Wednesday derided President Barack Obama over energy policy and high gasoline prices.

Rising gas prices threaten to derail the fragile U.S. economic recovery and are becoming a potent campaign issue in the Republican race to challenge Obama in 2012.

Gingrich, who was holding meetings with members of the Tea Party movement and other conservative activists, tried to get ahead of the curve, blaming high prices for heating oil and gasoline on Obama, and outlining proposals of his own.

“Obama is waging war on American energy,” he said.

Top of Gingrich’s list is shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency, which he called “a job-killing regulatory engine of higher energy prices.”

He also proposed lifting a ban on oil shale development in the West; imposing new oil and gas royalties; giving coastal states federal royalty revenue sharing and enacting a law to reduce “frivolous” lawsuits sometimes used to stop energy projects.

Gingrich is considering making a decision early next month on whether to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. But, speaking to reporters at an Italian restaurant in Manchester, he sounded every inch the candidate.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Rajon Rondo is the smallest of the Boston Celtics starting lineup but the guard proved his mettle Tuesday as Boston inched past the New York Knicks.

The fifth-year pro scored 30 points, a career post-season high, in Boston’s 96-93 win, and backed it up with four rebounds and seven assists against a Knicks team depleted by injuries.

Boston’s win gave them a 2-0 lead in the Eastern conference best of seven series. The action switches to New York’s Madison Square Garden Friday.

Rondo, prince of the assist, rarely stars on the Celtics’ well-rounded roster, where forwards Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett often steal the scoring show and Ray Allen regularly hits laser-like three-pointers.

“That’s a hard job, that point guard job,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers of Rondo. “When they’re playing you to drive, they’re trying to force you to shoot, and your most effective way is penetration through trees. It’s hard.”

At age 25, versus an average age of 33 for the rest of Boston’s starters Tuesday, Rondo brings fresh legs to the team. Even so, going up against “trees” takes its toll.

“I got tired in the first quarter,” said Rondo. “I was trying to push the pace and I got a little winded. After that, my wind was fine.”

BOSTON (Reuters) – Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai won the Boston Marathon Monday in two hours three minutes and two seconds, the fastest time ever recorded over the grueling distance.

Mutai slashed almost a minute off the official world record of 2:03.59, set by Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie at Berlin in 2008, but his time was not ratified as a new record because he was aided by a tailwind on a hilly course with too much downhill from start to finish.

“Boston marathon performances cannot be ratified as world records as the course does not satisfy two of the criteria for world records,” USA Track and Field told Reuters.

Mutai’s countryman Moses Mosop, competing in his first marathon, also smashed Gebrselassie’s mark to finish second in 2:03.06 after the two Kenyans ran stride for stride through the capital of Massachusetts before unleashing a final sprint to the finish line in Boylston Street.

“I was not coming to break the world record,” Mutai told reporters.

“For me, today was good weather. And when you are in good form and get good weather and get some colleagues who can push you, you can make it.”

Ethiopia’s Gebregziabher Gebremariam, last year’s New York City marathon champion, was third, with Ryan Hall of the United States fourth after keeping pace with the East Africans for most of the race. His time of 2:04:58 was the fastest ever time by an American.

BOSTON (Reuters) – American Desiree Davila came into Monday’s Boston Marathon relatively unheralded but her near-victory gave the United States something to cheer about on a day when African runners swept the men’s and women’s races.

Davila, who came within two seconds of winning the women’s marathon, highlighted the best Boston performance for U.S. runners in years. Ryan Hall ran the fastest ever marathon for a U.S. man in finishing fourth.

Coming into the final mile Davila was in a pack with Kenyans Caroline Kilel and Sharon Cherup. Twice she pushed to a small lead. Cherup fell back, leaving Kilel and Davila to battle it out.

Kilel finally pulled clear, breaking the tape in 2:22:36.

“I even thought the last couple of strides there maybe there was a little more left and I just couldn’t pull it off … my legs were just shot,” Davila said. “At the end it was just trying to keep contact.”

Many spectators did not realise that Davila, 27, was an American. Instead of patriotic red, white and blue she was wearing the red and yellow colors of the Hanson-Brooks Distance Project, an elite running team for post-collegiate athletes based in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Once the buzz got around, shouts of “USA, USA” started to ripple through the huge crowds.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Michigan-based runner Desiree Davila came into Monday’s Boston Marathon relatively unheralded, and came within two seconds of stealing the whole show at the world’s best-known long race.

Davila’s showing highlighted the best Boston for U.S. runners in years. Ryan Hall ran the fastest ever marathon for a U.S. man in finishing fourth.

Coming into the final mile Davila was in a pack with Kenyans Caroline Kilel and Sharon Cherup. Twice she pushed to a small lead. Cherup fell back, leaving Kilel and Davila to battle it out.

Kilel finally pulled clear, breaking the tape in 2:22:36.

“I even thought the last couple of strides there maybe there was a little more left and I just couldn’t pull it off … my legs were just shot,” Davila said. “At the end it was just trying to keep contact.”

Many spectators did not realize that Davila, 27, was an American. Instead of patriotic red, white and blue she was wearing the red and yellow colors of the Hanson-Brooks Distance Project, an elite running team for post-collegiate athletes based in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Once the buzz got around, shouts of “USA, USA” started to ripple through the huge crowds.

CONCORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Tim Pawlenty, the first senior Republican to take the formal step to seek the party’s presidential nomination, brings some advantages into the 2012 race but national recognition isn’t one of them.

The former Minnesota governor’s low public profile puts him far behind other more established national party figures in the early courtship of voters, even though they remain undecided on whether to challenge President Barack Obama.

But a strong team and a personal narrative that fits the key election issues of jobs and deficit reduction will likely make the soft-spoken Pawlenty a more serious contender.

“He has a lot of assets. He’s likable. He’s from the Midwest. He had achievements as a Republican governor of a traditionally Democratic state,” said Barry Burden, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.

Pawlenty, 50, has visited the early primary state of New Hampshire regularly over the past year.

On Friday, he headlines a Taxpayer Tea Party rally in the state capital Concord as part of an effort to become better known.

“His name recognition in New Hampshire and nationally is still under 50 percent. He’s just not making a big impact right now. He’s not unpopular but he’s just not making a splash,” said Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling in Raleigh, North Carolina. “If he gets the nomination he will have backed into it, as the default,” he said.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Democrats in at least three states are marking the fifth anniversary on Tuesday of the health care reforms Republican Mitt Romney helped pass when he was governor of Massachusetts.

The events were designed to remind voters of Romney’s role in what is seen as the prototype for President Barack Obama’s health policy — a day after Romney announced he was forming an exploratory committee for a 2012 presidential run.

At the same time, studies show “Romneycare,” reviled by most Republicans in Congress, has met many of its goals and is relatively popular in the state.

“Mitt Romney is nothing short of a founding father of modern health reform,” Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said at an event in Concord that featured a thank you card and a birthday cake.

Iowa’s Democratic Party was blunt: “His dedication to a quality health care system laid the groundwork for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.” And Democrats in Massachusetts mounted a “Thank You, Mitt” video on youtube.com.

Republicans have vowed to overturn Obama’s program. The Massachusetts version is seen by some conservatives as evidence Romney is a RINO — a Republican in Name Only.

Romney made no reference to health care on Monday, when he launched his exploratory committee to raise money for a challenge to Obama in a video focused on job creation and the economy.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Republican heavyweight Mitt Romney, in a second bid for the White House, is promoting his private-sector business experience to show he could better than President Barack Obama in creating jobs.

But opponents will find fault in his record as a corporate raider in the 1980s and as Massachusetts governor when his performance on employment was mixed at best.

Romney stressed his experience as head of private equity firm Bain Capital when he announced on Monday he was forming an exploratory committee on seeking the Republican 2012 nomination to challenge Obama, a Democrat.

He made a fortune wheeling and dealing in companies, some of which endured big job cuts as part of restructuring. Some ultimately went bankrupt.

“He was a corporate raider who often made companies profitable, not by helping them perform better — but by simply laying off employees and killing jobs,” said Ray Buckley, Democratic Party chairman of New Hampshire.

Bain Capital, which Romney headed for more than a decade, specialized in leveraged buyouts: buying companies with money borrowed against their assets, grooming them to be sold off, and in the interim collecting huge management fees.

Later, as Massachusetts governor from January 2003 to January 2007, Romney presided over one of the puniest rates of employment growth among the 50 states, at a time the nation’s economy was booming.