Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks. That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com
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Editor - 21:56:00 01-19-06
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 Soldier Accused in Death of Iraqi General Says He Thought Man Had Info. About WMDs, Saddam |
A soldier charged in the death of an Iraqi general testified Thursday that he thought the man knew where to find Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction when he used an improvised interrogation technique as a last resort. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. is accused of murder in the slaying of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in 2003. He faces life in prison if convicted. Welshofer said he had been unable to get any useful intelligence from Mowhoush during five interrogation sessions before covering him in a sleeping bag and straddling his chest while asking questions. Prosecutors say Mowhoush, placed headfirst in a sleeping bag and bound with an electrical cord, died from suffocation. Welshofer said he believed his commanders were still sorting out rules covering interrogation and that the technique had been authorized. He said commanders had asked interrogators for different techniques, hoping for information to fight the growing insurgency. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1524465
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Editor - 21:48:00 01-19-06
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| Top Senate Democrats oppose Alito nomination |
Three top Senate Democrats said on Thursday they would vote against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito because they feared he would not provide an effective check on what they described as President George W. Bush's bid for expanded power.While Alito appeared headed toward confirmation by the Republican-led Senate, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts made the case against Bush's 55-year-old conservative candidate.In separate speeches, they expressed concern that if confirmed, Alito would push the nation's highest court to the right in such areas as abortion rights and civil rights as well as presidential powers.Even if Democrats cannot stop Alito from becoming a Supreme Court Justice, they want to set the stage to make him an issue in the November congressional elections, along with Bush's recently disclosed program to eavesdrop on some telephone calls without warrants as part of his war against terrorism....
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-19T234723Z_01_N19205350_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-COURT-ALITO.xml
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Editor - 16:48:00 01-19-06
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| Yahoo Gave Search Data To Bush Administration Lawyers. Rival search engine Google Inc. had refused to comply with a similar subpoena, issued last year |
Yahoo Inc. on Thursday acknowledged handing over search data requested in a subpoena from the Bush administration, which is hoping to use the information to revive an anti-porn law that was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The disclosure followed reports that rival search engine Google Inc. had refused to comply with a similar subpoena, issued last year. The government had asked for a broad amount of data, including a million random Web addresses and records of Google searches over any week, the Associated Press reported. The information came from U.S. Justice Department papers filed Wednesday in a San Jose, Calif., federal court. A Yahoo spokeswoman said the company, which she described as a "rigorous" defender of user privacy, did not provide personal information in response to the Justice Department subpoena. "In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue," spokeswoman Mary Osako said in an email. ...
http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/177101984
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Editor - 16:07:00 01-19-06
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| Inquiry on Clinton Official Ends With Accusations of Cover-Up |
After the longest independent counsel investigation in history, the prosecutor in the case of former Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros is finally closing his operation with a scathing report accusing Clinton administration officials of thwarting an inquiry into whether Mr. Cisneros evaded paying income taxes.The legal inquiry by the prosecutor, David M. Barrett, lasted more than a decade, consumed some $21 million and came to be a symbol of the flawed effort to prosecute high-level corruption through the use of independent prosecutors. Mr. Barrett began his investigation with the narrower issue of whether Mr. Cisneros lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he was being considered for the cabinet position. He ended his inquiry accusing the Clinton administration of a possible cover-up. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/politics/19inquire.html?ei=5065&en=25e2d365821f3ec5&ex=1138338000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
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Editor - 15:56:00 01-19-06
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| Iraq Cleric: New Gov't Won't End Terror Attacks Despite Sunni Support |
Sunni Arab participation in a new government will not be enough to persuade Islamic extremists and Saddam Hussein loyalists to abandon the terrorist insurgency, the country's most powerful Shiite politician said Thursday. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a cleric with close ties to Iran and head of Iraq's largest Shiite party, also said the Americans must address "mistakes" in the battle against Sunni-led terrorists and allow the Iraqis a bigger role in the fight.The turbaned, soft-spoken cleric made his comments during an interview with The Associated Press in his heavily guarded residence along the Tigris River as the election commission was preparing to announce results of the Dec. 15 national ballot....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182253,00.html
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Editor - 14:12:00 01-19-06
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