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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8. 2005
NATION
President's budget goes to Congress
WASHINGTON — President Bush is sending Congress a $2.5 trillion spending plan, constrained by war and record deficits, that seeks to slash spending in a number of popular programs from farm subsidies to poor people's health care.
While calling it the tightest budget of Bush's presidency, Vice President Dick Cheney defended the spending blueprint against Democratic complaints that its austerity falls hardest on the poor.
"It's not something that we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society," Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday."
The budget's arrival yesterday sets off months of contentious debate. Lawmakers from both parties are expected to fight for favorite programs.
Bush has targeted 150 programs for either outright elimination or severe cutbacks as part of an effort to meet his campaign pledge to cut the deficit in half by 2009, the year he leaves office.
For the 2006 budget year that begins next Oct.1, he proposes spending $2.5 trillion as he seeks to put the government on a path of declining deficits. That would occur, however, only after the government has recorded three straight years of record deficits, in dollar terms, including a projected $427 billion in red ink this year.
The Associated Press
Pope faces more time in hospital
WORLD
VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II will remain hospitalized a few more days as a precaution, the Vatican said yesterday, a day after the 84-year-old pope appeared at his clinic window to show the world he was recovering from his latest health crisis.
Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope, who he said was continuing to improve, had no fever, was eating regularly and has been sitting in a chair every day for several hours. Officials said the frail pope's sixth night at the clinic passed calmly.
The Associated Press
CHURCH ABUSE SCANDAI
BY DENISE LAVOIE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Priest convicted in child rape trial
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in the sex scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese, was convicted yesterday of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at his Roman Catholic church during the 1980s.
The conviction on all four charges gives prosecutors an important victory in their effort to bring pedophile priests to justice for decades of abuse at parishes around the country.
Shanley, 74, could get life in prison for two counts each of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child when he is sentenced Feb. 15. His bail
was revoked and he was immediately led off to jail.
The victim, now 27, put his head down and sobbed as the verdicts were announced after a trial that turned on the reliability of what the man claimed were recovered memories of the long-ago abuse. Shanley showed no emotion as he stood next to his lawyer.
The jury deliberated 13 hours over three days.
During the trial, the accuser broke down on the stand as he testified in graphic detail that Shanley pulled him out of Sunday morning catechism classes and molested him in the bathroom, the rectory, the confessional and the pews starting when he was 6 and continuing for six years.
"He told me nobody would
ever believe me if I told anybody" he testified.
The accuser said that he repressed his memories of the abuse but that they came flooding back three years ago, triggered by news coverage of the scandal that began in Boston and soon engulfed the church worldwide.
Shanley, once a long-haired, jeans-wearing "street priest" who worked with Boston's troubled youth, sat stically for most of the trial, listening to his accuser's testimony with the help of a hearing aid.
The defense called just one witness — a psychologist who said that so-called recovered memories can be false, even if the accuser ardently believes they are true. A lawyer for Shanley argued that the accuser
was either mistaken or concocted the story with the help of personal injury lawyers to cash in on a multimillion-dollar settlement resulting from the sex scandal.
The accuser, now a firefighter in suburban Boston, was one of at least two dozen men who claimed they had been molested by Shanley. The archdiocese's own personnel records showed that church officials knew Shanley publicly advocated sex between men and boys, yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish.
Prosecutors said the young man had no financial motivation in accusing Shanley of rape in the criminal case because he received his $500,000 settlement with the archdiocese nearly a year ago. They also cited his
wrenching three days on the stand, during which he sobbed and begged the judge not to force him to continue testifying.
"The emotions were raw. They were real," prosecutor Lynn Rooney said in closing arguments.
"The validation that all the victims of Paul Shanley must feel today must be unbelievable," Ford said.
Rodney Ford, whose son Greg was one of three accusers dropped from the case, called the verdict "a relief for my son, and all the other victims."
Shanley's niece disagreed.
"There are no winners today. There are only losers," Teresa Shanley said. "We're no closer to finding out the truth about this scandal or finding out what happened."
MIDDLE EAST
Israeli, Palestinian leaders to declare end of violence
BY SALAH NASRAWI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt — Israeli and Palestinian leaders said they would declare a formal end to more than four years of fighting during a summit today in this Egyptian resort — a breakthrough in Mideast peacemaking that comes after both sides also accepted invitations to meet separately with President Bush at the White House.
The cease-fire deal was the clearest indication yet of momentum following Yasser Arafat's death, the election of a new Palestinian leader and a signal from the White House that it plans a renewed push for peace.
push for peace.
"The most important thing at the summit will be a mutual declaration of cessation of violence against each other," said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator.
Erekat said the agreement also included the establishment of joint committees — one to determine criteria for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and the other to oversee the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian cities on the West Bank.
An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the cease-fire agreement and said it would also include an end to Palestinian incitement to violence.
to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will attend the summit Tuesday in this Egyptian beach resort, along with Jordan's King Abdullah II and the host, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It will be the first meeting of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders since Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, succeeded Arafat after his death on Nov. 11.
Amr Nabil/The Associated Press
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, center, waves as he arrives to open the Counter-Terrorism International Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it "a time of hope, a time we can hope for a better day for the Palestinian and Israeli people both."
UNIVERSITY LIFE
Colleges asking students for earlier donations
BY SAMIRA JAFARI THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. Leon Harris pays for his education at the University of Alabama on his own. He's drowning in student loans, he's between jobs and his dorm room just got more expensive.
Yet on a recent afternoon, during a break at the student center, the sophomore sat facing a banner that asked him to donate money to a new student capital campaign. The university wants each of its 21,000 students to give at least $2 toward a scholarship for someone who will be the first in his family to go to college.
"I don't have any money to give," said Harris, who's from Montgomery. "I give them a lot of money already."
Public universities traditionally have not solicited their undergraduates for donations — Alabama hasn't asked since 1922. But faced with state budget cuts and the need to remain competitive, schools across the country are beginning to focus on students as young as freshmen and sophomores as prime targets for fund-raising campaigns.
At California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, undergraduates give to a students-only fund, established in 1998, that's used for scholarships. Several schools, including the University of Georgia, solicit seniors to donate typically $55 to 50 for the betterment of the campus. At Auburn University, a few colleges within the university are asking students to make contributions in the amount of their class year — $20.04 for 2004, for example.
The movement isn't surprising, since public colleges and universities have turned their attention to younger and younger alumni over the years, said John Taylor of Durham, N.C., a higher education consultant who specializes in fund raising.
"You typically didn't approach people until a good five years post graduation. That seemed to be rule of thumb," Taylor said. "Over the last decade or two, we've seen that shift, so the day after graduation they're fair game. Now the shift has moved further to talking to seniors before they graduate, so logically that translates to the earlier you contact the student the better."
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