The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
NEWS BRIEFS
GAZA CITY
Israeli troops kill
eight Palestinians
in Gaza raid
Israeli troops seized a northern
Gaza town yesterday in one of the
largest strikes against Palestinian
rocket squads in months, imposing
a curfew, deploying snipers on roof-
tops and patrolling streets in tanks.
Eight Palestinians and an Israeli
soldier were killed.
However, cabinet ministers
scrapped a plan to widen the con-
flict, a move that coincided with
U.S. and Egyptian efforts to stanch
the flow of weapons to Palestinian
extremists across the Gaza-Egypt
border.
The takeover of Beit Hanoun was
expected to last only a few days,
according to Israeli officials, who
emphasized the operation was not
the start of a broader military offen-
sive in Gaza. One plan for such a
major operation would involve seiz-
ing large portions of southern Gaza
to destroy weapons smuggling tun-
nels from Egypt.
Israel has several reasons not to
launch such an offensive now.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert is to meet with President
Bush at the White House this month
and likely would not want a major
escalation in Gaza to overshadow
the trip.
LANSING
Republicans sue
Dems to stop
campaign spending
Republicans filed a federal law-
suit yesterday to block Democrats
from spending $440,000 on battle-
ground races that could determine
which party controls the Michigan
Senate.
The suit, a copy of which was
provided to The Associated Press,
alleges incumbent Democrats
exceeded the annual $20,000-per-
person limit that individuals can
donate to legislative caucuses, in
this case the Senate Democratic
Fund.
Republicans hope to get an
injunction issued by a judge that
would block much of the Demo-
crats' spending in the final week
of a hard-fought campaign sea-
son.
SEOUL, South Korea
N. Korea says it
wants access to
frozen accounts
North Korea said yesterday it
was returning to nuclear disarma-
ment talks to get access to its fro-
zen overseas bank accounts, a vital
source of hard currency.
The North's Foreign Ministry
made only indirect mention of
its underground nuclear test last
month. Instead, it focused in an
official statement on its desire
to end U.S. financial restrictions
by going back to six-nation arms
talks that it has boycotted for a
year.
OSHTEMO TWP, Mich.
Meijer store to
test radio tags on
grocery carts
Shopping carts at a Meijer store
near Kalamazoo are being fitted
with electronic tags for a test aimed
at improving customer service in
the checkout lanes, company rep-
resentatives said.
"This is a way for us to track how
much time people are spending in
grocery, in the service area and in
checkout lanes so we can provide
better service," Mark Kahler, a
spokesman for the store in Kal-
amazoo County's Oshtemo Town-
ship, told the Kalamazoo Gazette
for a story yesterday.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
DID YOU KNOW?
U.S.HISTORYISNOT
OUR STRONG SUIT
A recent survey
found that University
students received a failing
grade on a test about Ameri-
can history, government, foreign
affairs and the economy, The
Detroit News reported. The test
was administered by the Univer-
sity of Connecticut's Department
of Public Policy on behalf of the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
Of the 50 colleges surveyed, the
University ranked number 35.
MEDITATIONS IN DETROIT
Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 3A
Kerry tries
to quell furor
with apology
Apology to service
members comes six
days before elections
WASHINGTON (AP) - Thrust
into the midst of the midterm elec-
tion campaign, Sen. John Kerry
apologizedyesterday to "any service
member, family member or Ameri-
can" offended by remarks deemed
by Republicans and Democrats alike
to be insultingto U.S. forces in Iraq.
Six days before the election,
the 2004 Democratic presidential
nominee said he sincerely regret-
ted his words were "misinterpreted
to imply anything negative about
those in uniform."
Inabriefstatement,Kerryattacked
President Bush for a "failed security
policy." Yet his apology, issued after
prominent Democrats had urged
him to cancel public appearances,
was designed to quell a controversy
that party leaders feared would stall
their drive for biggains on Nov. 7.
With polls showing the public
opposed to the war in Iraq, Demo-
crats have expressed increasing
optimism in recent days that they
will gain the 15 seats they need
to win control of the House. They
must pick up six seats to win the
Senate, a taller challenge.
Kerry beat a grudging retreat
in his return to the national cam-
paign spotlight. Earlier, on the
radio program "Imus in the Morn-
ing," the Massachusetts senator
said he was "sorry about a botched
joke" about Bush. He heaped
praise on the troops, adamantly
accused Republicans of twisting
his words and said it was the com-
mander in chief and his aides who
"owe America an apology for this
disaster in Iraq."
Democrats cringed, though, at
the prospect of the Massachusetts
senator becoming the face of the
party for the second consecutive
national campaign. "No one wants
to have the 2004 election replayed,"
said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
(D-N.Y.) like Kerry, a potential con-
tender for the 2008 nomination.
A stereo is prcminently displayed in "Meditations in ar
Contemporary Art Detroit. The exhibit opened on Satur,
ergency," an exhibit curated by Klaus Kertess in the Mt
. For more coverage, see the B-Side.
Voter drive aimedat immigrants "PUTS THE FUN BACK INTO SEX!"
l l l "EX OT AND OP~I~stnl
falls short, advocates say eTD"I."
150,000 of intended onstrated nationwide, sparked But by all accounts, simply find- AN ERO C HO N
by a House bill that would have ing 1 million eligible new voters nuWNoe
1 million new foreign- made it a felony to be in the coun- in just a few months would have DRAY DEiCloVSlY
try illegally. been tough.
born voters registered The Senate's immigration bill "The 1 million - we were look- i o"R EW
left that provision out and the ing at the potential of immigrant
NEW YORK (AP) - After huge two chambers failed to reach a voter power," Jones said. "Look-AN E R 4( A ND
immigration protests earlier this compromise. ing back, we realize ... the immi- A CARNAVASE1S2E RoNP
year, advocates vowed to capital- Immigrants' advocates seized grant community is complicated non ismeWykEs
ize on the energy and register 1
million new foreign-born voters,
mostly Hispanics.
But rhetoric has run headlong
into reality: Organizers say that,
as of last week, they had signed up
fewer than 150,000 people.
Advocates' experiences show
that cultivating new voters is
tough, plodding work, and that
developing Latino power will rely
not on street protests but on the
group becoming more politically
engaged as it gets older.
"People were waving signs
- 'Today we march, tomorrow
we vote' - but that may not be
something that's literally tomor-
row," said Lionel Sosa, a Repub-
lican political strategist who is
CEO of Mexicans & Americans
Thinking Together, a Web-based
nonprofit.
"It will be slow, but eventually
everyone running for political
office will understand that this is
a vote to be reckoned with."
This spring, immigrants dem-
on momentum from the protests
and organized what they called
Democracy Summer.
They pledged to register 1 mil-
lion new foreign-born voters by
next week's election - and anoth-
er 2 million before the presidential
contest in 2008.
But Germonique Jones, spokes-
woman for the Center for Com-
munity Change, an umbrella
organization of some of the
nation's biggest immigrants
groups, said the total is roughly
146,000.
The Center for Community
Change arrived at the figure by
totaling estimates from the vari-
ous groups with which it has been
collaborating.
Such estimates are difficult
to confirm because secretaries
of state do not tally new regis-
trations based on ethnicity or
where voters were born, said
Catherine Ennis, a spokeswom-
an for Pennsylvania's depart-
ment of state.
- not monolithic."
First off, more than one in three
of the nation's 42 million-plus His-
panics are age 17 or younger, 2005
Census data show - too young to
vote. And some portion of that pop-
ulation, no one is sure exactly how
many, includes illegal immigrants. * "Cf