The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
BAGHDADJ
Iraqi soldier
accused in killings
of U.S. troops
An Iraqi soldier is accused of
turning on two decorated Ameri-
can servicemen and shooting them
to death during a joint operation
in northern Iraq, the U.S. military
said Saturday. An Iraqi official said
the suspect may have links to mili-
tant groups.
The shooting the day after
Christmas in the northern city of
Mosul, which left three other U.S.
soldiers and a civilian interpreter
wounded, was the second known s
attack by a member of the Iraqi s
military on the American troops
who train and work closely with
Iraqi forces.
Initial results from an Iraqi l
investigation indicate that the sol-
dier who opened fire may have i
links to local militants, said Brig.
Mutaa Habib Jassim al-Khazrachi, s
commander of the Iraqi army's 2nd b
Division, who did not elaborate.
i
NAIROBI, Kenya
Police accused of
ethnic violence s
in Kenya
A Nairobi shopkeeper says he f
was targeted by police from a rival
tribe - underscoringhow riots that
began as opposition protests have t
sent simmering ethnic tensions y
boiling over and how some police s
r appear to have fueled rather than a
tamped the violence. t
More than two dozen Kenyan
civil organizations say police have e
taken to using extraordinary force, a
and in some cases carried out
extrajudicial executions, in the a
face of riots sparked by anger over $
alleged election fraud. Police deny
the accusations. s
The unrest began when support-
ers of opposition leader Raila Odin- u
ga accused President Mwai Kibaki
of rigging the Dec. 27 vote but soon y
exploded into widespread ethnic
clashes, pulling in many more than
Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe and Odinga's e
Luo, and leaving more than 300 $
people dead. t
it
DETROIT t
GM says driverless m
cars could hit
roads i 10 years e
a
Cars that drive themselves -
even parking at their destination a
- could be ready for sale within
a decade, General Motors Corp.
executives say. c
GM, parts suppliers, university
engineers and other automakers all s
are working on vehicles that could t
revolutionize short- and long-dis- t
tance travel. And tomorrow at the -
Consumer Electronics Show in Las
Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick
Wagoner will devote part of his
speech to the driverless vehicles.
The most significant obstacles
facing the vehicles could be human
rather than technical: government

regulation, liability laws, privacy
concerns and people's passion for
the automobile and the control it
gives them.
ARVADA, Colo.
Six killed in Alaska
b plane crash
A chartered plane that crashed
into a shallow harbor after tak-
ing off from Kodiak Island, killing
six people, was carrying a group
of fishermen from a dissident sect
of the Russian Orthodox Church
home for Christmas.
Four people survived the crash
Saturday, and one of them told
investigators that the door to a bag-
gage compartment in the nose of
the small plane had popped open.
"We want to look at the aerody-
namic qualities of opening a very
large door in flight," Clint Johnson,
an investigator with the National
Transportation Safety Board, said.
The Piper PA-31 Navajo Chief-
tain crashed about 50 yards off the
end of a runway after taking off
Saturday afternoon, according to
authorities.
- Compiled from
Daily mire reports "

Budget surplus Ignoring Dems, Detroit papers
not expected to back McCain in state primary


a d C0iinton is the only
major Democrat on
state ballot

Economists say
money will only
keep budget
balanced in '08
LANSING (AP) - Endingthe last
budget year with a $353.1 million
urplus was good news for the
tate, but most of that money will
be needed to keep the current
budget from going into the red.
Slower economic growth and
ess revenue from tax increases
passed late in 2007 were push-
ng the state toward a shortfall
of at least $200 million, but the
urplus will help keep the budget
alanced - at least in the current
year. The outlook for 2008-09
sn't so good.
"It looks like we're OK, and
he reason we're OK is because
of the big surplus we're carrying
over from '07," said Jay Wortley,
senior economist with the non-
partisan Senate Fiscal Agency.
"But it doesn't help us in '09."
Some of the surplus came
rom belt-tightening by state
government departments, all
of which spent less money than
hey'd been given for the fiscal
'ear that ended Sept. 30. That
aved $136 million, according to
report released Wednesday by
he Office of the State Budget.
Higher-than-expected rev-
nue from the state income tax
nd the
now-defunct SingleBusiness Tax
ccounted for the other roughly
200 million, Wortley said, as
did the fact that some bills the
tate thought it would have to
pay in the last budget year ended
p being paid in this one.
"Some years you win, some
'ears you lose. This year, we
won," he said.
Wortley expects the state to
nd the currentbudgetyear with
76 million left unrestricted in
he general fund and $59 million
n the school aid fund. Without
he surplus, the state could have
been forced into another round of
nidyear cuts and adjustments.
State budget spokeswoman
Leslee Fritz said the state will
get around $120 million less than
xpected this budget year because
new surcharge on the state busi-
ness tax won't bring in as much as
sales tax on services that law-
makers passed and then repealed.
Although the $353.1 million
arry-over was not out of line
with past surpluses, the amount
urprised many, since part way
hrough the 2006-07budgetyear
he state faced a shortfall of more

than $1 billion.
Lawmakers and Gov. Jennifer
Granholm dealt with the deficit
by delaying payments to state uni-
versities and community colleges,
dipping into funds set aside for
job training and substance abuse
treatment and selling off part of
the state's future tobacco settle-
ment. Taxes were not raised to fill
the hole.
Those one-time fixes weren't
available for the budget year that
started Oct. 1. Faced with a $1.75
billion shortfall, lawmakers and
Granholm increased revenue by
$1.3 billion by raising the state
income tax on Oct. 1 and placing
a surcharge on the new Michigan
Business Tax that took effect Jan.
1. They also trimmed or restricted
spending by more than $400 mil-
lion.
Some House Republicans say
the surplus shows the govern-
ment wasn't as desperate for new
revenue as it claimed during last
year's budget negotiations.
"Normally finishing financially
in the black is a job well done, but
I can't look at itthat way when the
wallets of hardworking families
of Michigan were just squeezed
because the state said it needed
more money or else," GOP Rep.
Kevin Elsenheimer of Kewadin
said in a release last week.
House Fiscal Agency director
Mitchell Bean said Friday that it
was unclear until the books were
formally closed how much the
surplus would be. He agrees with
Wortley that the surplus will be
needed this year to make up for
shrinking revenues caused by
Michigan's sluggish economy.
"We're thrilled to have a little
bit of money to make it through
'08," he said. "Hopefully we'll
have a little extra to start '09 with,
because we've got some spending
pressures in '09."
When state budget officials
in early February present Gra-
nholm's budget proposal for the
fiscal year starting Oct. 1, they'll
have to contend with a new earned
income tax credit for low-income
workers, less money from Detroit
casinos because their tax pay-
ments drop with the opening of
their permanent facilities, higher
debt payments and a still-stag-
nant state economy that's expect-
ed to continue to drag down tax
revenues.
Welfare caseloads could rise
in the next budget year as jobs
become harder to find, and health
care and retirement costs will
go up for state employees even
though they're paying a bigger
share of their health care costs
and won't get a pay raise.

DETROIT (AP) - GOP presidential
candidate John McCain has won
the endorsement ofthe Detroit Free
Press, which said the Arizona sen-
ator's consistency makes him the
choice for Michigan Republicans in
the primary.
"He's a straight shooter, some-
times to his detriment in the politi-
cal world, where McCain also loses
points for persistently champion-
ing needed campaign reforms and
criticizing pork-barrel spending
that benefits special interests," the
newspaper said in an editorial pub-
lished Sunday.
The newspaper noted that it
endorsed McCain eight years ago.
McCain won Michigan's 2000 GOP
primary and could draw blue-col-
lar Democrats in this year's elec-
tion, since many of the Democratic
candidates are not on the Michigan

ballot.
"McCain is, again, the best can-
didate to carry the GOP banner into
the fall," the newspaper said.
The editorial also weighed the
candidacy of Michigan native Mitt
Romney, saying he has "morphed
into what he seems to believe is the
perfect conservative Republican in
pursuit of the presidential nomina-
tion."
On Thursday, McCain won the
endorsement of The Detroit News,
which cited McCain's fiscal conser-
vatism and strong grasp of military
and foreign affairs.
A poll conducted in mid-Decem-
ber by EPIC-MRA of Lansing for
The News and television stations
WXYZ in Southfield, WILX in
Lansing, WJRT in Flint and WOOD
in Grand Rapids showed Romney
and Mike Huckabee fighting for
the lead in Michigan, with Romney
at 21 percent and Huckabee at 19
percent. Rudy Giuliani had 12 per-
cent and McCain had 10 percent.
The poll had a margin of sampling
error of plus or minus 4 percentage

points.
Although he is behind in the
polls, McCain is expected to do
well in Tuesday's New Hampshire
primary before heading to Michi-
gan, which could give him some
momentum coming into the state.
Michigan votes Jan. 15.
The Free Press, like The News,
did not endorse a Democratic can-
didate. Only Hillary Rodham Clin-
ton, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd
(who has since dropped out of the
race) and Mike Gravel were run-
ning in Michigan. John Edwards,
Barack Obama, Bill Richardson
and Joe Biden took their names off
the ballot to satisfy Iowa and New
Hampshire, which were unhappy
Michigan was challenging their
leadoff status on the primary cal-
endar.
The Free Press said the Demo-
cratic primary "has been reduced to
practical irrelevance by the refusal
of most of the hopefuls to partici-
pate in it, or even campaign here."
But the newspaper encouraged
Democrats to vote.

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