The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

NEWS BRIEFS
NEW YORK
Retail sales drop,
stocks follow suit
Investors agonizing over a fal-
tering economy sent the stock
market plunging all over again
yesterday after two disheartening
reports convinced Wall Street that
a recession, if not already here, is
inevitable. The Dow Jones indus-
trials dropped as much as 572
points, more than half their huge
936-point advance from Monday,
and all the major indexes fell at
least 5 percent.
The government's report that
retail sales plunged in September
by 1.2 percent - almost double the
0.7 percent drop analysts expect-
ed - made it clear that consum-
ers are reluctant to spend amid a
shaky economy and a punishing
stock market.
The Commerce Department
report was sobering because con-
sumer spending accounts for more
than two-thirds of U.S. economic
activity. The reading came as Wall
Street was refocusing its attention
on the faltering economy follow-
ing stepped up government efforts
to revive the stagnant credit mar-
kets.
HEMPSTEAD, NY
Debate offered
McCain chance for
change
John McCain sought to change
the course of a campaign moving
decidedly in Barack Obama's di-
rectionyesterdaynightinthe third
and final presidential debate.
Withless than three weeks until
the Nov. 4 election, the 90-minute
debate focusing on the economic
crisis offered the Republican sen-
ator from Arizona what could be
one of his last big chances to per-
suade voters to give the race an-
other look. Polls show Obama, the
senator from Illinois, with a clear
lead nationally and in several key
battleground states.
McCainwas keenlyaware of the
stakes he faced after two debates
in which supporters suggested he
was insufficiently forceful against
Obama.
BAGHDAD
No.2 leader of
al-Qaida killed
American soldiers killed the
alleged No. 2 leader of al-Qaida
in Iraq, a Moroccan who trained
in Afghanistan, recruited foreign
fighters and ran operations in
northern Iraq where Sunni insur-
gents remain ,a potent threat, the
U.S. military said yesterday. .
The man, who the military said
was known as Abu Qaswarah, died
Oct. 5 during a raid on a building
in the northern city of Mosul that
served as a major "command and
control location" for the region.
Four other insurgents were killed
in the operation, the U.S. said.
The announcement of Abu Qas-
warah's death was withheld until
Wednesday to allow for positive
identification, the military said.

BRUSSELS, Belgium
Group of Eight to
hold world summit
to address economy
The Group of Eight major indus-
trial nations announced yesterday
they will hold a global summit
- perhaps as early as November
in New York - to forge common
action to prevent another econom-
ic meltdown.
French President Nicolas
Sarkozy said all European Union
nations backed radical restructur-
ing of global institutions like the
International Monetary Fund and
World Bank. He called for a meet-
ing"preferablyin NewYork, where
everything started" and said it
should lead to "a new capitalism."
Sarkozy said emerging econo-
mies such as China, India and
others outside the G-8 should also
participate because "no one should
feel excluded from what we are
recasting."
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U3S. DETS
S4,183
Number of American service
members who have died in the
war in Iraq, according to The
Associated Press. There were no
deaths identified yesterday.

GOP
From Page 1A
current polling suggests he trails
Levinby more than 25 percentage
points - she said their campaign
didn't rely heavily on McCain's
performance here.
Nate Bailey, Rep. Joe Knollen-
berg's campaign manager in his
close race for a ninth term repre-
senting Michigan's 9th district in
the U.S. House, expressed a simi-
lar idea.
"We had a plan in place to win
before Senator McCain was the
nominee, and we have our plan
in place right now to win," he
said. "We knew all along that we
would have a tough race this year,
so we put the framework in place
early on to win."
Bailey said that because Knol-
lenberg's campaign has its own
door-to-door and phone bank
operations, McCain's withdrawal
doesn't hurt as much as it does to
campaigns without such efforts.
"What's changed is that we've
grown our own operation," he
said. "We're now running a full-
scale campaign."
But for candidates further
down the GOP ticket, McCain's
withdrawal means the loss of a
more extravagant get-out-the-
vote effort among Republicans
and independents than the cam-
paigns could possibly engineer
on their own.
Christina Brewton, a GOP
state house candidate running to
represent the 53rd District, said
she fears many voters who might
lean Republican will stay home
on Election Day.
"Dropping out of Michigan
gives Republican and conserva-
tive voters no reason to vote for
McCain or to vote at all," Brew-
ton said in an e-mail statement.
"He's already given up on them
and has sent a very clear message
that their vote is unnecessary."
Brewton said she is disap-
pointed in McCain the same way
she would be disappointed in any
candidate who pulls out of a bat-
tleground state.
"If you trulybelieve in the plat-
form you campaign on, then you
never stop fighting," she said.
Eric Lielbriedis, the Repub-
lican candidate for state house
from Michigan's 52nd district,
said he understood McCain's
decision even though he didn't
welcome the news.
"His chess board is to win
the White House," Lielbriedis
said. "And he has got to move the
pieces and the assets in the right
places."
Lieebriedis and Brewton both
face uphill fights. Their districts
are both heavily Democratic.
For John LaFond and Susan
Brown - both Republicans
who hope to become University
regents - McCain's decision
makes their efforts more diffi-
cult.
Regents races tend to track the
party preferences of voters, since
candidates rarely have high name
recognition. That'll make it espe-
cially hard for GOP regent hope-
fuls to overcome high Democratic
turnout in Michigan this year.
"Business is not as usual, but
that means we're just going to
have to work harder," LaFond
said.

ALCOHOL
From Page1A
the store should resume sell-
ing alcohol sometime early next
week.
"The main issue was the fact
that we hadn't filed all our returns
on time," he said. "I made an
arrangement to take care of what
needs to be taken care of."
Ken Wozniak, director of exec-
utive services for the Michigan
Liquor Control Commission, said
Village Corner currently has two
liquor licenses - a Specially Des-
ignated Merchant license and a
Specially Designated Distributor
LEVIN
From Page 1A
things at the beginning of his
administration," he said. "But
we're not going to be able to do
the necessary things and get
this economy going again if we
simply continue the policies of
George W. Bush."
Levin expressed admiration
for the young Obama volun-
teers, saying that he has never
seen a "get out the vote" proj-
ect as impressive as this one.
Still, he said, Obama support-
ers shouldn't take an Obama
victory in Michigan for grant-
ed.
Levin spoke sparingly of his
own reelection campaign, say-
ing that he was making both it
and Obama's campaign a prior-
ity. The Detroit native, who's
been in the Senate since 1978,
Student Disc tI
100ofwth
fuAMwieATI

license - permitting them to sell
beer, wine and spirits.
Because of the lien, though,
Village Corner's licenses were in
escrow, which meant they were
the property of the IRS and pro-
hibited them from selling alcohol,
Wozniak said.
The lien also prohibited the
store from selling alcohol begin-
ning on the August date when the
Ann Arbor Clerk and Register of
Deeds filed the tax lien against
the liquor store.
However, Village Corner con-
tinued to sell the alcohol it had left
in stock-until Ann Arbor Police
informed them last Friday that
they were violating the terms of
currently leads Republican can-
didate Jack Hoogendyk by a 2
to 1 margin in numerous state
polls.
Event organizers opened
the floor to questions follow-
ing Levin's 30-minute talk. One
student asked how the senator
could justify voting for the $700
billion economic bailout bill,
one the student called "uncon-
stitutional."
Levin said he believed the
bill was constitutional, saying
there was precedent for such
action and that it was in the
best interest of the American
people.
"This has nothing to do with .
Wall Street," he said. "This has
everything to do with protect-
ing people's pensions, savings,
401(k)s. This is about jobs; it's
about savings; it's about pro-
tecting people's lifelong nest
eggs."

the lien, Sheer said.
"We knew that we lost our right
to buy liquor (in August), and we
learned that we lost our right to
sell it on Friday," he said.
Sheer said he immediately
stopped selling alcohol as soon as
the police informed him that what
he was doing was illegal.
Although he said it would
take him a while to restock his
shelves, Wozniak said he expects
to be at full capacity in about two
weeks.
Village Corner, which received
its first liquor license Oct. 26,
1970, has had a history of both fed-
eral and state tax liens being filed
against them, the earliest dating

Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 3A
back to 1979.
Since then, the store has
received 18 liens for issues rang-
ing from sale to minors to insuf-
ficient funds.
The store is notorious for spot-
ting fakeIDs used to try to buy
alcohol. It once had all its confis-
cated IDs posted on a wall in the
store until it was ordered to take
the wall down.
Village Corner is located on the
future site of 601 S. Forest, the
highly contentious planned stu-
dent high-rise apartment build-
ing.
The Ann Arbor City Council
will meet Monday night at 7 p.m.
for a final vote on the plans.

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