The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 3A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS LANSING, Mich. Michigan House approves budget for community colleges The Michigan House has unani- mously approved a bill to fund com- munity colleges without any major cuts in the budget year that starts Oct. 1. The bill passed by the House yesterday now goes to the Senate, which also is expected to approve it. It's the first vote on a final budget billbyeither chamber. The bill keeps funding for com- munity colleges at the same $299 million in the current budget year. Lawmakers couldnot cut much from the community colleges bud- get because of rules associated with accepting money from the federal stimulus package. Far tougher votes are expected this week as lawmakers try to enact about $1.2 billion in spending cuts, part of a plan to erase a projected $2.8 billion budget hole. BOSTON Lawmakers approve Kennedy successor Massachusetts lawmakers ful- filled Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's dying wish yesterday, granting the governor the power to appoint an interim replacement for him so President Barack Obama can regain a critical 60th U.S. Senate vote he needs to pass ahealth care overhaul this year. Gov. Deval Patrick will announce his appointment today at a news conference at the Statehouse. He said late yesterday he would send a letter to the secretary of state to declare an emergency to would allow him to override a legislative vote yesterday that defeated his administration's effort to make the bill take effect immediately. Nor- mally, legislation faces a 90-day waiting period. "I recognize the gravity of this decision and I will make it very soon, and tell you just as soon as I do," the governor told reporters last night. His official schedule released later included his planned announcement. MOORPARK, Calif. Southern California wildfire stoked by winds and heat Firefighters guarded rural homes, ranches and orchards yes- terday as a wind-driven wildfire grew to more than 25 square miles on a march through rugged land between small Southern California communities. The fire was stoked by hot and dry Santa Ana winds but firefight- ers said the windspeeds were lower than on the first day of the blaze. Containment of the fire, about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, also increased to 40 percent, but it was not expected to be fully surrounded until Saturday. Firefighters cut and burned away brush along a canyon road to try 'to corral part of the fire's western flank. Fire officials said the blaze began Tuesday in the area of an agricul- tural mulch pile, but the cause re- rnained under investigation. SYDNEY Australia regroups after dust storm : Millions of Australians were wiping a film of reddish Outback grit from nearly everything today after the country's worst dust storm jn seven decades played havoc with transport systems and sent asth- natics scurrying inside. The country's largest airport said t hoped to resume normal flight schedules today, a day after the dust cloud caused almost24 internation- al flights to be diverted away from Sydney and threw domestic sched- ules into turmoil. Skies over eastern Australia were mostly clear and blue, and New South Wales state health offi- ials said they expected air pollu- tion to drop to normal safe levels after reaching record highs the day before. But child care centers in Sydney were keeping young chil- dren inside today until an official all-clear came through. The dust storm Wednesday had shrouded Sydney and surrounding areas for about eight hours, blotting out landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and even reaching underground to coat subway stations. - Compiled from Daily wire reports Libya, Iran blast UN despite calls for unity Ahmadinejad says capitalism will fall as Marxism did UNITED NATIONS (AP) - On a daywhentheU.N.andmanynations appealed for global unity, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan leader Moammar Gad- hafi yesterday denounced what they called an unjust world dominated by five powers. The Iranian leader, touting his victory in "glorious" June elec- tions, which the opposition claimed were stolen, did not mention the country's nuclear program in his speech to the U.N. General Assem- bly. He addressed the annual gath- ering immediately after six global powers who have been trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions announced they expect a "serious response" from Tehran in nuclear discussions on Oct. 1. Ahmadinejad lashed out at what he said was the rapacious capital- ism of the United States, its Western allies and Israel, which he accused of stealing Palestinian land. But he also offered a hand of friendship to any country that "honestly" extends one. His comment followed an Associ- ated Press interview Tuesday night in which he urged President Barack Obama to view Iran as a potential friend instead of a threat. While Ahmadinejad announced a new Iranian commitment to help build "a durable peace and security worldwide for all nations," hisspeech was laced with anti-Israeli and anti- Semitic language which prompted a U.S. walkout. "It is disappointing that Mr. Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the U.N. The seats of Israel, Canada and other countries also were empty in the sparsely filled assembly cham- ber. Ahmadinejad predicted that "expansionist capitalism" will meet the same fate as Marxism, accus- ing unnamed powers of "using the ugliest methods of intimidation and deceit under the mantle of free- dom." He told the assembly that "most nations including the people of the United States are waiting for real and profound change:' Earlier, Libya's Gadhafi chastised the United Nations for failing to pre- vent dozens of wars and accused its most powerful members of treat- ing other nations as "second-class, despised" countries. In his first speech to the Gen- eral Assembly in his 40 years as ruler of Libya, Gadhafi focused on the inequality of the U.N. Security Council where five permanent mem- bers - the U.S., Russia, China, Brit- ain and France - have veto power. "It should be called the 'terror council,"' he said, calling for the veto to be abolished and member- ship to be expanded with a greater voice for Africa, Latin America, Arab and Muslim nations. Gadhafi swept up the stairs to the podium in brown robes after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. President Barack Obama calledforgreaterglobalengagement to move toward a world without nuclear weapons, tackle the threat of catastrophic climate change, and combat a global financial crisis that is expected to add 100 million peo- RICHARD DREW/AP Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves following his address tothe 64th session of the United Nations Geeneral Assembly yesterday. ple to the ranks of the world's poor this year. "We have sought - in word and deed - a new era of engagement with the world," Obama told world leaders and diplomats from the 192 U.N. member states. "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges." Ban opened the 64th ministerial meeting - more than 100 heads of state and government attended - with an appeal "to create a Unit- ed Nations of genuine collective action" to respond to the global financial, food and energy crises and the swine flu pandemic. More questioned in New York City terror probe Business owners are possible witnesses in homemade bomb plot NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of federal agents and police officers widened their investigation of af potential terrorism plot involving an alleged al-Qaida associate yes- terday as questions lingered about whether early missteps might have made the chore harder. Investigators have fanned out in a New York City neighborhood to re-interview "people previous- ly encountered" during previous raids there, and to locate others , who know them, according to a laws enforcement official familiar with the probe. The effort also includes a review of phone and other records that could link potential, suspects to one another or identify , new ones.,; "Many of the people we've spo- cHRISSCHNEIDER/AP ken to have been cooperative," said FBI agents arrested Denver man Najibullah Zazi Saturday. Zazi, his father and the official, who spoke on condi- Queens imam Ahmad Wais Afzali were charged with lying to the FBI- tion of anonymity to The Associat- charged last weekend with lying knowledge might have inadver- ed Press because the investigation to the FBI. Authorities say they tently blown the surveillance is ongoing. found bomb-making instructions and forced investigators' hand by The official said business own- on a hard drive on Zazi's laptop but questioning Afzali - considered a ers also are on the list of pos- knew of no specific time or place trusted police source in the com- sible witnesses in a potential for a possible attack. munity - about Zazi and other homemade-bomb plot. The offi- The arrests came after the possible plotters. cial declined to identify those series of high-profile raids of The imam, it says, turned around businesses, but authorities regu- several city apartments in the and tipped off Zazi by calling him larly monitor sales by suppliers Queens neighborhood where Zazi the next day and saying in a record- of chemicals that could be used in had recently visited, and were fol- ed conversation, "They asked me improvised explosives. lowed by a flurry of nationwide about you guys." Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year- warnings of possible strikes on The detectives referred to in old Denver airport shuttle driver transit, sports and entertainment the recently unsealed criminal whom authorities have linked to complexes. complaint work for a division that al-Qaida; his father; and Ahmad A criminal complaint suggests operates independently from an Wais Afzali, a Queens imam, were police acting without the FBI's FBI-run terrorism task force. With break in curfew, Hondurans search stores looking for food Uncertainty about cio Lula da Silva used the podium at the U.N. General Assembly in future leads people New York to demand Zelaya be reinstated as Honduras' president to stock up and the U.S. State Department in Washington called for restraintby TEGUCIGALPA, Hondu- both sides. ras (AP) - Hungry Hondurans State Department spokesman scrambled through looted stores Ian Kelly said the U.S., which still and lined up for food yesterday has contact with Honduran offi- during a break in a long cur- cials, had helped persuade author- few called to halt violence that ities to restore water and power erupted with the return of the at the Brazilian Embassy and had country's deposed leftist presi- helped evacuate some Embassy dent. staff. Troops and police ringed the But on a street in Tegucigalpa, Brazilian Embassy where ousted Lila Armendia peered out warily President Manuel Zelaya took through her wooden gate at a shelter on Monday after returning scene of burning trash bins placed home in a daring challenge to the by protesters. interim government that threw "It's scary to go out," she said. him out of the country at gunpoint Being stuck inside her home is in June and that vows to arrest no good either. "It's like being in him if he leaves the shelter of the jail," said the 38-year-old seam- diplomatic mission. stress. Most other Hondurans were People determined to stock trapped as well, cooped up in their up for the uncertain days ahead homes since Monday evening by trudged past bandana-masked a government order to stay off youths sitting on boulders they the streets - an order ignored by had used to block roads. some looters and pro-Zelaya pro- About two dozen people at a testers. supermarket littered with over- Schools, businesses, airports turned shelves hunted through and border crossings closed, shards of glass and smashed pota- though the coup-installed govern- to chip packages for undamaged ment suspended the nationwide food. curfew for six hours yesterday Thousands of Zelaya support- so that businesses could open ers marched in the direction of briefly and people could buy what the Brazilian Embassy but were they needed. The government blocked by soldiers and riot police announced late yesterday it was who used tear gas to disperse them lifting the curfew as of Thursday after the protesters threw rocks morning. and broke the glass windows in Brazilian President Luiz Ina- storefronts.