0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS WASHINGTON Obama seeks $2.8 billion for Haiti President Barack Obama is ask- ing Congress for $2.8 billion in emergency funding for the recon- struction effort in Haiti following January's devastating earthquake. The president's request comes one week before a U.N. donors conference March 31 in New York. Haitian officials plan to ask for $11.5 billion in reconstruction assistance. Senate Foreign Relations Com- mittee Chairman John Kerry says the Senate is close to introducing legislation to meet Obama's request. The Jan. 12 earthquake that ravaged the capital of Port- au-Prince killed an estimated 230,000 people and left more than 1 million homeless. TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. Granhoim scolds AG Cox on health care reform Gov. Jennifer Granholm said yesterday that Attorney Gen- eral Mike Cox doesn't have legal authority to put Michigan on record as opposing the federal health care overhaul. Cox joined a dozen other Repub- lican state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit challenging the con- stitutionality of the measure Presi- dent Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday. Granholm, a Democrat and supporter of the health over- haul, said Cox had overstepped his bounds. "His primary client as the attor- ney general is the executive branch of government," Granholm said in an interview following a public appearance in Traverse City. "And no one in the executive branch has authorized him to take this posi- tion." She described Cox's action as "a political ploy" and noted he was running for the GOP nomination for governor. In a letter to Cox released by the governor's office, Granholm said that under the Michigan Constitu- tion, the governor's law enforce- ment authority is "superior to that of the attorney general" - the office she held before her election as gov- ernor in 2002. WASHINGTON Treaty to cut nukes in Russia and U.S. The U.S. and Russia reached a breakthrough agreement yesterday for a historic treaty to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War rivals, the most significant pact in a generation and an important milestone in the decades-long quest to lower the risk of global nuclear war. After long and trying nego- tiations, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are to sign the treaty in two weeks in Prague, once final technical details are worked out, officials in Washington and Mos- cow said. The accord is expected to cut, the number of long-range nuclear weapons held by each side to about 1,500, and it raises hopes for further disarmament in the years ahead. The deal is seen as sealing an increased level of trust and coop- eration between the U.S. and Rus- sia, who possess the vast majority of the world's nuclear arms and have labored under strained relations in recent years. MELBOURNE, Austrailia Officers' e-mails under investigation Up to 100 police officers in the Australian state of Victoria are under investigation over racist e-mails that have been circulated in the internal police e-mail system, a top official said today. Chief Commissioner Simon Overland said the police ethical standards department had found multiple e-mails that were too shockingto be released publicly. He would not confirm the subject matter of the emails but said some were "extremely serious, some are offensive" and raised questions about some officers' suitability to their jobs. "If the Victorian public were aware of the nature of that materi- al, I believe that it's of such a nature that it would cause -significant concern within the Victorian com- munity," Overland told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. - Compiled from Daily wire reports MSA From Page 1A nally voted for the person who appeared first on the list, but that when they went back to the ballot the person in that slot at the top of the list could have changed. The problem was discovered early this morning when students reported problems with the site. Just before 8 a.m., ITS officials disabled the randomization fea- ture to prevent further problems. Turning off the randomization feature means the same party will appear at the top of the ballot for each person who votes. How- ever, Deshpande said the order currently being used was chosen at random. Michael Benson, chair of the MSA Rules and Elections Com- mittee, said last night that it seems unlikely that the random- ization feature will be able to be fixed and restored for the rest of the current election. However, he said he plans to meet with ITS officials to further review the problem after the election to pre- vent a similar malfunction from occurring in the next election. Benson said approximately 1,000 students voted before the randomization feature was dis- abled this morning. However, the issue affected only students who revisited their ballot after reviewing the ballot confirma- tion page. Benson said ITS was reaching out to students last night who had voted before 8 a.m. yesterday and therefore may have experienced problems. Those students will receive an e-mail with a link to a new, secure website that will allow them to verify their ballot and make any necessary corrections. Students who do not visit the website or change their ballot will be assumed to have cast their ballot properly and their votes will still be counted, Benson explained. Benson stressed that though ITS is able to pair a student's unique name to their individual ballot to recall who a student voted for, the information is con- fidential and is not shared with anyone else. The information, he said, is maintained specifically for situations like this. MForward Presidential Can- didate Chris Armstrong told the Daily last night he was dissatis- fied with the problems on the vot- ing website. "I am very disappointed," Armstrong said, pointing out that last fall the election website crashed temporarily. "I think the fact that a similar glitch occurred this year is just very frustrating because it shows that these prob- lems aren't being fixed, that there isn't proper oversight or mainte- nance of a simple thing like the voting website." MVP Presidential Candidate Ian Margolis said in a statement last night that he was disappoint- ed with the technical voting dif- ficulties. "It is unacceptable that this issue arose, especially because every student has the right to vote and should be confident that their vote is counted fairly so that their voices can be heard," Margo- lis wrote in an e-mail. "While the election board has offered a rem- edy for the glitch, I remain disap- pointed that this happened at all." Multiple phone calls to DAAP Presidential Candidate Kate Stenvig went unreturned. Some student voters also expe- rienced a second problem when trying to access the voting web- site. Benson encouraged students to vote using the vote.umich.edu website. Though a second web- site, mvoteblue.com, was set up for this election, some students have reported problems with the site. The sites are redirected to the same URL, Benson explained - meaning students could use either address. However, because some students have reported problems with mvote- blue.com, Benson is encouraging students to use vote.umich.edu to ensure they are able to access their ballot. From left, Jim Gill, Barb Gill, and tinily Gill all at Iowa City, cheer durng a speech atla Stand Up far Freedom tally yesterday. Democrats face threats in light of health care bill Unrest over reform led to vandalism, violent messages left for legislators Unrest over sweeping federal health carelegislation has turned to vandalism and threats, with bricks hurled through Democrats' win- dows, a propane line cutatthe home of a congressman's brother and menacing phone messages left for lawmakers who supported the bill. The FBI is investigating the instances, which include shat- tered windows at four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas. At least 10 members of Congress have reported some sort of threat as of yesterday, and no arrests have been made. The brick flung through the window of a county Democratic Party office in Rochester, N.Y., over the weekend had a note attached: "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," roughly quoting 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. A New York congresswoman whose office window also was smashed with a brick accused the Republican leadership of failing to denounce attacks against lawmak- ers who supported the legislation. The vandalism was at Democrat- ic Rep. Louise Slaughter's district office in Niagara Falls early Friday, two days before the House passed the health care overhaul bill. "It's more disturbing to me that Republican leadership has not con- demned these attacks and instead appears to be fanning the flames with coded rhetoric," said Slaugh- ter, a key supporter of the bill. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in a state- ment that while many Americans are angry over the bill's passage, "violence and threats are unac- ceptable." F __________________________________________________________ JOIN DAILY NEWS. E-mail berman @michigandaily.com for your car : * Free taxi back to campus - , * 24/7 drop off/ pick-up * Family owned DECIIDE rWHAT GOES HZRZ The Michigan Daily Advertising Design Department is hiring a Layout Designer. Applicants should have a knack for spacial relationships and a distinct attention to detail. Experience with Adobe InDesign is aplus. Begin summer semester and work a couple hours every weekday. Email mahakiaj@umich.edu EVEN HE W! P.T IG Profal ProAutoTechs.c 0 ' 0 Would you like to get more involved with currentissues surrounding the student body? The Vice President for StudentAffairs is looking for students to serve on her student advisory board for the 2010-2011 academic year, and advise her on the topics that are most pressing to the students at the University of Michigan. 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