The Michigan Daily - michigandail
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
Ford pays off $1.8
billion in debt
Ford Motor Co. paid off $1.8
billion in debt yesterday, part of a
plan to lower its total debt to $10
billion by mid-decade.
Chief Financial Officer Lewia
Booth announced the action ear-
lier this week at an investor pre-
sentation in Frankfurt, Germany.
Ford spokesman Todd Nissen
confirmed that the payment was
made yesterday. Ford's total debt
now stands at $12.2 billion, down
from $33.6 billion at the end of
* 2009.
The payment is the latest in a
string of debt reduction actions
at Ford. The company paid down
$2.6 billion in debt in the second
quarter and $2.5 billion in the
first quarter.
CLEVELAND
Ohio man defrauds
$16.8 million from
Amish community
An Ohio man has been charged
with defrauding fellow Amish in
29 states out of nearly $17 million
. by movingtheir money from safer
securities to riskier investments
subject to market fluctuations,
federal prosecutors said yester-
day.
Monroe Beachy, owner of
A&M Investments in Sugarcreek
in northeast Ohio, was charged
in a one-count mail fraud indict-
ment filed late Wednesday in U.S.
District Court.
The 77-year-old Beachy said
by phone yesterday that he was
unaware of the indictment and
had no comment.
Nearly 2,700 people and enti-
ties, including an Amish commu-
nity loan fund, lost about $16.8
million since 2006, the indict-
ment said. Beachy routinely
mailed false investor statements,
it said.
SAN JUAN
Girl-stabs 37 peers
* with needle
A 14-year-old girl went on
a playground rampage with a
hypodermic needle, stabbing 37
classmates, Puerto Rican officials
said yesterday.
"She would stab one, run,
stab another, run, like it was
some sort of joke," Education
Secretary Jesus Rivera Sanchez
said about Tuesday's lunchtime
attack on 12- to 14-year-olds at
the Jose de Choudens middle
school in the southern coastal
town of Arroyo.
Health Department spokes-
woman Margarita Casalduc
said it was unclear if the syringe
contained anything and further
tests were needed to determine
if it was contaminated. But the

victims, accompanied by their
shaken parents, gathered at a
convention center to be tested
for HIV and hepatitis C and to be
given preventive medications.
ROME
Italian mobster
escapes from
0 police custody
Italian news reports say a top
mobster believed to be the head of
an organized crime clan involved
in the slaying of six people in Ger-
many in 2007 has escaped from
custody.
News reports said yesterday
that Antonio Pelle escaped from a
hospital in Locri, in the southern
Italian region of Calabria, where
the 'ndrangheta crime syndicate
is based.
Pelle had been given house
arrest because he is anorexic,
and was taken to hospital a few
days ago, according to the ANSA
news agency. He escaped custody
_Wednesday.
Pelle was hiding in a bunker in
Calabria when he was arrested in
2008. He has been convicted of
Mafia association. His family was
involved in a feud that led to the
Aug. 15, 2007 killing of six Ital-
ians outside a restaurant in Duis-
burg, Germany.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

y.com

Friday, September 16, 2011 - 3A

Potential cuts
to Pentagon
budget may add
to'jobless rate

John M arkon/AP
Security officers outside the terminal gates at the Port of Longview in Washington following a raid by union workers.
nion workers arrested
for raiding rain terminal

Judge rules union
members in
contempt of court
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - A
federal judge found a union in
contempt of court yesterday, a
week after police said hundreds
of its members raided a grain
terminal in southwestern Wash-
ington, smashed windows and
menaced security guards.
U.S. District Judge Ronald
Leighton said he wants the
operator of the Longview grain
terminal, EGT, to provide him
an accounting of the damage for
purposes of gauging how much
he should fine the Internation-
al Longshore and Warehouse
Union Locals 4 and 21.
Leighton had issued a tem-
porary restraining order before
last week's actions, demand-
ing that the union not block
entrances to the grain terminal.
But the union's members, upset
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that EGT has hired a contractor Leal Sundet, of the union's
staffed with workers from a dif- coast Longshore division, said
ferent union, repeatedly blocked the company hasn't been held to
a train carrying a grain ship- account for hurting the commu-
ment there, then stormed the nity with its employment deci-
terminal and dumped some of sions.
the grain. "If union members stand on a
Eight people had been arrest- train track exercising their First
ed by yesterday evening - seven Amendment rights, it is a crime,"
for investigation of criminal Sundet said. "But, if a major
trespassing, and one for inves- corporation plunders an entire
tigation of assault and other community, it matters not."
charges. Leighton's decision to hold
The judge mused yesterday the union in contempt followed
about whether it would help- lengthy testimony about what
ful to set out a schedule of happened during the protests
fines should the union violate and the raid. Security guard
his orders again, but decided Charlie Cadwell, employed by
against it. Columbia Security for patrols
"It's like asking the parent of at the Longview grain terminal
a juvenile delinquent to predict for the past two months, told the
your client's behavior," he told judge of the harrowing experi-
attorneys. ence: Every protester he saw
The Longshore union has that night was carrying a weap-
an agreement with the Port of on - baseball bats, lead pipes,
Longview entitling it to work at garden tools.,
the port, but EGT claims it is not "I didn't see a longshoreman
a party to that agreement and who didn't have something in
need not follow it. his hands," he said.

National plan calls
for Pentagon to cut
defense funding
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY
AIRCRAFT (AP) - Defense Sec-
retary Leon Panetta warned Con-
gress yesterday that if lawmakers
fail to agree on debt-ceiling talks
and trigger $1 trillion in Pentagon
budget cuts, they could add 1 per-
centage point to the nation's job-
less rate.
Pentagon press secretary
George Little said yesterday that
Panetta has relayed those num-
bers to lawmakers in person and
in calls this week, urging Con-
gress to avoid the deadlock that
would require the sweeping cuts.
Under the current deficit-
reduction plan, the Pentagon
must slash more than $400 bil-
lion in defense spending over the
next decade. In addition, a newly
created deficit-cutting supercom-
mittee has until Nov. 23 to reach
a consensus on budget cuts. If
the committee members can't
agree, or if Congress rejects its
plan, automatic cuts of $1.2 tril-
lion would hit the government
accounts, with half coming from
defense spending.
The trillion dollar total, Little
said, would be devastating for the
military, forcing spending reduc-
tions thatlikely would necessitate
shrinking the size of the Army,
Air Force and Marine Corps to
the smallest numbers in decades
and also lead to the smallest Navy
in nearly 100 years.
"We would break faith with
those in uniform who are serv-

ing. At a time of war, that's unac-
ceptable," Little told reporters
traveling with Panetta back to
Washington after security meet-
ings with Australian leaders in
San Francisco.
Citing a new Pentagon analy-
sis, Little said the defense indus-
trial base provides 3.8 million
private sector jobs. He said the 1
percentage point increase in the
unemployment rate would include
government, military and private
sector jobs. He did not know how
many jobs that entails or how
many could be lost inthe individu-
algovernment and privatesectors.
The current national unem-
ployment rate is 9.1 percent.
The new comments reflect the
Pentagon's growing worries that
partisan divisions on Capitol Hill
could foil any attempt to reach
an accord on spending cuts and
revenue changes to meet the debt
reduction plan. Defense officials
have argued repeatedly that trig-
gering the automatic spending
reductions would mean slash-
ing military programs based on
arithmetic rather than on sound
national security strategy.
Panetta and his predecessor,
Robert Gates, have insisted that
government leaders and lawmak-
ers must decide what they want
their military to be able to do, and
then cut the budget accordingly,
rather than take a percentage off
all the accounts.
Defense spending has nearly
doubled since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terror attacks to more than $500
billion. That spending is separate
from the $1 trillion-plus for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in
the past decade.


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