0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Friday, January 20, 2012 - 3
* The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, January 20, 2012 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
Snyder advocates
for more education
funding in budget
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder
said yesterday he'll propose more
" spending for Michigan education
in his upcoming budget proposal.
School districts took a cut of
more than 2 percent in this year's
budget, or nearly $1 billion, and
many have had to lay off teachers
and contract out food and janito-
rial services to absorb the cuts.
Funding for state universities
dropped by 15 percent, and many
raised tuition nearly 7 percent to
make up for the lost state support.
The decreases continue to be
criticized by Democrats and have
proven unpopular with many vot-
ers. House Democratic Leader
Richard Hammel has called for
giving $457 million left over from
the past budget year to public
schools, advice Snyder has point-
edly ignored.
WASHINGTON
Ex-wife claims
Gingrich wanted
open marriage'
Dredging up a past that Newt
Gingrich has workedhard tobury,
the GOP presidential candidate's
second ex-wife says Gingrich
asked for an "open marriage" in
which he could have both a wife
and a mistress.
In an interview with ABC
News' "Nightline" aired last
night, Marianne Gingrich said
she refused to go along with the
idea that she share her husband
with Callista Bisek, who would
later become his third wife.
The explosive interview was
airing just two days before the
presidential primary in South
Carolina, a state with a strong
Christian conservative bent, and
as Gingrich tries to present him-
self as the strongest alternative to
front-runner Mitt Romney.
* MCLEANVa.
Feds prohibit file-
sharing web site
One of the world's largest
file-sharing sites was shut down
yesterday, and its founder and
several company executives
" were charged with violating
piracy laws, federal prosecutors
said.
An indictment accuses
Megaupload.com of costing copy-
right holders more than $500 mil-
lion in lost revenue from pirated
films and other content. The
indictment was unsealed one day
after websites including Wikipe-
dia and Craigslist shut down in
protest of two congressional pro-
posals intended to thwart online
piracy.
The Justice Department said
in a statement said that Kim Dot-
com, formerly known as Kim
Schmitz, and three others were
arrested Thursday in New Zea-
land at the request of U.S. offi-
cials. Two other defendants are
at large.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
Six NATO soldiers
die in Afghanistan
helicopter crash
A NATO helicopter has crashed
in southern Afghanistan, killing
six members of the international
military force, the U.S.-led coali-
tion said today.
A coalition statement said that
there was no enemy activity in
the area at the time of yesterday's
crash.
The cause of the crash is still
being investigated. The coalition
did not disclose the nationalities
of those killed.
The helicopter crash occurred
on the same day that a suicide car
bomber killed at least seven civil-
ians outside a crowded gate at
Kandahar Air Field, a sprawling
base for U.S. and NATO opera-
tions in the south. The Taliban
insurgents claimed responsibil-
ity, saying they were targeting a
NATO convoy.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U.S. to begin peace
talks with Taliban
U.S. officials
optimistic about
future Middle East
relations
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Obama administration is moving
ahead with plans for negotiating
with the Taliban, confident that
talks offer the best chance to end
the 10-year-old war in Afghani-
stan. But the military worries
things are moving too fast, and
intelligence agencies offered a
gloomy prognosis in their latest
Afghanistan report.
Several current and for-
mer U.S. officials said the most
substantive give-and-take to
date between U.S. and Tali-
ban negotiators could happen
in the next week, with the goal
of establishing what the U.S.
calls confidence-building mea-
sures - specific steps that the
U.S. and the insurgents agree to
take ahead of formal talks. Those
talks, if they ever take place,
would include the United States,
the Taliban and the Afghan gov-
ernment of President Hamid
Karzai, a senior U.S. official said.
Like others interviewed, the
official spoke on condition of
anonymity to describe sensitive
diplomacy. Elements of the U.S.
outreach to the Taliban are also
classified.
The diplomatic, military and
intelligence branches of the
U.S. government differ over
the value of talks with the Tali-
ban or whether now is the right
time to so publicly shift focus
away from the ongoing military
campaign that primarily targets
Taliban insurgents. Defense Sec-
retary Leon Panetta and some
uniformed military leaders have
recently sounded some of the
strongest notes of caution, espe-
cially on when to grant Taliban
requests for the transfer of sev-
eral of its prisoners from theU.S.
military prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, military and other
U.S. officials said.
Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pauses during a news conference in North Charleston, S.C.,
yesterday, where he announced he is suspending his campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich.
Perry leaves presidential
race, endorses Gingrich
Texas governor
returns home to
consider future
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Gov.
Rick Perry dropped out of the
presidential race yesterday,
endorsed- his old friend Newt
Gingrich and returned home to
Texas, where the failed White
House candidate has three years
left to serve as the chief execu-
tive.
"I have come to the conclusion
that there is no viable path to vic-
tory for my candidacy in 2012,"
Perry said in North Charleston,
S.C.,justtwo days before the pri-
mary there. "I believe Newt is a
conservative visionary who can
transform our country."
Money also was a factor, with
spokesman Ray Sullivan say-
ing: "We have spent the bulk of
our funds." He added that Perry
hasn't ruled out running again
for governor or the White House
in 2016 if President Barack
Obama is re-elected.
Perry ended his campaign
wherehelaunched itlast August,
when tea party and evangelical
Christian leaders hailed him as
a charismatic conservative and
some early polls showed-him as
a front-runner for the Republi-
can nomination. But soon after,
Perry's verbal gaffes and poor
debate performances sent his
campaign into a tailspin from
which it never recovered.
It was too soon to tell whether
Perry's rocky turn on the nation-
al stage had damaged him politi-
cally at home. But already there
were signs of his diminished
clout.
Several Texas donors who
fueled his bid indicated they
were likely to back Mitt Rom-
ney, the former Massachusetts
governor who is considered the
more moderate candidate in the
race. And South Carolina House
speaker David Wilkins, who had
supported Perry, ignored the
governor's recommendation and
shifted his support to Romney,
too.
Short of a Gingrich victory
leading to a job for Perry in
Washington, Perry will most
likely stay in Austin where -
despite his dismal presidential
campaign - he's still considered
the most powerful politician in
the state. He has appointed more
than 1,000 people to key govern-
ment positions since becoming
governor in 2000. State lawmak-
ers also depend on his support.
But that doesn't mean he
won't face serious headwinds.
Democrats insist the failed
presidential run has diminished
his power and embarrassed Tex-
ans. Conservatives also have
complained about the $2.6 mil-
lion the state has spent on his
security detail while he cam-
paigned outside the state. Top
Republicans, meanwhile, have
been positioning themselves to
replace him whether he won the
presidency or retired in 2014.
Roy Blount, a Perry supporter
and deep-pocketed Republican
donor in Texas, said he expect-
ed Perry to remain popular and
powerful.
"Everything he stood for reso-
nates with Texans," Blount said.
"He's got this state as a leading
state, and he wants to continue
that and expand it."
The Texas Democratic Party
was ready yesterday to begin
exploiting any perceived weak-
ness created by Perry's deci-
sion and called on him to focus
on problems at home, including
legal questions about the consti-
tutionality of the school finance
system as well as water short-
ages and greenhouse gas emis-
sions.
Perry's biggest supporters,
in turn, welcomed him home.
Bill Hammond, president of the
Texas Association of Business,
said "Gov. Perry has always been
good for Texas business."
Mark Jones, chairman of
political science department
at Rice University, said Perry
risks becoming a lame-duck
governor and must not rule
out seeking a fourth term if he
hopes to continue being effec-
tive.
"As long as he can maintain
the illusion that he could be gov-
ernor through 2019, that allows
him to maintain authority not
only among the legislators, but
also among donors, lobbyists and
his appointees," Jones said.
Perry's early missteps called
into question whether the Texas
politician who had never lost
a race in nearly 30 years was
ready for the national stage. His
biggest flub came in a nation-
ally televised debate in early
November, when he could not
remember the name of the third
Cabinet department he pledged
to eliminate.
Perry could only manage to
say, "Oops." Making fun of him-
self afterward, he told reporters:
"I stepped in it."
Egyptian military
critic beaten publicly
Key figure in last
year's uprising
attacked in street
CAIRO (AP) - Assailants
attacked a prominent Egyp-
tian activist as she left work at
Cairo's Nileside state television
headquarters late on Wednes-
day, in the latest incident of
violence against the protest
movement that toppled Hosni
Mubarak's regime to be cap-
tured on video.
A clip posted on social net-
works showed a small crowd
punching and kicking Nawara
Negm, and hurling abuse at her.
Her assailants could be heard
saying she wanted to drive a
wedge between the ruling mili-
tary and the people. Others
called her an "agent," presum-
ably of a foreign power.
Negm told a TV interviewer
late on Wednesday night that the
beating left her with a swollen
eye, but that she was otherwise
unhurt. She said the beating took
place while scores of policemen
and army soldiers assigned to
the protection of the TV building
stood by and watched.
"I am not the type that runs
away. I stood my ground," she
told the interviewer on the pri-
vately owned ONTV station.
Negm is the daughter of
Ahmed Fouad Negm, Egypt's
best known satirical poet and a
longtime critic of Mubarak. She
was a key figure in the 18-day
uprising that forced Mubarak to
step down last February. Also a
newspaper columnist and blog-
ger, she has been sharply criti-
cal of the generals who took over
from the ousted president.
Negm was questioned by
prosecutors this week over her
alleged role in deadly clashes last
month between troops and pro-
testers in Cairo.
The ruling generals have
repeatedly accused some of the
activists behind Mubarak's oust-
er of illegally receiving foreign
funds and the state mgdia has
portrayed them as reckless trou-
blemakers.
The country's military ruler,
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi,
delivered a thinlyveiledwarning
to anti-military activists plan-
ning a wave of protests to mark
the Jan. 25 anniversary of the
start of the uprising.
In comments published on
Wednesday, he said Egypt was
facing "grave dangers" but
assured the nation that the
armed forces would protect it.
Tantawi was Mubarak's defense
minister for 20 years.