Seattle Post Intelligencer
School closures may not save money
Officials admit restructuring plan could worsen, not help, budget
By JESSICA BLANCHARD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
A hotly contested Seattle Public Schools restructuring plan that calls for shuttering schools and reducing operating costs would likely deepen the district's capital budget deficit by millions of dollars, officials acknowledged yesterday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/222191_schoolsbudget29.html
City in for big electrical bill
South Lake Union will need its own $100 million substation, utility says
By KATHY MULADY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
If booming growth projections for South Lake Union hold, the city will have to pay for a new $100 million electrical substation in 10 years.
How it would be paid for, exactly where it would be built and precisely when it would have to be operating are all unknown, but yesterday a Seattle City Light official gave City Council members an update on growing energy needs.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/222177_light29.html
County: 648 felons voted
Number is pivotal in GOP's attack on governor election
By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Working from lists provided to them in the aftermath of the troubled 2004 election, King County prosecutors have identified 648 felons illegally registered to vote, officials said yesterday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/222211_election29.html
Monorail project should be rebid, contractors say
Call comes after major construction firm drops out of the consortium
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF
Now that another major construction firm is dropping out of Seattle's monorail project, there are renewed calls to reopen the bidding on the $1.7 billion line.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/222196_monorail29.html
Sound Transit adjusts future expansion plan
By JANE HADLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
The Sound Transit board added the option yesterday to extend light rail to cities such as Burien, Renton and Bothell but also emphasized that first priority for any added light rail would be to connect Tacoma, Everett and Bellevue to Seattle.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/222200_transit29.html
Alaskan village grieves forwhale victims
By RACHEL D'ORO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Residents of a remote Eskimo village Thursday grieved the loss of four people whose walrus-skin boat capsized in the Bering Sea during a whale hunt, and waited for calmer seas to head out in boats to look for the missing - including two children.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Missing%20Whalers
PCs seized in missing Ga. bride-to-be case
By KRISTEN WYATT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
John Mason, fiance of Jennifer Wilbanks, speaks with friends and family in front of his home in Duluth, Ga., Thursday, April 28, 2005. Wilbanks was reported missing Tuesday night five hours after Mason said she had gone on her nightly jog through her neighborhood in this northeastern Atlanta suburb.Volunteers and authorities continue to search in the area for the missing Wilbanks. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)
DULUTH, Ga. -- Investigators have taken several computers from the home of a missing bride-to-be to examine e-mails for clues to her disappearance, police said Friday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Missing%20Bride
DIA: N. Korea can arm missile with nuke
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency chief says North Korea is able to arm a missile with a nuclear weapon, but hasn't said whether it has done so or if such a missile could reach the United States.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=US%20Koreas%20Nuclear
Top U.S. envoy warns N.Korea on nuke tests
By BO-MI LIM
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEOUL, South Korea -- A top U.S. diplomat on Friday joined South Korea in warning the communist North against conducting a nuclear test, following reports that it may be preparing its first such trial.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Koreas%20Nuclear
Negroponte takes over daily Bush briefings
By KATHERINE SHRADER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
President Bush pushes for Congress to act on his proposals for Social Security reforms, during a prime-time press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 28, 2005. With soaring oil and gasoline prices beginning to take a toll on U.S. economic growth and his approval ratings, Bush also wants action from Capitol Hill on his long-delayed energy agenda. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON -- For the first time, new national intelligence director John Negroponte stepped into the Oval Office this week to present President Bush with his classified daily intelligence briefing.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=Briefing%20Bush
Prominent Tamil journalist slain
By SHIMALI SENANAYAKE
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
TALANGAMA, Sri Lanka -- A top Tamil journalist whose articles favored the mainstream Tamil rebels over a breakaway faction was fatally shot hours after being seized by attackers at a restaurant in the capital, police and colleagues said Friday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Sri%20Lanka%20Journalist
9 die in Philippines helicopter crash
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Philippine Air Force rescuers bring down body bags containing charred bodies of passengers as it arrives at a military air base in suburban Manila Thursday, April 28, 2005. At least nine people were killed, including former Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology chief Raymundo Punongbayan, when a U.S.-made UH-1H air force chopper crashed en route to an aerial inspection of a northeastern province that was ravaged last year by landslides and flash floods. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
MANILA, Philippines -- A military helicopter crashed into a wooded ravine on a northern Philippine mountain Thursday, killing all nine people on board, officials said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Philippines%20Helicopter%20Crash
Number of lions rising in western India
By RUPAK SANYAL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GANDHINAGAR, India -- A campaign against wildlife poaching in the western Indian Gujarat state appears to have paid off with the number of Asiatic lions rising by 32 over the last four years, officials reported Thursday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=India%20Lions
Bush's Social Security plan cuts benefits
By DEB RIECHMANN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
President Bush pushes for Congress to act on his proposals for Social Security reforms, during a prime-time press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 28, 2005. With soaring oil and gasoline prices beginning to take a toll on U.S. economic growth and his approval ratings, Bush also wants action from Capitol Hill on his long-delayed energy agenda. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON -- After nearly 60 days on the road pitching Social Security changes, President Bush is offering a new plan to fix its finances by cutting benefits of more prosperous future retirees. Democrats still aren't buying it.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1151&slug=Bush
Congress passes budget that cuts Medicaid
By JIM ABRAMS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Representatives Mike Pence, R-Ind. and Jeff Flake, R-Az speak with reporters outside the White House after meeting with President Bush, Wednesday, April 27, 2005, in Washington. President Bush met with several members of congress to talk about his Social Security agenda. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
WASHINGTON -- A $2.6 trillion budget outline barely approved by Congress will cut projected spending on Medicaid for the poor, lock in tax cuts and - Republicans claim - put the country on a path toward lower federal deficits.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Congress%20Spending
AP: EPA releases mercury pollution report
By JOHN HEILPRIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- An internal Environmental Protection Agency report estimates the Southeast alone could reap up to $2 billion a year in benefits from reducing mercury pollution - far greater than the $50 million in benefits the agency projected publicly for the entire nation.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1155&slug=EPA%20Mercury
Putin bar a tribute to Russian leader
By KRISTEN STEVENS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Regular clients of the Putin nightclub, decorated with photos and caricatures of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, gather in this bar in downtown Jerusalem Tuesday April 26, 2005. Dozens of immigrants from former Soviet republics exchanged colorful, if divergent, views about the Russian president on the eve of his visit to Israel in their regular Putin pub. Vladimir Putin arrived in Israel Wednesday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
JERUSALEM -- The walls of the smoky "Putin" bar in Jerusalem are a pictorial tribute to the Russian president.
One photo shows Vladimir Putin working a pottery wheel. Another has him clamping a judo hold on a helpless comrade. Other pictures, rattled by blaring Russian pop music, project Putin's likeness onto a portrait of a czar and a statue of a pagan idol.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Israel%20Putin%20Bar
I thought the Pope was in Italy.
Pope plans first pilgrimage to Italy
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI will make his first pilgrimage in Italy on May 29, a day trip to a religious congress in the southern city of Bari, officials said Friday.
The late Pope John Paul II had been hoping to make the trip but in January named a cardinal to represent him because of his frail condition, officials said at the time.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Pope%20Trip
Ark. man recalls finding rare woodpecker
By MELISSA NELSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Gene Sparling was kayaking when he spotted a large black-and-white bird. It looked like an ivory-billed woodpecker, last spotted in North America 60 years ago.
His eyes must be playing tricks, he thought. Maybe it was a common pileated woodpecker.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Woodpecker%20Found%20Discoverer
Reports: Berlusconi may contradict U.S.
By AIDAN LEWIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, drinks water during a confidence vote at the Italian Senate, in Rome, Thursday, April 28, 2005. Premier Silvio Berlusconi's new government won a vote of confidence in the Italian Senate, a day after winning approval in the lower chamber house of parliament. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
ROME -- Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday that Italy might not endorse U.S. findings on the shooting of an Italian agent by American forces at a checkpoint last month in Iraq, news reports said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Italy%20Berlusconi
Explorers claim record retracing expedition
By BETH DUFF-BROWN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
In this image provided by Barclay's Capital the Barclays Capital Ultimate North Expedition Team plants their national flags upon successfully reaching the North Pole, Tuesday, April 26, 2005. The five-person team traveling with huskies and wooden sledges reached the North Pole on Tuesday, completing a 37-day trek that matched the time taken by American explorer Robert E. Peary for the same journey in 1909, according to a Web site tracking the team. From left to right are: George Wells, Matty McNair, Tom Avery, Hugh Dale-Harris and Andrew Gerber. (AP Photo/Barclay's Capital)
TORONTO -- Five explorers using huskies and wooden sleds reached the North Pole on Tuesday, setting a world record by coming in several hours earlier than a 37-day trek by American explorer Robert E. Peary for the same journey in 1909, the expedition team said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apcanada_story.asp?category=1101&slug=Arctic%20Expedition
U.N. tribunal gives Rwandan life sentence
By SUKHDEV CHHATBAR
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ARUSHA, Tanzania -- A U.N. tribunal sentenced a former local government official in western Rwanda to prison for the rest of his life for shooting to death and raping mostly Tutsi victims during the 1994 genocide.
Judge Khalida Rashid Khan said the tribunal found beyond any reasonable doubt that Mika Muhimana, who was a councilor in the province of Kibuye, shot mostly Tutsi victims, raped several Tutsi women and encouraged other men to rape in the town of Gishyita.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apafrica_story.asp?category=1105&slug=Rwanda%20Genocide%20Tribunal
Zimbabwe re-elected to human rights body
By LEYLA LINTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
UNITED NATIONS -- Zimbabwe was re-elected Wednesday to the Human Rights Commission, drawing scathing protests from the United States and other countries charging that the African nation is one of the world's worst rights violators.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apafrica_story.asp?category=1105&slug=UN%20Human%20Rights
U.S. warns Nicaragua aid may be in danger
By FILADELFO ALEMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- The U.S. government has warned that aid and investment in Nicaragua could be threatened by a proposed property law that is part of a political struggle between this nation's president and Congress.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Nicaragua%20US%20Aid
Canberra condemned over death penalty case
By MIKE CORDER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SYDNEY, Australia -- Australia abolished the death penalty in 1973, but its government is under fire for helping Indonesia catch nine suspected Australian heroin smugglers who could face a firing squad on the Indonesian island of Bali.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apaa_story.asp?category=1106&slug=Australia%20Indonesia%20Death%20Penalty
U.S. Senate: Tyranny of the majority
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
Political talking points must sound convincing. Accuracy is a nice bonus, but not essential if the sales pitch is working.
Consider the Republican hoo-hah about the "unprecedented" use of filibusters to block presidential nominations, especially of judges. To listen to them, Republicans are simply shocked that Democrats have invented such a nasty tactic.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/221870_fibed.asp
The Moscow Times
Putin Defends Missile Sale to Syria
By Steve Gutterman
The Associated Press
Itar-Tass / AP
Putin and Katsav, right, unveiling a monument by Tsereteli, left, in Jerusalem on Thursday. The sculpture is in memory of the Jews killed in the Holocaust.
JERUSALEM — President Vladimir Putin faced down Israeli criticism Thursday, saying that Russia's planned sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and supply of nuclear components to Iran does not threaten Israel's security.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/001.html
Protesters of All Stripes to March on May Day
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
Tens of thousands of Communists, liberals, nationalists and human rights activists will take to central streets to stage protests Sunday on the May Day holiday, which this year coincides with Orthodox Easter.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/002.html
Easter Rebirth for Grozny Church
By Timur Aliev
Special to The Moscow Times
For MT
A view of the Archangel Mikhail Church in Grozny. The church will host its first Easter services in years this Sunday.
GROZNY -- The dilapidated building on a central Grozny street is easy to miss. Its stands behind a tall brick fence, and scaffolding hides some of its plastered walls. Only a thin, metal cross on the roof signals that it is a church -- the only Russian Orthodox house of worship in the Chechen capital.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/011.html
Confidence Vote Affirms Berlusconi
Reuters
ROME -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a final vote of confidence in his new government Thursday, but the talk in Italy was of how much longer he might survive as head of a fractious center-right alliance.
The debate goes beyond the fate of the new Cabinet, which even some of its own members believe may only last a few months, to the question of whether Berlusconi -- now 68 -- will remain in politics.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/252.html
Belarussian President Tightens Security
The Associated Press
MINSK -- President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday ordered security to be tightened in Belarus, citing strong Western criticism of his rule.
Moscow police, meanwhile, briefly detained Yabloko deputy head Sergei Mitrokhin during an anti-Lukashenko rally, and Ukraine harshly criticized Belarus for detaining five Ukrainian activists at a rally in Minsk.
"Belarus as before is being exposed to severe outside pressure, and therefore questions of security and strengthening the defense capabilities of our state take on a special significance in the current situation," Lukashenko said during a meeting on defense issues.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/013.html
Microsoft Comes Under Fire for Dropping Gay Rights Bill
The Associated Press
SEATTLE -- Microsoft, one of the earliest companies to extend benefits to gay employees, now finds itself in the crosshairs of angry activists for rescinding support for gay rights legislation in its home state.
Critics say the world's No. 1 software maker caved to pressure from an NFL linebacker-turned-local pastor who had threatened to launch a nationwide boycott, and tried to tiptoe away from a bill it had previously supported. Last week, the measure failed in Washington state's Senate by a single vote.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/256.html
Togo Violence Dashes Hopes for Beacon of Peaceful Reform
The Associated Press
LOME, Togo -- Angry young Togolese lobbed stones and Molotov cocktails in deadly riots after the son of their late dictator was declared the winner of presidential elections, and opposition leaders called for more defiance.
At least six people -- three civilians and three soldiers -- died and scores were reported injured in the post-election bloodshed that has destroyed any hope this tiny West African country could be a model for peaceful reform in the region.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/253.html
Haitian Police Fire on Protesters
By Michael Weissenstein
The Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Police opened fire on a crowd of apparently peaceful protesters demanding the release of detainees loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and at least five people were killed, UN officials and witnesses said.
Wednesday's shooting came as the U.S. State Department has confirmed it plans to waive an arms embargo to allow sales of thousands of arms for the Haitian police, whom critics accuse of brutality, summary executions and persecution of pro-Aristide loyalists.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/254.html
A Mix of Emotions About Putin's Visit
By Steve Gutterman
The Associated Press
President Vladimir Putin talking with a little girl during a visit to a Russian Orthodox Church mission in Jerusalem.
JERUSALEM -- The mall in Pisgat Zeev is just off the road dividing the Jewish suburb on Jerusalem's edge from a Palestinian neighborhood, but the language heard echoing off its tiles most often along with Hebrew is not Arabic -- it is Russian, a tongue spoken by more than a million Israelis with origins in the former Soviet Union.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/29/015.html
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