Ny Safidinao

High school test scores unimpressive, yet grades, transcripts improving WASHINGTON - Large percentages of high school seniors are posting weak scores on national math and reading tests even though more of them are taking challenging courses and getting higher grades in school, say two new government reports released Thursday. “The reality is that the results don’t square,” said Darvin Winick, chair of the independent National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the national tests. Nearly 40 percent of high school seniors scored below the basic level on the math test. More than a quarter of seniors failed to reach the basic level on the reading test. Most educators think students ought to be able to work at the basic level. The reading scores show no change since 2002, the last time the tests were given. “We should be getting better. There’s nothing good about a flat score,” Winick said. The government said it could not compare the math results to old scores because the latest te...

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Former Sen. John Edwards jabbed gently at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in the first all-candidates forum of the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, saying her refusal to disavow a 2002 vote on Iraq was "between her and her conscience." "It's not for me to judge," said Edwards, who — like Clinton — voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, but unlike her, has since apologized for his vote. The event format did not permit Clinton to respond to Edwards' swipe, which stood out on an afternoon in which Democrats launched serial attacks on President Bush 's war policies. "The worst we can do is tear each other down," said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who called on his Democratic rivals to sign a pledge to avoid negative campaigning and concentrate their energy on taking the White House away from the Republicans next year. Among Democratic presidential contenders, only Barack Obama ( news , bio , voti...

LOS ANGELES - Checks from Hollywood's A-list stars such as George Clooney, Eddie Murphy and Barbra Streisand added up to an expected, one-night take of $1 million for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ( news , bio , voting record ). Three of the entertainment industry's biggest names — DreamWorks studio founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen — planned a private, Beverly Hills fundraiser for the freshman senator from Illinois. The lineup of celebrities writing checks read like a red carpet's who's who — Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Ben Stiller among others. Tickets to the fundraiser are $2,300, the maximum individual donation to a federal campaign, or $4,600 for a couple. A later, private dinner at Geffen's home is being held for fundraisers who brought in at least $46,000 for the evening. The fundraiser underscored the intense competition among the party's leading 2008 candidates for Hollywood dollars and endorsements. Th...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Raleigh, North Carolina, topped the list of the best U.S. cities for getting a job, according to an annual survey released on Friday by Forbes.com. Among U.S. states, Florida is home to the most cities among the top 25 best spots for job opportunities, with Jacksonville at No. 3 and Orlando at No. 4 as well as Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, Tampa and West Palm Beach, Forbes said. Rounding out the top five cities were Phoenix in second place and Washington, D.C., in fifth place, Forbes said. The U.S. capital was No. 1 in the previous year's list. Forbes said it compiled the list by ranking unemployment rates, job growth, income growth, median household incomes and costs of living in the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas. Raleigh, part of the so-called "research triangle" with Durham and Chapel Hill where several major universities are located, has low unemployment, strong income and job growth, high incomes and a relatively low cost of living, Fo...

MOUNT POCONO, Pa. — The hard-and-fast rule on Martz Trailways Bus No. 101: no talking. Almost as soon as the bus lurches from the station at 5:05 a.m., the 42 bleary-eyed commuters slouch into their seats and squeeze as many z's as they can on the two-hour ride into New York City. The only sounds are soft snores. "The sun isn't even up," says Sandra Foster, 42, who's been making the 85-mile trip into Manhattan for nearly a year to her job as an information-technology recruiter. "The last thing anyone wants to do is chat." Foster is one of 3.4 million Americans who endure a daily "extreme commute" of 90 minutes or more each way to work. They're among the fastest-growing segment of commuters, according to a Census study, Journey to Work, released in March. Their commute times are more than triple the national average of 25.5 minutes each way. For many extreme commuters, the distance is so far they actually travel through several weather zones...

First-in-the-Nation: A Proud New Hampshire Tradition. No state has a richer, deeper, or longer political identity and tradition than New Hampshire, home of the premier political event in the United States -- the quadrennial first-in-the-nation presidential primary. From the time of its first European settlement in the 17th century, this small state has led the way in participatory government. Today, New Hampshire holds more statewide and local elections more often than any other state in the U.S., providing easy ballot access by voter registration on election days. Traditionally, New Hampshire ranks among the states with the highest voter turnout in national elections. And New Hampshire voters have a reputation for both focusing on issues of national interest and picking winners! The links below: define and illustrate the growth of the primary system in New Hampshire and across the nation document the winners, losers and participants in New Hampshire's primary elections provide inf...

Sen. Barack Obama ( news , bio , voting record ), D-Ill., has announced he filed papers today with the Federal Election Commission establishing the “Obama Exploratory Committee.” A formal announcement of his decision will be held Feb. 10 in Illinois. Complete coverage to follow. By CQ Staff Tue Jan 16, 10:36 AM ET

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois on Tuesday announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, an initial and informal step toward becoming a presidential candidate. Obama, who is two years into his first term in the U.S. Senate , told supporters in a statement and Webcast that he intended to make his final decision of whether to throw his hat in the ring for the 2008 presidential race on Feb. 10 after a “listening tour” to meet with voters. “Running for the presidency is a profound decision — a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone — and so before I committed myself and my family to this race, I wanted to be sure that this was right for us and, more importantly, right for the country,” Obama said. Like Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the media long has speculated about the possibility of Obama entering the presidential race. The senator was virtually unknown before the 2004 election cycle, when fir...

Madagascar court confirms president's poll victory Reuters South Africa - Johannesburg,South Africa ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) - A Madagascar court on Saturday confirmed President Marc Ravalomanana's victory in elections held on December 3, paving the way for a ... See all stories on this topic Madagascar Prez Reelected Prensa Latina - Havana,Cuba Luanda, Dec 23 (Prensa Latina) Madagascans knew through an official announcement of the High Constitutional Court that current President Marc Ravalomanana was ... Madagascar confirms poll result BBC News Sat, 23 Dec 2006 9:20 AM PST Madagascar's President Marc Ravalomanana is confirmed as the winner of the recent election. Marc Ravalomanana re-elected as president of Madagascar People's Daily Online - Beijing,China Madagascar High Constitutional Court (HCC) announced here on Saturday that Marc Ravalomanana was re-elected as Madagascar's president for the next five years. ... Madagascar’s president declared election winner Gu...

ANTANANARIVO: Madagascar’s incumbent President Marc Ravalomanana was officially declared yesterday the winner of December 3 elections, securing a second five-year term. “Candidate Ravalomanana, Marc is elected president of the republic having won more than 50% of the votes,” said Jean Michel Rajaonarivony, the head of the Constitutional Court. The court ratified the results in which Ravalomanana won 54.79% of the votes cast, beating 13 opponents in the first round of the race to the Indian Ocean island’s top seat. The former parliament speaker Jean Lahiniriko came second with 11.65%, followed by Roland Ratsiraka, nephew of ex-president Didier Ratsiraka, whom Ravalomanana beat in the last election five years ago, with 10.14%. Ravalomanana can thus serve a second five-year term. He will also be eligible to run for a third term under the island’s constitution. “I am very happy. This confirms our confidence with Madagascans and the international community,” Ravalomanana told AFP. “We will ...

Madagascar High Constitutional Court (HCC) began its process on Monday to verify the validity of the presidential election on December 3 as vote counting was completed by Sunday evening. The process began in all of 116 counties across the country immediately after the completion of the account, a senior HCC official told Xinhua on Monday. It would last for 20 days and final result would be announced officially by HCC as soon as verification was over, said the chief of HCC secretariat, who gave his name only as Rauson. The Interior Ministry announced Sunday evening that Marc Ravalomanana was re-elected as Madagascar's president for the next five years as vote counting was completed. Ravalomanana had beaten 13 other challengers and won 54.8 percent of the votes in the election, according to a release by the Interior Ministry, which oversaw the vote counting. A total of 4,521,267 voters, or 61.45 percent out of legitimate voters of 7,457,204, cast their votes across the Indian Ocean i...

Provisional results show president Marc Ravalomanana has been re-elected in what observers have generally considered free and fair elections. Although some votes - but not enough to influence the results - still need to be counted, government projections gave Ravalomanana 54.80 percent of the presidential ballot on 3 December, a comfortable lead that will allow him to avoid a second round runoff. "The elections went quite well. There won't be a need for a second round, [and the result] seems to be accepted by the opposition," Solofo Randrianja, professor of Political History at the University of Toamasina, told IRIN. According to the Ministry of Interior and Reform (MIRA), voter turnout was 61.45 percent. Jean Lahiniriko, the recently sacked president of the National Assembly, was Ravalomanana's closest challenger with 11.68 percent, and Roland Ratsiraka, Mayor of Madagascar's second city, Toamasina, and nephew of former president Didier Ratsiraka, came in third w...

The third-place finisher in Madagascar's presidential elections last week has filed suit challenging the victory of incumbent Marc Ravalomanana and demanding a second-round run-off. Roland Ratsiraka, nephew of the Indian Ocean island's former leader whom Ravalomanana ousted five years ago, said Monday official results giving the president more than 50 percent of the vote in the December 3 polls were fraudulent. The challenge, filed with Madagascar's High Constitutional Court, raises the specter of a repeat of the crisis that engulfed the country after the 2001 polls when Ratsiraka's uncle refused to accept defeat to Ravalomanana. According to the younger Ratsiraka's camp, this year's election was marred by an influx of unknown voters and official results giving Ravalomanana 54.8 percent of the votes could not be believed. They said their own figures showed Ravalomanana with only 47.5 percent of the vote and Ratsiraka coming in second with 12 percent, a tally tha...

Race as a factor in assigning students to high schools Seattle students entering high school were allowed to rank which schools they preferred. If an individual school had more applicants than available slots, the School District used a series of tie-breakers to decide who got in. First priority was for students with a sibling attending the school. The student's race was second tie-breaker when an individual school's racial composition deviated more than 15 percent from the overall racial composition of the School District. Parents Involved, an organization of parents with school-age children, sued the District claiming that screening students on the basis of race violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. The 9th Circuit held that the District's approach was lawful. Whenever a government entity (such as a public school district) makes decisions based on race, the courts engage in "strict scrutiny." This means that the District must have a "c...

Oral Argument Audio Release for Parents Involved v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, December 4.

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to confirm Robert Gates as defense secretary, with Democrats and Republicans portraying him as the man who will help overhaul President Bush's Iraq policies. ADVERTISEMENT The 95-2 vote was a victory of sorts for Bush, who named Gates to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon on Nov. 8, a day after voters gave Democrats control of Congress for next year. Even so, much of Gates' support stemmed from his pledges to consider new options in Iraq. Overshadowing the vote was the release of an independent study lambasting Bush's approach to the war, increasing pressure on the White House to change course. "I am confident that his leadership and capabilities will help our country meet its current military challenges and prepare for emerging threats of the 21st century," Bush said in a statement after the Senate vote. He said Gates had shown during his confirmation hearing this week before the...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's war policies have failed in almost every regard, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group concluded Wednesday, and it warned of dwindling chances to change course before crisis turns to chaos with dire implications for terrorism, war in the Middle East and higher oil prices around the world. ADVERTISEMENT Nearly four years, $400 billion and more than 2,900 U.S. deaths into a deeply unpopular war, violence is bad and getting worse, there is no guarantee of success and the consequences of failure are great, the high-level panel of five Republicans and five Democrats said in a bleak accounting of U.S. and Iraqi shortcomings. It said the United States should find ways to pull back most of its combat forces by early 2008 and focus U.S. troops on training and supporting Iraqi units. The U.S. should also begin a "diplomatic offensive" by the end of the month and engage adversaries Iran and Syria in an effort to quell sectarian vi...

WASHINGTON - U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said. In its report on ways to improve the U.S. approach to stabilizing Iraq, the group recommended Wednesday that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense make changes in the collection of data about violence to provide a more accurate picture. The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said. "The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases." It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn...

As a motivational speaker and executive coach, Caroline Adams Miller knows a few things about using mental exercises to achieve goals. But last year, one exercise she was asked to try took her by surprise. ADVERTISEMENT Every night, she was to think of three good things that happened that day and analyze why they occurred. That was supposed to increase her overall happiness. "I thought it was too simple to be effective," said Miller, 44, of Bethesda. Md. "I went to Harvard. I'm used to things being complicated." Miller was assigned the task as homework in a master's degree program. But as a chronic worrier, she knew she could use the kind of boost the exercise was supposed to deliver. She got it. "The quality of my dreams has changed, I never have trouble falling asleep and I do feel happier," she said. Results may vary, as they say in the weight-loss ads. But that exercise is one of several that have shown preliminary promise in recent research i...

Microsoft is probably the greenest company in all of high technology. Not green in the environmental sense—green with envy. It is so jealous of the iPod’s success that last week it unveiled a new music system—pocket player, jukebox software and online music store—that’s an unabashed copy of Apple’s. It’s called Zune. The amazing part is that it’s Microsoft’s second attempt to kill the iPod. The first was PlaysForSure—a gigantic multiyear operation involving dozens of manufacturers and online music stores. Microsoft went with its trusted Windows strategy: If you code it, the hardware makers will come (and pay licensing fees). And sure enough, companies like Dell, Samsung and Creative made the players; companies like Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster and MTV built the music stores. But PlaysForSure bombed. All of them put together stole only market-share crumbs from Apple. The interaction among player, software and store was balky and complex —something of a drawback when the system is called Pla...