Briefs

LOCAL & VCU

Obama nominates Virginian-Pilot publisher for HUD post

President Barack Obama has nominated Maurice A. Jones, publisher of The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk, to become deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Jones has served as president and publisher of Pilot Media since 2008.

Jones served under Gov. Mark R. Warner as deputy chief of staff and as commissioner for the Virginia Department of Social Services. During the Clinton administration, he served as legal counsel, deputy director for policy and programs and director of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund at the Treasury Department.

Jones, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, would succeed the retired Ronald C. Sims.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Despite rain, fire still burns at Great Dismal Swamp

More than a foot of rain hasn’t stopped the fire from burning at Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

The Daily Press reports that despite 15 inches of rain and more on the way, the nearly 2-month-old wildfire continues to smolder.

The fire that began Aug. 4 has scorched an estimated 6,377 acres. That’s about 6 percent of the refuge that straddles the border of Virginia and North Carolina.

It has believed to have started with a lightning strike and is being fueled by fallen timber and thick layers of decomposed vegetation.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has had up to 400 firefighters on scene. The blaze is about 90 percent contained.

It has caused no serious injuries but has claimed hundreds of acres of Atlantic white cedar.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Virginia Tech massacre lawsuits rescheduled for March jury trial

Two $10 million wrongful-death suits filed against Virginia Tech officials by the parents of women slain in the 2007 massacre have been rescheduled for a jury trial March 5-9, according to the office of Special Justice William Alexander.

The trial had been set for 10 days beginning next Thursday, but it was postponed at the request of the plaintiffs. Their attorney, Bob Hall, argued that Virginia State Police and public relations firms hired by Tech to help manage the crisis had stonewalled on discovery requests.

Alexander, who was appointed to oversee the case after Montgomery County judges recused themselves, granted the delay after expressing annoyance at the failure to meet the previous discovery deadline.

Hall later announced that his clients would drop claims against Robert Miller, former director of Tech’s Cook Counseling Center, and Sherry Lynch Conrad, another Cook employee, for alleged failures to follow up on mental-health treatment for shooter Seung-Hui Cho.

Hall said the families would focus on remaining gross negligence claims against Tech President Charles W. Steger and former Executive Vice President James Hyatt. The state is also a defendant in the case.

The parents of late Tech students Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson claim that Steger and Hyatt were grossly negligent in failing to warn their daughters of a gunman loose on campus on April 16, 2007.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

No Child law can be left behind, Obama says

Nearly everyone agrees the fix needs fixing. The No Child Left Behind law that was supposed to improve U.S. education has left schools grumbling at being labeled “failures,” state officials fuming and complaints everywhere about required testing.

But President Barack Obama’s response on Friday, that he’s allowing states to opt out, is starting a new round of heated arguments.

There are questions about whether letting states bypass unpopular proficiency standards will help the nation’s schoolchildren.

And, even as states clamor to use the new waiver, some lawmakers say Obama is inserting politics in what had been a bipartisan approach to education.

At the White House, the president said he was acting only because Congress wouldn’t. He decried the state of U.S. education and called the No Child law – a signature legacy of George W. Bush’s presidency – an admirable but flawed effort that ended up hurting students instead of helping.

Brief by The Associated Press

Japan finds radiation in rice, more tests planned

Japan is ordering more tests on rice growing near a crippled nuclear plant after finding elevated levels of radiation, government officials said Saturday.

A sample of unharvested rice contained 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, they said. Radioactive cesium was spewed from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after it was damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Under Japanese regulations, rice with up to 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram is considered safe for consumption.

Officials have tested rice from more than 400 spots in Fukushima prefecture. The highest level of cesium previously found was 136 becquerels per kilogram, prefectural official Kazuhiko Kanno said.

News of the elevated radiation level in rice from Nihonmatsu city, 55 kilometers (35 miles) west of the nuclear plant, set off alarm in the Japanese media.

The government has been testing vegetables and fish for radiation since the disaster, in which backup generators and cooling systems failed at the plant and the cores of three reactors melted.

Brief by The Associated Press

Putin to run for Russian presidency in 2012

Vladimir Putin said Saturday he’ll run for Russia’s presidency in 2012, almost certainly ensuring he’ll retake the office he previously held and likely foreshadowing years more of a strongman rule that many in the West have called a retreat from democracy. If Putin wins two presidential terms in a row, he will have been atop the Russian hierarchy for almost a quarter-century.

In nominating Putin on Saturday, his United Russia party also approved his proposal that President Dmitry Medvedev take over Putin’s current role as prime minister. Putin took over the premiership after serving as president from 2000-2008, bowing to term limits. But he was always the more powerful figure, with Medvedev viewed as a caretaker president.

During his presidency, Putin ruled Russia with a steely command, bringing about a system known as “managed democracy” that saw opposition politicians all but eliminated from the national eye. His personal popularity aided his maneuvering. Many Russians view Putin as the strong, decisive figure needed by a sprawling country troubled by corruption, an Islamist insurgency and massive economic inequality.

Brief by The Associated Press