USA
The Department of Education eased the limits on same-sex schools and classrooms Tuesday in what is considered the biggest change of its kind in more than three decades. The new regulations, which take effect Nov. 24 and were two years in the making, are designed to make it easier for schools that wish to use single-sex schools, grade levels, or classes to do so where students would benefit. Critics believe the change might result in "separate but equal" kinds of solutions.
Ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced Monday in Houston to 24-plus years in prison for his role in the scandalous collapse of the energy giant. It was the harshest punishment for any former Enron executive.
Struggling with restructuring costs and sagging North American sales, the Ford Motor Co. sustained $5.8 billion in third-quarter losses, it announced Monday. Officials predicted the situation could get worse in the fourth quarter.
Congressional candidate Tan Nguyen, the Garden Grove, Calif., Republican who has denied any involvement with a controversial campaign letter, personally bought a Democratic voter list before the mailing was made, according to the Los Angeles Times. The letter warns immigrant Hispanic voters that they could be deported or jailed. The list in question is for registered Democrats with Spanish surnames born outside the US.
Tuition and fees at four-year public colleges rose 6.3 percent to an average of $5,836 for the current academic year, according to a report released Tuesday by the College Board.
About 100 West Virginia and Pennsylvania coal miners converged on a federal mine safety office in Morgantown, W.Va., Tuesday, demanding a discussion of scrapped safety regulations the day after a Pennsylvania miner was killed in an explosion. The blast brought the number of US coal-mine fatalities for 2006 to 42.
Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who is running as an Independent, got it from both sides, as well as from hecklers, Monday night in Hartford at the third and final debate among the three candidates in the much-watched race. The main theme was the war in Iraq, which Ned Lamont, who defeated Lieberman in the Democratic primary, opposes and the three-term incumbent supports.
