Nation briefs 1/20/06

Prosecutor: Dems cut tires before election

MILWAUKEE -- Witness testimony, cell phone records and other evidence show that five Democratic campaign workers punctured tires on vehicles Republicans intended to use to get out the vote on Election Day 2004, a prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments Thursday. The son of a congresswoman and the son of a former Milwaukee mayor are among those accused of the vandalism near a Bush-Cheney campaign office. Jurors deliberated for about two hours Thursday afternoon before breaking for the day. Milwaukee County District Attorney David Feiss told jurors that testimony from several national campaign workers brought to Milwaukee indicated the defendants acted together to cause the damage and that the workers overheard the defendants talking about the vandalism. "If the defendants had not gone back and bragged to their co-workers, they might have gotten away with it," Feiss said.

GOP group offered cash to police professors

LOS ANGELES -- A former congressman is among three people who have quit the advisory board of a conservative alumni group at the University of California, Los Angeles, after it offered students money to police professors accused of pushing liberal views. Former Rep. James Rogan, a Republican who served two terms, sent an e-mail Wednesday to Andrew Jones, head of the Bruin Alumni Association, saying he didn't want his name connected to the group. The group has been offering students up to $100 to supply tapes and notes from classes to expose professors suspected of pushing liberal political views on their students.

Google refuses Bush's order for porn searches

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine -- a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools of the government. Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge to force a handover of the requested records. The government wants a list of all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week. Court papers show the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Father wants clemency for 'American Taliban'

SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh said Thursday he has asked President Bush to grant his son clemency, adding that the then teenager never raised arms against the United States. John Walker Lindh, now 24, was captured by American forces on Nov. 21, 2001, alongside the Taliban. Frank Lindh said his son thought he had been rescued by U.S. soldiers until he was taken into custody and tortured.

Most college students can't do complex tasks

WASHINGTON -- Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food. Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers. More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks. That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school. The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

-- From wire reports