Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/56055
2B Daily News – Wednesday, February 22, 2012 WORLD BRIEFING Court adds affirmative action to slate WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is setting an election-season review of racial prefer- ence in college admis- sions, agreeing Tuesday to consider new limits on the contentious issue of affirmative action pro- grams. A challenge from a white student who was denied admission to the University of Texas flag- ship campus will be the high court's first look at affirmative action in high- er education since its 2003 decision endorsing the use of race as a factor. This time around, a more conservative court could jettison that earlier ruling or at least limit when colleges may take account of race in admis- sions. In a term already filled with health care, immi- gration and political redistricting, the justices won't hear the affirmative action case until the fall. But the political calen- dar will still add drama. Arguments probably will take place in the final days of the presidential election campaign. Santorum: Obama is ill- intentioned, undermines churches PHOENIX (AP) — A surging Rick Santorum is making increasingly harsh remarks about Pres- ident Barack Obama, questioning not just the president's competence but his motives and even his Christian values. Mitt Romney also is sharpening his anti- Obama rhetoric. He said Tuesday the president governs with ''a secular agenda'' that hurts reli- gious freedom. In general, however, the former Massachusetts governor has not seriously chal- lenged Obama's motives, often saying the president is decent but inept. But Santorum and Newt Gingrich have heightened their claims that Obama's intentions are not always benign, ahead of Wednesday's televised GOP presiden- tial debate and next week's primaries in Michigan and Arizona. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who suddenly is threatening Romney in his native state of Michigan, says Obama cares only about power, not the ''interests of peo- ple.'' He says ''Oba- macare,'' the health care overhaul Obama enacted, includes a ''hidden mes- sage'' about the presi- dent's disregard for impaired fetuses, which might be aborted. Santorum even seemed to compare Obama to Adolf Hitler, although he denies trying to do so. Dozens killed in Syria BEIRUT (AP) — Food and water are running dangerously low in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, with frantic cries for help from residents amid government shelling that pounded rebel strong- holds and killed at least 30 people Tuesday, activists said. Shells reportedly rained down on rebellious districts at a rate of 10 per minute at one point and the Red Cross called for a daily two-hour cease-fire so that it can deliver emer- gency aid to the wounded and sick. ''If they don't die in the shelling, they will die of hunger,'' activist and resi- dent Omar Shaker told The Associated Press after hours of intense shelling concentrated on the rebel- held neighborhood of Baba Amr that the opposi- tion has extolled as a sym- bol of their 11-month uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime. Another 33 people were killed in northern Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya region when government forces raided a town in pursuit of regime opponents, raising Tuesday's overall death toll to 63, activists said. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposi- tion group, said more than 100 were killed Tuesday, but the report could not immediately be confirmed by others. Russia, one of Assad's remaining allies, urged the United Nations to send a special envoy to Syria to help coordinate security issues and delivery of humanitarian assistance. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez says he faces new surgery CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez announced Tuesday that doctors in Cuba found a new lesion in the same place where he had a tumor removed last year and said he will require surgery. ''It is a small lesion of about 2 centimeters (less than 1 inch) in diameter, very clearly visible,'' Chavez told state television. The announcement thrust Venezuelan politics into new uncertainty because the socialist leader is seeking re-election this year, hoping to extend his more than 13 years in power with a new six-year term. He did not say when he would undergo the surgery, other than ''in the coming days.'' Chavez, 57, said the new surgery should be less com- plicated than what he under- went in Cuba last June, when doctors removed a cancerous tumor from his pelvic region. Monitoring of websites sparking outrage at Yale, Rutgers NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's mayor is facing off with Yale Univer- sity over efforts by the NYPD to monitor Muslim student groups. The Associated Press revealed Saturday that NYPD officers had kept close watch on websites and blogs maintained by Mus- lim student associations across the northeast U.S., and in one case sent an undercover officer on a raft- ing trip with students from the City College of New York. Yale President Richard Levin said in a statement Monday that monitoring of students based on religion was ''antithetical'' to the schools' values. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the practice. He says there is nothing wrong with officers keeping an eye on websites that are available to the general public.