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4B Daily News – Tuesday, February 28, 2012 WORLD BRIEFING Activists: 138 killed in Syria BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian activist group reported Monday that 138 people have been killed across the country, about half of them in the embat- tled opposition stronghold of Homs. A team from the Syrian arm of the Red Cross delivered aid to one of the city's most danger- ous neighborhoods after days of trying to reach the area. The activist group did not say whether all 138 died on Monday or were killed over the past few days. Many of the casual- ties were believed to be from the rebel-controlled Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, which the Syri- an Arab Red Crescent entered late Monday. Also in the neighborhood are two wounded journalists along with the bodies of two of their colleagues who were killed last week. European and American diplomats and aid workers have been trying desperately to find a way to evacuate them. Homs has been under siege for nearly four weeks, making it impossi- ble for rescue workers to get to the wounded and for families to bring their injured and dead to the hospital or aid stations. The high death toll reported by activist group the Local Coordination Committees is sure to add to the already intensifying pressure on authoritarian President Bashar Assad to give up power. Violence brings election-year criticism of Obama WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama adminis- tration is sticking deter- minedly to its stay-the- course message in Afghanistan despite a week of anti-American riots, the point-blank killing of U.S. military advisers and growing election-year demands to bring the troops home. In an echo of the Bush administration on continu- ing the unpopular war in Iraq, the White House and Pentagon insisted Monday that the wave of violence against Americans will not derail the war strategy in Afghanistan or speed up the calendar for bring- ing American forces home. ''We work alongside thousands of Afghans every single day to ensure a better future for the Afghan people. And noth- ing that has happened over the past week is going to deter us from that goal,'' Pentagon spokesman George Little said. ''We're making progress. We have put the enemy on its heels in many parts of the coun- try.'' Administration spokes- men were at pains to answer the larger question of whether to keep fight- ing a war that has lost sup- port not only in the United States but also among the people the U.S. has pledged to protect. The perception that Afghans are ungrateful for U.S. sacrifice and are turning on their American advis- ers complicates President Barack Obama's plan to ease out of combat against Taliban extremists over the next two years. Under current strategy, tens of thousands of U.S. forces will remain in Afghanistan at least through the end of this year and Afghan forces would have full control of the country's security by the end of 2014. Both Democrats and Republi- cans have said the timetable should move up. 1 dead, 4 wounded in shooting at Ohio school CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — A teenager described as an outcast at his suburban Cleveland high school opened fire in the cafeteria Monday, killing one student and wounding four others before he was chased from the building by a teacher and captured a short dis- tance away, authorities said. A student who saw the attack up close said it appeared that the gunman targeted a group of students sitting at a cafeteria table and that the one who was killed was trying to duck under the table. Panicked students ran screaming through the halls after gunfire broke out at the start of the school day at 1,100-student Chardon High in this town of 5,100 people 30 miles from Cleveland. Teachers locked down their classrooms as they had been trained to do during drills, and students took cover as they waited for the all-clear. One teacher was said to have dragged a wounded student into his classroom for protection. Another chased the gunman out of the building, police said. The suspect, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was arrested near his car a half- mile away, the FBI said. He was not immediately charged. White House grant money paid for surveillance of Muslims WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama adminis- tration said Monday it has no control over how the New York Police Department spends mil- lions of dollars in White House grants that helped pay for NYPD programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance. In New York, the police commissioner said he wouldn't apologize. The White House has no opinion about how the grant money was spent, spokesman Jay Carney said. The Associated Press reported Monday that the White House money has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods and paid for computers that stored even innocu- ous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events. The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terror- ist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 mil- lion to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensi- ty Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA. It's unclear exactly how much was spent on surveillance of Muslims because the HIDTA program has lit- tle oversight. The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and fed- eral officials. The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA com- puters. The HIDTA grant program is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Carney said the White House drug policy office has no authority to direct, manage or super- vise any law enforcement operations, including the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims. Obama urges governors to boost ed funding WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama Monday urged the nation's governors to invest more state resources in education, saying a highly skilled workforce is crucial for the U.S. to remain com- petitive with other coun- tries. Obama made his pitch at a White House meeting with governors in Wash- ington as part of the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Asso- ciation. The president and first lady Michelle Obama hosted a black tie dinner with the governors Sunday night. Obama said at Mon- day's session that he sym- pathized with governors whose state budgets have been badly squeezed dur- ing the economic down- turn. But he said that was no reason to trim resources from schools. ''The fact is that too many states are making cuts in education that I think are simply too big,'' Obama said. ''Nothing more clearly signals what you value as a state than the decisions you make about where to invest. Budgets are about choices.'' He reaffirmed his view that decisions about educa- tion should be left to states and not the federal govern- ment. ''I believe education is an issue that is best addressed at the state level,'' the president said, ''and governors are in the best position to have the biggest impact.'' W. Pa. gas wells had casing faults near water PITTSBURGH (AP) — At least two gas wells near a community that's com- plained of sudden drinking water pollution developed casing problems during the drilling process, but neither Rex Energy Corp. nor state environmental regulators disclosed those problems during recent discussions about the contamination. A cement well casing is meant to prevent natural gas or fluids from leaking into nearby aquifers during the drilling and hydrofrac- turing, or fracking, of wells. There's no proof that the casing problems — or reported environmental violations — at Rex drilling sites caused the water contamination for at least 10 households in the rural Woodlands commu- nity, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. But residents and environmental groups said on Monday that they were distressed to learn of the casing problems. The state Department of Envi- ronmental Protection, they said, doesn't seem to understand that the lack of full transparency fuels public mistrust. Since early last year, people have complained of suddenly discolored and smelly water, unexplained illnesses, and tests that suggest the presence of industrial chemicals in their water. ''Stonewalling only enhances a public percep- tion that DEP is not doing its job,'' said Jan Jarrett, president of the environ- mental group PennFuture. ''It just makes everybody look bad, and makes the public nervous and more unsure of the industry as a whole.'' Court won't order carp emergency TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to order emer- gency measures that might prevent Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, despite a warning that the exotic fish pose a ''dire threat'' to the region's environment and economy. Michigan and four neighboring states want- ed the Army Corps of Engineers to install nets in two Chicago-area rivers and to expedite a study of permanent steps to head off an invasion by bighead and silver carp, which have advanced up the Missis- sippi River and its tribu- taries to within 55 miles of Lake Michigan. Scien- tists say if the large, pro- lific carp spread widely in the lakes, they could starve out native species and devastate the $7 bil- lion fishing industry. The justices' ruling, which was issued without comment, was their fourth rejection of pleas by the states for interim steps — including closure of navi- gational locks in the Chicago waterways — while their lawsuit against the corps is pending in a federal district court. Support our classrooms, keep kids reading. 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