NATION/WORLD TODAY IN HISTORY BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Today is Saturday, Dec. 1, the 336th day of 2012. There are 30 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Dec. 1, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, which was read aloud by the Secretary of the Senate. In it, Lincoln called for the abolition of slavery, saying that “in giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free,” and toward the end of his message, wrote: “Fellowcitizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.” On this date: ■ In 1824, the presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. (Adams ended up the winner.) ■ In 1860, the Charles Dickens novel “Great Expectations” was first published in weekly serial form. ■ In 1921, the Navy flew the first nonrigid dirigible to use helium; the C7 traveled from Hampton Roads, Va., to Washington, D.C. ■ In 1934, Soviet communist official Sergei M. Kirov, an associate of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, resulting in a massive purge. ■ In 1941, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito approved waging war against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands after his government rejected U.S. demands contained in the Hull Note. ■ In 1942, nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States. ■ In 1952, the New York Daily News ran a front-page story on Christine Jorgensen’s sex-reassignment surgery with the headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty”. ■ In 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus; the incident sparked a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks. ■ In 1969, the U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II. ■ In 1973, David BenGurion, Israel’s first prime minister, died in Tel Aviv at age 87. ■ In 1989, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
OUT OF THE BLUE
Code finally cracked PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The obscure book’s margins are virtually filled with clusters of curious foreign characters — a mysterious shorthand used by 17th century religious dissident Roger Williams. For centuries the scribbles went undeciphered. But a team of Brown University students has finally cracked the code. Historians call the nowreadable writings the most significant addition to Williams scholarship in a generation or more. Williams is Rhode Island’s founder and best known as the first figure to argue for the principle of the separation of church and state that would later be enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
Sidney Daily News, Saturday, December 1, 2012
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Israel moves to build 3,000 new settlement homes BY KARIN LAUB Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel responded swiftly Friday to U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, revealing it will build 3,000 more homes for Jews on Israeli-occupied lands that the world body overwhelmingly said belong to the Palestinians. The plans also include future construction in a strategic area of the West Bank where critics have long warned that Jewish settlements would kill hopes for a viable Palestinian state. Israel’s moves served as a harsh reminder to Palestinians — euphoric over the U.N. upgrade — that while they now have a state on paper, most of it remains very much under Israeli control. “This is a doomsday scenario,” Daniel Seidemann of Ir Amim, a group that promotes coexistence in Jerusalem, said of the building plans.
Israel’s decision was bound to embarrass the United States, which was among just nine countries in the 193-member General Assembly to vote against accepting Palestine as a nonmember observer state. Accelerated settlement construction could also set a more confrontational tone as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas weighs his next moves. In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland criticized the Israeli announcement. “These actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve a two-state solution,” she said. Friday’s decision was taken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eight senior Cabinet ministers, according to the Israeli news website Ynet. The plans include 3,000 new apartments in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for new
construction in other large West Bank settlements, including Maaleh Adumim, near east Jerusalem, said an Israeli government official. Among the projects is an expansion of Maaleh Adumim, known as E-1, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the decision with reporters. Successive U.S. administrations have pressured Israel not to build in E-1 because it would effectively cut off east Jerusalem from the West Bank, and split the northern part of the territory from the southern part. Israel has said in the past it envisions 3,500 apartments there. “E-1 will be the death of the two-state solution,” said Seidemann, referring to the establishment of a state of Palestine alongside Israel. “If the pronouncements are to be treated seriously, we are months away from the implementation of E-1. This is very serious and very problematic.”
WikiLeaks suspect made noose BY DAVID DISHNEAU Associated Press FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — As a military prosecutor held up a knotted bedsheet in court, Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged on Friday that he fashioned a noose and contemplated suicide shortly after his arrest on charges of engineering the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history. The pretrial testimony appeared to support the military’s argument that it was trying to protect the former Army intelligence analyst from harming himself by taking away all his clothes, keeping him in strict isolation and shackling him when he was outside his cell. Manning’s lawyers argue that the conditions he experienced for nine months at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., amounted to illegal punishment, lasting well past the time he was having suicidal thoughts, and that the charges against him should be dropped as a result. On Friday, prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein produced a knotted, peach-colored sheet from an evidence box on the prosecution table and held it up, displaying a loop in the fabric. “You made a noose out of this?” he asked Manning. “Yes,” the soldier replied. Manning, 24, said he fashioned the noose while being held in Kuwait soon after he was accused in May 2010 of leaking reams of military and diplomatic documents to the website WikiLeaks. He said his time in Kuwait was the lowest he felt during his entire confinement. When he was transferred to the brig at Quantico in July 2010, he said, he wrote on his intake form that he was “always planning and never acting” on suicidal thoughts. He was classified a suicide risk for eight days, then upgraded to the lessrestrictive “prevention of injury” status.
AP Photo/Orlin Wagner
MARK AND Cindy Hill hold a Powerball check with three of their four children, Jarod (left), Cody, and 6-year-old Jaiden, in Dearborn, Mo., Friday.
Missouri lottery winners want to live normally BY MARIA SUDEKUM Associated Press DEARBORN, Mo. (AP) — To announce one of the biggest events of their lives together, Cindy and Mark Hill returned to the place where it all began — the high school where they became sweethearts in the 1970s. Surrounded by family and friends, the two were introduced Friday as winners in this week’s huge Powerball lottery — an extraordinary stroke of luck that gives them half of the $588 million jackpot. The nostalgic high school homecoming seemed to reflect the couple’s hopes of staying true to their roots and living simply, at least as simply as possible for winners of one of the biggest lottery prizes in history. “We will still be going down
to the corner cafe for breakfast or fish day. I can guarantee you,” Cindy Hill said. “You know it’s just us. We’re just normal human beings. We’re as common as anybody. We just have a little bit more money.” The Hills, who have three grown sons and a 6-year-old daughter, said they don’t play the lottery regularly. They spent $10 on five tickets with random numbers. The result: After taxes, they will take home a lump sum of $136.5 million. “We’re still stunned by what’s happened,” said Hill, a former office manager who was laid off in 2010. “It’s surreal.” The other winning ticket was sold in Fountain Hills, Ariz., near Phoenix. No one has come forward with it yet, lottery officials said. Joining the Hills at the news conference were their children, with the youngest, Jaiden, sit-
OBAMA nearly $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years, $600 billion in savings from changes in mandatory spending programs including Medicare, and $200 billion in spending ranging from public works projects to help for the unemployed and struggling homeowners, according to administration officials. Republicans rejected the offer as unreasonable. Republicans have said they are open to new tax revenue but not higher rates. Obama said he believed both parties “can and will work together” to reach an agreement to get its long-term deficit under control “in a way that’s balanced and is fair.” Obama spoke at the Rodon Group manufacturing facility, showcasing the company as an example of a business that depends on middle-class consumers during the holiday season. The company manufactures parts for K’NEX Brands, a construction toy company whose products include Tinkertoy, K’NEX Building Sets and Angry Birds Building Sets. The road
ting on her father’s lap clutching a black stuffed horse. She was adopted from China five years ago. When asked what she wanted for Christmas, the little girl said simply: “Pony.” Friday’s news conference made official what just about everyone in the town of 500 north of Kansas City already knew, thanks in part to a Facebook posting by Mark Hill, said their son Cody. At first, the elder Hill told his son about the winning ticket but instructed him not to share the news with anyone. Cody Hill said he went to work and heard people commenting about how one of the winning tickets came from a local store. He said nothing. But then a relative told him to look at his dad’s Facebook page, where his father had announced the family’s good fortune.
From Page 1 trip was part of a dual White House strategy of having the president’s team meet with members of Congress while Obama travels the country to pressure Congress to act. The president joked that he’s keeping his own “naughty and nice list” for members of Congress — and only some would get a K’NEX set for Christmas. Administration officials said the White House offer, presented to Hill Republicans by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, constituted much of what Obama has previously suggested in budget proposals and during the campaign. Under the administration’s plan, the new tax revenue would include $950 billion generated by raising taxes on families with incomes over $250,000 and by closing certain tax loopholes. The remainder would be achieved through an overhaul of the tax system next year and would not become effective until 2014. The proposal, which the administration has also described to business and labor leaders, would require Congress and the White House to identify a “down payment”
of cuts and tax loophole closings by the end of this year that would buy Congress and the president time to negotiate a tax overhaul and changes in entitlement programs between now and Aug. 1. One new feature in the Geithner plan is a call for increasing the nation’s debt limit without the need for congressional approval. Under last year’s debt ceiling deal, Obama simply had to notify Congress that he was raising the debt ceiling, a move that could be blocked only if both houses of Congress passed resolutions of disapproval that Obama could veto. The administration wants a permanent extension of the debt ceiling with a similar legislative arrangement and with no offsetting spending cuts, as demanded by Republicans. One administration official said Obama’s must-have positions are expirations of the Bush era tax cuts for high earners and the inclusion of the debt limit in the deal. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe publicly the state of negotiations.