Obama pledges to tackle dropout rates
WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama pledged Monday to confront the dropout rate in U.S. high schools, saying graduation is critical to compete in a global economy.
Obama challenged states to name names -- high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent -- and discussed the administration's investment to help turn the schools around.
The president spoke at an America's Promise Alliance GradNation event conducted by the Alliance's founding chairman, Colin Powell, and his wife, Alma.
Obama proposed $900 million for the Schools Turnaround Grant program, a tough-love plan that would make federal grants available to states and school districts that agree to turn around or possibly close 2,000 schools producing more than half of the nation's dropouts.
The administration has committed $3.5 billion for changes in America's persistently low-performing schools, the White House said in a fact sheet.
"We know that the success of every American will be tied more closely than ever before to the level of education that they achieve," Obama said. "The jobs will go to the people with the knowledge and the skills to do them. It's that simple."
Obama announced an effort to invest $100 million in a College Pathways program that would promote a college-readiness culture in high schools through programs allowing students to earn a high school diploma and college credit simultaneously.
"Graduating from high school is an economic imperative," Obama said. "That might be the best reason to get a diploma, but it isn't the only reason ... ."
Among the proposals in the turnaround program is one in which a failing school would have to replace its principal and at least half of its staff and another that would close a school and enroll students in other higher-achieving schools.
Obama said dropout rates are "a problem we can't afford to accept or ignore."
Afghanistan attacks kill 4 NATO soldiers
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 1 (UPI) -- Four NATO soldiers and four civilians were killed in attacks in Afghanistan Monday, officials said.
NATO did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, saying it would let their home nations do so.
Two of the NATO soldiers died in western Afghanistan, and one in a small-arms attack in the southern part of the country, the BBC reported.
Another soldier died in a suicide car bomb attack on a NATO convoy that also killed four civilians near the southern city of Kandahar. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, near Kandahar's airport, which NATO relies on as a base in battling militants in southern Afghanistan.
This year, 105 NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan, more than twice the number killed by the same time last year, the BBC said, citing the Web site icasualties.org.
The deaths Monday came during Operation Moshtarak, the biggest military offensive in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.
Last year, when more than 500 NATO soldiers died in Afghanistan, was the deadliest year for foreign troops there since the 2001 invasion led by the United States.
Farrakhan attacks Jews, 'white right'
CHICAGO, March 1 (UPI) -- Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said the "white right" wants U.S. President Barack Obama to be assassinated.
Farrakhan said a Southern Baptist preacher was quoting recently as praying the president would die and added, "There are Christians praying for God to kill Obama," the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
"The white right is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated," the controversial leader of the black nationalist movement told about 20,000 followers in Chicago Sunday.
Obama has sought to distance himself from Farrakhan over anti-Semitic statements.
Farrakhan's 3 1/2-hour speech, laced with anti-Semitism, marked Saviours Day, commemorating the birth of W. Fard Muhammad, who founded the Nation of Islam 80 years ago.
"The Zionists are in control of the Congress," Farrakhan said.
Naming Obama advisers Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson and Larry Summers, Farrakhan said: "Who does he have around him? The people from Goldman Sachs."
The Nation of Islam minister said the bailout rewarded the "bloodsuckers of the poor."
Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman said the 76-year-old Farrakhan's comments came as no surprise.
"It's the same Farrakhan: ugly and anti-Semitic," Foxman said. "With age, he doesn't get milder, he gets uglier."
Farrakhan called the earthquake that killed at least 700 people in Chile a divine warning to leaders in America and elsewhere, the Chicago Tribune reported.
"It's not an accident that a great earthquake took place in Chile," he said. "It (precipitated) what I have to tell you today of what's coming to America. You will not escape.
"I will speak to the kings and rulers of the world. I will speak to the pope and the religious leaders because you have to know that your time has come."
White House loses on Olympic bets
OTTAWA, March 1 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama owes Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a case of Molson's beer after losing a bet on the Olympic men's hockey gold medal game.
Canada beat the U.S. team 3-2 in a tightly played overtime game Sunday.
White House spokesman Mike Hammer said Obama watched the game in the Oval Office, the Canwest News Service reported.
Likely to be more visible than the beer bet was one between White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas.
Gibbs told Soudas if Canada won he would wear one of the Canadian team jerseys at an on-camera news briefing.
There was no indication when he planned to pay off on the bet, the report said.
