WASHINGTON

NEW FOREIGN AID COORDINATOR NAMED

The global AIDS coordinator for the American government, Randall Tobias, was named yesterday to coordinate the Bush administration’s $18 billion foreign aid programs. Mr. Tobias, who will have a rank equivalent to deputy secretary of state, will oversee programs both in the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

– Associated Press

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY PLEDGES TO FIX LACK OF ENFORCEMENT

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said yesterday he doesn’t know why senior officials blocked investigations of stockyards and meat companies, but he intends to fix the problems. A department audit found that employees who are supposed to investigate unfair or anticompetitive behavior were pressured to create the appearance of strong enforcement by logging routine letters as investigations.

– Associated Press

REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS SPAR OVER MEDICARE FIXES

It is unacceptable that some of the poorest and sickest older people are having the most trouble getting prescription drugs through the new Medicare benefit, a leading Republican senator said yesterday. But Senator Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, does not see the need for legislative fixes yet. Several Democratic senators said too many people have had trouble getting their medicine since the benefit went into effect on January 1.

– Associated Press

COLLEGE STUDENTS NOT LITERATE ENOUGH FOR COMPLEX TASKS

More than 50% of students at four-year schools and more than 75% 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. “It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they’re not going to be able to do those things,” the study’s director, Stephane Baldi, of a behavioral and social science research organization, the American Institutes for Research, said.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

SPACECRAFT BLASTS OFF ON MISSION TO PLUTO

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – An unmanned NASA spacecraft hurtled toward Pluto yesterday on a 3-billion-mile journey to the solar system’s last unexplored planet.The New Horizons spacecraft blasted off aboard an Atlas V rocket in a spectacular start to the $700 million mission. Though it is the fastest spacecraft ever launched, capable of reaching 36,000 mph, it will take 9 1/2 years to reach Pluto and the frozen, sunless reaches of the solar system.

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

EVIDENCE TIES DEMOCRATS TO SLASHED TIRES

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 yesterday. Defendant Sowande A. Omokunde is the son of Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, and Michael Pratt is the son of a former acting Milwaukee mayor, Marvin Pratt. Also charged were Lewis Caldwell and Lavelle Mohammad, both from Milwaukee, and Justin Howell of Racine.

– Associated Press

WEST

‘AMERICAN TALIBAN’ SHOULD GET CLEMENCY, FATHER SAYS

SAN FRANCISCO – After years of silence, the father of American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, Frank Lindh, called on President Bush yesterday to grant clemency to his son, who he says was wrongly maligned as a traitor and murderer.

– Associated Press