Death toll hits 26 in Bali blasts; president blames suicide bombers

Tim Johnson… Death toll hits 26 in Bali blasts; president blames suicide bombers

Tim Johnson

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BALI, Indonesia – Duke Ly, a 47-year-old mechanic for the U.S. Postal Service, and his American family were awaiting their meals at a seafront restaurant in Bali when a huge explosion shattered their Saturday evening.

Parts of the roof of Nyoman’s Cafe fell on their heads. Frightened diners dashed outside, bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Pandemonium deepened with a second blast.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono toured the shattered sites of the terrorist bombings in Bali – a beachfront row of restaurants in posh Jimbaran Bay and a bustling arcade in Kuta – and later declared that suicide bombers were probably behind the three almost simultaneous blasts just after dusk Saturday.

“So far our investigation could say that these attacks were done by suicide bombers both in Jimbaran and Kuta Square,” Yudhoyono said at a news briefing.

The attackers, he said, “did not use a vehicle, rather their own bodies. We have some evidence, as in parts of bodies, at the location.”

Officials at Sanglah Hospital raised the death toll to 26 people, including 14 Indonesians, a Japanese woman and an Australian teenager. Ten bodies have not been identified. Another 101 people were wounded.

Pregnancies among unmarried teens have plummeted

Frank Greve

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON – U.S. teen pregnancy and birth rates have plummeted to all-time lows as more teenagers delay sex, abstain from it, use contraception and use it more effectively. Abortions also are down.

The decline to the lowest teen birth rates since national tallies began in 1940 is a remarkable personal health reform, sharper than U.S. declines in smoking or increases in seat-belt use.

Whatever the reasons, teen pregnancies and births are down about a third nationwide from their peaks in 1991, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. If the 1991 rates had persisted, about 1.2 million more children would have been born to teen mothers by 2004, Congress’ Joint Economic Committee estimated last year.

Funding issues put future of historically black colleges in doubt

Lolly Bowean

Chicago Tribune

NEW ORLEANS – Just as Southern University of New Orleans was about to begin classes for 3,800 students, its largest enrollment at that campus, Hurricane Katrina swept in, flooding all of the college’s buildings and sending the entire student body packing.

Then Hurricane Rita followed.

For years, New Orleans has been a hub of historically black colleges devoted to producing black doctors, scientists, teachers and social workers. Southern, Dillard University and Xavier University are within 10 miles of each other.

But now, all three campuses have been devastated. Unlike their counterparts Loyola and Tulane universities which have large endowments, Xavier, Dillard and Southern rely heavily on student-paid tuition to function. With no students, the schools’ futures are in jeopardy.

Just as city and state leaders have begun pleading for federal aid and tax incentives to help bring the city back to life, leaders of these colleges have started their own drives to get funding to revive their schools.

Native American college calls off its fall schedule

Jodi S. Cohen

Chicago Tribune

For more than 30 years, a tiny college on Chicago’s north side trained future Native American leaders, students who used their skills to help a population that has struggled with poverty and a lack of educational opportunity.

But now that training ground is gone. Native American Educational Services College cancelled fall classes after its accreditation was stripped amid allegations of financial mismanagement, questionable spending and weak oversight by its governing board.

It was only the second time in a decade that the Illinois Higher Learning Commission, which pulled the college’s accreditation in June, has taken such a step.

As NAES’ finances deteriorated, its former president borrowed $95,000 for personal use and the school spent more than $1.2 million in grants and funds designated for specific purposes on salaries and other operating expenses, according to interviews and financial audits. The college also is fighting a government lawsuit alleging it owes more than $200,000 for misusing a job-training grant.