The World in Brief

Wave of attacks kills more than 150 in Baghdad

By Nancy A. Youssef

Knight Ridder… Wave of attacks kills more than 150 in Baghdad

By Nancy A. Youssef

Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq — In a relentless series of attacks that struck nearly every corner of this city, suicide bombers killed at least 152 people in Baghdad Wednesday — the deadliest day for the capital since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

At least 560 people were injured, including two U.S. soldiers, Iraqi authorities said.

Al-Qaida in Iraq took responsibility for the attack, saying the bombings were in retaliation to a U.S. and Iraqi military offensive last week in the northern city of Tal Afar, a town that government officials say has become a stopping point for foreign fighters entering the country from Syria.

Receding water shows parts of New Orleans built to handle flooding

By Chris Adams

Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)

NEW ORLEANS — Follow the thick, dirty waterline that circles New Orleans’ neighborhoods like the ring in a just-drained bathtub and it’s easy to see how widespread the damage is and how entire neighborhoods are likely to be bulldozed.

But the post-Katrina waterline etched on houses, schools and storefronts also reveals how parts of this city were built up to withstand flooding.

While Mayor Ray Nagin said 80 percent of the city was under water during the worst of the flooding, it’s clear that many houses, and some entire streets, were spared by the floodwaters that inundated other homes in the same neighborhoods.

Nagin said last week that half of the city’s 215,000 homes may have to be razed. Others have put the figure as high as 80 percent, but nobody will know until the entire city is pumped dry within the next week or two.

Relevance of elite universities appears to be on the decline

By Frank Greve

Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)

WASHINGTON — You can count on one hand the number of Harvard College alumni who’ve won the coveted MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants in the past five years. Ditto for Yalies. And there’ve been 119 winners.

It’s just one recent hint that attending an elite college may mean less than anxious applicants think it does. Another is a Harvard Business School analysis due out next month that finds the number of alumni from prestigious undergraduate schools declining among top business leaders.

It appears that corporate headhunters and MacArthur judges, who will confer grants on about 20 more creative leaders in the arts, sciences and public policy today, are pretty democratic when it comes to educational backgrounds.

“We don’t say, ‘This one went to Harvard — great; that one didn’t — too bad,'” said Daniel Socolow, the director of the fellows program at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago. “At least at this program, it’s what a person’s doing and thinking and getting to, not their academic pedigree.”

He’s not kidding. A Knight Ridder tally of biographies of MacArthur Fellows named from 2000 to 2004 found that they attended 82 different colleges and universities. To Socolow, this was a pleasant surprise.

“We’re actually doing what we say we’re doing,” he said.