Mizzou head officials step down Monday
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The president of the University of Missouri system and the head of its flagship campus resigned Monday with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over what they saw as indifference to racial tensions at the school.
President Tim Wolfe, a former business executive with no previous experience in academic leadership, took “full responsibility for the frustration” students expressed.
For months, black student groups had complained that Wolfe was unresponsive to racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white main campus of the state’s four-college system. The complaints came to a head two days ago, when at least 30 black football players announced that they would not play until the president left.
S.D. tribe burned pot for fear of federal raid
FLANDREAU, S.D. – A South Dakota American Indian tribe that sought to open the nation’s first marijuana resort burned its crop after federal officials signaled a potential raid, the tribal president said Monday.
Flandreau Santee Sioux President Anthony Reider told The Associated Press the tribe had three weeks of discussions with authorities that culminated with a meeting in Washington that included a Justice Department official and U.S. Attorney for South Dakota Randolph Seiler.
Reider said the tribe wasn’t told a raid was imminent – only that one was possible if the government’s concerns weren’t addressed. He said the main holdup is whether the tribe can sell marijuana to non-Indians, along with the origin of the seeds used for its crop.
The tribe had planned to open a lounge selling marijuana on New Year’s Eve. It was the first tribe in South Dakota to legalize the drug following the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision last year to allow tribes to do so on tribal land.
Obama: Keystone halt a highlight of office
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is already citing the decision not to proceed with the Keystone XL pipeline as one of the key accomplishments of his presidency.
Obama spoke to the group Organization for Action on Monday. He recounted the improving economy and job numbers and the higher number of people with health insurance coverage. Those are staples in his speeches to supporters. But he added to the list of accomplishments the decision to kill a Canadian energy giant’s application to build the pipeline.
He says going ahead with the pipeline would have harmed the United States’ leadership on curbing global warming.
Greece in hot water again with European creditors
BRUSSELS – Greece failed to convince European creditors Monday to release vital bailout funds to shore up the country’s public coffers and its crippled banks but hopes are high that a deal will be concluded within a week.
Though the Greek government has met many of the conditions attached to the country’s third international bailout, it still needs to push through some financial reforms, notably how to deal with those in arrears on their mortgages and the bad loans held by banks.
Associated Press
