Nation briefs

Events resume on Yale campus after fourth death

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Athletic events resumed Saturday at Yale University following a daylong hiatus in memory of the four students killed when an SUV packed with nine friends hit a jackknifed tractor-trailer on a snowy highway.

Nicholas Grass, 19, of Holyoke, Mass., died Saturday. He had helped lead the baseball team to the regional finals as a pitcher in 2001, and Yale athletic director Tom Beckett announced his death during an afternoon women's basketball game.

Most of the students in the crash were members of school's football and baseball teams, including two who remained hospitalized in critical condition.

A memorial service was held Friday night at Yale's gymnasium.

Estate of former financier to be auctioned off

GREENWICH, Conn. -- The once lavish estate where rogue financier Martin Frankel ran a multimillion-dollar insurance scam and kept an entourage of young women is now a crumbling complex shrouded in soot and tangled wires.

Frankel, who stole $200 million from insurance companies, now has a prison cell for a home.

As he awaits sentencing on 24 federal charges of securities fraud and racketeering, his house and an adjacent mansion -- each valued at $3 million -- are being auctioned.

The proceeds will be used to make restitution to the insurance companies in five states that Frankel looted.

Judge may scrap Chicago school desegregation plan

CHICAGO -- A federal judge has ordered the Chicago Public Schools into court next month in a move that may lead to the scrapping of the district's school desegregation plan, which has been in place for more than 20 years.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles P. Kocoras, citing the district's changed ethnic makeup, said the plan was outdated. "It is either time for a new decree or time to end this one," he said. He scheduled a Feb. 27 hearing.

Since the desegregation plan was adopted, the percentage of black students in the city's public schools has shrunk from 60 percent to 50 percent. Latino students now make up 35 percent of the total -- nearly twice what they represented in 1980 -- and white children represent 10 percent.

Democrat White House hopefuls court activists

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Attacking President Bush's tax-cutting efforts, two Democratic contenders for the White House in 2004 called for repealing the $1.65 trillion plan Congress passed two years ago.

A third advocated a freeze in the phased-in reductions.

Courting party activists a year before the presidential nominating season, Richard Gephardt, Howard Dean and John Kerry said Democrats must present a clear alternative to Bush if they hope to retake the White House from the GOP.

All three were attending a county fundraiser in eastern Iowa on Saturday night.

They said Democrats should not fear challenging a president with relatively high poll standings.-- From wire reports

"You can't beat George Bush by saying I"m going to do a lot of the same things George Bush is doing," said Gephardt. "If you lay out a clear, distinct, bold, realistic alternative, then I think people will listen."

Added Dean: "I want to get out there and make the unambiguous Democratic case. I think the American people want a Democratic message."

-- From wire reports