Two Brown University undergraduates who spent their spring break together in Trinidad have yet to return to the university, prompting the State Department to begin an investigation on Thursday, CBS KYTX-TV reported. University officials sent an e-mail to the Brown student body on Wednesday, announcing that the "Division of Campus Life and Student Services is working with family, friends, law enforcement officials and other agencies to locate the students," who were expected to return to campus at the beginning of the week, The Brown Daily Herald reported. The university and State Department have yet to release the missing students' names or any details regarding the investigation.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said he believes President Barack Obama's budget proposal will create a deficit that will be harmful to future generations in a opinion column published Wednesday in the New Hampshire Union Leader. Gregg's editorial argues that the president's budget fails to diminish wasteful government spending and does not appropriately allocate tax increases to reduce the deficit. In addition, Gregg argued that the tax hikes suggested in the budget will harm small-business owners, which he said create 70 percent of all new jobs each year. "When millions of Americans are out of work, taxing job creators and making it harder to run a business are certainly not the answer," Gregg wrote.
After over a day of deliberation, a jury decided Thursday that the University of Colorado wrongfully dismissed Ward Churchill, a former professor who wrote a controversial essay comparing the World Trade Center victims of Sept. 11 to an infamous Nazi official, The New York Times reported. Although the university's attorney argued that the decision to fire Churchill stemmed from an investigation that revealed academic misconduct and plagiarism in the professor's work, the jury ruled that his political opinions were "substantial or motivating" in the school's choice to dismiss Churchill. The jury awarded Churchill $1 in damages. "I didn't ask for money, I asked for justice," Churchill told The Times. He said he expects to be reinstated by the university, a decision that Denver Chief District Judge Larry Naves will make at a later hearing, The Times reported.
