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Supreme Court takes on new fight over Pledge of Allegiance BY ANNE GEARAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether it’s unconstitutional for Children in public schools to pledge their allegiance to “one nation under God.” The Pledge of Allegiance case pushes the court into an emo tional argument over religion, pa triotism and schools. Activists on both sides of the church-state di vide immediately predicted one of the most significant,.and wrenching, rulings in the court’s modem history. Generations of schoolchildren have begun each day by standing, hand on heart, to recite the oath that begins, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.” Sometime next year, the high court will hear the case of a California atheist who objects to the pledge his 9-year-old daugh ter’s teacher leads daily. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco agreed with ■ Michael Newdow last year, and the ruling set off a national uproar. Democrats and Republicans in Congress criticized the decision and quickly passed a law affirm ing references to God in the pledge and the national motto, “In God We Trust.” President Bush, who signed the measure, called the ap peals court decision ridiculous. The ruling is on hold pending the court challenge. Newdow, a doctor and lawyer representing himself in the case, was pleased the court agreed to hear the appeal. “As a father, it’s important that my child should be able to choose which religious beliefs are most in anotner surprise, Justice Antonin Scalia said he will not take part in the case. He did not explain why, but Newdow had challenged Scalia’s impartiality based of remarks Scalia made at a “Religious Freedom Day” ob servance this year. Scalia said the issue would be better decid ed by lawmakers than judges. Scalia’s absence sets up the possibility that the remaining eight justices could deadlock 4 4. That would affirm the 9th Circuit’s ban on the religious reference, which would apply to 9.6 million schoolchildren in the nine states the court over sees: California, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska, plus Guam. Public schoolchildren else where in the country could still recite the “under God” version. God was not part of the orig inal pledge written in 1892 and adopted by Congress 50 years later as a wartime patriotic trib ute. Congress inserted the “un der God” phrase in 1954, when the world had moved from hot war to cold and U.S. religious leaders sermonized against “godless communists.” STATE Sanford asks to cut agency travel costs COLUMBIA (AP) - Gov. Mark Sanford asked state agencies on Tuesday to save money by cut ting travel expenses. Sanford asked agency heads in his monthly Cabinet meeting to cut costs by sharing hotel rooms and following federal guidelines for how much to spend for lodging. He also wants the state Budget and Control Board and the General Assembly to adopt regulations placing a cap on room rates. South Carolina spends $32 million a year on government travel, and $6 million of that is for hotel expenses, Sanford said. “I think we can tighten up on the culture,” said Sanford, who is known for his frugality — from his days of sleeping in his office while in Congress to the inaugural barbecue he held in January. State gets money for gifted education COLUMBIA (AP) - The state Education Department has re ceived more than $700,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to study the state’s gifted education programs and train teachers. The state agency, working with Converse College and the College of Charleston, will use the three-year grant of $723,659 to establish four regional train ing centers for teachers. The agency also plans to use the grant to develop more per formance assessments to help identify gifted students. South Carolina schools serve 64,000 gifted and talented stu dents in grades three through 12. Passenger of plane wreck unidentified CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - Berkeley County authorities were working Tuesday to iden tify the remains found in the wreckage of a small plane that crashed in the Francis Marion National Forest. The Federal Aviation Administration’s regional office in Atlanta said a Piper 27 with a single occupant went down at 7:58 p.m. Monday about 13 miles northeast of the Charleston International Airport. Authorities spotted the wreckage late Monday and worked to clear a path through the woods to get to the site ear ly Tuesday morning. The remains found in the plane were in poor condition, Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad said. The FAA said the plane was thought to have departed East Hampton, N.Y., bound for Charleston. NATION L.A. transportation mechanics strike LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mechanics for the nation’s third-largest public transporta tion system went on strike Tuesday, forcing hundreds of thousands of commuters to scramble for alternate trans portation for the second time in three years. Metropolitan Transportation Authority mechanics walked off the job after midnight, and bus drivers, train operators and oth er workers were honoring pick et lines. The move shut down buses and trains that an esti mated 500,000 daily riders count on to get around Los Angeles County. Up to 9,000 union workers could potentially honor the strike, MTA spokesman Marc Littman said. “I’m just stranded,” com muter David Strattling, 59, said early Tuesday. “I won’t be able to go to work today.” 7 die in fire in rural Pennsylvania home MAPLETON DEPOT, PA. (AP) — Fire broke out in a rural home, killing two adults and five children in what appeared to be an accidental blaze, authorities said Tuesday. Police said they had not de termined the cause of the fire, but said it appeared to be an ac cident. The victims were identified Tuesday as Kevin Dean Brechbiel, 31, and Anita Patrice . Mayo, 34. Also killed were Brechbiel’s daughters, Dexie, 11; Kayla, 9; and Abby, 7; and 3 year-old twin sons, Justin and Jason. Police said they did not know when the fire broke out, but the last time the family was known to be safe was around 8 p.m. Sunday. Priest, secretary robbed at gunpoint BALTIMORE (AP) — A man held a gun to the head of a church secretary and forced a Roman Catholic priest to hand over nearly $8,000 in Sunday col lections, police and the woman said. The robber knocked on the door of the Shrine of the Little Flower around 9 a.m. Monday, saying he wanted to donate clothes, said Detective Donny Moses, a police spokesman. When the secretary opened the door, the man showed her a semiautomatic weapon and de manded money, Moses said. Police and the woman said the robber got about $8,000 in to tal, with most of it coming from a safe that held money from the Sunday collections. WORLD Businessman sworn in to lead Liberia MONROVIA, LIBERIA (AP) - Businessman Gyude Bryant was sworn in Tuesday as leader of Liberia’s postwar government, taking up a 2-year term meant to guide the devastated country into peace after 14 years of bloodletting by ousted warlord Charles Taylor. Bryant, 54, took an oath as chairman of the transitional power-sharing government, pledging to lift Liberia from a “state of despair.” Bryant placed his left hand on a Bible held by his wife, and swore to “faithfully, conscien tiously and impartially dis charge the duties of the office of chairman of the national transi tional government.” Protesters call for president to resign LA PAZ, BOLIVIA (AP) - Supplies of food, gasoline and other essentials ran short Tuesday as protesters demand ing the president’s resignation blocked roads and virtually par alyzed the capital of La Paz and the nearby city of El Alto. Clashes between demonstra tors and soldiers left at least 16 dead Monday, bringing the death toll from two weeks of protests to as high as 60, accord ing to human rights groups and local media. Authorities have not con firmed this figure. Many inter sections remained blocked by street barricades erected by demonstrators using tires, rocks, tree branches and other debris. President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who has refused calls to step down, remained secluded in his heavily guarded resi dence. Afghan leader hails expansion of forces s KABUL, AFGHANISTAN (AP) - The Afghan president on Tuesday hailed a U.N. vote al lowing an international peace keeping force to expand beyond the capital, a crucial boost for Afghan efforts to rein in war lords and prepare for historic elections next year. The 15-member U.N. Security Council voted unani mously late Monday to allow the 5,500-strong force to fan out to key cities in some of Afghanistan’s most lawless provinces, where feuding war lords hold sway and Taliban rebels are engaging in an ever fiercer insurgency. iy The International Security Assistance Force is under NATO command, with Germany and Canada supplying the most troops. BRIEFLY USC names director of library school Dan Barron has been named director of USC’s School of Library and Information Science. Barron was a faculty member in the school and in the former College of Library Information Science, which in 2002 merged with the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, founded in 1976. Governor to honor 9 S.C. organizations Nine S.C. organizations will be recognized for their commit ment to the environment at the Governor’s Pollution Prevention Awards Dinner on Oct. 16 at Springmaid Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach. The awards are presented through USC’s Institute for Public Service and Policy Research and recognize pollution-prevention efforts by private and public groups. Recipients include BMW Manufacturing Corp., Keep America Beautiful of Anderson County, Voridian and 3M Company, among others. Theatre to present Irving tale in drama “Sleepy Hollow on the River” will be presented at the West Columbia Riverwalk Amphitheatre beginning Thursday. The show will pre sent Washington Irving’s tale in dramatic form, complete with period costumes, music and spe cial effects. Day-of-show tickets eye $10 for adults and $5 for chil dren under 12. Advanced tick ets can be purchased at the box office, 799-0918, and are $8 for adults and $4 for children. The show will be performed at 8 p m. on the following dates: Oct. 16 19,23-26 and 30-31 and Nov. 1-2. VOTE FOR COOKY AT www.capitalonebowi.com FOR MASCOT OF THE YEAR Wofford CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 on his immigration status before ' applying for medical school. If he is allowed to stay in the U.S., he says it will take time for him to learn to live life without a dark cloud looming. “If everything goes OK and goes great, it’s, like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do with myself?”’ Hitesh Tolani said. “If my case sets a precedent, I hope nobody has to go through what I’ve gone through.” An immigration appeals board * dismissed the Tolanis’ case with out a hearing in 2002 after an im migration judge had ordered Hitesh and Jaya deported to India a year earlier. The Tolanis’ problems started when Hitesh’s father fell ill and died before paperwork for them to be come citizens was completed. His death left the family without a close relative who could sponsor his wife and son for U.S. citizenship. Hitesh Tolani and his family have been fighting deportation for the past six years. Hitesh Tolani’s 15-year-old brother, Ravi, who was bom in New York, could be left be hind if Hitesh and his mother re turn to India. The U.S. Justice Department de cided to rehear the case only after Vel political pressure from the late Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond and Democratic Sen. Fritz Hollings. The immigration bureau is comparing the Tolani case to an other, similar case in California, known as Recinas. In the Recinas case — which Thurmond brought to immigra tion officials’ attention last October—a Mexican mother was granted citizenship because her U.S.-born children would be split from her and her Mexican-born children. X appropriate without the govern ment weighing in,” he said. The Constitution guarantees there will be no government “es tablishment of religion,” word ing that has come to mean a gen eral ban on overt government sponsorship of religion in public schools and elsewhere. The line between God and gov ernment can be fuzzy, however, as attested by recent public furor and legal debate over display of the bib lical Ten Commandments in court houses and on public squares. Most lawyers who watch the court had predicted the justices would not take on the highly divi sive pledge case. The court could have resolved the matter without hearing the case on its merits. The court still could do that, if it should find that Newdow lacks proper legal footing to bring the case. Win *25,000 for grad school! LAW • BUSINESS • GRADUATE • MEDICAL • DENTAL One lucky person will win $25,000 toward the first year of law, business, graduate, medical or dental school. 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