Thomas allegedly shot a 19-year-old Madison man outside the Mental Health Center of Dane County around 6 p.m. on April 30.

At the time, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said the act was not random and police knew who their suspect was.

Additional details will be released when the District Attorney's office formally files charges.

The University of Wisconsin System released the names Wednesday of the four finalists to succeed John Wiley as chancellor of UW-Madison.

Among them is Gary Sandefur, the current UW dean of the College of Letters and Sciences.

The other three finalists include Biddy (Carolyn) Martin, provost of Cornell University; Timothy Mulcahy, vice president for research at the University of Minnesota; and Rebecca Blank, a former dean of the public policy school at the University of Michigan.

Candidate visits are scheduled for next week from 1:30-3 in the Main Lounge of Memorial Union. Sandefur is on Monday, Martin on Tuesday, Mulcahy on Wednesday and Blank on Thursday.

A Board of Regents committee led by chair David Walsh will interview all the candidates on Wednesday and will make a recommendation to the full board for their approval.

See Thursday's Badger Herald for more.

Obama beat Clinton soundly in North Carolina and fell just short in an Indiana cliffhanger, a rebound for the Illinois senator that presented Clinton with fast-dwindling chances to deny him the Democratic presidential nomination.

Putting her money troubles into clearer focus, Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that she lent her campaign $6.4 million over the past month. Earlier this year, she gave her campaign $5 million.

But even as Obama planned to take the day off from the campaign trail Wednesday, Clinton showed no public signs of easing her pace. The campaign added a noon Wednesday appearance in Shepherdstown, W. Va., to her schedule. On Thursday, she planned to campaign in West Virginia, South Dakota and Oregon.

Clinton backers appeared on early morning television programs to stress that she was still in the race and to urge party leaders and elected officials known as superdelegates not to flee to Obama.

"This candidacy and this campaign continues on," Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson said Wednesday on CNN.

Obama was 184.5 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed to secure the Democratic nomination, his campaign finally steadying after missteps fiercely exploited by the never-say-die Clinton.

His campaign dropped broad hints it was time for the 270 remaining unaligned superdelegates to get off the fence and settle the nomination.

In a counter to Wolfson, Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said: "The delegate math gets exceptionally harder for Senator Clinton every day"

In a memorandum to superdelegates, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe reminded them of the delegate math necessary to secure the nomination. He said Clinton would need to win 68 percent of the remaining delegates to win -- an extremely unlikely scenario, made harder by her poor performance Tuesday.

"With the Clinton path to the nomination getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in the coming days," Plouffe wrote. "While those scenarios may be entertaining, they are not legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or millions of supporters, volunteers and donors."

It was in the superdelegate arena -- even more than in the scattered primaries left -- that the Democratic hyperdrama was bound to play out.

Clinton vowed to compete tenaciously for West Virginia next week and Kentucky and Oregon after that, and to press "full speed on to the White House."

But she risked running on fumes without an infusion of cash, and made a direct fundraising pitch from the stage in Indianapolis. "I need your help to continue our journey," she said.

And she pledged anew that she would support the Democratic nominee "no matter what happens," a vow also made by her competitor.

But her campaign schedule belied any immediate reconciliation. West Virginia holds its primary on Tuesday. Kentucky and Oregon hold their contests a week a later. Puerto Rico is scheduled for June 1 followed promptly by Montana and South Dakota on June 3.

Her campaign is making the case that those contests are crucial to her and will press Democratic party officials to resolve disputed contests in Michigan and Florida, which she won but whose results the party voided because the primaries were held ahead of the schedule set by Democratic Party rules.

Obama, addressing supporters in North Carolina Tuesday night, pivoted away from his contest with Clinton and made a general election appeal that singled out his biography and his call for a new brand of politics. Still, his message also had a partisan pitch.

"This primary season may not be over, but when it is, we will have to remember who we are as Democrats ... because we all agree that at this defining moment in history -- a moment when we're facing two wars, an economy in turmoil, a planet in peril -- we can't afford to give John McCain the chance to serve out George Bush's third term," he said.

McCain, the certain Republican nominee, has been running a general election campaign for weeks. He has reached out to independent voters and sought to secure his conservative base, as he did Tuesday with a speech on his vision of the judiciary. He was scheduled to deliver a speech Wednesday on curbing the international exploitation of children.

The Obama-Clinton contest has been polarizing, protracted and often bitter, hardening divisions in the party, according to exit polls from the two states.

A solid majority of each candidate's supporters said they would not be satisfied if the other candidate wins the nomination.

Fully one-third of Clinton's supporters in Indiana and North Carolina went beyond mere dissatisfaction to say they would vote for McCain instead of Obama if that's the choice in the fall.

Obama scored a convincing victory of about 14 points in North Carolina, where he'd been favored. Clinton squeezed out a narrow margin in Indiana after a long night of counting.

Racial divisions were stark.

In both states, Clinton won six in 10 white votes while Obama got nine in 10 black votes, exit polls indicated.

It was a slightly better performance than usual by Clinton among whites, while Obama's backing from blacks was one of his highest winning percentages yet with that group.

Clinton fell short of the Indiana blowout and the North Carolina upset that might have jarred superdelegates into her camp in a big way.

They have continued trickling toward Obama despite the fallout over his former pastor's racially divisive remarks and Clinton's win in Pennsylvania two weeks ago.

The impact of a long-running controversy over the Illinois senator's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was difficult to measure.

In North Carolina, six in 10 voters who said Wright's remarks affected their votes sided with Clinton. A somewhat larger percentage of voters who said the pastor's remarks did not matter supported Obama.

Obama and Clinton both planned to campaign in the next primary states starting Thursday, after a day in Washington. Obama headed to Chicago after his Raleigh speech before coming to the capital.

The probe -- prompted by the cocaine overdose death last year of a freshman sorority member -- led to the arrests of 96 people, 75 of them San Diego State students. A second drug death occurred during the investigation.

Twenty-nine people were arrested early Tuesday in raids at nine locations including the Theta Chi fraternity, where agents found cocaine, Ecstasy and three guns. Eighteen of those arrested were wanted on warrants for selling to undercover agents.

Theta Chi and five other fraternities have been suspended pending a hearing on evidence gathered during the investigation, dubbed Operation Sudden Fall.

Authorities said some fraternity members openly dealt drugs, and that one sent a mass text message advertising special prices on cocaine. Two kilograms of cocaine were seized in all, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.

Profits may have been used to finance fraternity operations, according to an affidavit.

A member of Theta Chi sent out a mass text message to his "faithful customers" stating that he and his "associates" would be unable to sell cocaine while they were in Las Vegas for a fraternity formal, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The text promoted a cocaine "sale" and listed the reduced prices on bulk quantities.

"Attn faithful customers both myself and my associates will be in Vegas this coming weekend," the 19-year-old student wrote in the text message. "So stock up, we will be back Sunday night."

Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security.

The Greek system at San Diego State has about 3,000 students, but Fraternity Row plays an outsized role in campus life. It sits a block from Cox Arena, home to many college sporting events.

Dale Taylor, national executive director of Theta Chi, said he was "obviously shocked and saddened" by the allegations. Theta Chi prohibited the San Diego chapter from group activities such as parties or sports activities and will investigate additional disciplinary measures, up to expulsion of members or the entire chapter.

The San Diego chapter, founded 61 years ago, was the first national fraternity on campus and has 65 members.

The chapter declined comment. It occupies two low-slung homes a block off Fraternity Row, with large red and white Greek symbols propped on the roof.

Theta Chi has 131 chapters in the U.S. and Canada and more than 161,000 initiates. It was founded in 1856.

Besides Theta Chi, the other suspended fraternities are Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Kappa Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Mu.

University police launched their investigation into drug sales on campus after Shirley Poliakoff, 19, died from a cocaine overdose in May 2007. Investigators discovered many students in fraternities were aware of organized drug dealing within their houses.

As the investigation continued, another student, from Mesa College, died of a cocaine overdose at an SDSU fraternity house on Feb. 26, the DEA said.

Some drugs bought and sold by students were traced to gangs linked to Mexican cartels, according to the DEA. Agents collected about $100,000 worth of drugs that were being advertised in "resale quantities" between members of the fraternity and other students.

But the report released Tuesday showed the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball team fell two points short of a standard of 925 out of 1,000, and was thus required to develop a specific academic improvement plan.

A school spokesman said such a plan has already been forwarded to the NCAA.

The report listed the following Academic Progress Rate scores for teams at Wisconsin's Division I schools:

Wisconsin -- football, 944; men's basketball, 938; men's hockey, 939; women's basketball, 968; women's hockey, 995.

Wisconsin-Green Bay: men's basketball, 959; women's basketball, 984.

Wisconsin-Milwaukee: men's basketball, 923; men's baseball, 928; women's basketball, 985.

Marquette University: Men's basketball, 954; women's basketball, 986; women's soccer, 991.

Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and roofless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.

"From the reports we are getting, entire villages have been flattened and the final death toll may be huge," Mac Pieczowski, who heads the International Organization for Migration office in Yangon, said in a statement.

President Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the United States to help with disaster assistance, saying the U.S. already has provided some assistance but wants to do more.

"We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.

Bush spoke at a ceremony where he signed legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar's military regime has signaled it will welcome aid supplies for victims of a devastating cyclone, the U.N. said Tuesday, clearing the way for a major relief operation from international organizations.

But U.N. workers were still awaiting their visas to enter the country, said Elisabeth Byrs of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"The government has shown a certain openness so far," Byrs said. "We hope that we will get the visas as soon as possible, in the coming hours. I think the authorities have understood the seriousness of the situation and that they will act accordingly."

The appeal for outside assistance was unusual for Myanmar's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of international organizations and closely controlled their activities. Several agencies, including the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, have limited their presence as a consequence.

Allowing any major influx of foreigners could carry risks for the military, injecting unwanted outside influence and giving the aid givers rather than the junta credit for a recovery.

However, keeping out international aid would focus blame squarely on the military should it fail to restore peoples' livelihoods.

Some aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.

Shari Villarosa, the top American diplomat in Yangon, told NBC's "Today" show that the cyclone had knocked huge trees in the country's largest city.

"And it blew down a significant portion of them, some of these are 6, 8, 10 stories tall -- huge trees, 6 feet, 5 feet in diameter. So they came down on roofs," she said.

The cyclone came only a week ahead of a key referendum on a constitution that Myanmar's military leaders hoped would go smoothly in its favor, despite opposition from the country's feisty pro-democracy movement. However, the disaster could stir the already tense political situation.

State radio also said that Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm. It indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.

The decision drew swift criticism from dissidents and human rights groups who question the credibility of the vote and urged the junta to focus on disaster victims.

Myanmar's generals have hailed the referendum as an important step forward in their "roadmap to democracy." It offers the first chance for voters to cast ballots since 1990, and the probability is high they will approve the constitution -- a legal framework the country has lacked for two decades.

But critics, including the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups, question whether it will lead to democracy.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.

At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.

Washington has long been one of the ruling junta's sharpest critics for its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph. It knocked out electricity to the country's largest city, Yangon, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Some sought refuge at Buddhist monasteries while others lined up Monday to buy candles, which had doubled in price, and water since the lack of electricity-driven pumps had left most households dry.

Myanmar is not known to have an adequate disaster warning system and many rural buildings are constructed of thatch, bamboo and other materials easily destroyed by fierce storms.

"The government misled people. They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared," said Thin Thin, a grocery store owner.

The radio station broadcasting from the country's capital, Naypyitaw, said 3,939 people had been killed. Another 2,879 people were unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country's low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area.

But Foreign Minister Nyan Win told Yangon-based diplomats that the death toll could rise to more than 10,000 in the Irrawaddy delta, according to Asian diplomats at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was held behind closed doors.

Myanmar's ruling junta, which has spurned the international community for decades, appealed for aid on Monday. But the U.S. State Department said Myanmar's government had not granted permission for a Disaster Assistance Response Team into the country.

Laura Blank, spokeswoman for World Vision, said two assessment teams have been sent to the hardest hit areas to determine the most urgent needs.

"This is probably the most devastating natural disaster in Southeast Asia since the tsunami," Blank said, referring to the 2004 disaster that killed around 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean nations. "There are a lot of important needs, but the most important is clean water."

The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm.

"Widespread destruction is obviously making it more difficult to get aid to people who need it most," said Michael Annear, regional disaster management coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross in Bangkok.

At a Monday meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of U.N. and international aid agencies, Myanmar's foreign ministry officials said they welcomed international humanitarian assistance and urgently need roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets.

In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had authorized an emergency contribution of $250,000 to help with relief efforts.

"We have a DART team that is standing by and ready to go into Burma to help try to assess needs there," deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. "As of this moment, the Burmese government has not given them permission, however, to go into the country so that is a barrier to us being able to move forward."

Myanmar Red volunteers already were distributing some basic items, said Matthew Cochrane at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' Geneva headquarters.

The World Food Program has pre-positioned 500 tons of food in Yangon and plans to bring in more relief supplies, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

U.N. agencies were working with the Red Cross and other organizations to see how it can help those affected by the cyclone. UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the U.N. children's agency alone has five teams assessing the situation in the country.

The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools in Yangon. Older citizens said they had never seen the city of some 6.5 million so devastated in their lifetimes.

Many stayed away from their jobs, either because they could not find transportation or because they had to seek food and shelter for their families.

"Without my daily earning, just survival has become a big problem for us," said Tin Hla, who normally repairs umbrellas at a roadside stand.

With his home destroyed by the storm, Tin Hla said he has had to place his family of five into one of the monasteries that have offered temporary shelter to those left homeless.

His entire morning was taken up with looking for water and some food to buy, ending up with three chicken eggs that cost double the normal price.

Despite the havoc wreaked by the cyclone across wide swaths of the country, the government indicated that a referendum on the country's draft constitution would proceed as planned on May 10.

"It's only a few days left before the coming referendum and people are eager to cast their vote," the state-owned newspaper Myanma Ahlin said Monday.

At the meeting with diplomats, Relief Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Maung Swe said the vote could be postponed by "a few days" in the worst-affected areas. However, the foreign minister intervened to say the matter would be decided by the official referendum commission.

Pro-democracy groups in the country and many international critics have branded the proposed constitution as merely a tool for the military's continued grip on power.

Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and crushing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.

Last year, a total of 366 people were arrested which was about 100 more than in 2006.

Some parties were shut down, according to police, and most of the arrests came on alcohol-related charges. Several people were transported to detox.

On Sunday, residents were left with yards and porches filled with empty beer cans, beer cases and other garbage.

]]> tschalmo@badgerherald.com http://badgerherald.com/updates/2008/05/02/chancellor_vacancies.php University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh chancellor Richard Wells announced Friday he will remain in his current post.Wells was a candidate for system chancellor at the Pennsylvania State University System of Higher Education.In an e-mail to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wells said the... 27940@http://badgerherald.com/updates/ 2008-05-02T16:15:44-06:00 2008-05-02T16:15:44-06:00 Wells was a candidate for system chancellor at the Pennsylvania State University System of Higher Education.

In an e-mail to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wells said the job in Pennsylvania was not the right fit for him.

If he had left, the chancellor position at Oshkosh would have been the 6th open in the UW System's 13 four-year institutions.

]]> tschalmo@badgerherald.com http://badgerherald.com/updates/2008/05/02/storms_ravage_parts_.php DAMASCUS, Ark. (AP) -- A powerful storm system packing tornadoes and heavy winds roared across the nation's midsection early Friday, killing at least seven people in Arkansas including a teenager crushed by a tree while she slept.Storms late Thursday and... 27938@http://badgerherald.com/updates/ 2008-05-02T16:09:49-06:00 2008-05-02T16:09:49-06:00 DAMASCUS, Ark. (AP) -- A powerful storm system packing tornadoes and heavy winds roared across the nation's midsection early Friday, killing at least seven people in Arkansas including a teenager crushed by a tree while she slept.

Storms late Thursday and early Friday also seriously damaged homes and businesses in the Kansas City, Mo., area, and twisters were reported in Oklahoma and Texas. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries in the other states.

In northwest Arkansas, a 15-year-old girl was killed early Friday and a 10-year-old boy injured when a tree fell on their home in Siloam Springs, police said.

The other six deaths were in the central part of the state, where a rash of twisters were seen. A father and son were killed in a mobile home in Conway County, while three people were killed in Van Buren County and another in Pulaski County. At least 13 people were injured throughout the state, emergency officials said.

Extensive property damage was reported in Damascus, north of Little Rock, where a spotter reported a tornado down just after 8:30 a.m.

"It sounded like all hell was breaking loose," said Randy Payne, 38, who hid in a hallway at his aunt and uncle's house in Damascus.

In the Kansas City area, officials said several people were injured, none seriously. About 40,000 lost power at the peak of the storm, which brought wind of up to 80 mph and two small tornadoes that raked northern parts of the city and the suburbs of Liberty and Gladstone early Friday morning, the weather service said.

Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser said 100 homes suffered significant damage in the city alone. In the northeast part of the city, dozens of homes had chunks of their roofs missing, and trees were lying along the roads and in ditches.

But "only a couple of people hurt -- not bad -- a couple of stitches," Funkhouser said.

The mayor in the Kansas City suburb of Gladstone, Mark Revenaugh, said some 20 homes were destroyed and as many as 200 were damaged. Officials said warning sirens were never set off in Gladstone because they didn't receive any reports of tornado sightings.

Damage was also reported in Lawrence, to the west of the metropolitan area.

In Canton, Texas, local officials said an apparent tornado Friday ripped down power lines and injured two people in overturned vehicles. Details on their condition were not immediately available.

The storm hit as visitors were beginning to show up for a popular open-air market that draws thousands to the county seat each month.

At least two tornadoes were reported in Oklahoma late Thursday. No serious injuries were reported, but a woman who was treated at a hospital for a broken foot, officials said. High winds destroyed a hotel under construction in Owasso, north of Tulsa.

As the system churned eastward, thunderstorms moved through Kentucky and a tornado warning was posted for Friday afternoon in the far western part of the state.

Wray, however, would not disclose the time of the call, the duration of it, if anything audible was actually heard nor if it was actually Zimmermann who placed the call.

During their initial investigation the day Zimmermann was killed, police discovered the 911 call and notified Dane County's 911 command center.

However, 911 Director Joe Norwick said the call from Zimmermann's phone was a "hang-up call," most of which are not routinely responded to.

Wray asked for an internal investigation of the call and contradicted Norwick by saying the call was not a hang-up call, intentionally erroneous call or an accidental call.

Neither Wray nor Norwick would acknowledge that any mistakes were made. Wray did not say if police believe whether a response to the call would have saved Zimmermann's life.

According to witnesses on the scene, four to six shots were fired just before 6 p.m near the Kennedy Building, which houses the Mental Health Center of Dane County.

Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, confirmed that the victim of the shooting was shot by someone he or she knows. The victim's injuries are not life threatening.

Verveer added the police are certain who the suspect is and are on the lookout for the individual. Authorities believe the suspect is out of the downtown area.

More than a dozen squad cars were at the scene. Police were interviewing eye witnesses near Kelly's Market seeking details on the incident.

See tomorrow's Badger Herald for more.

The Fed action, after a two-day meeting, pushed the federal funds rate down to 2 percent, the lowest level since late 2004. It marked the seventh rate cut by the central bank since it began easing credit conditions last September to combat the growing threat of a recession brought on by a severe housing slump and credit crisis.

Commercial banks immediately announced that they were cutting their prime lending rate to 5 percent. That will mean cheaper credit for the millions of business and consumer loans tied to the prime.

The Fed move, which was in line with expectations, sent the Dow Jones industrial average momentarily soaring above 13,000 for the first time since January. But the Dow quickly gave up those gains as traders began to wonder whether the Fed was closing the door to further rate cuts.

Many private economists said they believed a Fed statement was signaling that the central bank may be through cutting rates unless the economy weakens much more than now expected.

"They are saying that unless we are surprised by further weakness, this is it," said David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors.

Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, said, "The Fed is telling us that this easing cycle is coming to an end fairly soon."

Analysts said the central bank seemed to be balanced between worries about economic weakness and concerns that inflation pressures are increasing. The Fed noted that it had done quite a bit already.

"The substantial easing of monetary policy to date, combined with ongoing measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote moderate growth over time and to mitigate risks to economic activity," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues said in their statement.

There were two dissents from the move. Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas regional Fed bank, and Charles Plosser, head of the Philadelphia Fed, argued for no change in rates. Both officials had also dissented at the March 18 meeting when the Fed cut rates by three-fourths point.

The central bank is walking a tightrope, trying to jump-start economic growth while also confronting the risk that if it overdoes the credit easing it could make inflation worse down the road.

Many economists believe the country has fallen into a recession. However, the government reported Wednesday that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, managed to eke out a 0.6 percent growth rate in the January-March quarter, barely in positive territory.

On the overall economy, the Fed's statement said, "Financial markets remain under considerable stress and tight credit conditions and deepening housing contractions are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters."

While officials said they expected inflation to moderate in coming months, they also said "uncertainty about the inflation outlook remains high."

The quarter-point move followed a string of more aggressive rate cuts ranging from a half-point to three-fourths-point in the first three months of this year as the central bank was battling to stabilize financial markets roiled by multibillion-dollar losses caused by rising mortgage defaults.

That turmoil claimed its biggest victim on March 16 when Bear Stearns came to the brink of bankruptcy and the Fed stepped forward with a $30 billion line of credit to facilitate a sale of the nation's fifth largest investment bank to JP Morgan Chase.

Credit markets, while not back to normal, have stabilized and many analysts believe the worst may be over -- although they caution that this forecast could prove too optimistic if the housing slump deepens, causing even more mortgage defaults than now expected.

Before the Fed made its first rate cut in September, the funds rate had stood at 5.25 percent.

By the next afternoon, however, his tone was dramatically different.

The Illinois senator summoned reporters Tuesday to say he was outraged by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "divisive and destructive" remarks, scrambling to contain the flare-up in a controversy that has dogged him since clips of some of Wright's most objectionable remarks began circulating on TV and the Internet.

Obama said he belatedly condemned Wright's remarks because he did not see a transcript or video of Monday's appearance until the next day.

Doubtless, too, campaign aides were inundated with calls and messages Tuesday urging a stronger reaction.

But Obama's struggle to find the right tone -- six weeks ago he said he couldn't disown the pastor he's known for 20 years -- also reflects a striking difference in how Democratic voters view the controversy and its proper handling, a point made clear in interviews in North Carolina this week, ahead of the May 6 primary.

Black voters, in particular, urge Obama to rise above campaign attacks and dustups, saying he is not responsible for what Wright says. Many white voters say they were deeply troubled and baffled by Obama's association with Wright, even before the preacher reiterated some of his most incendiary comments on Monday.

At the heart of this divide is a fundamental disagreement about Obama's strengths and weaknesses in his battle against Hillary Rodham Clinton for the party's presidential nomination.

"I'm not so concerned" about Wright's comments, said Aliki Martin, of Bahama. A compliance officer at Duke University Medical Center, she was among 18,000 people who awaited Obama's arrival late Monday night at the University of North Carolina's basketball arena in Chapel Hill.

"I hope he keeps things positive," she said.

Obama seemed to follow that advice in his 45-minute speech. "I know we're being goaded into stuff," he said, referring vaguely to disputes with Clinton and her supporters. "Don't get distracted," he told the crowd.

He gently mocked his critics: "They say, 'We don't know enough about him. He doesn't always wear a flag pin. His pastor once said something. He's got a funny name, sounds Muslim.'"

By Tuesday afternoon in Winston-Salem, Obama wasn't laughing it off any more.

Wright's comments -- including the suggestion that the U.S. government invented the AIDS virus to destroy "people of color" -- "end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate," Obama told reporters, "and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church."

It was the kind of comment Tom Lipsky, a record company owner in Raleigh, expected to hear earlier.

"It bothers me that he would take his two daughters" to a church headed by "a man who says those kinds of things," said Lipsky, who is white, as he waited to see Clinton Tuesday morning at North Carolina State University. Lipsky, 53, said he's a committed Democrat, but is not sure he could vote for Obama if he becomes the nominee.

John Overton, of Chapel Hill, also attending the Clinton event, had similar misgivings. "I'm afraid of his radical connections," which include Wright, the 39-year-old software developer said.

"I was the only white person" for about a year at a black church in Beaufort, Overton said. "I never heard anybody talk like that."

In interview after interview, black and white Democrats seemed to talk past each other on the issue of religion and campaigns, even though all said they deeply dislike President Bush and want a change in Washington.

"Obama is not responsible for what his preacher says," said Copeland Richard, of Knightdale, who attended the Chapel Hill rally. "As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't have to answer that," said Richard, 66, who is black. "He's above that, he's dignified."

The differences dismay many North Carolina Democratic officials, who saw the excitement over the Obama-Clinton contest as virtually unprecedented, possibly leading to huge gains for the party in November.

"I see a permanent fissure developing now" between black and white Democrats, said state Rep. Dan Blue, of Raleigh, who was North Carolina's first black House speaker.

With the Wright controversy hot again, and former President Clinton recently saying Obama's campaign "played the race card" against him, Blue said a great opportunity may turn to tragedy.

"I don't know how you repair it," he said in an interview Tuesday.

The initiative, called BadgerCare Plus, consolidated the state's Medicaid, Healthy Start and BadgerCare programs for low-income families and simplified enrollment.

The new program also enables families whose children were not eligible for existing state programs to buy health insurance through the state. The cost ranges from $10 to $90.74 a month for each child depending on family income.

The cost is subsidized by the state for children in families with incomes from 200 percent to 300 percent of the federal poverty level.

Enrollment in state health programs now under BadgerCare Plus on Jan. 11 was listed as 483,919, but it increased to 555,373 Feb. 29, the latest figures available.

The news from Wells comes after five other chancellors have announced plans to retire or leave the state for other jobs.

The system is already searching for chancellors at Green Bay, Madison, Parkside, River Falls and Whitewater.

The chancellors at Madison and Parkside retired while three others are leaving to become leaders at other schools.

DeBauche is the third punter on the Green Bay roster. The Packers also have Jon Ryan, their punter the last two seasons, and free-agent Ryan Dougherty, who was with them in training camp last season.

The former Badger averaged 42.5 yards per punt at Wisconsin the last four seasons.

Decker's spokeswoman Carrie Lynch says she's hopeful all sides can agree to something soon.

She says the latest offer would not include a hospital tax supported by Doyle and Democrats. But it does include a delay in school aid payments that lawmakers support but Doyle does not.

Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leads McCain 47 percent to 43 percent.

But both matchups are within the poll's 5.3 percentage-point margin of error.

In other words, Wisconsin is up for grabs no matter who the Democratic nominee is.

The random poll of 521 people was conducted between April 15 and Thursday.

The MVP quarterback paid a visit to Letterman's "Late Show" Thursday night and talked about life after pro football. And yes, Favre told Letterman he was indeed retired.

But, when Favre was asked if he might start feeling "something" as training camp draws closer, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback admitted that "something" was bound to happen.

That gave Letterman an opening. There could be adjustments to the summer training regimen if Favre came back, Letterman promised. Favre jokingly asked Letterman if he could work that out.

Letterman ribbed Favre that his retirement had turned Green Bay upside down. The talk show host told Favre that he heard they were going to shut down the city of Green Bay and move it to Michigan.

Favre, rarely seen in a jacket and tie, wore a button-down shirt and blazer for his "Late Show" appearance. He told Letterman he spends his post-football time driving his youngest daughter to school and tending his 400 acres near Hattiesburg, Miss.