Harvard initiative to help disadvantaged students

Harvard initiative to helpdisadvantaged students
BOSTON -- Harvard University is guaranteeing that households earning less than $40,000 annually won't have to pay for their children's education at the school, which plans to reach out more to students from low and moderate-income families.
Through the initiative, announced Saturday, Harvard also will reduce the contributions expected of families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 and intensify its efforts to recruit talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It will set aside an additional $2 million to cover the expanded financial aid commitment, increasing its annual undergraduate scholarship budget to just under $80 million.
"We want to send the strongest possible message that Harvard is open to talented students from all economic backgrounds," university president Lawrence H. Summers said in the announcement.
About 1,000 of Harvard's 6,600 undergraduates are expected to benefit from the new program.
Cheaper booze in Finland
HELSINKI, Finland -- Hundreds of trucks prepared to roll onto frozen roads at midnight today, stocked with beer and hard cider for a population that eagerly awaits a historic government measure that will cut alcohol prices by nearly 40 percent.
But anticipation was mixed with fear in Finland, a country known for heavy drinking and the violence it can spawn.
Officials warned of the harmful effects of an expected surge in consumption after taxes and prices are slashed Monday in a move to prevent much cheaper Estonian drinks from flooding the country when that Baltic state joins the European Union in May.
"Finns have the traditional Friday and Saturday night of drinking to get drunk ... and when it's easier or cheaper to get alcohol, consumption grows," said Ritva Varamaki, from the Finnish Health Promotion Center.
The government says liquor plays a major role in violence in Finland. Also, the number of drunken driving cases are increasing, as are illnesses attributed to high alcohol consumption.
President died instantly
SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Macedonia's president and eight others were killed instantly when their plane crashed in southern Bosnia, investigators said Saturday, as forensic experts carried out DNA analysis to identify the bodies.
In the Macedonian capital, officials said they would wait for investigators to finish their work before setting a date for elections to choose a successor to President Boris Trajkovski, the political moderate who was credited with helping defuse an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001.
Macedonia's government set up a panel of legal experts to work on meeting a constitutional requirement that the vote be held in 40 days, government spokesman Saso Colakovski said. The speaker of Macedonia's parliament, Ljupco Jordanovski, has been named interim acting president.
Thursday's crash in the Bosnian mountains burned six of the bodies beyond recognition. Colakovski said the process of identifying Trajkovski and the other eight victims would likely take several days.
Associated Press