College Board, company sued over SAT error

College Board, companysued over SAT error
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A high school senior whose SAT was incorrectly scored low is suing the board that oversees the exam and the testing company that was hired. The lawsuit, filed late Friday in Minnesota, is the first since last month's announcement that 4,411 students got incorrectly low scores and that more than 600 had better results than they deserved on the October test. It names the nonprofit College Board and the for-profit Pearson Educational Measurement, which has offices in Minnesota's Hennepin County. "Any type of a high-stakes test that impacts a life event like college, scholarships and financial aid has to be scored with 100 percent accuracy," St. Paul attorney T. Joseph Snodgrass said Saturday. "There is no room for error in this type of a situation." Pearson spokesman David Hakensen said Saturday that the company won't comment on pending litigation. College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti also declined to comment.
Denver transit boardapproves labor contract
DENVER -- The executive board of the city's mass transit system unanimously approved a new labor contract Saturday, clearing the way for bus and train service to resume by the work week. "We are going to be back in full service Monday morning," said Scott Reed, spokesman for the Regional Transportation District. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001 approved it Friday with an 82 percent majority. "I think they're very happy to be back to work," said Yvette Salazar, president of the union, which represents 1,750 mechanics, drivers and train operators. Mechanic Todd Platten is glad he's going back to work after the union went on a weeklong strike, even though the new agreement is less than he had hoped for. "I guess I still feel that the contract isn't the greatest, but we can live with it," he said.
2 Afghans die in bombingoutside NATO base
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber killed two Afghans outside a NATO military base in western Afghanistan, and two suspected Taliban commanders died in raids by the U.S.-led coalition, authorities said Saturday. The suicide car explosion in the city of Herat, where hundreds of Italian soldiers are based, was the second such attack in as many days. It highlighted the increasing risk to foreign forces as they expand into new areas across Afghanistan. On Friday, a suicide attack outside a U.S.-led coalition base wounded two U.S. military service members and one U.S. civilian contractor in southern Helmand province. A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammed Yousaf, called The Associated Press to claim responsibility for Saturday's suicide attack near the gates of the Italian NATO base. Herat police chief Gen. Mohammed Ayub Salingi said a suicide attacker drove a vehicle up to the base and detonated explosives inside the car. One of the dead was an Afghan guard at the base and the other was a passer-by, he said. The attacker also died.
Students stage protestsover French jobs law
PARIS -- French students disrupted a Davis Cup tennis tournament and staged a supermarket sit-in amid impromptu protests Saturday to push the government to revoke a youth jobs law that has divided the nation. The key players in the standoff were apparently using the weekend to mull their next moves. President Jacques Chirac was to announce plans for modifications to the law on Monday, based on the results of talks between labor unions and the governing UMP party, his aides said. Unions, too, were to meet Monday and decide whether to continue the nationwide strikes and protests that have gripped the country for two months and at times spiraled into violence. The government says the law will get more young people working by making it easier to fire them; critics say it attacks France's worker protections and punishes youths, and want it withdrawn. School vacations starting this weekend could crack the solidarity of students who have been at the forefront of the standoff.
Various astronauts land after journey
ARKALYK, Kazakhstan -- A capsule carrying Brazil's first astronaut, along with a Russian and an American, landed in the Kazakh steppe early today after separating from the international space station and hurtling through the Earth's atmosphere. American astronaut Bill McArthur, Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and Brazilian Marcos Pontes touched down on target and on schedule. Officials at Russia's Mission Control in Korolyov, outside Moscow, reported that the capsule had been in radio contact for much of the 3 1/2-hour journey and that all three crew members were feeling well. McArthur and Tokarev had spent more than six months on the space station.
Associated Press