Mayor: Chicago school closings tough but necessary

CHICAGO (AP) — Mayor Rahm Emanuel responded Saturday to widespread criticism of his plan to close 54 Chicago Public Schools, saying he wasn't interested in doing what was politically easy and that the pain of the closings doesn't compare to the anguish of "trapping" kids in failing schools.

"If we don't make these changes, we haven't lived up to our responsibility as adults to the children of the city of Chicago," Emanuel said in his first public statements since Thursday's announcement. "And I did not run for office to shirk my responsibility."

Emanuel was out of town when his schools chief, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, announced the closings. It is the largest number of CPS schools to be shuttered in a single year, and officials say it will affect some 30,000 students in the nation's third-largest school district.

The long-awaited announcement angered many parents, teachers, lawmakers and community members, who say it disproportionately affects minority neighborhoods. Opponents also argue the closings will endanger children who may have to cross gang boundaries to get to a new school, and will eliminate facilities that are considered anchors in some struggling communities.

Opponents protested outside of several schools on Friday, and the Chicago Teachers Union and other organizations are planning a march Wednesday in downtown Chicago.

Parent Yolanda Harris called the plan "unfair" and said she was starting to second-guess her decision to vote for Emanuel for mayor. Her four children attend Dumas Technology Academy, which is slated to be closed.

"It's not to say (Emanuel) is a bad person, but I'm saying I don't agree with a lot of the decisions he's making," said Harris, who protested outside the South Side school Friday with other parents. "He's making big mistakes."

The mayor and Byrd-Bennett say the closings are necessary to address a $1 billion budget shortfall and because many CPS schools are half-empty, failing academically and in need of repair. They say the plan will save the district $560 million over 10 years in capital costs and an additional $43 million per year in operating costs.

Emanuel said Saturday the closings will allow the district to invest money in improving the remaining schools. And while he knows the closings will be difficult, he said every child deserves a high-quality education, regardless of where they live.

"You do not get a repeat on this," he said.

The vast majority of the 54 schools are in overwhelmingly black neighborhoods that have lost residents to the suburbs and elsewhere in recent years. Chicago's black population dropped 17 percent in the last census. The other few schools are majority Hispanic or mixed black and Hispanic. Overall, 91 percent of students in the district's 681 schools are minorities.

Emanuel also responded to criticism from the teachers union and others about being out of town on vacation when the announcement was made. He said he was in frequent contact with Byrd-Bennett throughout the day Thursday, and that he has been and will continue to be engaged in the process.

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Chavez undergoing "tough" chemotherapy: Venezuela VP

CARACAS (Reuters) - Senior aides and relatives of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez countered on Friday a crescendo of rumors that the socialist president may be dead from cancer, saying he was still battling for his life.

"There he is, continuing his fight, his battle, and we are sure of victory!" his older brother Adan Chavez, the governor of Barinas state, told cheering supporters.

Speculation about Chavez, 58, hit fever pitch this week, fed in part by assertions from Panama's former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Guillermo Cochez, that the Venezuelan leader had died.

"The launching of absurd and bizarre rumors by the right wing simply discredits them and isolates them further from the people," said Chavez's son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, adding that the president was "calm" in a hospital with his family and doctors.

Apart from one set of photos showing Chavez lying in a Havana hospital bed, he has not been seen nor heard from in public since December 11 surgery in Cuba, his fourth operation.

The president made a surprise pre-dawn return to a military hospital in Caracas last week, with none of the fanfare that had accompanied his previous homecomings after treatment.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, the OPEC nation's de facto leader and Chavez's preferred successor, said several times this week that the president was fighting for life and urged Venezuelans to stay calm and be patient.

Opposition politicians accuse the government of being deceitful about Chavez's condition, and compare the secrecy over his medical details with the transparency shown by other Latin American leaders who have suffered cancer.

"Maduro has lied repeatedly to the president's supporters and to Venezuelans about his real situation," opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Friday. "Let's see how they explain to the nation in coming days all the lies they have told."

Panamanian diplomat Cochez said Chavez's relatives had switched off his life support several days ago after he had been in a vegetative state since the end of December. He challenged officials to prove him wrong by showing the president in public.

HIGH STAKES

Across the South American nation of 29 million people, Venezuelans are extremely anxious, speculating almost non-stop about Chavez's condition and wondering what the potential end of his 14-year rule might mean for them.

Adding to the tension, several dozen opposition-supporting students have chained themselves together in a Caracas street, demanding to see the president and arguing that Maduro has no right to rule because he was not elected.

With the country on edge, the relatively routine shooting by police of a murder suspect during a gun battle in downtown Caracas on Friday forced Information Minister Ernesto Villegas to take to Twitter to issue reassurances.

"(Some people) took advantage of the episode to try to sow panic in the city center," he said. "The situation is calm."

Should Chavez die or step down, an election would be held within 30 days, probably pitting Maduro against Capriles for leadership of the country which boasts the world's biggest oil reserves.

The stakes are high for the region, too, as Chavez has been the most vocal critic of Washington in Latin America and financed hefty aid programs for left-wing governments from Cuba to Bolivia.

Amid the flurry of rumors, Spain's ABC newspaper said on Friday that Chavez had been taken to a presidential retreat on La Orchila island in the Caribbean off Venezuela's coast with his closest family to face the "final stages" of his cancer.

Venezuelan officials have frequently lambasted ABC as being part of an "ultra-right" conspiracy spreading lies about Chavez.

"The bourgeoisie harass him and they assault him constantly," Maduro said on Friday, singling out ABC and Colombia's Caracol radio for particular criticism. "Stop the attacks on the commander! Stop the rumors, stop trying to create instability!"

In the latest of a series of short updates on Chavez's health, the government said last week that his breathing difficulties had worsened, and he was using a tracheal tube.

Officials say he suffered a severe respiratory infection following the six-hour operation he had in December for a cancer that was first detected in his pelvic region in June 2011.

Chavez has never said what type of cancer he has.

Remarkably, two opinion polls this week showed that a majority of Venezuelans - 60 percent in one survey, 57 percent in another - believe he will be cured.

Chavez's millions of passionate supporters, who love his down-to-earth style and heavy spending of oil revenue on welfare policies, are struggling to imagine Venezuela without him.

"Of course, he's coming back, back to government," said Jose Urbina, 47, though he was also buying photos of Chavez at a pro-government rally as mementoes. "I want to remember him. I want to put them in my house."

Maduro, other top officials and family members gathered at Chavez's hospital on Friday night for a Catholic Mass to pray for his recovery.

(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta; Editing by Kieran Murray and Xavier Briand)

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Venezuela's Chavez undergoing "tough" chemotherapy, VP says

CARACAS (Reuters) - Ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been undergoing "tougher" new treatment for cancer, including chemotherapy at the military hospital where he has been for the past two weeks, his vice president said.

Speaking after a Catholic Mass to pray for Chavez's health, Nicolas Maduro described how the socialist president had personally given the order to leave Cuba in mid-February, two months after his latest cancer surgery there.

"He said, 'I've taken the decision to return to Venezuela, I'm going to enter a new phase of complementary treatments, tougher and more intense, I want to be in Caracas,'" Maduro said in the comments late on Friday.

"Do you know what the complementary treatments are? They are the chemotherapies applied to patients after operations," he added outside a chapel in the Caracas military hospital.

Apart from one set of photos showing Chavez in a Havana hospital bed, he has not been seen or heard from in public since the December 11 surgery in Cuba, his fourth operation since the disease was detected in mid-2011.

Chavez had previous rounds of chemo- and radiotherapy, which at times left him bald and bloated. He twice wrongly declared himself cured.

Furious at rumors swirling all week that Chavez may have died, Maduro said chemotherapy was only possible because his condition had actually improved in January after a delicate few weeks following the December operation.

Chavez's No. 2 urged Venezuelans to be on guard against "rumor-mongers" and "destabilizes," saying right-wing politicians in the United States were in league with Venezuela's opposition to spread lies about his boss.

"Sadly, the opposition live in a world of hatred, wrongdoing, bad feelings and bad desires," Maduro said, adding that Chavez had become sick from overworking.

"He neglected his own body to give our people his work, his love, his life," Maduro said, confirming Chavez was still using a tracheal tube to breathe and was communicating with family and aides through written messages and other "creative" means.

'THEY MUST SHOW HIM'

Opposition leaders have accused Maduro of lying about Chavez's condition. Several dozen anti-government students have chained themselves up in public to demand proof that the president is alive and in Venezuela.

"We challenge Nicolas Maduro to say where Hugo Chavez is. They must show him," opposition leader Pablo Medina said during a visit on Saturday to the students in Caracas.

Chavez's family and supporters are smarting at the crescendo of rumors that surfaced this week in news media and on the Internet. They have ranged from a claim by a Panamanian diplomat that Chavez's family had switched his life support off, to a Spanish newspaper report he had gone to die on an island refuge.

"Let's see, let's see, gentlemen in the laboratory, what rumors have you prepared for us today?" said Information Minister Ernesto Villegas.

Chavez's daughter, Maria Gabriela, complained about the media scrutiny of her face during the Mass on Friday night. Her somber expression was interpreted by some on Twitter as a sign her father was near death.

"I can't be happy if my father is ill ... In the next Mass, I'll have to dance and laugh," she tweeted.

Should Chavez die or step down, a vote would be held within 30 days, probably pitting Maduro against opposition leader and state governor Henrique Capriles for leadership of a nation that holds the world's biggest oil reserves. Capriles lost to Chavez in last year's election.

The stakes are also high for the region. Chavez has been the most vocal Latin American critic of Washington and financed hefty aid programs for leftist governments from Cuba to Bolivia.

(Additional reporting by Mario Naranjo; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Midwest swaddled in snow; travel tough

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Powdery snow, up to a foot and a half in some places, bombarded much of the nation's midsection Thursday, impeding travel and shutting down airports, schools and state legislatures.

The widespread winter storm system swirled to the north and east Thursday night, its snow, sleet and freezing rain prompting winter storm warnings in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.

Corey Mead, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the winter storm would be centered in the upper Midwest by Friday morning.

"Even across Kansas, the snowfall rates should continue to taper off through the evening," Mead said.

The system left behind impressive snow accumulations, especially in western Kansas, where 17 inches fell in Hays.

Several accidents and two deaths were blamed on icy and slushy roadways; two people died in crashes Wednesday. Most schools in Kansas and Missouri, and many in neighboring states, were closed Thursday and legislatures shut down in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Truett said it was "pouring snow" earlier Thursday, with it falling at a rate of 2 inches per hour or more in some spots.

Topeka, Kan., got 3 inches of snow in a 30-minute period, leaving medical center worker Jennifer Carlock to dread the drive home.

"It came on fast," Carlock said as she shoveled around her car. "We're going to test out traction control on the way home."

Snow totals passed the foot mark in many places: the Kansas cities of Hutchinson, Macksville and Hanston all saw 14 inches, and Wichita, Kan., had 13 inches. A few places in far northern Oklahoma saw between 10 to 13½ inches of snow. Missouri's biggest snow total was 10 inches, shared by the Kansas City metropolitan area, Rockport in the northwest corner and Moberly in the central part of the state.

Transportation officials in affected states urged people to simply stay home.

"If you don't have to get out, just really, please, don't do it," Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said. Interstate 70 through Kansas was snow-packed, and a 200-mile stretch between Salina and Colby was closed.

In Iowa, visibility was down to a quarter- to a half-mile on some southern and central Iowa roads, the state Department of Transportation said early Thursday evening.

Driving in the region's cities wasn't much better. Richard Monroe, 27, technology manager and marketing representative for the Missouri State University bookstore in Springfield, and eight of his colleagues arrived in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday for a conference.

He said a shuttle bus that was taking participants from the Weston Crown Center hotel to Bartle Hall, about five minutes away, got stuck in the snow and then ran into a truck. The vehicle was incapacitated for nearly two hours.

"We saw today that Kansas City is just shut down. I've never seen a big city like this where nothing is moving," Monroe said.

But some people came down with cabin fever, like Jennifer McCoy of Wichita, Kan. She loaded her nine children — ages 6 months to 16 years — in a van for lunch at Applebee's.

"I was going crazy, they were so whiny," McCoy said.

Cases of wine and beer — as well as bottles of scotch and whiskey — were flying off the shelves at Ingersoll Wine and Spirits ahead of the storm's arrival in Des Moines, Iowa.

"A lot of people have been buying liquor to curl up by the fire," wine specialist Bjorn Carlson said. NWS forecasts showed 3 to 9 inches of snow were expected in Iowa overnight, and Nebraska will see an additional 2 to 5 inches.

Heavy, blowing snow caused scores of businesses in Iowa and Nebraska to close early, including two malls in Omaha, Neb. Mardi Miller, manager of Dillard's department store in Oakview Mall, said most employees had been sent home by 4 p.m., and she believed "only two customers are in the entire store."

The storm brought some relief to a region that has been parched by the worst drought in decades.

Vance Ehmke, a wheat farmer near Healy, Kan., said the nearly foot of snow was "what we have been praying for." Climatologists say 12 inches of snow is equivalent to about 1 inch of rain, depending on the density of the snow.

Near Edwardsville, Ill., farmer Mike Campbell called the precipitation a blessing after a bone-dry growing season in 2012. He hopes it is a good omen for the spring.

"The corn was just a disaster," Campbell said of 2012.

Areas in the Texas Panhandle also had up to 8 inches of snow, and in south central Nebraska, Grand Island reported 10 inches of snow. And Arkansas saw a mix of precipitation — a combination of hail, sleet and freezing rain in some place, 6 inches of snow in others.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency Thursday morning. All flights at Kansas City International Airport were canceled for Thursday night, and officials said they'd prepare to reopen Friday morning. More than 320 flights at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were canceled by Thursday afternoon. Traffic throughout the state was snarled by hundreds of accidents and vehicles in ditches.

The University of Missouri canceled classes for one of the few times in its 174-year history. At a nearby Wal-Mart, some students passed the ice scrapers and snow melt, heading directly to the aisles containing sleds and alcohol.

"This isn't our usual Thursday noon routine," Lauren Ottenger, a senior economics major from Denver, said as she stockpiled supplies.

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Associated Press writers Alan Scher Zagier in Columbia, Mo.; Bill Draper and Margaret Stafford in Kansas City, Mo.; Margery Beck in Omaha, Neb.; John Hanna in Topeka, Kan.; Roxana Hegeman in Wichita, Kan.; Catherine Lucey and Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa; Tim Talley in Oklahoma City; Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark.; and Jim Suhr in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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