Beyond the Bubble

International News

Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky's application for bail was denied Tuesday, forcing him to remain in jail while he is investigated for charges of fraud and tax evasion.

The former head of Russian oil giant Yukos and Russia's richest man, Khodorkovsky was jailed last month on fraud charges. He participated in the bail hearing via a video link, but the judge ordered other observers out of the room before proceedings began.

Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in Siberia, after which he was charged with fraud and tax evasion totaling $1 billion.

He has been held in a Moscow pre-trial detention center since his arrest.

Khodorkovsky's lawyers have threatened to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights as well as to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in response to alleged violations of due process, including raids by prosecutors on his Russian lawyers' offices.

Last week Khodorkovsky made what some political analysts considered to be a gesture to calm the growing conflict around him when he agreed to step down as chief executive of Yukos, cutting his direct management ties to the company.

National News

In a policy speech given Sunday, former Vice President Al Gore attacked the Patriot Act and accused the Bush administration Sunday of using the war on terrorism "to consolidate its power and escape any accountability for its use."

Gore said that although the threat of terrorism required timely action by the executive branch, "President Bush has stretched this new practical imperative way beyond what is healthy for our democracy."

Gore accused Republicans in Congress of aiding the White House by threatening to shut down investigations over political disputes, claiming that the Bush administration has tried to "rule by secrecy and unquestioned authority."

"They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive; Big Brother-style government - toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book '1984' - than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America," said Gore.

He called for a repeal of most of the Patriot Act, saying its few useful provisions are far outweighed by those he said are impinging on American freedoms.

Passed overwhelmingly by Congress after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the act gave the government more powers of surveillance and detention.

"It makes no sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama bin Laden," Gore said.

In each case, he said, "the administration has attacked the wrong target."

College News

Decreasing state funding for the nation's public colleges and universities is causing tuition to rise, access to diminish and salaries for top executives to skyrocket, according to a recent study.

University presidents are forced to run their campuses more like businesses, performing increasingly like their peers in the private sector and earning CEO-level salaries and benefits, experts say.

During the past year, many states have trimmed financial support for higher education.

Meanwhile, the number of public-university presidents making more than $500,000 a year doubled nationwide, according to a study by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The study found that 25 percent of the 131 four-year research universities surveyed are paying presidents more than $400,000. The number of presidents pulling down salaries of a half-million or more has jumped from 6 in 2002 to twelve in 2003.

Four private-college presidents earned nearly $900,000 â€" tops in the nation â€" in the 2002 fiscal year, according to the study's examination of corporate reports and tax records.

Heading the list, with an $891,000 annual salary, was Shirley Ann Jackson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

-Written by Lance Dwyer