TODAY’S NEWS BRIEFING
1: Student left in cell to get $4.1M from US
SAN DIEGO — The Justice Department has agreed to pay $4.1 million to a California college student left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell last year.
Daniel Chong was detained in an April 2012 drug raid in San Diego and left in a windowless holding cell for four days without food or water. He says he drank his own urine to stay alive.
Chong and eight others were taken into custody at a house where DEA agents say they found 18,000 ecstasy pills, other drugs and weapons. Agents told Chong he would not be charged and had him wait in the cell at DEA offices in San Diego. The door did not reopen for four days, when agents found him severely dehydrated and covered in his own feces.
2: College’s $250M gift among biggest ever
DANVILLE, Ky. — A tiny liberal arts school in rural Kentucky that hosted vice presidential debates in 2000 and 2012 announced a $250 million donation Tuesday, one of the largest single gifts in highereducation history.
The all-stock donation to Centre College from the A. Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust ranks among the 20 biggest gifts ever to a U.S. col- lege or university, according to a list maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education. It is the second-largest such gift to a U.S. school since 2011, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, surpassed only by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $350 million donation to Johns Hopkins University announced earlier this year.
3: FARC wants officials to retrieve Marine
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s largest guerrilla army is reiterating its willingness to free a former U.S. Marine it captured last month, but it insists that the government send a high-level delegation to retrieve him.
Ricardo Tellez is the nom de guerre of a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Tellez says the ball is “in the government’s court.”
But Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said he would not send public figures to pick up Kevin Scott Sutay and vowed not to let the FARC make a media spectacle of his release. U.S. officials say Sutay was in Colombia as a tourist.
4: Former premier has wide lead in vote
BAMAKO, Mali — A Malian official says early results show veteran politician and former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has a wide lead in the country’s presidential election, potentially allowing him to avoid a runoff next month.
Col. Moussa Sinko Coulibaly, minister of territorial administration, said Tuesday that with one-third of the vote counted, Keita, known by his initials IBK, was well ahead of the 27-candidate field.