BY PATRICIA MAZZEI This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

One way the Broward school district could save money next year is by having more elementary schools share art, music and physical education teachers and media specialists, a possibility School Board members will discuss at a workshop meeting Tuesday.

They will also take up other unpopular cost-cutting options, such as having those ``specials'' teachers lead two classes at once -- with the help of an aide -- and having classroom teachers incorporate art and music into their regular lessons so a unit on African geography involves, for example, the influence of African music on jazz.

The proposals will likely face a push-back from board members, who have decried last year's steep cuts to elementary schools and the arts. They will almost certainly also be criticized by the Broward Teachers Union, which has said the district should slash what the union calls wasteful spending from places other than teachers and classrooms.

``There'll be a rich debate,'' Superintendent Jim Notter said Monday. ``However, the bottom line is, we have no place else to cut.''

The suggestions come from a committee of principals and school system administrators tasked with finding ways to realign teachers and other schools staff to save the district money. Since January, the board has been having ongoing talks on how to cut millions from the school system's budget.

Other ideas from the committee include relying more on virtual elementary-school field trips and setting guidelines for how many guidance counselors a school should have -- at least one part-time counselor at each elementary school, for example.

The district has already said it will have to make $62.8 million in cuts to day-to-day operations in 2010-11 for using one-time money this year. Notter said Broward may also face a shortfall of $80 million to $100 million in state money.

  The 2007 documentary "The King of Kong" famously depicts the struggles faced by Washington resident Steve Wiebe to overcome swaggering classic-gaming legend Billy Mitchell for the all-time highest score on the 1981 Nintendo fave Donkey Kong.

But recently, Hank Chien, an unheralded newcomer to the classic-gaming community, snuck up on both of them and set a new Donkey Kong world-record, according to noted video-game record-keeping authority Twin Galaxies.

Chien's score of 1,061,700 points, accumulated in just two-and-a-half hours, puts him a mere 11,500 points ahead of Mitchell's best recorded score, and 12,600 points ahead of Wiebe's -- essentially a difference of one successful barrel or fireball jump per screen.

Asylum caught up to Chien, a 35-year-old plastic surgeon from Flushing, New York, on what he describes as a "slow day" at the office to talk about the record -- and what's next.

"I probably would have never done this if it weren't for the movie," says Chien, referring to the popular (and controversial) "The King of Kong."

In fact, Chien says that he first began playing with abandon only about 8 or 9 months ago. "I was actually pretty bad when I first started out," he says. "I wasn't even close to a million, so I just never thought about [the record]."

As anyone with a day job and an interest for breaking video-game records knows all too well, time is the biggest factor in trying to accomplish a goal of this kind. With his demanding plastic-surgery business, Chien could never afford the time to attend the two or three events each year at which a Twin Galaxies referee would be present to verify the score.

Because of that, chasing the high-profile Donkey Kong record, previously held by Mitchell (pictured below), was nearly impossible for him to attempt.

"I never really considered the record until November of 2009," says Chien. That month, Twin Galaxies altered its rules regarding video-taped entries. "When they changed the rules," he explains, "I started thinking I might be able to do it."

A woman wipes a tear as dead bodies, mostly women and children, are arranged in a mass grave for burial at Dogo Nahawa village in south of Jos, Plateau State. UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington led calls for restraint on Monday after the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.(AFP)

by Aminu Abubakar Aminu Abubakar

JOS, Nigeria (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington led calls for restraint on Monday after the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.

Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.

While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.

Media reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days prior to the attack, so they could make good their escape before the exit points were sealed off.

Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting 'nagge', the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.

One local paper said the gangs shouted Allah Akhbar (God is Great) before breaking into homes and setting them alight in the early hours of Sunday. Churches were among the buildings that were burned down.

The Vatican led a wave of outrage with spokesman Federico Lombardi expressing the Roman Catholic Church's "sadness" at the "horrible acts of violence".

The UN chief told reporters he was "deeply concerned".

"I appeal to all concerned to exercise maximum restraint," he said.

"Nigeria's political and religious leaders should work together to address the underlying causes and to achieve a permanent solution to the crisis in Jos."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged "all parties to exercise restraint", but also called on the Nigerian government to "make sure the perpetrators are brought to justice."

"The Nigerian government should ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law and that human rights are respected as order is restored," the chief US diplomat said.

The death toll was initially put at a little over 100 but then shot up. The information ministry said pregnant women were among those killed and around 200 people were being treated in hospital.

"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong.

"People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."

Survivors wail as children, women buried in Nigeria

Much of the violence was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa, where gangs set fire to straw-thatched mud huts as they went on their rampage.

The explosion of violence is the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups. In January 326 people died in clashes in and around Jos, according to police although rights activists put the overall toll at more than 550.

"The attack is yet another jihad and provocation," the Plateau State Christian Elders Consulatative Forum (PSCEF) said.

However the archbishop of the capital Abuja, John Onaiyekan, told Vatican Radio that the violence was rooted not in religion but in social, economic and tribal differences.

"It is a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians," he said.

Fulani are mainly nomadic cattle rearers while Beroms are traditionally farmers.

A curfew imposed after January's unrest is supposed to be still in place but Christian leaders said the authorities did nothing to prevent the bloodshed.

The PSCEF said it took the army two hours to react from the time a distress call was put through and "the attackers had finished their job and left".

Witnesses said armed gangs had scared people out of their homes by firing into the air but most of the killings were the result of machete attacks.

"We were caught unawares ... and as we tried to escape, the Fulani who were already waiting, slaughtered many of us," said Dayop Gyang, of Dogo Nahawa.

Gbong Gwon Jos, a Muslim resident of Dogo Nahawa, told The Nation daily he received advanced warnings of the attacks.

"I got a text message about movement of the people."

Rights activists said the slaughter appeared to be revenge for the January attacks in which mainly Muslims were killed.

Locals said that the attacks on Sunday were the result of a feud which had been first ignited by a theft of cattle and then fuelled by deadly reprisals.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan placed security services in Plateau and nearby states on red alert to contain the violence before he sacked his chief security advisor

By ELLIOT SPAGAT, Associated Press Writer Elliot Spagat, Associated Press Writer    

ESCONDIDO, Calif. – A registered sex offender charged with murdering a teen girl last month is a focus of the investigation into the death of a 14-year-old girl whose remains were found more than a year after she disappeared near her school, police said Monday.

Police said they are eyeing John Albert Gardner III in the death of Amber Dubois, whose bones were found Saturday in a remote area of the Pala Indian Reservation.

A police statement did not elaborate on the investigation and only said the scene was still being processed. Police Lt. Craig Carter did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking further details.

FBI teams worked under rainy skies during their search of the mountainous area of dense shrubs and rocks.

Gardner, 30, pleaded not guilty last week to murdering and raping or attempting to rape 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway and attempting to rape another woman in December in the same park where King disappeared.

His public defender, Michael Popkins, did not respond to a phone message.

Gardner was expected to make his second court appearance Tuesday in the potential death penalty case.

Police have not revealed how they learned the location of Amber's remains, saying it was part of the ongoing investigation. Amber's mother, Carrie McGonigle, also declined to say what led authorities to the remains.

However, she said she was grateful for the sense of closure after the long hunt for her daughter.

"I'm managing," McGonigle said in a brief interview. "It was a roller coaster the last year and now we have closure, which is more than a lot of parents have."

Amber disappeared Feb. 13, 2009 near Escondido High School, about 10 miles north of the site where King vanished Feb. 25. A body presumed to be Chelsea was found March 2 in a shallow, lakeside grave, but authorities have said they would not make an official identification until Gardner's preliminary hearing.

Like Chelsea's parents, McGonigle said she planned to become active in efforts to prevent attacks on other children. She said she was busy preparing for a candlelight vigil for her daughter Monday night.