(Continued from page 47)

tion over a deal to end it, a rally scheduled for Saturday was unlikely to be a victory celebration. Instead, it was shaping up as a show of force for organized labor after a string of setbacks, with participants coming from Wisconsin, Minnesota and perhaps as far away as Boston.
• Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, said he expects a couple hundred Wisconsin teachers to attend Saturday's rally. Buses were being organized to take teachers from Madison and Milwaukee and others planned to drive separately or take the train, he said.
• ___

• BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping reappeared in public Saturday and made an impromptu speech following a two-week absence that had sparked rumors about his health and raised questions about the stability of the country's succession process.
• State media said Xi toured exhibits at China Agricultural University in Beijing commemorating National Science Popularization Day, but offered no explanation of why he had dropped from sight.
• Photos posted on the government's official website showed Xi walking in the sunshine dressed casually in an open-necked shirt and black wind breaker. Another photo showed him smiling as he looked at potted plants, showing no sign of disability or ill health.
• A lengthy Chinese-language report from the official Xinhua News Agency did not address why Xi had not been seen publicly since Sept. 1, when he made a speech at the ruling Communist Party's official training academy.
• Since then, he has canceled meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. The Chinese government has yet to explain Xi's public absence.
• ___

• NEW YORK (AP) -- In a rare public moment out of character, actor Stephen Colbert told students at the Jesuit Fordham University on Friday that he loves the Ro

(Continued on page 49)