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lege graduation rates to the highest in the world may have to fall back to earth -- at least temporarily -- as lawmakers and Obama tackle a number of gritty funding-related issues that just can't wait.
• First up is sequestration, the automatic, government-wide spending cuts set to knock out 8.2 percent of the funding to almost all of the Education Department's programs -- unless Congress acts before the end of the year to avert the cuts.
• Programs intended to reduce educational inequities will take a hit of $1.3 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. Special education, already funded far below the levels Congress originally promised, will be slashed by more than $1 billion. Most of the reductions won't take effect until next fall, when the 2013-14 school year starts, but Impact Aid, which helps districts that lose revenue due to local tax-exempt federal property, would be cut immediately.
• Education advocates are optimistic a plan will be hashed out that will leave most major education programs relatively unscathed.
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• GHENT, Belgium (AP) -- The main suspect in the legendary art heist is said to have whispered with his dying breath: "Only I know where the 'Adoration' is..."
• More than seven decades later, the whereabouts of a panel belonging to one of Western art's defining works, the "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb," also known as the "Ghent Altarpiece," remains a mystery.
• If the stunning heist of Picasso, Monet and Matisse paintings in Rotterdam, Netherlands, last month focused attention on the murky world of art theft, the gothic Saint Bavo cathedral in Ghent has been at the center of a crime that has bedeviled the art world for decades.
• "The Just Judges" panel of the Van Eyck brothers' multi-panel Gothic masterpiece hasn't been seen since 1934, when chief suspect Arsene Goedertier suffered a stroke at a political rally and died after murmuring those fateful words to a confidant.
• The theft has kept the country enthralled ever since, with its heady mix of priceless art and scintillating detective story.
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