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born baby; a sick, elderly woman accompanied by her daughter and son; and a young man, both legs wrapped in bandages from heel to hip, who was secured with a rope face down to a horse for the hike.
• At the foot of the mountain on the Lebanese side of the border, 32-year-old Syrian laborer Ibrahim Abdulghani saddled two horses. A flash of light from up the mountain signaled the Syrians were starting to descend. He rode up to meet them and guide them down through the wind and rain lashing the rocky slope.
• Among them was 74-year-old Farizeh Kabalan, who could not walk. Abdulgahni put her and her meager belongings, all of which fit into a plastic bag, on a horse and slowly picked their way down the mountain to a Lebanese army checkpoint at the base. Once there, Kabalan collapsed into the hands of four Red Cross workers, who loaded her into an ambulance.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- A state's voters are free to outlaw the use of race as a factor in college admissions, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a blow to affirmative action that also laid bare tensions among the justices about a continuing need for programs that address racial inequality in America.
• The 6-2 decision upheld a voter-approved change to the Michigan Constitution that forbids the state's public colleges to take race into account. That change was indeed up to the voters, the ruling said, over one justice's impassioned dissent that accused the court of simply wanting to wish away inequality.
• The ruling bolsters similar voter-approved initiatives banning affirmative action in education in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies.
• Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters in Michigan chose to eliminate racial preferences, presumably because such a system could give rise to race-based resentment. Kennedy said nothing in the Constitution or the court's prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results.
• "This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," Kennedy said.
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