Schoolgirl Dares to Lecture Bush

--President Bush had called the White House ceremony to focus on drug abuse, but a 13-year-old Virginia girl seized the day instead with a surprise lecture on the death penalty. At the ceremony, part of Bush’s continuing efforts to promote his anti-drug strategy, three Washington-area students who are members of the DARE program were invited to read essays. While the other two stuck to drug themes, Chantee Charles, a seventh-grader from Arlington, Va., used most of her allotted time to attack the death penalty. Saying “probably thousands” of innocent prisoners have been executed, Charles argued that death penalty proponents “miss the point that the prisoner has a family, too.” Bush, who has advocated the death penalty for drug kingpins and for those who kill law enforcement officers, took it all in stride, complimenting Charles for doing a good job expressing “what’s on your heart” without worrying “if people agree with you or not.” Charles later told reporters she was unaware of Bush’s strong support for the death penalty for certain crimes.

--Raring to get back to her work ministering to the poor, Mother Teresa told doctors she wants to go home, only to be advised she should spend another week in bed. Mother Teresa, 79, was rushed to a hospital in Calcutta, India, last week suffering an irregular heartbeat and high fever caused by a slightly blocked artery. She was given a temporary pacemaker Saturday night. “She had a good sleep and woke up fresh and cheerful,” said a medical bulletin Wednesday. “Her cardiac condition is quite normal, her temperature is down and the artery blockage is showing no signs of trouble.”

--Americans, whose science skills are reportedly dismal and who have failed miserably in recent geography surveys, are proving deficient in yet one more area--spelling. In a spelling survey conducted by Gallup International and involving contestants from the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Australia, the Americans came in a dismal fourth. The survey was mastered handily by the Australians, who spelled seven of 10 words correctly; followed by the Canadians with six and the British with five. The Americans were able to spell four words correctly. The best American spellers tended to be those between the ages of 34 and 44; the worst were in the 18-24 age bracket. The results “confirm the existence of the education deficit, perhaps the United States’ most destructive deficit,” said Education Secretary Lauro F. Cavazos. The words used were: magazine, sandwich, deceive, kerosene, calamity, accelerator, cauliflower, penitentiary, picnicking and parallel.