NATION IN BRIEF

University presidents announce paybacks

In the week since the Chronicle of Higher Education published its survey of university presidents’ pay, several of the highest-paid presidents have announced they would give back part of their pay or forgo their raises:

> The chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, Mark S. Wrighton, said he would take two 5 percent salary cuts next year.

> Penn President Amy Gutmann, one of several private school presidents earning more than $1 million, announced a $100,000 gift to the university for undergraduate research.

> Mark Emmert, the president of the University of Washington, refused a raise scheduled for this year.

> Washington State President Elson S. Floyd volunteered to take a pay cut.

THE HIGHEST PAID

Salary and benefits for presidents at private schools, 2006-07, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

1. $2,800,461 Suffolk University David J. Sargent

2. $2,065,143 Vanderbilt University E. Gordon Gee*

3. $1,742,560 Northwestern University Henry S. Bienen

4. $1,661,675 Rochester Institute of Technology, Albert J. Simone

5. $1,411,894 Columbia University Lee C. Bollinger

6. $1,326,774 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Shirley Ann Jackson

7. $1,324,874 New York University John E. Sexton

8. $1,159,269 Simmons College Susan C. Scrimshaw

9. $1,088,786 University of Pennsylvania Amy Gutmann

10. $1,060,772 Johns Hopkins University William R. Brody

11. $1,040,420 Emory University James W. Wagner

* resigned in 2007 and forfeited more than $1 million in benefits

Mall gunman shoots two

Police went store to store Saturday in a Seattle-area shopping mall, searching for the person who shot two young men. The gunfire broke out near the Southcenter Mall food court. The Seattle Times’ Web site reported that the two victims were taken to a local hospital with serious injuries.

Woman accused of burning daughter, 6

A West Virginia woman faces felony child abuse charges for allegedly burning the word “wimp” into her 6-year-old daughter’s neck. Moundsville, W.Va., police Chief Jim Kudlak said Saturday the child told police her mother used a cigarette to burn her. He said she told authorities that her mother burned her because she was angered that the girl tripped and fell. An employee at the child’s school noticed the burns, and police were called in. The girl is in foster care.

500 gather to mark JFK anniversary

More than 500 people gathered Saturday in Dealy Plaza in Dallas, the place where John F. Kennedy was assassinated exactly 45 years before. People stood shoulder to shoulder and bowed their heads for a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m. It was an odd scene, complete with memorabilia hawkers, conspiracy theorists and even a group of men wearing black suits, identical ties and earpieces, standing silent in the plaza.

Actors’ talks with studios break down

The Screen Actors Guild said Saturday it will ask its members to authorize a strike after contract talks with Hollywood studios failed. A federal mediator ended the talks between SAG and the movie and TV producers after two marathon sessions failed to produce an agreement. No new talks are scheduled. Negotiations broke down after the studios sought the right to create productions for new media, such as the Internet, using nonunion actors and without paying residuals, a SAG spokesman said. Residuals are payments to actors that are made every time a production airs, such as TV reruns. Residuals supply half of some actors’ income, the spokesman said.