Notre Dame's aid effort in Haiti \ndisrupted by uprising\nSOUTH BEND -- The violent uprising in Haiti has disrupted a University of Notre Dame program aimed at eliminating a disfiguring disease from the impoverished nation.\nThe professor who oversees the school's Haiti Program left the Caribbean country Monday, leaving behind the anti-elephantiasis effort for which Notre Dame received a $5.2 million grant in 2000.\nThe program last year inoculated almost a half-a- million Haitians with a medication that prevents new infections carried by a mosquito-borne parasitic worm for a year, said the Rev. Thomas Streit, a biology professor.\nStreit, who returned to Notre Dame's campus Tuesday, said armed gangs loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had accosted people working for the program and stolen one of their vehicles.\nThe program, carried out largely by Haitian employees, has been curtailed in areas controlled by the rebels, where people are staying home from work.\nStreit said many Haitians were trying to carry on their lives as normally as possible, sometimes creating bizarre contrasts.\nOn the way to the airport Monday, Streit said he passed people setting up parade floats for the country's traditional pre-Lenten carnival. Within a few blocks, the scene turned ominous, with intersections patrolled by armed thugs in black masks.\nStreit's study of lymphatic filariasis, the underlying disease that causes elephantiasis, began in Haiti in 1993. The university received the $5.2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its effort to eliminate the disease.
Homeless sex offender fails to \nregister with county\nVALPARAISO -- Being homeless does not excuse a convicted child molester from telling authorities where he lives, prosecutors said.\nBut Michael Nava's attorney said his client could not inform the Porter County Sheriff's Department of a change of address for the statewide sex offender registry because he was homeless.\nNava could face as much as three years in prison if he is convicted at his trial in April.\nNava was convicted in 1990 of molesting a 7-year-old boy in Portage, Ind., and received a 15-year prison sentence. Nava moved 14 times since he was released from prison about five years ago, his probation officer, Neil Hannon, said Tuesday.\nUntil last May, Nava had lived in a camper on the back of a pickup parked in a shed near a northwest Indiana farmhouse. But when he moved he did not notify the sheriff's department within seven days as required, said Capt. Robert Herring. Police discovered he had moved in September.\nNava's attorney, David Phillips of Valparaiso, declined to say where his client currently lives.
Former Democratic chairman considering plea agreement\nMUNSTER, Ind. -- Former Democratic state Chairman Peter Manous is considering a plea agreement on federal fraud charges, a published report said.\nFederal prosecutors are negotiating with Manous for his cooperation in the probe, The Times of Munster reported Wednesday, citing sources close to Manous whom it did not identify.\nManous, of Munster, has not signed an agreement, the newspaper reported. U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen declined comment.\nManous' attorney, Mark Rotert, declined to comment Wednesday to The Associated Press.\nManous, 41, who resigned as the party's state chairman in February 2003, was one of three people indicted in a $10 million land deal involving a union pension trust fund.\nHe has pleaded innocent to charges including offering and accepting kickbacks, criminal conspiracy, making false statements to authorities and falsifying records. All were in connection with the 1999 sale of 55 acres for a planned development near Chesterton in northwestern Indiana.\nGerry Nannenga, former business manager of the Indiana Regional Council of Carpenters, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of accepting payoffs.\nReal estate agent Kevin Pastrick, son of East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick, has pleaded innocent to charges of receiving a $600,000 commission from the sale and paying kickbacks to Manous, who was an attorney for the union, and Nannenga.
