Retailers Post Robust Start to Holidays

The nation's retailers had a robust start to the holiday shopping season, according to results announced Saturday by a national research group that tracks sales at retail outlets across the country.

According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets, total sales rose 8.3 percent to about $10.3 billion on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, compared with $9.5 billion on the same day a year ago. ShopperTrak had expected an increase of no more than 4 percent to 5 percent.

"This is a really strong number. ... You can't have a good season unless it starts well," said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, citing …

Keep universities afloat for sake of state's future

MAXED OUT: A SUN-TIMES SERIES

FACING UP TO OUR LOCAL AND STATE BUDGET CRISIS

Illinois' public universities are in uncharted waters, and for the first time there is fear that one or more could sink.

Never before has the State of Illinois simply stopped paying money it had appropriated for higher education. The state now is an estimated $800 million behind for this fiscal year. On campuses around the state, worried administrators are looking at looming payrolls they don't have the money to meet.

The nine universities already have responded by freezing hiring, ordering furloughs, deferring maintenance, draining cash reserves and taking other short-term …

URBAN STATE OF MIND

REGION

Hersha's hotel portfolio getting younger, expanding

Intent on expanding its urban footprint, Hersha Hospitality Trust's decision last month to sell 18 of its secondarymarket hotels not only makes its portfolio younger but also frees equity for potential major market acquisitions in and beyond the Northeast.

"I think it allows us to sell some of our older small assets that have lesser growth profile going forward to focus on assets that have a higher growth rate in the future," CFO Ashish Parikh said of the $155 million deal with an affiliate of Starwood Capital Group.

The sale includes the 97-room Hampton Inn in Middlesex Township and five other …

Alleged 9/11 plotters due in Gitmo court

Almost seven years after terrorists hijacked airliners and used them as missiles to kill 2,973 people, five men who allegedly plotted the attacks face a military tribunal Thursday.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, will be arraigned simultaneously with four other detainees inside a high-security courthouse at the remote U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed boasted of numerous attacks and plots against the United States in a closed military hearing last year, and the al-Qaida kingpin and his confederates will be given the chance to speak out again in their war crimes trial, according to a top tribunal official, …

Britain unveils memorial 4 yrs after transit bombs

British officials unveiled a memorial of 52 steel pillars in a London park Tuesday _ one for each victim of the July 7, 2005, attacks on the city's transit system.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Prince of Wales and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall attended the memorial service along with families of the victims. The stainless steel columns stand 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) tall in central London's Hyde Park.

Former Mayor Ken Livingstone, who was in office at the time of the attacks by four suicide bombers on three subway trains and a bus, praised the design of the memorial.

"I think it's just exactly right. Often, it's very difficult to do …

Soldiers Targeting Serbs Left Behind in Croatia

ZAGREB, Croatia Serb civilians fleeing or trapped in Croatia arebeing killed, and their homes destroyed, according to independentreports by UN peacekeepers and journalists.

The Croatian government has emphasized it wants ethnic Serbcivilians to stay, and said it would guarantee their safety. MostSerbs do not trust that pledge and have left in the biggest singlerefugee exodus since the Balkan wars started four years ago.

In one of the most recent examples of atrocities, Danishpeacekeepers in Dvor, near the Bosnian border about 40 milessoutheast of Zagreb, reported seeing soldiers killing refugees in aschoolyard late Thursday. Croat police confirmed Friday that 11 …

Philippine troops kill wanted Abu Sayyaf militant

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine troops clashed with Abu Sayyaf gunmen in a southern coastal village Sunday and killed a long-wanted militant who helped in the 2001 kidnapping of three American and 17 Filipino tourists and the takeover of a hospital, the military said.

Abdukarim Sali was killed before dawn in a clash with troops and police in Lower Mangas village on Basilan island's Lantawan township — a stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf, regional military commander Lt. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino said.

The other militants fled, leaving behind Sali's body, an M16 rifle and grenade launcher, ammunition and cell phones.

The government offered a $7,700 bounty …