The Sun Higher Education University Rankings Out Today: The WACKIE races are back in town. SHARE IF YOU DARE!

Sunday September twenty nine 2069

The Sun Group Newspapers in the UK and Sun Higher Education (SHE) has published the most comprehensive world university rankings for the last 20 years and its evaluations are eagerly anticipated every year. The World Academic Combined Key Information Evaluations, dubbed the WACKIE races by most academics, has been no exception this year. Evidence that some proxy measurements can predict final rankings has mounted over the last ten years, however this time it is not so clear cut.

Who is gaining ground and who is losing?

The dominance of universities in China and South East Asia for the past 20 years seems to be waning. The University of Beijing still heads the overall league table but others have dropped to below 10^th position. Universities from India are closing in fast in the overall rankings with the University of the Punjab leading in 5^th place and 12 others are in the top 40. Close behind comes the universities in the Former UK States (FUKS) and Ireland. Cambridge and Oxford Universities still lead the FUKS in positions 31 and 32 and all 62 of the Russell Provider Group (RPG) of universities are in the top 500 places. Six universities from the Alliance of Independent Providers (AIP) are also listed in the top 200 with the highest ranked being the University of Middle England in front at position 153. The big losers again this year have been universities in the American Confederate States and the American Union States.  No university from these jurisdictions made the top 100 for the first time ever. In contrast, universities in the American Western States Alliance (North Mexico, and the expanded states of California and Arizona) fared much better. The universities of Tuscon and Nogales lead the way on 49 and 50 with Stanford close behind and in at 62.

This decline appears to have its roots in events following the ‘incident’ in 2019. The subsequent breakup of the USA after the third term of the Donald Trump presidency was accompanied by increasing world isolation. The decline in the Liberal minded universities in the Union States was particularly sharp whilst Mexican institutions advanced quickly by mirroring their neighbour’s education system at lower cost.

Methodology.

The rankings are based upon an overall score of 100 that is scaled to four decimal places.  The algorithm is now massive since the introduction of Low Energy Data (LED) Balloon memory storage technology and the new organic supercomputers over ten years ago.  Since then, every action can be tracked easily. Every conceivable data item is fed into the algorithm to generate the final score. This includes publications, peer review assessments, citations and impact by Eigen scores, student numbers and adjusted assignment exam results. External examiner scores are entered using the Universal Score Evaluation (USE) from the Local Evaluation Scoring System  (LESS) in place in every university. The earnings and jobs of all graduates have been tracked for the last 20 years and these are included. Greater weight is put on student scores, earnings and jobs followed by impact and scope of publications. This includes publications not peer reviewed but published online by licensed web sites. Although the reputation survey continues to be used, this is only as a comparator check. The numbers of students and staff and their purchasing power has been tracked for the past ten years and this has thrown up some interesting comparative data.

Universal trading data used to the full.

Since the conversion of every single trade in goods and services was converted to universal electronic currency, recorded in bitcoins as the world currency, in 2057, governments have been able to track their economies on a daily basis. The Office for National Data in the FUKS has used its organic super computer (dubbed ‘Two Brains’) in Birmingham with the revolutionary LED ‘Balloon’ data banks to track every trend and produce a report at 6pm every day. Whilst this has revolutionised our understanding of microeconomics it has led some to manipulate markets in increasingly bizarre ways. The WACKIE rankings have been able to track some of these trends across university campuses with remarkable results.

The Avocado economy.

SHE has developed sophisticated tools to track sales of goods on every university campus across the world in an effort to find suitable proxies for the university quality rankings in WACKIE. This is an attempt to spot trends in university performance in advance. For example, increased purchasing of unusual radioactive isotopes might indicate the early stages of novel atomic research.  In most cases, the comparisons failed to correlate well and seemed chaotic. However, one very surprising trend came to light in data from the FUKS Universities and Ireland when comparisons were first made in 2059.

In tracking the daily purchasing trends it became clear that there was a distinct variation and pattern in the purchase of avocados and related products. A similar trend was seen in the American Union States but not in the American Confederate or the Western Alliance states, where chilli sales showed a closer correlation. This led to the hypothesis that vegetable sales would be used as proxy measures to predict university ranking and quality.

Figure 1 shows the WACKIE university scores for the FUKS and Ireland in 2059 v the mean daily avocado sales on campus. The correlation is striking and clear.

Manipulation of the market.

The same analysis of avocado sales in the FUKS and Ireland universities has been carried out for the 2069 rankings. Figure 2 shows that a similar trend to 2059 exists but that some universities now show up as outliers. 

Two Universities in Ireland have dropped out of the avocado market due to a student boycott and protests. Students from the Republican University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin (ringed in green) started boycotting Avocados 18 months ago and this appears to have been successful. A student activist from Belfast said that “Avocados are a symbol of middle class British arrogance and imperial power and we will have nothing to do with them”. Another student from Dublin, campaigning for healthier diets, indicated that they were “too expensive and there were better healthy foods available”. The rapid advance of some of the lower ranked AIP universities  (ringed in red and purple for the University of Middle England) in the avocado stakes appears suspicious. Some of these institutions are lower ranked but have large avocado sales.

Our investigation has uncovered that these universities offer vouchers for free avocados to all new students and record these as sales. They also offer a wide variety of avocado products including a very popular guacamole. Looking closely at the ingredients we see that it contains an infusion of SKA (Synthetic Kannabis Analogue). Although legal, this substance can be mildly addictive and should be used more responsibly. We sought a response from Virginia Fox, The CEO of the University of Middle England (ringed in purple) and she indicated she had no knowledge of this but that “our students are very happy and this is surely a good thing”. Their new slogan for the 2069 intake is “Be higher with us in the world rankings and be happy”.

The previous government also appears to have played a hand in the manipulation of the avocado market. The departing prime minister, Norman Larage refused to comment. As leader of the FUKS Isolation Party, he promoted FUKS goods over imported goods.  However, we have uncovered that, with his education minister Ronnie Robinson, they both have a major stake in Scottish avocado production in ‘Avocado Glen’ in the borders.  Ronnie Robinson was previously the Isolation Secretary of State and had slapped very high tariffs on avocado imports from the three American jurisdictions.

The current re-education minister, Karl Corbyn Junior III, said that “Larage and his rabid acolytes have had their day and things will change. Everyone, rich or poor, should have the right to consume avocado”.

Comment from the WACKIE rankings editor: SHE says “Give my head peace”.

SHE WACKIE Correspondent, Dympna R H Luke

Toxic plume over Cambridge investigated. Is burning books a safe option?

Sunday September twenty two 2069.

Authorities in Cambridge have declared an emergency in the City today as a plume of toxic smoke continues to drift south and east over the old city.  This has persisted for days as a fire in the north of the city continues to rage. The origin of the plume is the incinerator power plant owned by the University.  It has been operating for over 20 years and provides power from waste to the main Cambridge University central campus to the North West of the City.

The emergency advice to residents and businesses is to immediately seal all windows and power-down air conditioning units or reset them to recycled air flow and check filters.  Despite the recent heat wave continuing with temperatures soaring to over 32^o Celsius, everyone is advised to stay indoors and take shelter.  The failure of the power plant also means that some facilities are without power.

A spokesperson for the University, Ashfa Cash, apologised at a hastily held press conference in Huntingdon to where key staff had been evacuated. 

“We unconditionally apologise for the accident that led to our energy from waste plant, that provides power for the main university campus outside Cambridge, rapidly overheating and starting a massive fire. We are looking into the causes urgently as there is a large emission of smoke drifting slowly down wind of the accident”.

The underlying cause.

The cause of the fire has not been officially disclosed and there has been a degree of mystery surrounding the nature of the waste being converted to energy. Staff have in the past informed us anonymously of their concerns about the nature of the operation.  Unofficially, we have learned that the bulk of the waste incinerated is discarded books.  Twenty years ago the university made a decision to dispose of most of its paper library material. Only rare books or valuable first editions were saved. This followed similar action by other universities and libraries as they converted to digital access and archiving.  Up to that point, many unwanted books were donated to libraries across the world. This had been  particularly useful in supporting education in poorer economies. However, the advent of universal digital access and the introduction of the Low Energy Data (LED) 'balloon' technology led to a mountain of unused books accumulating.  The proliferation of unwanted books produced in the early part of the century was in part to blame. Vast warehouses of remaindered books were increasing in size. The decision by Cambridge University to convert their own book stock to useful energy, and then offer to dispose of the stock of other libraries in the Former UK States (FUKS), was welcomed.

Importing books for disposal.

Maintenance of the power plant would have been difficult after the finite stocks of waste books were depleted in the FUKS. Workers at the super-container port of Felixstowe 5 indicate that waste books have been shipped in recently from many locations and transported by rail to the Cambridge North depot. This practice has been increasing in the last three years and containers are transported in secret overnight. We saw inventory ledgers that indicate many tons of China’s Chairman Mao Zedong’s so called ‘Little red Book’ from the mid -twentieth century had been imported from China for disposal over the previous weeks. The vast scale of the shipment surprised those involved.

Dr Sam Montag, of The Valleys University College in Pontypandy and an expert on waste incineration, indicated that books should not be considered as equally safe:  “some books, particularly those printed and bound in former communist states in the last century or those produced in Europe before WW2 can have potentially very toxic contents if not handled with care”. Although disposal by incineration was considered in Germany in the 1930s there was little consideration of the toxic side effects. Dr Sam Montag carried out tests for our researchers and has shown that early editions of ‘Mein Kampf’ from the 1920s and the ‘Little Red Book’ from China in the 1960s have a particularly toxic content.  He indicated that making assumptions about toxicity from analysing the book covers alone can be a mistake. Often it is the ink and how it is applied to the pages that presents the most hazard to humans.

Sources in the Chinese Embassy indicated that there had been recent shipments of the book made to the FUKS. A spokesperson said that ,“although it still holds that it is necessary to investigate both the facts and the history of a problem in order to study and understand it, there was no longer a need to distribute such advice to its citizens in book format”. However, huge stocks of the book were now rotting in  storage and “it would be embarrassing for the government of the People's Democracy of China to be burning this particular book on Chinese soil”

Lack of capacity caused the accident.

Another source working at the plant indicated that the large Chinese shipment was too great for the storage capacity and a third much older incinerator, that had been mothballed in 2053, was pressed into service.  It was an American design manufactured one hundred years earlier in 1953. This was many years before the ‘incident' of 2019 and was calibrated in degrees Fahrenheit. It seems that operatives on the ground had misread the paper manual and had set the controls to 451 degrees Celsius in error. This excessive temperature was well above what was needed and led to an explosion inside the main chamber and a great fire then spread quickly. 

Response from the University.

When we put our findings this afternoon to the CEO of Cambridge University, historian Professor Dame Mary Stubble, she noted that “In history, many societies have cleansed themselves by burning documents and books. The incineration of the contents of Library of Congress during the third term of President Trump who swept to absolute power in the wake of the ‘incident’  in 2019 is a good example”.  She stressed that Cambridge University has “put excess books to good use” by converting them to energy. There are vast numbers of remaindered books from earlier this century produced by former government ministers that studied at Oxford such as Geffrey Archer, Michael Gove and David Willets, “They would no doubt be pleased to see so many copies of their books converted to useful energy in Cambridge. Indeed, Geffrey Archer’s books alone powered our campus for 42 days this summer”. She did also add “but it is ironic that a simple error in reading an old paper copy of a manual had caused the accident. Lessons will be learned about the toxic content of some books and there would be more care taken with them in future." 

Ray Faber-Granger, Special investigator and archivist.

Eastwood report uncovers Artificial Intelligence ‘Essay Mill’ scandal.

Sunday September fifteen 2069.

The long awaited report from the Eastwood inquiry, set up by the previous government two years ago, has finally been released. That it has taken a change of government to bring the findings into the light of day has been a source of much speculation about a cover up. Entitled ‘Growth in Student Assignment Fraud and AI Personation’, it makes for uncomfortable reading and exposes major flaws in the current regulatory system.  The findings are explosive and indicate that cheating is widespread, with those involved working out more and more clever ways to bypass the checks and regulations.

It appears that the inquiry has uncovered a massive criminal conspiracy involving students, university managements and as yet undisclosed criminal gangs. The gangs appear to operate in the same manner as the ruthless drugs gangs prevalent in the late 20^th Century. The universities in the Alliance of Independent Providers (AIP) group of institutions come in for particular criticism. There is a suspicion that they specifically targeted students that were performing poorly to offer help with their assignments and boost their rankings. Also that staff turned a ‘blind eye’ to what was going on. Perversely, the AIPs had developed ‘in house’ the latest anti-plagiarism technology that the essays were now by-passing. The tougher external examination process muted over the last few years would have little effect.

The inquiry into the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in ‘unregulated student assessed assignments’ has its roots in the controversial collapse of the trial of a student over 20 months ago.  Student X, whose name is still the subject of a court reporting embargo, was suspended from the University of Middle England (a member of the AIP group of universities)  on suspicion that he was supplying hundreds of plagiarised essays to his fellow students for thousands of bitcoins each. He was charged under the 2026 Act and accused in court of making over ₿ 6,200 per essay. 

The prosecution case hinged on the method used to manipulate the essays prior to submission.  The accused claimed that the essays genuinely arose from the final efforts of the candidates themselves before making formal submissions to the university. His role had been to provide the means and information to assist the students. His counsel noted that it was the equivalent of supplying a computer 50 years ago or a pen 100 years ago. The accused could not be liable for how the technology was used. In effect, Student X was purchasing top ranked assignments from earlier cohorts of students and manipulating them for distribution to students in later years. His defence was that he was only a go between and was supplying examples of sound work that was legal since 2026. However, and crucially, he also provided access to an AI robot, TurnitOut, which regenerated essays by analysing the lexicon and grammatical structure and replaced key words and sentences to get past the latest anti-plagiarism technology. The prosecution case floundered on two points.

Firstly, using the robot’s efforts to rewrite well know paragraphs from classic literature as an example did not impress the jury.  The opening lines from Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’,

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”
Became:

“You may refer to me as Ishmael. A few years back, don’t bother counting, I was skint and out of bitcoins and had little interest in what was on dry land. I thought I would set sail for a bit and look at the aqueous sections of this planet.”

Secondly, Student X dramatically revealed that he was “82% robot himself” having been largely reconstructed after a boating accident. This raised the tricky question, when does a human become a robot and can they be legitimately charged with an offence? 

Using the work of others in course assessments and assignments in Universities and Colleges was made a criminal offence in England in 2020 soon after the ‘incident’ of 2019.  Then, the defence by the so called ‘Essay Mills’ was that they were merely supplying examples of good work and were not committing any offence. They “supplied the gun and training but did not shoot it”.  Needless to say, the law proved unworkable as more and more ‘Essay Mills’ emerged that sold their products as “bespoke literature searches and technical reports” that were marketed as “Let us do the searching for you so you can relax and shop”. A similar law passed across the newly formed Western European Confederation of States (WECs) in 2026 also failed to stem the tide of “cheating by people of means”.  This resulted in a change towards licensing and regulation of the practice in the WECs and, by then,  the Former UK States. (FUKS). In England the Office for Learner Provision (OfLP) took over licensing of the more official looking ‘Literature Assisting Technology Enterprises’ (LATE). They were strictly not licensed or allowed to alter any documents or assist in a final assignment as this was a criminal offence.

We interviewed the elusive chair of the inquiry, Professor Sir Harry Eastwood, who is no stranger to government inquiries and is known for his uncompromising stance on difficult issues. He offered considerable praise for our investigative reporter, Travis Bickle, who uncovered the initial story.  He acknowledged that Travis had taken a great risk by working as the official driver for the VC of The University of Middle England, the much feared Virginia Fox. He overheard and recorded crucial evidence in conversations from inside the car. When challenged, he pretended he was not listening by looking dumb and saying no more than; “are you looking at me”. However, unbeknownst to his employers, he enrolled as a part-time student of Applied Criminology and Politics at the university and befriended many of the students that were illegally using AI generated assignments. They revealed a deep rooted problem. Professor Harry Eastwood noted that every student should be careful about what they are being offered; “When a student is offering essays at a price, whichever way you look at it, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross”.

He was also keen to point out that the system is very unfair to those with little means: “It seems that in this world there’s two kinds of people, Those with AI and those who fail” . He warned that the changes needed would be uncompromising and urged all students considering this route to consider what they are really getting in terms of personal development and education: “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster”.

Travis Bickle, Investigative Reporter

University Heads Meet in London. SHARE IF YOU DARE.

Sunday September eight 2069.

The last two days saw the annual meeting of the heads of universities at the  Former United Kingdom States University Providers (FUKSUP) annual conference. That the heads of universities in Ireland joined for the first time was an acknowledgement of their growing influence since the (Western European Confederation of States (WECS) set up its headquarters in Dublin twenty years ago. 

This was the 150th meeting since the first one in November 1918 and the Chair of FUKSUP, Dame Stella Artois (58), was keen to point this out. However, to sharp intakes of breath from the audience, she somewhat marred her address by noting that, “the 150th anniversary would have been last year had the meeting in 2019 not been cancelled because of the ‘incident’ that year.” It is rare for anyone to mention the ‘incident’ of 2019 and especially in a public forum. I cannot remember it being mentioned at all in the last ten years at least. Even people born after the ‘incident’ do not try to discuss what has become a taboo topic in polite circles. However, she might be forgiven since she arrived here as a child from Belgium in 2020 in the aftermath of the ‘incident’ with her family who were refugees. Her personal experience perhaps mitigates her deliberate faux pas.

This was soon set aside as Prime Minister, Margaret May, proceeded to give her first hologram speech since being elected. She spoke live from her Liverpool Central Constituency. Protocol for FUKS formal presentations dictated that her speech must be simultaneously translated into Welsh and Scots Gaelic (despite a majority in Ireland being Gaelic speakers, Irish was not included since their government dropped Gaelic as their official language after 2019). The translations were, however, interrupted somewhat by sniggers from the Wales contingent who were apparently fed translations that included chants from protesters in Liverpool that were heard faintly over the audio feed calling for the prime minister to be “taken away”. Speaking from the Lime Street Convention Centre (formally the main rail station before 2035), she reiterated her election slogan that we must, “Get England working harder through more leisure time”. But that this will be more “structured by education and learning for life”.

The meeting was held for the first time in the impressive London headquarters of the Alliance of Independent Providers (AIPs). Their influence is growing fast and, by managing over 6000 institutions world-wide and over 300 in England alone, it means that they hold many of the cards when it comes to government policy. They are easily the largest private employer in England and across the FUKS.  By contrast, the heads of the sixty two Russell Provider Group (RPG) seemed keen to stay away from too much controversy. However, despite this reticence, the government’s proposals to make education compulsory to age sixty dominated the event. Could the system cope with the numbers and who would pay?

The Chair of the AIPs Board, former Higher Education Minister, Lord Knose of Long Rambling (92), laid out a lengthy but positive and bold strategy in his after dinner speech the evening before. It seemed to be more directed at the Re-Education Minister, Karl Corbyn Junior III, as it was to the rest of the audience in general. In describing a major expansion of facilities, he emphasised the “great opportunities ahead by embracing the challenge of universal education compulsory for all ages”. That he was himself well past sixty years old did not seem to deter his enthusiasm. No-one from the sixty two Russell Provider Group was invited to speak and all declined to talk further to our reporters; despite voicing considerable criticism of the proposals last week.

Karl Corbyn Junior III addressed the gathering with, “I appreciate that many of you will be concerned about how such a radical move will be possible given the cuts of the past few years. But we are a new government keen to make a fresh start”. He then went on to outline how the new life-long re-education system would be financed. Every citizen would be registered at two years old and upon completing their ‘Challenge Tier 2’ education in England (Level 2 in Scotland and Wales and Leaving Certificate in Ireland) everyone would automatically take up a lifetime “re-education and learning or REAL loan” to cover fees. The REAL loans would be paid off by adding a 10% tariff to general taxation for everyone working the full ‘Leisure Time Directive’ twenty hours per week. The effect would be that those working fewer hours would repay less pro rata and those few that are unemployed for any reason would be exempt. All people would enter the scheme at the end of 2069 and receive a 'REAL loan' commensurate with their age. This assumes that their lifetime tax burden would be smaller in the long run. The scheme would apply to England initially but it then it would be rolled out across all of the FUKS and Ireland within two years. With over 90 million people in the FUKS and Ireland compelled to take part in re-education for a minimum of twenty hours per week, it is estimated that it will immediately inject at least ₿1.5 trillion into the education provider economy per year and thereafter.

There is no doubt that the AIPs are rubbing their hands with glee. But the heads of the RPG fear that there will be massive internal dissent amongst their staff. The research role of their institutions has been well rewarded to date but this premium is now in doubt. The CEO of the Higher Education Providers Union (HEPU), Sally Forth, was not invited to attend the FUKSUP meeting but reiterated again her concerns, “Our members who are university staff in England are exempt from the ‘Leisure Time Directive’ and this is not the case across the rest of the WECS Confederation. There is a danger that they will have to work well over twenty hours per week to fulfil their research commitments as well as teaching. Questions need to be asked about where they will find time take part in ‘compulsory’ re-education”.

When this was raised with Lord Knose he shrugged this off with, “everyone knows that university lecturers have an easy time of it yet they still complain. Maybe they could defer their compulsory re-education to later in life and make it up upon compulsory early retirement”. Food for thought…..

Lois Pathway. Special reporter.

Radical life-long learning plans announced.

Sunday September two 2069.

Since the election in May, the new government has not been slow to follow up on the list of promises in the King’s speech.  Many plans appeared to be very short on detail and it is now becoming apparent why. The vague statement “there will be more support for life-long learning” has materialised as a radical plan that has shocked the nation and many insiders alike today.  

The plan to make education compulsory to the age of sixty was not expected and would seem to impose a heavy burden on the Higher Education system that is already reeling from the savage cuts of the previous administration.

Re-education Minister in the Department for Life-Long Learning, Karl Corbyn Junior III (42, no relation to the record shortest term in office Prime Minister of 2019) indicated that the leisure-time directive of WECS (Western European Confederation of States) was to blame: “Since the imposition of a maximum working week of 20 hours, we have seen the country crushed by excessive boredom. I have never had a proper job and I entered politics simply to find something to do. This progressive move will galvanise the country to leading more interesting and productive lives”. 

Prime Minister Margaret May (53, no relation to the celebrated 20^th Century rock guitarist) supported the Re-Education Minister with a statement from Downing Street: “We will all have to muck in and even I will be taking up a course in crop circle design during the coming months”.

It seems that Dublin (Headquarters of WECS) has not responded positively. A spokesperson said “Employers in England have allowed the leisure-time directive to be breached on many occasions through exploiting the ‘implied consent’ loophole. Now a basic human right of freedom to do nothing will be trampled on.”

The Government plans to strictly impose the  'Leisure Time Directive' from Dublin and release more time for people to retrain and study. All citizens below the age of sixty will have to study for a minimum of 20 hours per week. However, expectant mothers and those with children below the school age of two will be exempt. 

A shortage of skilled labour is the motivation behind the move and this is not confined to England. Skill shortages are common across the twelve states of the Confederation. This is acknowledged as blunting the competitive edge of the Confederate States to a large degree. However, employers and unions alike are sceptical that the move will work.  

TUC General Secretary James Reid (55) indicated that more leisure time was hard fought for from the late 20^th century, “This move is designed to impose unrealistic burdens upon our members who already work too hard.  Most employers expect employees to work longer hours with little or no extra pay through misuse of the ‘implied consent’ rule. This leaves many of our members fearing a loss of income if they do not comply”.

The burden that will be placed upon the universities has also had a mixed reception. The Alliance of Independent Providers welcomed the move and a spokesperson stated that “We will be well placed to fully exploit the opportunities that this directive will offer”. However, in a statement from the sixty two members of the Russell Group of Providers, it was condemned as “Pie in the sky…. This move will distract us from our primary mission of research and overload our already burgeoning  classrooms”.

The CEO of the Higher Education Providers Union, Sally Forth, also condemned the move as not well thought through and said that “Academic staff in England are exempt from the leisure time directive and most work well over twenty hours per week already. They and their families will be the big losers in this unless funds for more staff are found”.

The Union of British Industry issued a formal statement through its CEO, Richard Head, “Whilst we broadly welcome the move to make employees use their leisure time in gainful education, we expect to have more input into determining the skills needed. There is no sense in training people in crop circle design or other such pursuits that do not strategically benefit the economy”.

We asked Karl Corbyn Junior III if there were any plans for the Office for Learner Provision, the regulator for Higher Education, to impose targets on the providers in subject areas associated with skill shortages. We also asked him if individuals would be compelled to study specific subjects and who would pay for the expansion in provision.  He declined to respond.

Clark Essex - special reporter.