A few St. Thomas students gathered Saturday in downtown Minneapolis outside the Minnesota courthouse building in the U.S. Bank Plaza to demonstrate for economic equality in the U.S.

Senior Aaron Hays said police intervened early Sunday morning after tents were erected.

“Protesters set up tents in the area police previously said you couldn’t set up tents,” Hays said.

“Police came out to take down the tents and arrest people. Protesters were prepared for it, and we had about 60 to 70 people blockade,” Hays said. “Police decided just to take down tents and not arrest people.”

Police presence and intervention has not deterred protesters.

“There is talk about setting up more tents and pushing it farther,” Hays said.

What started as protests on Wall Street almost a month ago has spread across the globe. In Arizona nearly 100 people were arrested Saturday night.

Junior Anthony Guidotti, a student demonstrator, said there are more than 1,000 cities across the world where protesters are demonstrating frustration with their governments.

Guidotti believes people are protesting because the U.S. has become a “plutocracy” and has lost touch with democratic principles the nation was founded on.

“The richest 400 have more capital than the poorest 160 million Americans,” Guidotti said. “That’s not acceptable.”

St. Thomas students have participated in the event since it began three weeks ago. Two weeks ago, 19 students attended the event, and five spent the night, Guidotti said.

Junior Sarah Beyer protested Saturday because she wanted the public to gain awareness.

“I go to a school where I will be graduating with nearly $100,000 in student-loan debt, working two jobs the entire time,” Beyer said. “I think educated people such as myself shouldn’t have to be in this position.”

Not all agree with the protests.

Recent St. Thomas graduate Charlie Hilligoss said, “I am not a big fan… It seems like people want something done, so they pretend like they are making a difference… There are jobs available, right? Instead of sitting around waiting for the government to do something for you, just go do it yourself.”

Junior Channing James is optimistic, “I hope that something actually comes from this. I hope that it is not just in vain.” James said, “I came out because I believe in the movement. I don’t know all the facts, but I understand I am part of the 99 percent, and I don’t agree with the idea that the one percent is influencing most of the decisions in this country.”

Blankets, food, cigarettes, protest signs and materials to make signs, were all provided to the protesters by the organizers. The annual anti-war protest was happening concurrently in south Minneapolis, Saturday, and some protesters from Occupy Minnesota temporarily switched venues.

“The annual anti-war protest is happening today…so at this point they are organizing over there. A lot of people are over there and plan to come back over here after,” Guidotti said. “I feel that in the afternoon after people come back, attendance will jump here.”

It is unclear how long these protests will continue.

Patrick Roche can be reached at roch6667@stthomas.edu.

In his first, combative appearance since a united Senate GOP caucus filibustered the jobs plan to death, Obama promised to keep the pressure on Congress for his job initiatives.

“Now a lot of folks in Washington and the media will look at last night’s vote and say, ‘Well, that’s it. Let’s move on to the next fight.’ But I’ve got news for them: Not this time. Not with so many Americans out of work,” he said. “Not with so many folks in your communities hurting. We will not take no for an answer.”

After pressing for Congress to award his jobs package an up or down vote, Obama and his Democratic allies promise to force additional votes on separate pieces of the measure, like infrastructure spending, jobless assistance and tax cuts for individuals and businesses.

“We will keep organizing and we will keep pressuring and we will keep voting until this Congress finally meets its responsibilities and actually does something to put people back to work and improve the economy,” said Obama, who spoke at an event organized by the White House recognizing Latino contributions to American history.

The White House is using the jobs issue as a political sword as the 2012 campaign heats up. But it’ll take a more bipartisan approach to actually deliver results sought by an angry public.

Obama’s plan died at the hands of Senate Republicans on Tuesday, even though the president had been campaigning for it across the country for weeks. The $447 billion plan fell on a 50-49 tally in the 100-member Senate, falling well short of the 60 votes needed to crack a filibuster by Republicans. They opposed to its stimulus-style spending and its tax surcharge for the very wealthy.

Now, the White House and leaders in Congress are moving on to alternative ways to address the nation’s painful 9.1 percent unemployment, including breaking the legislation into smaller, more digestible pieces. And on Wednesday, both the House and Senate are poised to approve long-stalled trade pacts with Korea, Panama and Colombia.

In the weeks and months ahead, Democrats promise further votes on jobs. But it remains to be seen how much of that effort will involve more campaign-stoked battles with Republicans and how much will include seeking common ground in hopes of passing legislation. Further complicating matters is a deficit “supercommittee” that is supposed to come up with $1.2 trillion or more in deficit savings — some of which Democrats may want to claim for jobs initiatives.

Tuesday’s tally also shows that Republicans believe they have little to fear by tangling with Obama.

“Republicans will continue to seek out any Democrat who’s more interested in jobs than in political posturing and work with them on bipartisan legislation like the trade bills we’ll vote on tonight,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday. “What we will not do, though, is vote in favor of any more misguided stimulus bills because some bill writer slapped the word ‘jobs’ on the cover page.”

The White House appears most confident that it will be able to continue a 2-percentage-point Social Security payroll tax cut through 2012 and to extend emergency unemployment benefits to millions of people — if only because, in the White House view, Republicans won’t want to accept the political harm of letting those provisions expire.

White House officials also are hopeful of ultimately garnering votes for the approval of infrastructure spending and tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

Senate Democrats will begin sorting through their options on jobs at a weekly closed-door caucus on Wednesday.

Obama’s plan would have combined Social Security payroll tax cuts for workers and businesses and other tax relief totaling about $270 billion with $175 billion in new spending on roads, school repairs and other infrastructure, as well as unemployment assistance and help to local governments to avoid layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers.

Obama said the plan — more than half the size of his 2009 economic stimulus measure — would be an insurance policy against a double-dip recession and that continued economic intervention was essential given slower-than-hoped job growth.

Unlike the 2009 legislation, the current plan would be paid for with a 5.6 percent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million. That would be expected to raise about $450 billion over the coming decade.

Leaders of the GOP-controlled House have signaled they support tax cuts for small businesses and changes to jobless insurance to allow states to use unemployment funds for on-the-job training. And they’ve indicated they’ll be willing to accept an extension of cuts to the Social Security payroll tax. But stimulus-style spending is a nonstarter with the tea party-infused chamber.

“Now it’s time for both parties to work together and find common ground on removing government barriers to private-sector job growth,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the vote.

RETURN TO 9/11 LIVE COVERAGE

Benedict was speaking in general terms about the secularization that has taken hold in much of the West in a speech to a few hundred adoring young nuns gathered in El Escorial monastery, a UNESCO world heritage site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of the capital.

Benedict, in Spain to celebrate the church’s World Youth Day, told them their decisions to dedicate their lives to their faith was a potent message for today’s world.

“This is all the more important today when we see a certain eclipse of God taking place, a kind of amnesia which albeit not an outright rejection of Christianity is nonetheless a denial of the treasure of our faith, a denial that could lead to the loss of our deepest identity,” he said.

Benedict’s main priority as pope has been to try to reawaken Christianity in places like Spain. He has traveled here three times as pope — an indication that he views it as a key battleground in his bid to remind Europe of its Christian heritage and the need for God to retake a place in daily life.

Like in much of Europe, the church in Spain has seen its influence wane in recent decades: its stance on women, equality, gay rights and abortion have alienated an increasingly educated and sophisticated middle class.

But Spain’s religious apathy also stems from the memories of its 1936-1939 civil war and aftermath, when the church was tightly linked to Franco’s repressive government, which ended in 1978.

Franco’s military revolt pitted Spain’s conservative aristocracy, some of its army and church against a left-leaning democratically elected Republican government.

Internecine violence led to churches being burned and dozens of priests and nuns being murdered in a conflict that saw atrocities committed on all sides.

After the war and because of its support of Franco, the church was granted many privileges, including a major role in overseeing public education.

A vestige of the war is the Valley of the Fallen, a monumental mausoleum Franco built for himself about 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) east of El Escorial. Though he was in the area Friday, Benedict made no stop at the monument, which is popular with tourists but remains a painful and divisive reminder for many Spaniards of the war and its aftermath.

Spain’s Socialist government would like to defuse the overtly victorious monument and transform it into a symbol of reconciliation.

Government ministers met on Friday with top Vatican officials and sought the church’s help in this transformation. Spanish private news agency Europa Press, citing government officials, said the Vatican had expressed “great openness” and “maximum comprehension” to the idea.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi confirmed the proposal had been raised and received attention during the meeting with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican No. 2. But he said he couldn’t make any comment on the Vatican’s reaction.

Also Friday, Benedict met with Catholic university professors at El Escorial, saying he was reminded of his own days as a young theology professor in the years after World War II.

“At the time, the wounds of war were still deeply felt and we had many material needs,” the 84-year-old German pontiff recalled. But he said those needs were taken care of by the “passion” he and his colleagues felt to respond to the heady questions about life and the search for truth posed by their students.

He urged the professors to not just educate today’s young in the “technical ability” they may need to enter the work force, but to guide them in pondering those loftier questions which he said embrace “the full measure of what it is to be human.”

“We know that when mere utility and pure pragmatism become the principal criteria, much is lost and the results can be tragic,” he said, adding: “From abuses associated with a science which acknowledges no limits beyond itself, to the political totalitarianism which easily arises when one eliminates any higher reference than the mere calculus of power.”

His speech, dense and professorial as befits both speaker and audience, received a thunderous applause from the academics, who were decked out in their colorful tasseled caps and gowns in El Escorial’s basilica.

That Benedict chose to deliver his messages in El Escorial is significant: The massive granite structure constructed by King Philip II in 1559 was his seat of power over a vast empire whose overwhelming international concern was defending the Catholic faith from what it considered the threat of Protestantism and the Reformation.

The building acted much like the White House and the Pentagon at the height of Spain’s international power, throwing its weight and organizational ability behind the Vatican.

“This is a moment for unity and reflection, it’s a spiritual awakening,” said Sister Maria Sandoval, a 58-year-old nun who traveled from Medellin, Colombia for the event.

Despite Benedict’s oft-repeated lament about the disappearance of God from daily life in Europe, he has no better evidence that Catholicism is alive and well than the World Youth Day celebrations under way in Madrid, the reason he is here.

Some 500,000 people from nearly 200 countries have signed up to participate in the weeklong prayer fest, which the church sees as a way to spread the faith to new generations. News reports say nearly twice as many may take part in the final Mass on Sunday.

Twelve lucky participants had lunch with the pope Friday, including 29-year-old Sylvie Kambau, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kambau, who presented Benedict with a wooden statue, said the luncheon was “magnificent.”

“He was a very simple person, very accessible,” she told Associated Press Television News. “He received us like a father with his simplicity. He listened to us, he listened to us more than he spoke to us and it was a fantastic moment we had with him.”

Late Friday, Benedict participated in a re-enactment of the death and crucifixion of Christ, a mainstay of World Youth Days. Meditations read out during the solemn service included prayers for young victims of war, poverty and sexual abuse, though there was no explicit reference to sexual abuse by priests.

Illnesses in the outbreak date back to March and have been reported in 26 states coast to coast.

Cargill said Wednesday that it is recalling fresh and frozen ground turkey products produced at the company’s Springdale, Ark., plant from Feb. 20 through Aug. 2 due to possible contamination from the strain of salmonella linked to the illnesses.

Company officials said that all ground turkey production has been suspended at the plant until the company is able to determine the source of the outbreak.

“Given our concern for what has happened, and our desire to do what is right for our consumers and customers, we are voluntarily removing our ground turkey products from the marketplace,” said Steve Willardsen, president of Cargill’s turkey processing business.

The Minnesota-based company said it was initiating the recall after its own internal investigation, an Agriculture Department investigation and information about the illnesses released by the CDC this week.

All of the packages recalled include the code “Est. P-963″ on the label, according to Cargill. The packages were labeled with many different brands, including Cargill’s Honeysuckle White.

The CDC said this week that cultures of ground turkey from four retail locations between March 7 and June 27 showed contamination with the same strain of salmonella, though those samples had not been specifically linked to the illnesses. The CDC said preliminary information showed that three of those samples were linked to the same production establishment, but it did not name that plant.

A chart on the CDC’s website shows cases have occurred every month since early March, with spikes in May and early June. The latest reported cases were in mid-July, although the CDC said some recent cases may not have been reported yet.

The CDC said the strain is resistant to many commonly prescribed antibiotics, which can make treatment more difficult. The agency said 38 percent of those sickened were hospitalized.

The states with the highest number sickened were Michigan and Ohio, 10 illnesses each, while nine illnesses were reported in Texas. Illinois had seven, California six and Pennsylvania five.

The remaining states have between one and three reported illnesses linked to the outbreak, according to the CDC: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

The CDC estimates that 50 million Americans each year get sick from food poisoning, including about 3,000 who die. Salmonella causes most of these cases and federal health officials say they’ve made virtually no progress against it.

Government officials say that even contaminated ground turkey is safe to eat if it is cooked to 165 degrees. But it’s also important that raw meat be handled properly before it is cooked and that people wash their hands with soap for at least 20 seconds before and after handling the meat. Turkey and other meats should also be properly refrigerated or frozen and leftovers heated.

The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within eight hours to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening to some with weakened immune systems.

Cargill executive Willardsen said, “Public health and the safety of consumers cannot be compromised.”

“It is regrettable that people may have become ill from eating one of our ground turkey products,” he said, “and, for anyone who did, we are truly sorry.”

Norwegian police on Tuesday began releasing the names of those killed in last week’s bomb blast and massacre at a Labor Party youth camp, an announcement likely to bring new collective grief to an already reeling nation.

Police named the first four of at least 76 people killed. Although only names, ages and hometowns were listed, it will likely bring another shock to friends and acquaintances who did not already know of their deaths.

The first release listed three who were killed in a bomb blast in Oslo’s government quarter and one killed at the island youth camp. They were Gunnar Linaker, 23, from Bardu in northern Norway, who was killed at the camp; and Oslo residents Tove Aashill Knutsen, 56; Hanna M. Orvik Endresen, 61; and Kai Hauge, 33.

Gunnar Linaker’s father told The Associated Press by telephone that Gunnar was “a calm, big teddy bear with lots of humor and lots of love.”

Linaker says he had been on the phone with his son concerning another matter when the shooting started. He says, “He said to me: ‘Dad, dad, someone is shooting,’ and then he hung up.”

Earlier Tuesday, the national newspaper Dagbladet posted the names and photos of 16 people it said were killed in the attacks or missing. The information, apparently received from friends or relatives, showed three victims who did not appear to be ethnic Norwegians — examples of the multiethnic Norway that the alleged bomber and gunman says he despised.

Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old who has confessed to the massacre, is unaware of the impact of the attacks and asked his defense counsel how many people he had killed, his lawyer Geir Lippestad told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Lippestad said his client is likely insane.

That question furthers the emerging portrait of Breivik: The judge in his case described him as very calm, a police officer said he was merciless in his spree, and his lawyer added that he was very cold, but saw himself as a warrior and savior of the Western world.

Breivik has confessed to last week’s bombing in the capital and rampage at a retreat, but he has pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charges he faces, claiming he acted to save Europe from what he says is Muslim colonization.

Lippestad said Breivik took drugs to “to be strong, to be efficient, to keep him awake” during the 90-minute attack at the camp. It is too early to say if Breivik will use an insanity defense, he said.

Lippestad said in an exclusive interview that he did not answer Breivik’s question about the death toll.

The brutal assault has stunned peaceful, liberal Norway — but also appears to have brought its citizens together. About 150,000 people filled the streets of Oslo on Monday, laying roses feet deep in the street as they mourned the dead and vowed that Norway’s commitment to democracy could not be shaken.

Lippestad said his client, who claims he is part of an organization with several cells in Western countries, has been insulated from the effects of his crime.

“He asked me if was if I was shocked and if I could explain to him what happened,” Lippestad said. “He didn’t know if he had succeeded with his plan.”

But Lippestad said in an earlier news conference that his client felt the “operation” was going ahead as planned and had assumed he would be taken down by police sooner than he was. About 90 minutes into his rampage, a SWAT team reached him, and he surrendered.

The attacks began with a bombing outside the building that houses the prime minister’s office in Oslo. Then, Breivik opened fire on an island retreat for the youth wing of the Labor Party, leaving dozens dead and hundreds of terrified young people scrambling to escape, many diving into the water to try to swim away.

While Breivik says he acted alone and police believe he didn’t have any accomplices, he claimed that several cells of his terror organization exist abroad, including two in Norway, Lippestad told reporters. It was his first press conference since taking the case.

Though Breivik has been charged with acts of terrorism, Lippestad told the AP he could also be charged with crimes against humanity. Although the stiffest sentence in Norway is 21 years, the lawyer said his client would never be set free.

“His reason (for the attacks) is that he wants to start a war against democracy, against the Muslims in the world, and as he said he wants to liberate Europe and the Western world,” said Lippestad.

Asked how his client looks up himself, he said: “As a savior, some kind of savior.”

Two psychiatric experts will evaluate Breivik to determine whether he is mentally ill, said Lippestad, adding that it’s too early to say whether that will be his defense.

“This whole case has indicated that he’s insane,” he told reporters.

At only 7 pounds, (3.2 kilograms), he weighs as much as a newborn but has the weathered look of an elderly man.

Mihag is just one of 800,000 children who officials warn could die across the Horn of Africa. Aid workers are rushing to bring help to dangerous and previously unreached regions of drought-ravaged Somalia.

Famine victims like Mihag bring new urgency to their efforts, raising concerns about how many hungry children still remain in Somalia, far away from the feeding tubes and doctors in the field hospital at this Kenyan refugee camp.

Mihag’s fragile skin crumples like thin leather under the pressure of his mother’s hands, as she touches the hollows where a baby’s chubby cheeks should be.

Sirat Amine, a nurse-nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee, puts Mihag’s odds for survival at only 50-50. A baby Mihag’s age should weigh about three times what he does.

His mother, Asiah Dagane, fans Mihag with the edge of her headscarf to keep flies away. He cries weakly, and when he does, she bounces him gently to try to soothe him and murmurs softly.

“In my mind, I’m not well,” she says softly. “My baby is sick. In my head, I am also sick.”

Mihag is the youngest of seven children in his family. His mother brought him and four siblings on the journey from Kismayo to northern Kenya after all their sheep and cattle died in the drought.

Like the tens of thousands of other Somalis fleeing starvation, the family traveled by foot, other times catching rides with passing trucks, cars or buses.

Dagane keeps vigil for her son in the ward, which is painted with cheerful pictures of balloons and fruit, lit with fluorescent bulbs. Other mothers huddle on beds next to babies with IV tubes snaking from their heads or hands.

Some infants cry, others are listless. In the middle of the room hangs a woven basket from a scale — but it’s not needed to tell that many of the babies are dangerously malnourished.

Abdi Ibrahim Yara arrived 20 days ago with his four children, including 1-year-old twins. They are unable to drink the fortified milk and must be nourished by an IV.

He and his wife were on the road for 25 days, but she became sick from malnutrition and died. She was four months pregnant.

“We had a comfortable life there, but now there is no one left,” Yara says.

Nurse Abukar Abdule says all of those arriving at the field hospital complain of “severe malnutrition.” Most have walked from the middle of Somalia, between Kismayo and the capital of Mogadishu.

“We have to treat them for at least a week,” Abdule says. “They have no food, shelter or water. Some have diseases. Some died on the road and some were lost. Many mothers who come here have lost children.”

The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are affected by the drought, with 3.7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because of the ongoing civil war in the country.

Somalia’s prolonged drought became a famine in part because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies can fully operate in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants, and the U.N. is set to declare all of southern Somalia a famine zone as of Aug. 1.

Aid organizations including the U.N. World Food Program have not been able to access areas under the control of the al-Shabab militants, who have killed humanitarian workers and banned the WFP.

The U.N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week to try to reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis who have not been helped yet.

The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia could begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of reaching aid.

But the WFP hasn’t operated there for more than two years and must find and rehire former employees to help with distribution. Transportation is also a substantial obstacle because land mines have severed key roads and a landing strip has fallen into disrepair.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference would be held Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.

Donations are also desperately needed to sustain the aid effort in the Horn of Africa: The U.N. wants to gather $1.6 billion in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.

At the Kenyan refugee camp, Mihag’s nurse takes his measurements and describes him as “severely, severely malnourished.”

“We never tell the mother, of course, that their baby might not make it,” the nurse says. “We try to give them hope.”

A massive bombing Friday in the heart of Oslo was followed by a horrific shooting spree on an island hosting a youth retreat for the prime minister’s center-left party. The same man, a Norwegian with reported Christian fundamentalist, anti-Muslim views, was suspected in both attacks.

While the background isn’t yet entirely clear, “it is said that hatred was a motive,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. “Hatred of others, hatred of those who look different, of the supposedly foreign — this hatred is our common enemy.”

“All of us who believe in freedom, respect and peaceful coexistence, we all must confront this hatred,” she said.

Thorbjorn Jagland, the secretary general of the Council of Europe and chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded each year in Oslo, said the youth camp attack appeared “intended to hurt young citizens who actively engage in our democratic and political society.”

“But we must not be intimidated,” he added. “We need to work for freedom and democracy every day.”

“That the perpetrator apparently comes from the far-right scene shows once again how dangerous racist and anti-foreigner ideologies are,” Germany’s opposition Greens said in a statement. “We must not allow them an inch of space in our societies.”

Germany’s top Jewish leader also highlighted the need to fight extremism.

“As a group that itself is always threatened by hatred, fanaticism and terrorism, we can identify particularly with the terrible loss of Norwegian society,” Dieter Graumann said, German news agency dapd reported.

Pope Benedict XVI’s envoy to Norway called the attacks “madness.”

“All these actions are irrational and difficult to comprehend, whether they had personal or political reasons,” Archbishop Paul Tscherrig, the apostolic nuncio, told Vatican Radio.

He added that the Catholic Church is praying for the victims, who will be remembered during Sunday Mass.

European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek expressed shock at the targeting of youths at a political party camp.

“This is an unimaginable tragedy for the families who lost their loved ones, young people at the outset of their adult life, fascinated with public service,” he said. “It’s shocking how one can inflict so much evil.”

Pakistan, which has been a frequent target of attacks by Islamic extremists, said its president and prime minister “strongly condemned” the attacks.

“Pakistan itself has suffered enormously from terrorist attacks and fully empathizes with the government and the people of Norway,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Closer to home, Finland’s European affairs minister, Alexander Stubb, said that “when I see what happened in Norway I just want to cry.”

“It just feels so wrong,” Stubb wrote on Twitter. “Wish I could give Norway a big hug.”

There was little hope that Saturday would bring much relief until the evening, with the National Weather Service warning of excessive heat in several states, including parts of Oklahoma, Indiana, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It predicted “oppressive heat” with temperatures at least in the 90s.

On Friday, the mercury in Newark, N.J., reached 108, the highest temperature ever recorded there. Airports near Washington and Baltimore hit 105. Philadelphia reached 103, Boston 103, Portland, Maine, and Concord, N.H., 101 and Providence, R.I., 100. New York City hit 104 degrees, just 2 short of its all-time high, and with the oppressive humidity, it felt like 113.

In Baltimore, a homeless Dale Brown said he buys a $3.50 day pass to ride the commuter rail system to stay cool — and sober.

“I’m surprised more homeless people don’t do that,” he said. “That kills a lot of the day. One more day successful without drinking.”

An old prison in Cranston, R.I., had to bring in portable air conditioners, fans and cold water for the 100 inmates on a cellblock with a broken AC. It had been out of commission for a month because it was so old a part had to be custom-made to fix it; the part is due Monday.

In Philadelphia, 50 of the city’s 70 pools operated on 45-minute cycles to give everyone a chance to get in. Some New Yorkers were unable to take dips to cool off at some beaches in Brooklyn and Staten Island after millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled from a wastewater treatment plant.

The heat wave wafted in from the Midwest — it began last weekend and did not break until Friday in Chicago — and is a suspected or confirmed cause in more than a dozen deaths around the country. On Friday, the medical examiner’s office in Chicago listed heat stress or heat stroke as the cause of death for seven people. An 18-year-old landscaper who died Thursday night in Louisville, Ky., had a temperature of 110, the coroner said.

Jake Crouch, a climatologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said the heat wave is taking its place in duration alongside deadly hot spells in 1988 and 1995 that lasted a week or more.

On Friday, power supplies were stretched, and utilities were hoping that some businesses would close early for the weekend.

Con Edison in New York set a record for power demand at 1 p.m., topping a mark set Aug. 2, 2006, utility spokesman Bob McGhee said.

Several thousand New York homes and businesses were hit with blackouts, but some were quickly restored. Voltage was deliberately reduced in several neighborhoods in the city and suburbs to keep underground cables from overheating; McGhee said customers wouldn’t notice.

The electrical grid that serves 13 states, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic region, set an all-time record Thursday for power usage.

Dangerous-heat advisories and air quality alerts were sent out for most of the Northeast on Friday. Richard Ruvo, section chief in New York for the Environmental Protection Administration, said: “Today is a very bad day.”

“When there’s more power demand, there’s more power plants running, and there’s more pollution. We’re seeing ozone levels above unhealthy levels in the entire Northeast and Midwest, not just in the cities,” he said. “On days like today, the air quality affects everyone, not just asthmatics and the elderly.”

Lauren Nash, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the cities are experiencing the “urban heat island” effect.

“All the concrete and the blacktop warms up faster, so it keeps the city hotter and it stays hotter longer,” she said. Overnight temperatures did not get below 80 in some areas.

New York Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith said, “The danger isn’t just the heat, it’s also the heat underground. Much of our infrastructure is below ground.”

“It’s good in tornadoes, bad in heat,” he said.

Richard Karty, who teaches urban ecology at the New School in New York City, said, “If one urban area is next to another urban area, like New York and Newark, it’s just going to compound both the heat and the air pollution.”

Dayana Byrnes, 21, of Waldorf, Md., learned something new about herself as she worked outdoors in Washington to promote a website with free bottled drinks.

“I didn’t think legs could sweat,” Byrnes said.

In Manchester, Conn., the fire department sent out a vehicle to distribute cold water to road crews.

Horse races were canceled at several tracks.

But hundreds of people who lined up outside the Izod Center in Newark to audition for NBC’s “The Voice” were undeterred. And in Manassas, Va., Civil War buffs said the weather — perhaps 20 degrees hotter than in 1861 — would not prevent a 150th-anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run.

George Alcox, 58, of Berea, Ohio, said the wool uniforms and muslin undergarments the reenactors wear are “not as hot as they look.”

“They’re hotter,” he said.

TOKYO — If Japan has a field of dreams, it’s a well-groomed patch of grass and dirt called Koshien.

Twice a year, high school baseball teams compete at the field outside Kobe in nationally televised tournaments that rivet the country. Last week, at the start of the spring tournament, a teen stood on a podium in front of home plate and made a speech watched by millions, with a dignity and conviction some Japanese find lacking in their leaders as the nation confronts its earthquake and tsunami calamity.

“We were born 16 years ago, in the year of the great Kobe earthquake,” said Shinsuke Noyama, a team captain chosen to represent players at the opening ceremony, his face grim and chest proud. “Today, in the great east Japan earthquake, many precious lives have been lost, and our souls are filled with sorrow.”

Baseball, long popular in Japan, rallied the country after World War II, providing welcome distraction while serving as a symbol of the cooperation, hard work, and self-sacrifice needed to rebuild the devastated land. It could be expected to play a similar role in the latest calamity, but an ugly squabble over whether to postpone opening day has smeared the image of the professional game.

Not only that, Japan’s tradition-steeped national sport, sumo, is in disgrace over a match-fixing scandal, its spring tournament canceled in an unprecedented act of contrition.

Now the nation is turning elsewhere for a glimmer of hope: fresh-faced adolescents who play their hearts out on the baseball field with a seriousness and integrity sometimes missing from their pro heroes.

Hours after Noyama spoke, his team crashed out in the first round. But his speech, made against a backdrop of teams lined up like squadrons on the diamond, was played over and over on national TV, even into the morning of the next day.

“It was much more beautiful than some mediocre politician’s speech, this 16-year-old youngster performing so magnificently, with that booming voice,” said Akira Kawaii, a children’s story writer walking toward Tokyo’s Shimbashi train station. “Pro ball is all about money, high school baseball is about passion.”

To put Japan’s love of high school baseball in perspective, it generates the same kind of excitement as “March Madness,” the ongoing college basketball championships in the United States. It’s a reaffirmation of values and identity, an occasion for national bonding, and an expression of nostalgia for the purity and vigor of youth.

To be sure, high school baseball is a big deal for reasons other than national identity: Big bucks are at stake with hawk-eyed scouts looking for hot prospects. Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Ichiro Suzuki — all now playing in the American professional leagues — first became household names in Japan after memorable performances in high school.

But in Japanese high school baseball, losers attract almost as much attention as winners, and even the no-hopes garner a big chunk of the televised commentary. Fans are touched to see these youths giving their all, with the same palpable sense of purpose, even when they’re losing 11-0 in the eighth inning.

The teenage players have at least momentarily taken over the unifying role that the pros carried out after the war. During the opening ceremony, the Tohoku High School team — based in tsunami-ravaged Miyagi prefecture — marched onto the field carrying the school banner to a wave of emotional applause.

“The tournament shows you can make sports speak to the needs even of a tragic moment,” said William Kelly, a Japan scholar at Yale University. “And professional baseball shows how you can also lose that opportunity.”

The discord that has rocked Japan’s two professional leagues at a time the country needs unity has shocked the country.

The more powerful Central League balked at postponing its season out of respect for disaster victims, and its Yomiuri Giants — Japan’s most popular team — insisted it would hold electricity-guzzling night games at a time many families are eating dinner by candlelight because of rolling blackouts.

Fans were outraged. Players hinted at a possible boycott. And the government pressured the Central League to reconsider. The Giants, widely viewed as holding disproportional clout in baseball decision-making, were singled out for accusations of greed and heavy-handedness.

“Are these the circumstances where we should be doing this?” fumed Senichi Hoshino, the charismatic former manager of the Hanshin Tigers, who play at Koshien and are the chief rival of the Tokyo-based Giants.

Early last week, the Central League agreed to postpone the season’s start to March 29, and the Giants said they would play more day games and conserve energy during night games. On Thursday, the league caved in completely, postponing its season to April 12 in line with the Pacific League.

But the damage has been done. “These are very unseemly debates,” said Yale’s Kelly. “Baseball has struck out.”

In contrast, the high school players have struck a strong chord. The tournament coincides with another important ritual of youth: school graduation, which in Japan comes in early spring.

TV viewers saw images of baseball heroics on the tournament’s opening day set against scenes of junior high students bowing deeply as they received diplomas in Kesennuma — a pulverized town in Miyagi prefecture — then breaking down in tears and hugging each other.

“Making the effort, self-sacrifice, taking care of the next guy, all that’s wrapped up into one package, and it’s symbolized by high school baseball,” said Robert Whiting, author of “You Gotta have Wa,” a book on the culture clashes faced by Americans playing for Japanese teams. “It has this purity toward life and sports that professional baseball with its emphasis on making money doesn’t.”

Japan’s approach to baseball differs vastly from the more individualistic United States. It’s about the collective good and honing the spirit in a way akin to a martial art. Whiting likes to point out that if you’re hit in the face by a ball in school baseball practice, it’s forbidden to say “it hurts.” It is, however, permissible to say “it itches.”

In a game at the tournament last week, catcher Takahiro Suzuki lost two front teeth when a wild throw hit him in the face. He left the field for treatment, then came back minutes later to guide his pitcher to the last two outs. The next inning, his lips swollen and the gap in his mouth red with blood, he hit a double that scored the game-winning run.

That spirit may be useful in times of national catastrophe. “Baseball in Japan has some values that it tries to associate with itself,” said Kelly, “that turn out at this moment to be the values that people want.”