THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
THURSDAY, FEBUARY 14, 2008
NEWS
STATE LEGISLATURE
5A
Kansas senators take sides on coal-fired power plant bill
BY JOHN HANNA ASSOCIATED PRESS
development opportunity that the
TOPEKA — Senators debated Wednesday whether Kansas should enact its first limits on carbon dioxide emissions as they considered a bill allowing two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas.
The bill is a response to a decision in October by the state's secretary of health and environment to deny an air-quality permit to Sunflower Electric Power Corp. The Hays-based utility wants to build the coal-fired plants outside Holcomb,
in Finney County
In denying the permit,Secretary Rod. Brembycited the plants' potential CO2 emissions, an estimated 11 million tons a year. But Sunflower's $3.6 billion project has bipartisan support among legislators.
Supporters of
"I think it's incumbent upon us to find a way to burn coal more cleanly and more efficiently."
SEN. CHRIS STEINEGER Kansas City Democrat
Supporters of the project view it as an economic
state shouldn't miss. But they also believe that the state eventually will need the power the new plants would provide.
"We've heard a lot over the months about the economic development." Senate President
Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican.
told his colleagues. "That's certainly a very important, critical part of this. The even more important reason for this bill and this debate is for our energy security."
As originally drafted, the bill included proposed limits on CO2 emissions from new power plants — and a carbon tax of $3 for each excess ton of emissions for a utility that didn't comply.
But the Senate Utilities Committee stripped those proposals out of the bill. Environmentalists, some legislators and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius viewed the rules as far too weak.
Some conservative legislators and anti-tax groups objected to any plan to regulate CO2, arguing it would hurt the economy.
"On the left side, we were told $3 was an insult because it wasn't enough," said Sen. Janis Lee, of Kensington, the Utilities Committee's top Democrat. "On the right side, we were told $3 was an insult because it was a carbon tax."
But Sen, Chris Steineger, a Kansas City Democrat, argued that the state should try to regulate CO2 emissions, which many scientists have
linked to global warming.
"I accept the fact that coal is going to be burned by the human race for a long time," said Steiniger, a Kansas City Democrat. "I think it's incumbent upon us to find a way to burn coal more cleanly and more efficiently."
The debate stretched into Wednesday evening. Senate leaders hoped the chamber would decide whether to give it first-round approval, allowing final action Thursday.
The House is working on its own energy bill.
A police officer stands outside the building on New York's Upper East Side yesterday where a man hacked psychologist Kathryn Faughur to death with a meat cleaver Tuesday night in her office. The male suspect, who also seriously injured another therapist, was still at large Wednesday.
Brian McDermott/ASSOCIATED PRESS
CRIME
Psychiatrist killed with meat cleaver
BY COLLEEN LONG ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Police hunted yesterday for a man who entered a psychologist's office with a bag of knives and a meat cleaver, hacking her to death so savagely that blood spattered the walls and floor and the entire room was torn apart.
A colleague who responded to the victim's screams was seriously injured, and investigators were trying to determine whether the attacker was a patient at the clinic. Three knives were recovered at the scene, including a 9-inch knife and the cleaver, which was apparently bent from the attack, police said.
Kathryn Faughey's office was in shambles: Furniture was overturned, shades torn and blood was on the walls and pooled on the floor. She suffered 15 stab wounds, including a gash to her head believed to be from the cleaver, police said.
"The condition of the room was that of a fierce struggle," police spokesman Paul Browne said.
He left behind two bags that contained bizarre clues, authorities said.
Investigators do not know the name of the suspect. Authorities released a sketch of a balding, middle-aged man believed to be the killer along with surveillance videotapes of the attacker entering and leaving the building.
A roller suitcase was filled with adult diapers and women's clothing, including blouses and slippers, and a smaller second bag was filled with eight knives, rope and duct tape, tools apparently not used in the attack, police said.
The suspect walked into the suite
Believing the killer might have been injured in the attack, authorities issued alerts to area hospitals and looked through Faughey's computer files for clues. They also examined surveillance footage to see whether he had been to the office prior to the attack.
The attack happened Tuesday night in a 13-story apartment building on East 79th Street, in a bustling neighborhood just blocks from a major hospital complex, police said.
The suspect, carrying the two bags and dressed in a three-quarter-length green coat, knit cap and gloves, breezed past the building's doorman, saying he had an appointment with Dr. Kent Shinbach, a 70-year-old geriatric psychiatrist who worked in the same office suite as the victim, according to police.
waiting room, where a female patient was waiting to see Shinbach, and at some point went into Faughey's office and started to attack her, police said.
It wasn't clear how long the struggle continued before Shinbach heard Faughey's screams and ran to help. The traumatized female patient, who was in Shinbach's office during the attack, was being questioned by authorities.
The suspect apparently didn't recognize Shinbach when he opened the door and said, "She's dead," referring to Faughey, who was lying behind her desk, police said. He then attacked the psychiatrist, stabbing at Shinbach and pinning him to the wall with a chair before stealing $90 and escaping through a basement door.
Shinbach was in serious condition at New York Hospital with slash wounds on his head, face and hands.
Blood was found on the basement doorknob, and police said the route outside from the first-floor office wasn't very obvious; it was possible the suspect knew where he was going. Surveillance tapes show the suspect deliberately leaving the luggage by the basement door before walking out.
Shinbach screamed out to the street from Faughey's office for help, and the building doorman called
911 around 9 p.m., but by then the suspect had escaped.
The attack sent shock waves through the city's large community of mental health professionals.
"This is, I think, an extraordinary occurrence," said Sharon Brennan, a psychologist in Manhattan and a spokeswoman for the New York State Psychological Association. "It has had a shocking impact on the whole New York community."
Faughey, a licensed psychologist and graduate of Yeshiva University in the Bronx, described herself as a specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on changing thoughts that cause feelings or behaviors.
Serious attacks by patients on their mental health providers are rare, but they do happen — usually in institutions that see more seriously ill patients.
A psychiatrist in Nebraska died of head injuries in August, several days after a patient with a grudge and a history of violence attacked him as he arrived at a medical center.
It is common for therapists who see patients in their homes or private offices to install alarm systems, or even help buzzers, in the event that a patient starts to lose control.
In Manhattan, these safety systems are often complemented by the usual security systems for office buildings, which include doormen and video cameras.
"Safety is always a concern," Brennan said. She added that therapists are thoroughly trained in how to assess a patient's potential for violence, and would normally see patients in a private setting only if they had determined that the safety risk was low.
》SCIENCE
Oldest bat fossil found in Wyoming
Until now, all the early known fossil bats showed evidence of both flying and echolocating, so they couldn't reveal which ability came first, said researcher Nancy Simmons.
The creature was unusual for having a claw on all five fingers rather than just one or two. Researchers dubbed it "Onychonycteridae finnei," meaning "clawed bat." The name honors Bonnie Finney, the commercial collector who found the fossil in 2003.
Two specimens of the creature have been recovered. "These outstanding fossils considerably advance our understanding of bat evolution," researcher John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland wrote in a Nature commentary.
Its skeleton shows it could fly, but that it lacked a series of bony features associated with "echolocation," the ability to emit high-pitched sounds and then hear them bounce back from objects and prey, researchers said.
The discovery revealed the most primitive bat known, from a previously unrecognized species that lived about 52 million years ago.
Fossil expands knowledge of bats
NEW YORK — A fossil found in Wyoming has apparently resolved a long-standing question about when bats gained their radar-like ability to navigate and locate airborne insects at night. The answer: after they started flying.
BY MALCOLM RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Her team's research appears in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Simmons chairs the vertebrate zoology division at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The early bat's wingspan was nearly a foot, just a bit smaller than that of today's big brown bat, she said. Its teeth show it ate insects, which it evidently plucked off surfaces after seeing, smelling or hearing them, she said. Simmons said she suspects the bat was active at night, but she noted there's no evidence for that.
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