8A= THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NATION
TUESDAY,FEB.26,2002
Early admission criticized
The Associated Press
METUCHE, N.J. — William Hoffman started his college search in 10th grade. By the start of his senior year last fall, he knew his first choice was Harvard. The school even sent him a letter, encouraging him to apply.
So Hoffman, ranked third academically at Metuchen High School in northern New Jersey, applied early to Harvard last October and did the same with the University of Chicago, as a fall back. But months later, Hoffman still doesn't know where he'll go to college — illustrating just one of the problems critics find with early admission.
The practice has become a powerful draw in a market where colleges covet the best
candidates and students pursue a belief that the better the diploma, the better their future.
But some critics, including Yale's president, say it can force teenagers into premature decisions and gives unfair advantage to those with money and admissions know-how. It also stretches the wait for people like Hoffman.
Early admission was first used in the 1950s by elite colleges, but the practice spread about a decade ago. Now more than 400 colleges and universities invite high school seniors to apply ahead of the crowd, a College Board survey found.
Generally, these schools offer "early decision," which requires those admitted to withdraw applications elsewhere, or nonbinding "early action," offered
Of 1.2 million applicants for the freshman class of 2000, about 163,000 sought early admission — nearly 14 percent, the College Board found.
by both Harvard and Chicago Some offer both.
"The pressure admissions has brought to America's teenagers is pretty substantial," Levin said. Early admission only makes it worse, he believes.
Yale President Richard Levin has called for an end to early admissions and has floated the idea to the school's governing board and fellow college presidents.
Ostensibly, early admission serves people like Hoffman, who began senior year ready to apply. But it also helps colleges secure a chunk of the freshman class and
burnish their image as selective.
"My sense is that the universities and colleges that practice early admission have focused mainly on the advantages that practice brings them," Levin said. They "haven't listened sufficiently to parents, students, counselors and principals about the adverse effects."
Growing rivalry for admission to places like Yale, which will enroll some 1,300 freshmen next fall, compels too many teens to pick a first choice too soon, Levin said.
For those rejected in the early round, it prolongs the preoccupation with entry to a good school, he said. Now those students must wait until March and April, the peak for regular admissions.
AIDS drugs saving more lives
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Doctors have been so successful in saving the lives of people with AIDS that the number of Americans with HIV is actually increasing again after holding steady for years and is now approaching 1 million, according to government estimates.
Experts say the total number of Americans living with HIV is probably rising by about 25,000 a year - a testament to the power of AIDS drugs that have vastly improved treatment over the past six years.
The government estimates that 40,000 Americans acquire HIV each year, a figure that has remained roughly stable for over a decade. However, until the
turnaround in AIDS therapy, this figure was nearly offset each year by AIDS deaths, so the total number of Americans carrying the virus stayed level.
Now, AIDS deaths have plunged from around 40,000 annually to about 15,000. As a result, new infections are outstripping deaths.
Dr. Patricia Fleming of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented the new estimates Monday at the Ninth Annual Retrovirus Conference in Seattle.
The latest estimate of U.S. HIV prevalence, calculated as of 2000, is between 850,000 and 950,000 people.
According to the CDC, the total number of infected Americans has
increased by about 50,000 in the last two years studied, 1999 and 2000. That suggests the total could reach 1 million this year.
Survival increased almost overnight when drug combinations that included medicines called protease inhibitors transformed HIV from a death sentence to a chronic treatable illness.
By the late 1990s, many doctors feared these gains would evaporate as the treatments lost their punch. Doctors noticed that after initial success that seemed to eliminate HIV, many patients developed viruses that were resistant to all the major classes of medicines.
Doctors worried that the virus would eventually resume its destruction of their immune defenses.
To their relief, this has not often happened. Even when resistant virus emerges, patients who stay on the drugs usually keep their HIV levels low and remain free of obvious disease. Dr. Constance Benson of the University of Colorado said that in her AIDS practice, the annual death rate is 1 percent to 2 percent and is not changing.
"The fear that treatment failure would result in a subsequent rise in mortality has not so far panned out," she said.
A major CDC goal is to increase testing among people at high risk of acquiring HIV. Infected people should know about it so they can begin treatment and guard against spreading HIV to others.
Soldier killed during training session
The Associated Press
CARTHAGE, N.C. — When he spotted the pickup truck with someone crouching in the back, exposed to the blustery, 40-degree cold, Deputy Sheriff Randall Butler got suspicious.
His fears were heightened after he pulled the truck over and noticed a duffel bag with a disassembled rifle inside. Then one of the three men in the truck came at him. He used pepper spray, then opened fire, killing one man and wounding another.
What Butler apparently didn't know was that two of the suspicious men were actually Army Special Forces soldiers training for their coveted green berets.
The soldiers, in turn, thought Butler was an actor in their roleplaying exercise, according to
the account given by Moore County sheriff's officials.
The deadly mixup near Fort Bragg on Saturday has shaken Army officials, who plan to reexamine how they carried out the training exercise that they have been conducting for decades.
Army officials said the Sheriff's Department had not been told about Saturday's exercise because the Army did not think the department would be involved.
No criminal charges will be filed, prosecutor Garland Yates said. Butler "reasonably believed that he was confronted with a threat justifying his use of deadly force." Yates said, and the soldiers believed Butler "was a participant in a legitimate training exercise."
1st Lt. Tallas Tomeny was killed and Sgt. Stephen Phelps
was wounded, a Fort Bragg spokesman said. Their ages and hometowns were not immediately available, though the Tampa Tribune quoted relatives of Phelps who said he was a former resident of Clearwater, Fla.
Tomeny and Phelps were taking part in "Robin Sage," the final leg of training for soldiers trying to become Green Berets.
The two soldiers were in a truck driven by a civilian participant when Butler pulled them over on a rural road outside Robbins, about 30 miles from Fort Bragg. Chief Deputy Sheriff Lane Carter said Butler had seen the truck twice during a 30-minute period and thought the occupants were acting oddly.
After stopping the truck and seeing the duffel bag with a weapon, he ordered the two people in the cab to get out, and threw the bag on the ground. Carter said.
The soldiers then apparently tried to disarm Butler.
Tomeny tried to assault the deputy, Carter said. Butler sprayed him with pepper spray. Phelps came out of the back of the truck and tried to grab the weapon in the bag, and Butler shot and wounded him, Carter said. Tomeny came at him again and was shot to death.
Phelps was in serious condition yesterday.
Robin Sage is the 19-day final exam of the Special Forces Qualification Course. Conducted since the 1950s in North Carolina, it tests skills in survival, tactics and dealing with people, as well as judgment, decision-making and ethics.
Plea agreement reached in diluted drugs case
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Pharmacist Robert R. Courtney has reached a plea agreement with the government in a chemotherapy drugs dilutions case, his attorney says.
Courtney attorney Jean Paul Bradshaw declined to specify what type of plea Courtney would enter, or whether a sentence for Courtney had been agreed to. But he said that in "a case like this, it would be unusual for the government to agree to anything less than to a straight-out guilty plea."
Courtney had pleaded innocent to all 20 charges in the case. A change of plea hearing has been scheduled for today in federal court.
If convicted on all 20 charges, Courtney would face up to 196 years in prison.
U. S. Attorney's Office spokesman Chris Whitley declined yesterday to confirm a plea agreement, "We never talk about plea negotiations in any case," he said.
Earlier this month, prosecutors indicated in a letter to a judge that new charges were possible. And U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Larsen told the attorneys that a new indictment could be issued when a grand jury meets today.
Courtney's attorneys have lost one battle after another at the federal courthouse. Larsen had denied Courtney's attempts to throw out Courtney's confession, to move the trial, and to have the charges thrown out as unconstitutional. He has been jailed since he turned himself in to the FBI on Aug. 15.
The plea agreement comes less than two weeks before Courtney's trial was scheduled to begin on 20 counts of misbranding, adulterating and mislabeling the chemotherapy drugs Taxol and Gemzar.
Agrand jury indicted Courtney on 20 charges in August. They included eight charges of drug tampering, and six each of adulterating and misbranding drugs. Courtney had pleaded innocent.
Investigators said they also turned up suspicious or low-potency samples of Paraplatin, Platinol, Procrit, Neupogen, Roferon and Zofran, according to court records.
The government claims Courtney confessed that he diluted the chemotherapy drugs so he could pocket the difference in price. Courtney owed more than $600,000 in taxes and $330,000 on a pledge to his church, according to court papers. Prosecutors estimated his net worth at about $10 million before the case broke.
Neighbor to be charged with murder of missing girl
The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — A 7-year-old girl who vanished from her home earlier this month is apparently dead, and murder charges will be filed against a neighbor, a prosecutor said yesterday.
Prosecutor Paul Pfingst also said he will file a so-called special circumstance — murder during kidnapping — that will carry the possibility of the death penalty if David Westerfield is convicted.
"I must conclude that Danielle van Dam is no longer living and was killed," Pfingst told a news conference. He said he made his conclusion after consulting with investigators, fellow prosecutors and the girl's family. Traces of Danielle's blood have been found but her body has not been located.
Westerfield, 50, who lives two doors from the van Dam home, was arrested Friday and was initially held for investigation of kidnapping. He will be arraigned today, the district attorney said.
Daniele's parents, Damon and Brenda van Dam, discovered
their daughter missing the morning of Feb. 2. Police believe she was abducted from her second-floor bedroom of the family's north San Diego home after her father put her to bed the previous evening.
Teams of volunteers have scoured remote locations east of San Diego for the girl, and thousands of filers have been handed out.
Authorities said last week that they found traces of Danielle's blood in a motor home and on an article of Westerfield's clothing. They also confiscated child pornography from his home, Police Chief David Bejarano said.
Westerfield has been held without bail in the San Diego County jail.
Westerfield's attorney, Steven Feldman, said previously he will likely ask a judge to impose a gag order on everyone involved in the case.
Westerfield, a divorced father of two grown children, has a 1996 conviction for drunken driving but no violent criminal history, police said.
ECM Volunteer - Intern Placement Fair!
Tuesday, Feb. 26 - Friday, March 1 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Tuesday and Thursday until 9 p.m.) -Special Peace Corp presentation on Tuesday, 7:30 pm- At ECM Center Information available for nonprofit organizations offering 475 short to long term placements
Community organizing - environmental justice- urban / rural poverty- legal / justice/prisons- intercultural-indigenous rights- ministry- health care physical/mental impaired- elderly- education- construction- children/youth arts/drama- agriculture- advocacy/counseling- soup kitchens-social work camp counseling-migrant workers- mental health-computer communications child care-AIDS-bookkeeping-hunger/homelessness/peace/justice archeology/history presentation
archeology/historic presentation
Local - National - International Questions: 843-4933
1