WEDNESDAY,JULY9,2003
NEWS IN BRIEF
K
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 17
HOMICIDE
Man kills five people at Mississippi factory
The Associated Press
MERIDIAN, Miss. — A factory worker known as a racist "hothead" who talked about killing people opened fire with a shotgun at a Lockheed Martin plant Tuesday, leaving five fellow employees dead before committing suicide.
Dozens of employees at the aircraft parts plant frantically ran for cover after assembly worker Doug Williams, dressed in a black T-shirt and camouflage pants, started firing during a morning break.
As many as eight people were wounded in the nation's deadliest workplace shooting in 21/2 years.
Exactly what set Williams off was not immediately clear, but co-workers said he had had run-ins with management and several fellow employees.
Williams was white, and four of his victims were black; the fifth was white.
Nevertheless, Sheriff Billy Sollie said it appeared Williams fired at random with the shotgun and the semiautomatic rifle. "There was no indication it involved race or gender as far as his targets were concerned," Sollie said.
Several co-workers said they were not surprised when Williams was identified as the killer.
"When I first heard about it, he was the first thing that came to my mind," said Jim Payton, who is retired from the plant but had worked with Williams for about a year.
One of those killed was Lanette McCall, a black woman who had worked at the plant 15 years. Her husband, Bobby McCall, said she expected Williams to harm someone someday.
Steverson said Williams was known as a racist who did not like blacks. And Payton had said Williams had talked about wanting to kill people. "I'm capable of doing it," Payton quoted Williams as saying.
"She said he made a threat against
"There was no indication it involved race or gender as far as his targets were concerned."
Billy Sollie Meridian, Miss., sheriff
black people," a distraught McCall said. He added: "Obviously, he was a sick guy. I wish somebody had given him some help before he done destroyed my life and my kids' life."
Authorities said Williams was carrying a .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle when he entered the plant, but he apparently only used the 12-gauge shotgun. He also had three other small-caliber guns in his truck.
Russell Wright, who works at the plant but was not there Tuesday, described Williams as "a hothead."
The shooting stunned residents of Meridian, a city.of 40,000 near the Alabama line whose economy is largely dependent on the military. It is home to the Lockheed plant, a naval air station and an Air National Guard training center
Some of the wounded were hospitalized in critical condition.
The Meridian plant employs about 150 people and builds parts for C-130J Hercules transport planes and vertical stabilizers for F-22 Raptor fighter jets.
It was the nation's deadliest workplace shooting since a software tester in Wakefield, Mass., killed seven people the day after Christmas in 2000.
WORLD
Lockheed Martin is the biggest defense contractor in the United States. The corporation had sales of $24 billion in 2001. It employs about 125,000 people.
Company president Dain Hancock called the shootings "a horrible tragedy, a senseless crime."
Bulls gore two Americans at annual Pamplona festival
PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) - Bulls gored two Americans and an Australian yesterday on the second day of Pamplona's annual runs with the bulls.
One of the gored Americans, Al Chesson, 57, from Pittsburgh, spent a terrifying half-minute being thrown around in the narrow alley leading into the bull ring that marks the end of the run.
"It was like King Kong tossing coins," the former U.S. Marine and marathon runner said in the hospital, as he awaited
surgery. Chesson was gored twice in the right thigh and once in the groin.
The other gored American was identified as Dallas Hatchcock, 24, from Los Angeles, with a jab in the left arm.
"I saw a bull throw some guy against the wall. I was trying to get his attention. It worked, I guess," Hatchco said.
The Australian was identified as Nicolas Headlam, 29, with an 8-inch gash in the chest. His hometown was not immediately given.
Estonian couple runs away with wife-carrying trophy
TAMPERE, Finland (AP) — Leaping over timber and wading through waisthigh water, an Estonian couple won the wife-carrying world championships Saturday, for the third straight year.
Egle Soll carried Margo Uusorg over the 760-foot course in just over a minute, beating 22 couples from six countries including Britain, the United States, Ireland and Finland.
The contestants don't have be husband and wife — any man and woman can compete.
The Estonians introduced the efficient style of carrying their partners upside down over their backs in 1998 and have won every contest since.
According to local legend, the contest dates back to the 1800s when a local bully challenged other men in the village to prove their worth by carrying their wives "a proper wife, a stolen wife or someone else's wife"—through an obstacle course.
Taiwan last place dropped from SARS infected areas list
HONG KONG (AP) The World Health Organization removed the last SARS hot spot Taiwan from its list of infected areas, saying the illness that killed more than 800 people worldwide has been contained.
There are lingering fears the virus could return,but experts said the public health lessons learned from this crisis will help in any future outbreak of infectious disease.
But she warned that severe acute respiratory syndrome could spread again if countries are not careful. There still are close to 200 cases in hospitals around the world.
"Today is a milestone," WHO Director General Dr. Go Harlem Brundtland said at the group's headquarters in Geneva.
"The world is not SARS free," she said. "It is possible that SARS cases have slipped through the surveillance net and we know that one single case can spark a new outbreak."
Conjoined Iranian twins die after unprecedented surgery
SINGAPORE (AP) Iranian twins Laleh and Ladan Bijani, joined at the head for 29 years, died within 90 minutes of each other yesterday after doctors separated them but were unable to control their bleeding in the unprecedented surgery.
In their homeland, people cried out in shock or wept as state television broke into normal programming to announce their deaths during the third day of surgery in Singapore.
Hospital officials said Ladan died 90 minutes ahead of her sister Lelah, with both deaths because of blood loss. They died while still under anesthesia.
It was the first time surgeons tried to separate adult craniopagus twins. The surgery has been performed successfully since 1952 on infants, whose brains can more easily recover.
At one of the final points of the separation procedure, surgeons cut a finger-thick shared vein from Ladan.
Rerouting the shared vein was considered one of the biggest obstacles in the surgery.
German doctors told the twins in 1996 that shared vein made surgery too dangerous.
Bush gave a wide-ranging speech on slavery and race in a visit to an Atlantic seaport where slaves once were packed onto ships and sent to America. It was his first day of a five-nation trip to Africa.
Meeting with regional leaders, Bush discussed whether to commit U.S. troops to a peacekeeping force in Liberia, founded by freed American slaves in 1822.
Bush tours African nations; evaluates Liberian situation
GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (AP) — President Bush called slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history" yesterday and inched closer toward sending American troops to a peacekeeping force in Liberia.
"We're now in the process of determining the extent of our participation," Bush said. He said he had yet to make up his mind.
Aides said Bush's comments signaled there would be some involvement of U.S. forces, although the size and role of such a contingent remains an open question.
On Goree Island, Bush toured a centuries-old house that was used as a processing center for countless thousands of Africans who were herded aboard ships that took them into slavery in America.