WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2003
NEWS IN BRIEF
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN =19
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two-room concrete dungeon he built under the back yard of his suburban Syracuse home. The two small rooms contained a small tub, a bucket for a toilet, a microwave oven and a mattress.
Authorities say the victims included a 14-year-old girl taken in 1988, a 13-year-old girl in 1995, a 53-year-old woman in 1997, a 26-year-old in 2001 and the 16 year-old freed in April.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 15.
Monkey pox ailments linked to prairie dogs kept as pets
MADISON, Wis. — A virus similar to smallpox jumped from pet prairie dogs to at least four people in the disease's first appearance in the Western Hemisphere.
Four Wisconsin residents have confirmed cases of the monkey pox virus and 14 others have suspected cases, said Milwaukee health commissioner Dr. Seth Foldy. At least 13 cases are suspected in Indiana and Illinois officials confirmed Monday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a giant Gambian rat, which is indigenous to Africa, infected the prairie dogs at a Chicago-area pet distributor.
The four people confirmed with the virus contracted it by close contact with prairie dogs, Wisconsin officials said. The 13 people suspected of having the virus in Wisconsin were around prairie dogs and another contracted it while handling a sick rabbit that was near a prairie dog.
Monkey pox in humans is not usually fatal, but causes rashes, fevers and chills. Doctors initially feared they might be facing smallpox, which causes similar symptoms as monkey pox.
Writer fired for plagiarizing movie reviews, sports columns
KANSAS CITY, Mo. The Sedalia Democrat fired Michael Kinney,a sportswriter for the paper, last Thursday for plagiarizing sports columns and parts of a movie review.
A reader of the Democrat called the paper last month to report similarities between a movie review by Kinney and one written by columnist Roger Ebert.
Oliver Wiest, editor for the Democrat said a search of the Internet "found several similar instances of plagiarism from online sources in Mr. Kinney's movie reviews dating back to late last year."
Wiest said he found "more extensive plagiarism" in two of Kinney's sports columns.
Most of Kinney's lifted material consisted of descriptive phrases, sentences and "occasionally a paragraph," Wiest said. Nothing in Kinney's sports coverage was found to be questionable, he said.
The Democrat is a daily newspaper with a circulation of about 11,800 in Sedalia.
Kansas City to crack down on local child pornographers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Federal and state officials in the Kansas City area are embarking on the large scale investigation into local child pornography.
U. S. Attorney Todd Graves, the top federal prosecutor for the western half of Missouri, said aggressive pursuit of people who traffic in child pornography is his top local priority.
Graves has hired a computer investigator and created the Computer Crimes and Child Exploitation Unit in his office. Helping with the effort is Kevin Stafford, special agent in charge of the FBI field office.
Working in Maryland a decade ago, Stafford established a nationwide sting operation that seeks to identify child pornographers as well as people who contact children on the Internet and travel to meet them.
The FBI will soon begin a similar sting in the Kansas City area.
Graves office has prosecuted about 20 child exploitation cases; and those were filed before his office began gearing up for the latest push.
In Kansas,26 such cases were prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office over the last year.
WORLD
North Korea threatens to build nukes to counter U.S. hostility
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea threatened on Monday to build nuclear weapons as a deterrent to what it calls a "hostile" U.S. policy.
The statement marked a sharpening of the North's tone in its standoff with Washington. U.S. officials said the North Koreans told them the country already has nuclear bombs and plans to build more.
North Korea linked its nuclear efforts to rebuilding its moribund economy.
The North Korean government claims their nuclear weapons are not intended to be used as black mail but to rebuild the economy and reduce conventional weapons.
President Bush said he prefers a diplomatic solution, but has not ruled out military options.
It remains unclear when U.S. and North Korean officials will meet again to discuss ending the nuclear crisis. North
Three suspected of SARS in Jasper County, Missouri
The Associated Press
JOPLIN, Mo. — Health officials are investigating three new suspected cases of SARS in southwest Missouri, the first in the state in more than two months.
The three individuals in Jasper County have voluntarily isolated themselves in their homes while follow-up tests are performed to confirm or deny that their illnesses are SARS. Two of the cases emerged early last week, with the third appearing Friday.
One of the individuals in the initial case, which was reported May 30, spent about two days in the hospital, Jasper County Health Department director Tony Moehr said.
Moehr said the initial two cases were individuals living in the same house. The third person had close contact with one of the original two.
Moehr would not reveal any other identifying information, other than to say the people were not from Joplin, a city of about 45,000 people and home to about 39 percent of the county's population.
The three individuals bring Missouri's suspected case total to four.A St. Louis area resident is also awaiting test results.
The blood tests, which are sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga., require at least 22 days before they can be determined as positive or negative. However, results can take longer because of the volume of testing at the CDC.
To be characterized as a suspected
case, an individual must have a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher and a mild to severe respiratory illness - symptoms Moehr said are common with many diseases, including the common cold.
But the individual must also have traveled or had close contact with a person who had traveled within the last 10 days to one of five areas where SARS has been found: Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan or mainland China.
The initial suspected case in Jasper County came into contact with an individual who was ill and who had been in Toronto, Moehr said. It was uncertain whether the individual in Toronto had SARS or another illness, Moehr said.
Officials have treated the cases as though they were SARS,he said.
"Even if it turns out to be SARS, I don't think it's something that should have a tremendous impact on the community," Moehr said.
Missouri has had a total of five suspected SARS cases. A southwest Missouri resident had been a suspected case, but blood tests revealed no signs of a coronavirus experts have associated with SARS, Quinn said. The state has had no cases classified as "probable" and no confirmed cases.
At least 8,300 people worldwide have been sickened by the disease since November and 785 have died. Moehr said the disease is spread through close contact and is not airborne.
As with any disease, Moehr said proper hygiene — particularly regular hand-washing — can help stop the spread of SARS.
Korea has said it might consider U.S. demands for talks involving several nations, if it can first meet one-on-one with the United States.
Rumsfeld admits resistance against U.S.-led peacekeeping
TIRANA, Albania — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday it will take time to locate die-hard remnants of Saddam Hussein's deposed regime in Iraq.
The United States is talking to approximately three-dozen countries about assembling an international peacekeeping force for postwar Iraq, Rumsfeld said. He also said that even after the force
begins arriving in September there will be resistance from elements of Saddam's Baathist Party and other loyalists.
"It will take time to root out the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and we intend to do it." Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld said the failure of the U.S. led coalition to prove that Saddam is dead may be fueling continued violence and resistance in the country.
Rumsfeld said he did not doubt that intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction will prove correct, despite the failure after two months to find the weapons the Bush administration said were the rationale for the war.
The Associated Press