2A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS IN BRIEF
MONDAY, DEC.3, 2001
STATE
18-year-old pleads guilty to the murder of Wichita man
WICHITA — An 18-year-old has admitted to beating and killing a Wichita man who made sexual advances toward the teen and a friend.
Zachary Steward of Wichita pleaded guilty Friday to felony murder and aggravated robbery. In exchange for the pleas, prosecutors dismissed five other counts, including premeditated first-degree murder, aggravated burglary and aggravated arson.
Steward and co-defendant Brandon Boone are accused of beating Marcell Eads, 58, in his Wichita home in June, then setting Eads' house on fire after taking a stereo and a computer.
Steward likely will face a sentence of life in prison without parole for 25 years when he is sentenced Dec. 21. He had been scheduled to go to trial today.
Boone's trial is scheduled for Januar-
vary.
STATE
Space debris lights night sky from Texas to Nebraska
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Streaks of brilliant light that were spotted from Texas to Nebraska on Saturday night apparently were caused by space debris breaking up, authorities said.
A dispatcher at the Kansas Turnpike Authority in Wichita said callers reported the lights from the Oklahoma border to near Kansas City.
In Hastings, Neb., meteorologist Larry Wirth of the National Weather Service said callers described a bright light that crossed the horizon from southwest to northeast and broke.
"People said it appeared to break up into about 30 little balls, with tails, more or less like fireworks," Wirth said.
Wirth said the North American Air Defense Command reported that some kind of space debris had broken up in the atmosphere.
in Topeka, weather service meteorologist Matt Wolters said such light shows are not uncommon when space debris enters the atmosphere.
Commemorative flight marks end of airline, as TWA departs
ST. LOUIS — TWA started disappearing yesterday, as the airline's assets began changing to the American Airlines brand.
Flight numbers now come with the prefix "AA" rather than "TW." Airline executives and employees retired the "TW" Saturday with a commemorative flight from Kansas City, home of the airline's main maintenance hub, to the airline's main hub in St. Louis. The commemorative flight, 220, was commanded by Capt. Bill Compton, TWA's last president, who started with the airline in 1968 as a flight engineer.
Tickets purchased for travel after yesterday that say TWA are still valid; passengers will just be traveling on American flights.
Pilots flying what used to be TWA planes are learning American's computer system.
puter system.
"There are quite a few changes that we'll have to deal with," said Jeff Darnell, a spokesman for TWA's pilots union. "Mostly, it is how we get out flight plans and some operational specifics. But it's nothing drastic."
The Associated Press
NATION&WORLD
Enron Corp. sues Dynegy files for bankruptcy
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Beleaguered energy company Enron Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company said yesterday.
terday.
The company also filed a lawsuit against would-be suitor Dynegy Inc. for wrongful termination of its $8.4 billion proposed merger.
inmitation of its 684,444 dollars in a statement, the company said it was suing Dynegy for wrongful termination of the merger and seeking at least $10 billion in damages.
Both lawsuits were filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
In the statement, Houston-based Enron said it was in "active discussions" with several financial institutions to secure credit for the continued operation of its wholesale energy trading business, as well as additional funding to keep the rest of the company operating.
to keep the rest of the court's judgment. In its lawsuit, Enron claimed that Houston-based Dynyege terminated the merger agreement "when it had no contractual right to do
so." It also claimed Dynegy had "no right" to exercise an option to acquire Enron's northern natural gas pipeline because it "can only be triggered by a valid termination" of the merger agreement.
Enron said it would ask the court to consider several motions to continue payments for its workers' payroll and health benefits, as well as keeping vendors paid.
well as keeping vendors paid. On Friday, accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had issued it subpoenas related to its auditing of Enron's accounts. Arthur Andersen said it had provided the information requested by the SEC, which has been investigating Enron.
Enron recently revealed that partnerships run by its executives had allowed the company to keep about $500 million in debt off its books and let the executives profit from the arrangements
Andersen also said its own review would be expanded to include procedures at its Houston office, which did the Enron audits.
U.S. still attacking Kandahar
The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — Relentless U.S. air strikes pummeled the defenders of Kandahar yesterday with anti-Taliban forces within 20 miles of the last militia stronghold. A U.S. Marine officer said his troops might join the assault.
assault. In the east, a provincial military official said U.S. warplanes bombed an anti-Taliban headquarters yesterday, killing at least eight people. The claim came a day after the official reported similar bombings killed scores of civilians nearby.
At U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Compton said the command was looking into the reports but had no immediate information about the latest attacks.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. forces would do "whatever is necessary" to root out the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists from their cave hide-outs near Kandahar and Jalalabad.
Kandanar and jukana
Asked on NBC's Meet the Press whether poison gas would be pumped into the caves, Rumsfeld noted that northern Alliance forces
used flooding to force the surrender Saturday of the last 82 Taliban holdouts in a prison fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif in the north. Hundreds of their comrades and a CIA operative died in an uprising last week.
tive grit on the one who will do whatever it is necessary to do." Rumsfeld said. "If people will not surrender then they've made their choice."
renset then they vehemently A U.S. military source said the Taliban were moving in reinforcements, underscoring the vow of supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to fight to the death to hold the birthplace of the movement.
place in the movement. In Koenigswinter, Germany, Afghan delegates to U.N. talks debated a draft outline of a proposed administration to rule the country until a permanent, post-Taliban system could be put in place.
A proposed interim council of elders is taking shape that would rule for six months before convening a national conclave to decide on a longer-term government.
But the details of power-sharing remained to be worked out, with the delegates from four Afghan factions under intense international pressure to quickly agree on a new administration.
The Black Student Union will meet at 7:30 tonight at the Pioneer room in the Burge Union. Contact Mark Dupee at 864-3984.
ON CAMPUS
The Tae Kwon Do club will meet from 6:30 to 8 tonight at 207 Robinson Center. Contact Greg Isaac at 749-4649.
O. A.K.S., the nontraditional students organization, will have a brown bag lunch from noun to 1.30 p.m. today in the Burge Union. Contact Joan Winston at 864-7317.
The KU Green Party will meet at 8tonight at the Regionalist Room in the Kansas Union. Contact Sarah Hokinson at 838-9063 or Dalyn Cook at 312-209K.
The Pacific West Cancer Fund has selected the University of Kansas to receive a scholarship that is designed to assist students who have been diagnosed with cancer and are surviving. Interested students should contact the Office of Student Financial Aid and complete and return the application to the office at 50 Strong Hall no later than December 3.
The KU Karate Kobudo Club will practice from 8:30 to 10:30 tonight at racquetball court No. 15 in Robinson Center. Contact Hannah Reynolds at 312-3419.
- December graduates that have questions about repayment or consolidation of student loans need to make an appointment with an Assistant Director in the Office of Student Financial Aid by calling 864-4700.
Paying would-be donors could solve organ shortage
SAN FRANCISCO — As the nation's need for organ transplants continues to outstrip supply, the American Medical Association grappled yesterday with a possible solution once thought taboo: paying dying would be donors and their families for vital organs.
NATION
Such financial incentives are illegal, banned by Congress in 1984.
However, only 25 percent of 78,000 organ transplants currently needed will occur in time to save a life, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit agency the government pays to oversee the nation's organ donor network.
Fifteen people die each day waiting for an organ transplant, the agency says.
The AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs was urging the association to begin scientific studies on what effect financial incentives would have on organ donations. The group debated the issue yesterday and was to make its recommendation to the full AMA today. The association will decide later this week if it will adopt the council's recommendation.
If the AMA does agree to test financial incentives, Congress would have to change current law to permit a study.
The United Network remains skeptical of financial incentives.
"There's a thought that to offer financial incentives will open up a Pandora's box," said agency spokesman Joel Newman.
A congressional bill introduced in May, dubbed the Gift of Life Tax Credit Act, would allow a donor family a $10,000 tax credit in exchange for donated organs.
NATION
Paramilitary leader confesses to plotting opponent's murder
BOGOTA, Colombia — The feared leader of a rightist paramilitary army in Colombia confessed that he was responsible for the 1990 assassination of a charismatic presidential candidate, according to a book to be released this week.
Carlos Castano — political chief of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC — said in the book that the killing of leftist guerrilla commander turned presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro was a "true patriotic act."
"If history repeated itself and the circumstances were the same, I would act the same way," said Castano, in a book excerpt published yesterday in the Colombian newsmagazine Semana.
Colombian news magazine General Pizarro, the son of a navy admiral, became commander of the 900-strong M-19 guerrilla group in 1986. Under his command, the group disarmed four years later and joined the political process.
Castano, a fugitive who could not be reached for comment, said Pizarro was collaborating with drug lord Pablo Escobar and would have been a danger to Colombia if elected president.
to Colonel Castano, who has eluded arrest for years, also admitted to ordering the killings of two popular lawmakers.
ET
CETERA
The Associated Press
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Wireless communication has been around a lot longer than cell phones and pagers.
KU Cooperative Ministries
KU Hillel
(lewish)
www.ku.edu/~hillel
749-5397
Canterbury House
(Episcopal)
www.geocities.com/kuchristians/
cooperative.html
843-8202
www.geocities.com/kuchristians/
cooperative.html
843-4948
University Christian Fellowship
(Southern Baptist)
www.ukans.edu/~rcbsu/
841-3148
Lutheran Campus Ministry
United Methodist Campus Ministry
falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~umcmku
841-8661
Ecumenical Christian Ministries (Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Quaker Church of Brethren) www.ukans.edu/~ecmku 843-4933
CANNOT ALWAYS BE MEASURED IN
GRAMS AND CARATS
Marks Jewelers. Quality since 1880. 817 Massachusetts Street 843-4266
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