WEDNESDAY,SEPTEMBER 25,2002
NATION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 7A
New winner crowned in Miss Universe clash
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Moments after being crowned yesterday as the new Miss Universe, 23-year-old Justine Pasek of Panama said she was still stunned by news that the pageant winner had been dethroned.
Still, she was happy to take over.
"I'm sure this next nine months will be the most important of my life," she said, carefully balancing a diamond and pearl tiara on her head during a brief ceremony at the Trump Tower. "I could not be more excited and ready to start."
The former first runner-up was crowned a day after Russian law student Oxana Fedorova, who won the May pageant in Puerto Rico, was dethroned because pageant officials said she was not fulfilling her duties. It is first time a titleholder had
been fired in the contest's 52 year history.
Donald Trump, co-owner of the organization, said Paula Shugart, the organization's president, asked Fedorova to resign. "When Oxana didn't resign, Paula had no choice but to terminate her," Trump said.
Shugart and Trump said Fedorova didn't show up for some photo shoots and charity events.
"She needed to spend a lot of time in Russia," Shugart said on NBC's "Today" show. "I believe her mother was ill at one point."
Fedorova, a police lieutenant pursuing a graduate law degree at St. Petersburg's Police Academy, denied she was fired and said she gave up the title voluntarily.
"The duties of a world beauty are wonderful. However, my prime goal is my studies and
career in Russia," Fedorova told RTR state television Monday. "I know I will remain Miss Universe for Russian citizens and for myself."
Pasek, who works in television production and hopes to complete a degree in environmental engineering, will spend the coming months as a goodwill ambassador in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
She said she wished Fedorova "the best and I'm very happy to be taking over this job now."
Pageant officials said Fedorova had returned the $20,000 diamond and pearl tiara she won when she was named Miss Universe.
A more expensive tiara — with 800 diamonds instead of 15 — which winners wear only when they are crowned, is kept by the Miss Universe Organization.
The Associated Press
Coastal towns set for storm
NEW ORLEANS — Cajun fishing towns cleared out, Navy ships steamed out for the open sea yesterday and headed toward the Gulf Coast and inland hotels began filling up as tourists tried to get away from Tropical Storm Isidore.
The storm, which left two people dead and 300,000 homeless in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, moved back over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and was expected to hit Louisiana or Mississippi sometime today.
The forecasters put the eye of the storm close to Morgan City, 80 miles southwest of New Orleans, by early tomorrow. Storm advisories stretched from Jefferson and Orange counties in Texas to Pascagoula, Miss.
Grand Isle, an island resort south of New Orleans was placed
under a mandatory evacuation order midday yesterday. Many of the town's 1,500 residents were already on their way out.
"We're leaving. I'm getting my boat ready now," said Leland McMaster, general manager at Poche's Cabins and Apartments.
In Terrebonne Parish, vulnerable coastal towns including Chauvin, Grand Caillou and Theriot were evacuated. Officials expected 2,000 people to leave.
By early afternoon, the storm was 480 miles south of the Louisiana coast and moving northward at around 5 mph.
While early projections indicated Isidore could come ashore as a Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds, yesterday's forecasts prepared for a less powerful Category 1 hurricane — with winds up to 80 mph.
Officials along the Texas coast were battling Isidore-caused
swells of 12 feet, and expect them to grow as the storm approaches. On South Padre Island, overnight tides swamped an emergency sand wall and water rushed onto streets.
New Orleans, the nation's biggest city with a low point below sea level, prepared for heavy rain by closing flood walls, putting all pumping stations in full operation, sandbugging roads near the water and even asking hospitals to delay elective surgeries.
The city's normally raucous French Quarter was soggy and sedate yesterday but folks in the Big Easy took the ominous weather in stride.
"Itif keeps up raining like this, we'll be flooded inside before long," said Shaun Hall, the doorman at Pat O'Brien's Bar. "I don't think we'll close for that, though. We'll just take our shoes off."
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