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News in Brief
Friday September 5,1997
NEWS FROM AROUND CAMPUS, THE NATION AND THE WORLD
City won't press charges against alleged rapist
District Attorney Christine Tonkovich said yesterday that she would not press charges against the man arrested and released in connection with a reported sexual assault incident that took place Tuesday at Jayhawker Towers. Tonkovich said there were no plans to continue investigating the case.
Internet access cut off from campus once again
The Internet was unavailable at the University of Kansas for the third time this week.
The latest network problem lasted from about 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. yesterday, said Dave Nordlund, associate director for technical planning at the Computer Center.
Nordlund said Southwestern Bell disconnected network circuits in Topeka. The University of Kansas, KU Medical Center and Kansas State University were affected.
The network was rerouted through Lincoln, Neb. Nordlund said, and would run slower than normal until about 8 a.m. today.
The University's Raven computer system had a disk error Monday that rendered the Web server useless for six hours.
A power supply failure in St. Louis knocked the University off the Internet for ten hours on Tuesday.
—Kansan staff reports
National
Testing plan comes under fire from conservatives
WASHINGTON — President Clinton's deputies fought yesterday to save his proposed national tests in reading and math from congressional critics, who said the plan would feed bureaucrats but shortchange struggling schools.
"These tests will help mobilize the American people in a great national effort to raise reading and math achievement," Education Secretary Richard W. Riley told
a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. "Because this is so important for our country, I see it as a great patriotic cause."
Both the House and Senate were planning votes as early as yesterday on efforts to block the Education Department from going forward with the voluntary tests, scheduled to begin in 1999.
The tests, a top item on Clinton's education agenda, would measure fourth-
graders on how well they can read and eighth-graders on math, including some algebra and geometry.
In the rapidly escalating fight over who knows what's best for education, Republicans said the administration was using gimmicks to fight the problem of poor-performing, crime-ridden schools. Instead, said House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., parents should be given more choice where to send their children.
Republicans want an expansion of vouchers and tax-free savings accounts to help parents find alternatives to public schools.
"We could find you 500 schools that without testing we could all agree are really bad," Gingrich told reporters. "The president then says we'll keep the kids trapped there."
Despite the partisan rhetoric, the lines aren't clearly drawn on the issue. Many Republicans support the tests, an idea hatched in the Bush administration.
Track coach charged with rape of four women
OAKLAND, Calif. — On Aug. 20, coach Tony Ransom called one of his high school athletes and invited her to practice at a college track.
Her mother wouldn't let her go.
"There's a rapist out there." Irma Swyyer told her 17-year-old daughter.
That same day, investigators say, Ransom raped a woman.
Now Ransom, a 37-year-old ex-con and part-time track coach at the all-girl Holy Names High School, has been charged with four rapes and is suspected in as many as nine others since mid-July in the San Francisco Bay area.
The victims described their attacker as fit, in his early 30s, wearing a knit ski masks in some rapes, animal masks in others. Several of the women were beaten, raped and then robbed.
Looking back, Swygert can pinpoint twinges of doubt she had about Ransom. For one, he didn't always show up for the summer practices he scheduled each Monday, Wednesday and Friday with her daughter. For another, he didn't seem to like it when she accompanied her daughter.
"He said, 'Oh. Mom, you're here with her.' He almost seemed disappointed," Swybert said "felt he had a plan for her."
Her daughter, the track team's captain, is unwilling to talk about Ransom. Most students have been instructed by school officials not to talk. But privately, they are finding it hard to believe a rapist could have been in their midst.
California law requires private schools to do a state background check on their employees, though there is often a long lag time in getting the results.
Holy Names President Laura Held said that no background check on Ransom had been done and that school officials were investigating why. Ransom's contract was not renewed this year, though officials have not said why.
Tyson Foods buys plant responsible for meat recall
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Tyson Foods, the nation's largest poultry producer, is buying Hudson Foods for $642 million just weeks after Hudson recalled a record 25 million pounds of hamburger in a contamination scare.
"They have made us a very good offer, and the Hudson Foods board and I have decided that it is in the best interest of our shareholders, associates, growers and customers to accept," Hudson chairman James "Red" Hudson said yesterday.
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, comes a week after Hudson said it expected its quarterly earnings to be down by at least 30 percent because of the E. coli scare, which cost Hudson its biggest customer, Burger King.
Hudson recalled the meat under government pressure after
Sally: She and Tyson Foods are buying Hudson Foods
ground beef processed at its plant in Columbus, Neb., was found to be tainted with the deadly bacteria. It was the biggest meat recall in U.S. history.
USDA officials are still investigating but have said the contamination is believed to have come from slaughterhouses that supplied the plant. Hudson said last week it will sell the plant to IBP Inc. of Dakota City, Neb.
Hudson and Tyson have headquarters about 10 miles apart in Arkansas. Tyson, one of the state's largest employers with 17,500 workers, is in Springdale. Hudson, which employs 1,400 workers, is in Rogers.
James Hudson founded the business in 1972,buying poultry-processing operations in Arkansas and Missouri from Ralston Purina. It branched into the ground beef business two years ago.
Wisconsin research team maps E. coli bacteria DNA
WASHINGTON — E. coli, the bacteria family that prompted the nation's largest hamburger recall, has been genetically decoded by researchers, who say the discovery could lead to new drugs or even vaccines against certain food poisonings.
A team led by Frederick Blattner, a University of Wisconsin, Madison, geneticist, have sequenced and mapped the 4,288 genes contained in the 4.6 million base pairs of DNA in a common laboratory strain of E. coli.
Experts said the new map is good news for public health and will be of great benefit in the laboratory, where scientists have used E. coli as a workhorse of experimentation and biological discovery.
coli DNA. A report on the new gene map will be published today in the journal "Science."
The University of Wisconsin group beat a Japanese science team by just a few days in a years-long race to sequence all the E.
International
Public outcry elicits royal response from Queen
LONDON — The royal family, saying it was hurt by public attacks over its remoteness since Princess Diana's death, suddenly took to London's streets and airwaves yesterday in a show of solidarity with Britain's mourning millions.
Queen Elizabeth II, who has rarely reacted to public pressure in the past, even scheduled a televised address to say more to her nation on the eve of tomorrow's historic funeral.
The ceremony promised to be a star-studded spectacle. Buckingham Palace announced, in a gesture to Diana's pop-star celebrity, that her friend Elton John will sing a version of one of his top-selling songs at the Westminster Abbey service.
The funeral program also showed that no member of the royal family will speak -- reflecting the divorced status of the Princess of Wales.
Criticism of the royal family had built for days, while it remained secluded and largely silent in Scotland in the aftermath of Diana's death. While they stayed at Balmoral Castle, tens of thousands of British commoners flocked to London's St. James's Palace to be near Diana's coffin and sign condolence books.
"Your people are suffering — Speak to us Ma'am," the tabloid Daily Mirror blared on yesterday's front page.
The pressure finally drew a response.
In a highly unusual on-the-record statement, the queen's press secretary said, "The queen has asked me to say that the royal family has been hurt by suggestions that they are indifferent to the country's sorrow at the tragic death of the Princess of Wales."
The palace announced the queen would make a broadcast to the nation today—time unannounced. Today is also when Prince Charles returns to London with the two boys to go to the Chapel Royal at St. James's to view the coffin.
And in what many will see as a concession to public opinion, television cameras captured Charles holding Harry's hand as the family looked at floral tributes laid outside Crathie church, near Balmoral Castle.
Suicide bombs rip through Jerusalem marketplace
JERUSALEM — Three suicide bombs exploded within a few deadly seconds in the heart of Jerusalem yesterday, spraying nails into a crowd of shoppers and late-summer tourists on the city's main pedestrian mall.
The blasts, claimed by the Islamic militant group Hamas, killed seven people including the three bombers and struck a new blow against the peace process just as hopes were rising for its revival.
The bombers apparently positioned themselves outside three stores, close enough to make eye contact, and blew themselves up within seconds of each other.
At least 192 people, including several American tourists, were wounded in the attack, which turned the bustling Ben Yehuda Street walkway of cafes and shops into a chaotic nightmare of broken glass and blood. The dead included a 12-year-old girl.
"There were three of us talking, and suddenly I heard an explosion," said Bob Helfman of Detroit, who was sitting at a cafe when the attack began.
"I tried to get up, realizing it was a
"I tried to get up, r bomb, but my feet could not even support me, and I fell over. Then I heard another bomb, and everyone started running. No one knew which direction to go in."
With sirens wailing and a charred smell in the air, rescue workers treated some victims on the sidewalk, surrounded by overturned cafe chairs and umbrellas. In a
Arafat Pressured by Israel for an immediate crackdown on Islamic militants
scene that has become all too familiar in Israel, ultra-Orthodox burial squad volunteers searched for pieces of flesh in the debris.
After the blasts, Israel stepped up pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for an immediate crackdown on Islamic militants, and sealed its borders with the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A previous closure had been eased only two days earlier, ahead of the planned visit of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright next week.
That closure was imposed after a double suicide bombing in a Jerusalem market on July 30 that killed 17 people.
On the Record
A KU student's Nokia cellular phone was stolen between 4 and 5 p.m. Tuesday from the 2600 block of W. Sixth Street, Lawrence police said. The phone was valued at $100
A KU student's Jeep's dash and glove box were damaged between midnight and noon Wednesday, in the 1300 block of Ohio Street, Lawrence police said. The damage was estimated at $300.
A wooden upholstered desk chair was stolen between 8 a.m. May 1 and noon Aug. 15, from Watkins Hall, KU police said. The chair was valued at $300.
A KU student's parking permit was stolen between 12:30 and 11 a.m. Aug. 28, from lot 72, KU police said. The permit was valued at $75.
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