6A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
CRIME
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This frame grab taken from security video released by the FBI and provided to The Oklahoman shows people moving through a nearby building shortly after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The tapes were obtained by an attorney and provided to The Oklahoman, the newspaper reported Sunday.
Tape shows aftermath of Oklahoma City bombing
BY TIM TALLEY Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday.
"The real story is what's missing," said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Act as part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.
Trentadue gave copies of the tapes to The Oklahoman newspaper, which posted them online and provided copies to The Associated Press.
The tapes turned over by the FBI came from security cameras various companies had mounted outside office buildings near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. They are blank at points before 9:02 a.m., when a truck bomb carrying a 4,000 pound fertilizer- and-fuel-oil bomb detonated in front of the building, Trentadue said.
"Four cameras in four different locations going blank at basically the same time on the morning of April 19, 1995. There ain't no such thing as a coincidence," Trentadue said.
He said government officials claim the security cameras did not record the minutes before the bombing because "they had run out of tape" or "the tape was being replaced."
"The interesting thing is they spring back on after 9:02," he said.
"The absence of footage from
these crucial time intervals is evidence that there is something there that the FBI doesn't want anybody to see."
A spokesman for the FBI in Oklahoma City, Gary Johnson, declined to comment and referred inquiries about the tapes to FBI officials in Washington, who were not immediately available for comment Sunday.
The soundless recordings show people rushing from nearby buildings after the bomb went off. Some show people fleeing through corridors cluttered with debris. None show the actual explosion that ripped through the federal building.
The FBI in the past refused to release the security camera recordings, leading Trentadue and others to contend the government.
FBI agents did not report finding any security tapes from the federal building itself.
MARINE LIFE
A swim toward recovery
U.S. considers removing humpback whales from endangered list
The tail of a humpback whale is seen off the coast of Hawaii. The government is considering taking humpback whales off the endangered species list in response to data showing recovery.
BY AUDREY MCAVOY
"I don't know where the humpback people are going to come out," said David Cottingham, who
Associated Press
A panel of scientists will then study the data and produce a scientific report on their analysis in late spring or early summer. It's unclear what the decision on delisting the humpback will be.
HONOLULU — The federal government is considering taking the humpback whale off the endangered species list in response to data showing the population of the massive marine mammal has been steadily growing in recent decades.
Known for their acrobatic leaps from the sea and complex singing patterns, humpback whales were nearly hunted to extinction for their oil and meat by industrial-sized whaling ships well through the middle of the 20th century. But the species has been bouncing back since an international ban on their commercial whaling in 1966.
Public comment is being accepted until Oct. 13 on the upcoming review, which is expected to take less than a year. It's the first review for humpbacks since 1999.
"Humpbacks by and large are an example of a species that in most places seems to be doing very well, despite our earlier efforts to exterminate them," said Phillip Clapham, a senior whale biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The government is required by law to review the endangered species status of an animal or plant if it receives "significant new information." The National Marine Fisheries Service, a NOAA agency, received results last year from an extensive study showing that the North Pacific humpback population has been growing 4 to 7 percent a year in recent decades.
heads the marine mammal and sea turtle conservation division at the Fisheries Service. "It would be premature to talk about it."
Some environmental groups are already opposing the possibility of a delisting.
Miyoko Sakashita, the ocean programs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that ongoing climate change and ocean acidification are emerging threats that may hurt humpback whales.
"Ocean conditions are changing so rapidly right now that it would probably be hasty to delist the humpbacks," Sakashita said.
Ralph Reeves, who chairs the cetacean specialist group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, said the U.S. should remove humpbacks from the list if populations have sufficiently recovered.
He said conservationists must "be prepared and willing to embrace success" if they're to maintain what he called a "meanfulg" endangered species program.
"The whole process, the credibility of it, depends on telling people that things are really bad when they're really bad and tell people that they aren't so bad when they aren't so bad," Reeves said.
There are now an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 humpbacks in the North Pacific, up from just 1,400 in the mid-1960s.
An early 1990s survey of humpbacks in the North Atlantic showed the population there was some 10,600. The results of a follow-up to that study, expected by the end of the year, are likely to show this population has grown, too.
The global humpback population is estimated to be about 60,000, according to the Swiss-based Conservation of Nature union.
STATE
Helping the humpbacks is that they reproduce once every two to three years, as opposed to every three to five years for other whale species. They also have a diverse diet, including krill and herring, capelin and other fish.
"They feed on a lot of different kinds of things, so they're adaptable," Clapham said. "They seem to be a resilient species generally with a lot of options."
There are some subpopulations of humpbacks, however, that aren't as robust. A South Pacific group that feeds in the Antarctic and then migrates to the warm waters off New Caledonia, Samoa and Tonga to breed and calve isn't doing as well.
Kansas' budget problems could remain even after economy recovers
Associated Press
BY JOHN HANNA
TOPEKA — Budget problems are likely to linger for state government well after Kansas' economy starts to recover.
Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson and the Republican-controlled Legislature are waiting to see whether revenues are strong enough in the next few months to avoid additional cuts later this year and next year. But they also must consider how the state will cope if federal stimulus dollars disappear, as expected, after 2011.
Even when healthy revenue growth returns, the state will face vexing budget issues. They include a pension system for teachers and government workers with serious long-term funding issues and a potential lawsuit over education funding.
The sense of scarcity — and the tough choices going with it — probably will remain into the next governor's term, with Parkinson planning to step aside in January 2011.
"I think for at least the next three to four years, we are going to find ourselves under a lot of pressure," said Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jay Emler.
a Lindsborg
Republican. "It will last for multiple years"
Re c ently, state officials have focused on month-to-month revenue figures for signs the economy will stabilize. Parkinson has
cuts in the current budget.
The state has seen four rounds of adjustments this year to keep the budget balanced, the last one in July.
"I think for at least the next three to four years, we are going to find ourselves under a lot of pressure."
Many Republicans are skeptical the current budget will remain balanced. GOP leaders also believe the state could face $500 million or more worth of adjustments to prevent a deficit in fiscal 2011, which
hopes revenues will meet projections closely enough to prevent
JAY EMLER Ways and Means chair
begins July 1,2010.
If they're wrong and Parkinson's optimism is vindicated, the state still faces replacing stimulus dollars in fiscal 2012. Stimulus covers cover almost $400 million worth of spending in the current budget.
And, even if the stimulus weren't an issue, pressure on the state's finances would
build anyway, as events last week showed.
One source of pressure is the public
One source of Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. At the end of last year, the gap between projected income and expenses over the next 25 years was $8.3 billion.
A University of Kansas report
ernorm workers, and away from plans that guarantee benefits up front, regardless of the pension
"We still have to make up for that lack of funding that wasn't put in there in the past."
DENNIS PHILLIPS
Retired Topeka fire chief
or Kansas report declared KPERS "bankrupt."
Many state officials think that's overstating the case, and an improved economy is likely to shrink the gap as KPERS investment earnings recover. But a multibillion-dollar shortfall is likely to-main unless the state acts.
The report suggested moving toward 401(k)-style plans for gov-
system's ultimate ability to pay.
Without fundamental reform, the report said, the state is doomed to pour ever-greater amounts of tax dollars into KPERS — and probably to raising taxes.
But State Treasurer Dennis McKinney.
a Democrat who serves on the KPERS Board of Trustees, said new pension plans will require startup funds. And, he said, the state still will be required to fund the old plans because employees can't be forced by law to give them up.
But if McKinney and other critics of the University of Kansas report don't see the need to overhaul KPERS, they do see a need for the state to deal with the long-term funding gap.
"We still have to make up for that lack of funding that wasn't put in there in the past," said Dennis Phillips, a retired Topeka fire chief who is now chairman of a retirees coalition.
Meanwhile, rumblings about school finance last week came from a meeting Dodge City and Liberal school officials had with Wichita attorney Alan Rupe and fellow attorneys who've sued the state successfully before.
The previous lawsuit was filed in 1999, and Kansas Supreme Court orders in 2005 and 2006 forced dramatic increases in aid to public schools.
With its budget problems this year, the state backtracked and cut base aid to schools almost 5 percent.
www.ContinuingEd.ku.edu (keyword: testprep)·785-864-5823
Major in communications.
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