THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS MANAGEMENT
Editor-in-chief Hannah Wise
Managing editors Sarah McCabe Nikki Wentling
Business manager Elise Farrington
ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT
Sales manager Jacob Snider
NEWS SECTION EDITORS
News editor
Allison Kohn
Associate news editor Joanna Hlavacek
Sports editor Pat Strathman
Associate sports editor Trevor Graff
Entertainment and special sections editor Laken Rapier
Copy chiefs
Megan Hinman
Taylor Lewis
Brian Sisk
Design chiefs
Ryan Benedick
Katie Kutsko
Designers Trey Conrad Sarah Jacobs
Opinion editor
Dylan Lysen
Photo editor Ashleigh Lee
ADVISERS
Web editor
Natalie Parker
PAGE 2
General manager and news adviser Malcolm Gibson
Sales and marketing adviser
Jon Schlitt
Contact Us
editor@kansan.com
www.kansan.com
Newsroom: (785)-766-1491
Advertising: (785) 864-4358
Twitter: UDK_News
Facebook: facebook.com/thekansar
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of The Kansan are 50 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at the Kansan business office, 2051A Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS, 66045.
The University Daily Karen (ISSN 0746-4967) is published daily during the school year except Saturday, Sunday, fall break, spring break and exams and weekly during the summer session, excluding holidays. Annual subscriptions by mail are $25 plus tax. Send address changes to The University Karen. 2015A Dole Human Development Center, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue.
KANSAN MEDIA PARTNERS
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2000 Dole Human Development Center
1000 Sunnyside Avenue Lawrence, Kan.
66045
What's the weather, Jay?
weather.com
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2013
HI: 37
L0: 20
Morning snow showers. Wind NW at 13 mph.
Wednesday
HI: 37
LO: 17
Mostly cloudy with a 10 percent chance of precipitation.
HI: 35
LO: 23
Cloudy with a 10 percent chance of precipitation.
Thursday
Friday
The groundhog was wrong.
Good day for sledding.
In like a lion?
Tuesday. Feb. 26
CALENDAR
WHAT: The Buried Life
WHERE: 120 Budig Hall
WHEN: 7 to 9 p.m.
ABOUT: The stars of the MTV show will present an interactive lecture focused on the question, "What do you want to do before you die?" Admission is free with a Student Saver Card and $2 with KU ID.
**WHAT:** Langston Hughes Visiting Professor Lecture
**WHERE:** Kansas Union, Kansas Room
**WHEN:** 3:30 p.m.
**ABOUT:** Visiting professor of English David G. Holmes of Pepperdine University will discuss the civil rights movement.
Wednesday, Feb. 27
**WHAT:** Student Senate Legislative Committee
**WHERE:** Kansas Union
**WHEN:** 6 to 8 p.m.
**ABOUT:** Prospective bills must first go through the legislative cycle. Committee meetings are open to all students.
WHERE: Budig Media Lab
WHEN: 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
ABOUT: Are you a budding Spielberg
but don't know how put a video
together? This workshop will teach
you the basics of the Final Cut Pro X
editing program.
WHAT: Final Cut Pro X: The Fundamentals
**WHAT:** Central American Film Showcase: "La Yuma"
**WHERE:** 100 Stauffer-Flint Hall
**WHEN:** 7 to 9:30 p.m.
**ABOUT:** This film tells the story of Yuma, a poor but determined girl who aspires to be a boxer.
Thursday, Feb. 28
**WHAT:** SUA's Chili Recipe Contest
**WHERE:** Kansas Union lobby, level 4
**WHEN:** 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
**ABOUT:** See judges award contest winners on the best student-submitted chili recipes. The winner will receive a $100 prize.
Friday, March 1
NATIONAL
WHAT: Cirque de Legume by Jamie Carswell
WHERE: Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire St.
WHEN: 7:30 to 9 p.m.
ABOUT: Enjoy this one-night show at the Lawrence Arts Center performed by University alam Jamie Carswell's Irish comedy troupe.
WHAT: Application for graduation
WHERE: All University
WHEN: All day
Trial begins regarding BP oil spill
ABOUT. Make sure to apply today if you plan to graduate this spring.
NEW ORLEANS — With billions of dollars at stake, the trial to figure out how much more BP and other companies should pay for the nation's worst offshore oil spill began Monday with the federal government saying the oil giant was mostly to blame for a disaster caused by putting profits ahead of safety.
Justice Department attorney Mike Underhill said BP PLG, which leased the rig and owned the blown-out Macondo well, said the disaster resulted from the London-based company's "culture of corporate recklessness."
"The evidence will show that BP put profits before people, profits before safety and profits before the environment," Underhill said during opening statements.
Eleven workers died when the rig exploded April 20, 2010, and millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing the case without a jury and — barring a settlement — will decide months from now how much more money BP and other companies involved in the ill-fated drilling project owe for their roles in the environmental catastrophe.
Attorney Jim Roy, who represents individuals and businesses
"Despite BP's attempts to shift the blame to other parties," Underhill said, "by far the primary fault for this disaster belongs to BP"
hurt by the spill, said BP executives applied "huge financial pressure" on its drilling managers to "cut costs and rush the job." The project was more than $50 million over budget and behind schedule at the time of the blowout, Roy said.
"BP repeatedly chose speed over safety," Roy said, quoting from a report by an expert who may test later.
Brad Brian, a lawyer for rig owner Transocean Ltd., said the Swiss-based drilling company had an experienced, well-trained crew on the rig. Brian said the Transocean workers' worst mistake may have been
the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig failed to properly train its crew, calling it a "chronic problem allowed by Transocean management to go uncorrected."
"The work force was not always aware of the hazards they were exposed to," Roy said. "They don't know what they don't know."
Roy also said Halliburton deserved some of the blame for
"Despite BP's attempts to shift the blame to other parties,by far the primary fault for this disaster belongs to BP."
MIKE UNDERHILL Justice Department Attorney
placing too much trust in the BP rig supervisors on the rig.
Roy said the spill also resulted from rig owner Transocean Ltd.'s "woofe" safety culture. He said
"And they paid for that trust with their lives," Brian said. "They died not because they weren't trained properly. They died because critical information was withheld from them."
Lawyers for BP and Halliburton, the cement contractor that constructed the cement barrier to prevent oil or gas from flowing up the well, will outline their cases later Monday.
providing BP with a product that was "poorly designed, not properly tested and was unstable."
Under hill heaped blame on BP executives and onshore managers
have prevented the blast.
Underhill said Vidine and Mark Hafle, a BP engineer in Houston, discussed the test results over the phone less than an hour before the explosion but failed to take steps that could
for cost-cutting decisions they made in the months and weeks leading up the disaster. He said the primary "rig-based" cause of the blowout was a botched safety test in which two BP rig supervisors, Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidreine, disregarded abnormally high pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble.
"Instead, both men, armed with knowledge that could have saved 11 lives and prevented the Gulf oil spill, did absolutely nothing." Underhill said.
Kaluza and Vidrine have been indicted on federal manslaughter charges. Hafie hasn't been charged with wrongdoing.
BP has said it already has racked up more than $24 billion in spill-related expenses and has estimated it will pay a total of $42 billion to fully resolve its liability for the disaster.
But the trial attorneys for the federal government, Gulf states and attorneys for people and businesses hope to convince the judge that the company is liable for much more.
"In terms of sheer dollar amounts and public attention, this is one of the most complex and massive disputes ever faced by the courts," said Fordham University law professor Howard Erichson, an expert in complex litigation.
Hundreds of attorneys have worked on the case, generating roughly 90 million pages of documents, logging nearly 9,000 dockets entries and taking more than 300 depositions of witnesses who could testify at trial.
Barbier plans to hold the trial in at least two phases and may issue partial rulings at the end of each.
Associated Press
Ad Astra releases three more platforms
STUDENT SENATE
Ad Astra, the coalition opposing KUnited in the upcoming Student Senate elections, announced three additional platforms Monday via its Facebook page.
These come after three initial platforms were released last week. The three latest platforms include:
DECREASING TRANSCRIPT FEES FOR CURRENT STUDENTS
A STATE RESOLUTION TO ELIMINATE CALLE TAXES ON TECHPROWS
The coallition pledged to decrease the University fees required for sending current student transcripts for internship applications, graduate school applications and workforce applications.
Ad Astra said it will work with Kansas legislatures to eliminate sales taxes paid by all Kansas students on textbooks.
PAVILION ON THE HILL RENOVATION AND HARVEST WEEK
The coalition announced plans to renovate the pavilion overlooking Potter Lake in an effort to expand participation in Harvest Week, a fall philanthropic event started by the Greek community that raises money for local charities. The pavilion would serve as the venue for the Harvest Week concert.
The three previously disclosed platforms are locking in transfer tuition rates, improving student parking and forming a Student Senate endowment. Ad Astra's 2013 presidential and vice-presidential candidates are Marcus Tetwiller, a junior from Paola, and Emma Halling, a junior from Elkhart, Ind.
WEATHER
icy roads cause fatal accident
Marshall Schmidt
TOPEKA — The Kansas Highway Patrol says the highest blast of winter weather has claimed one life in the northwestern part of the state.
The patrol says 21-year-old Carlos Esqueda of Kansas City, Kan., died when the SUV he was driving hit an icy patch and overturned on Interstate 70 in Sherman County just before 9 a.m. Monday.
Patol superintendent Col.
Ernest Garcia says Esquada
was not wearing a seat belt. A
passenger who was buckled in
survived the crash.
Garcia spoke at an afternoon briefing where Gov. Sam Brownback and other officials urged Kanans to stay off the roads.
Garcia says a trooper working another accident in northwest Kansas escaped injury when someone struck his vehicle Monday.
Brownback says roads leading from southwest Kansas into the Oklahoma Panhandle were closed at the request of Oklahoma.
- Associated Press
REGIONAL
Explosion victims facing recovery
The University of Kansas has the area's only adult burn center. Hospital spokesman Dennis McCulloch says one person remained hospitalized Monday in critical condition. Two others were in fair condition and one in good condition.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Four people injured in a deadly natural gas explosion that destroyed a Kansas City restaurant continue recovering at a Kansas hospital.
Several other people were treated and released at other hospitals after the blast and fire leveled JJ's restaurant on the Country Club Plaza last Tuesday night. The explosion killed one person.
A Missouri Gas Energy official says a subcontractor working for a cable company hit a natural gas line with an underground borer more than an hour before the explosion.
Associated Press
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1814 W, 23rd Lawrence, KS 843-6000
Tuesday is DOUBLE Stamp Day
THE LANGSTON HUGHES VISITING PROFESSORSHIP COMMITTEE
&
The
OFFICE OF THE PROVOST
Invite you to
OCCUPY THIS: POLITICAL
Representation, Prophetic Voices, Popular Culture and the Contested Rhetorical Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement
Spring 2013 Langston Hughes Visiting Professor
A lecture presented by
DAVID HOLMES
A
Tuesday, February 26, 2013 @ 3:30 pm.
in the Kansas Room at the Kansas Union
A reception in the Malott Room will immediately follow