THE UNIVERSITY OF DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY MAY 10, 2007
NEWS
9A
>> GREENSBURG TORNADO
Travis Heying/ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Bush and White House staff are threatening to veto a proposed House bill that pay for the war through July.
Bush tours disaster site
BY BEN FELLER ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBURG — President Bush sought to lift spirits Wednesday in the wake of a killer tornado, dishing out bugs while stepping through the rubble of what was a close-knit town of 1,400.
The president said he came to Kansas to tour the wreckage in the hopes that he could "touch somebody's soul by representing our country."
"A lot of us have seen the pictures about what happened and pictures don't do it justice," said Bush, standing in the street in front of a brick one-story home with no roof. "There is a lot of destruction. Fortunately, a lot of folks had basements here in this part of the world and lived to see another day. Unfortunately, too many died." he said.
On a day that alternated between rain and sun, Bush got his first look from a helicopter that hovered over the ruins of the Kansas town that was flattened last Friday night. The tornado killed at least 11 people. It was the most punishing tornado to hit the United States in years.
On a short ride into town after his aerial tour, Bush got a rundown of the damage and the recovery from city administrator Steve Hewitt and Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. She and the White House had a spat a day ago — apparently now resolved — over whether National Guard deployments to Iraq had hampered
— over whether National Guard deployments to Iraq had hampered the government's ability to respond.
The president then went down streets now little more than a snarled mess of mud, wood, glass and wires. Roaring at up to 205 mph and spanning 1.7 miles, the tornado destroyed 95 percent of the town. Gone are almost every building, including churches, city hall and the hospital.
Bush had already ordered emergency aid for the people and business in the Greensburg area. His trip was about delivering something else — presidential empathy.
The White House sought a much more aggressive and engaged reaction to disasters since Hurricane Katrina, when 'a bungled response became a turning point in Bush's presidency.
At one point, Bush stopped at a tractor dealership, the building gutted and its expensive plows mangled.
It had been a major employer in town, and the president freely dished out hugs.
The surrounding neighborhood revealed a car stuck tail first out of the top of a house. Trees were ripped of all limbs, looking like stakes in the ground. A spray-painted sign said politely: "Please pardon our mess."
The president ambled down the road to a house with no roof, almost slipping as he picked his way across a chunk of metal on the lawn. He briefly grabbed a chain saw, ripping it into action for the cameras and other media that accompanied him.
"How are you all?" Bush asked as he moved among residents. "Stylish looking hat," he joked to a man in a green fedora.
The president spent about 20 minutes at a second house, where he listened to survivors. It was there that he addressed reporters for his only public words of the day. For his backdrop, a yellow crane in the home's driveway suspended an American flag while the trees in the front lawn had metal and plastic debris — including a giant upside-down tool box — wedged into what remained of their branches.
DESTRUCTION
Wildfires burn throughout nation
Blazes destroy land in Ga., Minn., Calif.
BY CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Firefighters made progress Wednesday against a wildfire blazing over Dante's View in the brush-covered hills behind the city's iconic Griffith Observatory. Animals at the Los Angeles Zoo were moved indoors, and homes were evacuated.
The 800-acre blaze in sprawling Griffith Park was just one firefighters were battling. A wildfire in northern Minnesota had already destroyed 40 homes and buildings, and brush fires in Georgia and northern Florida have charred more than 200 square miles.
Griffith Park is a mix of wilderness, cultural sites, horse and hiking trails and recreational areas set on more than 4,000 acres.
The threat to homes south of the park, where the fire erupted Tuesday afternoon, had eased and many of the residents evacuated overnight were allowed to return Wednesday.
A burned-over hillside is seen after a wildfire swept through Griffith Park in Los Angeles on Wednesday
Reed Saxon/ASSOCIATED PRESS
》LEGISLATION
Oregon offers benefits to same-sex partners State passes law to ban sexual orientation discrimination
BY BRAD CAIN ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon on Wednesday joined a growing list of states prepared to offer gay couples some of the benefits of marriage.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed legislation creating "domestic partnerships" for gays and lesbians in the state starting Jan. 1. He also signed a bill that outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation.
measures, said they would "transform our state from one of exclusion to one of complete inclusion." The measures had been attempted before but were always blocked by the Legislature until this year.
Kulongoski, a strong backer of both
The domestic partnership law will enable same-sex couples to enter into contractual relationships that carry many of the benefits offered to married couples. The other law will ban discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people in employment, housing and access to public accommodations.
So far, only Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry. Vermont, Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Maine and Washington have laws allowing either civil unions or domestic partnerships, and Hawaii extends certain rights to same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual pairs. The New Hampshire Legislature also recently approved a civil unions measure that Gov. John Lynch said he will sign.
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Indictment brought in'65 killing
BY PHILLIP RAWLS ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARION, Ala. — A grand jury returned a sealed indictment Wednesday in the shooting death of a black man by a state trooper 42 years ago — a killing that set in motion the historic civil rights protests in Selma and led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
District Attorney Michael Jackson said the charge and the identity of the person indicted would not be made public until the indictment is served, which could take a few days.
It took the grand jury only two hours to return the indictment in the slaying of 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot by Trooper James Bonard Fowler during a 1965 civil rights protest that turned into a melee. The case was little-known as a civil rights-era cold case but had major historical consequences. Fowler, now 73, was the target of the investigation and had said he expected to be indicted. He contended he fired in self-defense after Jackson grabbed his gun from his holster. Calls to his home and his lawyer were not returned Wednesday.
The indictment is the latest in a series of civil rights-era cases across the South that have been resurrected for prosecution after lying dormant for decades. In recent years, prosecutors have won convictions in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls and in the 1964 killings of three civil rights volunteers near Philadelphia, Miss.
In light of those cases, people in Alabama began to call for a new examination of Jackson's death. Michael Jackson, who was elected in 2004 as the first black district attorney in the Selma and Marion district and is no relation to limnie Lee Jackson, said he acted on these calls.
pictures left of what happened. The district attorney, however, said he had "strong witnesses."
Willie Martin, 74, who was at the 1965 rally and appeared before the grand jury, said he was glad to see action taken after 42 years.
Some of those who were in Marion on the night of the shooting are dead, as are two FBI agents who originally investigated Jackson's death. News reporters were also beaten during the melee, with no
"They kept it smothered down. We didn't have nobody to represent us back then," he said.
Fowler was among a contingent of law officers sent to Marion on the night of Feb. 18, 1965. According to witnesses, about 500 people were marching from a church toward the city jail to protest the jailing of a civil rights worker when the street lights went out. Troopers contended the crowd refused orders to disperse. Soon law officers began swinging billy clubs, while marchers fled.
A group of protesters ran into Mack's Cafe, pursued by troopers. The cafe operator said 82-year-old Cager Lee was clubbed, along with his daughter, Viola Jackson, whose son, Limnie Lee Jackson, was shot trying to help them.
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