6A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2007
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>> WEATHER DISASTER
Eric Gav/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ricardo Tijerina, center, and his family are escorted by a border patrol agent to his home in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday. A tornado swept through the area Tuesday night, killing at least 10 people.
Storms claim 11 victims
Tornadoes kills 10 in Texas; lightning kills one in Louisiana
BY MICHELLE ROBERTS ASSOCIATED PRESS
EAGLE PASS, Texas — Dozens of search and rescue crews scoured the mangled remains of houses and trailer homes Wednesday for more victims of tornadoes that killed at least 10 people in this border community and its Mexican neighbor. An 11th victim died in Louisiana.
Twisters cut across a nearly 4-square-mile area in a rural community southeast of Eagle Pass on Tuesday night, destroying two empty elementary schools, a church, business and homes. Several mobile homes were still missing Wednesday as searchers with dogs went lot to lot.
A family of five — a girl, her parents and two other relatives was killed when the winds blew their mobile home across the street and slammed it into Rosita Valley Elementary School.
"It was a whole family, and they were all together, probably like they were wuddling," said police officer Ezekiel Navjas, who arrived Tuesday night just as crews were pulling from the wreckage the body of the girl, believed to be about 5 years old.
"I've never seen nothing like this," he said, shaking his head as he walked down a dirt road lined with homes cut in half like doll houses and mesquite treetops torn from their trunks.
Across the Rio Grande in Piedras Negras, three people were killed and 300 homes were damaged. About 1,000 people sought refuge in shelters in Piedras Negras, where 32 people were killed by a tornado three years ago.
One of the dead was found in a house, and the other died after being taken to a San Antonio hospital, authorities said. More than 80 others were injured, and at least four remained in critical condition Wednesday.
Neither Eagle Pass nor Piedras Negras had a siren warning system like those used to help people evacuate ahead of the same storm when it flooded streets and peeled roofs off homes in North Texas. No injuries were reported there.
Lightning was blamed for an 11th death Wednesday as the huge weather system plowed through the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. The bolt started a fire near Shreveport, La., that killed a 101-year-old man,
authorities and the man's family said.
The sprawling front also spun of tornadoes Tuesday in Oklahoma and Colorado, caused flooding in Iowa and Nebraska and piled snow more than a foot deep in the Rockies.
About 350 residents from Eale Pass were in shelters and were begged from their homes until rescels could complete their search of the area. Search teams made up of peace, firefighters, Border Patrol agent and National Guard soldiers were piking their way through homes, knocking on doors, calling out to residents and marking searched buildings with spray paint.
Eagle Pass resident Becardo Tijerina, who rode out the wisters with his six children in a hove near the school, said he saw the reather roll in and expected a typical spring storm.
"I saw some clouds, but never imagined it was going to *so* that bad," said Tijerina, whose children, ages 5 to 15, crowded under their beds while he watched a neighbor's trailer roll off its foundation.
The tornado hit near Eagl Pass around 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
BUSINESS
Delta Air to exit bankruptcy Company expected to be worth $9.4 billion to $12 billion
BY VINNEE TONG ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — A federal bank-ruptcys judge approved on Wednesday a Delta Air Lines plan to exit bank-ruptcys after the nation's third-largest airline spent nearly 20 months in a wrenching reorganization that cut 6,000 jobs and slashed $3 billion in costs.
More than 95 percent of creditors voted to endorse the plan for Delta to leave bankruptcy as a stand alone carrier. That plan had been put in jeopardy by a $9.8 billion hostile takeover bid launched last fall by Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group Inc. Delta successfully persuaded creditors to back its blueprint to emerge from bankruptcy
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. expects to emerge from court protection Monday. It estimates it will be worth $9.4 billion to $12 billion, after Delta reduced labor costs, restructured its fleet and terminated a pilots pension plan.
and reject the buyout offer.
Now that it is leaving court protection, Delta may sell off its regional carrier subsidiary, Erlanger, Ky-based Comair, which has received poor marks for lost baggage and flight delays.
Delta's board will also choose a successor to Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein, who plans to retire. Grinstein, who is 74, has said the two leading internal candidates are Chief Financial Officer Ed Bastian and Chief Operating Officer James Whitehurst.
Delta will celebrate its emergence Monday in Atlanta. Shares in the reorganized Delta, with the ticker symbol DAL, are scheduled to begin trading again next Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Delta's reorganization plan will give unsecured creditors between 62 percent and 78 percent of the value of their allowed claims as shares of new Delta stock.
The company's existing stock, which will be worthless, continued
to trade until the court's approval of the plan.
Since then, passengers on all airlines have experienced growing flight delays as staffs are rimmed and fares go up, driven by rising fuel costs. While in bankruptcy, Delta had expanded its international flights and will continue growing that part of the business, focusing on John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Since January 2001, the company has lost a total of more than $18 billion. In recent months, hough, Delta's financial situation has improved, with the company projecting a 2007 pretax profit of $816 million, excluding special charges and reorganization costs.
Delta entered Chapter 11b in Sept. 14,2005, amid high fuel pices and the burdens of soaring loor and retirement benefits expense.
Next week, 39,000 Delta employees are expected to receivecash and new stock in Delta wortha total of $480 million.
》 SCHOLARSHIP
Investigation questioned by faculty
BY PAULA PANT COLORADO DAILY
BOULDER, Colo. — Nine professors, seven from the University of Colorado, allege the university's investigation of professor Ward Churchill was "shoddy" and are asking CU to retract its findings.
Last year a faculty investigation found Churchill plagiarized and misrepresented some academic work.
But this week an ad hoc group of professors sent CU an open letter stating "we have found the [investigative] report to contain violations
of standard scholarly practice that are so serious we are considering filling charges of research misconduct against the authors of the report."
But some faculty say Churchill didn't "misrepresent" history; he provided an alternate point of view.
Churchill was charged with plagiarism and scholarly misrepresentation of historic events.
The investigative report was based on flawed sources, didn't include
"That's part of what we do in the academy, we debate each other," said CU ethnic studies associate professor Emma Perez.
reputable independent sources, and suppressed text that contradicted its conclusion, the nine faculty allege.
The investigation into the investigation (which led to the reportabout the report) began when Cornell University professor Eric Cleyfitz "looked at the 124-page [investigative] report and was appalledat the egregious errors and flaws," Perez said.
When University of Kansas associate professor Michael Yellow Bird came to the same conclusion a CU faculty group decided to weigh in.