8A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2008
》 LAWRENCE
Lawrence Parks and Recreation employees and Street Department employees clean up Massachusetts Street Sunday morning following the Jayhawks' 84-66 Final Four victory against the Tar Heels Saturday. Throngs of fans flooded Mass. Street to celebrate Kansas' trip to the championship game. Parks and Recreation employees cleaned up Mass. Street in three shifts: before the event began, during the celebration and Sunday morning.
Victory celebration spills onto Mass. Street
BY CALEB SOMMERVILLE
cssommerville@kansan.com
It was the morning after.
The smell of beer wafted, and a loud roar echoed up and down Massachusetts Street after the lajvahwaks beat the Tarheels 84-66
in Saturday's Final Four game. But the smell came from beer that was spilled all over the street and the loud roar came from a street sweeper.
Miles, the horticulture manager for Lawrence Parks and Recreation, said there was a lot of stuff to pick up.
Twelve Parks and Rec. employees and two Street Department employees cleaned up Mass. Street in three shifts; before the event began, during the celebration and Sunday morning.
@ KANSAN.COM
Photo galleries of Mass. Street celebration and its aftermath
The huge parade of students and fans left a lot behind. Crystal
The hardest shift came at 6 a.m. on Sunday. The crew used leaf blowers and trash grabbers to clean up the mess.
Miles was surprised at the amount of trash.
"It's enormous. I can't even
describe it." Miles said.
Tulips and daffodils that were planted for spring were trampled.
Miles said the plastic cups, beer cans and beer bottles. She estimated it would take two or three street sweeper loads and a few loads of the trash truck to clean up all the garbage.
"It's enormous. I can't even describe it."
CRYSTAL MILES
Horticulture Manager
Lawrence Parks and Recreation
The strangest thing the crew found were bolts from a pickup truck bed.
Miles said the crew guessed the bed was overloaded and may have been damaged.
Each street sweeper holds about three to four cubic yards.
Miles said only flower beds were completely destroyed Saturday night.
Edited by Daniel Reyes
Massachusetts Street was littered with trash following the post-Final Four celebration Saturday.
Caleb Sommerville/KANSAN
INTERNATIONAL
The French cruise ship the Le Ponant sailing in an unknown location. Pirates seized control of a French cruise ship carrying 30 crew members Friday, in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia, the French Foreign Ministry and the ship's owner said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Luxury liner hijacked off coast of Somalia
BY SALAD DUHUL ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOGADISHU, Somalia — France has made contact with pirates who hijacked a French luxury yacht off Africa's eastern coast with 30 French and Ukrainian crew members on board, the French foreign minister said Sunday.
The hijacking comes amid a surge in piracy in the seas off the chaotic Horn of Africa nation, where a weak and impoverished government is unable to patrol its territorial waters. Pirates have seized more than two dozen ships off the country's coast in the last year.
About ten suspected pirates stormed the 288-foot Le Ponant on Friday as it was returning, without passengers, from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France-Inter radio that France was in contact with the pirates.
"We have to do everything to avoid bloodshed," Kouchner said.
France's prime minister said Saturday that he hoped to avoid force in freeing the crew but that no options had been ruled out.
A French diplomat working on the case said the hostages were
being treated well. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.
Somalia — wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy
does not have its own navy, its armed forces are poorly paid and a transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control. The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. But an increase in naval patrols has coincided with a rash of kidnappings of foreigners on land.
Late Sunday, Islamic militants took possession of Balad, a town 18 miles north of Mogadishu, said resident Abdi Ibrahim. It is the ninth town they have taken in the past few months.
The insurgency, bandits and clan militias all contribute to the insecurity. Two U.N. contractors are currently being held hostage in the south of the country and several aid workers and a French journalist have been seized in the past few months.
The International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy, said in its annual report earlier this year that global pirate attacks rose 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years.
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