4A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY MARCH 29, 2007
EVOLUTION (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Institute of Politics, invited Humes to speak last November about his book, "Over Here: How the G. I. B. Transformed the American Dream". When Humes mentioned "Monkey Girl" to Lacy, he was invited to speak because of the topic's relevance to the area.
Lacy said Humes tries to take people into worlds they are unfamiliar with by showing different perspectives fairly.
"He's carved his own little niche and has been clever about it" he said.
Frie Bloom, 28-year-old Lawrence resident, said he was intrigued by Humes and the topic he presented.
"Two blocks from my house is a Pulitzer Prize author giving a speech for free - you can't get much better than that," he said.
Humes, who has written seven books, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for specialized reporting about the United States Military.
Bloom said he thinks beliefs are heavily determined by age and level of education.
"The story never really ends," Humes said. "It evolves."
CRIME
— Edited by Mark Vierthaler
Kansan staff writer Brian Lewis-Jones can be contacted at bljones@kansan.com.
Credit card numbers stolen from T.J. Maxx, Marshalls
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON — At least 45.7 million credit and debit card numbers of TIX Cos. customers were stolen from the discount retailer's computer system over several years, according to a regulatory filing by the company Wednesday.
The filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the first detailed account of the breach that the company initially disclosed in January.
It also said another 455,000 customers who returned merchandise without receipts had their personal data stolen, including driver's license numbers.
TJX owns T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and other stores in North America and the United Kingdom.
TJX spokeswoman Sherry Lang did not immediately return a telephone message from The Associated Press seeking comment late Wednesday.
But Lang told The Boston Globe, which first reported the filing Wednesday night, that about 75 percent of the compromised cards either were expired
or had data in the magnetic stripe masked, meaning the data was stored as asterisks, rather than numbers.
Lang said the extent of the damage may never be known because of the methods used by the intruder as well as file deletions made by TJX in the normal course of business.
"There's a lot we may never know and it's one of the difficulties of this investigation," Lang said. "It's why this has taken this long and why it's been so tedious. It's painstaking."
Avivah Litan, vice president of research and advisory company Gartner Inc., told the Globe the TJX breach is "the biggest card heist ever."
"This was obviously done over a long period of time, in many locations," she said. "It's done considerable damage."
Police charged six people in Florida last week with using credit card numbers stolen from a TIX database to buy about $1 million in merchandise with gift cards.
In Wednesday's filing, TIX said for the first time that Dec.
18. 2006, was the date it first learned that there was suspicious software on its computer system.
TJX said it believes hackers invaded its systems in July 2005, on later dates in 2005 and also from mid-May 2006 to mid-January 2007. The company said no customer information was stolen after Dec. 18, one day before it hired General Dynamics Corp. and IBM Corp. to investigate. By Dec. 21, those investigators determined that the computer systems had been intruded and that an intruder remained on the systems.
TIX said it notified federal authorities Dec. 22, and on Jan. 3. TIX officials and Secret Service agents met with banks and payment card and check processing companies to discuss the computer intrusion.
Framingham-based TJX is facing an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and lawsuits from individuals and banks accusing it of failing to do enough to safeguard private data and of delaying disclosure of the problem.
FIRE
Smoke pours from the top of a high-rise building, just west of the Chicago River, Wednesday in downtown Chicago. Firefighters said the roof top blaze did not endanger the occupants.
Charles Rex Arbogast/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Small blaze scares occupants
BY NATHAN HERNANDEZ
ASSOCIATED 9856
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO — Fire broke out on the roof of a 45-story office building Wednesday, sending some workers fleeing into the downtown streets.
Firefighters contained the flames to equipment on the roof and said the blaze posed no danger to occupants. It was extinguished in two hours and damaged only the building's exterior.
evacuation, but assisted people who wanted to come out.
Authorities did not call for an
District Fire Chief Gregory Lewis would not discuss a possible cause, saying it was under investigation.
Two people who descended the stairs were hospitalized for exhaustion, Lewis said. Emergency workers were checking other people as a precaution.
The building, just west of the Chicago River, has several commercial tenants, an Italian restaurant, a parking garage and a child care center Several children were led out of the building shortly after the smoke was reported.
Some workers in the building complained that they didn't get enough information.
The fire department used the building's intercom to tell workers to find a "safe place, but they didn't say what that safe place was," Geoff Hall said after walking down 16 flights of stairs.
"In my view, the only safe place is home?" Hall said.
》 CHILD WELFARE
Three abandoned babies linked to same mother
BY GARANCE BURKE ASSOCIATED PRESS
This week, DNA tests established all three babies were almost certainly born to the same mother.
OROSI, Calif. — The first newborn was discovered swaddled in a blanket on a park bench, an umbilical cord still hanging from his tiny body. Then, at neat 11-month intervals, two more abandoned babies were found in parked pickup trucks in the same neighborhood.
Now, in a heartbreaking mystery that has transfixed this central California farm community of 7,300, investigators are trying to find the mother and figure out what drove her to such desperate lengths.
"How can the relatives not see this girl pregnant, and then see that she's not pregnant anymore and not ask where's the baby? Somebody must know something," said Hortencia Espino, 81.
All three newborns were found within a two-block radius. The first two - a boy and a girl - survived and are now wards of the state.
Later, under the shade of a corrugated plastic awning, sheriff's officials and grandmothers delicately sited handfuls of dirt onto her white coffin before it was lowered into the earth.
On Wednesday, a Catholic church held a baptism and funeral Mass in Spanish and English for the baby girl, who was dubbed "Angelita DeOrosi" or Orosis' little angel.
The third baby was found dead of exposure on the cold night of Dec. 3. She was enveloped in a sweatshirt in the bed of a pickup parked near the high school, some 60 miles southeast of Fresno. The coroner concluded she was alive for less than a day.
Marely Pena, who found the infant in her father's truck, cried behind dark glasses.
"I ask myself every day what if she had been alive. We could have saved her," said Pena, 25. "I just hope the mother comes forward to please just make us feel at ease."
Orosi, a town encircled by fig and lemon orchards, has long been the kind of place where everyone seemed to know each other. But that is changing, with new housing
As upset residents built make-shift shrines in honor of Angelita, authori- ties interviewed local women
developments going up and a burgeoning gang problem that has led to a rise in violent crime.
"How can the relatives not see this girl's pregnant, and then see that she's not anymore and not ask where's the baby?"
On Monday, sheriff's officials
After exhausting all leads, officials are asking the community for help finding the parents and are offering a $5,000 reward. Police said the mother could face criminal charges. But they also said they want to make sure she doesn't do it again and isn't in some kind of distress.
physical state of danger or a mental state where she feels she can't ask for help, our heart goes out to her;" Karen Franzen, manager of Dopkins Funeral Chapel in Dinuba, which donated a casket and cemetery plot for Angela.
HORTENCIA ESPINO Orosi, Calif., resident
they thought might be involved. But DNA testing eliminated them as the babies' mother.
The first deserted newborn was found on Feb. 10, 2005, a barely breathing boy with a body temperature of just 85 degrees. On January 8, 2006, a resident discovered a full-term baby girl inside a pickup two blocks away, clothed in an under-shirt and pants.
Investigators would not speculate as to the reasons for the abandonment, such as whether the mother might have been a prostitute or a rape victim.
"Whether the mother is in a
It's official announced the DNA results. The first two babies probably had the same father, but Angelita was fathered by a different man.
Californiaand 46 other states allow parents to legally abandon
a child at a hospital or other designated safe zones within 72 hours of birth, no questions asked.
Since California's law went into effect in 2001, parents have safely surrendered 182 babies at fire stations, emergency rooms and other safe havens, according to state officials.
“This little community is a family. We know pretty much everyone else's business and they know ours," said Eugene Etheridge, principal of Orosi High School. "It's concerning that this could happen again when the most precious thing we have is our children."
KU Majors Fair What Will You Choose?
- Find a Major - Add a Minor
- Discover What You Can Do With Your Major
Wednesday, March 28, 11am-2pm Thursday, March 29, 10am-1pm Kansas Union, 4th Floor Lobby
Presented by:
Presented by: Sponsored by: The Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center Contributing to Student Success! Coca-Cola