The World in Brief (1/10/06)

12 die in helicopter crash; 5 Marines killed in western Iraq

Dogen Hannah, Knight… 12 die in helicopter crash; 5 Marines killed in western Iraq

Dogen Hannah, Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Sunday, the U.S. military announced a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in northern Iraq, killing all 12 people aboard, and five Marines were killed in western Iraq.

The helicopter went down shortly before midnight Saturday in a sparsely populated area about seven miles east of Tal Afar. It was one of two helicopters traveling between bases in northern Iraq on a stormy night.

“This was a night operation under adverse weather, but we’re not going to speculate on the cause,” said Capt. William Roberts Jr., spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq.

Flight records indicated that four crewmembers and eight passengers were aboard. All were U.S. citizens, but it was not yet known if all were military personnel, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, another coalition spokesman.

“They’re just being identified,” Johnson said.

Collegians displaced by Katrina gear up for return

Kavita Kumar, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

When Alicia Houston returns to college to finish her senior year, the St. Louis resident will move into a hotel where she also will likely take most of her classes.

The Hilton Riverside Hotel in New Orleans will become Dillard University’s temporary residence. That’s where many of Houston’s friends and professors will be, too. Some, though, have chosen not to return after Hurricane Katrina flooded classrooms, tore off roofs and uprooted trees on Dillard’s picturesque campus.

Houston spent the fall semester at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Like most of the 300-plus hurricane-displaced college students who took refuge at schools in and around St. Louis, she’s gearing up to return to New Orleans despite damaged campuses and cuts in programs and faculty.

Why is Houston so excited and eager to return to school in a hotel?

“You know you’re going to go back to a family,” she said.

Many displaced students are leaving with feelings of gratitude toward their host institutions in St. Louis, especially because schools such as UMSL and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville waived tuition for them. Other students, however, are departing with sore feelings toward schools such as St. Louis University and Washington University, which charged them tuition.

DeLay steps down permanently as House majority leader

James Kuhnhenn, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Tom DeLay, the pugnacious Texas Republican dogged by ethics complaints, stepped down permanently as House majority leader Saturday, the first political casualty of a blossoming Washington lobbying scandal.

Maintaining that he has “always acted in an ethical manner,” DeLay nonetheless told House Republican lawmakers in a letter that he was permanently stepping down because “I cannot allow our adversaries to divide and distract our attention.”

DeLay was forced to step down temporarily as leader in September when he was indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges that he broke state campaign finance laws. But the final straw came last week when Jack Abramoff, a once-powerful Republican lobbyist with close ties to DeLay, pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

DeLay reached his decision Saturday in Texas, a day after two House Republicans initiated a drive to keep DeLay from reclaiming his leadership post and to hold elections to replace him permanently.

DeLay will keep a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which distributes government money, and plans to run for re-election.

Do ants hold key to drug resistance?

Susanne Rust, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE – Some ants, it seems, are packing more than your picnic lunch.

According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a particular tribe of ants, known as attine ants, have pockets throughout their thick, outer armor crammed full of antibiotic-producing bacteria. They use these bacteria to kill off a parasitic fungus that could destroy their way of being.

And according to Cameron Currie, a University of Wisconsin bacteriologist, the ants, the bacteria they cultivate and the fungus they fear have been in a stalemate for millions of years. This prompts the question: How come the fungus has not evolved to resist this particular strain of bacteria? This question could trigger insights into the battle against antibiotic-resistant strains of disease.

The research was published last week in the journal Science.

Attine ants, which include New World leaf cutters, appear to depend on a particular kind of fungus to live. They grow and cultivate farms of friendly fungi, which provide them with nourishment and shelter; the queen and larvae feed exclusively off the fungal garden.

The ants tend to the garden like good farmers: weeding, fertilizing and providing nourishment to their fungal fields. In return, the fungi benefits from the ants’ meticulous care.

Retired detective’s death tied to Ground Zero cleanup, union says

Robert F. Moore, New York Daily News

NEW YORK – A retired New York City police detective, who worked more than 450 hours at Ground Zero, died Thursday from brain and respiratory complications that his family insists were linked to the World Trade Center cleanup.

While autopsy results are pending, union officials maintain James Zadroga’s death is the first post-Sept. 11 death of a city officer linked to hazardous material from Ground Zero.

“Our detective is a hero,” said Mike Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association. “He had a disregard for his own health and life and tried to save others.”

In a letter Zadroga wrote about a year after the terror attacks, he described his deteriorating health – including a constant cough and sore throat.

“No one cares at the job,” he wrote. “They tell me I’m fine, go back to work. But, truthfully, I haven’t felt this bad in my life. … And what thanks do I get now that I’m sick?”

Police officials said Zadroga, 34, was given a tax-free disability pension of three-quarters pay in 2004. His pension was the result of a pulmonary disease related to Sept. 11, a police official said.

After leaving the department, Zadroga was responsible for his own medical bills.