News in Brief

Professor’s curiosity is root of college-admissions lawsuits

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -… Professor’s curiosity is root of college-admissions lawsuits

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Philosophy professor Carl Cohen was curious about whether a national trend was happening at the University of Michigan, where he taught. Colleagues told him he would be stepping into a mess. He ignored their warning.

On Dec. 18, 1995, Cohen, filed a Freedom of Information request seeking admissions grids that appeared to show that despite lower grades and test scores, minority students were having better success getting into Michigan than whites.

For Cohen, it began a process that will put him in the U.S. Supreme Court April 1, listening intently while the controversy is presented for the nation’s ultimate arbiters of law to decide.

The court’s decision on whether Michigan’s use of race as a factor in undergraduate and law school admissions is legal is expected to have a profound effect on how universities nationwide admit students.

– Maryanne George, Knight Ridder Newspapers

Jordanian students mourned as martyrs after U.S. bombing

RAMTHA, Jordan – The connection was weak and the call was short, but Umran Sreiheen’s family heard what the caller had to say: “Your son is dead.”

Then the line disconnected.

It was another 12 hours before Sreiheen’s family got a phone call from Iraq. Their 22-year-old son was leaving Mosul University in a car with three friends when what is believed to be a U.S. missile fell on the road in front of them. The car flipped several times, killing all four.

Sreiheen was one of five Jordanians who have been killed in Iraq since the war began. The fifth, a driver named Ahmed el Bauz, died last week when a missile landed in front of his car near the Jordan-Iraq border.

The news of the students’ deaths Monday has spread throughout this country’s 5 million people and has made an already unpopular war personal.

– Nancy A. Youssef, KRT

Sealing room with duct tape and plastic could be dangerous, professor says

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Paul Mathews cringes every time he hears of the duct tape-and-plastic solution to a biochemical attack.

Covering all the holes and cracks in a room with plastic and turning off the ventilation, Mathews said, is like sticking your head (and body) inside a giant plastic bag.

“They didn’t think through this process,” said Mathews, an associate professor of respiratory care at the University of Kansas School of Allied Health. “They have everyone acting in a panic.”

– Kati Jividen, KRT

War anxieties can cause sleep loss

MIAMI – Can’t sleep because of stress over the war?

Turn off the radio and TV two hours before bedtime. Avoid alcohol. Cut back on caffeine. Give up nicotine four hours before bedtime.

If that sort of common sense doesn’t work, be tougher on yourself, sleep experts say. Turn off the cell phone, avoid heavy meals, turn the bedroom clock toward the wall and give yourself a little extra commuting time to avoid road rage.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, based in Westchester, Ill., says war anxieties can bring on any number of disorders, including insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness and difficulty falling asleep.

– Gail Meadows, KRT

More Iraqi fighters surrendering to U.S. troops

NEAR AN NAJAF, Iraq – As a U.S. Army Humvee made its way down a sandy route several miles south of here Sunday morning, seven Iraqis in dusty robes, trousers and sandals appeared on the side of the road.

Army Command Sergeant Major D. Woods jumped out of the vehicle, pointed his M9 pistol at the seven men and motioned them to get down. Prone with their hands locked behind their heads, the men allowed Woods to search them.

They had no weapons but carried military papers. Woods radioed the 101st Airborne to take them to a nearby POW holding camp.

Throughout the day, the same story repeated itself time and again. Over the weekend, the number of POWs at the camp increased from 100 to about 1,000 as desertions by scared and hungry Iraqis contributed to the attrition of Saddam Hussein’s forces.

But the increased number of desertions also has made soldiers more alert, amid reports of ambushes by Iraqi fighters pretending to surrender.

“We are suddenly seeing a drastic escalation in Iraqi soldiers and conscripted men turning themselves in,” said Capt. John Wilson of U.S. Army intelligence.

With the increase in desertions comes a higher sense of wariness. Four U.S. soldiers were killed Friday when approached by Iraqis whom they thought were turning themselves in.

“It’s up to each soldier to judge the situation and I pray they judge it correctly,” Wilson said. “We don’t want to kill Iraqis who are trying to escape but we don’t want our soldiers killed either … I worry a lot that mistakes will happen.”

– Meg Laughlin, KRT

Troops prepare to build prisons

(U-WIRE) FULLERTON, Calif. – Camp Bucca, somewhere in Southern Iraq – The 36th Engineer Group along with the 46th and 109th Engineer Battalions moved out of their camps in Kuwait on Monday and into southern Iraq. Loaded into more than half a dozen convoys totaling 400 vehicles, they left throughout the morning, beginning at 6:45 a.m. The mission of the approximately 1,000 men and women in the three units is to build a camp for Iraqi prisoners of war.

The destination of the 36th Engineer Group and 46th Engineer Battalion convoys was a location about 70 miles north of the Kuwaiti border; the sight of the future war prisoner camp to be called Camp Bucca. The camp is named after a New York City firefighter who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Capt. Brian Chapuron of the 36th Engineers said the idea of naming the camp after the fallen firefighter came from Col. Ecke of the 800th Military Police Brigade, who is a reservist and a New York City firefighter.

The 800th M.P. Brigade is the unit that will guard the Iraqi prisoners of war once they arrive. They will also provide security for the engineers while they build the camp, Chapuron said.

The camp will be built on a large, flat, desolate plain and is designed to hold several thousand Iraqi prisoners. It can be expanded if necessary. The number of prisoners it will hold will depend on circumstances.

Most of the convoys arrived in the late afternoon and quickly began to set up their large command and sleep tents to get the generators on line before night made their work much more difficult. As it was, many soldiers worked late into the night.

– Ronald Paul Larson, Daily Titan (California State U. – Fullerton)

Colorado State U. area declared a Civil Liberties Safe Zone

(U-WIRE) FORT COLLINS, Colo. -About 50 citizens began crowding the lobby of City Hall as early as 6 p.m. Tuesday in support of the “Civil Liberties Safe Zone” resolution that was passed by a 4-3 vote at 3 a.m. Wednesday.

Citizen concern with the revised resolution being debated was that it failed to make a connection between the USA PATRIOT Act and the violation of civil liberties. Other concerns included an added section that voiced support for American troops in Iraq. In addition, the revision did not state that the city would go on record opposing the USA PATRIOT Act. All of these conditions were part of the original resolution proposed by the Bill of Rights Supporters of Fort Collins.

The resolution was written in response to the 342-page USA PATRIOT Act signed into law by President Bush in late 2001. The law amends 15 laws and allows previously unconstitutional intelligence gathering, detention and deportation procedures in the hope of preventing terrorist activities.

“With regard to city observation, police officers might be asked to practice some of these provisions,” Steve Roy, city attorney, said Tuesday night to the council.

Fort Collins became the 75th city in the nation to pass such a resolution. Denver, Boulder and Telluride are among other Colorado cities to have recently passed a similar resolution.

– Kristy Fenton, Rocky Mountain Collegian (Colorado State U.)