Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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STATE BRIEFS S.C. will host forum for women leaders COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina will host one of the largest gatherings of women leaders next year to try to improve the state’s low ranking in terms of women officeholders. “So many women have no opportunity to enter public service because they have no idea where to begin,” said Becky Collier, director of the Governor’s Commission on Women. “This is a way we can increase the number of women in leadership. That can move South Carolina closer to equity, especially for women.” South Carolina, which ranks 48th in the nation for the percentage of women in the General Assembly, will play host to one of the country’s largest gatherings of female leaders in May. The goal of the Southern Women in Public Service conference is to encourage more women to run for office and to build relationships among those already elected or appointed. Natural gas prices to begin going down COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Natural gas prices will be going down this winter for Upstate customers of Piedmont Natural Gas Co. The state Public Service Commission on Tuesday lowered the winter rates for the Charlotte, N.C.-based utility. The typical residential customer will pay $100.25 a month for natural gas, said PSC Executive Director Gary Walsh. Under the old rates, the typical residential customers would have paid $116.99 per month, starting with the winter season bills on Nov. 1, Walsh said. “This reduction is reflective of what appears to be much more stable gas prices this winter,” he said. “Not only are we going to see an increase in supply, we’re also seeing decreases in demand.” A similar reduction is expected soon for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., which serves most of the state. Garden Natural area offers learning experiena CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 which was dredged. The pond wa 3 feet deep, but it is now 7 feet dee to support more species of fish Wiles said. Different educational tools wi] also be made more available in th garden. Along with the weather st£ tion, markers will be put on tree identifying their species ani brochures will be available with ir formation about the different trees Dow said the importance of n£ ture was sometimes unknown, e> NATION BRIEFS Man with artificial heart taking trips LOUISVILLE, KY.(AP)-The first recipient of a self-contained artificial heart has been doing well enough to make trips outside the hospital in a van, his doctors said Tuesday. “We are trying to make fairly routine trips into the city,” University of Louisville surgeon Dr. Laman Gray said. “He absolutely loves doing that.” On Robert Tools’ first trip outside the hospital last week, he went to Louisville’s Waterfront Park, then had a special request on the way back to the hospital. “He wanted to stop by the White Castle for a cheeseburger,” Gray said. He ate some of the burger but wasn’t up to finishing it, Gray said. Before Tools’ history-making surgery July 2 at Jewish Hospital, he was so weak he could take only a few steps at a time and couldn’t raise his head to talk to his doctors. UW agency expands stem cell lawsuit MADISON, WIS. (AP) — The University of Wisconsin’s patent agency has broadened its lawsuit against a company that wants to use the school’s human embryonic stem cell lines. Negotiations to reach a settlement with Geron Corp. had broken down, said Andrew Cohn, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The foundation’s original federal court lawsuit in August sought to prevent Geron, of Menlo Park, Calif., from interfering with the foundation’s ability to contract with other companies to further develop stem cell technology. On Monday, it filed an amended lawsuit asking the court to declare that Geron has no exclusive rights to research products except in those cases in which the company added its own proprietary, patented technology, the foundation said. Human embryonic stem cells were first isolated and grown at UW by scientist James Thomson in 1998. Geron, which financed much of the early research, wants exclusive rights to any research products developed using the stem cells, said Carl Gulbrandsen, the foundation’s managing director. The foundation thinks that proposal goes against its licensing agreement with Geron. plaining that dogwood trees are the source of food for 80 birds. “Those dogwoods are valuable in a way I hadn’t given them cred • it for,” she said. Coonrod said he hoped the gar den would provide a classroom for all students. 3 “I think the campus is an un J derutilized resource for teaching,” , Coonrod said. “I think, if any thing, hopefully (the garden) will 1 be more used.” 3 Dow said the importance of out door education will be better em 3 phasized. 1 “It allows us a chance to ac knowledge a long history of envi ronmental education,” she said. Dow said some of the groups in volved in the project are Students WORLD BRIEFS NATO completes weapons collection SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (AP) — NATO has completed a key part of Macedonia’s peace plan, surpassing its target of collecting arms from ethnic Albanian rebels to put peace “within reach,” the alliance’s chief said Tuesday. “We can confirm that 3,381 ... have been collected and the final figure should be higher still,” NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said. The monthlong mission, Operation Essential Harvest, is scheduled to end Wednesday. NATO said Monday the quota of3,300 weapons had already been met. Robertson, visiting German troops participating in the mission, told reporters that, without the operation, “peace would not be within reach.” Germany has volunteered to head a new NATO mission to protect civilians who will monitor the return of refugees and compliance with the Western-backed peace accord. The accord aims to end a six month insurrection by the armed ethnic Albanian rebels. Peres and Arafat to hold truce talks JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will hold often delayed truce talks Wednesday morning in the Gaza Strip, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. It would be the first of three sessions planned to work out a formal cease-fire and possibly a timetable for an eventual resumption of peace talks. Violence has dropped considerably since the two sides declared an informal truce last week. The United States had exerted pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to permit the meetings. Washington believes that quelling Israeli-Palestinian violence is essential to its efforts to gain support in the Islamic world for a united offensive against terrorism in response to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. Peres and Arafat are to meet at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Gaza International Airport, a senior Palestinian official said. Allied for a Greener Earth, University 101 classes, the Carolina Alumni Association and Keep America Beautiful. “The actual work in the garden is part volunteer, ” she said. The garden was bought by USC in 1937 and dedicated to Andrew Charles Moore Nov. 27, 1941. Moore was USC’s first honor grad uate in 1887, a professor in the Department of Biology, Genealogy and Mineralogy and served twice as interim president of USC. Dow said the garden isn’t just for university students. “It’s a unique source within the campus, but it’s also within the city,” she said. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com. Freshmen 200Vs new class could be largest CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 This year’s freshmen class also has an average SAT score of 1120, which is slightly lower than last year’s mean score of 1127. Pruitt said that this amounted to “one question on the SAT,” then added that the class had 700 more South Carolinians than usual. While this freshman class may be the largest, University President John M. Palms be lieves it is also one of the best in history. “Just as our freshman class has selected a great university, we have selected great freshman students,” Palms said. “Remarkably, while our class size is large, it also is a quality class.” Palms attributed the in creased enrollment to economic downturn, the increased value of the state’s Life Scholarship, the growing national reputation of “Remarkably, while our class size is large, it also is a quality class.” JOHN PALMS USC PRESIDENT r • the university’s academic pro grams and the success of USC’s athletics program. «► “At a time when the economic downturn limits a student’s col lege choice, when families in South Carolina are being invol untarily displaced from their work, and when keeping our best and brightest students in state is critical to our state’s future suc cesses, our great university has once again proven its impor tance as a faithful index to the state’s future,” Palms said. Figures show that enrollment of females at the university’s Darla Moore School of Business also continues to top the national trend. “Historically, our female en rollment this year is about what it was for past years, but we’re ahead of the curve nationally,” Robert Markland, associate dean for administration of the busi ness school. - Women apcount for 45 percent of the 2,609 business majors at the Moore School of Business and 36 percent of 527 full-time masters and doctoral candidates. Markland said some of the credit has to go to the business school’s primary benefactor, fi nancier Darla Moore. The Lake City native gaVe $25 million to USC in 1998 and has actively re cruited women into the business world. “That would help raise the consciousness of women out there who are looking for a busi ness school,” Markland said. “They associate the name and the school when they look at us on the Web.” The Associated Press con tributed to this report. 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