The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 03, 2003, Page 2, Image 2
STATE
Military out-pays
some civilian jobs
COLUMBIA (AP) -It pays to
join the military, at least in
South Carolina.
Most South Carolinians
called up for active duty make
as much or more money in the
military as they made in their
civilian jobs.
It’s no,t that wages are high
for those in the military, but that
the state’s per capita civilian in
come is about 80 percent of the
national average, military offi
cials said.
When Air Force Tech Sgt.
Jonathan Henry was asked
about his pay, the reservist just
smiled.
When Air Force Tech Sgt.
Jonathan Henry is on active
duty, he makes about $3,000 a
month, plus $225 for being in a
combat zone and $250 for being
separated from his family. That
puts his active-duty military
pay at $3,475 a month.
That’s about 50 percent more
than he gets for his regular job
as a sergeant with the Lee
County Sheriffs Department.
Bad-check program
to begin in counties
COLUMBIA (AP) -People who
write bad checks may be able to
avoid criminal charges under a
new program started by South
Carolinas prosecutors.
The program, which legisla
tors have authorized for a one
year trial, requires those who
write bad checks to make full
restitution to avoid charges,
said William Bilton, executive
director of the state Prosecution
Coordination Commission. •
Bounced checks cost South
Carolina businesses at least $300
million a year, said Jim Hatchell,
president of the South Carolina.
Merchants Association.
Next to shoplifting, bad-check
writing is the most common
crime faced by businesses, he
said.
But prosecutors say most peo
ple do not intentionally bounce
checks.
The pilot program initially
will run in Lexington, Florence,
York and Dorchester counties,
Bilton said. Beaufort County
prosecutors also want to partic
ipate, he said.
Solicitors in those counties
plan to make presentations to
their county councils in the next
week or so, he said.
NATION
Judge allows prison
guards’ testimony
FAIRFAX, VA. (AP)-The judge
in the capital murder trial of Lee
Boyd Malvo will allow the testi
mony of two prison guards who
say the sniper suspect bragged
to them about committing sev
eral of the shootings.
Defense lawyers had sought
to suppress the testimony of
Maryland prison guards Joseph
Stracke and Wayne Davis, con
tending that Malvo had already
invoked his right to remain
silent by the time he had spoken
with the guards.
But Circuit Judge Jane
Marum Roush ruled Tuesday
that the testimony can be heard
at trial, set to start Nov. 10.
“Although Malvo was in cus
tody, and the prison guards
were law-enforcement officers,
Malvo initiated the conversa
tions, and the guards did noth
ing deliberately to elicit any in
criminating statements,” Roush
wrote.
Malvo, 18, and fellow suspect
John Allen Muhammad, 42,
have been charged with 13
shootings, including 10 deaths,
during the three-week spree that
terrorized the Washington area
last fall.
Cruise ends early
after stomach virus
NEW YORK (AP) - A cruise
across the North Atlantic was cut
short Tuesday after more than
300 passengers and crew mem
bers became sick with a highly
contagious stomach virus that
caused vomiting and diarrhea.
Only two passengers re
mained ill when the Regal
Princess docked in New York
City one day earlier than sched
uled, said Steve Nielsen, vice
president of Caribbean and
Atlantic operations for Princess
Cruises. They were expected to
be well enough to leave the ship
on Wednesday.
It was the latest in a line of
cruise ships in the past year to
be infected with a norovirus,
which are spread through food
and water and close contact
with infected people. The virus
caused some passengers on the
Regal Princess to vomit in the
dining room and on the deck.
Of the 1,528 passengers
aboard the Regal Princess, 301
passengers became ill, said Julie
Benson, spokeswoman for
Princess Cruises.
WORLD
Astronomers will
monitor asteroid
LONDON (AP) — An asteroid
two-thirds of a mile wide has
been spotted in distant space
and will be closely studied for
its possible future course while
visible over the next two
months, British astronomers
said Tuesday.
The astronomers said that
there was no cause for alarm be
cause there was only about a
one in a million chance that the
asteroid, known as 2003 QQ47,
could ever reach Earth.
“There is some uncertainty
about where it is going. In all
probability, within the next
month we will know its future
orbit with an accuracy which
will mean we will be able to rule
out any impact,” said Alan
Fitzsimmons of Queen’s
University, Belfast, Northern
Ireland.
The asteroid’s current orbit
calculations are based on just
51 observations during a recent
seven-day period, and the risk
of a collision could decline fur
ther as its movements are
tracked.
Coughing could aid
during heart attack
VIENNA, AUSTRIA -Coughing
vigorously until an ambulance
arrives could save the lives of
heart patients who are going
into cardiac arrest, a doctor said
Tuesday.
Dr. Tadeusz Petelenz, a re
searcher in Poland, said the
technique, called cough CPR,
forces blood to the brain while
the heart is starting to fail and
keeps patients conscious long
enough to call for help.
It may also rectify their
heart rhythm, he told a meet
ing of the European Society of
Cardiology.
He recommended Cough CPR
be taught to the public, but other
experts said while the concept
is provocative, it needs more
study.
Every year about 300,000 peo
ple in the United States die from
sudden cardiac death.
Cardiac arrest can be caused
by a sudden problem with the
heart’s rhythm — ventricular
fibrillation.
It can also be caused by a
heart attack, which occurs
when a blockage cuts off the
heart’s blood supply.
Arafat could be expelled by
year’s end, Israeli official says
Defense minister
calls Palestinian
leader biggest
obstacle to peace
BY RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — Israel could seek
to expel Yasser Arafat by the end
of the year, the defense minister
said Tuesday, calling the
Polnofinion
leader the
biggest obstacle
to peace.
Defense
Minister Shaul
Mofaz, who has
long supported
expelling
Arafat, issued
the warning as
Arafat and his
prime minister,
former deputy Mahmoud Abbas,
remained locked in a power strug
gle.
Abbas, backed by the United
States and Israel, is increasingly
unpopular at home and could be
ousted, possibly in a Palestinian
parliament vote next week.
Arafat and Abbas have clashed
on control of security forces and
key appointments, threatening a
rift that could hinder peace ef
forts.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister
Ghassan Khatib said Mofaz’s
threat of expelling Arafat only
raised tensions, “but is consistent
with the spirit of escalation of the
Israeli leadership.”
Israeli soldiers, meanwhile,
killed an Islamic Jihad militant
who drew a pistol on troops at a
West Bank roadblock Tuesday,
military sources said. They said a
second militant riding in the car
was arrested and an assault rifle
I
“Arafat, of course, has
become the most
significant obstacle
both to the leadership of
(Abbas) and the peace
process.”
SHAUL MOFAZ
ISRAEL DEFENSE MINISTER
seized.
An Islamic Jihad leader who
spoke on condition of anonymity
identified the dead man as Abdel
Kader Dali, a wanted militant. The
leader called the shooting an “as
sassination” and vowed revenge.
In an interview with Israel’s
Army Radio, meanwhile, Mofaz
said Arafat was blocking progress
on the U.S.-backed “road map” to
peace, which envisions a
Palestinian state within three
years.
“Arafat, of course, has become
tho mnct ciffnifi.
cant obstacle
both to the lead
ership of
(Abbas) and to
the peace pro
cess,” Mofaz
said. “I think
that he has to
disappear from
the stage of his
tory, and not be
included in the
ranks of the Palestinian leader
ship.”
The defense minister said Israel
made a “historic mistake” when
it decided not to exile him two
years ago. “With regard to the fu
ture, I think we will be compelled
to deal with this issue within a rel
atively short period of time, very
possibly even this year,” he said.
Mofaz said if Israel decides to
expel Arafat, the timing would
have to be chosen carefully so as
not to undermine Abbas, who
Israel believes is serious about
reaching a peace deal.
Israel’s Cabinet has repeatedly
considered expelling Arafat, but
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon has blocked such a move,
in part because of opposition by
the United States and because his
security advisers have cautioned
against it.
Fearful that the conflict be
tween Arafat and Abbas could lead
f
to more serious internal strife,
Palestinian mediators continued
to shuttle between the two leaders
- who are not on speaking terms —
in an attempt to resolve their dis
pute over control of security
forces.
Nearly 200 Palestinian legisla
tors, academics and writers ap
pealed to both men in newspaper
ads Tuesday to resolve their dif
ferences, saying the deadlock was
hurting Palestinian interests.
“We call on you to stop all actions
that may open the door to foreign
interference,” the ad read.
Palestinian security chief
Mohammed Dahlan, who is close
to Abbas, suggested the tensions
defied a permanent solution. He
told the Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera there might be
a temporary compromise “until
the next crisis, in a week, a month,
Saying the Palestinians
haven’t done enough to break up
militant groups, Israel has car
ried out six helicopter missile at
tacks aimed at Hamas members
in the past two weeks, part of a
tough, new policy adopted after a
Hamas suicide bombing in mid
August killed 21 people on a
Jerusalem bus.
Mofaz said there will be no let
up in the campaign and that
“Hamas is in distress because of
our activity.”
In the Gaza Strip, a 29-year-old
bystander injured in a helicopter
missile strike Monday died of his
wounds, hospital officials said.
That strike also killed one Hamas
militant and injured two dozen.
Another wounded bystander,
an 11-year-old girl, died Tuesday
of injuries sustained last week in a
missile strike. In all, 16
Palestinians, including 11 Hamas
members and five bystanders,
have been killed in the missile
strikes.
i
Cancer death rate steadies,
treatments lag, report finds
BY LAURAN NEERGAARD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Cancer deaths
may be leveling off after several
years of decline, and many states
are lagging in proven methods to
fight the most common tumors,
says the nation’s annual report
on cancer.
Sixteen states spend less than
$1 per person on tobacco control
— far less than the $5 to $10 per
person recommended — even
though smoking is the leading
cause of lung cancer, the nation’s
top cancer killer. Screening for
breast and colorectal cancer
varies widely, too.
And there’s a widening racial
gap as white Americans increas
ingly survive certain tumors bet
ter than blacks, says the report
published Tuesday in the
Journal of the National Cancer
Institute.
The report’s overarching find
ing is somewhat sobering: Death
rates for all cancers had been
inching down by about 1.4 per
cent a year through the mid
1990s, but by 2000 that decline
seems to have leveled off.
At least part of that is due to a
statistical quirk — a change in
how cancer deaths are recorded
that mean fewer were being
missed in national counts start
ing in 1999.
Still, “we’re seeing perhaps a
slowing of the decline,” said
Brenda Edwards of the National
Cancer Institute, which co-au
thored the report with the cancer
society and Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. “It gives
us pause.”
An estimated 556,500
Americans will die of cancer this
year, and 1.3 million will be di
agnosed with it.
Death rates for the four most
common cancers — lung, breast,
prostate and colorectal — still are
declining for all but one group,
women with lung cancer. Lung
cancer deaths are increasing by
just under 1 percent a year
among both white and black
women.
Most striking are the racial
disparities. By 2000, death rates
for whites were substantially
lower than those for blacks, par
ticularly among breast and col
orectal cancer patients, where
the gap appeared to have been
widening.
Although breast cancer inci
dence is 16 percent higher in
white women, black women are
far more likely to die.
Indeed, while breast cancer
death rates dropped 2.5 percent
a year for white women during
the 1990s, death rates dropped
just 1 percent a year for black
women.
Similarly, black men and
women are more at risk of get
ting and dying of colorectal can
cer than whites, and white sur
vival improved more than that
of black patients through the
1990s.
These imbalances “would sug
gest perhaps the black population
I ' • ” ” , '
is not receiving the same benefit
from early detection and treat
ment as the white population,”
said CDC epidemiologist Hannah
Weir.
While socioeconomic factors
play a role, scientists cannot yet
fully explain the gap.
Then researchers examined
states.
By 2010, the government wants
no more than 12 percent of the
population to smoke. Utah is clos
est to that goal, with 13.3 percei^|
of adults who smoke and with tmB
fewest deaths from lung cancer.
The worst state for smoking is
Kentucky, where 30.9 percent of
adults light up, and the lung can
cer death rate is the nation's
highest.
Kentucky spends just 84 cents
a person on tobacco-control pro
grams. Utah, where the predom
inant Mormon church is a strong
anti-tobacco influence, spends
$2.46 per person on tobacco con
trol.
Cancer screening varies wide
ly, too. Women aged 40 or older
are supposed to have mammo
grams every year or two. In
Indiana, just 30 percent of unin
sured women do.
Similarly, the governmen^^
wants at least half the over-^B
population to be getting regula^^
colorectal cancer screening by
2010. In many states, well below
40 percent do.
--:-i-1
SURFYOURSELF
State cancer data can be found at:
http://www.statecancerproflles.cancer.gov
Colleges try to deter
student file-swapping _
BY ALEX VEIGA
THE ASSOCIATED I’RESS
Students arriving for fall class
es at colleges across the country
are facing new restrictions and
stem warnings to discourage the
swapping of pirated music and
movies over high-speed campus
Internet connections.
Some schools are even using
software to choke the amount of
data that can flow in or out of a
computer when students use
Kazaa and other file-sharing pro
grams.
And in a new approach dis
closed Tuesday, at least a dozen
universities are exploring ways
to offer students a fee-based mu
sic service whose fees could be
bundled with room and board
costs.
“’We’re feeling a great deal of
pressure as a result of what the
entertainment industry is doing,
and we’re stepping up a lot of ac
tivities to address it,” said Jim
Davis, associate vice chancellor
for information technology at the
University of California, Los
Angeles.
Last year, UCLA received
dozens of notices every month
from record companies and
movie studios complaining about
copyright violations.
The Recording Industry
Association of America regards
file-sharing as theft. Last spring,
the RIAA settled lawsuits against
four college students who al
legedly offered thousands of
songs for download on their
campus networks. The group is
expected to file several hundred
more copyright infringement
lawsuits this month.
At least 10 universities have
been served with subpoenas de
manding they help the recording
industry identify possible targets
of such lawsuits, according to the
Electronic Frontier Foundation,
an online civil liberties group.
Overall, RIAA President Cary
Sherman said he is gratified by
the attention copyright viola
tions are getting on campuses.
"There’s a world of difference
this year than just a year ago in
terms of the seriousness that uni
versities are taking this issue,”
he said in an interview.
In a conference call Tuesday,
Sherman said the RIAA has not
threatened to sue schools them
selves but has instead spent more
time persuading them that stop
ping file-sharing "is the right
thing to do.”
Many universities also are ea
ger to keep their computer net
works unclogged by the transit
of huge song and movie files.
Sharing of music files is a cru
cial issue for the industry, which
claims the practice is largely re
sponsible for a 31 percent drop in
CD sales since mid-2000.
The industry has begun to em
brace for-pay download services,
particularly the successful Apple
iTunes for Macintosh users that
requires no subscription fee. But
a successful Windows-based ser
vice for the vast majority of home
computer users has not yet
emerged.
Meanwhile, though, several
universities are exploring ways
to make music-downloading ser
vices available to students at a
cost that could be incorporated
into room and board bills, much
like cable TV and newspaper de
livery fees.
"If music is that important to
our students, some of the things
we might do is simply provide
the music to them, by contract
ing with an online service for ei
ther streaming, so students can
listen to it whenever they want,
or perhaps to download, maybe
even to make a copy,” said
Graham Spanier, president of
Penn State University and co
chair of a committee of college
and entertainment officials work
ing together to stop song-swap
ping on campus.
The more visible tactic this
fall is schools’ increased mention
of the issue in student orient^^
tions, e-mails and ads in campu^P
newspapers.
"When I first got here, there
was no real warning given to stu
dents,” said Errol Wilson, 20, a
junior at the University of
Southern California. "Since then,
it seems like they’ve definitely
beefed up.”
Wilson, who has downloaded
about 200 songs, said USC
warned him about his file-shar
ing when he was a freshman. But
he hasn’t received any other com
plaints since he changed his
computer’s settings to block oth
ers from uploading music from
his hard drive.
Even when they block file-shaj^
ing, users of swapping softwa^B
can still download from others.
Sherman praised technologi
cal strategies in place at some
schools, like the University of
Florida’s filtering program that
blocks song-swapping. Ohio State
University forbids all server
based applications by students
living on campus.
Water Line
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
will be allowed in the right lane.
“The break has been fixed, but
now we have to repair the con
crete at the main excavation
i .: -
point,” Dooley said.
Dooley hopes to have Huger
Street reopened by Thursday
morning.
Robertson said that business
will go on as usual and that he
hopes there will be no prolonged
damage because of sediment clog
ging pipes and filters.
“These things happen,” he
said. “They did the best they
could. It’s just a terrible incon
venience.”
Asst. News Editor Alexis Stratton
contributed to this report.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockudesk@hotmail.com
THE GAMECOCK w
Interest meeting tonight,
7 p.m. in the Russell
House Ballroom
- ui— — — — ■■■»!■•• — -- -I- • - ■' "'Hr