LOCAL/S TATE
The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 29, 2000 - 3
HIGHER ED
t Deer hunter
U.S. 23 closed
after fatal crash
Ohio State riots
to cost taxpayers
at least $80,000
Riots on the campus of Ohio
State University last week after the
school's football team lost to
Michigan will cost Columbus tax-
payers at least $80,000, police said.
Columbus police are still assess-
ing the cost of controlling the riots,
which resulted in dozens of arrests.
Firefighters extinguished 129 fires
across campus, although many were
contained to trash bins.
Damage to police squad cars and
overtime pay for officers will make
up a large portion of the total cost
of the Nov. 18-19 riots.
Several hundred additional offi-
cers were brought on duty as
postgame parties spilled out onto
the streets after 2 a.m.
Michigan defeated Ohio State,
38-26, marking the 10th time-in 13
seasons that the Wolverines have
defeated the Buckeyes.
Indiana University
student jumps out
window of highrise
An Indiana University sopho-
more died last week after falling
from the eighth floor of a universi-
ty building.
University police and the county
coroner deemed Jason Schwab's
death as suicide.
Police said Schwab used a chair
to break a window in the stairwell
of Ballantine Hall last Tuesday. He
then climbed out the window and
fell 80 to 90 feet. Schwab died of
multiple head injuries and blunt
force trauma to the left side of his
body shortly before he was found,
olice said.
Police also found a suicide note
on the computer screen in his resi-
dence hall. Schwab was supposed
to leave later Tuesday to fly home
to New York for Thanksgiving
break.
Schwab's father was waiting for
him Tuesday night at the airport.
UC hopes to add
.ore graduates
The University of California Board
of Regents recently announced a
plan to increase the nine-school
system's number of graduate stu-
dents by 11,000 in the next decade.
The plan includes supplying
more funding for research and
teaching. A special commission
will examine ways to provide more
inancial support for the enrollment
Ijump.
Graduate students make up 1.7
percent of total student enrollment,
compared to 35 percent in 1965.
The UC graduate student popula-
tion has not grown in the past 30
years. C. Judson King, UC provost
and vice president, said the univer-
sity needs more graduate syudents
to replace current teachers, teach
undergraduate students and to make
*ure the state has a competitive
workforce in the future.
Columbia U. beds
invaded by pests
Bed bugs have infected the
sheets of many students at Colum-
bia University's Woodbridge Hall.
An exterminator was called in to
id the students of the four- to five-
millimeter long bloodsuckers. The
university reimbursed all Wood-
bridge Hall residents for the laun-
dry done that day.
Students also could send their
clothes and bed materials to a laun-
dry service. Some students at a sep-
arate university building, the
International House, claimed bed
bugs were infecting the facility.
One Woodbridge Hall resident
aid the insects originated from a
bed frame another student brought
from home.
- Compiled fiom U-Wire reports
by Daily Staff Reporter Robert Gold.
Semi rear-ends van
stopped in traffic, killing
two Brighton residents
By Caitlin Nish
Daily Staff Reporter
PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP -
Two Brighton residents were killed
yesterday afternoon in a chain-reac-
tion crash on U.S. 23 that shut
down the highway for nearly seven
hours.
Francis and Lillian Debruyne of
Brighton died instantly in the 12:50
p.m. crash after their van was rear-
ended by a semi tractor-trailer on
northbound U.S. 23 near Interstate
94. The vehicles struck four other
passenger cars and another semi,
Michigan State Police Trooper Eric
Byerly said.
Byerly said traffic was backed up
in the northbound lanes of the high-
way for several miles due to an ear-
lier accident near Geddes Avenue.
"It was raining and foggy and
everyone was stopped for the earlier
accident," Byerly said. "A semi
coming northbound on 23 plowed
into the back end of the cars that
were stopped."
The half-mile stretch of highway
reopened at about 7:45 p.m., Byerly
said.
Two other people, whose names
the trooper would not release, were
taken to the University Hospitals
and St. Joseph's Hospital with non-
life-threatening injuries.
"They were conscious and walk-
ing around at the scene," Byerly
said.
- The Associated Press contributed
to this report.
Top state officials
ask for pay raises:
John Robinette of Grand Rapids sits in his tree stand yesterday demonstrating how he positioned himself last month as
he shot a five-point buck with his bow and arrow. Two of the six hunters who have been shot to death during the state's
16-day firearm deer season were killed by self-inflicted gunshot wounds while climbing or atop elevated platforms.
Report: State lags behind in
Children's heal
LANSING (AP) - Michigan lags behind several
national goals set in 1990 to improve children's well-being
because the state has failed to significantly improve pre-
ventive and prenatal health care, according to a study
released today.
Michigan met five of the 23 childhood well-being initia-
tives developed in 1990 by national health experts for the
Healthy People 2000 project, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell,
director of Kids Count in Michigan for the Michigan
League for Human Services.
The Kids Count report included a focus on childhood
asthma, considered one of the most preventable reasons for
hospitalization of children in Michigan, to measure access
to preventive health care.
The hospitalization rate for children with asthma in
Michigan remained about 33 children of every 10,000
throughout the 1990s; it was 53 of every 10,000 for infants
with asthma between ages I and 4.
A lengthy hospital stay could take an economic and emo-
tion toll on a low-income family because of missed school
and work, Zehnder-Merrell said.
While black children between ages 5 and 9 with asthma
had a hospitalization rate of 126 per 10,000, their white
th care goals
counterparts had a rate of 37. The hospitalization rate drops
to 46 for black children ages 10-14, but continues to tower
over the II of every 10,000 for white children who are hos-
pitalized because of asthma in the same age group.
"African-American kids are more highly dependent on
the public Medicaid system, and showing they're ending up
in the hospital suggests that they are not getting access to
preventable care,"she said.
But Geralyn Lasher, spokeswoman for the Department of
Community Health, said the state's health care system is
accessible to low-income residents. "We know we have bet-
ter access to health care than ever before," Lasher said,
adding that the state has $500,000 to spend on a study by
childhood asthma experts to prevent hospital stays.
There were 16 percent of children in Michigan without
insurance between 1996 and 1998, which was below the
national average of 25 percent, according to the national
Kids Count report.
While Michigan achieved national goals of reducing
teen-age pregnancy, infant mortality and violence among
teen-agers, the state made little or no progress in increasing
the number of mothers receiving prenatal care or lower the
percent of low birth-weight babies.
LANSING (AP) - The state's top
judges, executives and lawmakers told
a state panel yesterday that they want a
pay raise.
Chief Justice Elizabeth Weaver,
House Speaker Chuck Perricone and
Senate Republicans and Democrats
laid out their case for
higher salaries before a
the State Officers We wa
Compensation Com-
mission. rec it
The commission eople
plans to decide by its
Dec. 7 meeting Legislal
whether to recom-
mend-raises and how - State Ser
much they should be.
The recommenda-
tions would go into
effect next year unless- two-thirds of
the House and Senate reject them by
Feb. 1.
On Monday, Republican Gov. John
Engler said he wouldn't reject a pay
raise and added, "nor should anyone
else." Engler now makes $151,245,
third highest among governors nation-
ally. He hinted that he'd like to make
as much as the state's mayors, includ-
ing Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, who
earns $176,000 a year.
The commission said little abodt
whether it intended to raise salaries fqt
the governor, lieutenant governor,
judges and lawmakers. But severat
sympathized with legislative leaders
who said term
int to
the best
to the
n. John Schwarz
R-Battle Creek
limits and a $56,981
annual salary are
making it hard to
recruit House and
Senate candidates.
We want to
recruit the best peon
pie to the Legisla
ture' said state Sent
John Schwarz (R1
Battle Creek),
"Because of ternt
limits and inade-
quate pay, it's very
difficult to do now."
Term limits, which allow Houso
members to serve no more than six'
years and senators to serve no more
than eight, were supposed to draw
fresh new faces to the Legislature.
Instead, they've made it almost
impossible to convince anyone in their
30s through mid-50s to trade a regular
job for a legislative one, Senate Major-
ity Leader Dan DeGrow said.
State releases annual
store scanner report
~1
DETROIT (AP) - The state attor-
ney general's annual investigation into
the accuracy of retail UPC scanners
shows that precision across the board
has remained nearly unchanged.
But unlike last year, when state
Attorney General Jennifer Granholm
took retail giant J.C. Penney to task and
nearly took it to court over frequent
consumer overcharging, the state's
probe didn't find any retailers with
exaggerated inaccuracy.
Scanners overcharged or under-
charged investigators on 52 of 308 pur-
chases -16.9 percent.
"The consumers need to be checking
their lists twice, but also need to be
checking their receipts twice,"
Granholm said yesterday.
Investigators shopped at 20 stores,
representing seven national chains.
None had a 100 percent accuracy rate.
They shopped at Hudson's, J.C. Pen-
ney, Kmart, Kohl's, Mervyn's, Sears
and Target stores in Novi, Dearborn,
Sterling Heights, Shelby Township,
Wyoming, Grandvilleand Kentwood.
Scanners at the J.C. Penney store at
Dearborn's Fairlane Mall were the most
precise, with a 5.6 percent mistake rate;
scanners at Hudson's in the same mall
were the least precise, with a 42.9 per-
cent rate.
In a statement, Hudson's said only
one of the six errors at the Fairlane
store was an overcharge, and the
remaining five were undercharges.
But the survey's results did not meet
Hudson's goal, the statement said.
"We regularly audit our systems and
in-store signing to ensure prices are
correct," it said. "We strive to be 100
percent accurate."
Granholm said mistakes are the
result of human error. In many cases,
sale signs are left at racks after sales
have ended. Sometimes, a clerk fails to
enter a discount at the register or enters
an incorrect discount. Sometimes, scan-
ners are programmed with incorrect
prices.
Last year's mistake rate was 16.9 per-
cent. The previous year's was 15.2.
The Michigan Retailers Association
hopes to work with Granholm to
improve price accuracy, said Larry
Meyer, CEO of the trade group for the
state's general retailers.
"We've got to be ever-vigilant,"
Meyer said. "Can we put enough peo-
ple on the floor to make sure this never .
happens? No. And it is probably impos-
sible to be perfect."
Meyer said he thinks 96 percent
accuracy is a reasonable goal. He favors
a change in retail practices that would
dispense with most per-item price tags
in favor of bin or shelf pricing. Relabel-
ing each item as prices change opens
the door to error, he said.
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