LOCAL/STATE
The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 26, 2001- 3
CygME
Runner confronted
by pantsless man
near Arboretum
A woman reported she was con-
fronted by a 40-year-old man who was
naked from the waist down last Friday
while she was running in Nichols
Arboretum, Department of Public
Safety reports state. The woman said
while she was jogging in the "prairie"
area by the railroad tracks at about 9
a.m. she saw the man naked.
There have been several incidents
of indecent exposure near the Arbore-
tum in the last few weeks, but DPS
spokeswoman Diane Brown said it is
too early to conclude if the cases are
linked and if the suspect is the same.
Brown said the Ann Arbor Police
Department has received reports of
similar incidents in Gallup Park,
which is adjacent to the Arboretum.
S The man is described as short,
approximately 170 pounds with salt-
and-pepper colored hair.
Morphine syringe
stolen at hospital
A University Hospital emergency
room nurse stated an unattended
syringe was stolen early Tuesday
morning, according to DPS reports.
She said she had set down two
syringes full of morphine in a
r patient's room. They were left unat-
tended for two minutes, and upon her
return to the room she found one
stolen. An investigation was pending.
False prescription
used to get drugs
A University Hospital employee
said a person not affiliated with the
B University attempted to use a fraudu-
lent prescription pad to receive drugs
Monday afternoon, according to DPS
reports. DPS is not conducting an
investigation.
Unhappy worker
may have keyed
paramedic's car
A paramedic said his vehicle was
keyed while parked near Palmer Drive
Development Center Thursday or Fri-
day of last week, according to DPS
reports. He suspects that a construction
worker at Palmer Drive Development's
construction site may have been
responsible because he is a paramedic
a d treatedsome of the workers.
The paramedic said he believed
some of the workers were unhappy
with their drug test results.
Woman spotted
stealing bottles
A five-foot-tall woman wearing a
blazer-style coat was spotted carrying
a bag of pop bottles which belonged
to the Advanced Technology Lab
Wednesday morning, DPS reports
state. The woman was located by a
responding officer, but there was no
evidence of larceny.
Water damages
West Quad door
A West Quad resident found a trash
can full of water against his door
Monday morning, according to DPS
reports. He said someone had leaned
the can against the door. DPS was
conducting an investigation.
S Man injured during
hockey game
A man was injured while playing
hockey in Yost Ice Arena Monday
evening, according to DPS reports. The
player, who is not a student, was
knocked into the boards by another
player, which might have caused a head
injury. Upon arrival, Huron Valley
Ambulance workers found the person
hyperventilating. He was taken to Uni-
versity Hospitals' emergency rooms.
Woman hit during
parking space fight
A avoman reported she was
involved in a parking space dispute on.
North Campus with another woman
Monday evening, DPS reports state.
During the dispute, the woman struck
her in the face.
- Compiled by Daily StaffReporter
Jacquelyn Nixon.
Spoke-n for
Wednesday's
storms kill two
i n Michigan
Bicycles bear the cold weather outside Angell Hall as students attended classes yesterday afternoon. J
2
A unemploment rate was
state's lowest in September
LANSING (AP) - Ann Arbor had
the state's lowest seasonally adjusted
unemployment rate in September, the
state Department of Career Develop-
ment said yesterday.
Ann Arbor was one of only five of
Michigan's 12 major labor markets that
did not see unemployment increases last
month..
Seasonally unadjusted unemployment
rates ranged from a high of 6.8 percent
in Flint to a low of 2.8 percent in Ann
Arbor. Jobless rates decreased in two
areas and were unchanged in three.
State economists said the numbers
don't reflect the fallout of the Sept. I1
terrorist attacks, since unemployment
data is collected each month during the
week of the 12th, and few companies
were laying off workers or making
major changes that soon after the
attacks. "The earliest any of that will
show up is in our data for October,"
Detroit-based state economist Bruce
Weaver said.
The unemployment increases were
slight, limited to 0.4 percentage points
or less. Employment gains at universi-
ties and schools were offset by cutbacks
in tourism-related jobs, department
Director Barbara Bolin said.
Slight declines in the unemployment
rate were recorded in the Flint area,
which had a 7.2 percent unemployment
rate in August. Declines were expected,
since temporary auto layoffs that affect-
ed Flint this summer have ended.
The Upper Peninsula also recorded a
decrease in the unemployment rate from
4.7 percent in August to 4.4 percent in
September. State economist Joe Billig
said the Upper Peninsula's seasonally
dependent labor market generally
shrinks in the fall, and those who lose
summer jobs don't necessarily look for
other employment.
Billig said the numbers were typical
for September, which generally sees
increases in education-related jobs and
decreases in construction and recreation.
The number of manufacturing jobs also
declined in September.
Billig said the terrorist attacks halted
any sort of recovery the state was see-
ing.
"In August and September, there
were some early signs that the economy
was going to improve," he said. "But
given September 1Ith and the very dras-
tic slowdown in retail, the employment
picture for the next few months is going
to be much weaker than what people
had expected."
The September unemployment rates
for the 12 major labor markets, and their
relationship to the August rates, were:
Ann Arbor, 2.8 percent, unchanged
from 2.8 percent;
Benton Harbor, 5.1 percent, up
from 4.7 percent;
Detroit, 4.7 percent, unchanged
from 4.7 percent;
Flint, 6.8 percent, down from 7.2
percent;
Grand Rapids/Muskegon/Holland,
4.8 percent, up from 4.7 percent;
Jackson, 5.0 percent, up from 4.8
percent;
Kalamazoo/Battle Creek, 4.4 per-
cent, up from 4.1 percent;
Lansing, 3.1 percent, unchanged
from 3.1 percent;
Saginaw/Bay City/Midland, 4.9
percent, up from 4.7 percent;
Upper Peninsula, 4.4 percent, down
from 4.7 percent;
Northeast Lower Michigan, 5.9
percent, up from 5.5 percent;
Northwest Lower Michigan, 4.8
percent, up from 4.5 percent.
DAVISBURG (AP) - A crowd of
parents, teachers and children watched
yesterday as firefighters and school
workers searched through the rubble of
a fifth-grade classroom demolished by
a tornado. The firefighters were looking
for anything that might be salvaged
from the crumbled concrete, broken
desks and rain-soaked books.
Statewide, thunderstorms produced
at least two tornadoes, left two people
dead, damaged dozens of homes and
blacked out more than 195,000 electric-
ity customers.
In this northern Oakland County
community, some residents brushed
away tears yesterday as they stood in
the howling winds and swirling
snowflakes, while others took pictures
of their children in front of the wreck-
age.
A tornado cut a 15-mile path
Wednesday night through Livingston
and Oakland counties, doing most of its
damage in Davisburg, the National
Weather Service said.
It uprooted ancient sprawling trees,
crumpled outdoor signs and destroyed
part of the community's elementary
school. Kent Barnes, superintendent for
the Holly Area School District, said
four classrooms at Davisburg Elemen-
tary were demolished and eight others
were not safe for occupancy.
A smaller tornado touched down
briefly in Saginaw County east of Fos-
ter, cutting 100-yard path, the weather
service said. It said a microburst of high
straight-line winds damaged a barn and
pushed a pickup truck 20-40 feet in
Lapeer County near Lum.
In Clinton County, 46-year-old
Michael G. Elliott of Maple Rapids
died Wednesday evening when a tree
fell on his pickup while he was driving,
the sheriffs department said.
A 52-year-old Portage man went into
cardiac arrest and died while trying to
remove downed trees, said Heidi Ober-
lin, spokeswoman for the Kalamazoo
County Office of Emergency Manage-
ment. The office reported that at least
five other people sustained serious,
storm-related injuries. Oberlin said two
were listed in critical condition yester-
day at area hospitals: a 44-year-old
Scotts man who fell off his roof while
removing a tree and a 46-year-old man
hurt in an auto accident.
In Eaton County, sheriff's Capt. Fred
McPhail said about 70 homes were
damaged, half of them seriously, in the
Narrow Lake area.
In Calhoun County on Wednesday,
winds gusting up to 71 mph destroyed
eight mobile homes south of Tekonsha,
said John Townsend, director of the
county's Office of Emergency Services.
Seven residents of the mobile home
park were treated for minor injuries at
hospitals and released. At least 20
homes elsewhere in the county sus-
tained wind damage, Townsend said.
Chilly winds with gusts of up to 49
mph were blowing through the state last
night, with sharply colder temperatures
and traces of snow well into southern
Michigan.
The winds hampered repair crews
and created fresh blackouts as electric
utilities worked to restore service. The
storms cut power to at least 195,000
Michigan electricity customers, and at
least 68,000 remained without power
last night.
Many people will have to wait until
the weekend to get service back, power
companies said.
Consumers Energy spokesman
Kevin Keane said more than 100,000 of
its customers lost power in the storm,
and 32,000 remained blacked out last
night.
Detroit Edison spokesman Scott
Simons said about 79,000 of its cus-
tomers lost power and about 25,000
remained blacked out last night.
High winds and cold temperatures
were expected to continue into the
weekend, said forecaster David Koehler
from the weather service office in Oak-
land County's White Lake Township.
Snow is expected in parts of both
peninsulas today and tomorrow, the
weather service said.
The weather is expected to begin
breaking tomorrow or Sunday, with
temperatures possibly reaching 50
degrees.
In Houghton in the northern Upper
Peninsula, city crews were busy clean-
ing up salt trucks and plows yesterday
afternoon in preparation for two to 10
inches of snow.
DaimlerChrysler
introduces new car
phone technology
AUBURN HILLS (AP) - Daimler-
Chrysler AG is looking to take a bite
out of the burgeoning on-board com-
munications market by putting a tech-
nology called Bluetooth in its vehicles.
Bluetooth, named for 10th century
Viking Harald Bluetooth who united
Norway and Denmark, allows various
components of telematics systems to
"talk" to each other through radio fre-
quencies, instead of hard wires.
That means a driver could hook any
Bluetooth-equipped cell phone to the
car's audio and display system without
the phone having any physical contact
with the vehicle.
The user can be as far as 30 meters
away from the vehicle to operate the
system, said Jim Kohut, lead engineer
for telematics at the Chrysler Group.
The system, still unnamed, would be
handsfree, using voice-recognition
technology developed by IBM.
The only hand-operated action nec-
essary is pressing a button located on
the rear view mirror to turn on the sys-
tem.
Chrysler Group chief operating offi-
cer Wolfgang Bernhard said the com-
bination of handsfree,
voice-recognition makes the system
safer.
"It recognizes commands and num-
bers so there's no taking your eyes off
the road to fiddle around with all kinds
of numbers while you're driving,"
Bernhard said.
Bluetooth-equipped phones are
commercially available now for $150
to $500 according to Don Boerma, of
AT&T Wireless, one of Daimler-
Chrysler's partners in the project.
While the automaker said it was not
ready to reveal the availability of spe-
cific services, it said the new system
would be markedly different from
OnStar, which is owned by General
Motors Corp.
OnStar services, such as roadside
assistance and navigation, require a
subscription fee.
Chrysler Group telematics chief
Jack Witherow said users will contract
for online services through their'cell
phone service providers. Any added
fees would be-folded into their phone
bills.
The system is fully integrated into
the vehicle using its existing audio lay-'
out including the radio.
Once the system is turned on, the
user calls out commands or a phone
number for the system to dial. The
user also can tell the system not to
accept incoming calls if traffic is
heavy or they desire privacy.
A small microphone is embedded in
the rearview mirror.
Prototype vehicles have a display
integrated into the mirror as well,
although Witherow said a production
version may have the display more
conveniently located on the radio.
The system will be offered as an
aftermarket feature in the spring of
2002 and as a factory-installed option
in early 2003. The automaker said
prices have not yet been set.
THE CALENDAR
What's happening in Ann Arbor this weekend
FRIDAY
"Environmental Health Pol-
icy, Science, and Public
Perception: A Challenge
for Genetically Modified
Institute for Research
on Women and Gender,
12:00 p.m., 250
Hutchins Hall, 625
South State Street
C A'Y' Yn~hAV
versity
Band-O-Rama; Sponsored
by the School of Music,
Featuring the Concert
Band, Symphony Band,
SERVICES
Campus Information
Centers, 764- NFO,
info@uich. edu, or
www. urich.edu/'-info
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