2 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 NATION/WORLD Whittington suffers heart attack NEWS IN BRIEF Shotgun pellet from Vice President Cheney's gun reaches 78-year-old lawyer's heart CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) - The 78-year- old lawyer wounded by Vice President Dick Cheney in a hunting accident suffered a mild heart attack yesterday after a shotgun pellet in his chest traveled to his heart, hospital officials said. Harry Whittington was immediately moved back to the intensive care unit and will be watched for a week to make sure more of the metal pellets do not reach other vital organs. He was reported in stable condition. Whittington suffered a "silent heart attack" - obstruct- ed blood flow, but without the classic heart-attack symp- toms of pain and pressure, according to doctors at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial. The doctors said they decided to treat the situation conservatively and leave the pellet alone rather than operate to remove it. They said they are highly optimis- tic Whittington will recover and live a healthy life with the pellet in him. Asked whether the pellet could move farther into his heart and become fatal, hospital officials said that was a hypothetical question they could not answer. Hospital officials said they were not concerned about the six to 200 other pieces of birdshot that might still be lodged in Whittington's body. Cheney was using 7 1/2 shot from a 28-gauge shotgun. Shotgun pellets are typi- cally made of steel or lead; the pellets in 7 1/2 shot are just under a tenth of an inch in diameter. Cheney watched the news conference where doctors described Whittington's complications. Then the vice president called him, wished him well and asked if there was anything that he needed. "The vice president said that he stood ready to assist. Mr. Whittington's spirits were good, but obvi- ously his situation deserves the careful monitoring that his doctors are providing," the vice president's office said in a statement. Cheney, an experienced hunter, has not spoken pub- icly about the accident, whichtook placeSaturday night while the vice president was aiming for a quail. Critics of the Bush administration called for more answers from Cheney himself. Whittington has said through hospital officials that he does not want to comment on the shooting. A young man at Whittington's Austin home who identified himself as his grandson said yesterday he did not have time to talk to a reporter and closed the door. The furor over the accident and the White House delay in making it public are "part of the secretive nature of this administration," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "I think it's time the American people heard from the vice president." Before hospital officials announced details of Whit- tington's condition, the hunting accident had produced a raft of Cheney jokes on late-night television. "I think Cheney is starting to lose it," Jay Leno said. "After he shot the guy he screamed, 'Anyone else want to call domestic wiretapping illegal?!"' Yesterday morning, the White House spokesman briefly joined in the merriment, joking that the burnt orange school colors of the visiting Univer- sity of Texas championship football team should not be mistaken for hunters' safety gear. "The orange that they're wearing is not because they're concerned that the vice president may be there," press sec- retary Scott McClellan said. "That's why I'm wearing it." Hospital officials said they knew that Whittington had some birdshot near his heart and that there was a chance it could move closer since scar tissue had not had time to harden and hold the pellet in place. After Whittington developed an irregular heart- beat, doctors performed a cardiac catheterization, in which a thin, flexible tube is inserted into the heart, to diagnose his condition, said Peter Banko, the administrator at the hospital. Attorney Harry Whittington stands in a committee room at the Texas Capitol building last July. The shot was either touching or embedded in the heart muscle near the top chambers, called the atria, officials said. Two things resulted: It caused inflammation that pushed on the heart in a way to temporarily block blood flow, what the doctors called a "silent heart attack." This is not a traditional heart attack where an artery is blocked. They said Whittington's arteries, in fact, were healthy. It irritated the atria, caused an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation, which is not immediately life-threatening. But it must be treated because it can spur blood clots to form. Most cases can be corrected with medication. LAHORE, Pakistan Prophet cartoons spark more violence Thousands rampaged through two cities yesterday in Pakistan's worst violence against Prophet Muhammad caricatures, burning buildings housing a hotel, banks and a KFC, vandalizing a Citibank and breaking windows at a Holiday Inn and a Pizza Hut. At least two people were killed in Lahore, where intelligence officials suspected outlawed Islamic militant groups incited the violence to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's U.S.-allied government. An Associated Press reporter in Lahore saw crowd members who appeared to be orchestrating the attacks, directing protesters - some of whom were carrying containers of kerosene - toward particular targets. The demonstra- tors also set the provincial government assembly building on fire. In the capital, Islamabad, hundreds of students stormed through the main entrance of the tightly guarded enclave that houses most foreign embassies, brandishing sticks and throwing stones. They were dispersed with tear gas, and no foreigners were hurt. The unruly protests and deaths marked an alarming spike in the unrest in Paki- stan over the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been reprinted by other Western newspapers. ALEXANDRIA, Va. Al-Qaida conspirator removed from court A federal judge ruled yesterday that confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui will not be in the courtroom for jury selection at his upcoming death-penalty trial, after Moussaoui again defied the judge at a pretrial hearing. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said her main reason for holding yester- day's hearing was to determine "how Mr. Moussaoui plans to behave ... whether you plan to remain quiet ... or whether you plan to make speeches." The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent, who pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al-Qaida to use aircraft to target U.S. buildings, then walked to the lectern and pulled out what appeared to be a handwritten speech. "You have been trying to organize my death for four years," Moussaoui told the judge. He launched into yet another effort to disavow his court-appointed law- yers and in the process offered diatribes against President Bush and the French people. TEHRAN Iran resumes uranium enrichment programs Iran has resumed small-scale enrichment of uranium, a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said yesterday - a defiant declaration in the face of global opposition to Iran's atomic program. The resumption still leaves Iran a long way from reaching the stage the world fears most: large-scale enrichment of uranium - a process that can produce fuel for an atomic bomb. Javad Vaeidi, deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in announcing the small-scale enrichment, also told reporters that Iran would resume negotiations with Moscow on Feb. 20 over its plan to enrich Iranian uranium on Rus- sian soil - a proposal designed to allay fears that Iran will build nuclear weapons. TEHRAN Bird flu reaches Austria, German and Iran Iran said yesterday that 135 wild swans died of bird flu in marshlands near the Cas- pian Sea in the country's first case of the spreading virus, and officials in Germany and Austria said the virus had apparently reached there as well. The disease's likely spread to three new countries follows the recent deaths of humans from the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Turkey and Iraq, Iran's neighbors, and the march of the disease into European countries Greece and Italy. Olympic officials in Italy said bird flu posed no threat to the Turin Olympics, but a Nigerian official warned that bird flu was fast spreading in that country. a U.N. expert said the strain.may have surfaced in a second African country. - Compiled from Daily wire reports CORRECTIONS Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com. 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com 0 I-u 51 kststrrsysr: Excel Explore. Experience. Empower.. ...use ourleadership skills,knowledge and experience joIn the iargeststudent-run arts and programming organization en campus Now accepting applications for Executive Board positions for 2006-2007 * onntributo 0 * President * Executive Vice-President * Vice-President of Finance * Vice-President of Marketing * Vice-President of External Relations 0 PIN, mi 'J Applications are due February 17, 2006 & can be downloaded at www.umich.edu/-uac Whatdo9d :U]W www umich.edu/~uac The Un versity Activities Center U- DoNN M. 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