The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, November 16, 2006 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
WASHINGTON
Lott wins back
leadership slot in
Senate GOP caucus
Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott,
ousted from the top Senate Repub-
lican leadership job just four years
ago because of remarks considered
racially insensitive, won election to
the chamber's No. 2 GOP post yes-
terday.
Asked whether he feltvindicated
by the 25-24 secret ballot vote, Lott
deferred to newly-elected party
leader Mitch McConnell.
"The spotlight belongs on him,"
Lott said of his Kentucky colleague.
McConnell, who was uncon-
tested and will succeed Sen. Bill
Frist of Tennessee, predicted that
he and the rest of the newly elected
GOP team will provide a muscular
opposition to the new Democratic
majority.
"We will be a robust minority, a
vigorous minority, and, hopefully, a
minority that is only in that condi-
tion for a couple of years," McCon-
nell said.
BAGHDAD
Kidnappers free
scores of Iraqis
Kidnappers released about 70
peoplesnatchedinamass abduction
by suspected Shiite militiamen who
answer to a key backer of the prime
minister - a sign the militants went
too far and Iraq's leader may be
yielding to intense U.S. pressure to
crack down on sectarian violence.
But Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki clearly has more work to do.
Iraqipolice, hospital and morgue
officials reported 105 new violent
deaths yesterday; 54 of the victims
were tortured and shot, their bod-
ies dumped in Baghdad.
The quick release of many of the
captives - less than 24 hours after
the abductions - was surprising in
a country where hundreds of Iraqis
have been kidnapped, murdered
and dumped in streets or rivers
each month. In two recent mass
kidnappings, both of about 50 peo-
ple, the victims were never heard
of again.
WASHINGTON
US Airways makes
$8b offer for Delta
US Airways Group Inc. made a
hostile $8 billion cash and stock bid
for Delta Air Lines Inc. yesterday,
a deal that would create one of the
world's largest carriers. The move
came despite Delta's repeated
statements it isn't interested in a
merger.
The offer to buy Delta once the
Atlanta-based airline emerges from
bankruptcy protection by the middle
of2007 would give Delta's unsecured
creditors $4 billion in cash and 78.5
million shares of US Airways stock.
Delta has yet to file its own plan of
reorganization.
As it stands now, Delta's common
shares are likely to end up worthless
when it exits bankruptcy.
LANSING
Unemployment
drops to 6.9 percent
Michigan's unemployment rate
dropped to 6.9 percent in October,
state officials said yesterday.
The latest seasonally adjusted
rate was below September's rate
of 7.1 percent but remained among
the country's highest. The national
jobless rate was 4.6 percent last
month.
Michigan's October rate was a
half-percentage point higher than
the October2005 rate off6.4 percent.
The national jobless rate decreased
by a half-percentage point over the
same period, the state said.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
U.S. general says
not to pull out
THE CHAMPION
Abizaid rejects push
for Iraq withdrawal
in Senate hearing
WASHINGTON (AP) - The top
U.S. commander in the Middle
East warned Congress yesterday
against setting a timetable for
withdrawing U.S. troops from
Iraq, rejecting the arguments of
resurgent Democrats who are
pressing President Bush to start
pulling out.
Gen. JohnAbizaidinsteadurged
quick action to strengthen Iraq's
government, predicting that the
vicious sectarianviolence in Bagh-
dad would surge out of control
within four to six months unless
immediate steps were taken.
"Our troop posture needs to
stay where it is," and the use of
military adviser teams embedded
with Iraqi army and police forces
needs to be expanded, Abizaid told
the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee.
It was the first hearing on Iraq
policy since last week's elections
gave Democrats control of both
houses of Congress starting in
January.
The voting last week has been
widely interpreted as a public
repudiation of Bush's policies
on the war, which has left more
than 2,850 U.S. troops dead
and more than 20,000 others
wounded.
Democrats have coalesced
around the idea of starting to
remove American troops in the
next few months, and increasing
numbers of Republicans have been
openly critical of the war. The day
after the election, Bush expressed
an openness to considering fresh
ideas on Iraq and announced the
departure of Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld.
MSA
From page IA
contested March election, when
a president and vice president
will be elected.
There are nine LSA seats to be
voted on today and tomorrow, four
Rackham Graduate School seats,
three College of Engineering seats,
two Business School seats and one
seat each in the schools of nursing,
pharmacy, social work, medicine
and public health.
For those students who want
more information before voting,
the online ballot features links to
several candidates' platforms.
Below is a rundown of each of
the four parties competing for
these coveted spots:
DEFEND AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION PARTY
Platform: Fight racial harass-
ment and preserve and increase
minority enrollment on campus.
LSA candidates: Stephen Bar-
rett, Amber Williams, Roland
Frohman III, Yousef Rabhi, Alex
Smith, Sarah Barnard and Mari-
cruz Lopez.
Candidates from other schools:
Karen Tabb, School of Social Work;
Julia Redd, Clinique Brundidge,
Nicole Campbell and Catherine
Jones, Rackham; and Mahdi Chad-
houry, engineering.
HUNGRY HUNGRY
COEDS.COM PARTY
Platform: Change MSA proce-
dures so student organizations can
use money distributed by MSA to
provide free food at their meetings
more easily
LSA candidates: Ben Grimshaw,
Steven Schwartz, Daniel Ray, Joe
Degnan, Tom Gannon, Mera Keen-
an, Pooja Varma, Brant DiChiera
and James Pomerantz.
Engineering candidates: Saa-
mir Rahman, James Anderson and
Wessam Ibrahim.
MICHIGANACTION PARTY
Platform: "Protecting your
wallets, protecting your rights
and taking action for you."
LSA candidates: Michael Moses,
Shakim Beamon, Marcus Wil-
liams, Jennifer Hsu, Nicole Vitale,
Max Lebowtz-Nowak, Sabrina
Shingwani, Ryan Sloan and Lauren
Washington:
Candidates from other schools
and colleges: Robby Hogle and
Arvind Sohoni, business; Ashley
Schneider, Kyle Goszyk and Brian
Steers, engineering.
STUDENT LIBERTY PARTY
Platform: Reform the race and
ethnicity graduation requirement
so more classes qualify, discourage
the assembly from taking stances
on political issues and enable stu-
dents to allow a dollar of their MSA
student fees to go toward a student
group of their choice.
LSA candidates: Chris Fitzpat-
rick, Lisa Ferro, Lukasz Wietrzyn-
ski and Bryan Kelly.
Candidates from other schools
and colleges: Lisa Treumuth, phar-
macy; Scott Cackowski and Elliot
Kruk, engineering.
INDEPENDENTS
Two candidates are running as
independents: Tim Hull, LSA, and
Ari Siegel, business.
Hull said he wants to make MSA
more relevant to the average stu-
dent.
Siegel said he wants to expand
options for BBA dual degrees,
change all campus printing defaults
to double-sided, increase green
energy use on campus and make
MSA more student-friendly.
Eastern Michigan University student Ben Powers wins a chicken wing eating contest last night at Buffalo Wild Wings on State
Street. The contest was sponsored by UM Stars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Powers ate a dozen wings in about 90 seconds.
[that's not how we used to do it.]
W7 Univesit
Unions
DD YU KOW
FOR FRESH BREATH ON THE -
RANGE,YOUCAN CHOMP ONA 7 7 1
MINT GOLF TEE
For 25 cents,you can - -- -
get rid of foul breath
with a flavored golf tee.
The flavors available range -814
from mint to grape.
Two U.S.inventors, John Packes
and Ramon Peralta, came up with .......
the idea for Tasty Golf Tees while
walking down the fairway, Reuters
reported. The inventors realized
the possible profitability of fla-
vored tees when they saw golfers
chewing on tees on their way to the
next hole.