The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, April 3, 2007 -- 3 NEWS BRIEFS FIRE From page 1 BAGHDAD Bombing at Iraqi Parliament Kills 8 A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria yesterday, killing at least eight peo- ple - including at least two law- makers - and wounding about 30 in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone. A news video camera captured the moment of the blast: a flash and an orange ball of fire causing a startled parliament member who was being interviewed to duck, and then the smoky, dust-filled after- math of confusion and shouting. The video was shot by Alhurra, a U.S. government-funded Arab-lan- guage channel. Iraqi officials later gave wildly varying accounts ofhow many peo- pie were killed and who they were, and some disputed the U.S. death toll but gave no definitive figure of their own. MIDLAND, Mich. Dow Chemical fires adviser, officer over acquisition talks only days after announcing that it's not in talks involving a lever- aged buyout, Dow Chemical Co. has shown the door to a senior adviser and a company officer, accusing them of trying to negotiate a deal behind the company's back. Pedro Reinhard, a senior adviser, and Romeo Kreinberg, a divisional executive vice president, were dis- missed with the approval of the board of directors, Andrew Liveris, Dow chairman and CEO, said yesterday. Reinhard, who retired as the chemical giant's chief financial officer in October 2005, remains a member of the board. Only share- holders can remove directors. GENEVA, Switzerland Gerber to be sold to Nestle for $5.5 billion The famous Gerber Baby will change parents, with Nestle SA announcing yesterday that it will buy Michigan-based Gerber Prod- ucts Co. for $5.5 billion, giving the world's biggest food and drink com- pany the largest share of the global baby food market. The acquisition from pharma- ceutical maker Novartis SA helps further Nestle's recent focus on health and nutrition, following its purchases of the U.S. weight con- trol company Jenny Craig and No- vartis Medical Nutrition. Nestle, which owns brands such as Nescafe, Perrier and Dreyer's, also is the world's largest manufac- turer of infant nutritional products - largely through its leading posi- tions in developing countries such as Brazil and China - but had no presence in baby food in the United States. Gerber was started in 1928 in the small Michigan community of Fre- mont. DURHAM, N.C. Duke prosecutor apologizes to lax players The local prosecutor who charged three Duke lacrosse players with raping a stripper apologized to the athletes Thursday and said the 1 North Carolina attorney general's decision to drop the case was right. "To the extent that I made judg- ments that ultimately proved to be incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused," Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong said. On Wednesday, Attorney Gen- eral Roy Cooper not only dropped all remaining charges against the players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, but pro- nounced them innocent and said they were the victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse." - Compiled from Daily wire reports r FALLEN AMERICANS 3,285 Number of American service members who have died in the War in Iraq, according to The Associ- ated Press. No new deaths were identified yesterday. compiling data in January 2000. The most recent death occurred March 16 in an off-campus apart- ment at Boston University. Less than three weeks earlier, the col- lege had lost two more students in a similar apartment fire. The housemate was hospital- ized for several days with second- degree burns, a lacerated tricep and a severed nerve in his arm. One of his knuckles was later removed because it was damaged in the fall from the window. Perrin said the worst part of the fire was watching his friend recover. "Maybe if we had been more fire- conscious, we could've prevented that," he said. Although the seven tenants of the house all made it out alive that night, the situation could have been much different if the stairs lead- ing to the house's top floor caught fire before the house's occupants escaped, Perrin said. The house had no fire escapes. When Perrin and his housemates moved in a month and a half earlier, they weren't thinking about fire safety, he said. "It's something that we should've considered when we first moved in, but no one really thinks about that," he said. "Honestly, we didn't think about it much at all." Comeau said four common threads link many off-campus fires: a lack of sprinkler systems, miss- ing or disabled smoke detectors, improperly disposed cigarettes and drunkenness. Comeau said building problems like electrical fires rarely cause off- campus housing fatalities. Ann Arbor fire inspectors never determined the specific cause of the fire at 730Arbor St., which destroyed the entire three-story house and all its contents. Perrin said fire inspec- tors think the blaze started on a couch on the front porch. In June 2004, a house at 924 Oakland Ave. caught fire in a simi- lar manner, injuring several student athletes who spent the summer term on campus. Perrin said the occupants with bedrooms above the porch had left their windows open and smelled smoke. After realizing the porch was on fire, the students woke up everyone in the house except one occupant who later jumped out of a window. The student's room was locked with a deadbolt. Comeau said colleges should create fire safety education pro- grams to prevent fire fatalities. He said a list of dos and don'ts on a website or a presentation during freshman orientation isn't enough to ensure that students are pre- pared for fires. "It's not something you can do once. It's something that you do throughout the year in small incre- ments," he said. "The idea is to cre- ate messages that stick." Comeau said fire safety education should start early so students will know what safety measures to look for when choosing off-campus hous- ing. "It's so important that the train- ing starts in the residence halls so that when students move off-cam- pus, that training stays with them, and it also stays with them after they graduate," he said. Perrin said his experience dra- matically affected the way he looked for housing after he gradu- ated and left Ann Arbor. "One of the very first things I did was walk in and make sure the fire alarms and smoke detectors worked," he said of his new apart- ment in Temecula, Calif. He said he also made sure the apartment had multiple escape routes and bought a renter's insur- ance policy. Whenthe fire occurred, all seven occupants of 730 Arbor St. were covered by their parents' homeowners insurance. Not all stu- dents are covered by their parents' insurance policy, though. Perrin had advice for students living in or thinking about moving to off-campus housing. "Be aware of fire safety when you first get a place, be conscious and have a plan in case it does happen," he said. "It's really important to have a plan. Having a plan where everybody meets in one place is extremely key." Perrin said his lessons reached his immediate circle of friends. "After that happened to us, all of our friends instantly became more fire-conscious," Perrin said. "It's just a shame that we had to learn that from personal experience." MCCAIN From page 1 eral Mike Cox is his state campaign chair. Romney was trailing in March with the support of 21 percent of surveyed Republicans statewide. But Romney's fundraising far exceeds Giuliani's and McCain's. He raised $23 million in the first quarter, which includes the $2.35 million the former venture capital- ist has contributed to his own cam- paign. Giuliani raised $15 million, despite jumping into the race later than McCain and Romney. McCain lags behind both candidates in fundraising, having collected only $12.5 million. Early campaign contributions are a crucial part of running increasingly expensive primary campaigns. Dan Carleton, chairman of the Michigan Federation of College Republicans, a statewide College Republican umbrella group, said McCain's persona would keep his campaign strong. "I've never worked with a cam- paign that is so engaged with the youth," Carleton said. "Senator McCain is so open to working with the College Republicans." Twenty-eight volunteers from the University's chapter of the Col- lege Republicans attended the din- in Ann Arbor for the summer? Join the Daily. E-mail news@ michigandaily.com JOBS!!!61 Fall/Winter Term Apply now at the Law Library- * non-Law Students * Law Students * SI. Students Minimum pay is $9.00 per hour! ner. They received complimentary dinners in exchange for volunteer- ing at the event. LSA junior Justin Zatkoff, the chairman-elect of the Michigan Federation of College Republicans, endorsed McCain in March. Zatkoff said he plans to mobi- lize young Republicans in the state to support McCain in the primary election. States are still finalizing their primary calendars, but one thing is certain: The nominating contests will take place much earlier this year than they have in the past as states race to hold their primaries earlier in hopes of having a larger say in who becomes the 2008 nomi- nees. Feb. 5, 2008 will be a decisive day for both the Democrats and the Republicans. Up to 20 states, pos- sibly including Michigan, will hold their primary on that day. The Michigan primary will like- ly be a closed election, which means that McCain will lack the support of the many Democrats who voted for him in the 2000 Republican pri- mary. McCain spent 15 minutes of his 25-minute speech telling jokes and the remaining 10 discussing his platform. His cell phone rang during his speech, but he said he only would have answered it if it were his wife calling. McCain briefly talked about his hopes for immigration reform and pork barrel spending, but his defense of his Iraq policy dominat- ed his speech. Even though he said the war in Iraq has been long, terrible and sad, he reiterated his call for more troops in Iraq during his speech. "It's not Iraq that they (the ter- rorists) want, it's us," McCain said. "If we leave Iraq at a specified date of withdrawal, they will follow us home." His speech fell on the same day that a suicide bomber struck the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad, kill- ing eight. Polls show that most Americans now oppose the war in Iraq. But even though his support of the war may hurt him in the gen- eral election, he stressed the impor- tance of continuing the fight. "There's no importance associ- ated with our political ambitions when there are men and women out there fighting and making sacrific- es," McCain said. Last night's stop at Shenandoah Country Club was the first on a two-day McCain swing through the state that also includes stops in Holland and Kalamazoo. - The Associated Press contributed to this report. An entertainment juggernaut of sights, sounds and dance - the quintessential rock musical. THE WHO'S TOMMY Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend Book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff Directed and choreographed by Linda Goodrich Musical Direction by Cynthia KortmanWestphal UM School of Music,Theatre & Dance Department of Musical Theatre Apr. 12 at 7:30 PM -Apr. 13 & 14 at 8 PM .Apr.15 at 2 PM Tickets $22 and $16 - Students $9 w/ID League Ticket Office - 734-764-2538 PEACE DAY From page 1 native, came to the University in 2003 expecting to enroll in the Ross School of Business. He was valedic- torian of his senior class at South Lyon High School. Szawala said he quickly realized that he was following his parents' dreams for him, not his own. "I was on a one-track path that was taking me to financial stability and a position in a bigcorporation," he said. "But I wasn't happy. I lost touch with friends and family. I realized I needed to find something that made me come alive." So Szawala became a motiva- tional speaker, a job he said he had considered since high school. Since then, he has spoken at local high schools, middle schools and churches, following the lead of his role models, Gandhi, Mother Tere- sa and Tupac Shakur. Swazala, whose friends call him Mr. Peace, said he hopes to inspire at least one person every time he speaks. "Motivational speaking is extrinsic, but I want the resultto be intrinsic," he said. Szawala, who is a member of Phi Delta Theta, Toastmasters, Expect Respect and the Diversity Blue Prints task force, said he thinks it is as important to establish a connec- tion between student groups as it is to maintain diversity on campus. He said the University hasn't done enough to build ties between student groups, and Peace Day is a step in that direction. LSA sophomore Alissa Renz, a member of Theta Nu Xi, agreed. "In the wake of Prop 2, it's very important to advocate under- standing between groups," Renz said, referring to the ballot initia- tive passed by Michigan voters in November that banned the use of affirmative action by public institu- tions in the state. The event will begin with remarks from Dean of Students Sue Eklund, who said she plans to address the importance of collabo- ration on campus. "I'mhopeful that duringPeaceDay events people will form new connec- tions and commit to continued action for the academic year," she said. Swazala says his work will con- tinue after Peace Day. "In 10 years I see myself leading a major peace movement and speak- ing in front of crowds of 50,000," he said. Apply at the hiring table outside roam S-180 in the Law Library's underground addition. BIVOAC (Inality Outdor Clotnhing ( Equipmteun JEANS* 336 s. state street* ann arbor 734.761.6207 mon-fri: 10-9 * sat: 10-6 * sun: 12-5