The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, September 13, 2007 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
GETTING NEW GREEKS
MOSCOW
Putin chooses
no-name
to replace PM
President Vladimir Putin
chose a little-known govern-
ment official to become Russia's
new prime minister yester-
day, a surprise move that set
off fevered speculation over
whether loyal technocrat Vik-
tor Zubkov was being groomed
to replace Putin next spring.
The move came a few hours
after Putin dissolved the Cabi-
net of his long-serving prime
minister, Mikhail Fradkov,
saying he needed to appoint a
government better suited to the
election campaign and to "pre-
pare the country" for life after
the elections.
The nomination of Zubkov,
who has overseen investigations
into suspicious financial trans-
actions, caught much of the
political elite off guard, which
appeared to be Putin's inten-
tion.
WASHINGTON
Senate Dems.
reject Petraeus's
troop plan
A day before Bush was to
deliver a major address on the
war, Senate Democrats rejected
a four-star general's recommen-
dation to keep some 130,000
troops in Iraq through next
summer and called for legisla-
tion that would sharply limit
the mission of U.S. forces.
Their proposal was not
expected to set a deadline to
end the war, as many Demo-
crats want, but instead restrict
troops to a narrow set of objec-
tives: training the Iraqi mili-
tary and police, protecting U.S.
assets and fighting terrorists,
party officials told the Associ-
ated Press.
The goal of' the tempered
measure is to attract enough
Republican votes to break the
60-vote threshold in the Sen-
ate needed to end a filibuster
- something Democrats have
been unable to do since tak-
ing control of Congress eight
months ago.
BIG CREEK, W.Va.
No hate crime
charges in W.Va.
torture case
Authorities decided yester-
day not to pursue hate crime
charges in the kidnapping and
weeklong torture of a black
woman, instead going after the
suspects, who are white, on
state charges that carry stiffer
penalties.
While federal civil rights or
state hate crime charges remain
an option, a state kidnapping
count that carries a sentence of
up to life in prison will provide
the best chance for successful
prosecution, officials said.
"As a practical matter, sen-
tenced to life, what else can be
done?" U.S. Attorney Charles
T. Miller told The Associated
Press.
Six people face charges,
including kidnapping, sexual
assault and lying to police in the
torture of Megan Williams, 20,
at a remote hillside home in Big
Creek.
MONPEIIER, Vt.
Automakers to
comply with state
emissions rules
Vermont and other states
scored a victory yesterday in
their battle to get automakers
to comply with rules aimed at
reducing global warming.
State rules on greenhouse gas
emissions don't conflict with
federal mileage standards and
automakers should be able to
develop the technology to meet
them, a federal judge ruled.
"There is no question that the
GHG (greenhouse gas) regula-
tions present great challenges
to automakers," Judge William
Sessions III, sitting in the U.S.
District Court in Burlington,
wrote at the conclusion of his
240-page decision.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
3,773
Number of American service
members who have died in the
War in Iraq, according to The
Associated Press. The following
were identified by the Depart-
ment of Defense yesterday:
Cpl. Carlos E. Gilorozco, of
San Jose, Calif.,
Lance Cpl. Jon T. Hicks, 20,
of Atco, N.J.,
Staff Sft. Courtney Hol-
linsworth, 26, of Yonkers, N.Y.
Two South U. buildings
emptied by smoke fears
Martha Cook,
Clements Library
evacuated by dust
By MARIEM QAMRUZZAMAN
Daily StaffReporter
Two campus buildings were
evacuated for about an hour yes-
terday morning while firefighters
investigated reports of smoke.
At about 9:15 a.m., the Depart-
ment of Public Safety received mul-
tiple calls from people who smelled
smoke coming from the basement
of the Clements Library and an
underground utilities tunnel.
Both the library and Martha
Cook Residence Hall were evacu-
ated from about 9:30 to 10:15 a.m.
while firefighters tried to locate the
source of the smoke, DPS spokes-
woman Diane Brown said.
No one was injured.
People were allowed to pass on
the south side of South University
Avenue, and many Martha Cook
residents waited nearby in flips
flops and pajamas, said LSA sopho-
more Lea Wojciechowski, one of
the evacuated residents.
The smoke was actually dust
caused by contractors cutting
cement nearby, Brown said.
The contractors were working
near the Hatcher Graduate Library
on a project to repair underground
utility tunnels in the area.
Wojciechowski was checking
her e-mail in the basement of Mar-
tha Cook when a staff member told
her to evacuate. She stood outside
in the 50-degree weather wear-
ing flip-flops, jeans and a t-shirt.
Wojciechowski estimated that
about 80 students were evacuated
from the dorm.
"Ijustfigured itwasjustsome lit-
tle situation like someone was dry-
ing her hair, and that's what caused
the alarm to go off," Wojciechowski
said.
After waiting outside for about
half an hour, Wojciechowski left
to go to her Math 425 class empty-
handed. Wojciechowski said she
explained why she didn't have her
homework with her to her profes-
sor, who said "that's a better story
than saying the dog ate my home-
work."
After students were allowed
back into the dorm, construction
workers spent the next few hours
venting the air to dissipate the dust
particles, Brown said.
Freshman Mike Sternberg picks up information about Delta Upsilon at the Fra-
ternity Forum yesterday on the Diag.
mPrint gets ')upgrade
Students can print
Word documents
from remote locales
By JOE STAPLETON
For the Daily
Starting Monday, students
will be able to send any Micro-
soft Office document to a campus
printer remotely and pick it up
later.
Previously, the University's
mPrint service, located at itd.
umich.edu/mprint, only lets users
print PDFs, postscript files and
plain text files remotely. That's
not much help for most students,
who use Microsoft Word to write
papers.
If a student wants to use cam-
pus printers now, they have to
resort to alternatives like saving
their work online or using por-
table memory and opening it up
Earthquake shakes Indonesia
Disaster collapses buildings direction," Wati Said reported by cell phone from
Bengkulu, a town 80 miles from the quake's epicen-
kills 5 and injures dozens ter. "We think our neighborhood is high enough. God
willing, if the water comes, it will not touch us here....
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A strong earthquake Everyone is afraid."
shook Southeast Asia yesterday, collapsing buildings, One witness, Budi Darmawan, said a three-story
killing at least five people and injuring dozens in Indo- building near his office fell. "I saw it with my own
nesia. Nations as far away as Africa put coastal areas eyes," he told El Shinta radio.
on alert, but only a small tsunami hit Sumatra, the The 8.4-magnitude quake was felt in at least four
island ravaged by the 2004 tsunami disaster. countries, with tall buildings swaying in cities up to
Frightened people fled their homes and ran inland, 1,200 miles away. The tremor was followed by a series
fearing a repeat of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami of strong aftershocks, further rattling residents.
that struck a dozen nations around the Indian Ocean, Telephone lines and electricity were disrupted
killing an estimated 230,000 people. across a large swath of Indonesia, making it difficult to
"Everyone is running out of their houses in every get information about damage and casualties.
on a computer at a campus com-
puting site.
Robert Jones, who manages
printing at campus computing
sites, said letting people access
University printers remotely pre-
sented a challenge at first because
it was hard to make sure the users
were students or staff.
Then came the idea for the
mPrint website.
"We can authenticate people
through a website," Jones said.
"Why not just filter it all through
there?"
Students had mixed feelings
about the new service yesterday.
"I think I heard something
about it at orientation," LSA
freshman Claudia Cao said. "It
sounds really convenient."
LSA junior R.C. Thorsby,
though, was unexcited by the
changes.
"It doesn't sound like a bad idea,
just not very necessary," he said.
"It sounds kind of superfluous."
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