The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 7A Aerospace firm to draw on U' talent FACE TIME COMPANY From page 1A Weinert said University stu- dents won't get any special con- sideration in competition for internships or jobs, but he thinks the proximity of the company to Ann Arbor will be an advantage to students. ElizabethParkinson,aspokes- woman for Ann Arbor SPARK - a nonprofit organization that works to bring businesses to the Ann Arbor area - said SPARK is planning at first to help the com- pany find interested graduates and experienced workers to fill positions, but then will leave it up to Weinert and the Universi- ty's placement programs to work with the company. If Aernnova wants to increase its area pres- ence, Ann Arbor SPARK will help it expand its facilities, Par- kinson said. Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced the move yesterday in Lansing. With her were Uni- versity President Mary Sue Cole- man, Ann Arbor SPARK CEO Mike Finney, CEO of Michigan Economic Development Corpora- tion James Epolito, and Aernnova CEO Inaki Lopez Gandasegui. The announcement is a boost to the struggling Michigan econ- omy, especially after Pfizer's deci- sion this winter to shut down its 2,100-person facility near North Campus. In a statement released yester- day, Coleman said she's looking forward to working with the com- pany to collaborate on jobs and internships. "In working with Ann Arbor SPARK and the MEDC (Michigan Economic Development Corpora- tion), we immediately recognized the benefit of this international firm to our region," she said. "We also knew we had much to offer Aernnova, from collaborations with our highly ranked College of Engineering to qualified gradu- ates from throughout our univer- sity." - The Associated Press contributed to this report. Lea Sult, a barista at Cafe Ambrosia on Maynard Street, is seen in the refelection of a large drawing of a face by Jane Sylvia Clifford of Ann Arbor. Cafe Ambrosia frequent- ly displays work by local artists. Trip from Howell to Ann Arbor would take 20 minutes eachway MSA wants to revive homecoming PARADE From page 1A held Oct. 8 and 9. Once elected, the royal court will make a grand appearance at both the parade and the football game. Some students, however, are not as excited about these events as MSA might hope. "Ithinka lotofstudentsaregoing to pass by thinking, 'What the hell, I don't care about a king and queen. Didn't I just leave high school?' " LSA senior Matt Son said. Other students seem excited - a Facebook group dedicated to homecoming already has over 600 members. Some students expressed con- cern about homecoming being scheduled the same weekend as Fall Break, when many students go home. Other students aren't exactly thrilled, but they are intrigued. "I didn't even know we had a homecoming," LSA junior Emily Grekin said. "I think it would be successful because there's already a lot of school spirit on campus." Baydoun cited school spirit as the reason for planning a home- coming "This is an important year to engulf the homecoming spirit," Baydoun said. "(The football team) had a rocky start. That's an important reason to keep the homecoming spirit and Michigan spirit alive." DATA From page 1A versity Hospital spokeswoman Kallie Michels said. DPS spokeswoman said there were no signs of forced entry in the room. Michels said a system admin- istrator noticed the box was missing on a Monday morning, Baydoun said that a return to the tradition of homecoming will excite students. "Every other Big Ten school has a type of homecoming cel- ebration," Baydoun said. "We're obviously the best Big Ten School for spirit, athletics, academics. We should be the best Big Ten school in celebration of homecoming." Purdue, the football team's opponent on homecoming week- end, is no exception. Courtney Freeland, an Engi- neering junior at Purdue, said her school's homecoming celebration is similar to the plans unfolding in Ann Arbor. "The parade is pretty cool," she said, though she admitted most people don't pay attention to the homecoming court unless they know someone on it. MSA is hosting float-making workshops today and Friday. It has contacted more than 800 student groups through e-mail to advertise for the event. However, because many student groups have still not registered with MSA, MSA will continue advertis- ing throughout the month. "We're expecting a big turnout, especially because we're getting as many student groups involved as we can," Baydoun said. Nomination forms for the king and queen election are due by Sept. 26 and are available at msa. umich.edu. and called the Department of Public Safety after realizing that it could have been stolen. Nurs- ing School Dean Ada Hinshaw notified ITSS. The School of Nursing office sent out letters to the patients with stolen information, detailing how to report a possible identity theft. Police have no suspects in the case, Brown said. RAIL From page 1A tribution to the new rail line was comparable to its practice of sub- sidizing van pools for University employees.Director of Community Relations Jim Kosteva compared the rail line to the University's MRide bus program, which allows free passage on city busses with a University ID. "(The railways would be) anoth- er potential method for faculty, students and staff to gain access to the University without having to rely on individual automobiles," he said. These efforts are part of a larger University and city push to reduce fossil fuel usage and carbon emis- sions. "One of the reasons I want the train is because it will reduce greenhouse gasses," Hieftje said. Brown said the train is an opportunity to reduce the number of cars coming to campus as well as overall congestion and energy usage. "Parking those vehicles is a challenge for us and we'd like to see land not going to more parking structures," she said. Brown said the rail effort is sup- ported in large part by Livings- ton County residents. Livingston County-located just north ofAnn Arbor's Washtenaw County - is home to about 11,000 people who commute to Ann Arbor. "They got a real kick in the pants when they found out this summer that there would be so much more road work on US 23," she said. Brown said Livingston County residents had hoped that the fed- eral Department of Transporta- tion would add lanes to US 23, but that never happened. "Congestion still reigns, morn- ing and night, on US 23," Brown said. Hieftje said the train would be one way to relieve the congestion. "I don't want to see more lanes on 23," Hieftje said. "I think that leads to more sprawl and more pol- lution." Washtenaw and Livingston Counties are in the process of establishing a Commuter Rail Authority Board that would bring together leaders from both counties to head the operation. The Commuter Authority would then be in charge of maintain- Iraqi report sa Blackwater shl ing a contract with Great Lakes Central Railroad, the company that owns the majority of the tracks the train would run on. The tracks are currently used to transport freight. Mike Bagwell, the company's president, was enthusiastic about the new railroad. He said he would like his company tobe in charge of operations and track maintenance, providing the train cars and any other rail service that would be needed. Bagwell said committees are being formed to map out details of the project like marketing, financ- ing, scheduling and the construc- tion of platforms at train stops. Construction of platforms would take about 90 days once the project receives the necessary funding, Bagwell said. The scheduling committee is considering running an express train that would travel directly from one end of the line to the other in addition to a train that would stop at each station. The express train is projected to take 20 minutes each way - about 45 minutes less than the trip would take at rush hour on US 23. Sys _ot first Embassy officials said on Monday that the Blackwater guards had been responding to a car bomb, but Dabbagh said the bomb was so far away that it could not possibly have been a reason for the convoy to begin shooting. Instead, he said, the convoy ini- tiated the shooting, when a car did not heed a traffic policeman and moved into an intersection. "The traffic policeman was try- ing to open the road for them," he said. "It was a crowded square. But one small car did not stop. It was moving very slowly. They shot against the couple and their child. They started shooting ran- domly." In interviews yesterday, six Iraqis who had been in the area at the time of the shooting, including a man who was wounded and an Iraqi army soldier who helped res- cue people, offered roughly similar versions. The Iraqi soldier who said he wasstandingat acheckpointonthe edge of the square said he thought the convoy believed the small car was a suicide bomber, and opened fire. According to the wounded man, recuperating in Yarmouk Hospital, the car with the family was drvino the wrong ide of the road. The convoy began throwing non-lethal sound bombs, several witnesses said, to keep people in the area away. That drew fire from Iraqi army soldiers man- ning watchtowers that are part of an Iraqi army base on the square. Iraqi police, witnesses said, also appeared to be shooting. Document says private guards weren't ambushed By SABRINA TAVERNISE and JAMES GLANZ The New York Times BAGHDAD - A preliminary Iraqireportonashootinginvolving a U.S. diplomatic motorcade said yesterday that Blackwater security guards had not been ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing a couple and their infant. The report, by the ministries of Interior and Defense, was present- ed to the Iraqi Cabinet yesterday and, though unverified, seemed to contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were responding to gunfire by militants. The report said that Blackwater helicopters had fired and that 20 Iraqis were killed, a far higher number than had been reported before. In a sign of the seriousness of the standoff, the U.S. Embassy here suspended diplomatic mis- sions outside the Green Zone and throughout Iraq on yesterday. "There was notshooting against the convoy," said Ali Dabbagh, the Iraqi government's spokesman. "There was no fire from anyone in the square." A U.S. State Department spokes- man, Edgar Vaszuez, said he had not heard of the report and reiter- ated that the department was con- ni. ducting an investigation supported by the U.S. military. A spokeswoman for Blackwater responded to an e-mailed request for comment as follows: "Let these folks do the investigation and get all the facts and if dept proce- dures were not followed after the facts have been gathered we would decide what action to take." The U.S. Embassy said of diplo- matic missions: "This suspension is in effect in order to assess Mis- sion security and procedures, as well as a possible increased threat to personnel traveling with securi- ty details outside the International Zone." The shooting, which occurred Sunday, has angered Iraqi officials and touched off an angry debate about private security companies, which operate outside Iraqi law, a privilege extended to them by U.S. officials while Iraq's government was still under U.S. administra- tion. Blackwater, which guards all top U.S. officials here, had its work suspended, and Iraqi offi- cials on Tuesday agreed to rewrite the rules to make the companies accountable. "We do understand that the security companies are subject to high levels of threat and they do a good job at protection, but his does not entitle them to immunity from Iraqi laws," Dabbaghsaid. "This is what the Iraqi government would like to review." He said the Iraqi and U.S. gov- ernments had set up a joint com- mittee to investigate the deaths. The preliminary report offered a different version of events. U.S. 4k ' 1140 S. UNIVERSITY OPEN: M-F 11AM- 2AM SAT, SUN 12PM- 2AM NEED EXTRA CASH? Join the Daily's uploading staff. 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