The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Monday, September 24, 2007 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich.
Former candidate
considering U.S.
Senate run again
Next year's U.S. Senate race is
looking like it could be a rematch
between longtime Democratic
incumbent Carl Levin and Repub-
lican Andrew "Rocky" Raczkows-
ki.
Raczkowski spoke briefly Sat-
urday at a Mackinac Republican
Leadership Conference luncheon,
the usual biennial kickoff for the
following year's elections. He
didn't commit while he was on the
island to running in the election,
but says he has set up an explor-
atory committee and is consider-
ing challenging Levin for a second
time.
Another Republican, state Rep.
Jack Hoogendyk of Kalamazoo,
told The Associated Press by tele-
phone yesterday that he's also
considering the race. He said he
has received encouragement from
party leaders and from support-
ers who got to know him during
his six-month bid for governor in
2005. Hoogendyk withdrew with-
out challenging Dick DeVos for the
2006 GOP nomination and is serv-
ing his last two-term in the state
House.
UNITED NATIONS
Rice says Arab
nations invited to
Mideast summit
Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice said yesterday that key Arab
nations, including Syria, would
be invited to President Bush's
planned Mideast peace conference
this fall and expressed hope they
would attend.
Formal invitations haven't been
issued yet but Rice said it "would
be natural" for Syria, Saudi Arabia
and 10 other Arab League mem-
bers looking at a broad peace deal
with Israel to participate despite
their hostility to the Jewish state.
"It is very important that the
regional players of the internation-
al community mobilize to support
them," she said, referring to the
Israelis and the Palestinians.
NEW YORK
Iraqi PM says
attacks challenge
sovereignty
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki said yesterday the shoot-
ing deaths of civilians - allegedly
at the hands of Blackwater USA
guards - and other violence
involving the company pose "seri-
ous challenges to the sovereignty
of Iraq" and cannot be accepted.
"The Iraqi government is
responsible for its citizens and it
cannot be accepted for a security
company to carry out a killing," he
told The Associated Press, speak-
ing in his New York hotel suite
ahead of his appearance at the
U.N. General Assembly.
Noting that Blackwater has
been linked to at least seven inci-
dents involving gunfire on Iraqi
civilians, he added: "There are
serious challenges to the sover-
eignty of Iraq." In Arabic, he used
the word "tajawiz" which can be
translated either as "affronts" or
"challenges."

TOKYO
Moderate Fukuda
elected as Japanese
prime minister
The veteran moderate Yasuo
Fukuda easily won election as
Japan's ruling party president yes-
terday, pledging to keep a pro-U.S.
foreign policy and improve ties
with Asia after he almost certainly
becomes prime minister later this
week.
Fukuda, the 71-year-old son of a
prime minister from the 1970s and
a former right-hand man to two
premiers, won 63 percent of the
vote among Liberal Democratic
Party lawmakers and delegates,
beating his lone rival, former For-
eign Minister Taro Aso.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
FALLE AMRI C ANS
3,796
Number of American service
members who have died in the war
in Iraq, according to The Associ-
ated Press. The following service
members were identified by the
Department of Defense over the
weekend:
Cpl. Graham M. McMahon,
22, of Corvallis, Ore.
Pfc. Luigi Marciante Jr., 25, of
Elizabeth, N.J.
Spc. John J. Young, 24, of
Savannah, Ga.
Capt. (Dr.) Roselle M. Hoff-
master, 32, of Cleveland, Ohio

'U' receives
$33 million
for youth study

PARKOUR

Institute examines
tobacco, alcohol
and drug use
By ANDY KROLL
Daily StaffReporter
The University's Institute for
Social Research received a $33
million grant last week to contin-
ue its headline-making study of
youth alcohol, tobacco and drug
use for another five years.
The study, called Monitoring
the Future, is often referenced in
newspapers, scientific journals
and industry trade publications.
Lloyd Johnston, a principal
investigator of Monitoring the
Future, said NIH research grants
and the Monitoring the Future
study have drawn national rec-
ognition to both the ISR and the
University.
"In any given year, we survey
about 50,000 secondary school
students and bring the name of
the University of Michigan before
them," Johnston said. "And that's
the population from which our
student body is drawn."
Johnston also said administra-
tors at schools that are participat-

ing in the study take notice of the
University's role in the project.
In 2006, the University
received about $366 million in
research grants from the Nation-
al Institutes of Health.
Each year, the study surveys
randomly selected eighth-, 10th-
and 12th-graders, tracking them
over time to see how drug-relat-
ed habits form. The survey also
watches for the consequences of
those behaviors.
Wilson Compton, a director at
the National Institute on Drug
Abuse, which funds Monitoring
the Future, said the program is
invaluable to the study of drug
abuse.
"It's the only study that surveys
certain grade-level students each
year while also tracking the lon-
gitudinalprogress of these people
into the future," said Compton,
who heads the Division of Epide-
miology Services at the National
Institute on Drug Abuse.
The study provides a great
deal of information about how
drug epidemics rise and fall over
extended periods of time, Comp-
ton said.
This year the study will survey
nearly 50,000 eighth graders and
high school students throughout
the United States.

ALLISUNGHAM AN/Daily
Michael Frosti, a contestant on "Survivor: China" and Traverse City resident, jumps from a wall near Huron Street at Saturday's
Second Ann Arbor Free-Running Parkour Jam.


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