The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, A pril 21 2009 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
440 lbs. of cocaine
seized by police at
Canadian border
Canadian authorities say bor-
der agents have seized about 440
pounds of cocaine in two busts at
the Ambassador Bridge that links
Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
The Canada Border Services
Agency said yesterday both busts
happened after searches of Cana-
da-bound tractor-trailers.
The agency says its agents dis-
covered about 176 pounds (80 kilo-
grams) of cocaine April 12 inside a
truck. The agency tells the Detroit
Free Press a 45-year-old Bramp-
ton, Ontario, man faces drug traf-
ficking charges.
The agency says the bust came
three days after agents found about
264 pounds (120 kilograms) of
cocaine in a search that led to the
arrest of two Quebec men, ages 29
and 39.
NEW YORK
GM spent $2.8M
in federal lobbying
in first quarter
General Motors Corp. spent $2.8
million lobbying the U.S. govern-
ment in the first three months of
2009, while the company was sur-
viving on $13.4 billion in federal
loans, according to a government
J filing.
The Detroit automaker said it
spent the money lobbying a range
of issues, including the economic
stimulus package, environmen-
tal, consumer safety and health
issues.
h The automaker's lobbying costs
fell 15 percent from the $3.3 mil-
lion it spent in the fourth quarter
of 2008, but are up from the $2.7
million it spent in the third quar-
ter, according to filings.
GM spokesman Greg Martin
said the company did not spend any
of its lobbying budget on obtaining
government assistance, nor did it
spend any of the federal aid it has
received thus far on lobbying.
"We're a part of arguably one
of the most regulated industries
and we provide a voice in complex
policy discussions," Martin said.
"We meet-strict reporting require-
ments."
MORGANTOWN, W. Va.
FBI workers
accused of spying
on dressing room
Two FBI workers are accused of
usingsurveillanceequipmenttospy
on teenage girls as they undressed
and tried on prom gowns at a char-
ity event at a West Virginia mall.
The FBI employees have been
charged with conspiracy and com-
mitting criminal invasion of pri-
vacy. They were working in an FBI
satellite control room at the mall
when they positioned a camera on
temporary changing rooms and
zoomed in for at least 90 minutes
on girls dressing for the Cinder-
ella Project fashion show, Marion
County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said
yesterday.
Gary Sutton Jr., 40, of New
Milton and Charles Hommema of
Buckhannon have been charged
with the misdemeanors and face
fines and up to a year in jail on
each charge if convicted. Sutton
has been released on bond, Wil-
son said, and Hommema is to be
arraigned later this week. Wilson
did not know Hommema's age.
LONDON
Steven Hawking
hospitalized, very ill
Stephen Hawking, the Brit-
ish mathematician and physicist
famed for his work on black holes,
was rushed to a hospital yesterday
and was seriously ill, Cambridge
University said.
Hawking has been fighting a
chest infection for several weeks
and was being treated at Adden-
brooke's Hospital in Cambridge,
the university city northeast of
London, the university said.
"Professor Hawking is very ill,"
said Gregory Hayman, the univer-
sity's head of communications. "He
is undergoing tests. He has been
unwell for a couple of weeks."
Later in the afternoon, Hayman
said Hawking was "now comfort-
able but will be kept in hospital
overnight."
The illness had caused Hawking
to cancel an appearance at Arizona
State University on April 6.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
SMOKING
From Page 1A
products for students, faculty
and staff. University employees
will also have reduced co-pays on
prescription cessation products,
Winfield said.
In the fall of 2010, Winfield
said the committee will bring the
proposed policy before Univer-
sity administrators for an official
review.
But until that point, Winfield
said there are still several ques-
tions as to how the policy will be
implemented to create a smooth
transition for all members of the
University community. Because
this plan is still in the develop-
mental stages, Winfield said it is
important to get input from many
different groups on campus, as
well as from other private com-
panies that neighbor University
property.
"What we want to do is hear
from people about how we can
get from here to our goal, and
what that goal will look like in
terms of impact on people," Win-
field said.
Winfield brought up various
challenges that may arise with the
implementation of such a policy,
including how to deal with smok-
ing at football game tailgates,
near performing arts centers and
on the University golf course, in
which guests of the University
are often present.
Winfield discussed the policy
with members of the Senate Advi-
sory Committee on University
Affairs at its meeting yesterday,
and said another concern is how
to handle potential apprehen-
sions of international students
who may come from countries
in which smoking is an intricate
part of their culture or national
tradition.
The University's Department
of Public Safety will not give
out tickets for violations of the
policy, Winfield said, but specific
repercussions for disobeying the
policy are being discussed. There
will also be changes made to the
Statement of the Student Rights
and Responsibilities Handbookto
reflect the new policy, he said.
Winfield said he expects there
will be some dissent regarding
the policy, but that in two years
time, most of the dialogue will be
exhausted.
"I think most smokers under-
stand that over the years their
behavior is not conducive to non-
smokers, and I suspect that those
smokers have come to grips with
this to some degree," he said.
Similar policies have already
been implemented on more than
260 college campuses across the
country, including the University
of California at San Francisco,
Indiana University and the Uni-
versity of Iowa, according to the
press release.
Karen Whitney, chair of the
Indiana University Purdue Uni-
versity Indianapolis Smoking Pol-
icy, said the tobacco-free policy
was well received by members of
the university community when
it was implemented in August
2006.
Whitney, IUPUI's dean of
students, said the smoke-free
policy's compliance with the uni-
versity's mission as a health and
life sciences campus has allowed
the university to be highly suc-
cessful in its implementation of
the regulation.
"It has significantly reduced
smoking on university property,"
Whitney said. "It has changed
and reformed the campus. It is
now considered unacceptable to
smoke on campus."
Whitney said while the policy
has improved the air quality on
campus, there is no evidence that
it has reduced the cost of health
care for its faculty and staffE
But smoke-free policies are
not welcomed by all, including
George Koodray, New Jersey
state coordinator for The Smok-
er's Club of the Citizens Freedom
Alliance.
Koodray said banning smoking
on college campuses is part of a
growing trend to punish people
for non-obtrusive, legal behavior.
"We don't understand why in
America the law should penalize
people for a practice that's not
offensive to anyone," Koodray
said. "This kind of a ban on the
consumption of a legal product
doesn't have adverse affects on
anyone. We just can't under-
stand where this policy is coming
from."
Koodray said everyone, includ-
ing nonsmokers should be wor-
ried about the implementation of
this policy, as it could lead to bans
on other legal substances.
"A lot of people may not object
to this kind of policy because
they don't smoke," Koodray said.
"But down the road, it's a slippery
slope, where we see this taking
form to other prohibitions in the
future that people don't approve
of but are completely legal."
Engineering freshman Chris
Pike, a smoker, said although he
thinks the University shouldn't
be able to conduct students' per-
sonal behavior, it is still a good
thing they are trying to imple-
ment.
"I guess they can tell us what
to do; it's a public university,"
Pike said. "But we nay to enhere.
Detroit Free Press reporter Jim Schaefer, right, lifts Senior Managing Editor Jeff Taylor as reporter M.L t rick, left, celebrate
their Pulitzer Prize for local reporting yesterday in Detroit.
Free Press wins Pulitzer for the
Detroit mayor scandal coverage
Reporters Schaefer
and Elrick first to
uncover Kwame's text
messages to Beatty
DETROIT (AP) - Struggling
simply to survive as readership and
advertising drop, the Detroit Free
Press celebrated winning a Pulit-
zer Prize yesterday for its report-
ing of a sex scandal that brought
down the city's mayor.
Minutes before the Pulitzer was
announced, most of the Free Press
staff crowded into the close quar-
ters around the cluttered corner
desks of Ji Schaefer and M.L.
Elrick, the main reporters on the
story.
When Elrick, reading from a
computer screen, announced,
"It looks like we won," applause
exploded and continued for nearly
two minutes. Schaefer and Elrick
hugged, as did other staffers.
"The community is in a better
place now than it was a year ago,
and although we take no joyin what
Detroit had to go through, we take
a lot of satisfaction that we did our
job well," Paul Anger, Free Press
vice nresidentand editorsaidlin
an interview. "We upheld the First
Amendment. We upheld the pub-
lic's right to know, and Detroit can
move forward with confidence."
Schaefer and Elrick were the first
to uncover steamy text messages
between a married Kwame Kil-
patrick, the mayor at the time, and
Christine Beatty, his chief of staff.
Excerpts were first published in
January 2008 and led to both being
charged and eventually jailed.
The reporting opened the door to
intense scrutiny of Kilpatrick, his
finances and the operations of the
mayor's office.
The paper has not said how
it obtained the messages, which
revealed that Kilpatrick and Beat-
ty lied about their affair under oath
during a 2007 whistle-blowers'
trial. The messages were left on
Beatty's city-issued pager.
Following a short investigation,
Wayne County prosecutor Kym
Worthy charged Kilpatrick and
Beatty in March 2008 with per-
jury, misconduct and obstruction
of justice. Kilpatrick was required
to leave the mayor's office after
he pleaded guilty to two counts of
obstruction of justice and no con-
test to assault.
The award for local reporting
is the ninth Pulitzer for the Free
Press, and Elrick and Schaefer were
elated to have been a part of it.
Elrick said he was once offered a
job as Kilpatrick's press secretary
but turned it down.
"In retrospect I made probably
thebestcareerdecision Ievermade
by not taking that job," he said.
"The reason that job was attractive
is because this guy had all the tools
to be the greatest mayor of the 21st
century, and he threw it all away."
In an interview after the award
was announced yesterday, Schaefer
said: "This whole thing has been a
real emotional roller coaster ride
for me, from extreme sadness for
the city of Detroit to have to go
through this, to joy when Kym
Worthy charged the mayor."
It's been a tough year for Detroit
in general. The mortgage crisis has
hit the city as hard as any place in
the country. The turmoil of the
domestic auto industry continues to
lead to job cuts and add to the city's
skyrocketing unemployment.
As the economy has foundered,
the fortunes of the Free Press and
its main competitor, The Detroit
News, have dimmed.
Home delivery has been reduced
to the three days a week most pop-
ular with advertisers - Thursdays,
Fridavs and Sundavs