The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
BUENOS AIRES
First gay marriage
in Latin America
put on hold
An Argentine judge put a hold
yesterday on another court's deci-
sion to permit the first gay marriage
in Latin America, but supporters of
the couple said they would try to go
ahead with the ceremony anyway.
The official court Web site said
national judge Marta Gomez Alsina
ordered the wedding blocked until
the issue can be considered by the
Supreme Court.
Jose Maria Di Bello and his part-
ner, Alex Freyre, set plans to wed
Tuesday based on an earlier ruling
by a city judge in Buenos Aires.
"They are shocked and saddened
by the news, but still have hopes
that the wedding will go forth as
planned," said Maria Rachid, presi-
dent of the Argentine Federation
for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and
Transsexuals who coordinated the
team of laywers that filed the cou-
ple's suit.
HOUSTON, Tx.
Prisoner holds
guards at gunpoint
A convicted sex offender sen-
tenced to life in prison pulled a
gun on two guards during a prison
transfer yesterday-- and held them
hostage temporarily before fleeing
on foot in one of the guard's uni-
forms, authorities said.
At the time of the escape, the
inmate was in a wheelchair, which
he claimed he needed to help move
him around, officials said.
The guards were transferring
Arcade Joseph Comeaux Jr. from a
prison in Huntsville, north of Hous-
ton, to one in Beaumont, in south-
eastTexas, whenhepulledoutagun
and toldthe guards to stop thevehi-
cle, said Michelle Lyons, a spokes-
woman for the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice.
Comeaux took control of the
transport van at 6:30 a.m., near-
ly two hours into the trip, as the
vehicle was going through Con-
roe, just north of Houston. He
told the guards to continue driv-
ing until they reached Baytown,
a refinery town east of Houston,
officials said.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
Officer who tased
10 yr. old fired for
not using attached
* camera
The police officer in a small
Arkansas town who used a stun
gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl
has been fired for violating depart-
ment policy - not for using the
Taser itself but for failing to use the
camera attached to it, according to
the town's mayor.
Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel
said he received notice of Officer
Dustin Bradshaw's firing on Mon-
day morning. Bradshaw previously
was suspended for seven days with
pay. His termination was effective
Friday.
"The policy that Officer Brad-
shaw failed to obey is failure to
have his camera placed on his
Taser," police Chief Jim Noggle
wrote in a memo to McDaniel. "It is
the officer's duty to insure all of his
equipment is present and in work-
ing order."
LANSING, Mich.
Man accused of
child molestation
commits suicide
A Lansing man has commit-
ted suicide amid charges that he
molested the younger brother of a
member of the Boy Scout troop he
once helped lead.
A Lansing State Journal report
says authorities learned Monday
that 54-year7old Roger Ellison
Young-had killed himself.
Young faced two counts each
of first-degree and second-degree
criminal sexual conduct. He was
free on a $75,000 bond with a pre-
liminary hearing scheduled for
Friday.
Court documents say police on
Sept. 22 found child pornography
in Young's Lansing home, as well
as evidence that a boy was coerced
to appear in pornographic photos.
The boy now is 12 years old.
Young was removed from his
post as assistant scoutmaster of the
East Lansing troop after the allega-
tions emerged.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Guantanamo
detainees arrive
in Italy for trial
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee speaks to local residents in Arnold Park, Iowa on June 10.
While gov., Huckabee pardoned
Seattle police shootings suspect
Suspect could be
former gov.'s Willie
Horton if he runs
for pres. once again
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -
As governor of Arkansas, Mike
Huckabee had a hand pardoning
or commuting many more pris-
oners than his three immediate
predecessors combined. Maurice
Clemmons, the suspect in Sun-
day's slaying of four Seattle-area
police officers, was among them.
For a politician considering
another run for the White House,
Clemmons could become Hucka-
bee's Willie Horton.
"In a primary between a law-
and-order Republican and him,
I think it could definitely be a
vulnerability," said Art English,
a political scientist at the Univer-
sity of Arkansas at Little Rock. "It
is very damaging when you have
someone like that whose sentence
was commuted. That's pretty high
profile and very devastating and
very tragic."
English said it's hard to avoid.
comparing the case to Horton,
a convicted killer who raped a
woman and assaulted her fiance
while on release as part of a pris-
on furlough program supported
by Michael Dukakis when he was
governor of Massachusetts.
Allies of former President
George H.W. Bush ran ads criticiz-
ing Dukakis for his support of the
program, undermining the Demo-
crat's presidential campaign.
As recently as Sunday, hours
before the shooting suspect was
linked to him, Huckabee said he
was leaning against running again
for president, telling "Fox News
Sunday" he was "less likely rather
than more likely" to run.
Yesterday, Huckabee offered
little explanation for why he made
Clemmons eligible for parole in
2000, and called the case a failure
of the justice systems in Arkansas
and Washington.
"If I could have known nine
years ago and could have looked
into the future, would I have acted
favorably upon the Parole Board's
recommendation? Of course not,"
Huckabee told Fox News Radio
yesterday.
Huckabee was expected to dis-
cuss the Clemmons case Monday
night during an interview with
Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.
Clemmons was among 1,033
people who were pardoned or had
their sentences reduced during
Huckabee's101/2years as goversor,
a number that far surpasses that of
his three predecessors combined.
Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim
Guy Tucker granted 507 clemen-
cies in the 171/2 years they served.
Beebe, Huckabee's Democratic
successor, has issued 273 commu-
tations and pardons since taking
office in January 2007 - all but
one of them were pardons after
the completion of the inmates'
prison terms.
Huckabee's role in gaining
the release of a convicted rapist,
Wayne DuMond, was the subject
of an attack ad during his presi-
dential run. While Huckabee's
predecessor, Tucker, reduced
DuMond's sentence making him
eligible for parole, Huckabee took
steps almost immediately after
taking office to win DuMond's
release.
Two members of the state
parole board said Huckabee pres-
sured them to show DuMond
mercy, while Huckabee publicly
questioned whether DuMond was
guilty of the rape of a teenage girl.
During the presidential prima-
ries, a conservative group aired
television commercials in South
Carolina featuring the mother of
Carol Sue Shields, whom DuMond
killed in 2000 after his release.
Pulaski County Prosecu-
tor Larry Jegley, whose office
opposed Clemmons' parole in
2000 and 2004, said ,Huckabee
created a flaw in the Arkansas jus-
tice system by freeing the number
of prisoners he did.
"(Clemmons) should have
stayed locked up like the jury
wanted him and we wouldn't even
be having this discussion," Jegley
said.
"I just have been figuratively
holding my breath and hoping
something like this wouldn't hap-
pen," Jegley said. "I just think
that a lot of the people that were
subjects of clemency during that
period of time were some very
dangerous people who didn't need
to be let out."
Two Thnisians are
suspected of having
ties to al-Qaida
ROME (AP) - Two Tunisians
who hadbeen detained at Guantan-
amo arrived in Italy late yesterday
and will be tried on international
terrorism charges for having alleg-
edly recruited fighters for Afghani-
stan, officials said.
Adel Ben Mabrouk, 39, and
Mohamed Ben Riadh Nasri, 43, are
suspected of being members of a
terror group with ties to al-Qaida.
They were immediately taken into
custody upon arrival in Milan and
were being interrogated, a pros-
ecutor told The Associated Pres.
A third Guantanamo detainee
was being relocated to France, and
a fourth to Hungary, according to a
U.S. official who spoke on condition
of anonymity because the person
was not authorized to discuss the
release. -
The detainee headed to France
is Saber Lahmar, who had earlier
been cleared for release.
Lahmar's lawyer Robert Kirsch
would not specifically confirm his
client was en route to France, but
said: "We are grateful for the cour-
age and generosity of the French
people and government," add-
ing that Lahmar will now have
"a chance to rebuild his life in
France."
Lahmar is one of six Algerians
who were detained in Bosnia in
2001 on suspicion of plotting to
bomb the U.S. Embassy in Saraje-
vo, but a judge later cleared five of
them, including Lahmar, for lack of
KETTLE
From Page 1
keys to those locks," Williams
said.
wver> explained. "fyou
jiggle them, they will open."
Despite the fact that the bell
ringer left the bucket unattended,
he won't face any repercussions.
"He is one of our good workers,"
Williams said. "He's not being dis-
ciplined at all - he didn't do any-
thing wrong."
Carlos Carter, a Salvation Army
employee who works as a bell ring-
er in Ann Arbor, said the incident
made him afraid to leave his kettle
unattended.
"I was scared to leave the buck-
et (Sunday)," Carter said, working
outside Borders on East Liberty
Street yesterday. "I sacrificed my
lunch for this."
Williams said paid employees
of the Salvation Army's Christmas
Charity program typically get two
15-minute breaks and one half-
hour lunch break during an eight-
hour shift.
Volunteers on the other hand
only work for a couple of hours at
a time and typically do not go on
breaks.
Williams told the Daily that the
evidence.
The identity ofthe detainee being
transferred to Hungary was not
immediately available. The Wash-
ington Post said he was a Palestin-
ian.
In September, two Uzbeks were
sent to Ireland, and recently two
Syrians arrived in Portugal. But
they were freed. In the case of the
Tunisians, Italian magistrates had
previously accused them of inter-
national terrorism stemming from
crimes allegedly committed as far
back as i997 and they arrived in
Italy already in detention.
Italy took in the Tunisians as a
"concrete political sign" of Italy's
commitment to help the U.S. close
Guantanamo, Justice Minister
Angelino Alfano said in a state-
ment.
The Italian prosecutor, who
spoke on condition of anonymity,
said Mabrouk and Nasri traveled
fromItalytoAfghanistanand, once
there, maintained a "functional
relationship inside the organiza-
tion" of Tunisians here to recruit
fighters for suicide missions.
Nasri was allegedly the head of
the organization and was described
by the U.S. military as a "danger-
ous" Tunisian operative when he
appeared before a U.S. military
review panel.
President Barack Obama con-
firmed last month that he would
miss his January deadline to close
the Guantanamo prison - partly
because he cannot persuade other
nations to take the detainees.
The U.S. administration says
about 90 of the 211 men now held
at the U.S. military base can be
released or repatriated.
last time a Salvation Army bucket
was stolen in Ann Arbor was over
two years ago. It was a prank, and
the missing bucket was eventually
found.
But Williams said she is con-
cerned that this incident is the
result of the down economy.
"People are getting desperate,"
she said.
Williams said that if the perpe-
trator is caught, he or she will be
prosecuted.
"If we don't do anything about
this, the public won't trust us
with their money - we need to
keep people's trust in what we're
doing," Williams said.
Lieutenant Mark St. Amour of
AAPD called the incident "dis-
turbing."
"Stealing from the people who
were probably trying to help the
people who actually took it seemed
pretty low," he said.
The incident in Ann Arbor
comes at a time when similar inci-
dents have taken place in other cit-
ies around the country. A man was
arrested Sunday in Maumee, Ohio
for stealing one of the red kettles,
The Associated Press Reported.
Fox News Boston reported on its
website that a kettle was stolen
outside of a Wagreens in Dover,
N.H. on Sunday.
Float plane crash in Canada kills six
Two American
residents were
among the casualties
SATURNA, British Columbia
(AP) - A float plane crashed off
Canada's Pacific coast, killing six
people, including a Vancouver doc-
tor and her six month-old baby, as
well as two American residents.
Two people on board survived.
The Dehavilland Beaver aircraft
went down Sunday during take-
off in Lyall ilarbour, off Saturna
Island in British Columbia's Gulf
Islands - about 50 miles (80 kilo-
meters) south of Vancouver.
Only two of the eight on board
- the pilot and a female passenger
- were rescued within minutes of
the crash and both are expected
to survive, although one has seri-
ous injuries, the other is listed in
stable condition. Bill Yearwood of
Canada's Transportation Safety
Board said investigators are hop-
REPORT
From Page 1
from the past six years, according
to the press release.
"This information will help us
set realistic targets now, and itwill
enable us to measure our progress
toward those goals in the future,"
Ken Keeler, lead author of the
report and a senior environmen-
tal sustainability representative in
the Office of Campus Sustainabil-
ity, wrote in the release.
In an attempt to increase reach,
the report was published in an
eight-page pamphlet this year
rather than in a 40-page report as
in past years, according to a press
release. The full report will be
published later in the year.
Jlach year, the Univ5rsity
ing the pilot can tell them what
went wrong. A float plane is an air-
craft equipped with pontoons for
water landings.
Coast guard spokesman Troy
Haddock said divers recovered
the bodies of six people who were
trapped in the plane which sank
in 11 meters (36 feet) of water,
moments after going down.
James White heard the crash and
rushed to his boat to look for survi-
vors, butwhile he gotinto Lyall Har-
bour within minutes, the plane had
already slipped beneath the water.
"There was no sign of anybody
else or any other debris from the
aircraft so I think it probably sank
pretty fast," White said.
He found a woman and the pilot
close together in the water, both
conscious and begging for help.
White couldn't pull the two of
them into his boat on his own, so
he tied them to the side of his ves-
sel for a few minutes until other
boats came to help.
Captain Bob Evans at the Joint
spends between $110 million and
$120 million on energy, accord-
ing to the press release. Campus
buildings are responsible for 90
percent of this energy.
Energy reduction was empha-
sized throughout the report,
which highlighted key parts of the
University that have undergone
changes to be more environmen-
tally sound. For example, about
250 million BTUs of energy are
saved each year because of a solar
collector array on top of the Uni-
versity's central power plant.
Planet Blue - a University-led
sustainability initiative - saw its
first full year last year, which came
after the program was first piloted
infive Universitybuildings, accord-
ing to the report. These buildings
saw an average reduced energy
consumption off6 pmrcent.
Rescue Co-Ordination Centre in
Victoria said officials searched
for seven hours before finding the
plane and recovering the victims.
The Royal Canadian Mounted
Police have identified the victims
as 41-year-old Vancouver doctor
Kerry Margaret Morrissey, her
baby Sarah, 55-year-old Catherine
White-Holman of Vancouver and
60-year-old Thomas Gordon Glenn
of White Rock, British Columbia.
The two American residents
were 44-year-old Cindy Shafer and
49-year-old Richard Bruce Haskett
of Huntington Beach, California.
Last year there were two fatal
float plane crashes off the coast of
British Columbia.
In August 2008, five people
were killed when a Pacific Coastal
Airlines Grumman Goose crashed
on Vancouver Island. In November
2008, one man survived a crash
that killed seven others on Thor-
manby Island, located between
the British Columbia mainland
and northern Vancouver Island.
The Rackham Building saw a
32-percent reduction, the Insti-
tute for Social Research saw a
26-percent reduction and the
Space Research Building saw a
17-percent reduction. However,
the Chemistry Building and Flem-
ing Administration Building didn't
see reductions.
In the press release, Alexander
said the program could potentially
save the University more than 10
to 20 percent on its energy budget.
Planet Blue will have been imple-
mented in 30 University buildings
by the end of the year.
The report also outlined other
more specific initiatives, like the
Transportation Services Cam-
paign, which encourages students
to use more environmentally sus-
tainable modes of transportation,
like busej and carpooling.
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