* The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 3
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
* Mich. civil rights
champion dies at
47, officials say
State officials say Michigan
Department of Civil Rights Direc-
tor Kelvin W. Scott has died of
cancer.
State Civil Rights Commission
Chairman Matthew Wesaw says
the 47-year-old Scott died Sat-
urday. Gov. Jennifer Granholm
appointed Scott to the rights com-
mission in 2004. He was named
the civil rights agency's director
last year.
Granholm called Scott "a great
* champion" of the civil rights cause
in a statement issued Sunday.
Scott had previously served as
an assistant U.S. attorneyin Mich-
igan's Eastern District.
He earned his law degree from
Georgetown University Law Cen-
ter and his bachelor's degree from
Michigan State University.
The state Department of Civil
Rights says Scott is survived by
his wife Ursula Henry and his par-
ents.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Body found of man
missing in ruin of
avalanche
Searchers have recovered the
body of a ConocoPhillips Alaska
employee missing and presumed
dead since a Feb. 13 avalanche on
the Kenai Peninsula that killed the
head of the company.
The body of 40-year-old Alan
Gage was found Monday near
Grandview.
Gage and 57-year-old Jim
Bowles, the president of Cono-
coPhillips Alaska, were killed
when the avalanche hit their
snowmobile party. Bowles' body
was recovered that day.
Gage was part of the Cono-
coPhillips capital projects team.
Rain, low clouds and other
foul weather, plus hazardous ava-
lanche conditions, kept searchers .
out of the area until Saturday.
Alaska State Troopers say up to
58 people since then have combed
an avalanche debris area a little
larger than a football field using
trained search dogs, probes and
other devices.
WASHINGTON
Obama praises
Senate for pushing
jobs bill forward
PresidentBarack Obamais prais-
ing senators from both parties who
helped push a bipartisan jobs bill
past a Republican filibuster.
After the bill passed a legisla-
tive hurdle on Monday, Obama said
Americans want to see Washington
put aside its partisanship and put
the country back to work. Obama
says the bill is just part of the
administration's efforts to repair
the economy. He says creating jobs
remains the White House's top pri-
ority.
The measure moved forward
with the backing of five Republi-
cans, including the chamber's new-
est member, Sen. Scott Brown of
Massachusetts.
RAMADI, Iraq
3 killed in
bombing in Iraq's
Anbar province
Iraqi police say a car bomb tar-
geting a police building has killed
three people in the capital of Iraq's
western Anbar province.
The bombing comes as Iraq is
preparing for March 7 parliamen-
tary elections. Insurgents have
been repeatedly targeting govern-
ment institutions in Anbar and
the rest of Iraq in an attempt to
destabilize the country ahead of
the vote.
Police officials say a suicide
bomber exploded the car outside
the Internal Affairs office in the
provincial capital, Ramadi.
The officials spoke on condition
of anonymity because they were
not authorized to speak to the
media.
Anbar province was considered
the hotbed of the insurgency until
many fighters turned against the
insurgents in what is considered
one of the key turning points of
the war.
Energy Minister Ali Rodri-
guez says the government must
V accelerate plans to reduce energy
consumption while boosting pro-
duction.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
After sprinkler
goes off, West
Quad evacuated
DAVIDGOLDMAN/AP
Automotive technician Jason Winston, works to correct a gas pedal recall on a Toyota Camry at a dealership in New York.
New agree-ment puts
Lufthansa back in air
After less than 24
hours, the German
airline suspended
its strike
FRANKFURT (AP) - Luf-
thansa and its pilots are set to
return to the cockpit after the
German airline and a key union
agreed to halt a four-day strike
that disrupted travelers and was
poised to go on through Friday.
The four-day walkout ended
less than 24 hours after it began
after two hours in a Frankfurt
labor court that saw both sides
agree to suspend the strike and
hold talks, they said Monday
night.
Lufthansa confirmed the deci-
sion and said the walkout would
end at midnight (2300 GMT, 6
p.m. EST).
"The parties agreed in front
of the court that the strike is to
be suspended through the 8th of
March," Lufthansa spokesman
Andreas Bartels told AP, adding
the 4,000 pilots will return to
work Tuesday though it would
take some time for normal opera-
tions to resume.
"They're going to go back to
work tomorrow," he said.
Some 10,000 Lufthansa and
Germanwings passengers were
upended by the strike, which
began at 12:01 a.m. (2301 GMT,
6:01 p.m. EST) Monday and
ended at midnight.
Cockpit union spokesman
Joerge Handwerg said the strike
was suspended until March 9,
pending the resumption of talks
between both sides. Pilots for
Lufthansa Cargo and the low-
budget subsidiary, German-
wings, were also taking part in
the strike.
"We are happy with the agree-
ment because Lufthansa now has
to resume negotiations without
preconditions," Handwerg said.
Lufthansa pilots announced
the walkout last week over their
concerns that cheaper crews
from Lufthansa's smaller airlines
in other countries couldeventu-
ally replace them.
The Lufthansa strike disrupt-
ed plans for 10,000 passengers
worldwide, but that was just the
first of what was set to come this
week.
Five unions representing
French air traffic controllers
on Monday announced a four-
OLYMPICS
From Page 1
romantic evening. Their gentle,
slow start showcased their skat-
ing skills, their edges so quiet and
smooth they appeared to float
above the ice.
But make no mistake, there was
plenty of strength behind that
softness.
They had as much power and
speed as the hockey players Moir
admires so much, but it was per-
formed with balletic grace. Their
combination spin seemed to go on
forever, with many different posi-
tions and edge changes.
While Virtue and Moir were
all softness and grace, Davis and
White's "Phantom of the Opera"
was big and bold, as powerful as
any Broadway production. They
skated perfectly to their music,
flying across the ice in the fast
part and using deep edges to con-
vey romance and lyricism in the
slow parts.
Their lifts were akin to stunt
tricks, done at breakneck speed
yet with perfect control. In one,
White flipped Davis over his
shoulder so she faced the oppo-
day strike of their own starting
Tuesday that is forcing the can-
cellation of hundreds of flights at
Paris' Charles de Gaulle and Orly
airports. France's DGAC avia-
tion authority ordered airlines toa
cancel 50 percent of the flights at
Orly and 25 percent of the flights
at Charles de Gaulle.
French carrier Air France said
it would maintain all of its long-
haul flights during the strike,
with the protest movement
affecting only its routes within
France and Europe.
British Airways PLC, mean-
while, faced a renewed threat
of cabin crew strikes, after the
Unite union announced that
most of its members had voted in
favor of a walkout.
And Eurostar - the main train
alternative to planes between
Paris, Brussels and London -
experienced yet another embar-
rassing train failure.
A Eurostar Paris-to London
train inexplicably broke down in
southern England late Sunday,
plunging more than 700 passen-
gers into darkness and forcing
them to climb down ladders onto
the track to a replacement train.
They arrived in London about
2:30 a.m. (0230 GMT Monday,
9:30 p.m. EST Sunday), more
than four hours late.
Last week, Eurostar was
sharply criticized by inde-
pendent investigators for its
response when several trains
broke down before Christmas in
the Channel Tunnel, disrupting
travel plans for tens of thousands
of people.
All told, Monday was not a
good day for travelers.
Albert Carles and his wife
arrived at Frankfurt airport after
a 14-hour flight from'Vietnam to
find that their connecting flight
to Marseille was canceled and
trains to Paris were overbooked.
"There is no information, we
are left on our own," he told Ger-
man news agency DAPD. "We
have not eaten or drunk any-
thing."
While Lufthansa canceled
about 800 of its estimated 1,800
daily flights - including long-
haul flights to U.S. destina-
tions like New York and Denver
- Bartels said the airline will
move toward resuming its nor-
mal operations, but cautioned it
would not be immediate.
"I can't say when we are back
to normal operations. It takes a
lot of tioe."
site direction. He then picked up
his right leg and crossed it behind
him as she opened her arms, that
platform-like leg of his the only
thing keeping her from plunging
to the ice.
Their only flaw was a deduc-
tion, likely for an extended lift.
But it wouldn't have made a differ-
ence in the final results.
In a press release issued by the
University's Athletic Department
following the pair's performance,
Davis said she was proud of the
work she and White had done.
"We put in a really good perfor-
mance for us, we're really proud of
ourselves," Davis said following
their last skate. "So where we end
up is kind of out of our hands, but
we feel good."
White expressed his feelings
in an NBC news segment aired
before.the couple completed their
last skate.
"If there's one thing that can top
a Michigan football game it would
be an Olympic medal," White
told NBC, agcording a statement
released by the University's Ath-
letic Department.
In an interview with The Mich-
igan Daily earlier this month,
Davis expressed her excitement
The airline estimated the
strike would cost it around
euro25 million ($34 million) per
day.
The airline may face more
obstacles in coming weeks. Late
Monday, Germany's UFO cabin
crew union said in a statement
that it was considering walkouts
of its own "in the coming weeks."
In London, Unite - Britain's
biggest labor union - said after
the vote that it was not announc-
ing any strike date and its mem-
bers will meet Thursday to
discuss the ballot result before
deciding on a strike date.
A previous strike threat by
BA cabin crew - planned for the
Christmas and New Year's holi-
days - was canceled only after
the airline obtained an emergen-
cy court injunction blocking it.
Fears about job security were
the underlying theme for all the
airline work actions.
The French air traffic con-
trollers are upset about plans to
integrate European air traffic
operations, leaving them to face
new work rules, the loss of their
civil servant benefits or even
job cuts. British Airways cabin
crews don't want the company
to slash the number of employees
working on flights.
The Lufthansa pilots are seek-
ing increased work security and
want German labor conditions
to apply to Lufthansa pilots
hired abroad, in an effort to pre-
vent their jobs from migrating
to neighboring countries with
cheaper conditions. Lufthansa
has denied it was planning to
relocate the jobs.
Tony Concil of the Interna-
tional Air Transit Association in
Geneva noted that the global air-
line industry is still losing money
and still needs to cut operating
costs.
"The industry lost $11 billion
in 2009 and will probably lose
$5.6 billion in 2010," he told AP.
"The emphasis at airlines is sav-
ing cash, managing capacity as
effectively as possible, and cut-
ting costs."
Lufthansa reached out to
travelers online, posting a strike
schedule on its Web site and
offering flight updates on Twit-
ter.
But some travelers were still
caught unaware.
"We arrived in Frankfurt
from Taiwan. We have been on
the road for 24 hours," a Swiss
woman told AP Television News.
for the trip to Vancouver.
"This is an incredible oppor-
tunity, but you don't want to do
any more or less than we've been
doing, even though the audience
is that much bigger," Davis told
the Daily at the time. "I'm just
excited about the chance to show
the world what we've been putting
our hard work and sweat into our
whole lives."
Fellow Americans and Univer-
sity students Emily Samuelson
and Evan Bates took 11th place in
the ice dance competition.
The pair earned an 88.94 in
the free skate - besting their
personal record by eight points
- skating to Andrea Bocelli
and Sarah Brightman. Samu-
elson and Bates - who earned
an overall score of 174.30 - are
known for their footwork tal-
ents and strong lines, but were
not expected to make the 2010
Olympics. However, with their
placement, the duo is considered
to be a strong challenger for the
U.S. in the 2014 Olympic games
in Sochi.
- The Associated Press and
Daily Sports Writer. Ryan A. Podges
contributed to this report.
Incident comes after
residence hall's
recent rash of
false fire alarms
By ANNIE GORDON THOMAS
and DARRYN FITZGERALD
Daily StaffReporters
While West Quad residents have
had to deal with the annoyance of
a spat of false fire alarms recently,
the residence hall was evacuated
for a reason last night. But that rea-
son was not a fire, officials say.
Department of Public Safety
spokeswoman Diane Brown told
The Michigan Daily late last night
the evacuation of West Quad was
due to a sprinkler head being set off
-not a fire.
While the exact cause of the
sprinkler discharge was not known
as of 2 a.m. last night, Brown said
it was likely due to a sports-related
activity in the hallway where the
sprinkler head was broken. Brown
stressed the incident was not the
result of any system malfunction.
Residentswere allowed to return
to their rooms last night, but those
living in the affected hallway were
not being let back into their rooms.
. Brown said officials on the scene
were making accommodations for
students who would not be able to
return to their rooms for the night.
"Housing and DPS will be
working to determine if any of the
residents might need alternative
housing tonight," she said.
ARENS
From Page 1
saying Arens has demonstrated
a desire to work on his drug and
alcohol problems which may have
been related to the offense and to
his past convictions of home inva-
sion, retail fraud and a juvenile
conviction of assault with inten-
tion to commit criminal sexual
conduct.
"I'm hoping and am optimis-
tic that he will get control of his
drinking and his drug problems,"
Mullins said. .
Following the statements, the
presiding judge Melinda Morris
sentenced Arens to a minimum
of 19 months to a maximum of
10 years in a Washtenaw County
Department of Corrections facil-
ity.
Mullins then spoke with Arens
for a few minutes before Arens
made the decision to set a trial
date to lessen his sentence.
After the sentencing, Judge
Morris also established that res-
titution for the building must be
set within 90 days. Morris said
if an agreement isn't reached on
the restitution amount within
90 days, a hearing will be sched-
uled.
Brown said it was too early to
tell how much water damage there
would be in the affected hall or
to the hall below it, but said more
would be known once the area had
been cleaned up and the damage
could be more fully assessed.
LSA sophomore Jason Zweig
said he was in his room reading
when he heard the fire alarmgo off.
"My RA came out and he said it
wasgoingtobealittlelonger,because
this one he said is real," Zweig said.
Because of a recent slew of false
alarms at West Quad, Zweig said he
thought this was just another false
alarm, and added he didn't smell
smoke in the dorm.
"I honestly thought it was a drill
because that's the way it's been
the past few times," Zweig said. "I
think somebody's been pulling the
fire alarm - but I'm not sure."
Since Feb. 1, West Quad has
experienced three false fire alarms.
LSA freshman Brad Kowalk
said he was starting to get annoyed
by the number of false alarms in
recent weeks. He added that last
week West Quad resident advisors
told students they were looking
into possible leads behind whoever
had been pulling the alarms.
Kowalk expressed concern that
his fellow West Quad residents
have stopped taking the recent
onslaught of alarms seriously.
"The more times people pull
the fire alarms, the less people
come out because they keep crying
wolf," he said.
- Daily News Editor Kyle
Swanson contributed to this report
During Aren's preliminary
exam in December, the pros-
ecutor in the case, Karen Field
reduced the charge against Arens
from arson of personal property
to arson of real property exceed-
ing $20,000, arguing thatbecause
the building was abandoned at
the time of the fire it did not con-
stitute personal property.
Field also said Arens - who
authorities believe was homeless
at the time of the fire - frequent-
ly slept in the building and also
knew others who slept there but
ignored the potential hazard to
others when he set the fire.
At the same appearance in
December, Mullins requested
Arens' bond at the time be low-
ered from $100,000, noting that
his mother would be willing to
post a lower bond and take him to
her home.
Field objected based on Arens'
past criminal history and Judge
J. Simpson denied Mullins's
request, saying Arens could be
"detrimental to the safety of the
community."
Arens' co-defendant, Ian
Mackenzie, will be pleading not
guilty during his trial slated to be
held on May 10 before Judge Mor-
ris. Arens' trial date is scheduled
for June 21 at 8:30 a.m.
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