0 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS MANLIUS TOWNSHIP, Mich. Plane crash kills students in Mich. Hope College says a student from Kenya was piloting a small plane when it crashed in southwest Michigan, killing himself and a student from Illinois. Hope College spokesman Tom Renner said Monday that 23-year- old David Otai (OH'-ty) of Nairobi, Kenya, and 20-year-old Emma Biagioni (bya-jee-OH'-nee) of St. Charles, Il., were aboard the sin- gle engine Cessna 172 that crashed Sunday. Renner says Otais mother helped run Africa Inland Missions, an air service to missions in central Africa. Renner says Otai wanted to get a commercial pilot's license so he could fly for the service. The Allegan County sheriff's department says the plane made a distress call shortly before crash- ing in a snow-covered field in Manlius Township.d on charges of murder and weapons possession. BRAMPTON, Ontario. Canadian terror plot ringleader gets life sentence A Canadian judge on yester- day sentenced the ringleader of a homegrown terrorist plot to set off truck bombs in Ontario to life in prison. Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty in October. He acknowl- edged being a leader of the so- called Toronto 18 plot to set off bombs outside Toronto's Stock Exchange, a building housing Canada's spy agency and a military base. The goal was to scare Cana- da into removing its troops from Afghanistan. The 2006 arrests of Amara and 17 others made international headlines and heightened fears in a country where many peo- ple thought they were relatively immune from terrorist strikes. BLANTYRE, Malawi Malawi government defends charges against gay couple Malawi's government said yes- terday that it is unmoved by inter- national criticism of the trial of a gay couple charged with unnatural acts and gross indecency, felonies for which they could be impris- oned for up to 14 years. In a statement yesterday, Mala- wi's Information Minister Leck- ford Mwanza Thoto made no apology for the laws that crimi- nalize homosexual acts. He said Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were "clearly break- ing the laws of Malawi." "Asgovernmentwe cannotinter- fere in the court process," Thoto said. "We depend on our Western friends, yes, but we are a sovereign country." Forty percent of Malawi's budget is funded by international donors. Monjeza, 26, and Chimbalanga, 20, have been jailed since their arrest Dec. 27, the day they celebrat- ed their engagement with a party thatdrewcrowds of curious onlook- ers in this conservative southern African country. Hearings in the trial also have attracted crowds.A verdict is expected next month. BILLINGS, Montana. CNN'S Ted Turner to protect bison With 88 bison from Yellow- stone National Park facing possible slaughter, billionaire Ted Turner has swept in and offered to hold the animals for five years on his sprawling Montana ranch while a new home for them is found. But Turner, ever the shrewd busi- nessman, won't do it for nothing. The media mogul says he will care for the bison only if he can keep up to 90 percent of their offspring. And in the Rocky Mountain West - where wildlife is cher- ished both for its aesthetic value and as meat on the table - the plan is stoking a sharp debate over the role of deep-pocketed private enti- ties in conservation. Hunters, environmentalists and property law experts have all weighed in and most say Turner's plan sets a dangerous precedent for the commercialization of public wildlife. Others describe Turner as a responsible steward of the land with the resources needed to take care of animals that desperately need a home. - Compiled from Daily wire reports Church St. party ends in violence C ARE JUSiT/TIhe Miami Herald/ AP Haitians reach towards aid being dispensed from the back of a food distribution truck on Sunday, in Petionvile, Haiti. Troops, doctors and aid workers poured into Haitin on Monday to deploy aid to the residents of the ravaged country. Despite foreign efforts, hunger persists in1 Haiti Men allegedly attacked partygoers with shovels at party's entrance By DEVON THORSBY Daily StaffReporter A house party on the 1100 block of Church Street Sunday night turned violent as a group of young men attempting to enter began throwing punches and hitting people with a shovel - resulting in the hospitalization of two victims. Ann Arbor Police confirmed that a confrontation concerning entrance into the party at 1105 Church Street escalated into a bloody fight, and an investigation is currently underway. Witnesses said that at around 1 a.m. Monday morning, the party hosted by the Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity was at its maximum capacity and sober monitors were keeping people from entering the house. Engineering sophomore Sean Grant was one of the many people on the front porch at the time, waiting to enter the party. Grant said a group of four or five young males was waiting in line as well, and that they had been trying to get into the party throughout the night. "They were just waiting out- side," Grant said. "They weren't even saying much. Then, they just started throwing punches." Grant said there was a sudden burst of violence, as the group of young men began punching others on the porch. But the violence was one-sided, according to Grant. "No one really understood what the fight was about," Grant said. "If the Pi-Lamb guys threw any punches, it was in self-defense. They were trying to stop the fight." Grant said one member of the group of men who had been stand- ing in line came onto the porch with a shovel and began swing- ing at both sober monitors and the front door of the house. AAPD Sgt. Craig Flocken said that a curved metal digging shovel was used by one of the assailants, causing the most damage to both victims and the front door. Grant said that after a few moments of violence, the group stopped and ran off. "After they did their damage, they took off," Grant said. "They ran so fast." Business sophomore Andrew Rubin said he was inside the house at the time the confrontation began. Rubin said he stepped outside when he heard yelling at the front of the house. When he went to see what was happening, Rubin said he saw punches being thrown and a man hitting people with a shovel. "They meant for people to get hurt," Rubin said. "It looked pretty brutal." Flocken confirmed that multiple people sustained injuries from the fight, and two went to the Univer- sity Hospital to receive medical attention. A member of the Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was inside the house when he saw the fight break out. When he went outside to try to stop the violence, he said he was hit a couple of times with others' fists and once in the head with the shovel. The member of Pi Lambda Phi said he and one other victim went to the hospital to receive medical attention for their wounds. He received three staples in his head and has a broken nose. He said the other victim had 12 stitches above his eyebrow for a wound from the shovel as well. Flocken said two persons of interest were arrested concern- ing the incident but were released later that night pending further investigation. Relief workers struggle to reach victims in capital PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Troops, doctors and aid work- ers flowed into Haiti yesterday and officials said billions of dol- lars more will be needed fol- lowing the quake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and left many still struggling to find a cup of water or a handful of food. European nations pledged more than a half-billion dollars in emergency and long-term aid, on top of at least $100 mil- lion promised earlier by the U.S. The president of the neighboring Dominican Republic said it will cost far more to finally rebuild the country: $10 billion. Help was still not reaching many victims of last Tuesday's quake - choked back by trans- portation bottlenecks, bureau- cratic confusion, fear of attacks on aid convoys, the collapse of local authority and the sheer scale of the need. Looting spread to more parts of downtown Port-au-Prince as hundreds of young men and boys clambered, up broken walls to break into shops and take what- ever they can find. Especially prized was toothpaste, which people smear under their noses to fend off the stench of decay- ing bodies. At a collapsed and burning shop in the market area, youths used broken bottles, machetes and razors to battle for bottles of rum and police fired shots to break up the crowd. "I am drinking as much as I can. It gives courage," said Jean- Pierre Junior, wielding a broken wooden plank with nails to pro- tect his bottle of rum. Even so, the U.S. Army's on- the-ground commander, Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, said the city is seeing less violence than before the earthquake. "Is there gang violence? Yes. Was there gang violence before the earthquake? Absolutely." U.S. officials say some 2,200 Marines were arriving to join 1,700 U.S. troops now on the ground and U.N. Secretary-Gen- eral Ban Ki-moon announced yesterday he wants 1,500 more U.N. police and 2,000 more troops to join the existing 7,000 military peacekeepers and 2,100 international police in Haiti. While aid workers tried to make their way into Haiti, many people tried to leave. Hundreds of U.S. citizens, or people claim- ing to be, waved IDs as they formed a long line outside the U.S. Embassy in hopes of arrang- ing a flight out of the country. Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, hosting an interna- tional meeting to plan strategy for Haiti, said it would cost $10 billion over five years to recon- struct the country and confront the immediate emergency. Roughly 200,000 people may have been killed in the magni- tude-7.0 quake, the European Union said, quoting Haitian offi- cials who also said about 70,000 bodies have been recovered so far. EU officials estimated that about 250,000 were injured and 1.5 million were homeless. Even many people whose houses survived are sleeping outside for aftershocks will col- lapse unstable buildings. And while the U.N. said that more than 73,000 people have received a week's rations, many more still wait. So many people have lost homes that the World Food Pro- gram is planning a tent camp for 100,000 people - an instant city the size of Burbank, California - on the outskirts of Port-au- Prince, according to the agency's country director, Myrta Kaulard. About 50,000 people already sleep each night on the city golf course where the U.S. 82nd Air- borne Division has set up an aid camp. In town, Bodies still lay in the street six days after the quake, but Haitians had made progress in hauling many away for burial or burning. People were seen dragging corpses to intersections in hopes that garbage trucks or aid groups would arrive to take them away. Six days after the quake, dozens of rescue crews were still working to rescue victims trapped under piles of concrete and debris. "There are still people liv- ing" in collapsed buildings, U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told The Associ- ated Press. "Hope continues." Recycle as much as .. . possible to beat other schools! January 17-March 27, 2010 Last year, UM placed 5th in total tonnage recycled, but only 96th in recycling rate. We can do better in 2010! University of Michigan Waste Management Services www.recycle.umich.edu Mass. Senate candidates battle to the end in surprisingly close race If Republican wins, Democrats would lose filibuster proof majority in Senate BOSTON (AP) - Nearly one year to the day after President Barack Obama was sworn into office as an agent of change, Mas- sachusetts Senate candidates battled to the wire Monday in an election that threatened his agen- da and reflected voters' frustra- tion with the status quo. Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown scoured the state for votes on the eve of the special election to succeed the late Edward M. Kennedy, with the Democrats' 60-vote Senate supermajority at stake. From a distance, the president made one last appeal in a TV ad for Coakley, his words reflecting how much was on the line for Demo- crats in the face of a surprisingly strong challenge by Republican Scott Brown in a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator since 1972. "Every vote matters, every voice matters," Obama said in the ad that showed him campaigning with Coakley a day earlier. "We need you on Tuesday." Obama needs Coakley, the state's attorney general, to win to deny Republicans the ability to block his initiatives - specifically the near-complete health care plan- with a filibuster-sustaining 41st Republican vote. A Coakley loss also would be an embarrass- ment, particularly because Obama has put so much political capital on the line. A Suffolk University survey taken Saturday and Sunday shows Brown with double-digit leads in three communities the poll iden- tified as bellwethers: Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody. But inter- nal statewide polls for both sides show a dead-heat. Backers of Coakley and Brown worked feverishly to identify their supporters and persuade undecid- ed voters to move their way. Each side deployed armies of volunteers to man phone banks and trudge door to door through ice and snow to encourage people to vote. A third candidate in the race, Joseph L. Kennedy, a Libertarian running as an independent, said Monday he's been bombarded with e-mails from Brown support- ers urging him to drop out and endorse the Republican. But Ken- nedy, who is polling in the single digits and is no relation to the late senator, said he's staying in. Special elections tend to draw relatively few voters, but Repub- licans and Democrats predicted a high turnout Tuesday. The Massa- chusetts electorate, like the coun- try at large, is dissatisfied with the country's direction, and those disgruntled voters are expected to vote their passions in droves. Democrats, who until just a week ago considered the race a lock for Coakley, have been forced to scramble for votes in a state where Democrats outnum- ber Republicans 3-1. Brown has thrown Democrats for a loop, riding a wave of voter anger with Obama's health care plan and what critics call big govern- ment spending to pull the race even. The concern among Democrats was clear when they trotted out Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to accuse Brown backers of dirty tricks. Trying desperately to slow Brown's momentum, Coakley and fellow Democrats rolled out a fresh round of automated calls to voters from Vice President Joe Biden and from Vicki Kennedy, the late senator's widow. They were targeting voters who pro- pelled Obama to victory in 2008. Get-out-the-vote programs were in full swing on campuses across the state, and ads courted the state's large Portuguese and Hai- tian communities. Obama's TV appeal mostly was intended to encourage the Demo- cratic base to vote. Democrats need their base to turn out big, given that surveys showed Brown leading among independents and Republicans incredibly energized about his candidacy. Learn miuoeao~iiL 1 ree .o s..sap. Attend an information session. Wednesday, January 20th 6:30 p.m. U-M International Center, Room 9 800.424.85801 www.peacecorps.gov Life is calling. How far will you go? Help us study strategies for preventing influenza Hahea N0m adW :." The University of Michigan School of Public Health is enrollng students living in esidence halls in a research study to see how well influenz( flu )atcines and other strategies work in reducing the risk of influenza illness in universidy residence halls. Participants will be asked to complete two surveys, one at enrollment and one in Spring 2010. Participants are also asked to report any flu-like respiratory illness. 111 persons will be invited to have a throat swab collected for laboratory testing. All participants will be inited to have a blood sample collected at the end of the influenza season to track pandemic H1N1 infection. You are eligible if: " You are at least 18 years old " 'oo line in one of the following residence halls: Alice Lloyd, Stockwell, Markley, Mosher-Jordan, or Couzens Compensation: Participants are entered into a lottery for one often $100 cash cards for tach sumvey they complete. Participants will receive $10 for permitting collechio fa hroat swab if they have a flu-like illness, and $20 for permitting collection of a blood sample nvestigators: Arnold S. Monto, MD; Suzanne Ohmit, DrPH; Allison Aello, PhD For more information or if you are interested in participating, please contact our study Phone: (734)615-8331 Email: ums hchi s umich edu Website: m tsphchips.smo