The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Friday, October 22, 2010 - 3
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, October 22, 2010 - 3
NEWSBRIEFS
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich.
Autopsies on shot
bank president yield
differing results
Macomb County authorities
acknowledge that an independent
autopsy showing a Michigan bank
president was shot in the head con-
tradicts one done earlier claiming
no evidence of blunt force.
County Sheriff Mark Hackel told
WWJ-AM yesterday the discrep-
ancy between an original autopsy
performed by Macomb County
medical examiner Daniel Spitz and
one performed by his equivalent,
L.J. Dragovic, in neighboring Oak-
land County, is "unfortunate," and
delayed a search of Lake St. Clair
where 62-year-old David Widlak's
body was found Sunday.
Police on Wednesday found a
handgun they believe fired the fatal
shot. Hackel said no suspects have
been identified and suicide has not
been ruled out, but the case is being
treated as a homicide.
ROSEVILLE, Calif.
Man arrested after
setting California
mall on fire
A high-end regional mall that is
one of the main retail centers in a
broad swath of Northern Califor-
nia was set ablaze yesterday after
police arrested a man who had bar-
ricaded himself inside, dealing an
economic blow to a region strug-
gling to emerge from the recession.
City officials said part of the roof
on the mall's south end collapsed as
huge clouds of black smoke poured
from the 1.3 million-square-foot
Roseville Galleria, which is about
17 miles east of the state capital.
No injuries were reported, but
damage to the mall's roof appeared
extensive.
The mall was evacuated earlier in
the day after a man barricaded him-
self inside a shop and started what
appeared at first to be a small fire.
Authorities had thought the
mall's sprinkler system doused
the blaze. Before the larger blaze
erupted, police had detained a sus-
pect and were checking a backpack
they found to see if it contained
explosives.
Police later said the fire began
spreading as members of the bomh
sqiad were examining the back-
pack, forcing them to flee the build-
ing.
WASHINGTON
Dems allocate $1M
for ads in Spanish
to mobilize voters
National Democrats plan to
spend $1 million on Spanish-lan-
guage ads to motivate a key seg-
ment of the party's coalition to
vote.
The Democratic National Com-
mittee said yesterday that it would
start airing ads in Spanish featur-
ing President Barack Obama as the
party tries to defend their majori-
ties in the House and Senate. The
party said the ad effort is its largest
ever in Hispanic paid media.
Obama speaks in Spanish in one
radio spot and says he needs voters'
help to "defend what we started."
The television ad features cine-
matic images of the president as the
narrator says "Barack Obama and
the Democrats have never backed
away from taking on the problems
of our nation" before listing work
on the economy, jobs and schools.
SINGAPORE
Football player may
be subject to caning
A former Florida State Univer-
sity football player may become
the first American in 16 years to
be caned in Singapore after he
overstayed his visa, his lawyer
said yesterday.
Kamari Charlton, who was a
reserve tight end for Florida State
from 1992 to 1996, was arrested
Sept. 1 when he attempted to leave
the city-state 169 days after his
90-day social visit pass expired,
attorney M. Ravi said.
Charlton, who was born in the
Bahamas and owns a construction
company there, was in Singapore
while his wife received medical
care for pregnancy complications,
Ravi said. It was not clear why
Charlton and his wife chose Sin-
gapore for medical treatment.
Staying in Singapore more than
90 days after the end of a visa is
punishable with a maximum jail
term of six months and at least
three cane strokes.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports.
U.S. diplomats to
pressure Karzai
to reverse ban on
private security
FRANCIS IPOCKEt/AP
Attorney Dan Woods, right, speaks to the media at the United States District Court in Riverside, Calif., after making arguments
on the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tel" policy on Monday. Woods represents the plaintiffs, the Log Cabin Republicans.
GOP gay rights -group fighs
'don't ask, don't tell' policy
Iraq war vet leads
19,000 Republicans
against repeal
SAN DIEGO (AP) - When he
left the Bush administration in
2009, Clarke R. Cooper decided
he had to raise his voice.
The decorated Iraq war veter-
an had been serving in the Army,
with some in his unit aware that
he was gay. And yet, he said, no
one had ever tried to get the offi-
cer discharged under the mili-
tary's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
"This is not an example of why
the policy works, it's an example
of why it is broken," he said.
Two years later, Cooper finds
himself leading a 19,000-member
group for gay Republicans that
has managed to accomplish what
its fellow gay rights activists on
the left have not - bring the 1993
Clinton-era law closer than it has
ever been to being abolished.
A federal judge ruled last
month in a lawsuit brought by
the Log Cabin Republicans in
2004 that the ban on openly gay
troops was unconstitutional, and
ordered the Pentagon to stop its
enforcement. An appeals court
has temporarily frozen that order
while it Considers a government
request to suspend it pending an
appeal of the case.
Even getting this far hasn't
been easy for Cooper or the Log
Cabin Republicans.
They have never been entirely
embraced within the gay rights
movement, which generally finds
a more receptive audience in Dem-
ocrats. Many in the movement
viewed the group's six-year quest
to overturn the policy as quixotic.
"I heard that repeatedly. I
heard that as recently as seven
months ago, people saying this
case didn't have a prayer," said
Christopher Barron, the Log
Cabin Republican's former politi-
cal director and the founder of a
rival group for gay conservatives.
The liberal gay rights groups'
approach to ending the ban in
2004 involved suing on behalf of
one sympathetic service member
at a time, while they also lob-
bied Congress to overturn the
law. Some advocates also cringed
at the idea of joining forces with
Republicans.
They "saw the Log Cabins as
people,.frankly, who want their
taxes cut and are willing to affili-
ate with a party that is grossly
anti-gay because of that," said
Aaron Belkin, executive direc-
tor of the Palm Center, a think
tank on gays and the military at
the University of California Santa
Barbara who was an expert in
their case.
The Justice Department tried
to block the Log Cabin Republi-
can's lawsuit from going to trial,
arguing that the organization
did not have members who were
directly affected by the policy.
The group initially filed its law-
suit on behalf of John Does and
said they were active military
members who could not be identi-
fied for fear of being discharged.
The group later named gay vet-
eran Alexander Nicholson as a
plaintiff to better its chances.
In its 2004 lawsuit, the group
ended up arguingthatthe ban vio-
lated the First Amendment, asso-
ciation and due process rights of
its members and sought its imme-
diate demise.
"To the extent there were
people who were upset I think it
was because they didn't know in
advance that Log Cabin was going
to sue," said Jon Davidson, execu-
tive director of Lambda Legal, a
gay rights legal affairs group.
Patrick Guerriero, who was
Log Cabin's president from 2003
to 2006 and is now registered as
an independent, recalled how it
wasn't just liberal gay activists
who objected. Fellow Republi-
cans also were upset by "a lawsuit
against the U.S. military, against
Bush's Department of Defense."
Guerriero said the group was
compelled to act after receiving
letters, calls and e-mails from gay
service members in Iraq discuss-
ing the difficulty of having to be
pretend to be who they weren't.
At the time, Republicans were
debating whether to pass a con-
stitutional amendment barring
same-sex marriage.
"People forget the climate we
were in. There was no legislative
road map," he said. "We thought it
was important to have it be non-
partisan and even have a Repub-
lican angle to it, that that would
send a more powerful message to
the courts and perhaps Congress."
Cooper, who became president
of the group two months before
the trial began this summer
before Judge Virginia Phillips
in Riverside, Calif., said he was
always optimistic. "There's been
a general cultural shift that's
been helpful tous," he said.
Phillips' ruling catapulted
the group to the forefront of the
fight and put President Barack
Obama in the position of facing
off with a Republican organiza-
tion challenging a law he, too,
opposes. Obama supports a legis-
lative repeal, but it sfalled in the
Senate this fall.
Cooper said the fight shows
Republicans are not always the
enemy. "I'm not going to deny the
fact that there have been years
and times when the Republican
party has not been friendly to
the gay voter," he said, "but that's
changing."
He said he has shared his secret
with his closest Army friends
and keeps it quiet around oth-
ers whom he feels do not need to
know. And he pointed out that
President George W. Bush knew
his sexual orientation when the
39-year-old Army captain se'rved
under him.
Security ban will go
into effect in
mid-December
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Obama administration is scram-
bling to avert a crisis over a ban
on private security companies in
Afghanistan that could force the
cancellation or delay of billions of
dollars in reconstruction projects
considered vital to counterterror-
ism efforts, officials said yester-
day.
U.S. diplomats are preparing
for a weekend of tough nego-
tiations with Afghan President
Hamid Karzai and his aides to
persuade them to revise the ban
that, as it now stands, would bar
private security guards from pro-
tecting non-governmental and
nonmilitary facilities in Afghani-
stan, the officials said. The ban is
set to take effect in mid-Decem-
ber.
"As is, if this was to be enact-
ed tomorrow, a lot of assistance
would grind to a halt," said one
senior U.S. official familiar with
the circumstances. That official
and others spoke on condition
of anonymity because they were
not authorized to speak publicly
about the sensitive issue.
The Washington Post report-
ed yesterday that the ban could
impact about $1.5 billion in U.S.-
funded projects in Afghanistan.
But the officials said the impact
likely would befar greater, affect-
ing billions of dollars in foreign-
funded initiatives from road,
bridge and school construction
projects to teaching and agricul-
ture initiatives.
"All private and private sector
assistance would be hit, not just
U.S.-funded projects," one official
said, noting that about 80 percent
of British-funded projects could
be affected.
The officials said some com-
panies, notably Bethesda, Md.-
based Development Alternatives
Inc. that runs projects to sup-
port local governance, already
have begun to implement con-
tingency plans to draw down
their operations in anticipation
of the ban.
Even if the ban is eventually
revised, such drawdowns may
cause serious delays in restarting
projects, they said.
"If there is toomuchuncertain-
ty in the interim, given the risks
involved, a lot of people are going
to get very nervous and leave,"
the senior U.S. official said. "Our
development partners are getting
more and more nervous. If they
are not sure what's going to hap-
pen, they are going to start draw-
ing down."
The official expressed hope
that a resolution could be worked
out in meetings set for the week-
end. "No one wants the level of
disruption that we will see if we
reach the worst-case scenario,"
he said.
The Obama administration
supports Karzai's goal of over-
hauling the private security
industry in Afghanistan.
Remains of WWII era
Japanese soldiers found
Up to 2,000 bodies
found on Iwo Jima
TOKYO (AP) - Two mass
graves that may hold the remains
of up to 2,000 Japanese soldiers
have been discovered on the
island of Iwo Jima, one of the
bloodiest and most iconic battle-
sites of World War II, a report and
officials said today.
A team of Japanese searchers
has discovered 51 remains in two
areas listed by the U.S. military
after the war as enemy cemeter-
ies, one of which could contain
as many as 2,000 bodies, Japan's
Kyodo news agency said today.
The team was to reportits find-
ings later today to the prime min-
ister's office.
Officials at Japan's health min-
istry, which supervises search
efforts on the remote island, con-
firmed that 51 bodies had been
recovered and two sites believed
to be burial grounds had been
found. But they could not imme-
diately confirm the potential size
of the massgraves or other details
of the Kyodo report.
The discovery of the remains
would be one of the biggestbreak-
throughs in decades toward find-
ing the bodies of roughly 12,000
Japanese who remain missing
and presumed dead after the 1945
battle on the island, which has
been renamed Iwoto by the Japa-
nese government.
The island was seen as key to
the United States because it had
three airfields that could be used
to launch raids on Tokyo and
Japan's main islands.
Virtually all of the 22,000
Japanese soldiers tasked with
defending the rugged, volcanic
crag were killed in the battle,
which became a symbol and ral-
lying point for the United States
in the Pacific war after the U.S.
flag was raised on its highest
ground, Mount Suribachi.
The battle claimed 6,821Amer-
ican and 21,570 Japanese lives.
Dozens of remains are recovered
every year, but about 12,000 Jap-
anese are still classified as miss-
ing in action and presumed killed
on the island, along with 218
Americans.
Fightingbeganon Feb. 19,1945,
but Iwo Jima was not declared
secured until March 26.
Toyota recalls 1.5M more cars
Break-fluid and
fuel-pump problems
cause recall
DETROIT (AP) - Just when
Toyota thought its safety prob-
lems were over, they flare up all
over again.
Less than a year after it was
tarnished by reports of runaway
cars, the automaker recalled
1.5 million vehicles yesterday
to address brake-fluid and fuel-
pump troubles, drawing new
attention to safety issues that
have festered inside the company
for years.
The world's No. 1 carmaker
said there were no accidents or
injuries connected to the latest
recall, which covers some Lexus
and Toyota models from the 2004
to 2006 model years, mostly in
the U.S. and Japan.
For Toyota, the latest recalls
hurt the company's image just as
it tries to clear up old problems,
said Jean-Pierre Dube, a market-
ing professor at the University of
Chicago.
Some previous braking and
acceleration problems were
blamed on driver error, he noted,
but these problems were because
of deterioration of parts.
"This is starting to look more
like a chronic problem for them,"
he said. "It's hard to imagine this
can't have some effect on how
consumers are going to perceive
the Toyota brand and to what
extent it represents reliability."
Safety experts said it was an
example of a new Toyota scram-
blingt o clean up messes from
its past. Toyota started getting
reports of brake-fluid leaks in
some of its models in February
2005, and it took more than five
years to issue the recall.
Toyota has now recalled more
than 11 million cars and trucks
around the world over the past
year for problems including
faulty gas pedals, floor mats that
can trap accelerators, braking
problems and stalling engines.
Toyota took a hit on its once-
impeccable reputation, not to
mention its sales. This time
around, it chose to recall rather
than stonewall, said Clarence
Ditlow, president of the Center for
Auto Safety, a consumer group.
"The company is looking at all
of these older defects and making
a decision to do a recall, which
they wouldn't have done in their
pre-sudden-acceleration mental-
ity," he said.
While insisting that it never
swept safety issues under the
rug, spokesman Brian Lyons said
the company is reacting far more
quickly than it had in the past.
"That is part of our commit-
ment to the federal regulators
and our customers," he said. The
government said it had received
three related complaints since
2004.
The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration hit Toyota
with a $16.4 million fine earlier
this year for failing to promptly
tell the government about defects
in its cars.
The new recalls affect 740,000
cars in the U.S. and 599,000 in
Japan. The rest are in Europe
and elsewhere around the world.
Honda Motor Co. also said it
would recall an undetermined
number of vehicles because of the
same brake issue.
Since the safety problems hit
the news last fall, Toyota's U.S.
sales have lagged behind the rest
of the industry despite numerous
incentives toland customers.
For the first nine months of
this year, Toyota sales were up 1.4
percent. Overall U.S. auto sales
increased more than 10 percent.
Toyota spent more than $2,100
per car on incentives in Septem-
ber, up from about $1,500 a year
ago - and at a time when the rest
of the auto industry was spending
less to woo customers.
Rebates and low-interest deals
were unusual for Toyota in the
past, but incentives were neces-
sary to win back customers after
the recalls, said Jesse Toprak,
vice president of industry trends
for Truecar.com.
"It's a process that's not going
to be fixed overnight, but all they
can do right now is damage con-
trol," he said.
Toprak added that Lexus'
inclusion in the recall could hurt
the company's ability to fend
off Mercedes-Benz as the best-
selling luxury brand in the Unit-
ed States this year. Lexus was
behind Mercedes by about 3,000
vehicles through September.
Toyota's global profits were
hurt by the recalls. The company
earned an unusually low $1.2 bil-
lion from January to March. Its
profits have since recovered, and
it made $2.2 billion from April
through June.
Free residential upholstered
-furniture collection event
Friday, Oct. 22 through Sunday
Oct. 24. Daily Noon -5 pm.
at the 1
intersection of
East University aIdLa n- -
and Oakland ~
For Ann Arbor
residents and
property A
* managers01
only RGHST
Those leaving any other materials, depositing furniture from
non-Ann Arbor properties, or using the site during off-hours are
subject to illegal-dumping fines. The site is monitored 24-hours.