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.