The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Friday, November 5, 2010 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
DETROIT
State bans alcoholic
energy drinks
The Michigan Liquor Control
Commission announced yesterday
it will ban the sale of all alcoholic
energy drinks in the state because
of mounting concerns that the bev-
erages aren't safe and create health
risks.
The state regulatory agency
cited the hospitalization last month
of nine college students in Wash-
ington state after consuming caf-
feinated malt liquor as one reason
to take action. States across the
country have been exploring simi-
lar bans.
The commission in September
passed a resolution to examine the
labels and packaging of the drinks
- putting makers of Four Loko,
Joose and similar drinks on notice
that they could be ordered make
changes or stop selling it in Michi-
gan.
SThe commission said drink
manufacturers have 30 days to get
the beverages off Michigan's store
shelves, and won't return until
there is more research done by the
federal Food and Drug Administra-
tion to determine their safety.
DALLAS
Texan named oldest
person at age 114
A 114-year-old East Texas
woman could now be the oldest
person in the world.
t The Los Angeles-based Geron-
tology Research Group and Lon-
don-based Guinness Records say
Eunice G. Sanborn of Jacksonville
has gained that distinction since
the death yesterday of 114-year-
old nun Eugenie Blanchard.
Blanchard died on the French
Caribbean island of St. Barts.
The groups say Sanborn was
born July 20, 1896, in Louisiana.
Blanchard's birth date was Feb. 16,
1896.
Dr. L. Stephen Coles of the
Los Angeles-based Gerontology
Research Group tells The Associ-
ated Press he spoke to Sanborn's
family yesterday and "she's doing
well"
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Polar bears may
move to endangered
species list
A federal court judge is giving
the Interior Department until
Dec. 23 to explain why polar
bears are listed as a "threatened"
species instead of the more-pro-
tective "endangered."
* The written order issued yes-
terday by U.S. District Judge
Emmet Sullivan in Washington,
D.C., follows an October hearing
on multiple lawsuits filed over the
listing.
Sullivan writes that the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service erro-
neously concludes that a species
must be in imminent danger of
extinction to be declared endan-
gered. The judge says that runs
counter to the plain meaning of
the Endangered Species Act.
Former Interior Secretary Dirk
Kempthorne in 2008 declared
polar bears were threatened
because of the rapid disappear-
ance of the Arctic sea ice.
The state of Alaska argues that
polar bears should not even be
listed as threatened.
UNITED NATIONS
Ashton, Demi and
*Ban Ki-moon fight
human trafficking
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutch-
er lent their names to the U.N.'s
efforts to fight human trafficking,
a scourge the international orga-
nization estimates affects about
2.5 million people worldwide.
The couple attended the launch
yesterday of a new U.N. Trust
Fund for Victims of Human Traf-
ficking, saying that international
sex slavery and indentured ser-
vitude - especially of children -
must stop.
"Help us spread the awareness
and bring a spotlight on this atro-
cious issue," Moore said, with
Kutcher adding: "we are failing
option-less victims."
At the ceremony, U.N. Sec-
retary-General Ban Ki-moon
announced a new U.N. Trust
Fund for Victims of Human Traf-
ficking, and a new global action
plan for countries and organiza-
tions to coordinate efforts against
organized sexual exploitation and
forced labor.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports.
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Friday, November 5, 2010 - 3A
Alex Brandon/AP
House speaker-in-waiting Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on
Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010
GOP plans to repeal health
caretlaw, cut gov. spending
Speaker-to-be
Boehner lays out
goals for next
session of Congress
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vic-
torious at the polls, congressio-
nal Republicans asserted their
newfound political strength yes-
terday, vowing to seek a quick
$100 billion in federal spending
cuts and force repeated votes on
the repeal of President Barack
Obama's prized health care over-
haul.
At the White Houses, Obama
said his administration was
ready to work across party lines
in a fresh attempt to "focus on
the economy and jobs" as well as
attack waste in government. In a
show of bipartisanship, he invit-
ed top lawmakers to the White
House at mid-month, and the
nation's newly elected governors
two weeks later.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, in
line to become the new speaker
of the House, brushed aside talk
that the No. 1 GOP goal was to
make sure Obama is defeated at
the polls in 2012. "That's Senator
McConnell's statement and his
opinion," he told ABC, referring
to the party's leader in the Sen-
ate and adding that his own goals
included cutting spending and
creating jobs.
But tentative talk of compro-
mise competed with rhetoric
reminiscent of the just-completed
campaign.
In a speech at the conservative
Heritage Foundation, Kentucky
Sen. Mitch McConnell said the
only way to achieve key party leg-
islative goals such as ending gov-
ernment bailouts, cuttingspending
and repealing the health care law
"is to put someone in the White
House who won'tveto" them.
"There's just no getting around
it," he added.
Obama has ruled out accepting
repeal of the health care measure,
and Senate Democrats responded
quickly to McConnell.
"What Sen. McConnell is really
saying is, 'Republicans want to let
insurance companies go back to
denying coverage to people with
pre-existing conditions, let them
go back to charging women twice
as much for the same coverage as
men, and let them push millions
of seniors back into the Medicare
doughnut hole," said Jim Manley,
spokesman for Majority Leader
Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The maneuvering unfolded two
days after elections that swept
Democrats out of power in the
House and cut deeply into their
Senate majority, scripting an
uncertain new era of divided gov-
ernment for the final two years of
Obama's term.
In the House, Boehner asked
members of the Republican
rank and file to support him for
speaker when the new Congress
convenes in early January. Hisvic-
tory is a formality, given the huge
60-member gain he engineered as
party leader.
Nor did there appear to be any
competition to Rep. Eric Cantor
of Virginia as majority leader, the
second-most powerful position in
the House.
Among Democrats, Speaker
Nancy Pelosi has yet to disclose
her plans. The most recent speak-
er whose party lost its majority,
Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois,
resigned from Congress a few
months later.
Even before the new Congress
comes into office, the old one is
scheduled to meet the week after
next for a post-election session.
In remarks to reporters after
meeting with his Cabinet at the
White House, Obama urged law-
makers to avert an income tax
increase that could take effect
Jan 1, ratify a new arms-reduction
treaty with Russia, provide unem-
ployment aid to victims of the
recession and extend expiring tax
breaks for business.
U.S. and Britain downplay
French foreign minister 's
comments on Yemen bomb
Minister: Bomb from
Yemen was diffused
17 minutes before it
was set to go off
PARIS (AP) - American and
British officials moved quick-
ly yesterday to downplay the
French foreign minister's com-
ment that one of two mail bombs
sent from Yemen last week was
disarmed just 17 minutes before
it was set to go off.
The issue of timing is central
to the investigation because it
could indicate whether terror-
ists hoped to blow up the planes
over U.S. airspace or whether
they simply wanted to take down
the planes regardless of their
location.
"One of the packages was
defused only 17 minutes before
the moment that it was set to
explode," French Interior Min-
ister Brice Hortefeux told state-
run France-2 television. He
made no other comment on the
Yemen mail bomb plot in the
interview and was not available
afterwards.'
White House press secretary
Robert Gibbs said the question of
when the bombs found in Britain
and the United Arab Emirates
were to go off was still under
investigation and there was no
information confirming such a
close call.
U.S. State Department coun-
terterror coordinator Daniel
Benjamin also questioned the
French minister's comments.
"This is not our understand-
ing of the situation. Our under-
standing is the investigators are
still looking at the fusing and
the timing of a possible detona-
tion so I can't confirm that right
now," he told reporters in Rot-
terdam.
A government official in Brit-
ain said the device found there
was still undergoing forensic
tests and it had not been deter-
mined how close it was to being
detonated. A security source
in the United Arab Emirates
said Hortefeux's remark did not
describe the bomb found in that
country.
"If this was a reference to
the device found in the Federal
Express (Fedex) site in Dubai,
then it is not correct," a security
source in the United Arab Emir-
ates who is familiar with the
investigation told The Associ-
ated Press.
Both were not authorized to
Aiscuss the case publicly and
spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hortefeux did not say where
he got the information about the
timing, although U.S. and Euro-
pean intelligence officials have
been exchanging information
on the plot. The French Interior
Ministry would not elaborate on
Hortefeux's comment.
Sweden, meanwhile, changed
its travel recommendations for,
Yemen, advising citizens yester-
day to refrain "from all travel to
Yemen until further notice." The
foreign ministry cited conflicts
in Yemen's north, unrest and
kidnappings in the south and
"repeated terror actions against
foreigners and foreign interests."
When investigators pulled
the Chicago-bound packages off
cargo planes in England and the
United Arab Emirates last Friday,
they found the bombs wired to cell
phones and hidden in the toner
cartridges of computer printers.
The communication cards had
been removed and the phones
could not receive calls, officials
said, making it likely the terrorists
intended the alarm or timer func-
tions to detonate the bombs.
The bomb found at East Mid-
lands airport in central Eng-
land went unnoticed for several
hours.
Intelligence officials in the
U.S. said Wednesday that each
bomb was attached to a syringe
containing lead azide, a chemical
initiator that would have deto-
nated PETN explosives packed
into each printer cartridge.
Both PETN and a syringe
were used in the failed Christ-
mas bombing of a Detroit-bound
airliner.
Investigators have focused on
the Yemeni al-Qaida faction's top
bomb maker, who had previously
designed a bomb that failed to
go off on a crowded U.S.-bound
plane last Christmas.
This time, authorities believe
master bomb maker Ibrahim al-
Asiri packed four times as much
explosives into the bombs hidden
last week on flights from Yemen.
The two bombs contained 300
and 400 grams of the industrial
explosive PETN, according to a
German security official, who
briefed reporters Monday on
condition of anonymity in line
with department guidelines.
By comparison, the bomb
stuffed into a terrorist suspect's
underwear on the Detroit-bound
plane last Christmas contained
about 80 grams.
One of the explosive devices
found inside a shipped printer
cartridge in Dubai had flown on
two airlines before it was seized,
first on a Qatar Airways Airbus
A320 jet to Doha and then on an
as-yet-undisclosed flight from
Doha to Dubai. The number of
passengers on the flights were
unknown, but the first flight
had a 144-seat capacity and the
second would have moved on a
variety of planes with seating
ranging from 144 to 335 people.
The packages were addressed
to two Chicago-area synagogues.
But because the addresses were
out of date and the names on the
packages included references
to the Crusades - the 200-year
wars waged by Christians large-
ly against Muslims - officials do
not believe the synagogues were
the targets.