The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, February 23, 2012 - 3A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Thursday, February 23, 2012 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
GOP candidates
return to state
as race tightens
Republican presidential can-
didate Ron Paul is planning four
campaigns stops before Tues-
day's primary, hoping to boost
his Michigan chances to better
than third place.
An NBC News/Marist Poll
released yesterday showed 37
percent of 1,147 likely Michigan
GOP primary voters backed Mitt
Romney, 35 percent backed Rick
" Santorum and 13 percent favored
Paul. Eight percent supported
Newt Gingrich and 4 percent
were undecided.
The telephone poll was con-
ducted Sunday-Monday and
had a margin of error of plus or
minus 2.9 percentage points.
Paul plans a "Soldiers, Airmen
and Sailors" event Saturday at
Central Michigan University and
speaks Sunday to small business
owners in Hudsonville.
ST. LOUIS
Meth lab busts up
nationally in 2011
An Associated Press survey
of the nation's top methamphet-
amine-producing states shows
national lab seizures rose again
last year.
The survey confirmed that
Missouri regained the cop spot
for lab seizures in 2011 with just
more than 2,000 busts. It also
found that Tennessee came in
second with almost 1,700, fol-
lowed by Indiana, Kentucky and
Oklahoma.
Federal data the AP obtained
this week from the Drug
Enforcement Administration
appeared to show meth lab sei-
zures remained about even dur-
ing the past two years. But totals
from the states surveyed by AP
are higher.
The numbers combined indi-
cate nationwide meth lab sei-
zures actually rose at least 8.3
percent in 2011 compared to
2010.
ROME
More bodies found
in wreckage of
* Costa Concordia
Divers searching the capsized
Costa Concordia cruise ship off a
Tuscan island found eight bod-
ies yesterday on one of the pas-
senger decks, including that of a
missing 5-year-old Italian girl,
authorities said.
Italy's national civil protec-
tion agency, which is monitor-
ing the operation off a Tuscan
island, said three of the bodies
were recovered a few hours after
beingaspotted by fire department
divers. It said they are those
of a woman, a girl and a man.
Because of worsening weath-
er, the divers were not able to
immediately remove the other

five bodies.
The bodies were being trans-
ferred to a hospital on the main-
land for identification, a process
which could take days. Before
yesterday's development, 15
people were listed as missing,
but only one of them was a child,
Dayana Arlotti. The 5-year-old
girl was on the Mediterranean
cruise with her father and his
girlfriend. The girlfriend sur-
vived. The father was among the
missing.
MIAMI
Crimes, homicides
in public schools
decline nationally
Crimes and homicides in
public schools nationwide have
declined, part of a downward
trend seen over the past several
years.
Data released Wednesday by
the U.S. Department of Edu-
cation and the Department of
Justice show declines across a
number of indicators, including
thefts, violent crimes, bullying
and gang activity.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports

Lesbian worker
granted benefits

ANIBAL GRECo//
Firemen rescue wounded passengers from a commuter train after a collision in Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday.
Argentine train slams
into station, king 4

Federal District
Court rules DOMA
unconstitutional
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A
federal judge in San Francisco
ruled yesterday that the U.S.
government cannot deny health
benefits to the wife of a lesbian
court employee by relying on the
1996 law that bars government
recognition of same-sex unions.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey
White said that because the
Defense of Marriage Act uncon-
stitutionally discriminates
against same-sex married cou-
ples, the government's refusal
to furnish health insurance to
Karen Golinski's wife is unjusti-
fied.
"The Court finds that DOMA,
as applied to Ms. Golinski, vio-
latesherrighttoequalprotection
of the law... by, without substan-
tial justification or rational basis,
refusing to recognize her lawful
marriage to prevent provision
of health insurance coverage to
her spouse," White wrote in a
43-page decision that marks the
third time in less than two years
a federal court has declared the
act unconstitutional.
Golinski, a staff lawyer for
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of

Appeals, has been trying to
secure spousal benefits for her
wife, Amy Cunninghis, since
shortly after the couple got
married during the brief win-
dow in 2008 when same-sex
marriages were legal in Cali-
fornia. Her boss, Chief Judge
Alex Kozinski, approved her
request, but the Office of Per-
sonnel Management ordered
Golinski's insurer not to pro-
cess her application.
After Golinski sued, the
Department of Justice origi-
nally opposed her in court but
changed course last year after
President Barack Obama and
Attorney General Eric Holder
said they would no longer defend
the Defense of Marriage Act.
When White heard the case
in December, the head of the
Justice Department's civil divi-
sion, Tony West, joined her law-
yers from the gay rights legal
group Lambda Legal in argu-
ing on Golinski's behalf, leav-
ing the job of defending DOMA
to a lawyer hired by a House
of Representatives group. The
lawyers representing the Bipar-
tisan Legal Advisory Group
convened by House Speaker
John Boehner did not imme-
diately respond to an email to
their offices sent after business
hours yesterday.

Crash sparks
criticism of
country's rail safety
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
(AP) - A train packed with
morning commuters slammed
into a downtown station yes-
terday, killing 49 people and
injuring hundreds as passenger
cars crumpled and windows
exploded around them. It was
Argentina's worst train acci-
dent in decades.
The cause wasn't immedi-
ately determined, but many
pointed to a deteriorating
rail system. Some passengers
reported signs the conductor
was struggling with the brakes
before the crash, saying he kept
overshooting platforms and
missed one entirely.
The dead included 48 adults
and one child - most of whom
had crowded into the first
two cars to get ahead of the
rush-hour crowds on arrival.
Some 600 people were injured,
including 461 who were hospi-
talized, Transportation Secre-
tary J.P. Schiavi said.
Hours after the crash, pas-
sengers' relatives gathered at
the morgue anxious for word of
their loved ones.
Ezekiel Mercado said he and
his mother-in-law had been
frantically searching for his
wife, Sabrina Espindola, 29,
who didn't show up for work
yesterday. They checked nine
hospitals before heading to the
morgue, he said.
"I went everywhere. She is
always with her Blackberry. We
are always in contact," he said.
"This morgue is the last place

I thought of, but, well, she's
missing. I call her cell phone,
and it rings, rings, but she isn't
responding."
Speaking at a news confer-
ence, Schiavi defended the rail
system's maintenance record.
"It was an accident like those
in many other countries," he
said, pointing to a newspaper
clipping about a fatal crash in
Los Angeles. "In recent years,
we've made huge investments"
in the system.
As Schiavi spoke, riot police
faced off against angry pas-
sengers in the closed Once sta-
tion, where emergency workers
spent hours extracting doz-
ens of people trapped inside
the train's first car. Rescuers
had to slice open the roof and
set up a pulley system to ease
them out one by one. Dozens
of the injured were lined up on
stretchers on the station plat-
form.
The 28-year-old conductor,
who survived the crash, was
apparently well-rested, Schiavi
said, having just begun his work-
day.
"Tiredness, his (young) age,
the problems that a conductor
might face" are among the fac-
tors being investigated, he said.
"This young person had just
begun his shift moments before
the accident."
The motorman was hospi-
talized in intensive care and
hasn't given a statement, Schi-
avi added.
Passengers said the conduc-
tor seemed to struggle with the
brakes, missing his stopping
marks at station after station,
though a labor union official said
the train appeared to be in good
working order.

"This machine left the shop
yesterday and the brakes worked
well. From what we know, it
braked without problems at
previous stations. At this point
I don't want to speculate about
the causes," union chief Ruben
Sobrero told Radio La Red.
Schiavi said the train was
recorded slowing from about
30 miles per hour (50 kph) to 12
miles per hour about 40 yards
(meters) before the impact. "We
don't know what happened in
those final 40 meters," he said.
The train slammed into a
shock-absorbing barrier at 8:33
a.m., smashing the front of the
engine and crunching the much
lighter cars behind it. The sec-
ond car penetrated nearly 20
feet (six meters) into the next,
Schiavi said.
Most damaged was the first
car, where passengers shared
space with bicycles. Survivors
said many people were injured
in a jumble of metal and glass.
Security camera images showed
windows exploding as the cars
crumpled into each other like
an accordion, with a man on the
adjacent platform scrambling
across the tracks to escape the
wreck.
The rush-hour train carried
more than 1,200 people, many
standing so tightly between the
seats that they had nothing to
hold onto. The hard stop sent
them flying inside the.cars.
Many suffered bruises or
lesser injuries, waiting for atten-
tion on the station's platforms as
helicopters and dozens of ambu-
lances carried others to nearby
hospitals. The dead were car-
ried out the back of the station,
beyond the view of television
cameras.

Hamas agrees to
unify with Fatah

Rivalry between
Palestinian parites
to come to an end
CAIRO (AP) - The leadership
of the Islamic militant Hamas
yesterday settled internal dis-
agreements and approved a
unity deal with its political rival,
Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, a senior official said.
Hamas' political bureau, the
group's top decision-making
body, met in Cairo and signed off
on the deal after more than 12
hours of talks over two days, said
Izzat al-Rishq, an aide to Hamas
chief Khaled Mashaal.
Since 2007, the rivals have run
separate governments - Abbas
in the West Bank and Hamas in
Gaza. An agreement signed in
Doha, Qatar, between Mashaal
and Abbas on Feb. 6 envisions
Abbas heading an interim unity
government ahead of general
elections in the Palestinian ter-
ritories.
Hamas leaders in Gaza, who
have most to lose from the unity

deal, had objected to relinquish-
ing power to Abbas. The orga-
nization has employed tens of
thousands in official posts inside
the territory who now face inte-
gration into larger Palestinian
bodies that might be headed by
Abbas loyalists.
While the deal might still
face opposition from the Hamas
rank-and-file, Rishq suggested
that the movement's leaders are
now on board.
"The meeting decided to fully
implement the reconciliation
agreement and the Doha decla-
ration," al-Rishq said. "It puts
an end to the debate and discus-
sions over Hamas' position con-
cerning the Dohaagreement and
puts an end to what seemed to be
disagreement within Hamas."
Abbas and Mashaal met later
Wednesday in Cairo to discuss
the next steps in the deal, includ-
ing the formation of an interim
government that is to be made
up of politically independent
technocrats. Such a composition
is meant to lower the profile of
Hamas, shunned by the West as
a terror organization.

U.S., North Korean envoys
to open negotiations today

Restarted talks will
be the first time the
parties have met
since last year
BEIJING (AP) - U.S. and
North Korea envoys reopen
nuclear talks today, seeking
ways for Pyongyang to dis-
mantle its nuclear programs in
return for much-needed aid.
The countries were on the
verge of a deal to have Washing-
ton provide food if Pyongyang
suspends its uranium enrich-
ment program when the agree-
ment was upended by the death
of the country's longtime leader
Kim Jong I1 on Dec. 17.
"Today is, as we say, 'Game
day.' We will have an opportu-
nity to meet with First Vice For-
eign Minister Kim and his team,"
U.S. envoy Glyn Davies said
before the start of morning talks
with Kim Kye Gwan at the North
Korean Embassy in Beijing.
The two will hold a second
session this afternoon at the
U.S. Embassy.
Davies said it was a good sign
that North Korea had agreed
to re-enter talks so soon after
the death of Kim Jong I as the

country transfers power to his
young son, Kim Jong Un, and a
coterie of advisers.
He said a key point was to see
if North Korea was willing to
fulfill obligations made in ajoint
statement in September 2005,
whichcommittedNorthKoreato
abandoning its nuclear program
in exchange for aid and pledges
that Washington wouldn't seek
the regime's ouster.
State Department spokesman
Mark Toner said in Washington
that the United States was "cau-
tiously optimistic" about the
talks.
The talks in Beijing, the third
round since July, ostensibly are
aimed at restarting wider six-
nation disarmament negotiations
that also involve China, Japan,
Russia and South Korea. Pyong-
yang walked away from those
talks in 2009 and later exploded
its second nuclear device.
The six-nation talks, once
restarted, would be aimed at dis-
mantling North Korea's remain-
ingnuclearprogrpmsinexchange
forwhatwould fikelyinvolveeven
greater donations of aid.
Toner said food assistance
would be discussed in the talks,
but that the United States has
some concerns it wants North
Korea to address. He did not say

what those concerns were, but
analysts have said North Korea
must agree to have U.N. watch-
dogs monitor any freeze of its
uranium enrichment. Other-
wise it could backtrack - as it
has done with previous agree-
ments.
Worries about North Korea's
nuclear capability took on
renewed urgency in Novem-
ber 2010 when the country
disclosed a uranium enrich-
ment facility that could give it
a second route to manufacture
nuclear weapons, in addition
to its existing plutonium-based
program.wise it could back-
track - as it has done with pre-
vious agreements.
As the envoys began their
talks, North Korea's state
media criticized next month's
Nuclear Security Summit in
Seoul, which is expected to
draw dozens of world leaders,
including President Barack
Obama, to discuss nuclear ter-
rorism and safety.
"It is illogical to discuss
the 'nuclear security' issue in
South Korea, the U.S. nuclear
advance base and a hotbed
of nuclear war," the North's
official Korean Central News
Agency said in a commentary
today.

n-fl,