The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Friday, September 14, 2012 - 3A
NEWS BRIEFS
LANSING
Tape of Granholm
in 1978 'Dating
Game' surfaces
Ex-Michigan Gov. Jennifer
Granholm is getting some laughs
from a newly posted YouTube
video of her 1978 appearance on
"The Dating Game."
Marty Nislick of Bayside, N.Y.,
says he spotted a video of the TV
show on the Facebook page of a
friend who was one of the three
male contestants vying for a date
with the 19-year-old aspiring
actress from British Columbia.
Nislick tells the Detroit Free
Press he recognized Granholm
and posted an edited video on
YouTube last week.
Granholm now hosts a talk
show. Ex-gubernatorial spokes-
woman Liz Boyd says she emailed
Granholm a link to the video and
spoke with her about it Thursday.
PHILADELPHIA
Mohammed Ali
wins civic award
Retired boxing great Muham-
mad Ali has been awarded the
Liberty Medal in Philadelphia.
The award was presented in
a ceremony at the National Con-
stitution Center on Thursday.
It recognizes his longtime role
as a fighter outside the ring for
humanitarian causes, civil rights
and religious freedom.
A frail Ali did not speak, but
stood with assistance to receive
the medal from his daughter,
Laila. His wife Lonnie said Ali was
honored and humbled to be a bea-
con of liberty.
Since hanging up his gloves in
1981, Ali has traveled extensively
on international charitable mis-
sions and devoted his time to
social causes.
DALLAS
Anonymous hacker
arrested in Texas
A Texas man linkedto the
worldwide hacking group Anony-
moushasbeendetainedbythe FBI
over accusations that he threat-
ened a federal agent, his attorney
said Thursday.
Barrett Brown, 31, of Dallas was
arrested Wednesday night and
booked into the Dallas County jail,
according to jail records. Brown
was then transferred into FBI
custody, Dallas County sheriff's
spokeswoman Carmen Castro said.
Brown's attorney, Jay Leider-
man, told The Associated Press
that he expected Brown to be
charged with making threats to
a federal agent. Leiderman said
the accusations are connected to
YouTube videos Brown posted in
recent days.
The mostrecentvideo postedto
Brown's account is entitled in part,
"Why I'm Going to Destroy FBI
Agent Robert Smith." In it, Brown
rails against federal authorities
for what he describes as an unfair
investigationofhim and his moth-
er, who he said was not involved in
any of Anonymous' activities.
AZAZ, Syria
Syrian rebels offer
to release hostages
A Syrian rebel commander
holding 10 Lebanese Shiites hos-
tage said Thursday he is willing
to release the men but fears doing
so could set off a wave of reprisal
attacks by Sunni extremists.
What began as an effort to force
Lebanon's Shiite militant group
Hezbollah to stop supporting the
Syrian regime has become the
latest flashpoint in a conflict with
growing sectarian overtones.
The rebel leader behind the
kidnappings, Ammar al-Dadikh-
li, is a burly former cross-border
trader who goes by the nom
de guerre Abu Ibrahim. His
1,200-strong Northern Storm
Brigade controls the vital cross-
ing from Syria's Aleppo province
into neighboring Turkey, and in
May he ordered the seizure of the
Lebanese Shiites, who had been
on a bus tour of religious sites
in the area, on the grounds they
belonged to Hezbollah.
-Compiled from
Daily wire reports
Coleman meets, greets
at annual open house
Leukemia survivor
to research disease
he beat as a teen
Hundreds of
students flock to
president's home
By PAIGE PEARCY
Daily NewsEditor
The white house nestled
between the Clement's Library
and Tappan Hall on South Uni-
versity Avenue may seem out of
place to newer students, but it's
not long before they discover
it as the University President
Mary Sue Coleman's home.
On Thursday, students of all
ages and from all disciplines
flocked to Coleman's annual
open house for the chance to
mingle with the president.
Before meeting Coleman, E.
Royster Harper, the Univer-
sity's vice president for student
affairs, greeted students enter-
ing Coleman's home.
"I love the fact that our presi-
dent says this is my house, this is
your house, come meet me, come
see me, and that she will stay
here the entire time in heels,"
Harper said.
Coleman stood at the back of
the house where hundreds of
students waited to talk with her
individually and take pictures.
"I think it's important for
students who would like to see
the house to come in and see it,"
Coleman said. "There are two
groups that I really enjoy: the
new students coming either for
their undergraduates or gradu-
ate studies - their first time in
Ann Arbor - and then 1 love for
the seniors to come because it's
the last year."
Coleman said she looks for-
ward to the open house every
year as a way to get to know the
students.
"People always tell me great
things, and I'm excited to hear
about what people are studying
and where they're from, so I get
a lot of enjoyment out of this,"
Coleman said.
Harper added that having the
open house serves as a way to
unite campus.
"I think that it's real easy for
this to just be a place, rather
than a community, and so I
think that anytime we can open
up our home and our hearts to
each other that it makes us a
different kind of community,"
Harper said.
Inside the President's House,
students could roam the rooms
on the main floor, sign Cole-
man's guest book and munch on
cookies and fruit while sipping
apple cider.
CSG President Manish
Parikh, a Business senior, said it
was his first time visiting Cole-
man's house.
"I think this event is really
important because it sends out
a strong signal to every student
on campus that their president,
Mary Sue Coleman, is there for
them and an extremely warm
and kind lady," Parikh said. "I
think she'd win a poll for the
coolest university president."
In the house's library, sisters
Amber and Brianna Campbell
pointed to the wood floor and
laughed together, saying it was
the same as their grandmother's.
Amber, an LSA freshman,
said she came to the event after
hearing about it at new student
convocation and asked her older
sister to come with her.
"It reminds me of the White
House," Brianna, an LSA sopho-
more, said. "It's really cozy and
neat and clean and just pretty."
Location of Chinese vice president
still unknown 12 days after incident
$250,000 grant
from Hyundai will
aid in research
efforts
By MOLLY BLOCK
Daily News Editor
Instead of cramming for
exams and heading to parties
with his classmates, Andrew
Harris, then a 19-year-old stu-
dent at Bowling Green State
University, was in the hospital
receiving a bone marrow trans-
plant for acute myeloid leuke-
mia.
Harris survived the trans-
plant despite suffering a graft-
versus-host disease, the most
dangerous complication associ-
ated with bone marrow trans-
plants. Now, 10 years later,
Harris is working to develop
a method to diagnose GVHD
in children before symptoms
develop, with the help of a
$250,000 grant from Hyundai
Hope on Wheels, a non-profit
organization sponsored by
Hyundai Motor America and
Hyundai dealerships.
"I was the big kid on the chil-
dren's floor back in college,"
Harris said. "I promised the
doctors here that I would come
back and work with them if I
survived my whole ordeal and
it took me 10 years to get back
here."
At a Thursday morning press
conference, Harris was award-
ed the $250,000 check and a
new lab coat in the presence of
colleagues and pediatric bone
marrow transplant patients.
Harris said the funding will
makea significant difference in
his career and childhood can-
cer research.
"This study is going to lay
the groundwork for making
bone marrow transplants a
safer treatment option for kids
around the world," he said.
According to Valerie Castle,
pediatrics and communicable
diseases chair at C.S. Mott
Children's Hospital, less than
3 percent of the National Insti-
tutes of Health's budget goes
toward research for childhood
cancer, even though it is one of
the leading causes of childhood
death in the country.
Brian O'Malley, regional
general manager at Hyun-
dai Motor America, said the
mission of Hyundai Hope on
Wheels is to eliminate child-
hood cancer and emphasize
the importance of supporting
related research.
The organization originally
started as a grassroots effort
but grew with support from
contributions from the auto-
maker. Since the program was
started 14 years ago, Hyundai
has donated more than $57
million to pediatric cancer
research.
O'Malley added that a con-
tribution is made to the orga-
nization for every Hyundai
vehicle sold. Harris's work is
one of the 41 projects chosen
from 300 applicants to receive
a grant ranging from $100,000
to $250,000.
Harris began his project by
developing a panel of blood
tests to predict whether a
child will be affected by GVFD
before symptoms are present.
This project is set to become
a national study at Mott Chil-
dren's Hospital and the Chil-
dren's Oncology Group, the
world's largest children's can-
cer treatment research consor-
tium, beginning in January.
"We've got the preliminary
groundwork, but now we need
all the samples and data from
children all around the country
so we can make this predictive
test," Harris said.
Daniel Lee, a 23-year-old
inpatient and a former LSA
student who was six credits
short of graduation before his
diagnosis, took part in a cer-
emony at the event yesterday in
which pediatric bone marrow
transplant patients decorated
a Hyundai SUV that will be
sold at the Ann Arbor Hyundai
dealership on Jackson Road
with their handprints.
"You can never have enough
money for advances in medical
science," Lee said. "Even right
now with all of the advance-
ment in technology, it's real-
ly tough for children going
through chemo, nausea is hard
on the body."
Mitchell Dybalski, a 4-year-
old neuroblastoma patient, got
to put his handprint on the car.
Dybalski was diagnosed in July
and is one of many children
that could benefit from this
grant.
"Every penny counts,"
Dybalski's mother, Tracy
Dybalski, said. "It's nice to see
big companies coming together
and providingthe needed fund-
ing for childhood cancers."
Xi is expected to
take over as head of
Communist Party
this year
BEIJING (AP) - New rumors
about health problems facing
China's leader-in-waiting Xi
Jinping swirled Thursday as the
government continued to stone-
wall on commenting on his con-
dition or whereabouts 12 days
after he dropped from sight.
Official media mentioned Xi
for the first time since his last
appearance on Sept. 1, but the
brief, obscure report failed to
explain the extended absence
that has sparked the rumors.
The reports said Xi, Presi-
dent Hu Jintao and other top
officials had expressed their
condolences "through vari-
ous means" for the death of
102-year-old former general
Huang Rong last week. The
Guangxi Daily newspaper
reported no other details. Iden-
tical reports were carried on
the websites of the Communist
Party and the official Xinhua
News Agency.
China's vice president, Xi is
due to take over as Communist
Party head later this year and as
president next year as the coun-
try transitions to a new genera-
tion of leaders. His prolonged
and unexplained disappear-
ance has sparked rumors and
raised questions about the sta-
bility of the succession process.
For a fourth consecutive day,
Foreign Ministry spokesman
Hong Lei refused to offer any
information on Xi.
Early rumors said Xi, 59,
threw his back out swimming
or pulled a muscle playing foot-
ball. As the days passed, the
speculation escalated to more
serious conditions, including a
heart attack, stroke, or emer-
gency surgery.
And on Thursday, Hong
Kong's Information Center for
Human Rights and Democracy
said a small cancerous growth
had been discovered on Xi's
liver on Sept. 2 and that he had
undergone surgery to remove it
this week at the elite military
301 Hospital in Beijing. The
center said he was expected to
reappear in public next week.
A man who answered the
phone at the hospital's admin-
istrative office said he did not
know whether Xi was being
treated there. But he dismissed
reports on Xi's condition as
guesswork.
United Nations nuclear monitoring
body condemns Iranian enrichment
Agency fears
Iranian pursuit of
. nuclear weapons
VIENNA (AP) - The 35-nation
board of the U.N. nuclear agency
overwhelmingly rebuked Iran
on Thursday for refusing to heed
demands that it take actions to
diminish fears that it might be
seeking atomic arms, a move
hailed by the United States as
demonstratinginternational pres-
sure on Tehran to compromise.
Only one country - Cuba -
voted against a resolutionbrought
before the International Atomic
Energy Agency board and drawn
up by the United States, Russia,
China, Britain, France and Ger-
many. Ecuador, Tunisia and Egypt
abstained, while the 31 other
nations supported the resolution.
Iran denies any interest in
nuclear arms. But it has refused
to comply with U.N. and IAEA
demands to stop activities that
could be used to make such
weapons and to allow a probe of
suspicions it worked on an arms
program.
Robert Wood, the chief U.S
delegate to the IAEA, said he
hoped he board's near-solid back-
ing for the resolution would serve
as a wake-up call for the Islamic
Republic to heed international
demands to replace its words
with actions that prove it has no
interest in nuclear weapons.
"What we are hoping is that
this resolution will keep ... dip-
lomatic pressure up and con-
vince Iran that it has really no
other option than to comply
with its international obliga-
tions," he told reporters.
But the resolution has its limi-
tations, despite the broad support
it received.
As 11 others before it, the
document cannot be enforced
by the IAEA board, and as such,
may be shrugged off by Tehran,
which already is ignoring U.N.
Security Council sanctions and
other increasingly harsh inter-
national penalties meant to
force it to compromise.
Iran appeared unimpressed
Thursday. The country's chief
IAEA delegate, Ali Asghar
Soltanieh, said pressure on his
country came from "a few West-
ern countries, especially the
United States (which) are try-
ing to change the IAEA into a
mere U.N watchdog" trying to
penetrate countries' national
security.
Because it is largely symbolic,
the document is also unlikely
to persuade Israel that diplo-
macy is working. Israel views a
nuclear-armed Iran as a mortal
threat, citing Iran's persistent
calls for the destruction of the
Jewish state, its development
of missiles capable of striking
Israel, and Iranian support for
Arab militant groups.
Israeli government leaders
have become increasingly stri-
dent in suggesting that only mil-
itary action will stop Iran from
getting nuclear arms.
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