. ': Thursday, September 5, 2013 - 5A
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom W S Thursday, September 5, 2013 - 5A
Ross' donation to the 'U'
raises concerns in Florida
A pair of women react after a stabbing during a fight involving multiple students inside Spring High School in Spring,
Texas on Wednesday. A 16-year-old boy has been airlifted from the high school in suburban Houston with stab wounds.
School stabbng fight leaves
one dead and three injured
Police remain
mum on what
precipitated the
confrontation
SPRING, Texas (AP) - A
fight inside a Houston-area
high school escalated into a
series of stabbings Wednesday
that left a 17-year-old student
dead and three others wound-
ed, sheriff's officials said.
The stabbings happened
during a fight between several
students in a school corridor.
The Harris County Sheriff's
Office said 17-year-old stu-
dent Luis Alonzo Alfaro pulled
a knife during the fight and
fatally stabbed one student and
wounded three others.
Alfaro admitted to the stab-
bing under questioning by
sheriff's homicide detectives
and was charged with murder,
the Sheriff's Office said in a
statement released Wednesday
evening.
Sheriff's spokesman Alan
Bernstein referred queries
about whether Alfaro had an
attorney to the district clerk's
website, which had not been
updated as of Wednesday
night. Alfaro also was not yet
listed in the jail's booking sys-
tem.
Authorities provided few
details on what may have led
to the fight, and no other infor-
mation was available on the
teenager who was killed.
"We believe a confrontation
of some sort occurred ... that
ultimately led into a physical
confrontation that produced
weapons," Sheriff Adrian Gar-
cia said. "There has been some
information that this may have
been gang related."
School district officials can-
celed classes at the high school
for the rest of the week.
Some parents said the fight
was the continuation of a dis-
turbance that broke out Tues-
day. Officials at the school,
which has about 3,500 stu-
dents, would not confirm their
comments.
"Every parent sends their
child to school believing
school should be one of those
safe haven places," Spring
Independent School District
Superintendent Ralph Draper
said. "This is what we spend
our nights and days working
toward and what I lose sleep
over.
"In my nearly 30-year
career, this is the one thing you
pray never to experience."
Parent Tara Campbell said
she received text messages
from her daughter about the
fight and that her daughter
said students who witnessed
the episode snapped cellphone
photos of the victims as they
lay on the ground.
Campbell said she intended
to have her daughter home-
schooled, saying she's grown
tired of fights at the school.
"Last year there were gang
fights consistently," she said.
"This is ridiculous. This is an
ongoing situation."
Lakesia Brent said her son, a
sophomore at the school, sent
her multiple text messages
asking her to come pick him
up.
"He's just afraid," she said,
adding that fights at the school
were a problem in the last aca-
demic year.
The school was placed on
lockdown following the stab-
bings, which occurred about
7 a.m., and students were
released to the care of their
parents later Wednesday.
Many parents were upset
that the school district did not
provide them information in a
timely manner.
Draper defended the dis-
trict's actions, saying they
focused on two goals - secur-
ing the school and making
sure no action was taken to
compromise the investiga-
tion - before communicating
information to parents about
what had happened. He said
students were not immediately
released because some of them
were potential witnesses who
needed to be interviewed by
investigators.
"When street violence pours
into the school, it compromises
the safety of all our students,"
Draper said.
Billionaire insisted
that taxpayers help
pay for Dolphins
stadium renovation
DETROIT (AP) - Miami
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross
is donating $200 million to the
University of Michigan, his alma
mater announced Wednesday,
making it the biggest single gift
in the school's history but rais-
ing questions about Ross' insis-
tence on taxpayer funding to
make improvements to his NFL
team's stadium.
Ross' donation is among the
largest ever given to a U.S. col-
lege or university. It will be split
evenly between the Stephen M.
Ross School of Business and the
university's athletics depart-
ment, which will rename its
campus the Stephen M. Ross
Athletic Campus, the school
said in a statement. It brings the
total amount Ross has given the
school to more than $313 mil-
lion.
Although the donation is a
huge boon to his alma mater, it
will make it more difficult for
Ross to seek taxpayer help for
the $350 million improvements
he wants to make to the Dol-
phins' stadium, said Andrew
Zimbalist, a sports economist at
Smith College in Northampton,
Mass.
"It strikes me as peculiar
timing that Mr. Ross decided to
have this made known as this
time," Zimbalist said. "If I were
in Miami, then I would have
additional questions about why
he needed public funding for his
stadium."
House Speaker Will Weath-
erford, who killed Ross' plan
by not putting it up for a vote,
declined to comment on the
Michigan donation. But Miami
documentary filmmaker Billy
Corben, a critic of Ross' stadi-
um plan, tweeted: "Props on @
MiamiDolphins owner's gener-
ous donation. He can do what-
ever he wants with his money.
He can't do whatever he wants
with ours."
Ross has said an upgrade
of the 26-year-old stadium
is needed if Miami is to host
future Super Bowls and college
championship games. He says
the Dolphins are already heav-
ily in debt and one of the NFL's
most leveraged teams, making
upgrades impossible without
taxpayer help.
Last spring, Ross sought up to
$289 million from an increase in
the Miami-Dade County hotel
tax and up to $90 million in state
sales tax rebates, but the Florida
Legislature turned down his
plan.
In a statement, Ross said the
donation and stadium issue are
different subjects.
"I think it is important to be
committed to both," Ross said.
"As I've often said, I've prom-
ised to pay a large portion of
the stadium upgrade costs, but
the community who would sub-
stantially benefit also needs
to be involved. I also think it's
extremely important to be a
good citizen from a philan-
thropic standpoint, and to set
an example for others to do the
same. Both commitments are
important to me and both have
the potential to leave a lasting
legacy that will benefit so many.
people."
A New York real estate devel-
oper, Ross has a net worth esti-
mated at more than $4 billion.
He graduated from Michigan
in 1962, and completed his pur-
chase of the Dolphins and their
stadium in early 2009.
The athletics campus in Ann
Arbor is expected to be named
the Stephen M. Ross Athletic
Campus.
"Stephen Ross' vision has
always been about the abil-
ity of facilities to transform
the human experience," Michi-
gan President Mary Sue Cole-
man said in the statement. "He
understands the power of well-
conceived spaces, and his gener-
osity will benefit generations of
Michigan students, faculty and
coaches."
According to lists from The
Chronicle of Higher Education
and The Chronicle of Philan-
thropy, Ross' gift is the third
biggest to a higher education
facility in 2013. Earlier this
year, it was announced that New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
would donate $350 million to
Johns Hopkins University, and
in July the A. Eugene Brockman
Charitable Trust gave a $250
million donation to Centre Col-
lege in Kentucky.
Ross' $200 million donation
is among the 30 single largest
donations to a U.S. college or
university, according to The
Chronicle of Higher Education.
In Michigan, specific proj-
ects will be announced in the
coming months, the school
said. In addition, scholarships
will be available to Ross stu-
dents.
The Ross School of Business
proposes to create new spaces
for students to study, collaborate
and connect with each other,
faculty and potential employ-
ers. Classrooms will include
advanced technology to support
in-person and virtual collabora-
tion.
With the additional funding,
University of Michigan Athlet-
ics plans to improve its campus
to help athletes succeed on the
playing field and in the class-
room, improve its facilities and
build sites to be a destination for
local, state, national and inter-
national competitions.
Afghan woman sought in
inside $1.1 million bank theft
Police suspect
mafia involvement
after woman flees
to India
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -
The young woman worked for
three years at the Afghan bank,
officials say. Then one day she
vanished. As did $1.1 million.
Afghan authorities have
been scrambling to track down
the suspected thief and sev-
eral alleged accomplices, and
an international arrest war-
rant has been issued. Still, the
revelations are another embar-
rassment for the banking sector
in this country, which has seen
corruption already unravel one
major institution amid ongoing
security threats from militants
and criminals.
Shokofa Salehi, 22, worked
in the money transfer division
at the headquarters of Azizi
Bank, a major Afghan lender in
Kabul, officials said. She dis-
appeared around two months
ago, according to Azizi chief
executive Inayatullah Fazli.
Investigators say she is sus-
pected of transferring some
$1.1 million out of the bank's
0 coffers to accounts of relatives.
Besides Salehi, at least nine
people are believed involved in
the case.
"They are a mafia group,"
Fazli alleged.
An Interpol red notice - the
equivalent of an international
arrest warrant - describes
authorities as seeking Salehi on
charges of fraud and misusing
her authority. Afghan officials
believe Salehi used fake docu-
ments under the name Samira
to reach India after transfer-
ring the money; her current
whereabouts are unknown.
Two suspects in the case
have been detained in Dubai,
senior Afghan police official
Gen. Aminullah Amarkhail
said, adding that he's in touch
with counterparts in Dubai and
India for help tracking down
Salehi and other suspects. He
said one suspect is alleged to
have spent some $850,000 of
the money to invest in a tire
business and possibly other
ventures in Dubai.
Amarkhail said Salehi's
parents were among the sus-
pects, and are believed to have
returned to Kabul after going
with her to India. Another top
police official, Mohammad
Zahir, said investigators were
still seeking the parents.
Azizi Bank's website says
it began operating in 2006,
and that it now has "a 1,500-
plus strong team of employees
and with a 20 percent female
workforce is playing a quiet
but effective role in women(s)
emancipation and empower-
ment." It also calls itself "the
bank you can trust."
As striking as it is, Salehi's
alleged pilfering pales in com-
parison to some other examples
of corruption in Afghanistan's
banking sector.
In 2010, regulators seized
Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's
largest lender, amid allega-
tions of severe levels of graft.
Its near-collapse and subse-
quent bailout represented more
than 5 percent of Afghanistan's
gross domestic product, mak-
ing it one of the largest banking
failures in the world in relative
terms.
An independent report
described Kabul Bank as being
run like a Ponzi scheme. Inves-
tigators said some $861 million
in fraudulent loans had disap-
peared into the pockets of asso-
ciates of the men behind the
bank.
Earlier this year, an Afghan
tribunal sentenced two top
Kabul Bank executives to five
years in prison for misappro-
priating funds. Critics said the
punishments were far too light
and raised questions about
President Hamid Karzai's com-
mitment to rooting out corrup-
tion.
On Tuesday, Afghanistan
announced it was trying once
again to privatize what it had
salvaged of the bank, which is
now called New Kabul Bank.
Banks in Afghanistan have
also been targeted by Taliban
militants and criminal gangs.
Not only are they prime tar-
gets for people seeking to steal
money, they also are gather-
ing places for many govern-
ment employees seeking to
make deposits or cash their
paychecks, thus making them
attractive to suicide bombers.
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