The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Tuesday, March 10, 2015 — 7

LOREN HOLMES/AP

Michelle Phillips and her team charge down Anchorage’s 4th Avenue during the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Saturday, March 7, 2015, in Anchorage, 
Alaska.
Mushers begin thousand mile 
trek across Alaska for Iditarod

Appeals judge 
to hear cases 
in Ferguson

CHRIS TILLEY/AP

Morris Bounds Sr. pauses while talking Monday, Feb. 23, 2015, in Ansted, W.Va., about a train derailment that destroyed his 
home near Mount Carbon, W.Va. Bounds said he is thankful to be alive after fleeing his home seconds before it was destroyed. 
Wisconsin Gov. signs bill 
ending forced union dues 

Weather conditions 
prompt change of 
location for the race 

PFAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) 

— Iditarod mushers began their 
1,000-mile trek across Alaska 
along a new route Monday after 
poor trail conditions forced orga-
nizers to push the race’s start 
north, bypassing a mountain 
range.

Canadian rookie Rob Cooke, 

who hails from Whitehorse, 
Yukon Territory, was the first 
musher to leave Fairbanks as fans 
looked on from the starting gate 
and along the expressway.

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog 

Race usually kicks off 225 miles 
south in Willow. But because of 
a lack of snow this year, officials 
shifted the entire route around 

the Alaska Range and an area 
that left many mushers bruised 
and bloodied last year.

This is only the second time 

Fairbanks has hosted the official 
start; similar low-snow condi-
tions moved the Iditarod there in 
2003.

The finish line remains in 

Nome, on the state’s wind-
whipped western coast.

The route change eliminates 

mountainous 
terrain 
and 
a 

treacherous gorge. But the race 
now will be run on about 600 
miles of river ice, and that can 
create a whole new set of obsta-
cles.

Some mushers have hinted the 

new path might benefit Pete Kai-
ser, a young musher who recently 
won an all-river ice sled dog race 
in southwest Alaska. Kaiser dis-
puted that Monday.

“I don’t see it as an advantage 

or disadvantage for me or anyone 
else, really,” he said as he took 
a break from packing his sled 
before the race started.

“It’s just another trail through 

the state, and it’s still a thousand 
miles, and it’s still through some 
rugged country,” Kaiser said.

Lance Mackey is running the 

race with a young dog team and 
is handling the changes in stride.

The four-time champion said 

the fact that most of the thousand 
or so dogs participating in the 
race have never seen this part of 
Alaska is “kind of cool.”

“Not a dog in this yard has 

been on this trail or this race,” 
Mackey said. “Everybody’s on the 
same playing field in that aspect.

The new route reduces the 

number of checkpoints in the 
early part of the race, but it adds 
stops at villages that have never 
been part of the Iditarod — like 

tiny Huslia, an Athabascan vil-
lage of about 300 residents.

Alaska’s 
fairly 
warm 
and 

snowless winter was caused by 
the same weather pattern that 
repeatedly dumped snow on the 
East Coast. It has made for poor 
conditions south of the Alaska 
Range, especially in the area of 
the Dalzell Gorge, considered the 
roughest patch for mushers and 
dogs.

This is where many mushers 

were injured in crashes last year. 
Officials said this year’s condi-
tions there are worse.

Four-time champion Martin 

Buser said the lack of snow in the 
greater Anchorage area made for 
a challenging training season.

Buser said he intends to slow 

his start this year after setting a 
blistering pace in the early part 
of last year’s race and then fading 
back.

Legislation cements 
freedom to work, 

Walker says

ABROWN DEER, Wis. (AP) — 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on 
Monday signed into law a mea-
sure that prohibits requiring a 
worker to pay union dues, striking 
another blow against organized 
labor four years after the state 
effectively ended collective bar-
gaining for public-sector employ-
ees.

Walker, a likely presidential 

candidate fresh off a weekend 
visit to Iowa, signed the right-to-
work bill affecting private-sector 
workers at an invitation-only cer-
emony at Badger Meter north of 
Milwaukee. The company’s presi-
dent was one of the few business 
owners who publicly supported 
the measure, which rocketed 
through the Legislature in less 
than two weeks.

His sleeves rolled up and his 

suit jacket off, the Republican 
governor sat at a table with a ban-
ner that said “Freedom to Work” 
as he signed the bill that makes it 
a misdemeanor to require work-

ers to pay unions dues.

Just before the signing, Walker 

said the new law “sends a power-
ful message across the country 
and around the world.” He fol-
lowed that up with a fundraising 
plea to supporters.

“The Big Government Labor 

Bosses will never forgive me for 
taking away their power but we 
are doing the right thing,” Walker 
said in the email, noting that he 
had signed the law and asking for 
donations of $10, $100 and $1,000.

Supporters have argued the 

law will help keep and attract 
new businesses that were wary 
of spending in Wisconsin before. 
But opponents say it will drive 
down wages and make the work-
place less safe.

“By signing Right to Work into 

law, Gov. Walker continues his 
crusade on the hard-working, 
middle-class families of Wiscon-
sin,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, presi-
dent of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO 
in a prepared statement.

President 
Barack 
Obama 

issued a statement late Monday 
that called on Walker to improve 
working 
conditions 
through 

actions such as raising wages or 
offering paid leave.

“I’m deeply disappointed that 

a new anti-worker law in Wis-
consin will weaken, rather than 
strengthen workers in the new 
economy,” he said.

A coalition of more than 400 

businesses formed to oppose the 
bill and upward of 3,000 union 
members and others gathered at 
the Capitol in a failed attempt to 
block its passage.

Walker was surrounded Mon-

day by Republican lawmakers 
who shepherded the bill through 
the process, including Assembly 
Speaker Robin Vos and Senate 
Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. 
Representatives from the state 
chamber of commerce, along with 
Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, were 
also on hand.

“This is one more big tool to 

help places like Badger Meter, 
when they can put jobs anywhere 
around the world, they can put 
them in Wisconsin,” Walker said.

Badger Meter’s chief executive 

and chairman Rich Meeusen said 
because of the law the company 
will place a $2.5 million piece of 
new water control equipment at 
the Brown Deer facility and that 
will lead to 30 to 50 new manufac-
turing jobs in the state.

After federal report, 

judge tasked with 

enacting reforms for 

municipal court

 JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) 
— A Missouri appeals court judge 
was appointed Monday to take 
over Ferguson’s municipal court 
and make “needed reforms” after 
a highly critical U.S. Department 
of Justice report that was prompt-
ed by the fatal police shooting of 
Michael Brown.
 The Missouri Supreme Court 
said it is assigning state appeals 
Judge Roy L. Richter to hear all 
of Ferguson’s pending and future 
municipal court cases. The high 
court said Richter also will have 
the authority to overhaul court 
policies to ensure defendants’ 
rights are respected and to 
“restore the integrity of the sys-
tem.”
 Ferguson Municipal Judge Ron-
ald J. Brockmeyer resigned Mon-
day, saying through a spokesman 
that he was stepping down to 
promote public confidence in the 
court and help Ferguson “begin 
its healing process.”
 The Ferguson City Council met 
in closed session Monday evening, 
but members left without taking 
questions and a city spokesman 
didn’t disclose the purpose of the 
meeting. Ferguson City Manager 
John Shaw was escorted to his 
vehicle by a police officer with-
out fielding questions, and Mayor 
James Knowles III declined com-
ment to The Associated Press 
afterward except to say that the 
city on Tuesday would begin 
seeking Brockmeyer’s permanent 
successor.

 Richter will take charge of the 
court on March 16. The Supreme 
Court said it also is assigning 
staff from the state court admin-
istrator’s office to aid Richter in 
reviewing Ferguson’s municipal 
court practices.
 “Judge Richter will bring a 
fresh, disinterested perspective 
to this court’s practices, and he 
is able and willing to implement 
needed reforms,” Chief Justice 
Mary Russell said in a written 
statement.
 “Extraordinary action is war-
ranted in Ferguson, but the Court 
also is examining reforms that are 
needed on a statewide basis,” Rus-
sell added.
 The change comes after the Jus-
tice Department released a report 
last week that cited cases of racial 
profiling and bigotry by police 
and chided what it described as a 
profit-driven municipal court sys-
tem in the predominantly black 
St. Louis suburb where Brown, 
18, was shot by a white Ferguson 
police officer on Aug. 9. The shoot-
ing prompted protests in the St. 
Louis area and across the nation.
 A St. Louis County grand jury 
and the U.S. Justice Department 
both declined to bring charges 
against Officer Darren Wilson, 
who resigned from the depart-
ment. The Justice Department 
report said Wilson acted in self-
defense when he shot Brown.
 But the Justice Department said 
Ferguson’s police and court sys-
tems functioned as a money-mak-
ing enterprise that heightened 
tensions among residents.
The federal report noted that Fer-
guson was counting on revenues 
from fines and fees to generate 
$3.1 million, or nearly one-quar-
ter of its total $13.3 million bud-
get for the 2015 fiscal year.

LSA junior Tiffany Brocke 

took the previous version of the 
MCAT in August 2014, and has 
no plans to retake the new one. 
However, she said the changes 
in the test, particularly the new 
emphasis on sociology and psy-
chology, will likely benefit stu-
dents.

“I think it’s important for doc-

tors to have an understanding 
of people as social animals and 
how complex the mind is as well 
as the physical body,” Brocke 
said. “I do think it’s important 
to evaluate that understanding 
of people on a personality level, 
so I think it’s a positive change 
overall.”

In addition to demanding 

more endurance and a broader 
material base from test takers, 
the new MCAT test will also 
serve as a challenge for medical 
school admissions officers. Chiu 
noted that for the next few years, 
medical school admissions offic-
es will be tasked with compar-
ing applications from students 
who have taken the old MCAT 
to those who have taken the new 
version.

“This is going to be a chal-

lenge for medical schools to fig-
ure out how they compare test 
scores across the two exams,” 
Chiu said. “But remember that 
the new exam is meant to help 
medical schools make even bet-
ter decisions, so as much as pos-
sible they’re going to be looking 
for ways to use that new score 
to inform better decisions about 
applicants.”

The new test will be scored 

differently from the previous 
1-15 and 3-45 scale. Each section 
will range from a low score of 
118 to a high score of 132. Total 
scores will range from 472 to 
528.

Changes 
in 
the 
MCAT’s 

demands reflect broader adjust-
ments in the demands of medi-
cal schools. The University’s 
Medical School recently revised 
its 
admissions 
requirements 

to include a humanities-based 
experience and to encourage 
applicants to learn necessary 
material in unique and alterna-
tive ways.

Steven Gay, assistant dean 

of admissions at the University 
Medical School, said he believes 
the MCAT is being updated in 
response to changes that have 
already starting occurring in 

pre-medical education.

“I’m very pleased that the 

MCAT is trying to mirror what 
schools find are very important 
characteristics to have as you go 
to medical school,” Gay said.

Brocke, 
the 
LSA 
junior, 

echoed Gay’s opinion on the 
changes, saying she believes the 
entire process is becoming more 
holistic.

“Overall, I think it reflects a 

trend of looking at the applicant 
as a person and much less as a set 
of numbers and achievements 
and extracurricular activities,” 
Brocke said.

LSA freshman Krishna Vemu-

lapalli said he disagrees with the 
MCAT’s added focus on humani-
ties-related topics.

“I think the humanities is 

something that students should 
learn on their own, rather than 
being tested on for medical 
school,” Vemulapalli said.

Chiu said the more demand-

ing exam should not discourage 
pre-med hopefuls.

“Pre-med students are a highly 

motivated group of students, so 
it’s unlikely that this more chal-
lenging exam will deter them 
from aspiring to medical school,” 
he said.

MCAT
From Page 1

Injured woman 

recalls 2013 attack

BOSTON (AP) — A woman 

testifying from a wheelchair 
Monday in the Boston Marathon 
bombing trial recalled shielding 
her husband from the sight of his 
mangled leg, being pushed to the 
ground by a bystander frantically 
trying to extinguish the flames 
on her body and coming to grips 
with becoming a double amputee.

Jessica Kensky said she and her 

husband, Patrick Downes, each 
lost a left leg in the 2013 attack. 
After more than 18 months of 
surgeries and consultations with 
doctors around the country, she 
came to the painful conclusion 

that her right leg would have to be 
amputated, too, she said.

“I did not want to become a 

bilateral amputee,” Kensky said. 
“I wanted to paint my toenails, 
I wanted to put my feet in the 
sand, and I wanted to do all these 
things. To lose the second leg was 
a 
gut-wrenching, 
devastating 

decision.”

Kensky’s account came dur-

ing the third day of testimony 
in the federal death penalty 
trial of bomber Dzhokhar Tsar-
naev, whose own lawyers have 
acknowledged his involvement 
but insist he was influenced by his 
older brother, Tamerlan, who was 
killed during a getaway attempt 
days after the bombings.

Jurors also watched a timeline 

video compiled by the FBI using 
surveillance video from stores 
and restaurants near the mara-
thon finish line. The video, which 
shows both brothers’ movements 
around the time of the bombings, 
focuses on Dzhokhar and shows 
him carrying a backpack up until 
he gets to the front of the Forum 
restaurant, when he is shown 
dropping the bag from his shoul-
der.

One frame then shows the 

backpack at his feet. The back-
pack is in a crowd of people and 
just feet from children stand-
ing on a metal barrier, including 
8-year-old Martin Richard, who 
was killed, and his younger sis-
ter, Jane, who lost a leg in the 
blast.

Boston bombing survivor 
testifies from wheelchair

